Taxi Driver Online

One of the main ingredients of detecting the offence of illegal plying for hire is what is commonly known as “test purchasing”. Some people may be confused with the phrase but if you consider a scenario where an enforcement officer sends an under age person into a shop to buy tobacco to see whether the shopkeeper is susceptible to breaching the law by selling tobacco to under age persons, then that is the definition of a “test purchase”. When a hackney carriage or private hire driver is flagged down under circumstances where they are not licensed to pick up passengers off the street then that is also a test purchase. Dusty asked a question about entrapment and what constitutes an illegal approach based on entrapment? I pointed out that according to law one of the main ingredients of entrapment is “incitement”.

I don’t think there is any doubt that the activity associated with catching those licensed drivers who are susceptible to breaking the law is perfectly lawful under our present legal system. Anyone reading TDO will no doubt be aware of the law and that there is basically no defence should you be caught out? I’m sure some would say it is harsh but the onus is on each individual to be aware of the ever present danger associated with illegal plying for hire and that goes for hackney carriage drivers as well as private hire drivers.

The law is established in respect of “test purchases” and the Taxi case of Amin meant that four such cases had been before the divisional court on appeal from lower courts and all had been overturned. Of the four cases a Justice or stipendiary magistrate had invoked section 78 of PACE to exclude evidence obtained by way of a test purchase operation. In every case as i have already pointed out the appeal was successful.

So basically there is no defence if you are caught bang to rights accepting a fare off the street under circumstances where you are not licensed to do so, regardless of which code you operate under? If you bare that in mind and don’t let temptation get in the way of good judgment, then your badge might be a lot safer than Mr Amin's.

Regards

JD

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Police and Criminal evidence act 1984.

Section 78 Exclusion of unfair evidence

(1) In any proceedings the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it.

(2) Nothing in this section shall prejudice any rule of law requiring a court to exclude evidence.

[(3) This section shall not apply in the case of proceedings before a magistrates' court inquiring into an offence as examining justices.]
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In addition to the above a number of councils use 'test purchases' when checking out alleged un-licensed operators.

If they are advertising on the web or in the press, then LOs can phone and use the 'test purchase' way of entrapment.

And come the 28/01/08 it's going to be open season on many of the bad guys.

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IDFIMH