Taxi Driver Online

That's all well & good, but it is the opinion of several on this thread that the council have mis-used the legislation.

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

Yes they did, but that doesn't matter a jot.

The punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Put that along side the clear abuse of power, by un-elected c***s, makes this an issue the whole country's trade should be rallying against.

_________________
IDFIMH

If someone can go to court with 31 points on their licence and plead hardship, and then still be allowed to drive, then this lot must have rocks in their heads if they allow this council to get away with it.

_________________
if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Sefton Council started using CCTV against the cab trade..... somebody pointed out that they were also looking into young ladies bedroom windows at night-time, I can't remember if there was a court case... but there certainly was a number of sackings, if they're not prepared to fight back then they deserve everything that is happening to them. personally I would have been straight to the local MPs asking them to clarify whether the council where abusing their authority regarding how they operate their CCTV system. and then whether the punishment fitted the crime ... if and I repeat if they have the power to implement it...

_________________
Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

My point is, what did the trade do after they were warned? Did they seek meetings with the council? Did they seek proffesional advice? Or did they wait and see what would happen? IMHO they should have sought out the proffesional advice and stopped over ranking in the mean time. That way they would not have been put in this position now.

_________________
Grandad,

It seems from down here the trade did f*** all about it. But that still doesn't excuse the massive over-reaction form jobs-worth civil servants.

Pressure needs to be put on councillors, they have a hung council (maybe they need a few hung licensing officers?), and the election is next May.

If the existing Labour leadership are happy to see working drivers lose their houses over a parking dispute, then they need to be booted out.

However if the Labour leadership are unaware what is being done in their name, then they need to be pointed in the right direction.

_________________
IDFIMH

Surely this does come down to councillors.......delegating responsibility to jumped up tw&ts?

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

So where the hell are we supposed to go?? are we supposed toride round all day burning fuel off at £1.18 a litre looking for a rank space??? Get yourself here and see the trouble them dim whits are causing.

You need to get out more youth.

I don't know where you are supposed to go but unless you see the right people, as some on here have advised, then soon the council will have solved the problem for you by suspending you all. Simply continuing to over rank at this place will see some people lose their license for good.

_________________
Grandad,

I agree, which is why my waters are telling me that a national union has approached the council leader asking exactly what the f*** is going on.

Or words to that extent.

_________________
IDFIMH

Your waters? Really......

_________________
Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhs3Rj71 ... re=related

Try that one with the LO Nidge

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

The argument in the original letter about conditions on hackney carriage drivers’ licences is one that we have faced on a number of occasions, and one which licensing officers and Mr Button, and some people at the Department for Transport, seek to deny. However, the fact is quite simple: the matter has been tested at Administrative Court level; therefore it is binding on all cases where a hackney carriage driver is purported to have been in breach of his “conditions”.



They quote section 57 of the LGMPA as being a clear indicator that they can attach conditions to a hackney carriage driver licence. This was tested before the Courts in the cross-border case of Bromsgrove –v- Murtagh, where section 57 was mooted as being an empowering section of the legislation. HHJ Kennedy would not even consider the argument, saying that section 57 is merely empowering the local authority to ask questions so that they can decide whether to issue a licence or not.



Section 46 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 doesn’t mention conditions of licence at all, nor does it empower a local authority to do it; this was definitely looked at by the Court in the Wathen case. I am fully aware that many councils have on the advice of Mr Button decided to issue joint licences. I can assure you that as far as I am concerned, if a hackney carriage driver is driving a hackney carriage vehicle, conditions attached to a private hire licence will not apply to him, even if it is a joint licence. The Court has held that you cannot attach conditions to hackney carriage drivers’ licences, and therefore to seek to circumvent this decided position could not be held to be sound.



I would ask a return question, which would be: What power is there contained in the legislation to attach private hire conditions of licence to anybody other than a private hire driver? If it had been the intention of Parliament to allow conditions to be attached to a hackney carriage driver licence, they would have done so.



On one further point, let’s be perfectly clear on this: the 1847 Act allows the insertion and writing of byelaws, which have to be approved by the Secretary of State. The reason for this is to generate a piece of legislation whereby if drivers break the rules, they can ben charged with an offence. If you look through the 1976 Act there are any number of sections which specifically detail offences. If you go through the Town Police Clauses Act you will see that all the offences are specified and attached to byelaws. It might be wonderful to think that council officials are empowered to make up the rules as they go along; clearly they are not.



I have to say that since the Wathen case, and the birth of the dual licence which was generated by that case, I have still to see any hackney carriage driver prosecuted for any breaches because, when you issue a summons you have to state to the Court under which section of which Act you are bringing that prosecution. Clearly if it is a breach of conditions, no Magistrates’ Court in the country could ignore the Wathen case because they are bound by the decisions of the Administrative Court and cannot themselves overturn them.



So whilst it might be jolly good fun to force hackney carriage drivers to toe the line by indicating that they are in breach of conditions, you still cannot get away from the clear fact that when it comes to trying to prosecute for any such breach, they are doomed to failure.

I'll Email the link to Joanne Lindley Cap.