Taxi Driver Online

On or around the first February 2008 Wrexham council took legal proceedings in the local magistrates court against a local Private hire operator charged with operating a hackney carriage vehicle licensed in another authority.

The case was heard before a district judge who found in favour of the council. I'm aware of most of the details but I think it best we wait on the court transcript before we start debating the pros and cons of the case. I can tell you that the case is being appealed on a point of law, which did not surprise me in the least.

Regards

JD

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It was before a district judge? does that mean that was the same as a crown court and the appeal has to go higher?

CC

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

Any appeal would go first to the Crown Court.

A District Judge is a solicitor who acts alone on a magistrate's bench.

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IDFIMH

Normally as Sussex says cases from the magistrates court will go to the crown court but in this particular case the appellant has asked the District Judge to "state a case" and the appeal is on a point of law.

The decision on whether to state a case is made by the District Judge, he can either allow it or refuse it. If it's allowed then the matter goes to the High Court. If it is refused then the alternative is judicial review.

If the appeal is upheld the case will go back to the magistrates court with directions to correct their wrong decision. Thomas was one such case that followed this route in fact there have been many taxi cases which followed this route.

Regards

JD

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This may help?

Wrexham County Borough Council V Debbie Whalley and Jonathan Higgins
JUDGMENT
Findings of Fact :
1] At all material times Debbie Whalley [henceforth DW] is and has been the Proprietor of Goldstar Taxis [henceforth GT ]in Brook Street Wrexham.
2]Wrexham County Borough Council [henceforth WCBC] has adopted Part 11 of the Local Goveminent[Miscellaneous Provisions]Act 1976 [henceforth the 1976 Act] and at all times relevant to this case the area of WCBC has been a controlled area for the purposes of Part 11 of the Act.
3]DW is Licensed by WCBC to operate private hire vehicles in the area of WCBC
4]DW is also the Proprietor of Cerbyd Cymru Cyfyngedig and the holder of a number of Hackney carriage licences granted by Oswestry Borough Council . Licensed vehicles include a BMW 325 plated number 69, a Metrocab plated number 100 and a Vauxhall Vectra plated number105.
5] On the 20th April 2007 a Saturday night Enforcement Officers for WCBC were carrying out observations in connection with Goldstar taxis in Wrexham town centre. Between the hours of 8.15 pm and 11..10 pm the 3 vehicles referred to in [ 4] above were seen in Brook st collectively on 10 occasions. On five of these occasions the vehicles collected passengers from the premises of Goldstar Taxis.
6].Oswestry is a flourishing market town approximately 15 miles from Wrexham.
7]Brook St contains more than one taxi company and is proximate to a number of nightclubs, pubs and restaurants ; it is a busy thoroughfare.
8]Joss Thomas a WCBC enforcement officer visited GT on the 26th April 2007 and was shown a computer screen referring to 14 vehicles working for them on the evening of the 20 April by the rt Defendant Jonathan Higgins [henceforth JH] All of the vehicles had call signs shown on exhibit [jt/1] 3 of these vehicles were the vehicles in [4].
9] 1 am satisfied that these 3 vehicles were engaged on private hire activities in Wrexham when they were seen.
10]WCBC say that in an effort to investigate the possible commission of offences they visited the premises of GT on the 71' and 8th March and 24th April.

11] The visit on the 7th was not by prearranged appointment The officers asked to see a run sheet of vehicles working on the previous Friday and Saturday. There is no evidence to show that either of the defendants were present when the request was made. The officer Robert Davis agreed that the staff gave him the impression that they were helping although they did not provide the information sought. The officer returned again 45 minutes later and the position remained the same. The officer spoke to DW on the phone on the 7th but did not request the information from her nor did he refer to it or request it in a letter sent shortly afterwards The following day the 8th March the officer returned again without appointment and requested the same records neither defendant was present and the information was not provided .Officer Davis said it was not practicable to attend by appointment.
1 2 On one further occasion the 24th April officer Joss Thomas arranged by appointment to meet JH at GT and requested information about vehicles working on the 20th April.
13]JH showed the officers a computer screen which showed the call signs for 14 vehicles working on the 20th April which included the 3 vehicles in [4]. GT declined to show the officers the information for the 3 hackney carriages and said he was not obliged to do so as they were hackney cabs and he did not have to keep records for them.
14]It is a legal requirement for every person to whom a licence is in force under S55 of the 1976 Act, that they shall keep a record in such form as the relevant council may by condition attached to the grant of the licence prescribe.
15] In this case the licence prescribed in section 1 A the information required by the records which included inter alias
[I]The date and time of the booking.
[ii]The name and pick up point of the hirer
[iii]The destination.
[iV]The plate number of the vehicle,
[V] The badge number of the driver assigned to the booking.
Section 1 B provided that the records may be kept either
a/ In an" approved" book
b/By means of an "approved' computerised system

Section 1 C Provides that "The records shall be made available for inspection by an Authorised officer or Constable at any reasonable time
Findings
I acceded to a submission of no case in relation to Summonses 1 + 2 upon the basis that the information requested was not required to be available at all times and that the requests on the 7th and 8th March were not requested at any reasonable time so as to amount to a denial of access.
The Defendants have elected not to give evidence and I am entitled to draw an inference from that fact.The inference which it seems to me that I must inevitably draw is that they do not want to give evidence about the vehicles use or possibly the identity of the drivers and their licensed status a relevant times.
I will deal now with the summons against DW numbered 3 4 and 5 alleging knowingly operating vehicles as a private hire vehicle in a controlled district without a license under S 48 of the 1976 Act. Having already indicated my factual findings and had the advantage of skeleton arguments from counsel for both sides I will deal with the law in what I hope to be a concise but complete way.
Whether a hackney cab is used as such or as a private hire vehicle is a question of fact. The question is not determined by the construction or title of the vehicle but by how it is used . In this case hackney cabs were used for private hire in another area..
The defence say that the Judgment in Brentwood BC V Gladen [2004] EWHC 2500 [Admin] permits a hackney cab to be used as a private hire vehicle as alleged in this case. In Gladen the use of the hackney cab for private hire took place within the same area in which it was licensed. The distinction in the present case is that the hackney cabs were used for private hire in another area and without a licence in that area . I do not accept that this is permissible and find that hackney cabs cannot be used generally in other controlled areas for private hire without a licence. I therefore find this summons proven and accept the proposition that a WCBC license is required by GT to use hackney cabs licensed in another area for private hire in Wrexham.
In relation to the final summons against DW [number 6] and the only summons against .JH.This meeting in question was prearranged. The officers suspected that on the night in question the hackney cabs were being used for private hire without a licence in contravention of the 1976 Act and they requested access to the material available. They saw the plate numbers of the 3' Oswestry hackney cabs merged in a list with the other Wrexham private hire vehicles they saw in each case the use of a similar numeric call sign they had observed the vehicles acting in a manner which they believed was for private hire and they requested information from GT's records as part of their investigation. I have heard evidence that on that day .JH was working in a senior managerial role for GT On behalf of GT ..JH deliberately withheld access to the records for the hackney cabs. He says he was entitled to do so as they did not need a licence and did not need to keep records It follows from my earlier findings that the officers request was lawful and reasonable at that time...I find JH guilty and find that he had no reasonable cause to refuse the request

Section 72 of the 1976 Act provides that Where an offence by any person under This part of the act is due to the act or default of another personithen,-whether proceedings are taken against the first – named person or not, that other person may be charged with and convicted of that offence, and shall be liable on conviction to the same punishment as might have been imposed on the first named person if he had been convicted of the offence. JH is a senior managerial figure. The refusal was a decision on behalf of GT.
By virtue of this Section on these facts DW is also guilty of summons 6.

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IDFIMH

Methinks Wrexham are going to have a big fat legal bill should the operator appeal.

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IDFIMH

What Gladen said was that hackney carriages don't need an ops license, not that hackney carriages don't need an ops license for the area they are working in.

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IDFIMH

I've tidied this up a little but its not perfect, when you scan documents the text more often than not gets corrupt.

Thanks to Man City fan for supplying this transcript.

I have one or two observations about this case of which we are all familiar but first I must say that I'm surprised that such action has never before been taken. We've had Newcastle council pussy footing about for what seems a lifetime over the same practice of private hire operators using hackney carriages licensed in other areas. The reason why Newcastle didn't take action against their own private hire licensed operators is because their legal advisers told them the activity was within the law quad Gladen.

In this particular case we shall have to wait and see how high the two protagonists are prepared to go in the legal sense. I've always said that the only way this piece of legislation will be laid to rest is if it is ruled upon by the House of Lords.

TDO was the first to dissect the Gladen judgment and since then we have revisited the case time and time again. The law is quite simple and all the House of Lords need ask themselves is "whether the 1976 act specifically prohibits London Hackney Carriages and provincial hackney carriages from doing something that they were legally entitled to do before the 1976 act became law. In other words do they need a private hire license when operating outside their own area?

It has already been established through Gladen that they don't require a P/H license to operate inside their own licensed area. In fact it was established that section 46 doesn't apply to licensed hackney carriages or London cabs but how wide does that go?

My personal opinion has always been that the first paragraph in section 46 of the LGMPA throws enough ambiguity on the meaning of controlled district in respect of hackney carriages to exempt them from this section. The Gladen case upheld my opinion and I suspect the opinion of many others. The overriding test as I have always pointed out is whether the Gladen Judgement applies to every controlled area? I don't see any specific reference in the 1976 act prohibiting provincial Hackney carriages or London cabs from undertaking private hires in a controlled private hire district, on the contrary I think the legislation although somewhat ambiguous can be said to be clear to the extent that it does not state that a London cab needs a private hire license to operate in a controlled district no matter where that controlled district might be.

There has always been one fly in the ointment in respect of out of area operation and that has been the Wilson case which I highlighted at the same time as Gladen. Should this go all the way to the top then one of these two cases will ultimately prevail.

There are interesting times ahead which make for interesting debate.

The opening comments of section 46.

(a) no person being the proprietor of any vehicle, "not being a hackney
carriage [or London Cab]" in respect of which a vehicle licence is in
force,

shall use or permit the same to be used in a controlled district as
a private hire vehicle without having for such a vehicle a current
licence under section 48 of this Act;
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Wrexham County Borough Council V Debbie Whalley and Jonathan Higgins.

JUDGMENT

Findings of Fact:

1] At all material times Debbie Whalley [henceforth DW] is and has been the Proprietor of Goldstar Taxis [henceforth GT] in Brook Street Wrexham.

2]Wrexham County Borough Council [henceforth WCBC] has adopted Part 11 of the Local Government [Miscellaneous Provisions]Act 1976 [henceforth the 1976 Act] and at all times relevant to this case the area of WCBC has been a controlled area for the purposes of Part 11 of the Act.

3]DW is Licensed by WCBC to operate private hire vehicles in the area of WCBC

4] DW is also the Proprietor of Cerbyd Cymru Cyfyngedig and the holder of a number of Hackney carriage licences granted by Oswestry Borough Council. Licensed vehicles include a BMW 325 plated number 69, a Metrocab plated number 100 and a Vauxhall Vectra plated number105.

5] On the 20th April 2007 a Saturday night Enforcement Officers for WCBC were carrying out observations in connection with Goldstar taxis in Wrexham town centre. Between the hours of 8.15 pm and 11.10 pm the 3 vehicles referred to in [4] above were seen in Brook st collectively on 10 occasions. On five of these occasions the vehicles collected passengers from the premises of Goldstar Taxis.

6].Oswestry is a flourishing market town approximately 15 miles from Wrexham.

7] Brook St contains more than one Taxi Company and is proximate to a number of nightclubs, pubs and restaurants; it is a busy thoroughfare.

8] Joss Thomas a WCBC enforcement officer visited GT on the 26th April 2007 and was shown a computer screen referring to 14 vehicles working for them on the evening of the 20 April by the rt Defendant Jonathan Higgins [henceforth JH] All of the vehicles had call signs shown on exhibit [jt/1] 3 of these vehicles were the vehicles in [4].

9] 1 am satisfied that these 3 vehicles were engaged on private hire activities in Wrexham when they were seen.

10] WCBC say that in an effort to investigate the possible commission of offences they visited the premises of GT on the 71' and 8th March and 24th April.

11] The visit on the 7th was not by prearranged appointment the officers asked to see a run sheet of vehicles working on the previous Friday and Saturday. There is no evidence to show that either of the defendants were present when the request was made. The officer Robert Davis agreed that the staff gave him the impression that they were helping although they did not provide the information sought. The officer returned again 45 minutes later and the position remained the same.

The officer spoke to DW on the phone on the 7th but did not request the information from her nor did he refer to it or request it in a letter sent shortly afterwards The following day the 8th March the officer returned again without appointment and requested the same records neither defendant was present and the information was not provided .Officer Davis said it was not practicable to attend by appointment.

1 2 On one further occasion the 24th April officer Joss Thomas arranged by appointment to meet JH at GT and requested information about vehicles working on the 20th April.

13] JH showed the officers a computer screen which showed the call signs for 14 vehicles working on the 20th April which included the 3 vehicles in [4]. GT declined to show the officers the information for the 3 hackney carriages and said he was not obliged to do so as they were hackney cabs and he did not have to keep records for them.

14] It is a legal requirement for every person to whom a licence is in force under S55 of the 1976 Act, that they shall keep a record in such form as the relevant council may by condition attached to the grant of the licence prescribe.

15] In this case the licence prescribed in section 1 A the information required by the records which included inter alia

[I] The date and time of the booking.

[ii]The name and pick up point of the hirer

[iii] The destination.

[iV]The plate number of the vehicle,

[V] The badge number of the driver assigned to the booking.

Section 1 B provided that the records may be kept either

a/ In an" approved" book

b/By means of an "approved' computerised system

Section 1 C Provides that "The records shall be made available for inspection by an Authorised officer or Constable at any reasonable time

Findings

I acceded to a submission of no case in relation to Summonses 1 + 2 upon the basis that the information requested was not required to be available at all times and that the requests on the 7th and 8th March were not requested at any reasonable time so as to amount to a denial of access.

The Defendants have elected not to give evidence and I am entitled to draw an inference from that fact. The inference which it seems to me that I must inevitably draw is that they do not want to give evidence about the vehicles use or possibly the identity of the drivers and their licensed status at relevant times.

I will deal now with the summons against DW numbered 3 4 and 5 alleging knowingly operating vehicles as a private hire vehicle in a controlled district without a license under S 48 of the 1976 Act.

Having already indicated my factual findings and had the advantage of skeleton arguments from counsel for both sides I will deal with the law in what I hope to be a concise but complete way.

Whether a hackney cab is used as such or as a private hire vehicle is a question of fact. The question is not determined by the construction or title of the vehicle but by how it is used. In this case hackney cabs were used for private hire in another area.

The defence say that the Judgment in Brentwood BC V Gladen [2004] EWHC 2500 [Admin] permits a hackney cab to be used as a private hire vehicle as alleged in this case. In Gladen the use of the hackney cab for private hire took place within the same area in which it was licensed. The distinction in the present case is that the hackney cabs were used for private hire in another area and without a licence in that area.

I do not accept that this is permissible and find that hackney cabs cannot be used generally in other controlled areas for private hire without a licence. I therefore find this summons proven and accept the proposition that a WCBC license is required by GT to use hackney cabs licensed in another area for private hire in Wrexham.

In relation to the final summons against DW [number 6] and the only summons against JH. This meeting in question was prearranged. The officers suspected that on the night in question the hackney cabs were being used for private hire without a licence in contravention of the 1976 Act and they requested access to the material available. They saw the plate numbers of the 3' Oswestry hackney cabs merged in a list with the other Wrexham private hire vehicles they saw in each case the use of a similar numeric call sign they had observed the vehicles acting in a manner which they believed was for private hire and they requested information from GT's records as part of their investigation.

I have heard evidence that on that day. JH was working in a senior managerial role for GT, on behalf of GT JH deliberately withheld access to the records for the hackney cabs. He says he was entitled to do so as they did not need a licence and did not need to keep records it follows from my earlier findings that the officers request was lawful and reasonable at that time. I find JH guilty and find that he had no reasonable cause to refuse the request

Section 72 of the 1976 Act provides that Where an offence by any person under This part of the act is due to the act or default of another person then,-whether proceedings are taken against the first – named person or not, that other person may be charged with and convicted of that offence, and shall be liable on conviction to the same punishment as might have been imposed on the first named person if he had been convicted of the offence. JH is a senior managerial figure. The refusal was a decision on behalf of GT.

By virtue of this Section on these facts DW is also guilty of summons 6.
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It is common practise in many parts of the country in fact we have one local company based OUTSIDE the district which operates with hackney plated vehicles licensed for the local district and others for the district he operates from our council considers this perfectly legal

Well at least we have some movement on this particular section because quite frankly it was getting boring watching people complaining about something they could have remedied themselves. There was nothing stopping any licensing authority in the country from doing a Wrexham, perhaps if they had then we wouldn't be where we are at today.

Regards

JD

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One of the many things I love about you JD, is no one could ever accuse you of smugness.

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Former taxi driver

Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998

Because of section 5,of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, only those persons who have an operating centre in the London area licensed by the Public Carriage Office are the only people who can legally sub-contract to operators outside the London area. We can hardly think that Parliament would have responded with this permissive piece of legislation if it was not clear to them that this had caused problems elsewhere. It also highlights the fact that the 1976 Act does not contain the same freedom of action, as indeed highlighted by
the Courts.those cases include Dittah -v- Choudhry, Top Cars -v- Windsor, Powers -v- Bromsgrove, East Staffordshire -v- Rendell, Murtagh -v- Bromsgrove, and Shanks (Blue Line) -v- North Tyneside,ect.

Well Jimbo, when you get councils who scream about cross border hiring and then sit on their hands and do nothing, then all they deserve is contempt. At least Wrexham took a step to test the water, which is more than can be said for every other council.

Regards

JD

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The charge was operating unlicensed vehicles under section 48. But actually section 48 doesn't mention operating unlicensed vehicles. The correct section on which the prosecution should have been prosecuted is section 46 [e]

46 Vehicle, drivers' and operators' licences (1) Except as authorised by this Part of this Act—

(e) no person licensed under the said section 55 shall in a controlled district "operate" any vehicle as a private hire vehicle,

(i) if for the vehicle a current licence under the said section 48 is not in force; or (ii) if the driver does not have a current licence under the said section 51.

Don't get sidelined with sub contracting because it is not an issue.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.