Issue - meetings

To determine a private hire/hackney carriage driver’s application.

The Chair introduced the panel.

The Enforcement Officer gave a summary of the report. He confirmed the Group 2 medical certificate was satisfactory.

The applicant said he had had a brain injury and had had to be rehabilitated. He had made a good recovery and was now trying to get his life back on track.

At 11.50, the Committee retired to make its decision.

At 12.20, the Committee returned.

The decision was read to the applicant.

DECISION NOTICE

The applicant’s application dated July 2019 is for a Private Hire/Hackney Carriage Driver’s licence.  If successful , he intends to carry out school contract work with 24 x 7 Ltd.

The applicant’s  application disclosed a number of matters. We have a copy of this document before us. Question 12 asks ‘Have you ever been convicted of any offence (including motoring offences) including spent and unspent convictions in any Court or received a police caution?’   Nothing was disclosed by the applicant.

However, part of the licensing process requires all applicants to undergo an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and the applicant’s check was dated 25^th July 2019.   It revealed the following convictions:

Conviction 1: Dated 07 April 1992, for offences of theft and criminal damage for which he was fined £20 and £40 respectively and ordered to pay costs. This is an offence of dishonesty.

Conviction 2: Dated 05 April 2011, for offences of driving without due care and attention and failing to give name and address after an accident.   He was fined £70, ordered to pay costs and his driving licence was endorsed with 7 penalty points. This matter speaks for itself.

He also received a Police caution on 03 February 2015 for an offence of battery, ie the lowest level of assault.

We are aware that making a false statement to obtain a licence is an offence under S57(3) of the 1976 Act and that this offence carries a fine of up to £1000 upon summary conviction. Given the potential seriousness of the matters revealed by the DBS check, the applicant was interviewed under caution by two Enforcement Officers  on 16^th August 2019. He provided the following explanation.

The answers on the application form were partially typed in and the applicant said this was done by 24x7 Limited and they posted it to him to finalise and sign before he had to post it back to them. We interpose that this practice causes us some concern. The answer to question 12 had already been answered by 24x7 Limited, but the applicant had not amended it, and he could not explain this failure in interview and he did not address this point before us today.

He explained that the convictions in 1992, 2011 and the caution in 2015 were not included on his form because he forgot about them. Apparently he had a serious brain injury in 1995 following an accident, was unconscious for a month, was transferred to a specialist brain injury hospital and remained in hospital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3