Taxi Driver Online

Hussain v Bradford City Council

Queen's Bench Division (Crown Office List)

CO/2593/91,

HEARING-DATES: 18 November 1992

18 November 1992

COUNSEL:
N Sangster for the Appellant; G Heap for the Respondent

PANEL: Watkins LJ, Laws J

JUDGMENTBY-1: LAWS J

JUDGMENT-1:
LAWS J: This is an appeal by case stated against the dismissal on 5th October 1990 by the Leeds Crown Court of an appeal by the applicant against his conviction by the Bradford Justices on 10th July 1990 of an offence under section 48(6) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. The complaint preferred against him had been in these terms:

"On the 18th day of February 1990 at Heaton Road, Bradford, did use as a private hire vehicle a motor car registration number D43 BPV in respect of which a licence had been granted under section 48 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, without there being affixed and maintained a sign inside the vehicle."

The case which has been stated by the Leeds Crown Court deals with the facts in these terms:

"We found the following facts:

Statement of evidence:

Bryan Harford, a Hackney Carriage Manager said he had stopped the appellant at 1.00 in the morning in Heaton Road, Bradford.

The appellant confirmed he worked for Link Private Hire, Morley.

The appellant, when asked to do so, produced his private hire badge from his pocket. The clip was missing.

On being asked where the plate was he looked at the glove box front (where the plates are normally stuck) and said he didn't know where it was.

He was cautioned and told the facts would be reported.

The appellant gave evidence that he was on his way home when stopped. The car was owned by him and used for pleasure as well as business. He had dropped a fare off shortly before being stopped.

When he last looked (and he could not specifically remember when that was) the plate had been stuck on the glove box.

The fares he had just dropped of were rowdy and drunk. They had refused to pay the fare. He speculated they may, for a prank, have stolen the plate, although this was just speculation.

When stopped he was surprised the plate was not there and looked on the floor to see if it had dropped off."

It will be seen that the whole of this passage is described as a "Statement of evidence". It records the evidence which the Crown Court heard. It is not made clear whether the court accepted some of it, or all of it. This has caused some difficulty in this court, given the true issue in the case, to which I will come in a moment. It is of the first importance that any inferior tribunal which states a case for the opinion of the High Court should clearly set out the facts which it has found; this exercise is quite different from that of describing the evidence which it has heard. This court, on an appeal of this kind, is not itself acting as a fact-finding tribunal at all. Its task is to decide whether, on the facts as found by the court below, there was an error of law in the decision appealed against. It cannot be assisted in that task by a narrative of the evidence which the lower court heard without a statement of the findings of fact which it made.

The submission made in the Crown Court by the appellant was that at the time of the alleged offence, namely, I take it, the moment when the appellant had been stopped at 1 am by Mr Harford, the appellant was not carrying any passengers, with the consequence that he was not obliged by the conditions of his Hackney Carriage Licence to display the sign which the Council provided, indicating the maximum number of passengers which the vehicle was allowed to carry. The submissions by the respondent prosecutor was that the sign had to be displayed whether or not passengers were being carried, and whether or not the appellant was on duty at the time.

The conclusion of the Crown Court is expressed thus:

"We are of the opinion that the section obliged the sign to be displayed at all times irrespective of whether passengers were being carried."

They dismissed the appeal, but reduced the fine which had been imposed in the magistrates' court.

The question asked of the High Court in the case stated is expressed in this way:

"Does section 4(1) of the City of Bradford Metropolitan Council Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 put an obligation on the holder of a private hire licence to display the sign issued by the Council at times when no passengers are being carried and/or when the vehicle is not for hire."

Thus expressed, the question is confusing and misleading. The intended reference was not to section 4(1) of the 1976 Act, but to Condition 4(1) of the conditions of licence imposed by the Council under that Act. So understood, the question posed does not indicate the true legal issue in the case, as I shall show.

Section 48(2) of the Act of 1976 is in these terms:

"A district council may attach to the grant of a licence under this section such conditions as they may consider reasonably necessary including, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this subsection, conditions requiring or prohibiting the display of signs on or from the vehicle to which the licence relates."

Section 48(6) is in these terms:

"(a) Subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, no person shall use or permit to be used in a controlled district as a private hire vehicle a vehicle in respect of which a licence has been granted under this section unless the plate or disc issued in accordance with subsection (5) of this section is exhibited on the vehicle in such manner as the District Council shall prescribe by condition attached to the grant of the licence.

(b) If any person without reasonable excuse contravenes the provisions of this subsection he shall be guilty of an offence."

The conditions which had been imposed by the Council, under the statute, upon the appellant's licence included the following:

"4. Interior and exterior signs and plates

(1) The proprietor of the vehicle shall cause to be affixed and maintained inside the vehicle in such a position as to be visible at all times to persons conveyed therein the sign provided by the Council indicating the number of the licences for the vehicles and the maximum number of passengers prescribed in the licence which the vehicle is authorised to carry. . . .

(3) The vehicle shall not be used as a hackney carriage unless the plate and sign issued by the Council are exhibited on the vehicle in a manner prescribed in this condition."

I should also read condition (5) since it is relevant to a submission made on behalf of the respondent:

"(5) There shall be provided and maintained on the vehicle a roof sign of a type design approved by the Council, such sign to be permanently affixed to the roof of the vehicle so as to be clearly visible and legible from the front and rear of the vehicle at all times and to be illuminated when the vehicle is standing or plying for hire."

Mr Sangster for the appellant has submitted in this court that on the true construction of condition 4(1) there is no obligation to have the sign fixed and displayed at any time when there are no passengers being carried. That mirrors the submission made for the appellant in the Crown Court.

Mr Heap for the respondent (who did not appear below) submits on the contrary that on the true construction of condition 4(1) the sign must be fixed and displayed literally at all times, whether or not there are passengers in the vehicle, and whether or not the vehicle was plying for hire at the time.

I consider that both submissions are incorrect. The words "visible at all times to persons conveyed therein" cannot possibly, in my judgment, produce the result that, where the vehicle is plying for hire, the obligation to display the sign is abrogated for any period, short or long, when it happens that there are no passengers being carried.

On the other hand, given condition 4(3) which I have read, and the terms of section 48(6)(a) of the Act, which I have no doubt was intended to be reflected in the Council's conditions, I am wholly unable to accept that the requirement to display the sign had effect at a time when the driver, and thus the car, were off duty altogether.

Mr Heap submitted that condition 4(5) suggested the contrary. I do not agree. Condition 4(3) demonstrates the purpose and ambit of 4(1), which is that the requirement which it imposes is to be effective whenever the vehicle is being plied for hire.

However, although these rival submissions stake out as I understand it precisely the ground on which battle was joined in the Crown Court, they obscure the real issue with which the Crown Court had to deal.

It is first necessary to understand that the Act of 1976 does not make breach of any condition imposed by the Council a criminal offence:

The offence is only that created by section 48(6)(b), which criminalises breach of section 48(6)(a). Under that sub-paragraph of the subsection, a failure to display the plate or disc on the vehicle in accordance with the condition imposed by the Council is only part, and not the whole, of what has to be proved if the criminal offence is to be made out: it must also be shown that the defendant was using or permitting to be used the vehicle as a private hire vehicle at the relevant time: in short that the vehicle was plying for hire.

Thus, even if the respondent's submission that condition 4 requires display of the sign at all times is right, (and as I have said I do not think that it is), there is still no criminal offence unless the vehicle was plying for hire. So much is now conceded by counsel for the respondent. Regrettably, however, it is far from clear whether this was appreciated by the Crown Court.

Since it was beyond argument that at the moment when he was stopped the appellant was not displaying the sign, the only questions for the Crown Court were

(1) was the vehicle being plied for hire at the time?

(2) If it was, did the appellant have a reasonable excuse within section 48(6)(b) for his failure to display his sign, arising out of his evidence (if the court accepted it) that the sign had been or may have been stolen shortly before by the drunken passengers? Yet neither their expression of their conclusions on the case, nor the formulation of the question for this court, indicate that they approached the matter in that way. They seem, rather, only to have concerned themselves with the question whether on its true construction condition 4(1) obliged the appellant to display the sign at all times.

As I have said, I consider that this court is hampered by the absence of any clear findings of fact. The likelihood may well be that the Crown Court accepted the appellant's evidence that when he was stopped he was on his way home, and that the car belonged to him and was used for pleasure as well as business. But the matter is by no means beyond doubt. If it were not for the passage of time, the right course in this court would, I think, have been to send the case back for further findings of fact to be made. But since the events said to constitute the offence took place as long ago as February 1990, that would in my view be impracticable and perhaps oppressive. In those circumstances I would not for my part propose to send the case back. In the event, since in my view the Crown Court failed to address the crucial question whether the vehicle was being plied for hire at the material time for the purposes of section 48(6), I would allow this appeal and quash the conviction.

DISPOSITION:
Appeal allowed

SOLICITORS:
Bassra, Singh & Sweeney, Bradford; A Sykes, Director of Legal Services, Bradford City Council