Taxi Driver Online

Wife killer is already at work driving a minicab

The wife-killer allowed to take the Knowledge exam to become a black cabbie is already driving passengers on the streets of the capital, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Transport For London has given Shamsul Haque, 38, a paranoid schizophrenic, a private hire licence allowing him to drive a minicab, even though it knew he had been convicted of manslaughter. He is currently driving for a London minicab firm.

Haque was sentenced to indefinite detention under the Mental Health Act in January 2001 but was released in October 2003.

The conviction is spent and he has been given the all-clear by his doctors.

As the Standard reported last week, TfL initially refused Haque a private hire licence.

But in a letter to the London Assembly, Jeroen Weimar, TfL's chief operating officer for enforcement, says: "After [Haque] was granted permission to study the Knowledge, he applied again to be a private hire driver, and, as the conditions are virtually the same as for starting the Knowledge, he was also granted a private hire driver's licence."

It also emerged last week that, as well as strangling his wife in 2000, Haque was cautioned by police for assault less than three months ago.

The Standard can reveal today that the person Haque assaulted was his daughter.

Tory Assembly member Andrew Boff said: "I am sympathetic to people who have been through mental illness and come out the other side. But this is starting to seem like a pattern of behaviour - first the wife, then the daughter.

"The reputation of the black cab trade is being damaged by this and it needs to be resolved quickly."

Mr Boff said he would quiz Boris Johnson, about the case at the Mayor's Question Time meeting today.

Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat chair of the Assembly's transport committee, said: "The issue is whether anything can be done [to prevent the man training] under the rules. But it seems to me that we need to review those rules."

TfL has launched a leak inquiry to find out how the Standard got hold of the information about Haque.

Mr Weimar's letter to Assembly members described our story as a "disappointing breach" of the man's right to privacy.

John Kennedy, of the RMT union's cab drivers section, said: "Finding out that this guy is a minicab driver just makes it worse. Our priority is to protect the public and TfL's priority seems to be to have a witchhunt against the person who exposed their behaviour."

TfL said it had ordered an "independent review" of its actions by two former senior managers of its cab section.

A spokesman said: "The issue uppermost in our minds is the safety of passengers. However, we also need to be mindful that personal details of a Knowledge applicant have been leaked."

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

It would seem this mush is playing a very good game of pi**ing on the system.

But why put conditions on those doing the knowledge?

If they pass all the conditions, then TfL should check his fitness to do the job.

Would have saved all this messing around.

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IDFIMH

Now't new there.

The London Minicab has run for years with far worse than that behind the wheel.

Now they just import the same types from Africa, Bosnia, Turkey and beyond as their criminal pasts can't be properly checked in their country of origin.

£10 buys you the perfect record.

was told this last week by the guy who broke the story...........also told me a few other things i was dissapointed to hear!

That the RMT are a Railway Union?

yet they'll take a man's licence off him for accruing a few points for speeding?

It appears to me that if I ever murder anybody and then plead insanity at least I'll have a job when I get out

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

Provided you can also prove your insanity..............................Sorry, you work in this industry, insanity proved.

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Grandad,

If the fact that I work in this industry doesn't convince them I think my insane laughter may do

Joking aside I think it's ridiculous that these people do work in the industry surely the trade should be able to do something about the standards of the people who want to join it

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

Maybe they come into the trade as sane as sane can be, but they soon change.

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IDFIMH

What your her indoors is not on his list

I'm as sane now as I was before I was a ph driver. Joking aside again surely there is a difference in being a murderer and being slightly crazy

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

Does anyone suppose this person would be allowed to become a doctor or policeman?

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

see there was a protest at the PCO..............http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8248035.stm

loved this bit

he's been in our seat then, and knows that for a fact? I'm as placid as the next man, but on a bad Saturday the hulk would be hard pressed to beat me in a roarfest

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My heart is heavy, but my consience clear,
I voted Yes, without any fear.

UK cabbies protest killer joining their ranks

Hundreds of drivers of London's iconic black taxis Thursday protested a decision that could allow a man to become a cabbie despite having been convicted of manslaughter for strangling his wife.

"I feel very strongly about this. We won't let it erode away our reputation," said Catherine Michael, 51, showing her green badge that allows cabbies to work as licensed drivers. "We want to stay the best in the world."

Long lines of protesting taxi drivers, estimated by police to reach 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers), surrounded the Public Carriage Office — which is responsible for administering the taxi test — in north London.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty in 2001 and has applied to take a test called "The Knowledge" — which all London cabbies must pass to drive a black taxi.

The 38-year-old, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic at the time of his trial, was released in 2005 and is no longer on parole.

Jim Kelly of the Unite union said that allowing the man to become a cab driver could damage London's reputation for having the safest taxis in the world.

"We feel the traveling public would be at risk," he said.

Black taxis are considered one of the safest forms of transport by Londoners trying to get home after a night out.

But their reputation was dented earlier this year when one driver was found guilty of raping or sexually assaulting several female passengers after drugging them in his cab. John Worboys, 51, was convicted in March of 12 attacks, but dozens of other victims came forward in April to say they, too, had been attacked.

Transport for London officials said there were no grounds to refuse the new application as the man had served his time for manslaughter and passed background and medical checks. It said an independent committee is reviewing the case before a final decision is reached.

"The issue uppermost in our minds is the safety of passengers — nothing more, nothing less," said a spokesman for the transport body who asked not to be named because of departmental policy. "That's why there is an urgent independent review of the facts."

But this has not appeased cab drivers who dismiss the decision to let the man take the test as being too politically correct.

"Everyone is given an equal chance but the cabs' reputation will go down the toilet. We're not prepared to lose it, no way," said Grant Davis, chairman of the London Cab Drivers' Club union.

"I keep asking, would you like to be the woman at the back of this guy's taxi the day he forgets to take his medication?"

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IDFIMH