Taxi Driver Online

Inspector Bowie

Thanks for your contact.

I have now had my meeting with Police/Cab Inspector Frank Smith. During the process he breached every tenet of my fundamental rights. It occurs to me that the basic procedures that a police officer would be subject to in the complaints process, or a council employee, were not accorded to me. I submit that the process bears more resemblance to that conducted by the Stasi than what should be the case in a nation which is supposed to adhere to Human Rights and equality for all.

I made formal complaint about the process and was contacted by Police Sergeant Johnstone, presumably from the Complaints department (Given that the matter concerned a more senior officer, I am at a loss as to why an officer of his rank contacted me in the first place). No action was taken by him about specific complaints, and which should have set warning bells ringing within the Complaints department.

Despite my concerns about the process, and intimating to Sergeant Johnstone that the complaint against the two officers should have been dealt with before my meeting with the Cab Inspector, this was ignored in the rush to get me into the process.

In any case, I have today received formal notification for my complaint against Police/Cab Inspector Smith. I now have some difficulty with this because I need to expand my complaint to take account of the fundamental breach of my rights which occurred during the meeting. I would be grateful for any advice you can provide me in respect of this.

In view of the above, I have therefore decided to proceed with this complaint and withdraw from the remainder. This is my rationale:

At my meeting with Smith, and Higgins from the Council, it was advised to me that as far as that part of the process was concerned, the matter was at an end. Assuming this to be true, I see no point in pursuing the matter further in respect of these officers. The complaint has served me a valuable purpose of access to the system to make formal complaint about the process I have now been subjected to. So, in this instance, and assuming it won't affect my subsequent complaint, I withdraw it. However, the officers have been identified, the details of the incident have been recorded, and I would hope that the Lothian and Borders would take cognisance of this and build the experience into its training procedures.

In respect of the officers at Greenside. I also wish to withdraw from this complaint. It strikes me that there would be no purpose for me personally to expend any further energy on it. However, I assert that the circumstances were as I related them, and it strikes me that, once again, there may an experience which could have merit within training procedures.

In respect of the incident at Pleasance. I wish to withdraw from this complaint too. The officers have been identified, they will be aware of the circumstances. I assert that what I stated in respect of this matter is true, and consider that the matter would not have been raised by me formally had the officer not sought to intimidate me with a referral of me to the council.

Taxi drivers operating on their own, with a sometimes obnoxious public who can delight in causing vulnerable drivers maximum anxiety, can make frivolous and unsubstantiable complaint about them. This brings drivers into contact with a system which railroads them past any semblance of adherence to their rights and into a council process which again breaches every tenet of their rights, operates in secret to protect councillors abusing justice, and who dish out punishments which make the Stasi seem like pussy cats. There is no standard of justice, there are no benchmarks and no precedents are adhered to. Councillors are allowed to punish those whom they deem are "not fit and proper", yet there is no definition of what fit and proper is. And when licences are eventually returned, there is no criterion to suggest what made an individual "fit and proper" once again.

Councillors are allowed to exercise their decision based on each case's "merit", but the term has such wide latitude it is manifestly unfair, councillors just make it up as they go along. And because the council operate the process in secret, they get away with it. The secrecy protects councillor's unfair decisions.

Councillors on the Licensing Committees regularly remove licences, and consequently livelihoods, from licence holders for relatively minor reasons, and even where an individual has already suffered punishment in a court of Law for a misdemeanour - punished twice. And this often occurs for matters not directly related to taxi driving.

Yet, in the case of shamed cop Greig Anderson, when the Cab Inspector objected on behalf of the Chief Constable to the licence application, Councillors gave him a licence anyway. And with no precedent adhered to, and operating in secret, they can get away with such disgraceful abuse of process. In a reasonable system where precedents were established, this abuse of the system would become a benchmark where no one deemed to have offended to a lesser degree than this would have their job stripped from them. That some do get away with proves how corrupted the system has been allowed to become by councillors.

It is this disgraceful system why drivers get particularly nervous when cops seek to intimidate drivers with referral of them into a process which is designed to treat them like little more than canon fodder for the disgraceful abuse of a system happily administered by ill-trained councillors exercising their discretion in a callous and draconian manner.

The system needs to change. Police Inspectors, with the weight of criminal powers, should not be involved in handling civil complaints, and certainly not without advising any individual of their rights prior to the interrogation, which doesn't happen in the system operated by City of Edinburgh Council through its Taxi Examination Centre. And it is no longer acceptable for councils to conduct these matters in secret.

Any infringement requiring reference to the Justice system would be dealt with in open court, except in only rare circumstances. It is outrageous that councillors get to stiff those who come before for subjective rather than objective reasons, without any prospect of them being held to account for their conduct because no one knows what they're getting up to behind closed doors.

In summary, I withdraw from the complaints outlined, for the reasons given and subject to any conditions mentioned. In the meantime I will be pursuing my complaint against Police/Cab Inspector Frank Smith and the process he, and the system he unquestioningly operates, subjected me to - in the hope of facilitating a forensic examination of procedures applied within the auspices of the equality and rights legislation we're supposed to already be protected by, but which has been institutionally ignored by both Lothian and Borders Police and City of Edinburgh Council.

Yours

Jim Taylor

_________________
Skull, "You are a police inspector, aren't you?"
Cab Inspector Smith, "Yes."
Skull, "So, are you going to tell Mr Taylor what his rights are?"
Smith, "And ... What rights?"