Taxi Driver Online

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

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

Now I did say at the time:

Stealing the thunder of Hull vs. Wilson - a case before a higher court - IMO the solicitor involved is trying to establish himself as a maverick;

This was stated in Wilson -

Towards the end of his argument Mr Neish drew our attention to the fact that it was nowhere below proved, on behalf of the local authority, that a resolution has, in fact, been passed under s 45 of the Act, applying that Act to the district of the city of Hull. Therefore, the fact at the basis of all this law that this is a controlled district was never proved. Mr Sampson, who has dealt with this matter very fairly on behalf of the prosecutor, accepted that it was incumbent upon the local authority to prove (no doubt as a formal matter, but it was not done) that the Act had been applied to the Hull district and therefore the necessary precondition of all these offences, that Mr Wilson was acting in a controlled district, had not been made out.

I see no answer to this objection. It may be regarded as a technical, and even unattractive, point but it is properly taken. That means that there would be no point in remitting this case to the Magistrates because even if it were remitted there would be a fatal gap in the evidence that was before them on the first occasion, which could not now be filled: as I put to Mr Sampson in argument, and he properly accepted, if Mr Wilson had been represented below, and that representative had properly waited until the end of the prosecution case and then submitted there was no case to answer because of this defect in the prosecution evidence, it would have been extremely difficult for the prosecutor to argue that he should be allowed to reopen his case.

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

Let's see what our friends up north make of the taxi broker operating from their district now!

will be interesting to see the judgement

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

Aylesbury Vale DC v Call a Cab Ltd- Breach of procedure not fatal to prosecution:

A long anticipated judgement has been handed down by Mr Justice Ouseley and Lord Justice Treacy whereby they have ruled that a single breach of a procedural requirement upon which a prosecution depends does not automatically mean that prosecution must fail.

The defendants, Call a Cab Ltd., were prosecuted by Aylesbury Vale District Council for operating a private hire vehicle without a licence. The defendants raised, in their defence, their belief that the Council had failed to carry out the correct procedures in 1989 when they sought to adopt the private hire controls in Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976.

The Magistrates’ Court of first instance accepted the defendants’ argument, ruling that a failure to notify 12 out of the 112 parish councils in the district meant that the Act had never been validly adopted and the prosecution therefore failed. The Council raised an appeal as the effect of the ruling would have had consequences throughout England and Wales for many Councils.

On appeal to the High Court, Mr Justice Ouseley and Lord Justice Treacy ruled that the starting point must be the statutory context read as a whole and that is was significant in this case that the defendants had suffered no prejudice because the Act did not require notification to them, but to the parish councils.

Mr Justice Ouseley finally said that the magistrate should have considered the degree to which there had been "substantial compliance" with the procedural requirement, and cited the words of Lord Woolf in R v SSHD ex parte Jeyeanthan [2000] 1 WLR 354.

Mr Justice Ouseley however rejected the Council's first ground of appeal (which concerned the inferences the District Judge drew from the lack of mention of receipt of any notices in parish council minutes). and made comments as to a number of different ways councils might be able to demonstrate service and, he most importantly, confirmed that any Court examining the matter should start from the presumption that the Council had done what it ought to have done.

The Divisional Court remitted the original prosecution back to the Magistrates' court for further consideration.

http://www.naleo.org.uk/News/21253

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

I am not sure how to take this. Is the judge saying that provided the council say that they sent the letters out then they must have sent them out? Or is the judge saying that because the council did advertise the adoption in the papers correctly and appear to have sent the letter to some of the parish councils then they have done enough to show that they probably sent the letters to all the parish councils?
What about a council that can't show that they published the adoption in any paper and did not send out letters to any parish council, will they win that one or not?

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Grandad,

I think the judge(s) are saying that if the council say they sent them out then on the balance of probabilities (50/50) they did.

In other words evidence would need to be produced to show they didn't.

I think the advert should be found in the records of the paper they say they published it in, else it would be very difficult to show they did enact the act properly.

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IDFIMH

Now it's gone back to court I would imagine the final bill for call a ???? will be massive, as they now have to show a defence that they were acting legally, and when found guilty will hopefully be fined a small fortune.

I'm just glad there is one council in this country will some balls.

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IDFIMH

The advert is not in the paper. I've checked.

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Grandad,

In a similar argument with my DC, there is no record of letters or notices being sent to the town council to adopt the Act as required in the said Act. I haven't checked the papers for adverts.

My town council is meticulous at keeping records and have done so for the last 500 years.

I suppose it all goes down to how much of a ruck you want.

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IDFIMH

TBH I suspect those notices weren't sent out, but as I posed to Grandad, how much of a ruck do you want?

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IDFIMH