http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=98912&command=displayContent&sourceNode=98821&contentPK=8780278
DRIVER OF TAXI GETS BAN FOR DRINK DRIVING
12:00 - 10 February 2004
A Plymouth taxi driver who was found at the wheel of his cab when almost two-and-a-half times the drink drive limit has been banned from driving for 18 months.
Derek Palfrey, 60, was a cab driver for Silverline taxis when he was questioned by police in Park Avenue on November 18 last year, city magistrates heard.
The police were responding to a call from a member of the public who saw Palfrey buying alcohol in an off-licence and then get back into his Silverline marked car.
In court Palfrey, of Orchard Road, Beacon Park, pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol.
At an earlier court hearing the crown prosecutor said that Palfrey had radioed into Silverline control when he was stopped by police and that by doing this police assumed he was working.
But his solicitor Richard Speare said that Palfrey had not been on duty as a cab driver at the time of the offence.
At this hearing district judge David Purcell said the issue as to whether Palfrey's cab was for hire or not at the time would have a bearing on the sentence he would receive, and he called for a Newton hearing to determine the fact.
But at yesterday's resumed hearing the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence to support a Newton hearing and Palfrey was sentenced on his guilty plea.
His solicitor said that it was Palfrey's day off on the day of the offence and that he had dropped his wife off in Stoke before he bought a bottle of vodka. Mr Speare said: "He consumed it. A member of the public saw him in his marked taxi and called police. There was no member of the public in the taxi. A week before he had a 'knock' in the car which depressed him. He had a passenger in the car at the time and he took his responsibility seriously.
"It dented his confidence.''
He told magistrates that the conviction brought Palfrey to the end of two careers.
He had been in the fire service for 25 years before becoming a self-employed taxi driver for nine years.
Palfrey, he said, was of previous good character and had held a clean driving licence. He also had a mortgage to pay, credit cards to pay off, and that since the offence he had been struggling financially. He had now sold his car for £450 and had found a job as a cleaner.
As well as banning him from driving for 18 months magistrates fined Palfrey £200.
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All those 'Taxi' and 'cab' quotes will not go well with some on here, its a private hire driver / car!!
So why would you be on the radio to control if you were not working?
£450 for the car? quality that then...
and this Stoke is a district in Plymouth in case you were thinking the other Stoke.
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