Cornwall Council had been contacted by Mr Downer’s employer requesting confirmation of the expiry date of his driver’s licence. However, the licence had expired and Mr Downer had continued to drive private hire vehicles without the required licence.

Mr Downer stated in interview and told magistrates that he hadn’t realised that his licence had expired and also stated that he had mislaid his old licence and had not contacted the council for a replacement.

Cornwall Council had been contacted by Mr Downer’s employer requesting confirmation of the expiry date of his driver’s licence. However, the licence had expired and Mr Downer had continued to drive private hire vehicles without the required licence.

The firm has a duty to ensure the driver is licensed, they should have had procedures in place to ensure they never gave him a job whilst he was unlicensed,

Quite simple really. The dispatch system should be set up to not give work to those unlicensed.

On the brief evidence available here I gave the operator the benefit of the doubt. Could well be that their procedures flagged up that the driver's badge had expired, they asked him to clarify, he was evasive or misleading, so they asked the council to clarify, and the council took a while to do so, and the driver continued working in the meantime.

There are no timescales mentioned, so it could have been a couple of days, or a couple of years, who knows?

If it was a short period then I'd be less inclined to blame the operator, if a longer period then they should share more of the blame.



Of course, I could be completely wrong, but on the evidence available, who knows, precisely?

And perhaps the operator is being prosecuted (or other action taken) separately.

The firm is mentioned as the drivers employer which I take to mean he drove a company car,which means he had to give his paper license to the proprietor of the vehicle(company),if this is the case the company knew when the license expired and committed several offences including employing an unlicensed driver,allowing an unlicensed driver to drive a licensed vehicle,allowing an unlicensed driver to drive a licensed vehicle without a valid insurance cover in place,endangering fare paying passengers safety by using vehicle without insurance,just to name a few.

If they have even a standard/basic dispatch system the driver would have been given a number of reminders from the office. Sort of a countdown 1 month, 1 week, 1 day etc.

And after that no work would be dispatched to the unlicensed driver.

All that said, the responsibility to ensure the driver is licensed is 100% down to the driver. The firm's procedures might need looking at, but the driver is the one at fault.

If they have even a standard/basic dispatch system the driver would have been given a number of reminders from the office. Sort of a countdown 1 month, 1 week, 1 day etc.

Not according to the Act,Operator is responsible as well.

But you should have copies of their licenses.

Unless all your cars are hackneys then it doesn't matter.

precisely

But that does open up the question as to why all booking offices don't legally have to keep records of work, no matter which side of the trade they dispatch work to.

Pretty certain north of the wall they do.