Think I've got all of this, but it's behind a very tight paywall, and wasn't keen on paying the 40p to access the article
And it's a very fiddly process, so any errors or omissions are because of that
But it's an interesting article, as some of the stuff from police is don't know whether to laugh
or cry territory 
And, in fact, the HCD's point about no one giving a damn is targetted a bit more widely than the stuff about dismissing non-payers as civil disputes
Slough taxi drivers call on police to do more to tackle fare dodgers
https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk ... dgers.html
Taxi drivers in Slough are angry after police refused to open criminal cases against alleged fare dodgers– telling drivers it is a ‘civil matter’.
Mohammad Younis Rashid is a Hackney Carriage Driver and member of the Slough Taxi Federation.
He recently picked up a fare worth about £24 and the customer’s card was declined. The customer said he had no other way to pay.
Mohammad asked the customer to leave his phone with him as a deposit, which the customer did not wish to do.
Instead, they arranged that Mohammad would take down the customer’s phone number, but remained unable to get hold of the customer for payment.
Hoping the phone could be used to track the non-paying customer, Mohammad took the case to the police.
“To my shock, they said it’s a civil matter,” he said. “How can it be a civil matter when someone tries to con me out of my fare?
Mohammad has been a driver for 45 years and says the matter of fare dodging has been worse lately – felt by many other drivers.
He claimed there is inconsistency in how customers and drivers are treated – if there is an argument between the driver and customer, the police will ‘come like a bullet.’
“The driver gets done for it – we’ve seen it so many times. When we complain about a customer, nobody gives a damn. The drivers are up in arms.” said Mohammad.
“We would like some sort of help from the police. That’s what we pay our taxes for, our licence fee.”
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said it is a criminal offence if passengers run off without paying or offering to pay the fare; or claim they are going to pay but never do.
However, it is a civil matter when:
- • a passenger normally pays a certain amount for the journey and the taxi driver is asking for more
• the passenger pays or offers to pay the fare they think is right; say, if the driver says the fare is £10 and the passenger offers them £5
• a passenger says ‘Sorry, I can’t pay,’ then leaves details or tries to make arrangements to pay at a later date.
However, there ‘should be a common-sense approach’ to this, and the offer of payment ‘should be reasonable.’
If the payment is ‘significantly lower’ than the fare, then ‘this may evidence of intent to evade full payment.’
If the customer agrees to pay later but enquiries reveal that the personal data they gave is false, it should be reported to Action Fraud.
The spokesman said:
“We would always encourage taxi drivers to report fare dodging and officers will always try to be fair to both parties.
“We only have finite resources and they are prioritised based on where the threat, harm and risk is highest.
“But our neighbourhood team officers also regularly proactively patrol the town centre and the rest of the town to provide reassurance and taxi drivers are more than welcome to speak to them.”
