Not sure if the council are at fault here - the whole thing just doesn't make any real sense. Or at least it doesn't if it's approached, er, forensically.
I mean, it looks like the complaint was made by police, so to that extent maybe the council were duty bound to consider it?
Anyway, even looking at the official papers, it's not really clear *precisely* what the complaint was. Was it just the £240 supposedly displayed on the meter? Or was it anything to do with the £20 paid up front - I mean, was that an agreed fare which was maybe more than clock, or a deposit, or was the £20 less than clock?
There's also stuff about rooflights being on and off and that they're linked to whether the meter is activated, but the precise relevance of that isn't explained either.
None of that is properly explained. And, for a start, I'd just ignore the TaxiPoint article, and read the official papers. For example, TaxiPoint says:
TaxiPoint wrote:
Consequently, [the driver] unintentionally caused the meter to display the total fare of £240, mistakenly believing it represented the cumulative amount earned for the day.
Bristol Council committee papers wrote:
[The driver] believes that he inadvertently caused the meter to show the total rather than the meter ticking along for the passengers. [The driver] believed that the total amount of £240 was the total shown as fares paid to date, on that day.
So TaxiPoint is saying that the driver was mistaken in saying the £240 represented the total for the day, while the council is saying the driver was saying it did represent the total for the day? And there's nothing in the papers stating that the driver's believe was inaccurate, so why is TaxiPoint saying he was mistaken?
Can't be bothered wading through it all with a fine tooth comb, but this also kind of stood out:
TaxiPoint wrote:
During the hearing, the passengers testified that they had discussed the fare with the driver before entering the cab.
Sounds a tad unlikely, somehow.
And, in fact, the official papers seem to just say that that was what the driver had told the hearing via an interpreter.
Can't see anything to suggest the passengers were present at all, and indeed the relevant police officer wasn't in attendance either. And that's one reason the committee decided in the driver's favour
Anyway, maybe I'm missing something, but have wasted enough time trying to make sense of this already. And indeed I was looking for something on Bristol Council's website the other day, and was rapidly losing the will to live
](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
But as far as I can tell, this is all there is, and forms the basis of the TaxiPoint article:
It's Item 11:
https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/docume ... B.pdf?T=10
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