Ex-cabbie once arrested on gang rape and kidnap allegations deemed unfit for taxi licencehttps://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/tees ... e-30832227A driver who was twice arrested on suspicion of rape - including allegations of gang rape and kidnapping - has failed in an attempt to regain a taxi licence.
The motorist's taxi licence was suspended in 2020 after he was arrested on suspicion of rape and controlling or coercive behaviour. And he was arrested in 2021 with "an allegation from a female that she was transported to an address in [Stockton], and subjected to imprisonment, gang rape and injected with heroin", minutes of a Stockton Council licensing committee meeting reveal.
Cleveland Police took no further action against any of the matters. The taxi driver maintained they were malicious or fabricated allegations, say the minutes.
He had his taxi licence revoked in 2022 as he was not deemed a "fit and proper person", and magistrates refused his appeal against this in 2023, saying the appeal was "full of inconsistencies", according to the record of the meeting from October 2024. He later told the licensing committee he was a fit and proper person because he was not convicted of any offence.
He maintained the first arrest was a malicious allegation, and said the gang rape complainant in the second arrest had been paid to make a false allegation, though he had no evidence to support this theory, and he intended to make a claim for unlawful arrest. He accepted he did not tell police he was a taxi driver in the two arrests, the committee noted.
He brought a Cleveland Police report to the committee which said "in relation to the allegation of kidnap and rape for which [he] was arrested, the victim began to disengage from police and would not take the matter further". The document confirmed no further action was taken against him "and the other suspect(s) as there was 'no evidence to suggest that they were responsible for the allegations made'".
The committee also heard how he was stopped by a PC "driving at 45mph in a 30mph zone" in 2012, according to a note on his file. He denied speeding, said he was unaware of this incident and did not recall it. They found him "disingenuous and evasive" to questioning about his attitude to speeding, and his "account of the matters for which he was arrested appeared on balance to be inconsistent".
He requested a new hackney carriage and private hire licence. However the committee turned down his application.
The minutes say: "This committee felt, on the balance of probabilities, that they had not been provided with any credible evidence to demonstrate that [the applicant] was a fit and proper person. The committee were not satisfied that they would allow people for whom they care for to enter a vehicle alone with [him], due to their concerns at the inconsistencies in [his] account of the matters before them, and the evasive manner in which he presented himself before them at the hearing."
They said he failed to tell the licensing department of the "two separate arrests for serious allegations of rape" in 2020 and 2021, and noted a private hire and hackney carriage licence was "a privilege and not a right". They concluded: "Ultimately, the safety of the travelling public was the committee’s paramount concern, and the committee felt, on balance, that their doubts about [his] fitness and propriety meant that they could not grant his application, and it was therefore refused."
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