A bridge too far wrote:
on the new renewal form for York, you have to declare any offences for which you have been convicted even if they are spent including motoring offences and fixed penaly notices, can they enforce this, my mate has an offence going back more than 50 years, why do they need this information
Because taxi/PH drivers have been known to tell fibs about their pasts.
The council need to make a judgement of the fitness of an applicant, and to do that they need proper background checks.
Now if someone has been done for shoplifting 50 years ago then that's not going to be a problem to re-license, however if a person got done for rape or sexual violence, then that needs to be taking into account.
In respect of motoring offences, the council need to know if the driver is a f***ing nutter, and even if the license has no or just a few points they need to check their history to ensure they didn't have, say 20 points five years ago.
Or if the applicant has been done for drink driving three or four times in the past.