Taxi Driver Online

A ON 29 JUNE 09 a Sefton Private hire company, was fined for not having a operators license . The Private hire company, had installed a free phone, in the visitors centre, of neighbouring authority , Liverpool Walton prison.
Judge D J Clancy said (as i understand it ).That having a free phone was the same as having a booking office , and as it was not Licenced in Liverpool. The Sefton Private hire Company was breaking the Law. He fined the private hire company £500 and made them pay £4000 costs .



My question is what case law , did he use, to determine that a free phone was the same as a booking office.

That cannot be right surely? if a freephone is an office requiring an ops licence and i have 5, then i need 5 extra ops licences?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

A freephone can be added on to your existing licence... whether it be 1 2 or3 as long as it is in your licence district....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

He may not have been presented with case law, and just interpreted the act as best he could.

Let's hope this is appealed, not because I believe him to be right or wrong, but because the higher up the judicial ladder this goes the clearer it becomes for all of us that work/use/run freephones.

That said I believe a freephone isn't a booking office, just an invitation to book.

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IDFIMH

It is a direct line to a hackney or Private Hire Office the same as you standing next to the vehicle or Office

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

I bet an awful lot of LAs with freephones in supermarkets,etc are watching thinking "mmmm, £50 per phone ops licence each year?"

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

some of them might even be thinking that it is breaking the touting laws

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Id guess it was because the phone was sited out of the firms LA..............

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Your Right

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

telecomm firms who have a national 0800 taxi number and sell areas to individual taxi/PH companies could also be liable to prosecution then?..

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

As Paul has said on more than one occasion .......... their corporate lawyer's are very experienced

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Paul McLaughlin of Delta Taxis a very clever man . knows nearly as much as Trevor jones about taxis .

Sefton taxi firm faces city cabs fury

HUNDREDS of taxis flooded Liverpool to protest against a private hire firm which they claim is driving them out of business.

More than 800 hackney carriages and city minicab drivers circled the council’s Dale Street offices yesterday to protest at firms such as Delta Taxis, who operate within the city but are based outside.

They criticised the firm – Merseyside’s biggest operator – because it carried out millions of taxi rides in Liverpool every year, despite being based in Sefton.

Hundreds of drivers drove into town from hackney hotspots including Lime Street, West Derby village, Dovecot and The Bridge Inn on Childwall Valley Road.

Hackney carriage driver Roy Honeyman said: “Things have got to change otherwise we will be dead in the water. Our overheads are a lot higher then firms like Delta, who stay on the fringe in Sefton rather than being in the city.”

One protester, who did not want to be named, added: “You often see Delta drivers parked around Liverpool even though they are officially based in Sefton.

“They are waiting for Liverpool jobs to come in so they can get there quickly.

“It makes a mockery of the Liverpool knowledge test which took me four times to pass. If they want to be based in Liverpool then they should move here.

“There’s no work in Sefton at the weekends so they come to Liverpool. It’s taking food out of our mouths.There will be further protests if things don’t change.”

Delta, despite being based in Sefton, is fully entitled to complete jobs in Liverpool.

Delta spokesman Paul McLaughlin insisted there was enough work in the city for both Delta – which has 1,400 drivers – and the equally 1,400- strong hackney fleet.

He said: “Both hackney carriages and private hire vehicles are entitled to be telephoned booked to and from anywhere in Merseyside, even the country.

“But when it comes to people hiring cabs on the street – only locally licensed hackney carriages can do that and only within the set area determined by their licence.

Liverpool has the largest hackney carriage fleet outside London and Delta – at seven to eight million bookings per year – is one of the biggest firms in the world, he said.

“Any tension is a cause for concern. But we’ve got two football clubs, two cathedrals – there should be enough space for two types of taxi.”Both private hire firms and hackney carriages are essential to the travel network.”

http://seftontaxis.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/937/

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

You make a good point Mr T, and if a case is going to a higher court it's best those fighting have plenty of money to pursue the matter.

The trade needs clarity, and if it means Delta have to subsidise it for the rest of us, then so be it.

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IDFIMH