Nigel wrote:
Looks like it's going to get messy.
Having read the original letter posted on this thread by Mr Sussex under the link,
http://taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14214, my advice to you & your mates is to tell your LPO
Mr K Neale;
"B*LLOCKS WITH A VERY GREAT, HUGE, MASSIVE, ENORMOUS BIG B"
MR K Neale writes in that letter, 'The situation has not improved and drivers are therefore continuing to fail to comply with the
conditions attached to their Hire Vehicle Drivers Licence.'
Conditions of Hire Vehicle Drivers Licence?
No such F*CKING thing if you are a Hackney Carriage Driver!
So if anyone is suspended under these irrelevant conditions, give immediate notice of appeal to the courts, to the licensing officer or committee there & then in writing (letter previously prepared), which allows the driver to continue working without interruption. You MUST follow the appeal through!
The grounds of appeal are that
Hackney Carriage DRIVERS may only be governed by Hackney Carriage Driver Bye-laws & any Conditions on Hire Vehicle Drivers Licence on Hackney Carriage Drivers are worthless, irrelevant & cannot be upheld legally.
I am 99.9% certain that Keith Jeffreys (renowned taxi solicitor; probably better than Jimmy Button) had a similar case upheld in court some years back & in 2005 our own Head of Regulatory Services in Brum wrote in a report to our Licensing Committee (when we too did not have Bye-laws in those days), something on the lines of, ‘Hackney Carriage Drivers should be regulated by Bye-laws & without them a Licensing Officer cannot even enforce a HC driver wearing a HC driver’s badge’.
I was right; the web-page link to the Keith Jeffreys court case summary as detailed above is;
http://www.tapin2taxis.co.uk/court-cases.asp and the court case in question is three quarters of the way down the page & reads;
Royal Courts of Justice Administrative Court 12th July 2002
Jeffrey Wathan-v-Neath & Port Talbot County Borough Council - Before Sir Edwin Jowitt - Case Stated - Held - The Applicant's appeal against the decision of Neath Magistrates be upheld -
The Conduct of a Hackney Carriage Driver (if to be regulated) must be regulated by way of Bye Laws and not Conditions of Licence. s68 Town Police Clauses Act 1847 is the relevant provision so far as Bye Laws are concerned.
There is no power under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 to attach Conditions to the Licenses of Hackney Carriage Drivers. The Respondent was ordered to pay the Appellant's costs in relation to the Case Stated and the costs below - Solicitor for the Appellant Keith Jeffreys Kearns & Co Swansea - Counsel for the Appellant Mr. Peter Maddox Iscoed Chambers Swansea - Solicitor for the Respondent Neath & Port Talbot legel Dept - Counsel for the Respondent Mr. Paul Thomas Iscoed Chambers Swansea.
Once again tell
Mr K Neale to F8CK ORRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! And come back when the Bye-laws are in place.
That should hold him up for a year or three & you could complain to the Licensing Committee why he does not know his job & is trying to enforce driver suspensions illegally. The Licensing Committee may just think he is a Big Knob & needs replacing!!!
P.S. Sorry to all about the language in this post, but this tw*t
MR K Neale has got me FULLY wound up.