Taxi Driver Online

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.

Chill Pill with a dick-head like MR K Neale.

Another pen-pushing, self-important wally!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottingham/10283665.stm

Here you go.

Trying to find the TV interview.

No such F*CKING thing if you are a Hackney Carriage Driver!

My reply would be to ask what act empowers a licensing council to issue dual licenses?

I think Nigel's LO is trying to get around the Wathan judgement by saying it doesn't apply due to drivers being dual licensed.

My reply would be to ask what act empowers a licensing council to issue dual licenses?

We are duel licensed. Are you saying that councils are not empowered to issue such licenses therfore we are not actually licensed at all?

There is no powers in any act that allows or governs dual licenses.

That said they can be a good thing that saves drivers money.

However a dual license isn't a license in itself, it's a document that allows drivers to drive either a taxi or a PH via two separate licenses combined into one. It doesn't allow PH conditions to be placed on taxi drivers though, unless they are driving a PH.

Nigel's council are trying to do their taxi drivers via conditions placed on the PH side of the license/document. In court the council will lose.

I think Nigel's LO is trying to get around the Wathan judgement by saying it doesn't apply due to drivers being dual licensed.

My reply would be to ask what act empowers a licensing council to issue dual licenses?

We are duel licensed. Are you saying that councils are not empowered to issue such licenses therfore we are not actually licensed at all?

I am sure I read somewhere on here that an LA had increased the cost of the duel badge beyond what would be seen as neccesary to cover the cost of such badge and said that they could do this because the bit of legislation that governs the cost of the badge only applies to hackney badges and not PH badges.

Today will be the big test, I think they will be out in force this afternoon trying to nail drivers but, like Brummie has pointed out they are in very murky waters indeed.