Taxi Driver Online

Well I thought this all stunk a bit when I read it a few days ago. It was about council agenda papers for a meeting that was due to happen on Tuesday:


Private hire driver may be suspended over homophobic comments

https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2023 ... -comments/

An Edinburgh private hire driver was recorded making “incredibly homophobic” remarks and as a result he is facing possible suspension of his licence.

Ruhul Amin was reported to the council after a passenger secretly recorded comments which “could be characterised as both misogynist and displaying prejudice to members of the LGBT+ community”.

City officials concluded after reviewing the evidence he was “no longer a fit and proper person” to hold a licence, but councillors will make a final decision next week.

At the meeting Mr Amin will also face questions about using a different vehicle to the one he registered for private hire use to drive passengers.

A complaint was initially made in April to Bolt, a taxi booking app through which he operates his business, from a customer who alleged that statements made in conversation during a journey were “incredibly homophobic” and “outlandish”.

When called in for an interview about the incident by the council it was claimed by the driver that “the passenger had initiated the relevant conversation” and although he “expressed his views” denied using the offensive language described by the complainer.

But the next day officials were handed evidence including an audio recording of the conversation taken by the complainant which suggested Mr Amin “engaged in highly inappropriate behaviour for a person working as a licensed driver”.

In a follow-up interview after being summoned back to the council’s offices his wife said he was “incorrect to deny using the language described by the complainer” and “did now admit to saying some of the things in the initial complaint”.

A report, published ahead of Tuesday’s licensing sub-committee, said: “Mr Amin confirmed that it was his voice in each of the three recordings, but said that he had not really understood what he was saying, and that the customer was encouraging him to say these things.

“Mr Amin repeatedly apologised during the interview and asked forgiveness for the statements recorded

“It is the view of council enforcement officers that the comments could be characterised as both misogynist and displaying prejudice to members of the LGBT+ community.

“Mr Amin’s explanation is that these comments were encouraged by or coaxed from him by the passenger. However, it is officers’ view that they are sufficiently serious to call into question his continued fitness to hold a licence, and hence the request for suspension of the licence.

“It is recommended that the licence is suspended on the grounds that Mr Amin is no longer a fit and proper person to be the holder of the licence.”

Councillors will vote on whether to take no further action, issue a warning to the licence holder, suspend or revoke his licence.

Furthermore they will consider a separate breach of Mr Amin’s licence conditions, after it was confirmed he had been taking bookings “using a vehicle that was not the one registered with Bolt”.

by Donald Turvill, Local Democracy Reporter.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.

The article above is based on the council agenda paper. Basically, the driver has been found guilty by officials of 'incredibly homophobic' remarks, misogyny and prejudice towards the LGBT+ community.

So that's splattered all over the press but, guess what, all the evidence is redacted from the agenda stuff. So effectively the driver has been tried by officials and the media, but we aren't allowed to see the evidence

But, of course, councillors will have the final say, and I'm sure they'll do the right thing...

So this is the only report I can find on Tuesday's meeting, and it's about a case at the same meeting, but which is an unrelated case, and wasn't featured in the press beforehand.

And it's maybe a tad confusing - it initially read like the report had said he was not fit and proper, and he'd been revoked. But I think the report was the committee agenda, sort of thing, and that was the official recommendation, and councillors had still to decide.

But then we're not allowed to know the outcome of the meeting anyway


An Edinburgh private hire driver has been accused of falsifying documents so he could continue operating.

https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2023 ... documents/

Shakti Singh faced having his licence suspended as a result when he went before a meeting of the council’s Licensing Sub-Committee on Tuesday.

Council officials have refused to disclose the outcome of the closed doors meeting however – despite the report being made available to the public.

In the report, published online, officials said Mr Singh was no longer considered “a fit and proper person” to hold a licence following “an admission of deliberate falsification of a licence document” by Mr Singh.

The council was first contacted in April by ride-hailing app Bolt, through which the driver operated, to report the alleged incident.

Bolt, which requires its drivers to provide proof of both themselves and their vehicles being fully licensed, said Mr Singh “had uploaded a potentially falsified document,” adding that as a result it had suspended his account and he was unable to accept bookings.

At an interview with council officers in May he then “admitted to changing the expiry date on the private hire car licence document before submitting it to Bolt,” the report said.

It added Mr Singh stated that because the original owner of the vehicle had sent him the original licence document dated 2023 “he thought he could change the date to 2024”.

The report continued: “This appears to be an admission of deliberate falsification of a licence document and amounts to inappropriate behaviour for a person working as a licensed driver.

“It is sufficiently serious to call into question Mr Singh’s continued fitness to hold a licence, and hence the request for suspension of the licence.

“The directorate recommends that the licence is suspended on the grounds that Mr Singh is no longer a fit and proper person to be the holder of the licence.”

Mr Singh was invited to attend the council’s licensing sub-committee on Tuesday when a final decision was to be made on whether he should be allowed to continue operating as a private hire driver.

Despite the report outlining the allegations being available to read online, the meeting was held in private and the council said it was unable to confirm how councillors voted.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service was previously informed that press and members of the public would be able to attend the sub-committee at the City Chambers, but we were asked to leave ahead of the meeting starting and were told the meeting was to be held in private.

Edinburgh Council later said that as the meeting was held in private the results also had to be kept confidential.

by Donald Turvill, Local Democracy Reporter.

There's no press report about the other driver who's accused of homophobia, misogyny etc, but what's the betting that's why the meeting was held in private, and it has nothing to do with the driver accused of falsifying the licence document

I mean, the homophobia/misogyny case was always going to be a tricky one anyway. And, in my opinion, particularly so in the current climate, and the licensing committee is essentially the trade equivalent of the Coutts Bank Reputational Risk Committee

I mean, the driver was accused of homophobia and prejudice towards the LGBT+ community. Yet traditionalist LGB folks accuse the T+ folks of being homophobic

And the T+ folks often accuse the LGB folks of being transphobic

Or something like that. Not surprised Edinburgh councillors want to keep it all under wraps, but that's why it's essentially a star chamber rather than a quasi-judicial procedure characterised by transparency, due process etc

that's incredibly optimistic by your standards

Don't forget the LGBT+ community has an abnormally high level of influence at council level

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

I was being sarcastic, Edders

Don't trust them at the best of times, even with stuff like driving offences or more mainstream crimes, never mind this hyper-woke kind of stuff. Which I'm guessing is why it's all gone on behind closed doors, and we're not even allowed to know the result, never mind details of the evidence and process.

Be interesting to see what's in the minutes, though

Well you could wait about 4 weeks and see if his name is on the register still....

you would have to go through each line, can't search by name. If you do it now you could find Ruhul Amin and note his driver number, then look when his Appeal time has run out.

Hours of fun there.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

If the decision is down to councillors, then officials should keep their traps or gobs shut.

Officials should gather any evidence and pass it on, but by saying the fella isn't fit and proper before councillors decide is very very wrong and IMO an abuse of process.

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IDFIMH

To be honest it's not something I've ever really thought about before. I mean, if officials have decided that there should be a committee meeting to decide if someone's fit and proper, then to that extent there's an implication of guilt, and to that degree an element of prejudice, but I suppose that's the same for all quasi-judicial, judicial and court procedures etc.

So I suppose it depends how it's framed. And the way it's framed in the Edinburgh document is arguably prejudicial to a fair hearing:


Incidentally, this is the document here. Note the list of that all-important evidence in the appendixes at the end. But of course we're not allowed to actually access the evidence in the appendixes, so the press report is essentially based on the opinion of the council officials/LOs. Then it all happens behind closed doors, and we're not actually allowed to know what the meeting concluded.

https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/docu ... 20Amin.pdf

Chris, not sure if you looked online or was just talking in general terms, but Edinburgh's licensing register page does include an Excel spreadsheet, which has 14,000 lines and seems to be a list of all PH badge applications in the last decade or so (they must use a very old version of Excel, because my Excel 2003 version opens the file ).

But because it's a spreadsheet it's very easy to search, and the name in question appears four times, and it looks like that's just routine renewals. So at some time in the future it could show him as being suspended or revoked. But if he's exonerated or maybe just given a warning then we might never know precisely what happened. But I'd guess at least some councillors will have regarded him as unfit.

Of course, what he said might have been pretty full on and thus worthy of action, while on the other hand the likes of the misogyny card is often played for no other reason than that a person being criticised is a woman. (For example, Labour's female shadow chancellor seemed to be alluding to misogyny with regard to how NatWest's female CEO departed over the Farage bank account debacle.)

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/ ... ters-civic

Of course it was "General Terms".

For a long time miscreants in Plymouth, in the Agenda for Committee, would have their initials shown in the documents. Because I always knew who it was, eventually they took even that away....

Post the outcome, which would appear in the Minutes, if it were Revocation, I would then look on the Register after the Appeal Time had expired, to see who had disappeared from the list.

Strangely, it never entered my head to do the same in Edinburgh, or anywhere else.

If the Revoked do choose to Appeal, there is no anonymity at the Magistrates.

The Law Commission was keen to do away with the anonymity thing, save for certain details like financial etc., arguing that "Justice should be done and be seen to be done" (my words not theirs), so that it would act as a deterrent for others and to reassure the public that action was taken by the LA. Which I think would be better.

Obviously the meeting should be closed to the public when Guilt or Innocence are decided and the Punishment decided, but evidence for and against should be heard in the open as should the verdict and punishment.

Finally, if anybody needs to know who the "anonymous" is that is mentioned in the Agenda, go to the meeting place at the time stated, and see who is waiting outside the Committee Venue in their best suit.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Chris, I didn't realise that the Law Commission had made recommendations about this kind of thing (I didn't really pay that much attention to it after a while, except for the odd bits and bobs, and didn't read the final report).

But there was some discussion on here about the anonymity thing a few months ago. In England, the tendency seems to be for licensing hearings to be anonymous (although I'm not sure if it's actually illegal to name people), but of course once they get into the court system their name is in the public domain.

In Scotland, it tends to be the other way round, as far as I can see, and as the current case demonstrates. But, of course, in the final analysis Edinburgh City Council have obviously decided to keep the whole thing under wraps.

But because he was named in the agenda papers, and the allegations were outlined therein, he's effectively been tried by media, to an extent at least, particularly as the evidence and final decision haven't been made public.