Sussex wrote:
Overcharge taxi driver may lose his licence
A BURY taxi driver has been fined for overcharging and faces the prospect of losing his licence.
Shanawaz Raja (41) of Heywood Street, Bury, was fined £300 and ordered to pay £300 costs and £1.50 compensation after being convicted by Bury magistrates.
Raja charged a passenger £6.90 for the 2.3-mile journey, when the fare should have been between £5.20 and £5.40. During a trial, Raja gave the bench differing accounts of the route he took and claimed not to have looked at his meter or counted the money he was given for the journey.
His taxi driver's licence was suspended by Bury Council during the court proceedings, despite his appeals to the magistrates' court and to the crown court which approved the council's actions.
The court heard that Raja is still paying the costs of those failed appeals, and told him that the fines imposed for overcharging must be paid in addition to the payments he is making towards those costs.
Raja will now face a hearing before Bury Council's licensing and safety panel to determine whether he is a fit and proper person to hold a Hackney Carriage Driver's Licence.
Apparently this driver was charged under section 65 of the LGMPA. The circumstances are that he was given the booking over the radio and he was accused of warming up the meter before he picked up the passenger. The passenger is a regular customer of a local Private hire/Taxi Radio Company. The passenger is always charged the same fare except when allowing for traffic congestion?
Regards
JD
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