Taxi Driver Online

Looks like the NR3 database at work here.

Has cost the driver dear, though - £5.5k in costs as well as losing his badge

No police action, though...


Suffolk taxi driver showed porn weblink to female passenger

https://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/2420 ... passenger/

A taxi driver who admitted showing a female passenger a weblink to a pornographic website has lost an appeal to drive an East Cambridgeshire licensed taxi or private hire vehicle.

Marc Barnes, 63 of Wren Close, Brandon, Suffolk admitted engaging in conversations with sexual content and showing a weblink to a sexually explicit website to the woman he described as being young enough to be his daughter, while she was a fare-paying passenger.

This incident took place in the Thetford area in 2023 and came to light as part of a police-led investigation. No charges relating to this investigation were ever brought forward by the police.

Following the incident, Mr Barnes applied for a licence to drive vehicles licensed by East Cambridgeshire District Council.

He was refused on the grounds that evidence supplied by West Suffolk District Council led licensing officers to have “grave concerns” over his suitability to work as a licensed taxi driver.

In refusing the licence, officers said: “The admissions made by you in your taped interview with Suffolk Police demonstrates that you have acted at a level below that expected of a 'fit and proper' person.

“And, had you have acted in such a way whilst licensed with this determining authority, your licence would have been revoked for serious breaches of the council’s Driver Code of Conduct designed to ensure public safety and maintenance of the reputation of the trade as a whole.”

Mr Barnes appealed against this decision and the case was brought before Peterborough Magistrates on March 21.

Magistrates threw out the appeal on the basis that the council was not wrong in refusing Mr Barnes a licence based on its own policies and procedures and the information provided by West Suffolk District Council.

He was also ordered to pay £5,450 in costs.

They also noted that, whilst Mr Barnes had operated as a taxi driver for more than 20 years, he had accepted by his own admission he had engaged in a conversation with sexual content with a fare paying passenger.

He also admitted that he had shown her a weblink to a pornographic website and he had no valid reasons for stopping his taxi in a lay-by to allow the passenger to have a cigarette.

Well I understand most of it, but not the bit at the end about the lay-by.

Maybe the council and the courts viewed it as strange that he stopped his cab there, and doubted it was merely to allow the passenger to have a fag.

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IDFIMH

pulling up in a layby is usually the test to see if showing passenger the porn or sex chat or whatever has got a result. Certainly round here it is based on stories and complaints I have heard round here are anything to go by.

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

It's maybe the case that he genuinely had no good reason to stop in the lay-by, but the above reads to me like the passenger did ask to have a cigarette and to that extent the driver did pull over, so I don't get the 'no valid reason' claimed by the council.

But it's maybe just confusingly worded, and it would all be obvious looking at the full version of the papers etc.