Agenda item

Mr Malcolm John Rogers - HCD194

The Licensing Officer introduced the report. He explained that Mr Malcolm Rogers was a Hackney Carriage Driver licenced with Cheltenham Borough Council. He reported that on 17th September 2018 the licensing team received a complaint concerning Mr Rogers’ behaviour. A statement from the complainant was included in the background papers. Mr Rogers had disputed the incident and had provided his own statement of events which was also included in the background papers. The Licensing Officer advised that there had now been 9 complaints recorded against Mr Rogers between 2008 and 2018.   The matter had been referred to the licensing sub-committee to allow Members the opportunity to consider whether Mr Rogers is a fit and proper person to hold a hackney carriage driver’s licence given the complaints and the information provided.

He advised the sub-committee that they could:

·           Determine to take no action if Members consider Mr Rogers to be a fit and proper person to hold a licence; or

·           Take such of the following steps as the sub-committee considers appropriate:

       (a) Give a written warning

(b) Suspend the licence (please refer to paragraph 4.5 in relation to this option)

(c) Revoke the licence

The Licensing Officer offered the following responses to Members questions:

·           Of the 260 taxi drivers licenced in the Borough, there were a small number of drivers with more than one complaint against them, but he couldn’t recall any driver who had as many as 9 complaints;

·           In each complaint that had been reported, Mr Rogers had been invited to speak with the licencing team, however, no action had been taken until now;

·           He advised that witness statements may have been taken in the previous complaints, however, all the evidence held on the council’s  corporate database was before them;

·           The dash cam footage from the incident in September had not been provided by Mr Rogers.

Mr Rogers was invited to give his account of the events. He advised that:

·           In the first incident in 2008, he had gone to the police as he had been followed down the road and threatened and despite the fact that no action had been taken against him, the complaint still stayed on his record;

·           He recalled the most recent incident in September 2018. He explained that it was around 06:10 and he had been on his way to work with a customer in the car. He had been driving along Christchurch Road when the complainant had pulled out of their driveway which caused Mr Rogers to stop and subsequently flash his lights. He took the customer to Tesco and pulled up at the station, at this point he had forgotten about the incident completely until a gentleman came over to him and as he recalls poked him. The gentleman was verbally abusive to him and followed him in to the station before taking a picture of Mr Rogers car.

·           Mr Roger’s explained that he would never use bad language and other drivers would support this statement.

In response to Members questions, Mr Rogers explained that:

·           He had been driving along Christchurch Road towards the station and the driver had pulled out from the right hand side of the road;

·           He explained that the dash cam overrides itself depending on the number of hours worked and due to the fact the incident was not reported until 5 days later he no longer had the footage;

·           He explained that he had gone to the police, however, they advised that it was not in the public interest to pursue the report due to limited resources;

·           With regards to the comments in his statement about feeling like he was in court, Mr Rogers confirmed that he had never been to court, however, on each occasion when he had to come in to the council to give a statement he always felt as if he were guilty;

·           He felt that taxi drivers were vulnerable to such incidents and always deemed to be in the wrong;

·           He remembered all of the previous incidents, all of which he stated had been malicious complaints;

·           He recalled another complaint whereby he had been cut up by another driver whilst going past GCHQ, he explained that people were often irritated by taxi drivers and refused to let them out. He denied swearing at the lady and advised that he would never cuss at a woman. Even though it was not his fault, they had phoned the council and then the complaint was on record;

·           He recalled a further incident where he had sustained an injury after another taxi driver had cut his hand whilst trying to put a customer’s case in his car boot following an altercation about whose fare it was;

·           Mr Rogers confirmed that you needed permission from Great Western to work in the railway station;

·           He reported that there had been an incident where he had advised a lady she was unable to park at a location at the railway station as he feared she would block the rank, she had not explained that she was working at the railway station and he feared she would get on a train and people would be unable to access that taxi rank;

·           He failed to answer why 9 malicious calls had been made against him and very few other taxi drivers  were near this number of complaints;

In summary, Mr Rogers explained that:

·           He had been a taxi driver for over 30 years, and in this time he had been spat at, sworn at and even hospitalised after being beaten up, however, in none of these incidents had he involved the council;

·           Over the last few years he had been reported several times for defending his wellbeing and each incident had been unfounded;

·           In his time as a taxi driver, he had never been in trouble with the police, been caught speeding or had any parking violations, he was not happy that previous incidents that were unfounded kept being brought up;

·           He recalled a recent incident whereby he had taken a young girl to Poole when several other taxi drivers had refused, she was extremely thankful yet these positive experiences were never reported to the council;

·           Mr Rogers felt he was a fair and upstanding member of the public;

Members proceeded to debate the application;

·           One Member reasoned that it was their duty to protect the public first and foremost and they had to act on the balance of probabilities. On the basis of all the complaints they would not be happy for a family member to travel in the car with Mr Rogers. They were also concerned that it was allowed to get to this stage before the matter was called before the committee. He felt that all the complaints couldn’t be malicious but was minded to hand out a yellow card rather than a red;

·           One Member felt it was difficult to make a decision given the limited information they had about the previous complaints, he requested that in future incidents the driver be given the opportunity to provide a statement at the same time as the complainant. He did not feel it fair to suspend or revoke given the limited evidence;

·           One Members suggested than in future Mr Rogers swap the card in the dash cam before the footage was overridden;

·           Other Members agreed that it was difficult given the lack of evidence, however, there appeared to be a common theme with the complaints they shared other Members concerns that it should not have got to this stage before coming before the sub-committee;

·           With regards to the interest of public safety, some Members felt some action was necessary, although revoking Mr Rogers licence was not reasonable given the evidence;

·           One Member noted that none of the incidents had actually involved passengers and it wasn’t Mr Rogers driving which was called in to question, it was his treatment of other road users. Following this, one Member noted that the incident in November 2011 did involve a passenger;

·           Other Members acknowledged that there was a common theme of road rage and agreed that a yellow rather than red card should be issued in the form of a written warning.

Members proceeded to vote on section 1.5.1 to Determine if Members consider Mr Rogers to be a fit and proper person to hold a licence.

Upon a vote it was unanimous

Members voted on whether to take no further action.

Upon a vote it was 1 for and 4 against

Members voted on section 1.5.2a to give a written warning.

Upon a vote it was 4 in favour and 1 abstention

Resolved that

The sub-committee consider Mr Rogers to be a fit and proper person to hold a licence but issue him with a written warning.

Members strongly advised Mr Rogers to keep any dash cam footage for at least 30 days.