Taxi driver who showed female passenger explicit link loses licensing appeal

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

Magistrates at Peterborough Magistrates' Court rejected the man's appeal, finding that the council could refuse his licence application based on its policies and in relation to information it had received relating to the incident.

The driver had previously admitted to police that he had spoken about sexual content and showed a weblink to a pornographic website to a woman while she was a fare-paying passenger.

He admitted the conduct during a recorded interview as part a Suffolk Police investigation. The police never brought charges related to this investigation.

Following the incident, the man applied for a licence to drive vehicles licensed by East Cambridgeshire District Council and 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 taxi driver.

East Cambridgeshire officers said that admissions made by the man in a taped interview with Suffolk Police demonstrated he had acted at a level below that expected of a 'fit and proper' person.

The decision letter added: "Had you have acted in such a way whilst licensed with this determining authority your licence would have been revoked for serious breaches of the council's Driver Code of Conduct designed to ensure public safety and maintenance of the reputation of the trade as a whole."

The driver later appealed against the decision. The case was brought before Peterborough Magistrates on 21 March 2024.

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

They also noted that while the man 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 in 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.

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

Adam Carey