Halt final TfL payment to Garden Bridge Trust, says shadow minister Andy McDonald

Preparations to pay the charity behind the Garden Bridge project its final multi-million pound chunk of public money should be suspended, the shadow transport secretary has said

The Garden Bridge Trust recently wrote to its public sector sponsor Transport for London with a request for up to £9 million of public money earmarked in an underwriting agreement provided by the Department for Transport (DfT).

However, Labour politicians including shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald have now called on TfL to withhold the money in the wake of a new legal opinion by a QC recently revealed by the AJ, raising the prospect of limiting the aborted scheme’s cost to the taxpayer, currently estimated at £46 million.

Jason Coppel, an expert in public and procurement law, said it was ‘likely’ that the trustees breached their legal duties to act with reasonable skill and care, ‘in particular in relation to the conclusion of the construction contract with Bouygues’, although he added that a claim against the trustees would not be straightforward due to the difficulty of any potential claimant proving they had suffered loss.

While Coppel’s opinion is understood to be strongly denied by the trustees, Labour London Assembly member Tom Copley has now written to TfL commissioner Mike Brown, attaching Coppel’s legal opinion and calling on Brown to ‘halt any payment of further public money to the trust’ until TfL had obtained its own legal advice over whether trustees had indeed breached their legal duties.

Copley’s intervention was backed by McDonald, the second shadow cabinet member to raise serious questions over the actions of the Garden Bridge Trust in recent weeks after repeated calls for a new Parliamentary inquiry were made by shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne.

McDonald said: ‘It’s the right thing to do by taxpayers to attempt to recover every penny possible from Boris Johnson’s scandalous Garden Bridge vanity project.

‘The taxpayer’s interest must be the priority, and that means using whatever legal means are available in order to limit the cost to the public purse.’

In his letter to Brown, which was copied to London mayor Sadiq Khan and the Charity Commission and was dated August 7, Copley wrote: ‘It has come to my attention that the Garden Bridge Trust has yet to draw down the £9 million of public money provided by the DfT, but has recently made a request to do so which TfL is reviewing.

‘I’m sure you will have seen the opinion of Jason Coppel QC … in light of this opinion from an eminent QC, which I attach, I’m writing to ask you to halt any payment of further public money to the trust until you have sought legal advice as to whether TfL can withhold further payments on the grounds that the trustees may have breached their legal duties. If this is the case it should be the trustees that are liable, not the taxpayer.’

In its latest set of accounts, published recently by the Charity Commission after being submitted more than 150 days late, the trust estimated that it would request £5.5 million or less of the £9 million underwriting facility from TfL in order to meet its financial liabilities.

The DfT’s guarantee was controversially provided in 2016 by then transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin in the face of strong opposition from the department’s then permanent secretary Philip Rutnam.

Brown has yet to reply to Copley but a TfL spokesperson said: ‘The Garden Bridge Trust has written to TfL with a request for payment under the underwriting agreement. We are currently reviewing their request.’

The Garden Bridge Trust is currently in the process of winding up and trustees were unavailable for comment.

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More Than 100 Uber Driver Have Been Accused Of Sexual Assault In Last 4 Years

More than 100 Uber drivers have been accused of sexually assaulting or abusing their passengers in the past four years, shocking investigation reveals

More than 100 Uber drivers have been accused of sexually assaulting or abusing their passengers in the past four years.

The drivers were arrested, are wanted by police, or have been named in civil suits relating to the incidents, a CNN investigation has found.

At least 31 drivers have been convicted for crimes ranging from forcible touching and false imprisonment to rape, and dozens of criminal and civil cases are pending.

An investigation has found that 103 drivers have been accused of sexually assaulting or verbally abusing passengers 

Last year Uber driver John David Sanchez was sentenced to 80 years in prison after pleading guilty to 34 charges including rape and sodomy of an unconscious person.

Sanchez was initially arrested about a month after a woman told police she was raped by Sanchez in February of 2016.

he was fired by Uber but investigators later found a number of other women said they were also sexually assaulted by him in 2007, 2011 and 2013, but had not reported the attacks.

CNN found that that Sanchez is just one of at least 103 Uber drivers in the U.S. who have been accused of sexually assaulting or abusing their passengers in the past four years.

The network said its analysis came from a review of police reports, federal court records and county court databases for 20 major U.S. cities.

Five drivers across various states told CNN they were not provided any kind of sexual harassment or assault training.

In a statement, Uber said: 'These stories are horrific and our hearts go out to the victims.

Uber driver John David Sanchez was sentenced to 80 years in prison after pleading guilty to 34 charges including rape and sodomy of an unconscious person

'We worked with CNN to understand their findings and determined that Uber did 2.4 billion trips in the U.S. in that same period.

'But even one incident on our platform is too many which is why safety is Uber's top priority for 2018 and beyond.

'We recently strengthened our safety approach with new features including an emergency button, driver screening improvements, and the addition of the former Secretary of Homeland Security to head up Uber's Safety Advisory Board.

'This is just a start and we are committed to doing even more

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City Of London Police Appeal For Cyclist Involved In Road Traffic Collision With Uber Car To Come Forward

The City of London Police have launched an appeal to find a cyclist who was involved in a collision last week.

At approximately 6pm on Friday (20 April 2018), an argument took place between the driver of a black Toyota Prius and a cyclist on Bishopsgate.

The vehicle then accelerated and hit the rear wheel of the bike, causing the cyclist to fall to the floor.

The Uber car then mounted the pavement and hit some pedestrians. 

One pedestrian was injured as he tried to move out of the way.

The 45-year-old driver of the car, from Newham, London, was arrested at the scene for assault and dangerous driving.

 

Detective Constable Kevin Summers, from the City of London Police, said:

“We would like to speak to the cyclist involved so that we can hear his account of what happened and so that we can check on his welfare.

“If this was you or you know who he is, please get in touch with us.”

If you are the cyclist involved or if you have any information on this incident, or please call 0207 601 2222.

Alternatively, you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or give information via https://ift.tt/uUMqUx.

               

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