Public At Risk Part 2 : Taxi Scandal, Riddle Of Firms All Based In Single Office

Above a diner and accessible only via a back door off a dingy alley stands a small and unremarkable office.

To the untrained eye, it is the home of a local minicab firm, Wednesfield Cars, whose manager is adamant that his is the only business operating there.

Wolverhampton council knows better. It has licensed 13 competing Minicab companies to run their operations from the very same office.

In the past three years, Wolverhampton has become the go-to local authority for thousands of drivers from all corners of England in search of a minicab licence. In 2015, it issued 852; this year, 9,388. The same period saw the number of minicab companies licensed to operate in the city climb from 12 to 100.

In total, 58 of those companies are listed as operating from one of four Wolverhampton addresses. When The Times visited, there was no trace of 52 of them.

The council has not merely licensed dozens of hard-to-spot firms at those locations. It has also issued licences to thousands of drivers who work in other English towns for companies with exactly the same business names as the Wolverhampton operators. 

Those firms run visible minicab operations in places including Birmingham, Manchester, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby, Mansfield, Nottingham, Cambridge, Windsor & Maidenhead and Swale, in Kent.

One of the four addresses has for the past few years been the operations hub for a genuine local company called ABC Cars and its sister ABC Countdown Cars. According to the council, an additional 17 minicab firms operate at the same place. Not so, says Richard Halsall, ABC’s manager, who said he had never heard of any of them.

Licensing experts have suggested an explanation. Under the Deregulation Act 2015, minicab companies operating anywhere are entitled to subcontract work to other firms, with one proviso.

If a minicab firm in Manchester wants to use drivers and vehicles licensed by Wolverhampton, the pre-booked work they are given must be sub-contracted to the firm by a Wolverhampton minicab operator. So it would be convenient for the Manchester firm to be able to show that all the jobs it gives its Wolverhampton drivers were sub-contracted by its sister firm, of the same name, in the West Midlands city.

If that sister operator has no employees and runs no vehicles, the law does not seem to care. This loophole has been embraced by Wolverhampton council, whose “efficient” approach to licensing has proved highly lucrative. Its income from taxi and minicab licences rose from £263,000 in 2014-15 to £2.2 million in 2017-18.

Last night the council defended its conduct, insisting that it applied stringent standards to drivers it licenses and claiming that its popularity was due to swift and efficient online applications.

The authority’s licensing committee chairman, Alan Bolshaw, said its approach complied with relevant legislation and, by embracing digitalisation, was far more advanced that the “very traditional and rigid licensing practices” used by other local authorities.

To suggest that a minicab operator needed to have employees, drivers and vehicles in the area where it was based was a concept that belonged, he said, to the days of “long-winded and outdated processes”.

The 52 minicab operators that did not appear to exist at the four addresses were entirely legitimate. Each was, he said, represented at its registered operating base by a digital recording system, in the form of a box. “Why are there so many vehicles and drivers on the roads licensed by Wolverhampton council? Because we have the best licensing system in the UK,” he boasted.

Other councils would beg to disagree, particularly those hit by a recent influx of Wolverhampton-licensed minicab drivers and cars. Many, as was the case with the earlier surge in Rossendale-plated vehicles, have voiced safeguarding concerns.

Licensing officers in Southampton were contacted by Hampshire police investigating the alleged rape of a female passenger by a local driver. The council did not have him on its books and it turned out that he had been licensed by Wolverhampton.

In Rotherham, the town hit by a mass sex-grooming scandal in which minicab drivers were implicated, more than a dozen men, including five refused licences by the council for reasons including safeguarding concerns, have applied for Wolverhampton licences.

Birmingham councillors claim that Wolverhampton is “more lenient” than its neighbours. A Coventry licensing committee member complained that “treating taxi licensing as a cash cow undermines public safety”. The West Midlands authority was handing out minicab licences “like sweeties”.

Nottingham’s chief licensing officer, Richard Antcliff, accused Wolverhampton of exploiting a “farcical loophole” in the regulations. “Somewhere along the line, Wolverhampton has lost its moral compass,” he said.

The driver arrested in Southampton had no convictions and lost his licence immediately, Mr Bolshaw said. Wolverhampton had “worked extensively” with Rotherham council and the National Crime Agency “to ensure any drivers implicated in child exploitation do not gain Wolverhampton licences”.

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Public At Risk As Thousands Of Minicabs Exploit Loophole In Law...Part One.

Public is 'at risk' as local councils hand licences to thousands of PH Minicab drivers from across Britain while failing to check their criminal records

Rapists and other convicted sex offenders have been given licences to operate as Minicab drivers by councils that have failed continuously to check criminal records, it has been claimed.

Some local authorities have also taken hundreds of thousands of pounds in Taxi licensing fees from applicants, knowing they did not have the cab ranks to accommodate them.

An investigation found serious failings at Rossendale, Lancashire, and a legal loophole allegedly exploited by Wolverhampton.

Rapists and other convicted sex offenders have been given minicab licences by councils that have failed to check criminal records, it has been claimed.

British Asian singer, Dhanraj Singh was jailed for nine months after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman in the back of his Minicab .

The chart-topping musician, who was a Minicab driver by day in his hometown of Nottingham, assaulted the intoxicated woman while dropping her home in 2014.

The 24-year-old father-of-two was granted a licence in 2012, but was not licensed by the city council, according to The Times.

 

He instead applied for a licence from Gedling council, despite not living in the area.  According to the Times, Gedling council granted some 492 licences in 2011 and 1,047 in 2015.

The court heard Singh, who went by the stage name San2, kissed and touched her inappropriately, against her will.

The council revoked his licence as soon as it was notified of the offence. 

Rossendale licenced over 3,700 Minicab drivers last year, despite having rank space for just 75 vehicles, while in Wolverhampton, dozens of minicab firms across Britain have been licensed as local operators, despite having no employees or vehicles in the city.

The vast majority of the drivers licensed by Rossendale did not live in the borough.

Many lived in northern England and the Midlands, but they applied to Rossendale for licences because the council was seen as a ‘soft touch’, it was claimed. 

Northern cities are understood to impose stricter tests and requirements for licences, with some charging higher fees, so drivers flocked to the small Lancashire town.

The investigation by The Times also found that councils issued thousands of licences to drivers, even when it was known some had convictions. 

More than 330 alleged sex assaults by minicab drivers suspects were reported to police in 2016-17.

Councils are losing track of drivers’ criminal records or hiring drivers knowing of their criminal pasts, The Times reported.

In the past decade, 131 drivers have been found guilty of sex offences against passengers.  

One council in Nottinghamshire issued hundreds of Minicab licences to men outside its area, one of whom later carried out a sex attack on a passenger.

Drivers with Rossendale licences have been convicted of offences in York, Milton Keynes and Manchester, the paper said. 

An investigation found serious failings at Rossendale, Lancashire, and a legal loophole allegedly exploited by Wolverhampton (file image)

Assaults by Uber and private hire workers soared nationally 20 per cent in three years, but in London the figure rose by over 50%.

The concerning figures from 23 of England and Wales' 43 police forces show that 337 attacks were reported between April 2016 and March 2017.

Most of the reports were in London, rising from 142 to 156, a freedom of information request found.

 

After a whistleblower raised concerns, Rossendale’s licensing manager was suspended and left the authority, it was reported. They take the money and while victims lives are shattered, these people are allowed to just walk away.

In a change of policy, staff were told no licences could be renewed unless the applicant presented a recent DBS (disclosure and barring service) certificate.

[But in London, 13,000 Uber drivers have been licensed with fake DBS certificates, which TfL knew about and swept under the carpet under the watch of General Manager Helen Chapman].

There were calls for an independent inquiry into the whistleblower’s allegations last night. But the council said they had been investigated and were unfounded.

It said it was confident that it had not issued any licences ‘to anyone who should not have received one’.

Since 2016, Rossendale has introduced measures to cut the licences it issues. Wolverhampton council said it operated ‘robust and rigorous’ vetting and offered ‘the best taxi licensing system in the UK’. 

This claim is highly dubious as recently Winchester Taxi drivers have been complaining that their area has been swamped by drivers obtaining licenses from the more lenient Wolverhampton regulator with the vehicles using cross border hiring regulations to work outside their licensing area.

More In Part Two

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Why Have TfLTPH Given A PH Operators Licence To A Company That Doesn't Dispatch PH Work ?

A few weeks ago I contacted TfLTPH on Twitter, reporting a Toyota Prius which had a small advert on the rear, promoting the car rental company Otto Cars. This is something I've done frequently and have always in the past been met with the same reply "thank you for reporting this, we will pass on to compliance. 

The last time I reported this I got a different reply, "Otto cars is now a licensed private hire operator, and as such can have his name on his vehicles.... 

I do believe the TfLTPH is not playing by the rules!

Although, we regularly see the likes of Addison Lee, displaying their name on the rear window (which is allowed).... Private hire cannot have adverts on the body work. This has been explained in grant detail by TfL notice on more than one occasion. 

Having said this....how on earth have Otto cars been granted a private hire licence???

As far as we know, Otto cars do not advertise a passenger service under the name Otto Cars Ltd, and do not dispatch work. Virtually all their cars are rented out to work on the Uber app as they are an Uber preferred partner!

However, they do advertise the fact they have teamed up with a company called FarePillot. This is an free app that informs Uber drivers which areas are busiest, and also keeps a record of their Uber takings.

So if they do not dispatch work, and only rent cars to Uber drivers, why have they applied for and received a private hire operators licence?

What is TfLTPH up to in granting such licence?

I was under the impression that before any PH company was granted an operators licence, their operation was inspected and scrutinised by TfLTPH compliance, to make sure that everything was above board and legal. 

Perhaps Helen Chapman's replacement Graham Robinson would care to answer the question, "How have TfLTPH granted an operators licence to a company that doesn't dispatch private hire jobs, but rents vehicles to drivers to use on the illegal Uber platform???"

We know that TfLTPH have been bending over backwards to support any form of operation in competition with black cabs and it's obvious they are heavily into our demise. 

They knew back in 2013 that Uber were operating illegally and said nothing. They have allowed 13,000 Uber drivers to carry on working even though they know and have known for over a year that these drivers have fake DBS certificates. 

It has also been bought to our attention that NWCars of Cricklewood London NW2, have started to put door and boot adds on their vehicles contra to the Private Hire vehicles act 1998. There vehicles have been seen all round central London. 

Taxi Leaks editor has recently written to Graham Robison asking for an explain action as to why TfL took no compliance action over the fact that a black Taxi only app was dispatching private hire work to Private hire drivers without being in possession of a private hire operators license?

So far Mr Robinson has failed to reply!

We will post the letter sent later this week. 

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