Plea to council to crack down on rogue taxi drivers
PASSENGERS have urged Kirklees Council to heed the lessons of Huddersfield’s sex-grooming scandal and crack down on rogue taxi drivers.
They have called for the introduction of spot checks to identify cowboy drivers, as well as a focus on good vehicle maintenance.
And they say no girl or woman should be put in a vulnerable position by being transported by a male driver who has a criminal conviction.
The council is preparing to adopt a new policy for hackney carriage and private hire drivers, designed to ensure passenger safety.
In the run-up to embracing the blueprint it asked licence holders and members of the public for their feedback.
Only a handful of responses were received. However some of them were damning in their criticism of the council.
One, from a member of the public, condemned the council for allowing the standard of drivers to deteriorate and made a connection with some of the individuals convicted for rape and trafficking as part of the grooming gangs.
The person wrote: “Some men were convicted. Some were not. Some knew what was going on, and for various reasons did not help the victims.
“For this reason I will never again ride in a taxi where I believe the driver to be complicit in these crimes.”
Last October, 20 men, some of them taxi drivers, were sentenced to more than 200 years in prison after being found guilty of child sex offences.
Ringleader Amere Singh Dhaliwal was convicted of 54 offences against 11 girls.
The person continued: “I believe that Kirklees Council does not investigate these drivers further because it (the council) would find it difficult to fulfil its commitments to conveying children to school where trans- port is not normally provided.
“In other words, to vulnerable children. To vulnerable children. Yes. I repeated that.”
The same person related an incident in which they had travelled in a taxi driven by a man who discussed a friend ‘who had been arrested for terrorist activities and who came from Crosland Moor.’
“If the drivers have any convictions, they should not be granted a licence. I do not, and I do not want anyone I care about, to get into a car with a felon.
“I and everyone in Kirklees should be able to trust the driver to be a person who will take my life from here to there. My life. Do you get that?”
In another response a member of the public wrote: “In an ideal world anyone belonging to a group or organisation, however loosely they are aligned, who regards females as second-class citizens would never be permitted to be in a one-to-one situation with either a vulnerable girl or lady.”
They concluded: “I have attempted to be as diplomatic as possible.”
In its response the council said it noted the concerns raised and stated that the licensing service ‘takes its safeguarding duties seriously and investigates any and all concerns raised.”
It added: “Once an investigation is completed the appropriate action is taken against [the] licence holder.”