Agenda item

The Applicant was in attendance with his wife.

The Licensing Officer outlined the background to the application as follows:

·         This was an application for private hire driver’s licence, the Applicant’s previous licence had expired in 2016  but no application had been made to renew it until June 2017 when it was refused by this Committee;

·         In his application, the Applicant had not made a full disclosure of his previous convictions;

·         The Applicant had a number of previous convictions, 10 in total, and the most relevant for the Committee were convictions listed in the report as 8-10 as these had not been considered before;

·         These convictions related to a road rage incident and breaches of community orders associated with the initial offence;

·         The Council’s Policy advised a period of 5 – 10 years free of  conviction before granting a licence in the case of a violent offences and 5-8 years for damage to property;

·         Officers were recommending that the application be refused in accordance with Council Policy.

The Applicant outlined his case as follows:

·         He regretted the Road Rage incident and confirmed that it was out of character to act in that way and he was not a violent person;

·         He was going through a bad period at the time of the incident as he lost both his parents in a short space of time and his wife was suffering from depression;

·         He was a father to 5 children and his wife and children had suffered as a result of his actions;

·         In relation to the community orders, he was not able to undertake the work due to illness but his sick note had not arrived in time;

·         In relation to the Road Rage incident, he had taken his children out early to buy sandwiches for a school trip and while approaching a roundabout, a car cut in front of him which nearly resulted in him losing control of the vehicle.  He was angry with the car driver for driving dangerously, especially as his children were passengers in his car and when both vehicles stopped at a set of traffic lights an argument escalated with both him and the other driver being abusive to each other.

The Applicant’s wife spoke in support of her husband:

·         They had been married for 22 years;

·         He was a good father and husband;

·         The incident was out of character;

·         He was a well-respected member of the community and often approached by his neighbours for help;

·         He had learnt from his mistakes.

At this point in the meeting the Applicant, his wife and the Licensing Officer withdrew from the meeting while the Committee considered the application.  They returned to the meeting to hear the decision.

RESOLVED – that the application for a Private Hire Driver’s Licence be REFUSED in accordance with the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 Section 51(1)(a) as the Applicant could not be considered a fit and proper person to hold a Private Hire Driver’s Licence for the following reasons:

Under the Council’s policy, for the offence of criminal damage, a period of 5 – 8 years free of conviction was usually recommended.  The Committee noted that there was also a conviction for the offence of using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear or provocation of violence.  Although that particular offence was not specified in the policy, it was considered that a similar period free of conviction should apply.

In this case the convictions were still less than 5 years old.  In respect of the criminal damage conviction a suspended prison sentence was imposed by the Court, which demonstrated that the offending conduct was considered to be at the more serious end of the scale.

The Committee was not satisfied that the Applicant had put forward any exceptional circumstances such as to justify a departure from Council policy being made.