(a)

considered the report of the Director for Community Services;

(b)

heard from Mr Elliott; 

(c)

heard details of Mr Elliott’s motoring convictions;

(d)

taken into account that Mr Elliot –

?

verbally advised the Licensing Department of one conviction;

?

stated that he attended at the Licensing Department in January 2010 to produce his driving licence although no record can be found of his visit;

?

said that he could not provide his driving licence at the appropriate time to the police or Licensing Department as this was with the DVLA for an address amendment;

?

had accumulated a total of 12 penalty points but was not disqualified by the Court due to exceptional hardship the reasons being that it would lead to loss of employment as a taxi driver.

(e)

however councillors were concerned that –

?

Mr Elliott had accumulated 12 points in approximately 12 months since he changed your Private Hire Driver’s Licence to a Hackney Carriage Driver in September 2009. All points had therefore been acquired since he became a licensed taxi driver;

?

all four offences were required to be reported under the Hackney Carriage Byelaws and Private Hire Driver’s Licence conditions. No such reports were received at the Licensing office;

?

the Licensing Officer’s records showed that they made five requests by telephone and letter before Mr Elliott  finally attended some six months later with his DVLA counterpart. This appeared to indicate a degree of evasiveness or at best reluctance to reveal the true extent of his convictions to the Licensing Department as required under the Hackney Carriage byelaws and Private Hire Driver’s licence conditions;

?

since June 2009, Mr Elliott had been convicted of two speeding offences, an offence of using a motor vehicle with a defective tyre and an offence of driving whilst using a mobile telephone. These all give rise for serious concerns for public safety;

?

although Mr Elliott had motoring convictions when he applied to become a Private Hire Driver in September 2008, Councillors of the committee decided to trust that his offending days were over and gave him an opportunity to prove that this was so. Within 12 months he had committed another offence, soon followed by others;

?

on his own admission it was the driver’s responsibility to check the safety of the tyres but he failed to do so;

?

the last offence was committed only three months ago.