Cabbie falling asleep at the wheel leads to local authorities signing up to new national licensing r

It's been revealed that new measures have now been put into place making it more difficult for cabbies who have had their licences revoked to submit applications to work in other parts of the country.

North West Leicestershire District Council has joined a number of other regulators in becoming one of the first local authorities in the country to sign up to a new licensing register.

The move is designed to improve public safety within the taxi and private hire industry, and came after Burton cabbie Ali Hassan attempted to obtain a license to operate in both North West Leicestershire and Derby.

After failing to disclose that his license had been revoked by East Staffordshire Borough Council, a licensing operative noticed that Hassan's previous operator license had been withdrawn after he fell asleep at the wheel, he also failed to disclose that he had accrued six penalty points for a speeding offence.

It was reported in the Derby Telegraph that the licensing operative had spotted the fraudulent application because of being previously employed by East Staffordshire Borough Council in the same role, and as a result recognised Hassan.

Hassan was subsequently found guilty of fraud by false representation at Leicester Magistrates' Court in January, and given a 12 month community order with a requirement that he completes 100 hours of unpaid work.

Due to this particular case, the district council signed up to the new National Register of Taxi and Private Hire Licence Revocations and Refusals, which is designed to prevent drivers from submitting licence applications while failing to declare historical licence revocations in other parts of the UK.

The register, which was also one of the recommendations listed by the All Party Parliamentary Group Report into Taxis will see the process of checking a driver's history in other areas made much simpler and make it significantly harder in obtaining a taxi or private hire license after making false claims on their application.

Image Source: Local Government Association