POCKETED THOUSANDS: Dual licensed taxi driver loses licence over £3,282 school run invoice fraud
- Perry Richardson
- May 4
- 3 min read
A dual licensed hackney carriage and private hire driver has had his combined licence revoked by Middlesbrough Council’s Licensing Committee after being found to have submitted fraudulent invoices for school transport journeys that were never completed.
Middlesbrough Council’s Licensing Committee voted to revoke the combined hackney carriage and private hire vehicle driver’s licence of a driver at its meeting on 16 March 2026, following a finding that the driver had acted dishonestly in submitting invoices totalling £3,282.20 to the council’s Integrated Transport Team (ITT) for home-to-school journeys that had not taken place.
The driver, who had held his combined licence with Middlesbrough Council since 1 November 2023, was contracted by the council’s Integrated Transport Unit (ITU) to carry out home-to-school transport runs from 3 September 2025.
The contract was terminated by the ITU on 26 November 2025 after it emerged that invoices had been submitted for journeys during periods when the child passenger had been absent and the taxi cancelled by the child’s guardian. The driver was not entitled to payment for cancellations exceeding one consecutive day, as set out in the signed contract.
Licensing officers were first notified of the matter on 14 January 2026, when the council’s Legal Services team alerted them to information passed on by the ITU. The ITU confirmed it was seeking to recover the overpaid sum, which legal services had valued at £3,282.20. Officers subsequently raised the matter with police, who declined to pursue it and directed the ITU to refer the case to the council’s Trading Standards department instead.
At a formal interview on 17 February 2026, attended by the driver and his wife, the driver acknowledged he had invoiced the ITT in full throughout the period between 3 September and 19 November 2025, despite the cancellations. He stated this had been his first time contracting directly with the ITU rather than through a private operator, and that he had not fully understood the invoicing terms.
He maintained he had telephoned the ITU on multiple occasions to seek guidance, providing call logs showing 12 calls to the ITU between 30 September and 23 October 2025, and said he believed he had been told to continue invoicing in full while the matter was investigated. The driver confirmed that once he was informed the invoices were improper, he repaid the full amount, having initially done so in instalments.
The ITU, however, disputed the driver’s account of those communications. Officers confirmed that following further internal enquiries with all ITU staff, the only calls they could attribute to the driver related to queries about late payments when he first started the route, not to reporting cancellations. The ITU also confirmed that the driver completed only four full day journeys and four half day journeys across the contract period.
An ITU officer attending the committee hearing stated that the payment team, which handles a large number of contracts, had assumed that drivers invoice solely for work completed and that the overpayments appeared to have been processed without the cancellations being flagged.
The committee, having considered the full body of evidence including the call logs, email records, and the testimony of both the driver and the ITU officer, found on balance that the driver had acted dishonestly.
Members determined that the pattern of phone calls, several of which occurred multiple times on the same days, was more consistent with payment queries than with reporting passenger absences, and they rejected the driver’s claim that he had been instructed by the ITU to continue invoicing in full. The committee further concluded that the driver’s repayment of the money had only been prompted by the fact he had been identified, and that he would have continued to invoice improperly had the matter not come to light.
Invoking Section 61 of the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1976 and the Middlesbrough Council Private Hire and Hackney Carriage Policy 2022, the committee determined that the driver was not a fit and proper person to hold a licence in Middlesbrough.
The policy states that licence holders found to have intentionally misled the council will not be issued with a licence, and that a serious view is taken of conduct involving dishonesty, regardless of whether a criminal conviction has been obtained.
The revocation takes effect from the date of the formal written decision, which the committee indicated would be issued to the driver within five working days. The driver has the right to appeal to Teesside Magistrates’ Court within 21 days of receiving notice of the decision. Should any appeal be dismissed, the council has stated it would seek to recover legal costs of approximately £1,000 from the driver.
