Fife Council regulations and licensing committee chairman Gerry McMullan has welcomed a Court of Session ruling which backed its refusal to renew a Kirkcaldy taxi driver’s licence.
He said, “I am delighted at the court’s decision. Our committee goes into great detail before granting a licence to anyone who comes before us and I am delighted common sense has prevailed on our initial decision.”
When Robert Ewing applied for a licence in 2006 he had been given a £60 fixed penalty and three points for speeding. Early the following year, the committee granted a taxi driver’s licence with a warning.
However, the committee was unaware that in October 2006 he had committed a further speeding offence, again being fined £60 and incurring three penalty points.
When he applied to renew his licence in February 2008, the second speeding offence came to the committee’s notice. This time the licence was renewed, but with a severe warning.
But the following month police saw him driving a taxi with four passengers in the back seat, which could accommodate three at most. One passenger was sitting on another’s lap.
Mr Ewing was given a third £60 fixed penalty and three points. He applied again to renew his licence but the police objected on the basis of his three driving offences.
That November the committee unanimously refused to renew it on the grounds that members felt he was not a fit and proper person to hold a licence.
Mr Ewing appealed that decision through Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court. Presented to the sheriff was a precis of previous decisions made by the committee on similar applications which Mr Ewing said had not been put before the committee.
This was said to show the committee had granted licences to applicants who had more penalty points than Mr Ewing and that members regularly gave at least one further warning.
The sheriff did reject pleas that the committee had been in breach of natural justice but believed there had been “a huge disparity” in the range of disposals made by the committee in such applications.
Sheriff Grant McCulloch quashed the committee’s decision and Mr Ewing’s licence was granted.
But the committee appealed to the Court of Session and Lord Justice Clerk, sitting with Lord Emslie and Lord Brodie, sustained that appeal and restored the committee’s original decision.
Lord Justice Clerk said the committee was entitled to determine Mr Ewing was not a fit and proper person to hold a licence, given he had incurred nine penalty points in 20 months. He added that the sheriff had erred in his reasoning, having concluded the committee had turned down the application after one misdemeanour.
He believed the sheriff should have declined to receive the precis as it contained evidence which had not been put before the committee. But, having received it, he should have given no weight to it.
Lord Justice Clerk said, “I can see nothing in the precis that could justify his concluding that the disparities in the range of disposals, however ‘huge’ they may have seemed to him, gave the objective onlooker any cause for concern.”
He also said the sheriff had erred in the conclusion that the decision appealed against was so out of line with all those in the precis that the decision must be considered arbitrary and as such unreasonable.
He said, “In my view there was nothing arbitrary about the decision at all. It was amply warranted on the evidence.”
Mr McMullan said, “I fully appreciate the local sheriff courts are inundated with cases and many appeals may slip through. However, our committee does take the standard of taxi drivers very seriously when it comes to passenger safety and I have to say I am delighted, through the good working relationship we have with the Fife Taxi Association and the police, to be improving standards of vehicles and drivers for passenger safety.”