Buckinghamshire Council has successfully defended in court a decision to revoke a private hire taxi driver\u2019s licence after he was caught using a mobile phone whilst driving.<\/p>\n
Mr Azhar Iqbal of Littleworth Road, High Wycombe, was stopped on the A355 by Thames Valley Police officers, after he was seen handling and speaking into a mobile phone whilst driving in August 2022.<\/p>\n
Mr Iqbal failed to notify Buckinghamshire Council at the time of the offence, contrary to the conditions of his private hire licence. He eventually notified the council\u2019s Licensing Team in April 2023, and subsequently Mr Iqbal\u2019s private hire licence was revoked by Buckinghamshire Council on 12 October 2023.<\/p>\n
Mr Iqbal unsuccessfully attempted to have his original conviction overturned. On 19 December 2023, after hearing evidence from the attending police officers and watching recordings from officers\u2019 body worn cameras, magistrates said they were satisfied that he was guilty of the offence. He was issued with 6 DVLA points and ordered to pay a fine and court costs totalling \u00a3774.<\/p>\n
Further to Mr Iqbal\u2019s revocation, Buckinghamshire Council received an appeal against the decision to revoke his licence which was heard at Wycombe Magistrates on Friday 26 April 2024. <\/p>\n
The District Judge found the conviction for using a mobile phone was sufficient to justify revoking Mr Iqbal\u2019s licence in accordance with the council\u2019s policy and that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify an alternative decision. <\/p>\n
Mr Iqbal was ordered to pay Buckinghamshire Council\u2019s costs in the case of \u00a35,500.<\/p>\n
Mark Winn, Cabinet Member for Homelessness and Regulatory Services, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cBuckinghamshire Council recognises the serious risk presented by mobile phone use while driving. It is a significant distraction and substantially increases the risk of the driver crashing \u2013 putting passengers, pedestrians, and other road users at risk of serious harm. Importantly, the handling of mobile phones while driving is completely avoidable and there are many hands-free solutions available.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe council expects its licensed drivers to maintain professional standards, comply with the law and protect public safety. Licensed drivers who are found driving while using a phone by hand can expect to have their licence revoked in line with our policy.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Buckinghamshire Council has successfully defended in court a decision to revoke a private hire taxi driver\u2019s licence after he was caught using a mobile phone whilst driving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}