Uber’s licence appeal was due to start on 6 July. But now we hear their appeal has been adjourned until September when it’s hoped the courts will once again be fully operational.
This means that the present legal system, has allowed Uber to continue operating unlicensed, free from licensing fees for over three years while waiting for their appeal to be heard.
At the first hearing, Uber were controversially given an 18 months probationary licence. Many in the Taxi trade thought that the verdict from Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot was unsafe as there were proven financial links between her husband Baron James Arbuthnot.
In an appeal of the verdict we were told there are different types of conflicts of interest...Actual, and Assumed.
The appeal against the verdict was thrown out after the conflict was found to be assumed.
This has all come about simply because TfL never had the guts to revoke Uber’s licence when all the complaints first came to light. TfLTPH decided to just let their existing 5 year licence run its course and refuse a renewal on grounds Thad the company was unfit to be a PH operator.
In the eight years since they were first licensed, there have been hundreds of passengers raped by drivers, thousands of sexual assaults, customer accounts have been hacked, passengers overcharged... plus it came to light and exposed by the Sunday Times that 13,000 of the drivers had fake criminal record check certificates.
Helen Chapman desperately tried to dismiss the 13,000 fake DBS criminal record certificates as a myth at a senior reps meeting. She asked where this figure had come from....it was pointed out the the statistic actually came from TfL themselves in an FOI request made by the Sunday Times. The story also broke on Tim Fenton’s Zelo Street Blog.
All these offences have more or less been swept under TfL’s carpet. The simple fact is Thousands of lives have been ruined and TfL failed to act.
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