A taxi driver has been arrested for causing death by dangerous driving, according to a Brighton and Hove City Council report.
The unnamed cabbie’s licence was revoked in July, according to the report to the council’s Licensing Committee.
Last month another cabbie’s licence was revoked, the report said, while Sussex Police were “investigating a number of serious criminal offences” and had obtained security camera footage.
The report said that a “lone female passenger was sick” in a taxi. The driver stopped and was alleged to have used force to take the woman’s bag once she was out of the vehicle.
The report added: “He then started to drive off while she was trying to retrieve her bag back through the open driver’s window. She was dragged along by the vehicle.”
A third cabbie had his licence revoked in June and was also under investigation by the police “for assault causing ABH (actual bodily harm) after being involved in an altercation with another driver”.
And a fourth cabbie had his private hire licence revoked after receiving a six-month driving ban although the report did not name him or say what offence led to the driving ban.
Two former cabbies applied for a new licence but both were refused. Neither was named. One had been jailed for three years in 2019 for conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.
The other was tried for sexual assault and false imprisonment of a female passenger but acquitted by a jury.
The Licensing Committee report said: “His licence was revoked on (Monday) 15 February 2016 when information was received from Sussex Police that that he had been interviewed by them and admitted that he had engaged in sexual acts while working as a licensed driver in lieu of payment of a fare.”
The report also said that police and council licensing officers from Brighton and Hove as well as from Lewes District Council held several joint licensing enforcement operations from June to September.
On one date in June, they checked 23 vehicles in Brighton and Hove, nine of which were licensed by Chichester and Lewes councils.
Enforcement action was taken in relation to two vehicles licensed by Brighton and Hove City Council and four licensed by Lewes District Council.
A Chichester driver was fined and given three penalty points on his driving licence for having a bald tyre.
Another driver from Chichester was stopped after making an illegal right turn on to Brighton seafront during a separate operation in July.
He had two passengers in the back but no drivers’ badge, no licence and no insurance. His vehicle was seized and, the report said, he remained under investigation for licensing offences.
The report is due to be discussed by the council’s Licensing Committee at Hove Town Hall this week.
The committee is due to meet at 3pm on Thursday (13 October) and the meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
