As a loyal Conservative, I would find it hard to vote for anything else. I can think of few things worse for Welwyn-Hatfield than a Labour-run council. When I was a Labour councillor (before I became a Conservative), the council was just recovering from a Labour administration that took the council £3 million over budget and which Conservative John Dean’s leadership of the council had to rectify. Even so, in my recent interactions with Welwyn-Hatfield’s taxi team they have fallen well short of what I would expect at every level, failing to deal adequately with serious allegations of systemic racism and maladministration.

As we approach the elections, Conservatives hope to rely on the support of small business, such as taxi drivers. In Welwyn-Hatfield unfortunately they are demonstrating outside the council offices (archive). Why? The (Conservative) County council has come up with an ill-conceived plan to move the taxi rank away from the station where it currently rests. The Borough council has been asked to oppose the plans and it is far from clear on where it stands. Conservative Executive Member Fiona Thomson said it would be “inappropriate to comment”. Because alienating a core vote is exactly what we want before local elections.

According to an article in the Welwyn-Hatfield Times, Labour PPC for Welwyn-Hatfield Rosie Newbigging “warned of risks to elderly, frail and disabled people who would have to cross a busy road to get a taxi”. I think Ms Newbigging is ignoring other important groups. What about well-nourished Conservative law bloggers? When I stagger out of the train station full of foie gras and scotch why should I have to walk further? Commuters are an important vote too!

But the controversy is only the tip of the iceberg. I was recently asked to provide pro-bono support to a taxi driver who was being accused of license misconduct. In fairness, he admits to overcharging, albeit he says that it was in error. It is likely this is true as he gave receipts. I did agree to an initial look at the papers. Suspiciously, the council had not sent the driver a transcript of an interview they had with him under caution (under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, usually known as PACE). When I became involved it was only 6 days before the hearing. When the driver emailed the council and consented to a copy being sent to me, council officer Cheryl Bridges claimed she could not give it to me because of “data protection” even whilst admitting to having the consent in front of her.

When I finally received the interview transcript (after further representations) it read like something from Blackadder. The driver had admitted he had charged extra because he had to drive a long way to collect the customer. In reply, Hackney Carriage Officer James Vaughan said this, “So the more vulnerable the customer is the more you can charge them, is that how it works?”. He literally invented an allegation of predation on the spot and out of whole cloth.

The irony is of course that the taxi driver is a vulnerable Muslim migrant with English good enough to run a taxi but not well equipped to protect himself from a jumped up, wannabe-traffic cop like Vaughan. The person who had complained about the driver had produced a witness statement referring to two incidents, one to which there was an independent female witness. The officers had not contacted her. I did. Her evidence points to the driver being a kindly man (if not well educated) dealing with a rude and frightening customer.

I decided to assist further and I started by looking for the council’s Convictions Policy for taxi drivers. This is the policy that says what the council will do if a taxi driver breaks the law. Most councils have a separate policy but the local council has lazily incorporated it into the Driver Application Handbook. The policy covers most crimes that a taxi driver could have committed … except for a lot of the taxi offences like overcharging (under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847).

Every other local council I looked at has a policy on this, including Stevenage, Luton and East Hertfordshire. The omission is an appalling failure of governance by officers and the councillors who supervise them. Fiona Thomson is of course the relevant member of the council executive. Nick Long is the relevant corporate director. More practically, many taxi drivers are migrants who are unlikely to find a 200 year-old law accessible and might benefit from a more extensive, easy-read, guidance pack.

The council’s Enforcement policy envisages an informal approach for minor, technical offences but the council officer who wrote the report on the investigation, Cheryl Bridges, neither followed it nor mentioned the policy. She simply encouraged the councillors to revoke the driver’s license. Ms Bridges wrote –

“2.2, The Committee is not punishing the individual or removing their livelihood but it is diligently exercising its duty to protect the public from harm”

So I helped the driver complain to the council under its complaints procedure, including finding the lady who witnessed one of the incidents referred to by the man who had complained about the taxi driver and two men (one Caucasian, one not) who complained of racism by one of the officers involved in the case. I will not identify which officer that is here, as the allegations are as yet unproven. The witnesses felt council decisions relating to taxi drivers were being skewed by racism. One claimed to have heard racist remarks. Both men produced witnesss statements, but one later complained of intimidation.

The female witness was especially relevant. In the first alleged incident, the member of the public who complained about the driver said he was not warned he would be sharing a taxi with her. She does not paint a picture of a predator but instead of a kindly taxi driver keen to help an elderly man. She says that she heard the complainant call the taxi driver directly and she agreed he could share as he was elderly, as opposed to having to wait. The complainant agreed also. To that extent her account contradicts the complaint about the driver.

The way the council has dealt with it so far is astonishing. The initial investigating officer was Joanna Harding the council’s Head of Public Health and Protection. She attempted to meet with the taxi driver who had complained, alone, despite his being a criminal suspect and despite the complaint being about the criminal investigation. He was written to in an Urdu letter which was not copied to me and which did not mention any rights of accompaniment or even clearly state what the meeting was about, except that it concerned the complaint. After I raised this (and she was named in the witness statement of another taxi driver), the council’s Head of Planning Colin Haigh was made the investigating officer. Even so, Harding’s boss Nick Long (an Executive Director at the council) claimed her actions were totally okay in a letter on 29 March 2019, “[…] this is not a criminal matter […]”.

After emailing Councillor Fiona Thomson in March I had heard nothing from her. In fact I heard nothing until Grant Shapps MP asked the Leader of the Council, twice, to respond. After getting an extremely short response I sent her the two witness statements making allegations of racism. She told me on 06 April 2019 10:14, “I will look into this further after the weekend”. I subsequently heard nothing more from her.

We received the complaint outcome. The witness statements filed were not included in Mr Haigh’s report, which rejected the key complaints and did not address some of them. For example, it did not clearly address the invention by Mr Vaughan in the middle of the PACE interview. Instead of dealing with the allegation of predation it only dealt with the allegation of overcharging, which was a straw man as it had been admitted. Mr Haigh also claimed the lady witness was not relevant, despite her being a witness as to one of the specific incidents referred to in the complaint about the driver.

I put these allegations to the council before publication and I warned them that as per Mawdsley v Guardian Newspapers Ltd [2002] EWHC 1780, prospective libel claimants are under a duty to mitigate their losses. In this case they could mitigate their losses 100% by correcting in any errors. The argument has especial strength here because the council has professional in-house lawyers and media officers.

The allegations were not denied. The draft article was originally sent with a deadline of April 15th. The council’s media team responded on 15 April 2019 with a vague email referring to ‘inaccuracies’ and stating that they would take advice but failed to give any date for a response. On 17th the council’s media team wrote to me stating that they were “continuing to discuss this internally”. They said that, “We hope to be able to respond after the Easter bank holiday weekend”. Therefore I extended the deadline to 23rd April 2019. I offered a further extension on the day, saying I would delay if they gave a “reasonable” “calendar date” for a response. Eventually the council’s media team responded as follows,

“Having reviewed your proposed article, we remain concerned about several significant factual inaccuracies in it and therefore do not consider it appropriate for publication.

We do not propose to respond further on this matter.”

They did not identify or particularise the alleged ‘inaccuracies’ meaning I am unable to correct them. I do not believe the council or the individuals concerned have taken reasonable steps to mitigate their losses.

The office of Grant Shapps MP to his great credit did respond to me stating he would be keeping a watching brief. He did not seek to defend the council nor did he express confidence in Councillor Thomson.

I am not a first hand witness to any of the incidents. The only primary fact I have to go on are James Vaughan’s inappropriate statements in the PACE transcript. I do not know if the other two drivers who have complained of racist behaviour by council officers are correct. I do however think that not addressing those complaints adequately or mentioning the statements in any of the responses to the complaint is maladministration. The witness statements have been drawn to the attention of three senior managers, Joanna Harding, Nick Long and Colin Haigh. They were sent to Councillor Fiona Thomson. They were served in good time for Mr Haigh’s complaints outcome. The fact that Mr Haigh’s response does not mention them is evidence of a failing process.

Regardless of whether or not any individual is racist, the failure to address those witness statements at all is a failure of the council’s processes. Failing to address complaints of racism adequately has the effect that the council has been systemically racist, regardless of whether any individual is. Even now, it is not clear what if any action will be taken. Since I sent the first draft of this article one of the council’s solicitors has told me she has the witness statements but has not indicated any action to me, nor timescale nor process for doing so.

A common theme amongst complainants that I have spoken to is that they feel complaints are not dealt with adequately. I have been driven to the opinion the local council’s taxi licensing / Hackney Carriage function is clearly not governed adequately and its handling of complaints is indeed not adequate.

The story does not end with the complaint however. The taxi driver who feels mistreated, a Conservative Party member, has served a letter of claim on the council. It may be that the local authority will have to explain its behaviour in a different court to the one they were expecting. Even if the claim eventually goes nowhere, it is incredibly embarrassing in the run-up to local elections to have a Conservative council being sued by a Party member!

It is not the only complaint I have heard about Fiona Thomson. Thomson was at one time a trustee of the local charity Home-Start in Hertfordshire. The charity was heavily dependent on local authority funding. When that funding was lost due to budget cuts, several staff and volunteers were dismayed to learn that the trustees as a whole did not have an emergency meeting, or take any particularly dynamic action, for example to seek alternative revenues. The charity later made multiple redundancies. Thomson has since resigned as a trustee.

These allegations and the draft article were put to Ms Thomson and she has not denied them as per the above.

In the course of the assistance I identified inadequate policies, inappropriate behaviour by a council officer in a criminal interview and multiple allegations of racism that were not addressed. The buck for that stops with Nick Long and Fiona Thomson. I would like a Conservative administration that had not upset nearly all the taxi drivers, not to mentioned every commuter who learns of the taxi rank plans. Perhaps it could start by shedding some of its weaker links at officer and staff level.

In the past I have campaigned hard for the local Conservative councillors team, including in Handside Ward which Thomson represents. I have knocked on doors and delivered leaflets. I feel that the least Fiona Thomson could have done is respond adequately. I will still be loyally supporting the Conservatives but there are plenty of places to campaign and I think Handside will not be at the top of the priorities list.

Prior to publication, I gave the council an opportunity to respond and dispute any facts. The council indicated it would respond but despite extensions of time it failed to do so. Nonetheless if the council responds after the deadline this article will be updated as appropriate.

If you are concerned about the issues raised why not email the Council’s Chief Executive Rob Bridge (r.bridge@welhat.gov.uk) or local Conservative MP Grant Shapps (grant@shapps.com)?

[Edited 24/04/2019 to correct a minor typo]