Image: Taxi stock image
Tighter taxi regulation to be enforced as measures to protect the vulnerable continue after Rotherham’s history of child sexual exploitation (CSE), Rotherham Council announces.
The main changes to the licensing policy are refresher training for drivers on safeguarding, changes to driver identification for ensured visibility, improved vehicle signage to easily identify Rotherham licensed vehicles and DBS checks for staff working in taxi operators.
Councillor Michael Bennet-Sylvester for Dalton and Thrybergh said: “Following the Rotherham CSE scandal, Rotherham is an area of ever-watchfulness.
“The proposal is a good practical set of measures and I particularly welcome making operators tell customers if they are to be sent an out-of-town registered car.”
The proposal comes after concerns around taxi safety arose after a 2013 report investigating child sexual exploitation in Rotherham found criminals using taxis to help commit atrocious crimes.
The 2013 Jay Report found ‘documents of children being violently raped, beaten, forced to perform sex acts in taxis and cars when they were being trafficked between towns, and serially abused by large numbers of men’.
In 2015, another report conducted by Louise Casey found that ‘Rotherham has not taken, and does not take, sufficient steps to ensure only fit and proper persons are permitted to hold a taxi licence.
‘As a result, it cannot provide assurances that the public, including vulnerable people, are safe’.
This led to Rotherham Borough council in 2015 enforcing policy, deemed the highest level in the UK, for taxi and private hire licensing.
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