The revocation of the one vehicle restricted licence held by Pauline Hukin, trading as Red Fox Travel, by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Kevin Rooney without calling her to a public inquiry has been quashed by the Upper Tribunal, who have directed that the matter be considered at a public inquiry.
The TC revoked the licence held by Mrs Hukin, of College View, Pickering, on main occupation grounds following a review of the licence under the exceptional circumstances provisions in the legislation.
The Tribunal said that when Mrs Hukin’s applied for a licence she gave her main occupation as “minibus private hire”. Before the Tribunal she accepted that she did not have an occupation at the time of her application other than minibus hire.
She maintained that the phrase she had used was that used by all applicants at the material time. Further, she accepted that when she made the application, she was a pensioner. Such status, could not on any view, be considered to be a main occupation. It was plain and obvious that at the time of her application, Mrs Hukin did not satisfy the requirement that she had a main occupation other than the operation of the vehicles under the restricted licence and had her application been properly scrutinised by the relevant staff it would not have been granted.
In his decision the TC said that the licence needed to be brought to a managed end. He gave Mrs Hukin nine weeks to make a satisfactory application for a standard licence. Given that the restricted licence was granted in error, he was content to waive the application fee in this instance.
Before the Tribunal, Mrs Hukin said that she objected to being advised that she must apply for a standard licence. It was not her fault that she had been granted a licence in error. She had never been asked for details of her main occupation. She could not afford to employ a transport manager at £300 to £400 per month and in any event it was virtually impossible to find one in her area.
The Tribunal said that it might very well be that had Mrs Hukin provided adequate and reliable evidence of a main occupation when she was required to do so by the letter in September 2016, then the restricted licence would have continued. She did not provide such evidence, only submitting evidence of her pension entitlement.
The TC was correct in rejecting pensioner status as a main occupation. They found Mrs Hukin’s assertions that she had from the outset informed the Central Licensing Office (CLO) staff that her main occupation was that of a carer as being inherently unlikely.
Their concerns about this case arose out of the approach taken by the CLO and the TC to the difficult issue of a licence of 10 years standing which had been obtained without any deception or inappropriate conduct on the part of the licence holder.
Whilst there was no statutory provision giving an operator the right to a public inquiry in respect of a review, there would not be many cases where an existing operator would not be entitled to a hearing as a matter of fairness. However weak her position was in relation to main occupation, Mrs Hukin had a right to be heard.
