Middlesbrough Council's Licensing Committee granted a private hire vehicle driver's licence on Monday 7 September 2026. The applicant is not named. Members met at 1pm in the Mandela Room. Agenda for 7 September 2026 They excluded the press and public before the hearing. The case was application reference 27/26, a different application from the drink-driving refusal decided at the same meeting. Licensing Committee minutes of 7 September 2026
Under section 51 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, a private hire driver's licence may be granted only where the committee is satisfied the applicant is a fit and proper person. The decision records the council's overriding aim as the protection of the public. Members were satisfied, and they granted the licence.
Six convictions
The decision lists six offences.
On 7 August 2015 he drove with excess alcohol. On 15 December 2015 the court imposed a community order, a 23-month driving disqualification, £300 costs, a £60 victim surcharge and a criminal court charge of £520.
That same day he failed to surrender to custody. The conviction on 17 December 2015 carried no separate penalty.
On 7 February 2016 he failed to comply with the community order. On 10 March 2016 the court fined him £40 and continued the order.
Two convictions for battery arise from 2 June 2016. On 25 July 2016 the court made a 24-month community order, with unpaid work and rehabilitation activity requirement days. On 24 November 2016 it ordered an £85 victim surcharge, £100 compensation, £100 costs, and a restraining order lasting until 4 January 2018.
On 10 May 2026 he was convicted of exceeding a speed limit on a public road, an SP30 offence, dealt with by a fixed penalty and three penalty points. His account of that offence was that he had been travelling at 70mph in a 50mph zone, having taken 70mph to be the limit, and that it was his only speeding matter.
He declared the drink-driving and the battery matters on the licence application. A later DBS check and a DVLA licence check confirmed the conviction history.
The explanation given to the committee
An interview on 30 July 2026 is summarised in the decision. The first three offences are put down to the drink-driving case. He had been struggling with alcohol. He had driven to visit his partner while sober, and had then drunk while sitting in the parked vehicle. The same account places him on a public road in Whitby, with the keys, the engine off, and no intention of driving. He was waiting for his partner to return because he did not have a key to the property. He had little recollection of failing to surrender. He accepted that he had missed an appointment and been dealt with for it.
On the batteries, he had been drinking heavily when his partner came home with friends. An argument followed. She tried to restrain him, the argument became a physical altercation, and both of them ended up on the floor. A friend of his partner became involved, and he pushed or shoved her. He maintained that he was innocent of the second battery. He had pleaded not guilty to that charge, which is why it was concluded later than the first. He accepted the conviction and described his behaviour as unacceptable.
At the hearing he described the main offending period as an extremely difficult time. In that account he had lost two close friends to suicide, his mother had become seriously ill, and he had been made unemployed. He was deeply embarrassed by how he had dealt with those difficulties. He presented himself as having changed, drinking only on special occasions and concentrating on his family and on keeping fit at the gym. Members were told that he had completed counselling and the drink-drive rehabilitation course, that he remains with the partner involved in one of the batteries, that they now have children, that no similar incident had occurred in the ten years since, and that he had no further criminal conviction after 2016 apart from the speeding offence.
Why the committee departed from its policy
The committee used the Middlesbrough Council Private Hire and Hackney Carriage Policy 2022, including Appendix G on the relevance of convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings, complaints and character.
For drink-driving, the policy requires at least seven years free of conviction after the end of any sentence or driving ban before an application will be considered. Members recorded that this period had lapsed, and that the conviction was more than ten years old. They still described the offence as unacceptable.
For an offence of violence, a licence would normally be refused until at least ten years had passed since the sentence ended. Because the restraining order ran until January 2018, the committee put that ten-year period at 2028. Where an applicant has more than one offence of violence, the policy states that a licence will not be granted.
Members found good reasons to depart from the policy in this case. The two battery convictions, though entered on different dates, came from the same incident, and the committee took that into account. The violence was extremely serious. He was remorseful, had taken full responsibility, understood the severity, and was deeply embarrassed by his past. The conduct appeared isolated to that period, and it coincided with the personal difficulties described at the hearing. The only later conviction was for speeding.
The decision records the conclusion in these terms.
"The Committee did not see the applicant as a risk to the public, but rather they considered the applicant a fit and proper person to hold a licence. Therefore, the Committee departed from the Policy and granted the licence."