A private hire driver who continued to pick up passengers despite being suspended has been handed a four-week ban.
Usman Shoukat was pulled over in December last year as he had failed to display required signs in his rear windows and his car was “filthy.”
He was given a suspension and told he couldn’t operate until the problems had been fixed, but he was spotted carrying passengers by police later that night.
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Mr Shoukat claimed there had been a misunderstanding and he didn’t realise he had been suspended. Councillors on the city’s licensing committee handed him a four-week suspension today.
Councillor Alex Wilson, who chairs the committee, said the driver had been “putting the public at risk” as once he was suspended his insurance was invalid.
He added: “When someone says to you you’re suspended, that means you do not do anything else, you don’t pick up other passengers.
“You said in your statement you were shaking due to being approached by police, but you still carried on. If you were that badly shaken, surely you wouldn’t have carried on driving.”
Mr Shoukat was pulled over during a joint initiative between the council’s taxi and private hire enforcement unit and Police Scotland, after he was seen on St Vincent Street with “no rear signage displayed.”
An enforcement officer told councillors how the sign was found lying in the back of the car, which was “filthy.”
He was suspended and “instructed he couldn’t operate until the vehicle was presented back to officers with the defects rectified.”
However, later that night Police Scotland witnessed Mr Shoukat carrying passengers while suspended, the committee heard. Councillors were told the driver had taken two jobs since the suspension was issued.
Councillor Wilson told the driver the incident had been a “catalogue of errors on your behalf.”
He added: “You weren’t displaying proper signage which alerted our enforcement team to your activity, they also found your vehicle wasn’t very clean."
“Your plates have been removed from your vehicle, your signage wasn’t right, you’ve fixed your signage, got your car washed and you were that shaken up that you had to go out and pick up passengers?”
Mr Shoukat said he works for two private hire firms and usually switches between their signs. He said he “wasn’t aware” his plates had been removed by enforcement officers as he was inside the vehicle.
The driver also said he had passengers in the car when he was stopped, so continued to drop them off.
However, Councillor Wilson said he had picked up more passengers after that journey.
Mr Shoukat claimed there had been a “mix-up.”
He said: “If I had known I was suspended, I would have stopped straight away.”
He said he hadn’t read paperwork that was handed to him by the officers.
Councillor Wilson said: “Our enforcement team would have said to you ‘we’re suspending your licence’. They would have told you that.
“You are just making this worse and worse for yourself. You are showing us that you are not a responsible person to be driving around Glasgow.
“There’s nothing to say you cannot work for multiple platforms, but you must have signage showing.”
The driver asked to be let off with a warning as he had never been before the committee before and promised it wouldn’t happen again. However, councillors decided to issue the four-week suspension with immediate effect.
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