8.21 - The Safeguarding Unit convened Strategy meetings from time to time on allegations
involving taxi drivers. We read some of the most serious, from 2010, and were struck
by the sense of exasperation, even hopelessness, recorded as the professionals in
attendance tried to find ways of disrupting the suspected activity. Strategy meetings
about one specific taxi firm had been held on four occasions in a seven week period.
The minutes of one meeting record a total of ten girls and young women, three of
whom were involved in three separate incidents of alleged attempted abduction by
taxi drivers. The seven other girls had alleged that they were being sexually exploited
in exchange for free taxi rides and goods. Two of the girls involved were looked after
children. The Licensing Enforcement Officer took the step of formally writing to the
Police following the incidents of alleged attempted abductions by drivers, complaining
about the Police failure to act. In one incident, a driver accosted a 13-year-old girl.
She refused to do what he asked and reported this to her parents who followed the
taxi through the town, where they managed to identify the driver and dialled 999 for
assistance. According to the Licensing Enforcement Officer, the Police did not attend until
later and took no action. In his email to the Police he stated that 'a simple check
would have revealed that the driver had been arrested a week previously in Bradford
for a successful kidnapping of a lone female.'
