TfL Warns of Attacks in Mini Cabs.... By Thomas the Taxi.

The Mayors office have released to the media a long and detailed account of the rising number of serious attacks mainly on single women travelling in unbooked mini cabs late at night.

New figures released have shown another increase in the instances of serious sexual assault, including rape.

The official figures for 2008-9 were 93 and 09-10 were 143. The figures available from rape crisis center "The Havens" are much higher (140 rapes alone). Experts say that the real figure which includes unreported attacks could be double that shown by this report. The figures given by the Mayor (TfL) do not take into account attacks that have occurred outside, or away from the vehicle.

The increase in attacks is a stark reminder that unbooked minicabs will always pose a very serious danger to the travelling public. TfL say they have set up a Cab Sex Offences team to deal with cab-related sexual offences. The team follows up leads, carries out surveillance work and gathers intelligence to bring offenders to justice; in the last year since they were set up, they have made 100 arrests, thats just two a week. Now, these figures include sexual assaults that have taken place away from the vehicle. I think they call this padding out the statistics.

All the agencies involved in the STaN (Safer Travel at Night) scheme say they are doing everything possible to deter and detect offenders and bring them to justice. But every week end, late at night/early morning while Peter Hendy, Kulveer Ranger, Joe Royle and John Mason are tucked up fast asleep, lines of touts are allowed to illegally rank up and tout outside every bar, restaurant and night venue in the West End and City. The Police are nowhere to be seen on this level and act as if this type of crime is beneath them. PCO enforcement officers concentrate on stopping only Licensed Taxis for badge and bill checks (as one said to me a few weeks ago, you cant get stabbed pulling up black cabs!) Local council parking officers take no notice of the illegal parking of touts but will issue tickets to black cabs all night long.

The press release states;

The STaN partnership between TfL, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the City of London Police (CoLP) was launched in 2002/3. The campaign aims to make people travelling at night aware of the dangers of picking up unbooked minicabs off the street, as well as informing them of the best ways to get home safely. But judging by the ever increasing rise in serious sexual assaults, rapes, muggings and robberies, I think it safe to say they have failed to safeguard the public dramatically.

To add insult to injury, tonight I listened to Chief Inspector Jo Chinn, MPS Safer Transport Cab Enforcement Unit, whilst being interviewed on BBC Radio London refer to these assailants as TAXI DRIVERS and their vehicles as TAXIS.
What chance have we got in deterring these attacks when the top officers in charge of policing our trades, can not tell the difference between a Taxi driver and a Private Hire Driver.