Rose v Welbeck Motors Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1962 |
| Year | 1962 |
| Court | Divisional Court |
Metropolis - Hackney carriage - “Plying for hire” - Minicab - Not licensed as hackney carriage - Red car of distinctive appearance carrying advertisements, inscriptions and two-way radio - Car parked in street - Whether “plying for hire” -
A minicab with the driver at the wheel parked at a bus stand-by near the junction of two roads. The minicab which was red had various advertisements and the inscription “Welbeck Motors, Minicabs” written on the sides. A telephone number “Welbeck 4440” was displayed along the roof. The minicab was fitted with a radio aerial which provided for two-way short-wave communication. A taxi driver asked the minicab driver to move away and, when the latter refused, he called the police. Later, when a bus wanted to pull into the bus stand-by, the minicab drove some 10 yards further along the road. Later, when two police officers came, the minicab driver told them that he had been waiting there for 50 minutes for jobs that might come up in the area and of which he would be informed by radio. The minicab then drove away only to return later to park near the place where it had parked before.
On informations preferred by the taxi driver, the owners and driver of the minicab were charged with committing an offence in that their unlicensed hackney carriage was plying for hire contrary to section 7 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, 1869.F1 At the end of the case for the taxi driver, it was submitted for the owners and driver of the minicab that there was no case to answer. The justices upheld that submission and dismissed the informations. On appeal by the taxi driver:—
Held, that, since the vehicle had been exhibited to the public and it had been established prima facie that it was impliedly inviting the public to hire, it was prima facie exhibiting itself as a vehicle plying for hire, and the justices were wrong in dismissing the informations. The case would be sent back to them with a direction that there was a case to answer and that the hearing should be continued.
Cogley v. Sherwood [
Per curiam. The fact that a vehicle other than the one on view to the public may be hired as a result of obtaining a ticket or a booking would not, at least in certain circumstances, prevent a finding that the vehicle on view to the public was plying for hire.
Gilbert v. McKay (
CASE STATED by Essex justices sitting at Stratford, E.15.
On October 13, 1961, informations were preferred by the prosecutor, Emmanuel Rose, against the defendants that (1) the first defendants, Welbeck Motors Ltd., were the owners of an unlicensed hackney carriage which did ply for hire at the junction of Forest Road and Beacontree Avenue, London, E.17, on September 29, 1961, contrary to section 7 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, 1869, and that (2) the second defendant, Frederick Stanley Jones, being the driver of an unlicensed hackney carriage, did unlawfully ply for hire at the junction of Forest Road and Beacontree Avenue, London, E.17, on September 29, 1961, contrary to section 7 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, 1869.
At the hearing of the information on November 8, 1961, the following was part of the evidence called before the justices.
The prosecutor, Emmanuel Rose, a licensed metropolitan taxi-cab driver, gave the following evidence: On September 29, 1961, he was driving his taxi-cab near the junction of Beacontree Avenue and Forest Road, Walthamstow, at about 12.40 to 12.45 p.m. Near that junction he saw a minicab parked in the bus stand-by where the buses turn round. It was a red Renault Dauphine with various advertisements on the sides, including the inscription “Welbeck Motors, Minicabs.” On the roof was written the telephone number “Welbeck 4440.” In addition there was a radio aerial on the roof. He saw the driver sitting behind the wheel of the minicab. He drove up behind it, got out of the taxi and, walking over, said to the minicab driver,
“Excuse me, I'm a licensed taxi driver. I have noticed you here, and, if you are not a taxi, I think you had better drive away. You aren't allowed here.”
When the minicab driver said that it had nothing to do with him, the taxi driver said “I'll have to call the police; they will probably remove you.” He then called the police.
Some time later, when a bus wanted to pull in from Forest Road, the minicab pulled out of the bus stand, turned left and stopped almost on the corner of Beacontree Avenue, no more than 10 yards from where it had been parked before. Shortly afterwards, at about 1.15 p.m., the police arrived. The taxi driver, who was present during most of the conversation between the minicab driver and the police officers, heard one of the police officers ask the driver of the minicab if he were a taxi, to which he replied that he was not. He then heard them say “You are not allowed to be here to ply for hire.” The minicab driver told them that his control had told him that he was allowed to stand where he liked, provided that he did not cause an obstruction, if he used his radio to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
R United Trade Action Group Ltd v Transport for London
...view, plying for hire, particularly when at the same time there is no indication in or around it that it ever does such work.” 25 In Rose v Welbeck Motors [1962] 1 WLR 1010 the defendant's unlicensed minicab, a distinctive red Renault Dauphine with the inscription “Welbeck Motors, Minicabs......
-
Reading Borough Council v Mudassar Ali
...the essence of plying for hire that the vehicle in question is exhibited with an express or implied invitation to hire it. Nothing in Rose v Welbeck Motors [1962] 1 WLR 1010, on which Mr Charles Holland for the appellant placed particular emphasis, detracts from that proposition. In that c......
-
Chorley Borough Council v Harold Edward Thomas
...wish. 10 I was taken through the more recent authorities by Mr Carter, on behalf of the appellant prosecutor. His survey began with Rose v Welbeck Motors Ltd [1962] 1 WLR 1010. An interesting aspect of that case is that it arose out of a successful submission of no case to answer, just as t......
-
Sulaiman bin Mohd Hassan v PP
...Prathib s/o M Balan v PP [2018] 3 SLR 1066 (refd) Reading Borough Council v Ali [2019] 1 WLR 2635 (refd) Rose v Welbeck Motors Ltd [1962] 2 All ER 801 (refd) Teo Rong Zhi Saimonn v PP [2013] 4 SLR 962 (folld) Legislation referred to Motor Vehicles (Third-Party Risks and Compensation) Act (C......