Taxi driver threatened to leave child with 'wolves'

The driver claimed he was trying to calm an unsafe situation

A taxi driver who threatened to leave a child with complex emotional needs "with the wolves" has been stripped of his private hire licence.

The unnamed driver was transporting the child to and from their school.

He argued he had been trying to calm down an "unsafe" situation and is reported to have said: "If you don't stop, you stay here in the middle of the forest with the wolves."

Bath and North East Somerset Council has revoked his taxi driver licence.

The case was heard in a private session, but the minutes of the meeting in November have now been published.

The council's licensing subcommittee ruled that the driver "does not have the appropriate judgement of how to deal with children he is responsible for transporting", the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The hearing was told that the driver had made the threat to stop the "agitated" child kicking the doors and windows in the car.

Unkind

The driver said the child had also kicked her school escort and he thought it would be unsafe to drive while the behaviour continued.

He stopped the car and opened the child's car door before issuing the threat.

The special educational needs co-ordinator at the school, which has not been named, said the child had mentioned several times that she felt the taxi driver was not kind to her.

The driver accepted that he had also threatened to leave the child on a previous occasion when she had also been agitated.

He accepted that the child and their school escort had been upset by the incident, which happened earlier this summer.

The child reportedly cried for 10 or 20 seconds after the driver made the threat, and the school escort later made a complaint.

The driver had attended a safeguarding course after the incident, but said he had not understood it all due to a language barrier and did not remember much about the course.