A convicted rapist has surrendered two taxi operator’s licences he had been allowed to keep after being jailed for raping a young female passenger.<\/p>\n
David Brown, 50, from Croy, near Inverness, was sentenced to six years and nine months in May following his attack on the 18-year-old in December 2023.<\/p>\n
In June, Highland licensing committee voted in private to take no action on Brown’s operator’s licences following a request from his family, but the decision was criticised by rape charities.<\/p>\n
Four councillors later resigned from the committee and a fifth was suspended by their party, the SNP.<\/p>\n
Highland Council convener Bill Lobban said that had the special meeting gone ahead as planned, councillors would have “made the right decision based on the information before them”.<\/p>\n
He added: “Personally, having considered the papers submitted for the special meeting originally to be held tomorrow, I find it impossible to understand how the licensing committee reached their original decision.”<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s meeting is expected to go ahead to discuss the committee’s decision-making.<\/p>\n
Sub-zero temperatures<\/p>\n
On the night of the attack, Brown picked up the woman who had been on a night out in Inverness – she had wanted to go back to her Highland village.<\/p>\n
Instead, Brown drove past her destination before pulling into a lay-by near a farm, somewhere between Strathpeffer and Dingwall, and raped her.<\/p>\n
He then left her in sub-zero temperatures in Dingwall.<\/p>\n
Jailing Brown at the High Court in Stirling in May, judge Lord Renucci told him he had forced the teenager to undergo a terrifying ordeal. Brown had denied the charges.<\/p>\n
The following month, six male councillors on Highland Council’s licensing committee voted in favour of Brown keeping his licences to operate a taxi business.<\/p>\n
Four female councillors voted against the move.<\/p>\n
Police Scotland had objected to Brown’s operator’s licence continuing.<\/p>\n
After criticism of the decision, chairman Sean Kennedy along with John Grafton, Duncan Macpherson and Willie MacKay resigned from the licensing committee.<\/p>\n
Independent councillor MacKay also resigned as a councillor, while Grafton was suspended by the Scottish Liberal Democrat group on Highland Council.<\/p>\n
Another of the committee members, Chris Birt, was suspended by the SNP.<\/p>\n
Brown’s taxi driver’s licence – which allowed him to drive – had been suspended in January 2024 after details of his offences emerged.<\/p>\n
His separate operator’s licence allowed his vehicle to be used as a taxi business.<\/p>\n
Last month, it emerged that Brown was to appeal his conviction and sentencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A convicted rapist has surrendered two taxi operator’s licences he had been allowed to keep after being jailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,4324,49901,12572,49903,49904,49902],"class_list":["post-154226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-councillors","tag-david-brown","tag-highland-council","tag-licensing-committee","tag-taxi-business","tag-taxi-operator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}