SNP councillor suspended over rapist taxi driver licence scandal

Four Highland councillors have resigned from the local authority’s licensing committee after a public backlash to the decision.

Now a fifth councillor, Chris Birt, has been suspended from the SNP group on Highland Council.

David Brown, 50, was jailed for six years and nine months in May after attacking an 18=year-old female passenger in December 2023.

The woman was getting a lift home from Inverness - but the driver drove past her village, parked up in a lay-by between Strathpeffer and Dingwall, and sexually assaulted her.

He then left her in sub-zero temperatures in Dingwall.

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Brown initially claimed it had been a consensual sexual encounter, but was later found guilty by a jury after a three-day trial at the High Court in Stirling.

His taxi driver’s licence, allowing him to drive, was suspended in January 2024 after his crimes came to light, something Councillor Birt backed at the time. However, he still held a separate operator’s licence, allowing his vehicle to be used as a taxi business.

Brown’s family requested he be allowed to keep this licence to ensure his wife maintained an income. The six male councillors on the licensing committee agreed, overruling the four female councillors who voted against.

Councillor Birt had been urged by SNP group leader Councillor Raymond Bremner to stand down from the committee, but said he would not make a decision until he returned from a trip abroad.

In the meantime, the SNP group on Highland Council has taken the decision to suspend Councillor Birt.

Read more: Why a convicted rapist taxi driver was able to keep his operating licence

In a statement, the Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh councillor said: “My personal rules for my decisions in the committee are to ensure decisions are lawful, to apply justice fairly and, most importantly, to ensure the safety of the public, as far as this is possible.”

He added: “Our solicitor advised us that it is quite normal for the holders of operator licences not to drive taxis themselves, but to employ others to do so.

“Accordingly, as this operator is in prison, he could not himself operate as a taxi driver, so his operator’s licence could remain valid until it expired for the other taxi drivers to operate within it.”

He added that “it seemed to me to be the most just way to proceed, allowing the wife to continue to support herself while offering no possible additional danger to the public” and said he was “as disgusted by this criminal taxi driver’s crimes as anyone else”.

Councillor Bremner added: “I hope everyone is first and foremost considering the impact this is having on the victim and, more widely, other women in Highland.

“My personal view is that Councillor Birt should follow the lead of others and resign from the committee.”

Since this decision, councillors Sean Kennedy, John Grafton, Duncan Macpherson and Willie MacKay have all resigned from the licensing committee. Mr MacKay has also resigned as a councillor and Councillor Grafton has been suspended by the Scottish Lib Dem group.

The sixth male committee member, Conservative group leader Ruraidh Stewart, has not commented publicly on the decision. A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “We do not support the decision taken by the licensing committee.

“Whatever the extenuating circumstances behind it, this vote has caused understandable anger and it would be appropriate for it to be reviewed.”