Leeds City Council Uncovers Lack of Safeguarding Awareness in the Taxi and Private Hire Industry
Leeds City Council recently revealed that taxi drivers in the area failed to spot signs of abuse following undercover testing.
The operation, aimed at identifying child sexual exploitation (CSE) within the city, involved teams made up of undercover police officers and volunteer cadets. The teams engaged in ‘red flag’ behaviour by playing the roles of older men and young teenage girls while in the back of a cab, or while trying to book a hotel room.
Working to a script, the teams engaged in conversations involving:
Whether they had condoms
Lying about being over 18
Agreeing not to tell parents where they were,
Buying alcohol.
Asking to pay for rooms in cash or without ID
Being turned away from other hotels.
The operation was conducted by the Leeds District Safeguarding’s Child Vulnerability and Exploitation Team, Leeds North West Neighbourhood Policing Team, police cadet volunteers, and staff from Leeds City Council Taxi and Private Hire Licensing.
What Happened?
During the evening of the 28th of January, the teams visited 4 hotels and took 4 private hire journeys in the city.
2 hotels refused service to the teams and immediately called the police. The other 2 also refused service but did not report their concerns. Following the ‘incidents’ police visited the hotels and debriefed them on what had happened, explaining best practice and what else they could do.
Following the private hire journeys, all the drivers were stopped by police for a ‘routine’ inspection. When asked if they had anything suspicious to report, none raised concerns about their passengers that evening.
Following this, the drivers were debriefed and informed about what best practice is when spotting CSE.
In a statement, Detective Superintendent Lee Berry, Head of Crime & Safeguarding for Leeds District, made it clear the operation was not about catching people out:
“Tackling child sexual exploitation remains a key focus of our work to reduce violence against women and girls.
“Those working in the hotel and private hire vehicle economy have a key role to play in helping us to identify suspicious behaviour and protect victims from harm.
“The suspicious behaviour demonstrated in this operation was based on our real-life experience of the type of activity we see around child sexual exploitation offences.
“This operation was not about catching people out but about identifying where the risks are and raising awareness so we can work together to prevent, deter and disrupt this type of offending.
“We already carry out awareness training for staff in these areas, alongside our partners at Leeds City Council, and it was reassuring to see that increased awareness in action in the examples where staff dealt positively and flagged up their concerns.
“We are now increasing our awareness training focus on those areas highlighted during the operation where more could have been done to help safeguard young people from child sexual exploitation.
“We will be continuing to carry out similar operations in future as part of our ongoing work to improve awareness and protect young people from exploitation and abuse.”
Leeds City Council are now looking into ways to strengthen existing training by including night-time economy active bystander training, to bolster existing CSE awareness activity in the hotel and private hire trade following the operation.
It’s important to note, only 4 private hire drivers were involved in this operation, so generalizations should not be made. In our experience delivering safeguarding training, taxi and private hire drivers are completely invested in learning how they can help protect their community. The operation from Leeds City Council demonstrates that further investigations should be carried out before establishing if their is actually poor safeguarding awareness in the region.