DIESEL SURCHARGE

Diesel drivers will be hit by tax rises in order to cut air pollution, the Transport Secretary suggested last night.

Patrick McLoughlin said hiking fuel duty or low-emission taxes “is something the Chancellor will need to look at” in order to reduce toxic levels of nitrogen oxide and prevent deaths in cities.

His comments prompted concern among drivers and road haulage companies, which last night warned any increase in the tax would make UK businesses less competitive and increase prices in the shops for consumers.

It comes after the government rejected calls for a diesel scrappage scheme - offering drivers of diesel cars cash incentives to trade them in.



Now Mr McLoughlin’s comments suggest that diesel drivers could in fact be charged more for their vehicle in tax.

Asked about air pollution and the impact of diesel engines the Transport Secretary told the London Evening Standard: “We have got to look at that. It is something the Chancellor will need to look at in due course.”

He added: “It’s something that we’ve got to address. We are addressing it through the Government’s air quality strategy.”

Air pollution kills over 40,000 people prematurely in the UK every year, a report by the Royal College of Physicians found earlier this year.

The report blamed the increase from a previous estimate of 29,000 early deaths on the popularity of diesel cars, which were encouraged by Government as a way to reduce carbon emissions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/07/transport-secretary-diesel-taxes-could-be-hiked-to-cut-air-pollu/

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Bogus taxi driver Obaydor Rahman, from Maidstone, jailed for sexually assaulting passenger on journey to Gravesend

A father who posed as a taxi driver and then molested a woman passenger has been jailed for 18 months.

Obaydor Rahman gave the victim a lift in the early hours in his BMW to make extra money but then groped her during the journey from Maidstone to Gravesend.

A judge told the 27-year-old chef: "This was a prolonged incident involving a vulnerable young woman.

"It was a breach of trust since you were posing as a taxi driver and had her in your vehicle under your control."

The woman had phoned for a taxi to go home after leaving a nightclub in Maidstone.

When Rahman's car pulled up in the High Street she gave her name and asked him if the cab was for her.

He said it was and asked where she was going. She told him, adding she only had £5 but would pay the rest when they arrived.

She sat behind him. He drove towards the A229 but stopped in a layby next the town’s library.

“He had been addressing her as ‘babe’ repeatedly,” prosecutor Andrew Forsyth told a jury at Maidstone Crown Court in March. 

“He turned around and grabbed the inside of her right leg behind her knee.

“You were not a taxi driver. Worse was to come because during the journey you touched her on the legs and thighs under her skirt. It was not consensual" - Judge Charles Macdonald QC

“He rubbed her knee and swept his hand underneath her skirt. She pushed his hand away and told him to get off. He said: ‘Don’t be like that babe.’

“She told him to get her home. He put his hand on her leg and tried to move it up her skirt. Again, she pushed his hand away.

“He constantly reached back, touching her leg trying to get his hand up her skirt throughout the journey.”

When they arrived at her home she told him to wait while she went to get the money. She awoke her parents and told them what had happened.

Her father went outside and as he approached the car, Rahman drove off. He noted the make and model and took a partial registration number.

Rahman, of Hazlitt Drive, Maidstone, denied fraud by false representation and sexual assault, but was convicted.

His name will appear on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

http://goo.gl/b26LNT