A PRIVATE hire driver who admitted to threatening his wife with a knife has had his licence revoked.

The man appeared before Bolton Council's Licensing Committee after previously being charged and found guilty in court of two counts of criminal damage, two counts of beating, a threat to kill and actual bodily harm relating to an incident that occurred in July 2018.

He had received a two-year suspended sentence and 200 hours of community work for the offences and had also been the subject of 14 private hire complaints between September 19, 2017 and October 14, 2018.

The man admitted to the committee that the offences related to actions towards his wife, including revealing that he threatened her with a knife.

Police officers at the time considered the incident to be serious enough to remove the driver from the house where the offences occurred.

Committee members spoke of their concern that the driver would be working alone with passengers in an unsupervised setting and judged him to not be a "fit and proper person" to hold a licence.

His wife accompanied him to the hearing and admitted signing a police statement relating to the offences but later tried to retract her statements and said she exaggerated the situation.

However, the driver pleaded guilty to all of the charges and had even admitted to his actions during a police interview.

The committee concluded: "Passengers often travel alone and are vulnerable to inappropriate behaviour. The Sub-Committee’s primary duty is of concern for the safety and well-being of the public.

"There is therefore reasonable cause to revoke the private hire driver’s licence with immediate effect on the grounds of public safety, due to concerns of the violent nature of the offences and the use of a weapon."

The hearing, held in October 2018 was conducting by the Sub-Committee on Sensitive Cases and was not held in public, meaning the name of the driver cannot be revealed, however minutes from the hearing have since been made available.