The taxi driver’s conduct in failing to call the police

¶92. I return to consider the conduct of Mr Poland, who – as I have already summarised – had left the scene without calling the police.

¶93. I address first, briefly, Mr Poland’s training.

¶94. Mr Poland has been a taxi driver for over 25 years. He could not recall whether ‘safeguarding’ formed a part of his training to become a taxi driver, although he thought it would have done so. He said he knew that if a child showed signs of mistreatment he should report it to social services and that if it was a question of more immediate harm, he should call 999.¹⁶²¹⁶² T/S: 13/18/16-20/2. He held a taxi licence issued by Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, and he was bound by their terms and conditions. He confirmed that he had received and read the updated local authority’s handbook for taxi drivers in June 2024, when his taxi licence was renewed for the year. He explained that drivers are provided with the current version of the handbook each time they ‘plate’ their vehicle.¹⁶³¹⁶³ T/S: 13/13/22-14/19. He was aware of the section entitled ‘Safeguarding children and young people and sexual exploitation’. He understood that as a taxi driver he was “well placed to see signs of children and young people being exploited or abused” and that “information [he had] heard or seen could be vital to keeping the child or young person safe”.¹⁶⁴¹⁶⁴ SEF000169/3. He was aware that he was expected to have read the section on ‘safeguarding’ which additionally contained the following:¹⁶⁵¹⁶⁵ SEF000169/8.

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¶“As members of the general community, drivers of hackney carriages and private hire cars are in a good position to help to keep children and young people safe. Drivers work with all sorts of members of the public and will often see things that seem strange or troubling, but they do not necessarily know what to do about it. The following advice is given in order to help licensed drivers to help us protect the children and young people in our area.”

¶And:

¶“If, of course, you feel a child or young person is in serious danger of immediate harm, you should call the emergency police telephone number, 999.” (emphasis in the original)

¶95. Mr Poland accepted that these requirements coincided with common sense, and that he was expected to follow them.¹⁶⁶¹⁶⁶ T/S: 13/13/15-21. He was obliged, therefore, to inform the police if something such as the attack at Hart Space occurred, particularly given he had delivered the perpetrator at the scene of the incident.

¶96. I find that there is no proper basis to criticise Mr Poland up to the stage where he immediately left the car park of the Norwood Business Centre on the day of the attack. I reach that conclusion for the following reasons:

¶a. First, when Mr Poland collected AR on 29 July 2024, he knew nothing of the previous incident on 22 July 2024 when AR had used the same taxi firm to book his aborted attack on Range High School. The earlier incident had not caused AR’s address to be blocked on the taxi firm’s booking system;

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¶b. Second, Mr Poland collected AR at 11:31:03. The fare was £9.70. He assumed that AR was collecting a car from Masters Garage and/ or was a care worker.¹⁶⁷¹⁶⁷ T/S: 13/5/10-15. Although the combination of someone on a warm day in late July wearing a ‘hoodie’ which conceals their head, along with a facemask covering their face, can seem threatening and suspicious, it is a style of dress that is sufficiently commonplace to mean that Mr Poland is not to be criticised for being unperturbed by AR’s appearance. Similarly, the essentially silent journey and AR’s refusal to pay the fare were unexceptional events. I accept, therefore, Mr Poland’s evidence that he was not suspicious of his passenger;

¶c. Third, even when AR went into the Hart Space building, Mr Poland did not have grounds to think that he was involved in anything other than fare evasion. As I have indicated, Mr Poland thought that AR may be going inside to get money for the fare.¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸ T/S: 13/6/20-23.

¶97. I have referred already to the distressing fact that the sounds of screams were captured on Mr Poland’s dashcam. Mr Poland’s evidence (supported by the first telephone call that he made after the event) was that he heard a loud noise which he took to be gunshots. His account is that he thought he heard four or five loud bangs which he believed were gunshots.

¶98. Mr Poland acknowledged in his evidence (as is evident from both the dashcam and CCTV footage) that he saw some of the girls fleeing screaming in panic. I have already referred to the fact that the first girls who left were clearly visible to Mr Poland. Moreover, as Mr Poland drove away, more children were running out of the building. They were clearly visible in Mr Poland’s rear dashcam. Some of them ran alongside his car and their screams would have been clearly audible to Mr Poland, who was looking in his rearview mirror as he drove out of the car park.¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹ T/S: 13/34/8-24. Mr Poland accepts that he saw “a massed huddle of children, aged approximately six or seven years old, stumble and run in a panicked hurry out of 34A Hart Street. They were screaming”.¹⁷⁰¹⁷⁰ T/S: 13/33/25-34/3; MERP000266/3.

¶99. Mr Poland maintains he was terrified and shocked, and that he was driving away from what he believed was a shooting. He realised this was a very serious incident, in which he believed a gun had been used. He maintained he feared for his life because he had shouted at AR asking him to pay the fare.¹⁷¹¹⁷¹ T/S: 13/34/8-15.

¶100. I pause to record that, having believed that he had heard gunshots, Mr Poland cannot fairly be criticised for getting himself and the car out of immediate danger for example by getting just around the corner on Hart Street before calling the emergency services.

¶101. However, that is not what Mr Poland did.

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¶102. Instead, having got to the end of the Norwood Business Centre drive, Mr Poland continued driving and, within a minute of having turned onto Hart Street, he telephoned his “best mate”, Mr Julian Medlock, who worked in Masters Garage. Mr Poland’s evidence was: “He is my best mate of […] 40-odd years and I just thought of him straightaway because we’d been up that drive to begin with and I just thought, if someone’s got a gun, he’s going to have to be careful”.¹⁷²¹⁷² T/S: 13/7/17-25. On this call, Mr Poland observed that he was lucky not to have been shot. While Mr Poland told the police that he had cautioned Mr Medlock to stay indoors, there is no indication on the dashcam transcript that he said this, and I do not accept that Mr Poland made this call out of a desire to warn Mr Medlock about his safety.¹⁷³¹⁷³ MERP000266/4.,¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴ ILT000017/2-3. During this call, Mr Poland made no mention of the young girls running from the building or of any concern for their welfare. There was no mention of calling the emergency services and Mr Poland took no steps to ascertain if they were already on their way.¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵ ILT000017/2-4; MERP000266/4.

¶103. At 11:49:16, Mr Poland then stopped on Brompton Road, a few streets away. There, on his evidence, Mr Poland accepted another fare by mistake, having accidentally pressed the ‘accept’ rather than the ‘reject’ button.¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶ T/S: 13/47/5-20. He collected and delivered this passenger to her destination, having stopped at a shop en route. He was engaged with this customer for about 15 minutes. The dashcam footage and transcript shows that there was very mundane chatter between them during the journey.¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷ ILT000017/3-4. When Mr Poland passed a police car driving in the opposite direction with its emergency lights and siren activated, he simply answered his passenger’s question “I wonder what that was” with the observation “In a rush, ain’t he”.

¶104. A second telephone call was then made between Mr Poland and Mr Medlock. Mr Poland asked him whether he was in “one piece”. Mr Medlock told Mr Poland that the assailant had “stabbed about 15 kids, one’s dead”. Mr Medlock told Mr Poland that the police would want to speak with him. When Mr Medlock told him that people had been stabbed and some had died, Mr Poland observed that he was “lucky”, given he had shouted at AR.¹⁷⁸¹⁷⁸ ILT000017/5-6.

¶105. Mr Poland then made a telephone call to the control room at One Call Taxis during which he asked for confirmation of the collection address for AR.¹⁷⁹¹⁷⁹ ILT000017/7-8. He drove to his home, discussed what had occurred with his wife and finally rang 999 at 12:36, some 50 minutes after the first cries of distress could be heard from the first floor of the Hart Space.¹⁸⁰¹⁸⁰ MERP000647.

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¶106. Mr Poland said in evidence that he could not understand why he had delayed for so long, save that he was in shock. He accepted that it had been his moral duty to have called 999 earlier.¹⁸¹¹⁸¹ T/S: 13/63/15-65/11. It was acknowledged by Mr Poland that he should have contacted the police earlier and he should have checked on the welfare of the children. He agreed that he had heard their screams which he described as “harrowing”. He expressed his regret at “not doing more”.¹⁸²¹⁸² Witness Statement of Mr Poland IWS000038/§27.

¶107. Nonetheless, Mr Poland expressed his belief that his “actions as a taxi driver were fit and proper” and that he had reacted out of fear, shock and panic (“mortal terror”).¹⁸³¹⁸³ Witness Statement of Mr Poland IWS000038/§27.4.,¹⁸⁴¹⁸⁴ MERP000266/3.

¶108. I regret that I am, in the main, unable to accept this contention.

¶109. I acknowledge this would have been a deeply disturbing event for anyone who was present – either at the time of the attack or during the immediate aftermath – yet many others, despite their sense of horror, reacted in a selfless, courageous and public-spirited manner. I have watched the dashcam recording of Mr Poland as he drove away from the Hart Space. I make all proper allowance for how different people can react differently to stressful events. However, Mr Poland appears composed, calm and entirely in control of his actions in this footage. The contents of the various telephone calls which he made over the next hour, along with his behaviour during the journey with the customer he accepted shortly afterwards contain no hint of a man in turmoil or in mortal terror (save for the eventual 999 call when he suggested he was shaken up and his heart was racing).

¶110. Mr Poland’s main reaction appears to have been relief that neither he nor Mr Medlock had been harmed. I have borne in mind that appearances can be deceptive, but I nonetheless consider it to be telling evidence that he only rang 999 after he had been told that the police would inevitably want to speak with him and after he had returned home and discussed matters with his wife. Mr Poland had seen the terrified children fleeing from what he believed was a shooting and he knew the likely home address of the perpetrator. Nonetheless, it took Mr Poland nearly an hour to ring the emergency services.

¶111. In a subsequent statement to the police, Mr Medlock stated that Mr Poland had said (apparently by reference to the first telephone call) Mr Poland “…wouldn’t phone the police for a tenner”.¹⁸⁵¹⁸⁵ MERP000248/1. No such comment is caught on the dashcam recording of either telephone call between Mr Poland and Mr Medlock. Mr Poland thought that he may well have shared this comment with Mr Medlock at some later time in another context. The comment itself is ambiguous. It could be taken to mean that Mr Poland was not the sort of person to call the police even if someone paid him. Another explanation is that Mr Poland meant that he would not call for police over an unpaid £10 fare. Because the fare was £9.70, on this occasion I am prepared to accept Mr Poland’s account that he meant the comment in the latter sense. This does not, however, explain Mr Poland’s failure to call the police promptly once he believed that shots had been fired, and he had seen the girls fleeing the Hart Space.

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¶112. Two clear factual conclusions can be drawn in relation to Mr Poland’s conduct:

¶a. First, I find that the principal reason why Mr Poland did not call 999 sooner was not that he was in shock, rather it was because he was more preoccupied with himself, his own role in the events, and his ‘lucky escape’ than in the fate of the girls he had seen fleeing in panic;

¶b. Second, in failing to call 999 until much later, Mr Poland also breached the terms of the taxi driver’s handbook issued by Sefton Council, the relevant taxi licensing authority.

¶113. I stress, however, that in the event, Mr Poland’s delay made no difference to the outcome or to the survivability, severity of injury or recovery of any of the victims. Ms Lucas made the first 999 call just 25-27 seconds after the first opportunity that Mr Poland had to ring the emergency services. As Ms Lucas was able to communicate the central information in that call so quickly after Mr Poland might himself have first called the emergency services, I am satisfied that there was no actual detriment caused by Mr Poland’s delay. That said, it is a matter of concern that Mr Poland could not have known at the time that someone else had called 999, nor did he trouble to ask about this when he first called Mr Medlock.

¶114. The Inquiry heard evidence from Mr Liam Rice, the General Manager of One Call Taxis Ltd, the taxi company for whom Mr Poland worked on a self-employed basis.¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶ Witness Statement of Mr Rice OCT000001; T/S: 13/68/7-100/3. Mr Rice was not aware, prior to the work of the Inquiry, of the duration of the delay before Mr Poland called 999.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷ T/S: 13/92/2-10. Mr Rice disputed Mr Poland’s suggestion that One Call Taxis had no terms and conditions separate from the licensing conditions. Mr Rice later provided the terms and conditions that were in place, which reflected the safeguarding guidance in the Sefton Council handbook.¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸ OCT000004. He accepted that there was a case for tightening the wording of this to make even clearer the expectation on drivers to report criminality they witness while on licensed driving duty.

¶115. The Inquiry also heard evidence from Mr Mark Toohey, who is responsible for the taxi licensing arrangements of Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council.¹⁸⁹¹⁸⁹ Witness Statement of Mr Toohey SEF000170; T/S: 13/100/14-121/17. He confirmed that One Call Taxis had been licensed by Sefton since 5 December 2019 and Mr Poland had been a licensed driver with Sefton Council since February 2012.¹⁹⁰¹⁹⁰ T/S: 13/104/4-9. As would be expected, there were appropriate arrangements in place to check the suitability of drivers under the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) arrangements (this was not an issue in Mr Poland’s case). Mr Toohey explained that the handbook was and is the main document which summarises the relevant standards and policies which have been adopted by the Council in relation to taxi drivers.¹⁹¹¹⁹¹ T/S: 13/108/1-6. It is intended as an all-encompassing document that brings together legislation and policy. Mr Toohey accepted that failure to follow the guidance in the handbook calls into question whether a person is fit and proper to hold a taxi licence.¹⁹²¹⁹² T/S: 13/112/21-23. The guidance makes it clear the need to call 999 in such circumstances. Mr Toohey said that Sefton Council would consider making the guidance clearer about a duty to report criminality more generally and making it clear that a failure to report criminality could result in an investigation and penalties.¹⁹³¹⁹³ T/S: 13/113/9-114/1. Sefton Council has since informed the Inquiry that relevant changes to the taxi licensing conditions are to be included in a consultation exercise in early 2026.¹⁹⁴¹⁹⁴ Letter to the Inquiry from Sefton Council dated 20 November 2025, SEF000194.

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¶116. During the course of the evidence in this area, various options were explored including whether it should be mandatory for taxi bookings to be made with a pre-requirement for identification, an account and age verification (although this would have to allow for teenagers of a certain age to make bookings). Such was the awful nature of the Southport attack, that it is right to cast the net of potential measures widely. Ultimately, however, I am not persuaded that this would be a proportionate step, nor one that would effectively reduce the risks of a further attack of this kind.

¶117. However, I make two recommendations in relation to taxi licensing and control, set out in my conclusions and recommendations at the end of this chapter.