A Sydney man has won the right to get behind the wheel of a taxi despite a history of drug, traffic and robbery offences.
Andy Benjamin Darko, 30, from Guildford successfully overturned a decision by the Roads and Maritime Services, barring him from driving a taxi, in the Civil and Administrative Tribunal, last month.
Mr Darko first applied to RMS for an authority to drive a taxi in October last year. The application and a subsequent review were refused by RMS after the discovery of previous criminal, drugs and traffic offences.
Those included a 2006 conviction for robbery in company, when Mr Darko was sentenced to 3 years 6 months imprisonment. He was released at the end of 2007, after the expiry of a non-parole period.
He told RMS he was sorry for his crimes which he described as a "mistake".
"Eleven years ago I made the single biggest mistake of my life. I was young, I was misguided and I was stupid," he said.
"I paid for my mistake to society. The punishment then is a lingering reminder of a disappointing time in my life."
But there were other offences. In August 2011, Mr Darko was found with drugs in his system and fined $1,000 and disqualified from driving for 6 months. He has also admitted to smoking marijuana up until the birth of his child on in November 2015.
Since 2004 he has also picked up a number of traffic offences including include three counts of exceeding speed limit and one count of illegal use of a bus lane as well as two counts of driving an unregistered vehicle and one count of driving while unlicensed in 2004.
Senior tribunal member Norman Isenberg said Mr Darko may have "gilded the lily" when he told RMS he had "not had so much as a parking ticket in the last four years."
But he found there had been no offences since May 2013, and that Mr Darko's driving record had "improved in recent times".
The tribunal also heard Mr Darko was "not accurate" when he told RMS he had not been known by any other names. Court records found he had previously been convicted under the name "Ricardo Brown".
However, Mr Isenberg found Mr Darko's answers "evidence a lack of insight rather than dishonesty".
Mr Darko, who represented himself, pleaded with the court to allow him behind the wheel and said it had not been easy to turn his life around since coming out of prison.
"Anybody that's on the street that done the same thing, that's hard to do and I'm proud of where I am now," he said.
"Maybe you haven't experienced this, you don't know how difficult it is but it is difficult and it took some doing and I am where I am now because I chose to stop you know, that was hard."
Mr Isenberg found the likelihood of Mr Darko re-offending was low and that he "no longer behaves like the 18-year-old he was when he committed the offence of robbery in company".
"I am satisfied that Mr Darko is presently of good repute and in all other respects a fit and proper person to be the driver of a taxi cab and to be the holder of an authority for that purpose," he said.
It comes as RMS said it rejected 92 of the 3585 taxi-driver applications it received over the last ten months. That represents less than three percent of total applications, half of which are rejected on the grounds that the applicant was not fit and proper. During that time around 200 taxi driver authorities were also cancelled.
A spokeswoman from RMS did not say whether the agency would appeal the case.
Earlier this month the State Government tightened rules around taxi driver authorisation. From November 1, taxi drivers will no longer be allowed to get behind the wheel if they have been convicted of a list of "disqualifying offences", including robbery in company.
