Jersey Lifts driver not guilty of operating illegal taxi service

Wednesday 05 June 2024

A man who used the Jersey Lifts Facebook group to pick up passengers has been cleared of operating an illegal taxi service following a one-day trial.

But Lughano Mogha (39) pleaded guilty to driving on a provisional licence without supervision and overloading his car.

He was fined £1,200 for the offences in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

The court heard that Mogha was stopped by police officers twice in 2023.

Advocate Lauren Taylor, prosecuting, said that on 8 July he was found with four passengers in the back seat that only had space for three, and with a provisional licence.

The second time Mogha was stopped, in the early hours of 26 November, one of the passengers first pretended to know the driver before admitting to police officers that he had been using Jersey Lifts.

In a subsequent police interview, Mogha explained that his family were facing financial difficulties and that this was why he used Jersey Lifts.

The court heard he had previously held a full driving licence in Malawi and was an experienced driver – but only held a provisional licence in Jersey when he was first stopped. By November, he had passed his test.

Mogha pleaded guilty to driving on a provisional licence without supervision and overloading his car, but denied operating an illegal taxi service.

During the trial, Advocate Taylor said that it would make “no financial sense” to offer lifts without prior arrangements for passengers to pay.

Mogha responded: “No, that’s not true.

“I was operating the way Jersey Lifts operates. I was doing it the way everyone else does it.”

Jersey Lifts was a community, the defendant argued, where people paid whatever amount they felt they owed the driver.

Mogha argued that his Facebook messages, which he admitted deleting, would have shown that he had no financial agreements with his passengers.

Advocate Taylor said: “It is not believable that he was giving lifts without financial agreement.

“Why was he giving people lifts? In the hope that someone would pay him? It just makes no sense.

“This was a business arrangement.

“He needed extra money and this was a way of getting extra money.”

Advocate Greg Herold-Howes, defending, argued that for Mogha to be liable, he would have needed to have a financial agreement in place and make a profit, and that there was no evidence of an existing agreement.

“This all turns on whether he was driving a cab to the eyes of the law,” Advocate Herold-Howes said. “There is no evidence that there is such an agreement.”

He pointed out that investigating officers had not kept Mogha’s phone to search for unsent Facebook messages.

Advocate Herold-Howes also pointed out that legitimate ride-sharing, where passengers contribute to the cost of a trip, was legal.

One of the passengers who was in Mogha’s car in November told the court that he had met Mogha via the “Jersey Lifts 2.0” Facebook page – but that he could not remember whether there had been a financial agreement, either ahead of time on Facebook or verbally in the car.

He did, however, say he would normally expect to pay around £10 for a Jersey Lifts ride.

Magistrate Bridget Shaw, who was presiding, found Mogha not guilty of the two charges of operating an illegal taxi following a one-day trial.

She fined him £600 for each of the two charges he pleaded guilty to, which he will need to pay within two months.