Hitchen, R (On the Application Of) v Oxford Magistrates Court

Revocation of a driving licence for a non-prescribed disability requires evidence of a medical or other identifiable physical or mental condition that is likely to make the person’s driving dangerous. Bad driving, including poor performance on an on-road assessment, cannot alone establish the existence of that disability. An on-road assessment may indicate a possible cognitive impairment, but it does not by itself prove the underlying condition. Specific, contrary medical evidence must be addressed by the decision-maker. An appeal against revocation under the Road Traffic Act 1988 is a complete rehearing, requiring the magistrates to decide afresh whether the revocation was correct on the evidence before them.

The claimant’s driving licence was revoked by the DVLA under section 93 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 after a road accident and an unsatisfactory on-road driving assessment. The stated basis was possible COPD or an undiagnosed medical condition, later described as age-related cognitive impairment.

On appeal, the Oxford Magistrates Court dismissed the challenge. It relied on the accident, the driving assessment, general evidence concerning older drivers, and the DVLA medical evidence. It treated medical reports obtained after revocation as not indicative of the claimant’s condition at the relevant time. The claimant sought judicial review on grounds including application of the wrong review standard, failure to identify a relevant disability, and irrational exclusion of evidence.

1. The claim succeeded. The magistrates’ decision was quashed and the claimant’s driving licence was reinstated. No useful purpose would have been served by remitting the matter for a fresh hearing because, on the existing evidence, only one rational conclusion was available.
2. An appeal under section 100 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is a complete rehearing. The magistrates must make a de novo assessment of whether the revocation was correct in all the circumstances known to the court. They are not merely reviewing whether the DVLA’s decision was reasonable. Read fairly as a whole, the magistrates’ reasons showed that they had adopted that approach, despite an infelicitous reference to the DVLA’s conclusion being reasonable. Ground 1 therefore failed (see [2013] EWHC 300 (Admin)).
3. Sections 92 and 93 impose two distinct requirements for revocation in a case involving a non-prescribed disability. There must be a medical or other identifiable physical or mental condition amounting to a disability, and that condition must be likely to cause the person’s driving to be a source of danger to the public. Evidence of dangerous or unsatisfactory driving addresses the second issue but cannot, without more, establish the first.
4. An on-road assessment may be highly relevant to driving safety and may raise the possibility of age-related cognitive impairment. It cannot alone establish cognitive impairment or a relevant disability. Age alone is not a lawful basis for revocation. The Honorary Medical Advisory Panel’s minutes, properly read, recognised the need for an underlying medical cause and did not support diagnosis solely from driving performance.
5. The unchallenged expert evidence that the claimant had normal mental faculties and no cognitive impairment was relevant to her condition at the material time. The magistrates could find it inconclusive, but they could not ignore or exclude it without a rational basis. General evidence about older drivers and statistical accident rates did not explain why the contrary specific evidence should be rejected. The statutory test was therefore not met (see paras [74]-[83], [84]-[91]).

The judgment itself states that the claimant appealed the DVLA’s revocation decision to the Oxford Magistrates Court, which dismissed the appeal on 2 August 2013. The Administrative Court then granted judicial review.

• Oxford Magistrates Court: appeal against revocation dismissed.
• High Court (Administrative Court): magistrates’ decision quashed and driving licence reinstated.