Inside Out joins the police and Birmingham City Council's taxi enforcement team looking for unlicensed drivers, known as ''plyers'' in a clampdown on bogus cabs.
Only hackney drivers can legally pick up customers without a booking so private hire cabs who take fares straight from the street are breaking the law.
Most private cabs who pick up passengers from the street do this to make some quick money. But some have a darker motive to lure vulnerable, often drunk, lone women into their cars.
Seventy five women have been sexually assaulted while trying to get home from a night out in Birmingham in the past two years.
Inside Out speaks to one woman, 19-year-old Sarah, who was subjected to a serious sexual attack by a bogus taxi driver. Her attacker was jailed for five years in December 2013.
Most of the city's 1,300 legitimate black cabs and 4,500 private hire drivers work hard to make an honest living and want the rogues off the road as much as anyone else.
About 100 drivers lose their licenses for 'plying' offences in Birmingham every year and these are the drivers being targeted by the police.
Inside Out West Midlands was broadcast on BBC One-at 19:30 on Monday, 13 January on BBC One and nationwide on the iPlayer for seven days thereafter.
Source: BBC West Midlands.
Editorial Comment:
Why haven't TfL and the Met Police taken a leaf out of the Birmingham Taxi Police Book. They have made it clear on Twitter, that their team is willing to meet with and explain their operations in detail.
I have been informed, an officer from Birmingham's Taxi Police, visited on request the City of London Police, who now recognise the behaviour from the private hire trade in the City of London late at night, is completely out of control.
London streets are plagued with licensed private hire, illegally plying for hire, blaging work from late night venues. The majority of PH late night rides in the capital are unbooked, unrecorded and uninsured.
After years of complaints from the licensed Taxi trade, TfL have unbelievably made the statement, that as far as their legal department is concerned, minicabs waiting to become hire are not breaking the law.
Which is strang as they have just prosecuted their first illegal plying for hire case...and actually won. It would appear the PH driver, who had his licence revoked would have a case for reinstatement and compensation? Definitely looks like a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing at TfL.
With serious sexusl assaults including rape running at (Met Police estimate) 25 attacks per week, every week, surely it's time TfL gave more thought to their duty of care to protect the public. I believe Birmingham's Taxi Police would be only too please to give a talk to TfL's enforcement officers....should anyone ever find where they actually are these days.