Four councillors who voted to allow a rapist taxi driver to keep his operator’s licence have quit Highland Council’s licensing committee.

David Brown, 50, was jailed for six years and nine months in May after attacking an 18-year-old female passenger in December 2023.

Last month, following a request from Brown’s family, the committee’s six male councillors voted to allow his operator’s licence to continue, while its four female councillors voted against it.

After criticism of the decision, the chairman Sean Kennedy along with John Grafton, Duncan Macpherson and Willie MacKay have resigned from the committee.

Independent councillor MacKay has also resigned as a councillor, while Grafton has been suspended by the Scottish Liberal Democrat group on Highland Council.

Kennedy was an Independent councillor.

SNP councillor Chris Birt, another one of the six male councillors, has been asked by his party’s leader on the council, Raymond Bremner, to resign from the committee.

Brown’s taxi driver’s licence – which allows him to drive – had been suspended in January 2024 after details of his offences emerged.

His separate operator’s licence allows his vehicle to be used as a taxi business.

Highland licensing committee was asked to consider Brown’s operator’s licence just weeks after he was sentenced at the High Court in Stirling.

The court heard Brown picked up the 18-year-old who had been on a night out in Inverness and wanted to go back to her Highland village.

Instead Brown drove past her destination before pulling into the lay-by near a farm, somewhere between Strathpeffer and Dingwall, and sexually assaulted her.

He then left her in sub-zero temperatures in Dingwall. A judge said the teenager had been forced to undergo a terrifying ordeal.

Brown, from Croy, near Inverness, had denied rape and claimed he had a consensual sexual encounter, but was found guilty by a jury after a three-day trial.

Rape and Sexual Abuse Service Highland and Rape Crisis Scotland said the committee’s decision had had sent a “harmful message” on women’s safety.

Police Scotland had objected to Brown’s operator’s licence continuing.

It is understood that the council licencing committee, which discussed the matter in private, had options to vote to take no action, suspend or revoke the licence.

Grafton and Highland Alliance councillor Macpherson told BBC Scotland News that councillors voted based on information presented to them at the meeting.

Macpherson said he was assured by officials that Brown would never be permitted to drive a taxi again.

He said in a statement: “Speaking as a father of a daughter and a brother to three sisters, and as a grandfather, it troubles me that the decision I took in the committee has created a feeling of concern or insecurity about women’s safety in the Highlands.

“I would never knowingly play any part in compromising the safety of women and girls and I sincerely do not believe that I have done so in this case.

“My concern that the safety of women and girls even appears to have been compromised is too much for my conscience to bear, and this is why I am resigning.”

Macpherson said the case had been discussed in private “to protect the identities of victims”.

Raymond Bremner, who heads the council’s SNP group, said it was his “personal view” that Chris Birt should resign from the committee.

Bremner said: “In all that has been happening over the past few days I hope that everyone is first and foremost considering the impact this is having on the victim and, more widely, other women in Highland.”

On Friday, Grafton told BBC Scotland News that with the benefit of hindsight and information that was not available on the day of the meeting, an alternative decision could have been taken.

He said he asked officials if there were any legal implications around the licence, and had assured himself that Brown “presented no current threat”.

Grafton added: “The remaining vehicle licence would expire well before he was due for release.

“It is my compassion and my processing which led me to this decision on the day. We have been told in licensing several times that we are not here to punish – that is the job of the courts.”

Highland Council said the decision would be referred to a future meeting of full council for further consideration.