People should report crimes to police, they shouldn't report them to school or company. Everyone who tells the opposite enables sexual assault. Uber is not at fault in this situation and it doesn't enable anything.
So my point stands. If you think that people shouldn't report crimes, you enable crimes. "‘strongly under the impression’ that they would." is a laughable excuse. What did Uber do that would provide a strong impression, yet wasn't enough to be accused of being misleading in court?
If what Uber did is illegal in UK, they should face punishment. But as far as I can tell, they did nothing illegal in this situation.
Unfortunately, this argument ignores the fact that requirements for unusual privileges - like running massive fleets of vehicles on public streets - are a bit higher than the requirements for staying out of jail.
Reporting sexual assault is not exactly difficult. Whether it is a cynical PR issue, some weird philosophical thing, or simply bizarre institutional/emotional damage around sexual assault[1], Uber has a problem that they are apparently incapable of handling, even with years, warnings and a near complete change of management.
It really is freakish.
[1] Given so many different incidents handled over multiple years in multiple countries, that their competitors don't seem to have the same problem with, I'm starting to wonder, frankly.
The only difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying is that I imply Uber is run by people and you imply they are a force of nature (or something.)
Keeping a sexual predator as a driver is the right choice?
This whole things seems just like "But her emails!" where people are latching onto anything they can to justify their dislike for something they already hate.
In this situation, Uber are complicit in the second sexual assault to at least some degree. (Perhaps they carried out a thorough investigation which presented nothing. Perhaps they did not carry out an investigation again). They are complicit in any further sexual assaults this driver carries out.
With regards to "Taking away a person's livelihood", that's precisely what a police investigation and CRB/DBS checks are for. The driver simply should not be allowed in such a position if they have a history of sexual assault. No-one is asking for the company to "act as judge and executioner" (in fact, in this case the company is doing exactly that except ruling not-guilty), merely to alert the appropriate authorities so that a legitimate investigation can be carried out according to the established judicial system.
And yes, as the article states, there are prosecutions in both cases.
We dont need to jail for everything, really. It is expensive and ineffective overall.