An architect has been struck off for assaulting a taxi driver after a night out – where he was celebrating having just qualified for the profession after five years of training.
Thomas Ford racially abused a taxi driver, assaulted him, stole his car and drove off with it before crashing into a fence, a disciplinary hearing was told.
He was handed a suspended prison sentence for his ‘shocking’ behaviour.
A professional conduct committee of the Architect Registration Board (ARB) has decided to strike Ford off the register of chartered architects, finding that the public would be ‘rightly appalled’ by his actions.
The hearing was told that in November 2022 Ford had gone out in Macclesfield, Cheshire, with his work colleagues to celebrate his recent qualification.
In the ‘early hours’ the group booked a taxi to take them home and the disgraced architect became the last one left in the car.
Once alone with the driver, Ford struck up a conversation, asking where he was from, but when he said Manchester the architect asked ‘where are you actually from?’ to which he replied Pakistan.
Ford then became ‘irate’ and said ‘why don’t you go back where you came from’ and called the driver a ‘P*** b******’, the hearing was told.
He then began to punch the driver which caused the car to swerve and then come to a halt.
Ford continued striking the driver before shoving him out of the car and then driving off with the Toyota Prius, the committee was told.
The taxi was later found crashed in a residential garden – having destroyed a fence and damaging the car beyond repair.
When police arrived on the scene they found Ford trying to hide behind a tree close to the crash.
He was arrested and breathalysed with the test finding him well over the legal limit.
In his police interview later that day Ford claimed the taxi driver was the aggressor and denied punching him.
In October 2023 Ford pled guilty at Warrington Magistrates’ Court to two counts of criminal damage in relation to the car and the fence as well as one count of racially aggravated harassment and one count of racially aggravated assault.
The next month he was handed an 18 week prison sentence suspended for 2 years with 10 days of rehabilitation activity.
However, Ford did not report his conviction to the ARB until he was renewing his license at the end of 2024 despite regulations requiring convictions to be reported within 28 days.
He told the regulatory body he had ‘overlooked’ his obligation because he was ‘overwhelmed’ by the stress of the conviction.
They acknowledged it was a ‘personal tragedy’ that after working so hard to gain his qualifications, he has been kicked out almost immediately.
In the UK it takes between five and seven years to qualify as an architect, requiring a recognised undergraduate degree, a year of practical work experience, a two year Masters course, and a year of practical training before a final qualifying exam.
The professional conduct committee found that Mr Ford had recognised the role alcohol played in his actions but had used this to separate his ‘real self’ from what he had done.
They found his behaviour was ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with remaining on the register.
The panel said: ‘[Mr Ford] identifies the effect of alcohol as being a cause of his conduct but has used this to separate his ‘real’ self from the events in November 2022.
‘He is unable to explain why, when drunk, he would resort to racial slurs in order to insult.
‘The conduct that led to the convictions is fundamentally incompatible with continuing to be an architect.
‘The committee recognises that it is a personal tragedy for [Mr Ford] to have worked so hard to achieve qualifications as an architect only to mark the event with the shocking behaviour that led to his subsequent convictions.
‘However, the public would be rightly appalled at such behaviour and only erasure would sufficiently mark the misconduct if the standards of the profession are to be upheld and confidence in the integrity of the profession maintained.’
Ford declined to comment when approached by the Daily Mail.
