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- A Deliveroo driver who bit off a customer's thumb in 2022 has been seen delivering food again.
- At the time of the attack, the rider was working as a substitute using someone else's account.
- The incident exposes a loophole in the safety of delivery app services.
A food delivery driver who pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm after biting off a customer's thumb has been spotted delivering food again, the BBC reported.
The woman, who, according to a court document, is named Jeniffer Rocha, was delivering food for the UK delivery app Deliveroo in December 2022 when she got into an argument with Stephen Jenkinson, the customer she was delivering pizza to, per the BBC.
Jenkinson told the BBC that Rocha had arrived at the wrong location and that when he went to collect his order, he didn't bring his phone, leading to an argument about his delivery code number.
Jenkinson told the outlet that he raised his hand to Rocha's motorcycle helmet, and she then bit his thumb. "She'd taken it clean off," he told the BBC.
Jenkinson, a plumber, previously said that he had been unable to work since then and was financially "ruined." He said that he'd had months of surgery to reconstruct his thumb using part of his big toe and that he had no sensation in it.
In March, Rocha pleaded guilty to one count of grievous bodily harm without intent. She's set to be sentenced on Friday, a spokesperson for Winchester Crown Court confirmed to Business Insider.
A concerning loophole in app safety
When Rocha delivered to Jenkinson, she was working as a substitute for another rider.
Deliveroo classes its riders as "independent contractors," meaning they're self-employed, and because of this, they're able to appoint other people as substitutes. The substitutes can complete deliveries using a rider's account without registering.
This incident highlights the concerns around the potential dangers of substitute drivers, given that it can be hard for delivery companies to verify the identities of these substitutes.
Though Deliveroo riders have to be over 18 with no unspent criminal convictions, it's historically been up to individual riders, not Deliveroo itself, to check that their substitutes meet this criteria.
A Deliveroo spokesperson told BI that the company had "immediately" canceled the account Rocha was using when the "terrible incident" — the attack on Jenkinson — occurred.
But after Rocha appeared in court, the BBC spotted her twice collecting food for delivery on her moped, it reported.
On the second occasion, on April 18, it said that the manager of the takeaway she collected an order from said that she was delivering it for Deliveroo.
The Deliveroo spokesperson said that it had also canceled an alternative account that Rocha was using. It's unclear whether this was her own account or whether she was delivering as a substitute again.
"We take our responsibilities extremely seriously and are committed to preventing misuse of our platform," the spokesperson told BI. "We have strengthened our processes and recently introduced a new registration process and identity verification technology for substitute riders." This includes right-to-work checks rolled out by Deliveroo in April.