IN THE NEWS
TERROR AS TAXI THUGS RIP OUT GRAVESEND CABBIES CCTV CAMERA
A taxi driver beaten and robbed says police have not
looked at
CCTV footage that could identify the thugs. Barry Bushell says he has been told it would cost £300 to “process the footage” from a fel- low cab parked behind him. As reported in PHTM, cameras were put in every Gravesend hack- ney carriage vehicle following the murder of driver Gian Chand Bajar in May 2007. Mr Bushell, 63, picked up two men and a woman,
from New
Road, Gravesend at about 12.50am on Sat- urday 21 January. They asked to be dropped in Rose Street, Northfleet near
The Hive. Mr Bushell described how a passenger in the back seat grabbed him around the throat while while another punched him in the head demanding his cash saying, “give us your notes.” Then the front passen- ger grabbed the blue cash tin, containing about £20, before all three ran off towards Ebbsfleet. They had ripped out the CCTV camera from Mr Bushell’s black Skoda Octavia during the attack. About
the police
response to the poten- tial footage, Mr Bushell said: “It’s crazy.” He said: “My thoughts were to hang on to my
money and get them out of the car. I didn’t know if they had a knife.” Mr Bushell, who is married with five grandchildren, spent four hours at Darent Valley Hospital after having
problems
breathing. He suffered bruised ribs and bruis- ing to his face and head. Mr Bushell, who has been mugged four times during his decades as a taxi driv- er, is concerned as he told police that one of his drivers, who was waiting behind him in the taxi rank, had a CCTV camera which could have picked up the people who had got in his taxi.
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He said: “I’ve been told it would costs £300 to process the CCTV footage. The council say it is the police’s responsibility but the police say it is the council’s. It is crazy.” Mr Bushell said one of his attackers was a white woman, about 25, large, with blonde and red hair in a pony tail. She wore jeans and a floral top. The men were both white, and about 25. One is thought to be about 5ft 8in, stocky, with short black hair and wore dark clothes. Kent Police were unable to comment on Mr Bushell’s claims about
the CCTV
footage. Mmmm… Oh come
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on… How long have we featured stories about vehicle-mount- ed CCTV and the deterrent they are sup- posed to be in reducing crime in licensed vehicles –
and now the police won’t even access the footage of the camera that might have cap- tured this crime? Incredible!! Does this not merit a complaint to the IPCC? – Ed.
HUNT FOR DANGEROUS COVENTRY PRISONER WHO ESCAPED FROM TAXI
A nationwide manhunt has begun for a danger- ous Coventry prisoner who has escaped. Andrew Farndon, 26, who is serving an indeterminate jail sen- tence for a brutal hammer
attack,
escaped as he was escorted by taxi from prison to West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmonds for treat- ment last month. It is understood he inflicted a serious knife wound on him- self
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prison, Suffolk, and was being accompa- nied by two guards. Upon arrival at the hospital, a waiting gunman threatened the two guards before fleeing with Farndon across the car park. Farndon previously escaped by leaping from the dock at Coventry Crown Court in 2007, but was sen- tenced in his absence to an indeterminate sentence for public
protection (IPP) and told he must serve at least two years before being considered for parole. Farndon was in jail after being found guilty of a hitting someone with a ham- mer and a baseball bat and fracturing their skull after a car chase in Coventry city centre in September 2006. Det Chief Insp Nick Bennett from Suffolk Police told the Coven- try Telegraph: “Clearly there was an element of planning behind this escape.” He said if people saw Farndon or the gun- man they should not be confronted. Farndon is described as white with a goatee beard, and was wear- ing a dark blue baseball cap and a light coloured jumper that was padded on the right side due to his injury. The man with the gun is described as white,
in his mid 40s, around 5ft 8ins tall and of stocky build. He possibly had a Scot- tish accent and was wearing a white top and blue jeans. It is thought they may have escaped in a dark coloured car. Mmmm… PHTM read- ers may recall that we’ve featured this rather controversial subject matter before, having run an article that voiced concern for the drivers of security vans carrying potential- ly dangerous prisoners. Our take on it was: Excuse me, what about the security of taxi/PHV drivers if they carry pris- oners? That cry is now shouted out even loud- er in this case: here we have a prisoner serving an indeterminate sen- tence for a hammer attack(!), now having escaped via a pre- arranged intervention as he was taken by taxi from hospital. No men- tion of the danger to the taxi driver- again.- Ed.
PHTM FEBRUARY 2012
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