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...NO EXCUSE FOR ABUSE


‘YOU JUST GET USED TO IT’ - STOKE-ON-TRENT TAXI DRIVERS ON THE SHAMEFUL RACIST ABUSE THEY ENDURE


Cabbies working around Stoke-on- Trent and North Staffs have told how vile racist abuse is ‘part and parcel’ of the job. According to the Stoke Sentinel, a clip of a passenger hurl- ing sickening abuse has been viewed thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter after it re- emerged recently. In the footage, origi- nally filmed last August, a man - seemingly under the influence of alcohol - can be heard chanting ‘England til we die’ before launching a barrage of taunts at the taxi driver.


Staffordshire Police have now confirmed the passenger was offered a ‘communi- ty resolution’ - meaning he had to write a letter of apology to his vic- tim and pay his fare. Now cab drivers say that although the vast majority of pas- sengers are polite, the racist abuse they receive from a small minority is regular. Driver Naseer Ah- med, a cabbie for nine years, is now leaving the trade because of the racism he has faced. Naseer, 52, said: “It happens a lot. It par- ticularly happens to drivers who are not


able to talk to the passengers proper- ly. The person who was abused in the video looks like he had just started on the taxis. “It is disgusting, it is doing it to someone who is vulnerable and can’t fight back. “I’m not a fighter, but I can talk to peo- ple. Many times people would call me names and I would tell them to get out. “Unfortunate ly, Stoke-on-Trent is pretty racist and that got a lot worse after Brexit. I have had so many people say to me ‘when are you going to go home?’.


“It’s really sad. Taxis now have a panic button and if you press it they know at base that something is wrong.” Fellow taxi driver Ahmmar Mahmud, aged 40, of Tunstall, said: “It’s just drunk people getting into the cab. It has hap- pened to me in the past. It’s part and parcel of the job. “You can ask for help if it happens. You can call the police or contact the base. “You can refuse people, but once they have got in the cab it is too late. “I’ve been called racist names. You just get used to it.”


Donovan Tomlinson, of City Cabs, said: “I work in the base and you hear all kinds of complaints. It’s some- thing the drivers get quite often. “There’s quite a few of them who worry about racism. It’s something that they all accept, when they are picking up drunk people it is something that goes on. They take it on the chin.” In the video, a man can be heard calling the driver a ‘f***ing f****t’, before de- manding his money back and threaten- ing to ‘smash his head’.


He then says: “You’re getting terrorised


by English people because you’re a dirty P*** b*****d bruv. Dirty Muslim b*****d. P*** f*****s, I’ll take his taxi off him if he doesn’t take me home.” The passenger shouts at the taxi driver to give him a further £10 and demands to be taken to Cheddleton. After the video was shared on social media, Chief Consta- ble Gareth Morgan confirmed on Twit- ter that the incident would be investigat- ed.


MP Jonathan Gullis was also quick to condemn the ‘mind- less, racist behaviour’.


FEBRUARY 2020


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