IN THE NEWS
PORTSMOUTH DRIVER SPRAYED THREE WOMEN WITH PEPPER SPRAY AFTER THEY BUNKED THEIR £7 FARE
A private hire driver chased after three women and blasted them in the face with pepper spray “to make a point” after they bunked their £7 fare. Narcisse Assicome, 47, lost his temper after the getaway customers offered him £1 before flee- ing his car without paying the charge in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Crown Court heard the women had no intention of paying and Assicome had carried out his actions “to make a point that they
shouldn’t behave in that way”.
He armed himself with one of two cans of illegally-owned pepper spray - which he kept in his taxi for “self-defence” - and gave chase after Tia Simmons, Jessica Kubiak and their friend fled. The father-of-four first doused Ms Sim- mons in the face and then attacked Ms Kubiak before re- turning to Ms Simmons and spray- ing her a further two times in the face and mouth. It was heard Assi- come’s victims were
left terrified, with Ms Simmons fearing she was ‘going blind’ following the attack. The court heard Assicome had been on duty in the early hours of November 4, 2018, when he received a call to pick up three women in the city and take them to a nearby pub. Prosecutor Jeffrey Lamb said: “[Ms Simmons] had a hand over her face and was screaming. She thought she was going blind. “She could not open her eyes to see. Her
face and her eyes were burning.
“Struggling and with the aid of Siri on her mobile phone she managed to tele- phone her mother and her father arrived to collect her and took her to Queen Alexandra Hospital.” The effects of the spray lasted for about a day, leaving no lasting physical damage, Mr Lamb said.
He added Ms Kubiak had admitted not having the money for the fare and said: “She planned on paying the £1 and running off.” When questioned by police about the attack, Assicome, from Portsmouth, admitted losing his temper.
Mr Lamb said: “This, he said, annoyed him and said he did- n’t have time for this nonsense and the thought came to ‘spray, spray spray’.” Assicome admitted two counts of unlawfully and mali- ciously administ- ering pepper spray and a further charge of possessing two
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cans of it. Defending, Daniel Reilly said the inci- dent came at the end of a ‘particularly difficult week’ in which Assicome had been threatened by another customer with a knife. Mr Reilly told the court the pepper spray attack would never have hap- pened had the victims not taken the “deliberate deci- sion” to “make off without payment”. He said: “While his intention was not to cause any harm he wanted to make a point that they shouldn’t be able to behave in that way. “He accepts that it was not an accept- able way of dealing with it and he is sorry for his actions.” Judge William Ash- worth sentenced Assicome to six months in jail, sus- pended for a year, and ordered him to complete 150 hours’ unpaid work and pay £50 compensa- tion to each victim. Assicome has since had his taxi licence revoked by Ports-
mouth City Council. After the hearing, Nickii Humphreys, the council’s licens- ing manager, said the council took immediate action. She said: “As soon as we were alerted to the incident with Mr Assicome, we revoked his private hire driver’s licence as the safety of pas- sengers travelling in vehicles licensed by Portsmouth City Council is of para- mount importance. “We hope that the sentence imposed by the court demon- strates to licensed drivers that such actions will not be tolerated and that the licensing author- ity will not hesitate to revoke licences.” Mmmm… Once again, a suspended sentence is too good for this indi- vidual… what pos- sible effect will that have? OK, so his PHV licence has been revoked; sure- ly there was no other course of action following his taking the law into his own hands. The use of pepper spray is treated far more seriously in the USA, that’s for cer- tain; he’s lucky his attack didn’t cause lasting damage to those women. Meanwhile, did they get any punishment for committing a criminal offence – ie. deliberately making off without paying the fare? – Ed.
FEBRUARY 2020
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