..TERROR TIMES...TERROR TIMES STRABANE TAXI ATTACK:
DRIVER ‘MAY LOSE SIGHT IN ONE EYE’
A taxi driver may be left partially blind after a teenage pas- senger allegedly brutally attacked him over a £5 fare. Dylan McGrinder, 18, from Sion Mills, near Strabane, is accused of kicking the man to the head during the assault near Stra- bane, County Tyrone, on 13 January. According to BBC News, a judge ad- journed a bail application at the High Court in Belfast on Tuesday 21 Jan- uary. The court was told the victim also sus- tained a fractured jaw and has difficul- ty hearing in one ear. He was also left with severe facial
swelling and a foot- print mark on his throat. Lord
Justice Mc-
Closkey said: “The injured party was the victim of a bar- baric and prolonged assault.”
He added: “He found himself utter- ly defenceless in the circumstances, and but for his entirely fortuitous ability to get back in the taxi and close the door he may well have lost his life. “Medical staff have continued concerns he may lose the sight in one eye,” a Crown lawyer told the court.
Mr McGrinder is charged with caus- ing grievous bodily
Injured driver posted on Street Cars’ Facebook page
harm with intent, criminal damage and making off without paying the £5 fare. Lord Justice Mc- Closkey was told the teenager has no memory of carrying
ROBBERS HOLD KNIFE TO COVENTRY DRIVER’S THROAT
A female taxi driver was held at knife- point during a ter- rifying day time rob- bery in Bedworth. According to the Coventry Telegraph, the driver, in her 50s, was on her first job of the day on 23 December. She had picked two men and a woman up and was dropping them at their destination when the robbery took place. Too frightened to speak, the woman’s boss, Alan Lawson, who runs Direct Taxis, explained her ordeal. “It was her first job
of the day, she had picked them up from Drayton Way in Camp Hill,” he said. “At first they said they wanted to go to Bulkington, then changed it to Field View Close. “We have recordings in all of our taxis and you can hear them chatting on the way. “As she pulled
up,
she said, ‘Is this where you want to go?’ and then she said the next thing she knew, she felt two hands around her neck and one of the men said, ‘I have a knife to your throat, just give me
FEBRUARY 2020
all of your takings.” “She only had her float and a Kindle with her and a bag and they took that too and went off. “No one would expect to be robbed at 8.50am in the morning, she is really shaken up.” The woman has been so haunted by the attack that she cannot work. Mr Lawson is offer- ing a £5,000 reward to anyone who can bring the thieves to justice and added: “We are offering her all the support we can but we want these people caught.”
out the assault but accepts the victim’s version of events. The court heard Mr McGrinder was picked up at Aber- corn Square in Strabane and taken to Sion Mills after failing to obtain money from a cash machine to pay for the journey.
Mr McGrinder told police he had drunk ten bottles of beer and spent £80 on vodka in two bars in Strabane.
Opposing bail, pros- ecution counsel said: “The aggres- sion shown in this attack on a defence- less individual al- ready working in a high-risk job over something as trivial as a £5 taxi fare would suggest the applicant, especially with drink on board, does not have the ability to control himself.” After the attack, the driver’s taxi firm, Street Cars Stra- bane, offered a cash reward for informa- tion.
A post on Street Cars’ Facebook page said: “On arrival at an address in The Glebe, our driver was viciously at- tacked by the male he was driving to this destination, and the horrifying out- come of this attack is plain for all to see. “The nature of attacks such as this and others have no place in our society. “We work in a diffi- cult industry at the best of times, and the financial gain is petty in return. “We work alone and too many times we are exposed to cer- tain threats that remain between the driver and the fare. “I personally have decided to put up a cash reward to any- one with inform- ation on this brutal attack. “I wish to offer our driver a swift recov- ery and to relay to him that the thoughts of every- one in our firm, and indeed most people in our town are with him and his family at this difficult time.” PHTM spoke with Street Cars’ busi- ness manager Dam- ien Gallagher, who described their driv- er victim as “very reserved, quiet, who worked part-time… he drove for us most weekends”. Damien told us: “The driver goes by the nickname ‘Colm’; he would prefer not to reveal his full identity. He was going about his
business that night, and when he picked up this passenger they were engaging in cordial conversa- tion… there was no hint of aggression or anger.” We asked if the pas- senger was drunk, and Damien indicat- ed that there was evidence of both alcohol and some sort of substance abuse. They got to the passenger’s home and he said he’d have to go into the house to get the fare. The driver walked with him to the door of his house, as he was somewhat unsteady. Damien said: “When the guy came out, all of a sudden outside his door he turned extremely aggres- sive and started beating up our driv- er. He didn’t know what had hit him; he’s not the sort to retaliate, so by this time the passenger had knocked our driver to the ground and beat him to a pulp; it was a sus- tained attack while he was on the ground. You can see the state he was left in…”
Damien told us: “We’ve had many threats made ag- ainst our drivers, and other physical attacks on both the vehicle and the driv- er, but this was the worst case we’ve experienced. I doubt this driver will ever come back to work on the taxis, that’s for certain.”
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