IN THE NEWS MAN WHO FELL FROM FLYOVER
ABANDONED BY THIEVING LIVERPOOL CABBIE
A young man who suf- fered life-changing injuries when he fell from the Rocket fly- over in Liverpool, had been abandoned by a thieving taxi driver who was trying to access his bank account. Dishonest Michael Taylor carried out a scam on drunken pas- sengers unfortunate enough to hail his hackney cab. Liverpool Crown Court heard he would demand access to his passenger’s wallet, claiming he didn’t believe they had money for a fare, and switch their cash card with one belonging to another of his victims knowing they were too drunk to notice.
He would then march them to a cash machine and watch as they entered the pin with the wrong card and later use their card and pin to access their account. Taylor was caught after his final victim, Neil Carroll, fell from the motorway bridge over Broad Green Train Station and police found the wrong credit card in his wallet. Robert Jansen, prose- cuting, told Liverpool Crown Court his first victim was Thomas McDonald who had been celebrating his A-Level
June 22 last year. He wanted a lift home to Huyton and remem-
bered the hackney cab jerking to a halt so he dropped his wallet and keys. He said the driver got in the back to help him but the next day found his cash card had been swapped for one belonging
to results on
stranger and someone had tried to take £50 from his account. On July 7 last year stu- dent Howard Davies picked up a cab in North John Street at 1.15am and fell asleep in the cab on the way home. He recalled the driver demanding his wallet as a surety but didn’t remember giving him his pin. But within minutes of him being dropped off
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£50 was taken from his account by Taylor and the next day he found
Thomas
McDonald’s cash card in his wallet. Mr Jansen told the Liv- erpool Echo:
Carroll has not been able to make a state- ment because of the tragic events that fol- lowed when he was left on East Prescot Road by the defendant. “Mr Carroll was found at 8.30am on August 20 last year. He was found lying in the car park of Broad Green train station. He had fallen from the motor- way bridge above the station, the Rocket at the M62.” Mr Jansen said the victim was picked up in the city centre and asked to be taken to Old Swan. But CCTV showed him at 3am on East Prescot Road at a cash machine with Taylor standing close behind. He added: “Minutes later the defendant drives off in his taxi leaving Mr Carroll on East Prescot Road. He is seen walking in the direction of the Rocket flyover talking on his mobile phone, arrang- ing to get home. That didn’t happen.” Mr Jansen said that while his driver’s licence was found in his pocket the cash card belonged to Howard Davies, the previous victim. He added that Mr Car- roll suffered “life changing” injuries that still require 24/7 care. Taylor took £220 from his account and tried unsuccessfully to take
“Mr
more in the days that followed. Taylor, of Tuebrook, came forward when police released a CCTV image of him asking for information about Mr Carroll’s accident. He was then arrested by the detective inves- tigating the cash card scam but gave no comment in interview. Taylor later pleaded guilty to three counts of theft and 15 counts of fraud involving try- ing to get cash from bank machines. The judge, Recorder Andrew Long,
told
Taylor: “This was a not unsophisticated fraud attempt. When people were worse for wear you successfully sub- stituted
someone
else’s bank card. “One of the factors we have had to deal with is the catastrophic injury suffered by Neil Carroll subsequent to being effectively aban- doned by you. “I have said to the prosecution counsel and your barrister you do not bear responsi- bility
for
happened to him. “But it is a terrible tragedy that his last uninjured human con- tact was with someone who was in the process of stealing from him.” He jailed Taylor for eight months. Speaking after
the
sentencing Detective Sergeant Jed Fergu- son, of Merseyside Police, said: “We have been made aware of a number of similar instances were passengers of a black
bank Ring for your local dealer
hackney cab have had their
card
swapped with another person’s bank card and the card has then been used to withdraw money. The incidents generally involve vic- tims who have con- sumed a lot of alcohol and when they have got in the taxi they have asked to stop at a cash machine, or paid by card in the taxi. “When the victims stop at the cash machine the taxi driver accom- panies them to the cashpoint and puts the card in on their behalf and withdraws the cash; the card is then given back to the vic- tim, and generally it is only the next day that they discover
they
have actually been given a card belonging to another person. Other
frauds have what
taken place through the use of a chip and pin machine in the cab: the victim hands over the card to the taxi driver and puts the pin in the machine and again when the card is given back it is not the card belonging to that person. “We don’t believe that this practice is wide- spread
and is
probably down to a handful of individuals and we are deter- mined to find them. “We are working close- ly with the local authority’s taxi licens- ing sections and the cab firms themselves to try and identify the indi- viduals responsible.” Anyone with informa- tion should contact St Anne Street CID on 0151 777 4065.
PHTM JULY 2013
39mm
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