…SHAME SHAME
NEWCASTLE TAXI DRIVER BRANDED A ‘DANGER TO THE PUBLIC’ AFTER BEING CAUGHT WITH KNIFE IN HIS CAB
Taxi driver Azhar Hussain has been branded ‘a danger to the public’ after police found a knife in his car. StokeonTrentLive re- ports that although Hussain admitted to having put the weapon in his glove box, he claimed he had been using it for DIY and forgot it was there. A judge rejected his account and sen- tenced him to 21 weeks in prison, while Newcastle Bor- ough Council has revoked his taxi licence in order to protect the public. Prosecutor Alicia
Perry said: “The offi- cers’ ANPR trigger- ed in respect of the defendant’s vehicle. He was suspected to be carrying a knife due to threats of violence being made towards him. “The defendant was searched. An officer found a knife in the glove box. The de- fendant admitted he had put the knife there and had taken it into B&Q to cut some plastic. He denied telling police he had said he was going to keep a knife in his vehicle for protection.” The court heard Hussain had been
Azhar Hussain
subjected to threats, which he had re- ported to police, since the breakdown of his arranged mar- riage. Hussain, from Stoke, pleaded guilty to possessing a knife in a public place last August 30. The
DRUG DEALER CROSBY TAXI DRIVER CAUGHT RED-HANDED
A drug dealing taxi driver spotted be- having suspiciously was caught with drugs and almost £2,000 cash. Adam Rice, 29, denied supplying to passengers but ad- mitted delivering cocaine wraps to drug users to pay off gambling debts. According to the Liverpool Echo, Liv- erpool Crown Court was told that on the evening of February 10 last year police saw Rice driving his taxi, a man got into the vehicle, it drove off but the man got out shortly after and the officers stopped
Adam Rice
Rice nearby. When the vehicle was searched they found 17 wraps of cocaine and £1,900 cash. In the glove box they also found cannabis. Rice admitted that he had been supply- ing drugs for two weeks and would get messages to deliver wraps to customers but did
MARCH 2020
not supply passen- gers. Rice, from Crosby, was jailed for three years last month. Judge David Aub- rey QC said: “The message must go out to all that that if any taxi driver becomes involved in Class A controlled drugs and their sup- ply, whatever the circumstances, they will lose their liberty. "You were not ply- ing a legitimate trade of taxi driving, you were plying an illegitimate trade of drug supplying there must be an element of deter- rence.”
court heard there was also a hammer in the glove box. Sentencing him, the judge said: “Those who carry knives for what they describe as self-protection would evidently use those knives if the circumstances, as they saw them,
arose. That must be deterred by court sentences. “To say you had for- gotten about the knife is nonsense. To say it was in your car because you had been doing DIY is ridiculous. You are a danger to the public.”
Councillor Stephen Sweeney said: “Car- rying a knife, es- pecially when you’re a taxi driver, is a very serious of- fence.” He revoked Mr Hussain’s licence with immediate ef- fect in the interests of protecting the public.
LONDON UBER DRIVER TRICKED BLIND PASSENGER INTO £20 TIP
An Uber driver con- ned a blind soprano passenger by using her phone to give himself a £20 tip. According to The Times, Cornel Mihai, 32, duped Victoria Oruwari into hand- ing over her iPhone after he drove her home to Croydon, south London, last June. He claimed that he needed to use her handset to end the journey but then gave himself the tip on top of the £51 fare plus a five-star rating without Ms Oruwari’s knowl- edge. He was handed a suspended five- month sentence after being found guilty of fraud by false representation at Croydon Magis- trates’ Court last month. As he left court detectives immediately arrest- ed him on suspicion of committing other offences. Ms Oruwari, 39, has
Cornel Mihai
performed at the Royal Opera House and Theatre Royal Drury Lane. She was also a finalist on the BBC’s All Together Now singing con- test. After she com- plained to Uber the company refunded the fare, reported Mihai to the police and removed him from its approved drivers’ database. Mihai denied the charges. “I finished this journey on my phone,” he told the
court. “I want to work honestly.” Sentencing him, Judge Susan Green said: “This is an offence of high cul- pability and harm. There are substan- tial aggravating fac- tors. There is no doubt in my mind that your defence was properly reject- ed during your trial. You took advantage of a blind, vulnera- ble person who trusted you. “If those people with disabilities and disadvantages can- not rely on the assistance of those around them then our society is in a sorry state.” Mihai was also hand- ed 240 hours’ com- munity service and disqualified from driving for six months. He was ordered to pay Ms Oruwari £200 compensa- tion, plus the £20 tip, £775 court costs and a £122 victim surcharge.
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