..IN THE NEWS...IN THE NEWS


ALBANIAN DRIVER RAMMED TAXI INTO WALL IN 2AM MIDDLESBROUGH ATTACK


A maniac driver rammed a taxi off the road and injured the four occupants – and almost killed himself. According to the Northern


Echo,


Shptin Qelia and three fellow Albani- ans had got into an altercation with the driver of a PHV moments


earlier


when they boxed his car in and attacked him with planks of wood. The taxi driver man- aged to reverse away and get around the Ford Focus and race off, but his Skoda Octavia was followed at speed close to Middles-


brough town centre. The 2am drama took in Princes Road, Kingston Street and Union Street, before the cabbie tried to make it to a police station. As


he


slowed to negotiate the junction with Newport Road, the Focus driver sped up and shunted him off the road and into a brick wall. Qelia lost control of his car and smashed into a tree, knocking himself out, Teesside Crown Court heard last month. The 37-year-old pain- ter was abandoned by his passengers, and needed life-sav- ing surgery for a


repair a “multi-frag- mented fracture”, said


prosecutor


The Skoda taxi embedded in a wall, and the Ford Focus in a tree


ruptured aorta. The taxi driver had severe pain to his knee and hip and had to have glass removed from his head after his wind- screen shattered, while a passenger suffered soft tissue


damage to his abdomen, hip, foot and ankle. But the most badly hurt suffered a frac- tured vertebrae and rib, while his friend needed an opera- tion to put plates into his right arm to


Harry Hadfield. Qelia – who had never passed his test and was not wearing a seat belt – was also taken to hospital, and police found pieces of wood, an axe, a wooden pole and false Italian identity documents in the car. He was jailed for three and a half years after he admit- ted two charges of causing serious in- jury by dangerous driving, possessing an identity docu- ment with an im- proper


intention, having no insurance


and driving without a licence. His barrister Nigel Soppitt said he had been smuggled into the UK in a lorry ten weeks before the incident on Febru- ary 19, and had come for work so he could save up to get married. “The injuries he caused, he has to concede, were very severe. He was moments away from death.” Judge


Arton, QC told Qelia: “It is quite clear that you were part of a plan to cause an accident. This is as bad a case as there can be.”


Bourne-


processingCard 1% or less MAY 2019 25


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