...DESSERTS
JAIL FOR ROBBERS WHO ATTACKED BURY CABBIE
Two men who robbed a taxi driver at knifepoint have been jailed. Jason Syddall and Anthony Ogden threat- ened to kill Rashid Rama unless he gave them his takings, Bolton Crown Court heard. The pair launched their attack after being told the fare for their journey from Bury to Farnworth was £12.90. Ogden grabbed the victim around the throat so he could hardly breathe.
Syddall got out the car and kicked and punched the victim in the head before point- ing a five-inch knife at him and demanding money.
Mr Rama was being held so tightly that he was unable to speak and he tried to indicate with his foot that the
money was in the dri- ver’s door.
Syddall grabbed the bag, containing £310, and the pair fled. According to the Bolton Evening News, the incident happened on January 15 after Mr Rama picked up the pair from Fishpool Post Office in Bury and dropped them off in Farnworth.
At 7.40am CCTV footage shows that Ogden took Syddall to the Royal Bolton Hos- pital. Syddall had a stab wound to his abdomen, believed to have been caused by a knife, but the circum- stances of how he received the injury are unknown.
The police recovered a packet of cigarettes and a stolen car stereo from the taxi, which
had Syddall’s finger- prints on them.
Syddall, aged 36, from Farnworth, pleaded guilty to robbery, han- dling stolen goods and possession of an offensive weapon. He was jailed for four years and two months. Ogden, aged 29, also from
Farnworth,
pleaded guilty to rob- bery and was jailed for three years and three months.
Judge Timothy Clayson said: “This was a violent and aggressive robbery and you, Syddall, bran- dished a knife in the face of this taxi driver. “Taxi drivers are vul- nerable victims and provide a valuable service, and they should have the pro- tection of the courts.”
A thug who was part of a gang that forced a taxi driver to drive around for two hours and stole his mobile phone, has been jailed for two years.
TWO YEARS FOR THUG WHO TOOK SOUTHEND CABBIE ON TERROR RIDE Adan’s trousers.
the theft and activated six months of a sus- pended prison sentence to run con- secutively.
According to the Southend Evening Echo, Ayanle Adan, 23, from Southend, along with two other men, subjected the taxi driver to a trau- matic time as he drove them from East Lon- don to Southend. The gang got into the cab in Last London, stole the driver’s mobile phone and said he couldn’t have it back until he drove them to pick up alco- hol and then took them home to Southend. At Southend Crown Court Judge Michael Brooke QC sentenced Adan to 18 months for
He said: “This was gen- eral bullying behaviour which made the victim drive these three men around East London looking for drink. “The taxi driver was paid nothing and found the whole inci- dent thoroughly traumatic. The circum- stances of the case sound like more than just a theft. They drove this man round for two hours and kidnapped him in effect.”
Helen Chapman, pros- ecuting, said that during the ordeal the taxi driver discreetly called police from another phone. Officers arrested the three men and found the phone in
All three defendants were convicted follow- ing a trial at Southend Magistrates’ Court but Adan was sentenced separately.
Miss Chapman said: “This was quite trau- matic for the taxi driver because he was so outnumbered.”
The court heard Adan breached a suspend- ed 12-month prison sentence given to him on September 17, last year at Basildon Crown Court which lasted for 18 months. He was convicted for beating up a man, who needed hospital treat- ment, and stealing £1,000 and a mobile phone from him in June 2008.
After his prison sen- tence, Adan will be on licence for 12 months.
Police failed to track down a convicted killer for five years – despite the fact he was living just 15 miles from his former home. Ex-bouncer Stewart Brown did not turn up for a court date in 2004 after he was charged with stabbing a taxi driver during a vicious robbery. The 34-year-old brute could not be traced at his listed address in Glasgow after a war- rant was issued for his arrest – because he had moved to Paisley. And it was only in May this year that police finally tracked him down to a house in Neilston where he had been living with his girlfriend.
In that time, Brown had managed to secure a lucrative new job and father two chil- dren.
According to the Pais- ley Daily Express, the High Court in Glasgow a judge expressed shock that it had taken
FOUR YEARS FOR GLASGOW MAN WHO GAVE POLICE THE SLIP FOR FIVE YEARS was a punch.
so long for someone who was “living an open life” to be dis- covered.
Now justice has finally caught up with Brown as he has been jailed for four years and three months after admitting that he car- ried out the robbery and failed to appear in court.
The brutal attack hap- pened in the early hours of July 26, 2003, after Brown had fin- ished a shift at a pub where he was employed as a bounc- er.
The court heard he had stayed behind after last orders and downed a “stagger- ing” amount of vodka and lines of cocaine. He later got into Craig Paterson’s taxi and told him to drive to a non-existent address before asking the cab- bie to go to Glasgow. They eventually stopped at a dead end and Mr Paterson then felt what he thought
OCTOBER 2009 PHTM
He soon realised his neck was bleeding and that his passenger was clutching a knife. Brown screamed at him to hand over money but brave Mr Paterson tried to push him out of the car. Moments later, Brown managed to flee the scene with £63 in cash as the cabbie screamed for help. A witness later spotted the thug standing at a nearby tenement and alerted police.
Officers found more than £50 on Brown and also seized the knife – but the man claimed he had “done nothing wrong”. Brown’s lawyer said his client had no recol- lection of the attack, which left his victim scarred for life.
Murray Macara QC, defending, also told how Brown had not been aware of the trial in 2004 as a letter had been sent to his listed address in the Shettle-
ston area of Glasgow but he had earlier moved to Paisley. The lawyer added that Brown “made a new life for himself” in the years that followed, dodging justice while earning £2,000 a month as a joiner and becoming a dad to two new children.
He was only arrested in May this year after a warrant check was carried out when police were called to a row he had with his girlfriend at their home in Main Street, Neil- ston.
Judge Lord Bannatyne asked: “Why was he not found in the last five years? This is a man who appears to be living openly and the police could not find him?”
The court heard that dad-of-three Brown had a previous convic- tion for culpable homicide in 1995. Sentencing the accused, Lord Ban- natyne told him: “I can
take into account – rather unusually – that, over the last five years, your life seems to have altered radically. “However, I have to
also take into account that this was a really nasty offence. People who drive taxis have to be protected from attacks like this.”
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