A BURTON taxi driver was racially abused and attacked after refusing to take two drunk teenagers to Stretton unless they paid in advance, a court has heard.
Munsaf Dar suspected the would-be customers hadn’t got the money to pay the fare and asked for cash up front.
With no money forthcoming, he asked them to get out of his taxi but when he opened the door, one of the accused shouted racist abuse and attacked him.
Glyn Samuels, prosecuting, told a hearing at Stafford Crown Court that the dispatcher from the 57 Taxis private hire base, in High Street, came out of the office to assist Mr Dar and was also assaulted.
Witnesses said both accused were shouting racist abuse at this stage.
CCTV cameras showed the pair walking over to the site of the derelict former Bargates shopping precinct and picking up a scaffolding block, but only one of them throwing it at the plate glass window of the taxi office.
Police were called and one of the pair, Daniel Bristow, ran straight in to the arms of an officer.
Bristow said he hadn’t done anything wrong and that he had ‘only been watching’.
He said he had helped his pal pick up the scaffolding block, but had not been party to throwing it.
Bristow, 18, of Beacon Drive, Rolleston, admitted a charge of racially aggravated abusive behaviour. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order, with a fourmonth weekend curfew and 150 hours of unpaid community work.
He was also ordered to pay Mr Dar £200 compensation.
Judge Jonathan Gosling told him: “People operating taxi services are entitled to be protected from drunken yobs.
“You didn’t start this — you were sitting in the taxi doing nothing when your friend started causing trouble.
“Choose your friends with a bit more care next time and drink within your limits.” Mr Samuels said the co-accused in the case — Ashley Akhtar, now 20, of Horton Avenue, Stretton — had been sentenced to six months’ youth custody after being convicted in a trial at Burton Magistrates’ Court.
Bristow had said he knew Akhtar from school but didn’t normally associate with him.
Both of them were looking to get back to Stretton in the early hours of January 15.
They had been told the fare was £5.
Zaheer Afzal, defending, said Bristow had never been in trouble before and had a steady job with a DIY company.
