NEWPORT

A woman cabbie was fined £600 for smoking in her own taxi - three times.

Helen Jones, 42, was hit with a £200 fine for each of three cigarettes after lighting up in her own cab.


A court heard how taxis are classed as a smoke-free place under the Health Act 2006.

Jones, of Newport, Gwent, had already had five fixed penalty notices for smoking over the last three years.

A senior council manager then witnessed her smoking in her taxi - and throwing a cigarette butt to the ground in June.
Community safety wardens then witnessed her smoking in her taxi on another twice.

Jones failed to appear in court when she prosecuted at Cwmbran magistrates for the three smoking offences - and one of littering for dropping her cigarette butt on the floor.

She received the maximum fine of £200 per offence due to the "persistent offending and her blatant disregard for the law".

In total she was ordered to pay £980 including costs.

A Newport council spokesman said: “The legislation to prevent smoking in smoke-free places was introduced to protect members of the public from the harmful effects of secondhand cigarette smoke.
“Officers will not tolerate breaches of the law - and repeat offenders will be dealt with robustly."

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 A taxi driver was robbed in his own cab after taking a group of passengers from Leamington to Leek Wootton in the early hours of this morning (Sunday).

At around 4am, a group of people took a taxi from Warwick Street in Leamington.

After the driver dropped one person off at Leek Wootton the offenders forced the taxi driver out his driving seat and put him the back of the taxi.

One of the offenders then started to drive the taxi towards Kenilworth.

The offenders then stole all the taxi driver’s takings and the keys to the taxi, while also attempting to take his mobile phone.

They stopped the taxi at Farmer Ward Road in Kenilworth where they made off on foot.

Anyone with any information about this incident should call Warwickshire Police on 101, quoting incident 71 of November 25.

https://www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk/news/taxi-driver-robbed-in-his-own-cab-after-leamington-to-leek-wootton-journey-1-8717636
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 BRADFORD

A DRUNKEN thug who partially blinded a Bradford taxi driver when he threw punches at him after spitting on his cab has been jailed for 32 months.

Stephen Flanagan permanently damaged Waheed Khan’s right eye with a forceful blow after losing his temper following an afternoon’s drinking, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Flanagan, 56, of Douglas Towers, Radwell Drive, Bradford, pleaded guilty to unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mr Khan on March 27.

A trial of the issue was held on Thursday after the prosecution refused to accept Flanagan’s assertion that Mr Khan attacked him with a coffee table leg.

Mr Khan, 44, told the court he was punched several times to the right side of his head by Flanagan after the defendant accused him of overcharging him for a journey from Bradford city centre to his home.

Flanagan said he had drunk five or six double vodkas and four bottles of Carlsberg during a shopping trip with his partner.

He claimed that Mr Khan tried to charge him £8 for the fare from the Queen public house in Bradford city centre to his home and then reversed away with his £10 note and his shopping still in the taxi. Barrister Martin Robertshaw, representing Flanagan, suggested that Mr Khan felt threatened by an aggressive man in drink and hit him with a piece of wood or a stick.

He said there were “shades of grey” about what had happened, and that Flanagan had suffered bruising and swelling to his head and bruising to his right arm from defending himself.

But Judge Jonathan Rose refuted the suggestion that Mr Khan, a Hackney Carriage driver, had drawn a weapon to beat his passenger with.

The judge said that Flanagan was struggling to unload his shopping from the taxi because he was drunk. He lost his temper, after having already argued with his partner, and repeatedly punched Mr Khan to the head.

The court heard that Flanagan had a long criminal record for offences of violence but had stayed out of trouble for the last five years.

Stephen Wood, for the Crown, said that Mr Khan suffered a serious injury to his right eye. His sight had been damaged forever and, although he had returned to work part time as a taxi driver, he was stressed and anxious.

He had to put a drop into his damaged eye every day for the rest of his life and may lose the vision in it completely.

Mr Khan now played less with his children because he was fearful of further accidental damage to the eye. “He is never going to get one hundred per cent vision back,” Mr Wood said.

Mr Robertshaw said Flanagan was in poor health.

Judge Rose said taxi drivers were vulnerable public servants and those who used violence on them would go to prison.

“Your behaviour was thuggish and it was violent and has had devastating consequences,” Judge Rose told Flanagan.

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