Cab drivers left fearing for their lives after another brutal attack in Watford
Azmat Shah was so badly beaten after dropping customers off in East Drive last Thursday his family don’t want him to go back to work as a taxi driver.
A brutal attack on a taxi driver in Garston has provoked new calls from the Watford’s Hackney carriage drivers for CCTV to be installed in their cabs.
Azmat Shah was so badly beaten after dropping customers off in East Drive last Thursday his family don’t want him to go back to work as a taxi driver.
The 59-year-old Hackney carriage driver from Chester Road needed glue stitches above and below his eye following the attack. Speaking to the Watford Observer, he said: "I feel scared at the moment. I don’t want to go back but I have not got any other choice."
Mr Shah’s son, Mohammed, 26, added: "We are not happy with him going back out. If he is trying to help the public get around and he is going to get attacked there is no point in him going out."
Mr Shah shortly after he was attacked in East Drive.
The Watford Hackney Carriage Drivers’ Association has called for CCTV to be installed in the town’s taxis before. But the move has been rejected by Watford Borough Council, which regulates and licences taxis.
This week Shafiq Ahmed, the chairman of the Watford Hackney Carriage Drivers’ Association renewed calls for a borough council-backed scheme for CCTV to be installed in taxis.
He argued the equipment was too expensive for drivers to fund on their own and the move would save taxpayers money by sparing police time and resources investigating attacks.
Mr Ahmed said: "Taxi drivers are being frequently attacked. This is the only way forward as we are all fearing for our lives. The time to do it is right now before someone gets killed.
"We have been calling for safety measures for three or four years and it has fallen on deaf ears. We feel let down."
Mr Ahmed added that taxi drivers were willing to contribute to a CCTV initiative but he felt it would only be workable if the council set it up and regulated it.
However, Watford mayor Dorothy Thornhill flatly rebuffed the calls, saying taxi drivers were private businessmen and taxpayers would not want their money spent furnishing their vehicles with cameras.
Mayor Thornhill said: "They are individual businessmen who run their own businesses. In these difficult times, if I went out and asked people if they wanted their taxpayers’ money to be spent putting cameras in taxis I don’t think many would say yes.
"If we really, really thought things were so bad in taxis that they needed camera for safety that would be a different issue of crime on the town. I don’t believe we are at that stage."
This week Hertfordshire Constabulary said a man and woman have been arrested in connection with Mr Shah’s attack.
Anouska Hardwick and Scott Crawford, both 33 and both of Cezanne Road, Garston, were charged with robbery on Tuesday.
source:
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/1 ... ur_lives_/
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