Taxi Driver Online

A minimum of 15 years.

Edinburgh cab driver jailed for murder of driver


Stephen Nolan has been jailed for life. Picture: Police Scotland


A CAB driver was jailed for life today for murdering a fellow taxi driver at an Edinburgh park.

Stephen Nolan, 48, from Edinburgh, had denied chasing and murdering Ebrahim Aryaei Nekoo, 41, in his black cab in Saughton Park in March last year.

A post mortem found a broken skull, 40 rib fractures which had torn into his lungs, a smashed pelvis and a wound to Mr Aryaie Nekoo’s thigh.

A Vauxhall Zafira, used by Mr Aryaie Nekoo as a private hire taxi, was parked nearby with the lights still on when he was found.

At the High Court in Glasgow today, Nolan was handed a life sentence with a punishment element part of 15 years.

Passing sentence judge Lady Wise told Nolan: “Nothing can be said today that will alleviate in any way the immeasurable loss that the family of Mr Nekoo has suffered.”

The judge told him: “The evidence showed that at no time did you apply the brakes, not even after you ran over Mr Nekoo.

“The jury clearly rejected your claims to the police that Ebrahim Nekoo came at you with a knife and that he ended up under your car by accident.”

She added: “I take into account that you have for most of your adult life been a hard working individual in regular work as a taxi driver.

“It appears that your violent action on March 24 last year was not in keeping with the good character you normally displayed.”

Jurors at the High Court in Edinburgh were shown tell-tale tyre tracks which prosecutors claimed showed how Mr Aryaei Nekoo was chased by Stephen Nolan at the wheel of his black cab.

Despite the efforts of other passers-by, including trained first aider Anne-Marie Hoy who was on her way to work at a nearby care home, and an ambulance paramedic, Mr Aryaei Nekoo died before he could be taken to hospital.

Pathologist Dr Clare Bryce said Mr Aryaei Nekoo’s injuries were consistent with being run over by a vehicle.

The court heard marks which could have been caused by clothing were found under Nolan’s black cab although forensic scientists were unable to say how Mr Aryaei Nekoo might have come to be under the wheels.

The trial was told that Nolan drove to the city’s Wester Hailes police station and told officers that the death was an unexplained accident.

He claimed it had happened after Mr Aryaei Nekoo had threatened him with a knife.

Nolan said “without a shadow of a doubt” the knife was still near to where the body had been.

Police sent an expert search team back to Saughton Park, which had already been searched once.

Apart from a small knife found in a sealed Tupperware box in the Zafira, along with fruit peelings, there was no blade.

Widow Mobina Jafari, 32, who has gone back to Iran to live since her husband’s death, was in court when the unanimous guilty verdict was returned.

Police collision expert Jack McBirnie showed the trial a map of tyre marks found in the car park at the Fords Road end of Saughton Park.

Mr McBirnie said gravel and stones had been scattered as the vehicle accelerated hard, back end swinging from side to side.

Nolan’s cab had also driven at the door of Mr Aryaei Nekoo’s Zafira, damaging it so that it would not shut properly.

Nolan did not give evidence but defence QC Donald Findlay said Mr Aryaei Nekoo went to Saughton Park for “a physical confrontation.”

The lawyer also claimed that police searches for a knife had not been thorough.

Mr Findlay said that his client does not accept criminal responsibility for what happened and said his position remains the same as it was at the trial.

He added: “He does express genuine and profound contrition for the part he knows he played in the death of Mr Nekoo because he was the driver of the car which went over him and took his life.”

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/ ... -1-2905840

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

You're ever caught in a situation like this, it will clearly harm your defence if you do a runner.

Had Nolan confronted the incident head on, the knife being "lost" would not be an issue.

As for the sentence, it is determined by the Judge according to the evidence presented at the trial. She was simply doing her job, and by all accounts she did it well.

But, I would expect an appeal because there doesn't appear to me to be any premeditation, which is required for a murder conviction. At best it should have been manslaughter, although the sentence may have been similar.

Will there be an appeal? We'll have to wait and see. And, if so, what the grounds would be.

The victim may not have deserved to lose his life, but there again he didn't have to go to the park. he didn't have to be so far from his vehicle, and whatever the circumstances, while Nolan was getting into his taxi, the Nekoo clearly wasn't getting back into his, which begs the question, why?

_________________
Skull, "You are a police inspector, aren't you?"
Cab Inspector Smith, "Yes."
Skull, "So, are you going to tell Mr Taylor what his rights are?"
Smith, "And ... What rights?"

I'd say an appeal against the conviction and the sentence is almost a given. It happens in far more clear cut cases.

_________________

http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

I believe that there was no knife and even though Steven Nolan may have not gone to the park with murder in mind (then again who was to say that wasn't Nolans agenda after all) the results and outcomes of the encounter at the park may have sent Steven Nolan into a rage that did have murderous intentions

Talk about shifting the blame

I mean, even assuming the PHD did have a knife as the HCD claimed (but which was never found...), it would hardly be self-defence or whatever if someone presented a knife and you were inside a moving vehicle and felt the need to run the knife-wielder over