Burnley taxi attacker tried to buy silenceA DRUNKEN attacker who wanted to pay his cabbie victim and a witness £400 in a bid to buy their silence, threatened to blow up the taxi office if they didn’t accept, a court heard.
Warren Templeton, 29, who claimed he had explosives, left a worker at AA Taxis in Burnley petrified by what he had heard and believing it might happen.
Templeton, who had mental health problems, had earlier tried to strangle driver Mohammed Ishaq after he had been in the office to report his mobile phone lost.
Mr Ishaq knew nothing about the missing phone, the town’s crown court heard.
The defendant, of Piccadilly Road, Burnley, was spared jail after earlier admitting attempting to pervert the course of justice and common assault. He received 11 months in jail, suspended for two years, with an 18-month mental health requirement and 18 months’ supervision.
Sarah Statham, prosecuting, said on March 6, Mr Ishaq was in his taxi when Templeton approached, put his hands on the bonnet and started asking about a mobile phone he had reported as lost at the taxi office the previous day.
He grabbed Mr Ishaq by the neck through the open window, smacking his head back on the headrest four times. Police were called and while Mr Ishaq was waiting for them to arrive, Templeton tried to persuade him not to involve the police and wanted to shake his hand.
Miss Statham said the defendant was charged with common assault and he was bailed until trial by magistrates, on condition he did not go into AA Taxis. On April 8, he went in at 3am, and started talking about the lost phone.
Templeton, who was carrying a can of lager, told a worker he wanted to pay Mr Ishaq and the officer manager, a prosecution witness, £400 each to go to court and say nothing at all.
He indicated to the worker if the witnesses did not accept his offer he had chemicals and powder and would blow up the office – appearing to be ‘deadly serious’ and leaving the worker ‘petrified’ she added.
Templeton also gave the worker a phone number the victim and witness could ring to carry out the proposed transaction. He was arrested in a local pub the next evening. Philip Holden, defending, said Templeton had now been prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
source:
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/ne ... y_silence/
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