Passenger threatened taxi driver with knifeA TAXI driver was threatened with a knife by a customer who tried to pay with scraps of paper, a court heard.
Cabbie Mohammed Khan took Simon Edwards from Wolverhampton town centre to Burntwood, even though he had no cash on him to pay the £27 fare.
But after pulling up in Newgate Street, Edwards returned from a house there and handed over some scraps of paper, said Miss Heather Chamberlain, prosecuting.
When Mr Khan said “this isn’t money”, the defendant produced a kitchen knife and told the cabbie “do you want me to put this in you?”.
Mr Khan had held Edwards’s mobile phone as security during the journey, but the defendant grabbed it back off the dashboard and swore at the driver.
Police subsequently found Edwards’s fingerprints on the pieces of paper and Mr Khan picked him out on a video identity parade.
Edwards, aged 26, of Brooklyn Road, Burntwood admitted charges of making off without payment, possessing a blade and using threatening behaviour, on September 15 last year.
He was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months and ordered to pay Mr Khan £750 compensation and £750 costs.
Judge Michael Challinor told him: “What this boils down to is you threatened a taxi driver, at night with a knife to avoid payment of your fare.
“It isn’t robbery but a very frightening incident for someone offering a service to the public.”
Mr Darron Whitehead, defending, said: “His problem was, he drank too much.”
Since the incident Edwards had got himself a job as a team leader at a logistics company after being out of work for some time and his life had changed.
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