Taxi Driver Online

The photograph is captioned 'Flanagan' on the newspaper's website, but I'm assuming it's actually the victim, with his face swollen after the attack.

JAILED: Thug left cabbie partially blinded after throwing punches at him

https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/ ... es-at-him/

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.


Image: Telegraph and Argus

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.

But according to Mr Happy-clappy Cabs in Chelmsford's view of "the rowing couple", "It depends on how bad it gets but I keep quiet. I haven’t experienced much of this, people are civilised in public places."

since when has Chelmsford been in Yorkshire ?

Chelmsford is in ford mondeo and laura ashley land Yorkshire is the big carbuncle on the end of the pennines

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

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

If only every judge had this opinion.

Otherwise called a 'Newton Hearing'.

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IDFIMH

That's good to hear.

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IDFIMH

I think most do, it's just not many reporters attend court anymore.

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IDFIMH

Not sure if you're saying rowing couples are more of a threat in Yorkshire than in Essex, or the other way round