Taxi Driver Online

Never heard of Poulton myself, but Poulton-le-Fylde (full name) is a town of around 18,000 people. On the maps it looks almost like a suburb of Blackpool, but apparently it's a distinct town.

(Of course, if they'd used the full Poulton-le-Fylde in the article, its proximity to Blackpool would have been obvious...)


Man hunted after queue jumping row at Poulton taxi rank led to brutal assault

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire- ... g-22566298

A woman suffered a dislocated jaw in the attack at the taxi area on Ball Street in Poulton


Image: LancsLive

Police have issued a picture of a man they want to speak to after a brutal taxi rank attack.

Officers from Lancashire Constabulary say they are 'determined to find out who he is' following an incident in Poulton.

An altercation broke out at the taxi area on Ball Street when a man and woman have been challenged after trying to skip the queue.

A man has then pushed one of the women and punched another in the face. One of the victims suffered a dislocated jaw as a result.

The 'shocking' assault happened at around 1am on Sunday, October 3.

Police have today (December 24) released a picture of the man they want to identify as enquiries continue.

PC Craig Brown from Fleetwood Police said: “To think that a group of women complaining about two people jumping a queue ended up being assaulted is shocking.

“We have been on with a number of enquiries to trace this man but unfortunately haven’t been able to.

"We are determined to find out who he is and so I am asking anyone who may recognise him to make contact with us.”

Anyone with information can email 1669@lancashire.police.uk or call 101 quoting incident reference 531 of October 3.

The narrative here doesn't really make sense. 'One of the women'? Which women? But it looks like it was a couple of women who challenged the queue jumpers, and one of these women was then punched by the queue-jumping man. The above could almost be read as the woman who jumped the queue being the one who was assaulted.

The Lancs Police version is slightly better, but still not totally clear:


But just goes to show that it's often better to go to the official new release for these things rather than the press rehash, which of course wasn't possible pre-internet

And this is the official photo released by Lancs Police rather than the cropped version used by the news site.

Not that it makes a whole lot of difference, but you never know

Poulton is very much a different town as is Kirkham and St Annes My sister and her husband lived there for about a year and I would consider it a safe town not rough at all like Blackpool or Fleetwood but obviously there is a rough element these days

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

Despite the grainy image I think the police have a very good chance of nabbing the thug.

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IDFIMH

Just over 11 weeks to publish the thugs picture.

Not overly impressive.

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IDFIMH

If it's quite a quiet place as Edders portrays then he could be an out-of-towner, hence the difficulty tracing him.

But he's distinctive enough in the images, so here's hoping...

As said above its definitely a more sedative night out than Blackpool and Fleetwood, but there are many people from Blackpool, Thornton, Cleveleys, Fleetwood and from over the river Wyre who head there for a night out as there are a lot of drinking and eating places within a very small town centre.

There is really only one taxi firm Poulton Cabs that serve the town, although you do see a lot of cars from the towns Blackpool, Cleveleys picking up non Poulton people as they ring their local companies. There are 3 ranks (I think), out side the taxi office, the train station and where the incident took place. Its always a bad place to pick up late at night on weekends, way more people than local taxis (even before Covid), and many of the local taxis will be doing 'long' runs taking people to Blackpool to continue their nights out. I think there is only 'The Cube' that stays open very late in Poulton till about 4am.

Lancs police always seem slow in releasing pics of suspects. How many passengers will a hackney/ph have picked up in Blackpool town centre in 2 or 3 months, how many guests will a hotel or B&B have had in? if the person is not local.