Taxi Driver Online

It was Friday August 1 and as you’d expect from that time of the year, London’s afternoon streets were far from buzzing. It’s the time of year when any job looks good! Dial-a-Cab driver Stewart Chapman (Y06) has been on the circuit since September 1995 and wasn’t surprised to see it so quiet, even though it was a Friday.

"There were empty cabs everywhere," Stewart told Call Sign, "and when that hand goes up, it becomes easy to miss because it’s so unexpected! Part of me almost wishes I did miss it…"

August 1 was the day when the newspaper ‘silly season’ broke into life with the news that Barry George had been found not guilty of murdering BBC television presenter Jill Dando outside her Fulham home in April 1999. Mr George was first convicted in 2001, but an Old Bailey retrial was ordered after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.

According to the world’s press, Barry George then left the Old Bailey in a taxi. In fact so desperate was BBC News to show a glimpse of Mr George on their evening bulletin, that they paused the news video on the cab showing a perfect shot of the DaC logo for around 10 seconds ( ) and a blurred shot of Barry and two others sitting in the rear compartment. Call Sign alone managed to speak to the driver. Stewart told us about the job…

"I was just coming up to Old Bailey from Ludgate Hill and a guy hailed me and said he wanted me to go to the ‘Lord Mayor’s’ entrance of the court to pick someone up. I’d been listening to the news and had half an idea of who it was going to be. I asked if it was Barry George and he said yes. He guided me through some heavily guarded gates and then a policeman came up to me and rhetorically asked if I knew who I was going to pick up.
I nodded and the look on his face told me that it wouldn’t be as straightforward as most taxi rides! He told me to turn round so I was facing the right way and then three people jumped in. It was Barry George, psychiatrist Susan Young and a member of his legal team. I was told to take them to the Barbican Thistle hotel, to make sure the windows were up and not to stop! I’ didn’t realise what they meant until I got to the gates to leave.

Word must have got out that a taxi had gone in the back way and when I reached the gates there was a throng of newspaper people waving cameras and microphones. I really didn’t want to hurt anyone, they were only doing their job, but I knew that I daren’t stop because otherwise I’d have never been able to move.

As I drove through the crowd of newspaper hacks, I suddenly felt a bang when one guy’s camera hit the cab. I had to carry on driving and was slowly cursing ever having seen the passenger that hailed me! Who would pay for any damage? Eventually we got through and sped away.
Once we’d left the photographers behind, Barry George said that he hoped there was no damage to the cab because of him? There wasn’t!

As I dropped them at the Barbican, there were several cab drivers that called out if I had realised who I had just dropped. I was tempted to say that I wish I hadn’t, after all I had a virtually new cab and I didn’t really need all that hassle. But I can’t deny that it was hardly a run of the mill afternoon! And for August 1, it was a job…!"