Taxi Driver Online

Portsmouth taxi driver avoids jail for blasting fare-dodging women in the face with pepper spray

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime ... -1-9188228

AN ENRAGED taxi driver who launched a pepper spray attack on a group of fare-dodging women left one of his victims fearing she was ‘going blind’.

Narcisse Assicome narrowly avoided jail after blasting two women in the face with the canister of illegally-owned liquid.

The 47-year-old father-of-four had been on duty in the early hours of November 4, 2018, when he received a call to pick up three women in Southsea.

However, unbeknown to cabbie Assicome, the trio of women had ‘no intention’ of paying the full £7 fare to the Milton Arms pub, instead offering £1 before fleeing, Portsmouth Crown Court heard.

Furious, the Republic of Congo national armed himself with one of two cans of pepper spray he kept in his taxi for ‘self-defence’ and gave chase.

Assicome, of Old Wymering Lane, Wymering, managed to assault two of the three, first dousing Tia Simmons in the face once, then Jessica Kubiak, before coming back to Ms Simmons and spraying her a further two times in the face and mouth.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Lamb told the court Ms Simmons was left terrified and said: ‘She had a hand over her face and was screaming. She thought she was going blind. She could not open her eyes to see. Her face and her eyes were burning.

‘Struggling and with the aid of Siri on her mobile phone she managed to telephone her mother and her father arrived to collect her and took her to Queen Alexandra Hospital.’

The effects of the spray lasted for about a day, leaving no lasting physical damage, Mr Lamb said.

He added Ms Kubiak had admitted not having the money for the fare and said: ‘She planned on paying the £1 and running off.’

When questioned by police about the attack, Assicome admitted he lost his temper with the dishonest trio when they refused to pay.

‘This, he said, annoyed him and said he didn’t have time for this nonsense and the thought came to “spray, spray spray”,’ Mr Lamb told the court.

Assicome admitted both assaults and a further charge of possessing two cans of pepper spray.

Defending, Daniel Reilly said the incident came at the end of a ‘particularly difficult week’ where Assicome had been threatened by another customer with a knife.

Mr Reilly told the court the pepper spray attack would never have happened had the victims not taken the ‘deliberate decision’ to ‘make off without payment’.

‘While his intention was not to cause any harm he wanted to make a point that they shouldn’t be able to behave in that way.

‘He accepts that it was not an acceptable way of dealing with it and he is sorry for his actions.’

Judge William Ashworth sentenced Assicome to six months in jail, suspended for a year, and ordered him to complete 150 hours unpaid work and pay £50 compensation to each victim.

Assicome has since had his taxi licence revoked by Portsmouth City Council.

Speaking after the sentencing Nickii Humphreys, the council’s licensing manager, said: ‘As soon as we were alerted to the incident with Mr Assicome, we revoked his private hire driver's licence as the safety of passengers travelling in vehicles licensed by Portsmouth City Council is of paramount importance.

‘We hope that the sentence imposed by the court demonstrates to licensed drivers that such actions will not be tolerated and that the licensing authority will not hesitate to revoke licences.’

Thanks to the defence for letting us know that he doesn't go around pepper-spraying people at random


Well there's a surprise

All for the sake of £7 (or £6) ?
Although it’s annoying, experience tells you it’s just not worth it, you’ll lose more money calling the police and/or chasing them.

It might make them think twice before doing a runner again

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

I suppose the likelihood of those women attempting to bump another taxi/PH driver are slim, but the driver is as thick as pigs poo.

As soon as he put that stuff in his car he was one mad moment away from losing his livelihood, and nearly his liberty.

What a pillock.

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IDFIMH

the trouble is there are probably dozens if not hundreds out there with wrenches screwdrivers pepper spray heavy duty torches etc etc but how often do police check taxis for weapons ?

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

Are you talking about passengers or drivers edders?

There are thousands of assaults on drivers each year with barely a mention in the news.
Stupid, stupid man for retaliating in this manner, but how many of us have suffered the frustration of non payers?
The so called victims should not have received compensation, they brought it upon themselves.

Dog bites man, not news, but man bites dog?

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Former taxi driver

Anyone with a bit of savvy can make a reasonable excuse for having a screwdriver/torch/wrench in their taxi/PH.

As for any searches of cars, it only happens when something goes wrong.

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IDFIMH

I was told by a friend who was in the police that the best thing to carry in your cab/car was a roll of wallpaper (yes, honestly!) preferably the old style ‘tiling on a roll’ just put it under or down the side of your seat (easier in a cab) If you hit someone with it your unlikely to kill them but across their face would it hurt! Should you end up in court, you had it on you as you were calling in at a DIY store to try and find a similar one. Can you imagine the prosecution holding it up in court as a dangerous weapon ??

I can if they have a quick read of TDO!

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Back in the day when car security wasn't so good, and when steering wheel locks were a thing, I had one of the original Stoplocks.

Which seemed almost purpose-built to be used as a weapon in self-defence - roughly club-shaped, weighted at one end, etc.

And, of course, the obvious place to store it while driving was under the driver's seat

Luckily I never even got to the stage when I considered using it (in self-defence, obviously) and although there's quite a few lairy and aggressive people around here (as everywhere) I doubt if we're in anything like the danger drivers are subject to in the big cities.

In fact it's not really something I've thought about much for years (apart from when reading stuff like in this thread), but there isn't really anything to hand in my car that could be used as anything like a weapon.

I heard a driver round here nearly got strangled during a fare dispute over xmas. Punter got his arm through the coin hole and was throttling him with his jumper. Don't know any more than at, unless X-Ray's heard something

The last I heard he was trying to recover the cctv footage from his cab to give to the police.