Taxi Driver Online

Don't know why I bothered with much of this - another time-consuming rabbit hole, most of which really has nothing to do with the trade.

And neither does the more peripheral stuff shed any light on how the driver got involved in all of this. It does all confirm, though, that the ringleader is a headbanger of the highest order


Firebombing trial: Crucial CCTV in case against Greenock taxi driver

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/new ... xi-driver/


Image: Crown Office/Greenock Telegraph

CCTV evidence was used to prove that a Greenock taxi driver was part of the murderous plot to kill the mother of Lenny Cole by petrol bombing her home in the early hours of July 13, 2020.

Drew Darling, 28, was caught on camera driving his diesel-powered Skoda into the forecourt of the BP station on Inverkip Road at 4am and then filling a container with unleaded petrol.

He also filmed purchasing three glass bottles of Irn Bru before driving off.

Darling's taxi had earlier been recorded by a camera at All Saints Primary School picking up a man on Blairmore Road.

He had sent a text message stating: "Here now mate."

The charred labels of Irn Bru bottles, which had been turned into petrol bombs for the attack, were photographed at the Union Street address as part of the police investigation.

Telephony specialists also plotted the use of mobile phones by Darling and co-accused Craig McFarlane, 26, and Brendan O'Donnell, 24, around the time of the attack.

The analysis showed their phones moved closer to one another and connected to cell masts in the Union Street area shortly before petrol bombs were thrown at the windows of the property.

Not very exciting, but there's a two-minute video here of the driver filling up a petrol can after drawing into the BP garage in his diesel Skoda HC, then buying three bottles of Irn Bru from the forecourt shop

Quite apart from the act of buying three bottles of Irn Bru immediately marking him as a sadist, what a total headbanger

I mean, Greenock's a town of 40,000 people, and the firebomb attack took place a couple of miles away. Would be leaving a trail of evidence in his wake even if he'd bought the fuel in the likes of central Glasgow almost 30 miles away, but...


Greenock Telegraph fire bombings trial CCTV

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/new ... rial-cctv/

CCTV footage played to the trial jury shows taxi driver petrol bombing accomplice Drew Darling calmly filling a container with fuel just minutes before an attempted murder Molotov cocktail attack on Greenock flat.

The video, released by the Crown Office, shows Darling, 28, parking his diesel cab on the forecourt of the BP station on Inverkip Road and reaching for a petrol nozzle before directing it at the receptacle.

Further on in the two minutes and 26 seconds clip Darling is seen purchasing three glass bottles of Irn Bru as he pays for the fuel before driving off.

A flat on Greenock's Union Street was thereafter petrol bombed by his co-accused Craig McFarlane and Brendan O'Donnell in the early hours of July 13 2020, on the orders of vengeful ringleader Robert Warnock.

Not much on the taxi angle here, but this is how it all turned out


High Court judge brands Greenock petrol bombers 'gangsters'

MURDEROUS bombers who tried to wreak death and destruction across Greenock in a series of hate-driven fire attacks were yesterday branded 'gangsters' by a High Court judge.

Lord Mulholland told ringleader Robert Warnock and his cohorts to expect lengthy terms of imprisonment when they appear again for sentencing next month.

A packed courtroom had minutes earlier heard a jury of nine women and five men return guilty verdicts on co-accused Craig McFarlane and Cain Carr.

Now Warnock, 26, Brendan O'Donnell, 24, Kieran McAnally, 26, Drew Darling, 28 — who all pleaded guilty last week — McFarlane, 26, and Carr, 23, will learn their fate on October 26.

Lord Mulholland told the bombers: "Please be under no illusions, this was a campaign of gangsterism and lengthy sentences of imprisonment will be imposed."

Warnock — who is already serving an 11-year sentence for attempted murder — orchestrated three attacks on the homes of family of his arch enemy Lenny Cole.

Both he and McFarlane tried to murder seven people — including a six-year-old girl — at properties on Union Street in Greenock and Cumberland Road in Larkfield.

The pair engaged in phone calls and text messaging, identified targets, recruited and attempted to recruit others.

They discussed the acquisition of firearms and the shooting of Lenny Cole, Kieran Murphy and others and made threats of violence.

The Cole family home on Union Street was targeted twice — on July 13 and September 14, 2020 — and in the second attack fire bomber George Miller accidentally torched himself to death.

Warnock and McFarlane offered money and drugs to Miller to set the property ablaze.

All of the fire bombings came after Warnock's younger brother, Reece, 18, was attacked by Lenny Cole, 23, and his half-brother Andrew Sutherland, 33, in Port Glasgow town centre on August 27 2019.

Sutherland is serving a prison sentence for trying to kill Reece Warnock, who died around two months after the attack.

Advocate Tony Lenehan, for Warnock, told the High Court in Glasgow: "The catalyst for Mr Warnock was when his late brother's grave was desecrated.

"He understands that a substantial punishment will be added to the existing substantial punishment."

Warnock is serving his existing sentence for trying to murder a woman as she waited for a taxi in Greenock.

He was armed with a meat cleaver and an axe when he attacked defenceless Lynsey O'Neill in the town's east end, inflicting horrific injuries.

Warnock also seriously wounded her partner Scott Mitchell when he went to her aid during the street attack on June 28, 2019.

A judge told him that he'd carried out 'a brutal and cowardly attack'.

Cain Carr had told the court that he made a round trip from Kirkintilloch to Greenock in the middle of the night to buy cocaine at the time of the Cumberland Road attack on September 19, 2020.

The jury, by majority, rejected his claim and found him guilty of involvement in the attempted murder of Lenny Cole's aunt, Ellen Cole, her son Connor Leadbetter and her six-years-old daughter.

The court was told previously that the child was asleep upstairs when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the family home — which has outdoor toys in the garden — at 1am.

The jury took seven hours to reach verdicts on McFarlane and Carr.

The panel made no deletions from the indictment against McFarlane.

Brendan O'Donnell and Drew Darling were involved in the first attack at Union Street, the home of Cole and Sutherland's mother, Rosaleen Sutherland on July 13, 2020.

Kieran McAnally drove a Rover 45 car he'd bought two days before the Cumberland Road attack to Kirkintilloch to collect Cain and returned him home after they carried it out.

Advocate depute Paul Kearney informed the court of Warnock's previous convictions, including an assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement for which he received a 30-month sentence at Greenock Sheriff Court in October 2015.

Previous convictions for O'Donnell, McAnally and McFarlane were also narrated to the court.

Former taxi driver Darling has no previous convictions.

He was filmed on CCTV filling a container with petrol and buying three glass Irn Bru bottles at the BP station on Inverkip Road prior to the first attack at Union Street.

In a text message sent to another McFarlane at the time of the first Union Street attack, he wrote: "I'm here mate."

He was later arrested on Union Street and a box of matches seized from him had his fingerprints on it.

Lord Mulholland told the court: "I will adjourn for criminal justice social work reports before I decide on which sentences to impose.

"Take them away."

There was silence in the packed court and from all of the gang as they were led away.

They will be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on October 26.

Big loss


The taxi angle here seems purely coincidental, and the reports don't say why the attack took place, but I'm guessing the victims had some kind of history, but as befits the often crude good v evil stance on how the press reports these things, I suspect they decided not to mention that history

Anyway, the details of that attack maybe a getting a bit too off-topic for on here, but these photos were published in the Scottish Sun

I detect a hint of sarcasm there

Anyway, all that's getting away from the trade angle a bit, and can't see anything about how the driver might have got involved in all of this, and it does say that he had no criminal record prior to it all.

However, and for what it's worth, this is some stuff from the Greenock Telegraph's live reporting of the trial:


So not only did Mr Diesel-driver buy the petrol in his own backyard, but after the attack he drove slowly up the street when police were in attendance

hopefully life they certainly deserve it the evil ^hi*s

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

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IDFIMH