Taxi drivers are fined after mayhem at rank
Disturbance after passenger tries to avoid payment
Three Stirling taxi drivers have been fined a total of £1100 after ten minutes of mayhem at a cab rank left a customer unconscious.
Six police officers rushed to the disturbance, which began when the 41-year-old customer, who cannot be identified because he himself may be facing charges, apparently tried to get a ride without sufficient money.
CCTV footage played at Stirling Sheriff Court shows the man, who appears to be under the influence of alcohol and has a bottle of Buckfast in his pocket, get into the front passenger seat of the taxi at the head of the rank in Murray Place, Stirling, on July 5 last year.
About a minute later he gets out again, after his attempt to hire the cab, which never left the rank, was rebuffed.
However, the driver of the taxi, James Stewart, St Valery Drive, St Ninians, then gets out himself, and is seen to push the man violently to the head or face, causing him to fall backwards on to tarmac between the cab rank and the road.
CCTV footage, played in court, shows the man pick himself up and stagger to the pavement.
Two or three minutes later, two women customers arrive at the lead taxi and negotiate a hire.
But before it leaves, 50-year-old Stewart gets out again and is seen on the footage to assault the man for a second time, punching him, and kicking him or attempting to kick him, causing him to fall to the ground.
Stewart drives off leaving his victim lying motionless and apparently unconscious on the pavement while pedestrians pick there way round him.
Another taxi, driven by Brian Davidson, Keltie Place, Deanston, moves up to the head of the rank.
After another two or three minutes, Stewart’s victim appears to regain consciousness and get up.
He is then seen to approach Brian Davidson’s cab, apparently unware that while he was out cold, Stewart and gone and Davidson had taken his position at the head of the rank.
With the bottle of Buckfast now in his hand, he begins kicking and badly denting the driver’s door, and repeatedly kicking and punching Davidson, 40, through the open driver’s window, leaving him with a bleeding lip.
A man living near the taxi rank, William Neilson, 31, intervenes, pushing Davidson’s attacker away from the cab door and onto the ground.
Brian Davidson, whom the prosecution accepted had been “provoked”, is then seen to kick out at the man once.
Depute fiscal Laura Knox said the man was by now “cowering on the ground in a foetal position”, with Mr Neilson standing over him trying to keep people away.
Mr Davidson’s brother Edward Davidson, 37, Hadrian Way, Bo’ness, also a cabbie, parked third from the head of the rank, then gets out, sidesteps Mr Neilson, and kicks the man on the ground hard, twice, to the head, in retaliation for what has been done to his brother.
Three police cars with a total of six officers then arrive at the scene and the man is led away, bleeding from the nose.
Stewart pleaded guilty to assault causing injury while Brian Davidson admitted assault under provocation.
Edward Davidson denied assault causing injury – claiming he had merely been trying to kick the Buckfast bottle out of the man’s hand.
But was found guilty after summary trial.
The victim, a carer, did not make a statement to police and did not give evidence.