Cabbie feared customer would kill him in ‘unexpected’ attack
A TAXI driver has spoken about the night he was horrifically attacked by a cus- tomer he picked up in his cab, leaving him bloodied and fearing he would die.
Steve Antony Williams was working a shift for Ammanford firm Saron Taxis when he was asked to pick up a fare following a local company’s Christmas do.
He picked up three people, dropping one man off in Llangennech, near Llanelli.
He then asked the others in his cab where they wanted to go, and stopped the car so that he could check a map on his phone.
It was then, Mr Williams said, that he was subjected to a “totally unexpected attack”, the like of which he had never experienced before.
“I’d asked him a few times where he wanted to go and eventually I stopped to try to check where the location was,” explained Mr Williams, 57.
“All of a sudden he opened the door, got out and walked round to the front of the car.
“He then opened the driver door and started hitting me.
“It was totally unexpected. I’m used to customers gobbing off but to actually hit me is a different matter.
“The woman in the cab with him also got out and tried to get him to stop, but he hit me several times to the face.
“I had blood pouring down my face and I was thinking, ‘If I don’t leave, he’s going to kill me’, so I drove away, leaving the pair of them in the middle of the road.”
Mr Williams drove to Ammanford police station and was comforted by his stepson and his boss, who then took him to A&E at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen.
Taliesin Evans De Almeida, aged 32, previously of Genwen Road, Llanelli, was arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm in relation to the incident, which happened on the evening of December 22, 2020.
He pleaded not guilty but was found guilty by a jury at a trial held at Swansea Crown Court in January.
For Mr Williams, the time has since the attack has not been easy but he has tried to move on as best as he can.
“I’ve carried on working – I believe you have to face your anxieties,” he said.
“The odds of it happening are fairly low so the odds of it happening again are even lower.
“In the attack, my glasses and my right hearing aid were both broken.
“My sleep patterns have been disturbed and my eyesight has deteriorated.
“Fortunately, I escaped without any broken bones, but I was off work for about a month because I was sent to a specialist eye hospital in Bristol to get debris taken out of my eye.
“I honestly thought he was going to kill me.”
Having been found guilty, De Almeida was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Friday, March 4.
He was jailed for 10 months for the attack and one month, to be served concurrently, for criminal damage.
He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £156 within six months of his release.