Booze-binge couple in vile attack on taxi driver
A MARRIED couple abused and attacked a taxi driver after he mistakenly picked up the wrong customer on New Year’s Eve.
Stewart Benson, 50, and Dawn Benson, 53, had been celebrating at the Greenbrow Social Club in Wythenshawe on December 31 last year.
The couple left the club in the early hours and started an altercation with a taxi driver who had accidentally picked up the wrong customers.
Dawn threw a punch at the driver, cutting his top lip, and Stewart, drunk on Jack Daniel’s whiskey, called him a ‘f ***** g P***,’ Manchester Crown Court heard.
In video footage of the incident, a woman can be heard saying ‘you f ****** black c***, go back to your own country.’ After hearing this, Judge Hilary Manley told Dawn she was ‘very fortunate indeed’ not to have been charged with a raciallyaggravated offence.
When the taxi driver said that he was just doing his job, Stewart, a road sweeper supervisor, told him ‘I’m tough, I was in a war’ and punched him again in his face.
His wife ripped the indicator and wiper stalk from his car before the police were called.
Stewart Benson, of Woodland Drive, Leicester, pleaded guilty to one charge of common assault and one charge of racially-aggravated harassment.
Dawn Benson, of the same address, admitted one charge of common assault and one charge of criminal damage.
Stewart was jailed for seven-anda-half months, but his wife walked free from court after being handed a five-month sentence, suspended for two years, and 150 hours of unpaid work.
The pair, both in tears, embraced in the dock before Stewart was sent down.
Sentencing, Judge Hilary Manley told the couple: “The courts will not