Youth football coach threatened to stab taxi driver
Saturday 3rd July 2010
A youth football coach from Wolverhampton threatened to stab a taxi driver, a court heard.
Tyrone Smith, aged 22, of Thompson Avenue, Parkfields, was drunk when he threatened to “shank” the driver outside a petrol station, in Tettenhall Road, in the early hours of December 27, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
Mr Mark Phillips, prosecuting, said Smith and two others had been asked to leave the station earlier in the evening after pretending to steal items from the shop and asking for alcohol.
They returned at about 1.15am and approached the driver, who they thought was there to pick them up.
Smith threatened to stab the driver unless he was allowed access to the car.
Mr Benjamin Williams, defending, said Smith works as a youth football coach and is enrolled on a mentoring course with Wolverhampton Adult Learning Services.
“What he did was totally out of character,” he said.
Sentencing him to a year in prison, suspended for two years, Judge Martin Walsh told him: “I am quite sure you are a young man who has considerable potential. However the unhappy victim was a taxi driver, who provides a service for the public.”
Smith, who admitted attempted robbery, was given a 26-week curfew from 10pm to 7am and ordered to do 20 hours of unpaid work.
Source; expressandstar.com
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