Taxi couple dodged fare
A COUPLE who ran away without paying a taxi fare ended up paying much more than expected, following an appearance at Selby Magistrates Court.
Chloe Beattie, 18, of New Millgate, and Matthew Beckett, 26, formerly of Fulmar Road, pleaded guilty to a charge of making off without payment of the fare.
The court heard the couple called a taxi to pick them up from York Hospital early on December 15 last year, after Beckett, a former soldier, was treated for cuts to his arm. They instructed the driver to take them to Coupland Road in Selby.
When the taxi arrived outside a property in Coupland Road, the couple left the cab after Beckett told the driver he needed to go into the house to get some money from his father to pay the £29.70 fare.
The court heard the driver saw them approach the rear of a property, and waited for them to return, before approaching the house himself and knocking on the door to request payment after neither of them returned.
The resident of the property told the driver nobody had returned to the house, and that the couple had nothing to do with that household.
A note was left at the address, but the driver contacted police when he heard nothing back, and the couple were arrested.
Colin Byrne, mitigating, said: “They realised they didn’t have the funds to pay the driver and rather than tell him that and give what they had on them, they made a foolish decision and ran away.”
The court instructed each of the defendants to pay £165.85 after they pleaded guilty to the offence, consisting of £14.85 towards the original fare, £85 costs, a £50 fine and a victim surcharge of £15.
source:
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/selby_tadcaster/
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