Taxi Driver Online

Derby Evening Telegraph

July 28, 2007 Saturday

Woman jailed for not paying cabbie

A Passenger who fled without paying a £28 taxi fare has been jailed for five months.

Maureen Dolores Thomas was on a community rehabilitation order imposed by a court for burglary when she did not pay a taxi driver on June 1.

Thomas, 32, of Exeter Place, Derwent Street, Derby, ordered a taxi from a house in the city, visited several addresses and then returned to the house.

Abi Joyce, prosecuting, told Derby Crown Court that the fare was £28 and Thomas told the driver she would give him £30 which she had in the house.

Miss Joyce said: "The taxi driver waited but she did not come back out. He knocked on the door but there was no answer, which was when he called the police."

Miss Joyce said that Thomas realised that she could not pay once she was inside the house, so left by the back door. She pleaded guilty to the offence.

The court heard that Thomas was on a court order after breaking into a friend's house on June 29 last year, stealing a 28-inch television and selling it to a second-hand shop for £40.

Thomas admitted breaching the order by failing to turn up for appointments with the Addaction drugs service.

Catherine McKeever, mitigating, said that her client had a difficult life and was tackling a drug addiction.

Judge Granville Styler sentenced Thomas to four months in prison for making off without payment and one month for the burglary because she had breached the order.
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