Taxi Driver Online

Taxi Blockade After Driver Is Arrested

1st Sepember 2008

Dozens of taxi drivers blockaded Huddersfield Police Station after a driver was arrested.

The mass protest involving more than 100 cabbies came after a late-night incident outside Kingsgate shopping centre.

Taxi driver Babar Hussain, 35, was arrested at Cross Church Street taxi rank following reports of an assault against a woman in her 20s. The Fartown man was taken to Huddersfield Police Station and later released on bail.

Other Hackney carriage drivers who witnessed the incident led a protest outside the police station after the arrest just after midnight on Bank Holiday Monday.

Kirklees Hackney Carriage Association vice-chairman Amjed Nadeem said: “All the Hackney drivers who were working in Huddersfield that night – more than 100 in all – parked outside the police station and refused to go back to work until the driver was released. They were there for three hours before he was released.

“We’re looking at putting a complaint in to the Independent Police Complaints Commission about this. The situation has been building up for a the last few months.”

Mr Nadeem claimed police were not investigating crimes against Hackney carriage drivers in the town centre.

He said: “The police are not helping in incidents when customers are abusive or failing to pay fares. Groups of people are jumping on the bonnets of the cabs when they’re parked. Even new vehicles have got dents on them.

“Morale is very low among the drivers. They are quite upset when the police tell them it’s a civil matter and they should just claim on their insurance.”

However, a spokesman for West Yorkshire Police denied this.

He said: “We understand that our partners within the taxi business are providing a valued service within the community and we will rigorously pursue any investigation to identify the offenders.”

The spokesman added police were liaising with Kirklees Hackney Carriage Association about the incident.


Source; Huddersfield Daily Examiner

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Brummie Cabbie.

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I wonder what the drivers would do if those that jump on the cars were arrested, and then freed when loads of their mates surrounded the police station?

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IDFIMH

I don't think the driver was released because of the blockade. The police had finished interviewing him. They may have released him earlier but he couldn't get out because the station was blockaded.

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Grandad,

In the mean time, the local PH had a field day

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