Two hours of terror as Southport cab driver held hostage
October 29, 2010
A fugitive prisoner hijacked a Southport taxi driver and took him on a 70-mile terror ride after robbing a terrified pensioner of £16,000 at knife-point.
Marcus Darroue, 32, was supposed to be serving a nine-year sentence for an armed robbery in 2005 but headed to Southport after absconding from HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire.
He raided two homes in Southport on August 6 before escaping by calling a pre-booked Yellow Tops cab and keeping the elderly driver captive.
The traumatised cabbie was forced to drive to Stoke in a two-hour ride, where his car was ambushed by cops.
Speaking to the Visiter, the granddad recalled how officers tasered Darroue as he put a knife to his throat.
The shaken cabbie said: “The whole thing felt like something out of the movies – but this was real life.”
“If the police hadn’t have acted so quickly, I could have been killed. It was unbelievable.”
At the first property in Saunders Street, Darroue stole two laptops, two games consoles and an iPod while armed with a knife.
He then moved on to a second property in Gordon Avenue, where he stole cash, as well as rosary beads, a telephone and a Playstation.
It was here he escaped with £16,000 cash before calmly using the house phone to call for a cab.
Last night, the elderly victim said she was too traumatised to speak about the incident.
She said: “I have blocked what happened out of my mind and I don’t want to go through it again.”
It was outside the Gordon Avenue property that the unsuspecting taxi driver picked up Darroue on what seemed to be a routine pre-booked journey to St Helens.
The cab driver said: “I remember asking him if he wanted to dump the hold-alls he was carrying in the boot, but he said he wanted them next to him.”
“We travelled a few miles before he said he wanted to go to Stoke instead and he gave me one of his two mobiles as a deposit.”
“He said he wanted to see his ex-wife and his son and drop off a 42”-inch plasma television. He kept looking at all the nice cars; he clearly knew what he was on about.”
“He was fairly cool and calm until we got into traffic on the M6, then he got agitated. His left leg started tapping away. I had no idea there was a knife is his right pocket.”
“I knew there was something suspicious about him. He looked a proper wheeler-dealer.”
The cab made its way down the southbound carriageway as police forces across the region grouped together to launch a response.
Taxi firm bosses were told to make a bogus call to the driver’s hands-free mobile as he passed Sandbach, with officers then tracking his phone signal.
John Whiteside, owner of Yellow Tops, recalled: “We didn’t know at this time where he was, if he was safe or anything.”
Detectives with taser guns were then able to intercept the car as it travelled along the A500.
After spotting police, Darroue held the knife to the cabbie’s throat, but he was only give one chance by police, who quickly tasered him.
Appearing at Liverpool Crown Court via video-link from Walton prison, Darroue pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated burglary while armed with a knife, one offence of false imprisonment and one of having an offensive weapon.
Darroue, of Crosby View, Leeds, denied a further charge of making threats to kill the cabbie.
Simon Duncan, prosecuting, said the crown would not seek a retrial on that single charge and the full facts of the case against Darroue would be opened.
He said that because of the offences and Darroue’s previous convictions, including the nine-year sentence, he was in “significant jeopardy” of being assessed as dangerous.
Jeffrey Pedley, defending, told how Darroue was only due to be released from his previous sentence in April 2011 and would now have to serve the entire length of it.
He told the court he had requested a psychiatric report on his client. Judge David Boulton further remanded Darroue in custody to await sentencing on December 7.
Source;
http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/south ... 7560369/3/
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