A thug who was out with his girlfriend celebrating his birthday robbed a taxi driver and told him he was going to "do him" in a disagreement over a fare.
YorkshireLive reports that Gareth Richards, 44, had a "tussle" with the taxi driver who had charged him £10 for a journey from Wakefield to Knottingley on January 24 this year.
Prosecutor Duncan Ritchie told Leeds Crown Court on Friday 5 April, the victim - a driver for a company based in Pontefract - picked up a fare at around 2.30am. Richards and his partner got into the taxi and upon reaching their destination paid £10 for the journey.
Mr Ritchie said: "The arrangement, it seems, would be that the driver would wait for them to return to Wakefield. Around five minutes later, while still waiting, he was approached by the defendant. The defendant demanded change from the £10 he had previously given and he [the driver] replied that there wasn't any change due to the defendant.
"He put it that the defendant then became argumentative and said he was owed £6. The defendant then went into the car and grabbed the bag with the driver's takings.
"There was a tussle between the two during which the defendant pushed the driver and said he was going to 'do him.'
"He [the driver] took that as being a threat of violence. The defendant managed to wrestle the bag from him and run off."
It was said the bag contained around £70 in cash. The driver was said to have suffered a "slight graze" and it was said in court the incident lasted between five and ten minutes and described as being "very scary."
The court heard Richards, who appeared over a video link from HMP Lincoln, had previous convictions for offences of threatening behaviour, breach of a suspended sentence and a robbery in 1997.
He was on licence at the time of the robbery, which he indicated a guilty plea to at the magistrates' court.
Mitigating, Christopher Morton, said: "The background was a disagreement that he accepts and he accepts he was intoxicated,"
Mr Morton continued: "The distance [between locations] is a couple of miles and the understanding was it would be a £10 return journey.
"When they arrived, he returned to the taxi to tell the driver they wouldn't need the second half of the journey and so he thought he would be entitled to some change...
"It was a spur of the moment offence - there was no pre-planning for that matter. The fact of the matter is the defendant, when under the influence of drink, reacted badly to being told he wouldn't be given change he thought he was entitled to. He was angry and did make a threat and grabbed and stole the driver's takings.
"It happened on his 44th birthday. He was released from prison in September. His two-year-old son died in October 2023 and he had spent the day before the offence attending his son's grave and also drinking."
His Honour Judge Khan KC jailed Richards for two years and said: "This wasn't planned. It was clearly something that happened without any real thought and while you were in drink."
Source: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/birthday-boy-robber-told-taxi-28946284
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