Sentence

I took a guy round to the local Magistrates Court building this week and he had with him a large bag and what looked like all his worldly possessions with him. Are you off somewhere nice I asked little thinking that he would reply" no I'm going to jail." Maybe not I said they may look kindly on you and you may get off lightly, no he said, "I have been found guilty already and I'm up for for sentencing today and they have said it’s pretty certain that it’s time in jail". Not a lot I could say after that I could see that he was worried and nervous, but as they say, if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime. 

Prison Review

I always like to listen to people's regional accents and then try to guess exactly whereabouts they are from. Today I guessed correctly that my fare was from the Salford area straight after him saying where he was going to. He was that much impressed that I had said Salford and not the rival nearby Manchester that he strangely decided to give me the full low down on all the many prisons he had been in up and down the country.

 It was like an insider's guide with all the good and bad points of Her Majesty’s accommodation from all over the country. Apparently Armley jail in Leeds is best avoided" the screws don’t like you if you aren’t a tyke". But our local jail Haverigg "is just a holiday camp" compared to most. I just wish I had could have written it all down now, you never know when it may have come in useful eh!

Phone Home

Had a guy in the cab this morning and we were merrily talking away when his phone rings, he answers and says to me” it’s the wife” and put his finger to his mouth and says “shhh” 
He then says to his wife “yes I am just going through Salford now love I wont be able to make it back home until tomorrow “Salford is about a hundred miles down the road from us and I thought at first he must be a bit mixed up.
 But he then started to describe things we were supposed to be passing such as Strangeways gaol and Boddingtons brewery and even told her that he would call at one of the Asian sweet shops in Cheetham Hill and get something for her. When he finally hung up I looked at him questionly, but he said absolutely nothing about it just shrugged and carried on with the previous conversation.
It just shows you though with mobile phones you could be absolutely anywhere who’s to know eh!

Meth Lifestyle

I had two meth runs in a row one day recently, for those that don’t know meth is short for methadone which is a liquid heroin substitute doled out by the pharmacist and has to be drank whilst in the chemist’s shop.  This is a daily thing for these people and part of their normal routine, but don't go thinking that it’s all shady young chavs in hoodies, it’s both males and females and with a wide range of ages from twenties up to fifties.   
  Some say that these people have a drug problem but no to a lot of them it isn’t a problem at all.  With most of the long term users it’s simply a way of life and they know nothing else. Think of it this way, what wouldn’t you give to be free of all responsibility and to just treat life as one big game. Usually no fixed address so no bills to pay and no kids to look after, just like most of the users they are brought up by relatives or end up in a care home. Cash isn’t a problem easily earned by small time dealing, supplying other users. 
They tend to give the wrong destination when ordering the cab and it then turns into a run-around and a drop off on a vague street corner after going from one side of town to the other and back. Now sometimes if I stay real quiet with more than one fare in the taxi folk seem to forget I am there and talk about all sorts of strange stuff, today was just one of those occasions. This kind of opened a window onto the wild crazy lifestyles that some of these users take for granted. And it does sometimes seem that they can experience crazier stuff in a week than most of us see in a whole lifetime.  Three people in the taxi and they were all pretty silent until the meth had been taken and then they started to relax and talk between themselves.
One story was the tale of a fellow user who had not been able to go to his brothers’ funeral that week from his prison cell. “Naw the screws wunt let him go cos he’s an high escape risk he got out of the cop van in Lancaster and was on the run for a week, then when they got him he squeezed out of the skylight of the sweatbox (prison van).”  The lass then responded with “they double cuffed me when I went to me nanas, why didn’t they do that and put him on a lead” (a long chain from the cuffs to the prison officers) just then the actual guy they were talking about rang them using a smuggled mobile phone direct from his prison cell. They seemed to treat this as nothing out of the ordinary apparently mobiles are quite easy to get hold of in jail. 
They spent the rest of the cab ride laughing and telling each other stories about how they got caught for dealing and what cars the police were “sneaking around in”.  They didn’t think it fair that the police were now using cars with blacked out windows to watch them from and even using rough old cars to follow them with.  
Wow how some folk live eh!

Jail Phone

A strange letter arrived at the local Taxi office that I work from the other day.
It was headed as coming from Her Majesty's Prison, which one I won't say to protect the identity of the letter writer. The writer explains that they had been picked up by one of the Acacia taxis a while ago and then found that they had no cash to pay the driver. Whether this was maybe an attempt to do a runner or not we don't know so let's give him the benefit of the doubt eh!
Anyway, the driver must have had the good sense to not let him get away with it and promptly asked for the guy's phone as surety.
 So the prisoner was explaining in the letter from jail that the next day he had been arrested and then sent to prison. What for he doesn't say in his letter so lets hope it isn't anything too bad eh! 
He didn't know who the driver was or what car he drove and only gave the street which he had been picked up from and a rough date.
 Amazingly, when the operator radioed over and asked if anyone knew anything about it a driver answered right away and confirmed that he had the guy's phone.
The prisoner asked in his letter if the driver could keep hold of his phone until he was released from incarceration in a few months' time.
Luckily, for him the driver readily agreed to this. But as no one was willing to write back in reply to the prisoner I guess that he will have to remain in suspense tucked up in his cell until he is finally released.     

Heroin courier taxi driver jailed

You never know what could be lurking in your cab. Customers leave all sorts of stuff and some of it is never claimed such as the taser gun that Bob found in his cab a while ago. If you missed that story then click HERE to read it on the blog.

The chances are that you don't know exactly what goods your passengers are carrying and if a customer asked you to deliver a package to an address then would you just do it or question what is in the package.

Read the latest taxi news below and ask yourself. What would you do if given a package to deliver. This story is slightly different in view of the fact the idiotic driver knew what he was carrying.


Heres the story from the BBC News website


A taxi driver who admitted carrying £200,000 worth of heroin to Scotland has been jailed for 32 months.
John Arnold, 45, of George Street, Whitefield, Manchester, was driving north on the A74(M) when police stopped him for routine checks near Lockerbie.
Officers noticed he was nervous and carried out a drugs search of his taxi where they found four packs of heroin.
At the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Lord Brailsford described it as an "act of gross folly and stupidity".

The court heard how police officers stopped him on the motorway in the south of Scotland in August last year.
They noticed Arnold appeared nervous and was vague and evasive when he spoke to them.

They also spotted a carrier bag sticking out from beneath the front passenger seat and detained him for a drugs search.
Police officers found four packages wrapped in brown paper each containing a half kilogramme of heroin.
The haul was worth a maximum of £200,000 if broken down into street deals.
Arnold told police he was being paid £300 to bring the package north from his home city.
He admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class A drug on 21 August last year.
Arnold had previously been granted bail to allow him to have a knee operation.
Judge Lord Brailsford said he now had no choice but to jail him.
He said: "I am prepared to accept that this offence is out of character.
"I have no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence."
'Strong suspicion'
The judge said he would have jailed him for four years, but the sentence would be reduced following his guilty plea.
Defence counsel Frances Connor said Arnold ran an amateur football team and through that contributed to youth training in his local area.
She said: "It is clear he has disappointed many people by his appearance here today."
Ms Connor said that for several months Arnold had been transporting a man on local journeys who came to be a valued customer.
He was asked by the man to run him to Glasgow where he had "some business" and was offered cash payment for the trip.
However, when Arnold went to pick up the passenger he was told he could not go and would like him to take a package to Glasgow.
The defence counsel said: "He knew something was wrong.
"He had a strong suspicion about what he was being asked to do."