Republican News · Thursday 05 August 1999

Falls taxi drivers save Shankill man

FALLS taxi drivers scared off a sectarian attacker assaulting a Shankill Road taxi driver and his passenger on West Belfast's Grosvenor Road last week. The driver needed hospital treatment for head wounds and shock.

The taxi driver had just picked up a fare at the Children's Hospital when he stopped at traffic lights outside the Royal Victoria Hospital on the Grosvenor Road. As he waited at the traffic lights, a man who noticed the taxi name approached the car and began to try to get at the driver. The manager of the taxi firm, Alan Burns, said the man opened the passenger door and ``told the driver and the passenger that he was sick of seeing Orange bastards on the road and that if they came back they would be shot''.

The man then attempted to open the driver's door but the driver put on the central locking. But the taxi was unable to move as there was a car in front and the light was still red. Burns explained:

``The man started punching the driver's window and when that didn't work he tried kicking it hard. He eventually put his boot through the glass. He then punched the driver hard in the face, calling him an Orange bastard while shouting other sectarian insults.''

The man is said to be very shaken by the ordeal.

The vicous assault only ended when black taxi drivers on the Falls Road intervened and scared the attacker away. Condemning the attack, West Belfast Taxi Association Chairperson Jim Neeson said:

``Taxi drivers are merely fulfilling their duty. There shouldn't be any boundaries; they should be allowed to ply their trade without any interference. Taxi drivers are there to serve the public, no matter who they are or where they are from. We don't want anybody to feel that they can't come onto the Falls.''

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