A MAN has appeared in court and been jailed just over 72 hours after robbing a taxi driver of his takings.
In a piece of ultra-swift justice David Cox, of Delius Street in Tile Hill, was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to robbing Arif Noori on Friday, July 4.
The 23-year-old had flagged down the taxi outside the Phoenix pub after drinking six pints of lager and at least one shot in the city centre.
He asked Mr Noori to stop and get out in Berkeley Road North to help look for a particular house. But as the driver got back in the cab he was pushed in the chest by Cox and fell over a wall where he suffered a cut, grazing and bruising.
Cox then grabbed his cash box, which contained more than £100, and ran off.
Solicitor Ian Windridge said Cox had gone off the rails after the death of his grandmother days earlier and had spent nearly two years staying largely out of trouble.
Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said he had taken the death and the early guilty plea into account.
However, he added: “But I want you to understand that you, like other people, take advantage of the services of taxi drivers.
“They are exposed to thuggish and dishonest behaviour like yours, and it is so serious to rob them that custodial sentences will follow. They have to be protected.”
