A customer beat his taxi driver over the head with a glass bottle – after he turned up to collect the fare late.

Malcolm Njururi's victim said the attack had left him wanting to leave the driving profession. 

His 24-year-old attacker, who was given a suspended sentence in December for dealing class A drugs, ordered the Royal Cars cab to pick him up from an Abingdon cul-de-sac on April 30 last year.

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Prosecutor Anna Fitchett told Oxford Magistrates’ Court: “When he arrived, there was nobody around. He called the defendant, Mr Njururi. The defendant told him he was too late. He didn’t want the taxi anymore.”

As the first driver was waiting, a second cab arrived. Njururi, who had ordered the second vehicle, came out the house and spoke to the waiting driver.

The second cabbie told him to take the first car. A heated discussion began with the first taxi driver, the court heard.

Ms Fitchett said: “[The defendant] has tried to pull the victim out of the taxi before hitting him over the head with a glass bottle.”

The driver was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital and treated for a 5cm wound to his head.

Photographs shown to the court by the prosecutor pictured pooled blood on the pavement and the taxi driver’s bloodied head.

In a victim personal statement, the minicab driver said: “I feel very scared and shaken up by what happened.

“I am no longer going to be a taxi driver because of this incident.

“I do not come to work to be assaulted by someone when I am just trying to complete my job.”

Njururi, of Normandy Crescent, Oxford, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm. He had seven previous convictions for nine offences and was currently subject to a suspended prison sentence, although as it was imposed after cab driver assault he was not in breach of that court order.

Mitigating, Angela Porter said her client had approached the second taxi when his driver spoke to the first cabbie ‘in a language he didn’t understand’.

“In the course of the heated discussion with the first taxi driver he accepts he had a beer bottle in his hand and that connected with the taxi driver’s head,” the advocate said.

The magistrates bailed Njururi to return to court on September 1 for sentence and ordered a probation report.

Last year, Njururi was given a two year suspended prison sentence. Recorder John Hardy QC said: “If you want a tip from me, young man, about how to live your life, live it with your family...who depend upon you; not with people who represent the dark side of life.”

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward