A TAXI driver was punched, racially abused and threatened with a knife in East Oxford.

Diden Souameur’s vehicle came nose to nose with Simon Stannard’s Nissan in a narrow section of Aston Street, when the latter declined to reverse.

Stannard was seen by neighbours to refuse to budge, telling one of them “I can stay here all day if I need to”, Oxford Crown Court heard this week.

The 35-year-old was then heard to yell at Mr Souameur, “why don’t you go back to you own ****ing country” before punching him in the side of the head.

Stannard then grabbed the taxi driver and “started shaking him”, according to a neighbour.

After the “taxi driver hit the driver on the top of the head with something glass or ceramic, which smashed, the defendant let go and walked back to his car, leaned in the driver’s side and got something out”, the witness said.

She added: “I remember saying oh my god, he’s got a knife.”

Stannard, of Cowley Road, East Oxford, was unanimously convicted of having an offensive weapon and racially aggravated assault by beating.

Stannard, who has a previous conviction for having an offensive weapon, was bailed to be sentenced at Reading Crown Court on July 1.

He was told to abide by an 8pm-to-5am curfew until then.