DIAL-A-CAB HERO CAPTURES MUGGER
 As
a former college basketball player in the USA, Tony Lawyer (C51) is pretty
tall - 6 foot 5 inches in his socks - "although by American
standards, I was one of the shortest players on the team!" He
actually played a 'final' at Las Vegas's Thomas Mack Center in front of
17,000 fans.
But that height, together with his long legs, came in very
useful in the early hours of February 17th when he saw pensioner Joan
Rutter trying to fight off someone attempting to snatch her handbag. She
was later taken to hospital where she had several stitched inserted into a
head wound.
At the end of May, Colin Clarke of Lower Addiscombe in
Surrey, was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment at Kingston Crown Court
after pleading guilty to the robbery. Call Sign spoke to Tony Lawyer to
got his story...
"I was driving my taxi through Tooting on the way home
at about 2am, when I decided to pull up at an estate agent to pick up some
advertising literature that was left outside as we are looking for a
bigger place to live. I was just about to get back into the cab when I saw
a black guy dragging a white woman out of a telephone box. At first I was
reluctant to do anything fearing that it might have been just a
boyfriend/girlfriend argument, as from a distance she looked quite young.
Then I saw him pulling her onto the floor and I could hear her screaming.
I realised that it wasn't a young woman, but a fairly elderly one.
The man took the bag and slowly jogged across the road as
though he had nothing to rush for. I saw two men run over to help the
woman, so I started up my cab and gave chase to the mugger. By then he
realised that I was chasing him and speeded up through a one-way street
assuming that I wouldn't be able to follow him. He went round the block
and even ran back past the woman he had just mugged! But I managed to keep
him in view...
I caught up and told him to stop, but he carried on running
so I got out on foot and ran after him. Then he stopped, put his hand into
his pocket and went as though to pull something out. He told me that if I
got any closer, he would stab me. I didn't hang around; I ran up to him
and punched him on the jaw, giving him a fracture in the process. At that
second, my only thought was to get him before he got me, and I'm pleased
to say that I did...! It turned out that he didn't really have a
knife."
At the court case, the Judge told the attacker that he ranked
as one of the most stupid crooks he had had before him. Clarke was already
on probation and to risk his freedom on mugging someone who wouldn't be
likely to carry much more than £20 on him was, said the Judge,
"...extremely stupid." He also suggested that the Sheriff of
Wandsworth should award Tony £500...
In addition to basketball, Tony does a lot of sparring in the
ring of his local gym with another Dial-a-Cab driver, which is where the
left hook came from!
Finally Call Sign asked Tony what his partner Tracy and kids,
Daniel, Alex and Oliver thought about his catching a mugger?
"Oh, they're used to it," replied Tony, "he's
the third mugger I've nabbed!"
|
Dial-a-Cab / M&O
Link-Up But...
Call Sign has been told by Mann & Overton that the new link
between Dial-a-Cab and the main LTI agent in Holloway Road is going very
well with a steady stream of DaC drivers phoning their Service Department
to order a replacement cab fitted with the latest DaC touch-screen
terminal, while their cab is being serviced or in overhaul.
DaC have fitted two new-type DaC terminals onto two almost
new M&O TX1 taxis (fitted with DaC logos and air con!). When a DaC
driver takes his taxi into M&O for a service or overhaul (usually
completed in about four days), provided he/she gives notice, he/she will
then be able to carry on working on a DaC radio taxi rather than have to
trawl the streets in a non-radio cab. The scheme will, of course, have to
operate on a first come - first served basis.
However, Mike Saunders, General Service Manager at M&O
has asked Call Sign to pass along the message that some drivers are NOT
switching off the terminal when finished with the cab and leaving the next
driver with a flat battery - not to mention taking up much of the limited
parking space.
You can contact Mann & Overton's Service Department on
020 7700 0888 to book your DaC terminal taxi.
|
