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BILKED! Tony’s wasted £35 trip to Hayes… Tony Guerrier (L28) is no stranger to Call Sign. His first appearance here was in September 1999 when sticking up for Metrocab drivers after it seemed they were being blanked from one of our major accounts. His intervention got the answer he wanted - that Metrocabs would be treated equally unless the passenger specifically said they didn’t want one.Then in August 2003, Call Sign detailed Tony’s fight against the Bishopsgate bus lane and how Dial-a-Cab drivers were being penalised there. After receiving a PCN, Tony became determined to stick to his guns in demanding the right to set down or pick-up within the lane’s boundary. He refused to pay the PCN after setting down outside 155. The council refused to cancel the ticket and Tony refused to surrender and took his battle all the way. Eventually, three months down the line, the council gave in and ever since then we have been allowed to pick up and set down within the bus lane. His next battle with authority was in our March 2005 issue when Call Sign told of Tony’s battle with Camden Council after he was ticketed for being in the yellow box junction at Holborn Station. Tony’s argument was that the box was illegally sited and besides that, the only reason he became stationary for 9 seconds (according to the CCTV footage) was because several cars cut in front of him. Camden refused to budge and Tony went to Arbitration. The Arbitrator agreed that the junction had not been set out according to regulations and added there could be no contravention without lawful signing. So Camden had to redesign the junction. Their views on Tony Guerrier were unknown! Then in the May 2008 issue, Tony told Call Sign of yet another battle with authority over a PCN. This involved him waiting in Dean Street, Soho, for a disabled passenger on a Westminster TaxiCard. He was photographed on CCTV and sent a PCN. After a 9 month fight, Westminster gave in! Now there is another Tony Guerrier (P48). He is L28’s son and if his photo shows him as not looking too happy, the answer is simple. The evening before Call Sign met him, Tony had suffered a £35 bilk for a fare to Hayes in Middlesex. Tony takes up his story… "It was a Sunday evening when I stopped in Shepherds Bush for some young men who asked to go to Hayes. You can usually rely on a sixth sense to smell out potential trouble, but I had no such feelings or suspicions as they got into the taxi. So off we went. I dropped two of them off before reaching the final destination. "Along the way they were chatting jovially enough, the |
Sam Makes ABA Championship Final! |
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ginger headed one being
more verbal than the others. At Hayes, I was directed off the
main road into a residential street when a voice from the back
asked me to stop. The cab door opened and they all suddenly
piled out at great speed, disappearing down an alleyway that led
into another adjoining street. I gave chase, not wisely some
might say, but they had all vanished into thin air. Upon
reflection, I suppose I was lucky in that I did not meet with
any violence or get knifed, but the incident did leave me
feeling very angry and aggrieved. But what can you do? Even my
cab driver’s sixth sense did not ring any alarm bells. "I can only imagine they know these roads well and had planned the whole thing, probably having done it before and I think other drivers should be aware of the situation," he concluded grimly after adding that £35 was a lot of money in the current climate, but that by this time the following week he would probably have forgotten all about it. Had he been attacked, how different would the situation have been! ©Call Sign Magazine MM9
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pulling him out of the
championship semi final. But Sam wouldn’t have it! He had worked
so hard to get here and the night before the semi final, the
doctor finally gave him the go-ahead to box. Dean told Call Sign he had became concerned that Sam’s lack of training would diminish his chance of winning. Would he be sharp enough and more importantly, would he have the stamina to go three x 2 minute rounds? Could he tolerate the pain? In boxing, you can’t hide. As the bell sounded, both boxers raced to the centre of the ring and started to exchange punches at a ferocious pace - but those weren’t the instructions Sam had been given. He was told to control the pace and conserve his energy. But Sam was producing the cleaner punches and at the end of the first round, had taken a 7 - 0 lead. Sixty seconds later they was at it again. Sam’s opponent, Zak-Edwards-Clark found the going difficult with the pace and range of Sam’s punches and the round ended with Sam leading by 13 - 2. Dean looked at Sam in the corner and could see that he was exhausted, the sinus and lack of preparation had sapped his strength. Dean told us that he had never seen his son that tired before. But Sam looked at dad and gave him a wink as if to tell him he was ok. They came out for the final round and much of the same with both boxers now showing fatigue and Sam’s mum and dad running around screaming encouragement to him! But he was showing real signs of tiredness and had to dig in as Clark stepped up the pace in an attempt to close the scores and knowing that a KO was really his only chance. But Sam showed his courage and heart and battled on to the final bell, where he was declared the winner by 18 points to 4. There were cheers of elation - as well as a few tears - from the large crowd of friends and family who had come along to support him. Sam had just pulled off what Dean thought was a very big ask. What’s more, he did it with style and secured his place in the national ABA schoolboy finals, while also moving one step closer to achieving his goal of boxing for England. Call Sign hopes to have a report of Sam in the ABA Schoolboy’s Final in our next issue… |
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The March issue of Call
Sign left readers up in the air as to progress of Sam
Bezzina, son of Dial-a-Cab driver, Dean Bezzina (M10),
and his ambition to box for England. Currently training and
boxing for Newham Amateur Boxing Club at u48kgs class 3, Sam had
defeated Slough’s Johnny Scott to secure a unanimous
points decision and move on to the national schoolboy
semi-finals at Guildford. A win here would see him through to
the final, but Call Sign had to go to print!
But disaster hits Sam!Four weeks prior to the semi final, disaster struck when Sam woke up with an excruciating pain in his head. His heart rate increased with training - as did the pain. So Dean took him to a doctor who diagnosed a head virus that could last up to 10 days. Two weeks later, with the pain just as intense, doctors decided that it was sinus and treated him accordingly, but the pain continued for another two weeks. Sam’s coach, together with Dean, considered |
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