DUBLIN TAXI DRIVER REVEALS HORROR BEATING AT THE HANDS OF TEEN THUGS

A taxi driver has revealed how he was left “terrified and traumatised”, after a gang of teenage thugs beat him up, stole his money and smashed up his car earlier this month.

Ali Raza (37), originally from Pakistan, but living in Ireland for the last 15 years, was punched in the head and face, repeatedly kicked in the body and had €100 stolen from him, when a gang of four youths attacked him when he went to collect a fare in the Tor An Rí estate in Lucan over the August bank holiday weekend.
He told the Sunday World: “I got a call to go to Tor An Rí around 9.50 on the Saturday night. When I got there a guy came out of the house and told me he was the one who had booked a taxi.





















“He got in the passenger seat and next thing I knew there was three more lads in the back. They were all aged between 15 and 18, but at first they all seemed okay to me.
“Then the one sitting behind me started pulling on my seat belt, tightening it around my neck and being verbally abusive. I told him if he didn’t stop I was not going to bring them anywhere. He punched me on the back of the head and said: ‘if you don’t f***ing bring us I will punch the head off you’.
“He then punched me on the jaw, he was still holding me back by the seat belt so I couldn’t really defend myself.
“The other three got out and ran to the driver’s door, which they tried to rip off the hinges, and when they yanked it open they started booting me in the head and body.
“Two of them were kicking me while the other one reached across them and was punching me.
“They took my money, which was two €50 notes, and then they backed away from my car which had dents everywhere as they started kicking that when they had finished attacking me.
“I was in bits and was seeing double so I was in no fit state to drive, but I knew I had to get out of there. I was in a cul-de-sac so there was only one way out, I was actually scared to reverse the car away from them as I couldn’t see clearly and there could have been kids or anything behind me, so I just drove the car forward.”
At that point they attacked again.
“As I drove past they had rocks in their hands which they threw at the passenger side and smashed both the front and back windows. I just put the foot down and drove back to the base as fast as possible.”

Ali’s problems weren’t over, though.
“Naturally I rang Lucan Garda Station and was told to stay where I was and they would send someone down to me. But 90 minutes later nobody had arrived, so I rang them back to be told they were busy and that I should ring Ronanstown.
“I did that and they sent someone round to take the details, but if I had been told to do that an hour-and-a-half before when I first called in they perhaps could have caught the guys who did it.”
Ali was off work for more than a week due to his injuries, and was without his car, which cost him €700 to repair. Although he is back at work, he has sworn never to go into the Tor An Rí estate again.
“I have loyal customers there, decent people, but I have told them that if they want to use me they will have to walk out of the estate first as I am too scared to back in there.
‘The bottom line is I have a kid who needs his dad to come home every night. That Saturday I nearly didn’t make it home.”