Man who punched taxi driver and snapped windscreen wiper jailed after eluding police for nine months

Image credit: Cambridgeshire Police

A man who punched a taxi driver in the face and snapped his windscreen wiper because he refused to let him in his car, has been sentenced.

Alex Bedford, 28, called a taxi from a property he was renovating in Crawthorne Street, Peterborough, on 17 April 2019.

When the driver arrived, he noticed Bedford was wearing very dirty clothing covered in plaster dust and carrying dirty toolboxes. He explained he wouldn’t be able to take him in his car unless he had a change of clothes.

Bedford said he had no other clothes, so the taxi driver offered to call him another taxi. While the driver got back in his car to make the call, Bedford snapped the rear windscreen wiper.

The driver confronted him and Bedford punched him in the face, causing a deep cut above his eyebrow.

The taxi driver called police and Bedford made off. He later called the taxi office, apologised and asked them not to involve police.

Officers tried to arrange a time for Bedford to go to the station for a voluntary interview, but he avoided them for more than nine months before eventually being arrested.

Bedford, of no fixed abode but currently HMP Peterborough, pleaded guilty to criminal damage, actual bodily harm and failing to surrender to bail.

He also pleaded guilty to three separate charges relating to separate incidents of sending threatening messages and two counts of breach of a non-molestation order.

He was sentenced to a total of 18 months in prison at Peterborough Crown Court on 26 May.

PC Oliver Gregory, who investigated, said: “This was a violent and frightening incident for the victim, who had tried his best to assist Bedford in getting home.

“Bedford then spent more than nine months actively avoiding police rather than facing up to his actions so I am glad justice has been done today.”