News

Assault happens to taxi drivers 'every day', says Taxi Watch

Assault happens to taxi drivers 'every day', says Taxi Watch

Assault is something that happens "every day" to taxi drivers, according to Derek Devoy of Taxi Watch.

Mr Devoy uploaded the video of a taxi driver being racially abused and assaulted to social media in the hope of identifying the perpetrator.

A man has since turned himself in after the video went viral on social media and was seen by a family member.

Mr Devoy, whose organisation trains taxi drivers to look for warning signs that indicate their passengers are suicidal, said the victim, Samuel Johnson, is "in a bad way" after the assault in Dublin.

Advertisement

“Over 200,000 people have seen the video and that led to somebody contacting me saying 'I know who this man is and here's his number', and so I rang him. He said that he wanted to hand himself in and he was deeply remorseful for what he had done,” Mr Devoy told Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1.

Mr Devoy praised Mr Johnson’s restraint in the face of assault.

“He showed great restraint to be quite honest with you, a lot of taxi drivers wouldn't have put up with it, fair play to him for what he had done, but he's in a bad way, the driver still, he's very, very shaken up over it,” he said.

Mr Devoy said assault is “something that happens out there every day to drivers”.

Advertisement

“This isn't a one-off incident that doesn't happen, this happens an awful lot."

"I was shocked at how aggressive it was. He was extremely aggressive. It was really, really bad. The abuse that non-national drivers take out there is phenomenal.

“We go out there as taxi drivers to earn money and feed our families we're not out there for the fun of it, and we shouldn't have to put up with that. It's a hard job. I wouldn't dare go out in my taxi without having a camera in my car, just to cover my backside and somebody else's as well,” he said.

“I don't know if that driver will be able to come back to work for a long, long time,” he said.

Advertisement

Mr Devoy said a family member of the perpetrator contacted him a day after he uploaded the video, which led to him driving the perpetrator to gardaí.

Advertisement