Shock image of taxi driver hit by brick at the wheel

Jackie Anderson

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Shock-image-of-taxi-driver.3834768.jp
From County Down.
By Staff reporter
A TAXI-DRIVER was in a serious condition in hospital last night after thugs hurled a brick through his windscreen as he drove along the road.
Jackie Anderson, 41, was targeted as he drove his green Mercedes along the Portaferry Road towards the village on Saturday night.

He had been close to the Loughadoo Road junction at around 10.30pm when a brick crashed through his windscreen, believed to have been thrown by the occupants of a car travelling in the opposite direction.

Yesterday, police revealed that a similar incident, involving a female driver, had happened on the same stretch of road just an hour earlier.

In that attack, which happened two miles outside Portaferry, the occupants of an oncoming car are believed to have hurled a bottle through her windscreen, shattering it.

The woman escaped injury, but was shaken by her ordeal.

Stephen Griffin, the partner of Mr Anderson's daughter Jessica, said he literally couldn't comprehend how anyone could do such a thing.

Speaking to the News Letter yesterday, he said that he and Jessica had been at her uncle's house when they received a call telling them what had happened.

"We went straight down to the scene followed by Jackie's wife Eileen," he said.

"A car behind Jackie's had stopped and the person driving it had stayed with him until police arrived – they had seen him pulling in and knew something wasn't right."

Stephen said that the taxi driver was just completely "saturated in blood" when they arrived.

"He was completely covered in blood. He was in shock, and once that started wearing off the pain kicked in.

"I just couldn't understand it – how it happened. I couldn't believe that someone
could do this – throw a brick
through a windscreen. It's unbelievable."

Stephen claimed however, that such a horrific act had been seen before by police in the Newtownards area.

"This is apparently an ongoing craze at the minute in this area. Just a few weeks ago it happened to a mother with a nine-month-old baby in the car.

"And taxi drivers are no more at risk than anyone else because it is totally random, these people are just doing it as and when they feel like it."

When asked what he felt towards such perpetrators Stephen said they were "sick".

He continued: "They're twisted. We just hope that this will give somebody a guilty conscience and that they will have the gumption to speak up (about who did it)."

Stephen said that by the time Mr Anderson had realised what had happened to him his attackers had made their getaway.

"It's unbelievable but he managed to bring the car to a stop.