Taxi driver injured in passenger knife attack

Mr Dale said he was very concerned for his own safety and that of other drivers

A taxi driver from Stoke-on-Trent said he was very nervous about returning to work after being attacked by a passenger with a knife.

Darren Dale was injured as he took a fare home from a night out in Hanley on Saturday, and said he had never expected the journey "to turn the way it did."

Mr Dale, a taxi driver for 23 years, was slashed to the head and side.

An 18-year-old man had been arrested and bailed on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm, criminal damage and robbery, said Staffordshire Police.

Mr Dale said he was attacked in a dispute over a mobile phone, which the passenger had initially asked him to hold on to until they could get cash from home to pay the fare.

The passenger then wanted the phone back before the end of the journey, and Mr Dale said he handed it over, before taking it back when the customer went to get out of the car.

That led to a knife being pulled and threats being made, said the driver, who was chased around the car in the attack.

Police were called to Janson Street, Hanford in the early hours of Saturday

He said he had had "ordeals" during 23 years of doing the job, but "nothing on this level or scale," and the "town was getting scary to work in."

Mr Dale said he wanted to speak out about what happened as he was concerned for not just his own safety, but that of his fellow taxi drivers.

Staffordshire Police said it had arrested a man following an assault in Stoke-on-Trent at about 05:30 GMT on 16 March.

It confirmed a man in his fifties was attacked while inside a car by another man with a knife on Janson Street, Hanford, and suffered minor injuries to his head.

An 18-year-old man from Stoke-on-Trent had been arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm, criminal damage and robbery.

He had since been released on police bail while inquiries continued, the force said.