Man arrested by police investigating taxi ‘gun’ footage

Still from dashcam footage appearing to show driver threaten passenger with gun. Pic social media.
It relates to dashcam footage appearing to show a taxi driver threaten a passenger with a gun

A 48-year-old man has been arrested by detectives investigating a video circulating online which appears to show a taxi driver threatening a passenger with a gun.

The man has been arrested on suspicion of a number of offences including possession of a firearm or imitation firearm.

He remains in police custody at this time.

Taxi firm, fonaCAB, said it was aware of the footage.

It said when it first was alerted to the footage, and before it was circulated online, the driver's "relationship with fonaCAB was immediately terminated".

The footage emerged on social media on Thursday.

FonaCAB said it was made aware of the footage at around 11.30pm on Wednesday, 31 May.

"The driver was identified and called this morning to present at the earliest opportunity / ASAP to fonaCAB Head Office, at which time he was interviewed and his relationship with fonaCAB immediately terminated," a company statement said.

"FonaCAB has been liaising with the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA) Northern Ireland and the PSNI, and any further action will be determined by them. Our investigation was completed and our action taken before the footage was released on social media.

"Due to the nature of the content of the footage, it would be inappropriate to make any further comment on the footage while other investigations are undertaken." It's statement continued: "We will however state that any action which affects the safety of our passengers, staff and drivers is never acceptable and should any infringement occur will be dealt with immediately by fonaCAB and referred to the appropriate authorities. "Drivers at fonaCAB complete the same training and vetting as all taxi drivers in Northern Ireland and in addition we expect them to maintain the high standards that we hold ourselves to. "We average 100,000 bookings per week, and we do everything we can to ensure that each of those customers is given the same high level of professional service. We do not tolerate incidents like this where safety is compromised, standards are not upheld, or the company and our drivers are called into disrepute." Police have appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

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