John Paul Moore sentenced to three years for hijacking female taxi driver in the city
POLICE have welcomed the sentencing on Friday of thug John Paul Moore at Derry Crown Court over the attempted hijacking a local female taxi driver.
The terrifying incident happened on September, 10, 2014 when the 19-year-old from Ballymagroarty called a taxi to flats on Strand Road.
During the taxi ride, he put his arm around her throat and his other hand over her mouth before ordering her out of the cab.
Recorder of Derry Judge Philip Babington said that anyone who attacks tax drivers while they are working face going to jail.
He imposed a three year sentence on Moore, half of which will be spent in custody and the other half on supervised licence.
Local police have welcomed the jail sentence stressing they were “committed to robustly dealing with such incidents like this in the City and putting offenders before the courts, particularly those involving public service workers, as in this case, a taxi driver”.
Constable Lisa McKernan from the Reducing Offending Unit said: ”The community will hopefully feel safer knowing that a prolific offender has been given such a robust sentence for such a heinous crime committed against a member of the community whilst doing her job.”
Constable McKernan said the Reducing Offending Unit (ROU) was part of an approach across the North into the management of prolific offenders.
She added: “The ROU in Derry City and Strabane identifies offenders from across Foyle and Strabane who are causing most harm within the local communities.
“The identified offenders are then closely monitored in a number of different ways – by carrying out frequent bail checks, monitoring the behaviour of individual criminals and where we suspect that they have been involved in further crime, carry out searches of their person and property.”