Robber who bit taxi driver's arm jailed - The Leamington Observer

Robber who bit taxi driver's arm jailed

Leamington Editorial 17th May, 2019   0

A MAN who attacked and tried to rob a taxi driver was identified by his DNA from a bite mark he had left on his victim’s arm during the incident.

And Craig Miller was jailed for four-and-a-half years after a judge heard he was already serving a prison sentence for blinding a man in one eye during an attack in a pub.

Teh 24-year-old, of Cashmore Avenue, Leamington, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the attempted robbery of the taxi driver and having an offensive weapon.

Prosecutor Paul Fairley said in the early hours of July 29 last year the taxi driver picked up two men in Leamington to take them to an address in Warwick.




When they arrived, the second man said he wanted to pay the next day, and he had agreed that with the taxi controller – but the driver asked to be paid straight away.

So that man got out of the car, leaving the door open, and went into the address to get some cash.


Miller also got out and walked away, but returned after the driver got out to close the door the other man had left open.

He had a bag from which he took a length of metal which looked like a car aerial and swung it at the driver, catching him to the side of his head and cutting his ear.

Miller continued to swing it at the driver, demanding money.

The driver managed to grab hold of the weapon, and as they struggled Miller bit him on the arm, at which the driver let go of him and got back into the car.

But as he drove off, Miller lashed out at the car with the weapon, and he was arrested after being identified from a DNA swab taken from the bite he had inflicted.

Mr Fairley said that Miller had two previous convictions for robbery, and in December had been jailed for two years and eight months for inflicting grievous bodily harm.

That had followed an incident in a Leamington pub when Miller had punched his victim with such force that the man’s eye ‘effectively exploded in its socket,’ blinding him in that eye.

Simon Hunka, defending, said Miller had had an issue with drink and drugs, but seemed to have turned his life around, getting a job as a scaffolder and forming a stable relationship.

But when an aunt to whom he was particularly close, and who had given him a significant degree of support, passed away a week or so earlier, he had turned back to drink and drugs.

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