KESTON: Lithuanian men jailed after attacking taxi driver and stealing cab (From News Shopper)

KESTON: Lithuanian men jailed after attacking taxi driver and stealing cab

12:15pm Wednesday 17th November 2010 in News By Michael Purton

TWO Lithuanian men have been jailed for attacking a taxi driver and stealing his cab after police caught them with the victim’s sat nav.

Andrius Mazrimas and Arturas Cepas were passengers in the taxi when they attacked the 43-year-old driver near the entrance of Keston Ponds in Westerham Road, Keston, on July 6.

The driver was grabbed around the neck and sprayed in the eyes with a substance before being punched and dragged from the taxi by the men, who then drove away in the cab.

Bromley police officers from Darwin Safer Neighbourhood Team spotted Mazrimas, 23, and Cepas, 24, walking along Cudham Lane South the day after the attack.

The officers stopped the men and found they were in possession of a sat nav which had the home address of the victim in Camden programmed into the system.

Both men were charged and Mazrimas pleaded guilty to robbery while Cepas pleaded guilty to assault, and both were sentenced at Croydon Crown Court on November 8.

Mazrimas, of Kings Lynn in Norfolk, was jailed for two years and eight months, and Cepas, also of Kings Lynn, was jailed for four months.

The taxi driver needed hospital treatment for his injuries and his cab was found abandoned in Downe Road, Downe, shortly after the attack.

After the sentencing, head of the Darwin Safer Neighbourhood Team, Sergeant Katey Martin, said: "The arrest of these individuals demonstrates the benefits of safer neighbourhood policing.”