Woman taxi driver left on roadside after hijacking

A woman taxi driver had her car hijacked by a passenger who left her on the side of a dual-carriageway in the middle of the night causing her so much anxiety in the months afterwards that she went on to suffer a heart attack.

The frightening incident for the taxi driver was described yesterday by the sentencing judge as bizarre.

Garda Robert McCarthy, who investigated the crime, said Margaret Butler of 31 Forest Hill, Mill Road, Midleton, Co Cork, was one of four passengers who got into the taxi at Crestfield shopping centre, Glanmire, before one o’clock in the morning to travel to Midleton. When they were on the N25 (the main dual-carriageway to Midleton) Butler insisted that she needed to go to the toilet.