18-year-old appears in court over Derry taxi hijacking

A man has appeared in court in connection with an attempted hijacking of a female taxi driver’s car in Derry.
18-year-old John Paul Moore, from Carlton Court, Ballymagroarty, is also charged with being armed with a dinner knife.
The court was told that Moore allegedly wrapped his arm around the throat of taxi driver Linda Brady during the incident in Ballymagroarty last Wednesday.
An application for bail was refused.
Opposing bail a police officer told the judge at Derry Magistrates’ Court that the accused was a high priority offender who had accumulated 18 previous convictions in the last 12 months.
The officer said Mr Moore had only been released from custody three weeks before the attempted hijacking of the taxi.
She said he was arrested after he identified himself on CCTV as being the person who got into the taxi outside Rockmills in the Strand Road area of the city.
He told the police he remembered little about the alleged incident because he was high on a combination of alcohol and legal highs.
The police witness said after boarding the taxi the defendant was driven to his father’s home in Abercorn Road in the hope of obtaining money to pay his fare.
However his father was not at home and the defendant instructed Ms Brady to drive him to his Ballymagroarty home.
The officer said the number used to book the taxi was traced to a mobile phone and its owner confirmed he had ordered the taxi for the defendant.
Mr Moore was remanded in custody until 9 October.