Private hire driver who stole phone from drunk passenger is jailed

A PRIVATE hire driver who stole a mobile phone from a drunk and vulnerable female passenger has been jailed.

Ihsan Yurbas was convicted of the theft after trial last March. A sheriff found allegations that he had sexually assaulted the victim ‘not proven’.

Livingston Sheriff Court was told that the Turkish national had since been sentenced to 27 months in prison for culpably and recklessly pouring petrol over the wheels of a patrol car and marked police Transit van outside Leith police station on May 22 last year.

The 41-year-old was sleeping rough in his taxi at Holyrood before he was imprisoned.

Sheriff Martin Edington sentenced Yurbas to 90 days in prison and told Yurbas he was lucky not to have been found guilty of the sexual offences, which depended on both women corroborating each other. He said: “Given the evidence, you should consider yourself fortunate you weren’t convicted of charges one and two. What remains is a very unpleasant offence of a taxi driver who stole a mobile phone from a distressed and very vulnerable female late at night.”