Belfast man denies threatening to shoot taxi driver

Lee Hosie, from Shore Road in the city, was giving evidence at his Crown Court trial where he denies three charges involving possessing a firearm or intimidation with intent to cause fear of violence, threatening to kill, and making off without paying his taxi fare.

The Value Cabs driver had earlier claimed that Hosie told him the only thing preventing him from “blowing his brains out” was a shortage of ammo.

The court had also heard that during police interviews about the incident in the early hours of December 4, 2012, Hosie maintained he was never even in the taxi.

However, yesterday Hosie explained that he was “too scared” to say anything “because I didn’t know what they were questioning me about”.

“I was just scared of what they were interviewing me for...I never had a gun in my hand....in my life,” said Hosie, who later added: “I’m telling the truth today, if it’s not accepted, then that’s up to yous’ins.”

Earlier Hosie admitted to his defence lawyer Ian Turkington that he had been in the cab taking him from his Ross House flat in north Belfast to join friends at the start of the then ‘flag protests’ over the flying of the Union Flag at the City Hall.

“On the journey, I was being quite rude and obnoxious and asking him (the taxi driver) questions I should not have. I asked him if he was a Catholic or a Protestant.

“With drink in me, I don’t think right...I’m a different person with drink in me,” he added.

Hosie said that he was “cheeky....aggressive...slabbering” at the taxi driver, “calling him a fenian... asking him where he was from”.

Mr Turkington then asked Hosie about the driver’s claims of seeing a gun in the passenger footwell.

“He made the whole thing up ... nothing fell on the ground at all .... nothing fell and there was no gun in the taxi or getting out of the taxi,” said Hosie, who dismissed the driver’s claims that he also threatened to shoot him with the gun.

“I got out of the taxi and gave him all the money I had and told him to stick the rest,” he said, adding that a friend then paid the driver the remainder of his fare.

Asked about the driver’s claims again by Mr Turkington, Hosie replied: ”It’s hard to believe, for me, because it never happened .... it didn’t happen.”

The taxi driver, in his evidence, claimed that during their journey he had to break heavily at traffic lights and it was at this point that he heard a “dull thud” on the floor, looked and saw a gun at Hosie’s feet.

He said he continued on to Donegall Pass where Hosie got out and approached two men in the street. The driver said Hosie then returned to the car, pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him.

“He said he was going to blow my f****** brains out. He said that only for the fact he had so few bullets he would have f****** shot me,” the driver claimed.

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdicts on Friday.