A DISHONEST passenger has been jailed for 11 months after trying to lie his way out of a £40 cab fare.

Alan Lee, of Ombersley, got a cab from Worcester to Astley, near Stourport, on Thursday, August 13, last year but didn’t tell the driver he had no money to pay.

When the driver threatened to drive Lee straight to the police station in Worcester, he told the driver to take him to a cashpoint, despite not carrying a cash card.

Lee said he and the driver had made a verbal arrangement to pay £20 for the round trip and denied fraud by false representation at Worcester magistrates court.

But driver Tasir Saghir said the meter had been running all the time with Lee clocking up £41.30, which he tried to get out of paying.

Mr Saghir called the police and Lee was arrested.

Lee hired the cab at The Cross in Worcester asking Mr Saghir to drive him to his uncle’s home in Astley. Lee said he had asked to be dropped at a friend’s house in the village.

“At that stage Lee said he had no money and asked to be taken to the Lloyds TSB cashpoint back in Worcester, by the cab rank,” said Lesley Ashton, prosecuting.

Lee told the court Saghir was “a liar” and that the two men had agreed a fee of £10 to Astley, and £10 back.

“I told him to take me to a friend’s house and paid him a tenner,” he said. “I said if my friends weren’t in, could he take me back to Worcester for the same and he said yes.”

But Miss Ashton asked why if that was the case, Lee had asked to go back to Worcester late at night when he actually lived in Ombersley, in Oakfield Road.

“I had friends who were still out in Worcester,” replied Lee.

Andy Childs, defending, said Mr Saghir had only called police because he realised he had “under-charged” Lee, not realising how far away Astley was.

“There was an irregular agreement, off the books,” said Mr Childs. “But Mr Saghir thought he’d short-changed himself.” Saghir called police and Lee waited for officers to come for him. “I was waiting for them to arrest me,” he told magistrates.

Lee was found guilty of fraud and sentenced for driving without insurance and while disqualified – which he had previously pleaded to.

He received 11 months in total, including six months for breaching a suspended sentence for head-butting a pensioner in 2007.