Taxi driver asks why he and his colleagues should put up with racial abuse after shocking incident in Northampton

These are the words of a Northampton taxi driver who feels racial abuse in Northampton has left him and his colleagues apprehensive before every fare.

Mame Kamara says many of his customers are polite and courteous.

"It's the other kind that leaves you upset and makes you wonder," says the 45-year-old cab driver. "It sometimes feels like you never know what you're going to get when you pick up a passenger.

"It makes me not want to tell me wife or my kids about it. I don't want them to know the abuse you can face while working."

Mame says he and other taxi drivers he knows have had to bear the brunt of racial abuse before.

But Mame has been driving for two years - and now, he says it's only after the latest, most upsetting incident that he wants to share the kind of attacks drivers in Northampton are facing.

He was dispatched to pick up a fair from Castle Avenue, Duston, at 3.50am on Sunday (November 10).

He told the Chronicle and Echo: "The passengers were two women and one man. One of the women was very intoxicated. The other woman was almost holding her up.

"I had to ask her, 'are you sure you're not going to be sick in my car?' I have to ask that because this is my work."

It was the question that sparked a torrent of vile racial abuse from woman and her two friends.

"It was all, 'you shut up you...' and 'you're nothing but a...'. One of them got their phone out and started taking videos or pictures, and just kept laughing and shouting.

"I told them not to use that language. I told them I wasn't going to take them or put up with it. They kept saying it still."

Mame left the three passengers in Castle Avenue and drove away before reporting the incident to the police on 101.

But he says the incident is just the latest for him and his colleagues.

Mame said: "This time, it just left me feeling so bitter and upset. You think about it for the rest of your day.

"I'm just doing my job. No deserves to do their job and be spoken to like that.

"Then, when it comes to the police investigation, it feels like your word against theirs

"It's not the first time it's happened. It's happened to my colleagues. We are in the 21st-century racism should not be tolerated. We should respect each other and it has no place in our society."

Anyone with information about the incident in Castle Avenue can contact Northamptonshire Police on 101 and quote incident NP-20191110-0078.