Edinburgh taxi driver's car damaged twice in a year as he warns of spate of break-ins

The driver was forced to fork out around £1,000 on repairs.

The window of Thomas Kerr's taxi was smashed for the second time in 12 months

An Edinburgh taxi-driver whose car window has been broken twice in a year has warned of a surge in cab break-ins.

Central Taxis driver Thomas Kerr was forced to fork out around £1,000 on repairs after his car window was smashed in Sighthill on January 13. Less than 12 months earlier on January 26 last year, he had suffered another break-in which cost in the region of £800.

It is understood social media groups for taxi drivers in the capital are swarming with reports of cars being damaged by masked vandals. Reports are said to have spiked since the Covid-19 pandemic with multiple raids taking place on some nights.

Thomas, 53, told the Evening News the consequences for drivers were devastating. He said: "The financial implications of this are just ridiculous. It's just soul-destroying to be honest. On the evening my car was done, there were several others done in the city and on the following night another two.

Thomas explained the costs associated with being off the road far outweighed the expenses related to repairing the damage. "The costs of running taxis are horrendous ", he said. "Any time they're sitting, they're still costing a fortune."

According to Thomas, the problem appears to have sprung out of nowhere and is affecting the entire city.

He continued: "I've had a taxi for 24 years - it'll be 25 years this year. On occasion, everyone knows you're going to get some damage to your car but I've never heard of break-ins like this until the last couple of years.

"I think it's city-wide. One of my friends lives in Leith and the same happened to him. It does seem to be heavier on the West side of the city just now but it's definitely a city-wide thing."

Despite causing huge costs for drivers, Thomas believes it is a 'pointless crime' for the perpetrators. He added: "The point of the matter with the taxis is there's nothing to steal. I've lost a pair of prescription sunglasses that were £200 and, obviously, the fact they're prescription sunglasses means they're no good to anybody bar me.

"It's getting whoever these people are that are doing this to realise that there's nothing to steal in a taxi. Nobody keeps money or mobile phones or anything inside.

"We use mobile phones for the PVAs that receive jobs. A policeman said to me last year that you could get £50 in the pub for a phone.

"I personally think that somebody retails these phones that's sent to these people and says 'go out and get me as many of them and I'll give you £50 per unit'. There's no way they've been selling them in their local pubs every week when they're doing that amount of break-ins. It sounds a wee bit more organised.

"I sympathise with the police because, obviously, the description of everyone of these people is 'a guy on a mountain bike with a grey top and his face covered'. Where do you start with that?

"The only time it's going to stop is when the people that are doing it realise that there's nothing to take and they're just indiscriminately going about breaking into taxis."

A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed two men and a woman were charged with the break-in last January while enquiries into the latest incident were ongoing.