Man avoids jail who racially abused and hit taxi driver in face

“You bloody Indians, what are you doing here?... Go back to your country,” Lees had said in November 2015 to the taxi driver.

Are rideshare and taxi drivers essential workers and eligible for the Pfizer jab? Source: AAP/Joel Carrett

20-year-old Canberra resident Patrick Stuart Lees has escaped jail after he violently assaulted and racially abused a taxi driver in Canberra.

Lees pleaded guilty to repeatedly hitting the victim in the face and saying, "You bloody Indians, what are you doing here? … Go back to your country".

Lees said he did not remember what happened that night in November 2015 but the assault was captured on CCTV, Canberra Times reported.

The court heard that Lee, 19 at that time, kicked the doors of a taxi that pulled up outside a nightclub.

When the taxi driver got down to see if there was any damage, Lee who was very drunk at the time, attacked him.

While the Prosecutor Soraya Saikal urged jail for the attacker, Lees’ lawyer Robert Cook showed the court a report on his client who had made efforts at rehabilitation.

Magistrate Robert Cook on Friday said he had been inclined to jail Lees but accepted that Lees had positive influences that were helping him rehabilitate.

He noted "the fact is you repeatedly punched him … in a vulnerable place … that is his head."

He told Lees that as a result of his crime, the victim was no longer able to drive taxis and had to find other work.

"Where you change fundamentally someone's life because of what you have done," Magistrate Cook was quoted saying about the impact on the taxi driver.

The Court sentenced Lees to 180 hours of community service with a 15-month good behaviour order for the assault and has been fined $1000 for the racial vilification charge.