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Press Releases
Who's Taking You Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ? Inside Out North West
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Bogus taxi drivers are preying on women in Manchester, with sex attacks linked to taxis happening almost once every fortnight.
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Ten years after the murder of Salford student Rachel Thacker by a man posing as a taxi driver, Inside Out (North West) has been given exclusive access to an undercover police and council operation looking for bogus taxi drivers - including one convicted sex offender.
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Rachel Thacker was a 22-year-old medical student who was celebrating her graduation with friends in Manchester when she got into a car she thought was a taxi.
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It would prove to be a fatal mistake. Her battered and burnt body was found the next day dumped in a skip in Ardwick. She could only be identified by her fingerprints.
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Her killer, Duncan Bermingham, had borrowed the car he used from a friend to pose as a taxi driver.
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Inside Out brings Rachel's mother Jill Thacker back to Manchester for the first time since the trial to see how drunken young women are still hailing cars that aren't taxis to try to get lifts home.
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Two researchers working for Inside Out were approached in Manchester by unmarked cars.
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One driver admitted he was doing a bit of 'moonlighting' and offered to take the women home for Β£15.
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Jill Thacker is shocked that women are still getting into unmarked cars despite the risks.
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She says: "I can't believe these girls - don't they know the danger they face? And they could end up like Rachel, with every bone in her face broken."
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Det Supt Mick Lay, Head of the Sexual Crime Unit in Manchester, added: "There's no doubt in my mind there's men out there acting as predators on vulnerable young women."
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