AN ABERYSTWYTH taxi driver has said he is “too scared” to go back to work after he was viciously attacked by a customer last week.

And to make matters worse, police decided just to give his assailant a caution.

Kim Barreto, a six-foot, 55-year-old South African taxi driver who lives in Bronant, said he has also been left “struggling to sleep” after he was punched, headbutted and bitten in Eastgate by a man he picked up from student halls at Aberystwyth University on only his second shift and 20 minutes before he was due to finish.

Mr Barreto, who has lived in Wales for 12 years after moving here to escape his home country’s infamous crime rates, has been left with two black eyes and a suspected broken nose, bite marks across the top of his head, and was required to have tetanus and hepatitis B injections after he attended A&E.

He said: “I am too scared to go back to work, so I am out of work at the moment. And I am also struggling to sleep.

“It’s just the fact that it could happen again.”

Mr Barreto said he was “not very happy” to find out his attacker, who he understands is a law student at the university, was given a police caution and not prosecuted.

“I’m not very happy because he has kind of got away with it. I went to the police station and asked them about the caution and he will not get a criminal record — can you believe it?”

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