A former West Yorkshire Police sergeant would have been dismissed without notice had he not already resigned from the force, a misconduct hearing has concluded, after he admitted strangling and punching a taxi driver in an unprovoked attack.
Edward Howard, who worked as a sergeant with West Yorkshire Police in the Bradford area, pleaded guilty to intentional strangulation and assault at Leeds Magistrates’ Court on 9 June, following an incident in Cleckheaton on 10 November 2025. Howard had been out drinking with colleagues on a night out and was put in a taxi home because he was too drunk to make his own way back.
While the taxi was travelling “at some speed” after leaving the motorway, CCTV footage showed Howard rubbing his hands together and slapping his own face before lurching forward from the back seat. He grabbed the driver around the neck with both hands and squeezed, before punching him in the head six times and hurling abuse at him. The driver, who was unharmed, later said he thought Howard “was going to kill him.” District Judge Dave Kitson described the attack as “brutal,” noting Howard’s “bizarre” behaviour could have caused the car to crash “with catastrophic results for all concerned.”
Howard was spared jail and instead handed a 12-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work, along with £400 compensation for the driver, a £114 surcharge and £85 in prosecution costs.
An accelerated misconduct hearing held on 30 July 2026 found the allegations proven and concluded there were no exceptional circumstances that would have justified any sanction short of dismissal, had Howard still been serving. Mitigating factors — including that Howard self-reported the incident, pleaded guilty early, and had a previously clean record — were taken into account, but weren’t enough to change the outcome. West Yorkshire Police’s Head of Professional Standards, Detective Chief Superintendent Tanya Wilkins, said the force expects officers to lead by example both on and off duty.
Cases like this land against a backdrop of ongoing concern about driver safety more broadly — lone working, cash handling and late-night hours are consistently flagged by licensing bodies and trade groups as key risk factors for taxi and private hire drivers, regardless of who’s in the back seat.
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