Whilst a student attending a conference in Newcastle, my friends and I decided to go out for a few drinks on our last night. Whilst getting into a taxi to head home, the taxi inside door handle came off in my friend's hands as he closed the door behind him. The driver began to drive off before he'd realised but upon us informing him, he began to get very angry and was shouting that we would need to pay for the damage. We argued that door handles shouldn't just come off upon closing doors, so there was clearly a fault which we shouldn't have to pay for. The situation quickly escalated with the driver getting other taxi drivers driving alongside him involved as we passed a police station with 2 officers outside, we asked that he pull up. The taxi driver was quick to start throwing accusations around, accusing us of being young "hooligans". The police listened and calmed the man and were only too willing to hear our side of events. We were visibly upset but the officers were empathetic and completely unbiased throughout. They organised us a separate taxi home after taking our details. And sure enough we never had to pay for the damage which was not our fault.

Suggestion

We'd known how to contact the police about a non emergency situation in a city we never knew. It was just fortunate that we happened to pass A station with police already outside.