A COUNTY businessman has made a friend for life after recovering the £10,000 he accidentally left in a taxi.

Car dealer Adrian Quinn said cabbie Mohammed Nisar saved his company when he held onto the large amount of cash left in his vehicle.

Mr Quinn, 46, runs CQ Cars with his wife, Maria, also 46, in Kilpeck, and was making one of his regular trips to a car auction in Walsall when he left his rucksack containing the cash in the cab.

The money was from a combination of recent good car sales and inheritance money and Mr Quinn decided to take it with him as he did not have enough time to go to the bank.

He was also running late due to a cancelled train in Hereford and decided to take a taxi from the railway station to the auction.

He said: "I paid my £6.30 fare, walked across the car park and then realised I had left the bag inside.

"I was physically sick. My body just went into shut down."

Mr Quinn, who is a dad to eight-year-old Danny, said he normally gets a train to Walsall two or three times a week, taking the 9.40am service from Hereford, but on that particular day the train was cancelled and he had had to travel an hour later.

After realising he had left the rucksack, Mr Quinn quickly flagged down another taxi to take him back to the station and found only one in the rank when he arrived.

Fortunately, it was the same one, driven by Mr Nisar, 55.

He had been alerted to the bag after Mr Quinn's second taxi driver contacted Walsall Council.

"When I got there he had it on his lap," Mr Quinn said. "I was emotional – I was a quivering wreck and had tears running down my face. It was mostly emotions of relief and I said 'you don't realise – I'm not worried about my bag, it doesn't contain sandwiches or newspaper or whatever, it contains £10,000'."

Mr Quinn offered Mr Nisar a reward for his honesty but he declined and told his passenger to think about it after he had recovered from the shock.

He has since accepted the offer and is also going to visit Kilpeck to join Mr and Mrs Quinn for dinner.

"He is just such a genuine, genuine man and puts a good feeling into people," added Mr Quinn. "There are so many nasty stories and nasty people out there that don't do good for the world but it restores faith in people when you hear a story like that.

"He is a true friend for life. It's taken nine years to build up our business and losing £10,000 would not have been good for us."