A TAXI driver ditched a screaming schoolboy on the side of the road with a broken ankle after a collision with his cab.

Joe Collins, 15, said the taxi driver – now being hunted by police – had initially given him a lift after the crash in Headington, Oxford, but then told him to get out half-a-mile from home.

Joe, yesterday at home recovering from his broken ankle, said he had to crawl home before he could then get any treatment.

He had even begged the cabbie to take him home with the promise that his mum Claire would pay him the fare.

The keen BMW rider said he was walking home from school when the collision happened at about 1.30pm on Monday in Grays Road, on the corner with Gipsy Lane.

The Northway resident said: “I’d finished school for the day and was walking home.

“I know I looked both ways. I always do because I do a lot of BMX riding in Oxford so I know how fast traffic can go.

“The cab came speeding out of nowhere and ran me over with both sets of wheels.

“I had to wave at him to get him to stop and help.

“When he did he just kept screaming at me ‘it’s your fault, it’s your fault’.

“I remember is begging him to take me home and I told him my mum would give him the money for the fare.

“The whole time he was screaming at me saying it was my fault.”

But instead of taking Joe to his Ambleside Drive home, he said the driver ordered him out in Headley Way.

The Cheney School pupil said he was left in unbelievable pain”. Surgeons have inserted metal rods to support his ankle and he will suffer permanent arthritis.

The youngster said he had to hop, crawl and slide home.

He said: “If the driver is a real man he will come forward and admit what he did.

“If anyone saw anything or knows anything, please tell the police.”

His mum Claire Collins, 42, said: “I just can’t believe someone would do this.

“He was obviously seriously injured. His ankle was completely misshapen.

“I just hope if anyone saw something, anything, they will come forward.

“I would ask the taxi firms to check their vehicles too. There must be some damage to the cab.”

Joe now faces more than three months in a cast, during which he will be unable to ride his BMX bike, which he has just finished building himself.

Pc Gary Froud said: “The taxi driver left the boy, who was screaming in agony, at the side of the road rather than taking him home or to hospital. I am very keen to trace the driver and would urge him, or anyone who witnessed the collision or the boy being left on Headley Way, to contact me.”

The driver is described as Asian and in his late 20s or early 30s.

Call Pc Froud at Abingdon roads policing base on 08458 505505 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.