TWO men have appeared in court charged with the murder of taxi driver Mohammed Mahroof, who was stabbed in the neck last May.

The trial of Mohammed Mahroof Mustafa, 21, and Asif Ahram Mohammed, 26, began yesterday at Reading Crown Court.

In his opening statement prosecutor Christopher Donnellan told the jury the stab wound that killed the 39-year-old Neales taxi driver, from Chiltern Avenue, High Wycombe, had a depth of nine to ten centimetres and was 1.8 centimetres wide.

He told the court Mustafa and Mohammed had planned to rob a taxi driver at knife point after they had failed to borrow money from friends and family.

Using the name "Ali", Mohammed called Neales on Tuesday, May 8 using a phone box and asked to be picked up outside the Busy Bees nursery on the Rye.

Mr Donnellan said: "He made that call as part of a plan to lure a taxi driver to that area so that he and Mohammed Mahroof Mustafa could rob him. Mohammed Mahroof Mustafa was armed with a kitchen knife, which he had been given beforehand by Asif Ahram Mohammed."

He told the court Mr Mahroof, a father-of-two, was dispatched to the pick-up and Mustafa got into the passenger side of the cab while Mohammed stood nearby underneath a tree.

Around 15 minutes later the emergency alert inside the cab went off signalling the driver was in trouble.

Mr Donnellan said it was not terribly clear what was said between the driver and his passenger before the stabbing, apart from what Mustafa told the police in subsequent interviews.

He added: "One thing is certain, within 15 minutes of the phone call ordering the taxi the defendant Mohammed Mahroof Mustafa plunged the blade of the kitchen knife into the left side of the neck of Mr Mahroof, just below his ear. A fatal wound from which he died just a few minutes later."

Mr Mahroof managed to stumble out of his cab and make his way towards Abbey Way where he was spotted covered in blood by passing motorists who stopped to help him.

He was taken by ambulance to Wycombe Hospital but died a few minutes later.

Both defendants deny murder. The trial continues.