Chase After Taxi- Driver Threatened

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31725, 8 July 1968, Page 20

Chase After TaxiDriver Threatened

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 7. A taxi-driver was allegedly threatened with a starting pistol, held at his chin by a passenger on Saturday morning.

The driver jumped from the taxi and the passenger drove off in it.

After a high-speed chase involving police, traffic cars, and other taxis the taxi was forced to a halt in Lynch Road, Point Chevalier.

A 43-year-old Englishman was arrested and charged with the aggravated assault of the taxi-driver. He will appear in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court The police took possession of two starting pistols and a sheath knife. The 27-year-old taxi-driver, who wished to remain anonymous, said he picked the man up from the rank in Victoria Street about 10.30 a.m. “He wanted to go to a private hotel in Ponsonby Road," he said. “We did not say a word to each other on the way. ‘Tn Ponsonby Road he asked to be taken to the South Island. He was very flushed. He pulled out a pistol and poked it under my chin. He said, Tm desperate —l'm on the run.' “I grabbed my money but

as he slid into the driver’s seat when I was getting out he sat on it

“He drove off and I hailed one of our cabs and a call was put out,” the driver said. “He also said something about not joking and, ‘I will shoot.’ ” The police and traffic patrols were alerted and the speeding taxi was followed to Point Chevalier, where a traffic patrol car forced the taxi off the road in Lynch Road. A police car was slightly damaged when it ran into the stationary taxi. Detective Sergeant E. G. Helleur arrested the man as he was getting out of the taxi.