Youths stabbed and robbed taxi driver

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 4

Youths stabbed and robbed taxi driver

Nelson reporter

Sentencing jurisdiction was declined by Judge Kearney after two youths admitted in the Nelson Children’s and Young Persons’ Court to having stabbed a taxi driver while robbing him. The Judge remanded the two, one aged 16 and the other 15, both from Dunedin, to the High court on March 2 for sentence. Five other lesser charges to which they also pleaded guilty will be dealt with in the Children’s and Young Persons Court on the same day. The two youths, who had absconded from a Dunedin boys’ home, were remanded in custody. They were jointly charged with the aggravated robbery of $125 from Mr Reihana Laison in Nelson, on February 16. Sergeant P. D. Grooby said Mr Laison was asked by the two to drive them to Brooklands road from the Majestic Theatre taxi rank. The youth aged 16 sat alongside the driver and the other in the back. As soon as the vehicle got on the open road, the youth in the rear seat produced a sheath knife, waved it in front of Mr

Laison’s face and told him to keep driving. Mr Laison stopped the taxi along Atawhai Drive and the youth alongside him demanded bis wallet, said Sergeant Grooby.. Mr Laison attempted to summon help through his car radio, but the microphone was wrenched from the radio. He then tried to accelerate the car and get out of it at the same time. As he did so, the youth with the knife stabbed him twice in the shoulder from behind, inflicting wounds in the upper arm that later required four stitches each. Had Mr Laison not been moving to the right at the time the knife could have caused serious injuries to the chest, said Sergeant Grooby. Mr Laison managed to get out of the taxi and run to a house for assistance. The youths found his wallet and took $125 from it, and made off after one

of them slashed two tyres on the taxi. 1

After their arriest and the recovery of the $125, each of the youths in separate interviews said it had been their intention while driving to Nelson to rob a shop or a service station for petrol or money, using the knife that one of them had bought in Picton. They said they also had intended to rob Day’s Corner Service Statibn for petrol they had obtained, but decided against it, and to rob a taxi driver instead, said Sergeant Grooby. The other joint charges to which they pleaded guilty involved the conversion of a $14,000 car at Palmerston and .another from Dunedin, both on February 15; the theft of 21.7 litres of petrol from Timaru and the theft of 43.3 litres of petrol from Day’s Service Station in Nelson, and with interfering with a car in Nelson.