ARMED HOLD-UPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 34, 9 August 1943, Page 3

ARMED HOLD-UPS

TAXI MEN ROBBED

WELLINGTON INCIDENTS

"This is a stick-up. . . . Keep your eyes to the front," was the startling crder received by a taxi driver when, late on Saturday night, his fare had reached the place to which he had asked to be driven. The driver had chanced to glance round before the second remark, and the point of a gun indicated that there was real meaning in the first remark.

The circumstances of this hold-up, and reports of other disturbing incidents, were given to a "Post" representative by the driver concerned and by others connected with the taxi business.

The passenger, it was explained, had partly opened the door, as in the act of alighting, when he made his purpose known. n He next demanded my wallet," the driver related, "and, not wanting to start any movie stunts, I handed it over. There was a further order that I keep my eyes to the front." Evidently the "gun-man" did not find what he wanted in the wallet, and asked where the money was. Still covered, the driver was forced to tell, after which he was asked if there were any papers in the wallet which he valued. His licence, he said, was in it, and the wallet was handed back ', minus the notes it contained. "Do you value your life?" was the next question put to the unfortunate victim. He did. "Well, go straight down the road, and keep going," the driver was told, with the additional advice that if he came back he would be shot. The bandit intimated that he had more business to transact and mentioned that it was very handy to have a uniform. The scene of this hold-up was in Sutherland Road, down which the taxi-man proceeded for about a quarter of a mile after the alarming incident. There he went to a house and 'phoned the police, and it was with the utmost caution that he returned to and entered the car. Ho proceeded by a different route to the police station. His passenger, he said, had been picked up near the railway station at 10.5 p.m. and had asked to bo driven to Newtown. Further directions were asked of the fare when the taxi-cab had reached John Street. The passenger did not know the name of the road, but said that it was about a quarter of a mile through the Zoo. At the cross-roads in that locality there were three alternative routes, and the centre one (Sutherland Road) was indicated by the passenger, who j about 100 yards further on gave the order to stop. OTHER CASES. Earlier that evening the same taxi driver had had an experience which was not pleasant in that three men demanded his services when he was answering a call to do a hospital job. The men actually took off their belts, and it was only the arrival of another that distracted their attention and, the driver suggested, prevented them from using the belts. With that distraction he was able to go to the nearby corner and call a policeman, who, while questioning the men, suggested that the driver proceed to the job to which he had been called. A little later that evening in the same locality another taxi man was held up and robbed of about £60. In this case more than one person carried out the alleged robbery, and they j had with them a well-known type of I military conveyance. "Many of our men have been attacked recently in dark places .in Wellington," remarked the manager of one taxi concern. "We feel that it is time the public knew something about it, and we feel also that our men are entitled to some protection." He mentioned that a resolution had been adopted at a meeting of the Wellington Taxicab Control Committee asking that protection be given against "personal abuse, damage to cabs, and physical violence." The taxi men had been subjected to all these during the past twelve months.

Various other cases of threats to drivers, including the abusing of a woman driver, were mentioned, and it was pointed out that cabs had suffered a lot of damage. "It will get that way," said one informant, "that they will not have a taxi on the road after 7 o'clock in the evening."