TAXI HOLD-UP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25300, 10 August 1943, Page 2

TAXI HOLD-UP

ARMED ROBBERY AT NIGHT NOT AN ISOLATED CASE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 9. “This is a stick-up. Keep your eyes to the front!” This was the order a Wellington taxi driver states he received when late on Saturday night his fare had reached the place to which he had asked to be driven. The driver glanced round when the fare spoke and the point of a gun indicated that there was real meaning in the remark. The driver told a reporter to-day that he had picked up a passenger near the railway station at 10.5 p.m., and had been asked to drive to Newtown. The man did not know the name of the road, but said it was about a quarter of a mile through the zoo. In the locality of the zoo he indicated Sutherland road, and about 100 yards further on told the driver to stop. He appeared to be alighting when he made his purpose known. The man demanded the driver’s wallet and then asked where the money was, and the driver was forced to tell him. The wallet was returned to him minus the notes it had contained. The passenger then asked the driver if he valued his life and ordered him to go straight down the road and keep on going, and added that if the driver came back he would be shot. The driver went down the road for about a quarter of a mile and then called at a house where he telephoned the police. The manager of one taxi concern to-day said that a number of his men had been attacked recently in dark places in Wellington. Another reported case of a taxi hold-up is that of a driver who was attacked by four men in Wadestown. The driver was so severely injured that he had to be taken to hospital.