BRUTAL ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1943, Page 3

BRUTAL ATTACKS

ON WELLINGTON TAXI DRIVERS

CHARGES AGAINST VISITING SERVICE MEN. DEMANDS FOR PROTECTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Frequent “beating-up” of drivers, culminating in two armed robberies during the weekend, led to remarkable developments in the operation of taxi services in Wellington last night. Though the night was a stormy one, and cabs were in demand, only a skeleton roster was being maintained compared with that usually available. The practical cessation of these services was stated to be due to the drivers’ request for adequate protection from many attacks reported to have been made on them by certain visiting service men whose main form of persuasion in inducing drivers to comply with their demands has been the use as weapons either of bottles or belts wrapped round their hands to form knuckle-dusters. Taxi-drivers in the city said last night that such an intolerable situation had been reached that some action would have to be taken, and indicated that there was a likelihood of very few -cabs being available for the use of these service men. Commenting that the trouble had been going on for more than a year, Mr W. Duncan, principal of the Wellington Taxi Company, said an appeal had been made to the Taxicab Control Committee for protection, but nothing seemed to have been done. “If these kind of service men cannot get' a cab when they want it,” he added, “they either smash the car up or bash the driver. If they are in the main streets they slam the doors with sufficient force to break the glass.”

Accounts of brutal assaults made on them and of the wrecking and befouling of cabs were given by the spokesman of a party of seven drivers of taxis who united in a strong protest against the treatment to which they had been subjected. ARMED HOLD-UPS. Two armed hold-ups are reported to. have occurred in Wellington on Saturday night. The first was in Sutherland Road, where a gun was presented at a taxi-driver by a passenger who had been picked up near the railway station at 1.5 p.m., and asked to be taken to Newtown. The man, who relieved the driver of £9, said he had more business to transact, and that it was handy to have a uniform. Later that night another taxi-driver was held up in the same locality and robbed of about £6O. More than one person was involved in this case, and they had with them a well-known type of military conveyance. INSTANCES OF RETALIATION. There have been instances when they have not had it all their own way. An officer who was alleged to have attacked a young woman in a car was driven round to the police station and given in charge. A trio on another occasion threatened to thrash a driver at Kaiwarra, but he was of sturdy build and grappled one of them, saying he would “finish” him if they attacked. They changed their minds.

Service men have even smashed in doors and caused disturbances at taxi-