Cab drivers fear for lives

Mohinder Singh was brutally attacked in Tauranga. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

A taxi driver has told how he begged for his life as he was viciously punched and kicked in the face by a passenger.

Mohinder Singh, 55, was brutally attacked at 3am last Sunday after the customer refused to pay his fare.

He was left with a broken cheekbone, two broken teeth, and severe bruising to his face after being beaten about the head, and dragged along Darraghs Rd in Brookfield, Tauranga.

Less than two days later, his close friend Dev Sangha, who also drives a cab for Tauranga Mount Taxis, was robbed and threatened in a separate attack.

Both drivers had been afraid of going to work since the slaying of Auckland taxi driver Hiren Mohini, 39, in Mount Eden on January 31.

The serious assaults sparked fresh calls for the Government to rush through new laws to allow security shields in taxis.

Describing the first attack, Singh said: "When we stopped I asked him for the money and he said he wasn't going to pay.

"He looked through his wallet but then just started to beat me. I was doing nothing.

"He said he wouldn't pay the fare and I just said, 'Please, don't kill me'. But I could do nothing. It just happened and nobody can do anything."

On Monday night Sangha, 37, was threatened by a male passenger who told him he would shoot him if he didn't hand over his belongings.

Sangha said his passenger told him he was armed with a gun, and ordered him to drive to a remote intersection in Papamoa, south of Tauranga.

He told Sangha he was the leader of a gang and robbed him of about $70, before getting out of the car and attempting to punch him through the open door on the driver's side.

"He said he had a gun, but when I said I hadn't done anything wrong he grabbed my left shoulder and said, 'Give me all your f****** money'.

"I gave him ... whatever I had, but he said I was lying and that I had more."

Sangha said the man threatened to shoot him again if he didn't hand over more change, and asked for his business card so he could "track him down".

Sangha escaped without serious injury, but his wife was so frightened by the incidents that she quit her job with the same taxi company and is going to work at a kiwifruit packhouse.

"She's very scared by everything and said she didn't want to drive anymore," said Sangha. "She said that I got lucky and looked at me the other day and said, 'We can't afford to lose each other'."

The manager of Tauranga Mount Taxis, Bruce Rainey, said Singh was in a new taxi which was fitted with a video camera.

But he believes the Government needs to "hurry up" to introduce legislation to allow security shields in taxis.

"Taxi drivers are the first guys in the firing line after bouncers [at bars]. They're extremely vulnerable and are often attacked from behind, so they are easy targets," he said.

"All our drivers have been on edge since Mohini's death, and then [Singh] was attacked, which was such a senseless beating.

"When you look at the physical beating he took you can't help but think 'Imagine if he had a knife'.

"It's horrible to think about. It's the scariest part about these two attacks."

Two men have been charged over the separate assaults.

Twenty-year-old Stacey Adam appeared in the Tauranga District Court on Monday on one charge of robbery, while a 22-year-old store manager also appeared in court in relation to the second attack.