Taxi drivers in Wairarapa have not always been free from violence, says a Masterton woman whose father was shot in the neck by a customer 65 years ago.
On Monday Wairarapa taxi bosses, reacting to the death of Christchurch driver Abdulrahman Ikhtiari on Saturday, said physical attacks were rare in their
cabs.
The comments sparked memories for Lexie Paterson, of Masterton, who remembers the night her taxi driver father, Richard webber, phoned from Masterton Hospital with a bullet in his neck.
Mrs Paterson, who was 14 at the time, said her father had rung up about 2am, an hour and a half after the shooting on midnight on April 25, 1943.
"Dad rung up about two o'clock in the morning," Mrs Paterson said.
"He said I've had a bit of an accident and I'll see you in the morning."
Mr webber had picked up a customer from A1 Takeaways and was driving towards Carterton.
According to Mrs Paterson, her father had opened the front door but the customer said he'd "rather sit in the back".
Mr webber had a "funny feeling" about the customer and had quietly pulled out the tyre lever he kept under the seat for emergencies, placing it beside him.
At Carrington, the customer "tried to rob him but Dad wasn't having any", Mrs Paterson said.
The man then shot Mr webber in the back of the neck, and the bullet lodged outside his vertebra, needing an operation to remove it.
"Dad must have been mighty tough," Mrs Paterson said, noting that her father drove himself to Carterton, picking up a couple of US marines who were walking by and notifying the police in the town.
A Wairarapa Times-Age article the following day noted the police search that ensued, and that "the accused was arrested in the vicinity of a farm in the Carrington District at 3.15pm".
The man appeared in court the next day. He was eventually convicted for his crime and spent time in prison.
Mrs Paterson said she heard the man later attempted to land a job as a taxi driver, but failed because of his police record.
Mrs Patterson still has the bullet removed from her father's neck, during surgery from which he made a complete recovery.
He died in 1965, aged 70.
