Boy, 12, taken on terror taxi ride
A PHOENIX taxi driver is in trouble for allegedly taking a 12-year-old boy on a 15-minute terror ride for accidentally scratching his vehicle with a spinning top.
Since the ordeal on Thursday afternoon, the Grade 7 pupil had been left traumatised, said his furious mother who is planning to lay a criminal charge against the driver.
“My son was waiting outside his school to take a taxi to our home in Unit 5. While waiting he bought a spinning top and was playing with it on a sandy patch near the taxi stop. But it landed on the road and a vehicle ran over it,” she said. “The top spun in the air and hit a taxi that was parked across from where my son was standing.”
The 36-year-old businesswoman said the taxi driver screamed for her son to cross the road and come to his vehicle.
“The conductor grabbed him and shoved him into the taxi. The driver told my son that he will have to pay for the damages. My son was in shock and he kept quiet. The men then drove off with him in the vehicle.”
She said other pupils who were waiting for their transport alerted the school to what had happened.
“The school contacted police who arrived and started stopping and checking all the taxis that were driving by. I was at the Phoenix Plaza running errands and I got a call from the school saying my son was taken by a taxi driver,” she said.
“I was so terrified that something bad was going to happen to my child. He is so little and I kept on fearing the worst.”
She said it appeared the men were tipped off about the police search and put her son in another taxi headed in the direction of her house, where he got off.
“When I saw him he was in shock. Since the ordeal he has not been the same. He does not want to say exactly what happened in the taxi as he is very scared,” she said.
“They took my son on a terror ride through Phoenix and have scared him for life over a scratch.”
Phoenix Taxi Association spokesperson Basha Suleman said they were aware of the incident and that the driver has been suspended.