A Dublin taxi driver has told how he was robbed by a customer armed with a hammer and a syringe for €330 in cash.
John, not his real name, told Dublin Live he was driving home after a busy night following the Gay Pride parade in June last year. A man wearing a face mask stopped him and told him he was going to Clondalkin. John said: “I was on my way home but I said I’d do the job anyway.”
They drove into the estate where the customer allegedly lived and the masked man got out of the car in a cul-de-sac. To John, it looked like he was going into the house at the time. Now, he realises the masked man actually went down the side of the house where there was a walkway from the main road. He said: “And with that another guy came through on a pushbike and he said to me, ‘this fella is coming with us as well’.”
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They asked John to put the bike in the car boot which he refused. The two men got in the back of the car but after about half a minute one of them said he’d dropped his phone out on the ground. The second man got out of the car and John saw from the rear view mirror both of them were outside the car and he saw something being passed between them.
John said: “Next of all, my front door opened and it was the guy that had originally flagged me with the mask on, opened the door and he had a hammer. And it looked like [there was] something sharp in the other hand. I didn't know whether there was a knife or a syringe but there was definitely something.
“He said to me ‘get out of the car, and if you beep the horn or you flash lights or you do anything, he said, you’re gonna get a bang of the hammer’. So I got out of the car, and he said to me, give me what you had. So I said, 'Come on, Jesus Christ, I’m only trying to earn a living and he said give me what you have now.”
The thief took the money and the car and left John at the housing estate where this was happening.
“As I was walking down through the housing estate, he flew past me in the car, but there was a man coming back from the local pub and I said, any chance I can use your mobile phone? I'm after being robbed.”
John got in touch with the local gardai who arrived at the scene in a matter of minutes. Gardai later recovered the car and luckily nothing was taken from it apart from the coin jack.
John has been in the business for 20 years but had never been the victim of such a terrifying incident before. He still takes street jobs but he’s much more vigilant since the robbery. Taxi drivers have recently safety concerns, with the National Transport Authority revealing a sharp decrease in the number of taxi drivers willing to work at night.
NXT Taxis chief Vinny Kearns is calling for tougher legislation and making attacks on taxi drivers “a more serious offense” such as making the minimum sentences for any attack. He said: “I am in the business since 1981 and I've seen some horrific attacks and the punishment never fit the crime."
Dublin Live have contacted An Garda Siochana for comment.
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