Tired of waiting with meter running, taxi driver stabs passenger and gets jail

SINGAPORE — First, the passenger asked taxi driver Chua Ah Soon to go from Victoria Street to a hotel in Geylang to look for a lost file. After failing to find it, the passenger asked the cabby to drive to a petrol station in Geylang.

But Chua then grew tired of waiting with his meter running and asked the passenger when he was going to pay his fare.

A dispute ensued and Chua ended up stabbing the other man with a pair of scissors.

On Monday (Feb 10), the 71-year-old cabby was sentenced to seven months’ jail for causing hurt to his passenger by a dangerous weapon.

The court heard that Chua, who drove an SMRT taxi, picked the passenger up at Victoria Street in the wee hours of May 16 last year. The 27-year-old passenger asked to be taken to Gay World Hotel in Geylang, where he thought he had misplaced his file.

When he got there and could not find it, he asked Chua to go to the Shell petrol station at 203 Geylang Lorong 7, where the passenger had been earlier.

With the taxi meter still running, the younger man got out of the cab and went to look for his file. Chua followed him a few minutes later.

“He expressed his unhappiness at having to wait and asked the victim when he was going to make payment and how long more he had to wait,” Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Amanda Han told the court.

The passenger said that he intended to return to Bugis and would pay the fare afterwards.

An argument broke out between them, and Chua then returned to his taxi and took a pair of scissors from the side of the driver’s door.

The dispute culminated in Chua stabbing his passenger twice with the scissors.

The younger man then fled. A pump attendant helped the passenger to pay Chua the taxi fare and the cabby left.

The victim called for an ambulance and was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

He was found to have sustained an 8cm-long cut on the back of his neck and a 2cm-long stab wound on his chest.

He was given 31 days of hospitalisation leave after being discharged on the same day.

Chua lodged a police report at Ang Mo Kio Neighbourhood Police Post later that morning. He told the police he had argued with the passenger, but did not mention he had stabbed the man.

Chua was subsequently arrested and the pair of scissors was seized from him.

For causing hurt by a dangerous weapon, he could have been jailed up to seven years, fined or both. While the offence carries the possibility of caning, those above 50 years old cannot be caned by law.