Grant John Cassar
Psycho taxi driver abducts female passengers
EMMA CHANNON | July 17th, 2013
THIS is the psycho cab driver who abducted two women after they hailed his cab, assaulting one of them when she tried to stop the moving vehicle.
Grant John Cassar, 34, bizarrely wore a balaclava as he left Townsville Magistrates Court yesterday, after he was found guilty of deprivation of liberty and common assault, and given 12 months' probation.
Cassar's cab licence has been cancelled and the union representing Townsville taxi drivers says his was a "very strange reaction".
The cabbie picked up the two women on Flinders St on August 11 last year and agreed to drive them to their Oonoonba home.
But when Cassar pulled up outside their place - and before the girls exited the vehicle - he suddenly did a U-turn and began to drive away despite their protests.
One of the victims said yesterday she feared for her life.
"Like I told the court, maybe I watch too much CSI but there are a lot of places in that area where you can't hear someone scream," the 45-year-old said.
"That's what was going through our heads. We didn't know what was happening."
Cassar drove the terrified women away from their Oonoonba home, while they pleaded with him to stop, telling him "but we've got the money".
When one of the women leant forward from the back seat to try and pull on the hand brake, Cassar pulled her hair and punched her several times in the head.
The cab driver finally pulled to a stop on Flinders St where the shaken women got out of the car.
Cassar pleaded not guilty to the two charges against him yesterday, and admitted that while he took the women back to Flinders St, he maintained he was doing it for their own good.
He told a Townsville Magistrates Court yesterday that he thought the women would be a danger to themselves if he let them out at their front door.
"I decided to take them back to Flinders St because I believed that I would breach my duty of care to be leaving them in their own care," he said. "I felt they were too intoxicated at the time. I believe that the harm to themselves or someone else (was too great a risk)."
Cassar said he formed that opinion after the girls asked to go via McDonald's on the way home, and one of them began eating a burger despite being told not to.
He said the women were aggressive to McDonald's staff and that he became worried about their state of mind, but Magistrate Peter Smid said he didn't believe a word.
"I think you behaved foolishly ... it smacks to me of being completely fanciful," Mr Smid said.
"It's perhaps of little comfort to say the whole situation was completely avoidable, that this never should have happened.
"The taxi driver is asked to do something and ... he should not use his own psychological instincts to come to a decision to do something other than is asked by a customer."
Cassar lost his cab licence after the charges were laid, and now works part-time as a traffic controller.
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2013/07/17/385609_news.html
I think the wearing of the gimp mask to court puts this guy firmly in crazytown
