Woman punched by taxi driver
"We are not safe. The taxis are going to kill us and that is my worst fear.”
A Centurion woman has been brutally assaulted by a taxi driver who accused her of stealing his business.
Lesley-Anne Swanepoel (49) said she was punched in the face and suffered a fractured cheekbone.
“The attack has left me too traumatised to leave my house,” she said this week.
It happened while she was on her usual route on her way to work in Johannesburg last Thursday.
She saw a friend standing on the corner of Panorama and Drakensberg roads.
“I stopped to let her in the car. Friends standing with her also got into my car and I didn’t have a problem with this,” Swanepoel said.
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She said a taxi driver of a brown taxi started shouting and screaming at her on the R55 on Drakensberg road and followed her when she pulled away.
“Another taxi, a white Quantum drove past me and made a U-turn and drove right at me and blocked me while the brown taxi trapped me.”
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Swanepoel said this was when the driver of the brown taxi came in a rage at her.
He slapped her windscreen with his open hand in his fury and punched her in the face.
“I felt blood running from my face. All the other women in the car were petrified.”
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Swanepoel said she escaped by taking a gap that had opened up in the traffic.
She had not left her house since the attack because she was too scared.
Swanepoel had to return to work soon, but was battling to cope and was taking medication for her nerves.
“When I see a taxi, I look at the number plates. I know his number plate. I feel violated as a woman. We are not safe. The taxis are going to kill us and that is my worst fear.”
She said this situation had taught her taxi drivers had no respect for anyone on the road.
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“I wasn’t trying to steal business from them. I only gave my friend and her friends a lift. I am allowed to have friends.”
Swanepoel laid charge at the Randburg police station, but the matter was transferred to the Wierdabrug police station.
Her husband Chris, who was in hospital at the time of the assault, was up in arms over what happened to his wife.
“I don’t know what I would have done, but nobody treats my wife like that,” he said.
He described the taxi driver as a bully, who had no respect for women.
“I will leave no stone unturned before justice has been served,” he said.
“Despite all the campaigns about women and children abuse, you still get men that think they have the power to do as they please.”
The police failed to give an immediate reply to an enquiry about their investigation into the matter.
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