Taxi driver sensed trouble before it struck

Harbinder Saini did the right thing by co-operating with his attackers, police say. Picture / Brett Phibbs

At 4.45am, with threatening people in his taxi challenging him about the fare, Harbinder Saini had an uneasy feeling things were about to go wrong.

Within minutes, the man in the passenger seat started punching him in the head and the man in the back seat held a knife to his throat while the woman passenger sat there laughing.

"I had a funny feeling something was wrong when the man started arguing about his fare," he said.

The 25-year-old Co-Op taxi driver from Otahuhu, who migrated here from England three years ago, said never in his life had he experienced anything like yesterday morning's ordeal.

He was driving his taxi back to the city from an Onehunga job and a couple waved him down near the Jellicoe Park corner in Grey St, Onehunga.

They asked to go to the Viaduct Harbour, but said there was someone else to pick up 400m up Manukau Rd.

That person climbed in the front passenger seat, and queried Mr Saini about the $2 that is automatically charged when the ride begins.

Soon after Mr Saini drove through the Royal Oak roundabout towards the city, the front-seat passenger grabbed his left arm and punched him several times in the back of the head.

It was when Mr Saini tried to pull over that the passenger in the back seat held a knife to his neck.

They told him to turn right into the main entrance of Cornwall Park, which Mr Saini did, before the trio fled. They took with them $40 he had in his pockets.

Mr Saini said that within minutes about six police cars were on the scene.

Acting Detective Sergeant Steve Salton of the Auckland City crime squad said the driver did everything right. "Do what you're told. Money can be replaced. Lives can't."

The two men sought are Pacific Islanders, one tall, clean-shaven and solidly built and the other medium-sized with short black hair and wearing black clothing.

The woman was a European with long, straight blonde hair.