A Cape Town woman on Tuesday continued her testimony about her horror taxi ride at the hands of a ”taxi conductor”.
One of the two women named in the case, Lorraine Pindela, told the Cape Town Regional Court the shock of the ordeal caused her to menstruate in the taxi. The second woman, British tourist Angela Pillay, has returned to the United Kingdom and refuses to return for the case.
Pindela testified before magistrate Wilma van der Merwe at the trial of Mogamat Lottering, a minibus taxi guard and conductor, who has pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated armed robbery, all relating to alleged muggings in the taxi.
She told the court she had bought a gift for her mother at the V&A Waterfront in August last year and afterwards, at about 5pm, had boarded Lottering’s taxi to go home.
As they left the Waterfront, the driver (not Lottering) asked her permission to first fetch his wife from her place of work. She said they drove to Sea Point, where the taxi stopped in a side road, and Lottering got out, pretending to be looking for the driver’s wife.
She said Lottering returned without the woman, and as he got back into the taxi he drew a gun on her and Pillay. Both were ordered to get under a seat.
Pindela said she was too big to get under the seat, and Lottering forced her under the seat by sticking the barrel of the gun into her mouth. She asked to rather lie in the passage of the taxi, to which Lottering agreed, and then he blindfolded and gagged both women.
Pindela said she could hear as Lottering scratched through their handbags. She said they drove around for hours before the taxi stopped in bushes.
Fearing the worst
Lottering and the driver got out, and she managed to pull down her blindfold to see Lottering filling a container with petrol siphoned from the taxi.
She said she saw Lottering sprinkle the petrol on to the taxi, and then he asked the driver for a match. Fearing the worst, she started screaming, and Lottering shouted at to her to ”shut up”.
Pindela said at that stage she started to menstruate, prompting Lottering to ask if she was pregnant. Although she was not, she told him she was, and Lottering offered to take her to hospital. However, the driver refused, and they continued their horror journey.
As they drove, Pillay was thrown out of the moving taxi and shots were fired at her, Pindela told the court. She then started to get sick in the taxi, and she was also thrown out while the taxi was moving.
Pillay, who was not far behind, managed to run to her, and together they reached the safety of the University of the Western Cape on the Cape Flats. At the university, security guards alerted the police, she said.
Defence attorney Inge van der Westhuizen told Pinga that Lottering knew nothing about the alleged incident, and claimed to have been at the Bishop Lavis taxi rank that night.
Pindela said: ”He’s lying.”
Van der Westhuizen added: ”Lottering says he has never worked on a taxi in or near Cape Town.”
Pindela replied: ”He’s lying — why should I pick on him at the ID parade?”
She said Lottering had been in close proximity to her in the taxi, before she and Pillay were blindfolded, and it was impossible for her to make a mistake about his identity.
The case continues on Wednesday. — Sapa