(16 MAY 2011)
Cabbie Brutally Bashed Grandmother AAP May 16, 2011, 2:23 pm
A Melbourne taxi driver has admitted brutally bashing an 81-year-old woman who accepted a lift to a doctor's appointment. Zainab Sarwari was left on the roadside with her bag and walking frame scattered around her after the attack in Melbourne's southeast last year.
The taxi driver had repeatedly punched her before throwing her out of the taxi at Noble Park on August 15, 2010, Ms Sarwari said in a witness statement tendered in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court. Ms Sarwari said she crawled to the front door of a nearby house where a woman called her an ambulance.
She suffered two black eyes, swelling on her forehead and bruising on her hands and shoulders in the assault.
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Bhupinder Singh pleaded guilty to kidnapping and bashing 81-year-old Zainab Sarwari
Ms Sarwari was left bruised and battered after the attack
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Bhupinder Singh, 24, pleaded guilty on Monday to intentionally causing injury and false imprisonment.
Ms Sarwari said she accepted the lift while waiting at a bus stop, but became upset when he did not appear to be driving in the direction of her appointment.
"He was driving me around some places that were very deserted," she said in her statement.
"I was very upset and I took off my seat-belt so that I could get out of the taxi."
But Ms Sarwari said as she tried to open the door, the
driver grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly, holding down her seatbelt so she couldn't move."He started driving faster after this and I was shouting at the driver the whole time in my own language and making body gestures to let me out," she said.
"I was saying `stop, stop', and I was very scared not knowing where he was taking me and what he was going to do to me."
When the taxi driver stopped, he punched her twice in the face, then held her down and continued throwing punches. "He kept on punching me and hit me a lot of times and it was hurting me very much," she said.
The driver then opened the door, removed her seat-belt and pushed her out.
"The next thing I remember is when I opened my eyes I was on the ground and my bag and walking frame were on the ground around me," she said.
"I think I must have become unconscious when he pushed me out of the car."
She said the incident left her too scared to live alone or go out alone, and she now suffered dizziness and headaches. Magistrate Peter Reardon bailed Singh to appear at the Victorian County Court on July 28 for a pre-sentence hearing.
