Shaquille Marty Colin Warner faces Ipswich Court for threatening to shoot taxi driver

A Brisbane taxi driver was subjected to a terrifying ordeal when his passenger pulled out a weapon and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give him any cash.

A Brisbane taxi driver was subjected to a terrifying ordeal when his passenger pulled out a weapon and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give him any cash. Generic image: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

An Ipswich man who previously threatened children with a kitchen knife has returned to court for terrorising a taxi driver with a weapon after refusing to pay his fare.

Gailes landscaper Shaquille Marty Colin Warner, 29, pleaded guilty on April 2 to one count each of stealing and attempted armed robbery.

Crown prosecutor Alex Baker told Ipswich District Court that Warner had taken a taxi from the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital to a Gailes address on April 16 last year.

When the taxi driver asked for payment, Warner told him to wait so he could get money from inside the house, Ms Baker said.

The driver agreed, asking him to leave something in the vehicle to ensure he would come back.

But instead of returning with money, Warner came back with a replica firearm in his waistband.

Ms Baker said Warner brandished the gel blaster in an attempt to rob the driver, threatening to “put one in [his] head”.

She noted the gel blaster was “very realistic-looking”, and that the victim had believed it was a real gun.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren accepted the incident would have been “particularly terrifying” for the driver.

The court heard Warner left empty-handed because it had been early in the driver’s shift and he didn’t have any cash yet.

Warner was arrested by police three days later and spent nearly a year on remand waiting for his sentence.

Ms Baker noted he had also stolen approximately $83-worth of petrol in a fuel drive off on March 19, 2023.

She said his criminal history included an armed robbery in 2018, along with a conviction for being armed in public with intent to steal.

Ms Baker said that incident involved Warner brandishing a kitchen knife at some schoolchildren and demanding some property from them.

The court heard Warner had a difficult upbringing and had descended into alcohol and cannabis misuse at a young age.

Around the time of the current offending, he had been struggling with a relationship breakdown and had been drinking a six-pack a day to cope.

But Judge Horneman-Wren said there was no evidence to suggest Warner had been intoxicated at the time of this incident.

He said there was a need to deter others from similar offending against “soft targets” like taxi drivers.

Warner was sentenced to three years in jail, with parole release on April 18.

His 349 days in presentence custody were declared time-served.