499 crimes: Cab driver caught on CCTV abusing, ripping off passengers with disabilities

A taxi driver aligned with Australia’s largest cab company who systematically defrauded and repeatedly assaulted his profoundly disabled passengers was discovered by authorities only after he was arrested for drink-driving on the job.

A major investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes has revealed the disturbing case and spurred calls to overhaul the taxi industry from police, the judiciary and the nation’s leading disability and consumer rights advocates.

The police lead investigator into the incident warned that inadequate anti-fraud and safety measures might have allowed 13cabs driver Jarnail Singh to offend with impunity and commit crimes beyond the 499 he pleaded guilty late last year to having committed.

Separately, women who have experienced sexual assault or harassment in cabs have also spoken out, with one describing how authorities have refused to say if the driver who preyed on her is still driving cabs.

The revelations come after this masthead and 60 Minutes detailed at the weekend systematic fraud by drivers enabled by gaping holes in the products and payment systems supplied by Australia’s biggest taxi company, A2B.

The Australian taxi giant, which was recently acquired by Singaporean global transport firm ComfortDelGro, owns 13cabs, Silver Service and Cabcharge, and supplies the bulk of the country’s taxi payment terminals.

The Victorian government ordered an immediate review of the use of Cabcharge after A2B documents published by this investigation suggested the state’s health services were exposed to thousands of rip-offs.

An official NSW government source, not authorised to speak publicly, said the state’s taxi and Uber regulator lacked the power to effectively police and penalise big corporations, including A2B and Uber.

Victoria Police said the case of 13cabs driver Jarnail Singh might not have been uncovered if he had not been caught drink-driving on the job, prompting authorities to review two weeks of CCTV from his taxi. The CCTV captured Singh not only repeatedly defrauding his vulnerable passengers’ taxpayer-subsidised transport accounts but also subjecting them to a range of appalling mistreatment.

The first clip of CCTV vision reviewed by the lead investigator, Senior Constable Tim Schnepf, revealed Singh “drinking [a] Crown Lager bottle whilst he was driving” passengers in wheelchairs.

“They were colliding with each other and the sides of the taxi as well … They were rolling about, they weren’t restrained at all,” Schnepf recalled in an interview with this masthead and 60 Minutes.

Next, the vision shows Singh assaulting a female passenger by “coming in from behind and slapping her across the head from behind”.

“She wouldn’t have seen it coming. It was quite significant force. Her whole head was forced sideways and she was obviously shocked,” Schnepf said.

Further CCTV analysis showed Singh striking other disabled passengers on the head and body, berating them, roughly handling them and failing to secure their wheelchairs.

“Day in, day out he just didn’t secure the wheelchairs, he didn’t apply the brakes, [he subjected his passengers to] multiple assaults, he was drinking whilst he was driving. It was just unbelievable. How can someone treat another human being like this?” Schnepf said.

Singh’s defrauding of his disabled passengers led to dozens of counts of fraud involving the theft of funds from their government-subsidised taxi travel accounts.

“He was activating their accounts whilst he had no passengers in the car, he was overcharging them by starting the meter early, or he was not turning the meter off when he was dropping them off.”

Schnepf said he was surprised 13cabs – a key A2B brand which also uses the firm’s payment terminals – appeared to lack effective fraud detection systems, warning it was too easy for Singh to commit his crimes.

Victoria Police Senior Constable Tim Schnepf.Credit: 60 Minutes

The police officer said that “absolutely without question” there needed to be improved anti-fraud and safety checks within the taxi industry.

“They need to be checked on more often, I think at the very minimum,” Schnepf said, suggesting authorities should conduct more-frequent spot checks to ensure passenger safety and that improved auditing was required to stamp out overcharging, especially of government-subsidised taxi transport.

In December, Singh pleaded guilty to 499 charges, including dozens of fraud and overcharging offences, along with seven counts of assaulting his disabled passengers.

He was also convicted of cramming the taxi with up to four passengers in wheelchairs instead of the legal limit of two, blowing a blood alcohol concentration of 0.191 and failing to safely secure his passengers’ chairs while the taxi was moving.

In convicting the 57-year-old and sentencing him to a two-year community corrections order and a $20,000 fine, magistrate Kieran Gilligan said laws governing taxi drivers should be reformed to allow courts to more easily impose jail terms.

“The victims were disabled, physically and mentally. [They were] vulnerable and defenceless,” he said. “The government ought to revisit the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act for the purposes of imposing prison terms … [and] the penalty under the Road Safety Act in relation to consuming alcohol ought to be reviewed, in my view.”

Family members of the victims of Singh who attended his court case cried and gasped as the prosecutor played vision of their loved ones being hit, shoved or nearly toppled out of their wheelchairs.

Sandy Guy with her son Liam, who was ripped off and assaulted by his taxi driver.Credit: Simon Schluter

Sandy Guy, whose son Liam was assaulted and defrauded, provided the court with a victim impact statement that Gilligan said showed the level of betrayal and heartbreak felt by the families.

In an interview, Guy said Singh had treated her son like an animal and demanded government intervention to protect disabled Australians being treated like cash cows by cab drivers.

“I have one docket of Singh’s which says Liam was taken from North Dandenong to North Dandenong. I don’t think Liam’s ever been to North Dandenong,” she said.

A2B executive David Samuel said he was aware of Singh’s case but denied the company’s systems would have played a role in his offending.

“I can’t see how that would’ve been allowed to occur through an A2B system. The driver’s behaviour is certainly unacceptable. We would take advice from the police if they came and they thought that our systems were somehow enabling that behaviour,” he said.

Australia’s disability discrimination commissioner, Rosemary Kayess, said the industry’s persistent wrongdoing showed its failure to self-regulate.

“This widespread defrauding tends to suggest a very systemic failure with the industry to be able to manage itself to act ethically and within the law,” she said.

“There’s been a long history of complaints about the taxi industry ... it’s not any particular jurisdiction. It’s been nationwide. It’s difficult to see how [the regulation is] working if we’re still encountering such behaviour.”

Kayess called for the industry and regulators to do more to ensure passengers could travel safely, and said attitudes towards Australians with disabilities desperately needed to change.

“There need to be mechanisms in place that ensure that the corporate functions of the taxi industry operate within the law. There needs to be the ability to complain, and there needs to be a commitment from the industry that those complaints will be dealt with seriously,” she said. “I wish I had a magical jurisdictional fix, but it does involve a cultural piece. It’s not just one rogue bad apple.”

Kayess said the scale of the fraud also placed a burden on government services such as the NDIS.

“Lots of that defrauding will come off subsidised schemes. So they’re not just defrauding people with disability, they’re defrauding society more broadly. There’s a cost for the devaluing of people with disability, and we all pay it,” she said.

Graeme Samuel, a former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and an ex-chairman of Victoria’s taxi commission, said the video in Singh’s case made him angry and upset and that change was urgently needed.

“Frankly, governments ought to be ashamed. They’ve instituted these regulations, these regulators, they ought to be ashamed that this is still happening,” he said.

Also backing calls for reform of the taxi sector is Bridget, who was subjected to terrifying sexual advances by a 13cabs driver in May 2023.

After leaving a nightclub in Collingwood, a sober Bridget said her driver queried her about her sexuality, telling her she was “too pretty to be gay”. As Bridget sought to leave the cab, the driver blocked her exit and sexually propositioned her, saying: “You’re gay, huh? I’d love to get in between your legs with another woman.”

Bridget manoeuvred past the driver and raced to her home – she described “crying, [being] really distressed and scared but also angry” – and within hours reported the incident through the 13cabs website.

Bridget was harrassed by a cab driver but cannot find out if he is still on the road.Credit: 60 Minutes

After five days and having received no response, she complained to the Victorian taxi regulator and police. According to Bridget, she was told by the regulator that her driver was suspended pending review, but after many months of follow-up, Safe Transport Victoria refused to disclose whether he had lost his accreditation or was still driving, potentially posing a risk to other women.

“The most frustrating and emotionally distressing part of the entire experience, and I would include the experience with the driver, was being told I couldn’t find out the outcome of my complaint,” Bridget said.

“One of my motivations for contacting Safe Transport Victoria was my fear that younger women, intoxicated, if someone had fallen asleep, would be in a far worse situation.”

A2B’s David Samuel said the regulator was responsible for notifying victims about the outcomes of complaints, but he insisted that driver would no longer “be driving in our fleet, in 13cabs or Silver Service”.

Samuel conceded in an interview that the industry had issues with overcharging, but said A2B had responded to the concerns detailed in the Taxileaks files with technological improvements to combat fraud.

He also warned that independent drivers, not associated with A2B’s 13cabs or Silver Service networks, faced far fewer controls.

Cases of sexual harassment and assault have made repeated headlines in connection to the taxi industry and ride-share vehicles.

In December, a taxi driver who sexually assaulted a barely conscious passenger before stealing her engagement ring was sentenced to 10 months’ jail in Victoria.

Magistrate Kay Robertson lashed the driver’s offending in her sentencing remarks, saying he had betrayed the trust bestowed on him as a taxi driver.

“I have to send a message to taxi drivers, and ride-share drivers, that there will be punishment if they breach that trust … particularly when that passenger is vulnerable,” Robertson said.

In 2023, a DiDi rideshare driver was sentenced to seven years in prison over the rape of a 20-year-old woman he picked up outside a Fitzroy nightclub in 2021. During the case, County Court judge Liz Gaynor remarked on the troubling rise in sexual assaults by rideshare and taxi drivers.

“Sexual offending against substance-affected young women by taxi or Uber drivers has become all too prevalent ... you breached this duty of care, which every share-driver owes to his or her passenger,” Gaynor said.

In August 2021, this masthead revealed Uber drivers had been involved in more than 500 serious incidents over 18 months in NSW, including sexual assaults and crashes that put people in hospital, but the ride-sharing giant failed to tell the regulator despite a legal requirement.

At the time, Uber insisted it had robust safety measures in place.

The Victorian state taxi and rideshare regulator does not report instances of sexual assault. In NSW, the Point to Point Transport Commissioner created a complaint hotline which received more than 1000 calls in its first six months, resulting in 520 drivers being disciplined.

Consumers’ Federation of Australia chairman Gareth Downing said regulators needed the resources to deal swiftly with perpetrators, and that enforcement should focus on the most at-risk people and risky situations.

“You should be targeting those who are providing services to the most vulnerable in our community. And that would include targeting of taxi drivers who are providing services late at night in the centre of the CBD, in the hot spots where people go out, and there are high risks of assault and things like that. There should be a strategy,” Downing said.

He said there needed to be a stronger, simpler complaints process, particularly for vulnerable individuals.

“The resourcing of these bodies is insufficient. You should be able to make a complaint to a government body – and often these relate to serious safety matters … and expect that they undertake an appropriate investigation.”

Sarra Stewart, owner of female-only driver ride firm Shebah, said sexual assault and harassment in rideshare and taxi vehicles was significantly under-reported.

One of Shebah’s drivers, Lee-Anne Ford, said she had experienced a horrific case of harassment involving a cab driver in Brisbane in 2018 who repeatedly propositioned her.

Shebah driver Lee-Anne Ford.Credit: Glenn Hunt

“He was so enraged that I refused to agree to go out with him, he ran the red light at an intersection and then stopped the car in the middle of the intersection,” she said. “I was absolutely terrified.”

The next say, Ford signed up as a passenger with Shebah and eventually became a driver.

“Every drive that I do for a passenger is one that they can travel safely without fear of harm and harassment.”

Stewart said her service was still expanding as concern about safety or fraud in the taxi and rideshare industry had grown.

“We can’t keep up with demand,” she said. “I’ve had many elderly talk to me about being ripped off by the taxi service. It’s just atrocious.”

Both Uber and 13cabs have told this masthead they have robust safety controls to keep passengers safe.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.