A court here has sentenced an Australian to over six years in jail for attacking an Indian taxi driver with knife, an incident that led to hundreds of Indian cabbies blocking the Melbourne streets last year.
Justice Elizabeth Curtain sentenced Parrish Charles to six-and-a-half years in jail, saying the stabbing was “random, unprovoked and frenzied” and the fact that the 45-year-old attacker had a hunting knife hidden in his pants showed a degree of “premeditation.”
The judge said the unprovoked and unexpected assault on 23-year-old Jalvinder Singh was terrifying and left Mr. Singh with ongoing mental and physical injuries that would change his life, media reports said on Friday.
Charles stabbed Mr. Singh five times from behind with the knife and the victim crawled bleeding from his cab and was found in the gutter hours later by a truck driver in April last.
Charles drove off in the cab but crashed it nearby.
The crime shocked the city and led to a mass blockade of Flinders and Swanston streets in central Melbourne by taxi drivers for 22 hours.
The Victorian government had to then agree to safety screens in cabs for drivers who wanted them, and mandatory pre-payment of fares at night.
Justice Curtain said the attacker was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1986 and at the time of the attack he was depressed and unhappy about his treatment at the Alfred Hospital.
Charles claimed to be suffering from blackouts and said he could remember little of the incident.
However, in a series of reports from psychiatrists and psychologists to the Supreme Court there was no evidence that Charles was psychotic or suffering from a mental illness that would explain his behaviour.
Charles had previously pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally causing serious injury and one count of theft of a taxi.
Justice Curtain said people like taxi drivers, who work alone at night, need to be protected from violent attacks.
“While he was stabbing me, he was holding me from behind around the neck. I was in shock. I felt like I was fighting for my life,” Mr. Singh had earlier said in a statement.
