A taxi driver in the Victoria area is being praised for his actions to catch a wanted sex offender.
Mohammad Rashead was on shift last Sunday when he was flagged down at Craigflower and Admirals Road in Esquimalt.
He told Global News the passenger got in and made demands that were “suspicious.”
First, Rashead said he asked to go to a car dealership so he could buy a car. But the business was closed, so he asked if Rashead go could buy him some clothes.
“I said, ‘Sure, I will buy you clothes.’ But I said, ‘Why you don’t buy clothes?'” Rashead recalled. “And he said, ‘I didn’t do anything, but the police are looking for me.'”
When the taxi pulled up to the Superstore in Langford, Rasheed went in as if to make the purchase, but instead called 911.
He said he knew that his passenger was 56-year-old Scott Jones, a sex offender wanted for being unlawfully at large.
Court documents show Jones served five years in prison for rape, gross indecency, and the attempted rape of three girls.
While on parole, he was also charged with three counts of sexual assault with a weapon and three counts of unlawful confinement.
One of his victims was a nine-year-old girl who he sexually assaulted at knifepoint.
He has been deemed a dangerous offender, which means his sentence, whether behind bars or out in the community with conditions, is indefinite.
When officers arrived, Jones barricaded himself in the cab and tried to light the upholstery on fire, RCMP said. The officers had to smash the window to arrest him.
He remains in custody.
Rashead will be out of work for a few days while his car is repaired.
He insisted he didn’t do anything special.
“I think all the good citizens everywhere in Canada — they would do what I did to protect this country from bad people,” he said.
– with files from Simon Little
Comments