Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
The Turks and Caicos courts will soon have the task of trying a convicted sex officer, this time accused of raping a woman repeatedly after posing as a jitney driver; again raising the issue of the need for safe transport locally.
Elvethan Handfield was refused bail when he appeared in the Magistrates Court on April 29. He had spent at least 13 years in prison on a rape conviction and is now accused of picking his latest victim under the guise of being a jitney or unlicensed taxi driver.
The defendant claims she got into the vehicle instructing him to take her to Dock Yard on April 19. Instead, Handfield is accused of driving her to a home, forcing her inside at knifepoint where he proceeded to rape her and record his actions over the course of two days (April 19 – 20).
Jitneys abound in the Turks and Caicos, they’re unmarked, unlicensed, and driven by often unknown individuals with no legal authority to be ferrying passengers. With no formal process of vetting, all a potential predator would need is a car to appear as one of these drivers, and he could strike.
Since the beginning of the year at least three women have reported attacks from men posing as jitney drivers, leading to a safety bulletin being issued by police in February.
Despite this, the business of jitney driving is still operational, thriving even, because they fill a gap for the community, left open by the lack of secure, dependable, government-sanctioned transport.
When we spoke to Wilbur Caley, Head of the Department of Motor Vehicles, to find out how many Community Cabs were licensed to operate currently, he told us this.
“From recollection, there are about seven licensed.”
It’s a disappointingly low number and tracks with what Wilkie Arthur, Magnetic Media Court Correspondent, observes on the streets daily “I don’t think they’re readily accessible,” Arthur said of the community cabs. “I would comfortably say 98 percent of the population is using illegal jitneys.”
The ‘community cabs’ were a government-sanctioned solution to jitneys and TCIG had hoped residents would take the opportunity to join the fleet of white and blue sedans, touted to provide safe, clean, and accessible travel. But it hasn’t worked that way. The number of registered community cabs still is far lower than the number of jitneys.
“The uptake for these types of licenses is very, very low. A number of individuals have expressed interest however they are reluctant because they say they don’t want or can’t compete with the illegal jitneys,” Caley explained.
Technically, as the DMV head pointed out, jitneys are illegal but the gray area of necessity vs law has created a space for them and in that murk, predators are hiding.
In the past several years both adults and school children have suffered at the hands of vulturine men using their position as drivers to assault.
Even tourists who usually get ferried by designated taxis have reported abuse at the hands of jitneys angering legitimate taxi drivers who say they’re shouldering the blame for the actions of a wholly separate group.
It’s now up to the government to breathe new life into the Community Cab initiative and populate the country’s roads with clean, safe, traceable vehicles rather than leave travelers at risk.
