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This article was published 10/12/2015 (1749 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For several frightening minutes as Hailey McKay sat in the back of the Duffy’s cab going in the wrong direction, it crossed her mind that something bad could happen.

The quick-thinking 18-year-old called a friend and stayed on the line until the Duffy’s driver altered the cab’s course and took her home. She ran inside her home and called police.

Since then, the police obtained evidence from Duffy’s that the driver had detoured well away from the agreed-upon route. Her story has been shared numerous times through social media and Duffy’s suspended the driver pending the results of the police investigation and one by the Manitoba Taxicab Board.

"I thought it would be a safe ride home," said McKay, a University of Manitoba student.

She said through social media that he "asked my age, asked my name (which she did not give), asked about my boyfriend, asked about sex, asked about what I do with my clothes off. He tried to take me somewhere else (when he knew exactly where he was supposed to go because he had a working GPS that he put my address into)... so scary... Be careful out there, people!"

She spoke publicly about what happened to her in the Duffy’s cab as a cautionary tale to other young women who are trusted cab drivers to get them home safely during the holiday season.

"I’d heard so much about taxicabs and how many missing and murdered indigenous women are gone. When he turned off the route and started going somewhere else, that’s when I picked up my phone and I just thought, ‘It’s going to happen,’ and I phoned someone right away."

Duffy’s customer service department told the Free Press in an email Thursday that the driver in question has been suspended and is not driving cab for them at this time.

"Duffy’s Taxi has a policy as soon as these kind of incidents happened, (the) driver will be suspended (until) the investigation is completed. Based on the outcome, (a) decision will be taken accordingly."

The company said the Manitoba Taxicab Board is "actively investigating" this incident and Duffy’s "provided all the required information." The company is waiting for a "response and guidelines from Taxicab Board."

McKay said she had been at her cousin’s house and decided to head home in the early hours of Sunday morning so she called a cab. She said the exact route had been decided as soon as she got into the cab. She asked the driver for a flat-rate fare so he had to look up her address on the vehicle’s GPS to set the fare.

"He started calling me beautiful and then it kept going from there. He’d ask me something and a few minutes later, ask me something again," she said. "When he turned off, I think he saw me panicking because I phoned two people and they didn’t answer before I got someone else. I said, ‘I’m in a cab alone.’ Right when he noticed I was on the phone, I said, ‘You’re going the wrong way.’ He tried pull it off that he didn’t know what he was doing. But it was flat rate so he knew exactly where to go. He knew what he doing."

McKay said she believes the driver preyed on her because she was a lone young woman.

"I hope he gets fired and his cab licence taken away. Because what he did to me wasn’t as bad as it could have been. You never know, with young girls, it could have gotten much worse.

"I think he treated me the way he did because he saw I was a bit younger, alone and maybe he thought I was inexperienced about cab rides and didn’t know how the cab ride should go."

Luc Lewandoski of the Winnipeg Taxi Alliance, an organization that represents both Unicity and Duffy’s and includes passenger safety as part of its mandate, said he spoke to the Duffy’s manager.

"It is an investigation in front of the Manitoba Taxicab Board but we always take these incidents very seriously," he said. "The first thing they (Duffy’s) did when they found out about the accusations, they pulled the driver from the street until the investigation is completed. It was taken seriously."

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca