Three teenage students of Innswood High School in St Catherine were killed yesterday morning when the illegal taxi in which they were travelling to school slammed into a concrete post on the Old Harbour main road after what eyewitnesses described as a reckless rampage by the cab driver. The accident occurred at about 6:45 am.

Police named the dead children as Tasha McLeish, 13; Ricardo Beckford and Mark Campbell, both 14 years old. The three lived in St Catherine.

Three other children – Shenroy Chambers, Shaneka Ferron and Sudan Scarlett, all 13 years old – who were also in the taxi, as well as the driver, 24 year-old Kevin Francis, were injured in the crash.

Police and eyewitnesses say that Francis, who lives at Homestead in St Catherine, was driving the Toyota motor car at high speed. He tried to overtake a line of traffic at the entrance to the Leiva Gardens housing scheme but was forced to swerve onto the soft shoulder to avoid oncoming vehicles.

Two of the students – Beckford and Campbell – died on the spot. McLeish, the other students and the driver were rushed to the Spanish Town Hospital where McLeish died.

Before the accident, a policeman had instructed Francis, while he was at the Spanish Town bus terminus, to unload his passengers due to the state of the vehicle and because he was playing music with obscene lyrics.

According to the police, the taxi driver will be charged with three counts of causing death by dangerous driving as soon as he is discharged from the hospital.

Yesterday, Inspector Patrick Murdock, who heads the St Catherine North police division, told the Observer that the police will be moving to rid the streets of Spanish Town of illegal taxis.

But Inspector Murdock’s promise was little comfort to Edgeton Newman, the general secretary of the National Association of Taxi Operators, who complained that the authorities were not clamping down on illegal taxis despite a promise to do so made by Transport Minister Robert Pickersgill.

Newman said his association had written to Pickersgill requesting an urgent meeting with him and the prime minister to deal with the problem.