THREE youths have faced court over allegedly assaulting and robbing a taxi driver in Gawler before driving his car more than two hours to the Riverland on Saturday morning.

The trio, two 17-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy, were arrested and charged with aggravated robbery after they allegedly hit a taxi driver over the head with a wine bottle and drove off in his car.

According to reports, one of the girls was on bail and awaiting sentencing for bashing a schoolgirl at a McDonalds earlier this year.

Police will allege the taxi driver picked up a fare at Evanston Gardens just before 2.30am on Saturday morning consisting of the two teenage girls and teenage boy.

A short time later, the car reached Twelfth Avenue, Gawler, where the driver was assaulted by one member of the group who hit him over the head with an empty spirit bottle and forced him from the car before stealing it and driving off.

The driver, a 20-year-old man named Jaspreet, was taken to the Lyell McEwin Hospital for treatment and X-rays for a facial injury.

Police were called to the scene and contacted taxi company 13Cabs, which was able to track the car via the GPS inside the vehicle.

The car was tracked north, heading along the Sturt Highway towards the Barossa Valley. Police were not in pursuit of the vehicle, but monitored its movement with the GPS.

A police dog patrol unit already in the northern suburbs was dispatched to travel in the same direction as the stolen taxi in case it was dumped by the alleged trio.

At around 3.15am, the taxi was tracked still travelling along the Sturt Highway near Blanchetown before travelling through Barmera at 4am.

At around 4.15am the car stopped at Berri, more than 200km from where the taxi was first stolen from.

Police dog Havoc and its handler took 10 minutes to locate the trio, who had run into a nearby orchard.

SA Taxi Council president John Trainer called the incident “horrible” and said the driver’s inexperience left him vulnerable to an attack.

“It will be very difficult as a community if taxi drivers are cautious about going to particular areas or operating during those (late) hours,” he said.

“This particular driver had only been two months on the job and wouldn’t have developed the degree of caution perhaps a more experienced driver may have. He may not have been as trusting of the people who got into his taxi.

“I would like to see training go back to what it was previously, where the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure worked closer with the Taxi Council.”

13Cabs general manager Chris Cudsi was outraged by the attack.

“Taxi drivers, like any other member of the community, are entitled to feel safe in their workplace. This type of behaviour is simply unacceptable, particularly coming off the back of a similar incident a week or so ago,” he said.

“As a result of the actions of these violent thugs there is one less taxi out there today getting South Australians around."