Cabbie found guilty of sexual assault on passenger

A Regina taxi driver has been convicted of sexually assaulting a passenger two years ago.

The incident took place on Sept. 17, 2016, but the trial didn’t finish until Oct. 15 of this year. In a judgment issued last week, Judge Carol Snell found Gurdit Mashiana guilty of sexual assault. He will be sentenced in January.

The accuser, who is not identified in the judgment, testified that a taxi driver asked her for a date and put his hand on her thigh after pulling into her driveway. He then pressed his hand up to her vagina through her dress.

She said she was traumatized by the event and later complained to Co-op Taxi, which fired Mashiana. But she feared he may be hired by another cab company and assault another woman, prompting her to later file a police report.

However, the accuser was unable to identify Mashiana in court. Her statements also contained inconsistencies about the lead-up to the assault, including over whether she offered the driver a kiss as a “compromise.”

Mashiana denied assaulting the woman. He alleged that the woman may have been insulted when he yelled at her about neglecting to pay her fare.

The competing accounts were the only direct evidence of what happened that night, though the woman’s boyfriend recounted how distraught she seemed. Snell concluded that the accuser’s testimony was sufficiently credible to banish any reasonable doubt about the attack.

“She was very careful when giving her evidence not to state firmly as a fact anything about which she was the least bit unsure,” Snell wrote in her judgment.

“In my view, none of the inconsistencies were significant and were explained satisfactorily.”

She found Mashiana’s evidence “lacking in detail and evasive.” He had maintained that the accuser was drunk, but Snell determined that was “invented” to discredit the complainant. The woman suffers from epilepsy and is apparently unable to drink.

On the night of the attack, the accuser attended a symphony performance at the Conexus Arts Centre. She decided to take a taxi home, since her epilepsy rules out driving.

But the taxi driver missed two turns along the way, according to the woman’s testimony. He asked her for her phone number and place of work. He also asked whether she was married or had children, the woman later said.

The cab then pulled into her darkened driveway. While there, she testified, the driver asked her for a date the next night. She said she was busy, but he persisted. She believed he then asked whether he could come inside her home, though she couldn’t be certain as the driver had a strong accent.

At that point, she said, he put his hand on her upper thigh. Though she initially told police that he asked for a kiss, the woman testified in court that she offered it as a compromise.

“No, but how about if I give you a kiss?” she recalled saying.

She said that as she turned in his direction, the driver’s elbow came down hard on top of her knee. He pressed his hand through her dress and touched “where her vagina is under her clothing,” according to her testimony. She said he then groped her breast with his other arm.

The woman then ran away in a panic, but heard the driver yelling that she hadn’t paid. She tossed some money into the passenger seat and raced into her home.

Mashiana was arrested on Oct. 8, 2017. Police told him they had a video, which did not exist as it had been deleted. He told them it would exonerate him.

He also offered to take a polygraph test, but the test was never conducted.

He denied any wrongdoing.

But Snell found that Mashiana had “prevaricated” at times. He said he did not recall which passenger police were referring to, though Snell believed that he clearly did. She found that and other issues made his testimony less credible.

“There was nothing in the evidence of the complainant, either in its content or in how she testified, to cause me to disbelieve her, and I do believe her evidence,” Snell concluded.

“I do not believe the accused, nor does his evidence raise a reasonable doubt, and on the basis of the evidence which I accept I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused.”

The matter is set to come back to Saskatchewan provincial court in Regina on January 24 for sentencing.

She was very careful when giving her evidence.