Halifax taxi driver found not guilty of sexual assault

A Supreme Court judge has acquitted a Halifax taxi driver of sexually assaulting a female passenger, saying the evidence in the case left her with reasonable doubt about the man’s guilt.

Seyed Mirsaeid-ghazi let out a sigh of relief and pressed his hands against his face as Justice Ann Smith delivered her decision Thursday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

The Crown had alleged Mirsaeid-ghazi, who is in his mid40s, rubbed the young woman’s thigh and slid his hand down the top of her dress and touched her bare breast as she sat in the front seat of his cab, after picking her up in central Halifax in October 2015.

But defence lawyer Luke Craggs disputed the allegations during the trial, saying the woman attached herself to the driver when she got in the cab because she was cold, prompting him to push her off.

The trial heard the complainant had the personal cell phone number of Mirsaeid-ghazi and had been calling him for cab rides for roughly a year.

In her oral decision, Smith said when she considered the evidence as a whole, she could find “no objective basis for disbelieving either Mr. Mirsaeid-ghazi or (the complainant) as to what took place.”

“Although (the complainant) was unshaken in her evidence as to what she said Mr. Ghazi did to her in terms of the alleged assault, she also said in cross-examination that she couldn’t remember if, after she hugged Mr. MirsaeidGhazi, if she in fact did so, she was trying to warm herself in his space,” said Smith in her decision, which was being translated in real time to Mirsaeid-ghazi’s first language of Farsi.

“If she was, that evidence would be consistent with Mr. Ghazi’s evidence that ( complainant) was in his space and that is why he used his hand to push her away.”

Smith said while she did not believe all of Mirsaeid-ghazi’s evidence, “the evidence generally has left me in a reasonable doubt as to whether a sexual assault occurred.”

“I must not analyse this case only as a credibility contest between Mr. Ghazi and (the complainant),” she said.

“Just because I found (the complainant) to be a credible witness does not mean that I must find Mr. Ghazi guilty. I may still be left with reasonable doubt. Just because I do not accept Mr. Ghazi’s evidence as to (the complainant’s) level of intoxication... that does not mean that I should conclude that all of his evidence is to be rejected.”

Smith acquitted MirsaeidGhazi of a single charge of sexual assault.