Taxi driver to be charged in sexual assault

Police still investigating second, earlier cab attack

Ottawa police expect to formally charge a Blue Line cab driver Thursday in one of two sexual assaults committed inside taxis within a week of each other.

Police said Wednesday night they began searching taxi cabs one by one and came upon security video involving a suspect on the internal taxi camera.

Sources said police were prepared to check vehicles from several fleets but began with Blue Line Taxi and found their suspect.

Police have seized the taxi that contained the video.

Police previously said a 20-year-old woman was sexually assaulted around 2:30 a.m. Saturday after flagging down a taxi on Bank Street near Hunt Club Road.

Police said the woman was taken to a residential area close to McCarthy and Walkley roads, where the driver of the cab allegedly sexually assaulted her inside the vehicle.

At the time, police described the driver as being in his 50s, having slightly dark skin and little hair, chubby with crooked teeth.

The president of Coventry Connections, the company that runs a fleet of taxi services in the city, including Blue Line, told CBC News that tips from their drivers helped with the search.

“It was only a matter of time,” Hanif Patni said. “Our network of drivers wouldn’t stand for someone getting away with something like this.”

Police do not believe the most recent sexual assault is linked to an earlier report in which a 17-year-old girl said on Nov. 2 she was sexually assaulted in Sandy Hill after hailing a cab in Gatineau. Officers continue to investigate that incident.

The suspect in that case is described as a dark-skinned man in his 40s, with a medium build, brown eyes, short dark hair and an unshaven face.

Police said that in each case, because the taxi was flagged down, the fare was not registered with the taxi company.

In Ottawa, there have been a number of cases of cab driving being convicted of sexually assaulting female passengers. In 2004 and 2005, three drivers in less than a year were convicted of sex assaults against passengers.