Hire driver is jailed for rape attack

Man carried out sex assault on his terrified passenger

A PRIVATE hire driver who raped a woman passenger after driving her to a lonely lane and locking her in has been jailed for six years.

Arshad Mohammed, 48, was convicted of raping the 19-yearold woman in his Skoda car after driving her to a dead-end in Neilston, East Renfrewshire, in November 2010.

The woman said: “He put the locks on so I wouldn’t get out of the car. I tried to push him away. I was shouting for somebody to come and help me, but nobody was around.”

Mohammed was caught after police took a DNA sample when he was detained in March and April 2011 for making sexual remarks to two 17-year-old women.

But, he then fled abroad and was arrested in Norway on a European Arrest Warrant in 2013 and extradited to the UK in August 2014.

At the High Court in Glasgow, judge Lord Matthews told Mohammed: “The court must do what it can both to punish that sort of behaviour, to deter others and to let women know we will do what we can to protect them.”

Pakistan-born Mohammed, who holds Italian citizenship, was convicted following a six-day trial at the High Court in Stirling.

The court heard the rape victim had got into his cab in her pyjamas, with a coat on top, following an evening watching television at a friend’s house.

Mohammed abducted her and drove the victim to a secluded spot in Renfrewshire where he raped her.

After the sex attack he told her: “See you after, princess.”

The court heard the woman went round to a friend’s house in tears and the police were called. Mohammed was caught after he targeted two other lone, teenage passengers.

He was detained by police twice, in March and April 2011, after making explicit sexual remarks to the teenagers.

Police took a DNA sample from Mohammed which matched a swab taken from the rape victim. He then fled the country.

He lodged a special defence of consent, and claimed that the rape victim had asked him if he wanted to have sex.

He claimed a “disability” in his legs made it only possible for him to have consensual sex.

Lord Matthews placed Mohammed on the sex offenders’ register. Mohammed is likely to be deported after he is released from prison.