Taxi Driver Online

Cabbie on triple sex attack charge

A LIVERPOOL taxi driver is accused of being a serial sex attacker. James Walmsley, 37, is charged with raping a 19-year-old woman in his taxi after driving her to a deserted car park in Bootle. He is also accused of two other sex assaults on female passengers.

The three allegations involved assaults on women at night while Walmsley was driving a taxi. In two of the cases, friends were either with the victims at some stage or had seen them off in a taxi. Walmsley appeared before Liverpool crown court yesterday via a video link from Walton jail.

He is accused of raping the teenager in his taxi on July 16 in Moss Lane after picking her up in Liverpool city centre. It is alleged he accepted a fare when she got into a taxi on Dale Street and took her towards Orrell Park. But the teenager became alarmed when she was taken on a different route and driven to a deserted MFI superstore car park, where she was raped twice.

One of the other alleged attacks in Croxteth involved a taxi driver exposing himself to a woman in the back of the cab before she managed to escape. Walmsley, of Lynwood Gardens, Orrell Park, listened to proceedings dressed in a blue sweatshirt.

The hearing was listed again for tomorrow when it is expected all three offences will be grouped together for a trial in March. DNA evidence will be used in the case.

Liverpool council has suspended Walmsley and removed his hackney cab licence pending the result of the trial. Police today stressed there was no link with other sex attacks, including a rape which happened on September 20 close to Sefton Park.

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