‘Bogus Bradford taxi driver assaulted woman in Keighley’
A Bradford man posed as a taxi driver to lure a drunken young woman into his car before sexually assaulting her, a Court was told.
The 19-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was walking home after a night out in Keighley in the early hours of February 21 last year, when Faisel Yaqoob pulled up alongside her and asked where she was going, prosecutor Sarah Johnson told Bradford Crown Court yesterday.
She said the alleged victim got into his car, believing him to be a taxi driver. He missed the turning to her house and suggested they go somewhere quiet, but the woman told him she wanted to go home, Miss Johnson said.
During the drive, the court heard, the young woman had received a phone call from a friend, to whom she said she was in a taxi.
Giving evidence by video link, she told the jury she had “panicked” and “didn’t know what to do”.
Yaqoob, 23, then drove her to the Marley Sports Centre in Marland Road, Marley, where he sexually assaulted her, the court was told.
Miss Johnson said the teenager pushed him away and told him to stop but he continued until she managed to get out of the vehicle.
“She was very upset and distressed and called police and told them where she was,” the prosecutor said.
Yaqoob told the jury he had been on his way home to Toller Lane, Bradford, from Nelson, where he had been visiting relatives, when he was waved down by the woman who asked him for a lift home.
He said she agreed, and they talked as he drove, about her life and where she worked.
He told the jury the woman had navigated him to the sports ground after he missed the turning to where she lived. “I thought she needed someone to talk to and felt a bit down,” he said.
He said it had been the woman’s decision to stop the car and she had put her hand on his knee before they engaged in consensual sexual activity, which stopped when her phone rang and she left the car to answer the call.
“I didn’t hear at any time her say stop or anything,” he said.
He later added: “I would never sexually assault anybody.”
The trial continues.
source:
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/
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