Carlisle taxi driver accused of raping male passengerA taxi driver accused of sexually assaulting a male passenger told police he was the victim not the perpetrator, a court heard yesterday.
David Graham, 41, is said to have raped the 26-year-old after pulling into a layby near Hayton on the A69 between Carlisle and Brampton.
But he says it was the other man who attacked him and that “at no point” did he enjoy it.
Graham, of Holly Drive, Stanwix, Carlisle, has pleaded not guilty at the city’s crown court to raping the man in his car in the early hours of one morning last March.
The jury of four women and eight men heard that the incident happened at the Edmund Castle layby while Graham was driving the man home from Carlisle, where he had been at the Outrageous bar.
The man, who can’t be named, says Graham stopped in the layby after turning off his in-car computer system which would have told his bosses where he was.
The taxi driver then forced his unwilling victim into a sex act, it is alleged.
But, the court heard, Graham claims that as he drove along the main road the man leaned forward from the rear seat and started groping him.
He says he only drove into the layby because the man threatened to call the police if he did not co-operate.
Then, he claims, the man got out of the car and moved into the front seat, where a further sexual assault occurred.
Asked why he had not driven off while the man was out of the car, Graham told police he was worried he might have run him over, the court heard.
Tim Evans, prosecuting, told the jury there was no doubt one of the men was sexually assaulted by the other. They just had to decide who was the victim and who was the perpetrator, he said.
“Somebody in this case must be telling you wicked lies,” he said. “Somebody in this case is, I’m afraid, a sexual predator.”
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