Taxi driver grandad is jailed for groping sisters in 'prolonged' sexual assaults on late night flightWhen he was arrested, Sandhu claimed to police that the pair were lesbians and that they had been ‘playing dirty games’ and touching each other inappropriately
A former taxi driver who brazenly groped two women on a trans-Atlantic flight has been jailed.
Jagtar Sandhu, 54, a grandfather, preyed on the passengers on a late night plane from Toronto to Manchester.
Sandhu, who did not know his victims, was sitting on the row behind them when he started behaving ‘oddly’, looking between the gap in the seats and asking about the film they were watching, a court was told.
He then asked the pair to move up into a spare seat, so he could sit next to them, which they thought was ‘very unusual’, prosecutor Carl Miles said.
One of the women then went to the bathroom and he tried to strike up conversation with the other. When she returned, he asked if they were both lesbians, before molesting them both.
During the ‘prolonged’ sexual assaults, he groped them over their clothing, the court heard.
Mr Miles said: “This was a public flight, I am told there were children present. They could not get away from this defendant, they were trapped and confined.”
He said the women didn’t feel able to report the incident immediately during the flight, in August last year, but told their families as soon as they landed and rang the police an hour after getting home.
When he was arrested, Sandhu claimed to police that the pair were lesbians and that they had been ‘playing dirty games’ and touching each other inappropriately.
It was described as ‘incredibly crass’ by the prosecution, who said he was simply seeking to deflect from his own behaviour.
District Judge Khalid Qureshi branded the claim ‘one of the most distasteful defences I had ever heard in all my years as a practitioner’.
In statements read to the court, the women said they had been left ‘traumatised’ by the ‘sickening’ experience which had made them feel uncomfortable and scared around men and on planes.
Sandhu, of Standford Road, Wolverhampton, denied two charges of sexual assault but was found guilty after a trial. He was jailed for 26 weeks consecutively for each of the two charges - a year in total - at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
Emma Hassall, defending, said Sandhu, who is a grandfather, had previously worked as a taxi driver but had been suspended after his arrest.
She added: “He has asked me to apologise to the women and their families emphatically on his behalf. He has admitted he had a few drinks before boarding the flight and doesn’t recall much of it.”
Judge Qureshi said: “I listened to the two ladies who unfortunately had to come to court to give evidence. I found their evidence completely compelling.
“Whilst yours was one of the most distasteful defences I have ever heard in my years as a practitioner. This was two separate assaults on two victims, which given the circumstances, are made even more serious.
“People are already understandably apprehensive on flights at the best of times without this sort of behaviour.
“It was a late night flight, which at the time was over the ocean, so they understandably felt they had no avenue of escape.”
source:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... g-12851550
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