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Taxi driver with 'unhealthy interest' in teenage girls groped passenger and then told her she 'looked 15'
A minicab driver groped a woman passenger after locking her in his vehicle - and then told her she ‘looked 15’. Syed Al-Zia preyed on female passengers while working for a Trafford taxi firm, and had an ‘unhealthy interest’ in teenage girls, a court heard.
Now Al-Zia has appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court charged with offences against two of his passengers. Al-Zia sexually assaulted his first victim when she got into his taxi last year, the court heard. The next night he grabbed hold of a frightened teenage girl who had got in his minicab.
Syed Al-Zia, from Urmston, worked for Stretford firm Club Cars until he lost his licence, having been found guilty of guilty of one count of sexual assault and one count of assault with the intention of committing a sexual offence at an earlier hearing.
Prosecuting, Mr Andrew Smith told the court that the first victim, in her 20s, had got into the passenger side of his taxi late one evening in April last year, having ordered the cab off a mobile phone app so she could get home. She heard what sounded like the doors locking as Al-Zia began chatting to her, referring to her as ‘cute’. After asking if she had a boyfriend, he sexually assaulted her.
He asked her age, and when she told him, he replied that ‘he thought she looked 15’. Al-Zia then wouldn’t let her out of his taxi until she gave him her mobile phone number - forcing her to give him a false number so she could leave the car. The incident has had a lasting impact on her, and she is now reluctant to order taxis, the court heard. “She is now less trusting than she used to be”, Mr Smith added.
The next evening, Al-Zia picked up two teenage girls late at night in his taxi. He was ‘flirting’ with the girls and telling them how ‘good looking’ they were, Mr Smith said. Sensing danger, one of the girls asked to be let out, but he refused, and took an unusual route.
When the girls were finally let out of the car, he grabbed one of them ‘by the wrist, told her how beautiful she was and that she should get back into the taxi’, Mr Smith said. Her friend tried to pull her away, but he only let go when she made a phone call. The girls then ran away.
Defending, Ms Claire Brocklebank said: “He is a man who has worked his entire life, at a shop then as a taxi driver. He has lost his taxi licence which was an immediate punishment for him. He has lost the job he did and his livelihood. His wife has a slipped disc and when she’s ill she relies on him to do his work. He has three children and he is a full time father.” The 43-year-old, of Leyburn Avenue, was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years and must also undertake 30 hours of rehabilitation and 200 hours of unpaid work and sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.
Addressing Al-Zia, Judge Bernadette Baxter said: “You know very well what you have done. You think you are entitled to do what you did, well you are not. You will have to address that. As a taxi driver you are a trusted person. When people get into a taxi they rely on who is driving the vehicle not to assault or molest them.”
Judge Baxter said he appeared to have an ‘unhealthy interest’ in teenage girls, as he thought the first victim was 15, and acted ‘inappropriately’ towards the teenage girls the next night. “You scared them. It must have been very frightening”, the judge added.
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