A RAPIST minibus driver who attacked a passenger was spoken to by police just weeks before over another allegation, it has emerged.
Married dad-of-four Khalile Maqsood, 31, is awaiting sentence after being convicted of rape at Teesside Crown Court last Thursday.
The court heard how Maqsood, of Brookfield Road, Stockton, threatened his passenger, who cannot be named for legal reasons, with a knife before attacking her in the early hours of September 10 last year.
He denied the rape but a jury delivered a unanimous guilty verdict.
Following the court case, a young Teesside woman, who did not wish to be named, told of her despair that Maqsood was allowed to go on picking up female passengers after he allegedly held her prisoner in his car.
The 23-year-old told how she and her friends were picked up by Maqsood in his minibus following a night out in the early hours of Sunday, July 31, last year.
He drove them to her North Yorkshire home and she and her friends got out of the vehicle, however, as she did so, she dropped her key in the back. Following a heated discussion, the driver left but returned some time later.
Thinking he had returned to let her look for her key, the young woman got into the vehicle.
The woman described how the driver then drove away, speeding past her friends, who futilely tried to flag him down, before taking her on a “terrifying” 45-minute ride through deserted back roads.
She said: “I had no idea what was going on. I was absolutely terrified. I just kept asking him to stop and let me out but he was silent.
“I was training to do the Great North Run at the time so I even offered to give him £20 to let me out there and said I would run home. I didn’t have the £20 but it was just something to say to be honest.
“Then he said ‘I’m not going to hurt you, I’m a married man. I’m not going to hurt you, I’m a religious man’. It was such a strange thing to say and it frightened me even more. I thought ‘this is it’.”
Eventually the driver turned into a petrol station in Acklam, Middlesbrough, where he got out of the minibus. The woman then found her key.
She said: “People will wonder why I didn’t just get out there. It’s easy to say in hindsight. I think I was in shock. I was so scared. I had no money and no phone on me, and all I could think about was getting home.”
She said the driver then got back into the vehicle and drove her home.
North Yorkshire Police confirmed it received a complaint from the woman and that Maqsood had “attended voluntarily” to be interviewed, however, no crime was deemed to have been committed.
Royal Cars, who the self-employed driver was working for at the time, said if any complaints were received about drivers then “depending on the nature of the complaint” it would normally be investigated but declined to say what form the investigation would take.
Managing director Nigel Weepers said: “We make it easy to make a complaint. This is why we run private hire - your call is recorded, we know which driver has picked you up and can track your journey.”
While Maqsood was not driving a Hackney carriage - which can pick passengers up in the street without prior bookings - Secretary of Stockton Hackney Drivers’ Association Javid Khazir wanted to reassure people over the safety of getting into taxis.
He said: “An incident like this can worry people but the public can feel 100% safe when they use a fully licensed Hackney cab. Our drivers are all fully licensed by the council and go through stringent checks. They will always carry photo ID.”
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teess ... -30546781/
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