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What really strikes me is the Janus-facedness of justice, when it comes to cab-drivers, especially when they are male and they are mostly male.
On one side drivers are exposed to all sort of abuse and violence and hardly find someone who is ready to pursue this with all due consideration and on the other side a male driver is much more likely to get convicted as someone else.
Just look a these two examples, from my blog about being a driver in Brighton, when with only three days in between a driver has been sent behind bars for seven years and then an attacker who has beaten up a driver walks away as a free man.
(It is here not of relevance that in the first case the offender was a foreign driver and in the second one the victim, although it of course enhances the effect.)
Thursday, 23.10.08
Funny old day, it began when I picked up someone from the office who had done night-shift, he told me about that incident below: Taxi driver rapist jailed, The Argus, 9:25am Thursday 23rd October 2008 By Alison Cridland: A taxi driver who raped a teenage passenger who had no money to pay her fare has been jailed for seven years. Abul Malik, 29, stood with his head bowed in the dock at Lewes Crown Court as the jury returned a guilty verdict after deliberating for less than an hour. Malik, a driver who worked for Streamline Taxis, raped the 19-year-old in a quiet residential road in Brighton in the early hours of June 18. The student had been left stranded by two male friends who ran off without paying the fare when the taxi dropped them in Newmarket Road at about 3am. The girl, who had been drinking, had no money to pay for the journey home to her halls of residence at Falmer and after an angry confrontation with the driver she made a tearful 999 call asking police for help. But the operator told the girl the emergency services did not run a taxi service and suggested she walk back to Falmer. But Malik followed her and offered to take her home. She reluctantly agreed because she was not sure how to get home. On the way he drove to Jevington Drive, Moulsecoomb, where he raped her in the back of his cab after suggesting she could pay the fare in another way. The emergency operator who took the girl’s call has since been spoken to by a senior police officer and the force has started an investigation. Judge Guy Anthony criticised the police for not offering to help her when she called 999. He said he was aware the controller acted in accordance with guidelines but said the system should be reviewed. “This was a girl who gave her age, it was 3.30am, she was clearly in great distress. She complained the taxi driver was pursuing her and being horrible to her. “That showed, at the very least, a lack of compassion. The least that could have been done is to say they would send somebody round.” Superintendent Jason Taylor said the victim had suffered a “terrible ordeal” and promised that lessons would be learnt from the incident. Malik, of Trafalgar Road, Portslade, denied rape and claimed the student flirted with him and willingly had sex. The judge told him: “Taxi drivers perform a very valuable service in our community. It is quite understandable when somebody you give a lift to does not have the money to pay, you get angry. But what is wholely unforgivable is to behave in the way you did. “The victim had been abandoned by her friends, let down in a phone call to the police and you tricked her into your cab.” The student told the jury she had been frightened during the row with Malik over the unpaid fare. She had offered to pay him the following day and at his suggestion she handed over her shoes as security. When he stopped the car she had been too afraid to scream or run in case he hurt her. “He said he wanted me to pay him in other ways. I was scared. I was crying and crying. “I kept thinking the worst. I thought he might kill me. He told me to get in the back of the car. I just did what he said.” Malik was unanimously convicted of two charges of rape and one offence of sexual assault. He shook his head at the jury of nine women and three men as he was led to the cells, where he could be heard crying out. Supt Taylor said: “All calls to Sussex Police using the 999 emergency service are dealt with as the highest priority and are treated extremely seriously. “We accept there is some clear learning from the way the initial contact with Sussex Police was handled.” Well, well, well. I think all rapists belong behind bars, it’s a serious crime, and I think he lied and that made the whole thing even more hideous, but seven years? I don’t know, I’ve done this job for too long and have done too many night shifts – I feel touched and struck by the whole thing. The police let this girl down, thus becoming guiltless guilty, she endangered herself by drinking and not having enough money on her for a taxi back home and relying on those two scum-bags, and those two scumbags ran off without paying, abandoning her and exposing her to the anger of the taxi-driver – yet he is in such a harsh way punished now, as if he would have deliberately planned the deed and lept from behind a bush on some random victim. Although everything speaks for it, there was no hard evidence that it indeed was unwillingly sex, nor witnesses, nor a confession. Also in an inter-gender crime, where a man is accused of raping a woman, it is very questionable to have nine women in the jury and only three men, just think of O.J. Simpson who got away scott-free – although anybody in the public was convinced that he actually did murder his wife – just because the jury was black. Plus the guy is a foreigner, maybe can’t defend himself properly, I just have to put myself in his shoes, far away from my own country, standing accused in Lewes Crown Court, surrounded by only English, not a pleasant thought! I must furthermore say, quite frankly, it is not at all hard to experience those feelings the driver had at that time. Frustration, of being just a chauffeur for all these pretty young ladies, who has to get them to places where they can meet much more interesting boys and men, which have better jobs and more money. Desire, for they can be quite flirty nevertheless, enjoying themselves, being dressed in a manner a driver is not allowed to dress. Anger, because you don’t earn much in this job and always have to worry about your next fare or that your next fare will actually be a paid one – and now these guys ran off and triggered the whole thing, which led to the ordeal the poor girl had to suffer. And I just wonder, I mean, cab-drivers are exposed to all sorts of violence, what would be the punishment for a guy who’d hit a cabby, maybe breaks his jaw, makes him fearing for his life all the while? Seven years? Don’t think so. I’ve been hit on the arm by a guy sitting next to me who then threatened to completely beat me up, came round the car, tore open my door, swung a fist at me – I saved myself by driving off, three open doors banging shut as I accelerated. Well, although I knew the address I picked him up, I didn’t even report this guy, because nothing happened! So my personal opinion is, three years would have been okay, now this guy probably leaves prison and hates women even more, for rape is always about hate, the disability to love. The disability to forgive.
Sunday, 26.10.08
The Argus, Taxi driver’s attacker spared jail 6:10pm Saturday 25th October 2008 By Nigel Freedman » A drunken lout who attacked a taxi driver and told him he looked like terrorist leader Osama bin Laden has escaped being sent straight to jail. Justin Pope, 30, racially abused the cabbie after a drunken night out in Crawley. Safraz Khawaja was left battered and bruised after Pope assaulted him on February 24. Mr Khawaja picked Pope and his brother Jamie up from the town’s Greyhound pub in the early hours. He drove them back to Pope’s home in Treyford Close, Ifield, Crawley, where there was a dispute over the fare. Pope ordered Mr Khawaja out of his cab, shouting: “You look like bin Laden, come out and fight.” He later admitted racially harassing the taxi driver but was found guilty of assault after a trial at Lewes Crown Court last month. He was cleared of failing to pay the fare and stealing a jacket and a trainer from the victim. Pope was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years when he appeared at Hove Crown Court for sentence yesterday. He was also ordered to pay his victim £650 compensation and must do 160 hours unpaid community work. His partner, who is due to have their child in two weeks, broke down in tears as the sentence was announced. Stephen Hadley, defending, said: “He accepts this was a very unpleasant assault committed against a man carrying out his work at night. “It was a drunken incident which he very much regrets.” Judge Charles Kemp told Pope: “Your behaviour towards that taxi driver was violent, boorish and frankly, towards a person who plies his trade on behalf of the public at night, disgraceful. “He was hurt physically, was unable to work for two weeks afterwards and understandably he and his wife expressed concern about him returning to work at night. “Why should a taxi driver be treated like that by a drunken lout, which is clearly what you were that night?” Now this makes me really angry, I don’t want to write that much about that right now. Just three days ago a foreign taxi driver has been jailed for seven years for assaulting and now a foreign taxi driver has been assaulted and his attacker walks away as a free man. The whole thing stinks to high heaven!!!!
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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)
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