Taxi Driver Online

Well this is off-the-scale in all kinds of different ways

But apart from the earlier conviction for another offence, on the evidence presented here it doesn't look like the safest of convictions


Taxi driver guilty of raping woman after serious operation at Great Western Hospital

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/new ... -hospital/

A TWISTED child molester faces years more behind bars – after he was found guilty of raping a woman after she underwent a serious operation.

Rick Passway, 76, was found guilty of raping a woman – then in her 30s – in the mid-1980s.

The assault happened just days after she had had a hysterectomy operation to remove her womb at Great Western Hospital.

Then a taxi driver, Passway picked her up from the Swindon hospital and took her back to her home in Faringdon.

After carrying her bags upstairs, he pushed her to the floor and raped her, the court heard.

“[I was] disgusted,” the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, replied.

“He ignored everything…he just carried on. He made me feel dirty.”

She said that after the assault Passway, who was known to her, got up and left the house.

Jurors were read an extract from one statement she made to the police in which she admitted she had a bad memory.

But she added of the alleged rape: “I’ll remember that for as long as I live.”

A next-door neighbour had no memory of the victim coming into her house and complaining of having been assaulted. However a friend of the neighbour, who was in the property at the time, recalled overhearing the comments.

A doctor, asked to review contemporary GP notes, was ‘not inconsistent' with a normal hysterectomy operation.

However, no records could be retrieved from the Swindon hospital where she had the operation to remove her womb.

Passway did not give evidence in his own defence. His barrister, John Cammegh QC, pointed to differences between the accounts given by the witnesses.

Jurors unanimously found Passway, of Bunce Road, Swindon, guilty of rape.

Last year Passway was also convicted of subjecting a girl to a campaign of rape.

He will be sentenced for the latest offence - together with other charges of child rape and sexual assault for which he was convicted last year – on May 20.

Rape carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, although punishments can vary significantly depending on the age of the victim and the culpability of the rapist.

Judge Nigel Daly remanded the septuagenarian in custody until his sentencing date next month.

in the 1980's so potentially has not been connected to our trade for some time so the paper should be taken to task for putting in the title that he was a driver

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

True, but on the other hand he was deffo a taxi driver at the time the crime was committed...

And, of course, maybe my thread title is a tad misleading without reading the whole piece - he would have been 40ish when the crime was committed

The jury would have been made aware of his recent 'bad character', and that, despite what caveats the judge would have put on that, would have gone a long way to ensuring the jury convicted the fella.

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IDFIMH

I thought that the general rule was precisely the opposite, ie a jury couldn't be told of the defendant's past history lest that prejudiced a fair trial?

Nope, bad character is allowed.

Generally it must be of a similar nature, in respect of the offense alleged, and it must be recent (ish).

So a historic offense that wasn't similar in nature wouldn't be allowed.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/b ... 0prejudice.

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IDFIMH