BOLTON

A minicab driver abused his position by preying on two young female passengers in the space of six days, a court heard.

Metro driver Kamran Ali repeatedly sexually assaulted a 24-year-old woman during a 45-minute journey in Bolton on March 22 last year.

The woman had flagged his private hire vehicle down in the street, providing a fare Ali was not allowed to take under his licence.

Ali even went as far as seizing his victim’s mobile phone because he thought she was telling someone what was happening to her.

Just six days later, he was booked to pick-up a 17-year-old girl and her friend, collecting them from Morrisons in Harwood and driving to a nearby house.

During the short journey, he touched her thigh and chest, before grabbing the girl outside the minicab and asking her to “give him a hug”.

He has now been jailed for 12 months and banned from driving a private hire vehicle with female passengers for the rest of his life.

Bolton Crown Court heard at his sentencing hearing yesterday how he took advantage of both victims after they had been drinking.

Recorder David Heaton QC said he was not in a position to suspend any sentence Ali was given, and said his victims had been “frightened and humiliated” and left “feeling degraded with a degree of shame and embarrassment”.

The 17-year-old girl told her mother what had happened immediately, and she rang Metro, who provided Ali’s badge number, which enabled police to interview him.

Ali, aged 43, of Southwood Close, Great Lever, has no previous convictions and came to the UK in 1988 to marry, the court was told, and now has five children.

He denied both offences up to the day of trial, telling police in interview that he had not assaulted the women and that his only contact with the 17-year-old girl was to “high-five” her.
She said she was sitting in the front passenger seat, when Ali had placed his hand on her thigh, and began to move it towards her genital area.

He then touched her chest, and tried to put his hand into her top to touch her breast.
Recorder Heaton said: “As a driver, members of the public place a degree of trust and they are entitled to do so, particularly in the small hours of the morning and especially if they are under the influence of alcohol.

“You took advantage of these ladies over a prolonged period of time.”

Ali was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/12898462.Taxi_driver_sexually_assaulted_two_female_passengers_in_six_days/
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A barman who works in Manchester's Gay Village ended up in hospital after he was kicked and punched in the street by a passer-by as he rowed with a taxi driver
A barman was beaten up and subjected to homophobic abuse early today as he travelled home from work in a city's gay quarter.

Thomas Morris, 19, had taken a taxi from Manchester's Gay Village when the driver stopped his car and they began arguing about the fare.

Another man in the street then intervened and began kicking Mr Morris and shouting homophobic abuse.

The thug tried to steal his mobile phone and kicked him several times in the head and body while he lay slumped in the road.

Mr Morris was left badly bruised and shaken by the attack and was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary by ambulance for a brain scan and spent more than six hours in A&E.

He said: “What happened to me was completely disgusting. He was punching and kicking me on the ground and shouting homophobic abuse.

“He kicked me in the ribs, the legs, the arm and the head.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/barman-city-centres-gay-village-5545804
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GATWICK 

POLICE are clamping down on unauthorised taxi drivers "loitering" in restaurant car parks and garage forecourts at Gatwick Airport waiting for potential fares.

Officers based at Gatwick have noticed a rise in private hire drivers, the majority using the Uber app, parking within the airport boundaries as they wait for a request from a passenger arriving on a flight.

Uber is a smartphone app where someone inputs where they want to be picked up and dropped off.

The nearest registered driver is then contacted to collect them and this had led to a number of taxi drivers sitting at the airport to receive jobs.

Airport Cars Gatwick has the only licence to pick up passengers arriving at the airport while private hire firms (such as those based in Crawley) can collect someone if they have pre-booked, although they have to wait in car parks and cannot use the airport's taxi ranks.

Gatwick-based police have been carrying out proactive patrols of the airport boundaries since the start of the month and have forced many drivers to move on.

On April 1, ten drivers caught on Gatwick land were told to leave, a further five were moved on during an operation on April 7 and eight were asked to leave last Thursday (April 9).

Sergeant Darren Taylor, from the airport's community safety team, said: "Taxi drivers are loitering and clogging up areas of the airport used by the public. We have found drivers parked up in the car park for the McDonald's drive through and also in petrol station forecourts.

"Many of these drivers come down from London and they wait there for an Uber request to come through on their phone.
"We first became aware of the issue when we were getting calls from BP and Shell garages saying there were drivers who just sat in the forecourts for long periods of time.

"The forecourts are not designed for that purpose.

"We don't want to stop people from earning a living but there are by-laws in place on who can operate at Gatwick Airport.

"We are actively discouraging this practice by giving any drivers we catch words of advice and asking them to leave.

"If we catch the same person frequently breaking by-laws we will be forced to contact the local authority where they are registered to raise a complaint and enforce exclusions."

Sgt Taylor explained that a meeting is being held with Uber on Friday to discuss the best way forward.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "Police at Gatwick are clamping down on unauthorised taxis picking up fares from the airport.

"A growing practice has been identified where taxi drivers, predominantly from London, drop off customers at the airport and then park up close by to await a return fare generated by a mobile phone app.

"Gatwick by-laws only permit authorised private hire vehicles to ply their trade from the airport and unauthorised drivers found to be using the app and unable to prove that they have a pre-booked fare are being dealt robustly, but fairly. "

http://www.crawleynews.co.uk/Police-force-taxi-drivers-leave-Gatwick-Airport/story-26331203-detail/story.html
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