By Lucy Caulkett-
An Uber driver who sexually assaulted an “utterly defenceless” woman passenger as she leaned out of his cab door to vomit has been jailed.
Temur Shah, 45, groped the 27-year-old woman after picking her up from a West End address in the early hours of the morning of January 2018.
Jurors at Isleworth Crown Court heard his passenger said she felt unwell during the journey, and that Shah had stopped the car, asking her to move into the front seat. After the woman told him she was about to vomit, Shah stopped a second time then leaned over to open the door and put his hand under her bra. The woman told the Uber driver not to touch her anymore, but remained in the cab for the rest of the journey because she had no money and her mobile battery was dead.
But Sha was undeterred and continued the assault, brazenly touching her genital area over her clothes, while she became sick into the gutter. She eventually reported the incident to police when she arrived home. Shah was arrested two weeks later, on 2 February 2018, after officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Taxi and Private Hire Policing Team identified him using CCTV footage and GPS data from Uber. Shar was charged and convicted of sexual assault in January 2019, following a trial that lasted one week.
Hugh D’Aguilar, mitigating for the disgraced Uber driver told the court that Shah was “fearful of going to prison” as he looked after his three children and his elderly mother during the day while his wife was at work.
Shah’s mother who sat in court with other members of her family, wept as the sentence was read out. Judge Nicholas Wood said that the offence was aggravated by the fact that it had taken place in the early hours of the morning in an area of London that the victim did not know.
“As she herself said ‘what was she to do?’ Her escape route was very limited,” he said.
Detective superintendent Andy Cox who led the investigation said Shag’s arrest was the result of meticulous investigation. He said : ”Shah despicably took advantage of his position as a trusted licensed driver and sexually assaulted a passenger in a vulnerable state,” . He urged victims of sexual abuse to always report unwanted sexual behaviour to police and trust the force to investigate it.
Image: PRESS ASSOCIATION