A TAXI driver in Leamington who sexually assaulted a female passenger as he was taking her home after a night out has been remanded in custody.
Dilruba Ramzan, of Haddon Road, Lillington, had denied sexually assaulting the young woman, but was convicted following a trial at Warwick Crown Court.
The 41 year-old’s victim told the court that in January last year, after finishing work at around midnight, she and some of her colleagues had gone to a bar in Leamington town centre.
The young woman accepted as well as drinking, that a colleague had also given her cocaine,
When the bar closed, she got a taxi outside for her and a friend who was so drunk she was falling on the floor.
The driver, Ramzan, first took them to Leamington railway station and then to her friend’s home nearby, and gave her his card when he dropped them off.
She told the jury because she had used her money getting her friend home, her friend said she could stay there, and she followed her inside.
But her friend went upstairs and locked her door and her housemate, who did not know her, told her to leave.
So she left and called Ramzan’s number, and when he returned to the house to take her home she got in the front – but on the way she felt the route he was taking was unfamiliar.
He pulled up around the junction of Gresham Road and Valley Road in Lillington.
Ramzan then touched her, pulled her top down, and exposed himself, saying he wanted her to touch him, but she pushed his hand away.
Questioned by John Edwards, defending, she denied the alcohol or cocaine had blurred her memory and also that she had in any way encouraged Ramzan.
After the jury unanimously accepted what she said had happened and rejected Ramzan’s version of the incident, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano remanded him in custody while a pre-sentence report was prepared on him.
