Touting Private Hire Driver jailed for 12 years for raping male passenger

Private hire driver Mohammed llyas, 44, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court for the rape of a male passenger. The court heard that the victim who had been out drinking, was put in llyas’ vehicle, a minicab that was touting for work, by a group of friends in a bid to get him home safely. The jury were told that Ilyas then drove the man to a remote farm track and “orally raped” him. Father-of-five, Ilyas, denied raping his passenger but was convicted by the jury after a trial in September. In the man’s victim statement it was stressed that what Ilyas did to him on the night of the rape has left him feeling suicidal at many points since the attack. In the statement it said: “I never go to town alone anymore and will never get a taxi alone again. I will never forget this. I don’t know when or if I will ever get over it.” Ilyas’ defence, Daniel Calder said: “This was, and I hope the court will accept this, an isolated incident entirely out of character.” Judge Tom Baylis QC told Ilyas during sentencing: “I’m quite sure that you deliberately parked your taxi(minicab) outside what you knew was a gay pub, thus deliberately engineering a situation where you found yourself alone in your taxi(minicab) with a passenger who was incapacitated by drink. “That passenger had come from a pub, you then committed rape on him, a homosexual rape upon a man who you had seen coming from a gay pub. “I’m quite sure that you targeted (the victim). It may not have been long in the planning, but once you saw him, you stopped your taxi and you targeted him.” Ilyas was sentenced to 12 years in jail. According to the Yorkshire Post, judge Bayliss also made a sexual harm prevention order banning Ilyas from contacting his victim and from working as a private hire driver. He has also been placed on the sex offenders register for life.