Edinburgh PHV driver has conviction reinstated after asking women for sex as a form of fare payment
The conviction of a private hire vehicle (PHV) driver who asked two young women for sex in Edinburgh after refusing to pay for the journey upfront has been reinstated.
The Scottish driver Faisal Aziz must now sign the Sex Offenders' Register as his appeal against the conviction by a lower court is dismissed.
Cabbie Faisal Aziz spoke to the women aged 18 and 21 in Edinburgh after hailing down the private hire vehicle (PHV) thinking it was a taxi.
The women asked the driver if he could take them home and told him that they did not have any money.
The PHV driver then said: “What else can you offer?”
He was asked what he meant by that and he replied “sex”.
The younger woman felt ‘unsafe and uncomfortable’, her friend was said to have been ‘frightened’ by the response.
Aziz was later convicted of making a sexual verbal communication and handed a community payback order. The driver was also placed on the Sex Offenders' Register.
That conviction was then overturned in August at the Sheriff Appeal Court due to the incident lacking a 'significant sexual aspect'.
However, the case was taken to the High Court appeal court. Lord Justice General Carloway disagreed with the appeal ruling that the PHV driver’s proposition was “different from obtaining sexual gratification”.
In a statement delivered by Lord Carloway it was said there was a “significant sexual aspect” to what Aziz had told the passengers and “that is exactly what his request was”.