An Uber driver who made sexual advances on two female passengers left one of them feeling \u201clike prey\u201d, a court has heard.<\/p>\n
The defendant appeared in the Dunedin District Court on Friday afternoon after Judge Ajit Swaran Singh found him guilty of detaining two female passengers and sexually assaulting one of them.<\/p>\n
The man, aged in his 30s, pleaded guilty at the outset of his March trial to harassment and a charge under the Harmful Digital Communications Act.<\/p>\n
The judge jailed him for three years and 10 months, but his identity will remain under wraps until a final suppression hearing next year.<\/p>\n
The court heard of the profound impact on the women involved.<\/p>\n
One victim said she had been left in a \u201cconstant state of unease\u201d by her experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt unsafe at home and I felt unsafe in public . . . People noticed a change in me. I became more anxious and less willing to socialise,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like prey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman told the court she had bought security cameras for her home and left Dunedin in a bid to feel safe.<\/p>\n
She acknowledged the defendant\u2019s partner and children were also victims of the crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir family life has been destroyed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The other victim also reported living in a constant state of hypervigilance and said she continued to have nightmares echoing her ordeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had to drastically change how I live and who I trust,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The court heard of two incidents which occurred inside the defendant\u2019s car and came just two months apart in 2023.<\/p>\n
The first victim was offered a ride by the man while trying to evade an intoxicated male in Princes St.<\/p>\n
The defendant introduced himself as a taxi driver and locked the doors.<\/p>\n
During the drive home, she described becoming increasingly concerned as he made comments about her appearance.<\/p>\n
The woman told the court he stopped on a patch of gravel near her house and suggested a game of paper-scissors-rock.<\/p>\n
The defendant won the impromptu game and requested a kiss from the terrified passenger.<\/p>\n
When she tried to appease him with a peck on the cheek, he turned to kiss her mouth.<\/p>\n
The victim tried to escape, but found the door locked.<\/p>\n
The driver only released her when she tried to wind down her window, and she ran home to her husband in tears.<\/p>\n
A month later, the defendant obtained her personal details through the city council rates database and repeatedly tried to contact her, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, he picked up another woman, who had been socialising in central Dunedin and was waiting for a taxi home.<\/p>\n
He claimed to be her Uber driver, but requested payment when they reached her destination.<\/p>\n
When she objected, believing it had been paid through the app, he demanded she bare her breasts.<\/p>\n
The court heard the defendant only unlocked the doors when she threatened to cover his back seats in lipstick.<\/p>\n
She was unaware at the time the man had been responsible for harassing her for almost a year leading up to the incident.<\/p>\n
After giving her a ride in 2022, the defendant discovered the victim\u2019s identity and bombarded her social-media account with messages as well as leaving a hand-written letter in her mailbox and contacting her ex, making false allegations.<\/p>\n
Counsel Paige Noorland said her client\u2019s imprisonment would have a severe impact on his family as he was the breadwinner and \u201cmain source of stability\u201d for them.<\/p>\n
She also highlighted the fact the defendant had spent three years on restrictive bail conditions.<\/p>\n
The court heard there would likely be an appeal against the convictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Uber driver who made sexual advances on two female passengers left one of them feeling \u201clike prey\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-645927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}