Rapist taxi driver gets 10 years

A taxi driver from Telford who raped a 15-year-old girl and sexually assaulted a woman after picking them up in his cab has been jailed for 10 years.

Father-of-three Mohammed Khan, of Regent Street, Wellington, was convicted of the offences in December.

He was sentenced at Stafford Crown Court to nine years imprisonment for the rape and a year, to run consecutively for the sexual assault.

The 37-year-old was also banned from working with children for the rest of his life and must notify police of his address on his release from jail.

Sentencing, Judge Simon Tonking told Khan the rape was "a callous act against a vulnerable 15-year-old girl who was entitled to trust you to take her home".

The judge said the public, particularly single women, must be able to trust taxi drivers, and these offences were a significant breach of that trust.

Mrs Janet Pitt-Lewis, mitigating, said Khan was a dedicated family man with no previous convictions who carried out community work on a voluntary basis.

During his trial, jurors heard how Khan, who worked for Central Taxis in Telford, assaulted a woman in her 20s whom he picked up on February 4 last year. The court heard he touched the woman's thigh and sexually assaulted her when she got out of his private hire taxi.

Eight days later, Khan raped the 15-year-old girl in a deserted Donnington supermarket car park after collecting her from a Wellington nightclub. The girl had been helped into the taxi by friends.

Khan was arrested the following day and told police the girl had come on to him. He denied being the driver in the previous incident.