TAXI DRIVER ON SEX CHARGES

TAXI DRIVER ON SEX CHARGES

CAROL SAUNDERS COURT REPORTER

07:30 - 14 January 2008


A Plymouth taxi driver has appeared in court to face six sex charges involving female passengers.

Independent Hackney cab driver Malcolm Curtis, aged 47, is charged with raping a female passenger.

He also faces five other sexual offence charges allegedly involving other women travelling in his cab.

Curtis first appeared before Plymouth magistrates last Thursday charged with raping a passenger on November 5 last year.

Curtis, of Flamstead Crescent, Kings Tamerton, was remanded in custody after this hearing but was then brought back before the court on Saturday to face five new charges which date back up to four years.

Tall and tanned Curtis, who has short, dark hair going grey, was charged with indecently assaulting women passengers, all aged between 21 and 23, on October 9, 2003, two women in separate alleged incidents on April 21, 2005, and another female on July 29, 2005.

He is also charged with voyeurism, in that between January 1 and December 1 last year he observed another person doing a private act for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification for himself.

Curtis, a married man whose wife was in court to hear the charges put to him, spoke only to confirm his name and address.

Curtis did not enter any pleas to the charges and magistrates ordered that all the alleged offences should be heard in the Crown Court.

An application for Curtis to be released on conditional bail was refused by magistrates.

They remanded him in custody to next appear at Plymouth Crown Court on April 25 to enter his pleas.

All colours shape and sizes, bloody scumbags give taxi drivers a bad name.