Taxi rapist jailed for nine years

Taxi rapist jailed for nine years

Published Date: 16 March 2009
A TAXI driver who raped a vulnerable teenage girl in the back of his cab has been jailed for nine years after DNA taken from him last year linked him to the sickening crime more than a decade earlier.
Nawab Khan raped the 19-year-old girl before dropping her off at her boyfriend's house. He was arrested hours after the attack but then skipped bail and fled Leeds, later changing his name by deed poll to evade capture.

He was finally brought to justice after police carried out a cold case review of the rape and DNA taken from him for a caution for ABH linked him to the attack. He was convicted by a jury in December last year.

The 61-year-old, originally from Pakistan, picked up the woman, who had been drinking in Leeds, in October 1997 and drove her to a quiet spot and raped her.

Following his escape from justice he changed his name by deed poll from Fazal Elhi to Nawab Khan and began working as a licensed taxi driver in Lincolnshire, Birmingham and Doncaster.

Khan was finally snared last year by the West Yorkshire Police cold case sex case review team ' dubbed Operation Recall - after DNA samples taken from him during a caution for ABH linked him to the rape. He was finally tracked down in Doncaster and re-arrested in August 2008.

During his trial, the jury heard he told police a string of lies about the rape in the Kirkstall area of Leeds. He said the girl, who was so drunk she was passing out in his cab, had jumped on him and later said that was a lie and that the sex was consensual and blamed the devil.

Jailing Khan for nine years, Judge John Taylor said: "She was entitled to be taken home by you as a registered taxi driver. You abused the trust placed in you by the licensing authority who granted this to you.

"You took her to a quiet place where you proceeded to rape her and you took advantage of a vulnerable woman abusing your position as a taxi driver."

Khan's victim, now 30, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had told the trial she recalled waking up to find him on top of her in the passenger seat.

Speaking after today's sentencing, she said: "I'm really chuffed. I didn't expect he would get that long, I'm in shock."

Khan was placed on the sex offenders' register and banned from driving taxis for life.