Cab driver jailed for girl's rape

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/7294839.stm

A taxi driver has been jailed for 10 years for raping a 15-year-old passenger and indecently assaulting a 21-year-old woman.

The teenager got into Mohammed Zaheer Khan's taxi near to a nightclub in Telford, Shropshire, after a night out with friends in February last year.

Khan, from Regent Street, Wellington, in Telford, raped her in a car park.

In a separate attack, the second woman was sexually assaulted after accepting a lift from Khan as she walked home. Stafford Crown Court heard the 37-year-old denied the two incidents, committed over eight days in February 2007, but was found guilty earlier this year.

The court was also told that the offences had had a devastating effect on Khan's wife, who is expecting their fourth child.

Sentencing him to nine years for rape and one year for the sexual assault to run consecutively, Judge Simon Tonking said people, particularly single women, must be able to trust those taking them home.

"It was a callous act committed against a 15-year-old girl who was entitled to the trust for you to take her home.

"Members of the public, particularly single females, must be able to trust taxi drivers. "The rape of the young woman is aggravated by her age and because she was vulnerable and under the influence of drink."