SHAME SHAME


FIVE YEARS’ JAIL FOR CABBIE WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED TEENAGE GIRL HE PICKED UP IN BURNLEY


A ‘despicable’ cabbie sexually assaulted a teenage girl he picked up in his car. Wahid Riaz’s victim told a court in a harrowing state- ment she was sick at home after the attack and cried herself to sleep. Riaz, 52, picked up the teenager just after midnight in his cab on July 23, 2023. During the journey, she told him she was 14, but he said she must be 16 or 17 then asked her if she had been with an Asian male, police said. She took videos throughout the journey and captured the conver- sation. Riaz then parked at the bottom of the victim’s street, told


her to hug him and began kissing her. He then sexually assaulted her before dropping her home. In her victim impact statement to the court, the girl said: “Immediately after the incident, I had a deep feeling of being dirty. I had really long baths and showers, and I would scrub my body so much I would make it red. I was just trying to feel clean.” Detectives said Riaz made his


young victim go through the stress of having to give evidence in court after refusing to admit what he had done. A jury at Preston Crown Court did not believe his lies and on July 10 Riaz, from Nelson, was jailed for five years and ordered to sign the Sex Offender’s Register for life. Detective Constable Ryan Benson, who led the investigation, said: “Wahid Riaz is a despicable individual who has a sordid sexual interest in children. He used his position as a taxi driver to isolate and then engage in sexual activity with a vulnerable young girl.”


GUERNSEY CABBIE DUMPS DASHCAM AFTER CRASH WITH CYCLIST AND BLAMES CARBON MONOXIDE


A taxi driver dangerously collided with a cyclist and then attempted to conceal evidence by throwing his dashcam into a bush. John Howard Robert, 65, initially denied charges of dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice but later pleaded guilty. The incident occurred last Novem- ber at 6:35pm in St Peter’s. Prosecutor Phoebe Cobb told the court that Robert’s taxi was equipped with a dashcam and following the collision, officers arriving at the scene noticed a cable hanging from the rearview mirror. A police dog later located the dashcam in a nearby bush. Footage recovered from the device showed Robert using his mobile phone while driving, visible through the reflection in his glasses. He was also seen turning off the interior


PHTM AUGUST 2025


light with his free hand, indicating he wasn’t holding the steering wheel. Robert spent significant time looking at his phone, only briefly glancing at the road, and at one point, clipped a kerb. The cyclist, Alex Margison, sus- tained soft tissue damage to a shoulder and an injured finger. Robert apologised to Margison at the scene and called an ambulance. In a subsequent interview, Robert claimed he was under the influence of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a leaking exhaust, a claim later disproven after an inspection of the vehicle. He stated the cyclist was riding in the middle of the road and that he didn’t think he needed to tell officers about the dashcam. Defending, Advocate Clare Tee stated that Robert had not driven


since the incident and was in the process of selling his taxi plate. Judge Gary Perry “totally rejected” Robert’s carbon monoxide poisoning claim, calling it “quite frankly ridiculous.” He criticised Robert for putting other road users at risk, disposing of the dashcam when the cyclist must have been lying in the road,” and said only Robert’s long, clean driving record prevented him from being imprisoned. Robert was ordered to perform 140 hours of community service as an alternative to five months in prison for attempting to pervert


the


course of justice. He also received 80 hours of concurrent community service as an alternative to two months in prison for dangerous driving, along with a two-and-a- half-year driving licence suspension.


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