SHAME SHAME
EAST LOTHIAN CABBIE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED TWO DRUNK TEENAGERS IN BACK OF HIS CAB
A taxi driver who preyed on two “very drunk” teenagers in the back of his cab is facing a jail sentence. According to the East Lothian Courier, John Simpson left one 18-year-old man with cuts to his genitals after the man woke up to find the cabbie performing a sex act on him. The victim managed to fight off the sex attack and fled the taxi, which had stopped off at a deserted business park in Edinburgh. Simpson, 63, then drove a second drunk 18-year-old victim to a deserted back street in East Lothian and told him he would perform a sex act on him in return for the £36 fare. Simpson, of Prestonpans, then jumped into the back of the cab and forced himself on the “terrified” man during
the 2am assault in April 2019. Again, the drunk victim managed to fight Simpson off before he told a passing bus driver about the attack and the police were called.
Simpson denied the allegations but was found guilty of both sex assaults by a jury on Monday 4 October, follow- ing a four-day trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last week. He was also found guilty of a further charge of making sexual comments to a third male victim in the course of a taxi journey in May 2019.
Simpson told the jury that it was him who had been attacked by the first victim in 2015 and he believed he was “going to be murdered” after the man had fought back. He claimed that the second victim had instigated the sex chat during the taxi journey and that he “never touched him”.
But the jury took just two hours to convict Simpson of the two sex assaults and the further charge of mak- ing sexual comments to a third man. Following the verdict, Sheriff Alistair Noble said: “You have been convicted of extremely serious offences and all options will be open to the court.” The sheriff placed Simpson on the Sex Offenders Register and deferred full sentence to next month.
FORMER CABBIE JAILED FOR MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS FOR RAPING SUFFOLK SCHOOLGIRL
A former Suffolk taxi driver who raped and sexually assaulted a schoolgirl has been jailed for seven years and eight months. Sentencing
Mark Ryan, 50, Judge
Emma Peters described the victim as “vulnerable” and said she had been “stunned and shocked and frozen with fear” when he assaulted her. The East Anglian Daily times reports that Ryan, from Haverhill, was found guilty by a jury after a trial at Ipswich Crown Court last month of two offences of oral rape and one of assault by pene- tration by 10-2 majority verdicts. He was found not guilty of a further offence of oral rape, a further offence of assault by penetration and an offence of sexual assault. He had denied all the offences which were alleged to have been committed in the early part of 2009 when Ryan was 39.
NOVEMBER 2021
In addition to being jailed Ryan was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life. Ryan was also banned from contacting the victim until further order. The court heard that the offences Ryan was convicted of took place at his home on the same day within a short time of each other when the victim was in her early teens. In an impact statement read to the court by the victim she accused Ryan of “taking her childhood away”. She said Ryan had threatened to harm her if she told anyone what he’d done and she was still scared of him to this day.
Giving evidence during the trial, Ryan, who has no previous convictions, denied having any sexual contact with the girl. He accepted being a Facebook
friend with her and talking to her about problems she was having at school but denied taking advantage of her and then securing her silence by threaten- ing her.
He said the girl had turned up unannounced at his home and after the second time he thought she might have a crush on him and had nipped things in the bud. The prosecution alleged that Ryan contacted the teenager on Facebook after meeting her through his work as a taxi driver and had arranged for her to go to his former home in Haverhill, where the offences were committed, to do household chores for him. Richard Kelly, for Ryan, said the offences related to a single incident over a brief period of time. He said that after the victim made a complaint in 2019 there was a delay of more than a year before Ryan was charged.
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