A taxi driver from Leeds, England will spend the next 12 years in prison after raping an intoxicated male passenger in a remote area late at night.
Mohammed Ilyas is a 44-year-old father of five. According to court documents, his victim had been out drinking at a gay bar with friends when he got into Ilyas’s car expecting to be driven home.
Instead, Ilyas drove him to an abandoned farm in a remote part of the country where he “orally raped him in the early hours one morning in May 2016.”
In a written personal statement to the court, the victim, who is in his early 50s, said the experience was an absolute “nightmare,” adding: “Because of what the taxi driver did to me that night I have at many points been suicidal.”
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“I never go to town alone anymore and will never get a taxi alone again,” he wrote. “I will never forget this. I don’t know when or if I will ever get over it.”
Ilyas denied the accusations, but he was found guilty by a jury back in September. At his sentencing hearing this week, his attorney asked the judge for leniency, citing that his client is “a married father of five with no previous convictions.”
“This was, and I hope the court will accept this, an isolated incident entirely out of character,” his attorney said.
But the judge was unmoved.
“I’m quite sure that you deliberately parked your taxi outside what you knew was a gay pub,” Judge Tom Bayliss told Ilyas, “thus deliberately engineering a situation where you found yourself alone in your taxi with a passenger who was incapacitated by drink.”
“That passenger had come from a pub, you then committed rape on him, a homosexual rape upon a man who you had seen coming from a gay pub.”
“I’m quite sure that you targeted (the victim). It may not have been long in the planning, but once you saw, you him stopped your taxi and you targeted him.”
He then sentenced Ilyas to 12 years. He is also banned from ever working as a taxi driver again and orderer his name listed on the sex offender register for life.
misterjack
Good.
Vince
Oh come on. The gave you a blowjob and you’re now suicidal. Me thinks you’ve got way bigger problems then that.
mab
You really need to learn how to comprehend what you read.
Paulie P
I agree… and i understood everything i read.
AndThenTheresMax
What Vince said!
theafricanwiththemouth
tbh, i kinda agree too. I get everyone’s different and all but sometimes, the “suicidal” this and “PTSD” that, that follows this kinda stories feels overly dramatic.
But then, we never know how much it truly wrecked the victims psyche… still though, suicidal? (just gotta lol).
PinkoOfTheGange
Any one else think this isn’t the 1st time the hack driver did this, just the 1st time some one objected?
Brgod
Totally agree, at 44 yrs old he’s certainly done this before and probably to other gay male patrons in this establishment – who may have been ok with his advances. This situation was certainly not consensual and the taxi driver took him to a rural area against his own free will which is quite disturbing, he should of had the brains to just drive the dude home!
PinkoOfTheGange
@Brgod Totally agree this is wrong full stop.
Even if the hack had done it before and got away with it; it would of been wrong then too.
(Sorry, I realize I wasn’t clear on that re reading my op.)
Kangol
Glad he’s gotten a dozen years. Too bad it wasn’t more.
nitejonboy
His wife needs to leave with the kids.
Paulie P
he is in jail why does she have to leave?
Me2
I’m glad the victim was brave enough to report the crime and see this thing all the way through to the end. I’m sure there are many other victims who’ve chosen not to, for whatever reasons. There needs to be more awareness around the issue of male on male rape, because it’s really a thing.
barkomatic
The terrifying part is being driven to a remote location against your will by a stranger. I don’t doubt the victim is traumatized by that–I sure would be. You usually get murdered in those situations.
crowebobby
He’d have gotten less time if he’d murdered him. I’m not trivializing the assault — being at the mercy of someone stronger than you are is traumatizing no matter what the end result — but these decades-long sentences for non-violent sex offences between adults or consenting teens are ridiculous. Six months would have been every bit as effective as 12 years
Me2
There was no consent here, the appropriate sentence was handed down. I’m sure victims of sexual assault would agree that it’s mental violence and stronger penalties should be given out.
AndThenTheresMax
What the judge said as well…suicidal from a blow job? Did he use teeth?
PinkoOfTheGange
Pretty sure it is the kidnapping and raping part that exacerbates the trauma.
girldownunder
“Pretty sure it is the kidnapping and raping part that exacerbates the trauma.”
Exactly. This may have been a gay man, but being driven out to the middle of nowhere he may have been thinking he was going to end up dead. I’m glad this creep got the book thrown at him. 10-to-1 he trots out religious nonsense, this Mr. “Family-man”.
Greg
The victim says he won’t go into town alone or get into a cab alone anymore. Maybe try not getting so intoxicated when you go out with friends. This wouldn’t have happened if he kept his drinking in moderation.