TAXI DRIVER SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS FOR SEXUALLY ASSAULTING TEEN GIRL
A taxi driver has been jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage girl he picked up in his car."Despicable" Wahid Riaz, from Nelson, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Burnley after picking her up just after midnight on 23 July 2023, according to Lancashire Police.During the journey, she informed him of her age, but he stopped at the bottom of her street, asked her for a hug, and started kissing her before assaulting her, then dropping her off at her home.
Riaz, 52, was sentenced to five years in prison at Preston Crown Court.
In the course of the journey, he told the victim she appeared 16 or 17 and asked if she had been with an Asian male, a conversation which she recorded on video.
After arriving at her house, she immediately went to the bathroom, vomited, and cried herself to sleep.
She later described feeling contaminated and scrubbing her body long and hard, trying to regain a sense of cleanliness.
She was especially conscious of her clothing in the summer and blamed herself for the incident, worried that her attire might have triggered it.
Det Con Ryan Benson, who led the investigation, described Riaz as a "despicable individual who has a sordid sexual interest in children." He used his role as a taxi driver to isolate and sexually abuse a vulnerable young girl.
Benson emphasized the lasting impact on the victim, who showed remarkable bravery in the face of Riaz's denial of his crimes despite overwhelming evidence.
