Mohammed Ilyas has been jailed for 12 years after being convicted of rape by a Leeds Crown Court.
A taxi driver who orally raped another man who got into his car has been jailed for 12 years. Mohammed Ilyas, 44, was found guilty of raping a passenger in the early hours one morning in May 2016. The unnamed victim, who had been drinking at a pub in Leeds, was put into the cab waiting outside the New Penny, in Leeds, by his friends, who assumed he would be safe.
The court heard how LLyas drove his cab to a remote farm area where he orally raped his victim.
The court heard how the victim had been driven to feeling suicidal following the attack. The impact state read, “Because of what the taxi driver did to me that night I have at many points been suicidal.
“I never go to town alone anymore and will never get a taxi alone again.
“I will never forget this. I don’t know when or if I will ever get over it.”
“Engineering a situation”
Jailing Ilyas for 12-years, Judge Tom Bayliss QC said, “I’m quite sure that you deliberately parked your taxi outside what you knew was a gay pub, 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.”
Mr Llyas pleaded not guilty during his trial in September.
Judge Bayliss also banned LLyas from contacting his victim and from returning to work as taxi driver in the future.
If you need to speak to someone about sexual assault or rape, please contact Survivors UK for help and support.
