Taxi Rape

[rdhopkins2]

Alawyer for the accused has stated the alleged rape could have been prevented by the woman sitting in the back seat. Disgraceful lawyer.
The accused received a lenient sentence too. Abhorrent.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/la...r/news-story/979281b80e2214725629bf79467a3cb0

 

[_Mike_]

The solicitor is doing what his client is paying him to do: try any legal means to get him off of the charge, or the charge lessened by insinuation that the victim was at fault for sitting in the font seat

 

[Donners]

Not really. It does his client absolutely no favours and there are some judges and magistrates who would have absolutely carved him to pieces for that.

His VicBar profile seems to have disappeared; perhaps he copped a bit of a backlash for it.

Mum's advice is sadly good though; there are far too many dodgy taxi drivers out there. One of the prime reasons for a recent upgrade of cameras in taxis was that drivers could easily overwrite the CCTV footage, and quite often did.

 

[hirdy_is_champ]

Not really. It does his client absolutely no favours and there are some judges and magistrates who would have absolutely carved him to pieces for that.

His VicBar profile seems to have disappeared; perhaps he copped a bit of a backlash for it.

Mum's advice is sadly good though; there are far too many dodgy taxi drivers out there. One of the prime reasons for a recent upgrade of cameras in taxis was that drivers could easily overwrite the CCTV footage, and quite often did.

I don't believe there are far too many cab drivers at all. Used to catch cabs fairly often, only had one who was perhaps bordering on inappropriate discussion, but at no point did I pick up that he had any sinister intentions...

 

[Donners]

I don't believe there are far too many cab drivers at all. Used to catch cabs fairly often, only had one who was perhaps bordering on inappropriate discussion, but at no point did I pick up that he had any sinister intentions...

I never got abused by a priest when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean that there weren't issues in general.

Taxi drivers are a running joke among those who work in sex offence law because they pop up strikingly often for non-related offenders.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

I never got abused by a priest when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean that there weren't issues in general.

Taxi drivers are a running joke among those who work in sex offence law because they pop up strikingly often for non-related offenders.

I noticed that before I left Victoria, we were starting to see a few taxi drivers locked up and read more stories of the sexually assaulting drunk female customers in the small hours of the morning.

 

[Run n Spread]

Disgraceful defence. In fact it is no defence.

My issue. Why did it take 18 months for charges to be laid. Under resourcing??????? If that was the defence a juniour constable could untangle that in an hour. I don't think all is as it seems from the article (which is HS after all). Also 6 months for a rape????????? Come on. Also spared immediate imprisonment. Normally a conviction of that magnitude would mean straight up custody.

Maybe someone (Donners) could fill us in on the real story.

NB: If that was a defence used then that is truly disgusting don't get me wrong BUT the facts given don't really add up or make sense.

 

[Donners]

1) He wasn't sentenced for Rape, not withstanding the thread title. He was found guilty of 3x Indecent Assault in a summary hearing; with presumably no priors and what sounds like a refugee background, that sentence sounds unremarkable

2) The line about sitting in the front seat would more likely have been a line from the barrister in a completely misguided attempt at mitigation after the finding of guilt rather than a defence. We don't know what the defence was - could have been an outright denial or assertion of consent.

3) Some sex offence investigations do take 18 months or more. I just saw a single-complainant one which took over 2 years. Elusive witnesses, CCTV recovery/analysis, competing priorities, generous police leave entitlements, simple oversights...it happens all too often. Presumably it did have a bit of complexity to it, given it was prosecuted by a barrister rather than a police prosecutor.