Private hire driver who forced male passenger to perform sex act fails to clear his name

Married dad-of-two Khaldon Mohammed failed in a bid to have his rape conviction overturned

A Liverpool taxi driver, who forced a male passenger to perform a sex act as he drove, has failed in a bid to clear his name.

Married dad-of-two Khaldon Mohammed previously claimed that his customer initiated sexual activity but was found guilty of rape in January 2017 and jailed for six-and-a-half years.

The 31-year-old, of Gwendoline Street in Toxteth, took his case to the Court of Appeal last week but failed to have his conviction overturned.

Although Mohammed pleaded not guilty after the incident in 2015, he was convicted after a jury heard of the victim’s distress in the moments afterwards, when he called a friend in hysterics.

The court heard the passenger got into Mohammed’s taxi in 2015 after a night out, and was drunk but “not so drunk that he did not know what he was doing.”

The man told police that Mohammed had initiated conversation, but the passenger could not hear from the back so was invited to climb into the front passenger seat.

Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, said: “The usual banter took a strange and what is clearly now a sinister turn, because the defendant started to ask him about his sexual orientation and came out with the question ‘do you like d***?’”

He said the journey continued, before Mohammed “suddenly” unzipped his jeans, “pulled” the man’s head down and “forced him” to perform a sex act.

Mr Gibson said the driver pushed the victim away when they stopped at red traffic lights, because people were around, before pulling his head down again.

He said after Mohammed finished, the journey ended and the man got out and ran into his home.

His lawyers claimed at an appeal hearing that fresh evidence from another Liverpool taxi driver cast doubt on the safety of the jury’s guilty verdict

The other driver told of having picked up a male passenger - with the same name as Mohammed’s victim - and being offered oral sex as payment.

When shown pictures of the complainant in Mohammed’s case, he said he recognised him as the passenger who offered him the sexual favour.

But returning to court today to deliver their judgment, three top judges refused Mohammed’s bid to appeal his conviction.

Ruling on the case, Lord Justice Bean, sitting with Mr Justice Sweeney and Judge Anthony Leonard QC, said the new witness had only had a “fleeting glance” of his passenger.

And there had been a gap of at least 19 months between him picking up the man and being shown the photo of Mohammed’s victim.

The judge said: “Each of the three members of this court takes the view that the fresh evidence raises no reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Khaldon Mohammed.”

The prosecution case was “strong”, based on lies by Mohammed in his police interview and the improbability of him allowing himself to receive oral sex “out of curiosity”.

He added: “The distressed state of the complainant very shortly afterwards made for a formidable case, even against a defendant of good character.”

The appeal was dismissed and the conviction upheld

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