Bogus taxi driver raped vulnerable woman after she pleaded to be taken home after night out in Edinburgh

A predatory bogus taxi driver subjected a vulnerable young woman to a rape attack after she pleaded with him to take her home.

Mohamad Sabbagh drove the 25-year-old to a secluded spot in Edinburgh and demanded sex from her before getting into the rear of his unlicensed taxi and raping her.

The distressed victim later told her mother she begged him to please take her home and told him the address.

Sabbagh, 40, picked up the woman and her friend after they went for a night out drinking and clubbing in the city. He dropped off the friend leaving him alone with his intoxicated victim, who was a stranger to him, before carrying out the sex attack on her.

Sabbagh, of Harewood Crescent, Edinburgh, had denied raping the woman and claimed she consented to sex. He told the High Court in Edinburgh that his passenger asked him for sex and said: “She started seducing me.”

He said through an interpreter: “She was a beautiful lady. She seduced me. I felt weak. She offered and I accepted.”

But the jury at his trial unanimously convicted him of raping the woman on May 1 in 2022 at a car park in the Niddrie area of the city.

The charge set out that he carried out the sex attack while operating as an unlicensed taxi driver in an unlicensed taxi.

Sabbagh claimed that he picked up the woman and her friend after they waved to him to stop his car. He said: “I thought they were in need for help, so I wanted to offer help to them.” He said they were sober.

Advocate depute Ross Price said the Crown’s position was quite clear. He said: “There was no consent to the sex. The complainer was intoxicated and incapable of giving or withholding consent.”

Arabic speaker Sabbagh, from Syria, originally faced a further charge of operating a vehicle as a taxi or private hire car without holding a licence at various locations in Edinburgh, including George Street, Lothian Road and Grassmarket, between October 2022 and October the following year. That charge was withdrawn during the trial.

The victim’s friend told the court that they had gone out together for the evening but decided to head home in the early hours of the morning. She said: “We decided to leave together because we were both feeling drunk.”

They got a cab but she began to feel sick and asked the driver to stop near to the Commonwealth Pool and she vomited outside the vehicle.

She said they both got into a second vehicle and she got dropped off at her street. She said her friend seemed “really tired” and added: “Her head was tilted down like she was getting ready to doze off to sleep.”

She spoke later to her friend in the afternoon and said: “She seemed so beyond upset. I could hear in her voice that she had just been through the most traumatic thing. Her voice was really shakey. She was screaming, crying…She told me what had happened.”

The court heard that after the victim was left alone with Sabbagh she gave him her bank card and PIN to use at a cash machine to get money to take her to her destination, but he failed to get money before raping the woman.

A judge called for a background report to be prepared on the tailor ahead of sentencing next month.

Lady Ross told Sabbagh, who was on bail during his trial, that his status has changed following his conviction and he was remanded in custody. Sabbagh was placed on the sex offenders’ register.