London cab rapist sentenced to at least 8 years in prison

By Caroline Gammell (London Telegraph) Last Updated: 8:58AM BST 22 Apr 2009

The 51-year-old spent years targeting young professional women as they emerged from late night bars and clubs in the heart of London, offering them a lift before plying them with spiked champagne, having claimed he had won the lottery.

Once unconscious in the back of his taxi, the former stripper and porn actor would pounce, assaulting them as they lay passed out in the cab. Yesterday, he was given an indeterminate jail sentence and told he would have to serve a minimum of eight years before he could be considered for release.

As Worboys has already spent 15 months in jail, he could be freed in 2016, before the age of 60.
One of his victims – the first to give evidence at his trial – said she was horrified that Worboys could be released from prison so soon.

Joanna, not her real name, has not even told her own mother how she was drugged and assaulted in the back of his taxi in October 2006.

The 24-year-old said: "I think it is appalling, this sentence is far too lenient. He has been described as Britain's worst sex offender, eight years in jail will not break him or make him change his ways. Maybe he does regret what he did, but at the same time he did it for so many years and hurt so many lives. Eight years doesn't make up for all the pain he caused."

Rape campaigner Jill Saward, who was raped herself in 1986, said: "I welcome the indeterminate sentence but the minimum term of eight years is less than eight months per rape. This sentence is a disaster and is likely to inspire other victims to come forward."

When Worboys was convicted last month of a string of sexual offences – including rape – against 12 victims, it emerged that 85 women had come forward.

A further 45 women have spoken out since he was found guilty – 11 are deemed credible - and police believe he may have targeted as many as 200 victims over the years.

A series of police blunders led to at least 12 missed opportunities to catch him and an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation is underway into what went wrong.

The way in which rapes are investigated has changed since Worboys and now fall under the responsibility of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command at Scotland Yard.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Penry-Davey said the defendant had abused a position of trust as a London cab driver.

"You exploited that trust and, through the use of alcohol and drugs, you sexually abused young women who had trusted you to take them home safely late at night. You developed and perfected a web of deceit that was sufficient to ensnare young, intelligent and sensible women who had enjoyed a night out and whose only mistake was to get into your cab late at night."

Banning Worboys from ever driving a taxi again, Mr Justice Penry-Davey said the £3,680 he had stored in his cab to prove his lottery win would be shared between his 12 victims. In addition, the proceeds of the sale of his £5,000 taxi will be divided amongst them.

The judge insisted that the eight years was a minimum term only and Worboys would remain behind bars as long as a he was a danger to women.

Cabbie who raped fare sentenced to maximum 1 1/2 years in jail, no SO registration

Franklin County President Judge John R. Walker sentenced Prince Kwaku Boateng, a 38 year old legal alien from Ghana, to serve a 3 to 18 month jail sentence for the rape of a New York fare in a Chambersburg, PA motel last spring. Usually, Judge Walker orders convicted defendants to report to jail immediately, but gave Boateng until noon Monday to report. In Pennsylvania, jail terms are imposed when the maximum sentence is 2 years or lower.

Boateng pleaded guilty to indecent assault and unlawful restraint during a pre-trail conference Thursday. If he had not pleaded guilty, jury selection would have began June 6.

According to court documents, when the cab reached its destination, Boateng told the woman he was tired and didn't want to drive right back to Harrisburg that night. The woman agreed to let him sleep in the motel room if he would pay half the cost of the room. She told police that shortly after 6 a.m. Boateng tried to rape her, pulling her pants off as she struggled to get away. She reached for the phone to call the motel office, according to an affidavit filed with the charges, and Boateng then allegedly grabbed her from behind in a choke hold and told her to "go to sleep."

She continued to struggle and then broke free. Police said several witnesses saw her run from the room and then saw Boateng emerge from the room, pulling up his pants.

He left the motel parking lot in his cab. One witness wrote the taxi's license plate number on his hand and provided that number, along with a description of the man. Another witness snapped a picture of the taxi on his camera phone.

Chambersburg Police put out an all-points bulletin for the cab and its driver. The cab was stopped in Shippensburg a short time later, where Chambersburg Police officers took Boateng into custody.

A previous set of charges were filed back in spring last year, but were dropped, and Boateng was release from the Franklin County Jail. New charges, filed in October, came after the first charges were dropped. Boateng was also ordered to stay away from his victim andserve 2 years or probation under the county's adult sex offender supervision program, but Boateng was not ordered to register as a sex offender, or be evaluated by a sex offender assesment board.

Cabbie sentenced to year in jail for inappropriate behavior

Abrahamad Gamadid, 25, a cabdriver who lives in Chicago's Northwest Side, was sentenced to a year in the Cook County Jail for making inappropriate comments and having inappropriate contact with his victim, a downtown customer who hailed his cab on February 9, but ran away. She reported the incident to the Chicago Police who identified and arrested the suspect with the help of the Chicago Department of Consumer Services.

Possible campus rape at CA university

The Belmont, CA police department is investigating a report of a rape on the campus of Notre Dame De Namur University. It allegedly occured at 4:30 AM Sunday, March 16 when after a man and a woman went back into a dorm, and the woman allegedly was assaulted.

"We're dealing with the statements of two different people saying different things and we're trying to make sense of it," said Lt. Kevin Daly, of the Belmont police.

The university's Chief of Public Safety David Mefford implied that there was drinking involved.
"When you have alcohol involved and students are partying, things do happen," Mefford said.
Daley said he could not release any personal information about the female or male, but he believes students should not be fearful.

"We don't have a predator problem," he said. "It's still under investigation. It's an isolated incident and it does not pose a threat."

Mefford said that in his 20 years of working on campus, he's never seen or heard of a sexual assault case that involved a stranger and that usually they stem from mixing alcohol and acquaintances.

The campus website stated that sexual assaults which are forcible only occur an average of once a year since 2005

I disagree. Some sexual predators only have one long term victim, and some serial rapists operate as "boyfriends" who date rape their victims after gaining her trust, then leaving her for the next victim. Sexual predators usually, but don't have to have multiple victims.

Cabbie charged with rape of passenger

A cab driver has been charged with sexual assault and kidnapping for an attack which took place a year ago. The woman, then 28, called a cab after a night of drinking. After the night was over, she woke up at the Admiral Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, nude from the waist down.

KCTV (Kansas CIty, MO) reports below:

Abdi Qamaan, 47, picked her up at the bar and she passed out drunk in the back of his cab, prosecutors said. They claimed that Qamaan then took her to the hotel, booked a room and sexually assaulted her.

She awoke the next morning with no memory of what had happened and called police.
As they questioned her, Qamaan returned to the hotel room and told police he'd gotten her room number because he didn't know where she lived and had come back to take her home, prosecutors said.

DNA evidence refuted his claims. Police took samples from a used condom from a trash can. The semen sample matched Qamaan's, and he was charged with aggravated forcible sodomy and kidnapping. Qamaan is being held on $100,000 bond.

Reference:

Cab driver accused of sex assault