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SINGAPORE: After seeing a man proposition to a drunk woman outside a hotel, a Ryde driver introduced himself as a Grab driver and offered to drive her home.
However, he later took advantage of the woman, sexually abusing her repeatedly in the back seat of his truck.
Muhammad Fithri Bajudi, 36, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and three strokes of the baton on Monday (March 8) after pleading guilty to one count of outrage of modesty.
The court heard that Fithri was working as a private rental driver with the ridesharing app Ryde at the time of the crime in June 2019.
He was waiting for passengers in his van in the driveway of the Novotel hotel on Clarke Quay around 4.30am when he saw the victim, a 39-year-old woman.
He had been drinking with his friends since 3 a.m. that day and was waiting to take a Grab car home after throwing up. She was sitting on the floor outside the Novotel when an unknown man approached her and asked her to come with him to a hotel, the prosecutor said.
Fithri saw that the woman was rejecting the man’s advances and noted that she did not appear to be sober. He called her from his truck, before getting out to talk to her.
He offered to drive her home, saying he was a Grab driver, and she agreed, thinking he was being nice. She told him she couldn’t walk and he helped her into his truck, where she fell asleep in the back seat.
Instead of taking the woman home, Fithri drove to a heavy vehicle parking lot. On the way, he heard the woman say “you must protect me” twice.
At around 5 a.m. in the parking lot, Fithri unzipped the woman’s hoodie and abused her, kissing her face and neck and stroking her.
The woman woke up and started screaming and begging Fithri to stop. She said she wanted to go home and cried, saying, “You are supposed to take care of me, you are supposed to take care of me.”
After about 20 minutes, Fithri stopped his assault as the woman tried to open the door to leave. He dressed her and drove to a bus stop where the victim got out.
She managed to snap a photo of the truck, before calling her husband to tell him that she had been sexually abused. Her husband filed a police report.
The victim went to a hospital later that day, and the doctor noted that she was visibly distressed and upset and was crying intermittently.
HIGH DEGREE OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
Deputy Prosecutor Niranjan Ranjakunalan asked for at least 18 months in jail and three strokes of the baton, citing the high degree of sexual exploitation, skin-to-skin contact and how the defendant had claimed to be a Grab driver performing public transport. Service.
“He broke the confidence of the intoxicated victim by performing various acts of sexual depravity against her,” she said, adding that the crime “clearly had a price” for her.
Defense attorney Kalaithasan Karuppaya asked instead for 12 months in jail, highlighting the “charitable nature” of his client, cooperation with the police and an early guilty plea.
In response, the prosecutor questioned “this alleged altruism with which (Fithri) approached the victim” and said that he was “not frank and frank” in giving his police statements.
The judge said there were numerous aggravating factors in the case. He said that Fithri had approached the victim “with less than honorable intentions” and “pretended to act like a Good Samaritan” but took advantage of her for “a considerable period of time”.
He eased the jail sentence a bit after taking the plea of guilt into account, but maintained that the spanking is clearly justified in light of the degree of intrusion.
For outraging the woman’s modesty, Fithri could have been imprisoned for up to two years, fined, flogged, or given any combination of these punishments.
