'Sex-obsessed' taxi driver jailed for rape has appeal rejected
Thursday, July 08, 2010, 07:00
A "sex-obsessed" Plymouth cab driver who was jailed for rape and sex attacks on drunken female passengers today failed in his Appeal Court fight to clear his name.
Malcolm Robert Curtis, 50, was jailed indefinitely at the city's crown court after he was convicted of two rapes, two sexual assaults, indecent assault and three counts of voyeurism in October 2008.
Continuing to profess his innocence, the hackney-carriage driver, of Flamsteed Crescent, Kings Tamerton, Plymouth, today took his case to the Criminal Appeal Court in London.
But it took Lord Justice Pitchford, Mr Justice Roderick Evans and Judge Michael Stokes QC less than an hour to decide that there was "nothing of significant merit" in Curtis' appeal.
Rejecting Curtis' case, Lord Justice Pitchford told how the driver had been accused of a series of sex crimes against passengers, committed in the Plymouth area between October 2003 and November 2007.
He kissed one on the lips and touched her indecently, groped a student and squeezed another woman's breasts.
In November 2007, he climbed into the back of his cab and twice raped a woman passenger, who was the last person left in his taxi that night.
He was also charged with counts of voyeurism after police found recorded footage, taken by a camera in his car, showing passengers indulging in sexual acts.
Today, his barrister, Nick Lewin, argued that the convictions were "unsafe" because some of his victims had had the opportunity to collude on their evidence prior to the trial.
And there were "inconsistencies" in the evidence of four passengers, one of whom was assaulted, which weakened their evidence, he said.
Lord Justice Pitchford said the trial judge had adequately described what the defence case was in relation to the inconsistencies in the evidence.
Mr Lewin also argued that the voyeurism allegations should not have gone to the jury, since any acts in the back of a taxi could not be considered private.
However, that all depended on the circumstances of individual cases and Curtis had retained the footage of cavorting couples which his camera captured, the judge said.
"We have come to the conclusion that there is nothing of significant merit in this appeal and the renewed application must be dismissed," he concluded.
Source; http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Dr ... ticle.html
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