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Limo driver accused of sexual activity with girl

A LIMOUSINE chauffeur has gone on trial accused of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl he was driving home from a school prom. Graham Currah denies the charges of sexual activity with a child and false imprisonment, alleged to have happened last summer in his limo.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court heard the girl explain how she felt “petrified” when Currah, of Regency Mews, Redcar, touched her leg, tried to kiss her and told her she was “gorgeous”. “All of these approaches were unwelcome,” prosecutor Paul Newcombe told the jury. “And you will hear her evidence that he manipulated the circumstances so he could be alone with her for some time.”

The court heard how Currah was booked to take four Hartlepool schoolgirls to their prom at Lumley Castle in Durham and pick them up again at the end of the night.

The victim, now 16, told the court that she drank two glasses of champagne on the way to the prom and then three on the way back. She expected a friend, whose mother had booked the limousine, to be the last one dropped off but instead Currah dropped her off last.

During the journey, while the teenager was the only girl still in the limousine, she told the 27-year-old driver she was feeling unwell. “Currah said it was a common complaint because of the loud music, the warmth and because it’s quite bouncy,” said Mr Newcombe. The girl then got in the front of the limousine.

She said: “I asked the driver if I could get in the front. I wanted to get away from the environment in the back.” She told the jury the driver then began driving between 5-10mph and she became worried. “He was driving really slowly,” she said. “I noticed he had a sat nav but he said he didn’t know the way.

“I started to feel uneasy as the driver started looking at me. I didn’t know what to do so I just looked out of the window. “He said something like ‘from all the girls I have picked up tonight you are the most gorgeous’, or something like that. It made me feel really uncomfortable.”

The girl added at some point she heard the central locking activate. When she asked why they were moving so slowly, she said Currah replied: “So I can be with a gorgeous girl like you for longer.”

The teenager told the court that a short time later Currah stopped the limo in a bus layby, got out and walked to round to the passenger side, opened the door and tried to kiss her three times but she moved away.

Then when Currah got back in the car, he reached across and touched her leg, the girl alleged. She also claimed he told her “there’s tinted windows and nobody can see in” and said “what happens in this limousine stays in this limousine”.

Mr Newcombe added that a police officer had made the same drive from the friend’s house where the third drop-off was to where the final girl needed to be taken and it had taken 12 minutes, whereas Currah’s journey had taken 50 minutes.

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IDFIMH

During the journey, while the teenager was the only girl still in the limousine, she told the 27-year-old driver she was feeling unwell. “Currah said it was a common complaint because of the loud music, the warmth and because it’s quite bouncy,” said Mr Newcombe. The girl then got in the front of the limousine.

She said: “I asked the driver if I could get in the front. I wanted to get away from the environment in the back.” She told the jury the driver then began driving between 5-10mph and she became worried. “He was driving really slowly,” she said. “I noticed he had a sat nav but he said he didn’t know the way.




“I noticed he had a sat nav but he said he didn’t know the way."


(thats why i have one....)


Currah said it was a common complaint because of the loud music, the warmth and because it’s quite bouncy

turn the music down, turn the aircon on, and he was already driving slowly..

am i being to suspicous here?

Prom limo driver cleared of molesting schoolgirl


A LIMO driver has told of his "year of torture" after being cleared of molesting a schoolgirl on the way back from a prom night.

Graham Currah, 27, was found not guilty of groping and trying to kiss the Hartlepool teenager three times while driving her home from her school leavers' prom last summer.

It took a Teesside Crown Court jury of 10 women and two men two-and-a-half hours to deliver a not guilty verdict for false imprisonment.

They threw out a claim that Graham had deliberately locked the limo doors when he was alone with the girl after hearing the car has an automatic locking system when it reaches five miles an hour.

It took a further 40 minutes to declare a not guilty verdict of sexual activity with a child after the girl, who cannot be named, alleged Graham had stroked her thigh after dropping her friends off.

Graham, who lived in West View Road, Hartlepool, until last year, before the allegations, said of the verdict: "It's just been a nightmare. I'm just pleased it's all sorted out.

"It's been horrible, just humiliating.

"When you are walking around town you don't know who's looking at you, what they are thinking or anything.

"Even though it has only been a two-and-a-half day trial, it feels more like three weeks."

The former English Martyrs School pupil had also denied making suggestive comments and driving slowly around the streets of Hartlepool with the girl before stopping in the Owton Manor area to kiss her.
He said: "To hear what's been said, it's awful.

"I think there will be a lot of small-minded people who will just see what they want to see.

"But everyone I know didn't ever doubt me. I just want to put it behind me and move on. It's been a year of torture. I'm glad to get it over."

Graham, who until last year lived in Hartlepool with parents, retired photographer and former Co-operative Funeral Service driver Joe, 61, and mum Barbara, moved to Regency Mews, in Redcar, last year.

He had previously worked for Streamline and 23 Taxis, in Hartlepool, for seven years, and as a security guard in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre.

He now works for Kwik Cars, in Middlesbrough, as well as doing his limo job.

Graham said: "My taxi licence was suspended by Middlesbrough Council after these allegations came out.

"But my colleagues and family have been brilliant."

He is due to return to his limo job straight away and said he is booked to drive to a school prom tonight.

Graham said he was "speechless" when the police first contacted him after the girl made the allegation.

He said the police only asked him if he could go in for questioning three days later and there didn't seem to be any urgency.

Graham even drove to three more school proms after the allegations were made before speaking to police.

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin