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Cumbrian taxi driver cleared of groping passenger
A west Cumbrian taxi driver has been cleared of groping a woman passenger's bottom.
Driver John MilfullA 20-year-old woman had claimed John Milfull, 61, touched her bottom as she was getting out of his car late one night last May.
Mr Milfull, of Mill Hill, Cleator Moor, insisted that he had not even touched her, and pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual assault.
After hearing the case for the prosecution, which included evidence from the girl and a male workmate who was in the car with her at the time, Judge Paul Batty QC, at Carlisle Crown Court, said Mr Milfull had no case to answer.
He said important parts of the girl’s evidence had been flatly contradicted by her male colleague.
For example, he said, she insisted that there had never been anyone else in the taxi, whereas her workmate told the jury that at one stage another young woman had been in the car.
And, while the girl said she and her friends had nothing to drink at the end of their night’s work, her colleague said they had all had a couple of drinks which had left him “a bit light-headed”.
“Faced with these clear contradictions I had to review the evidence and I came to the view that no jury could safely convict this man on this evidence,” the judge told the jury. Mr Milfull was formally found not guilty, on the judge’s direction.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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