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Handbridge man posed as taxi driver to carry out sex assault on student

A MAN who falsely posed as a taxi driver as he cruised Chester city centre looking for women picked up a student and attacked her in the North Wales countryside. The victim, a young woman aged 20, bravely fought back when he pounced on her on the back seat of his car.

Mark James Vaughan, a married father of three, forced his tongue into her mouth and mauled her breasts. But the victim bit his tongue hard – and actually bit off the tip. Vaughan grappled her mobile phone off her and left her in a muddy lay-by at The Old Warren near Broughton, in a distressed state. She was taken in by local residents who raised the alarm.

Vaughan, aged 36, of Appleyard Lane in Handbridge, Chester, admitted a charge of sexual’ assault in the early hours of Saturday, September 6, last year. He was jailed for two and a half years today (Friday, June 5) and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Judge John Rogers QC, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said that Vaughan had been cruising in his car in Chester seeking to persuade a single female to get into the back of his car. “You did so with this victim by deceiving her into believing that you were a taxi driver,” the judge told him.

“When you eventually stopped the car, you joined her in the rear seat and you made a prolonged and persistent sexual attack upon her. “Fortunately for her, she had the strength of mind and character to struggle with you. As a result you were only able to put your tongue in her mouth and touch her breasts. “However, it must have been a terrifying experience for that young woman.”

Judge Rogers said that a prison sentence was inevitable but took into account his guilty pleas, his good employment record, the fact that his was a family man and the fact that he had never been to prison before.

Prosecuting barrister Simon Mills told how the young woman had a pleasant evening out with two female friends, they left a city centre club at 3.15 a.m. and she wanted to get her own taxi because she was travelling a different direction, into North Wales.

She made her way to a well known taxi firm, arrived at The Cross when the defendant stopped and asked if she needed a taxi. The young woman believed he was a genuine taxi driver, got into the back of the vehicle, and was driven through Saltney and Broughton. But he stopped in a lay-by and “completely out of the blue came over his seat and leapt on to her”.

He banged her head against the car window, touched her breasts and forced his tongue into her mouth when she bravely fought back, struggled, and actually bit off the tip of his tongue. She also scratched him and his DNA was found on his skin under her finger nails.

As she struggled, he told her he had a gun. One was not produced but she saw a dark shape of something in his waist band. He then forced her phone from her hand and left her in the muddy lay-by. A CCTV film in Chester showed him stopped alongside the woman and he was later arrested when he had to go to hospital because his tongue became infected.

Interviewed, he told how he had been in Chester city centre “cruising for birds” and initially claimed he had simply offered her a lift and that she initiated what happened.

Andrew Green, defending, said that his client had convictions, but nothing for ten years and no sexual offences. He was a hard working man with a partner and three children, he had a responsible job, and it was difficult to understand why he had done it.

In their teens, he and some friends would drive into Chester to initiate liaisons with young women and on the night in question he had taken drink and drugs.

But in the last nine months since his arrest he had thrown himself into his work and family life, had pledged never to do such a thing again, and had said “you never know how much you have until you lose it.” He wanted to accept help from the probation service and his behaviour of driving into Chester city centre alone had come to a full stop.

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