When an intoxicated young woman woke up in a moving car after leaving her friends on a night out in Kings Cross she thought she was safely on her way home in a taxi.
Instead, she was being driven to a dark side street in Sydney’s eastern suburbs where she would be raped by Uber driver Muhammad Naveed.
“Hey baby, I’ve got some condoms,” Naveed told the victim, who was drifting in and out of sleep after drinking heavily throughout the day.
The 41-year-old Pakistani national on Tuesday was jailed for at least six years and four months for the October 2015 rape of the young woman who can’t be named for legal reasons.
“He clearly took advantage, in the most terrible way, of a very vulnerable young lady,” Judge Deborah Payne told the Downing Centre District Court during her sentencing remarks.
“She was entitled to feel safe in the taxi.”
The woman was partying with friends in Kings Cross after a day at the Randwick races and was heavily intoxicated when she was picked up by Naveed.
The court heard the woman had leant up against a street sign to remove her shoes and began walking along Bayswater Road.
She did not order an Uber and did not remember getting into the car.
At first, she thought it was a taxi and gave Naveed her address, but instead of driving her home he stopped at a service station to buy condoms and a bottle of water.