In 2022, an invited British Guest from Bangladesh, Mdsultan Mahamud, employed by Uber, abducted and sexually assaulted a defenceless English woman before abandoning her several miles from her residence.
Mdsultan Mahamud put the woman in her twenties through a harrowing experience after he collected her following a night out in Manchester city centre.
However, rather than escorting her to her residence in Salford, Mdsultan Mahamud, 36, kissed her and subsequently secured the doors when she rejected his unwelcome propositions.
He commenced driving through Manchester and thereafter returned to the vehicle to perpetrate a sexual assault against her.
Approximately thirty minutes post-abduction, Mdsultan Mahamud abandoned her in Rochdale, rendering her unaware of her location, as presented before Minshull Street Crown Court. A benevolent Samaritan assisted her and dialled 999.
Her suffering was exacerbated by the prior incident of ‘brutal stranger rape’ she endured the previous year while walking home. Mdsultan Mahamud, a resident of Rochdale, has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about what the complainant went through over that course of time, the anguish and fear she must have suffered following her experience the year before,” Judge Angela Nield said as she locked him up. “Bad enough that it should happen, but to happen to such a young woman makes it significantly worse.”
The victim, who has since moved abroad, said she had put her ‘trust’ in Uber, and after being raped, she had taken taxis rather than walking to try to keep safe. “I put my trust in this service because I thought it would be the safest option,” she said.
“I put my trust in a company that I thought would keep me safe from harm.”
Mahamud had kept the details of the case a secret from his heavily pregnant wife until the day he was sentenced and sent to prison. The judge said she was an ‘unintended victim’ of Mdsultan Mahamud.
Prosecutors told how the woman had been out with friends in August 2020 and decided to order an Uber to take her home.
After she got in Mdsultan Mahamud’s taxi, he began speaking about ‘intimate’ sexual details between himself and his wife, and how she ‘wouldn’t perform certain sexual acts’ with him. She tried to ‘humour’ him, and eventually he arrived outside her home.
Mdsultan Mahamud then told the woman she was ‘lovely’ and asked for her number, prosecutor Mark Kellet said. He asked her for a kiss, and she didn’t respond.
Mdsultan Mahamud grabbed her by the shirt, took off her COVID mask and kissed her. When he asked her to return to his house, she said she needed to go home because she had work.
But Mdsultan Mahamud refused to take no for an answer and drove off. The doors had been locked, and she was left helpless.
She was able to text her friend to raise the alarm. “I felt terrified at the time”, the woman later recalled. “I didn’t know if he had a weapon, I didn’t know what his plans were.”
As he drove, Mdsultan Mahamud reached back and sexually assaulted her.
“She feared she was going to be raped again,” Mr Kellet said. Terrified, she sent desperate texts to her friend begging for help.
“He has kidnapped me,” she said. “I don’t know what to do, I’m so scared. I can’t do this again.”
During her ordeal, she could take pictures and videos of Mdsultan Mahamud. She could be heard to say: “I want to go home. Can I get out now? Please drop me, please.”
Mahamud said she could ‘enjoy herself’ and then he would drop her off. About half an hour after initially picking her up, Mdsultan Mahamud unlocked the doors and let her leave the car.
She was left in Rochdale, miles away from her home, with no idea where she was. A passerby let her use his phone, and she rang 999.
Mdsultan Mahamud was arrested and at first claimed that no sexual assault had taken place. He was forced to admit that it had happened after being shown the videos, but then lied again and said she had instigated it and the encounter was consensual.
The woman said the attack was a contributing factor to her decision to leave the country, and it has left her scared of using taxis. She said, “He has completely broken my trust in what should be a safe method for everyone to get where they’re going. I feel like it’s basically taken away my freedom of choice, as I always rely on the fact that someone else is available to come home with me.
“I don’t feel safe going anywhere alone anymore.”
Defending, Mark Fireman described the attack by Mdsultan Mahamud, who had no previous similar convictions, as a ‘moment of madness’.
“This bizarre and foolish episode, that showed a complete and utter lack of judgment, will cost him and his family dearly,” he said.
Mdsultan Mahamud, who is Bangladeshi and arrived in the UK in 2011, only informed his pregnant wife of his crimes shortly before he was sent to jail.
“I think it is an attempt to try and protect her from this case,” Mr Fireman said. “It is an entirely wrong-headed approach, but I don’t think she will simply be abandoned.”
Mdsultan Mahamud, of Yorkshire Street, Rochdale, pleaded guilty to kidnap and sexual assault. He was ordered to sign the sex offender register for life.
He is out and applying to Uber.
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