Cleared of Sex Assault

Looking enormously pleased exiting the Elgin Street courthouse, lawyer Paul Lewandowski alongside client Gazban Abdalrahman, who must be quite relieved - as the presiding judge dismissed the sex assault charges brought against him, both expressing satisfaction with the trial outcome. 

A rather chastened accuser must be experiencing feelings of puzzlement and insecurity at just about the same time.  She was led, through the courtroom interrogation to say that she might have invented the accusations she levelled against the one-time taxi driver, whose license was revoked and who is now anxious to resume a normal life, including his taxi driver license renewal.

If he is indeed innocent of the charges brought against him by a woman of 40 with her intellectual capacity stunted by a hereditary condition she was born with, one can only heave a sigh of congratulations for evading having been found guilty as charged.  One would wish that escape to reflect innocence, not the further manipulation of an uncertain mind of a Down Syndrome sufferer.

Who claimed, with no little amount of indignation that the driver had attempted to take advantage of her vulnerability.  She was offended at what she claimed was his unwanted touching and suggestion that they have sex, and later purported anger expressed against her for refusing him. 

Accusing her of racism, disliking him for being Arab.  Might someone with the mental capacity of his woman-child have been capable of inventing the story?

Complete with his rejoinder at her refusal and condemnation of him that he would have been perfectly within his rights to behave as she claims he had done with her, in his country of origin?  If so, what might have led her to such an accusation.  Down Syndrome people are generally portrayed as gentle and unassuming.

"I believe an Innocent man has been dragged through the mud for two years in a situation he had no control over.  At the end of the day people presume you are guilty on charges like this, and even though there is lip service to the presumption of innocence, at the end of the day he has had this stigma over his head for the last two years", explained lawyer Paul Lewandowski of his client's misfortune.

The camera installed for precautionary measures in the taxi cab took photographs continually; every 30 seconds when the vehicle was moving.  The woman had insisted that the assault through which she was afflicted was some six minutes in duration, although earlier testimony had declared her to be uncertain about the very concept of time.

In viewing the results of the photographs, nothing remotely amiss was determined.  The driver did move to restore the woman's seat belt for her when she had detached it.  And she testified that she was annoyed over that incident, confiding she preferred to do such things herself.  "He was ensuring my safety.  I guess I didn't want it.  I am deeply sorry for all of this happening", she said.

She later also commented that she had claimed "a lot of things I probably shouldn't have said", to the police.  With the conclusion of her testimony the Crown prosecutor felt it would be "unfair" to expect the jury to find Mr. Abdalrahman guilty of the allegations brought against his character, beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that reasonable doubt lies, for the most part, in the uncertainty the woman felt under the questioning she had undergone that led her to doubt her own memory.  Under questioning from Mr. Abdalrahman's lawyer, she agreed with him that she might have been in error in her interpretation of what the taxi driver was attempting to do when he made an effort to restore her seat belt back in position.

Confusing that action with an intentional move toward unwanted sexual touching.  People with Down Syndrome have a childlike reaction of trying to please others.  And it is certainly difficult to say whether this represented just such a case.  No one, perhaps, will ever know of a certainty.

But Mr. Abdalrahman is now free to resume his previous line of work, anxious to have his taxi license reinstated.  "He wants to get his life back.  His life has been in shambles", stated his lawyer.