Guilty as charged ... Md Kowsar Ali (inset) and Jess Loiterton.
Taxi rape victim speaks about ordeal
Wants other women to be able to speak out
Judge says she`s entitled to hold head high
HE was the person she trusted to get her home safely. Instead, teenager Jess Loiterton`s taxi driver dragged her into the back of his cab and raped her.
But as cab driver Md Kowsar Ali, 22, was convicted of the appalling sex attack yesterday, Ms Loiterton said: "He thought he could get away with it. He definitely picked the wrong girl."
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph after waiving her right to anonymity, the 19-year-old said she spoke for every sexual assault victim who could not speak up for themselves.
"Don`t keep it to yourself, it eats you inside. You know you haven`t done anything wrong. I didn`t do anything wrong. If it happened to me, it could happen to anybody."
During Ali`s trial, the jury was not told that Ms Loiterton is gay, and she was a virgin.
"But it doesn`t matter whether I am gay or not - what happened wasn`t right," she said.
She believes Ali took advantage of her because: "I was drunk and I was an easy target".
Ms Loiterton went drinking with friends in Darlinghurst last November, but when she became drunk she decided to go home.
A friend put her into Ali`s cab.
The District Court was told that Ali twice indecently assaulted her as she drifted in and out of sleep.
Then Ms Loiterton woke to find the cab stopped in a side street.
Ali forced her into the back of the taxi and raped her as she screamed at him to stop. Sobbing hysterically, she called triple-0 as she escaped.
Played in court, the recording moved several people - including jurors - to tears.
It took the jury less than two hours to convict Ali of having sexual intercourse without Ms Loiterton`s consent, rejecting his claim that she invited it.
Arrested within an hour of the attack, the accounting student from Bangladesh told police he made a mistake but his passenger did too - by making him interested in her.
In a document seized in January during a police search, Ali tried to paint the encounter in a romantic light, writing the girl squeezed his hand. "She was young and so was I," he wrote.
"I could tell she felt good about it."
But Ms Loiterton said the idea that she would show any interest in Ali was "ridiculous".
Ms Loiterton said: "Every single day since November 4 it has been in my head and I want relief."
She found that relief when Ali was convicted of her rape and two counts of indecent assault.
The law automatically protects the identities of sexual assault victims but Ms Loiterton made the brave decision to be named, saying: "There shouldn`t be any reason I have to hide."
Judge Peter Berman, who will sentence Ali in November, agreed when lifting a suppression order. "Why should a person in Ms Loiterton`s position, entirely blameless, who has been preyed upon by a taxi driver, feel embarrassed about what happened to her?" he said.
"She is entitled to hold her head up high and identify herself as a blameless victim."
Jess has shown extraordinary courage to come out and speak. Congrats Jess and there is no reason for you to be ashamed. GOD bless you.I have noticed many of the commentators have expressed that man should be able to restrain their desire even in a woman is drunk or naked. I agree with that. But I think there should be some discipline on how many drinks could a person have. As we all know excessive drinking is a very big problem in Australian society and we should not feel produd to say that I was drunk.
Posted by: Sammy of ACT 2:47pm today
Post 87,Julia. "don't been to generalise or sound racist but it seems that all too often the perpertators of these acts are drivers of certain ethnic groups", I am not defending this idoit, but what you stated was very racistes, a mans ethics is not based on nationality...
Posted by: Jim of Syd 2:27pm today
Wend of SA - I agree I didn't realise Australia was like the old days and women didn't have any rights cause men cant control there own sexual urges. Maybe it men that should be look away on curfew and women allowed to go out instead?
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