Daily Mail
November 19, 2013
A taxi driver had underage sex with a 14-year-old schoolgirl in a layby and later told her mother he believed she was 16, a court heard today.
Shakil Munir, of Middlesbrough, is one of four defendants accused of sexually exploiting a number of teenagers from the town.
The prosecution alleged the Bradford-born 32-year-old picked up a 14-year-old girl and had sex with her in the early hours in a parking spot on the A19 after they sent each other explicit messages on Facebook.
But he told a court nothing happened between them in his car and he insisted he thought she was 16.
Late on one night in January, she asked Munir to pick her up and take her to the garage to buy cigarettes, but it was alleged he stopped in a lay-by where, the prosecution said, he got her to give him oral sex, then full intercourse.
Munir told the jury of ten women and two men at Teesside Crown Court he thought the sexual messages between them on Facebook were ‘banter’.
The driver, then aged 31, believed she was 16, he told the court.
Asked by his barrister Ekwall Tiwana why he got involved in the conversation, Munir who is twice-married said: ‘To be honest with you, I was going through a bad patch and I was bored and I just started chatting.’