WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
An 18-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted after accidentally getting into the wrong car while waiting for an Uber managed to record the horror ordeal on her phone, court documents show.
The driver, 42-year-old Mohamed Maan Hammoud, pleaded guilty in court at the Sydney Downing Center on Wednesday to having sexually assaulted the teenager without consent.
Last October, the young woman and a friend were drinking at the Village Inn Pub on Glenmore Road in Paddington.
She used the Uber app to book a trip home, about three miles away, but had to cancel three trips before she was assigned a white Toyota Corolla.
The 18-year-old woman was drinking at the Paddington Village Inn with a friend when she booked an Uber ride home last October
According to the prosecution’s statement of facts, the teen waited a short time before accidentally getting into the passenger side of a black Toyota Corolla hatchback driven by the perpetrator. Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Hammoud asked the teen as he drove home, “Are you getting horny?”, which made the young woman feel uncomfortable.
This prompted her to open the voice memo application on her phone and record the conversation between her and the perpetrator during the car ride.
Hammoud questioned her about that night and asked if she had ever taken drugs. He then “put his hand on (her) right thigh and stroked in an up and down motion to where her skirt ended,” according to the facts.
She was repeatedly asked, “Do you like that?” and was told by Hammoud to ‘spread them’ and ‘spread your legs’.
Hammoud stroked her thigh again before asking her again, “Do you like that?” to which she replied, ‘no’.
The prosecution’s statement of facts shows that Hammoud then tried to place his hand under the teenager’s skirt.
‘The victim said ‘mm, no’, the perpetrator said ‘later?’ (and) the victim did not respond to this,’ according to the facts.
Hammoud also asked the victim if she was masturbating because he thought she was ‘making sex noises’, to which she said ‘no’.
Then he rubbed her right thigh for the third time.
The teen then pretended to be asleep to avoid the perpetrator for the rest of the journey home, which took about ten minutes.
The perpetrator, thinking the victim was asleep, told the teen to wake up when they arrived at her home.
The young woman alerted her friend and her parents and immediately reported the incident to the police.
Police arrested Hammoud at his home in Greenacre, southwest Sydney, in November.
The young woman accidentally got into the front passenger seat of the wrong car and was then sexually touched by the driver without her consent during the car ride to her destination
He was taken to Bankstown Police Station where he spoke with a lawyer and Intellectual Disability Rights Services.
The 42-year-old participated in a taped interview and confirmed that he was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offence.
His lawyer Jessica Tohi made an admission of guilt on behalf of her client, who did not appear in court on Wednesday.
Ms. Tohi told the court that Hammoud suffers from an intellectual disability and requested that the charges be heard due to mental health problems or cognitive impairments.
Pursuant to a Section 14 filing, a magistrate reserves the power to dismiss a charge or discharge a suspect so that they can receive treatment or be placed in the care of a responsible person.
Ms Tohi told Magistrate Miranda Moody that her client had a forensic psychiatrist consultation in September and requested that the case be postponed until October.
“If the application is not successful, we will proceed to the punishment that day,” Ms Tohi said.
Hammoud remains free on bail.