Taxi driver raped teenager, then dumped her in sub-zero temperatures

A taxi driver who raped a teenage female passenger in a lay-by before leaving her in sub-zero temperatures has been jailed for six years and nine months.

David Brown, 50, picked up the 18-year-old who had been on a night out in Inverness and was wanting to go back to her Highland village in December 2023.

Instead Brown drove past her destination before pulling into the lay-by near a farm, somewhere between Strathpeffer and Dingwall, and sexually assaulting her. He then left her in Dingwall.

Judge Lord Renucci told Brown he had forced the teenager to undergo a terrifying ordeal.

At an earlier trial, in pre-recorded evidence, Brown's victim told how he had agreed to run her home despite her not having enough to pay the fare.

However Brown had instead headed for the Ross-shire countryside where he pulled into the layby.

He then groped the girl and sexually assaulted her, before forcing her to perform a sex act.

The girl later contacted police, who managed to track Brown down and detectives gathered enough evidence to bring him to court.

Brown's journey to the rural spot where he carried out the rape, on 3 December 2023, was recovered from the tracker system of his own car.

Lord Renucci said Brown had then "dumped" the teenager back in Dingwall in the early hours of the morning, despite the temperature being -4C.

A member of staff at the town's Tesco saw the girl, took pity on her, and opened up the store to let her in out of the cold.

Lord Renucci said: "When she got into your taxi that night, she was entitled to think you would perform the function you had been engaged to – that of delivering her safely to her own home, which was some distance away.

"Instead you drove on, past the area where she lived, and took her to Dingwall where, as we know from the tracker system of your car, you drove about the town and the outskirts before stopping at a secluded and remote lay-by near a farm.

"It was in that lay-by that you then raped her. She was only 18. You were significantly older, being at the time 47.

"This must have been a terrifying ordeal for your victim, who was undoubtedly in a vulnerable condition due to her inebriation – which you took advantage of for your own sexual gratification."

Brown, of Croy, near Inverness, appeared for sentence by prison video link at the High Court in Stirling.

He had denied the charge of rape and claimed he had a consensual sexual encounter but was found guilty by a jury after a three-day trial in Edinburgh last month.

Defence advocate Bill Adam said Brown still maintained that was the position.

Lord Renucci said: "[This was] a version of events that was rejected by the jury."

Brown showed no emotion as the sentence was announced.

In addition to the jail term, Brown was put on the sex offenders' register for life.