An Indian Uber driver has been found guilty of abducting and sexually assaulting a teenage boy after suggesting they have a “gay party” earlier in the ride.
Azad Singh Mann, 32, fought two charges of indecent assault, one charge of abduction for sex, and one charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection at trial in the Napier District Court, but a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts last week.
Mann, who came to New Zealand in 2023 and began working as a rideshare driver, was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing in November. He was assisted by a Punjabi interpreter in court, Stuff reported.
The court heard Mann picked up his 16-year-old victim and the boy’s female best friend, who was also 16, from a party in his silver Toyota Prius at about midnight on September 12 last year.
Mann asked the pair if they were single and to add him on Snapchat, which the boy did reluctantly. When the girl was dropped off at her home the boy asked Mann to take him home also, and the driver agreed and requested he sit in front to give directions.
The Uber driver then told the boy he was attractive, grabbed his hand, locked the car doors, drove to a dark carpark, forcibly kissed him, and forced the boy to perform a sex act on him before driving him home, the boy told the court.
The boy’s friend testified that Mann has asked them about their sexuality, and when the boy told him he was homosexual, Mann replied that he was bisexual and had a boyfriend in India.
Mann then suggested they have a “gay party”, which the girl told the court made them feel uncomfortable.
She cried as she told the court she was worried about her friend when she saw him get in the passenger seat, and regretted not telling him to get out with her.
The girl said she tried texting and calling, and when she spoke to him via video call after he got home he told her he had been sexually assaulted, and looked frightened and shaken.
The boy then told his mother, and they reported the attack at Napier Police Station.
Mann was arrested and interviewed 12 days later, and initially said he could not remember the trip, saying he had “40 to 50 rides a night”.
But later in the interview he told police the boy sat in the front seat, and asked him if he went to the gym, to which Mann replied that he was a professional powerlifter.
He denied kissing or sexually assaulting the boy, and told police: “I am straight. I am not interested in men. I am a married man.”
In court, Mann claimed the boy had tried to kiss him, and said he did not mention that in his police interview because he was worried he would be misinterpreted due to his poor English.
He told the court “in my culture and religion, even the accusation is just so grave and horrible to us, it is a cultural taboo”, claimed it was the boy who wanted to be friends on Snapchat, denied asking about the passengers’ sexuality, and said the boy had asked him to drive to the carpark to look for something he had lost.
Defence lawyer Philip Ross told the jury it was a case of “one person’s word against another’s”, at one stage put it to the boy that he was lying because he was upset that Mann had rejected his advances, which the boy denied.
Crown prosecutor Amber Hutton said in closing that Mann drove to the secluded carpark with the intention of sexually assaulting his victim, and said it “just doesn’t make sense” that the boy would lie to his best friend, his mother and police, and put himself through the trial unless he was telling the truth.
The jury deliberated for half a day before finding Mann guilty.
Header image: Left Azad Singh Mann. Right, Mann visiting a service station after the assault (Napier District Court).
