A predatory public servant who admitted sexually assaulting two 19-year-olds while posing as an Uber driver will spend less than four months behind bars.
Pratik Shah, 45, a married father of three, attacked the two teens after picking them up from Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in 2021 in his wife’s car with rideshare signage on it.
He assaulted his first victim while driving her home, and weeks later did the same to the second teenager, ignoring her pleas for him to stop.
After dropping her off at her home Shah then followed her inside to her bedroom and assaulted her again.
He pleaded guilty to four charges – three counts of sexual assault and one of burglary – in Brisbane Magistrate’s Court last week where his lawyer blamed a fall as a child for an “organic brain injury” that made him less morally culpable than the average person, the Courier Mail reported.
On Friday he was given a four-year sentence, but Magistrate Belinda Merrin ordered he be released on probation on May 8.
The court was read a victim impact statement saying one victim was once “carefree bubbly and social” but two and a half years after the attacks was still a “sad broken little bird”.
A family member of one of the victims said after sentencing that Shah had put her daughter through “absolute hell”.
“My daughter has suffered severe depression, complex PTSD, all as a result of his offending. She no longer trusts people.”
