Sexual assault in a taxi: the driver request the clemency of the court

Photo Jean-François Desgagnés
Karim Chikhi, a former taxi driver, took advantage of the intoxicated female clients for sexually assault.

Kathleen Frenette

Thursday, February 8, 2018 13:35

UPDATE
Thursday, February 8, 2018 13:45

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Saying to live “a nightmare” for the past four years, a former taxi driver who took advantage of the state of intoxication of its customers to sexually assault asked for mercy of the court regarding the sentence that must be imposed.

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“Since my arrest, I live a hell… It is as if something in me had fallen on the head. In addition, my name is everywhere in the media… It is as if I was an international criminal. As if I had taken a machine gun to kill people.”

It is with these words that the accused, Karim Chikhi, an engineer by profession who was working as a taxi driver “to round out its purposes of months,” is addressed to the judge René de la Sablonnière.

In the context of comments on the sentence, Chikhi has attempted to obtain leniency from the court saying he lost two jobs, his wife, his friends and “a lot of money” following his indictment.

“I had to borrow to make a living for my children, because I have been without a job for 18 months,” added the man who has finally found a job in a box of engineers in Montreal.

“But even this work, I could lose it, if I have a criminal record… This is hell”, he added.

Me Luc Picard, the lawyer of Chikhi, has proposed to the court that his client be sentenced to community work and make a donation of up to $ 14,000 to “pay his debt to society”.

He also indicated that his client was ready to follow a therapy, and this, although “he does recognize no particular problem”.

The prosecutor, Me Governed Juneau, thinks that a punishment of 7 to 10 months imprisonment would be appropriate, in particular due to the repetitive nature of the gestures and the abuse of the trust of which Chikhi is guilty in the place of his clients.

“The taxi is a public service and the people who use it are, somehow, in a state of dependence. They rely on the professionalism of the unknown that lies behind the steering wheel, and it is this that appeals to me in this story”, has dropped out of the judge before announcing that it was all deliberate.