A Dunedin taxi driver is accused of molesting a female passenger after giving her a free ride home.
Salimbhai Gulamhussein Wadhwania (36) is on trial before the Dunedin District Court after pleading not guilty to seven counts of indecent assault, all stemming from the same incident on February 19 last year.
The complainant, a young woman, had been celebrating a friend's 18th birthday on a night out in the Octagon but when she was separated from the rest of the party, decided to go home.
After trying to contact her boyfriend, she told the court, she set off walking south down the one-way system to his house.
At a petrol station she saw Wadhwania's white van. She had met him before and they chatted briefly on the forecourt.
The woman said he offered her a free ride home, though there was some dispute as to whether that happened during the journey to Musselburgh or beforehand.
When the taxi driver turned off Andersons Bay Rd towards St Kilda, it took the complainant a minute to realise they were heading in the wrong direction, she said.
Wadhwania pulled up in John Wilson Ocean Dr. The GPS tracker on the car would put him there, Crown prosecutor Catherine Ure said.
The woman said she was confused about why they had stopped at the darkened lookout. She told the jury Wadhwania began by "stroking" her face and neck as she tried to lean away from him.
"I was nervous and scared and I didn't really know what to do. I guess I froze for a bit," she said.
The driver allegedly kissed her on the cheek and mouth briefly while she tried to deter him.
The touching allegedly progressed to groping the complainant's breast and then slipping his hand under her dress, moving up to her underwear.
Ms Ure asked the woman why she did not leave the vehicle.
"I didn't know if he would hurt me so I thought it would've been safer to stay where I was. I felt like there was so many things I couldn't control if I got out of the van," she said.
Eventually, Wadhwania dropped her near her destination.
Ms Ure asked the woman why it took her more than a month to approach police.
"I didn't know if I should go to the police. I was just scared," she said.
Counsel Len Andersen had an alternative explanation.
"The reason you made the complaint 32 days after the incident was that you knew cameras were normally kept for 30 days . . . You didn't want to be caught out," he said.
The woman denied that.
Mr Andersen also asked the jury to consider two other issues.
"If the defendant was going to give a free ride, why did he turn the meter on and activate the GPS?
"And in terms of the layout of the taxi van, was it physically possible for the events the complainant said occurred?
"The defence is that the assaults claimed did not occur," he said.
The trial continues.