SINGAPORE — Instead of driving her home, a private-hire driver took a drunk passenger to a deserted open car park and raped her.

He also took obscene photos of the woman and shared them with a friend.

On Friday (May 17), 39-year-old Mohammad Noorandy Wahid was sentenced by the High Court to 11 years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane.

His sentence was backdated to April 27, 2022 when he was first remanded.

He pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one count of distributing voyeuristic images.

Seven other charges of a similar nature were taken into consideration during the sentencing.

The victim cannot be named due to a court order to protect her identity.

WHAT HAPPENED

Noorandy was employed as a delivery driver and worked at night as a private-hire driver for ride-hailing platform Ryde.

He got to know the victim, a 31-year-old woman, in December 2019 when he first picked her up outside a club.

As Noorandy would often wait outside clubs for passengers, he drove the woman and her friends from club to club on a few occasions.

On Feb 26, 2020 at about 10.50pm, the victim met her friend to go clubbing at LuLu’s Lounge located at Pan Pacific Hotel.

Later at about 12.30am, they went to another club — Avenue at Marina Bay Sands.

At about 2.45am, they left Avenue to go to another club. By this point, the victim had consumed a lot of alcohol and was feeling intoxicated, court documents stated.

Noorandy saw the victim swaying side to side and approached her.

He then drove the victim and her friend to another club, Bang Bang at Pan Pacific Hotel, at the victim’s request.

Near the hotel lobby, the victim realised that she could not locate her mobile phone.

She asked Noorandy to drive her back to Marina Bay Sands to look for it, and told her friend to go to Bang Bang nightclub first.

The victim sat in the front passenger seat and she eventually found the phone in her bag.

At this point, she felt very sleepy, so she asked Noorandy to take her home.

She fell asleep during the ride.

Instead of driving her home, Noorandy drove to Carros Centre in Kranji, which he knew to be deserted at that hour.

There, he pulled up the victim’s skirt and took five photos of her buttocks and genitals.

Noorandy sent the photos to an acquaintance via WhatsApp. One of the photos was a side profile of the victim, showing her face, which he captioned as “bonus”.

At about 3.55am, the victim woke up and Noorandy then raped her. He stopped only after he thought he saw a police car nearby.

At about 4.05am, he drove off and dropped the victim off at her home.

The victim filed a police report the next day.

RISK OF SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES

Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Pei Wei sought a sentence of 11 to 13.5 years' jail and nine strokes of the cane for Noorandy.

She said that he had exposed the victim to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy by not using a condom.

He had also been previously convicted of unrelated traffic offences, including speeding and driving without a licence.

Defence counsel Doraraj Sinnnappan from Raj Govin Law told the court that while the victim was intoxicated, she still had some level of consciousness.

In meting out the sentence, Justice Dedar Singh Gill raised several aggravating factors.

He said that the victim was in a highly vulnerable state due to being intoxicated.

He added that as a private-hire driver, Noorandy was duty-bound to provide a safe and uneventful ride to passengers.

He also noted that Noorandy was not using a condom when he raped the woman.

For rape, Noorandy could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned.