A TAXI driver abused his position by preying on two young female passengers in the space of six days, a court heard.

Metro Taxis driver Kamran Ali repeatedly sexually assaulted a 24-year-old woman during a 45-minute journey in Bolton on March 22 last year.

The woman had flagged his private hire vehicle down in the street, providing a fare Ali was not allowed to take under his licence.

Ali even went as far as seizing his victim’s mobile phone because he thought she was telling someone what was happening to her.

Just six days later, he was booked to pick-up a 17-year-old girl and her friend, collecting them from Morrisons in Harwood and driving to a nearby house.

During the short journey, he touched her thigh and chest, before grabbing the girl outside the cab and asking her to “give him a hug”.

He has now been jailed for 12 months and banned from driving a private hire vehicle with female passengers for the rest of his life.

Bolton Crown Court heard at his sentencing hearing yesterday how he took advantage of both victims after they had been drinking.

Recorder David Heaton QC said he was not in a position to suspend any sentence Ali was given, and said his victims had been “frightened and humiliated" and left "feeling degraded with a degree of shame and embarrassment”.

The 17-year-old girl told her mother what had happened immediately, and she rang Metro, who provided Ali's badge number, which enabled police to interview him.

Ali, aged 43, of Southwood Close, Great Lever, has no previous convictions and came to the UK in 1988 to marry, the court was told, and now has five children.

He denied both offences up to the day of trial, telling police in interview that he had not assaulted the women and that his only contact with the 17-year-old girl was to "high-five" her.

She said she was sitting in the front passenger seat, when Ali had placed his hand on her thigh, and began to move it towards her genital area.

He then touched her chest, and tried to put his hand into her top to touch her breast.

Recorder Heaton said: "As a taxi driver, members of the public place a degree of trust and they are entitled to do so, particularly in the small hours of the morning and especially if they are under the influence of alcohol.

"You took advantage of these ladies over a prolonged period of time."

Ali was also placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.