A woman was raped in her flat by the black cab driver who took her home after she got drunk with colleagues, a court heard.
David Jacobs, 61, sexually assaulted the City worker at her apartment in south London after collecting her from Fleets near St Paul’s Cathedral, jurors heard.
The woman, in her 20s, had drunk an ‘awful lot’ of wine after after enjoying free celebratory drinks and decided to travel home at around 8.30pm on February 3, this year.
CCTV was shown in court of the woman falling backwards in the bar while collecting her bag and coat.
Black Cab driver David Jacobs, pictured today outside Inner London Crown Court, is accused of raping a female city worker in her 20s after he picked her up from near St Paul’s Cathedral on February 3
Amanda Hamilton, prosecuting, said the woman recalls Jacobs asking her to show him her breasts during the journey to which she pressed the record button on her phone.
During the recording, played to jurors at Inner London Crown Court, Jacobs can be heard saying ‘You might as well let me f*** you’.
The woman claims she woke up the following morning lying next to a pile of her vomit with no recollection of opening or closing her front door.
She later told police she recalled a man with a hairy body and pot belly pulling a dress over her head, then having sex with her.
Jacobs, who has worked as a taxi driver for more than 20 years, denies rape and claims the woman was flirting’ and making ‘sexual advances towards him’.
He maintains that the woman consented to sex at her flat.
Amanda Hamilton, prosecuting, asked Jacobs about his police interview in which he was asked by the police officer if he had ever had sex with a passenger before.
Jacobs had replied: ‘Oh mate, I don’t know, a few years ago when I first got the cab and [a woman] started talking about Fake Taxis (porn site) where the bloke picks women up and if they can’t pay in cash they have to pay in another way and all that.
‘I didn’t have sex with her but it was like an encounter, do you know what I mean, I’m not proud of it.’
Ms Hamilton asked: ‘So, when the officers asked if you had ever had sexual relations with a passenger you brought into your cab you said yes?’
The married father-of-two replied: ‘I didn’t understand the question, I thought they meant like talking’ Jacobs said, shaking his head.
‘I was in a high-pressure situation, I thought they were going to investigate the situation,’ said Jacobs.
‘So this previous encounter was sexual chat and not sexual touching in anyway?’ said Ms Hamilton.
‘Absolutely not,’ replied Jacobs.
Jacobs, who denies the charge, is accused of raping the woman inside her flat
Jurors heard the City worker necked ten glasses of wine and a beer between 5:30pm and 8:30pm. on February 3.
Giving her closing speech prosecutor Amanda Hilton said: ‘The victim was stumbling around slurring her words and not making much sense, she falls over on CCTV as she goes to pick up her bag.
‘You might wonder how given the fact that she couldn’t stay upright but she managed to get in the cab, record him and speak to her friend on the phone how you resolve those differences.
‘The Crown say the things drunk people can do is because they are activities of daily living, they are routine things, getting a taxi,’ said Ms Hamilton
A toxicology report of the victim’s urine revealed an extreme level of intoxication but Ms Hamilton said: ‘One such myth is that women who drink too much ask for trouble, they don’t.’
The woman was put into a cab by two of her colleagues who were fearful her drunken state may detrimentally affect her working relationship with her boss, the court heard.
‘You could conclude to yourself these women have a very boozy lifestyle something is bound to go wrong and think little beyond that or you could look carefully at the victim who she is who she knows and how she survives as a single person,’ said Ms Hamilton
‘Yes she drinks very heavily because she seems to function perfectly well in her City job, but her alcohol helps her anxiety.’
The prosecutor said the complainant recalls details of the attack such as Jacobs ‘lifting her dress over her head’.
When she told Jacobs ‘I’ve got to go to sleep’ he said ‘let me finish’, Ms Hamilton added.
She also referred to a text message sent by the alleged victim to her friend saying: ‘There’s an old fat man in my flat.’
Ms Hamilton said: ‘She was reporting that an uninvited person had entered her safe space and violated her almost contemporaneously.’
She told the jury Jacobs was married with two children who are older than the victim ‘and so you seriously expect us to believe this slurring staggering woman invited him in like a siren calling him onto the rocks to cause harm.
‘He wants you to believe that he is a victim, that he is the victim of a flirty attention seeking seducer who has set him up and that’s why he is here and that’s the bed rock on which he has built his arguments, this was all her plan,’ said Ms Hamilton
‘He violated a woman in her own home, she says she can’t live there now and hasn’t spent a night in the bedroom where the rape happened since that night.
‘Her patchy memory of her being undressed and him towering above her tells her everything you want to know about whether she was consenting or not.’
Defending Jacobs, Rhiannon Crimmons, KC, told the jury in her closing speech: ‘How many times in your life have you heard people say “I can’t believe I did that” “omg I cant believe that” after a night out?’
She said: ‘People make bad decisions when they’ve been drinking all the time, whether or not someone regrets that situation is neither here nor there.’
‘There is no requirement the consent be verbal it can be from acts or behaviour.
‘It is not rape for a man to have sex with a woman who has been drinking, the question is what she could understand, that doesn’t change regardless of if the man was sober or drunk, just because a woman has been drinking it doesn’t mean a man can’t have sex with her.
‘I’m not saying David Jacobs is any kind of saint, quite evidently he is not, he is a married man, he hurt his wife, his family, he’s lost his job.
‘He will not work as a black cab driver again, he should never have had sex with a passenger no matter what she said or did and of course he will pay for all of that he will have to rebuild the relationships.
‘In his family he is in his own words the very least a fool, but he is not a rapist.’
Jacobs, of Barking, east London, claims his fare became flirty very quickly as she allegedly showed her breasts to him to which he admits asking ‘are they yours?’.
He denies rape and maintains the woman consented to sex.
The trial continues.