Former Halifax taxi driver convicted of sexually assaulting passenger

A former taxi driver sobbed in the gallery of a Halifax courtroom after a judge found him guilty of sexually assaulting a female passenger.

“No, no, no,” Marwan Al Ali, 51, cried as he dropped to his knees after Chief Judge Perry Borden delivered the verdict in provincial court Thursday.

The judge ordered a presentence report at the request of defence lawyer Jennifer Anderson and scheduled Al Ali’s sentencing hearing for April 2.

A young woman testified at trial last August that during a trip from downtown Halifax to an apartment building in the south end in the early-morning hours of May 23, 2022, the driver touched her hair, kissed her twice, grabbed her left breast and put a hand on her right thigh – all without her consent.

The university student, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she was “pretty intoxicated” at the time but had a “straight mind.”

She said the driver stopped the taxi shortly after she got into it on Grafton Street and demanded that she move from the back seat to the front seat. She said she did so against her better judgment.

The woman said the driver pulled the vehicle over again on the next street and asked if he could touch her hair. She told the court that when she said “no,” he asked again, “getting more and more aggressive,” so she gave in to his demand.

When they reached her destination on Fenwick Street, the woman said she asked the driver how much she owed, and he answered, “whatever you got.” She said she told him she only had $5 and asked if that was OK, and he said “yes.”

She said the driver asked five or six times if he could kiss her. She said she kept saying “no” and that she had to go see her friends, but she eventually relented.

“I was thinking, ‘If I do this, I can get out of the car pretty quick,’” she explained.

After kissing her on the lips, the driver put a hand down her tank top and touched her left breast for about 15 seconds, she recounted. She said his other hand went down the right side of her body and touched her inner thigh over her pants.

The driver then pressed her for “just one more kiss,” which she reluctantly agreed to, she said. “It was a lot of open mouth,” she said of the second kiss.

She said she gave the driver the $5, unlocked the door and left the vehicle.

The complainant said she told a young man in the parking lot that something had just happened in the cab and got him to escort her to her friend’s apartment.

Al Ali, a married father of five who lives in Halifax, insisted in his testimony last fall that any physical contact with the passenger was with her permission and was only for the purpose of consoling her.

He said the woman, who was emotional and crying, inquired if she could switch to the front seat.

After they talked about why she was sad, he said he stopped the vehicle again and, wanting to comfort her, asked if he could touch her hair. He said he did not raise his voice or speak in a threatening tone.

He said the woman kept on crying and mumbling to herself as he drove to the Fenwick Street address. 

“She gave me the money, and she was so kind, and she came to hug me,” Al Ali said. “I thought hugging was thanking.”

As she drew close, he said he asked if he could kiss her, and she said, “Yes, of course.”

“My face came closer to her,” Al Ali said. “I can’t remember if my lips touched her, but that was possible.

“But then suddenly, I pushed her away from me. I remembered my wife, my children, and I said there’s something wrong here. … I told her, ‘You should go home and rest.’”

He denied touching the woman’s breast or thigh or trying to kiss her a second time.

Judge’s analysis

In his decision, the judge said the complainant presented detailed, compelling evidence in a “candid and straightforward manner,” with no embellishment.

“The same level of detail and precision cannot be said regarding Mr. Al Ali’s evidence,” Borden said. “To be candid, I found the entirety of Mr. Al Ali’s evidence self-serving and outlandish.

“I conclude he (was) neither a reliable nor credible witness.”

The judge noted several parts of Al Ali’s evidence that were problematic, including his assertion that he didn’t find the complainant pretty.

“It doesn’t make sense that he doesn’t find her attractive, yet he is the one who is asking if he could kiss her,” Borden said.

“I also have concerns about what he told the police and what he testified to in court relating to pushing her away. He told the police that she smelled awful, and he told me that he (remembered) his family, and that fact, combined with her smell, caused him to push her away.

“If she smelled as bad as he stated, why would he ask to kiss her in the first place?”

Borden said he accepted the woman’s evidence regarding switching seats, the hair touching, the kissing and the sexual touching.

‘Vitiated consent’

“During each sequence of these events, (she) told him ‘no,’” the judge said. “She said his voice deepened and he had a threatening tone.”

Borden said the woman’s claim of a threatening tone was substantiated by Al Ali’s own testimony.

“There were multiple times during the trial that when Mr. Al Ali was testifying through (an Arabic) interpreter, he would often speak over the interpreter … in an aggressive or agitated tone. This is consistent with the evidence of (the complainant).

“I conclude that (her) acquiescing to the seat change, the hair touching and the kisses was vitiated consent. … He knew that she said ‘no’ to each request, and he persisted in his request to get the desired answer.

“The Crown has proven that he touched (her) breast, thigh, hair and kissed her without her consent.”