Taxi driver cleared of sex assault on teenager

Gzim Margjini (44), was acquitted of two charges of sexual assault on a 17-year-old girl, now aged 18.

He denied the alleged offences and said she gave her consent to sexual contact.

Margjini, known as Jimmy, who was lodging with her family temporarily, twice came into her bedroom at her Rotherham home in the early hours in June last year.

Margjini, of Hutton Road, Kimberworth Park, was alleged to have started kissing and touching her and giving her a love bite.

The teenager told police she was frightened: “It was horrible. I could feel his teeth and it hurt.

“I was crying and I didn’t want to scream because he said to keep it a secret and I didn’t want to scream in case he did anything.”

She sent text messages to her mother, also asleep in the house, to come to help her.

They read: “Mum, come to my room without saying anything. I want you.

“Jimmy just tried it on with me. He keeps coming into my room.”

But her mother did not pick up the messages until after Margjini had been into the girl’s room a second time.

After her ordeal the alleged victim and her mother decided against reporting it to the police immediately because Margjini was still in the house and they were frightened of what he might do, the court was told.

Describing the incident in a police video played to the jury at Sheffield Crown Court the teenager said: “I was not asleep but dozing off and I heard the door go and looked up and Jimmy was there.

“He started touching and kissing me. I tried pulling away and pushing him away but he was stronger than me. I told him my mother would be in to check on me as I’m a diabetic.

“He started trying to pull my pants down and I was trying to pull them up and saying get back in your room.

“I tried pushing him off and he wouldn’t go.”

Half an hour later Margjini came back into her bedroom, but she managed to get him to go before texting her mother again.

A DNA match for Margjini was found on the teenager’s bra cup, the court heard.

Margjini told police she had been flirting with him earlier and there had been mutual touching but she was “not his type.”

He said he could not remember what happened in the bedroom, but claimed that whatever took place was with her consent.