Cab driver who posed as doctor and filmed himself having sex with Muslim women is jailed

Farhan Mirza was convicted of sexual assault, blackmail, voyeurism, theft and fraud

Will Worley
Saturday 26 November 2016 22:14 GMT
Farhan Mirza's fake profile picture on a dating website, where he pretended to be a doctor
Farhan Mirza's fake profile picture on a dating website, where he pretended to be a doctor (Gwent Police/PA Wire)

A man who pretended to be a doctor to impress women then secretly filmed himself having sex with them has been jailed for eight and a half years.

Farhan Mirza, 38, from Abertillery, South Wales, used the videos to blackmail his victims, who were all Muslim women.

They were targeted because of the acute shame they would suffer if the films were made public.

Mirza also threatened to send the videos to one of his victim’s relatives in Pakistan, where she feared they could be targeted by extremist religious groups.

He was convicted on charges of sexual assault, blackmail, voyeurism, theft and fraud against three victims at Cardiff Crown Court. Judge Tom Crowther described his actions as “pure misogyny”.

Mirza met the women, who were looking for long term relationships, using a false profile on dating website Shaadi.

To impress and manipulate them into sex, he would hang surgical scrubs in his wardrobe and also carry a stethoscope. In reality, he worked as a taxi driver and IT worker and lived with his mother.

He also falsely told one woman he was an IT manager and his family were all in successful jobs, such as that his father was a company director in Pakistan and his sister was a doctor.

A victim went to the police after she discovered £70,000 in cash at his house and intimate images of herself and other women.

“It is the prosecution’s case that Mr Mirza is a particular kind of sexual predator and he chooses his victims carefully,” said prosecutor Timothy Evans to the court, the Guardian reported.

“Because of their religious and ethnic backgrounds, he targeted them because of the terror, embarrassment and humiliation that each of these ladies would have felt in their minds by what this defendant did to them.”

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