A BIRMINGHAM taxi driver was today beginning a six year jail sentence for the brutal rape of a 16-year-old girl passenger. Private hire driver Ghulam Haider collected the student from her boyfriend's house but drove her to a derelict church graveyard where he attacked her. The father-of-four, 49, of Augusta Road, Acocks Green, was jailed after a jury found him guilty of indecent assault and rape at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday. Haider, whose eldest daughter was in court, stared at the floor as the judge, Recorder Rachel Brand QC, told him he had committed a "gross breach of trust". But in a frank and emotional interview with the Birmingham Mail the young victim today criticised the judge, adding: "I've got the life sentence". Haider, based at Premier Cars in Acocks Green, told the court he had "lost his senses that night". As well as serving a prison sentence, Haider will be put on the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life following the attack last September. Recorder Brand told him: "What you did in committing these offences amounts to a terrifying and degrading attack on a girl of only 16. "In the past you have been a good Muslim and a respectable, hard-working family man. All that has been thrown away by what you did." She added: "When members of the public ring reputable, licensed taxi firms they are entitled to expect the passengers carried are more safe than they would be if they had walked the streets. Your actions were a gross breach of trust." The teenager plans to return to college in September and hopes to work as a mentor for children from difficult backgrounds because of her own experience. He got six years... I have a life sentence IT should have been the end to a perfect night. A city schoolgirl, just turned 16, had been out with her new boyfriend to celebrate a 40th birthday with his family. Her taxi ride home would have been over in minutes, but instead it was to turn into the most terrifying ordeal of her life. What she thought would be a safe passage, with a trusted taxi firm used by her boyfriend for years, rapidly became every young girl's worst nightmare. Her boyfriend texted her mum to say she was safely on her way but instead of reaching her Yardley home, the student was taken on a frightening detour to a derelict church graveyard where cabbie Ghulam Haider raped her. As the brave youngster, now 17, recalls the moments after she left her boyfriend's house, past midnight, she is composed and calm. But the brutal and humiliating attack that followed still haunts her dreams. She knows life will never be the same again and feels a change in herself. She says she is cold towards others now, even her mum. Outside court the pretty teenager, dressed in blue jeans, grabbed her mother's hand to thank her for persuading her to go ahead with the traumatic court case. "It has definitely changed me. I'm less affectionate with everyone, even my mum. I can be so horrible and cold to people but before I wasn't like that," she said. "When it happened it was like being frozen in time and as if it was happening to someone else. It was the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. "I don't know what it would have done to me if he was found not guilty. It's been hard enough but it would have completely destroyed me. "Six years is not long enough for something like that. I've got the life sentence, I'm stuck with this forever. But I want to put this behind me and just get on with my life." The girl's 41-year-old mum said her daughter was never an "out-on-the-town girl" but after this she hardly goes out at all. She adds: "My daughter wakes up at night and sees his face over hers. "As parents when your children get put into a taxi you expect them to be safe. "Now it's hard for us if our daughter goes anywhere. I would say to all girls out there look at your driver's badge and try and take a number.
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