A bus driver sexually assaulted a teenager who had become stranded trying to get home.
Predator Damien Doyle offered the 16-year-old girl a lift after she fell asleep on a bus, missing her last service home. He then locked the terrified girl in his car and abused her, making the disgusting remark, "I bet you get really horny when you're drunk".
The girl had been trying to get home from Liverpool city centre in September 2022, taking a bus to St Helens, but fell asleep on the journey, Liverpool crown court heard. Waking up at the depot, panic set in when she realised there were no more buses home.
She spotted Doyle walking to his car and, too afraid to call her parents for fear they would be angry, approached the driver. The 48-year-old offered her a lift, saying he had a daughter her age who he would "hate to be in that situation".
But once inside his car, the situation took an insidious turn when ex-armed forces Doyle touched her hand, offering "I'll warm you up". Prosecutor Steven Ball then told how Doyle asked the girl whether she had a boyfriend, commenting: "I bet you get really horny when you're drunk, I could take us to the beach right now." He then locked the car doors and began sexually touching her.
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Petrified, the quick-thinking teen told Doyle her friend was now coming to pick her up and he let her out of his car, Liverpool ECHO reports, with the girl hiding in a bush in terror. She told the court how the horrifying situation made her "think of the stories of horrible things happening to girls, where they sometimes end up dead".
"The feeling of his hand rubbing the inside of my thigh is a feeling I don't think I'll forget," she said. "He has no empathy for how I felt that night, no guilt for his actions and no self awareness for his inappropriate behaviour."
In an incredibly powerful move, the court also heard how the girl did not want Doyle to be jailed, but instead she "wanted to understand why somebody would do this", defence barrister Carmel Wilde said.
Doyle, from Kirkby, Merseyside, who has previous convictions for violence, had not gone out "looking for girls", Ms Wilde told the court, adding that his assault was "opportunistic offending". Doyle had denied the offence but was found guilty of one count of sexual assault. He was jailed for two years and told to sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years.
Sentencing, Judge David Swinnerton said: "I accept that what happened was not planned in advance, but you did seek to take the opportunity. That was predatory, in my view. There are two reasons that she got in the car with you. One was because you were a bus driver and she trusted you because you were in a public position."
"The other reason was because you told her you had a daughter of her age and would hate your daughter to be in that situation, therefore you would not leave her stranded. She was, not surprisingly, terrified."
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