A minicab driver who raped a City worker after she

A minicab driver who raped a City worker after she staggered drunk from a Christmas office party was today (weds) jailed for eight years.

The secretary was offered a lift home by cabbie Georgios Stafilas when she became separated from her work colleagues after drinking champagne at a black tie party in Mayfair.

The 28-year-old drifted in and out of sleep during her journey home before waking to find the driver on top of her.

Her attacker had driven her to a secluded north London carpark before climbing over to the passenger seat and raping her.

Stafilas, 40, from Catford, southeast London, denied rape but was unanimously found guilty at the Old Bailey today.

Passing sentence, Judge David Stokes, QC, said it was a ‘shameful abuse of trust.

‘What you did was shameful and dispicable.

You knew perfectly well that this young woman was very drunk.

‘You took advantage of the woman and raped her.

This was aggravated because she trusted you to take her home.

‘

Scruffy-looking Stafilas stood impassively as he was jailed for eight years.

He was also put onto the Sexual Offenders Register indefinitely for life.

The woman, who was not in court, is said to have lost her self-esteem, cannot relax socially and often breaks down in tears, it was revealed in her impact statement.

She had been with colleagues from a Liverpool Street-based accountancy company four days before Christmas last year.

As part of the office party the group moved from the Mayfair restaurant to a nightclub in King’s Road, Chelsea but the woman and two colleagues went instead to Dover Street Wine Bar, in Piccadilly.

‘She was doing what everybody does year after year at Christmas parties – eating, drinking and dancing,’ said Miss Kate Bex, prosecuting.

The New Zealand born woman said she sat drinking champagne and wine until 3am before becoming separated from her pals after going to fetch her coat.

When she left the bar a group of minicab drivers were offering their services including the Greek-born defendant in his Ford Orion.

The woman said she felt sleepy and ‘just wanted to go to bed’.

‘I don’t remember the journey home at all but I woke up at one point at some traffic lights – that was probably two minutes from home,’ she told.

In a voice barely louder than a whisper, she sobbed: ‘I don’t know why I woke up but when I did the driver’s hand was on my thigh.

‘I just brushed his hand away and told him not to do it.

I didn’t want him touching me.

The raven-haired woman next woke up still seated in the car now parked at Willesden Green library car park, north London.

She dropped her voice and wept: ‘I woke up and he was climbing on top of me, facing me.

I just felt him against me.

‘

She told how she was raped by the driver before pushing him away and telling him to stop.

The woman scrambled from the car and arrived home so distressed she could not speak.

She added: ‘When I got home I was crying because what he had done to me.

It made me feel disgusted.

I did not give my consent or initiate it.

‘

The prosecutor admitted the woman, who was wearing a skirt, strappy shoes and a long-sleeve cardigan, was in an ‘extremely drunken state’.

Miss Bex said: ‘She was driven to the library and Stafilas parked his car at the back of the car park.

‘He climbed over the top of her into the passenger side and pushed her knickers to one side and raped her.

‘It lasted about four minutes.

He climbed off because she awoke and pushed him away.

‘All she was aware of was his face on her neck.

‘

When arrested the driver, a married father-of-one, claimed the woman had not only consented but initiated the sex.

He claimed she approached him outside the wine bar and gave him ‘the come on’.

When he dropped her off at the library she said, ”let’s have sex”, he told the police when quizzed.

But Miss Bex said the woman was incapable of giving consent and added: ‘Why if it was consensual to something she initiated did she react the way she did to her housemates?’

Stafilas, of Fairford Court, Exbury Road, Catford denied rape on December 21 last year.

ends