UPDATE
Police charged Phuket taxi driver Piti Siriyotha with the rape of a Swedish tourist today after a medical examination indicated that intercourse was not consensual. Chalong Superintendent Colonel Kaitong Jantongbai hopes the case can proceed in court on Monday so the tourist can fly out as planned on Tuesday. After the assault, the driver, who is married, dropped the woman back at her resort, the colonel said.
Original Report
A SWEDISH tourist visiting Phuket has told police that she was raped by a taxi driver in Karon early today.
The woman, aged 21, told police that she was walking on the beachfront Leabchaihad Road near Karon sports stadium soon after midnight when a taxi driver stopped and offered her a ride.
She had been drinking in a bar nearby. Instead of taking the woman to her resort, the man took her to the quiet area alongside the Karon lagoon, near the beachfront.
The rape took place in the taxi there, the young Swede told police at Chalong today.
Police arrested a driver and were questioning him this afternoon. His taxi was being held for a forensic investigation.
The man, a ''black'' illegal taxi driver based near the Karon stadium, said he had picked up the Swedish tourist, and that the intercourse was consensual.
The Swedish woman was being comforted today by members of her family and staff from the resort where they had been staying.
She was taken to Vachira Hospital in Phuket City for an examination. The family is due to fly home on Tuesday.
Tourists who become rape victims on Phuket are sometimes reluctant to stay on the island for court cases because of the trauma and expense involved.
Honorary consuls have been pressing for a rape crisis centre on Phuket to provide international standards for care of victims.
Some honorary consuls believe that the low numbers of prosecutions means some perpetrators become repeat offenders, believing they will never be caught and punished.
One serial rapist confessed last week to abusing Nepalese women over a period of about 12 months while pretending to be a police officer.
PHOTO ALBUM A crowd of 200 praises the arrest of a salesman who posed as a policeman to commit about 13 rapes of Nepalese women he abducted from Phuket.
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If Phuket and Thailand was serious about justice the evidence could be given before the victims returned home. It's been done before, why isn't it a standard practice?
Is there no existing rape crisis center for Thais?
Posted by John Le Fevre on April 10, 2011 17:56