Uber driver in Brisbane fined after asking lesbian passenger how she has sex
Image: Image: Uber / Facebook.
A Brisbane Uber driver has been fined after telling a rider that homosexuality is not accepted in his home country, and asking for details of how she had sex.
Umar Subi Gammeda pleaded guilty on Friday to causing a public nuisance over the incident, which occurred last year, according to the Brisbane Times.
He had originally also been charged with deprivation of liberty over allegedly holding the rider for over an hour, but that charge was dropped due to lack of evidence.
He has avoided conviction and been fined $300.
The court heard that Subi Gammeda asked the rider on a trip from her Paddington home to Fortitude Valley if she was married, leading her to tell him she was gay.
Subi Gammeda told her that homosexuality was not condoned in Ethopia, and went on to ask for details of how she had sex with her partner.
The public nuisance charge was in relation to his questioning about sex.
His lawyer, Debra Wardle, told the court that Subi Gammeda “fully accepts that it’s offensive here and he shouldn’t have said it”.
“This offence really boils down to cultural differences and not understanding, and he apologises for the offence that he has caused,” she said.
Subi Gammeda has not worked as an Uber driver since being charged, but his lawyer told the court he planned to return to professional driving.
And here we go…
It gets pretty f*cking hard to preach on the “inclusive” soapbox when you get these “not allowed in MY country” d*ckheads doing this. FFS. Not that it’s exclusive to non-AU natives to be d*ckheads, it just makes the whole thing even harder.
Honestly, if being here in AU is soooo affronting to you, why be here? I know for a fact that there are a LOT of LGBTI-hating countries to choose from– so why choose AU? Seriously.