A rickshaw driver who sexually assaulted a young clubber has today been jailed for six months.

Mohammed Hossain, of Anne Street, Plaistow, offered his victim a free ride after seeing her crying following an argument with a friend in the early hours of March 7.

He lured the 21-year-old into his rickshaw then sat next to her in the back seat before sliding his hand up her skirt.

Police officers spotted the distressed woman stumbling out of the rickshaw near the British Museum and gave chase as Hossain, 36, pedalled off, arresting him further down the street.

Hossain, an asylum seeker from Bangladesh, said his hand went up the woman’s skirt accidentally when he lost his balance while looking for cigarettes on the back seat.

But the jury at Blackfriars Crown Court rejected his claims and found him guilty following a trial at the same court in August.

Sentencing Hossain, Judge Jane Sullivan said: “Women have the right to feel safe when travelling home at night. In my view the circumstances of this offence are too serious to enable me to suspend the sentence.

“The harm lies in the fact that you offered a lift to and then sexually assaulted a young woman leaving a night club on her own at night.”

She rejected an application by prosecutors to ban him from carrying unaccompanied female passengers in any type of vehicle after a probation report deemed the risk of his re-offending was low.

In addition to the six month jail term, Hossain was also sentenced to a 12 month supervision order and will remain on the sex offenders’ register for seven years.