Lesbian sex questions lead to fine for Uber driver
(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)
An Uber driver who asked a passenger for intimate details of lesbian sex has been fined by a court.
Ethiopia-born Uber driver Umar Subi Gammeda was fined over the incident during a ride in Brisbane, Australia in August 2017.
According to the Brisbane Times, Gammeda had attempted to strike up a conversation with a 25-year-old female passenger.
The driver asked the customer if she was married, prompting her to tell him that she was unmarried but had a girlfriend.
(PAU BARRENA/AFP/Getty Images)
According to the newspaper, Gammeda told her that homosexuality was not accepted in his home country.
He then began pressing her to share explicit details of how she has sex with her girlfriend.
Gammeda stopped working as an Uber driver in the wake of the incident, but the issue found its way before the courts on April 27.
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The 46-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of causing a public nuisance and was fined $300 AUS. (£160 GBP).
The newspaper reports that defence barrister Debra Wardle told the court: “He 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.”
The ride-hailing service has come under sustained fire over the past few years over a spate of homophobic incidents.
The platform insists that it takes a zero tolerance approach to homophobia and terminates drivers who are found to have acted in a discriminatory manner.
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Earlier this year a gay couple alleged they were thrown out of an Uber in Houston, Texas, for kissing.
The newly-engaged couple, Randall Magill, 28, and Jose Chavez, 26, say they simply went in for a quick peck on the lips.
But the driver in Houston, Texas, where the pair live, told them he couldn’t stand it and told them to get out.
Magill said that the driver stopped as quickly as possible to eject the pair into the middle of nowhere, at around 4am.
In June 2017, two gay men in San Francisco alleged that they were thrown out of an Uber after they kissed and said they loved each other.
The driver allegedly called them “disgusting” and told them that “fags rot in hell”.
In 2016, Uber suspended a London driver who attempted to eject a lesbian couple from his car for kissing.
