After a night out in Kings Cross, a woman looked at her phone and saw close-up photographs of herself, and the message: "hey sassy, come ana get a ride with me anyiime [sic]."
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She had vague memories of being put in a taxi by friends, being taken to a location near water, and the driver groping her.
When the woman, her boyfriend and her friends pieced together what happened in the early hours of Sunday, May 18, 2014, they realised a taxi driver had taken her to a secluded part of Sydney, taken photos of her, and then driven her home two hours later.
The driver sent her the photos, including an image of her walking into her flat, and the "sassy" text message after the journey to her home.
NSW Roads and Maritime later cancelled Yi Jin Chen's taxi driver's authority. In a ruling handed down last month, and published on Wednesday, the Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld that decision.
The woman made a complaint to the department, saying she was drunk about 4am when her friends organised a taxi to take her to her Darlinghurst flat, just a few streets away.
Instead, the woman said, the driver took her to an area near water, and she had vague memories of him touching her breasts.
Her boyfriend, who was waiting on the street to pay the taxi fare, tried calling her phone, and ran around nearby streets looking for her, before she arrived about 6am.
Taxi records confirmed that Mr Chen, also known as Peter Chen, had picked up the woman at 4.22am, and driven to Blues Point Road, McMahons Point, where the cab stopped for an hour, before returning to Darlinghurst.
Mr Chen told the tribunal he initially drove the woman to her street, but when her boyfriend wasn't waiting outside for her, she mentioned going to McMahons Point, where they "chatted" and she slept.
He admitted to investigators that he took photographs of them "having a good time", and sent the woman the images and text messages.
The woman had given him her number because she lost her phone in the taxi, and asked him to call it so she could find it, the tribunal heard.
The driver told the investigators he was concerned about the woman's safety because she had been drinking, but could not explain why, if he was so worried, he didn't take her to a hospital or police station.
The tribunal accepted the evidence of the woman and her friends, finding Mr Chen was not a "fit and proper person" to drive a taxi.
