False claims: Mohammed Asif was cleared thanks to a phone app (Picture: NTI)

An innocent taxi driver was saved from a sex attack charge by a mobile phone app which exposed his accuser’s lies.

Mohammed Asif was arrested after passenger Astria Berwick told police he threatened her with a knife before indecently assaulting her in February.

Berwick, 27, even slashed her own face in an attempt to back up her false accusations.

Mr Asif was stopped and arrested while driving back to his taxi company and forced to spend the day at a police station – while his parents and two young children were told of the claims.


The 45-year-old’s ordeal ended only when police listened to a recording on his phone of his taxi ride with Berwick.

Jailed: Astria Berwick (Picture: Tim Stewart)

The recording, on an app downloaded to his Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, revealed no attack took place. ‘She really has turned my life upside down and I truly wish I can go back to how I used to be, but life is hard at the moment,’ he said.



He now feels ‘scared’ when picking up passengers and will ‘always pray that the passenger is never a female on her own’.

Mr Asif, from Carlton near Nottingham, made the voice recording because the CCTV in his cab was broken. Berwick, from Bingham in Nottinghamshire, was jailed for 16 months after admitting perverting the course of justice.

Sentencing her at Nottingham crown court, judge Michael Stokes said: ‘Had he not recorded the conversation which demonstrated nothing untoward had occurred, he would probably still be in custody awaiting trial.’

Det Con Laura Clarke, from Nottinghamshire police, said: ‘Falsely reporting crimes like this does not just cause harm to the unsuspecting victim. True victims may be reluctant to report crimes.’