Englishwoman claims sexual attack, robbery in Saigon

The 29-year-old woman, who’s an English teacher at a HCMC school and wishes to stay anonymous, says the attack happened near 4 a.m. on October 11.

She has claimed that the man was wearing a GrabBike uniform, the Phap Luat TPHCM reported Tuesday, citing city police.

The woman had booked a Grab ride from Nguyen Hue Street in District 1 to an apartment in District 2’s Mai Chi Tho Street. After a while, a man aged 22-30 and wearing a Grab helmet, arrived to pick her up. While he spoke no English, he appeared to confirm the Englishwoman’s booking.

As he drove through a field with tall grasses, he stopped. The woman thought there was some trouble with the motorbike, so she tried to ask what happened. But the man grabbed and sexually attacked her. When she resisted, he beat her and snatched her phone, ignoring her pleas. She then ran away and he pursued her, but she managed to escape. She did not get raped, the woman said.

Despite not knowing where she was or where she was attacked, the woman managed to get back to the place she came from after an hour of walking.

She reported the incident to Grab and tracked down her phone through GPS to a location in District 7, but the clue led nowhere.

In an exchange with the press, a Grab representative said the company is aware of the incident and has verified that whoever attacked the Englishwoman was not a GrabBike driver.

A HCMC police source has said that the woman did book a ride through the Grab application that night, but the actual driver could not find her at her location, and canceled the ride.