MID-MORNING last Thursday, a 60-year-old grandmother, a passenger on board a 24-seater red-band maxi, received a rude awakening from the male passenger seated next to her.

The man, whom she described as being of East Indian descent, and about 5’ - 3”, and who continuously drooped off on her shoulder as he pretended to fall asleep, turned out to be nothing but a sicko.

According to the shocked granny, as he “slept” his hand somehow found its way between her legs and when she moved it, he quickly grabbed on to his genitals and began masturbating. She noted that he made loud moaning and groaning sounds in the process.

“It was real disgusting,” remarked the still traumatised granny.

“I have often read about this thing happening to other people, but I never thought it could happen to me.

“No respect at all.”

She went on: “I’m a big woman with grandchildren.

“When it happened I wondered how many unsuspecting schoolgirls might have fallen victim to this sicko.

“How many of them he interfered with as he ‘slept’,” she asked.

Saying that she was still trying to come to terms with the embarrassing incident, the Port of Spain resident spoke to TnT Mirror about what occurred minutes after she boarded the maxi-taxi at City Gate, Port of Spain bound for Arouca to visit a relative.

She explained: “I hardly ever use public transport, but whenever I do I hire a taxi to take me to my destination.”

She said on that day, however, she had no other choice but to use the maxi-taxi service, a move she has since regretted.

“I sat two seats behind the driver,” she revealed.

“Sitting next to me was this Indian guy in his early 30s dressed in red shirt, denim pants and wearing dark shades.

“As the maxi drove out City Gate he began nodding off and kept coming closer and closer to me.

“I put my handbag between us to avoid any contact but that didn’t stop him from rubbing up on me.”

She said at first she gave in to his indiscretion because “I felt he might have just come off work, was tired and sleepy and fell asleep, as many people do while travelling.

“But the sicko was quite awake with other things on his mind.

“Somehow or the other, by the time we reached Morvant Junction, the man’s hand reach between my leg.”

Taken aback as she was with the latest development, the woman said she took up his limp hand and rested it back on his lap.

“It was then he held on to his crotch and started playing with himself as he made funny noises.”

She said she froze in her seat.

“I became numb, like I didn’t know what to do.

“I was really confused.”

After a while, she managed to compose herself and raised an alarm around Trincity Junction.

“I called out to the driver, telling him to get the sicko out of the maxi.”

She said all he did was remove himself from next to her and sat in a seat just ahead.

“When the maxi reached Five Rivers Junction, Arouca, he paid the driver with the $5 he had in his hand and jumped out.”

She further told Mirror that other passengers were angry with her that she didn’t raise an alarm before.

“But I was stunned, scared and really didn’t know how to act at the time.”

The elderly lady said she felt that her body was violated on board the maxi-taxi.

“I really felt that I was raped, it was a bad experience and I wish it upon no one.”

She is now warning young women travelling along the corridor to be on the lookout for him.