Reports of sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour by driving instructors towards their students is increasing year on year, Metro can reveal.
In response to our FOI, the DVSA shared it logged and investigated 136 complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour by driving instructors in 2024, and in 2025, that figure increased to 164 complaints.
This is an upward trend from the 131 complaints in 2023, and the 100 in 2020, a 64% increase in reports in five years.
Lucy Hepworth was just 17 when she believes she was groomed by her driving instructor, who was later convicted of sexually assaulting two of his other students.
Lucy, now 20, began lessons with Faraz Hussain, 40, in August 2023 in Fife. She says Faraz would talk about ‘personal things’ and made her feel ‘special’.
‘He asked me: “How come you don’t have a boyfriend?” and I developed a crush on him,’ Lucy tells Metro.
During one lesson, Faraz made Lucy wait in a car park while he went into a shop. He then asked her to guess what he’d purchased. ‘I asked if it was Viagra, and he made me describe to him what Viagra does,’ she explains.
Lucy says Faraz told her she knew ‘everything about sex’ and said she was ‘on heat’. But things got worse the first lesson after Lucy’s 18th birthday.
‘He said “you’ve never kissed anyone, just kiss me, because I want you to know what it feels like”,’ she adds.
Lucy initially refused because she knew he was married and had a child, but then he invited her out one evening. ‘We went to a park and he asked me to kiss him again. I agreed because I had a crush on him,’ she adds.
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The pair entered into what Lucy believed to be a relationship. While they never had penetrative sex, he asked her to perform oral sex on him on multiple occasions, which Lucy says was consensual.
‘He said if I ever told anyone, he’d never speak to me again,’ she recalls. After she left for university she ended her relationship with Faraz, and confided in friends who suggested she’d been groomed.
‘He’d taken advantage of me because I was naïve,’ she adds. ‘I feel like I lost my innocence, because he just took all those things from me. It was horrible.’
After reporting Faraz to the DVSA on Boxing Day 2023, Lucy got a new driving instructor, who informed her Faraz had been convicted of the sexual assault of two of his students.
The Courier reports he targeted a 19-year-old at the driving test centre in Kirkcaldy in February 2023. She got into his BMW to thank him after she passed her test and he put his hands between her thighs and under her top, then lunged and ‘put his tongue down [her] throat and tried to kiss [her]’.
He assaulted the second student the year before, asking if she would have sex with him and placing his hand on her inner thigh and under her jumper, touching her breast over her bra without consent.
Faraz was ordered by courts to pay the victims £500 each and has been put on the sex offenders register for five years. Lucy says he’s no longer on the list of DVSA approved driving instructors.
Phoebe Horrocks and Morgane Chapman, founders of Drive Change, are campaigning alongside FearFree’s Emergency Stop campaign for driving instructors to be included as those in positions of trust within the Sexual Offences Act, after they were both sexually assaulted by their driving instructor Michael Florek, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting five of his pupils between 2016 and 2021.
Teachers, sports coaches, and religious figures are all deemed to be in positions of trust because of their active involvement in the development of young people, but driving instructors aren’t listed.
If driving instructors were included, it would make any sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old pupil illegal, even if consensual.
Emily*, 32, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells Metro that when she was learning to drive in the past two years, her instructor would tap her on the thigh when she made a mistake.
‘I thought maybe he’s just tactile,’ she says. ‘He’d look between my legs and even said my thighs looked muscly.’
She found the behaviour ‘weird’, but felt she couldn’t quit because she’d paid for 10 lessons in advance. Once her lessons came to an end she feared reporting him.
‘He had a picture of my driving licence and knew where I lived, where I worked and roughly when I was free,’ she explains.
Katy Tomkins, 27, specifically chose her driving instructor back in 2023, because he taught students with autism and dyspraxia.
‘He advertised specialising in lessons for more vulnerable people,’ Katy tells Metro. ‘I’ve got dyspraxia. I thought “great, this is going to be somebody who I’m going to be super comfortable with”.’
This instructor was in his 50s and Katy recalls he touched her arm in her lessons and made a sexual innuendo towards her. After that, she felt anxious about her next slot with him and texted him asking to reschedule.
After some convincing, Katy agreed to go ahead with the lesson, but her instructor’s next response left her feeling uneasy.
‘He said “we can do something nice like have some ice creams on the beach. Or something else,”‘ Katy says.
”I thought he was joking,’ she adds. She confided in colleagues who said this text was ‘strange’, before calling her mum who pleaded with her not to get in her instructors car.
So, Katy told him she wasn’t going to be continuing lessons with him, and she hasn’t driven since.
‘It made me quite angry and confused, and really frustrated, because I thought I’d finally found someone who was going to understand,’ Katy sighs. ‘It felt like he was taking advantage of the fact people could be more vulnerable.’
We’re seeing a rise in women reporting their driving instructors for sexually inappropriate behaviour, Debbie Beadle CEO of FearFree – a domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking charity – tells Metro, not because the behaviour is increasing, but because women are calling it out.
‘We’re seeing more awareness around sexual harassment and abuse,’ Debbie says. ‘However, we believe DVSA figures are the tip of the iceberg.
‘Cases go unreported due to significant barriers including the power imbalance between a pupil and instructor, and the complexity of the current complaints procedure.
‘The majority of driver instructors will provide a safe learning experience, but sadly the current legal loophole makes it too easy for people who wish to target and abuse vulnerable learner drivers.
‘As well as being left alone in a car with the pupil, the instructor has access to personal details like a phone number and home address. This creates an environment where those who wish to cause harm can easily exploit the pupils in their care.’
How to vet and pick your driving instructor
Kev and Tracey Field from Confident Drivers say it’s vital to choose a genuine, registered driving instructor.
They tell Metro there are three steps you must take:
- Check the DVSA website: check your driving instructor is on the register (some driving instructors can opt out).
- Contact and chat with the driving instructor, do not just text. Ask what grade they are. A legitimate instructor will know this if they’ve completed or are undertaking the official qualification processes.
- A registered instructor must display either a green badge (fully qualified) or pink badge (trainee licence) to be able to charge for driving lessons. If they’re not displaying a badge, make sure to check the DVSA register as they may not be genuine.
Safeguarding isn’t a mandatory part of a driving instructors training, so if you feel your instructor is behaving inappropriately, keep a record of the behaviour.
‘The DVSA website offers advice and information on instructor behaviour, and you can complain about a driving instructor,’ says Kev.
‘Keep any evidence such as receipts, screenshots of messages and emails. The DVSA will not make you report the incident to the police unless you want to.’
Metro notified the DVSA of our findings and the experiences of these young women. A spokesperson told us: ‘Sexually inappropriate behaviour committed by driving instructors is unacceptable. The safety of learner drivers is our priority and DVSA treats complaints extremely seriously.’
They added that approved drivers must pass pre-registration checks and once they’re registered, they are expected to follow a strict code of practice.
‘Learner drivers should also report all incidents of sexual abuse to the police,’ they said. ‘DVSA keeps its approach under review to ensure the ongoing safeguarding of all learner drivers.’
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