A defence lawyer has presented his final arguments at the sexual assault retrial of a former taxi driver in Halifax.

Bassam Al-Rawi is accused of sexually assaulting a female passenger inside his taxi in May 2015.

A police constable testified during the judge-only trial that she found a woman passed out and mostly naked in the back of a taxi, with the driver between her legs.

The complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, has told the court she was drunk on the evening of May 22, 2015, and does not remember leaving a downtown bar.

She testified that her next memory was being in a hospital with two nurses and a police officer.

The woman said she would not have consented to sex with the cab driver.

Al-Rawi testified in his own defence at the trial. When questioned about a condom being found in the cab, he told the court that he has carried a condom since he was 23 years old.

When asked why his pants were unbuttoned, he testified that he sits for long hours in the car, and it’s more comfortable to have his pants unbuttoned.

Al-Rawi's defence lawyer, Ian Hutchison, presented his final arguments Thursday at Halifax provincial court.

Hutchison questioned why Al-Rawi would park his taxi in a residential area with his headlights and roof light on, knowing his taxi had a GPS tracker, if he intended to commit sexual assault.

Hutchison also took aim at the Crown's assertion that Al-Rawi allegedly committed the sexual assault while he was in the front seat of the vehicle and the complainant was in the back, saying that would have been difficult to do within the confines of the cab.

The Crown is expected to present its closing arguments on Friday.

The judge will likely deliver a verdict at a later date.

This is Al-Rawi’s second sexual assault trial. He was acquitted of sexual assault in March 2017, but his acquittal was overturned by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, which concluded the judge erred in law by finding there was no evidence of lack of consent.

In his decision at the first trial, Judge Gregory Lenehan said: "clearly, a drunk can consent” -- a remark that sparked a national debate over intoxication and the capacity to consent to sex.

An independent judicial review committee last year dismissed several complaints against Lenehan, saying it found no evidence of impermissible reasoning or bias in his ruling.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Heidi Petracek and The Canadian Press