Dubai: A driver has been accused of groping a drunken saleswoman who fell asleep in the back seat of his taxi while driving her home at 4.30am.

The 22-year-old Lebanese saleswoman was said to be with her friend when they flagged down the 30-year-old Pakistani taxi driver, S.A., at Dubai Downtown in April.

Records said the friend stepped out first while the other woman stayed in the taxi as S.A. drove towards her house in Jumeirah Lakes Towers. “I was under the influence of liquor… I was feeling very sleepy so I napped in the back seat. I woke up suddenly when the driver was trying to put a pillow behind my head. When I screamed at him, he forced me to stay down so that nobody noticed us,” the Lebanese woman claimed to the investigating prosecutors.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said S.A. abused the fact that the woman had fallen asleep before he molested her.

Prosecutors said the suspect parked his taxi on the right side of the road before he groped the woman.

“That is absolutely not true. I did not molest her. She was very drunk and fell asleep. I just patted her head and woke her up once I reached her address,” argued the driver when he entered a not guilty plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Sunday.

When asked by presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi if he groped the woman, the defendant strongly refuted the accusation in courtroom seven.

The saleswoman testified to prosecutors that the incident happened shortly after she and her friend left a nightclub where they had been drinking.

“I felt very sleepy, so I stretched out on the back seat and fell asleep. I woke up to the driver putting a pillow under my head. He sat over me while the doors were closed. I tried to sit back but he pushed me down… I yelled at him but he pinned me down so that nobody could see me in the car. When a car stopped beside the taxi, he kept me down to avoid being seen. When I continued yelling, he returned to his seat and drove to the destination. He drove off and I did not even pay the tariff… then I reported the matter to the police,” she claimed.

A police corporal testified to prosecutors that the saleswoman was drunk and crying when she called the police. She complained that the driver molested her, said the corporal.

A ruling will be heard on October 22.