Dubai: A babysitter denied slapping her sponsor’s boy and treating him abusively for dropping her phone on the ground as she entered a not guilty plea in court on Tuesday.

A neighbour of the five-year-old boy’s mother was said to have spotted the 48-year-old Filipina babysitter slapping the child repeatedly and grabbing his neck abusively as she was scolding the boy for dropping her phone on the ground by mistake in December.

The boy’s mother was at work in another emirate when the neighbour, according to records, intervened to stop the babysitter from assaulting the boy.

The neighbour took the boy away from the babysitter, kept him with her until his mother came and she notified her that she had seen the Filipina abusing the boy at the park of the villa compound where they live.

The Filipina was taken into custody by police once the mother complained.

Prosecutors charged the 48-year-old suspect with assaulting the child.

“I am not guilty,” the suspect told the Dubai Misdemeanours Court on Tuesday.

The presiding judge adjourned the case until the suspect’s lawyer studies the case file and prepares a written defence argument later this month.

Records said the five-year-old boy stopped loving the suspect and stopped sleeping comfortably due to upsetting dreams that he started having after she had reportedly beaten him on three different occasions.

The suspect was hired by the boy’s mother to take good care of her child and watch him out during her presence at her work, said records.

On the day of the incident, the 48-year-old slapped the boy three times and grabbed him by his neck abusively as she was scolding him for dropping her phone on the ground by mistake.

A woman neighbour, who witnessed the suspect’s heartless behaviour with the boy, according to prosecutors, rushed towards her, scolded her and kept the five-year-old child with her until his mother returned home.

According to prosecutor records, several women neighbours testified that they had seen the suspect repeatedly beating the boy on the premises on different occasions.

Dubai Police’s forensic examiner confirmed that the boy had sustained different injuries.