Dubai: A cleaner, who lured a child to a building’s security room where he kissed and groped him and then made him touch him, will spend six months in jail.

The six-year-old boy was playing in the garden of his family’s residence with the neighbour’s son when the latter returned to his parents’ flat to bring a game in October.

When the neighbour’s son was late in coming back, the six-year-old boy went to his flat before the building’s 37-year-old Indian cleaner stopped him.

The boy told the cleaner to let him go to the neighbour’s flat but the cleaner talked him into accompanying him to the security room to show him the surveillance cameras.

The 37-year-old then lifted the boy up to a table beside the screens and kissed the boy, then groped him and made him touch him indecently.

When the boy saw that his friend had left the flat on the screens, he asked the 37-year-old to let him go.

The boy’s mother came to know that the cleaner had kissed and groped her son and behaved indecently with him while she was bathing her son in the evening.

The mother reported the matter to the police instantly after she discovered that the Indian cleaner had finished his work shift and left the building at 6pm.

In December, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the defendants for three months.

Prosecutors appealed the primary ruling and asked the Appeal Court to stiffen the defendant’s sentence.

Presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif accepted the prosecutors’ appeal and increased the defendant’s prison term to six months.

The accused, who pleaded not guilty, will be deported after serving his jail term.

The mother testified that her son told her that the accused took him to the security room to watch the cameras.

“Then he put him up on the table and touched him indecently and kissed him. He told me that the accused removed his dress and groped him,” said the mother.

A police lieutenant testified that the defendant admitted during questioning that he groped the boy, kissed him and tried to perform an indecent sexual act on him.

The appellate court ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court.