Dubai: A 16-year-old schoolgirl is disputing a deportation order and seeking to stay with her family after a court convicted her of having consensual sex with a driver in his car’s backseat.
In December, the Dubai Juveniles Court found the Asian teenager guilty of having consensual sex with her countryman driver and ordered that she be deported.
In August, the schoolgirl and the 27-year-old driver were caught having sex in the backseat of his car behind a school in Deira.
Following her conviction, the girl’s lawyer appealed to the appellate court to cancel the deportation order after arguing that she had been tricked by the male defendant and forced to have sex with him.
After his client denied having allowed the 27-year-old to have consensual sex with her, the lawyer contended before the appellate court that the driver promised her marriage and then forced her to sleep with him.
The lawyer asked the appellate judge to annul the deportation order and defended that the girl had had sex against her will.
In February, the Appeal Court dismissed the appeal and decided that as per article 32 of the Federal Law deportation orders cannot be appealed.
The girl’s lawyer appealed before the Dubai Cassation Court and is seeking to overturn the appellate judgment and have the deportation order annulled.
The relative of the 27-year-old used to drive the girl and other children to school before he fell ill and had to leave Dubai.
The relative was then said to have asked the 27-year-old to take up his job and drive the children to school and that was when he got acquainted to the girl nearly one year ago.
According to her statement before the police and prosecutors, the girl was quoted as having admitted that she had consensual sex with the driver twice in his car.
However when she appeared in court, she entered an innocent plea and denied that she had permitted the male defendant to have sex with her. The 27-year-old was tried before the Dubai Misdemeanours Court for having consensual sex.
In his argument before the Cassation Court, the lawyer said the 27-year-old defendant deceived his client and fooled her since she is a teenager before he gave her bogus marriage promises and that he would move in to live with her in their country.
The driver repeatedly sweet-talked the teenager for nearly one year, according to the lawyer’s argument, before he talked her into having sex with him.
The 27-year-old tricked the schoolgirl and talked her into having sex with him for the first time although she had rejected to do so in the beginning, argued the lawyer.
The male defendant exploited the girl’s adolescence and mental state before he had sex with her, he said.
In his defence, the lawyer further asked the Cassation Court to overturn his client’s conviction and refer the case back to the Appeal Court for a fresh trial.
The lawyer asked Dubai’s highest court to treat his client with utmost leniency.
A ruling will be heard next month.
