Dubai: A merchant lost his appeal and will spend three months in jail for promising a schoolgirl to teach her horse riding and molesting her the lift of a building where she lives.

The 39-year-old Iranian merchant entered the lift in the building at Al Barsha when he saw the nine-year-old Syrian schoolgirl in February.

She had just finished playing in the play area at 6.30pm and walked into the lift wanting to go up home, when the Iranian man came in as well.

He was supposed to get off on a floor before the girl, but he stayed in the elevator.

Then he asked the nine-year-old if she knew how to ride horses and molested her on the pretext of showing her how to sit on a horse.

The Syrian girl ran out of the lift once it stopped at her floor and told her mother about what had happened.

The mother took her girl down in the lift and once she saw the Iranian man, the girl pointed her fingers at him.

In October, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the accused for molesting the minor.

The defendant appealed his three-month jail term and denied touching the child when he entered a not guilty plea before the Dubai Appeal Court.

On Wednesday, presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm rejected the defendant’s appeal and upheld his primary judgement.

The accused will be deported following the completion of his punishment, said presiding judge Bin Sarm in courtroom 20.

The girl’s mother said her daughter came into the flat and she wanted her brother to accompany her in the lift downstairs.

“She insisted on her brother to escort her to the ground floor … she was yelling. When I stood beside her, I realised that she was scared and her heartbeats were quick. I asked her to change her clothes and told her that I would take her down. When we were in the lift, she told me what had happened and imitated what the defendant had done to her. When the lift reached the fifth floor, the door opened. Immediately she pointed her finger at a person [defendant] who was standing there. He seemed petrified … when I asked him if he had touched my girl, he said no. He said that he just taught her how do to an exercise in the lift and apologised if he had done anything wrong. I alerted the building’s security guards who called the police,” she testified.

The appellate ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court within 30 days.