Vendor accused of kissing 4-year-old girl, biting her neck

Dubai: A vendor has been accused of biting a four-year-old girl, pecking her cheeks and then spanking her when she was playing at a mall’s electronics section.

The 28-year-old Egyptian vendor, H.A., was said to have pulled the girl aside to one corner where he kissed her against her will, spanked her back and bit her neck in January.

Prosecutors accused H.A. of molesting the child.

“Of course not. I did not and would never do such a thing. I am not an animal to do so, as I myself am a father of a child,” argued the suspect as he entered an innocent plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.

When asked if he had molested the girl, H.A. contended before presiding judge Urfan Omar: “I have been working in that same section for three years. Many children come to me daily and I have never done such a thing.”

His lawyer, Dr Riyadh Al Kabban, asked the judge to obtain a copy of the footages of the mall’s CCTV cameras to review whether or not his client had molested the girl.

He also asked the court to bail his client.

The girl’s mother testified to prosecutors that her children were at the electronics section playing on a PlayStation when her son phoned her and asked her to come quickly.

“My husband went first and I followed him. I was told that one of the vendors had molested our girl. A Pakistani woman had claimed to my husband that she saw the suspect kissing and biting my daughter’s neck in a corner. When my husband went to check the surveillance cameras, the footage did not show anything of what the woman had seen. I spotted redness on my girl’s neck and cheek … when I asked her what had happened, she claimed that the suspect pecked her cheek and bit her neck,” she claimed.

The Pakistani woman claimed to prosecutors that she was intrigued when she saw H.A. kissing the girl.

“The girl was crying and asking him to let her go. When I confronted him, the suspect alleged that she was his niece. The girl said he was not related to her when I asked her … then I scolded him for what he did,” she testified.

The trial continues.