Housemaid gets jail term for beating sponsor's son

Dubai: A housemaid was cleared of charges of setting her sponsor's bedroom on fire. However, she will be jailed for three months for hitting the sponsor's 10-year-old son, a court ruled here on Monday.

The Dubai Court of First Instance fined the 40-year-old Ethiopian housemaid Dh1,000 for beating and injuring the boy. She will be deported after serving her sentence.

The initial verdict is still subject to appeal within 15 days. In her defence, the housemaid told Presiding Judge Abdul Majid Al Nezamy that her Emirati female sponsor had withheld her salary for four months and also claimed that her sponsor did not let her return home.

Pleading guilty

The accused, M.A., pleaded guilty to beating her sponsor's 10-year-old son, but denied setting the room in her sponsor's house on fire.

The Public Prosecution had charged M.A. with arson for having set the clothes of her sponsor's daughter on fire.

The housemaid was also charged with injuring the 10-year-old, I.N., with a hard object.

"I only slapped the boy and ran away from the house ... I didn't start a fire in the bedroom," she defended before Justice Al Nezamy, who acquitted her of arson owing to lack of evidence.

The boy. I.N., testified: "I woke up surprised and in pain ... when I didn't see anyone, I walked into the bathroom and saw in the mirror that I had bled.

"I smelled smoke and saw smoke coming from the cupboard ... I ran out and informed my friend B. who walked with me back to the house and saw that the fire was spreading," the boy said.

Trail of blood

The grandfather of the boy, S.A., said: "I asked my son to take the boy to the hospital. l rushed to their house to put out the fire ... the house was full of smoke. I saw blood on the bed and followed the bloodstains which ran till the bathroom."

I smelled smoke and saw smoke coming from the cupboard ... I ran out and told my friend B. who walked with me back to the house and saw that the fire was spreading."

Maid denies stealing

A maid, who absconded from her sponsor's house, three weeks after she was employed, denied stealing money and a cellphone from another housemaid working for the same sponsor.

"I didn't steal Dh5,000 and I didn't even see the mobile phone which I was unfairly and baselessly accused of stealing," said the 33-year-old Indonesian housemaid in her defence before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

The Public Prosecution charged the Indonesian, F.B., with stealing her 23-year-old compatriot workmate's cash and a mobile phone.

"I had been working for almost one year with my Emirati sponsor, when the suspect joined us...On the night of the incident, one of my colleagues and I went to sleep, while she [the suspect] stayed awake.

"Sometime before dawn, I woke up and saw her putting on new clothes. She told me she wasn't going anywhere and that she would stay in the house for the cleaning work," 23-year-old M.B. told Public Prosecution.

M.B. alleged she later discovered that the suspect was absent from work and had stolen Dh5,000 and her mobile phone. "My colleague, A.A., woke me up and informed me that F.B. had absconded," M.B. testified.

The 68-year-old Emirati sponsor testified the suspect had absconded three weeks after he had hired her and had stolen money and a mobile phone.