Dubai A worker has been jailed for three months for groping a woman visitor in the street when she and her friend asked him for directions to a hotel.
Two French women were heading to a hotel at midnight in August when they stopped their car near a construction site on Shaikh Zayed Road.
The two women, aged 21 and 22, approached the 25-year-old Pakistani construction worker mistaking him for a security guard as he wore a uniform.
When the 22-year-old visitor asked him for directions, the defendant took the Frenchwomen to another man to ask him for assistance
After being given the proper directions, the women walked towards the hotel and entered the building. However, they found that the worker had walked in behind them.
As they walked to the lift, the defendant slapped one of the French visitors on her back and groped her top.
On Monday, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the Pakistani defendant of groping the woman.
Presiding judge Habib Awad said the accused, who pleaded guilty, will be deported.
“I touched her by mistake and not intentionally,” he told the court.
The 22-year-old victim said the incident happened after they had asked the defendant for the hotel’s direction.
“He behaved strangely at first; when my friend parked her car, the accused asked her for the keys but she didn’t respond. He came into the hotel behind us but we assumed that he was a security guard as he wore a uniform. He slapped my bottom and groped my top. We called the police,” she testified.
The second woman confirmed her friend’s statement and testified that she witnessed the accused groping her friend’s top.
When questioned by prosecutors, the suspect was quoted as admitting that he was enticed by the woman’s beauty.
The ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
