Dubai: A babysitter has been accused of sexually abusing her sponsor’s autistic eight-year-old child, a court heard on Wednesday.
In the April incident, the autistic boy’s French mother grew suspicious after he became aggressive and tended to touch her inappropriately whenever she took him for shower.
The change in his behaviour came days after she terminated the services of the 22-year-old Filipina babysitter and sent her back to the agency.
Four days after she fired the babysitter, the mother spotted her Ethiopian maid crying. On being questioned, the maid told her that the babysitter had repeatedly sexually abused the boy. The mother had her son examined at Al Jalila Hospital and was told that he was suffering a negative behavioural change. She was advised to report the matter to the police.
Police apprehended the babysitter and prosecutors charged her with sexually abusing the boy by getting naked in front of him and making him touch her inappropriately.
The Filipina pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday.
“I did not touch him or allow him to touch me,” she told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi.
Her lawyer argued that the case was fabricated and malicious. He claimed that witnesses’ statements were inconsistent and the scenario in which the incident was described to have happened was “illogical”.
The Frenchwoman told prosecutors that she learned of the abuse from her maid.
“She claimed that she had seen the Filipina sexually abusing my child repeatedly — the suspect used to undress and make my son grope her. She claimed that the Filipina warned her against informing me, saying that she would accuse her [the maid] of having an affair. When the maid warned the suspect about her inappropriate behaviour, she took him into a bedroom and locked the door,” the mother said.
The Ethiopian maid told prosecutors that she often saw the suspect sexually abusing the boy, especially when his mother was abroad.
A ruling will be heard on July 25.
