Dubai: A lawyer has claimed that it was biologically difficult for his female British client to have had sex with an Irishman in a taxi because she was menstruating at the time.
The 29-year-old woman was accused of sexual activity with a 27-year-old Irishman in the back seat of a taxi on Shaikh Zayed Road in May last year.
In November, the Dubai Misdemeanour Court sentenced the Irishman and the Briton to three months in jail for public nudity and getting sexually intimate in a taxi’s backseat while they were drunk. They were also fined Dh3,000 for consuming alcohol and ordered to be deported.
Speaking before the Dubai Appeal Court on Tuesday, lawyer for the couple, Shaker Al Shummari, said: “Dubai Police’s forensic evidence report also confirmed that the Briton did not have sexual intercourse recent to the date of the incident. Considering the aforementioned reasons, the couple is innocent.”
The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges of being naked in public and indulging in a sexually intimate situation before presiding Judge Mahmoud Fahmi Sultan on Tuesday.
However they admitted consuming alcohol.
The primary court earlier found the defendants guilty.
“The Pakistani taxi driver obviously was trying to blackmail my clients,” said Al Shummari. “He thought that they were heavily drunk when he picked them… but they were not. The Irishman indulged in a heated argument when he realised that the driver took an unnecessarily longer route. He prolonged the route to get extra money from the fare. That provoked the driver, who evidently claimed to the arresting policeman that my clients were having sex in his backseat. The driver’s claims were fabricated and he gave an inconsistent statement,” Al Shummari argued before the appellate court.
Judge Sultan released the pair on bail until the judgment next month. Prosecution records said when the driver spotted the couple kissing, he pulled over in front of a police car and honked.
An Emirati police corporal claimed that he spotted the couple in an intimate condition. The corporal, who according to records looked through the window for nearly four minutes, claimed that the couple was involved in an indecent movement that made him think they were having sex.
Advocate Al Shummari stressed before the appellate court that the malicious driver fabricated this unrealistic story because my client said he would report him to the police.
The corporal testified that it was 10.30pm when the taxi pulled over in front of his patrol and pointed at the couple in the backseat.
