Dubai: A drunken couple who were caught engaging in sexual activity on the back seat of a taxi have lost their legal battle and will each be jailed for two months.
Dubai’s highest court overruled on Monday the appeal lodged by R.B., a 29-year-old Briton, and 28-year-old Irishman, C.M.
The Dubai Cassation Court found the duo guilty of drinking alcohol, public nudity and committing an indecent act in public on May 4, 2012 in Dubai Marina.
“The court has overruled the convicts’ appeal and upheld the appellate judgement against them,” said presiding judge Mohammad Nabeel Riyadh.
According to Monday’s judgement, the two will spend two months in jail and pay a Dh2,000 fine before being deported.
In February the appeal court reduced the duo’s three-month prison term to two months in jail.
An Emirati policeman testified that he spotted the woman sitting naked on the lap of her partner.
Although prosecutors charged the duo with having consensual sex in public, the primary court concluded the couple didn’t have sex but indulged in an indecent act in public.
The advocate said that Dubai Police’s forensic evidence report confirmed that the couple did not have intercourse at the time of the incident.
The defendants denied public nudity and indulging in any form of sexual activity.
Since the appeal judgement in February, prosecution records did not show whether R.B. and C.M. had turned themselves in.
However as Monday‘s ruling makes the judgement irrevocable, the couple will have to serve the jail term before being deported.
Court records said the taxi’s Pakistani driver pulled over in front of a traffic policeman and told him that the defendants were naked and engaging in an indecent act.
“The driver thought they were drunk when he picked them up… but they were not. The Irishman indulged in a heated argument when he realised that the driver took an unnecessarily longer route. The driver sought extra money for the fare. That provoked the driver, who malevolently claimed to the arresting policeman that my clients had sex,” the advocate said.
The lawyer accused the driver of fabricating a story because the Irishman said he would report him to the police.
