Family driver locked up for harassing kids

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A family driver who encroached on his employer’s little daughters will spend eight months behind bars, a jury ruled on Thursday.

The Asian defendant, 39, breached the modesty of the Azerbaijani girl, 15, on several occasions. He started harassing her when she was 11. He showed her inappropriate videos. He stripped before her younger sister.

The incidents came to light in July. The Dubai Criminal Court imprisoned him for six months for molesting the girl and two months for showing videos and stripping. He will be deported after serving the prison terms. In prosecution records, the girl said that once they were returning from school when he asked her to sit in front. She refused. He pulled out his mobile and played a video. On another occasion he touched her face.

She said he was in the habit of forcing himself between the front seats to reach her in the back seat, buss and touch her. Her sister recalled a time when the defendant stripped while driving until she warned him.

And that the next day he tried to buss her but she moved away. She felt uncomfortable with the relentless harassment and decided to complain to her parents. Both girls explained the details of the harassment spree. The father – a consultant – said that he first heard rumours from a family friend that the defendant was harassing the younger one. The defendant denied. The elder one disproved it and revealed he had also harassed her.

The family friend – a housewife – said she usually spotted the defendant walking hand in hand with the elder daughter. “I thought he was her relative. Once I asked her about it and she told me he was a mere family driver.

“To avoid any suspicion I monitored him for a week and realised he was in the habit of doing the same. Sometimes he palmed her neck and sometimes he placed his arm under her clothes. I notified her mother.”

Recently, a  driver who swindled a jobseeker’s money and later mugged him for demanding it back has lost the case at the Dubai Appeals Court.

The Asian defendant, 43, swindled money from the Indian jobseeker, 23, with the prospect of finding him a job in Canada. He later sprayed him with a blurring substance and robbed him, records showed.

Prosecutors revealed the defendant identified himself with a false name and nationality and claimed he owned a travel office in Dubai. He convinced the victim would find him a Canadian employment visa.

He asked the victim to pay CAD10,000 (Dhs27,500) for the visa, part of which had to be paid in advance and the rest to be allegedly deducted from the victim’s monthly salary after joining work in Canada.