Dubai A cleaner has been acquitted of pulling an 11-year-old boy from beside a rooftop swimming pool and groping him.

The 11-year-old Jordanian boy was said to have been playing beside the pool with his cousin when the 39-year-old Indian cleaner took him aside and molested him.

Citing lack of corroborated evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance cleared the cleaner of molesting the minor in July 2016.

The suspect had pleaded not guilty and strongly rejected the accusation of molesting the boy. Records said the suspect took advantage of the boy’s innocence and groped him.

The suspect’s lawyer Abdullah Al Nasser, from Araa Group Advocates and Legal Consultants, defended in court that his client did not touch the boy.

“The boy claimed to interrogators that the suspect pulled him from beside the pool and made him sit down on a deck chair … then he claimed that he touched his back. How is that possible? That is impossible and illogical. It is incredible for the alleged incident to have happened in the way that the boy described it. It is impossible for the suspect to have touched his back while sitting down unless the chair had a hole. Besides, prosecution witnesses gave inconsistent statements,” lawyer Al Nasser defended in court.

The boy’s father alleged that his wife phoned him at work and asked him to return home for an urgent matter.

“When I reached home she told me that the suspect had molested our son. I spoke to my boy, who claimed to me that the suspect pulled him from beside the pool while he was playing with his cousin and touched him indecently. The suspect had molested my son a month ago as well,” the father claimed to prosecutors.

A policeman testified to prosecutors that S.D. was apprehended at the building in Tecom area where the incident happened.

“My client was maliciously accused of molesting the boy. The unacceptable accusation was levelled against my client because he had scolded the boy, who had been littering the pool. My client did not molest the child but he grabbed him by his arm to move him away from the pool and chastised him,” argued lawyer Al Nasser.

Sunday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.