Dubai: Prosecutors lost their appeal against a man who was cleared of groping the 12-year-old daughter of his flatmate while she was sleeping in her bedroom.

The 45-year-old Filipina flatmate put her daughter to bed at 1am and went to the kitchen while her 37-year-old countryman was drinking with his friends in the sitting room in August last year.

When his friends left, the 37-year-old man, who was too drunk, went to bed. Meanwhile, the mother of the girl asked her Filipina friend to check on her daughter.

The friend told the mother that she had allegedly seen the 37-year-old man groping her daughter in bed.

The mother scolded the man and reported the matter to the police.

In October, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the 37-year-old man of groping the 12-year-old girl.

Prosecutors appealed the primary ruling and asked the Appeal Court to overturn the man’s acquittal and punish him.

Presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm dismissed the appeal and upheld the acquittal of the Filipino man who pleaded not guilty and described the mother’s claims as “unfounded and malicious”.

The man accused the mother of having filed her complaint out of anger and maliciousness.

Citing lack of corroborated evidence, presiding judge Bin Sarm confirmed the man’s innocence.

The girl claimed that she was asleep in her bed when she felt someone touching her posterior and caressing her back.

“The suspect was half dressed and had been drinking with his friends in the sitting room when I went to bed. At 3.30am, I felt someone touching my posterior and top of my back.

"When I opened my eyes, I realised that it was the suspect. I was so shocked. At that time, my mother’s friend [the 35-year-old woman] walked into the room and kicked the suspect out of the room,” she told prosecutors.

The mother told prosecutors that the suspect came to the kitchen twice while she was busy cooking.

“My 35-year-old friend and I were very busy in the kitchen and I was too worried because the suspect seemed very drunk that night. My friend, who shares the room with the suspect, checked on my daughter twice. The third time, when she went to check on my daughter, she told me that she had seen the suspect groping my daughter. I rushed to the room and saw my daughter in a state of shock,” the mother told prosecutors.

The suspect dismissed the mother’s claims when he appeared before the appellate court.

The appellate ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court.