Dubai: An employee has been acquitted of groping a female friend in a car at Dubai Downtown.
Citing lack of substantiated evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance cleared the 32-year-old Emirati employee of molesting the 23-year-old British woman in September.
Records said the Emirati was said to have wanted to see how the Briton would react when she was angry before he touched her inappropriately while driving her around.
Prosecutors charged the man with molestation.
According to Wednesday’s ruling, presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi acquitted the Emirati after he pleaded innocent and countered what he described as “fabricated and unfounded allegations”.
The Briton alleged to prosecutors that she was in the passenger seat with the Emirati in his sports utility vehicle when the incident happened at 7.30pm.
“We were chatting in his car while he was driving. Then he said he would like to see me angry to see how I would react. I told him to tell me something that would anger me. I bent over to take out something from my purse, when he suddenly groped me. I got angry and shouted at him. Immediately he said that he was trying to make me angry. I told him that was not the way to make me angry. Then I asked him to drop me off and I would take a taxi. When there were no taxis available, he drove me to where I stayed in Al Barsha,” the woman claimed to prosecutors.
Records said the visitor reported the matter to the police as soon as she reached home.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
