Court acquits cabbie of groping passenger

The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld the acquittal of a taxi driver who was accused by the Prosecution of groping a woman passenger.

The taxi driver, AM, 27, Pakistani told the Appeal Court and before that the First Instance court, that he had only touched the woman passenger’s shoulder in a gesture of calming her down.

“I only touched her shoulder to calm her down. I did not intend to grope her,” the accused told the jury.

“How did you do that?” the appeal court judge asked the accused.

AM touched the shoulder of the court translator, saying “I only did this.”

The taxi driver was acquitted by the lower and the appeal court because of the lack of sufficient evidence.

According to the records, on March 31, at around 11pm, the victim, MR, whose age is not mentioned in the records, sought help of a police patrol in Nahda after a taxi driver groped her.

“She rushed to us and looked scared. She told us that she rode a taxi from behind Sahara Centre and asked the driver to drop her in Nahda. Before getting off the car, the woman claimed he groped her chest and other parts of her body,” policeman Ahmad Saeed told investigators.

Searching for the taxi driver, the police patrol spotted him in the same area. 

“We stopped the driver who looked very scared and was shivering. We confronted, AM, 27, Pakistani, with the woman’s allegations and he admitted groping her breast and asked us and the woman to forgive him,” the policeman testified.

The driver admitted before the Prosecution that the woman sat in the front seat and that he put his hand on her shoulder all the way from Sahara Centre to Nahda 2 area behind Zulekha Hospital. 

The victim told prosecutors that as she was getting off the car, the driver asked her to phone him and, while saying so, groped her shoulder and tried to touch other parts of her body, but she got off quickly and slammed the door as she got scared of him. After getting off the car, the driver left the area and the passenger saw a police patrol and she informed the police about the incident.
 

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