DUBAI // A 32-year-old British teacher was allegedly raped in her apartment in the early hours of New Year’s Day, the Dubai Criminal Court was told.
Nigerian E A, 30, denied charges of trespassing, physical assault and rape when he appeared in court. “This is not true,” said the salesman.
Victim J C was returning home at nearly 3am on January 1 this year when she met E A near the lift in her building.
“At first I thought he was a tenant,” said the woman in records, adding E A asked about her floor and followed her out of the lift.
“I was surprised and questioned his reasons, he said he followed me to make sure I was fine. I told him to stop and leave,” said J C.
Prosecutors said that when the woman opened up the door to her apartment, E A pushed it open. As she tried to stop him and run away, E A pulled her inside.
J C told investigators that E A stripped her and dragged her to the bed where he hit and then raped her.
“I resisted him hard but failed to stop him,” said the teacher who ran to the toilet to hide afterwards.
“Each one of us was pulling the door but then he stopped and when I checked, I found that he was gone,” said J C who then got dressed and hurried to a friend’s apartment where she called police.
“We received the report at nearly 7am from the Silicon Oasis area,” said E M A, a 39-year-old Emirati policeman who added that E A was identified and arrested a few hours later in the same area.
“He told us he was visiting one of his friends in the same building but didn’t find him and as he was leaving he met the woman near the lift and she was drunk, he claimed,” said the policeman.
E M A added that E A claimed the woman asked him to carry her bag of McDonald’s and when they got to her flat, she invited him in and asked him to have sex with her.
“He confessed to us that he had sex with her, but said she asked him and she got undressed on her own. After they had sex she asked him to leave, which he told us he did,” testified the officer.
Medical reports confirmed sexual activity between the two but could not confirm if it was forced.
The next hearing will be on April 10.
salamir@thenational.ae
