DUBAI // A driver accused of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old boy claimed he was only massaging the child's leg.
The driver was arrested after the boy told his mother he was being touched inappropriately, the Criminal Court heard today.
The boy, from Greece, was being taken for swimming lessons when he confided in his mother that he suspected the driver AK, 47, from Pakistan, was homosexual.
He told her that after a previous swimming lesson, on February 27 this year, he was in the car waiting for his brother to arrive when the driver put him in the back seat and started to touch him.
"He told me to relax," recalled the boy, who said similar incidents took place the following two days.
"I asked him to stop but I was scared he would do something even worse," said the boy.
The boy's mother told the Criminal Court that when her son told her of his suspicions she initially thought he was talking about one of his friend's who shares the driver's name.
"I told him he must be joking with you but when he insisted on what he said, I tried to make him talk and then he told me that he would tell me a secret," she said.
The woman informed her husband who spoke to the driver. "I had to hold myself back when he confessed to me and started apologising, I told him not to come back to work and the next morning I reported him to police," said the father, 41.
The driver denied a charge of sexual assault. He claimed he was only massaging the boy's leg because he said he was in pain.
The case was adjourned to May 19.
salamir@thenational.ae
