Five years in jail for fake cop's rape bid on Abu Dhabi's Corniche

Man who attempted to rape a woman at Abu Dhabi's Corniche is sentenced to five years in prison.

ABU DHABI // A man who posed as a police officer before breaking into a woman's car and trying to rape her has been sentenced to five years in prison.

The woman was saved after her screams alerted passersby to the attack - which took place in a petrol station car park off Abu Dhabi's Corniche.

HK, an Emirati, had stalked the woman as she bought a sandwich at the petrol station shortly after midnight, and gestured at her to follow him after catching her eye.

She ignored him and went to eat her sandwich in her car at the parking area behind the station, but he followed her over and knocked on the window, pretending to be a CID officer asking for her ID card.

She asked to see his police badge and he walked away, but when he returned he put his hand through her window, unlocked the door and jumped in.

He then molested her, but she started screaming "he's raping me, he's raping me" until passersby came and confronted the man.

In court he claimed that the woman had invited him into the car and offered to have sex with him in return for money. He said that when he refused to pay she started ripping her clothes and screaming that he was trying to rape her.

A medical exam found traces of the man's DNA on the woman's body, as well as signs that she had resisted an attack. Police also found his slippers and ghutra in her car.