Jail term cut for Dubai driver who molested boy

A Pakistani driver forced a 13-year-old boy to touch him as he drove the boy home from school, a court heard.

DUBAI // A driver who molested a 13-year-old boy had his jail term reduced from a year to five months yesterday.
Pakistani M?K, 37, forced the child to touch him inappropriately while he was taking him home from school last September.

The boy, M?O, said he had been forced to sit up at the front because the back door had been locked. The driver asked him if he wanted to hold the steering wheel.

“When I grabbed the steering wheel with my right hand, he pulled my left hand and put it on his private parts,” said the boy.

He pulled his hand away and the driver asked him to touch him again but he refused.

When they reached the boy’s home, the driver asked to take a picture of him on his mobile phone and wanted to meet the child at the weekend.

“He told me to go out with him the coming Friday but asked me not to tell my mother,” the boy told prosecutors. The driver also massaged the boy’s neck and back before he left.

The boy told his mother, Indian J Y, 37, a teacher. She said: “He told me what happened and asked me why had the driver done so with him.”

The driver later called her to check on her son. She shouted at him and then called police.

The driver denied sexual assault at the Criminal Court last November but was sentenced to a year in prison, reduced by the Court of Appeals yesterday.