Maid and gardener cleared of molesting UAE employer's children

A maid and gardener accused of sexually abusing their employer's three children are acquitted.

DUBAI // A maid and a gardener accused of sexually abusing their employer's three children have been acquitted by the Criminal Court.

MQ, 35, a Filipina, and AA, 39, from Pakistan, were accused of both abusing the children themselves and of inviting strangers to do the same.

Prosecutors claimed the pair had also threatened to burn the children - two sisters aged 1 and 7 and a brother aged 6 - if they told their parents.

The mother of the children said her husband's sister saw a picture of one of the children on the maid's phone and became suspicious.

"When I asked her to hand me the phone to check it, she became scared and refused," said the mother.

"I couldn't sleep that night and in the morning I talked to my son and tried to make him tell me if the maid was doing any thing to him."

The boy told her the maid had molested him so the family reported the matter to police.