DUBAI // A couple who hid away their illegitimate love child for eight years, preventing her from going to school to avoid detection, have both received suspended four-month prison terms.
The child was delivered at home in Bur Dubai and during the next eight years of her life the man and his lover kept her a secret.
In addition to preventing her from going to school, they prevented her from gaining professional medical assistance, treating her illnesses by themselves and failing to vaccinate her.
Despite this Emirati KD, 42, ex-armed forces employee, and his Russian lover MZ, 29, told the Misdemeanours Court that they had raised their daughter well and had taken good care of her.
The court heard police discovered the child's plight on March 4 this year after a tip off from a member of the public.
The mother said she arrived in the country in 2001 and worked in a furniture shop before meeting the Emirati at a nightclub a year later and falling in love.
She lived with him at his home in Al Safa until 2003 she fell pregnant by him. "I delivered at home, with his help to cut the umbilical cord with scissors, I didn't go to any hospital," she recalled.
The Emirati's family believed the pair were married.
She said she had often asked the Emirati to marry her but that he would stall whenever she did so.
"We are connected by love," she said.
The father admitted that his daughter had asked him several times to send her to a school, but they ignored the request.
The pair were charged with sex outside of marriage and endangering the life of their daughter. They denied both. The woman alone was charged with over staying her visa, which she admitted.
In a previous hearing, the pair presented an authenticated marriage contract in an attempt to avoid the criminal charges against them.
However, both were convicted of all charges. The man was given a suspended four-month prison term while his lover was sentenced to four months. No deportation was issued against her due to the couple's marriage.
salamir@thenational.ae