Driver denies raping girl whose family he shared a room with in Dubai

Girl, 17, said Pakistani touched her and raped her for nearly a year while he shared a room with her family in Karama.

DUBAI // A driver who slept in the same room as a woman and her children said he did not rape her 17-year-old daughter.

Pakistani W K, 31, denied sexual assault and rape charges when he appeared at Dubai Criminal Court on Tuesday morning.

Prosecutors said that the girl’s friends at school noticed that she looked unhappy and sick and she confided in them that she had been being molested and raped by W K for nearly a year.

Her friends told the school’s teachers and the matter was reported to police in June.

The girl said in records that two years ago she lived in Karama in one room with her mother and siblings as well as the defendant.

“We all slept on the floor and one day I was stunned as W K jumped on top of me and raped me,” said the girl, adding that she bled but was too scared to tell anyone about it.

The teenager said that her mother was always preoccupied so she did not feel comfortable telling her.

Later, she said W K took advantage of her siblings being at school and her mother being out and raped her again. “I tried to resist him,” she said.

When they all moved to a new house in Al Jafilia, W K stopped the abuse but a few weeks before the girl confessed to her friends at school, she said he touched her as she slept next to her mother and siblings in the room.

It was not clear in records what the relationship was between the defendant and the family that meant he slept in the same room.

Prosecutors said that W K confessed only to molesting the girl three times and that, when he did so, she did not stop him. However, he denied the charges in court.

A verdict is due on January 6.