DUBAI // A football coach who sexually abused a 15-year-old boy he trained has been jailed for three years.
The 35-year-old Indian took pictures of the boy naked then threatened to post them on Facebook if he did not comply.
The coach had denied five charges of sexual assault, issuing threats, inciting sin among teenagers and possessing child pornography.
The man had also sent other children pornographic images to incite them to commit sin.
He kept pictures of several naked boys as a means of blackmailing them.
“No, nothing like that happened,” the coach told the court. “I took no pictures and I didn’t threaten or blackmail anyone. The phone that has the pictures on it doesn’t belong to me. It’s for a friend who flew to his homeland and left it with me.”
The coach befriended the 15-year-old Indian boy on Facebook about four months before the alleged assault in October last year.
“He started training me and my friends and used to drive [me] to and from home but, on October 15, after he dropped everyone else off, he took me to a sandy plot behind a school then locked the doors and forced me to take my clothes off,” the boy said.
The coach took photos of the naked boy then threatened to use them against him by posting them on Facebook if he told anyone what had happened.
The boy told his parents, who went to the police.
A policeman who arrested the coach said: “We apprehended him and he confessed to me he had in fact assaulted the boy sexually then said that he did it to several other children, as he was driving children home after training and abused the last one left in the car.”
The 48-year-old Emirati officer said numerous images of nude children were found on the coach’s smartphone.
Prosecutors and police said the man confessed to all charges during investigations, though he denied them in court.
However, the court found him guilty and he will be deported after completing the sentence.
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U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
Saturday 15 January: v Canada
Thursday 20 January: v England
Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
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Rooney's club record
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What is Reform?
Reform is a right-wing, populist party led by Nigel Farage, a former MEP who won a seat in the House of Commons last year at his eighth attempt and a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
It was founded in 2018 and originally called the Brexit Party.
Many of its members previously belonged to UKIP or the mainstream Conservatives.
After Brexit took place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy.
Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson became its first MP after defecting in March 2024.
The party gained support from Elon Musk, and had hoped the tech billionaire would make a £100m donation. However, Mr Musk changed his mind and called for Mr Farage to step down as leader in a row involving the US tycoon's support for far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson who is in prison for contempt of court.
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