Girl molested by security guard at building where she lives, Dubai court hears

British girl cowered and hugged her father when she saw the man again after reporting the incident, court hears.

DUBAI // A 10-year-old British girl was molested in a lift by a guard meant to be protecting the building in which she lived, Dubai Criminal Court heard.

A Sri Lankan security guard, SJ, 25, is facing a charge of sexual assault in relation to the alleged incident on May 26. He denied the charge in court on Tuesday.

“I picked up an iPad from my father’s car and was waiting for the lift to return home,” said the girl. “Two lifts arrived and in one of them was a man who seemed nice to me and waved at me to come into the lift, so I did.”

She said she asked the man to press 2, the level she lives on, but after pressing the button, he deliberately cancelled the stop to that floor.

“Then he came closer and started touching me. I screamed and kept on screaming until he pressed 2 again and then jumped out of the lift when it opened,” the girl said.

She returned home and told her engineer father, EC, 50, and his wife about what had happened.

“I went out right away to look for him but did not find him and, the next morning, I reported the incident to police,” said the father.

AE, the head of security at the building, said he looked at the lift camera recordings but found that some footage from the day in question had been deleted.

“We did not know how that cut happened,” he said, adding that the father and daughter then visited their office and, when she saw the guard, she cowered and hugged her father.

Policeman KF, 34, said SJ denied knowing anything about the deleted recording and denied the charges against him both under police questioning and in court.

A verdict is due on November 11.