DUBAI // A housewife beat her maid with a bar over a period of six months, the Dubai Criminal Court heard on Tuesday.
The court was told that the 32-year-old maid, Indian N D, came to the UAE about a year ago after being hired by 34-year-old Emirati Q A to work at the two-bedroom flat the accused shared with her husband, their five children and her mother.
The maid told the court the trouble with her sponsor began soon after she was hired.
“Since I arrived I was not paid my salary,” said N D, who told the court the beatings started in Ramadan last year and continued until she was so badly injured that she fainted and fell off the balcony.
She injured her back, hands and legs because of the beatings, and was locked out on the balcony for two days during the summer, the court heard.
N D said that although she was regularly beaten to her body and head with a metal bar, she had no one to turn to for help.
“I couldn’t call anyone, I had no phone,” she said.
Emirati police lieutenant F A, 26, told the court that on July 24 last year, the sponsor called police to report that her maid had fallen from the balcony.
“An ambulance rushed to the location and took the woman to Rashid Hospital where we learnt she had been subjected to a constant and brutal assault,” F A said. He said officers went to the flat to investigate and, on seeing the state of the balcony, grew suspicious.
“There was leftover food, a mattress, the maid’s clothes, and her faeces,” said the officer, adding that when the accused was asked about the injuries, she gave them inconsistent answers, but later confessed to the abuse.
“She confessed that she started beating the maid because she stopped working and demanded to return to her home country.”
The officer said she admitted to assaulting the maid over six months, which led to the worker going on hunger strike and moving to the balcony.
In a search of the flat, police also found the bar allegedly used in the assault.
A forensic report showed the maid had fractures in both her hands, wounds to her abdomen, chest and back, bruises on parts of her body, and swelling to her hands and wrists, all of which left her with a 60 per cent permanent disability.
She spent two months in hospital and still suffers from stiffness in her fingers on both hands and pain in her lower back, the court heard.
She also walks with a limp.
Q A was not present to enter a plea and a verdict will be issued in her absence on October 27.
salamir@thenational.ae
