DUBAI // A maid charged with punching and pulling the hair of a disabled boy, 5, has failed to show for five court hearings despite being held in police custody.
Sri Lankan SA, 23, was alleged to have been caught on an iPad camera during the assault on A K.
His Indian nurse, S B, was charged with failing to report the crime.
The nurse denied the charge against her in court on Thursday but the maid has not attended since the first hearing on December 9.
The boy’s father said he reported the incident to police at Jebel Ali police station on May 25 last year after watching film of the assault on an iPad.
Prosecutors said the family’s female driver recorded the attack.
She said the maid attacked the boy, pulling his hair, banging his head with her fist and pushing him violently in his chair.
She showed it to the child’s mother, who showed it to her husband.
The father, S K, said: “I saw how she pulled his hair and screamed at him to frighten him and held an iPad in her hand, then raised it up to hit my son with it. There was also redness on his cheeks resulting from the assaults.”
He said the family had noticed red cheeks on the boy before and when they asked the maid about it, she said they had been playing.
“But this time it’s for sure not play and the assault was meant,” said the father, who told police his son suffered from a mental and physical disability, and had breathing difficulties.
In court, the father had the charges against the nurse dropped, saying she had nothing to do with the incident.
The next at the Court of Misdemeanours hearing will be on Thursday, to summon the defendant from her prison cell.
salamir@thenational.ae