Maintenance worker stole lingerie from boss’ maids, Dubai court hears

DUBAI // A worker who was hired to do maintenance work at a villa stole maids’ lingerie to send to his wife, a Dubai court heard on Sunday.

The Pakistani defendant, 26, is charged at Dubai Criminal Court with theft from the house in Al Barsha, which he denied.

In October last year a Bahraini businessman, 47, hired the defendant and on December 22, his maids told him that their lingerie was missing.

“They told me they suspected that the maintenance worker was stealing them because he was allowed into the laundry to get some rest,” said the homeowner.

He said that he started watching the worker and noticed him stash items in his pocket before he left the house, then returned minutes later.

“I called police at once,” the businessman said.

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Today in court

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Police said the worker showed them where he hid the lingerie in the sand behind the house so he could pick it up when he left.

Prosecutors said he confessed to stealing the items of underwear and keeping them in his room so he could send them to his wife overseas.

The next hearing is scheduled for March 19.

salamir@thenational.ae

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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?

The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.

Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.

“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.

The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.

The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.

Bloomberg