DUBAI // A worker with a criminal record of sexual assaults has denied molesting a 15-year-old British girl as she slept on a sofa in her family’s villa.
The Bangladeshi defendant Z Z, 27, is charged at Dubai Criminal Court with sexual assault and trespassing, both of which he denies.
Schoolgirl R B told prosecutors that at midnight on October 3 last year, a friend who was sleeping over told her he saw someone’s shadow pass by but thought it was one of their friends. They both went back to sleep.
But five hours later, as she slept on the sofa, she felt someone’s hand touching her body underneath her sleeping gown.
“I then felt the hands trying to untie my pyjama’s waist rope,” said the girl, who added that she woke up, screamed and kicked the person.
“He started laughing, then ran out of the room and, minutes later, he returned, thinking I had gone back to sleep, but I was actually waking up my friend and, when he saw me doing so, he ran away.”
The girl and her friend chased the defendant out of the kitchen door but failed to catch up and the man escaped.
“She woke up terrified,” her friend, 15-year-old S K, told the court.
They returned to the villa in Jebel Ali and found her swimsuit in the kitchen with a note written in broken English that said: “I want to have sex with you.”
The girl said she was stunned but later found another note inside her bag, asking her to add the defendant as a friend on Facebook.
The girl then told her father, who called the police.
A security guard told police ZZ had been caught several times before trespassing into villas and molesting women as they slept.
Policeman M A, 26, said the worker was detained a year ago and the offences stopped. But after he was released they started happening again.
He said the security guard identified Z Z through pictures provided by the police and he was arrested at his workplace.
“He denied it but when the victim identified him, he confessed and said he just likes touching women regardless of their ages,” said the officer, adding that the worker told police that he always waited for it to get dark before sneaking into women’s homes.
The next hearing is on December 7.
salamir@thenational.ae
