Teacher gets 10 years in jail for raping student

A teacher was jailed for ten years after a court convicted him of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old boy after threatening to inform his father about his poor academic performance.

The Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the 40-year-old Indian defendant, H.M., after he was found guilty of molesting and raping the pupil.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said H.M. abused the fact that he gave the pupil private Arabic lessons at his parents' house before he had sex with him against his will and molested him while the victim's mother was asleep.

"The accused will be deported following the completion of his jail term," said presiding Judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi in courtroom seven yesterday.

Prosecutors said while H.M. was at the pupil's house, he abused him repeatedly over several visits.

In his statement before prosecutors, the 13-year-old claimed: "One day after he finished the private lesson, he asked me to call my mother. But she was very tired and couldn't move out of bed. She asked me to tell the teacher that she would not be able to meet him. When I returned to the room, the defendant asked me to take off my pants. Then he touched me indecently and did something bad to me... he said that if I told anyone about what he had done, he would tell my father that I had a bad academic performance and that I never finish my homework." The judgment remains subject to appeal within 15 days.