Dubai taxi sex pair launch appeal

A British woman and Irish man accused of having sex in a Dubai taxi have launched their bid to clear their names, pleading not guilty in the appeal court, local daily 7Days reported on Wednesday.

The pair, identified as RB and CM, were arrested in May last year after a cab driver claimed the pair had drunken sex in the back of his taxi. They were sentenced to three months jail on November 22, 2012 for having an illegal affair. The Dubai Misdemeanors Court also fined them AED 3,000 for drinking alcohol.

[RELATED STORY: Western pair get three months in prison for sex in Dubai taxi]

The taxi driver previously testified that he picked up the couple in the Tecom district of Dubai, after they had been drinking and asked to be taken to Al Barsha, the report added.

He said: “We were driving on Sheikh Zayed Road and I noticed the man was drinking. I told him it is not allowed to have alcohol inside the taxi, but he drank it and threw the glass out of the window. The next thing, I looked in the mirror and saw the woman sitting on the man’s thighs. She was naked, moving up and down and making sounds.”

It’s a claim denied by the defendants’ lawyer, Shaker Al Shammary, who told the appeals court on Tuesday that the driver’s story was fabricated after trying to blackmail them. But a Dubai cop gave a similar testimony as the driver at the original trial, saying they only stopped when he knocked on the window of the vehicle.