Five employees have been given fines and suspended sentences following a tragic incident in which a young Emirati girl drowned in a hotel pool.
This heartbreaking event occurred at a hotel in Al Barsha Heights, Dubai, on August 2 last year. A three-year-old girl somehow entered an unsupervised adult swimming pool, and nobody noticed her absence for six minutes, as per Dubai court records.
The defendants in this case hail from Lebanon, Canada, Cameroon, and Uganda, and they include the hotel’s manager and two lifeguards. They have been sentenced to a two-month suspended jail term and fined Dh10,000 each for their roles in the child’s unfortunate death.
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Initially, the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours had ordered their deportation, but this penalty was later removed by the Court of Appeal. Additionally, Dubai’s Court of Appeal has instructed them to jointly pay Dh200,000 in compensation to the girl’s grieving family.
During the court proceedings, the girl’s father, whose identity was protected for the family’s privacy, revealed that the hotel was quite crowded on the day of the incident. He explained that his wife was supervising their children at around 4 pm while he briefly went to the adult’s pool. Tragically, minutes later, his son approached him, informing him of his sister’s tragic fate.
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Both the lifeguards were identified in court as contributors to the child’s untimely demise. It remains uncertain whether the hotel faced fines for violating Dubai Municipality’s safety regulations.
CCTV footage presented in court revealed one of the lifeguards engaged in conversation with guests at the very moment the child drowned. The five employees faced charges of negligence and breaching the rules and responsibilities of their professions, though they all denied these accusations.