{"id":12509,"date":"2018-09-19T08:12:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T12:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=12509"},"modified":"2018-09-19T08:12:57","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T12:12:57","slug":"british-expat-sentenced-in-absence-over-dubai-hotel-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/09\/19\/british-expat-sentenced-in-absence-over-dubai-hotel-row\/","title":{"rendered":"British expat sentenced in absence over Dubai hotel row"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A British expat was sentenced to three months in prison in her absence after witnessing a fight in a Dubai hotel lobby, a campaign group says.<\/p>\n

Asa Hutchinson, 22, was not present in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) when the sentence for assault was handed out, having left the country in June.<\/p>\n

Campaign group\u00a0Detained in Dubai<\/a>\u00a0said she had seen a row between her friends and a man but was not involved.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Office confirmed it had assisted with the case.<\/p>\n

Miss Hutchinson, originally from Chelmsford, Essex, did not attend court proceedings and disputes the version of events presented in the UAE, according to Detained in Dubai.<\/p>\n

The campaign group, which represented her, said Miss Hutchinson’s male friends had taken selfies with a sleeping man in his 50s, who woke up and started to argue with them.<\/p>\n

He started punching them but they fled. The man called the police and Miss Hutchinson’s friends were taken to Bur Dubai police station.<\/p>\n

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Detained in Dubai said they managed to get their passports back and flew home, which led to the charges being transferred to Miss Hutchinson.<\/p>\n

However, she was able to obtain a replacement passport and was “lucky” to leave the UAE without being stopped in June, the campaign group said.<\/p>\n

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “Our staff assisted a British woman who was arrested and subsequently released in Dubai.<\/p>\n

“We were in contact with the local authorities to follow the progress of her case.”<\/p>\n

Detained in Dubai said: “Asa Hutchinson was sentenced in absentia to three months in Dubai jail.<\/p>\n

“She did not present evidence in her defence and disputes the allegations and version of events presented in the UAE.”<\/p>\n

Detained in Dubai was involved in the case of Scot Jamie Harron who\u00a0was jailed for touching a man’s hip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A British expat was sentenced to three months in prison in her absence after witnessing a fight in a Dubai hotel lobby, a campaign group says. Asa Hutchinson, 22, was not present in the United […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,6],"tags":[4483,5557,4484,1845,4896],"class_list":{"0":"post-12509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"category-world","10":"tag-asa-hutchinson","11":"tag-chelmsford","12":"tag-dubai","13":"tag-uae","14":"tag-united-arab-emirates","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12510,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509\/revisions\/12510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}