London - The two men accused of raping a British tourist in Dubai have spoken out for the first time of their relief that the case against them has been dropped.
‘We have been branded gang rapists with no evidence whatsoever,’ said Louis Harris, 24, and David Butlin, 22.
They are free to return home after prosecutors said they had not committed any crime. And in their first interview since being accused, the pair said they had been through a ‘rollercoaster’ of emotions that has left them shattered.
In October, a 25-year-old Briton told authorities in Dubai she had been raped, which led to her being arrested on charges of extra-marital sex and thrown in jail for several days.
The attack is alleged to have taken place in the men’s room at the Ramada Plaza Jumeriah Hotel on October 22. The woman went to the police the following morning and upon her complaint all three had their passports confiscated by police while an investigation took place.
On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped the case after examining cellphone footage taken by one of the men. The Dubai public prosecutors office said the video ‘showed the act happened with the consent of the three parties in question’.
On legal advice the men are not permitted to talk about the incident or the circumstances of meeting the woman, but Harris said: ‘We would not want any woman to be arrested and put in prison, but what she has done to us is pure evil.’
The decision by prosecutors not to proceed, and drop the extra-marital sex charges against the woman, means that all three can now return to the UK.
Harris and Butlin, who are cousins, spoke at their lawyer’s office in Dubai as they took possession of their passports.
Their lawyer said they had been left ‘confused’ and ‘anxious’ over the false allegation and the damage it has caused to their reputations.
Harris, who lives with his parents near Lichfield, Staffordshire, said: ‘We are very relieved it is over. Really happy, and so are our families. We have been waiting a couple of days to go, but the sooner the better.’
Butlin, a businessman and market trader who also lives with his parents in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, said they had been through ‘a rollercoaster of emotions’. ‘We have had to stay strong for our families back home’, he said. ‘If we had crumbled it would have been much tougher on them.’
He said it had been ‘heartbreaking’ to call their parents after the rape allegation was first made and tell then they were not coming home.
Harris said they had to remain silent on legal advice while their accuser talked about her alleged ordeal with a tabloid newspaper.
‘We have been branded gang rapists with no evidence whatsoever,’ he said. ‘We can’t change what happened but people’s lives are being ruined because of this.’
The woman said she was on a short break in Dubai while on her way to Australia to start a new life following the breakdown of her two-year marriage. In one interview she said she hoped ‘the truth would come out’.
Harris, a former academy footballer with Wolverhampton Wanderers, said they were ‘over the moon’ that the allegation had been dismissed. ‘Our priority now is to get back home to our families,’ he said.
‘The truth has finally come out but this has only just begun for us. We have not even started, but will say more when we are back home.’
The cousins were vilified on social media after a photograph of them posing with reality star James Argent was published. They were accused of ‘sunbathing and boozing’ after the incident.
Lawyers for the men said there had been many ‘false’ stories surrounding the pair.
Legal adviser Wageh Amin AbdelAziz said: ‘This rape never happened. After she made the complaint and police started their investigation they came to the conclusion there was no case to answer. What took place was consensual.’
Daily Mail