An 18-year-old Briton, Marcus Fakana, who had intimacy with a 17-year-old British girl in Dubai while the pair were on holiday with their families has been jailed for one year despite the efforts of his parents to save him.
Marcus Fakana, from Tottenham, north London, was on holiday in Dubai with his entire family as they celebrated his father’s birthday in September.
He ran into a white British girl, also on holiday with her parents and staying in the same hotel as the Fakanas.
They hooked up and enjoyed intimacy without the girl’s mother knowing.
Upon returning home, the mother of the girl discovered pictures and messages detailing the relationship and was incensed.
She looked for Dubai police contact and formally filed a report against Markus Fakana.
Dubai authorities picked him up at his hotel immediately and detained him. The age of consent for intimacy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is 18.
The parents of the boy fought tooth and nail to get him released to no avail.
The head of the campaign group Detained in Dubai said it was a “disgrace” and Fakana felt abandoned by the British government since his arrest in September.
He’s expected to appeal against the sentence.
