Court upholds verdict in driver assault case

Manama : A Bahraini couple has been jailed here for assaulting a school bus driver after they suspected that he molested their son an entire school year.

This was revealed on Thursday as the Supreme Court of Appeals announced that it rejected the appeal submitted by the 43-year-old father and upheld his one year sentence. The mother, 38, was sentenced to one-month imprisonment and didn’t appeal against the verdict.

According to case files, the couple attacked the driver inside the bus after he dropped off all the students to school on April 2, 2017. As a result of the attack, the driver sustained multiple injuries and lost eyesight by 35 per cent.

The defendants initially denied the charges, but when confronted with the footage of surveillance cameras installed inside the bus, they both confessed to their crime.

During the interrogation, they accused the driver of molesting their child for an entire year and that they reached this conclusion after noticing their child’s repeated reluctance to go to school by bus.

The footage showed the man beating the victim with his bare hands knocking him to the floor. The wife joined her husband in punching the driver, who eventually managed to escape with several injuries and was later hospitalised.

No further details were revealed on the child molestation accusation, the nationality of the driver or name of the school.