Four teenagers have been sentenced to a year in prison for luring an expatriate through a dating app, hitting him and then stealing his scooter after they failed to snatch his money.
The Bahrainis from Sadad, aged 16, 16, 17 and 19 were convicted of theft and assault at the High Criminal Court after allegedly baiting their 35-year-old Pakistani victim on social media.
Earlier, the restaurant worker testified that in June he was riding his electric scooter on a public road when he was mugged by the teenagers.
The man recalled that the boys grabbed his phone from his pocket and tried to get the PIN code out of him, but he refused to provide it, so they returned his phone, but took his scooter and fled the scene.
Judges ordered that reports be submitted to the court after six months of juvenile detention, detailing the three minors’ progress, to ensure they are reformed by the time they complete their sentence.
An evaluation of the minors, earlier submitted to the court by social and psychological experts, narrated the incident from the defendants’ point of view, and outlined the possible reasons for their actions with allegations that they had targeted a pervert.
“The first defendant was scrolling through his phone when he downloaded a dating app, started a profile and got connected to the victim,” the social report read. “The victim was asking for sexual favours from the child and asked for an encounter. He kept insisting over the course of the day, so the boy took his friends to meet up with him.
“They asked him why he wanted to meet, but the victim pushed the first defendant over with his scooter, which led him to fall. The friends tried to pull the child away, but the victim hit them, so they hit him back.
“While that was happening, the victim asked for help from a Bahraini person.
“The child defendant was scared, nervous and didn’t know what to do, so he got on the scooter and rode away. He stated that the friends have nothing to do with the theft of the machine.”
The report added that the 17-year-old’s actions were caused by rashness, and by not thinking about consequences or risks.
In another minor defendant’s report, a 16-year-old from Sadad, one of the reasons listed for his actions was the fact that his parents were divorced, and that he has no relationship with his mother, a foreign national.
All four teenagers admitted to mugging and robbing the expat. “The boys and I baited the victim on Grindr, and when he got to the meeting spot, we hit him,” the 17-year-old defendant previously claimed to the Public Prosecution. “I told him where to go, providing him with a location. We were waiting for him there.
“We asked him to unlock BenefitPay for us, but he said no, so we gave him his phone back.”
Grindr is a popular online dating app frequented mostly by men.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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