Man jailed for breaking former wife’s thumb in plant pot row

A man who broke his former wife’s thumb during an argument over a plant pot will spend two months in jail.

The man, 45, and his former wife divorced 14 years ago, but he and his new wife are in an extension of the villa in which his ex-spouse lives in Al Qusais.

In March last year, the Emiratis were arguing over the placement of the pot in the garden.

“He complained all the time about me placing it in the middle of the garden right outside the villa’s door and said that it’s too big to be placed there. I didn’t want to move it,” said the former wife, 40.

The woman’s Sri Lankan maid told prosecutors the man pushed the pot towards her employer in a fit of rage.

“I then saw her bleeding from the hand and noticed that her thumb was almost chopped off,” she said.

The former wife was taken to hospital and treated for a deep cut and fracture. Doctors told her she would lose all mobility in her thumb.

The man denied assaulting her. “She had been creating problems from nothing since I remarried and when she placed this large pot blocking our path, I asked her to move it, but she refused,” he said.

He told police he tried to move the pot but she held on to it.

“It’s very heavy. I couldn’t keep hold of it, so it fell and hurt her,” he said. Dubai Court of Misdemeanours yesterday convicted the man of assault, sentenced him to two months in jail and fined him Dh5,000.