A British grandfather will appear in court in Dubai after complaining about a noisy New Year’s Eve party, his distraught wife has revealed.
Ian Mackellar, 74, and his wife from Newtonhill were visiting their daughter and young granddaughter in the United Arab Emirates as 2023 drew to a close.
That evening Ian went to complain about the music coming from a party, but he was charged with trespassing, reported to the police and arrested.
The Mackellar family had hoped the case would be resolved and he would be allowed to come home.
However, Ian’s wife Carol has now told the BBC that police in Dubai say the case will be taken to court, meaning Ian cannot leave the country and could be jailed.
British grandfather Ian Mackellar went to visit his daughter in Dubai, who lives in the country, but was arrested after being charged with trespassing when he filed a noise complaint
“The police have completed their investigation,” Carol said BBC Scotland.
“Ian has been given a new case number and we have been told the case will move from a grievance case to a trial,” she explained.
‘We are very upset. I just want him home.
She added: ‘His sister has decided to fly out to see him because we are so worried about him, mentally and physically.’
Now Ian, a retired economics lecturer, faces up to a year in prison.
His wife, to whom he has been married for 49 years, is desperately appealing to politicians and lawyers, but also to the British embassy.
Speaking to The Times last weekend, Ms Mackeller said: ‘If Ian goes to prison I just know he couldn’t survive that.
‘I’m afraid I’ll never see him again. We just need someone to help us.”
She also added that she fears her husband, who has a stent in his heart and whose travel insurance has expired, was “in danger of sinking into a deep depression.”
The Scottish couple from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, live on a British state pension and have already spent around £8,000 on legal fees.
Radha Stirling, their lawyer, said: ‘Ian could be waiting four to six months just for a trial.’
The couple were visiting their daughter, who had recently moved to Dubai for a new job, when they became embroiled in a dispute with aggressive locals.
Mr Mackeller was helping babysit his 18-month-old granddaughter when he asked a nearby party to keep it quiet.
“We are Scottish,” Mrs Mackeller added, “we are well aware of the importance of Hogmanay.
“I have no problem with a party at all, but it was so loud it rattled the windows.”
The Mackellers’ daughter was afraid to go to work at 7:30 a.m. and their granddaughter couldn’t sleep.
Their daughter posted in a local home’s Facebook group asking the neighbors to turn the volume down, but the music got louder.
Mr. Mackeller, with his granddaughter in his arms, knocked on the door of the house party but received no answer.
Mr Mackellar cannot leave the country because his neighbor has filed a complaint against him. The police in Dubai have now announced that the case will go to trial
So he walked into the backyard when suddenly three men and the host rushed up to him and pushed him.
As he left, the host – a Lebanese woman who had lived in the UAE for years – followed him into the street, shouting and cursing at him. She then threw a drink at him and the baby and when he got home he was ‘sopping wet’.
Mrs Mackeller persuaded him not to call the police as the UAE has strict laws against foreigners and the party eventually ended at 3.30am. But on January 2, police knocked on the door when neighbors reported Ian for trespassing.
He was interrogated for hours and told that he was lucky, as if if he had been younger he would have been thrown in jail immediately.
Officers say the neighbor refuses to drop the charges.
The charges also mean he cannot leave the country.
His wife, who returned to Britain in time for a hospital appointment, said she has ‘no idea when Ian will be allowed to come home’.
She told the BBC that her husband was a ‘peaceful man’, a ‘devoted father and husband’.
As legal experts and his MP fight for his release, Mackellar’s wife warned her husband is “very stressed” and has a heart problem.
“I just want him home,” she said.
Ian Mackellar traveled to the UAE over the holidays to visit his daughter who had recently moved to the country, and to help look after her young child. In the photo: Dubai skyline
A spokesperson for their MP, Andrew Bowie, Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire, told MailOnline: ‘Andrew contacted the Foreign Office after being contacted by Mr McKellar and provided details of his case to the relevant minister .
“Andrew’s office is providing advice and support to Mr. McKellar’s family, and is working to get him the medical attention he needs.”
Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: “This is a very sad situation. No one could have ever imagined that a polite request to turn down the music would result in a travel ban and criminal charges.
‘Time and again we are reminded that a simple trip to Dubai can indeed be a one-way ticket. If the case is not dismissed, Ian will likely end up in prisons notorious for human rights abuses, and he simply does not deserve that.”