The British woman arrested in Dubai over Facebook posts which branded her ex-husband’s new wife a ‘horse’ has been told she will be able to go home.

Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was convicted of a misdemeanour and ordered to pay a £650 (Dh3,000) penalty which she will have to pay before she can leave the UAE.

She was detained under strict cybercrime laws when she visited the country with her daughter Paris, 14, three years after writing the posts.

Ms Shahravesh, from Richmond, south-west London, called Samah al-Hammadi, from Tunisia, a horse in a post after she discovered her ex-husband Pedro Correia Dos Santos had remarried in 2016.

She was arrested when she travelled to the United Arab Emirates on March 10 for Pedro’s funeral after his death from a heart attack one week earlier.

Paris was allowed to return to Britain after the pair were held by police for 12 hours, but Ms Shahravesh’s passport was seized, Detained In Dubai said.

She had been told she faced two years in prison and a £50,000 fine for the posts.

But her lawyer Michel Chalhoub this afternoon told The Sun: ‘She is free to go home. I’m rushing about trying to get her passport now.

‘As soon as I get it I will give it to her and she is free to go.’

After a briefing between lawyers and judge Mohamed Mustafa Ibrahim Khalil, the mother was fined her £650, told she will not serve any time in prison but that she will not be able to leave the country until she pays the fine.

She appeared briefly in the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours on Thursday, which initially adjourned the case until next week.

The judge then ordered her passport to be returned to her.

Speaking immediately after the announcement Laleh said: ‘Just when I thought this nightmare was never going to end, after the court hearing this morning, now I know I am going home to my daughter.

‘I am overcome with happiness and relief. I can’t thank Radha and Detained in Dubai enough and all the support I received from the public.’

Earlier Detained in Dubai chief executive Radha Stirling, who had been representing Ms Shahravesh, said it appeared Ms Hammadi had been ‘prolonging the process’.

‘There have been ever-changing signals by Ms Hammadi since this debacle began, once saying she would withdraw the complaint out of respect for her late husband’s love for his daughter, then saying she would drop the charges if Laleh apologised, and the latest reports are that she is seeking monetary compensation.’

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