DUBAI (AFP) – Dubai’s highest court has upheld a three-month jail sentence followed by deportation against a British mother convicted of adultery.

According to The Gulf News, the court rejected Marnie Pearce’s second appeal making the ruling irrevocable.

Pearce, 40, was found guilty of adultery by a Dubai court last November, after being accused of cheating on her Egyptian ex-husband. The paper did not specify when the alleged adultery took place, or when the couple divorced.

The courts have rejected her attempt to overturn the conviction but reduced the jail sentence from six to three months.

Pearce, originally from Bracknell in Kent, has insisted throughout that she was innocent and said she feared losing custody of her two young sons if she went to prison.

She met her husband in Oman and married him in the Seychelles in September 1999. They had two boys, Laith, seven, and Ziad, four, and moved to Dubai where their marriage broke down.

In March 2008, she was arrested and accused of committing adultery with a British man who she insists was only a friend.

A British man and woman were found guilty in October of having sex on the beach in Dubai, which despite its pro-Western outlook still adheres to certain strict Islamic rules.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors won a suspension of their three-month jail term but were each ordered to pay 1,000-dirham (193 pound) fines for drinking alcohol and expelled from the country.