As thousands of students listened to Prime Minister Modi telling them, “always keep alive the child in you”, in his Teacher’s Day address, these words meant very little to a 15 year old, who went from being a little girl in a charity home run by a British couple, in Goa, to a being a pregnant woman who had to finally abort her baby, fathered by a staff member of the very home where she was supposed to be cared for and protected.
As Herald stayed with the story and unraveled the many fragments of shocking truths, which the police and the government chose to refrain from, the UK based charity Light House Ministries has chosen to literally brush aside the sordid issue, refusing to account for the criminal act of their staff member stating that he was a former staff member. After the Herald reports, they updated their website, to give an impression that the Project Managers of the Goa Light House, Tricia and Graham moved back to England “in the beginning of May and are currently in the UK adjusting back to UK life”. This is what the website of the charity further stated “The children have all been moved into their new accommodation with El-Shaddai a large Indian charity based in Goa. The girls have gone to a large house called “The Light House” and the boys have gone into “Shekinah House” and “Roshannah House” depending upon their ages”.
It was also mentioned, in the Director’s blog that the couple moved back to England to prepare for the wedding of their daughter. This again is terribly misleading. Where have you hitherto heard that the Project Managers of a Charity literally shut down the charity and moved back to their home country to prepare for a family wedding and do not return? And this sudden move back to England in the beginning of May was a fortnight after case of rape was registered against their staff member Motilal Lamani, on April 15, when the minor girls statement and medical examination confirmed that she indeed was pregnant, by Motilal Lamani, and had to undergo an abortion.
The couple took absolute advantage of the utter negligence of the Goa police to flee the country when their immediate responsibility should have been to join the investigation. The Director of the Charity writes on his website blog that Tricia and Graham’s decision to move back to UK was taken “before it came to our attention that one of the 16 year old girls ran away from the home to be with an older, Indian former employee. This was reported to the authorities by the then project coordinators who since then, left the country to conduct and attend their daughters wedding. The matter was not reported to us by them until mid-May this year”.
This is an appalling explanation with key facts like the girls pregnancy undisclosed. If a 16 year old in their care, had left the home with their employee, present or former, how could they not go on an over drive to look for her? Her mother registered a missing complaint and the eloping couple were traced and the minor girls pregnancy discovered in mid-April while Graham and Tricia were very much in Goa and could not have not known of this. They are clearly feigning ignorance. And leaving the country when a child registered as an inhabitant of their home is going through trauma of this nature, isn’t called care giving or parenting. It’s called insensitivity
While it is now learnt that the other in mates were moved to another home, this “transfer” without the knowledge of the Working Committee for the protection of child rights, when the activities of the Goa arm of the charity should have been investigated, makes the role of Tricia and Graham extremely dubious.
In a best case scenario they were not the perpetrators of the crime but terribly let down by an irresponsible staff. Or as the Director’s blog stated, they could have known about this staffs behavior and warned them but without thinking of eradicating such elements from an area where vulnerable children live. But what if, there is a remote possibility of other such Motilal Lamani’s lurking in the system with the knowledge of the British couple?
Would the UK would have accepted an Indian couple running an India based charity in the UK, going back to India, when investigations had commenced about a matter as serious as “rape’ where the victim is an inmate of this home to prepare for the wedding of their daughter? The Light House Charity needs to seriously respond to this. As Tricia and Graham prepared for the wedding of their daughter, they abandoned a 15 year old, who they kept as their daughter, under their care. She was a child, who was brutalized into becoming an adult under their supposed care, which just wasn’t there.
