Team Herald
PANJIM: The petition of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), challenging the acquittal of Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho in the 2008 mysterious death of British teen Scarlett Eden Keeling, has given the bereaved British family a new ray of hope.
Five months ago, the Children’s Court’s had found the two men not guilty on all charges and this had left the family devastated with Scarlett’s mother Fiona Mackeown, seeking an appeal. As CBI knocked on the doors of the High Court of Bombay at Goa earlier this month, Mackeown is optimistic that justice is now not far. In its petition, CBI has said that the special judge had not applied her judicial mind, both on the points of law and on the facts of the case.
“My daughter was murdered and I do hope that CBI will be able to prove who killed her,” she said from Devon, London, in an email chat with Herald.
A mother of eight, Mackeown had held key witness Michael Mannion partially responsible for the acquittal as he had failed to depose during the trial, while also alleging that CBI was either incompetent or corrupt for toning down the earlier murder charge (as per police chargesheet) against the two men.
Speaking to Herald, Advocate Vikram Varma, who made attempts to ensure justice to the family, reiterated that the autopsy confirmed Scarlett was raped and murdered. “Substantial evidence was destroyed and there was conscious delay in the handing over the investigation to the CBI. The criminal justice system consists of many cogs and wheels any one of which can subvert the entire system, this has been such a case so far,” he said.
He added, “Unless adequate energy is provided against those who commit destruction of evidence and perjury, the system can never improve.”
On her last visit to Goa in September 2016, when the verdict was pronounced, Mackeown had hinted that she is not keen on visiting Goa again. “The order of the lower court has eroded my confidence for the safety of women and children in India. It did seem that in India, women live in fear while criminals walk free,” she said.
