the goan I network
PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa partially overturned the order of the Goa Children’s Court which had acquitted both accused in the death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, and has found Samson D’Souza guilty of drugging, sexually assaulting and causing the death of Keeling in February 2008 and subsequent destruction of evidence.
Passing judgement on an appeal that was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, challenging the acquittal, the bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and Prithviraj Chavan however found the other accused Placido Carvalho not guilty of the same offences.
The court will hear the matter on quantum of sentence on Friday at 10:30 am.
The CBI had built a case that between 3.30 am to 5.30 am on February 18, 2008 at Luis Shack in Anjuna, both the accused administered cocaine lines, ecstasy tablets and beer on Scarlett Keeling, aged 15 years and 8 months, with the intent to sexually assault her.
The CBI also charged D’Souza with deliberately leaving her near the water line, on the beach, knowing that she was fully intoxicated, which led to her drowning.
The order culminates more than 11 years of litigation that was initiated largely at the instance of Scarlett’s mother Fiona MacKeown, on whose complaint the Goa Police had registered the case as a criminal offence. Initially the Anjuna Police had, upon finding the body registered the case as an unnatural death and after the first post mortem report closed the case as an accidental drowning.
After a media uproar, the government headed by then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat agreed to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation and also agreed to a second post mortem which ruled that death of Scarlett Keeling could have been homicidal.
Earlier in November 2016 the Goa Children’s Court found both Samson and Placido not guilty.
“In this particular instance, having a child in the presence and in his control, he has given narcotics to her, he has assaulted her and he has caused her death. This kind of conduct is not the conduct of a good citizen. It is a predatory conduct. It is the conduct of a predator. And this person has been left with ordinary citizens to move freely for the last 10 years,” Adv Vikram Varma who represented Fiona Mackeown, Scarlett’s mother said.
D’Souza now faces a sentence ranging between three to ten years imprisonment.
