Teen's mother has begun crowdfunding campaign to generate funds that will be offered as reward for information on witness or any other evidence
Scarlett Keeling and her mother Fiona MacKeown
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Fiona MacKeown, Scarlett Keeling's mother, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to generate £20,000 (around Rs 16 lakh) towards her fight for justice. Her 15-year-old daughter was raped and killed in Goa in 2008. The money, she said, will be offered as reward for information and/or evidence to help identify Scarlett's killers.
Fiona and her lawyer are also hoping the money generated would help trace the 'missing' eyewitness in the case.
'I just want the truth'
Fiona recently started the crowdfunding page on justgiving.com, where she has appealed to people to donate to help fund the probe. So far, 17 people have donated for the cause and around £285 (Rs 23,000) has been generated. “This is my last chance to find witnesses that saw Scarlett the night she died, there are too many gaps. I just want the truth. If we succeed in getting justice for Scarlett, we will be the first. This will open the gateway for others (sic),” Fiona wrote on the page.
The accused Placido Carvalho and Samson D'Souza
Her lawyer, advocate Vikram Verma said, "The reason for this crowdfunding is primarily to reach out to the person, who claimed to be an eyewitness to the crime and had approached us in 2008. The eyewitness said he would return in two hours, but never came back."
Verma said Fiona made many attempts to reach out to the witness, but he was untraceable. "All she remembers about the person was that he was slim and in his late forties or early fifties," said Verma.
Shoddy investigation?
Meanwhile, the CBI has filed an appeal against the acquittal of the two accused, Samson D'Souza and Placido Carvalho, before the Goa bench of Bombay High Court, challenging the children's court verdict acquitting them on September 23, 2016.
The CBI had filed charge sheets against D'Souza and Carvalho in March 2010 under various Sections of the IPC.
Verma said, prima facie there was sufficient material to nail the accused under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act (NDPS) Act. However, both the Goa police and CBI had failed to investigate the fact that the usage and storage of cocaine was rampant at the shack the accused frequented. The CBI had also informed the court that they only had the mandate to probe the murder case.
"Section 5 of Special Delhi Police Act, states that when the state makes a request to CBI for a probe, it is clear that the CBI will probe the case and any fact arising from or related to the said crime, will be looked into. The mandate is huge and anything connected with the case should have been probed by the CBI, who like Goa police did a shoddy investigation," Verma said.
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