Another paedophile convicted
Sandesh Prabhudesai
13 July 2002
Sixty three-year old Eoghan Colm McBride
from New Zealand, yet another paedophile, has been convicted
in Goa for his involvement in a child abuse racket that
was busted in the tourist state in 1991.
Freddy Peats, the main operator in
the international paedophilic racket, was already sentenced
in life imprisonment in 1996. Their five other associates
are still absconding.
These are Werner Wulf Ingo (Australia),
Neels Oscar Johnson (Sweden), Raymond Varley (Bangkok),
Zell Jurgen Adreas alias Yogi (German) and Dominique
Sabire (France). The last accused was earlier arrested
in Delhi in 1998, but managed to jump the bail from
Goa and flee the country by February 2000.
Charges against all these accused however
established once again when the sessions court in Margao
convicted McBride. His point of sentence will be heard
on 17 July.
The CBI as per the high court orders
was investigating the case. Sheela Barse, Mumbai-based
child rights activist, had approached the high court
after finding that local police authorities are not
seriously investigating the case.
In fact the whole country was shocked
when the police in 1991 had found a child abuse racket
by Peats in a village near Colva beach in South Goa,
by running an orphanage called 'Gurukul'. Peats was
found to have been sexually exploiting the destitute
children and also selling them to the paedophiles who
have been visiting the orphanage regularly for almost
a decade.
The prosecution, while producing several
witnesses including the victims, established a fact
that the children were kidnapped, subjected to sexual
abuse and causing injury to them, sold and made these
children available to foreign nationals to satisfy their
sexual lust.
"There are hundreds of such paedophiles
still visiting the tourist state, but the authorities
are not doing enough to nab them", accuses Dr Nishtha
Desai, director of the Children's Rights in Goa.
The demand to have a special legislation
to deal with the child abuse cases is also not being
fulfilled by the state government till date.
The NGOs along the coastal belt here
brought quite a few such paedophilic cases to light,
following Peats case. But the police have not managed
to chargesheet any, except one where the accused - German
national Brinkman Helmut - managed to flee the country.
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