2 Britons, Indian cleared of paedophilia charge

2 Britons, Indian cleared of paedophilia charge
23 Jul 2008, 2315 hrs IST, Shibu Thomas,TNN


MUMBAI: Two former Royal Navy officers were acquitted by Bombay High Court in the infamous Anchorage paedophilia case on Wednesday.

A division bench of justices Bilal Nazki and Sharad Bobde held that the two UK nationals Allan Waters (64) and Duncan Grant (60) and their Indian manager William D’Souza were not guilty of sexually abusing minor boys at the Anchorage shelter home in Colaba. The court relied on several factors, including lack of ‘‘reliable evidence’’ against the duo to nail them.

A sessions court in March 2003 had convicted Waters and Grant on charges of unnatural sex (Section 377 of the IPC). They were sentenced to six years in jail and asked to shell out a fine of 20,000 pounds. D’Souza was sentenced to three years in prison. Quashing the sessions court verdict, the judges held that there was "no merit" in the prosecution case.

Waters has been in jail since September 2004, when he was extradited from the US, while Grant has been imprisoned since June 2005, when he arrived from London and surrendered to Mumbai police.

Child rights activists and lawyers, who have followed the case since it was exposed eight years back, expressed dismay. "There could not have been a stronger case put up by a prosecution agency," said advocate Yug Chaudhry, who was representing NGO Childline before the court.

"The Maharashtra government had spent resources to get the accused extradited from the US and employed the services of a top-notch special public prosecutor," said Chaudhry, adding that an appeal would be filed in the Supreme Court.

In fact, immediately after the judges pronounced the verdict in the chamber, the state represented by additional public prosecutor A R Patil moved an urgent application seeking a stay on the HC judgment. It was aimed at preventing Waters and Grant from leaving the country in the event of their release.

The defence team of advocates Taraq Sayed and Shekhar Bhandary claimed their stand that the trio were falsely implicated had been vindicated.