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Police lethargy allows German accused of paedophilia to be acquitted

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

The menace of paedophilia is growing in Goa, one of the world's foremost tourist destinations, simply because the authorities are not alert enough to tackle the problem effectively.

The acquittal of Helmut Brinkmann, a German national, by the Panjim sessions court and the subsequent rejection by the Goa bench of the Bombay high court of a special leave petition against his acquittal are proof enough of this attitude. The police have not even bothered to find out where Brinkmann is.

The 55-year-old man was arrested in August 1998 on a charge of abducting a 12-year-old boy from Bombay and abusing him in a Goan hotel.

The kidnap charge could not be proved, but Assistant Sessions Judge Nutan Sardesai convicted Brinkmann of sexual abuse with six years's rigorous imprisonment in February 1999. Witnesses from a taxi driver to the hotel receptionist stood by the police while Brinkmann's lawyer did not even cross-examine them.

But Additional Sessions Judge D Kenkre acquitted Brinkmann in September on an appeal. The judge said the prosecution had failed to prove that the accused had had anal intercourse, itself a punishable offence under the Indian Penal Code, with the boy.

"First of all, for a child to talk about being sexually exploited is rare. Consequently, a child's testimony needs to be given serious consideration. In such cases, circumstantial evidence should be given lot more importance," said Dr Nishitha Desai, a researcher.

Rather than fight the case properly, the authorities appear to have created enough grounds for Brinkmann to go scot-free. It took the government almost three months to file a special leave petition challenging the acquittal. And when the appeal came up for hearing last week, the high court rejected it.

When the division bench inquired about Brinkmann's whereabouts, the assistant public prosecutor said he "may have gone back" to Germany. As a result, the judges had no choice but to acquit the accused. 'It is virtually impossible to have a notice served on him outside the country and much less would it be possible to make the accused come back to serve the sentence in case we decide to set aside the acquittal order,' they said.

Dr Desai does not dispute the principle of English jurisprudence, which forms the basis of Indian law, that even if a hundred culprits are set free, one innocent should not be punished. "But the problem is if a single paedophile is set free, it will encourage hundred more to enter the country," she said.

In fact, the police needed to be more alert after the arrest of Briton Freddy Peats, accused of running a child-sex ring under the façade of an orphanage for poor children till 1996. But the authorities called it an exceptional case and buried their heads in the sand even as the menace continued to grow by the day.

"Can you imagine an Indian or an African walking through the streets of any town in Europe or America with a group of white kids, without attracting any kind of suspicion from local citizens or state authorities? In our country and in Goa particularly, foreigners not only walk around with small children but share rooms with them, no questions asked," Dr Desai said.

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