Justice process is fast: Scarlett’s mother

PANAJI - Scarlett Keeling’s mother Fiona Mackeown Friday said she was satisfied with the pace of the judicial process in her daughter’s trial.

Talking to reporters outside the Goa Children’s Court (GCC), she said it was “stuffy” inside the premises.

Dressed in a chequered full sleeved shirt and a pair of dark trousers with strings of stone and coral beads, Fiona took questions from reporters after the trial.

“The process (judicial) is fast. I would like to believe that this is fast within India. I am happy with that,” Fiona told a clamouring battery of journalists, several of whom landed in Goa from Britain especially to cover the first formal deposition of Fiona to the judicial authorities.

An overwhelmed Fiona, who repeatedly rolled her tongue over the tiny silver knob jutting up from her pierced lower lip and twiddled with the beads and coral pendants hanging around her neck, also said it wasn’t very easy sitting in court.

“It was draining,” she said, in response to a query from a British journalist, who asked if it was “hot and stuffy” inside the court premises.

“It also wasn’t very easy remembering the sequence of events, especially because I was under stress when it happened back then,” Fiona said as she walked out of the GCC president P.V. Savoikar’s courtroom after spending nearly two-and-half hours.

The GCC is a special court designated to try crimes against minors in Goa. Both lawyers and judge are excused from wearing the customary formal robes or black coats in order to ensure that minor victims are at ease and not overawed.

The special court premises itself has no witness box and has a thick, sprightly streak of pink running across the walls, a stark departure from other civil or criminal courts in the state.

Scarlett was found sexually assaulted and killed at the Arjuna beach here in February 2008.