Things That Bang

Sympathy for Fiona MacKeown is on its last leg with most parents:

Scarlett was having the time of her life in Anjuna, taking free jet-ski rides and helping Julio Lobo, a 25-year-old tour operator, to organise dolphin trips.

MacKeown agreed that she could stay with Lobo and his aunt in their old Portuguese villa inland at Siolim, provided she joined the family every three days. MacKeown visited the villa and had dinner with the aunt and came away satisfied that her daughter would be safe. “Julio was a 25-year-old caring man,” she says.

When to allow a teenager new freedoms is a dilemma all parents have to face. But MacKeown also had blind faith in the goodness of strangers. She left Scarlett in the care of an elderly woman she had met only once, with no money of her own and without a mobile phone.

Goodness of strangers? I think she thought she had one less mouth to feed or one less loose cannon to try to control.

Scarlett came to visit by bus. MacKeown says her biggest regret is allowing her to return to Anjuna. They argued about how little time she was spending with her brothers and sisters and her determination to have more freedom. Like any 15-year-old she was pushing the boundaries, wanting more control over her life.

According to MacKeown, Scarlett had been in a sexual relationship, had smoked cannabis and sometimes drank beer or Bacardi Breezers, but was not out of control.

Thats not being out of control?

MacKeown says she stopped smoking hashish when she realised how drugs had affected him. “I had to show a better example to my kids,” she says.

She was a junkie herself and she stopped doing drugs after the damage had already been done. Kids emulate their parents

When MacKeown got back to Goa, she discovered from her daughter’s diary that she had been having sex with Lobo and that in a row he had accused her of using him for “sex and money”. MacKeown believes Lobo’s aunt asked Scarlett to leave after discovering they were having sex and that she moved into a guesthouse.

Living your minor daughter with a 25 year old man what do you expect? Him to treat her like a child. He aint no Peter Pan!!

Faced with this devastating account of her daughter’s last hours, MacKeown admits: “I didn’t understand the culture or the mindset of the Goan boys, right up to when she was killed.”

In her parallel hippie universe, she had done nothing worse than trust people. Her pierced lip quivers and she begins to cry for the daughter she will never see again.

Guess what lady your living on the good will of strangers cost you your child's life. The world is not some Sesame street where all are kind, generous and civil. Its a mean horrid world and your mooching off attitude, self absorbed, abandoning your child in the name of freedom cost you your child's life.

There is no excusing your part in this whole tragedy and worse still you continue to pass the buck. Shame on you!!