UK sex abusers convicted
2006-03-18 15:04
Mumbai - An Indian court on Saturday found two British men guilty of sexually abusing boys at a children's shelter that one of them had set up for street children in Mumbai.
Judge PS Paranjape handed down guilty verdicts against Duncan Grant, a charity worker, and fellow Briton Allan Waters, who were charged with child sex abuse and engaging in unnatural acts with children.
Judge Paranjape also found an Indian, William D'souza, who managed the home, guilty of aiding and abetting the crime.
They are expected to be sentenced later on Saturday.
Grant, 61, has been in police custody since last June when he arrived from London and formally surrendered before a Mumbai court on the advice of his lawyers.
Indian police had issued an international warrant in April 2002, seeking his arrest.
Tanzania
A 2001 police report charged him and Waters with sodomy and sexually abusing boys at a home Grant set up for street children in Mumbai.
Grant, who also ran children's charities in Tanzania, was arrested two years ago in Dar es Salaam on the international warrant. He returned to London after being released on bail.
Waters, 58, was arrested at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport three years ago on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant, and extradited from the United States to face charges in India.
Grant opened Anchorage, a home for street children aged 8 to 18, in downtown Mumbai in 1995. Police say Waters was a regular visitor.
Betrayal
Police launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from a 15-year-old boy about repeated sexual and physical abuse by Grant and Waters.
Four other boys also made similar complaints.
Grant and Waters had fled Mumbai after the alleged offences were reported, police say.
Lawyer Majeed Memon, who represents both men, asked the court to consider the ages of both men when considering jail terms.
He also asked the court to consider that no recent cases of abuse had been registered against either man.
However, prosecutor Vijay Nahar argued that the men had betrayed the boys who respected them.
"The boys referred to the men as 'father'. Both Grant and Waters betrayed the trust of these boys," said Nahar.
Nahar earlier said D'souza thrashed the boys in the shelter after they were abused in order to browbeat them and prevent them from complaining to other social workers or the police.
- AP