NEW DELHI: The mother of a British teenager who was raped and left to die on a Goa beach five years ago has blasted India's “rubbish” legal system over the stalled trial into her daughter's death.
Scarlett Keeling was only 15 years old when her bruised and half-naked body was found on a beach in the Indian resort state of Goa in February 2008.
Two men were arrested and charged with homicide several weeks after the attack on the popular Anjuna beach in the coastal state which has long been a haunt for Western tourists.
But five years on, their trial has come to a standstill and the pair is out on bail in an echo of a wider malaise in the notoriously sluggish Indian justice system.
In an interview with AFP, Scarlett's mother Fiona MacKeown expressed her exasperation at the delay, saying she will not be at peace until she has secured justice for the youngster.
“The system is just rubbish,” she said by phone from her home in the county of Devon on the west coast of England.
“It's ridiculous that it's now five years and we are still waiting.”
The delay is another embarrassing example of India's failure to deliver timely justice for victims of sex assaults, with anger still smoldering over the deadly gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in Delhi in December.
Scarlett's death also attracted international headlines, highlighting the dark side of a tourist destination still seen by many as a hangout for hippies.