Britons jailed for sexual abuse of boys

An Indian court today sentenced two British men to six years in prison after finding them guilty of sexually abusing boys at a children’s shelter that one of them had set up for street children in Bombay.

Sessions Court Judge P.S. 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.

The court ordered Grant and Waters to serve six years in prison and fined them £20,000 (€28,804) each.

Judge Paranjape also found an Indian, William D’souza, who managed the home, guilty of aiding and abetting the crime. He was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of £60 (€86).

Judge Paranjape said the convictions should deter pedophiles from believing poor Indian children were easy prey.

“The judgment should go some way to ensure that India is wiped out from the map of people who indulge in sexual abuse of children,” said Paranjape, who also announced the formation of a committee to decide how the fines could be used to rehabilitate the victims.

“One of the objectives before the court is to make the accused feel the pinch economically, and the other is that compensation should help rehabilitate the victims,” he said.

Grant, 61, from Hampstead, north London, has been in police custody since last June when he arrived from London and formally surrendered before a Bombay court on the advice of his lawyers.

Indian police had issued an international warrant in April 2002, seeking his arrest. A 2001 police report charged him and Waters with sodomy and sexually abusing boys at a home Grant set up for street children in Bombay.

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, whose address was not known, 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 US to face charges in India.

Grant opened Anchorage, a home for street children aged eight to 18, in central Bombay in 1995. Police say Waters was a regular visitor.

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 Bombay 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.