Uneasy feeling re the girl mudered in Goa

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henryhorn

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Am I alone in feeling uneasy about the 15 year old left with a tour guide whilst her Mother and 6 siblings explored India?
The Sunday paper gives some background and apparently the Mother is a gypsy who lives in a fairly squalid place in N Devon, a wooden hut with some caravans for sleeping.
Just how has she earned the money to take all 9 of her family to Goa?
One report said they sold one child's pony to fund it but surely taking 9 there must have cost a lot even for flights?
I can't understand how anyone would leave a 15 year old in a strange country with a slightly older tour guide and go off exploring...
It's had an unhappy ending but from the news coverage I've seen, the Mother even now is defending her actions and not taking the blame for the death of her daughter.
Would YOU leave your 15 year old in a strange place and go off exploring?
It seems to me a case of too little too late, and although she must be devastated by her daughter's death she doesn't seem to think any of it could have been prevented by responsible parenting.. I just can't understand people like her, does a fog come down in their brains or what?
 
I find it appauling that she did that and it is unfortunat the she is now paying for her actions in such a terrible way. I cannot imagin what was going on in her mind to be mad enough to leave her daughter.

RIP
 
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The Sunday paper gives some background and apparently the Mother is a gypsy who lives in a fairly squalid place in N Devon, a wooden hut with some caravans for sleeping.

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It will be interesting to see if she is pulled to pieces as I suspect she will be, given this information. It will provide a very interesting contrast indeed to how the press treated the McCanns.
 
I think a lot of newspapers try to apportion blame after a tragic death. Since nobody knows the circumstances of what really happened, it seems we are once again going to be treated to 'trial by journalism'. One person's gypsy is another person's eco-dweller. I am sure there are a lot of unanswered questions, but sadly I suspect the press will answer all the wrong ones, and they never let the truth get in the way of a good story. If she was left with a tour guide then that was obviously a very poor lapse of judgement on the mother's part, but she and her daughter have paid the highest price imaginable. They had all apparently gone there for six months, and I have no idea if they were familiar with the country of not. Maybe the mother simply cannot bear to accept responsibility for her actions.
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The Sunday paper gives some background and apparently the Mother is a gypsy who lives in a fairly squalid place in N Devon, a wooden hut with some caravans for sleeping.

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It will be interesting to see if she is pulled to pieces as I suspect she will be, given this information. It will provide a very interesting contrast indeed to how the press treated the McCanns.

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Absolutely!

I do not see how the mothers living circumstances are at all relevant in this case.
And her actions are certainly far less of a 'crime', imho, than leaving babies unattended in a foreign country, while eating out with friends...
 
A student I used to know used to fly to Goa every Xmas holiday for 4 weeks as the cost of the flight more than offset what he had to spend on food and fuel for heating in England. He said that he could live for less than 50p a day in Goa!
 
India is very cheap. You can get a beach hut for 50p a night. Food costs more than accomadation. Return flights are about £450.

What I am more concerned is that the first post mortem said she drowned when the second found 50 bruises on her body.

Yes 15 is quite young but I was 18 when I went to India and my friend only 17 with no adults
 
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"I can't understand how anyone would leave their 15 year old..."

I can! Lots of families go on holiday and the petulant teens stay behind at the resort - I do not find it shocking that the girl was left behind and I certainly do not blame the mother for her death!

15 year olds fend for themselves every day of the week, and I would guess it was her decision not to go - it is emerging that there was something going on between her and the guide...
 
15 yrs - until they rasied the school levaing age, 15 yr olds were out at work, travelling to work and being quite independent. Tour Guides usually trusted people.
 
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I think a lot of newspapers try to apportion blame after a tragic death. Since nobody knows the circumstances of what really happened, it seems we are once again going to be treated to 'trial by journalism'. One person's gypsy is another person's eco-dweller. I am sure there are a lot of unanswered questions, but sadly I suspect the press will answer all the wrong ones, and they never let the truth get in the way of a good story. If she was left with a tour guide then that was obviously a very poor lapse of judgement on the mother's part, but she and her daughter have paid the highest price imaginable. They had all apparently gone there for six months, and I have no idea if they were familiar with the country of not. Maybe the mother simply cannot bear to accept responsibility for her actions.
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[/ QUOTE ] Took the words out of my mouth - I agree
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Sorry, but I still can't understand how anyone would leave a 15 year old in a totally strange country with someone they barely knew..
It's a very different thing to leave your 15 year old home in your UK house with responsible adults nearby than to leave her with a bloke in his twenties who the mother claims she knew nothing of the sexual relationship between them.
I think I'm probably old fashioned in my view due to my age, but I feel the mother shouldn't have done it, and had she been more responsible as a parent the kid might be alive today.
I don't condone what the McCanns did either, we used to all eat together on holiday as most countries outside the Uk are welcoming to families and make meals a pleasant experience, I wouldn't have left my chidlren asleep in a strange house without being with them.
Looking back I could so easily have come to grief with my own kids when I used to teach most evenings from home, I was within earshot if they shouted but not inside the house, and now I'm just grateful nothing did go wrong.
I think my views of the Mother are being coloured by the local talk that's going on, which I am not prepared to put on here, but yes, I do blame her, you sometimes have to tell and insist your children do stuff they don't like, but that's what parenting has to be sometimes..
One of those posts when we agree to disagree I think...
 
We will LOL, it makes the world go round! I raised myself from 12 years old, my mother never knew, nor indeed I think cared, what I was up to. When I was 15 we went on holiday to Florida and the Bahamas - I got royally pissed at happy hour and my mother and sister left me to go out to a show
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I am not saying it is right but I know what I was like at that age and no, I wouldn't have gone anywhere just because my mother told me to. It is a tough one indeedy, but I cannot blame the mother for the girl's death, that, to me, is unfair. At 12 I had a moped and was fully independant, which was a necessity where I lived. When we went abroad I was fiercely independant and always went sightseeing alone - quite possibly I am just a bit different, hey!

ETS: 2 months after my 16th I left the country and everyone I knew and went to work with people I didn't know in an area where we knew nobody that I could call if in need - just because I had had my 16th does it make a difference?
 
It's a local family so we had the news in our local papers where it reports that she had had sex before she had died/killed/murdered.
Now at just 2 years older than my son, I find it not only irresponsible of the parent but also downright stupid that she was having underage sex. Of course it happens all the time, look at all the teenage pregnancies but she was with her parents, they must have condoned her having sex because they were happy to leave her. I'd never leave my son, not in any situation, I gave birth to him, i'm there for him and not for myself until the day he decides to leave home.
 
Im glad its not just me who was questioning what a 15 year old girl was doing in bars on Goan beaches. This is all decidedly odd.
 
I don't think it's odd at all.
I agree with those who say I'd never in a million years DO it. No child of mine would be on the loose at 15.
But statistically fairly commonplace, it seems to me. Which doesn't make it right, but parenthood is a dying art, it seems.
 
i'm with Weezy on this one, I was very independant at 15 and wouldn't have done anything my mother told me to do - not that she cared what I was doing anyway. Kids do grow up very quickly and 15 many (including me at the time) condider themselves adults.
 
i feel very sorry for the mother , yes she is a bit of a 'tree hugger' but that does not make her bad. She probably believed that she was expanding her children horizons and Goa was considered to be 'paradise'. As for the girl she was not just left with the tour guide but also with their family, an older lady was mensioned. So , a rather 'street wise '15yr old who wanted to stay put is no surprise. Cant blame mum for that. As for the 'under age sex bit... well get real i have known of girls as young as 13yrs, dont agree with it but certainly would try and keep them aware of the consequences both physically and mentally and know that it does happen even to the'best' families.
Yet again trial by media for a family who have fought to have the accidental death verdict at first impossed by the shoddy police, over turned... lets not forget that.
RIP at least now she can be laid to rest.
 
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It depends on the child, my dad ran off to sea at 15, and i know 15 year olds who are totally unable to make a cup of tea on their own!

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Spot on! I know people who had left school and were at work at 15. Those of us that tend to nanny our children may find this strange, and I wouldn't have done it with my daughter, but I sure would have with my mother! I was very independent and headstrong at 15, and would definitely have stayed with my boyfriend and his family. I would say this is definitely not the mother's fault. It is the fault of the person who took that young girl's life. We are all constantly being criticised for wrapping our children in cotton wool (guilty as charged), yet when something like this happens, the criticism is the other way round.
 
My daughter Charli, went on holiday with her boyfriend and his family last summer, at 15 years old, but I don't see myself as irresponsible.
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Anybody who knows her (one or two people on here do) would probably say that while she is quite streetwise and sassy, she is also sensible.

Parenting is always difficult, but along with the love we surround them with, we also have to be careful not to suffocate them, and give them enough freedom to be able to learn how to fly.

The balance isn't always easy, and it's sad when things go terribly wrong, but younger children than this girl have disappeared only yards from their homes, or on their way to school, or even from their gardens. Grown adults have been attacked/murdered while doing normal day to day activities.

Sadly bad people will seize any opportunity to do bad things, regardless of how much care we take.
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I do feel a bit sorry for the mother, there are loads of rubbish parents around and MOST of their children survive safe and sound into adulthood. THis poor kid was just unlucky in that she wasn't adequately protected by her mother, or by the person her mother trusted to look after her, or by anyone. To be honest, even if the mother had stayed in Goa, she still might have allowed the kid to go out to bars or cafes with friends, and she could have been killed just as easily with her mother 500 yards away down the beach as 500 miles away.

I went to India with my parents when I was 15, and there is no way that my mum would have let me even go out to bars with people we met (not that we met anyone who wanted to take me out).
 
Dubs there's a huge difference in your 15 year old going on holiday with her boyfriend and his family than leaving her in a strange country with someone anyone with half a brain would suspect had designs on her..
I think another poster has said the parent probably felt it was a paradise of a place and she would be fine, but she was adding to the risks there by leaving her and going off.
I imagine the worst thing for her Mother will be the guilt, but I can't for the life of me say my view is anything but that she should have taken her with her or stayed put..
At 15 I was a streetwise teenager who sometimes got into fairly dangerous situations of my own making, but they were always because I'd ignored my parents' advice.
I saw too many airy fairy parents when they brought their offspring on holiday here for 13 seasons, and in my view far too many of them don't seem to be able to say "No" (myself included incidentally).
This has ended in a terrible tragedy and loss of life, and it peeves me to see her mother refusing to accept any of it could have been avoided, of course I feel sorry for her but that's a different thing altogether..
 
When I was 15 I was left to hang out at resorts abroad - I certainly had no desire to play football etc with my little brother in the child minding nor did I want to go on exceptionally boring sight seeing tours. I'm not saying it was necessarily correct, but I was no less mature at this point, than a month later, turned 16, left in sole charge of a riding school, with care for other people's children for 10 hours a day! (Not that I am saying this is desirable either looking back!) However, my little brother, at 15, couldn't be trusted not to burn the house down, let alone cope in a foreign country by himself - heck even in his 20s he is less savy than I was at 15 about coping in a foreign country! I guess what I am saying is that at 15, the mother may well have felt secure in her decision leaving her daughter, would there be the same outcry if she was 16/17?
 
The blame is at the hands of her murderer, simply. Im not a man hater but hearing news of killings of young girls/women is becoming becoming all to frequent. Its generally the male variety who are to blame.
 
My Nan has just got back from Goa, and told me that she saw this girl in a bar called Mollys on one occassion, and that the bar is full of Hippies from the 60/70's that went out there and never left.

My nan also said that she thought they were all Junkies in there..... nice!!!

Can't claim that they are junkies as i say, thought.

But who would let there 15yo walk about in a place like that alone, although you think its safe, i wouldn't let my 15yo walk about in london all night!!
 
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When I was 15 I was left to hang out at resorts abroad - I certainly had no desire to play football etc with my little brother in the child minding nor did I want to go on exceptionally boring sight seeing tours.

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I understand that, in this case the girl was being left for significantly longer then a day while her mother and the rest of her siblings travelled to a neighbouring state. There is a big difference between leaving someone alone for a day while you go sightseeing to leaving them for days/weeks.
However, as has already been pointed out many 15 year-olds are very independent and more then capable of looking after themselves.
 
I heard on the news that the mother of Scarlett Keeling is to be questioned by police in Goa investigating whether she was negligent in leaving her daughter on her own.
I didn't hear all of it though, so may have missed something.
 
I agree with partoow about this. The person really to blame is the murder, the one who took advantage of a 15 year old and then killed her.
 
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