I wanted to be my kids’ friend: Fiona

I wanted to be my kids’ friend: Fiona
Goa Police Issue Summons To Scarlette’s Mom
Preetu Nair | TNN

Panaji: When Fiona MacKeown left her mother’s home at the young age of 17, she made herself a promise. If she ever had children, she would give them something that her mother had denied her: freedom and friendship.
“I always wanted my relationship with my children to be trusting and honest,’’ said the 43-yearold, who has been severely criticised by fellow Britons for being a derelict mother who left her daughter alone in Goa. On the night of February 18, when Scarlette was drugged, raped and left to drown off Anjuna beach, her mother was in Karnataka. On Friday, she received summons under the Goa Children’s Act, asking her to appear before the juvenile unit of the Goa police on Friday.
Fiona’s need to be friends with her children is a result of her having to leave home because of her mother’s domineering ways, she says. “I didn’t have a good childhood. My mother was too strict and I hated it. That’s why I revolted. I gave my children freedom so that they could trust me. I never wanted my children to feel bad about anything or themselves. But now I realise how wrong and naive I was,’’ she admitted.
Fiona came to Goa in November with eight children and her partner. The holiday ended in the most tragic fashion but that has not dissuaded her from wanting to return. She says she’ll come back during the winter season and take horse-riding classes for tourists. “It would be different and fun business,’’ she said. “And after the tourist season, when I return to Devon, I intend to carry several leather accessories from Gokarna in Karnataka and sell them in London. I ran a shop there for five years and know the business.’’
Fiona had earlier told TOI that she wanted to settle in Goa, but has changed her mind after she was advised against doing so by friends. She is worried about her children’s safety. As for the daughter she lost, Fiona said quietly, “She was a good child. She will always be a good child.’’
Court denies bail to Shanu Boy
The court has denied bail to Placido Carvalho aka Shanu Boy, one of the main accused in the Scarlette murder case who allegedly drugged the British teen with an intention to rape her. Shanu Boy, meanwhile, has been admitted to a hospital as he was feeling “sick”. TNN
MacKeown jailed in ’83 for knifing man
London: A British newspaper on Friday threw light on an unsavoury aspect of Fiona MacKeown, Scarlette’s mother, alleging that she was jailed for slitting the throat of a man she met at a party. The paper reported her oldest son, Hal, saying that she and a female friend were accused of attempted murder in 1983, when Fiona was 18. Hal, Scarlette’s older sibling, said the murder charge was eventually reduced to attempted manslaughter and she finally served just one year of the threeyear sentence. TNN

2008 Mar 15 Times of India Mumbai