Allison Pearson Sorry, but I blame Scarlett Keeling's mother 00:55am 12th March 2008 Comments (4) Fiona MacKeown, the mother of Scarlett Keeling, the 15-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in Goa, seems less like a grieving mother than an avenging tigress.
With her swishing curtain of grey hair, Fiona is taking on a corrupt local police force which initially denied that her cub had been the victim of foul play. "If police had taken more interest in previous [suspicious] deaths, then Scarlett might not be dead now," growled Fiona. Maybe so. But isn't there an even better chance that Scarlett would still be alive if her own mother had not abandoned her for several weeks after an argument and recklessly continued her own holiday? Instead the blonde teenager, as tempting as a ripe peach, was left in the care of a 25-year-old tour guide - a local man she'd only recently met. I don't know what they call that in globe-trotting hippy circles. Back here on Planet Parent it's known as dereliction of duty. Mrs MacKeown is now to be questioned by Goan police for negligence - a tactic she claims is a "disgusting" attempt to "switch the focus" away from their own failings. Scarlett Keeling is thought to have been raped and murdered in Goa when her mother Fiona MacKeown left her in the car of a tour guide If anyone's trying to divert attention away from their own mistakes, I'd say it's Mrs MacKeown. Scarlett was last seen at 4am in a bar surrounded by several men. Witnesses say she was totally off her head on ecstasy and cocaine. That kind of behaviour would have made her vulnerable in her home town back in Devon, let alone in a culture where Western girls are all too readily viewed as sexually available. Forgive me for being a boringly conventional bourgeois mum, but what the hell were Fiona MacKeown and her partner thinking of taking seven kids on a six-month "dream trip" to India - and then leaving one of them to fend for herself? Why wasn't Scarlett in school studying for her GCSEs? The loss of any child must be a horror beyond imagining. But there is something about Fiona MacKeown that makes me want to scream at the TV. Not an ounce of doubt or regret seems to weigh on this laid-back woman. She told reporters that she had counted every mark on Scarlett's body. "There were almost 50 bruises and abrasions. She has clearly been battered and assaulted. I feel vindicated." Vindicated? For crying out loud! Any normal person would be tearing out their own hair with grief and remorse. Mrs MacKeown says her one consolation is that she's "got some photographs of [Scarlett] having a fabulous time". She still doesn't get it, does she? Fiona MacKeown is an unrepentant member of the Me Generation, one of those people who would rather be a best mate than a parent. It's more fun being a friend to your kids and, quite frankly, a lot less hassle. You don't have to fight daily battles over bedtimes and body piercings. And if you have a row with your "mate" you can storm off, unlike an old-fashioned authority figure who has to weather the storm and stay put always and forever. This week, John Dunford, head of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, warned that schools are the only moral framework in many children's lives. With the erosion of traditional family life, parents are no longer giving their offspring basic social skills or a sense of right and wrong. It's a bleak picture that brings to mind W.B. Yeats's great poem about a world where the natural order of things has catastrophically broken down: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned." For parents who are poor and ground down by work, or the lack of it, there may be some excuse. But articulate, middle-class people should know better. Since Scarlett's brutal killing, Fiona MacKeown has fought for her daughter. Would that she had exercised half that dedication and sense of responsibility while Scarlett was still alive and in need of a mother's care. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/dailymail.html?in_article_id=531289&in_page_id=1790