Inhaling deeply from a hash pipe: Scarlett Keeling's mother just days before Goa murderer struck
By Nick Constable Last updated at 9:20 AM on 01st March 2009 She sits in a bar sucking what appears to be a hashish pipe. This is the unseen side of Fiona MacKeown, mother of the murdered schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling. The picture was taken near the hippy paradise of Om Beach, Gokarna, days before the rape and murder of the 15-year-old daughter she had left 100 miles away in the care of tour guide Julio Lobo, 25. Yet it barely scratches the surface of a chaotic family holiday which, according to Mrs MacKeown’s estranged partner Rob Clarke, resulted in bitter rows, under-age sex, violence, drinking binges, drugs parties and her hungry children reduced to eating just a daily bowl of rice each. fiona mckeown Fix: Fiona MacKeown, mother of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling, on Om Beach with what appears to be a hashish pipe The acceptance of drug use within 44-year-old Mrs MacKeown’s family seems clear in a second photograph – this time of Scarlett sitting on a beach, hashish joint in hand and a detached expression on her face. Beside her, a younger brother and sister sit apparently oblivious to their sibling’s habit. The photographs were taken by Mr Clarke during the family’s fateful holiday to Goa between October 2007 and February last year. He approached The Mail on Sunday with the pictures after a Channel 4 documentary, Who Killed Scarlett?, was screened two weeks ago. He has also asked India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take his statement. And detectives are due to fly to Britain later this month to interview Mrs MacKeown again about the events surrounding Scarlett’s murder. ‘That Channel 4 film was the final straw,’ said Mr Clarke, a divorcee who brought up two sons as a single parent. ‘I feel desperately sorry for Fiona. I know that she loves her children and that she is still grieving. But she has portrayed a totally false image of herself. ‘She is in denial about her role in Scarlett’s death. She could and should have prevented it. Every time I tried to intervene, to keep Scarlett with the family and away from the drugs and party scene, Fiona would tell me, “They’re not your kids – mind your own business.” ’ scarlett keeling Victim: 15-year-old Scarlett rolling a joint Mr Clarke, 48, claimed that Mrs MacKeown was warned about Scarlett’s drug dealing by one of her older sons. ‘She knew Scarlett was living with Julio Lobo and not, as she tries to suggest, his devout aunts,’ he said. ‘She also knew that Lobo was familiar with the drugs scene and that Scarlett was planning a mysterious trip with him to Finland. ‘Yet still she allowed her daughter to spend six weeks with him while the rest of us were 100 miles away. The Indian police arrested two people for rape and murder. 'They may have raped Scarlett but I don’t think they killed her. From Lobo’s behaviour, the account he gave to us of her death, the unexplained scratches on his neck and arms the day after ... I would say he has many questions still to answer.’ 'She was only 15 and sharing a bed with him' Twelve days before she died, Scarlett pleaded with her mother for Lobo to be kept away, said Mr Clarke. Within hours he had turned up on the pretext of escorting her to a funeral and she was allowed to go off with him. Mr Clarke, from Launceston in Cornwall, said that apart from Scarlett, Fiona was looking after seven of her other children in Goa – Silas, then 16, Merlin, 13, Kis, 12, Isis, ten, Kincaid, nine, Trinity, six, and Aurora, five. Her children are the progeny of five different fathers. Silas returned to their home in a caravan compound near Bradworthy, North Devon, in November 2007 to attend college. Hal, her eldest son, took no part in the trip. scarlett keeling Tragedy awaits: Scarlett, centre, smokes a joint on Om Beach beside two of her eight siblings Mr Clarke revealed a number of key incidents that increased stress within the family before the murder. These included a vicious fight between Scarlett and her mother in the early weeks of the trip after Scarlett refused to spend an evening in. ‘They were swinging each other round by their hair,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘Scarlett had to be restrained and was locked in a room. Afterwards she had a quick chat with her mother. Then she got her own way and went out. ‘She was seeing Lobo from November 2007 and we began getting complaints from Kis that the two of them were sharing her bed. But Fiona didn’t see a problem with that. She told Kis, “That’s what they do round here".’ By January 2008, the family had virtually no money left. Fiona had arranged for her £500-a-week UK social security benefits to be paid into her bank account, but when she checked cash machines in Goa, the balance remained low. A friend back home was using the money to settle unpaid bills at the family’s caravan compound. And Mr Clarke’s cash card stopped working, denying him access to his £43 weekly benefits. So for three weeks the family could scrape together enough for only fruit and a daily bowl of rice. The tragic events that engulfed the holiday were centred on Anjuna in northern Goa, and Om Beach some 110 miles to the south. Both Mrs MacKeown and Mr Clarke knew Anjuna well – particularly Curlies Bar, where they had been based during a trip early in 2007. julio lobo Questions: Scarlett's boyfriend Julios Lobo has a 'great deal to explain' It was around here that Scarlett would spend her last night alive, lost in a haze of cocaine, LSD and Ecstasy, before being raped and murdered on February 18 last year. Mr Clarke’s relationship with Mrs MacKeown began two years earlier when she walked into his hydroponics equipment shop, Grow World, in Launceston. They saw each other regularly although he remained in the modest semi he shares with sons Kieran, 22, and Dominic, 18. ‘When I met Fiona, I thought she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘Our first months in Goa were fantastic. ‘Fiona called it a pikey’s paradise. You could buy good hashish for a few rupees – around £2.50 per gram. We would spend our days lounging on the beach and our nights in the bars – particularly Curlies, where Scarlett met Lobo. The drink was cheap and we drank a lot of it. ‘Fiona smoked hashish whenever it was available. She attracted crowds of Indian men because she refused to cover her body on the beach. I told her it would cause trouble but she said she wasn’t going to “bow down to no Indian”.’ scarlett keeling Young love: Scarlett had been sharing a bed with Lobo, it is claimed By December 2007, they used the last of their savings to buy a second-hand Jeep and moped. Leaving Scarlett with Lobo, they headed south to Om Beach. Apart from a fleeting visit from Scarlett, during which she crashed the moped, Mr Clarke said she was only occasionally in contact by mobile phone. Her mother has claimed they spoke regularly. ‘Sometimes we’d hear nothing for a week,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘That’s partly because mobile phone signals were unreliable but also because Lobo wanted it that way. Scarlett depended on him for everything – phone, money, food, digs and transport. She told both me and Fiona that she was using ketamine. ‘During this period the kids got very hungry. We bought a bit of fruit for breakfast and ate one meal a day, usually garlic rice. Occasionally we could buy fish cheaply from boats landing on the beach. ‘We even tried spear-fishing, standing in the shallows with a home-made spear. I later found out it was illegal. ‘We couldn’t afford proper accommodation so we strung hammocks between palm trees on the beach. This was the one time we had no drink or drugs – there was no money.’ Mr Clarke admits that they had a lot of rows. ‘I found out that my son Kieran, who was looking after Fiona’s place in Devon for £70 per week, was having a nightmare experience,’ he said. ‘He had no money to buy feed for the horses – hay alone was £200 per month – and he couldn’t pay vets’ bills or even purchase diesel for the generator. No one would supply him until Fiona’s friend had paid the bills. ‘As a result, at least six of the dogs Fiona breeds died. She blamed Kieran for all these problems, which was so unfair. He could do nothing without money.’ scarlett memorial Remembrance: A candle-lit memorial to Scarlett on Anjuna Beach, on the first anniversary of her death Eventually, Mrs MacKeown’s benefit money began to arrive in her bank account and Kieran sold some of her Staffordshire bull terrier puppies. In Goa, the family’s financial crisis began to ease. Mr Clarke said the atmosphere improved further when Scarlett announced she would spend a week with her family at Om Beach. She arrived with Lobo, but on February 5 he returned to Anjuna without her. Mr Clarke was despatched north on the same day to pick up her clothes from Lobo’s flat. He believed she had made up her mind to cool the relationship. Scarlett’s own diary bears this out. In one extract, seen by The Mail on Sunday, she drew a simple sketch, apparently of herself crying, and wrote: ‘Julio came along and is taking me to Finland and has done so much for me and my family. 'UK benefits paid for our drink and drugs' ‘But sometimes I just think he’s using me, he says he loves me but I don’t think so. Then he treats me like I’m only with him 4 his money or sex and tries bribing me with parties and stuff and it’s so messed up.’ Mr Clarke said: ‘At Julio’s flat in Anjuna, he told me he was returning to Om Beach to get Scarlett. I said that couldn’t be right – she was spending a few weeks with us. ‘He got very agitated and said he wanted to hear it from Scarlett herself. He kept saying he’d got a free train ticket for her to travel to Mumbai. It sounded suspicious in itself. You get nothing free in India. ‘He’d already told me he planned to work the clubs in Finland, like the Ministry of Sound, handing out fliers. It was a bit mysterious, to say the least. I believe Scarlett was going to Finland as a drug mule. White Europeans rarely get stopped by the Indians for drug searches.’ fiona mackeown Justice: Fiona MacKeown has been fighting to expose the truth behind her teenage daughter's rape and murder Mr Clarke rang Mrs MacKeown from Anjuna to say Lobo was returning to Om. ‘I could hear Scarlett shouting and screaming in the background,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘She was screaming, “I don’t want to see him. Don’t bring him back to Om Beach. Just bring my stuff.” ‘To me it was clear that she’d had enough of Lobo, enough of the partying. He was also getting very possessive. Despite what Fiona later claimed, Lobo did not have a current girlfriend. ‘I arrived back at Om Beach on February 6 to find Lobo had beaten me to it. He’d arrived at 5.30am and convinced Scarlett to return with him to Anjuna. He told her the mother of Edward Nunes, who owns Curlies Bar, had died and they needed to go to the funeral. ‘I have since been told that this was rubbish. There was no funeral. Fiona just let it happen. When I asked her why she didn’t intervene I was told, yet again, that it was nothing to do with me.’ Twelve days later Fiona received a phone call from Lobo saying that Scarlett had been found dead. Initially, Lobo feared he could be prosecuted under the Goa Children’s Act for unlawful sex with a minor. He took advantage of an Indian law allowing him to apply for bail in anticipation of being charged. But the only allegation against him so far involves his failure to declare that he was living with a foreigner – Scarlett. Two men were initially arrested in connection with her rape and murder – Placido Carvalho, a businessman linked to illegal gambling, and barman Samson D’Souza. Both have since been released on bail and police appear no closer to finding the killer. However, a child neglect inquiry remains active. On February 19, Mrs MacKeown received an email from the CBI in Mumbai advising that officers were ‘eagerly waiting for your examination and recording of further statements’. They said a formal request had been made from the Children’s Court in Panaji, Goa, to the ‘competent authority in UK’. anjuna beach Trouble in paradise: Anjuna Beach, where Scarlett Keeling's body was found Mr Clarke believes that the Indian officers will also question Mrs MacKeown about Lobo. ‘When Julio first told us that Scarlett was dead, he spoke of murder,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘Yet the police at that time were still talking of an accidental drowning. ‘At the police station later he had deep scratches down his arm and neck. And his alibi seems to be that he was out searching for Scarlett when she went missing. ‘In the aftermath of her death he stopped me in the street on three occasions. He didn’t act like he was in love with a 15-year-old girl. All he cared about was how much he’d invested in Scarlett. He has a great deal to explain. ‘I hope that Scarlett’s killer is brought to justice for the sake of Fiona and all her children. But when Fiona meets the Indian police she also needs to face the truth. She should never have let Scarlett go.’ Mrs MacKeown yesterday admitted she had smoked ‘charis’ (hashish resin) in Goa and that she had seen Scarlett smoking joints. ‘I used to occasionally smoke the charis that he [Mr Clarke] used to buy but I don’t smoke anything now,’ she said. ‘I was aware Scarlett would smoke a joint but she was very sensible with it.’ Mrs MacKeown said Lobo had ‘behaved really sketchily’ when, 12 days before the murder, he took Scarlett away from Om Beach and back to Anjuna. ‘I said no to her initially,’ she said. ‘I wanted her to stay with us. But she pestered and pestered and I ended up letting her go, which I obviously regret very much.’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1158079/Inhaling-deeply-hash-pipe-Scarlett-Keelings-mother-just-days-Goa-murderer-struck.html
