The persistence of child rights activists like Meher Pestonji, advocate Maharukh Adenwalla, appointed amicus curae (friend of the court) in the case by the Bombay High Court, and the consistent testimony of the assaulted children resulted in additional sessions judge P. S. Paranjape convicting two Britons and declaring, "Let paedophiles around the world know that India should not be their destination in future.” The deterrent sentence included six years’ imprisonment and a fine of £ 20,000 (Rupees 16 lakh) to both Duncan Grant (62) and Allan Waters (58) who had set up Anchorage shelters at Colaba, Cuffe Parade and Murud Janjira in 1995 without registering them until 2001 when the sexual abuse allegations first surfaced, it was reported in The Times of India of March 19, 2006. Both Grant and Waters fled the country the same year and red corner notices were issued by Interpol. While Waters was nabbed in the US in 2003, Grant who went on to set up children’s shelters in Tanzania, was arrested in Dar es Salaam.
A 12-year-old physically and sexually abused child from the Anchorage shelter in Colaba had first approached Carmel Berkson, an 81-year-old Jewish American writer. The Indophile and sculptor domiciled in India approached author Pestonji who lived in the area, it was recounted in the Mumbai Mirror of March 19. Pestonji in turn alerted Childline who told her to record the child’s testimony on video before he left the city the next day. When Adenwalla informed them that a video tape was not admissible in court as evidence, they got written statements from the boys. Social worker Kalindi Mujumdar was approached to ensure that the vulnerable children were not exposed to threat and coercion.
Pestonji (left) and Adenwalla
While some children changed tract midway fearing loss of shelter and food, and were therefore used as defence witnesses, the two who mustered the courage and steadfastly "narrated their ordeal and torture in court,” as pointed out the judge, were accorded special protection. From the fine amount Rs 5,00,000 was to be paid to each of them, instructed the court, and a committee headed by Adenwalla and comprising Mujumdar and Renu Gavaskar was to frame a scheme to determine how to use the remaining fine amount for the rehabilitation of the children in the now deserted shelters.
Adenwalla too was personally targeted through the trial being accused of extorting money and paying witnesses to make false allegations. The desperate offenders lodged a complaint with the Bar Council of India against Adenwalla and advocates Yug Chaudhry and Vijay Nahar but the sessions court gave Adenwalla a clean chit saying, "She has been involved in protecting the rights of children and the allegations against her lack credibility.”
"The modus operandi was for the foreigners to come to India, set up an institution, gather street children and then sexually exploit them,” Adenwalla conveyed to the Times, advocating that regular visits should be made to remand homes that shelter women and children to check exploitation of inmates, if any.
As pointed out Pestonji, while there were tourism police to protect tourists from beggars and touts, there was no system to protect vulnerable street children from the perversion of some tourists. The judge too in this case had pulled up the police calling their probe "rudderless” and adding that their "investigation had failed miserably,” as reported in the Times.