Scarlett Keeling mother charged with fraud
Scarlett Keeling's body was found on a beach in Goa
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By Matt Hallam. |  |
Thursday, 19, Nov 2009 11:48
By Richard James.
The mother of Scarlett Keeling, the British teenager whose body was found on a beach in Goa last year, has been charged with falsely claiming thousand of pounds in income support.
Fiona MacKeown, 44, is accused of claiming £51,401 of support by deception, while failing to declare she had other income.
The charge is reported to span a three-year period from February 2005 to March 2008.
She will appear at a magistrates' court in Barnstaple on December 3rd to face the charge.
The 44-year-old's teenage daughter was found naked on a beach at Anjuna, Goa, in February last year.
The 15-year-old had been left with a 25-year-old tour guide while the rest of her family went on a day-trip during their extended stay in India.
Earlier this year two men, Samson D'Souza, 28, and Placido Carvalho, in his 30s, were charged with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder".
The pair also face charges of "intent to outrage a woman's modesty, administering a drug with intent to harm and destruction of evidence".
The decision not to charge the men with murder, however, was described by Ms MacKeown as "extremely disappointing".
Local police had initially claimed the teenager had died of accidental drowning after her body was discovered on the beach.
Ms MacKeown, however, then launched a high-profile media campaign demanding a second post mortem which eventually revealed evidence of the attack.