‘I, kids love India… Scarlett was having the time of her life here’

Fiona MacKeown, mother of British teenager Scarlett Keeling who was murdered in Goa, was on a recce mission to the Indian state....

Fiona MacKeown, mother of British teenager Scarlett Keeling who was murdered in Goa, was on a recce mission to the Indian state as she wanted to settle down in the tourists’ paradise and set up a pony-trekking business, but abandoned her plan after the tragedy.

“We did want to move here (Goa) full time and set up a pony-trekking business,” MacKeown told The Observer in an interview.

The report said her plans to live in India had been abandoned. “I don’t feel safe here. I am sure there are many people in Goa who want to see me dead. I love India, so do the children. Scarlett, especially, was having the time of her life here. Personally, I am not bitter towards India for what has happened to me,” she was quoted as saying. Refuting the charge that she was negligent towards the safety of her 15-year-old daughter, MacKeown said “Scarlett was very independent”.

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“She was a young woman. She was just like I was at her age. But my mother was very strict and that drove us apart for good. I wanted to have a more understanding relationship with Scarlett, and allowed her some freedom.”

“I just don’t know why they (those charging her with being negligent) are attacking me when I’m in such a bad situation. I am starting to think the press would be happy if it emerged that I killed my own daughter.” MacKeown, a former trader at London’s Camden Market, was condemned for being a ‘new age’ mother of nine children with five different fathers, the report said.

She admitted that she lived on benefits. “It is not a conscious choice and it doesn’t feel very good. But I am trying to build up my market business again.”