THALASSERY: Father Robin Vadakkancheril , former vicar of St Sebastian Church at Neendunoki near Kottiyoor, was sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment, after the designated Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court here found him guilty of raping and impregnating a minor girl. In the course of the trial, the rape survivor and all main prosecution witnesses, including her parents, turned hostile but a determined prosecution secured a conviction by managing to produce the girl’s original birth certificate that proved she was a minor when she was sexually abused by the priest.The court of additional session judge (1) PN Vinod, which awarded the imprisonment of 20 years each on three counts, said the punishment would run concurrently. It is probably the first time a priest is being sentenced in a Pocso case in India. All the other six accused in the case were acquitted for lack of evidence.The case was first registered in 2017 when Childline got an anonymous call saying that a minor girl had delivered a baby in Christu Raj Hospital in Koothuparamba, run by the church, on February 7, 2017, and that the newborn had been immediately shifted to Holy Infant Mary’s Foundling Home at Vythiri in Wayanad. A police probe revealed that Fr Robin, who was then vicar of St Sebastian Church, had sexually abused a minor girl.Though there was an attempt to put the charge on the girl’s father, the police focussed on the priest. Soon, Fr Robin went absconding, but the police arrested him on February 28, when he was going to Kochi’s Nedumbassery airport, apparently to flee to Canada.When the case reached court, with supplementary evidence like DNA of the child and also the birth certificate of the minor girl, which said she was born on November 17, 1999, all major witnesses turned hostile. “Though the victim and her parents, who are prime witnesses in the case, had supported the prosecution, shockingly they changed their stance and claimed that she was 18 years old at that time, and even demanded ossification test to prove that she was a major when she had sexual relations with the accused,” said government pleader and public prosecutor B P Saseendran.During the trial, the girl and her parents claimed that her actual date of birth was November 17, 1997. But the prosecution proved this wrong by presenting her live birth record, incidentally from the same Christu Raj Hospital where she later gave birth herself, which proved she was minor at the time of sexual abuse. This proved to be a turning point in the case.According to the verdict, Fr Robin was found guilty under Section 3(a) of Pocso read with Section 4 of Pocso Act; Section 5 (f) and Section 5 (j) ii, read with Section 6 of Pocso Act, as also Section 376 (2) IPC, and awarded 20 years and Rs one lakh fine each for all these sections, said Beena Kaliyath, the special public prosecutor.Though the police had registered a case against 10 people, including three nuns, three of them were discharged by the Supreme Court, and the remaining six were acquitted by the Pocso court on Saturday. After the verdict, Fr Robin, who is lodged in Kannur central prison, was taken back to jail.

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