Dhanya Rajendran | The News Minute | August 29, 2014 | 09:00 am IST
In January 2012, a scandal hit Bangalore when UK citizen Paul Meekin, principal of Trio World School, also known as the British International School, was arrested after a parent complained that he had sent a lewd message to a child.
Meekin was initially arrested when a parent said he used inappropriate words in a chat with a 14-year-old student on Facebook in August 2011. Meekin was out on bail in three days, but was rearrested in the first week of February 2012, after it was revealed that he had acquired a fake Ph.D, and even his passport was suspected to be fake.
Soon more parents came forward with complaints. It was also learned that Meekin had taken one of the boy students (8 year old) to Goa and behaved inappropriately with him. The outrage against Meekin became stronger as police got information that he was being investigated for a similar case in Thailand.
Meekin was charged under IPC Section 468 (forgery), 417 (punishment for cheating), 420 (cheating), under Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act (cruelty to a child) and Section 67 of the IT Act (publishing obscene information in electronic form). For more than a year he was lodged in Bangalore Central Jail, but on March 1, 2013, Meekin walked out on bail.
Meekin had served 13 months of imprisonment for conviction under various Sections of the IPC, but the charges under the Juvenile Justice Act and the IT Act were still pending before the court. He attended the initial hearings of the case and then seems to have vanished.
After he missed a few hearings, a non-bailable arrest warrant (NBW) was issued against him in April 2014 by a Bangalore magistrate court. It’s been four months since an NBW was issued against Meekin, but The News Minute has found that the Bangalore police have absolutely no clue about his whereabouts and they have not made any efforts to arrest him.
The next hearing of the case is on September 8.
After multiple queries we have learnt that the police have neither declared him an absconder nor have they informed the British Consulate or the Thai Consulate. Though initial investigation had suggested that Meekin had cases against him in Thailand and the UK, there have been no attempts to verify the them.
Sources in the British Consulate confirmed that no details have been provided by the Indian police, and no warnings issued that Meekin may try to leave the country.
When we first approached the Kodigehalli police station, where the investigations are ongoing, various police officers told us that Meekin had left the country after clearing all charges. And we were shooed away. After repeated attempts, the police heard us out and pulled out their record books only to find that there was indeed an arrest warrant out in Meekin’s name and a case pending against him.
We then approached the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Vikas Kumar Vika,s who agreed to conduct a few enquiries. “Yes, it is true that Paul Meekin is absconding but his passport is still with us. We are not sure if he has left the country,” the DCP said. When asked if the Bangalore police had contacted the British or Thai Consulates, the DCP replied in the negative. To the DCP's credit, he was very forthcoming with information, and he made multiple queries on our request.
Man who paid for Paul Meekin’s bail says he doesn’t know where the accused former principal is
What was surprising is how Meekin managed to post bail after months of not being able to do so.
Queries by The News Minute revealed that the man who posted bail for Meekin was one Nagaraj, who the police alleged was a Trio International School employee. When we spoke to Nagaraj he dismissed those claims and stated he lived in Meekin’s neighborhood and learnt English from the guy who he said was “very friendly”.
Meekin reached out to him from jail and requested Nagaraj to get him out of jail. In good faith, Nagaraj followed his instructions and assisted in posting bail. Though the court had given Meekin bail in 2012 itself, he had been unable to come out of jail as he claimed he did not have money to pay for the bail bond. So how did Nagaraj get the money? “Meekin arranged it,” is all that Nagaraj was ready to say. He claims that he has never heard from Meekin since then.
History of Paul Meekin
Paul Meekin has a long and chequered history. Investigators in 2011 found that Meekin’s alias was Colin Cornes when he was in the UK. His passport name. according to the Bangalore Police, now is Paul Cornes Meekin.
In 2011, police had told the media that Meekin seems to have gone from the UK to Thailand following some investigation against him. Meekin left UK and went to Thailand where he worked as a head teacher in the island of Koh Samui. Finding himself yet again in trouble, Meekin escaped to Dubai and reportedly with a new passport, he applied to the Bangalore school with a fake £20 PhD certificate.
Here is a man who has a case against him in India, perhaps wanted for investigations in another country and still has been missing from India for over a year. The Bangalore Police have made zero efforts to contact or inform the UK Consulate about Meekin’s absconding status.
A case that clearly exposes the lack of following norms
Bangalore saw many protests recently after the rape of a 6-year-old in a city school; in that case too a wrong arrest was initially made by the police.
Though there has been increased attention towards the issue of child sexual abuse, but general callousness towards such cases remains largely intact. Just like the media, cops seem at best reactionary and ill prepared to tackle such situations, especially ones which are multi-country. The arrests and investigations cater to the outrage and follow up is nil in many cases.
When it comes to foreign nationals being accused in child sexual abuse cases, there seems to be no procedure in place to keep countries involved informed about the progress in investigation, trial, or if the person absconds. In this case it needs to be pointed out that even the trail under the Juvenile Justice Act did not complete in the one year in jail. However, Paul Meekin is not the only one.
There is a similar case of an Australian citizen called Paul Allen who fled Australia in 1976 after embezzlement charges were brought against him. He surfaced in Odisha in the 1980s as a godman and healer and fled from police custody while he was being investigated on charges of child sexual abuse. He then started a charity home for children in Andhra Pradesh, where again he abused innocent children. Today, no one knows where Paul Allen is.
Trio World School’s former principal Paul Meekin may have left the country or maybe working as an educator somewhere around the country.