Robin Vadakkancheril

THALASSERY: Father Robin Vadakkancheril , former vicar of St Sebastian Church at Neendunoki in Kerala , was sentenced to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment after a Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court 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) P N 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 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. A police probe revealed that Fr Robin, who was then vicar of St Sebastian Church, had sexually abused the minor girl.

Though there was an attempt to put the charge on the girl's father, police focussed on the priest. Soon, Fr Robin went absconding, but police arrested him on February 28 that year, when he was going to Kochi 's Nedumbassery airport, apparently to flee to Canada .

