Now I am retired I seek to put all the disturbing images of my professional life behind me and to think only happy thoughts; something which is not difficult to do here. So last May I failed to report the incident which outraged the town and caused demonstrations in Casablanca. A little girl under 3 was enticed away with sweets and taken to a derelict building where her abductor kept her and repeatedly raped her until she was dead. The perpetrator was apprehended fairly quickly but the forensic investigation and legal process took its time (although rather less than in Britain) and last Thursday the Appeal Court in Agadir sentenced him to death. He is being held in the prison in Ait Melloul and his brothers visiting him there had his confession to an earlier killing of a 4 yearold boy who has been missing for some years. Police went to the site he described and found another body.
Talking of such subjects is taboo here and Shame leads to a victorian hypocracy around sexual abberations. The general level of knowledge is as of Britain pre-Cleveland. Child Protection and its intrusions into family life is relatively un-developed for reasons of cost if nothing else, but whilst I am a firm opponent of Capital Punishment I could imagine several former colleagues may think result here quite satisfactory.
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