Documentary record Bound by Fear
← Explore all cases
Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Thrissur, Kerala, India · 2022

India: priest convicted of raping a nine-year-old preparing for her First Communion at his church

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Catholic priest, St Paul's Church, near Thrissur

Organization

St Paul's Church

Spiritual nexus

The victim was a child of the parish attending the defendant's own First Communion catechism classes; that instructional-pastoral authority is what let him isolate her under a dress-fitting pretext.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2022-12-28 · conviction and sentence

    POCSO fast-track court, Thrissur, Kerala, India. Fr Raju Kokken was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl from a low-income family who was attending his church's First Communion preparation classes; he lured her into his private office on the pretext of fitting her communion dress and assaulted her on three dates in April 2014. He was sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and a Rs 50,000 fine, with the verdict coming nearly nine years after the offence, following his flight and arrest in Tamil Nadu.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • clerical authority over a child attending his First Communion classes
  • promise of free communion vestments to a low-income family

Primary record

Sources

partisan outlet lead index verdict and sentencing report 'POCSO court sentences paedophile padre Kokken after nine long years', HinduPost, Dec. 2022.

Report of the conviction and sentence, including the First Communion catechism context and the nine-year delay from arrest to verdict.

national newspaper court reporting investigative report 'The Sins Of Our Fathers', Outlook India.

National-magazine roundup corroborating the Kokken conviction among a survey of Kerala clergy-abuse cases.

Related record

Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts

← Explore all cases