There are mums and dads like her in every school WhatsApp group. The ones who think their kids are better than everyone else’s. But it takes a special piece of work to call the police and leave another parent’s teenage son at the mercy of law enforcement in a foreign country
So, finally, Marcus Fakana’s nightmare is over. Thank God.
Finally, the north London 18-year-old is back from a Dubai jail after being imprisoned for the crime of having a holiday romance. The Year 13 student had been sentenced to 12 months for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old British girl (who has since turned 18) he’d met out there.
They’d been in the same school year, according to his lawyer. They’d intended to continue their holiday romance back in the UK. The girl’s mother, however, hit the roof and, in a massive over-reaction, went complaining to the police.
They arrested Fakana and a completely avoidable set of circumstances led to a young man with his entire life ahead of him being branded a criminal and subjected to seven months of hell.
He is out now, courtesy of a royal pardon from Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The Detained In Dubai group which campaigned tirelessly for Fakana’s release deserve special mention.
But, as a father of four teenagers myself, including an 18-year-old son, I’m finding it hard to escape the torment both Marcus and his parents have gone through over the past seven months. I’m struggling to celebrate when the trauma of his experience will most likely haunt him for the rest of his life.
I’m having trouble breaking out the bunting because we all know how lawless and unaccountable prisons still are, around the world. We know that, being 18, he’d been thrown into an adult prison – a jungle, totally disproportionate with his rule breach – unable to even speak the language.
We know how easy it is for those who should protect young men like Marcus in that kind of institution, to look the other way as predators and bullies attack young men, just like Marcus – physically and psychologically.
Imagine being his parents, sick with worry every night at that possibility. Imagine their sleepless nights, the tears they’ve cried, their helplessness at being unable to protect him.
Then imagine being Marcus, petrified out of his wits that he could be targeted during the day and even more afraid of what the night might bring. Imagine the lasting emotional damage now forever connected with his first time.
For all the things he will eventually open up about from his time in that Dubai jail, consider most the aspects he won’t discuss. The scars that may never heal. I hope the girl’s vindictive mother reflects on all those things. I hope she gets even a sense of the contempt in which most other mums view her.
Go ballistic at Marcus and your daughter, yes. Give them both barrels verbally, absolutely. But it takes a special piece of work to call the police and leave another parent’s son at the mercy of law enforcement in a foreign country.
There are mums and dads like her in every school WhatsApp group. You know, the ones who think their kids are better than everyone else’s.
But this mum’s lack of respect and compassion towards Fakana’s parents and loved ones has been spectacular.
Let’s not kid ourselves, rules are rules. We Brits can’t bend the clarity of the law in Dubai to suit ourselves. Sex outside marriage for tourists there is banned unless both parties are 18. Zero tolerance over there really does mean zero tolerance. So let’s not be arrogant and believe there should be different rules for us.
But Detained in Dubai managed to establish Fakana was only charged because the girl’s mother found the chats and pictures exchanged between him and the girl once she’d returned to the UK. Seven months on, it will be some feat of emotional detachment for the girl’s mum not to feel any sense of shame or remorse. She must surely have a friend or an adult sibling able to tell her to her face that she was out of order.
Because if has has any sense of shame whatsoever, any semblance of parental solidarity left, she would issue a public apology to Marcus and his parents. It is the least they deserve.