Cruise passengers claim they weren’t protected from sexual assault

The alleged victim, now 21, spoke for the first time about her experience. “Automatically, as a kid, you would think it would be great,” she said. .

Before the ship left for the Caribbean, G went downstairs to get the Wi-Fi password, she told BuzzFeed News. “I asked someone outside the restaurant for directions to the lobby,” she recalled. “And when he ushered me in, he immediately grabbed my boobs.”

G. ran to the lobby looking for someone to give him the Wi-Fi password. She said she was “frightened to go in the same direction” on her way home because she might cross paths with the man who touched her, but she had to go back to her room and find a huge I was afraid of getting lost on a rough ship.

As G. passed the restaurant, she entered the elevator. She said the same employee followed her in and blocked her door. “He said, ‘Can I kiss you?'” she recalls. “I kissed him on the cheek and he said, ‘No, he’s not there.'” She then claimed the employee leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. bottom.

After he let her go, G. ran to her room crying. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

She told her grandmother why she was so distraught and they went to the lobby to report what had happened to guest services.G. He promised to do so.

Taplin, who was on board at the time, said he saw surveillance footage in the elevator and confirmed the child’s version of the events. I was told that I was According to both Taplin and G., the girl identified the perpetrator as her waiter at one of the onboard restaurants.

Taplin said she did her best to investigate the incident, but claimed she was thwarted throughout the process. He claimed to have told one to call the FBI. However, officers decided to set sail around 5:00 p.m. and did not notify the FBI until the ship was in high waters.

The senior officer then interviewed the accused crew member while he was present, Taplin said.According to an official report of the meeting obtained by BuzzFeed News, the crew member “hesitated, but eventually kissed the girl.” He refused to do anything,” and only gave “high fives and hugs.”

Taplin said what the report did not include was an officer threatening a crew member during a meeting, saying, “Cut off your penis right now,” removing the crew member’s testicles and “putting the balls in your mouth.” .”

When the ship docked in the Bahamas the next day, local police officers arrived. According to Taplin, police beat, threatened, and pressured the alleged perpetrator into confessing. “It was all wrong,” Taplin said. “So you made him red-handed by what he did, right?”

Finally, he signed a statement that Taplin claimed was written by Bahamian police. “I touched her right breast with my left hand,” the signed confession reads. said he had not been arrested. Instead, he was deported to Goa, India.

Ms G said she was so scared for the rest of her vacation that she didn’t want to leave her grandmother’s side and never felt safe on board again. She knew her assailant wasn’t there, so she could only relax while she stopped at Castaway Cay, a private Caribbean island owned by Disney.

After G. reported the attack, she instructed the Disney employee who was cleaning her room to demonstrate how to make small animals out of towels and put the princess bedspread on her bed. “But that was basically it,” she said. Only once, after she returned home from a cruise, did her family hear from Disney that the accused crew member had been deported, she said.