Vijesh Kooriyil is on the run in India even as an international manhunt is underway to catch him for the crime he committed in the United Kingdom. He has been convicted of raping a six-year-old boy repeatedly for over a year and has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Kooriyil was due to stand trail at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday for the crime. But he took a flight on Monday night to Delhi. He was arrested in Scotland and later granted unconditional bail, as he was not seen as a 'flight risk'. The authorities allowed him to keep his passport as he had no previous cautions or convictions.
However, Kooriyil fleeing the country prompted Judge Peter Ross to describe him as “a danger to the public.”
Kooriyil's absence did not prevent the jury from finding him guilty. The Oxford Crown Court sentenced him to serve 18 years in prison on two counts of rape.
Kooriyil, who hails from Kerala, went to the UK on student visa a few years back and was living in Oxford, where he abused a child in 2010 and 2011.
“Vijesh Kooriyil deployed the all too familiar ways of gaining a child's trust. He would often call the boy to come and play with him,” he said, according to a report in Daily Mail.
“Some of those games were innocent enough, but others took place in the defendant's bedroom. It was there, having secured the door with string and a nail, that the defendant began to rape a six-year-old, then seven-year-old, boy,” he added.
According to reports, Kooriylia raped the boy three times a week in his bedroom in his home in Oxford.
Kooriyil's crime came to light last year when the victim started learning about sex at the school. When he realised what happened to him, the victim felt ashamed and was angry and confused. The boy is said to be suspicions of adults now.
Kooriylia is a native of Malappuram and was employed as a business manager in the UK.
According to reports, in 2014, he married a woman from Palakkad.
The UK investigating officers are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service (UK criminal justice system), to locate Kooriylia and take him back to the UK so that he can face justice.
