Cruise passengers claim they were not protected from sexual assault

Now 21, the alleged victim has spoken out about her experience for the first time. (BuzzFeed News calls her “G.” to protect her identity.) Just 11 years old at the time, G. was on a cruise with her grandmother and little sister and was excited about the vacation. “Automatically, as a kid, you think it’s going to be amazing,” she said.

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

G ran into the lobby to find someone who could tell her the Wi-Fi password. She said she was “afraid to pass in the same direction” on the way back because she might cross paths with the man who touched her. But she had to go back to her room and was afraid of getting lost on the giant ship.

As G. walked past the restaurant, she entered the elevator. She said the same employee followed her and blocked the door. “He said, ‘Can I have a kiss?'” she recalled. “I kissed him on the cheek and he said, ‘No, not there.'” She then alleged that the employee leaned in and kissed her on the mouth.

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

She said she told her grandmother why she was so distraught, and they went to the lobby to report what happened to guest services. G. said that they asked her about the incident and what the employee looked like and promised that it would be looked into.

Taplin, who was on the plane at the time, said she watched the elevator surveillance video, which corroborated the child’s version of events. Later, G. said she was asked to identify the assailant by looking at photographs of four employees. According to Taplin and G., the girl identified the attacker as a waiter in one of the ship’s restaurants.

Taplin said she did her best to investigate the case, but claimed she was obstructed throughout the process. She claimed she told one of the ship’s senior officers to call the FBI while the ship was still docked in Port Canaveral, Florida. But the officer decided to set sail around 5 p.m. and didn’t notify the FBI until the ship was in international waters.

Afterward, Taplin said, the senior officer spoke with the accused crew member while she was present. In the official report of the meeting, obtained by BuzzFeed News, the crew member “hesitated but eventually denied kissing the girl” and only gave her a “high-five and a hug.”

Taplin said what was not included in the report was that during the meeting, the officer threatened the crew member, saying, “I’m going to cut your dick off right now” and that he was going to remove the crew member’s testicles and “put balls in his mouth.”

When the ship docked in the Bahamas the next day, the local police arrived. According to Taplin, the police berated and threatened the alleged attacker, pressuring him to confess. “It was so wrong,” Taplin said. “I mean, you made him red-handed with what he did, didn’t you?”

He ended up signing a statement that Taplin claims was written by Bahamian police. “I touched her right breast with my left hand,” says the signed confession. However, Taplin noted that the alleged suspect has not been arrested. Instead, he was returned to the state of Goa, India.

G. said she was so scared by the end of the vacation that she didn’t want to leave her grandmother and never felt safe on a boat again. She said she was only able to relax during a stopover at Castaway Cay, a private Caribbean island owned by Disney, because she knew her attacker wouldn’t be there.

After G. reported the assault, she said Disney instructed the employee cleaning her room to demonstrate how to make small animals out of towels and put a princess bedspread on her bed. “But that was basically it,” she said. After returning home from the cruise, G. said her family only heard once from Disney to tell them the accused crew member had been deported.