I hope I made it clear that it was not an issue of being scandalised by this man’s sexuality when I deliberately suggested that we could imagine all manner of photographs worthy of an attempt at blackmail. I don’t know why this is relevant anyway: the photos are at this point a product of your speculation and that is not a position from which to proceed to any kind of fear of a public figure being prey to blackmail. Facts are stubborn things and the only reasonable basis on which to make any kind of judgment in terms of any posited future compromise of this man. It is categorically unfair to suggest on the basis of ” what ifs” without the relevant facts.

We would not want to condemn or judge anyone on their potential for behaviour that is inappropriate, and all that might lead to … Let’s keep it authentic and true. Idle speculation is the begetter of calumnies that are wholly specious when the available facts are not present.

[Daphne – I wish to get this straight: it’s not the carnal that’s at issue here. It’s the lying. Having sex is one thing. Giving in to blackmail and lying to the police are something else altogether. And both are significant when you are a legislator.]
Okay, let’s hope the truth will do its unerring best and the abuse of power is revealed as the preferred vice of Mr Farrugia. I am sure you will be well- supported in working toward that outcome.

It would seem to be even more of an issue that the Mother Church has had such an oppressive and deleterious influence on the citizenry here to the extent that hypocrisy is almost part of the warp and weft of the culture.

Nothwithstanding this, I consider this view is not a licence to ‘out’ those who are have not ‘outed’ themselves and the awareness of their homosexuality is different from a public lambasting for it: to the extent that it was used to beat him with and accuse him of hypocrisy. Not fair. Unkind.

[Daphne – I have to disagree. The compromising position in which he found himself was the REASON he felt himself obliged – apparently – to create a mis-en-scene and give seemingly false or incomplete information to the police. The police then discovered, after reviewing security footage, that his assailants had in fact used a key to open the front door and had not broken in. After that, we heard not a word. But we should have done. Why? Because he gave a very public interview to the The Times, about his experience, using it to create – or so it seems – that very mis-en-scene. Yes, your arguments would make sense if he were an ordinary person. But he is no ordinary person. He is the man who wishes to become a minister of state. If he is mixing with strange men who assault him and then giving false or misleading information to the police, we should know about it. I don’t give a damn about his sexuality. But I do think it matters a great deal if he is exposed to blackmail. For all you and I know, there might very well exist photographs being used to blackmail him after that night.]

As for the magistrate’s appalling behaviour and her dubious relationships and ethics that would seem to be obvious, that needs to be examined, and forensically.

The pity for me is when her unwitting 18-year-old daughter (at the time) who happened to attend the same school as one of my daughters, was drawn into the scandal of her mother’s making. She didn’t deserve the distress and hurt she suffered. She did not deserve the publicity garnered because she innocently had pictures on Facebook like the vast majority of her peers.

[Daphne – For that, Mrs Galea, she has her mother to blame. Her mother has led her to believe that her activities are both normal and acceptable, and that those who criticise her are ‘jealous’ (chance would be a fine thing). She took her children to live with another man who is not their father, and has obliged them to see her go to bed with him and wake up to have breakfast at the same table with him. Worse still she encourages flirtation between her lover and her daughter, encouraging her to ‘persuade’ Robert to buy her what she wants, and this very public flirtation takes place on Facebook. So the daughter has grown up to believe that getting things out of men is normal, and that her mother is exemplary and her behaviour is enviable. What are you suggesting here – that no public person paid by the tax-payer is held up to scrutiny lest his or her children be upset? I’ll give you an example of outrageous behaviour towards offspring: the way my sons are constantly slandered and lied about by anonymous persons purely to get back at me, and make no mistake about where that’s coming from, because it started when I began to expose Consuelo Herrera’s shenanigans. I happen to think it is despicable to involve the children of public figures (let alone to slander them, as is done anonymously to my sons) and this is why I will have nothing to do with any of that.]
There is no doubt in my mind that in your case, you have honesty on your side and if the truth is not allowed to triumph in Malta, it will in the European Court of Human Rights. The Farrugias of this world, the bullies and thugs anywhere should not be allowed to prevail.

You are doing a courageous and important thing by not being cowed by his wanton and profligate abuse of power. When truth talks to power and power is put in its place the world can breathe easier till the next time.

[Daphne – Thank you.]

Surely the fact that the case was dismissed by Magistrate Scicluna will be given the weight it deserves. The conditions of the “accused”, apparently without any access to a lawyer, is against normal practice and will be key, in tandem with the prevailing reaction at the time.

There are many things that you have done which I find unpleasant and unfair. From naming Consuelo Herrera’s daughter, lifting her photos from Facebook, to “outing” the apparently gay professor to many other practices that are just unkind and unethical, nonetheless you deserve justice in this ugly and shaming episode of Maltese history. Good luck and nil desperandum.

[Daphne -Thank you very much. I never do, so have no fear. It’s a personality trait that drives my enemies and opponents to distraction. They can’t understand why I won’t buckle down and Be Scared or Intimidated, that I find them ludicrous and mock them instead, and quite obviously enjoy doing it while they tie themselves up into ever greater knots and pull themselves up to their full height to condemn me. And incidentally, I am never unethical in my practices and what might seem unkind to you is merely the result of our living in a big village where everyone is expected to keep quiet and not offend anyone else. Well, that’s not how it works in the real world. It isn’t possible to serve the public interest without offending people. Something else I should point out is that I did NOT name Consuelo’s daughter. Name her in what way, incidentally? As for the photographs, they were compromising pictures of her mother the magistrate exposed to very public view – 500 million Facebook users – that were of very definite public interest, as opposed to satisfying public prurience. We need to know if our magistrates spend their time cosying up to people over whom they preside as plaintiffs and defendants. As for Anthony Zammit, the professor you no doubt mean, his homosexuality was never a secret. It’s not as though he married and had children or went out with lots of women: that would be ‘outing’. To draw a simple comparison, the fact that nobody in the villages knew, in the early 1960s, that Prime Minister Borg Oliver had a mistress does not mean that anyone who spoke about it at the time was ‘outing’ him. Again, the reason I mentioned it is again, the public interest: a future minister of health cannot be found in such a compromising position, then create what now looks to be very much a mis-en-scene followed by what might well be a false report to the police.]

This is not the point. This was not a question of the Magistrate believing Anglu Farrugia over Daphne. the Magistrate could not possibly have done that.

The central question is that in these proceedings there is a change and shift from the accuser to the defendant – from a presumption of innocence to one of guilt until the contrary is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

And I think that this is justified in a democratic society. Perhaps all that needs to be done is to render Art. 11 and 12 of the Press Act inapplicable to the Criminal Code.

But in any case, I still maintain that in the present case, the please of justification for an examination of the truth of the facts atttributed should not have been allowed. I am of the opinion that though some of the criteria could have been applicable to Anglu Farrugia at some point in his career, they are, ostensibly, inapplicable today. Given that this is a penal law that we are talking about here, – and I do not wish to be speaking out of turn at all – it has to be interpreted as restrictively as possible, and this in turn means that opposition to the demand made by virtue of Art. 12 should have been registered, argued and hotly contested.

Obviously, i was not prsent, so i really don’t know what went on. So what do I know…..right?

Men of integrity do not lie

Democracy always wins in the end albeit the struggle. Although Malta had no tupamaros in the 80s, we should be thankful for those who fought oppression. Daphne, fight it till the very end.

[Daphne – The tragedy is that the only way to persuade them to testify against Lawrence Pullicino was to give them immunity against prosecution for complicity. But it strikes me that anyone who would be complicit in something like that is going to be a perennial danger.]

[Daphne – No, there was no ‘evidence’. ‘Oh, look – a dead body in a valley. Now how did it get there? Let’s see now, we’ve discovered film footage of Nardu Debono being beaten up, and oh look, the perpetrators have forgotten to conceal their faces.” There was the testimony of other police officers. But if a person is alone in a room with an interrogating officer then there can be no witnesses and no evidence – except commonsense and credibility.]

Those hapless Europeans are extraordinarily ignorant of Malta’s history pre-1987. Just about the only voice to protest against human rights abuses during that period was the uber-leftwing (ah, the irony) Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH). They went as far as cataloguing the various torture chambers and police training camps at Tas-Salib and other places.

So I’m not holding my breath.