Justice done, but not quite
Charles Pullis (foreground) and Godwin Scerri
I am so, so glad those two men have been given prison sentences of five years and six years for systematically abusing the boys in their care at an orphanage.
Justice has been done, but then again, not quite. The Pandolfino brothers of Pandy’s riding-school, who systematically abused only two young boys whose mother sometimes asked them to babysit, got 10 years as I recall, and most people who read the appalling reports of the case, which was not heard behind closed doors as this one was, thought it was not enough.
Charles Pulis and Godwin Scerri – can we please not give them the prefix ‘father’ – committed a far greater crime in that the boys in their care were completely within their power, living under the same roof and with nowhere to turn for help.
They used the boys’ home where they worked as a sort of harem to satisfy their freakish desires.
The most unsavoury scene outside court this morning was Pulis’s and Scerri’s lawyer, a mother of sons herself, consoling one of the dreadful sexual predators involved with a protective hand and consoling words. Earlier, and out of sight of the cameras, she actually kissed them.
How low can you go.
It’s one thing defending a paedophile who preys on boys like your own because everyone has the right to the lawyer of their choice. But it’s quite another behaving as though it is they who are the victims in this absolutely awful reality.
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Well justice done as long as they don’t end up sharing a dinner table with certain magistrates.
Don’t get me wrong, I think they need to be protected in prison because two wrongs don’t make a right – however prison cells it should be and no star treatment.
My disappointment lies in the fact that in spite of all this, there has been no concrete preventive action plan or commission set up to stop this from happening in the future. At least not to my knowledge. I may be wrong.
I have heard that there is a special unit at Cordin Correctional Facilities where these abhorrent type of sexual predators are kept apart from other prisoners.
Nonces we call them.
Want a bet they will fix up a room for them at Monte Carmeli so they could serve their term in comfort.
Mount Carmel! What a splendid idea. They can play cards with Noel Arrigo and Godfrey Ellul. And I believe Andrew Sullivan is there as well, because it’s become a sort of smart prison.
Play cards?! My bet is that they will sit together to recite the rosary.
No, they will be making daisy chains.
Play cards? Seems like the fathers emeriti are more into playing Squashed Sardines. They’d get more than their faces squashed if they tried playing that game with the above trio.
Now let us see how they treated by the Catholic Church. They will probablyl be treated better than divorcees. If that is the case I hope that all our blinkered devoted realise that the church has no ethical conscience. Let’s see.
Very well said, Daphne.
I found it very hard to stomach the sight of the other lawyer, a father of children the same age or younger than the victims were when in the care of Pulis and Scerri, walking besides his client – and he did not even appear to be consoling him, let alone.
As for the sentence Pulis and Scerri received, a life sentence – if permitted by law – would have been more apt, seeing that the victims in the case have been meted out the equivalent of one themselves.
They should both be defrocked immediately. The Gozo case was bad enough: http://www.rickross.com/reference/clergy/clergy897.html
These things should be kept in the public eye, to encourage other victims to come forward, and they most certainly must not be forgotten.
Journalists should follow up this case, too: http://www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress/charged/opp-reopens-case-of-priest-who-fled-canada-while-facing-sex-charges/scerri-father-g-frank-scerri-mssp/
Believe it or not, this Frank Scerri is a brother to Godwin Scerri, who received a prison sentence today.
The terrible reality is that we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Considering the crime, their sentences are a joke: they’ll be out in 3 and 4 years respectively I don’t doubt. What’s 3 years for f* * * * * * up people’s lives?
“The law is an ass”
It’s a fine line that separates justice from revenge, Mr Ripard.
I agree – true justice in this case would have been someone like Mike Tyson shagging them repeatedly for years, and don’t try telling me otherwise.
[Daphne – That would be a reward, Christopher. Punishment would involve a woman, though I can’t see how it can be done. We’re not talking paedophiles here, no matter what people say. They didn’t prey on pre-pubescent children but on adolescent boys, so I rather think that what we’re dealing with here are homosexuals who were raised with a horror of homosexuality (Pulis’s evidence) and who joined the priesthood to avoid having to confront their own sexuality. And who were in such a terrible state of denial that they convinced themselves it was all right to have sex with boys aged 13-16 because they weren’t having sex with men and so weren’t gay like also those horrid gay men they hated. Repressive Catholic tar-rahal backgrounds have so much to answer for that there’s no end to it. Had these men been raised in normal homes in the present day, they would have been going to closet not joining the priesthood and covertly forcing boys into sex because they couldn’t have a relationship with a man. A heterosexual man who has sex with a 15-year-old girl is not a paedophile. Nor is a homosexual man who has sex with a 15-year-old boy. Both are suffering from arrested development.]
@ Reuben Scicluna:
So let’s abolish prisons then, shall we?
Well well, let us take consolation from Inspector Burton’s famous words:
“If you open your mouth, I won’t lay a finger on you. But you’ll go to prison. And when those nonces and those perverts get hold of a clever boy like you – and I’ll make sure they do – they’ll be queueing up round the block. You’re going to end up with an arsehole like a clown’s pocket.”
Absolutely awful .
Lest anyone misunderstand me, if I were a tyrant I would have had them hanged, drawn and quartered.
Since I am not a tyrant, I pity them.
These two men have had their entire lives blown to smithereens by this judgemnt. They have been found guilty of a heinous crime.
One hour in jail would have been sufficient. This is my opinion.
I would never have come around to kissing them though.
In my family kissing is not a cheap indulgence.
We are very selective as to who and why we kiss.
We certainly are not in the habit of kissing monsters.
De gustibus….
Any monster in particular you were referring to?
[anthony – One hour in jail would have been sufficient. This is my opinion].
Does your “one hour in prison sufficient” rule apply to any criminal case and all criminals? If not, you might wish to explain why the different treatment. Good luck with that.
No, it is not one-size-fits-all.
The degree of “punishment” goes far beyond the mere duration of a prison sentence.
As I said, these two men have had their entire lives completely ruined as a result of their committing a crime.
What greater punishment than this?
[Daphne – Illogical, Anthony. Their victims have had their own lives ruined but have done nothing to deserve it because they committed no crime. Some of them ended up on drugs or drink, others killed themselves in a more straightforward fashion, and others have ended up really badly in other ways, including one who killed a man many years ago and ended up dead himself of an overdose after serving a prison term. No, Anthony, there is no punishment sufficient for what they did. Remember that you do not know the details because there was a ban on reporting testimony and the case was heard behind closed doors. But when I spoke to a few of the victims in confidence I felt physically ill and couldn’t sleep well for weeks. Imagine, for instance, choosing as one of your victims a boy who cannot speak – because his mother bit out his tongue, which is why he was in their care – because this means he can’t give the game away. It is the worst, worst thing to take innocence and vulnerability and dependence and be so cruel. I’m not a great one for quoting the Bible, but I really think Christ got the sum of it when he said that people like that had better tie a millstone to their necks and cast themselves into the sea.]
@ anthony:
When meting out justice, punishing yourself doesn’t count.
@ anthony: maybe you do not realise that some people shamed in front of a nation have a very wide support group. When they’re out, they will end up living in a community that is going to shelter them from society.
Considering that the idiot who trashed two girls in the Attard hit-and-run got two years jail term and a ban on driving for 10 years, the sentence these priests got, together with the defrocking, was the minimum acceptable.
I personally don’t believe that punishment is an effective deterrent to criminality or that it makes society better. These predators should get a lifetime monitoring by court appointed psychiatrists and limits on what they can and cannot do in their daily lives with annual reviews.
Anthony, we are all responsible for our actions and also for the punishment that civilised society deems fit to administer.
In the States the were some horrific murders carried out during the 50’s ( I stand to be corrected ) , an actress ( pregnant too ) her film director husband and guests were butchered by a young group of followers of an evil manipulative man ( Manston ) . These people are now begging for parole , would you comply with their wish.
[Daphne – Sharon Tate. Charles Manson. 1960s. She was married to Roman Polanski who then, ironically, ended up wanted for drugging a 13-year-old girl and raping her.]
one small step forward for justice, one giant step backward for the Church.
I think it is also one step forward for the Catholic Church in Malta.
Wrong , she has not once been proactive in these sorts of situations.
I disagree. That criminal members of any institution are brought to justice actually helps the institution in the long run. It is when institutions attempt to prevent the course of justice by covering up for the criminals in their midst, that the institution ultimately harms itself.
off topic, but did you read this? http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110802/letters/Reasons-why-marriage-is-on-the-rocks.378384#.TjfhZ_JYURd.facebook
It certainly is an ignorant contribution to The Times, but please don’t deviate from what is a more serious issue.
I’m not. Just posted it here as a note to Daphne as I don’t think that there is any other way to contact her. It has nothing to do with the subject, hence why I wrote “off topic”
If the appellants are found guilty by the Court of Appeal then I agree with you that: (i) Fr. Charles Pulis and Fr. Godwin Scerri are paedophiles who committed a horrible crime and deserve the fullest possible condemnation (ii) Dr. Caruana Curran’s behaviour would have been abhorrent and distasteful.
BUT … the appellants have given notice that they intend to appeal. That means that the guilty verdict reached by the first court has been suspended. That also unfortunately means that Fr. Charles Pulis and Fr. Godwin Scerri are NOT YET GUILTY. So any other comments in their regard are premature and may actually lead to a denial of their fair hearing . Just sayin …
[Daphne – I’m afraid you’re completely wrong. It’s the other way round: they’re guilty until the Court of Appeal says they are not. And what are you saying here – that all those men were lying? Do you know that the only reason one of them got let off a rape charge is because the police got the location wrong? it is so typical that somebody who only ever comes in here to stick up for Joseph Muscat will make an exception to stick up for two priests who violated their charges. I suppose you believe that this is the new meaning of liberal: let’s be liberal about gross criminals because there’s sex involved. What small minds you lot have.]
No I’m not … the dreaded words “sub-judice” will rear their head as soon as it’s confirmed that an appeal has been filed. Hence, the priests are not guilty as yet. What’s more, Pope Benedict’s decision, if what you report is correct, would clearly prejudice their right to a fair trial.
[Daphne – You don’t understand much about the legal process. The priests are guilty until – and if – declared otherwise on appeal. Sub judice is a fiction. They are not dreaded words at all, but foolish ones, used by people who don’t know better, or people who do but who clutch at straws. The European Court of Human Rights gave a judgement to this effect as long ago as 1979 in The Sunday Times vs The United KIngdom (the famous thalidomide/contempt of court case), yet here in Malta for the last 30-odd years, people have proceeded oblivious, talking about sub judice and contempt of court. Ridiculous.]
And yes … there is a possibility that what the men reported NEVER happened. We can’t discount that. A remote possibility but one that cannot be excluded … at least until the appeal is decided.
Look this up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome
[Daphne – Oh, you are despicable.]
The concept of contempt of court is still applicable today, for example when a media organisation publishes case details against the order of a court.
[Daphne – Totally different to sub judice.]
Fair hearing? Areyou serious? Sticking up for paedophile priests who shattered the trust of those young boys in that orphanage?
@Daphne : Labour has nothing to do with this and the opinion of David Gatt does not mirror the Labour mentality for sure.
[Daphne – David Gatt is one of those seriously deluded people who think that to be modern and liberal like Joseph he has to be cool about anything to do with sex, including the abuse of orphans.]
Was annoyed when watching Dr Caruana Curran holding one of the priest’s shoulder on timesofmalta.com. Making hefty money from well known criminals, paedophiles and drug dealers is something that irritates me severely.
[Daphne – I know. But somebody’s got to do it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466431/ ]
Hey guys, go easy on the avukatessa. But for the grace of God, any number of you could find yourselves caught up in some Kafka-esque nightmare of undeserved criminal charges, fuelled by the tunnel vision of a lazy investigator, goofy circumstantial evidence stacked against you, and a disinterested court. You’ll be grateful to have a bright, empathetic lawyer on your side.
As regards kissing and hugging a client, I’ve got to say, that’s just not something I’d ever recommend to my students. But hey, maybe it just part of the former padres’ therapy.
Well said. Whatever u say the avukatessa is loyal enough and brilliant enough and does her best for her clients especially those caught up in some Mlp inspired police machination. Someone had to defend these two despicable priests and whatever one says they have a right to the best possible defence . She must have known it was an open and shut case from day one yet she still went ahead , and that says volumes for her professionalism as a lawyer .
Don’t treat her badly for this . She was doing her job. She is one of the few who can run rings round a now politically motivated police force who are falling over themselves to curry favour with the LOO and the EmmEllPee
Paedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in the same way that drug abuse is an addiction so some human empathy is justified.
The people in authority who were reported to have been made aware of one of the men’s previous convictions seem however to have escaped justice. They are the ones whose crime, in my opinion, is far more heinous.
[Daphne – They’re not actually paedophiles and the case is technically wrongly billed as a paedophile case. The boys were aged between 13 and 16, and were adolescents not children. However, one or two of them did speak to me of cases of abuse when they were pre-pubescent, one of them so young that he didn’t even know what he was looking at when Scerri pulled down his trousers. There was something very complicated going on there. Scerri’s brother is wanted on the same charges but he’s fled somewhere or other.]
It’s wrong to condemn philias. I assume the majority of these are involuntary: (nature/nurture).
However we should condemn and isolate predators from harming others.
It would be interesting to find out who is funding the legal fees of this Scerri and Pulis. The Catholic Church, perhaps?
The Curia should make a statement either way. Perhaps Dr Caruana Curran is doing it pro bono.
All we need now is for Joseph Muscat to pop out and lecture us on not talking about Scerri’s and Pulis’s private lives. I’m quite sure he is hard at work thinking what the faux-liberal stance on this should be.
I cannot see Labour taking too much trouble in favour of minor victims, because they have no vote.
So they are more likely to set up another ghetto in the form of a Facebook Group to be called Peedofile Labour.
I know a certain lawyer who might act as chairman of that group.
Lou Bondi:
“Finally, I understand that Dr Giannella Caruana Curran has to do her duty towards her clients, these two paedophile priests. But I was nauseated to see her hugging and kissing them before and after the sentence.”
http://loubondi.blogspot.com/
Like Lou, I don’t understand the kiss before the sentence.
But the one after could have been the kiss of life.
Maybe Giannella was telling Charles Pulis to ‘Keep it up.’
I found that particular scene revolting, to say the least.
Look, it’s a start. It really is, if you look at it in terms of the Magistrates’ Court not being put off by the show ‘trials’ the Vatican is organising (and still pushing as the legitimate solution).
Let’s just admire the ‘St Joseph boys’ for their endurance, spirit and determination.
Lawrence Grech, now he deserves the Gieh ir-Repubblika. It was enough for me to see that to these lads, it was a victory they never dreamed of.
As for the lawyers, does it really surprise you? I have seen much worse from their ilk.
And yes, one will serve three years, the other perhaps nearly four.
Did no one notice that Lawrence Grech is as thin as rake, gaunt even? Stop and think.
Let them savour it and stop ranting and talking bollocks.
And now, let’s hope they can live the rest of their lives in as normal a way as possible. Ir-rispett tieghi, ghandhom zgur.
I’m wondering whether any social workers were involved in the case – as witnesses, or whatever.
More importantly, if they were “assigned” the victims (when children) as “their” cases, did they simply dismiss any signs or otherwise of any of the goings-on? If so, are any of the social workers in question still working in the same field and, if so, will they be questioned or anything?
The now infamous “Baby P” case in the U.K. (where a toddler was eventually killed by his mother and other carers), is still making the headlines today – see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021553/Baby-P-boss-Sharon-Shoesmith-set-1million-compensation-payout.html – quite a while after the incident in question.
[Daphne – There was no social worker system as we know it today.]
@Daphne – I believe you may be wrong on that one. Ask around.
[Daphne – It was completely different. ]
They got what they deserved, and Lawrence Grech and the others are today’s heros.
I consider today’s court judgement as the end of ACT ONE.
Will Act Two be the request for financial compensation for all they went through?
Who knows,time will tell.
May they rot in prison!
Do you really believe that they will actually spend time there?
They just need to be kept separate from society but not tormented physically.
Being kept apart is punishment enough.
Paedophilia is an affliction that perpetuates (i.e. these priests might have been abused themselves when they were younger) but violence is also an affliction that perpetuates and achieves nothing.
@M
Probably in the same way the anti-divorce campaign was financed – through the wealth abusively accunulated by the church from vulnerable old people who used to be coerced by parish priests to bequeath their estate to the church under the treat of eternal damnation.
This too was a type of abuse which has been and probably still is being overlooked and not just in Malta.
In England, my great-grandmother, who was not Catholic, was befriended by a priest in hospital in her late eighties and he convinced her she would go to heaven if she left her fortune to the Catholic Church. She changed her will.
Why do you hate the Church so much?
I think he just told you why.
Would dearly love to know who paid for their defence. Dr Caruana Curran doesn’t come cheap and if the Curia paid for it, then it’s sending the wrong message that whatever its members do, they will get the best possible defence.
Since the priests were not in the diocese, they are not entitled to have any personal assets. All income and expenditure incurred by the priests is administered centrally by the fraternity, in this case being the MSSP.
Since ‘they are not entitled to have any personal assets’ , does that mean they get the services of one of the highest paid lawyers on the island paid for by the church ?
Having had somewhat close ties with a society in the past, I know that for everyday needs, members of the community just need to keep receipts of their expenditures to show to their superiors and justify where money has been spent. I believe it is the same case for getting the services of a lawyer.
I believe that lawyer to be very expensive but usually very effective, maybe getting sentences lowered.
Knowing she was being filmed, what could be the reason for kissing them after the verdict?
For the attention?
And thanks for not calling them fathers, and not just for the religious connotation but because a father is someonewho protects and loves.
One of the priests was acquitted because there was an error in the charge sheet. Who is responsible for this? The Commissioner of Police? On the other hand, why was such serious case not sent to be tried by a jury? Who is responsible for this? The Attorney General?
Not acquitted at all – in fact he was sentenced. Read well before you rush to print your remarks
He probably meant acquitted of the rape charge.
Was ex Fr Scerri a Jesuit once? Or was it his brother? There was a Fr Scerri at St Aloysius College in 1965 who ‘was sent away’. I was only eight at the time and was told that he was caught under the bed with a boy, which I thought was a good way of playing Squashed Sardines till someone decided to put me right and muddled me up even more.
I was told that some time in the late 70s this ex Fr Scerri was brought back to college where he used to do exactly the same thing. Is he the same man?
Some of them started playing Squashed Sardines with the lovely Albanian people, until the sardines suddenly multiplied. Loaves and fishes, what.
Good one – I understood you.
He was just spreading the message of love.
Ah, but that was not a Scerri. He had a different surname entirely. And yes, it shocked me to see him with a girl (Albanian) barely looking 15, complete with white school-girl-type tights (the girl, not the ex-Jesuit0.
And yes, they did multiply, though I believe that they are now married. Not that it changes my opinion of him or of the relationship anyway, though, bearing in mind that this man was some 30 years or so her senior, and a supposed missionary in Albania.
Oh, and let’s not start about the senior one who, aged around 64 – and still in a very senior position – got “shipped away” for fathering a child with a 28-year-old teacher.
It makes you wonder why they become priests in the first place.
I know it wasn’t Scerri. I’m just presenting the smörgåsbord of smut among the swine who schooled us.
Did I mention the one who went to France for a year’s sabbatical, and bagged a 22-year old crumpet? He was 66. That’s Jesuit suaveness for you.
@ Baxxter – I think I know who you mean. He was the rector when I was at Sixth Form. In fact, I can never look at my graduation photo in the same way.
To think that he was such a ‘pastizz’ at the time – and that was years before I heard that he had fathered a child with a woman four decades his junior.
Men like that probably want to live the adventures they never had in their youth. As for the women? I simply can’t understand what’s in it for them, being saddled with someone old enough to be their grandfather. They must really be desperate, or one of those women who think a man is worth having if they’ve stolen him away from something – his family, for example, or the priesthood.
The Jesuit Fr Scerri I remember at St Aloysius College was a different person to the priest sentenced yesterday.
But I am quite certain that his name was Godfrey or Louis Scerri and that he was Prefect of Discipline for the Prep Boys
[Daphne – This one now is GodWIN Scerri. Yes, the one you’re thinking of is GodFREY Scerri. I remember him too.]
Having been involved in the story of the Pandolfino’s, I can assure everyone that I can never forget these horrendous acts, let alone the boys themselves.
Many of the victims are today’s problem teenagers/men who cannot adapt to society because they bring out the worst of themselves as a result of what they have been made to endure in the past, and very few are those who manage to rise to life’s challenges.
This to explain that no prison sentence can ever do enough justice, let alone just a few years. I am disgusted about it all.