She threw me out, changed the locks ,and no explanation, and yes baby in the nappy phase still, two years have gone and still i have not been allowed to enter the home, what do you expect me to do? Force entry? Why dont you believe me? I swear it, i have had no affair, never even looked at another woman, why wont anybody help me, i am indepths of despair. Tried the police but they were hipeless, tild me to stop wasting their time, they had real crimes to solve, this is the greatest crime of all, my wife deserves a life sentence. This presedential pardon is yet another nail in my coffin, at this rate my son will be 17 before i ever get to see him. He wont even recognise me.

[Daphne – ‘She threw me out, changed the locks’. Not legal in Malta. It is in fact a criminal offence. That’s why I don’t believe you.]

My thinking as well. I think that either the judge did something very wrong or else we are setting someone free just because she seems innocent.

When I first heard this story I said but the judge must have seen the case and decided the mother really deserved it maybe for spiting the father or something.

When I found out that this is a 17-year old boy I started to see that this was not a simple case of the mother keeping the kid away from the dad.

If I heard well the judge gave the maximum sentence possible – which would mean that this woman really deserved it in his mind – so now that parliament and the president have revoked the sentence shouldn’t the judge tell us what he was thinking?

One last point. I always remain impressed with these sentences. So a paedophile walks free whilst a mother who did not take her son to see his father gets jailed?

On the surface, the judgement was defective although as explained by people in the know, the Court operates within the legal parameters and sometimes the Judge’s hands are tied.

Maybe because the law is an ass?

Pertinent details were left out like, why did this case take eight years to be finalized, presumably after judgments were meted out several times before reaching appeal stage? Why did previous judges not interview the son and the father, separately and take into account what they had heard in passing judgment? Was the son playing games? Was the father lying? What about the mother?

The transcripts of the trial will never be made public but even so the way the events unfolded raises doubts and speculation which undermine the repute of the judicial system.

Jiena minn dejjem kien idejjaqni l-fatt li l-qorti tiddeciedi sahansitra l-granet meta t-tfal ghandhom imorru jaraw lil missierhom.

Jista dan it-tifel jew tifla dak in-nhar li jmissu jmur jara lil missieru m’ghandux aptit johrog mid-dar u jixtieq joqghod relaxed ghall-kwiet u ma jkellem lil hadd per ezempju?

Hafna tfal jispiccaw jaraw lil missierhom gol playing fields u mhux fir-residenza minhabba xi ragun jew jekk tkun ix-xita jispiccaw joqghodu fil-karozza. dik hajja!

I haven’t seen my children for one year now except for once when I got to see them from a distance across the street, and my youngest did not even recognise me.

She forbade them to even cross the street. What other option do I have but to take her to court seeing she has ignored all the instructions for access using a variety of tricks (failing phone battery, no credit on phone, not enough internet bandwidth for skype etc)?

I am at the point of desperation. I think my wife deserves not only jail but a life sentence because she has sentenced me to a life of torment.

By the way she threw me out and I did not abandon her. But I am in same boat as this teacher and I know what he is going through, for all you know he hasn’t seen his son for ten years.

[Daphne – I don’t believe you. Under Maltese law, one spouse cannot throw the other out of the marital home, even if that spouse owned the property before marriage, let alone if it was bought in both names. Also, no wife even seeks to throw her husband out when there are babies around at the nappies and bottle stage, but rather the opposite, unless he has done something gross like have an affair. I am always suspicious of men who whinge that their wives don’t allow them to see the children. I always feel they’re only telling a part of the story that makes them look nice.]

Absolutely right, Another John. And everybody knows it!

Our justice system is a complete joke. The rampant abuse of suspended sentences especially springs to mind. Criminals systematically get away with it, while the law-abiding inevitably get screwed. Our lawmakers, lawyers and the judiciary have a lot to answer for, if not in this world, in the next.

Pull him by his ear or kick him on the seat of his pants or threaten to flush his mobile down the toilet?

Doesn’t the judge who sent this poor woman to jail have any teenage children of his own?

This poor woman should have not been jailed in the first place.

Meanwhile, the court judgement seems to have been removed from http://www.gov.mt. It was there until last Thursday.

Actually I can imagine Franco Debono behaving like this father were he in a similar position. Only a narcissistic parent could behave like that.