Nicola Abela Garrett to Erin Stewart Tanti about the prime minister: “Told you Jo would help out.”
So Erin Stewart Tanti only graduated in drama, and a general degree not honours, last December – which means he never took his teacher-training certification.
On his Facebook page, there’s a photograph uploaded during the graduation ceremony on 2 December, with his friends asking why he’s not there.
Later on that evening, the dedicated and exemplary Stewart Tanti responds:
Hah…le, had a meeting at OPM in regards to my company so I thought…I’m not going to pretend to start caring now…hah
His company is the comedy act The Wembley Store Boys, so that was the next stop to see if there was anything about that meeting – if he was so keen to show off about it to his friends citing it as the reason for not turning up at graduation, he was bound to be boasting about it on ‘his company’s’ Facebook page.
And sure enough, there was a photograph taken on the steps of the Auberge de Castille, to commemorate the big occasion of their meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister (qishom qatt ma marru mkien) and Stewart Tanti’s comment:
Just finished a meeting at the Prime Minister’s office. Seems like something big’s in the works.
To which Nicola Abela Garrett, the female version of Stewart Tanti who barracked Austin Gatt about the buses in what turned out, after the damage had already been done in the media, to be a staged set-up, scripted and acted through and through, responded:
Told you Jo would help out.
Incidentally, Matthew Bonanno, who was sacked from Times of Malta for plotting openly with Abela Garrett to give her coverage for her stunt even before she pulled it, is part of Stewart Tanti’s comic act and crowd.
What a bunch of jerks.
I’d like to see “Jo” helping him now.
69 Comments Comment
Reply to Jozef Click here to cancel reply
Evarist Bartolo is also on Erin (Tanti) Stuart Palmier’s list of Facebook “friends”.
So what?
So what? A minister of education (especially one who promotes ethical standard in teaching) should be very cautious whom he befriends, even on Facebook. Had the Minister looked at this man’s profile, it would have been enough for him to ‘unfriend’ him.
So what does the Minister of Education think he’s doing befriending a reckless teacher?
Why is he looking so different in all the photos I see of him?
“Seems like something big’s in the works.”
The High Society version of Cock & Clit perhaps.
How do I get “Jo” to fund the publication of my novels?
You have to be a clown like him.
How do I get ”Jo” to honour me with the ”Gieh Ir-Repubblika” ?
How do I get “Jo” to give me four promotions in three months?
How do I get “Jo” to give me four consultancy jobs with the government?
Hey, I want “Jo” to give me a consultancy too. He needs someone to dress him. Not in that THAT sense.
Oh dear I’ve done it now. Libel suit coming my way.
How do I get “Jo” to send me to Shanghai on a monthly salary of Euro 13,000?
Or to the U.S. to manage a defunct MTA office?
Better still, when is “Jo” going to start doing things properly and the right way round?
How do I get “Jo” to pay me to find garage or two for bands to practice in?
The current education minister is one of his ”friends” on facebooks.
How very liberal , of course.
Again, so what?
Do you really think these VIPs vet the hundreds or thousands of invites they get? Franco Debono had two or three profiles, because every profile is limited to 5,000 friends/contacts.
Of course, someone who’s tech-savvy would create an official page (as opposed to a personal profile) which ‘fans’ can follow and this would prevent people like you from making ridiculous claims, but alas.
What ”ridiculous claims” are you referring to? I am simply stating a fact ie that the current education minister is one of his ”friends” on fb.
So, anyone on his friends list is what exactly? Do tell us more.
[Daphne – The point Aunt Hetty is making here is that the Minister of Education should not be on the Facebook Friends list of teachers. How hard is this to understand. Erin Stewart Tanti’s is a personal Facebook profile, not a ‘public person page’.]
The young lady in the middle of the photo is one of the main actors in the series “It-Tfal” being aired on One TV.
Maltese adults have truly skewed reasoning, as can be seen by having a quick glance here https://www.facebook.com/eirestuart?fref=ts. The number of well-wishing comments, even from supposedly sane people (at least a couple of whom are parents, with children at the school at which he taught) is sickening, given the fact that this man was a teacher who was alone with his pupil at Dingli Cliffs, where she eventually died.
More shocking still is this comment posted by a woman in her late 40s, who is either a teacher or – more likely – a head teacher of some sort, at 21.47hrs on the day Erin Tanti was rescued:
“Tell me if and how I can help. I will keep him in the thoughts of my 450 + pupils.”
Hers was in response to this comment posted on Erin Tanti’s wall by Adrian Buckle:
“Erin needs all the support he can get. Let us unite as a theatre community and offer it.”
I sincerely hope that her bosses give her a good talking-to, and ask her to remove the comment. Yes, she should keep Erin Tanti in the thoughts of her “450+ pupils”, but as a warning to them against the dangers of befriending people like him.
“Let us unite as a theatre community and offer it.”
Mass thespian suicide would be a good start.
Easy does it, leave the theatre community out of this one please.
Mr Buckle has a tendency to be overly enthusiastic about certain matters, but he certainly doesn’t speak on behalf of every actor and neither do Mr. Tanti’s actions.
Do not turn and point fingers at the arts or artists who work tirelessly to bring theatre to Maltese stages.
Try as I might, I is rather too late to turn my vitriol into honey. I am therefore obliged to express my scathing opinion of much of the “Maltese” theatre “community”.
It is no fault of the actors or the playwrights though. Malta is a country thrust into modernity without having gone through the all the stages of development of a modern nation.
It went more or less straight from a provincial Middle Ages on the fringes of the Regnum, to 1968. This is warp-drive stuff, and the egos of our local thespians are massive enough to match it.
They are not helped by an uncritical intellectual class, which has been engaged in a massive circle jerk for ages now, siphoning off public funds for Mediterranean Institutes and Theatre Studies and such. Zebra, anyone? Marta Kwitt?
He seems to have been employed in a hurry at St Michael’s Foundation, possibly as a last resort.
A 15th September post on his Facebook page states “Big interview tomorrow. Goodbye beard.”, while a 22nd September post on the same page states “Tomorrow I start my first day at St. Michael’s Foundation. So riled to get started with these kids!”
Surely, however, with the use of internet, they could have run a quick check on the man?
[Daphne – RILED? RILED? I’m hoping he doesn’t know what it means and used the word in error.]
Oh, nice. The day before his “big interview”, he posted this on Facebook:
“I hate how everything on this fucking island needs to become about politics. Jesus Christ.”
“Decided to quit smoking, actually did some serious work on my thesis (for once), started a collection of the Sun’s page 3 girls … ”
Fantastic teacher material, I must say.
And since when is the theatre community represented by someone who bankrupted his Unifaun leaving creditors exposed?
There may be more to this Erin than we know. Visits to the OPM, St. James up for grabs and all people with a minimum of decency in the theatre community who considered this babbling idiot, who only managed minor roles, a talentless asshole.
Of course the comments are shocking; they’re the opposite of what they should be, by design and necessity.
Their hypocrisy and guttural spite keeps them from truth. They see human life as something to play.
The real ‘theatre community’, (and isn’t that the latest lobby) had better keep a look out for what’s happening, before it’s too late.
I am sorry but based on this, you jumped in to a conclusion of what happened based on what is in your head rather than the facts released. Why not wait like everyone else before you make the assumption on what happened. If you get out of the stereotypical mind for a moment, the possibility is not only one but many of what could have happened that night.
For someone to wish a well another human being is good human nature, it shows a good person. Those who are bound to hate for a person’s ‘supposed’ actions that are not properly verified yet are those who need to understand the concept of waiting and not jumping in to conclusions. If you are about to act high and mighty then another, first judge yourself before you judge others.
[Daphne – Ian, you need to understand this. Regardless of what happened after they got out of the car, and even if nothing had happened at all and they both returned home safe and sound, this teacher picked up a pupil in his car in the afternoon, kept her out for the rest of the day and night, while her parents and the police were looking for her, and at 4am drove her to Dingli Cliffs. Those are incontrovertible facts and the details as to why and how are completely irrelevant. Those facts alone are a major professional transgression and also a crime. It is a crime for an adult to sequester a minor against the wishes of the parent.]
Maybe so Ms. Daphne but in the end, with any criminal offence, the why and how are part of what gives the person a motive to do something. Without that why and how, they would have no case, only the fact that they were found in Dingli Cliffs while other reasons come up. It’s looks bad now but until the why and how are discovered, a case cannot be built.
[Daphne – ‘Without the why and how, they would have no case’: you are completely wrong.]
My point to this is that jumping to conclusions without the full facts is not what is needed right now for both families, a father lost a daughter and a family had a traumatic experience of almost losing a son or a brother, now people can say what they want about this matter but in the end he is someone’s son and someone’s brother. Waiting and seeing what will happen is better than the assumptions made on a few pieces of a puzzle that have not yet made a whole picture.
[Daphne – Again, you are completely wrong. You miss the essential point that this is not a private matter, but a very public one. This is not a husband who killed his wife in a row over adultery, where public discussion of the details would be questionable unless there was some public interest matter (inadequacy of the law, attitudes towards women…) but a teacher who took a pupil to cliffs at 4am, after keeping her out all night, where she was found dead and he alive. No, in situations like this the role of the media is most definitely NOT to wait and see what happens. It is to make things happen and to raise public awareness of the fact that teacher-pupil friendships are unacceptable, dangerous to the pupil and indicative of severe psycho-sexual shortcomings on the teacher’s part.]
This is getting quite ‘dirty’. Incidentally, Erin Stewart Tanti, Alex Vella Gera, Nicola Abela Garrett and Matthew Bonanno all belong to the same Labour skip. Ironically (and sadly), the victim’s father, who should have known better, campaigned and voted for the same skip.
I’d love to see the MADC or any other production company include anyone of these individuals or any other twerp openly showing ‘support’ in any future production.
Gives me the perfect excuse to stay home.
Is Cock & Clit going to receive state funding now? The OPM should clarify what the meeting was about.
Cock & Clit will replace Gensna for the Republic Day celebrations.
Starring Ira Losco.
I should stop myself, really, I should.
Seeing as it is very difficult to get EU funding, what with the forms and transparency etc, they could just adopt the usual tactics and either flog a few passports or ask a dictator for direct funding.
This is so wrong.
All the backroom deal cutting was bound to come back and haunt ‘Jo’ at some point.
Why on earth was ‘Jo’ meeting the owner of a start-up theatre company? What good could have come of it? Were they circumventing the rules?
If there was an opening or vacancy, why couldn’t Mr Stewart Tanti go through the proper channels instead of going straight to the Prime Minister for a cosy chat?
I wonder what all the other theatre graduates who didn’t get to have meetings at OPM feel.
Unless someone can prove that this meeting was above board and no rule bending resulted from it, we now have to face the possibility that had this meeting never happened, Erin Stewart Tanti might have never been employed by a school and Lisa Maria Zahra might still be alive.
I’m really shocked.
He landed the job 3 months before his meeting with Jo the godfather Muscat.
‘…Unless someone can prove that this meeting was above board and no rule bending resulted from it, we now have to face the possibility that had this meeting never happened, Erin Stewart Tanti might have never been employed by a school and Lisa Maria Zahra might still be alive…’
You just nailed it.
The local poet laurate’s FB:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/alex.v.gera?fref=ts
[Daphne – Another tiresome and tedious poseur with an intellectual friend who can’t spell. Apparently, I’m ‘skum’.]
Actually, scrolling down the poet laureate’s FB, there is a comment with this screenshot; http://prntscr.com/327jhp
Yes, you’re their favourite scapegoat.
They seem to have forgotten that a girl is dead. It is not about you but the actions of their ‘friend’. They should be contemplating what he did and how dangerous people like him actually are to themselves and others.
I thought better of Alex Vella Gera. What a shame. As for that Mario Vella he seems to think there should be no limits to artistic expression.
He is wrong and a person who is a teacher has responsibilities that go with that position. What he fails to consider is that not every expression is artistic and this Erin guy seems to have had no real talent to speak of. Just wanting to be an artist doesn’t make you one.
But again, what really gets to me with the likes of Mario is that a young girl is dead and even that is not enough to make him take a step back and think.
For all his public protestations about misogyny (cf ‘Li tkisser sewwi’), Alex Vella Gera doesn’t much care privately.
Charlie Grima, one of the commentators on that ‘bad trip’ post, is a well-known abuser of vulnerable girls. Some time ago, when he was 30, Charlie Grima aggressively (really – aggressively) pursued at least two young girls. Alex is well aware of Charlie Grima’s preferences, as are many other liberal luminaries. This did not bother Alex much; the two spent plenty of time together in Prague and appear to be good friends still.
Nor does Alex seem too fussed that Erin was a teacher and behaved inappropriately with a 15-year old girl. They were friends and are friends still.
Clearly, liberalism in Malta is just a pretty dress for the same old Siculo-Arab misogyny and omerta.
Imma dik Daphne (mara) wisq qahba, sahhara ecc.; ja hasra Erin (ragel) qieghed l-ITU.
The only thing Alex Vella Gera cares about is his books – he writes since he’s got available time on his hands, you know a desk clerk is a desk clerk, whether he works in Malta or translates for a living abroad.
” As for that Mario Vella he seems to think there should be no limits to artistic expression”
Some would be of the opinion that snuff movies are a form of no-limits artistic expression .
birds of a feather
He’s looking for a garage to rent. Where’s Willy?
‘Jo’ has certainly helped her, a no-talent wannabe on a scholarship paid for by our taxes.
imagine ‘Jo’ tells the police to back off…..
I bet Jo will suggest Diva Debono as legal assistance to this shallow, low-scum who calls himself teacher.
For a PM to receive in his office a comedy trio that has not yet achieved fame is as inappropriate as it is ridiculous. Is this how the PM spends his time? And what was on the agenda – a governmental push? Some people have it bloody good over there!
There is no hard evidence,yet, that Joey met this twerp.
He did not meet Shiv Nair either.
Nicola had better tell Jo to help out with the transport system. Or isn’t he a f….n w…nker?
Nicola Abela Garrett got a scholarship (from ‘Jo’?) and is studying theatre or similar in England.
The second picture speaks volumes. Look at the guy to the left posing with his laptop strapped to his shoulder.
How many of you people take photos with your laptops hanging off your shoulder?
I mean, come on!
Given the nature of this tragic situation, ‘Jo will fix it’ seems more appropriate.
It makes one wonder what project by this group deserved the attention of “Jo”, the Prime Minister of Malta, in his august office in the Auberge de Castille.
I only hope “Jo” does not interfere again with the Police to cover up for this miserable jerk.
Thank you, Daphne, for letting us know that in reality this guy is not a trained teacher after all. He pretends to be a teacher when he never studied to be a teacher and thus never got a professional warrant.
We need to know now how and why the school engaged him to teach.
Talk about micro-managing a country! What’s the prime minister doing meeting three people with a comedy act? Isn’t that the job of the minister for culture or, actually, one of his subordinates far, far down the line?
There can be many scenarios to this tragedy. One I do not subscribe to is it being a suicide pact; as a matter of fact, such a suggestion must be very hurtful to the Zahra Family. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt condolences to them.
I have no expertise in forensics, neither am I a psychiatrist, or even indeed a social worker.But common sense tells me that somebody contemplating suicide would want to get it over and done with in a short a time as possible. Waiting from early Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday 4.00 a.m. to do the act doesn’t wash with me.
Bothering to lock up my car and go and jump off a cliff makes even less sense to me. Whenever I lock up my car, it’s because I want to make sure it’s there next time I want to use it.
It’s quite likely that the complete truth will never come out because the only survivor is the one with every interest in lying to save himself. What is out is the shame that a tragedy could have been avoided and that the criminal act, for criminal act it is, lies squarely and solely on the shoulders of a 23 year old adult with not a single particle of morality.
The suicide pact is his greatest fib. With an infinite ego, why would he?
Abela Garrett needs to learn how to know and understand herself before taking the responsible plunge to give advice to others.
“One I do not subscribe to is it being a suicide pact; as a matter of fact, such a suggestion must be very hurtful to the Zahra Family. ”
Winston, there are very basic points which don’t go down well in this scenario.
It is plainly obvious that at a time when she was vulnerable, someone interfered when he wasn’t supposed to and her friends are championing him for doing so because he made her laugh when she was “sad”.
After seeing all that has been posted on Facebook, I conclude that Lisa was not the sad one but someone else was. That someone else schooled Lisa into believing she was sad, down and that her family didn’t care about her….but he did.
It’s an old, old trick.
daphne mid dehra kienet fuq l-irdum dak il hin li grat listorja. il mara tidher li taf xgara kollox. ma tmurx bhala xhud ghazieza? ix xewqa ta kulhadd nahseb hi li meta tkun f xi qiegh ta sodda gewwa lisptar kulhadd jigi jibzoqlok u jikteb il hdura fuqek. rispett lejn hadd, qas minn alla li halqek
[Daphne – Almenu qieghed fis-sodda l-isptar, Lawrence, u mhux mejjet bhal dik it-tifla tal-iskola. Ghandek il-hsieb tieghek ta’ taht fuq. Minflok titkaza li ghalliem zamm tifla tal-iskola barra tul il-lejl u hada sa l-irdum fl-erba ta’ filghodu, fejn instabet mejta, titkaza b’dawk li jghidu fuqu u jiddiskutu l-agir tieghu. Yours is what is called perverse reasoning, Lawrence.]
Well said, Daphne.
I’m following this case from abroad. If the girl was found dead and the guy badly injured, how do we know that at 4.00 am they were at Dingli cliffs?
I have the impression that the media is protecting the teacher involved. The name of the school where he is employed has never been mentioned. Am I wrong?
[Daphne – Yes, you are wrong. The school is St Michael’s Foundation, it has been mentioned, and its statement published. It was the police who said that Tanti drove to the cliffs at 4am. They don’t say how they know. He either told them, or they calculated it from the length of time the girl had been dead, which can be worked out from the autopsy.]
For all his anti-establishment bravado, with his degree certificate barely out of the press, the first thing he did was go and grovel at the prime minister’s feet.
Hardly an artistic revolutionary from the ground up. This guy went straight to the top. Fake through and through.