The girl’s family are right to blame the teacher
I am absolutely appalled at the way people have missed the essential point about the tragedy at Dingli Cliffs: a teacher should not have been with one of his pupils at all outside school hours, still less should a teacher have been driving her about in his car and, worse still, taking that pupil to Dingli Cliffs for whatever reason.
To my shock, it’s suddenly dawned on me who that teacher, listed in the news reports by his real name of Erin Stewart Tanti, actually is: an absolutely irresponsible jerk, who I wouldn’t trust within five miles of any teenager, who uses the stage name Erin Stuart Palmier for his stand-up performances outside school hours.
A few months ago I actively considered filing a report against him with the police, for criminal (obscene, really) defamation. He had opened one of his stand-up acts with the line, said extremely aggressively and full of misogynistic hatred, “I want to f*ck Daphne Caruana Galizia” (he’s 23; I’m 49) and then proceeded with a ghastly piece of defamation – not an opinion which I don’t like, I hasten to add, or an opinion based on facts, but actual defamation: a deeply damaging, despicable lie about facts which, had I proceeded with the police report, would have found him facing a jail sentence or a serious fine.
I didn’t proceed for the simple reason that I had no wish to turn a stupid, irresponsible, immature and sickening jerk into a martyr to his friends, or have the thing pictured as a 49-year-old woman victimising a 23-year-old ‘boy’.
I had no idea at the time that he is a teacher.
If I had, I would have solved the matter by taking a recording of his performance to the school principal, and letting the school deal with it – not to get back at him, but because I am a parent and have serious concerns about people like that being allowed anywhere near teenagers or children.
Not only are they a horrendously bad example – what are his pupils supposed to think, if they see a recording of his performance and listen to their teacher saying things like that? – but somebody so irresponsible cannot be counted on not to behave irresponsibly with his charges.
That is how things, in fact, turned out. And no, this is not ‘passing judgement when I don’t know the facts’. I do know the facts: a teacher drove one of his pupils to Dingli Cliffs and she died there. He almost did too. Why he drove her there is irrelevant. The point is, he shouldn’t have been with her – not in his car, not at Dingli Cliffs, not anywhere, not at all, ever, in whatever circumstances, outside school hours.
What on earth was the school thinking, employing somebody like that to work with children and young teenagers? With teachers, you have to look at the whole person, and not dismiss what they do outside school hours as being none of the school’s business. What teachers do outside school hours IS the school’s business: it will tell you whether that person is a bad example (a rotten example, in Erin Stewart Tanti/Erin Stuart Palmier’s case) or whether they are likely to behave irresponsibly with pupils. Getting blind drunk and throwing up in bars on a regular basis isn’t against the law, to cite one example, but schools should dismiss any teacher who does that. It isn’t just a bad example, it’s also a really worrying indicator about the teacher’s personality.
People commenting on the internet have criticised the girl’s family for pointing out that the man she was with was her teacher, and that this comes with responsibilities. But they are right. Of course they are right.
I think it is shocking, too, that fingers of blame have been pointed at the girl’s father, the former hotelier Tony Zahra, even at a time when he is enduring the worst thing possible, something from which he will never recover. I know for a fact that he adored that child, even as he adored her mother before her. The child was, in fact, all he had left of her mother, who died of a serious illness when she was just a toddler.
You cannot blame the parents in a situation like this. Girls of 15 go out in the afternoon. It’s normal. It’s not normal if they don’t go out in the afternoon, they go out in the evening, especially when the following day is not a school day, which it wasn’t.
Parents simply don’t expect, when their 15-year-olds go out in the afternoon, that some weirdo teacher from their school is going to be taking them out for a drive.
Blame the teacher. And blame schools for not carrying out proper background checks and character analysis of the people they employ as teachers. They have a great deal of responsibility, and they should live up to it.
The point is this: the fact that Erin Stewart Tanti was Miss Zahra’s teacher is an aggravating factor and not a mitigating factor.
The girl is dead, so nobody will ever know what his intentions were in taking her to Dingli Cliffs in his car. He is now free to lie to save his own skin, but two facts remain from which he can’t lie his way out: he took her out in his car, and he took her to Dingli Cliffs. And he should have done neither, regardless of his intentions.
Even if they were not teacher and pupil, this situation would have been perverted and unacceptable: 15 and 23 is not the same thing as 20 and 28. It’s not the age gap you have to be looking at, but the ages.
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Would not want this weirdo to get anywhere near my cat.
I agree.
As somebody with children only a little younger than Miss Zahra, I also find it of great concern that certain teachers do not know where to draw the line, sometimes fail to respect the boundaries there should be between pupils and teachers, and see absolutely nothing wrong in using vulgar expressions like “screwed up” in class.
And some of them have Facebook posts which are completely unsuitable and worse, they accept their pupils, and other pupils at the school, as Facebook friends.
One teacher’s’ leopard-skin underwear, repeatedly on view, is a subject of discuss by her pupils.
Children aged 12 to 13 were shown the ‘Wrecking Ball’ music video ( http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8), by a young male teacher, supposedly for discussion, and this NOT during a PSD lesson ora music lesson. And yet no parent complained to the school about the matter, perhaps for fear of being regarded prudish, or for fear of retribution towards their children.
Not to say anything about the regular ‘live-ins’ organised with the school’s blessing, where water-games involving throwing water at each other, with teenage girls wearing their white PE T-shirts, are a regular feature. I am not insinuating anything about the teachers here, except that they have some very strange ideas.
Fortunately, these teachers are the exception, but as we have seen, it only takes one.
Perhaps he found too many people who let him get away with murder, like Daphne did. He never suffered consequences for his horrid behaviour in public.
With a simple Google search on this so-called teacher, the school authorities would have concluded that he was not fit for purpose.
Parents …well I had better stop here.
being 15 yrs now a days is different……and accusations and allegations abt improper behaviour is heard in both directions…
bdw my father is 12 yrs older than mum….whats wrong in it?
did parents knew abt the couple if they saw each other outside school?
[Daphne – I think you will find that your father did not begin seeing your mother when she was 15 and he was 27, and if he had, your grandfather would probably have called the police or brought out a shotgun. It is not the age gap that is the issue here, but the ages, and the fact that they were teacher and pupil. Being 15 nowadays is not any different to what being 15 was when I was that age. Fifteen-year-old girls are the same in every generation. Yet they are under-age and extremely vulnerable and that is why the law protects them and makes it incumbent on grown men not to abuse of the situation.]
@josef
For goodness sake, are we to start accepting a situation in which teachers hobnob with their pupils?
I am going to be prudent and allow the proper investigations take their course, but it is highly improper for a teacher to get involved with a pupil in this manner.
Fifteen is underage. Underage means she has not reached 18 years of age so being 15, in the eyes of the law, this also means she could have been twelve or 5, he should not have been with her.
Even if she consented to anything, it would be considered statutory rape.
And she is his pupil.
The girl is dead, and the teacher was the last person with her. In this age of mobile smart phones, Ipads and stuff, if she was going through problems, as some have said elsewhere, he should have done the right thing and contacted the head of school when at school and during school hours – the school would have phoned her father.
Regarding your parents if they met when your mum was 15 and your father was 27 (or 23) and he was her teacher, it was wrong back then as it still is now.
This is spot on.
For a second there I thought that I was the only one who sees something deeply amiss in this teacher, and deeply wrong with his taking an under-age girl, more so a pupil of his, out in his car and then to that particular place.
Anyone who works in a position of trust with children – doctor, nurse, social worker, lawyer – knows that they should never be alone with a child without another adult present, and that is in the work environment. Outside the work environment, they should not be with any such child at all.
Does an employer have the right to say what one does outside of their job?
[Daphne – Yes, if you are in a vocational profession and/or work with children. There are other examples where what you do outside working hours is restricted by your contract of employment.]
Yes.I was an officer in the British Army and my conduct off duty as well as on had to be exemplary.
In a civilised country, a teacher who dates a pupil faces immediate dismissal and prosecution, and is not allowed to work with children again. Let’s see what happens in this case.
See the film: ‘Notes on a Scandal’ – Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchette.
Tells the story of a teacher engaging in sexual activities with an under-aged student and of the consequences the teacher and the boy’s family had to face in a country, the U.K., where the laws are taken seriously and are seriously enforced so much that there’s no time to waste on useless flyers and irrelevant speeches on LGBT promises by wishful thinkers.
Well done Daphne for yet another spot-on insight. The story did not look right from the start and what confirmed it further was some of the crazy comments on the news sites comments-boards, saying things on the lines of: ‘don’t judge the teacher, he’s a very good person who likes to help people deal with their problems’.
What sort of charismatic helpful teacher helps his pupils to Dingli Cliffs at night? What sort of teacher befriends the teenage girls he is supposed only to teach and see only during school hours?
What stupid comments. What a stupid country.
It would have been better for these sort of people to say something on these lines: ‘I sympathise with the girl’s family who must be deeply shocked that the only person last seen with their 15 year old daughter should not have been anywhere near their daughter outside school hours, let alone on Dingli Cliffs’.
The newspapers should disable their comments facility if they can’t control what’s been said and are unwilling to respond to it.
Did Labour say they wanted to eradicate poverty once elected?
If they really did say that, there’s no chance for success unless they start by eradicating stupidity.
Don’t worry Daphne, about the ‘fucking bit’.
Failures of the sort who make false allegations and who joke about fucking on public fora, don’t get far – not in this life.
My experience as a parent is that people are employed as teachers even if they do not have qualifications.
If you act you can teach acting, if you babysit you can teach kindergarten. That’s the way schools look at it. I’m not sure what the law/regulations are but I think people employed to teach should have TEACHING qualifications.
So if I know how to wire a plug, I’m an electrician?
Cool.
Having a teaching qualification doesn’t necessarily make a person honest and modest, does it?
Anyway, I don’t think we are discussing merits here…
Being a well qualified teacher is irrelevant in terms of abuse. One can have excellent qualifications and a warrant and still abuse pupils.
School teacher Jeremy Forrest famously went down for five and a half years for much the same horrific behaviour. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-25401405
At least that girl is still alive, though I get your point.
Well said, Daphne
I knew Lisa Marie and I knew her mother Carmen very well. We grew up together in the same street.
One thing is for sure, as a teacher this Erin shouldn’t have taken Lisa Marie for a ride, not to Dingli Cliffs, and not anywhere at all.
It was completely unprofessional and with no sense of responsibility towards a pupil.
Of course now there will be a lot of speculation but the reality is that poor Lisa Marie at a tender age of just 15 is gone from this world because of this jerk, leaving her family in total devastation.
As always, the voice of reason.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=352063818189798&set=pb.100001585478061.-2207520000.1395472202.&type=3&theater
Some things are not against the law but people in a position of trust with children, and those who employ them, should know better.
Are tied up people (women) beautiful?
This brings to mind a very similar case in the UK:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-22991868
Now let’s see how the Malta police are going to handle this one.
I have been informed of my children’s teachers being in a drunken state at establishments frequented by 15 and 16 year olds. I have reported this to the school head and I was informed they could not act on the activities of their teachers during out of school hours as there was no legislation about it – however they promised to look into it.
[Daphne – Unbelievable. Legislation does not come into. Let them sack the teacher or give him a warning, and see whether the law can interfere with that. It is up to the school to decide who to employ and who to retain in employment. Dismissing a teacher for being repeatedly drunk in bars is entirely within a school’s right – no, it is the school’s duty.]
Alcohol being served to these children liberally at bars with police officers in full knowledge of it is common practice.
Then there are those who literally think there is nothing wrong with a teacher dating a pupil, or with a man of 23 preying on a girl of 15.
The ignorance in Maltese society is just unbelievable. So backward.
I agree with you. Now spot the difference, and this is a very liberal society – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354515/Teacher-sacked-posting-picture-holding-glass-wine-mug-beer-Facebook.html
A tragedy that has hit the lives of two families.
[Daphne – How absolutely ghastly of you to equate their experiences and put them at the same level. One is a victim and the other a perpetrator, and the experience of the perpetrator’s family can in no way be put at par with the victim’s family’s.]
I have watched Erin perform at a play in San Anton gardens and he was absolutely hilarious, great talent.
[Daphne – I’m sure some people said the same of Jimmy Savile. I don’t in any way wish to equate Stewart Tanti to Savile, but to point up your non sequitur.]
We allow our 15 year old kids to do what we used to do and more, we have given them the freedom to live and enjoy their youth.
[Daphne – I really hope for your children’s sake you are not a parent. This has nothing to do with freedom. This has nothing to do with what parents allow their children to do. This has to do with a teacher slipping in and behaving abusively. Abuse does not refer only to sex and violence. There are myriad risks and dangers out there and there have always been; parents can’t keep their children locked up because that is worse for them than letting them go out and have a normal life. But the last thing we need is teachers joining the ranks of those who can’t be trusted.]
It is always easy to judge and be the masters of great parenting when tragedy hits others, always ready to pounce and play the blame shifting game. As a parent, losing a 15 year old princess would bring an end to my life. Being also a parent of a 23 year old boy, I pray and hope that Erin will recover strongly.
[Daphne – Nobody here is saying anything about the parents of the child. Indeed, there is only one. Nobody has mentioned the parents of the perpetrator, because at his age, they are not really relevant. At 23, he is responsible for his own behaviour, whatever his parents may have done or not done to engender the seeds of it. And 15-year-old girls are not princesses, and 23-year-old men are men and not boys.]
There is no blame-shifting here, Kevin. A teacher is a person of trust and responsibility. Once that trust is broken the teacher should face the full force of law. A 23 year old BOY? Are you serious.
“Blame shifting game”. Yet, you say nothing about the duties and responsibilities of the teacher towards his pupil, but laud the teacher’s “hilarious” stage performance, while you depict the victim as a 15 year-old being allowed to enjoy life.
Daphne has answered you adequately, and I need not add anything except that I hope that there are very few people who reason things out as you do.
“As a parent, losing a 15 year old princess would bring an end to my life. Being also a parent of a 23 year old boy, I pray and hope that Erin will recover strongly.”
Parole Sante!!!!
Well said Kevin.
[Daphne – I think you miss the point that Erin Tanti had nothing to recover from. He was discharged from hospital after three or four days, and he walked into court yesterday as normal. He only had the slightest fracture. He did not jump or fall off a 40m cliff, or he would be dead. And at least have the decency to point out that you are one of Tanti’s close friends and a fellow performer in his comedy acts.]
It is extremely inappropriate that this “teacher” should take a pupil to an extremely isolated and dangerous place late in the evening, for whatever reason or excuse or justification.
It is clear to me that he took advantage of her youth and vulnerability, because no MALE teacher – or female for that matter – has any business engaging with a pupil in that manner, or any other manner, outside the school premises.
All schools are responsible for hiring staff that are positive, good examples to their students. Yes, even drama teachers. This whole situation is shameful and there are many, many questions that this irresponsible adult needs to answer.
Ok as a journalist wouldn’t it be good to ask some pertinate questions instead of simply trying to get your revenge on someone who – in a stand up comedy piece – took the piss out of you.
[Daphne – The comedy piece did NOT take the piss out of me. It was not comedy, it did not take the piss out of me; it was criminal libel and there was so little about it that was funny that nobody laughed. It was the angry statement of a disturbed and irresponsible man. I use your language because that is what you understand.]
Ask these questions first:
1 – how long did he know the girl? Do you know if he knew this girl before he was her teacher? Could there have been a friendship before? Lazy journalism based on limited facts… No fact checking done … Naughty naught daphne.
[Daphne – Dealing with teenagers is incredibly trying; dealing with teenagers who lack intelligence is worse. If it were not for the fact that they are probably responsible and are not a genetic improvement, I would feel sorry for the parents, but I don’t. I just feel cross at them. Understand this, something your parents should be telling you: it is absolutely of no consequence whether this teacher knew his pupil before he became her teacher. The simple fact remains that he was at the time her teacher, or a teacher at the school where she was a pupil, and should not have had any interaction with her outside the school or even any non-educational interaction with her inside the school. Something else: no man of 23 should be hanging around with a girl of 15. Girls of 15 admire men of 23 and feel special when they get their attention, and that’s why much older men, who can’t relate to women or feel inadequate around them, abuse of the situation and get their kicks by wielding power over under-age girls instead. What does a man of 23 have in common at any emotional or psychological or intellectual level with somebody just out of puberty? Nothing.]
2 – should have have even been a teacher? What qualifications does he have to teach?
3 – do you know how much time she would spend with him before this fateful occasion? You are making the assumption it is a one off in your article.
[Daphne – No, I am making precisely the opposite assumption, based on experience and common sense, and that is exactly why I find his behaviour absolutely shocking, and find it hard to understand why the school failed to notice what was going on and did not take appropriate action. He built a relationship of trust with this child beyond the classroom, and abused of it.]
4 – who was she in the care of while her father was away? She was 15 after all… A minor ….is it normal to leave a child alone – is that responsible parenting? At the end of the day the girl was being treated like an adult …
[Daphne – She was not alone. I happen to know the situation and the background. Fifteen-year-old girls go out. It’s normal. They even try to give their paents the slip and fib about where they’re going and with whom. That’s normal too. Parents fear bad influence from contemporaries and ‘strange men’, but they never imagine that their teenage daughter who is out is out with her weird jerk of a teacher.]
These are just some tiny questions which change the entire piece of lazy journalism above.
Oh and on a side note – you wouldn’t have won the defamation case against this young man as he would have been protected by the same laws which protect political parody as it was in a stand up comedy routine.
[Daphne – I am afraid you do not know the law. And not only the law in Malta but the law even in Britain. Nor do you understand the meaning of parody. Now go to your parents and ask them to explain to you why a teacher should not be out with a 15-year-old pupil in any context, let alone in his car at Dingli cliffs at night, as you are clearly not going to take it from me.]
First of all with your inferences
I am a 40 year old father of two. I do not know this boy but nor am i ready to throw the book at him without facts.
[Daphne – He is not a boy. He is an adult, a man of 23, a teacher put in charge and in authority over children. At 23, I had two children of my own and another one on the way. I was most certainly not a girl and would never describe anyone of 23 as a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’.]
If I were to speak to my parents, they would, like me clearly see that what you are doing here is clearly your way at getting back at this 23 year old boy.
[Daphne – No, it is not. It is anger at myself and guilt at the fact that I did not go to the police about him when I should have done. It is deep regret that I never enquired into his background, which means that I would have found out he is a teacher and would immediately have reported him to the school principal, who would have understood, on the evidence presented, that somebody like that is unfit to be in charge of children. You would think that, as the mother of sons who are Stewart Tanti’s age, I would identify with, and sympathise with, his predicament. But it is precisely because I have sons that age that I don’t, because I know that his behaviour isn’t normal, even if he were not a teacher, let alone given that he is one. My sympathies are entirely with the parent of the victim – what he is going through is a hell that will end only when his own time comes. What do your parents have to do with it? Nothing. You are my generation, not theirs, and given that they are the ones who raised you to reason as you do, I imagine that yes, their reasoning will be as deficient as yours.]
Now re your points ->
– What was he a 23 year old doing with a 15 year old?
Again that is not something i can answer. If her parents had a good eye on her they would have an idea. Yes teens do fib, they do lie, but the choose to when they cannot speak openly at home.
[Daphne – It is absolutely shocking that you equate the responsibility of an adult of 23 with that of a child of 15, an under-age girl protected by the law, when both the law and common sense should indicate to you that in these scenarios the adult is always fully responsible. Parents cannot keep teenagers locked up. They have to go out, for their own mental health and social development, and a parent can have all the “good eyes” possible a child, but they can’t police them when they go out in the afternoon. If we have reached the stage where parents must guard their daughters against creepy teachers outside school hours, while the supporters of those creepy teachers try to justify the situation (it was always bad enough within school hours) then, quite frankly…]
– “why the school failed to notice what was going on”
Could it be nothing was happening at school? So there was nothing to notice?
[Daphne – Word should have reached the school about any untoward situation. Somebody would have noticed there was something not quite right even in the school. In any case, jerk-like behaviour and weirdness should not be justified on the grounds that the teacher in question teaches drama. Weird behaviour is not a sign of creativity; it is a sign of weirdness.]
Also the school sees what happens in school hours. They have no jurisdiction over what happens after school.
[Daphne – In fact, they do. You are badly informed. If a teacher behaves inappropriately outside school hours, that is grounds for dismissal. Teachers and others in a position of influence are expected to be a good example at all times and not pose a risk of bad influence on their pupils. We are not talking here of an office clerk – a job in which the general character and personality of the employee are largely irrelevant and what he does outside office hours is not his employer’s business unless he breaks the law. And you are ignoring the fact that by behaving in this manner, the teacher broke the law anyway.]
The responsibility is then thrust on to the parent who should know where their is child is at and who they are with.
[Daphne – You must have been a really dull teenager, and you can’t ever have raised any teenagers yourself. It is only in exceptional circumstances that parents can say for certain that they know where their teenagers are: if they are at their grandmother’s, for example, and their grandmother is on the phone saying so. Be realistic. That, and not the opposite, is the norm. Giving your parents the slip occasionally is normal and healthy. It’s overly careful obedience at that age that is a warning sign the child is not developing normally. The rebellious stage is 100% crucial to healthy development and growth to maturity. It is when things go to far that trouble begins. This girl was normal for her age. She was just unlucky to have encountered a psychological predator with some serious problems.]
If this poor young girl was with this boy, because that is exactly what he looks like, on more then one occasion, the parents or those responsible should have noticed… They should have know where their daughter was and who she was with.
[Daphne – I wish you luck with your own teenagers when and if you have them. And more to the point, I wish them luck in the face of such a controlling attitude which only backfires later in the child’s life. And I can’t imagine what your own teenage years must have been like, if your parents always knew where you were.]
A teacher taking a student out, male or female out is wrong. Agreed.
But it is not simply the fault of the teacher. It is also the fault of the care givers, the school, the friends and any one who had a hand in their lives and didn’t stop things, or pay enough attention to them to realise what was going on.
[Daphne – My God, how wrong you are. And what poor experience of life you must have had.]
Daphne, don’t feel guilty about it.
Many would have been those who knew what the man was like, not least the school, the man’s colleagues and his friends.
The sad truth is that unfortunately, with this generation, ‘Xejn m’hu xejn’, and you are deemed prudish if you do not conform.
My point being, Daphne, that although it is normal to feel guilty, your reporting him would probably not have avoided ths tragedy, simply because your it (your report) would probably have been taken the wrong way, especially given the attitude of most people, parents included, as can be seen from the comments here.
Letsbeclear, I find the fact that you say that you are a 40 year old father of two with this kind of reasoning to be beyond shocking.
I completely agree with M, Daphne. If anyone should be feeling guilty at this time it most definitely is NOT you.
If it were not for you many things would never come to light in this Godforsaken country of ours.
I see that I was wrong. There are others apart from Kevin Mifsud whose reasoning is disturbing.
Letsbe Clear. I’m a father of six, and I find it very disturbing that you as a 40 year old father of two, finds everyone at fault but this 23 year adult, yes young, but a teacher and an adult not a boy.
Anyway I’m not a person to judge and will refrain from passing any judgements but the few facts known so far are what they are and not how you are trying to twist them.
[Daphne – I really don’t believe he’s either 40 or a father. He refers in his comment to his parents and what they think. No 40-year-old with children does that. This is yet another pupil or friend.]
Daphne, I really used to like you and your comments but you really should stick to commenting on politicians and other public figures who expect it anyway coz they’re in the public eye. You have gone really low on commenting on something so personal and basicaly none of your business when you have no idea what happened. Lisa was in my daughter’s class and the teacher was my kids’ teacher too, and really you don’t know any of the two victims to judge. Pls leave this judging to the professionals, you are helping noone least of all her poor dad and family
[Daphne – This is no longer a private matter but a public interest issue, Parent. Might I suggest that, if this man was your child’s teacher, you attend to the more pressing matters at home. But perhaps good parenting is too much to ask of you, because if you are sticking up for this criminally irresponsible teacher I really cannot expect you to be able to work out whether he has got to your son or daughter too.
There are not two victims in this situation. There is one victim and there is a perpetrator. The perpetrator is still alive and will face justice. I did not know the victim but I do know her father and I am quite certain he will not let the matter rest, and rightly so.
If you are a prime example of the sort of parent those children are being raised by, I am really not surprised at the irrational thought processes and inability to tell right from wrong of some of the children commenting here.
As a side comment, any grown woman with 15-year-old children who writes ‘coz’ – something we used to do aged 12 in 1977 – needs to examine her maturity issues.]
Do I detect a hint of bias? Just because someone curses during a stand-up routine, doesn’t mean they are an unfit teacher. It’s a stand-up routine, if you don’t swear you’re doing it wrong.
[Daphne – It is not the cursing which indicated something seriously wrong with this young man, but what followed in the form of a disgusting statement and reprehensible and criminal lies about me and members of my immediate family. Even his audience reacted negatively. There was an uncomfortable silence, and then sounds of disapproval. It was clearly not intended to be amusing. It was spite and anger, and it came from deep within some disturbed space. You can trust me to tell the difference. He is a generation younger than I am, and for reasons that should be obvious, I have a great deal of experience of people that age. There was obviously something upsetting him at some fundamental level. As I said, the only reason I didn’t go to the police was not to make a martyr of somebody who is just a jerk, although a jerk with criminally irresponsible behaviour, and because these things have a tendency to spiral out of control. Don’t defend him. He’s not worth it and he’s just done something terrible.]
To write an entire scathing article about someone who is in intensive care just because he said he’d f*ck you (which you should take as a compliment because I wouldn’t f*ck you with a bag on your head) is un-journalistic and petty. Erin was the best drama teacher I ever had and was perfectly fit for the position. You have a lot of growing up to do Daphne.
[Daphne – I will not go into the finer points of being told, by somebody who is young enough to have had a 23-year-old as a drama teacher and who is therefore around 16, that I have a lot of growing up to do. That’s for your mother to tell you, not me. As for the rest, well of course – there would be something seriously wrong with you, mentally and emotionally, if you did. Boys of 16 should be interested in girls of 16, not women of almost 50. That was precisely my point about your former teacher’s statement.
The fact that he clearly had such influence over you is an indication of just how dangerous he was as a teacher, because he himself is clearly disturbed – I don’t mind saying it; if he had been responsible for my daughter’s death, I would say a lot more and I admire her father’s restraint. When you have finally grown up – say, when you are around 50 – you will understand that kookiness and weird behaviour is not a sign of creativity, but a sign of weirdness, and that any such temporary stage should be grown out of by the time a person is around 19. Also, that jerks should be avoided (this is a difficult one to learn; I’m still learning that one).]
Congratz, you have the sense of humour of a ceiling fan. That being said, the point I was trying to make is that it is rude and unprofessional to assume things about someone based on one experience with them and a quick google. That doesn’t make you a journalist, it makes you a sad blogger. By blaming Erin when he’s not even concious enough to have made a statment, you’re just adding to the ever-snowballing shitstorm that this has turned into. That’s not what Lisa would have wanted. She loved Erin, we all did.
[Daphne – Pupils are not supposed to love their teachers. Good teachers know that. So do most grown-ups. It leaves the way wide open for abuse, as has in fact happened. Your defence of your teacher, who is responsible for your fellow pupil’s death, only serves to show what a strong hold he had on your psyche, and how irresponsible it was to put him in charge of easily influenced children. His behaviour is called ‘grooming’ – at the stage of devotion and trust you had reached, he could basically have done anything to you and with you, and you would have thought it good.]
Students can tell the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher. He was a good teacher. He didn’t ‘groom’ us he ‘taught’ us.
[Daphne – First of all, you are not students. You are pupils. Children at school are pupils. Students are adults at college and university. No, you clearly can not tell the difference between a bad teacher and a good teacher. Teachers are not judged good or bad only according to their handling or treatment of their subject, but their handling and treatment of their pupils. The fact that he squirreled into your mind to such an extent that you are defending him even when he is directly or indirectly responsible for the death of one of your fellow pupils, even when he took her to Dingli Cliffs in his car when he shouldn’t have been in his car with her at all, is evidence of just how dangerously influential he is, and that he is used the time-honoured methods of cult leaders on the vulnerable. He can do anything with you at this point and he would follow you. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a popular ancient story precisely because this is a story as old as time: the adult who leads children astray for twisted reasons of his own.]
And while I still believe that he is one of the best drama teachers on the island, that doesn’t mean that I’d have thought anything he did was good. If you think that every teenager is susceptible putty in the hands of anything with a pulse, then you’ve never met a teenager. Just because I’m not 50, doesn’t mean I’m an ignorant mind-slave to everybody I trust.
[Daphne – I understand you are agitated, but do try to be sensible. People are not born 50. I must obviously have met very many teenagers because I was one myself for seven years, surrounded by them, and had three myself concurrently for roughly another ten years, also surrounded by very many others. One of the symptoms of being 15 is thinking that your parents and other adults know nothing. Another symptom is believing that your behaviour is unique and special rather than programmed by biology to affect every teenager on the planet since time began. It’s not the teenagers’ thinking and behaviour that is the issue here, but the man’s. And please now don’t suggest that I know nothing of what normal behaviour is for a man of 23.
As an aside, I suggest that you choose a different nick, because the one you have chosen to use indicates that you are developing in ways that your favourite teacher would approve of.]
If it’s in my teenage DNA to think that parents and adults know nothing then why would I blindly follow the instructions of a drama teacher/cult leader?
[Daphne – Because he has portrayed himself to you as being at your intellectual, emotional and psychological level of development, and perhaps he really is that way and isn’t just pretending, as a result of which you do not consider him to be an adult but your equal. He may have done this by design, to gain your trust, or he may actually be a case of arrested development. Both are reasons why children in his care are at risk. I am glad you’ve changed your nick, even if it is just as worrying.]
You’re contradicting yourself. I knew both people involved quite well (unlike you, I might add) and find that your bias article is written entirely out of malice for someone whose name you’ve been itching to tarnish since he made fun of you in a stand-up routine. Erin is a 23 year-old drama teacher in critical condition, not Reverend Jim Jones.
[Daphne – Actually, I’d forgotten all about him to the point where the name didn’t click for a while. When you are 50 like me you will have learned that there is no need to get to know somebody to figure out what they are all about, and that you are able to read personality types from visual, behavioural and other clues. This is a survival skill, which unfortunately isn’t learned early enough in life when we most need it to save us from colossal errors with permanent consequences. Not everybody develops the skill, especially not in Malta where adults live for their whole lives enlarged versions of their childhood, meeting very few new people and failing to extend their experience, which is why they think they have to ‘get to know’ someone. Beyond that, from the perspective of an adult, it is generally possible to see that a man of 23 who hang about with a 15-year-old girl, whether his pupil or not, has got something wrong with him. It is a massive warning sign. The fact that you, at 15, think of your teacher as young at 23 is evidence of how very wrong things were. Many of my teachers were that age when I was 15, and I didn’t think of them as anything other than really old. Twenty-three is ordinarily as old as the hills to a 15 year old. Somebody that age might as well be their parents’ age. But you thought otherwise, because that’s the way he wanted it.]
It’s a clever little trick that you use, challenging a persons credibility when you can’t argue with their opinion. Almost as clever as your trick of using a national tragedy as ammunition in your own personal battles.
[Daphne – This is not a national tragedy. It is entirely a personal tragedy for the people involved. If this had been just any 23-year-old man with any 15-year-old girl, it would have been a police matter but it would not have been a subject for discussion in the news. The angle everyone is discussing, because it needs to be discussed, is the fact that he was her teacher and she was her pupil. This is most definitely of national interest because it highlights many problems which interest, or should interest, parents and school administrators.]
People like these are a waste of oxygen and a waste of space. They are actually pollution to this earth. Go off to Mars, maybe you’ll find some ‘moist’ there.
Oh yes and Congratz :)
”She loved Erin, we all did.”
You don’t ‘love’ your teacher, you respect him in the most basic of professional ways – you as the pupil and him as your teacher – finito.
On the other hand, if he was making himself ‘loved’ in an unprofessional way, then there’s a problem and you clearly outlined enough for us to understand and to realise that YES, there is a problem, somewhere around him.
These contributions from persons who claim that they knew both the pupil and her teacher should cause alarm in the minds of the employers of the teacher.
In all probability these kids – for kids they are – are patting themselves on the back, imagining themselves telling the guy sometime in the future ‘Ara Erin, kemm qbizna ghalik kontra DCG!’
I was not following this case, except for having read the initial news report. I had assumed that they were contemporaries, having gone to a romantic place for some alone time, with things having gone unpredictably wrong.
But the guy being her teacher? That makes his behaviour completely unacceptable. Unless it is in a school-connected setting, like a school outing or school event, teachers and students should never mingle outside the school, especially if they are of opposite sexes. And with good reason.
Unfortunately young girls frequently fall for these jerks who think they’re god’s gift to womankind. I don’t know if that is what happened in this case, and I hope for the sake of the girl’s family that it wasn’t – but it definitely does not look good for the teacher, which is why a teacher should be so much more prudent, even if his intentions are the purest.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140322/local/police-wont-rule-out-action-over-cliff-death.511636
[Daphne – I’m glad to see that the newspapers have disabled commenting at last for this story.]
Daphne, once again you have regaled us with a comment that shows what an impeccable analytical mind you possess.
Your reflection on this abhorrent incident is perfect.
I thank you in the name of all right-minded parents.
This is the same school that employed Mark Vella Gera, you had written an article about it years back: http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2008/04/it-was-the-weatherman-mark-vella-gera/
[Daphne – Yes, I know. I thought about mentioning it, but then thought better of it, because it may just be pure bad luck rather than systematic negligence in background checks.]
This is heart-breaking to the extreme.
Isn’t there a system, and more importantly a culture, of release forms when children and teachers spend any time together that is not directly and specifically covered by the normal school day?
As you say Daphne, such release forms would never have child and teacher alone together, there would always be a third person.
And where is the parent’s signature to such extra-curricular activity?
Is there no written covenant between parent and child distinctly and separately on the one hand and the school on the other that details the school rules,regulations and spirit?
These are standard form in Church schools abroad.
How does one explain or start to make good to parents an abuse of tolerance of such proportion?
Tolerance limits need to come under the spotlight and the full set of parametres need tight regulation.
The school that sets them is the one that needs to ensure that these are part and parcel of the school diary that the child carries around daily, and are properly clarified within a structure of school permissions and signatures from parents for any such deviation from the established system.
Usually, in Catholic schools, these would also deal with factors such as respect, comportment and dress at school and outside of it and the duty to help other students.
At serious schools there is one person whose sole job it is to control this regulation and be on the ball about matters as tedious as late arrival or any such irregularity that would have parents, or next person on the contact list, advised as early as 15-20 minutes after a non-appearance of the child at school, for whatever reason.
I do not know whether this particular school had such measures in place, but I know for a fact that it is missing from others.
I would like to underline the dire need for regulation of comportment and attitude by such institutions with minors in their charge.
What a terrible waste of such a beautiful child.
Heart-wrenching.
“At serious schools there is one person whose sole job it is to control this regulation and be on the ball about matters”
I forgot to mention that this person would also have a deputy assigned to his/her post and that these two persons do not have other duties assigned to them – just the well-being, safety and development of the child within its remits.
I agree with the Zahra family that “prudency in any commentary should be respected at this time”
Let the police do their work and should anyone have any relevant information on the case this should be passed on to the police and not posted on social media.
Let’s respect the family at such a terrible time.
[Daphne – I think you’ll find that they were not referring to comments about the teacher, but to stupid comments speculating about the girl, all of them missing the point that the teacher is entirely to blame for what happened.]
I honestly believe that all comments [made by whoever and on what ever aspect of the case ] should be withheld until the police investigations are concluded. Full stop
Apologies Daphne, I normally agree with you, but this time I do not.
Can you prove that Lisa Marie’s “teacher” drove her to Dingli when I do not recall that the police found “his” car anywhere around?
[Daphne – Oh, so they flew there. Or took a taxi. Or got a lift. Or walked. And any of those methods makes his presence there with her somehow better. Of course he drove her. That’s how they were found. Walkers saw a locked and empty car on the cliffs and reported the matter to the police. It was his. The police then searched below the cliffs, assuming the obvious.]
PLEASE STOP THIS. IT IS GOING TO HURT BOTH SIDES.
I am not sure the Zahra family are appreciating this at such a difficult moment.
And despite your sarcasm, you CANNOT prove he drove her to Dingli. They could have easily went there separately.
[Daphne – This is not a football game or a general election, so talk of ‘both sides’ is inappropriate. The Zahra family’s appreciation or otherwise is the last thing on my mind. What concerns me is the manner in which unbalanced adults gain access to children through positions of trust, and after one of their pupils end up dead, other pupils and parents rush to defend him. I imagine these are the same people who bayed for the blood of the ‘Mosta cat killer’ and who spoke reams of rubbish about ‘poor cats’ while defending a teacher who took a pupil to Dingli cliffs at night, where she died.
Yes, they could very well have gone there separately, but is it likely that they did? No, it isn’t. She didn’t drive. The likelihood that she got the bus to Dingli cliffs is remote. She couldn’t walk there. She didn’t hitch. And no taxi driver would have dropped off a girl of 15 at that remote spot alone, I’d like to think. Even if she got there alone, did they meet there by chance: “Oh, funny seeing you here!” So let’s say she got there alone and then rang him. A girl of 15 rings her teacher to say she is at Dingli Cliffs. The teacher gets into his car and drives there instead of ringing the police and her family. And you think this is normal behaviour? That HE is normal?]
I think the Zahras have better things to do at this stage and thank God for that because I expect to read his version of the story in the coming days.
I am also looking forward to decipher how he is ever going to convince the world, friends abroad have been following the news from overseas, that it’s perfectly all right to be on Dingli Cliffs with a 15-year old late in the evening, and especially when one is 23 and not part of her family.
Whereas I agree that the teacher had NO business to take students anywhere in his car outside school hours, it is ridiculous to crusify him, if he, as a stand up comedian said something unflattering about you Mrs Galizia Caruana.
[Daphne – He said nothing unflattering about me. I have not repeated what he said, as one does not repeat criminal lies, so you do not know what he said. Just take it from me. It was a police matter. I am at the receiving end of floods of criticism and jokes and unflattering remarks, and have been since I was Erin Stewart Tanti’s age. I am immune and indifferent. That sort of thing is another matter entirely.]
I think it is the teachers’ own business what he does on his free time and especially since he is a drama teacher it is obvious that he would do acting or stand up comedy on his time off from teaching.
[Daphne – You are wrong. If what a teacher does in his spare time indicates a serious deficient of personality or attitude that might put his charges at risk, the school is in duty bound to take action. The safety of children from negative influences is always paramount.]
That does not make him a jerk and neither does it make him a jerk to do a few jokes about another person. Even if it might be unflattering it hardly would constitute DEFAMATION.
[Daphne – Do you know what he said? Well then.]
All my sympathy goes to the grieving father. One has got to be a parent to understand the full extent of what he will go through for the rest of his life.
I totally agree. What a terrible loss.
I am a mum of 2 teenage girls. Their happiness and well-being is of utmost importance to me. I talk to them, especially when they feel low.
I made it a point to know who their friends are, who they hang around with.
Now it is known that Lisa Marie had been friends with this man for two years. Did her dad ever question her about her welfare or went that exttra mile to get to kknow who her friends r or who she hangs aroung with? I am not blaming the dad but maybe if he listened to his daughter more, thinngs might have been different. Who knows?
[Daphne – This is exactly the kind of ‘smug parent’ attitude that drives me up the wall in its block-headed denial of reality. Parents can never be their child’s ‘friend’ (the relationship is not meant to be that way), and talking to your children, though it helps immensely, is no guarantee that they are telling you everything. No teenager tells his or her parents everything.
In fact, very often, making your parents believe that you are telling them everything is used as an excellent smokescreen to go off and do things of which they’d disapprove, with the parents saying to themselves, ‘Oh, she/he’d never do something like that. She/he tells me everything. I always know where they are and who they’re with.” Yes, right – until the day comes when you discover after a call from the police or a traffic accident or ringing the home where they said they would be staying the night, that they were somewhere else entirely, with somebody you didn’t even know existed.
‘Head in the sand’ parents I used to call them back then when I had children that age. There is no way you can know everything about a teenager, and no way any teenager is going to be telling you everything either. Teenagers need their privacy, and if parents try to force every bit of information out of them, it often backfires, because they’ll make it a point of having some real secrets. Also, this too is my experience: that the strictest, most controlling and most invasive parents, determined to know every little detail about their child’s life, are the ones who do most damage to their child’s psyche. And the ones who float about in a world of their own, being nice to them all the time and too afraid to lay down the law because they’re scared of upsetting them and then they won’t be their ‘friend’ and tell them things anymore are just as bad. The role of a teenager’s parent is not to be nice and a ‘friend’ or strict and invasive. It’s to be suspicious all the time, to be informed and to lay down the law, while turning a blind eye to the things you would have wanted a blind eye turned to at that age.
Why are you questioning the girl’s parenting, anyway? Aren’t you sort of missing the point here? She did nothing wrong. If you’re going to be looking at anybody’s parenting, look at his. But I wouldn’t do that either. It’s unfair.]
Who is anyone to judge? I think that this article shows a lack of sensitivity, particularly towards a person who I know as an exemplary person, an artistic guy, full of energy and good will. I have directed Erin in three theatre productions, and can vouch for his level of commitment in whatever he does. He has his heart in its right place. Articles of the sort, so shallow in their nature, only spread negative energy to a tragic story. Wise are those who can keep their mouths shut until the truth emerges.
[Daphne – You have no children, Tyrone, but you have (rather lovely) nephews. If one of them, at 15, had been found dead at the foot of a cliff with the man you admire so much, you would be talking differently today. Also, at our sort of age we should have learned that people are not mono-faceted. The man who is lovely and charming at the office will beat his wife up at home. The woman who looks like an exemplary mother will sleep with her golf pro or tennis coach. The serious business executive and family man will have a girlfriend, maybe even snort cocaine. And the committed drama performer you admire so much and feel the need to defend may be able to relate to adult women and so find himself involved with an underage pupil instead. And if that were not bad enough, he drives her to Dingli Cliffs at night and tragedy – how, we do not yet know – ensues. I urge you to think again. Defending his behaviour with this, after all, child by citing his commitment to drama is not just a non sequitur, but deeply offensive to those who mourn her.]
All am saying, Daphne, is that we need to allow the space for the truth to emerge….speculating does no good. We need to be sensitive in the light of this tragic episode, and such comments only spread hate talk. I would expect more maturity.
[Daphne – Tyrone, nobody is speculating. And quite frankly, I don’t take instruction in maturity from people who never grew up. Your theatrical friend Erin – why do you have a friend of 23, anyway, when you are my age? – drove one of his pupils, aged 15, to Dingli Cliffs at 4am when there was a police search on for her. He parked his car at the edge of the cliffs, he jumped down with her, and they were found 12 hours later, she dead and him still alive and able to speak to the police and say what happened. The police have ruled out any situation in which he climbed down to help her and they are planning to prosecute him for aiding and abetting his pupil’s suicide even while he planned to kill himself at the same time. Your friend encouraged a girl of 15, his pupil, to kill herself and made it possible for her to do so by driving her to the cliffs at 4am when she should have been in bed. There is nothing for you to defend her. And you are clutching at straws. Is it normal or acceptable for a teacher to drive a pupil to the cliffs at 4am, with or without obvious intent? No. You embarrass yourself, Tyrone. Loyal friendship is to be admired, but it does not mean trying to defend and justify the indefensible. It means accepting what your friend has done and continuing to give him support in private. But if it were me, I’d just drop him. I wouldn’t be able to be around somebody who’d ended a child’s life.]
Wake up, Tyrone, it’s 2014 and you should know better.
Thanks to political correctness we have become prisoners of the libertine values propagated by the so called progressive crowd. They have eroded Christian values which up to a few years ago were the mainstay of Maltese society. I am not saying that we were perfect, nor am I for that matter, but oh how we have gone downhill and are near to scraping the bottom of the bowl.
[Daphne – So-called Maltese Christian values were nothing of the sort. They were just a social facade for some really awful situations. What has happened over the last few years is that the facade has crumbled and Maltese society and Maltese people have been exposed for what they truly are.]
Daphne, it is not the Christian values which are wrong, corrupt and hypocrite, but the society which conveniently used them as a social façade. The rest I completely agree.
absolutely spot on.
Thank you for this article, Daphne. I think it’s spot on.
I also teach teenagers myself for a living, and being more or less Erin Stewart Tanti’s age, the idea of getting involved with a 15 year old pupil of mine actually sickens me.
In no way whatsoever is a girl that age mentally or emotionally equal to a man of 23. I don’t mean to make any judgements off the bat without knowing the character personally of the man in question, but his behaviour does strike me as predatory in more ways than one.
There’s not only the age gap to consider; there’s also the fact that he was her superior at school and the power imbalance of their alleged relationship outside school hours was/is quite unsettling. He was taking advantage of her in more ways than one.
Maybe I’m being extra sensitive, but the fact that people are so wilfully turning a blind eye to what you so rightfully pointed out in this article just goes to show how quickly people will defend a man who is popular and well liked in this particular society, against a teenage girl.
I couldn’t agree more, Feminist
At last someone with sense. Both boys and girls hormones are all over the place at that age. As a teacher myself there is no way I would take a child, that is what she was, to any place, far less a deserted place at night, OR, for pupils to be taken anywhere by a teacher without written permission from the parent.
I think this has to be carefully thought about by THE SCHOOL to ensure the safety of both teachers and pupils.
Part of your teacher training ensures that you have to be above reproach at ALL times, day and night where teacher/pupil relationships are concerned .
This has to be a good learning curve for ALL concerned. It is not up to us to debate who should be held to account, the police will do their duty and find out the exact details and if charges have to be pressed.
What we need to do is to ensure it DOES NOT happen again. Laws are set and if someone has broken them they will suffer the consequences. What we need to do is to pray for the loss of a young life.
Very well said, Daphne. You are indeed spot on when you say that teachers and students should have no relationship outside school hours. Any relationship, no matter how innocent, is improper.
Unfortunately Mr. Tanti is not the only teacher who is unfit for purpose – several other teachers do in fact upload unsuitable pictures and comments on Facebook and the schools seem oblivious to this, even though other teachers may be aware of what is going on.
Yet this goes way beyond that. Mr. Tanti was actually consorting with at least one student outside school hours. He took this student, a vulnerable minor, out in his car at some ungodly hour, to a remote and relatively private location. This is all highly suspicious and for the life of me, cannot see how there could have been any good intentions on his part.
I also find it rather interesting to see how his pupils, who believe that through their comments here and elsewhere they are helping Mr. Tanti, are simply proving how unfit the man’s influence over them was – and in so doing, they are simply giving him more rope with which to hang himself.
This is the school which employed Mark Vella Gera, the weather man of Malta Weather.com, to teach religion. This guy was arrested and prosecuted for the molestation of minors on the internet, all of them pupils at the same school.
He received a suspended sentence.
This is not a good track record for the school.
Mark Vella Gera was employed in a strictly boys’ secondary school. Erin Tanti’s unfortunate pupil was female. I suggest that you should start to think before you speak.
[Daphne – Mark Vella Gera taught at the same school as Stewart Tanti, though not concurrently. If he also taught at a boys’ school, then that is news to me.]
Manzo Style if you do not know the facts, do not comment. Mark Vella Gera was employed by the same school which caters for mixed boys and girls up to secondary level.
Even so, should he’d had thought just boys, this person should have never been employed before being screened well before employing him with kids.
Hi Daphne, it’s been a while.
Just to clarify on possible confusion:
There are two St Michael’s schools in Malta. One is a private school pertaining to St Michael’s Foundation, where Erin taught. The other is a Church school for boys only, generally known as ‘Tal-Muzew’.
I don’t know where Mr Vella Gera taught though.
Mark Vella Gera used to teach English in St Michael’s School Qormi (tal-Muzew), back then when it was strictly boys and even the teachers were all men.
Not sure what happened afterwards, whether he was fired and ended up teaching at St Michael’s Foundation (San Gwann).
The question arises: With Malta’s heavily worker-biased industrial tribunal, will the school be able to fire him (assuming he’s been with them for more than six months)?
Thank God someone is finally talking sense! Having a child myself I was horrified to read the story.
I thought that the school environment was meant to provide peace of mind to us parents that the children are being well taken care of.
Had the teacher felt that this poor girl needed help he should have done what a responsible teacher would have done..summoned the parent! While I do hope that this person makes a full recovery I do believe that he has a lot to answer for!
[Daphne – He did not do what he did because the “girl needed help”. He did it because he was preying on her. It is perfectly obvious to anyone adult that a grown man who drives a 15-year-old girl to Dingli Cliffs after dark is not doing so to ‘help her’, and this regardless of whether or not he is her teacher and she his pupil. Those facts are aggravating circumstances.]
Dan kollu hu il-frott ta socjeta li m’ghanda ebda idea ta’ etika professjonali. Qieghdin nghixu fi stil ta’ xejn mhu xejn. Kollox jaghddi, fejn laqat laqat.
Li jigi go mohhna naghmluh, minghajr ma nikkonsidraw il konsegwenzi.
Tal-misthija tisma sahansitra min jipprova jiggustifika dan l-agir ta’ dan l-ghalliem. Nittama li din tkun lezzjoni ghal min ghandu jitghallimha.
Persuni professjonali qatt m’ghandhom jkollhom familjarita bhal din. Dan u misthijja ghal min kin jaf x’ inhu jigri u hallew kollox ghaddej.
A popular Maltese actor who happened to be a teacher at a Church school participated in a television series notorious for its vulgarity and profane language. I was surprised to hear also him swearing during his performance.
What kind of teacher is he? It seems that nowadays everything is accepted.
This society is warped, defending a teacher who ends up at the foot of Dingli cliffs at night with a dead pupil after having driven her there, but baying for the blood of that poor guy because he “hurt the poor cats”.
You’re so right about him, Daphne.
We’ve all been teenagers and when we were having problems most of us would turn to friends rather than family. That’s the way it generally is.
But a male teacher is not a friend.
I don’t like the idea of a 23 year old teacher being with a 15 year old student, however I do suggest that you allow the authorities to do the research before you jump to conclusions.
[Daphne – Whether you don’t like the idea or not is irrelevant. Some things are absolute and not dependent on individual opinion. One of those things is that an adult man’s relationship with an underage girl is illegal. Another of those things is that men who hang around with 15-year-old girls have serious problems. Another of those things is that it is against the rules for teachers to consort with pupils.]
I was also surprised to read the following paragraph:
“A few months ago I actively considered filing a report against him with the police, for criminal (obscene, really) defamation. He had opened one of his stand-up acts with the line, said extremely aggressively and full of misogynistic hatred, “I want to f*ck Daphne Caruana Galizia”…”
Isn’t this sort of … a taste of your own medicine. Ask the Mintoff family.
[Daphne – Hardly. If you knew what he actually said – in public in a room full of people – you would think differently. The first bit I quoted is not libellous, still less criminal, and the police report I considered was most definitely NOT about that. However, any 23-year-old man who has those kinds of perverted imaginings about a woman old enough to be his mother needs treatment and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near children because he has failed to develop normally himself. That was my point in quoting it.]
The world has really gone to the dogs, with parents of children at the school in question commenting on the teacher’s Facebook page and those of his family, complete with ‘sad smiley’ emoticons, publicly showing sympathy towards the man, rather than shock at the situation.
Whilst I agree completely with the main points of this article bragging on a guy that cant talk back because his fighting for his life is just wrong.
We are not vultures, we’re humans; wait till the guy can speak back. Had this article been published a month from now I would have no problem.
You critics should point this high powered critical perception at yourselves when you were 23, or may be your afraid to..
[Daphne – A month ago there would have been no reason to write it because he wouldn’t have been responsible for a girl’s death and he would have not been in the news anyway. This is an extremely serious case. It has to be discussed because it points to serious shortcomings in the way teachers are selected. I am of the view, for instance, that teachers should undergo psychological assessment before being given a warrant to teach. Academic training is not enough justification for putting somebody in control of children.]
Not publish it a month ago, a month from now wait till the guy can speak, have some etiquette.
[Daphne – That is not how current affairs work. The name is self-explanatory.]
Etiquette? Since when does a girl die and it’s OK for the person who was with her.
No it’s not OK and if you think it is, then something must be really wrong with you.
You said that a 15 year old and 23 year old had nothing in common, well I disagree. They were both very cultured people, she was as cultured (if not more) than many grown women.
[Daphne – This situation is really worrying. It looked at first as though this teacher’s unsavoury influence was on just the one girl, but it seems to be much wider than that. This is madness. You are a child, equating a 15-year-old girl to grown women and failing to understand, precisely because you are a child, that there is something deeply wrong with a man of 23 who relates to and identifies with a girl of 15. There is nothing wrong with a girl of 15 who admires a man of 23, thinks herself grown up and believes that he is attracted to her because she is a woman, rather than because she is a girl and he can’t relate to women his age. You really need to talk to your parents about this. Do not try to defend this man. He is a bad person. Bad persons come in all shapes and sizes and they do not wear badges which identify them as bad people. They dangerous and influential on vulnerable people because they win their admiration, their confidence and their trust and then proceed to place them in danger – the same methods are used towards all bad ends, whether it’s illegal drugs, prostitution, theft, or this tragedy. You first hive the child off from parental influence by encouraging the normal rebellious feelings and feelings of anger towards parents and of being misunderstood, then you move in to fill the breach. You make the child/teenager psychologically and emotional dependent on you, or at least get their admiration and make them want your approval and opinion (the role a parent would normally fill, but perverted towards negative ends), and then they get to work.]
Also you mentioned his stand up comedy show about you, you clearly know nothing about show business, he did not have any grudge against you, he was not disturbed in anyway or angry at all.
[Daphne – I am afraid I am going to have to be the judge of that. You do not have the required experience of knowledge of human nature, nor do you know the facts.]
He simply realised that so many people read your blog and wanted to get some publicity out of you. I remember him talking about this, in fact, he had said ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity.’
[Daphne – Yes, I know why he did it. He is one of several people who, over the course of the last 25 years, have manifested a twisted obsession with me via my writing, which has at times taken a dangerous turn. It is the exact same psychology which, when if runs out of control and eventually unbalances the individual, leads to them shooting the object of their remote fixation or behaving in other ways that are dangerous to the object of their remote fixation, precisely to get publicity from that. Stewart Tanti was not at that stage, but the pattern of his thinking is exactly that, from what you describe: he spoke about wanting to harm me so as to get publicity for himself.
Please be well aware of the fact that no teacher should be talking to pupils in this manner or about these subjects, and that an adult would know immediately that any such talk is the sign of mental ill health. You really must talk to your parents, and I really do hope that there are parents of teenage children who are reading this and understand what is going on and how their children are being influenced by a bad character.]
I was her best friend and he helped her survive. He was a great friend to her, better than anyone else was. It was not manipulation of any sort, I know him and he was the nicest person you would ever meet and wanted to help her.
[Daphne – Oh my dear. Oh how terrible these situations are. You are 15! What can you possibly know? Of course you think that a man who befriends a girl does so out of the goodness of his heart and because they are at the same level. Of course you think there’s nothing wrong with it, that he is her saviour rather than the opposite. Years of life have to go by before you can see the reality of what this is all about, and even then, as comments on this post written by adults make obvious, you might not.
A grown man does not befriend a girl of 15 as an equal. A man of 23 is not the psychological, intellectual or emotional equal of a girl of 15, and if he is, then he should be under psychiatric care. If the situation was as you describe, then it is a textbook case of manipulation. This man was living out a fantasy, a play in his own head, except that it wasn’t a play and they were not actors. It was real life and now a child is dead.]
Maybe he was gaining the trust and love of everyone around him so that nobody will suspect a thing…
Although I’m not sure what the Master/Slave latex bondage porn uploading business to Facebook .
Maybe an inside joke with his pupil, that we don’t get.
look daphne you are fighting over the past , he should’nt have taken her to dingli cliffs in the first place and he was’nt even ment to be with her out of school in the first place. By the way just because we are 15 it does’nt mean that we dont understand whats going on. You are relying on the news to give you information and we so everything going on so honestly we know what was going on at school a little more then you.
According to the wicked b*tch of the west, we were all brainwashed by Erin to be used as pawns in his war against all things good…genius.
If the school you’re going to, is producing prodigies such as yourselves, then I’m absolutely *shocked*.
The point you miss is that teachers have responsibilities towards their pupils. If a teacher wishes to help his pupil, he should keep a professional distance, and not become emotionally and personally involved.
You seem to have been brainwashed by Erin Tanti. Thank Goodness I was brought up to fend on my own and with a mind of my own. You lack character.
Dear Daphne I have no idea why you are wasting your time with 15 year olds who know nothing about life. All they are doing now is romanticising facts turning them to look radiant and saintly.
I cannot find one possible good reason to justify what they were doing there in the first place.
U dan kemm kellu pupil friends, Erin?
Was drama class, a social club in which all the children tried to get the attention of their beloved friend-teacher, or an educational one?
Ilhom jidhlu friends. Morru Facebook and press the ‘like button’
The people here are not of your ilk and you will never be theirs either because the fact that he sounds more like ‘a friend’ than ‘a teacher’ speaks volumes about him and you as his class, learned absolutely nothing – perhaps only to dramatise Erin and fantasise about Erin.
Justin Timberlake anyone?
Next time you face a similar situation, do the right thing to help = Tell the school principal / inform the immediate family.
And you don’t interfere in a person’s personal emotions let alone life.
30 years ago, when I was at school, someone came to tell me that our friend who happened to be in the same class as me, was pregnant. We didn’t go to the drama teacher, the science teacher or the maths teacher and yes we had male tutors at the time. They took her to the principal after we informed our class teacher,
“You first hive the child off from parental influence by encouraging the normal rebellious feelings and feelings of anger towards parents and of being misunderstood, then you move in to fill the breach. You make the child/teenager psychologically and emotional dependent on you, or at least get their admiration and make them want your approval and opinion (the role a parent would normally fill, but perverted towards negative ends), and then they get to work.]”
Hear, hear, Daphne. One of the most worrying things at at least one school I know of is that when school sleep-overs or drama trips abroad are organised, taking mobile telephones along is specifically banned.
It has always struck me as wrong, especially for the reason you mentioned – more so since the children are out of “parental clutches”, having fun (or being made to think that they are), and are completely dependent on their teacher/s should they want or need anything.
In the case of the school sleepovers, parental contact is only allowed (and then again, only in exceptional circumstances, I believe) via the drama teacher’s mobile phone, although at least one other teacher is always present on the sleepover.
Imagine a child at the teachers’ mercy for two days, not being allowed contact with their parents. Even crazier is the fact that most parents see nothing wrong with this, and putting their children in what could, after all, be a dangerous situation.
[Daphne – I think sleepovers at the school are a really stupid idea, but don’t agree re the mobile phones. Bear in mind that children with mobile phones are a very new development but camping trips and school trips abroad for children are not. I never had a mobile phone on school trips and nor did my children.]
.
I’m a pupil at that school and I assure you, these ‘sleepovers’ are organised by the assistant heads of the school and PSD teachers, who are both present throughout the entire weekend along with another two teachers on shift.
The other one of the two teachers is not necessarily the drama teacher and hardly ever, if ever, is.
The children are not allowed to take smart phones along with them for the simple reason that the ‘sleepovers’ are activities this school, amongst many others, organises for them to build bonds with one another, and to strengthen friendships with their classmates without the use of technology (and it is a known fact that any social gathering among young people today consists mostly of texting those not present, or scrolling through Facebook).
Pupils must therefore socialise the traditional way and leave their weekend differently to the way they started it off as they get to know each other better, and it is the highlight of the school year, and the most awaited.
They are free to contact their parents through one of the available mobile phones the school owns purposely for these weekends, through one of the available teachers.
I am disgusted at the way some people think!
A teacher has absolutely no business whatsoever to be with a pupil outside school hours. There is no justification for the teacher’s behaviour!
If he thought that the child needed somebody to confide in, he should have referred the matter to the school principal, who would have called in the school counsellor and informed the parents. That is the proper way.
Instead he took liberties.
There should be a code of conduct here, and as a parent I am extremely concerned that teachers don’t know where to draw the line.
It’s the first thing that came to my mind – I considered the teacher’s behaviour very inappropiate!
Many schools have codes of conduct for all teachers and pupils. In some countries schools have even forbidden social networking between pupils and teachers as they have been considered breeding grounds for unsuitable conduct – let alone a teacher taking an under-age girl pupil out in his car.
Even though I do not want to believe that a teacher (a person of trust and authority) could engage in bad behaviour with a pupil, his decision to go out with his pupil was improper. It lacked reason and common-sense.
Schools are NOT to accept such teacher-pupil ‘friendship’ – they have a duty to examine facts and circumstances and take the necessary steps!
This article is completely spot on…..I agree 100%
I know society doesn’t like the fact of the age group but that does not matter in the slightest in this case because he kept her alive and the happiest I had ever seen her for months. If it weren’t for him she wouldn’t have survived so long. Do not cut this out.
[Daphne – I won’t. I hope the police are reading it.]
Christ.
She doesn’t shut up, does she?
Herfriend mentions survival more than once. What does she mean by that? How did Erin keep her alive?
[Daphne – In the same way the 15-year-old heroin addicts of my generation were ‘kept alive’ by their lovely, understanding and consoling dealers, when their mean, nasty, horrible, selfish parents, who didn’t care about them, failed to understand them (that is not the way I see things, but the way they saw it). You either create a breach or widen one that is there already, then you colonise it and use it for your own ends.]
Pierre, No.1 I’m a male. Erin gave her friendship. Made her laugh. Made her happy. I doubt he had any selfish desires, he kept her alive by making her life better.
[Daphne – It was not his place to do so. Practically all 15-year-old girls go through a bad patch, some worse than others, some really bad. Boys go through it a few months later, closer to 16. This is a dangerous period exactly because it is when they are most vulnerable to negative influences, including irresponsible adults who ‘befriend’ them for whatever reason of their own. The fact is this, Herfriend: men in their 20s do not seek the friendship of pubescent girls or 15-year-olds, of either gender.]
I ask again: have we gone mad?
Who needs the witness box when you have this blog?
Oh God! Do you understand what you’re saying?
Do you mean to say that your friend was contemplating ‘not surviving’ and that your teacher was ‘helping her’, and in the end she did not ‘survive’ after all?
And that knowing she was contemplating ‘not surviving’, he actually drove her to Dingli Cliffs?
I think I’m going to call the police myself and make them read all this. What sort of monsters live in this world?
Natalie, Daphne removes part of my arguments and changes them to suit her and make Erin look bad. There is no definate evidence that he drove her there so stop assuming and shut your mouth on cases in which you know nothing about.
[Daphne – I removed those parts of your comments, hardly arguments, which are deeply offensive to the dead and those who mourn her. I did not do so to “make Erin look bad”. He doesn’t need any help in looking bad right now. There is most definitely evidence that he drove her there. The only reason they were found is because somebody saw his empty, locked car at the top of Dingli Cliffs and rang the police.]
His empty locked car might have only carried him there to try and save Lisa from herself. They are not ‘deeply offensive to the dead or those who mourn her’, why would i write something like that when I mourn her more than most?
[Daphne – Oh indeed. And how did she get there? Did she walk? Take the bus? Get somebody else to drop her off? Even assuming that were the case, and that she called him to say where she was, his response should have been to ring the police and her family, not drive there himself, playing some dramatic part in his head. No, he most definitely drove her there.]
Isma he ‘Herfriend’, you really talk with emotion and in favour of everyone around Erin and you say nothing about the victim and her caring family so in actual fact you are making it seem like the girl was distant from her family’s love and care which I am positively sure, it was not the case.
Says a lot about you and your line of thinking.
Lisa had a family and although I don’t know the Zahra’s well, I am absolutely sure that if there’s anyone on this earth who really cared about Lisa, it was definitely her family as this is normal procedure for the family of a 15 year old child.
How Erin came into this, is mind-boggling. Actually, she was none of his business.
Ha nghidielek bil-Malti: INT BIS-SERJETA?
‘Herfriend’ you are absolutely right. I am also a student of mr Erin and a good friend of Lisa so I can say without a doubt that he only had Lisa’s best interests at heart. Also they had been friends since before he took the job, ik that he still shouldn’t have been with her but look at the facts: Lisa was sad and Erin made her laugh and she was always talking highly of him. I am also disgusted at how some people speculate without knowing what they are saying, as in this case.
[Daphne – You are way too young and foolish to see that this is classic, textbook grooming. Men of 22 have absolutely no interest, normally, in girls of 14. They have absolutely nothing in common with them intellectually, psychologically or emotionally. When they claim to do so, they are only pretending (unless they are developmentally retarded, which is not a positive). The same applies a year later, when the girl in question is now 15 and the man is 23 and, since then, her teacher. If a man of 22 begins to approach and befriend a girl of 14, all alarm bells begin to ring in the surrounding adults, and with good reason. Those alarm bells say, quite clearly, predator. People like this succeed by making people your age think it is normal, even though all the (normal) adults around you tell you that it is not. No, it is not normal for a man of 22 to get close to a girl of 14. Eventually, you will understand why.]
It is plain easy for ‘Herfriend’ to talk since she’s not the injured one, she’s not the mother or father of this child, she’s not the child’s aunt – she is just what can I call her ?
Yes – here it is: an insensitive friend who knew her ‘best friend’ was lets say ‘down’.
She did nothing about it as in complain to her teachers, family and school principal and instead adored the fact that a school teacher called ‘Erin’ helped this pupil and in doing so she is proud that ‘he made her happy’ and that ‘she had never seen her as happy as she had seen her during the last 6 months’.
What crap.
This is very worrying indeed. Do these youngsters know that in other countries such behaviour has resulted in prison sentences for the teacher?
Have we all gone mad?
It’s bad enough to have grown men and women defending the indefensible – viz., teacher and fifteen-year old pupil (not student) alone, in secluded place – because they fail to see the difference, in time-honoured Maltese fashion, between illegal and wrong.
It wasn’t illegal, but it was certainly wrong, a gross misdemeanour, and grounds for dismissal.
We also have this man’s pupils defending in an even more irrational manner – viz. that he was a great teacher QED.
Whatever happened to healthy hatred of teachers? Or at least to indifference to their fate? It’s abnormal for pupils to love their teachers.
Baxter, but why are you surprised? Isn’t this Malta?
The topsy-turvy country where most adults NEVER grow up?
There must be a reason why our country’s tiny population is the most active population in the world on Facebook.
Research shows who the most active people on Facebook are. They are either people with problems at home (no love life, basically), with social problems (no good friends) or with problems at work (extremely unsatisfying job).
Normal, healthy adults do not spend hours on Facebook every day, or even every week, interacting with people they hardly know. They have five, six good friends. They have a partner they love and with whom they have a fulfilling sex life. And they have a life.
Brilliant Stef.
Healthy hatred of teachers! I assume you are joking. I never hated my teachers , they were kind to me , but I never had the opportunity to be that close. Teachers should never mix with their pupils.
No I’m not joking. Schoolboys should hate their teachers, make fun of them behind their backs, or at least be indifferent to them. That’s always been the way, or it wouldn’t have given rise to the British schoolboy novel or film as a genre.
“Hate” in Maltese seems to have a different shade of meaning. I am using the word in the English sense.
I do not know the people involved. Nor do I know the case (I left the rock 25 years ago). Having said that the discussion ought to remain sane and perhaps it would be better to exercise caution before being judgemental because, ultimately, it is not a question of saving the young girl now, but a question of not harming more children.
Some comments:
a. It seems like we have all forgotten what “Don’t stand so close to me” (The Police) is all about.
b. Daphne, while I commend you for your honourable intentions, try not to overdo it because it may backfire. I agree with you, it’s not the age difference that matters but the ages. But then you seem to be uncertain about this because you are 49 and a 23 year old wants to f you…. and you seem surprised.
[Daphne – No, I am not surprised. I have lived too long for that. I am merely pointing out that it is a sexual perversion indicative of dysfunctional psychology. Unfortunately, we have gone so far down the road of women my age trying to look and be 25 (impossible) that they are at risk of forgetting that if men young enough to be their sons view them in that light then it is not because they look so young and attractive, or because it is normal, but because the men are twisted. Normal men do not manifest any sexual interest in women 26 years their senior, whatever the respective ages. The same cannot be said for the reverse situation. It is perfectly normal, even if the consequences are not desirable, for a woman to be attracted to a man 26 years her senior and absolutely normal, beyond doubt, for a man to be attracted to a woman 26 years his junior (I specify, not ‘child’). Whether acting on it is sensible, and what acting on it says about the people involved, is another matter.]
c. If we are hoping that teachers lack sexuality… oh well… good luck.
[Daphne – Nobody is hoping that. What people do hope is that teachers are not attracted to children, of whatever gender, and that they are mature, stable and sensible. There are enough problems in a classroom full of emotionally unstable teenagers (most teenagers are that way) without putting an adult in charge of them who is at their developmental level.]
d. What is the legal age in Malta? 16 or 18. Any chance that it may be 16 and the guy made an assumption…prior to asking her for her ID card?
[Daphne – Are you quite sure you are an adult? I don’t believe you are. Even if the age of consent were 16, which it is not, this does not change the rules which govern pupil-teacher relationships. Teachers are not permitted to engage in a relationship with a pupil just because she or he is over the age of consent. This also applies at university and college level, incidentally, and doctors who engage in relationships with patients are liable to be struck off the register, even if the patient is 40.]
e. Daphne, 15 in your (our) times is not the same as it is today. You are free to believe that they are. I will exercise my belief in disagreeing with you.
[Daphne – It all depends on how and where you grew up, and what your social background was. I’ll admit that there is no comparison between life for 15-year-olds in villages in 1980 and life for 15-year-olds in those same villages today. But there was absolutely no difference between my life/experience as a 15-year-old from that particular background, growing up where I did at the epicentre of it all, and my sons’ experience at the same age, 10 years ago, which was useful as a parent and probably also useful to them. The only factor that has changed since then is the internet. Life for 15-year-olds of my generation, from that background, was actually a good deal more dangerous than it is for 15-year-olds today, because that was the exact generation and social background that was targetted by heroin dealers at the time, and sexual predators were par for the course. Back in those days, they were right out in the open and it wasn’t even considered a police matter.]
f. If we are truly balanced, I think the main issue is not so much that they should check what is done after hours…. but that 23 year olds should not be made to teach students older than, say, 8. 23 teaching 15 year olds is really way beyond the limits because some 15 year olds can look like 18-20.
[Daphne – I am afraid that is a shocking statement which reveals your mindset. Whether a 15-year-old looks like an 18-year-old is irrelevant (I, for one, most certainly did). Men are not creatures with uncontrollable urges. What are you going to say next, following this line of reasoning: that no attractive women should be allowed to work in offices alongside men, because men won’t be able to resist groping them around the water-cooler? Your reasoning is sick, and your 25 years “away from the rock” have done nothing to help you understand this.]
Pierre, this is unbelievable.
What’s shocking is why Maltatoday was so quick to state the police rule out foul play adding the girl was at a difficult phase in her life.
It’s diametrically opposed to where the evidence points.
Why?
What to many people seems obvious, today in our morally corrupt world other people need to have spelled out for them.
No one, regardless of their profession, should be posting this garbage on Facebook. That in itself should make him unemployable.
There are some jobs such as that of teacher, policeman, public official etc where this is even more important.
Finally, a teacher should never be alone with his pupils. Even adult teachers with adult students avoid allowing their social lives to mix with those of their students for reasons that I feel I should not have to spell out for you here.
Add the fact that this teacher’s pupils are minors and this need becomes even more acute.
Kemm ma niflahkomx intom il gurnalisti. Considering i’m as old as Lisa and i know her, and think this is all ridiculous. This article is crap. First of all, go research the family just as well as you’re researching the teacher… you’ll be surprised…. So don’t go getting crap about ‘ i know the father adored her’ mhm? you saw him once and now you’re a close friend xi hlew :’) suuuuuuuure. And secondly, Teacher’s aren’t the teachers of 60 years ago. u should update yourself! What do u expect?!?!? That they are teachers and that’s all they are? That they are nothing but their profession??!! Outside schools they can b who they artists, athletes, swimmers, performers, WHATEVER THEY WANT. And sure you can call it that this teacher was a paedophile, but the truth is, girls our age get what they want. Who said it wasn’t Lisa who wanted the relationship? We have a right to chose the people we build our relationships with.
And darling? No, you don’t know all the facts! You don’t know what was going on at home, at school, with their friends. How can you say that all this is facts, when you’r twisting the situation in your opinion, without digging up on every single person who could have been a cause to this tragedy.
i am absolutely enraged with this article.
[Daphne – I have thought carefully about whether or not to upload this comment in its entirety, and I have decided to do so because I believe it is essential that the police and the school authorities read it. I apologise to Miss Zahra’s family for uploading it without editing it. If this were my daughter I would not have wanted it uploaded at all, and I am very much aware of that. But the extent of this man’s influence on at least some of his pupils, not just Miss Zahra, needs to be known. The comment itself should alert schools in general to the fact that despite all the ‘personal social development’ classes, girls of 15 still do not know that it is normal for them to try out their developing sexuality on boys who cross their path, and even normal for them to taunt older men. BUT IT IS NOT NORMAL FOR THE MEN TO ACT ON IT. AND THAT IT IS DANGEROUS FOR THEM.]
I agree with Bern. DCG keeps using her dumbass blog to twist the truth to suit her own personal agenda. I don’t know why anyone reads this bullsh*t.
Your friend has died and here you are, defending the man who helped make that happen.
We read it because it is not b*llsh*t.
This is absolutely shocking.
Spot on, Daphne. I was thinking the same thing while reading Bernie’s comment.
These youngsters think they know it all and other people have never experienced young life before them.
Of course it is very normal for a young girl to have a crush on an older man, even a teacher, but what is not normal, or shouldn’t be, is that the man takes advantage of such a situation. The law even stipulates this.
I honestly hope that the parents of these children who are writing in, and possibly many others, are aware what is going on and seek help for them as quickly as possible.
I can hardly believe what I am reading.
Oh dear, Daphne. This comment needs to be sent to the school and police, not published here. The internet is a wonderful thing, but in cases like these I think it might just be doing more harm than good.
This girl’s conjectures/allegations, shown to all the public via this blog, are very dangerous. Obviously, as a 15 year old girl, she cannot understand this. As for ‘Girls our age get what they want’?, she should really be pulled aside and told not to say these things so publicly.
[Daphne – I’ve been thinking about that, but have concluded that the consequences might actually be worse. Then they will have this drama in their mind that the evil witch reported them to the police and the police told their parents, and it will unbalance them even more, creating a whole dramatic scenario and obscuring the real point at issue, which is that they need help. Also, I have quite a bit of direct experience with parents and so on, through raising a family, school, the teenage years and so on, and whenever there was something like this, I discovered that the parents were a really serious problem themselves – either totally oblivious, determined to stay that way and highly defensive against anyone who presented information they didn’t want, or going through a delayed teenage period themselves.]
“THEIR friends”?
A responsible teacher and his pupil do not share friends. They are not – should not – be friends themselves.
Your teacher is your superior at school. Any relationship beyond a professional one is abusive. That holds outside school hours too.
I’m usually the first to insist someone knows all the facts before passing judgement. I’m afraid in this case though the only two facts you need to know are 1) their ages (not age difference, but actual ages) and 2) that he was her teacher.
You don’t need any more facts. If it was just was 1 then it could perhaps be explained as a family friend on a walk on the cliffs but 1 AND 2 together, you don’t need any more facts.
I believe that although Ms. Caruana Galizia was somewhat aggressive in her approach she is right and she speaks from a parent’s point of view.
For the person who commented about the ages, Ms. Caruana Galizia said that there is nothing wrong with dating a boy/girl who is eight years older but it is a crime for an adult to go out with a minor. In this particular case it is even worse because the minor was the man’s pupil.
Even if he was not in a relationship with his pupil, this teacher should have never have taken the responsibility of bonding with any pupil after school hours. At university they teach future teachers the code of ethics and he broke it.
I myself am married to a man who is quite a few years older but we dated when I was 18 therefore an adult.
This teacher is not the first or the last man to go out with a minor because if the police had to go to Paceville they would probably arrest half the people present. But he is a teacher, and she was a pupil.
What really happened no one can say. Only the teacher can state what happened but as Ms. Caruana Galizia said he could say anything to save himself from what he will have to face when he recovers.
Daphne, your take on the situation is spot on.
No teacher, not even at university level let alone at secondary school, should have ‘extra-curricular’ relationships with his pupils/students.
The reasoning by some of the ‘adults’ or ‘parents’ posting here is scary. Some strike me as the types who would blame a rape victim for what she suffers because of what she may have been wearing.
The comments by the poor dead girl’s friends then are extremely worrying because they may point to a pattern of inappropriate behaviour by this teacher. Hopefully, the police will get to the bottom of this sad case, which should be a lesson to all schools to be more vigilant about who they employ to teach minors in their charge.
Assessments of teachers cannot simply be made only on the basis of academic qualifications or experience in a subject matter.
On this one I have to agree with you. Hopefully justice will be done and he will spend many years in jail if obviously found guilty.
If I were Erin or his family I’d report you for defamation. The whole article is clearly a revenge act because you have the emotional maturity of a toothpick and can’t handle jokes made at your expense.
You have absolutely no idea what happened other then a few minor facts which could lead to a multitude of explanations and your own speculation. Out of respect for whatever relationship Lisa had with Erin, for the family of the man who’s currently in critical condition in hospital and for your own credibility, you should have at least waited for the full story before posting your own hypocritical garbage.
As a side note, I assure you that Erin was simply joking about wanting to f*ck you, Squidward.
You are my new God.
[Daphne – Don’t worry. One day you will both grow up, and if you don’t, your contemporaries will be treated to the sad spectacle of two 50-year-olds with straggly grey hair, which they still wear long around wrinkled faces, thinking, talking and behaving like they did 35 years before. It happens. It happened to my generation and it will happen with yours. Some of my contemporaries never grew up and speak exactly as you do. They will each old age still bewildered by the fact that the goal-posts have shifted.]
‘You are my new God’.
That phrase shows you are immensely immature and taken in by people like Erin Tanti. You are easily influenced.
Even if the guy was ‘perfect’ in character – judging from those photos and just by looking at his face, one can tell that the features tell the story of something strange, so you shouldn’t be quick to finalise that ‘he’s OK for you’.
What’s good for the goose doesn’t necessarily mean it is good for the gander, so do yourself a favour and learn to be patient and to wait before drawing your conclusions because after the police conclude their investigations, right or wrong, I’m going to be laughing and at you and your stupidity.
Christ Nerd of Redhead Dancing…it was a joke. Just because I have a sense of humour like all of Erins friends doesn’t mean i’m immature or stupid.
[Daphne – ‘Like all of Erin’s friends’. You are not his friends. You are his pupils. And you do not belong to a group called ‘Erin’s friends’. You are NOT his special chosen ones.
Then you actually deny that he used cult-leader methods on you. Where are all your parents, for God’s sake.]
Not even worth a reply
Sense of humour? You have a true sense of distorted thinking. Your friend has died and you talk about a sense of humour?
You get a life and fast. Anzi I have a better idea, go pray for the girl who has died and tragically. Pray that she will not find what life on earth has crossed her unfortunate path.
This article speaks of professional ethics, which apparently you are not aware of. Shame on you for twisting and trying to justify this man’s twisted mentality.
What springs to mind is “predator” and “grooming” and preying on the vulnerability and state of mind of the girl.
But what is most astonishing are some comments which show that our society has gone completely off track and the conclusion that “miskin, he was helping her get through a bad patch” when he should not have been within a mile of her inside/outside school.
Are the people attacking you on this page crazy?
A fifteen-year-old girl is dead! Her father will never get over her loss!
I repeat, she was fifteen – he was her teacher and drove her to Dingli Cliffs! That’s enough for us to know. And they have the gall to attack you.
If you based your assumptions on just that and not the whole story, you are no better. What happened to Lisa was tragic, but stop attacking Erin, you have no right unless you know something others don’t.
[Daphne – Again, ‘what happened to Lisa’. This wasn’t an act of God. It was somebody’s doing. ‘Stop attacking Erin’: the fact that you are talking about your teacher like this, as though he is your friend and contemporary, speaks volumes, and it’s not good.]
I don’t need to know what others don’t! I just need to know that a fifteen year old girl is dead. She died at Dingli Cliffs and her teacher drove her there!
In fact how dare they stick up for him!
I find it shocking that you feel you have the right to ruin a persons reputation on speculation, and it is speculation for you do not know what was going on with either person. Yes a teacher should not have been out of school with a student but some teachers see their job as a vocation, a full-time job where they feel they should be there for their students any time of day. Erin was a substitute teacher who only just started replacing a teacher who is on maternity to leave, and yes it is evident he is young an naive to have let himself be put in that situation but why should we all jump to such negative conclusions.
My thoughts go out for the girl’s family, do not think I have no sympathy for them. However, you choose to slander a family’s son. You choose to compare your child to the prayed upon girl, but what if your child was the adult who made the mistake. I am sure you would attack any person who attempted to slander their name, in your ever Daphne way.
I do not believe you have any right to be commenting on such a tragic event, you just seem bitter over someone making you the butt of a joke, in which case… get over. You’re the punch line of a lot of jokes.
[Daphne – The facts which are known are sufficient to form a mature opinion because they are incontrovertible: a teacher drove his 15 year old pupil to Dingli Cliffs after school hours. Both were reported missing. The next day somebody spotted his locked car on the cliffs and called the police, who searched beneath the cliff, and found her dead and him still alive. Make of that what you will, but sensible adults will only make one thing of it.
Yes, most teachers see their job as a vocation, but this man is clearly not one of them. Most teachers are well aware that their job does not include counselling or socialising with their pupils outside school hours and that it most certainly does not involve taking them for drives while their parents panic and the police issue ‘missing person’ alerts.
He is not particularly young at 23. Young is not a synonym for immature.
At your immature age, you think this is about my getting back at him for a ‘joke’. But 50-year-olds do not reason or think like 15-year-olds, so no, it most definitely is not, though a child your age might have reasoned that way.
Yes, I know that I am the butt of a lot of jokes, but it doesn’t bother me. It interests me that people should find me so unutterably fascinating and worthy of discussion over 25 long years in which I have even bored myself. It really shows how devoid of personalities Malta is that people should be fixated on the same one for a quarter of a century.
What if my child was the adult who ‘made the mistake’, you ask? Not very likely, because this most definitely was not a ‘mistake’ but a deliberate act that in itself is the symptom of some really problematic psychology.
In your innocence, you regard Stewart Tanti’s behaviour as a one-off. The sensible adults (for not all the adults here are sensible) can see clearly that he is himself a problem and needs help.]
Yes.I was an officer in the British Army and my conduct off duty as well as on had to be exemplary.
By the way. I admire your erudite replies and patience in replying to some of the inane posts of the “kollox jghaddi” attitude.
I am sorry but as such you have no business writing an article based on assumptions until the police have had a proper idea on what has happened, you seem to realise only on what happened to Lisa and it is tragic, but Erin was also found there and he was in critical condition when it happened. Your article is surrounded by an aggressive attitude which to me shows a biased opinion. The fact that you were publicly insulted does leave a mark on a person. It does not only show from the example you made but in the way the article was written.
Please Daphne, if you are going to write an article, write it in an unbiased way, and have all the facts before you actually write something like this.
[Daphne – The only facts that anyone needs to form a mature opinion are available already. A girl of 15 and her 23-year-old teacher were reported missing. His car was found at the top of Dingli cliffs, causing the police to search below. There, they found her body and his prone form, where they had lain all night. He is now in hospital, under police guard.
Erin Stewart Tanti was not, as you put it, “also found there”. As the only adult in the equation, he situation cannot be considered in the same way as that of his 15-year-old pupil.]
I’m sick and tired of this avant-garde nonsense, if it’s not some two hours of cannibalism, incest or rape on stage it’s not theatre.
It’s as if delving into the darkest, deepest recesses is the mainstream, or a cultural highlight, followed by the usual ones who’ll rave and enthuse.
All the comments pointing at this girl’s death being some anticipated performance is sickening.
Does anyone in the arts scene believe there was no coincidence in the consumption of the material currently the rage, proposing oneself as shocking at all costs to gain interest and Lisa Maria Zahra?
And before anyone retorts, just look at the cold blooded comments posted by her peers, reducing her to a Facebook friend, no empathy, not even the slightest remorse, just another emoticon.
My heart goes out to her family.
Jozef, I agree whole heartedly with your point of view .. I think your comments need to be understood by all those who are writing or reading what is written here.
But I fear they will not. That is the point to which our society has become desensitized. I refuse to comment or dwell on what or who. It is a horrible tragedy all round but I cannot not agree with what you have written.
I have been trying to phrase my thoughts in this respect and you have done it most eloquently.
They’re desperate attention seekers who lack attention or have a lot of it, so much that they just don’t know how to handle right and wrong and use someone’s death to notice them and worse, to defend a lousy teacher.
I’m sure he was only joking about sleeping with you since you are a repulsive bitch…
[Daphne – I hope so, for his own sake. As I readily said, men of 23 who express any such interest in a woman old enough to be their mother need psychiatric help, and this would be the case even if the woman were astonishingly beautiful.]
The more you speak, the more you declare to the world how wrong it was for a 23 year old teacher to be with a 15 year old pupil that evening.
Everyone leaving comments on this page objecting to what Daphne has said clearly doesn’t have any children and isn’t smart enough to put their feet into the shoes of a parent and imagine what it would be like.
If your child was going out with a teacher 8 years older than her, I can assure you that you wouldn’t be commenting on this article like this. You would be just as angry and you would know that it’s wrong.
For a teacher to date a pupil is in itself extremely wrong – a teacher SHOULD NOT be doing this kind of stuff with his pupil and if you believe in all this “do whatever you want in your free time” b/s, go to your principal and ask them yourself if it’s all right, because I can assure you it’s not.
Who in their right mind drives a 15 year old girl, for whatever reason, to Dingli Cliffs in the evening? Please keep in mind that her phone was turned off from hours before and they were spotted in the street so they must have been aware that there was a report on the news about them both being missing.
The right thing to do was to take her home.
Many of the comments here show that this country has really gone to the dogs.
A fifteen-year-old child is dead, having been driven to Dingli Cliffs by her teacher, and yet, several have leaped to his defence.
Worryingly, many such people appear to be children themselves, possibly his pupils. Clearly, not many commenting here know the difference between right and wrong. How sad for this generation and for future ones.
Right and wrong always had to be explained in Malta.
It’s too early to reach any conclusions, and I’m surprised that this blog is allowing people to be judge and jury.
So far in the replies I have read sentences like ‘he was dating her’, ‘he drove her to Dingli’ and ‘without him this would not have happened’.
The fact that a teacher and a pupil happened to be in the same place doesn’t mean that they were dating.
The fact that his car was there doesn’t necessarily mean that he drove her there. She could have gone by bus or other means of transport. Of course he could have driven her, but considering that both people ended up where they were found I think it’s highly unlikely.
Apparently many people here know much more than is being reported in the media. I hope they do go and share the information they have with the police.
I also hope that both the deceased and Erin had their mobile phones examined for any last calls.
If, and only if, there is proof that Erin had been dating this unfortunate young lady, then he might be found guilty of having a relationship with a minor. But people here are writing as if it had been Erin himself who pushed her down the cliffs, and this makes my stomach turn. There’s still the possibility that the girl ‘slipped’, and he also fell while trying to help her, no? Why is no one considering this possibility? I mean no one except for people who either knew Lisa, know Erin, or both?
[Daphne – I am going to spell this out VERY carefully because, apparently, some people are REALLY slow to understand. Whether he was dating her or not, whether he drove her there or not, he should not have been at Dingli Cliffs with a pupil after school hours. If she slipped and fell, as a teacher he knows, or should know, that his first priority was to dial emergency for rescue and assistance. If she was there ahead of him and rang him to say so, as a teacher – as an adult, really, whether a teacher or not – he should have known not to go there without first ringing for assistance. His behaviour was shockingly irresponsible in any conceivable scenario you can come up with.]
Yes I agree with you, no need to be offensive please. In fact you prove my point that he might be found guilty of having a relationship with a minor. On the other hand, many of your readers are insinuating that this tragedy occurred entirely due to Tanti’s fault, which I find to be a warped kind of thinking.
Perhaps we should read between the lines of the last online Times article on this incident, where it is revealed that Tanti did in fact communicate to his rescuers.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140322/local/police-wont-rule-out-action-over-cliff-death.511636
The same article also states that they drove together to Dingli (you were right), and this could only be known because Tanti told his rescuers so.
Apparently he told them much more than, as can be seen from this part of the article.
“Mr Tanti and his student Lisa Marie Zahra – who had both been reported missing on Tuesday – travelled in a car together to Dingli Cliffs in the early hours of Wednesday and were found 12 hours later on the rocks some 40 metres below. Mr Tanti was alive and communicated with his rescuers. Under Maltese law it is an imprisonable offence to “assist” a person to take their own life, even if both parties intended to suffer the same fate.”
What do you think of the last sentence? Had he been trying to help her to end her life and end his own at the same time, rather than trying to save her as both Lisa’s and Tanti’s friends are arguing?
[Daphne – It is IRRELEVANT. He is her TEACHER. He should NOT have been there. WHATEVER he did was wrong in any conceivable scenario because his presence there, and his intimate relationship with a pupil, were wrong at the outset.]
Why do you keep referring to Lisa Marie as “the girl”, “the unfortunate young lady” and “the deceased” but refer to her teacher as “Erin”?
Daphne, I agree with you totally.
Thank you very much for pointing out the obvious, yet many parents failed to speak out.
As a parent of a teenager who knew Lisa, her family & her friends, apart from feeling the pain for Lisa’s family, I feel sad that our society could think nothing abnormal in having a 23 year old man like this “Mr Tanti” teaching our children.
Several of his pupils, who are 14 & 15 year old girls, told their mothers that he is so “cool” because he didn’t treat them as children, but as grown-up women; he was so “caring” that he made each girl feel special & beautiful. He even offered “private drama lessons”.
In short, he was “loved” by those teenager girls, so much so that some of the girls would “dress up” for him by stuffing tissue paper in their bra to look more grown-up when they went to his drama lessons.
Grooming is the key word. “Mr Tanti” had a talent, indeed, for grooming vulnerable teenagers. People of “calibre” with “talent” like his are suitable to work in “adult theatre” industry only. He should never ever be considered to be fit as a teacher.
How can u simply assume that he drove her to dingli cliffs? No one knows the truth and you shouldn’t be judging Erin. For all we know she could have walked there or taken the bus and Erin found out she was there and drove On His Own to help her. You don’t have all the information, frankly no one does. The only 2 people who know everything is Lisa and Erin. Sadly Lisa is not with us but Erin is. Erin is not my teacher but I know him and I know him enough that he will never hurt any of his pupils.
[Daphne – Mamma mia, exactly how many children are this man’s ‘friends’?]
1: how in the world can u say I am a child?
2 : who said he was my friend , all I said was that I knew him
[Daphne – I assumed that from your manner of speaking and reasoning, sorry. I should have known better. I know a few adults my age who think and communicate exactly like that.]
Daphne, many people who are commenting in support of Erin may not be his pupils but his peers.
[Daphne – Yes, but you can tell the difference from the communicating style. There are two categories of people coming in to defend him: those of his pupils who he has psychologically enslaved, and a few from the theatre crowd, who probably think life is a play and that it’s normal for a man to drive a child to the cliffs at night and encourage her to jump off.]
‘but I know him and I know him enough that he will never hurt any of his pupils.’
You are the one making assumptions, not us.
When a girl of 15 dies tragically in the presence of her teacher, down cliffs to which he drove her, we have the right to know how and when it happened, because it is not only this girl who he teaches.
His presence in the education system indicates something wrong with it.
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia…..I solemnly respect your opinion..what I would like to have answered is the following : Why did you feel the need to elicit an opinionated commentary in light of the sombreness and opacity of the case..It is my opinion that commentaries like this should be left to a more factual and less speculative stage of the incident….People need time to disseminate and actualise their emotions…let us not forget that we are dealing with human emotion on both sides of the flip coin..
thank you
Matthew Attard, why don’t you go to Facebook and ask some serious questions to the sole survivor in this case?
Those would ‘solemnly’ be more serious than the questions you are asking here, so if I were you, I wouldn’t waste precious time.
Agreed Mr. Attard.
Herfriend keeps celebrating Lisa’s death, like it’s her business what Lisa was going through in life and according to Herfriend’s repetitive rants, the only hinting solution to problems is death.
And by the way Erin is a HERO.
Many children, Lisa’s age, went through worse but they were lucky enough to get a safe landing and not meet someone like your friend Erin, and you Herfriend.
If I ever had the misfortune of having a daughter who reasoned like you do, I’d send you to the toughest form of army training who will put you up on Dingli Cliffs at 3 o’clock in the morning, throw a dummy doll down the furthest rock and make you go down the slippery rocks and slopes to rescue the doll and get back to your departure point that is back up the cliff by 4.30 am, dummy doll and all, unscratched and unhurt.
I’m not as cruel as your friend – I’d make sure you’re securely well-fastened according to health and safety standards before going down.
That will teach you to think before arguing that it’s perfectly all right to be at Dingli cliffs at 4 am.
The problem wih people who are discussing this and are no longer 15 is that one forgets what it’s like to be 15 when one is no longer. Yes, sure one might get older, smarter or whatever but once you’re no longer 15, you forget what’s it’s like.
[Daphne – Actually no, many people don’t forget what it’s like, and then they are forced to relive the whole thing when their children are 15, which ensures that what it’s like to be 15 is never going to slip their mind.]
When talking about at 15 year old one thinks about a child – which is true, mostly because when you’re 15 you’re still underage, but my point here is nobody knows what was going on through her mind.
[Daphne – Most people who were normally rebellious or antsy 15-year-olds will tend to know exactly what is going through the minds of 15-year-olds even after the passage of three decades, because the feelings are programmed by biology not contemporary life. Every 15-year-old thinks that their experience is unique and is offended at any suggestion that it is not, that it is in fact humdrum and routine, the exact same feelings having been experienced by billions since the dawn of history and beyond that.]
Life is hard, and problems will get to you whether you’re 15 or 50. But because to the world 15 year olds are ‘just kids’, one does not realize what they might be going through.
A lot of people on here are calling her teacher ‘gross’ or a ‘jerk’ or whatever. Very hateful names. I’m not in any way saying that it is right to go out with a student but NOBODY knows what was really going on when this whole thing happened.
[Daphne – Not a student but a pupil. This is a school, not a university or college. The harm in using the word ‘student’ is in making a child sound like an adult, which she was not. People don’t need to know what was REALLY going on. What we know is enough: a teacher was with his pupil in the evening. That is already wrong. He drove her somewhere in his car. That makes it worse. The place to which he drove her was Dingli Cliffs, which compounds the situation. She is found dead. This makes it a police matter.]
Are there any facts that clearly show us that he did indeed drive the girl to the cliffs?
[Daphne – The presence of his car there. Whether he drove her there or went to meet her (and how did she get there if he didn’t drive her) is academic at this stage. The fact is that he shouldn’t have done either.]
She was clearly going through a tough time – maybe he was just being a good teacher and tried to help her with whatever was going on in her life.
[Daphne – Most definitely not. Schools have counsellors. All teachers know that when pupils need help, they must refer them to the principal and the counsellor, and that they must never get involved themselves. This man was grooming this child and making her feel like a woman, his emotional and intellectual equal. By the looks of things, he was doing the same with others, judging by some of their comments here. This is what inadequate men do, who cannot have relationships with women their own age.]
Maybe he was trying to be a good person. Most people nowadays don’t even care about others. Maybe he did. What if he was trying to help her? What if there wasn’t enough time to save her or to ring for assistance? He might have been trying to do a good thing.
[Daphne – He cannot have been trying to do a ‘good thing’. He is an adult and a teacher. He knows the correct procedure in those situations, even if he has no common sense of his own and needs to refer to the rule book.]
Everybody keeps pointing fingers at the guy but nobody knows the whole truth. And it’s highly probable that nobody ever will. Even if I’m wrong, he is still a human being and at the moment he’s fighting for his life, even if what he did is considered unacceptable to many, it is not right to wish for somebody’s death.
[Daphne – Nobody is wishing him dead. They just wish he had sought the friendship of people his own age, rather than children.]
Actually the fact that I can remember quite well what it was like to be a 15 year old girl makes me sympathise with Lisa Zahra even more.
At that age, 23 seems like the oldest, wisest age ever, and I know many teenage girls would swoon at any romantic attention shown by any adult men who *definitely* should know better.
When you are 15 you lack life experience and perspective, and are simultaneously very vulnerable to those around you who are ready to take advantage. It’s particularly difficult for girls, growing up in a society where they are constantly told that their only value is worth their attractiveness towards men.
For goodness sake – she was a child who hadn’t even done her ‘O’ Levels yet, and he was a graduate and had entered the workforce! The age gap is mindboggling. Why are people so eager to defend him?
I imagine the fact that he is straight, white and Maltese doesn’t hurt his cause – imagine if he were a black African or a foreigner – the same people here defending Stewart Tanti would be lining up outside Mater Dei Hospital with their torches and pitchforks.
[Daphne – Oh, and don’t even mention the word ‘cats’.]
No, no – being helpful during school hours is one thing, interfering in other people’s childrens’ lives is another. Making himself loved and liked as though his drama classes were a Facebook page, is another, and driving up to Dingli Cliffs with a 15-year old is another, posing on Facebook is another, sadist pictures are another, pissing on the Triton’s Fountain and proudly uploading your picture doing it is another…
Glad to know that people ur age don’t jump to conclusion without have all necessary information like you did .
Get over yourself. ‘ur’ clearly a child, or let’s say teenager if you prefer that.
Explain, what is the information you have that we don’t know about and which surpasses the fulcrum of the entire tragedy: that he should not have been with his pupil on Dingli Cliffs?
Kemm int injorant, Madonna.
I am the parent of a twelve year old girl and I find this incident extremely frightening and a clear warning that I will have to be vigilant at all times.
Your commentary on the story is not speculation or sensationalism; it is a reasoned judgement on the incontrovertible facts known so far.
What is particularly alarming is the onslaught of comments from this man’s pupils who are all clearly in his thrall. The fact of his close ‘friendship’ with this poor girl also seems to have been common knowledge to her classmates.
This is an unhealthy situation and one which I find hard to believe can have been completely invisible to the school’s management. I think parents should ask some very hard questions at this point.
This man clearly set himself up to be his pupils’ ally and confidante. This is textbook grooming. It gives you the opportunity to identify children who are vulnerable and to position yourself as their only refuge.
Even if there was no sexual component to this situation, the best case scenario is that we have a juvenile ego in an adult’s body who clearly thinks he is beyond convention and who can see nothing wrong with directly encouraging inappropriate relationships with his pupils.
From any perspective, such an individual should never be allowed anywhere near a classroom.
Dear Ms. Caruana Galizia, whilst respecting your opinion I feel obliged to express my own. Judging the student-teacher relationship is not the wisest of moves, for this situation it might be the case that there was something else, let us assume it is not the case until proven true.
[Daphne – Not student-teacher, but pupil-teacher. Students are over 18 and at college or university, and even though their teachers are still barred from entering into relationships with them, the underage factor, which makes for gross abuse of trust, is not present. ‘Is not the wisest of moves’ – is that how you see it? How about wrong, criminal and perverse? But I’d forgotten that many people in Malta come from a background in which it was perfectly normal for girls to be married off at 15, and that is why they do not react with horror to the thought of a 23-year-old man running around with his 15-year-old pupil.]
It is wrong to presume things like this; just because two people are of different ages and choose to spend their time together does NOT give us permission to assume there is something wrong.
[Daphne – You don’t have to assume that it is wrong. It IS wrong. No man who hangs around 15-year-old girls has normal intentions. In my time we would have automatically assumed that any such man hanging around us was doing so because he wanted to sell us something illegal, or get us to do something illegal, or that he was some kind of creep. And we would have been right. At 23 there was no way on earth I wanted to hang around with 15 year olds or imagined I had anything in common with them. Be serious, please.]
Through my own experiences I have grown to appreciate that age is in reality just the number of days we have been on this planet and that it does not in any way make a person of a better or worse quality than someone else.
I disagree with the presumption that a student and teacher should never be together after school hours especially when the teacher is not teaching in a school ambiance, as in this case, where he used to teach her drama.
In the past, when I used to attend this school, I had a good relationship with all my teachers and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. I know people who are years apart and can carry a conversation with each other endlessly and considered each other best friends. Are you going to be the one to tell them their friendship is wrong just because of age or a work position? Because I would not be ready to do it.
[Daphne – Yes, of course it is wrong. Absolutely wrong. She is a child at school and he is a teacher. The same age gap carried forward in life will mean nothing, you’re right about that. There is nothing wrong in a 20 year old woman going out with a 27 year old man. There is everything wrong with a 15 year old girl going out with a man of 22, and it’s much worse when he is her teacher and in a position of trust and influence at school. I know plenty of people in their 20s and get along well with them, and have conversations with them, but I remain ever conscious of the fact that there is a generation between us, that they are very young, and that there should always be a certain distance maintained.]
My my, an orchestrated attack by a mob of sub-literate teenagers who think they know it all! It makes for a pretty shocking read.
My kids both went to the school in question and as parents, my wife and I are pretty shocked at the apparent lack of teacher-screening. My kids feel the same too thankfully. Surely a “once bitten, twice shy” policy should have been applied after the Vella Gera scandal.
Usually I disagree wholeheartedly with whatever you write, Daphne, to the point of leaving my computer in disgust and rage.
However, here, you have totally hit the nail on the head. As someone who used to supervise teenagers during their language stay – what the hell was he thinking? Even if there were no perverse intentions, he should be punished for sheer stupidity.
I have no objection to spending time with my students, even one-on-one, as long as it would be in a public, highly visible location, where I know plenty of my colleagues would be regularly walking through, ideally with CCTV, such as Baystreet.
Taking a student (1) for a drive is the first foul. Being alone with her (2) is his second. Doing so outside of school hours – his third. In a location such as Dingli Cliffs – his fourth. Her being a minor – his fifth. Not locking down his personal pages, so that people could further infer what a scumbag he is – his sixth.
FWIW, I’m the same age as this moron. While I’m not the holiest of people by far, the look in his eyes is just plain creepy.
On your comments about teacher’s activities outside of school hours, I agree, to a point. Teachers are looked up to, and should lead by example. That said, if a 25 year old teacher is out at a nightclub at 3 am and meets a 15 year-old student there, you can hardly blame them, no?
Personally, I think that it’s time nightclubs started to institute a curfew, whereby certain age groups are not permitted entry beyond a certain time. What other commentators said about friending students on Facebook – agreed, that is utterly moronic.
Even at university level, I’ve had my tutor apologise for not adding me until I graduate. That is called being professional, something which Erin, and sadly, a number of other teachers have not understood the meaning of yet.
What most people seem to be forgetting is that both persons were found in the same place at the bottom of the cliffs.
Unfortunately one is deceased, but we don’t know whether the other one will make it either. He’s still in a critical condition in the intensive care unit.
Chance could have easily flipped this situation with the young man being found dead and the girl alive in intensive care instead.
Of what is Tanti guilty? Apart from him being a teacher with circumstances pointing, though not yet proved, that he was in a relationship with the girl? If it is proved beyond doubt that he was really in a relationship with her, then it is very wrong and he’s guilty of a criminal offence. Is he guilty of anything else?
So why are we talking like he’s the one who killed her as if it’s already been proven beyond shadow of doubt in court that he’s a murderer?
[Daphne – Goodness, how difficult some people find it to understand even the most basic standards of behaviour. A teacher is found barely alive with one of his (female) pupils, dead, at the bottom of cliffs, where he drove her despite knowing that her family would be hysterical with worry, and you want to know what he is guilty of. Some things are just plain wrong even if they are not actual crimes. But in this case, it goes beyond that.]
“It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
“You must maintain appropriate professional boundaries, avoid improper contact or relationships with pupils and respect your unique position of trust as a teacher;
You should avoid situations both within and outwith the professional context which could be in breach of the criminal law, or may call into question your fitness to teach.”
– Code of Professionalism and Conduct, Sections 1.2 and 1.3, The General Teaching Council for Scotland
Also this:
“As a teacher you must:
– not discuss with pupils your own intimate and personal relationships and be mindful to maintain an appropriate balance
between formality and informality when you are dealing with pupils;
– take care to avoid becoming personally involved in a pupil’s personal affairs;
– be aware of the potential dangers of being alone with a pupil (in particular under 18 years of age) in a private or isolated situation, using common sense and professional judgement to avoid circumstances which are, or could be, perceived to be of na inappropriate nature. This is also the case in connection with
social networking websites, outwith the setting of the educational
establishment and in subject areas such as music, physical education and drama.”
– Code of Professionalism and Conduct, Section 1, The General Teaching Council for Scotland
If one has good morals and knows what is proper behaviour, then one does not need to refer to the code of ethics to know what is right or wrong.
My children have certainly never read any teachers’ code of ethics, and yet they instinctively know when a teacher has breached the code or is tethering on the invisible boundaries that should exist between them (the teachers) and their pupils.
Ejja ma nhawwdux he.
Using quotes to justify that people may be judging him is exactly the same as brushing dirt under the carpet to avoid revealing you got a dirty house.
What a country ours is. The news is not yet stale that the man who tied up some cats to sticks was sent to Mount Carmel Hospital.
Now fresh on the trail comes this scoop of news. What is apparently a psycho person, acts very ambiguously, strangely and weird with one of his pupils.
The outcome is the death of the teenage pupil and our nation is as quiet and dumb as a classic example of mafia omerta.
Why is the public not crying “justice” at the same volume and with the same tone it did when the feline case came to light? Is it because he is one of the untouchables or is it because we Maltese are a very odd nation?
I have patiently gone through all the comments and I think that there is enough material to justify the police and the school administration to interview all the students in Lisa’s class to establish what relationship existed between teacher and pupil and what was being taught apart from drama.
From the onset it’s been a a popularity contest. Erin Tanti simply knew more people given his unavoidable and frankly rank presence on the local theatre scene, as well as his position of power with minors (shudder).
Members of said scene, and the naive minors, have all made it a point to (publicly) jump on the sympathy bandwagon and express their support for him while conveniently ignoring his part in this tragedy.
To the point, even, where they’ve piously and aggressively criticised others for being less than sympathetic to the teacher who had a duty to protect Lisa Marie, but didn’t.
The argument continues to be that we “do not know the full facts” … but we knew enough from the moment we learned that he was her teacher and she his pupil, and that he was there with her alone at Dingli cliffs, to realise that all this “support” was misdirected.
The people needing support right now are the family who have lost a daughter because of her teacher’s negligence.
I find it tragi-comical how his pupils have dealt with this article. They’ve either been condescending towards you (“naughty naughty”; “darling”; “you have a lot of growing up to do”) or gone down the completely infantile path of insulting you.
It baffles me that they don’t realise that this behaviour doesn’t help their case at all.
It’s also quite surprising that after a very straightforward article and mounds and mounds of antagonistic comments, a lot of people don’t realise that this article isn’t speculative at all.
It’s not that you’re trying to make it out to seem as though Mr Tanti is the perpetrator in whatever happened on that cliff but that the circumstance in which it happened was wrong to begin with.
And another thing. Just because people say that they know him does not mean that they are knowledgeable of his nature. People who are guilty of the worst kind of crime have been described by their spouses and children as being the ‘nicest people you’d ever want to meet’. One cannot base innocence or guilt on what they think the person’s character is like.
Last thing. I don’t think you should have mentioned the defamation in his stand-up sketch. Not because I think it’s wrong that you mentioned it but rather that people think that the article is just a bitter, cynical way of getting back at him. Maybe without that mention people would actually believe that your opinions are not biased but wise.
[Daphne – No, I had to mention it. It’s the reason I know how disturbed he is. Unfortunately, I can’t repeat what he said, but if I had known at the time that he is a teacher, I would have gone straight to the school.]
Daphne, I don’t always agree with your articles, however on this occasion I agree with your sentiments exactly.
I feel very strongly about this and I am shocked at the comments trying to defend the teacher.
I find some of the comments by people extremely cold and insensitive. A young life has been lost and whatever the exact facts and series of events of that evening are, the fact remains that this young girl would still be alive if it were not for him.
I can’t believe some of the comments here. My god what delusional groupthink.
It seems that he not only groomed one person but the entire class.
As far as I am aware, teachers are very busy people, in class and outside of it. They always talk about planning and they take work home to cope with the amount of preparation, the responsibility of a class brings with it.
The guy in question does not seem to be busy at all – after a day’s work, the last thing I’d want is to drive up to Dingli and further in to the cliffs.
He should have been preparing for the next day’s school work, preparing brainstorm checklists for his drama lessons and not be in Dingli with a child.
Not the entire class, but seemingly their parents too. Where are they in all this, with their children commenting in such a way here?
I’ll get a tsunami of hatemail for this, but some of this man’s “friends” seem to wish they’d jumped off that cliff in solidarity.
It reminds me of my days as a schoolboy. We had two teachers who were adored to cult status by everyone except myself and a couple of other shrewd fellows. Even back then, I could read people like a great big ruddy book. So I spent a few years like an outcast, looking on at the delusional groupthink, until one got sent to Mount Carmel, and the other was summarily dismissed in mid-term. A few months later he came out as gay.
Fair enough, whatever the situation the teacher acted wrongly. Even if he had received a call from the girl already at Dingli, he should have called the authorities rather than taking it upon himself to be the hero.
However I don’t think Erin should receive all the blame. Having seen this girls askfm account after it was posted on facebook, it is very evident that she was not in a good place. Her anonymous peers however, chose to bully her because of this and put her in an even worse place rather than offer her the support she clearly needed.
Perhaps you should write an article about that and allow the condemnation of this man to be done in the appropriate place in front of a jury.
[Daphne – This is quite unbelievable. Of course ‘Erin’ should be the recipient of all the blame. He was the ONLY adult in the equation, a teacher, for heaven’s sake. Clearly, you have not read between the lines of what the police said: he drove her to Dingli Cliffs and he jumped off with her. He is entirely responsible. But quite frankly, a teacher/adult who does something like that needs to be confined in a mental asylum, not prosecuted.]
Wait, have I missed something? How are you sure that they both jumped off the cliff together? How certain that this is a suicide and not an accident?
[Daphne – Police comments on prosecution this morning. They’ve already interviewed him obviously.]
Nowhere does it say that he drove her there actually. The bodies were found at the bottom of the cliff and his car found locked. She could have very easily made her way there on her own and called him for help. Again I’m not defending his actions. He was completely out of line having any such form of relationship with the girl outside of school.
That said he didn’t push her, there was no foul play. He is very much responsible by not informing the authorities, and if he did drive her down himself then of course that’s irreconcilable. But I’m far more shocked by the amount of horrible comments sent to this girl anonymously. Such bullying should never have occurred. And once it did, someone should have reported it.
15 year olds should be mature enough to know that someone encouraging another to take their own life is not ok and should be reported to the school if not the police. I like to think that if my teenagers were witnesses to such bullying they would act responsibly rather than idly watch.
Daphne, in what way did Erin lie about you in his stand-up comedy skit? I don’t suppose you would have considered legal action just because of his opening line?
[Daphne – No, obviously not.]
Hbieb taf li qedin targumentaw fuq tfajla ghada kemm mietet, missier li ghadu muguh bit-telfa ta’ bintu. Imaginaw kif jista jhosshu missierha waqt li jkun qieghed jaqra dan il-blog?
Halu lil din il-familja tghix il-luttu taghhom fil-paci. Nahseb diga wega kbira dan li gara, ma hemmx ghalfejn inkomplu ndahlu safe fil-ferita bl-argumenti taghna. Jiddispjacini ta telfa ta din iz-zghazugha. L-Ghomor lil familja taghha.
What is seriously worrying that there are more of these twisted mentalities. This is really shocking trying to justify what is intrinsically wrong.
He had no valid reason being there. Can anyone think straight about this case and call a spade a spade?
I am a teacher, and I can see the risks of something terrible like this happening. I worked in a school where the teachers would openly socialise with their pupils, go to Paceville together, go celebrate together during the general elections (mass meetings and go celebrate when the party won).
They drive pupils home after school.
I had approached the school head, but nothing changed!
A teacher should never have any kind of extra-curricular relationship with a pupil.
Codes of ethics for teachers speak of general principles. It seems Malta needs to rewrite its own version spelling out in detail what is and is not acceptable behaviour. They could start with rules on the use of social media, which appear to have crated the impression that everyone can be an ass and get away with it and that teachers and pupils are peers.
I knew Erin in school. I hung out with him often as at the time I was dating one of his friends.
Trust me, it wasn’t my personal preference to be in the room as this guy – and to be honest, all his ‘friends’ felt the same way – but the guy just kept showing up.
He has always been a disgusting, filthy-minded little worm of a human being, with an over-inflated ego. That can basically be confirmed by anyone who’s ever had more than 5 minutes of contact with him.
He thrived completely and constantly on trying to shock people, be it through unnecessary verbal obscenity, or by sharing his mildest disturbing fantasies with us – most of which involved mutilating female reproductive organs. I recall a specific incident where he even submitted a drawing of one such fantasy in lieu of an English poetry essay.
Based on his incessant anti-establishment rants, essays and plays, I’m not surprised at all that he behaved in the irresponsible and inappropriate manner he did, nor by his choice of prey. I’m sorry to refer to his victim that way, but Lisa would have been nothing else but prey to him.
He was very open about how little guilt he felt about taking advantage of people who were obviously vulnerable or needy. He loved it and abused it to the fullest.
Furthermore, she looks strikingly similar to a girlfriend he had at the time (he obviously goes for a ‘type’) and his sexual ‘explorations’ (more like psychological and sexual abuse) with her were beyond shocking – and I’m very liberal in that area. This is a guy who wanted to go watch a donkey-mounting show when he was in Amsterdam.
I’m not sure whether anyone has come forward with any information about Erin as a person – as far as I read, there seemed to predominantly be comments pertaining to the impropriety of the pupil-teacher relationship, and also people who claim to have known Lisa and want to offer some opinion on her relationship to Erin. But they are children like her, 15-year-olds.
My hope is that this brief insight into the person Erin – from somebody his age and who saw a lot of him when we were at school ourselves – highlights the irresponsibility of the school (as there is no way they could have missed it) in hiring him.
I hope that what I have said puts to rest any misguided notions people might have as to the ‘romantic’ element of his relationship to Lisa. Anyone who thinks their relationship was anything other than abusive of his position is just being naive.
The age difference debate is almost a non-issue compared to the fact that Lisa was nothing more than easy prey to a very sick, sick man. People are so busy discussing her mental state at the time that they miss what should be blindingly obvious: that it is he who has very serious psychological problems.
Of course a teacher should never socialise or have a relationship with a pupil. This was a complete breach of professional and ethical boundaries and he should be dealt with for that.
The girl who died needed a trusted adult to help her and she found this teacher. I don’t think, however, that tearing this man to shreds is appropriate. People are talking about the injustice of what happened to the girl and in the same sentence are showing no respect and decency towards this man.
He did wrong but that doesn’t mean it gives any of us the right to tear him apart, especially when he cannot defend himself.
[Daphne – The point needs to be made again: this man kept his 15-year-old pupil out all night and drove her to Dingli Cliffs at 4am. He is the perpetrator and not a victim.]
I think that schools /admin should have the free hand to ask for records on anyone working with children be it drivers, teachers, cleaners and all.
They should have direct access to health records, police records etc from the respective departments and not to be provided by the individual.