Not entirely correct. The police investigates, gather all evidence including that may be in favour of the alleged perpetrator, ensure that the evidence is corroborated and prosecutes.

It is also their duty to ensure that the claims against a person are true and that there is no hidden or twisted facts behind the claim.

The police are an integral part and main players of the justice system.

[Daphne – Yes, but that is not the way they see it. They act on a complaint and then leave it up to the courts to sort it out, dragging the victim of the complaint through a great deal of inconvenience and even, as in this man’s case, utter hell. I have been at the receiving end a few times and my arguments with the police in this regard have been pointless – they actually think that it’s not their business to make sure that there is at least a reasonable likelihood that the complaint has a basis in truth or fact.]

I do not think the police did anything wrong in this case. It was our justice system that found the man guilty and sent him to prison.

And it wasn’t just the man who was a victim. The son and daughter must have also been victims, deprived of a normal family, and forced to live in a terrible situation with the nasty piece of work that is the mother.

And it doesn’t take much to figure out that if she manipulated her daughter against her own father, she really did not care at all about the children.

That means that the daughter is also a victim, a tool in the hands of an abusive parent who lost sight of the best interests of her children in the interests of “winning”.

The problem is that this case will make it even more difficult for victims in “real” cases of abuse.

Will the incompetent policemen who investigate this case be charged or at least dismissed from the police force? Can we trust the police?

Daphne, I have not heard of Nicholas Azzopardi’s case for a long time. I wonder if it has been swept under the carpet.

Shame. Their place is not in prison but in a mental asylum.