What sort of life must that boy have led?
A miserable life with a crazed mother and a father living elsewhere with a girlfriend, and then dying of cancer at 14. And while some might say of the father, who can blame him for bothering off, and while I cannot get over the way he has been put through hell with this prosecution and imprisonment on false grounds, I really don’t like the way men save themselves by leaving even when they know they’re leaving their children behind in difficult circumstances.
Men tend to really not get it, do they – when they leave their wives, they also leave their children. But they see it as leaving their wives. Children, however, see themselves as left too – because they’re in the same home.
“I’m leaving your mother because I can’t take it anymore.”
“Wow, thanks, dad for leaving us to cope with the mess ourselves.”
This woman’s behaviour is anything but normal. It’s obvious that she needed help. So what does her husband do? He leaves – pushing her even further over the edge and leaving their children completely exposed to her erratic behaviour. Yes, the mother used to kick them out onto the street. But where was their father when she was doing this? He wasn’t in prison yet.
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http://www.tvm.com.mt/news/stennija-ghall-omm-fl-awla-akkuzata-bi-spergur/
I had that boy in mind recently too. Been thinking exactly on the same lines. May his soul deservedly rest in peace forever.
The plight of the innocent. If only we could come to our senses and instead of seeking our selfish rights we direct our energies into fighting for the rights of innocent people as this boy was. May the Lord grant him eternal rest in pastures green and fresh waters that run by.
What I fail to understand is how the father ended up arraigned in court and imprisoned.
Eighteen police reports and a doctor’s report pointing to a conflicting or rather opposite explanation to what the girl was saying were not enough to cast doubt on the veracity of the girl’s accusation. Some police work indeed.
If as reported in the press the mother used to take various men home, what would he be expected to do?
[Daphne – Take the children with him when he leaves.]
What if the court gave custody of the children to the mother?
[Daphne – Not with 25 reports the children filed against her. And again, where was their father when they were filing police reports against their mother for neglect?]
I went through a separation also, and I had to leave my children with their mother due to work circumstances but when one day one of them them called and told me that he was going to escape (because of his mother’s attidute) I had no other choice but to go and take them with me.
Had to change my position at work and change my life to continue with my children – but what hurts me more is that today our courts don’t treat men like women.
[Daphne – They are right not to do that. As a general rule, the mother is by far the more instinctive and proper carer. Women like this one are the total exception, as would be men doing the same thing, of course. But haven’t you asked yourself why, with so very few exceptions, women never pack up and leave the home with just a suitcase and otherwise unencumbered, the way men do? It’s not because they haven’t had enough; it is because it is literally psychologically impossible for a woman to walk out and leave her children behind no matter how fed up they are. Men, however, have far less difficulty with this and do it all the time. The reality is that biologically, men and women are NOT equal, and that is what the court sensibly takes into consideration in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Why, too, do you think that children/teenagers without mothers are more at risk than those without fathers, even if they are in the care of a loving father? It’s because fathers (and again, this is in general) miss a lot of the detail that to mothers (because they are also women and so more perceptive) pick up on immediately.]
I disagree, Daphne. Perhaps you think that way because you are more aware of the Maltese legal situation.
Trust me when I say I know of a case where the mother had different men in the house and was a notorious heroin addict who was not using the money provided by the father for food even. Notwithstanding this she retained custody even though the man was responsible and had stable employment in management.
[Daphne – I don’t believe you. Everywhere in Europe and North America, it is a matter of policy for social services to remove children from the care of heroin addicts, with or without the intervention of the other parent. It happens in Malta, it happens in Britain, it happens everywhere. As soon as social services are alerted, they act. They cannot afford not to. They will place the child/ren with another, responsible family member or have it/them taken into care.]
There are many other cases, admittedly not as extreme, where the father would be just as good a single parent as the mother, if not better. Men are very often more sensitive than the women and do not bottle up the same level of hatred which they then use the children to get back at the man with.
[Daphne – The reason many marriages break down is because of men’s passive aggression towards their wives, which manifests itself in various ways. Any woman who lives with this for years is driven to breaking-point. Yes, there are exceptions where the father is better than the mother, but that is most definitely the exception rather than the rule.]
The problem in many countries is that custody is awarded to the woman regardless of the situation in an arbitrary fashion.
[Daphne – Any parent who leaves the home without the children, whether it is the mother or the father, is going to be at a huge disadvantage when claiming custody. Women who leave the family home without their children generally find it impossible to get custody, too. This is a fact you overlook. Any court that registers the fact that a parent walked out and left them behind, whatever the circumstances or the gender, is unlikely to look favourably on a custody request. If you walk out, you walk out on the children as well as the other parent. Women know this. Men seem to think it’s perfectly fine.]
I’m sorry, Daphne, I don’t agree on this one as today we are living in a world were women (whom in the past weren’t equally treated and I don’t agree with it) have been given too much rights and sometimes they abuse from that especially when going to court.
Regard my case I have full custody of my children and my ex wife didn’t even care about it. Do you think that she should be called a good mother?
[Daphne – How many women are there like that, compared to how many men who act like it’s a hassle even to take their children out on Sunday when they no longer live with them? ‘GIVEN TOO MANY RIGHTS’ – terrible attitude. People are not GIVEN rights. They have them, and are deprived of them. ‘Women have been given too many rights’ – no wonder your wife left. You see, this is exactly what I mean. There’s always this embedded attitude that women are up against whatever the law says.]
If you don’t believe me Daphne, there is nothing more I can add. I never doubted what you said in terms of the facts you quoted about cases you personally know of, so I do not expect you to do that to me. That’s mutual respect. I am not some loon commenter who just makes things up to make a point.
[Daphne – That is not actually what I meant. I should have phrased it differently. I have no doubt you think the story correct, but perhaps you don’t have all the information. There is no way children are left in the hands of heroin-addicted mothers unless the case is unreported. Had your friend brought proof of her heroin-addiction to the court, she would have lost custody of the children immediately. So he either did not do that, or she is not actually ‘a notorious heroin addict’.]
The person I refer to even tried employing a private detective but the evidence was not permitted in court as it contravened privacy laws. The government did nothing, or near nothing to investigate. But like I said you say I am a liar so there is nothing more to add.
[Daphne – There you are. You see? There was no evidence in court that the mother is a heroin addict. So the court did not know her to be a heroin addict, and it follows from this that the court did not grant custody to a heroin addict (even if she is one). Also, if a private detective was actually needed, then she is not a notorious heroin addict at all. Notorious heroin addicts tend to be known to the police or other local (health) authorities, as is generally the case wherever one lives. I did not say you are a liar. I said I did not believe your story, which is different. And I turned out to be correct not to do so, and correct also in saying that it sounds wrong because custody is never granted to heroin addicts but rather the opposite, with heroin addicts routinely losing care of their children even if there is no separation case.]
So Daphne, as a man in a relationship with a woman making all sorts of open threats to press false charges, for example of abuse or violence, what choice does he have but to leave the home and then file for custody later on?
[Daphne – Many women live with men who press false charges or threaten to do so, albona, and many women (most, in fact) also live in situations where men control most or all of the money. This is, as you will (I hope) immediately understand, a major power imbalance that is ripe for abuse and control. And abused to control it very often is. Many women live as beggars in their own homes, though you will not notice this because their husband will maintain a false front for the sake of his pride and ego (buying her a smart dress to wear when they go out together, for instance, but then leaving her without money for food and forced to plead and rage for money for basic necessities for the children). But do these women leave? No. Do they walk out without their children? NO. Do they tell themselves ‘what choice do I have but to leave and file for custody later on’? NO. On the contrary, what they say is this: what choice do I have but to stay? That’s the difference between a mother and a father – though I hasten to add that there are exceptions to both.]
All you need to do is watch one single ‘cop show’ to realise that in domestic cases one call from the female suffices to have the man arrested. I am not talking about some village in Gozo either – think USA, UK, Sweden, Norway, NZ.
[Daphne – Cop shows! This is life, not television. But yes, it is entirely correct that one phone call from a woman being attacked by a man should lead to his immediate arrest. How else is she supposed to defend herself against somebody stronger than she is? When was the last time you heard in the news that a man had been stabbed 50 times by the mother of his children? That a man had been shot by his wife? Thrown off a cliff by his wife? When a man was thrown off a cliff by his wife in the United States, it made the world news. When a woman was thrown off a cliff by her husband in Gozo, it was just another report in Times of Malta. ]
To prove my point about how useless and biased social services often are I even know of a girl, who is now around 40, who was abused by several family members and was never removed from her home as it would have conjured up memories of a not so distant past when children of indigenous families were adopted out to White families.
I am not a liar.
[Daphne – No, you are not a liar. You are just scrabbling around for cases to bolster an indefensible argument that the system is prejudiced against men. In fact, it is prejudiced against women and has been so since time immemorial. You also seem to believe that the right of women to keep their children is sacrosanct and inviolable and that the prejudice in our favour is historical. It is most definitely not. The rights of women over their children are extremely recent: in Malta, 1993. Well into the 20th century, women automatically lost their children with divorce. They literally lost them – no rights of access at all. All the rights were vested in the husband. Women got the vote before they got rights over their own children when married to the father. Until 1993 in Malta, married men were empowered at law to take all decisions pertaining to their children, solely and without approval from their wife, with their wife not even having the right of veto.]
Excuse me Daphne when I said “women were given too much rights” I wasn’t saying that that was wrong. Women are humans like men are and everyone should have the same respect and rights as everyone else.
Saying that my ex wife did this because she didn’t have any respect or rights you are far from truth. The truth is that today there isn’t any respect for the family and it could be both the father and the mother who leave or even disrespect their children.
Daphne, you are assuming that she would have allowed it. We’re talking here about a highly abusive mother.
I just wonder what experiences she had in her marriage to the gentleman in question, to turn her into such a despicable person?
Abandoning the family, leaving debts and no money behind and shacking up with another woman whilst leaving the first wife with no maintenance is not indicative of a very caring, loving, responsible and reliable man to have as a mate.
I find it telling that when the mother chucked the boy out, he didn’t go to his father.
The mother was crazy, the father uncaring.
The father did become a victim of the justice system but his children were victims long before him. To be honest, I think this woman needs psychiatric help.
How do you prove heroin addiction if the courts do not request it?
[Daphne – That’s not the way it works in any jurisdiction I know of (I have no idea where you live). When a man petitions the courts of justice for the removal of his children from the care and custody of the mother, the only possible grounds are unfitness or parental neglect. The court will expect him to prove that the mother is an alcoholic who stays out all night, that she fails to feed or care for her children, that the children have been found wandering around at night alone, that he mother is a junkie & c & c. Your friend used the work of a private detective. What he should have done is engage the support of social services and taken it from there.]
How do you prove that the woman is not buying the children enough food? How do you prove that there are men coming and going at all hours if social services do not have a person stationed outside the house 24/7.
Sorry but again, I think you are referring to Malta without having experience of what happens, on a personal level, in other Western countries.
[Daphne – The parameters for removing children from the custody of their mother are the same throughout the civilised world, albona. There is no ‘in Malta it is this and in England it is that’. For the children to be removed from their primary carer, that primary carer must pose a real risk to them, and that risk must be proven. The court will not base its decision on the opinion of the other parent who wants the children, but on the opinion of social services, medical doctors and psychologists.]
Just as a final comment, most of the situations you have described are completely foreign to me. To give you some context: with most people I have as friends or friends of friends it is the females who by far make the most money.
[Daphne – You don’t live in Malta, Albona. The context here is entirely different. Most Maltese married women stop working when they have children and either return to the workforce very late or never return at all. This puts them entirely at the mercy of their spouses financially, and permanently – because loss of NI contributions for the non-working period means they lose out completely on a pension or get just a reduced one.]
I do not know of any who depend on men for money. I am sorry but I think the misunderstandings that have arisen in our exchanges are due to the fact that we live in different worlds with different legal systems and different cultures.
I too know the Maltese context from personal experience but I suppose I barely believe it to be true. This would not be the first time we have misunderstood each other and I dare say it won’t be the last.
“I really don’t like the way men save themselves by leaving even when they know they’re leaving their children behind in difficult circumstances.”
You are absolutely spot on this. That is neglect. But how effective are Maltese social services and how promptly do they intervene when a man or a woman and their children suffer abuse?
Malta’s social services are severely lack the resources they need.
An unmitigated disaster.
A human tragedy right in our midst.
Shame on all of us.
Din hi sitwazzjoni wahda, u kemm hemm ohrajn simili mohbija? Is socjeta iddeterjorat , xejn mhu xejn illum.
Generalising is harmful. Without going into specifics (to protect my child), I was in a similar situation. I did fight for my child, and obtained custody, and my child came to live with me. So on my part, I am one man that did in fact fight for his child, and sort of won.
But it did come at a very high psychological and physical cost. I suppose not everyone is strong enough, and not everyone can handle it. Still, I’d do it again if I had to. Yes, the father’s behaviour is surprising, but then we do not have all details. Maybe for example, the children, through some misguided loyalty to a clearly manipulative mother, absolutely didn’t want to live with him, and weak as he was he gave up, and now he has to live with it.
Totally agree with the comment.
I disagree with you only on one point: You fail to consider that leaving your children has a “very high psychological and physical cost” too.
Perhaps, your route is more hard. In any case, it was/is the right route to take because you took responsibility and expressed a beautiful example of parental love.
You are right to question what happened. Manipulation is a tool used by wives, husbands and other members of the family to exert pressure and vengeance.
Children usually play piggy in the middle and are unable to know who is right and who is wrong and how they are being manipulated. They simply lack the frame of mind for adult games.
If the man had no means to support his ex wife and his two children, who is supporting who in the new relationship he has at present with his new lady friend? Maybe his ex wife got men in the house to earn enough to put food on the table for his children seeing that he was out of a job and was not giving her maintenance.
Strange how so many men declare themselves out of a job when separation proceedings begin and go on the dole and the wife ends up working as a housemaid or office cleaner to support her kids and help pay the debts he leaves her facing on her own.
More dysfunctional people from dysfunctional families reproducing themselves for more misery on their innocent children.
I wish that these people break the cycle and say to themselves, “I come from a fuc1<ed family and I am afraid that if I have children I will give them a fuc1<ed life, so I will not bother reproducing myself and the misery for the whole lot of us" .
But nothing in life is ever that logical, basic instinct rule most of us, no different than a squirrel or an octopus.
They can also break the cycle by realising that they couldn’t choose their parents, but can choose to be better parents. Not reproducing, as you put it, denies them that choice. Just because one had a bad childhood doesn’t mean one can’t have a good life.
Malta is going through what the US experienced 50 years ago.
A disruption in social harmony, as in rising crime rates and a breakdown in shared values and trust. This is putting the nuclear family into a long-term decline.
I saw the same thing happening in the UK three decades ago when the traditional family unit started breaking up as a result of the imposition of ” modern” values and the state started to gradually take over the role of the parents.
If you follow the British and the American press, they are still going through this disruption.
Not all mothers have maternal instinct.
whilst some men have the paternal instincts of a crocodile!
You are right. The same should be said when the father doesn’t want to give enough the mother enough in housekeeping money or maintenance. It’s his children who suffer most and not the mother the men don’t care about. But men don’t get it.
Most of them get it. But for those who leave, it is as if they have closed a chapter of their lives and want to start anew without baggage from their old life.
A generalisation, I know, but unfortunately, a lot of children are growing up today with no or very rare contact with their fathers. The opposite is not normally the case.
A man’s first duty is to his children. Daphne is completely right on this one.
Even if the wife is completely out of order you cannot leave your kids at that tender age. Not easy, but in my view kids come first and faced with that impossible situation he should have taken the kids at all costs. Or stayed in the household, no matter how bad the situation, to protect them.
Amen to that. No matter what sort of a sorry picture the man painted of himself, it is the children who are (‘was’, in the case of the son) the victims in all this.
Actually, the man fought and obtained full custody of his son while court proceedings against him were in course. He said so himself in an interview with Xarabank. I don’t think he would’ve been able to get custody of the daughter if he did fight for her.
[Daphne – That doesn’t sound right. How do you get custody for one child while failing to do so for the other child because of abuse accusations?]
Perhaps because there the other child was a girl? It just adds to the inconsistencies in the whole trail.
Daphne – it’s not as easy as you think for a father to obtain custody of children, notwithstanding police reports and all. Indeed this father ended up in jail, so it may well have been the mother had already tarnished the father’s reputation when custody was awarded.
I know someone who went through hell to get custody of his children notwithstanding that his ex wife was declared crazed following a failed brain operation. The courts seem to automatically give custody to mothers.
Surely this man who you refer to does not take the vow of ”till death us do part” very seriously , seeing that he decided to bugger off with the children when his wife and mother of his children was in most need of his support and love…due to a ”failed brain operation”. A great example he gave to his children of how marriage should be for life in good and in bad!
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I was thinking. And then you get old men who can barely look after themselves, spending years dedicatedly caring for a wife with Alzheimer’s.]
I lost count of the number of old couples I know who both have progressively worsening geriatric-related illnesses but lovingly take care of each other with the bare minimum of outside state-sponsored help.
In some cases, they also have to take care of now middle-aged children with special needs as well.
Nothing is too much trouble to keep the family unit together for as long as possible for such people. These are the sort of people we should put forward as heroes and role models in today’s uncaring, selfish, hedonistic society where ‘commitment’ and ‘sacrifice’ have become dirty words.
My question, if we are to learn anything at all from this horrid experience, is how many children or young adults are presently facing this horrid predicament.
With all the agencies and NGOs now working on social services, not to mention police records, we should be able to find out who is at risk and offer the necessary support.
There aren’t enough resources to offer the necessary support. That is one of Malta’s invisible problems. It is not a popular issue because it isn’t a vote catcher.
“I really don’t like the way men save themselves by leaving even when they know they’re leaving their children behind in difficult circumstances.”
Please don’t generalise, Daphne. I would never leave my children, even if it meant having to put up with a difficult wife. I’m lucky NOT to be in this position, but I would certainly not bugger off and leave the children behind.
I take my role as a father very seriously and take exception to your generalisation.
[Daphne – A generalisation is just that, Stephen. It is a documented and unassailable (and pretty visible) fact that while men walk out on their wives and children, women so rarely do that when it happens, it’s the talk of the town. Incidentally, by walking out I don’t mean ‘abandoning’. The fact remains that while a man will not find it that difficult to go an live elsewhere while leaving his children at home with their mother, a woman will find it emotionally impossible to do the same and leave them at home with their father. The woman’s attachment is biological. The man’s is social.]
What of this case?
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-06-11/news/10-year-old-boy-placed-in-seclusion-at-mount-carmel-hospital-for-own-safety-5426872320/
F’dan il kaz u f’hafna ukoll, minn issofri ikollu bzonn l’ghajnuna tal awtoritajiet, per ezempju tal-appogg u l-pulizija. Il pulizija ghalija naqset hafna milli tipprotegi sew lill ragel kif ukoll lit-tfal.
It-tfal ma kellhomx jibqaw mal-omm wara dawk ir-rapporti kollha, b’tifel qed immut u lanqas tmur tarah jew meta marret iggieldet ma zewga. Iktar u iktar li kienet iddahhal hafna irgiel id-dar.
Ghalhekk jiena nara li l-awtoritajiet ma ghamlux xogholhom sew. Ir-ragel baqa dejjem vicin it-tfal, sakemm ma setax ikellem jew jersaq lejn bintu.
Qatt u qatt ma jista bniedem normali jibqa ma persuna tat-tip ta’ din il-mara, la l-awtoritajiet ma ghamlu xejn biex jirrangaw l-affarijiet.
Mhux sew li nghatu tort lill missieri issa…….. bghata ghall gidba ta’ omm uliedhu imma ma iddisprax ghax la kien jaf li ma ghamel xejn hazin, ghadda minn dawk is-sagrificji kollha.
Jien ma nhennx ghall din il mara u laqas ghall ommha li gghalet lit-tifla tigdeb ukoll.
I am not sure of the legal situation in Malta but in other Western countries men are forced to leave.
You can try to reason for only so long, at which point it becomes imperative that you leave, paradoxically, for the good of your children.
You realise that you are living on ice, that false charges can be laid at any time and that the only thing that your wife is allowing you to give the children is money.
It is better to be working and giving the one thing that men have been reduced to rather than being put through court after court and the children having to witness it.
You just have to use logic and say to yourself that the legal framework, and the fact that it removes almost every right from the father in favour of the mother, is not your fault and that eventually the children, at 18, will be able to work things out for themselves.
In many cases at that stage the children have already been emotionally destroyed. But what else is left for the man to do?
This is something that can only be solved when taboos are discussed and laws passed in parliament that no longer assume the innocence of the female in every marriage.
[Daphne – In my experience, when women turn against their husband in this manner, they have good reason to do so and it is generally after that husband has stonewalled every attempt made by the wife at communicating her unhappiness with the situation and indicating how it can be resolved. In my experience, too, many men end up in this difficult place because their wife is in a box in their life separate to all the other boxes (work, entertainment, friends, sport) and not integrated into it. Any attempt made by the wife to climb out of this box and enter the other boxes represents chaos to his established order and she is repeatedly stonewalled, ends up alienated and before long, hates him with a passion. Do you want any more of my extensive experience? Ultimately, when a woman ends up hating her husband/father of their children, it’s invariably for his failure to love and care for her. The man will protest ‘but she wanted for nothing’, because the way he looks at it, he did nothing wrong because he didn’t get drunk, didn’t run around and he paid the bills when required to do so. But that isn’t a husband, is it. A woman’s hatred for a man is the product of immense stored-up rage and anger for his having failed to love her, and nothing else. Women never hate the men who love them, even if they do not necessarily love them in return.]
I think you may have had more experience with typically 19th century Mediterranean-type stories than with the type I am talking about.
In any case, you could easily reverse the sexes in your example above and I talk from personal experience in this case.
[Daphne – You are a man, albona. Women talk to other women in a way that men do not talk to other men. You would be truly shocked to discover that some of the nicest men in public are really hell to live with. If Maltese men were so great, marriages wouldn’t be breaking down hell for leather. Women with children do not go out of their way to destroy their home and marriage. On the contrary, they put up with a great deal and only act when they have reached breaking-point or think the children are ‘old enough’. Nineteenth-century-type men? Exactly what do you think the average Maltese man is like? True, there are exceptions, but that’s the only reason we notice them.]
I think it is very unfair on this father to be criticized in this way by your readers.
I am more than sure that if this father was given any choice whatsoever, he would have taken his children away from such an abusive mother. Have you questioned yourselves whether he ever had that choice?
Do you not think that he must have passed through hell knowing that his own children are suffering but because of our legal system, he is completely helpless to help them.
To me, this shows a complete failure of the Police Authorities, Appogg and the Family Courts.
I speak through experience, and I am a mother not a father.
A dishonest psychologist hailing from Swieqi decided in the course of a maximum of 4.5 hours of investigation that care and custody should be given to the father because that was my sons’ wish at 10 and 11 years old.
To add insult to injury, I could not sue this psychologist because the court appointed her.
To Appogg, to the Police Authorities, to the family Courts, a whole farce and more heart break!
I have been living this tragedy for the past nine years and have not seen my sons in over 4 years.
So, please apply caution before trying to criticize others.
[Daphne – Why have you not seen them? Children can’t be denied access to their mother, though at 14 and 15 they are free to make that choice themselves. Also, the circumstances are not comparable. The criticism here is about how this man walked out and left his children behind. If the situation was so bad that he had to leave, then it was bad enough for him to stay and make sure the children did not come to harm, if he could not take them with him. I don’t know about your situation, but if you were the one to leave, you should have known that children never forgive that and take it personally whatever the mother might have been going through to make her feel that she had no choice. Children forgive the father who leaves, but never the mother who leaves. They know instinctively that it is a more profound abandonment and betrayal of their trust. That said, I think it is really terrible when mothers who have had their children sequestered from them end up begging to see them, standing at the school gates, or going to the front door and having to be removed by police. It is beyond awful for all involved, and a whacking great disaster for the children themselves.]
To all your readers, please research Parent Alienation. It happens all around the world and unless you have lived through it, you can never appreciate its magnitude nor the difficult life you have to lead as the target parent.
[Daphne – Yes, I know of around four women who are suffering this experience, so you don’t have to explain it to me, but it’s good that you have brought it up for others.]
Parent Alienation occurs when your partner hates you much more than the alienator loves his/her own children.
For the record, I never abandoned the marital home, we all had to leave as the house was sold. My sons abandoned me one year later.
I was given a lot of rights by the courts – on paper, that is – but when you try to make those rights effective, you find no support from anyone. Believe me, I tried everything – Appogg seven times, and they knew my sons, then at 11 and 12 years of age, were being left for days and nights on their own supervised by hotel security.
The children living with an alienator live through a lot of fear and manipulation.
Had Appogg, the Police Authorities and the Family Courts done their job, justice would have been done in my case and in this case too.
Re this case, why were the innumerable reports to the police by the children themselves not pursued? What kind of example has the world given to the children of this couple – the alienator is above the law and always wins!
I can bet my life that when their mother came to know that they betrayed her in any way, there was hell to pay at home.
So my plea goes to these three powerful authorities. You owe a very onerous duty to the children that you come across. You are paid to carry out justice, so please do your job well!
One very glaring fact remains. Malta in 2014 is completely unable to protect innocent children from abuse and exploitation.
Where is the accountability in this country? Where is the Commissioner for Children?
Where are the resignations from Appogg and the Police force?
What have we learned from the grave mistakes done in this case? What should we do to prevent a recurrence?
Tomorrow, your own children or grandchildren could be abused and exploited. We need statements from these entities that such cases will never occur again and we want concrete action.
Something about this story stinks to high heaven no matter how hard Peppi tries to make a saint out of this man.
Would a woman in her right mind and with children of her own by another man, accept in her home as her mate, a man who is separated from his first wife, is presumably unemployed (and therefore unable to support himself or pay maintenance for his children) and has been accused of improper acts with his own flesh and blood daughter?
The psychology of this case is not quite right.
When push comes to shove, one reason why a number of women fight tooth and nail for the children is to claim maintenance from the ex-husband; it gives them more security (both financial and emotional).
Once the courts give them this (and it’s normally a foregone conclusion even when it’s the wife who’s been playing around and causing all the fracas etc) they eventually show their true colours and virtually abandon their children or simply leave them to their own devices.
I don’t like generalising but I’ve seen this happen with a number of people I know very well., where the fathers were certainly more capable of taking care of the children than the mothers but were prevented from doing so.
Having said that I know men (and also women) who should never have got married in the first place and I wonder when the state is going to lay down some criteria, or create some form of “marriage licence” before allowing persons to get themselves into such a commitment.
I’m afraid that I cannot agree with you on this. My view is that you might have been right, had you argued that one should try his utmost to save his marriage.
The problem, however, is when it is impossible to do so and things deteriorate in ways which make them irreconcilable. Children suffer a great deal in broken families, be it if parents are together and also when they separate.
For this reason, I don’t believe that things would have been better had he remained with his wife.
If the allegations are right (one is innocent until proven otherwise), then it would have been more appropriate to consider the mother as the abuser and the children and father as the victims. Moreover, it is important that the law court grants custody to the most responsible of the two. It is extremely unfair that the woman always gets custody, whatever the circumstances are.
[Daphne – Who in heaven’s name is talking about ‘saving the marriage’? I certainly wasn’t. I was talking about the man staying in the house, in situ, to make sure his children are safe. The end of a marriage does not mean you have to leave the house and the other spouse cannot force you out unless there is a specific court order. Yes, he most definitely should have stayed. If he left the house because of the deteriorating situation, he literally abandoned the children to that deteriorating situation and saved himself. And yes, like one reader here, it did strike me immediately that when the children were thrown onto the streets they did not go to their father but to the police.]
Amen, someone finally said it. Where was he? I sympathise with him for the accusation and false imprisonment, however this type of rage does not set in overnight.
Men walk out and move on, make new kids, leave the ‘old’ ones behind or see them every other weekend. Sure there are exceptions but this is and has been the norm for years. I would go as far as saying it’s genetic.
[Daphne – It is indeed biology. It is also the reason Maltese has an ancient word for mother – the Arabic ‘omm’ – but no word for father, except for a corruption of the French ‘monsieur’. Mother was the local girl who stayed. Daddy was some guy who came and left – and probably never came again.]
Is there some way how I can contact you?
[Daphne – You can do so here, marking your comment ‘not for publication’, or you can send an email to [email protected]]
Forget Peppi.
He is an imbecile. He just does not have a clue because of his obvious limitations. He is a charlatan.
I have been indirectly involved in these dramatic situations for close to half a century.
I am greatly impressed by the large number of valid contributions to a highly sensitive topic.
Daphne’s retorts are of the first order although I would beg to differ on a few points.
I am, nonetheless, encouraged that that there are still many upright Maltese around.
It will be an uphill battle. It will be worthwhile and ,one day, it will bear fruit. That day I will not see.
This is the blog of hope and so it should remain.
I sympathise with the father who might have been jailed in vain. Remember he is still guilty until proved otherwise.
But I ask anybody to put himself in the shoes of the mother. She was left alone to care for their children. In the meantime he was living happily with his partner and her daughter and later with their child. It is not easy.
I pity the woman who thought that under those circumstances the only way out to satisfy herself was by brainwashing her daughter. It is horrendous to make your daughter take a false oath against her father, but maybe she was under great emotional and psychological stress. I do not blame her.