From Dr A. Vassallo MP

I will be the first MP to applaud your columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia who wrote with courage and civic spirit about “the case of three teachers in Gozo who had a sex racket going on with two school girls”. One of them was charged with defiling a 16-year-old girl and walked out of the courtroom with a “two-year jail term suspended for three years.” (Daphne has reported that the police appealed against this suspended sentence). A second teacher, similarly charged, was imprisoned for three years and has since appealed. A third person involved in the same case is being prosecuted separately, and proceedings seem to be on going.

Quite rightly, this case has agitated public opinion. For reasons which I cannot fathom, but which deserve close examination, the media did not reflect public reaction. I, for one, wrote to The Times on 30 April on the issue of crime and justice but my talking point was suppressed.

I queried whether it is the mesmerising ability of the legal profession, or the casuistry of judicial wizards that is producing some mind-boggling results. I suggested that there is clear need for a sentencing policy, not only to protect society from crime, but also to equate justice with equity.

It does not add up that when people charged with a serious crime are given suspended sentences while others, particularly foreigners, are convicted for lesser sentences.

Daphne has indiscriminately criticised “public persons and politicians” for their silence on the matter and claimed that, except for her own intervention in your paper “there has been no similar expressions of outrage and calls for harsh punishment” of the criminals concerned.

If you will allow me to put the matter in perspective, I have spoken in Parliament on this general topic on several occasions.

As long ago as 10 July 2001, I spoke at length and in some detail on this topic with special reference to suspended sentences, probation orders, child abuse, rape, hold-ups and punishment for serious crimes.

My wake up call was like a call in the wilderness. There was no reaction worth mentioning from the media, least of all from Daphne, either then or since.

Adrian Vassallo