Students on a school trip in Gozo last Monday were pestered by a man who literally “would not go away” unless these 10-year-olds bought some souvenir, parents told The Malta Independent yesterday.

The students were taken on a day trip to Gozo and one of their stops was at Dwejra. There they were approached by an elderly man who kept urging them to buy his wares.

In spite of the students’ refusal to comply, the man kept urging them to buy, so much so that some of the students conceded “just for him to move off”, the parents said.

The items bought included snapshots of Gozo, and cost a few euros, although the children said the man was giving a different price to each and every one of them for the same item.

Apparently, it must have been a lean day in terms of tourists visiting Dwejra, and the man found the presence of the children convenient, the parents commented.

The parents said that the authorities in Gozo should make sure that no such thing continues to happen. “The children felt intimidated, even afraid,” one parent said.

Asked whether the teachers accompanying the students did anything to control the situation, the parents said that the man was keeping his distance from adults, and approached children who were “not with the main group”.