The wife of a man who has been missing for almost three weeks cannot believe the living nightmare she has endured since his disappearance. Phyllis Stewart describes her 59-year-old husband Thomas as a gentle giant. "He wouldn't hurt a fly," she explains.

"My husband never suffered from any mental illness. I couldn't understand why he was taken to Mount Carmel hospital."

About two weeks before Thomas was taken to Mount Carmel, Phyllis could notice that her husband was not getting any sleep. Thomas is mentally healthy, the wife claims, he only suffers from diabetes.

"I remember one day we had a plumbing problem in our bathroom. It was nothing big but somehow, this affected him a lot. I couldn't understand why he was having such a reaction. I told him, for God's sake, get a grip. Things happen, we'll fix this."

Sleepless nights

At first, Thomas did not want to go to the doctor. But after three sleepless nights, he decided to head to see a doctor immediately. "We were sitting in the living room and the next thing I know, I see Thomas leave, saying he was off to the doctor. He was already out the door, I couldn't stop him."

Thomas went to see a doctor in Balzan. The doctor gave him some sleeping pills.

"Some time later that day, I received a phone call from a doctor. The lady on the phone simply told me to come down to the clinic and that they were getting a taxi to drive me to hospital. I asked why and they told me that my husband was feeling like killing himself. Now I know that he might have said that. But I know my husband, and I'm sure he wasn't going to do it."

"The person on the phone told me we were going to hospital. She never told me that we were heading to Mount Carmel. She just bundled us into this taxi. We used to live in Attard, so I realized that we were going to Mount Carmel."

Once at Mount Carmel, they found a doctor waiting for them.

 "This first thing I told them is that I believed it was medical, not mental. I told them that if they control his diabetes, he will be just fine. I'm not a doctor but I know the way he is."

No reason given for him being committed at Mount Carmel

In the next 48 hours, no one from Mount Carmel gave Phyllis a reason why he was being kept in a mental hospital.

Two days later, she went to visit her husband and Thomas wanted to go out in the garden. "It was a nice day and I said, ok let's head out the garden. There were no nurses there. We sat there and chatted."

Phyllis said she could see him agitated and told her he couldn't stay in there any longer. "I told him I'll go speak to them and see if I can bring him back home. But he kept insisting that they won't let him leave."

The wife explained that a nurse had told her husband that they could not let him go because he said he might take his life.

'He just climbed a tree and jumped over the wall'

"So he was agitated walking up and down, looking at the trees. The next thing I know, he jumps on to this tree and he was over the wall. That was it. That was the last time I saw my husband."

"I tried to stop him. But he is six foot tall and he scrambled over the wall. I immediately went inside to let someone know, but there was nobody there. I started to shout and eventually some six nurses came to look for him and one particular nurse went up on another building for a better view. All this was in a matter of five or ten minutes the most."

Thomas did not let his wife know where he was going.

They later told me I could have taken him home

Later, she was speaking with a head nurse who told her that it was no true that they wouldn't let him go. They informed her about this a little too late. "He told me that if I had signed the papers, I could have taken him back home."

"They also said I was his personal carer. Nobody told me that and there were no nurses in the garden. They even said Thomas was a threat to himself and other people. But that is an absolute lie. My husband is a gentle giant. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

Phyllis did not sleep for two nights. She sat on the sofa hoping that her husband would return. A nurse who came to see her said they must report the event to the police so they search for the man. A report was filed, but the police never approached her during the investigation. "I always had to phone them. They never called me. I think it's logical that the first person they need to speak to, is the wife of the missing man."

Thomas has been missing for almost three weeks. The police have never interviewed her.

"I called the British Embassy to see how they can help, because the police here were not keeping contact with me. I got a contact of a police inspector and asked to meet him. He told me we had to go and speak to them in Floriana. So my daughter went."

'I don't really have faith in the police'

She informed the police where she thinks her husband was and the police told her they had searched these particular places but with little success. "I'm sorry, I don't really have faith in them. Some days ago they rang me to get a pair of his shoes so that the dogs could smell it during the search. They conducted the search but at no point did they call to inform me of any progress."

 "I am convinced that if they had taken to Mater Dei instead of that horrible place where all they did was give him pills, Thomas would have felt better."

'Mount Carmel is a grim, horrible place'

She described Mount Carmel as a horrible, grim place. "There's absolutely nothing nice about that place. The furniture is old and horrible. The Maltese government should close down that place and open a new decent place. People might have something wrong in their head but they should still be treated with dignity."

She said that Thomas was spotted at least twice in Attard and that is why Phyllis looks for him in this area but with no success. They even looked in hospitals.

"I am more shocked than anybody. Everyone who knows him can't believe that he's gone."

To cope with terrible nightmare, Phyllis keeps a diary in which she writes the eventds as they unfold. Hoping that by the end of the piled up pages, she can write about that one time they manged to find Thomas.

Thomas Stewart has been missing for almost three weeks. The father of two will be turning 60 next month.