I refer to the various articles that have appeared in your newspapers over the past weeks relating to the custody case of my son and the subsequent publicised perjury proceedings.

While several motives have been attributed to me, it seems that very few in the media want to understand that my only motivation is the protection and well being of my son. I am just a father doing everything possible for my son’s sake. In this effort I have employed all the legal means available for the truth to come out and to try to obtain justice from the Courts, which unfortunately are in effect deciding the fate of my son’s life till he reaches adulthood.

For the last three years and nine months, I have done all I could through the Courts to prevent my son from being permanently relocated to the UK by his mother. Essentially, all my efforts are with the aim of preventing my son from growing up fatherless – for all practical purposes. Despite the fact that as a father I am in a position to dedicate whatever time necessary to his upbringing and to give him the guidance, support and nurturing every child deserves, the request before the Courts is for him to be cut off from me, and my side of his extended family. This threat has been and remains my continuous martyrdom – a similar martyrdom that anybody who has a serious pending court decision goes through.

Over the last several weeks there have been a multitude of false accusations about me in the media, particularly about what happened in the weeks after my son’s birth. Since these accusations were just a rehash of the falsehoods and half-truths used in the custody case, all of which I had already resolutely replied to and negated with documented proof, I choose not to reply in the media, except to state that I always protected my son.

My experience is a case in point of how all sorts of lies, bent procedures, and rationalizations are used to grind down anybody who dares speak the truth to power, rather than be quiet and fade away. Separately, while my lawyers and I have made many attempts (several in writing) to reach a compromise with the other party – even on simple issues, I have never received a single reply – and for this I’m blamed and maligned as uncompromising.

I am positive about everything that has to do with the proper upbringing of my son. However, I cannot but be pessimistic about most of the decision-making system since I have several negative experiences of such an unjust process – as many other fathers have also experienced to varying degrees.

I have always acted in my son’s best interests and in the time I spend with him I continue to give him all the fatherly love and care possible. I will go on prioritising my son’s upbringing with my time and utmost effort. Should my son be unjustly uprooted from his birthplace and taken away from me, maybe one day he’ll know that his father took every legal step available to avoid him being detrimentally and unnecessarily relocated to another country.

Anthony Xuereb

GHAJNSIELEM