Just two days after the higher court awarded Pearl and Edwin Grech €420,000 in compensation for the death of their 15-year-old daughter Karin in a bomb explosion 33 years ago, Peter Ripard lost a leg and almost lost his life when a bomb was detonated at the Transport Authority offices.

For those of us who lived through the days when bombs were part of everyday life, this last one will have brought back dreadful memories of what things were like then. It reminded us how abnormal it was that we thought it normal. We’d hear a terrific explosion, say to each other “Oh, another bomb”, then try to get back to what we were doing after ringing around to find out who and where it was this time. It’s only fairly recently that we’ve come to react to explosions with “There goes another fireworks factory”.

I’ve been wondering what sort of person takes the trouble to make or commission a bomb, lower it outside somebody’s office, then wait patiently with his hand on the other end of a piece of string to detonate it. I can see what might motivate a person to carry out other sorts of crimes, but this? It’s beyond comprehension.

What could the Transport Authority possibly have done that warranted going to all that trouble, with the attendant risk of imprisonment for life, and the knowledge that you might kill or main somebody other than your actual target, as in fact happened this time as it did with Karin Grech? Worse still is the thought that this person didn’t particularly care who he killed or maimed as long as he killed or maimed somebody at the office where he sought his revenge. The violence is extraordinary. There are more sociopaths around than we imagine.

I am glad that Pearl and Edwin Grech won that compensation. I know what he means when he says that it is not about the money. It is about public and concrete acknowledgement of their suffering. It helps them reach some form of closure, even if only tenuous, because the real closure they want is probably now permanently out of reach: finding the person who sent that parcel-bomb to their home and killed the daughter instead of the father.

Barring some kind of death-bed confession, it is unlikely that the police will ever be able to track down the murderer, and even if they identify him (odd but I take it for granted that it’s a man) they will not be able to prove that he did it, and with a jury trial that’s essential because you need certainty for a conviction.

I only hope that if there is just such a death-bed confession, and let’s not forget that 33 years on the man who did it might well have died already, the priest who is the recipient of such horror weighs the matter up with his conscience and decides that it would be by far the greater wrong to leave the girl’s parents in hell than to break the covenant of secrecy in confession, particularly when the criminal is no longer alive, and especially when regret for what one has done is a prerequisite for pardon in the sacrament.

It is easy to dismiss such thinking as facile and the possibility as far-fetched, but I cannot forget how a man rang the Bonello household (they used to run Bonello’s kiosk at the Sliema ferries, when I was a child) shortly after dawn and, while refusing to say who he was, told Mr Bonello: “Patrick Holland died last night. He wanted you to know how sorry he is for what he did to you.” Patrick Holland, when he was minister for trade under prime minister Mintoff, had rescinded their licence to run the kiosk, a mainstay of Sliema life, and had given it to Joe Pace, who then went on to build and run Magic Kiosk. The Bonellos were left destitute and desperate in those days when there were simply no jobs, and they had to be supported by friends for a time. But Holland knew that he had done much worse than remove their source of income. He had destroyed their identity, their sense of self, and their peace of mind.

I hope that the Attorney-General will not appeal against the decision to award that much money to the Grechs. The government had offered an ex gratia payment of around half that amount, but the Grechs thought it wasn’t anywhere near enough, and that’s why they sued. I had a complex reaction to their decision at the time. I could see why they thought accepting it would be like placing a low price on their daughter’s life, but then, how can you place any price at all on your daughter’s life? How can you say that €220,000 are not enough, but €420,000 are acceptable?

If it is really not about the money, and if they do not want this to be a mercenary valuation of what their daughter was worth (horrible thought), Pearl and Edwin Grech would be wise and correct to use that capital sum, when it eventually comes to them and it might be years yet, to endow a foundation to help under-privileged children, in Karin’s name. There could be no better way of perpetuating her memory positively.

As for Peter Ripard, I trust that the government will do the decent thing and, though no amount of money can ever make up for the loss of a leg, give him the compensation he deserves. He is not the sort of man to sue for what he thinks he is owed, and it would be immoral to take advantage of that.

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