A man has been has been jailed after admitting to raping a woman’s sons while she was fighting cancer.

Lawrence Micallef, 59, faced seven charges, including rape and sexual abuse against three people - two boys who were brothers, one of whom was a minor, and one girl who was a minor.

Back in 2009, the accused began a relationship with a woman who had two boys, whose names are not published by court order.  Micallef’s relationship with the woman lasted ten years, until 2019, the court judgement reads.

The court heard that one of the boys was sexually abused by the accused repeatedly between the years of 9 and 12. In one week, the abuse occurred nearly daily, so much so that the minor couldn’t count the number of times it happened, the judgement reads. The accused would on occasion ask him to help him with something, for example cooking, and when the child would go, the accused would sexually abuse him, the charges read.

The boy’s abuse started when he was 9 years old, the court heard. One time when he entered the kitchen in the home where he resided with his mother and big brother, he found his older brother on his knees in a sexual act with the accused. When seeing this, the boy ran away shocked. When the boy spoke to his older brother about the incident, his big brother said that he (the older brother) couldn’t do anything about it as the accused used to threaten him that if he spoke, the accused would throw him off Ghar Hasan.

The younger boy then confronted Micallef (the accused) and asked what his brother was doing, and the accused told him he would show him, and performed oral sex on the minor.

The abuse continued for around three years, the charges read, until the boy was 12 in 2019.

This took place while Micallef was meant to be taking care of the minor while his mother would be recovering in bed and was unable to go outside or walk due to numerous serious operations she had undertaken during those years, even as she was being given chemotherapy for cancer, among other health problems she had, the court judgement read. The charges read that the reason the minor never spoke to his mother about what he was passing through was as the accused use dot threaten him that if he told his mother, the accused would end up in jail, and that he would end up in an institute and his mother would end up in a grave, dying of worry.

The charges read that the woman's younger son had told her in January 2019 that the accused had been sexually abusing him. 

The charges read that the younger brother wasn’t the only one who was raped.

The accused was also charged with raping the young boy's older brother. The situation began in 2016 when he was 18 or 19 years old. He had gone to the accused to ask for advice on how he should go with a girl as it was something he didn’t have experience with. At that point, the charges read, the accused revealed his genitals and told the youth to perform oral sex on him in order to show him how things are done. The charges read that the accused would use threats to stop the youth from speaking with his mother about what was happening, and that the accused had threatened to throw him off of Ghar Hasan if he revealed what the accused was doing to him. The charges read that the youth never revealed what happened to his mother because of the health problems she had, aside from the accused’s threats. “Many a time the rape happened in the house where the youth used to live with his mother and where the accused spent a lot of time as the youth’s mother was not well.”

This used to happen frequently, even at times every day.

The accused was also charged with sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl in 2018. It is not clear whether the girl is related to the two boys or not. The judgement reads that on an occasion the man had picked her up from school as her mother couldn’t as she was in hospital, and he parked somewhere. He asked her if she wanted to do something adults do, to which she said not, the charges read. The accused asked her to drop her tracksuit trousers she was wearing. It read that they were in a secluded location on their own, and she obeyed as she felt she had not choice, the charges read. When she did so, the accused performed a non-consensual act. He had warned her that if she spoke, they both would end up in jail for life.

The accused admitted to the charges before a jury trial began, and the court took into consideration that the defence and the prosecution agreed on the penalty that should be given. The court condemned the accused to a period of 12-years in prison.