Victims of sexual abuse should not report it to the Church, but should turn to the police or other professionals instead, Labour MP Ramona Attard has said, after the Bishop of Gozo announced that no canonical action would be taken against the priest who brokered a payment that led a family to withdraw a rape allegation against his relatives.

Attard's comments follow a statement by Bishop Anton Teuma, who said two investigations, including an independent one he had personally requested, had found no grounds for disciplinary action against the priest, despite concluding that he had improperly influenced the family into dropping the case.

Attard said she had read the full court judgment on the underlying case, from Nadur, which she described as shocking. The case concerned a girl who alleged she had been sexually abused for years by four men, with claims including that she had been locked in a car to be raped, none of which had been contested by the accused.

She said the girl's parents had turned for help to Fr Michael Said, a relative of two of the accused men, a detail she noted the Church had left out of its own statement. She said Bishop Teuma himself had now acknowledged that Fr Said had influenced the family into dropping the accusations. Under the law as it stood at the time, the case's success depended on the family's complaint being upheld; once the parents stopped insisting on pursuing the report, on the priest's advice, the court could not find guilt.

Eighteen years on, she said, the Bishop of Gozo had told the public that no canonical action would be taken against the priest, despite acknowledging that his intervention had not been wise and that he had influenced the family into dropping the accusations.

Attard questioned where the protection of minors stood in this, asking who could assure the public that the four men had not gone on to abuse other children in the years since, and what guarantee there was that the priest was no longer in a position where he might come into contact with minors facing similar trauma, who might now be afraid to speak to him given his record. She asked what message the Church was sending to other victims of sexual abuse who were still finding the courage to come forward.

She said her advice, following the bishop's comments, was clear: victims should not go to the Church to report abuse, but should turn to other professionals or to the police. She said she was offering her own help, in professional confidence, to anyone going through such trauma, for the sake of victims and of all children in Malta and Gozo, adding that anyone who sexually abuses a minor must be held accountable, must receive proper professional intervention and, above all, must be kept away from children.

The case first came to public attention in March, when a court judgment revealed that a Gozitan priest had acted as an intermediary in a 2008 settlement that saw a Nadur family paid €7,000 after alleging their 14-year-old daughter had been raped.