Man acquitted of defiling his former girlfriend’s nieces after testimony puts their claim in doubt

A court has acquitted a man of defiling his girlfriend’s nieces after their testimony put their claim in serious doubt.

The man had been accused of defiling minors who had entrusted to his care, from 2009 to 2012 and participating in sexual activity with the children, who at the time were just four and five-years-old respectively.

The two girls had been 17 and 16 years of age when they testified before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit, telling the court that the alleged abuse by the defendant - who had been their aunt’s boyfriend at the time - would take place at their grandmother’s house in Marsa, where they would be dropped off after school before being collected by their father.

At the Marsa house, they said, the defendant would show the girls pornographic movies and encourage them to perform sex acts for his gratification, which they had detailed in court.

Afterwards, he would buy their silence with chocolates and read them stories, claimed the girls.

The elder child told the court that she had developed an anxiety disorder as a result.

But the girls’ accounts raised questions for magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit. “Although the defendant is accused of ugly and serious crimes, this court is not morally and legally convinced of the truthfulness of their story.”

The defendant had chosen to exercise his right not to testify in court, but the magistrate also had the opportunity to examine the statement he gave to the police in which he had said he was fed up living in the house due to the noisy children and the lack of privacy. The magistrate had also visited the house in person in order to verify claims about the property that had been raised by the defence.

The room in which the girls claimed that the abusive acts had taken place offered no privacy, lacking even a door, and was in the middle of a corridor often used by the house’s occupants. “These alleged acts would also take place, according to the children, while their grandfather, grandmother, mother and sometimes also an aunt would be present in the single-floor house.”

Court-appointed experts had also expressed doubts about the children’s claims and which they suspected to be false.

The court said that although no suspicion arose from the testimonies of the girls themselves, when their accounts were analysed together with the place and context in which the alleged acts took place, the claims took on a different dynamic.

Magistrate Stafrace Zammit said it was unlikely that the acts would have gone unnoticed in a living space that was occupied by several people.

Another aspect which worried the court was that none of the evidence showed that there had been any emotional impact on the children. “No sign of distress was detected by the designated experts nor any symptom of psychosis with delusions. From the testimony of the minor's mother, it emerged that she was never startled by anything that the minors could have been experiencing and even at school they continued to go on normally. That all the witnesses from the side of the Victims Support did not encounter any problem in their emotions either except for the one who had problems related to anxiety and panic attacks [which had emerged] after she had spoken out, but not before.”

The double entendre alleged to have been used by the man to describe his desired sex act was more likely to be a term used by the, now older, girls in their present peer group.

All these factors led the Court to state that it was not morally convinced that the events described by the girls had actually taken place in the manner they described.

“The Court must clarify that once it is not aware of where this story had originated from, it cannot incriminate any of the protagonists, however if it is the case that this was a story invented by the minors, it cannot condemn them, but can only hope that their parents and the people who are looking after their mental health, [also] take care of their well-being.”

Prosecutor Darlene Grima from the Office of the Attorney General assisted police inspectors Dorianne Tabone and Andy Rotin.

Lawyer Jason Grima assisted the man as defence counsel.