Desperate mother says justice system ‘has failed my boys’

A mother of two boys who have allegedly suffered cigarette burns administered by their father and estranged partner is struggling with the judicial system in her bid to secure a court order to block the man's access to her twin sons.

It had been Rita's* second visit to the Gzira health centre with her twin boys back in August, after they came back home saying they had got burnt watching fireworks.

As the nurse removed the bandage from Kyle's* hand, she scolded the mother for having removed the bandage after having previously instructed her not to expose the lesion for any reason.

Surprised, Rita and the nurse discovered what appeared to be two small burns that had not been noticed during the boys' first visit to the polyclinic. Protestations by Kyle that the burns were mosquito bites failed to convince the attending nurse, who called in a doctor to examine the injuries of Kyle and his brother Liam*.

"These are not mosquito bites. These are cigarette burns," the doctor declared, as she examined eight separate burns on their hands, fingers, legs and beneath the chest.

None of the boys were forthcoming with what had led to the burns, until the doctor decided to speak to them individually: Liam then admitted that they had been at the St Julian's feast with their father - who separated from their mother when they were still ten-month-old toddlers - and their uncle and another acquaintance.

With a medical report in hand, Rita made her way to the nearest police station in Sliema, to file a complaint.

Two police sergeants - who would later testify in court - interviewed the twins separately.

The police report dated 26 August 2012, seen by MaltaToday, states that both boys were evasive about the incident, insisting they had been injured by fireworks. "They were scared about being in the police station," the reporting officer noted, who said the boys starting easing up when the officers tried to lighten up the tense situation.

It was at that point that Liam admitted that his uncle had put out the cigarette on his hand, although he could not remember exactly how he got the burn on his stomach. "Kyle on the other hand kept insisting that it was the fireworks that hurt him. But then Liam told him to tell the truth."

At this point Rita's battle to protect her children started, but all she faced were walls of silence, weeks of waiting and accumulating legal fees.

On 29 August, the courts upheld her writ to deny her unmarried partner access to his children.

"The kids didn't want to see their father. They were scared and I was refusing to let him get anywhere near my boys," a visibly emotional Rita told MaltaToday this week, as she showed this newspaper pictures of the burns.

"Can you imagine your son telling you that his father held up his shirt while another one burned him?"

But bureaucratic hurdles and a lack of cooperation from a corresponding police station - the St Julian's police station, which had to take cognisance of the incident since it happened at Spinola Bay - has now led to the reversal of the court order.

Rita spent 10 weeks seeking an appointment with a St Julian's police inspector to inquire on the investigation into the incident, which were crucial to secure a referral to national welfare agency Appogg and its social workers, and as evidence for her court application.

"I spent 10 weeks coming and going to the police station in the hope of finally setting up a meeting with the police inspector. But each time I was either told he was away, that he was in a meeting, that he was on sick leave or that I have to first set an appointment," Rita said.

"When I finally couldn't take it any more, I started shouting that I needed to see him. I demanded that they check his roster. For some reason, every time I said it was about the twins' case they would just shut up and try to get rid of me."

When she finally got hold of Police Inspector Luke Bonello, the officer told her that her case could take up to two years to be handled.

In the meantime, three weeks after having filed her first report at the Sliema police station, she sought the intervention of social workers from Appogg - but a report from the St Julian's police station had not even reached the office.

"The social workers I spoke to said he had 22 other similar cases. When the social workers finally got to interview the children, the boys reiterated that it was their uncle and his friend who hurt them while at the feast with their father. They stood firm by their statements even when the social workers visited them at school just two weeks ago."

Rita made her plight known in correspondence she mailed to the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and the Commissioner of Police - but perhaps as expected from these high officials of the State, she never got a reply to her desperate plea.

Rita also said that, as far as she knew, so far no police charges have been filed against the acquaintances who allegedly committed the act.

When the judicial hearing into the case started on 19 September before Judge Robert Mangion, witnesses such as the Gzira clinic's doctor who spoke to the children and the Sliema police sergeants who interviewed them, failed to convince the judge for the need to revoke access to the father.

"From what the Court has seen so far, both parents love their children," the court sentence seen by MaltaToday read.

According to the judge, while the injuries were shown to be compatible with that of a burn, "the evidence presented [was] not enough" and that the court was not in a position to conclude whether the injuries were incurred while the boys were with the father or the mother.

"As things happened, the minors did suffer because of these burns. The children could have been close to the fireworks when they were with their father, or third parties who were smoking, or even their mother who is a smoker," the judge concluded.

But Mangion said the court was not convinced that the injuries could have been "intentionally perpetrated by any one of the parents, or that they instigated the act".

"What the court has seen so far is parents who love their children," Mangion said, ruling that it was not in the children's interest to stop their father from seeing them.

The case has now been deferred to November, but by court order, the father must now take the boys to a health centre when picking them up and before taking them home.

"I cannot understand the court's decision, because the children spoke with the doctor, with the police and with the children's lawyer appointed by the court. If they had any doubts that I could have hurt them, why didn't they do anything?" Rita asked.

"The father now has access to the boys as if nothing ever happened. And I cannot stop him from seeing them otherwise I will end up in jail. Is this how the justice system in our country protects our children? They are just kids... how can they defend themselves?"

*Fictitious names were used to protect the identity of the children.