Boys testify via video in rape case

Two teenage brothers yesterday testified through video conferencing and told a court how they had been repeatedly raped and abused by two adult brothers.

A television in the court room showed the boys, who testified one at a time, in their school uniforms, and sitting near Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono on a brown sofa in a room nearby.

The judge's assistant, a woman, was also present to ensure the boys felt safe.

The two boys gave evidence in the trial by the bench in which Denis Pandolfino, 58, and his brother Anthony, 63, are pleading not guilty to raping and defiling them on and before 2002, that is, when the boys were 10 and 11 years old.

The Pandolfinos are also charged with holding the boys against their will and the illegal possession of pornographic material.

During Tuesday's sitting, the defence and the prosecution debated at length over how the boys would give evidence. The prosecution called on the court to apply a recent amendment that allowed the evidence given by the boys, when they testified through video conferencing in the Magistrates' Court, to be used as evidence. This was to ensure they did not relive a trauma.

The defence insisted, however, on the possibility of cross-examining the witnesses. The court ruled that it needed to find a balance between the interests of the minors and the accused, who have a right to a fair trial.

The judge ordered that all the evidence they gave in the magistrates' court, as recorded and transcribed, be taken as evidence at this stage without being repeated. He, however, allowed the defence to cross-examine the minors and the prosecution to re-examine accordingly during the trial.

The eldest boy was the first to testify. He said he had lived with Anthony Pandolfino for three or four years during which he was raped and abused every day.

He denied ever initiating contact but it was Anthony Pandolfino who went to him, on a sofa bed and started touching him.

"I put up with it because I feared he may kill me," he said.

When faced with his previous testimony, in which he said he had been raped about four times, he said he could not imagine how he could have said that. "I'm sure it was every day," he said.

The boy said Anthony Pandolfino told him to call him "papa". He also encouraged him to study and bought clothes for him.

Anthony Pandolfino, he said, also bought him PlayStation games and told him he was buying them so he would allow him to touch him.

He explained how he never told anyone about what was going on because Anthony Pandolfino used to threaten to kill him.

The boy also recalled four occasions when Denis Pandolfino had gone to their house and abused him in his room when Anthony Pandolfino was out. On another two occasions, when he went to Denis Pandolfino's house, he (Denis) raped him.

"He did the same to my brother but I did not live there. I saw Denis push my brother's head down and do the same to him. But I left."

"I didn't speak up because I was scared... Then my brother could not take it anymore and told my mother what was happening to both of us. I still did not tell anyone but I spoke to my brother about what was happening."

He said that both Pandolfinos showed him pornographic images and sometimes he and his brother viewed the pictures alone.

The boy's younger brother then followed him into the room and told the judge how he spent a couple of weekends at Denis Pandolfino's house and, on one occasion, he spent about 10 days with him because his mother went abroad.

The 14-year-old added that, when he spent the weekends at Denis Pandolfino's house, he was raped every night.

"I never tried to escape because I didn't know what was happening at the time," he said.

The teenager said Denis Pandolfino even took photographs of him naked with his web cam.

He said his elder brother told him that he too had been raped. On one occasion, he said, he had seen Anthony Pandolfino rape his brother.

"My brother knew I was watching because he looked at me straight in the eyes," the boy said.

Assistant Attorney General Anthony Barbara is prosecuting.

Lawyer Joseph Mifsud is representing Denis Pandolfino while lawyer Joseph Giglio is appearing for Anthony Pandolfino.