Waylon Johnston
Cleared of raping ex-girlfriend
The former boyfriend of a 16-year-old girl has been cleared of raping her after she admitted to the police that the sex was consensual.
The girl had testified that her former boyfriend, an 18-year-old, had raped her at his Burmarrad flat after they both left Valletta on a bus in February 2006.
In handing down judgment, Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani said that "a crucial point in the case is that she admitted to the police that the sex was consensual and was worried that criminal action would be taken against him". The court said it was of the opinion that "she changed her version of events because she was scared of her parents".
But besides this very important point, the court noted that her testimony practically did not make any sense. The girl had said that she was taken to the man's apartment where he forced himself upon her after locking the door from the inside. However, court experts said the door only had a lock outside.
Moreover, the court noted that in the girl's testimony "there was a total lack of emotion" and it was as if she was recounting the incident in a parrot-like fashion.
The court ruled that it could only find the accused guilty of defilement, handing down a one-year jail term suspended for two.
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R Caruana
May 3rd 2009, 10:00
bill milliam
you would be surprised how much 16 year olds are already sexually active all around the world..including los angles.. i really doubt that a 16 year old girl is stupid enough to walk in her boyfriends empty apartment without knowlage of what is going to happen next..
the 18 year old after all is a teenager himselve and im sure they both knew very well what they were up to.. although im sure her parents would have prefared to think otherwise
i think that parents need to be more aware of what is gong on in their teenagers lives. its not a question of bad parenting either as most of the time your teenagers sex life would not have anything to do with that either as at that age it is only natural to want to experience .. i believe its a matter of sexual awareness which sadly enough we do not have a proper education behind this in our schools..
Joseph Schembri
May 3rd 2009, 09:04
@Bill Millam: from other comments that you have posted you make it clear that you are not a young gentleman. Don't you see the irony of what you wrote below. You could have nipped into a Maltese village Mayor's office or into the nearest church and got wedded to this same 16 year old female... and then you would have been allowed to do anything with each other with no ifs and buts (I will spare you the stupid puns).
And now you are saying that it is statuary rape (even if both consented to the act) for an 18 year old to have sex with a 16 year old. Are you living in the real world? Did you never do anything more with a girl under 18 than just hold hands when you were 18?
Our laws need to be changed! They are making criminals out of decent folks!
Bill Millam
May 3rd 2009, 06:41
A 16-YEAR OLD IS STILL A MINOR, NO IFS AND/OR BUTTS ABOUT IT! (pun intended)
THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A CASE OF STATUTAORY RAPE IMMATERIAL IF THERE WAS CONSENSUS OR NOT!
Another unbelievable twist of the interpretation of the law in Malta!
Bill Millam
Los Angeles
Joseph Schembri
May 2nd 2009, 11:45
In other articles it was simply stated that the man was cleared. Now I read that he was found guilty of defilement. It is not the magistrate's fault. It is our schizophrenic legislation: A man of 60 can marry and make babies with a woman of 16 - very legally in Malta. But if she has sex with her 18 year old boyfriend as happened here - the man is found guilty of defilement (and corruption of minors etc)
We need to lower our age of consent to be in line with the rest of Europe so that it is at least 16 (it is lower in most other European states). This schizophrenic law is making criminals out of perfectly decent people and labelling them as paedophiles for life. When are our legislators going to address this anomaly in our legislation?