Elderly man gets jail for sexual acts with boy, 17

joseph schembri

Oct 26th 2009, 22:15

@ Joe Xuereb. there is no one to rehabilitate or 'advised' here. Consensual relationships are a private deal between individuals. The state should not in any way interfere.

Like you I agree that paying for sex is off putting. But that is just my personal opinion. For all I know some people might enjoy it and who are you and I to regulate what other people enjoy or don't?

joseph schembri

Oct 26th 2009, 22:10

@claire farrugia: Prostitution is not illegal in Malta. Soliciting or living off the proceeds of such is. So the boy (sic) is the guilty party here.

My and many of the commentators point is not about legality though but about what OUGHT to or not to be. What are you waiting for Dr. Carm? Many lawyers in your cabinet want to lower the ridiculously high age of consent (highest in the Europe) and stop seeing vendetta style cases in our law courts.

In this case imprisoning an elderly man for having consensual sex is simply reprehensible.

Joe Xuereb

Oct 25th 2009, 02:05

This has homophobia written all over it. The boy should be rehabilitated and the elderly homosexual - not paedophile - be sent home. Having been advised that paying for sex is undignified and cancels the experience. Hopefully he will learn that the predatory sexually confused are best avoided.
I understand that these shenanigans happen all over Malta. Prostitution, the lot! Yet a man who campaigned against the exploitation of people for sexual purposes was robustly apprehended and possibly worse. It seems Malta must have sacrificial lambs. It finds it in a silly older man. Possibly corrupted by a 15?16?17? year-old teenager who already knows the 'delights' of filthy lucre.

Doreen Camilleri

Oct 24th 2009, 08:42

i really can't believe what i am reading!! It does not matter whether the minor consented or otherwise, or whether he has had sexual experiences or otherwise.....!! the fact remains that, strictly speaking this is considered rape since the minor is just that - a minor!! and the other person is an adult - who should know better and act like one!

claire farrugia

Oct 24th 2009, 08:36

@joseph schembri
going to get the services of a prostitute is still illegal in Malta, so not only the age of consent is important but the fact that this man went to a prostitute and paid for the services he received is already illegal and can be punished by law, even more so if the prostitute was under 18. both prostitutes and people going to them are doing something illegal in Malta, irrespective of their age as far as I know

M Pace

Oct 24th 2009, 08:30

More than anything the convicted man should have had better judgement. I agree the law is anachronistic and the legal age for consensual sex should be sixteen, but the law is the law and one should not play with fire. My heart goes out to both the young boy and Mr Ugo, they are both victims. The young man (he is not a child) is clearly a victim, but not Mr D'Ugo's victim. No one should be prostituting him/herself at the tender age of 16-17. Sending Mr D'Ugo to jail for one year and publishing his name all over the newspapers is not going to help the young boy in any way. The only thing it is going to do is make Mr D'Ugo's life very, very difficult. Our legal system has turned him into a victim. If we had to jail all the heterosexual men who lust after and have sex with sixteen-year old girls we'd have to think of building an extension to Corradino.

Joseph Schembri

Oct 24th 2009, 03:00

tonio bone: you make many assumptions for one who says that you know nothing of the case. You also make the important assumption that 'something must have been wrong'. I disagree. This was a private matter between two sexually experienced and consenting persons. The police or anybody else should not have had anything to do with what happened.

I have often written about cases where our liberties and freedoms are being eaten away. This case highlights the amount of state interference in the private lives of citizens.

Tonio Bone

Oct 23rd 2009, 18:15

I have already written and repeat that in my view giving an assessment of this sentence without knowing the merit of the case is wrong.
I cannot however come to terms with what seems to be a fierce defence point being made by Joseph Schembri. There must have been some wrong done here. Don't you think?
I am sure the court took into consideration all aspects of the case and that there were also psychological evaluations of offender and victim.
The accused has appealed, so the story does not end here.

Joseph Schembri

Oct 23rd 2009, 17:28

This case has a parallel in England where a married man was sentenced to two years imprisonment for 'lewd' acts with young male prostitutes.

The name of the man was Oscar Wilde and the case happened over one hundred years ago in Victorian England.

Oscar Wilde, had to escape to more liberal France even after he served his cruel sentence. He is buried there now where thousands of fans visit his Parisian grave every year. The English bow their heads in shame at what their 'justice' system did to this genius. I am sure that in the not too distant future the Maltese judiciary and legislators will blush in shame at the sentence handed out to this Maltese elderly man.

I wait in hope that the appeal that he files will see the asinine laws repealed. The Hon Franco Debono nationalist MP has been entrusted by our prime minister to look into our laws. I am sure that this bright politician and lawyer will make his voice heard on such unjust laws.

Meanwhile I hope that the 62 year old man is not in prison already.

Andrew Agius

Oct 23rd 2009, 12:42

If the police want to deter underage sex they could arrest dozens of people in Paceville every night - on the streets or the beach!
If they want to deter prostitution they need only send a big van to two or three streets in Gzira - everyone can see where.
They don't seem to bother....

Joseph Schembri

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:47

falzon: "If the age of consent was 16years, like in the rest of civilized europe, the victim, Gilbert D'ugo, would not be in jail, and the boy..cis..would be charged with prostitution."I could not agree more with you. We are now living in the age of the dictatorship of the young. Agencies and their employees are paid out of my money to rout out cases of 'abuse' and they prove their 'success' by sending victims to jail. That way they secure more funding. This is the same scenario that started in North American states a couple of decades ago where there was a perverse reversal of the victim - abuser role. Thousands of cases of 'abuse' by older people on younger ones were 'discovered' and harmless people pictured as monsters when in fact the monsters were the younger people.

When will people in their ivory towers realise that very young children are often wicked and it is only through education and conditioning that the wickedness is often controlled. Don't many older people remember all the cheating, lying and back stabbing when they were children? The average adult is usually a much nicer person than the average kid.

Ramon Casha

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:38

@Joe Cordina: The article lists the accusation as "sexual acts with a 17-year-old boy". That is the age of the minor when the alleged crime took place, not his age now.

Joseph Schembri

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:21

In Malta people can marry and make babies at the age of 16. But the law says that having sex with anyone under 18 is illegal. Now tell me if that is not one case of the law being an ass?

I have an inkling that the older man in this case was given a prison sentence because this was a homosexual act. If he can prove that this is the case he has good grounds for demolishing the verdict in local and if need be in European courts of human rights.

@cordina: people in Malta may apply to join the army when they are still under 18. They may not officially be soldiers at 17 but they'd still be receiving training and in theory, legally use weapons to kill another person.

Anthony Falzon

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:19

If the age of consent was 16years, like in the rest of civiliced europe, the victim, Gilbert D'ugo, would not be in jail, and the boy..cis..would be charged with prostitution.

Joseph Schembri

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:12

What people fail to realise is that all this happened because it happened in Malta. Had the two same men done it in ANY other European country it would have been perfectly legal.

There is also an other point that is being missed... the old tenet in law that says that one cannot corrupt that which is already corrupt.

In any case I applaud the decision to appeal.

o. Galea

Oct 23rd 2009, 10:11

without going into the lewdness of this matter.... the
“several sexual experiences preceding this case” and the "sex against payment".... sounds like the 17yr old is a male prostitute.....
i could be wrong of course.... But this case does set a precedent for clients of young male/female prostitutes !

Tonio Bone

Oct 23rd 2009, 09:49

@ Joseph Schembri
We do not know all the details and implications of the case so commenting on judgement given may be unobjective. We do not know when these acts started hence the boy might have been a minor at the time. Again this is pure theory as we do not know the merit of the case.
I hope that this sentence may somehow be a deterrent for current and future offenders and that they may be uncovered, which is, in my view, the worse punishement they can received: publicity. Also we do not know the history of this 17 year old!
The offender has appealed so this does not finish here!

Joe Cordina

Oct 23rd 2009, 09:45

@Schembri

Please note : "The sexual acts took place at least 10 times in 2008 and in previous years." this means that the boy was younger than 17 when all this started. Moreover you do not know whether the acts instigated by the perpetrator was in fact the driving force behing the kid becoming a prostitute if this was the case at all. It is also to be noted that the 17 year old defiled turned defiler as is quite frequently the case. On antoher note, one can join the army at 18 not 17. 18 is the legal adult age immeterial of at what age one could marry

Joseph Schembri

Oct 23rd 2009, 09:20

This is not a case of paedophilia. At 17 years old a man in Malta can join the army, drink alcohol, and get married!

Lower the age of consent from the ridiculously high 18 that it is in Malta to at least 16 - which is the age at which people in Malta can legally get married and make babies.

The 62 year old should not be in prison for having had sex with another man... and one with previous sexual experience! Other sectors of the press have reported that the young man was in fact a 'prostitute' and that is what the Times tells us subtly when it reports that he exchanged sexual favours for payment.

If I were the older man I would challenge this shameful verdict on several constitutional and human rights points. I hope he does this.