Treatment for man who defiled seven children

A 51-year-old Gozitan psychiatric patient who defiled six boys and a girl was sent to Mount Carmel Hospital after a court ruled he was insane at the time the crimes were committed.

The man, who is not being mentioned to protect his identity, had already spent time in a psychiatric hospital in 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, psychiatrist Joseph Spiteri had testified.

He said the man lived in a delusional state also related to recollections of the abuse he suffered when he was a child.

Dr Spiteri, who has been looking after the man for the past two years, said the patient openly admitted he had frequent sexual relationships with children and young people and that he was satisfied with such encounters. However, the psychiatrist said the urge to do such things was conditioned by his mental disturbance in the sense that, although he had paedophilic tendencies, he reacted on the basis of delusions and mental problems, he had.

“It is clear his mental state is affecting his sexual ideas,” Dr Spiteri said, adding the man required constant and intense therapy, which, if stopped, could result in a relapse.

When the crimes were committed, the man was suffering from acute mental illness, Dr Spiteri noted.

Magistrate Edwina Grima said it was evident the man’s sexual instinct was based on his delusions and was not aware that what he was doing was bad.

Taking the evidence of the psychiatrist into consideration, the court ordered the man be kept in Mount Carmel indefinitely under the care of Dr Spiteri.