I t’s not entirely clear what the MUT expect to achieve by involving Minister Evarist Bartolo in their efforts to get the police to act differently when faced with allegations of sexual molestation.
After all, this is a minister for whom everything that happens, whether it’s toddlers legging it out through the gates, university students not getting their results because of inept negotiations or SkolaSajf not starting on time, to mention but a few issues, is someone else’s fault, certainly not his and whoever is at fault will pay the price.
So there.
When you recall the way that the rag with which Bartolo is so strongly associated in many minds, KullĦadd, used to pontificate about ministerial responsibility and the buck stopping there and all the usual platitudes, you can’t help uttering a hollow laugh whenever you see him trying to squirm his way out of the latest debacle in the educational sector.
If the cops do nothing, they’re damned and if they do something they’re damned as well
Of course, whenever the news is good or a photo-op is available, in the manner of politicians everywhere you can’t keep him away. In this, one of the older members of the Cabinet is on a par with one of the youngest, that Konrad Mizzi fellow, who vanished into thin air when the lights went out and then popped up like the cutest little Jack-in-the-Box when it came to telling folk that they would be getting some folding money for their pains.
Just as an aside, does Mizzi really, really think that €25 is what a week’s shop costs? What tin-pot Third World pseudo-democracy is the dear fellow living in, for heaven’s sake?
The MUT are, perhaps understandably, concerned at the way teachers and other carers for children are having their collars felt by the cops because allegations of impropriety are made against them.
The dilemma here is that if the cops do nothing, they’re damned and if they do something they’re damned as well. To risk being accused of uttering a platitude of staggering proportions, what one actually expects is that the police do their job properly, assessing the evidence and referring the matter to the court only when they have a good case.
Platitude or not, that statement of the blinking obvious stands as the only reasonable position that can be taken. Even if, from the evidence of the social media and the comments that follow any story about alleged sexual molestation of children, reasonableness flies out of the window as soon as the ink dries on the headline.
If the alleged perpetrator looks guilty, the howling mob screeches for his head and due process can go hang itself, with remarks of profound stupidity such as “the police wouldn’t prosecute unless there was something” and “there’s no smoke without fire” being peppered about with jolly abandon.
If, on the other hand, the accused is a friend of someone who thinks he’s innocent, you start seeing statuses proclaiming this fact, with equally stupid remarks about how good he is and how you can’t suspect him of anything, because he’s a saint walking the earth.
The point is that there is such pressure on the police to make sure that children are protected (quite rightly) that you can see why they would take the “let the court sort it out” attitude that seems to have been adopted, at least when you look at a recent case through the MUT’s eyes.
At the moment, there is a debate raging in the UK about the way the authorities handled a horrific situation in Rotherham, where hundreds of children were groomed for abuse and actually violently abused over many months and years by many men, generally of Pakistani origin.
Many of the children concerned were from social and family backgrounds which – to a minimal extent – justified the scorn with which they were regarded by those who took advantage of them and this fact, along with the fear of being labelled racist that haunts short-sighted authorities in the Western world, led to the reports that these children were making being discarded as unreliable and not worth following up.
The result was that the police and other authorities in Rotherham have been pilloried and heads are rolling, frankly with good reason.
The same dilemma has raised its horns here and it is understandable that the police expect they can be afforded some sympathy if they choose what many are now seeing as the easy way out.
I trust I will be forgiven if I press the buzzer and intone “sorry, wrong answer”. The police are there to protect everyone, not only alleged victims.
Obviously, the more vulnerable an individual is, the more the people charged with protecting him or her have to err on the side of caution but that is not an excuse for failing to act professionally and with proper diligence.
Who’d be a copper, ay?
Another dilemma that keeps arising is whether the name of the accused should be broadcast.
If your name is shouted to the four winds, you can be assured that the commenting class, the proletariat of the blogosphere (they’re not bloggers, although many people call them that erroneously) will surge forward to pass judgement on you, way before the court does and certainly without having heard any of the evidence. As I pointed out earlier in this piece, if you’re seen as a good guy (whether you are or not) you will be canonised, if you’re seen as a piece of scum, then you might as well check in to the Corradino Hilton.
As someone whose name and reputation have, on occasion, been given the ‘treatment’ by envious individuals whose only claim to distinction is their own political allegiance, I can understand how the people who are accused of a crime, so much worse than the childish barbs directed at me, would feel.
In my case, the people who call me names and make wild allegations are only certain lousy so-called journalists, certain cheap politicians and some moronic twerps: in the case of those accused of crimes, it is the State that is accusing them.
So what’s to be done: should the court, before allowing or banning publication of names, take a look at the accused and see if he looks guilty and shifty and if so let his name go forward to the salivating public, to satisfy the idle curiosity of the great unwashed?
Or should a policy of naming no-one except for the guilty be adopted? Should there be clearer guidelines, established by a self-regulatory or statutory authority?
The bottom line is that it is up to the legislature to regulate the matter: the media, with all the good will in the world, has shown, by the way some utterly moronic comments are allowed to see the light of day, if for no other reason (and there are others) that it is not really up to the task.
imbocca@gmail.com
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20