Internal police procedures on how to handle child abuse allegations should be made public to allow both victims and suspects to verify the guidelines are adhered to, according to Victim Support Malta director Roberta Lepre.
The police failed to say why they will not publish the guidelines when Times of Malta asked for a copy more than a month ago.
The issue was widely debated after the assistant principal and treasurer of the Society of Christian Doctrine (MUSEUM) was accused of sexually molesting a 10-year-old student in August. The prosecution said he was playfully lifting the boy out of the sea and held him tightly against his body, including the genital region, during a swimming trip when other teachers and students were present.
The case, which is still pending, provoked a debate when it emerged that the police had not even carried out a preliminary investigation to corroborate the boy’s version with that of others who were present.
The teachers’ union also called for clear guidelines, in schools and within the police, on how to go about such allegations of sexual abuse.
It stressed that such allegations could be maliciously made by students or their parents to harm particular individuals and the police should compile more evidence before charging someone in court.
It seems the police do have procedures in place but they are not in the public domain.
“While it appears that there is some kind of policy in place, it is difficult for the common citizens to find out whether the set procedure was followed in their case seeing they are not public,” Dr Lepre said.
“It has become common practice for public entities in Malta to draw up and publish quality service charters, allowing clients to know the level of service they may expect when seeking their service. So why not the police,” she had asked.
This is not the first time ‘internal’ police policies are not being published. In October 2012, it took a Freedom of Information request by this paper for the police to publish guidelines on strip searches.
In September this year, the police had replied to questions about procedures used to ensure innocent people were not arraigned on connection with sexual abuse.
They said: “Police carry out in-depth interview/s with the person filing a report and then proceed to interrogate the alleged perpetrator. If it is a case of one’s word against another, during the interrogation, the consistency, veracity, the demeanour, the nature of replies given, substance of language used, all help to determine the direction the investigations should take. There is no case like another, therefore, one cannot generalise on what course the investigation takes... arraignment takes place only when the investigative officer deems that there is enough evidence for the case to stand in a court of law.”