As if Malta wasn’t hot enough. Temperatures rose last Monday as the Maltese took to their couches, casting or otherwise. Tempers also flared on Facebook and other online portals as stones and judgements were cast at the latest sex scandal to make the headlines.
And with that came the usual debate – surely people accused of sex crimes should have their identities protected until their cases are well and truly res judicata?
And if the accused’s identity is divulged to all and sundry, why should victims continue to enjoy anonymity and protection? Isn’t that unjust and counter-productive and more likely to aid and abet false accusations?
In terms of reputation and social standing, the accused, even if eventually acquitted, will always have much more to lose than the victim. A case therefore exists, or ought to, for the protection of his identity.
As far as I’m aware, under current legislation, underaged people – be they alleged victims or accused – automatically receive protection. The playing field is level at that stage, which is fair enough.
In the present case, given that both parties were of legal age (despite the glaring 40-something age gap), the presiding magistrate, quite rightly, turned down the prosecution’s request that the victim remain unnamed. That said, I still had to unravel her identity.
Meanwhile, the name of the accused was ventilated by the media as busily as the humming air-cons of this hot and bothered island.
My feelings here have always been ambivalent – which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I am both a lawyer and a writer, an independent female and a concerned mother.
As a mother, I know I would fiercely protect my son or daughter from exposure. On an island like Malta, where privacy is in short supply, I would simply hate to see their names in print, just as I’d loathe running the gauntlet of all the unpleasantness. It wouldn’t matter if they were the victim or accused.
Our children remain children regardless of how old they are, and even if they have screwed up royally. I say this because I know that all those people who frogmarched their collective outrage from couch to computer on Monday morning were thinking only of slating the accused.
They wanted to invite us to imagine how we’d feel if the victim had been our own sister or daughter. They chose not to think of the shoe on the other foot – of the theoretical possibility of the accused being their son, brother or father.
Of course, I hold no brief for the accused. I haven’t liked what I’ve read – from the alleged offence right down to the sheer bad taste of mourning the loss of a theatrical role (plus beard!) on Facebook.
I have tried to make a conscious effort to control my feelings and abide by my self-imposed rules of fair play. Innocent until proven guilty
And yet I have still tried to make a conscious effort to control my feelings and abide by my self-imposed rules of fair play. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
And I know that if the accused were my son or someone close to me (heaven forbid), facing any kind of accusation, I wouldn’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry tearing him to shreds on Facebook. I’d probably do my damndest to keep his name out of the papers.
And wouldn’t you do the same? When it comes to those we love, we clutch at straws, however, irrationally, desperately clinging to the myth of presumed innocence.
If I were the victim’s mother, media focus on the suspect would make me equally queasy and apprehensive. I’d much rather see justice quietly take its course. It would be intolerable, at some later date, to see some slick defence lawyer entering a constitutional plea that trial by media had prejudiced his client’s right to a fair trial.
True, this particular case probably won’t go that far and will be heard by a magistrate. But the chance of sensationalism interfering with the legal process is not a risk I’d want to take.
Call it female intuition or simply a hunch, but I found the victim’s account, as expounded by the prosecution, extremely plausible. There seems to be no reason to doubt her.
Even the accused corroborates her narrative – he simply chooses to give it his own interpretation, suggesting that the alleged indecency was role-play testing the actress’s ability to act. In other words, it was theatre. I have no further wish to discuss the merits of the case. I leave that to the litigants and their respective lawyers.
But I do wish finally to touch on the subject of prejudice, especially in view of some of the unfair or inappropriate comments I have read.
Between the lines, I sensed the presence of some kind of class agenda – that if the victim had come from a lower class or a questionable background, or was known to be sexually adventurous, she might not have attracted the same unconditional support. One comment I read actually referred to her as ‘no whore’. This obviously assumes that a whore could never be believed.
I despise this sort of talk, especially from females. I suspect that the reference to whores wasn’t even a reference to sex workers, but merely a casual way of dismissing a certain kind of female whose biggest crime may be enjoying the company of men or sporting plunging necklines.
And then there are those who short-sightedly insist that, at 22, a young woman should know better than to take off her clothes, just as there are those who rightly argue that saying no takes real guts, especially when you’re in the apparently ‘legit’ situation of being auditioned by a respected theatrical personality.
Yes, there is definitely a certain ‘fear’ in saying no, especially in the acting profession where jobs are scarce and where the line between the need to make an impression and the need to make believe is complex and fraught.
Casting a play is one thing, casting stones, another. Casting couch harassment shouldn’t figure in either.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com