On Election Day, shortly after my wife’s uncle, Vincent Barbara, carried out his civic duty at the Żejtun polling station, he suffered a massive and fatal heart attack on the parvis of the parish church. In hospital, my wife discovered that his wallet was missing from his deep trouser pockets. It couldn’t have simply fallen out.

This means only one thing: his family can now empathise with those people who, from various reports in the local media from time to time, have also had to go through such a doubly painful experience. For the bereaved not only have to come to terms with their sudden loss, often under deeply tragic circumstances, but they are also compelled to deal with the anger that such a despicable act stirs up.

A crushing blow if ever there was one. And I once thought that one really couldn’t stoop any lower than to pilfer candles and bunches of flowers from graves!

If it is written in the Good Book that we all have to answer one day for every idle word that we utter on this earth, then I certainly wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of these obnoxious people, slaves to their avarice, who have it within themselves to steal from a dead body.