Vince Simmons, 80, woke up at 3 a.m. in his Qawra hotel room, switched on the light, saw the patio door open and found that his wallet, watch and a gold chain had gone missing.
The frequent visitor to Malta had been burgled while asleep in his hotel room at the Qawra Inn, formerly known as the Palm Court Hotel.
“The watch was given to me by my work colleagues when I retired nine years ago and the 18-inch gold chain was given to me by a friend who has now died,” he said.
Mr Simmons, from Suffolk, who moves around with the help of a mobility scooter, went to the reception desk of the Qawra Inn to ask for a police report to be filed but, he said, the receptionist refused.
“I said to the chap: ‘Phone the police’, and he flatly refused,” he told The Sunday Times yesterday.
On the morning of September 25, Mr Simmons went to the police station himself but is upset because he felt ignored by the staff.
Hotel owner Robbie Borg defended his staff’s actions, saying police procedure required victims of petty crime to make a statement at the station.
“It’s not the case that we refused, it’s just that that is the procedure,” he insisted, stressing that the offer for use of safe, which the hotel usually charged for, was still valid.
Mr Simmons confirmed the offer for the free safe but said he never received the key. However, in the meantime, the Malta Tourism Authority – which is in court with Mr Borg after issuing an enforcement notice ordering the hotel to close in August 2009 due to complaints – decided to intervene when it found out about the case.
The authority made arrangements to transfer Mr Simmons to a suite at the Santana Hotel in Qawra, run by the president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, George Micallef.
“I am tremendously grateful. I cannot thank them enough. I had a bad feeling about the room. I was living in fear and felt ignored,” he said.
“Now I just have to buy a new watch, a new wallet, and a new electric shaver,” he said, noting that the burglars will not get much use out of the latter as they forgot to steal the charger.
The octogenarian is in love with Malta, and has been visiting longer than he can remember.
“I wanted to move here after my wife died, but my son and daughter wouldn’t let me. They used emotional blackmail, telling me I wouldn’t be there to see my grandchildren grow up,” he laughed.
He does, however, have a strong link with Malta, and visits three times a year for six-week stretches. It was his circle of friends who informed the MTA about the case, and on Friday the authority approached Mr Simmons to spend the rest of his stay until October 26 in a suite at the Hotel Santana.
“I’ll be back next January, God willing,” he said.