Cleansing reputation of convicted child abuser despicable: Lisa Maria foundation

The Lisa Maria Foundation on Monday slammed an interview on the Ricky Caruana podcast, in which Justin Haber insists on his innocence and questions the credibility of the 14-year-old victim of sexual harassment. 

The former national team goalkeeper was handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for four years and fined €7,000 for sexually harassing a 14-year-old employee at his Marsaxlokk restaurant between 2020 and 2022.

But a few days later, Ricky Caruana published a podcast featuring Haber, who insisted that the girl was never 14 and maintained that he was innocent, describing the case as “a big mistake”.  

Since then, the podcaster has come under fire, with several accusing Caruana of laundering Haber's reputation.

Among them, the Lisa Maria Foundation said it was "very disturbing" that at a time when so much has been seen and said about child abuse, a convicted child sex offender is given a platform and opportunity, outside of the formal justice system, to give a one-sided version of his own interpretation of what happened. 

The foundation was set up in memory of 15-year-old Lisa Maria Zahra, who was murdered by her drama teacher in 2014. 

"It is extremely sad that Caruana gave a platform to this convicted sex offender for him to ‘have his say’ - a say which was unchallenged by the interviewer and which showed total disregard for the outcome of the court ruling.

"Had Caruana challenged Haber in a journalistic fashion and asked the right questions, it may have been different, but to simply behave in a way that looks like an exercise in reputation cleansing on a public platform is another case altogether," the foundation said on Monday.

Providing any platform for Haber, who had been listed on the sex offenders’ register, to further defend his position was a "blatant insult to the victim", the foundation said.

It added that the victim should be allowed to focus on her healing rather than have the ordeal raked up again in public and made to look likeshe was in some way responsible for what happened. 

"Besides the crass insensitivity of the way the podcast was managed, together with the brazen attitude of the perpetrator of the abuse, this was a totally irresponsible use of a social media platform which has the potential to influence public opinion and minimise the severity of the case itself and of the abuse of children more generally."

The foundation insisted that the fight against child sexual abuse was the responsibility of all of society.

Every opportunity must be used by all to adopt proactive measures to avoid the abuse and harm of children and to react to allegations in a way which shows that we have zero tolerance towards abuse.

Anything less is simply unacceptable, and anything that promotes the cleansing of a convicted child abuser is despicable, it added.