A man has been jailed for 12 years after pleading guilty to raping and sexually abusing his partner’s children while their mother was receiving cancer treatment.

The now-59-year-old man had started dating the mother back in 2009 and the relationship went on for ten years, during which her children looked up to the accused as their father figure, the court was told. 

Then one day, in January 2019, the younger child, a boy who was 12 at the time, returned home after spending the weekend at his uncle’s home.

The accused told the boy’s mother that he smelt something fishy in the fact that the boy was frequently spending sleepovers at his uncle’s home.

So the woman broached the subject with the boy, asking how he was spending his time away from home.

The child told her that he helped his uncle with the housework.

When his mother voiced her partner’s suspicions, the boy promptly retorted that it was her partner and certainly not his uncle who had been sexually abusing him for three years.

It turned out that the minor had been repeatedly abused by the accused since he was nine.

His older brother was suffering similar abuse. It started when, at aged 18 or so, he had asked his mother’s partner for advice on how to get intimate with a girl.  In response, the man forced him into oral sex, claiming to show him how it was done.

The abuse also extended to a 13-year old female member of the family.

Abuse took place daily, sometimes for a whole week

Sometimes the abuse took place on a daily basis for a whole week, with such frequency that the younger boy said he could not keep track of the number of occasions. He had been warned that he would be thrown off Għar Hasan cliffs if he spoke up the teenager explained.  

One December day in 2018, after collecting the girl from school, the accused took a detour, parked his van in a secluded area and asked her if she wanted to do “adult things.”

The girl refused but ultimately, feeling totally alone and helpless, she had nowhere to turn and therefore obeyed his whims, the court was told.

All the while, the accused was meant to be caring for his partner’s children while she was receiving cancer treatment.

He warned the younger boy that if he ever spoke out, he [the accused] would land in jail, the boy would end up in a care home while the mother would end up “in a coffin.”

The man was ultimately prosecuted and accused of rape, sexual acts with the minors and defilement.

Before the trial got underway, the Attorney General and the defence informed the court that a plea deal had been reached and that the accused was registering an admission.

In light of that agreement, Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera condemned the accused to a 12-year term of imprisonment.

In terms of the Protection of Minors (Registration) Act the court declared that upon becoming final, judgment was to be notified to the registrar in terms of law.

Lawyer Edward Gatt represented the victims.