Every year we ask Times of Malta journalists to share the story they worked on in the last twelve months that left an impact on them and why. Here are their choices for 2022. 

JACOB BORG: A ‘half surprising’ knock on the door 

Turning up halfway through a police search on Joseph Muscat’s house is one experience I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

It was my day off, but I couldn’t resist driving by Muscat’s Burmarrad home to see if rumours about plans to search the former PM’s home could be true.

Turns out they were.

The slow wheels of justice had ground their way to Muscat’s doorstep.

Things would take a strange twist when, after waiting for hours outside Muscat’s house, the ex-Prime Minister invited me and cameraman Matthew Mirabelli inside.

“Don’t wag your tail. Attack, attack,” Muscat’s wife Michelle told their pet Chow Chow as soon as we entered. I suspect she was only half-joking.

Just weeks earlier, in November, I had written an article detailing the suspicious payments Muscat received from a Swiss company linked to the Vitals Global Healthcare hospitals buyout.

The search was carried out in connection with those same payments.

After a mild reprimand by Michelle Muscat, who didn’t like the way our videographer Matthew had framed her husband in the video shot (“you are always trying to make him look bad”, she complained), we proceeded to take a comment from Muscat.

Although he appeared to be in a testy mood off-camera, he coolly gave a rundown of his version of events while being filmed.

“I was only half-surprised by the search,” he admitted.

It turns out he had even prepared a file to hand to police.

“I prepared it in November, after your article…” he said with a grin.

After around five minutes, we were done. The Muscats politely showed us out the door, and I went off to write a story about an unprecedented search on an ex-prime minister’s home.

The search would go on to create an earthquake within the Labour Party, where many still regard Muscat as untouchable.

Almost one year on, we are still waiting to find out whether criminal charges will be pressed against him over the suspicious payments.

Read Jacob's story.

CLAUDIA CALLEJA: Children of a murdered mother speak

This was an eventful year in terms of powerful stories impacting women – a subject I am passionate about since I am one and I am raising one.

This was the year woman’s power over herself was put into the spotlight: from the right to terminate an unviable pregnancy when her life is at risk, to the misogynist views that lead to domestic violence and even femicide.

Let’s focus on the latter. Thirteen years ago, I was already a journalist when a woman – Catherine Agius – was killed by her husband when she returned home from work.

Back then I knocked at the door of Catherine’s mother, where the victim lived with her three pre-teen children.

Over the years, as the case went to court and the father admitted to the crime, I kept in touch with the grandmother who, as I fully understand, shielded the children from me as a journalist.

This year, the femicide of Bernice Cassar in November reminded me of their case: Bernice, like Catherine, was allegedly killed by an estranged husband and never returned home to her children. I contacted the children of Catherine, now adults, who chose to speak to me.

This story reminds me why we as journalists knock at doors following a tragic event.

No, we are not out to get anyone or leech on people’s stories. What we do is give people, who may want to say something, the space to pass on that important message. They may not want to and that is fine. But one day they might want to have their voice heard, even if it’s 13 years later.

Read Claudia's story.

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DANIEL ELLUL: The impact of a delayed document

Last October, I wrote the story of a Serbian woman who missed her father’s funeral because of delays in her Identity Malta work-permit process.

She was among several who spoke of the way bureaucratic delays have affected them.

Another avoided going to hospital after a traffic accident to avoid medical bills as her work permit process, which grants free healthcare, had not yet been completed. 

Two parents also spoke, saying their children were unable to start school as they waited for their residence documents.  

Non-EU workers must have a work permit to legally work in Malta and travel. Delays in what should be a two-month application process have been a general concern among employers, who need positions to be filled.

However, many forget that an employee is also a person.

And because of bureaucratic delays, lives grinded to a halt, mental and physical health was affected and a daughter missed a last farewell. 

Read Daniel's story.

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MATTHEW XUEREB: An elderly man vanishes

The stories about the situation at the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly following the disappearance of a resident impacted me most last year.

They were a series of stories following the disappearance of Carmelo Fino, an 83-year-old dementia sufferer who left the facility in the middle of the night on June 28.

His body was found under a tree in Birżebbuġa, almost 8km away, weeks later.

An inquiry pinned the responsibility on the staff on duty that night. But it was the residents that paid the price. As if being uprooted from a family home where you have lived for decades was not enough, the situation at the government’s largest home for the elderly took a turn for the worse following Fino’s disappearance when the management introduced haphazard security measures aimed at avoiding a repeat.

Residents lambasted the strict measures – some of which are still in place today – saying that their privacy and freedom was stripped away from them as they are being placed under constant watch.

One told me: “It feels like I’m spending the last few days, months or years of my life in a prison without committing a crime.”

We certainly ought to treat our elderly better.

Read Matthew's story.

SARAH CARABOTT: The Maltese children who ‘don’t exist’

As a journalist, the one thing that has consistently kept me up at night is the knowledge that there are children born in Malta who don’t exist in the eye of the law.

Just this year, I wrote about a three-year-old and a seven-year-old from Ħamrun whose home country does not recognise them as her own, after their parents were unable to renew their residency permits. It’s mind-boggling how a child is ‘punished’ because of something their parents were expected to do, or to not do. Imagine my surprise when I learnt that a child’s status also depended on whom their mother was married to 300 days before their birth.

In an interview that will stay with me in the coming years, a woman told me her child, who is soon turning one, remains stateless as she is being forced to make a false declaration and register her baby under the name of her abusive ex-husband.

The legal loophole that has blocked this Maltese mother from registering her child under the rightful biological father is impacting the registration of several other babies.

Maltese law presumes that a child conceived in wedlock is the child of the spouses, even if separation is known to take years in cases where exes refuse to sign the required documentation.

Apart from the repercussions on the stateless children, who cannot receive state medical care or childcare services, the woman is also effectively being held hostage by her ex-husband in a country that, on one hand boasts of introducing femicide in its criminal code but, on the other, fails to understand how its existing legislation could be weaponised by the abusers to continue manipulating and control their exes. 

Read Sarah's story.

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GIULIA MAGRI: A photographer fit for a Queen

The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II led to a period of reflection on her life, including her brief years living in Malta and her visits to the country.

Most of the iconic photos of her and the late Prince Philip at their Villa Guardamangia home or attending parties at the Phoenicia Hotel were taken by Times of Malta photographer Frank Attard.

On a Sunday afternoon, photographer Matthew Mirabelli and I were welcomed to Attard’s home in Birżebbuġa.

He settled himself on a small armchair behind a coffee table filled with cameras and began to sieve through three large black plastic bags full of beautiful black and white photos of the Royal family.  I later found out that was only a taster of Frank’s mammoth photo collection of the Queen.

Attard took us on a journey of the stories behind the photos and other pivotal events that took place during his 55-year career as a photographer.

He described how there were times he would have mere minutes to snap the perfect shot of the Queen at a ball or event before being ushered out.

At 94, Attard recalled these stories with a spark in his eye, and our conversations on photography, journalism  and, of course, the Queen, continued long after we stopped recording.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but my conversation with Attard made me appreciate and value the work that goes behind that picture.

Photojournalism has changed over the years and yet the power of a photograph remains the same.  

Read Giulia's story.

MARK LAURENCE ZAMMIT: Modern-day slavery

“Can we meet up? I have a contract I need to show you.”

“What’s it about?”

“Food couriers. They’re not workers, they’re slaves.”

Before that telephone call last April, I thought only about food couriers while famished at my desk, waiting impatiently for one to bring me some overpriced food within 15 to 20 minutes of ordering.

I did not imagine they had an exceptionally enjoyable job but the attitude and smile they gave when handing me the food fooled me into thinking they were doing well enough.

As I flipped through the couriers’ contracts, it became evident that the industry was a modern-day slavery business.

Thousands of third-country nationals pay as much as €8,000 to fly to Malta thinking they would make enough money to recoup the fees, send money to their relatives at home and live a comfortable life.

Before leaving their home country, workers employed with a recruitment agency would sign an employment contract promising all of this, only to be given a second contract when they arrive.

The first contract stipulated a salary for a 40-hour work week while the second contract specified that a work hour only meant the time spent making deliveries and not the time they spent waiting outside restaurants in between.

Consequently, the average Bolt and Wolt courier would only get five to 10 deliveries per day, for which they were paid a mere €2.10 per delivery, causing them to work 80-hour weeks without managing to make a minimum wage.

“We have a word for that – slavery. And nobody seems to care,” the source told me.

So I made a Bolt order.

When he arrived with the food ordered, I introduced myself and asked if I could keep his number.

We met some days later and eventually I met with at least a dozen other couriers to confirm the story.

Often journalism feels like shedding blood sweat and tears uselessly because getting the ball rolling on changing laws and policies is hard. But this felt different.

It joined a string of exposés and, in October, the government announced a new law regularising basic employment rights to couriers.

Read Mark Laurence's story.

FIONA GALEA DEBONO: A brother’s righteous anger

The Karin Grech story – the unsolved murder of a 15-year-old – continues to reverberate 45 years later.

When I approached the story, it was to be an anniversary piece – an annual reminder of the young woman’s death, the medico-political circumstances in which it occurred, the suspects that were never confirmed, unkept promises, lost evidence and the lack of justice and efforts to conclude the case.

But that all changed when Kevin Grech, Karin’s brother, returned an e-mail asking him about any developments in the inquiry.

He made the rare decision to respond and poured out his frustration and anger. Kevin was only 10 years old when he witnessed his sister being blown up in a letter bomb and suffered serious injuries himself.

He interrupted a difficult day of mourning to slam the magistrate on the case, saying he did not even know if a new one had been appointed or who he or she was. He questioned whether an inquiry was being carried out at all.

A very private person, his decision to speak added a fresh impetus to the case.

Grech now carries the baton of a fight for justice from his father, Edwin Grech, now in a home for the elderly and unable to recognise him.

The target of the bomb as a strike breaker in 1977, he had never stopped fighting for justice for his daughter.

Read Fiona's story.

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EDWINA BRINCAT: Cases of domestic violence in court

It is difficult to single out one case in a year in which I covered far too many accounts of domestic violence that ended up in court.

Some stand out, however.

Almost a year ago, a mother-of-two was arraigned under arrest after allegedly subjecting her husband to “18 minutes of violence” then falsely reporting he had raped her.

And, of course, last month, another mother-of-two was fatally shot outside her workplace. Bernice Cassar’s estranged husband had allegedly vowed “revenge”.

Each different scenario opens a window to the reality of domestic violence.

I see tears of remorse or anger in the courtroom and am increasingly aware of the lessons to be learnt.

Victims need a close port of call. Police frontliners and other professionals need adequate training and staff. Domestic violence legislation must be tweaked.

Justice should be efficient.

My hope for 2023 is that the system is given a good shake-up, and fast.

DANIEL TIHN: Spreading joy at Christmas

As a still-budding journalist, my first solo coverage was last month following the Mosta scout group descend down Mater Dei Hospital’s walls dressed as superheroes.

As they abseiled off the roof, I watched them wave at the children as they went by and spread joy in a ward I had once been in as a child.

These are people who truly care, who spend their day off at the hospital in the hopes of making someone’s miserable day that tiny bit better.

That odd Saturday will be remembered by the young hearts the impassioned scouts touched, mine included.

Read Daniel's story.

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JESSICA ARENA: Three dead dolphins

On a July day, I turned up to a press call outside a water park not knowing what to expect.

Animal Liberation Malta had set up three inflatable dolphin toys, chained to the rocks and splashed with fake blood. The accusation they charged was terrible for any animal lover.

Three dolphins had disappeared from their tanks at the Mediterraneo Marine Park almost a year ago and were almost certainly dead.

The lack of information about their deaths raised questions about the standards of care the animals receive.

As I pressed for answers, the authorities and the park’s owners remained tight-lipped.

Then, a source contacted me.

Onda, Mar and Melita had died from ingesting lead after a stray weight bag ended up in their tank, splitting and slowly poisoning them.

The public demanded answers from Mediterraneo and, more importantly, they came out to protest.

Read Jessica's story.

JAMES CUMMINGS: Great expectations

Having only joined Times of Malta less than a month ago, looking back at stories I covered in 2022 is a somewhat shorter exercise than for my colleagues.

It was particularly gratifying to have been able to report the strong expectations of the hospitality sector as published on New Year’s Eve.

As a musician myself, I well recall the feeling of loss during the recent years of reduced cultural events due to the pandemic, so being able to report such positivity was very satisfying.

Culture and the arts are vital to our personal lives and to society and we should, despite the other uncertainties facing us this year, be heartened at their return.

Read James' story.

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KARL ANDREW MICALLEF: Heartache on the Ukrainian border

As a video-journalist plugged into the local news cycle, opportunities to work on international stories are rare.

So, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, I wanted to capture the stories of the people at the heart of it.

Days after the invasion, SOS Malta gave me and photographer Jonathan Borg the opportunity to join them on a humanitarian mission to Romania where they would give aid to Ukrainians fleeing the war.

Some days later, I was at the frigid Ukrainian border seeing first-hand the effects of a war on people who, within days, lost all sense of normality.

They described travelling by train while rockets flashed above and wondered what would happen to the children whose parents had been killed.

People are at the heart of every story. It’s easy to become desensitised to this, whether you work in  or consume the news. Behind every road accident, collapsed building or court case is a person.

Witnessing Ukrainians refugees cross the border as they left behind a life they will never get back to and enter an unknown future will help me never forget this.