Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1485769
TRUTH IS OF NO COLOUR WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT SUNDAY • 27 NOVEMBER 2022 • ISSUE 1204 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY maltatoday PAGES 4-5 Explosion in Kirkop claims life of 64-year-old Nardu Camilleri PAGE 2 Man killed at fireworks factory €1.95 School leaders lament inadequate training on dealing with child abuse PAGE 10 Child sex abuse MATTHEW VELLA MALTA'S third femicide in 2022 has shaken a nation only too used to complacency and an unwillingness to act without a harrowing crisis taking it by storm. Bernice Cassar, the mother of two shot in cold blood out in the streets by her estranged husband, is yet again, a martyr to a system breakdown in ju- dicial and legal protection. It is a breakdown that effectively leaves women easier to kill. Malta's shortcomings – the unwillingness to take the GRE- VIO report's recommendations on board with the urgency they deserve; the understaffed police force that should be protecting women threatened by their ag- gressors; the entire judiciary beset by unforgiveable delays, postponed jury trials and a criminal lack of manpower; and the inability of the press to fully understand – not today, but ag- es ago – that women have been staring death in the face each time a useless protection order is issued. Bernice was not the first. But the inability of the nation – the State apparatus and the people who were meant to protect her – to fully understand the gravi- ty of the lack of safety for Mal- tese women in her situation, is a shocking truth. This is a national crisis. BERNICE CASSAR The mother whose murder shows Maltese women left alone by the State and society are staring death in the face Women failed by a nation Bernice the symbol of Malta's domestic violence crisis From the police, to the law courts, and the lawmakers and the media: the nation's shortcomings laid bare, only too definitively, by the cold-blooded murder of Bernice Cassar Bernice Cassar, the 40-year-old mother of two, killed in cold blood by her husband out on the streets of Paola, within 24 hours of filiing a criminal complaint, is the martyr of Malta's system failure to keep women safe What can be done? Audrey Friggieri interviewed INTERVIEW MT2 Editorial & Opinions MT2 First come, first served How police treat domestic violence cases PAGE 5 Domestic violence focus