Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/944442
maltatoday WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2018 News 8 MATTHEW AGIUS A court has lashed out at soci- ety's "allergy to discipline" as it dealt with two young men who admitted to sharing a nude photograph of a 16-year-old girl. The men, now aged 21 and 20, who cannot be named by order of the court, were themselves underage at the time of the of- fence. They pleaded guilty to child pornography charges. Inspector John Spiteri told magistrate Francesco Depas- quale how the men had trans- mitted a photo of a girl roughly a year younger than them, when they were still 17. "There is zero tolerance for child pornography, but given the circumstances in this case, although the material is pae- dopornographic, the accused should be helped." The court was told that one of the accused had changed his life drastically and was now in a Christian fel- lowship movement. The court, having seen the charges, the admission of the accused and noting that they had been underage when they committed the offence, ob- served that it was "worrying to hear of children committing crimes of this nature which are serious and grave and which have very ugly consequences for the persons photographed." It said it feared that this is "a result of our society's allergy to discipline and its basis on insisting on rights but not du- ties." However, in view of the fact that the accused clearly understood the consequenc- es of their actions and had changed their lives, the court opted to hand the men not an effective prison sentence, but a suspended one. One of the accused sobbed tears of relief in the dock as the men were sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for four years and ordered to pay the costs of appointing court experts. "My message is clear. What you have done is wrong. Wrong for you and the girl you in- volved. Victims had committed suicide in similar cases... I'm giving you a chance but don't come here again or things will be different." Inspectors John Spiteri and Joseph Busuttil prosecuted. Lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri were defence counsel. Young men plead guilty to sharing nude photo of 16-year-old girl TOMORROW marks the Euro- pean Day for Victims of Crime. A day to acknowledge the chal- lenges faced by many victims as a result of heinous acts, to remind victims that they are not alone and to encourage civil society, human rights organisations and other actors to continue fighting for their rights. As an NGO supporting crime victims, Victim Support Malta (VSM) cherishes this day as an opportunity to celebrate the work carried out over the years and to honour the many clients that it has supported and as- sisted. What VSM hopes, is that this day, is not just another day of symbolic and often detached commemoration and remem- brance; rather, it is a chance to humanise victims, realising that they are people, just like eve- ryone else. They often fail to fit the description of what society considers to be the 'ideal' vic- tim – weak, meek, objectively and indisputably right, prey of a big, bad offender. That's because victims are first and foremost, human beings, with their merits and their shortcomings. Victimisation and its manifold consequences – including trau- ma, physical and emotional pain, financial issues – donot lead to identical, one-size-fits all expe- riences. Why? Because people are different, because they react differently to similar situations and because crime is a complex matter. Accepting and respect- ing victims' experiences, without blaming them, doubting them or belittling them is paramount; be- cause by failing to acknowledge what victims have experienced or are still going through, the media, society and criminal jus- tice officials, are further harm- ing them and alienating them. Understanding victims' expe- riences often entails a degree of awareness of what crime is and of the many shapes and forms that it can take. If we take domes- tic violence as an example, harm can be physical, but it can also be sexual, emotional and financial. Women are disproportionately victimised and very often men are the perpetrators of such vio- lence; but it's also the other way around. Domestic violence can be found in gay and lesbian cou- ples and within migrant com- munities. Many studies show that disabled people experience disproportionately high rates of domestic abuse. Domestic violence, and many other crimes, such as sexual as- sault and rape, hate crime, el- derly abuse, fraud, scam and sex- tortion are often underreported. Among the many reasons for this is the fact that victims them- selves may not realise that they have suffered crime (often due to their limited awareness of lo- cal laws), because they do not trust the authorities, or because they fear that nobody will believe them. How can we, as a society, change this? By not blaming, pointing fingers and accusing victims of not being real victims, based on anecdotal evidence. We need to help victims feel that they can be listened to and understood, as well as seek legal remedy, if they so wish to. And most importantly, we need to start this change now. Victim Support Malta offers support to anybody who has directly suffered a criminal of- fence, as well as to family mem- bers of victims of crime and wit- nesses of accidental death. Please get in touch on 21228333 or via Facebook @victimsupportmalta for more information. Donations to Victim Support Malta can be made through the website http://victimsupport. org.mt as well as via text mes- sage on the following numbers: 50617313 - €2.33; 50617916 - €4.66; 50619246 - €11.65 Call to recognise challenges faced by victims of violence MATTHEW AGIUS A 27-year-old lawyer was fined €5,000 for misappro- priating a "phenomenal" amount of data from the law firm she worked with before moving on to a new job. The young lawyer was charged with computer misuse, unauthorised use of proprietary data, and with having made unauthorised copies of documentation, as well as being in unauthorised possession of data which she had misappropriated. The court imposed a ban on the publication of the name of the accused and the law firms involved. The accused had been em- ployed in 2010 as a lawyer with a leading commercial law firm, and her duties in- cluded assisting the man- aging partner in setting up companies. She resigned in 2012, join- ing a group of companies, and incorporating an identi- cal company, with identical memorandum and articles of association to one which she had been working on before. Her former employers looked into her records, and noticed an extraordinary spike in emails occurring at 6am on the accused's last day at the firm. She would normally start work at 8am. A criminal complaint was filed and the lawyer was arrested and interrogated in September 2012. At her new workplace, a number of documents, including hand- written notes, were found and these had been taken from her previous employer, together with billing docu- ments and business plans. She claimed to have done this to have a record and sample of her work over the preceding two years. Magistrate Anthony Vella, in his sentence on the mat- ter, observed that there was no definition of computer misuse under Maltese law, but based on UK law, which stipulates that access to the systems in questions must not be authorised in order to have the crime of computer misuse. The Criminal Code states that a person who is in pos- session of data which he or she is not authorised to hold is assumed to have taken it into their possession on purpose and must prove the contrary. Due to the dearth of local jurisprudence on the subject and the crime's relative nov- elty, there was also no defini- tion of "unauthorised" in the context of data transfer. Magistrate Vella said the facts of the case were "clear, unequivocal and uncontest- ed". "It is the opinion of the court that the accused knew that what she did was irreg- ular. It is highly indicative that she sent a phenomenal amount of emails to herself at six in the morning of the last day of work, without in- forming any of her superiors and without seeking permis- sion or authorisation... these factors all indicate that the accused knew full well what she was doing and her ac- tions are a perfect fit for the offence in question." On misappropriation the court observed that case law stated that this crime was consummated as soon as acts of ownership are exer- cised over the thing misap- propriated with the inten- tion of exercising dominion. This occurs when the acts "unequivocally show the intention of appropriation as they are in of themselves incompatible with the cause and title of the detention of the thing." The court was in no doubt as to guilt. "She was trusted as a lawyer with the firm and should have known that the information held in an office like that would be sensitive and covered by professional secrecy. All she had to do was to tell her superiors what she wanted the information for and seek permission to make copies for her personal use. That instead she took what she wanted at strange times, without telling any- one, shows her intention." The lawyer was found guilty as charged and fined €5,000, also being ordered to pay €3,220 in costs. Inspector Jonathan Fer- ris prosecuted. Lawyer Joe Giglio was defence counsel. Lawyer Roberto Montalto was parte civile for the law firm. Lawyer fined €5,000 for stealing employer's data Court accepts request to ban publication of names of both law firm and accused