Church imposes restrictions on 8 persons following abuse

The Church imposed restrictions on four persons in 2018 and one other person in 2019 after sexual abuse allegations against them were substantiated. These involved diocesan priests, religious priests and laypersons.

Three other restrictions concerned physical and emotional abuse and poor practice who have been referred to civil authorities. This was done following recommendations released by the Safeguarding Commission.

On Thursday, the Archdiocese of Malta and the Safeguarding Commission presented the result of the Committee’s annual report focusing specifically on reported abuse of children and young people.

Head of the Commission Andrew Azzopardi explained the report’s findings, which show that the Church is being very proactive in reporting cases to the police or social services to ensure that abuse allegations are investigated by the competent civil authority.

In 2018, the Commission received 19 allegations involving minors and 10 involving vulnerable adults.

Seventeen out of the 19 allegations involving minors were concluded by the Commission and out of these 17, six were substantiated, one was a matter of poor practice, four were unfounded, two were unsubstantiated, one involved someone who was not part of the Church personnel, and three were referred to a third party as they were not a safeguarding concern.

All 10 allegations involving adults were concluded, out of which seven were referred to third parties as they were not safeguarding concerns, while one was unsubstantiated, one was unfounded and one involved poor practice.

In 2019, 16 new allegations were received involving minors and eight involving vulnerable individuals.

Eight assessments have been concluded out of the 16 allegations involving minors. Two were substantiated, two were unsubstantiated and one was not Church personnel.