Letters | Sunday, 13 September 2009

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Unfair reporting on St Julian’s petards

We are writing this letter in response to the report “Petards damage hotel, shock tourists” (the Sunday Times, 30 August).
We are very shocked and disappointed primarily towards the way in which the Sunday Times has written and published such an article on the basis of hearsay evidence and assumptions rather than on concrete facts. Thankfully we live in a country that provides its citizens with freedom of speech and opinion; however it is very damaging to make false allegations, especially when such allegations were not inquired into. Being a well-known newspaper we would have expected the Sunday Times to inquire into the matter and not just rely on what the Rokna representative stated.
Primarily on the day when this “loud explosion rudely jolted David Smallbone and Aurelie Gascon out of their sleep at their hotel” and found “the floor... covered with debris and smashed glass from the table that had been damaged” as stated by the article writer Caroline Muscat, the morning fireworks were let off at 9.00am and not at 8.00am as stated in the article. The whole of St Julian’s is witness to that. We would have expected the Sunday Times to be more professional and to verify and inquire into these issues before falsely and unprofessionally babbling it out in public.
Secondly, the Rokna representative as cited in the same article stated that “…reporting anything to the police is a waste of time.” Is this so? I find it very surprising that the Rokna representative preferred to report this incident to the Sunday Times rather than filing a police report. What I also find strange is the fact that the Sunday Times did not include in the article whether these allegations were verified with the police. Had the Rokna representative been so sure that the damage was caused as a consequence of this loud bang, he would not have hesitated to contact the police to make proper and official investigations into the matter.
Furthermore, filing a police report would have better helped the tourists mentioned in the article to get compensation for the damage they suffered. I find it very awkward and strange that as shown through the photo related to this matter, as published in the Sunday Times, whereas the table glass was damaged (not shattered), the glass on the door remains firm and still.
Moreover, is there any concrete evidence that the damage occurred due to the petards and fireworks? Had the police been asked to investigate, such issues would have been further clarified. We would have expected the Sunday Times to act in a more professional way by hearing out both sides of the story. Just as the Sunday Times heard out and publicly published the allegations made by the Rokna representative, it should have interviewed the St Julian’s Pyro Team. This lack of verification leaves us with nothing but just the question of whether the Sunday Times and the Rokna representative are saying the whole truth.
The Sunday Times failed to take into consideration how this article and its allegations have caused damaging consequences and after-effects to the St Julian’s Pyro Team, who have been working and putting all their effort throughout the whole year in order to be able to deliver such a spectacular firework display throughout the week. Shouldn’t compensation be taken into consideration here as well?

Robert Vella
St Julian’s Pyrotechnic Team

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