Compensation granted to Emanuel Camilleri, the father who was falsely convicted of pedopholia, was nothing compared to the legal fees and expenses he faced because of the bogus case. 

Speaking in an exclusive interview on Xarabank aired on Lovin Malta that has already garnered more than 34,000 views, Camilleri explained how the €23,000 the state awarded him over the case dwarfed the fees he forked out, particularly after losing his job and entire livelihood after being sentenced. 

“There was a point where we had to sell our car to make ends meet. My daughter was pregnant at the time and we didn’t know how we were going to eat. We spent thousands,” he said.

Ten years ago, Camilleri was given a prison sentence after he was accused of sexually abusing his daughter, Leanne, who was a minor at the time.

Found guilty of defiling her in 2011, Camilleri had his sentence confirmed in 2013. He continued to insist that he was innocent, even going on to say his daughter was actually forced to speak out by her mother.

In 2015 Camilleri’s daughter was found guilty of giving false testimony. By then, he had spent one year, one month and one day in prison.

Apart from being imprisoned for 397 days, Camilleri had also been wrongfully listed on the sex offenders’ register.

Being placed on the sex offenders’ register meant that Camilleri, who was working as a teacher at MCAST at the time, lost his job, something which he still struggles to return to till today.