If ever they will...

Lawrence Grech does not hug his daughter. He shuns emotional engagement with her. A simple pat on the head of his daughter, a sign of encouragement for ordinary fathers, becomes an emotional ordeal. Lawrence Grech fears that physical proximity with his daughter may be tantamount to abuse.
It is this indelible scar left on Mr Grech by years of sexual abuse at the hands of three priests that shocked me most when reading the court judgment this week that sent Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri to jail.
The judgment is rife with sordid details of the despicable acts the priests performed on innocent, vulnerable children. But it is Mr Grech's testimony of his fear to hug his daughter that has struck me most, being myself a father.
It must have been horrible for Mr Grech to have suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to take care of him but it must be painful not to be able to embrace his daughter out of fear that the monster may return. It is unfair on any parent to be denied the joy to embrace his children.
Lawrence Grech suffered. He carried his pain in silence and when he decided to speak out in 2003 it was the start of a very long and difficult journey. Some believed him. Many questioned his motive. Others dismissed him as an angry man.
But he did not falter. He survived unlike others who passed through the same ordeal he went through and ended up on the rocks as a result of the stolen childhood they experienced.
Justice may have been served by the Magistrate's Court this week but the scars will take much longer to heal, if ever they will.