Watch: 'I considered suicide after my daughter falsely accused me of rape'
Emanuel Camilleri spent almost 400 days in prison when his daughter falsely accused him of rape. In an emotional interview after he won compensation for the ordeal last week, he tells Jessica Arena how the experience shattered his life and how the support of his wife pulled him through.
It is clear from the pictures hanging on the wall of Emanuel Camilleri's Valletta home that family takes centre stage in his life.
But for over a decade, he had to fight to prove he was innocent of an allegation of rape made by his then 10-year-old daughter that landed him in prison.
"As soon as I was sentenced, the first thing that ran through my mind was suicide,” he recalls.
"To be honest I did find a spot where there are no security cameras and I thought about it really, really hard.”
The accusations were first levelled against him in 2004. Ten years later and after he had spent 397 days behind bars, his daughter, Leanne, now in her 20s, told a court she lied under oath and a perjury case against her mother, Lisa May, is ongoing.
“I felt betrayed,” Camilleri says.
“The accusation was very harsh and when it's something you did not do you feel hurt, anger and a lot of emotions at the same...