He tried to do the right thing before a storm arrived – pick the children up early and get them home safely.

Instead, a father was blocked from collecting them because he had forgotten the pick-up cards, in a case the ombudsman later ruled should never have happened.

The man, who asked not to be named to protect his family, spoke to Times of Malta about his experience to highlight the “rigid bureaucracy” imposed in such cases. 

Staff at the after-school club Klabb 3-16 in Qawra refused to hand over his two children unless he produced the physical cards, despite him showing official ID and screenshots of the cards on his phone. The decision, he says, forced his wife to leave work early, bring the plastic cards in person and then walk home with the children through heavy rain.

Earlier this month, Commissioner for Education Vincent De Gaetano at the Office of the Ombudsman found the club’s staff had broken the law when they refused to release the children to their father. De Gaetano noted that the staff had also not followed the club’s own internal procedures, which allow a child to be handed over without a pick-up card once the identity of the person picking up the child is verified using an ID card and staff confirm the person is listed on the authorised person’s pick-up form.

In this case, the father – an EU national – identified himself using his Maltese residence permit, which shows his name and photograph. He also presented screenshots of the two pick-up cards on his phone.

The father described to Times of Malta the day in question, December 5, as one of those afternoons when the weather changes quickly, and the streets can flood. With only one car in the household, he decided to collect the children earlier than usual while his wife was still at work, so the family would not have to walk home in a downpour.

“I was about to start work, but I was passing by the school while my wife was at work,” he said. But when he arrived, he realised he did not have the pick-up cards with him.

Given he has been collecting his children regularly since 2022, he said it did not occur to him that it would turn into a stand-off. The person at the door refused to release the children without the physical cards.

“After I firmly but politely asked for my children to be released, he went to consult his supervisor, so I believed the matter would soon be resolved.” It was not.

He was told to send an email to Klabb 3-16, which he did immediately, attaching images of the cards and his ID.

“I waited, received no response, and felt ignored and dismissed,” he said. The father remained outside between 2.30pm until 3pm and during that time, he called the police in front of the staff member, but the children were still not released.

With no resolution, he called his wife, who was still at work.

“She had to finish work early, bring the physical cards herself, and walk back with the children in the rain,” he said.

‘A simple pick-up became an unnecessary ordeal’

“What should have been a simple and safe pick-up became an unnecessary disruption and a stressful ordeal for the whole family.”

He refused to dismiss the incident as a simple misunderstanding or a minor inconvenience and decided to pursue the case because of what he believes it says about basic rights and common sense. There was no custody dispute or legal restriction that could justify the refusal.

“There was no custody issue, no separation, no divorce, no court order, and no restriction of parental rights,” he said. “My wife and I live together, I have full parental rights, and I had been regularly collecting the children since 2022. I felt the law had been crossed.”

He wanted answers as to why the club had refused to release his children despite his verified identity; what the official procedure was when a parent did not have the physical card; whether staff were authorised to release children after proper ID verification; and what safeguards would be put in place so this would not happen again.

But he claims the responses he received were vague references to “procedure” and “safeguarding”. “For more than a month, my repeated written requests were ignored or minimised,” he said.

He said the Foundation for Educational Services (FES) repeatedly tried to shift the matter into phone calls and proposed meetings, rather than provide written answers. He viewed that as an attempt to avoid committing to a clear paper trail.

Only after the ombudsman intervened, he claimed, did the FES respond properly in writing.

Despite his anger, the father stressed he supports strong safeguarding measures for children. “Of course, children must be protected. I do not question safeguarding itself. I question a system that places a plastic card above real identity verification, and the actual procedure that already existed for exceptional situations.”

The commissioner, in his findings, pointed to those very procedures, noting that staff could have verified the father’s identity through his ID document and cross-checked the authorised pick-up list.

The father says his experience is not unique, and believes the case exposes a wider problem of rigid rule-following that collapses in real-life situations. “My aim is not drama but to challenge blind bureaucracy, and push for a system in which exceptional situations are handled with logic, proportionality, and basic respect for parents,” he said.

“A parent may accidentally lock themselves out of their home, with the physical pick-up cards left inside, and the locksmith may only be able to arrive later. A parent may lose the cards, have an urgent hospital situation, or face any number of sudden emergencies. In these situations, the parent may still be fully authorised, fully identifiable, and still need to collect the children on time.

“A functioning system must be able to deal with such real-life exceptional situations lawfully and sensibly, not simply fall back on blind formalism,” he said.

The father thanked the education commissioner for his “professionalism and fairness throughout this process”, and said he hopes the ruling forces changes that protect children, without punishing parents for a moment’s mistake on a difficult day.