Glenn Bedingfield

Glenn Bedingfield (born 15 November 1974, Pietà, Malta) is a Maltese journalist and formerly a Member of the European Parliament and General Secretary of the Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti (the Labour Youth Forum of the Maltese Labour Party) and member of the Party's National Executive.

Career

Bedingfield was one of the first journalists to join the newly set up Labour Party owned Super One Radio and Super One Television, One Productions in 1991. As an investigative political journalist Bedingfield won the 2002 Journalist of the Year award for broadcast TV. He produced controversial and investigative media programms, as well as publishing three investigative books on the relationship between crime and politics, the first of which landed Bedingfield in court when criminal proceedings were initiated against him by the Nationalist Government of the time. The case caused a public uproar during its first sitting and was not pursued further by the government.

• Il-Gurament (translated to English as Witness) incurred the wrath of then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, who took Bedingfield to court for libel.
• Il-Hbieb Tal-Hbieb
• Il-Proklama in reference to the three presidential pardons Joseph Fenech (Zeppi l-Hafi) was granted by the Fenech Adami administration is a collection of the case reports in which prime suspect Meinrad Calleja was found not guilty of having commissioned Joseph Fenech to carry out the murder of Cachia Caruana.

Entrepreneur

In 2003, Bedingfield opened his first business enterprise in Vittoriosa. He moved on to open a second restaurant there. Presently he is running his third business enterprise, a wine bistro in Fort St Angelo.

Politics

Bedingfield came to the Labour Party fold at the start of the 90s after a journalistic stint with Bay Radio, when he joined One Productions Ltd, Labour’s media venture. Since then, he has been involved in politics at district level and he was as a member of the youth section of the Labour Party, the Labour Youth Forum (Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti) where he served as General Secretary (1996–97). Between 1997 and 2001, he was elected member in the Labour Party national executive. Bedingfield was one of four candidates chosen by Labour Party delegates during an extraordinary general conference held on 18 November 2003. Back then, MEP candidates had to win 70 per cent of valid votes from delegates during the conference. The other chosen MEP candidates were John Attard Montalto and Louis Grech (today MEPs), as well as Dr Muscat.

European Parliament

Bedingfield was elected as a Member of the European Parliament and successor of Joseph Muscat, who relinquished his seat to become Opposition Leader in the House of Representatives. Elected on the first count with 62% of the votes, adding to nearly 20,000 votes, Bedingfield surpassed of the votes. Another 1% of votes were non-transferable. After spending couple of months as a Member of the European Parliament, he lost his position in the MEP elections by 4,982 votes, amounting to 3.67% of Labour votes, or 1.96% of the total votes.

Family and personal life

Bedingfield is married to Annavic née Deidun and has a daughter, Emma.

External links

• Personal profile of Glenn Bedingfield in the European Parliament's database of members