Jean Paul Sammut, the CEO of Montekristo Estates, this evening said he had been in constant contact with the family of the victim of last week’s tiger attack.

Dr Sammut said he had personally visited the three-year-old boy and his family at Mater Dei Hospital after he was injured by an adult tiger at the Montekristo Animal Park.

The Times of Malta today reported Dr Sammut saying the incident had exposed the need for better health and safety standards across the island.

Dr Sammut had also drawn comparisons between the incident at the zoo and at the Paqpaqli motor show last month during which 26 people were injured when a supercar crashed into a crowd of spectators.

Dr Sammut today said the comparison was only meant to highlight that after such incidents it was “easy to make calls for improved standards”. He said he did not wish to blame the authorities for the incident. Nor did he wish to imply that the zoo incident was any less serious than that of the motor show.

“I wanted to say that after the incident everyone is smart and everyone starts to comment about what should have been done better, this was true with the Paqpaqli incident too. I did not mean that the Paqpaqli incident was worse than the zoo incident or to shift blame,” he said.

Dr Sammut said that as a father himself, he understand the sensitivity of the case.

He said that he had commented on the health and safety standards of the country after being asked by Times of Malta and did not mean to blame this for the incident.

“I never blamed the incident on anyone, not to any authority, in fact I replied that we need to leave the matter to the police to investigate,” he said.