Are the Parents Guilty…What Say You?
By Beverly Hicks Burch
Within the past week there has been a stunning turn in the case of the missing British tyke Madeleine McCann who went missing this past May from a resort in Portugal while on holiday with her family. At that time Maddie’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, both doctors in Great Britian claimed they left their three small young children alone, Maddie age three and twin siblings age two, while they went to dine with friends.
Gerry and Kate’s plan was to check on the kids every 30 minutes to make sure they were okay. Supposedly when Kate went to check on them at one of her check-in times, little three year old Maddie had vanished into thin air and has been missing since May 2007.
The McCann family then launched a full scale global media “Bring Maddie Home” campaign. They jetted all over Europe and the USA, held an audience with the new Pope, and enlisted the likes of British Celebs like footballer David “Becks” Beckham and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling in this campaign. They vowed not to leave Portugal until Maddie was found. (A time or two I wondered how two doctors could continue living in a foreign country, in a known resort area, taking leisurely morning jogs and continue to miss their incomes.)
Gerry McCann started his own blog with a PayPal donation button. On his blog Gerry boasted that so far the “Bring Maddie Home” campaign had raised ₤1,036,104. 17. That’s roughly $2.1 million US dollars at today’s exchange rate. Not bad for a couple of doctors who labored in a country that paid it medical specialist in 2002 the US equivalent of about $122,600. Both of the McCanns are GP’s so you might assume their individual income could be less than a specialist.
From the beginning I personally had a problem that two such bright people would leave these children alone…I mean to be a doctor you have to be pretty bright, right? I would personally find it difficult to trust the diagnostic abilities of two adults that deduced it was proper to leave three children alone in a hotel room unattended while they went off and frolicked with friends for dinner. Something just seemed “hinky” from the get go, but everyone can have a lapse of judgment from time to time…and this is what the McCanns have claimed since the disappearance of Maddie.
Well, now according to immerging reports, the police in Portugal are prepared to arrest Kate McCann on charges similar to US charges of manslaughter. If and when Gerry McCann will be charged is unclear. Furthermore, reports seem to indicate that the Portugal police have been working with British authorities in gathering, examining and extrapolating the evidence. It seems the police in Portugal have suspected Kate McCann from the get go.
In August the Portuguese police began leaking to the press that the parents were possible suspects. Of course, they have denied the allegations. Now, in early September the results of the evidence are in and based on what they have they questioned both parents and offered Kate McCann a plea bargain. They offered her a two year sentence for the accidental killing and disposal of her daughter’s body.
Police believe that Kate sedated Maddie for some reason and this killed her and Kate panic and Kate and Gerry plotted to hide Maddie’s little body then dispose of it when the “heat” was off of them so to speak. The police have conflicting stories between the McCanns stories and those of the couples they dined with in addition to forensic evidence. British sniffer dogs were called in to go over the holiday room of the McCann’s along with ultraviolet light. The dogs found blood in the room on a wall at a very low height. Blood has also been indicated to have been found in a car trunk the family rented 25 days after Maddie was reported missing and sniffer dogs detected the presence of on Maddie on Kate’s clothes after the tyke was missing. The DNA of the blood has been matched to Maddie. Evidently authorities in both Portugal and Great Britain feel the evidence is fairly damning for Kate and possibly Gerry McCann.
What do I think? Do I feel a parent could kill their innocent baby? Personally it goes against everything in me…it screams against the heart and soul within me and it should of mankind as a whole. But, do I think it can happen? Unfortunately, yes…it has already happened one time too many when we see the Susan Smiths and the Andrea Yates of the world. There are far too many people that deal their children harm and there are people that commit the ultimate child abuse…murder. Sadly, the human mind and the human heart can be capable of hugely inhumane, evil acts.
What say I about the McCanns? I can only let the evidence and the letter of the law take care of little Maddie now. My instincts tell me her parents are careless, reckless, immature people at best and heartless, cruel beasts at worst and it should be judged if they are able to hold safe the two precious lives they have left…Maddie’s siblings. It’s the least we can do for Maddie now…what say you?
© 2007 Beverly Hicks Burch All Rights Reserved.
A Steel Magnolia is an Iron Butterfly 
Well Beveryly, I don’t think anyone can make comment let alone write them on a blog about has happened to this lovely little girl. The only evidence that the public have heard is through the media. We in Australia have heard that the DNA was an 80% match. I think for the sake of this little girl only documented facts should be published and the rubbish and garbage I have heard or read in the media. The comments from people in this case, the Ramsey case and many others certainly really concerns me about the jury system. The perceptions that people have on what people look like and what they have and don’t have certainly makes me quite ill. Whatever happened to fairness, justice and integrity. Its gone. Your comments on the parents are not acceptable, you do not know these people, you have prejudged them on hearsay. I think your description of them is over the top. The Portugal police certainly have some questions that need to be answered, they should be the ones that the media are after. The fact that they have come up with this evidence so long after the disappearance is outrageous. They have been found wanting in their investigation techniques and maybe they need to have Fox cable connected to the police station and watch the CI channel to get some tips.
Leave the parents alone, whilst there are examples of the Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, I do not think this case is in anyway comparable. The Portugal police force seem to have forgotten and so have the press that there are people out there who abduct young children, I would like to compare to statistics to the child sex offenders to parents, mothers in particular who kill their children. My personal opinion is that these parents had nothing to do with their daughter’s disappearance and until its been proven otherwise, I will continue to think that way. I suggest that for the sake of little Madeline we should not condemn her parents without all the facts.
Rhonda,
Thank you for taking the time to stop by and comment.
I know this is a sensitive case, but unfortunately, sweet little Maddie is not the only child in the world to go missing and unfound. I don’t mean to be cruel, but, there are so many cases of lost children who need just as much help being found as Maddie. Would there be as much media coverage if this child was uncomely, black, yellow or even an aborigine from your country? I think not. For example, do you know who Ethan Patz is? He is a little 6 year old fellow who disappeared off the streets of New York City in 1979 on the way to school one morning. Where are the world wide news stories about him? My point? All children…each and every child deserves such attention and respect and search…our children are that valuable!
As far as Gerry and Kate McCann, once again I stand by what I say and I am not alone. If you will re-read what I wrote, you will see that I did not accuse then of killing their Maddie. What I do say is that to leave three small children under the age of five alone just so you can go off and frolic and have fun is selfish and idiotic! I’m not the only one saying this…most of the world is…most clear thinking people that is. Even their high powered friends are backing away until some questions are answered.
To follow your logic, as you said there are so many child molesters and perverts out there to be concerned about and looked at, I would say why in the name of God would parents leave three small children defenseless against the threat of being snatched by a predator?! To do so is pure negligence! In the US parents that do so and neglect their children in such an egregious manner can face legal prosecution. Let’s compare statistics of dunder-headed parents who leave their children alone and available for sex offends to snatch and kill…how bout we do that? I’d say at least we could place Gerry and Kate McCann on that statistical list.
There was some strange behavior on their part from the get go. First, it took them approx. 40 minutes to call the police. Why? That in and of itself begins to hamper the police investigation. It would appear that any parent with a missing child would want the police there as FAST as they could get there…the faster the better. If it was my son, it couldn’t be fast enough. Then why did they drug…excuse me…sedate Maddie? I understand this is a common European practice! Once again something I don’t understand…my kid is bothering me, or inconvenient so I’ll knock him or her out for a bit. Give me a break! Hum…let’s follow that logic…I don’t want my kid to see something, so I’ll just poke his eyes out…it’s easier for ME that way…sheesh!
Yes, sometimes labs and police can get things wrong. A good example would be your country’s handling of the Lindy Chamberlain story. But, fortunately, more times than not, as science lends creed to better investigative tools and techniques police departments and countries, including Portugal, have less of a chance of creating such a mess. One thing scientist, CSI forensic specialist, lawyers, judges, police and other officials will tell you is that the TV hit “forensic” shows have caused a great problem in the legal system. Why? Well, they’ve created a lot of “Sunday morning” or “arm-chair quarterbacks” as we say here in the US…people who now think they know everything about forensic…but, actually know absolutely nothing. These shows make is look easy AND fast…they condense tests that take weeks and months into minutes and/or a one hour show for our viewing entertainment.
You see let’s exam the DNA/only 80% match theory. Well, Rhonda, let’s look at it another way. You’ve been feeling really bad. You go to the doctor and he checks you out and then he looks you in the face and says, “Rhonda, I’m sorry you have cancer and it’s 80% sure you’ll be dead before 2008.” I think in Las Vegas terms they would call you a “Dean Man/Woman Walking”…it would be pretty much that sure of a thing…but still a slim outside chance…
Rhonda, when it’s all said and done, we ALL hope and pray that Maddie’s parents would not be heartless animals and kill that baby. I hope that. Do I have problems with them, yes. Time may tell us and may not tell us. In the end we all need to protect the children…
Thanks again for stopping by,
Bev
If a child dies or disappears under circumstances that are anything other than lock-stock-an-barrel clear, the parents — statistically — should be the #1 suspects. Similarly, if a woman dies/disappears, the husband/boyfriend/ex-husband/ex-boyfriend (if there is one) should — statistically — be the #1 suspect.
The press is slow on this. Susan Smith was painted as an absolute saint, CLEARLY the victim of the generic black/male/teen she told everyone about. Then they found the bodies and she was depicted as the absolute model of evil.
No one is as perfect as Smith was made out (at first) to be. No one is as evil as she has since been depicted. Some people make stupid mistakes. Some are mentally ill. Some compound their stupidity or illness with attempts to cover-up the results of their illness/stupidity.
None of this forgives or in any way excuses what they have done, but it’s a far better explanation than saying they are “evil”.
Murder (in all its forms), physical/sexual/emotional abuse, hatred, etc. are all repugnant to me. But they are individual actions, not a metaphysical/universal force that’s “out there”. It’s inside each and every one of us in some form and to some degree.
Putting all the ugliness in the world into a little box labeled “evil” is lying to ourselves and setting us up to pay for that lie in the future.
Thank you stopping by and the time you took to contribute to the discussion.
Yes, in normal circumstances, in the commission of a crime, those closest to the victim are looked at first. Whether that was really done in Portugal can only be speculated. The police now claim that Kate McCann has always been under their blanket of suspicion.
Hopefully, the disappearance of a child will never be considered “normal” or acceptable. We can hope that when all is said and done, the McCanns will be exonerated in the disappearance of the daughter in this highly unusual case. They can never be exonerated of the careless nature of care with which they attended to their three small children. You just don’t leave children that age alone to fend for themselves…it’s not an evil action, but it’s certainly reckless, careless and selfish. There are just too many predators “out there” for children that age to have to deal with alone.
I agree there are many motives for murder…greed, hatred, perversion, fear and a Pandora’s Box that contains a plethora we could only dream about. I wish I could believe that evil didn’t exist in the world. But, when I know of the existence of the Hitlers, Stalins and Pol Pots in the world the image is ingrained into humanity. It’s only reinforced further when 29 year old Alysha Green of Haltom City, TX rounded her 2 year old, 4 year and 6 year old daughters up this past weekend. She lured them into a closet, doused them with gasoline and then set them on fire. These babies were heard screaming “Mommy, why did you do this to me?” To use the words of an educated, trained psychologist interview about the case…”there is no excuse for this kind of evil”.
Again, thank your contribution.
While it is sad and disturbing that this little girl is missing – I am not without my suspicions.
On the official find Maddie web site you can buy merchandise ranging from $1 to $10 – I thought that they were being funded by some of the wealthiest people in the world? I did read that they don’t intend to spend donations on the legal fight – what DO they intend to spend the money on then?
In my heart, I believe the family know much more about what happened then they are saying. Do I think they killed her? I don’t know – but they are ultimately responsible for what happened to her. I can not imagine that any parent would think it was ok to leave three children under the age of four alone in a hotel room, whether the intended to check on them every half hour or not.
Thanks for stopping and contributing.
Like you, I have wondered what all that money is for…I had heard it was for legal representation…then not…then for the search of Maddie. How and what are they doing to contribute to the search? They have really accumulated A LOT of money…even by doctor standards.
Do I think they killed their daughter? I can’t make that call…I still need more hard evidence, but I think there is a lot wrong with this case. There are a lot of questions about the parents. And they should have NEVER…NEVER…NEVER…left those babies alone!
Again, thanks for your comments.
With all the facts around the case, they look very guilty to me, and they should be considered as prime suspects.
I couldn’t agree with you more about the lack of intelligence demonstrated by the parents in sedating and leaving a baby on their own.
The fact they are making money off this makes me feel quite sick.
I have three boys, age three, five and nine. I would NEVER consider leaving them alone when being as young as the McCann’s children and no parents in their right mind would.
I also agree the McCann’s are very suspicious. According to British papers, Mr. McCann makes $150,000/year. His wife is also a doctor and if her salary’s even half of his, that’s $225,000/year combined. Both educated, middle-aged professionals with advanced degrees that could afford a deluxe vacation resort…but decided not to pay a baby sitter?? Who BOTH thought it okay to leave 3 babies alone in an unlocked room for hours. And it’s now come out that they did it for at least 4 nights in a row!! I can’t imagine even one of them thinking that made sense, let alone both of them! And they STILL don’t admit it was a mistake. They will only admit to it being “naive.” Abduction aside, didn’t they think about the kids falling out of bed, getting up and wandering outside, or crying for their parents, for whatever reason? It truly boggles the mind.
I had my son at 17, single, on welfare, and no high school diploma. I never once left him alone until he was in middle school. Not to say I was perfect by any means, but not THAT stupid!
And all the trips, PR stunts, focus on themselves, etc. Neglectful, sociopathic narcissists at the very least.
That is my point exactly. At the very least there was a lot that could have happened to three toddlers left alone in a hotel room. Falling, illness, choking, fevevr and assuming they are innocent of harming Maddie…then, abduction.
I’ve always wondered why and abductor would take one small child when three were so readily available? Just a thought…
Dear Beverly
Over the Christmas period, I received a copy of What really happened to Madeleine McCann? 60 reasons which suggest that she was not abducted with Appendix outlining British government involvement in the case written by Tony Bennett MA for The Medeliene Foundation,
After reading the booklet I purchased 100 of them, and have been distributing them in Nottingham and Leicester with my wife on my Triumph Bonneville America motorcycle. We have visited the Police HQ in Leicester and the McCanns home village of Rothley.
The Madeleine Foundation is NOTHING to do with Kate and Gerry McCann the parents of Madeleine McCann.
Presently more than 600 are being paid for by the general public and being sent to every Member of Parliament.
Grenville Green
Nuthall, Nottingham ENGLAND
Dear Beverley,
Not very good with IT so I hope this video link works
According to the McCanns spokesman, Clarence Mitchell in a talk he gave in the OXFORD Student Union Friday 6th March. Some countries are sympathetic to the McCanns and others are not..
Q- Does AUSTRALIA believe Madeleine was abducted?
Grenville Green
Nuthall Nottingham ENGLAND
Grenville,
Thanks for the new information. I’ve wondered if there has been anything new on little Maddie’s case. It’s such a shame this much time has passed and there’s been no real closure on the case.
I still feel something went terribly awry within the family that night…even if it was just the fact that such young children were left alone…that’s a crime in itself.
As far as Australia’s leaning toward the case, I really can’t say one way or the other. One reader from that country left some rather pointed, personal and nasty comments directed at ME because she felt I was too tough on the parents. That was one reader..how the rest of Australia feels, I don’t know.
I would say in the US people here feel something went wrong and the parents have some responsibility in what happened…again if for nothing else in setting things in motion by leaving such young children unsupervised.
Thanks again for your comments,
Bev
Bev,
Thank you for your reply .
UNITED STATES
I would say in the US people here feel something went wrong and the parents have some responsibility in what happened…again if for nothing else in setting things in motion by leaving such young children unsupervised.
AUSTRALIA
Mike Hitchen is based in Australia. He isn’t terribly sympathetic towards Kate and Gerry McCann.
http://ionglobaltrends.blogspot.com/search/label/Madeleine%20McCann.
UK
Tony Bennett M.A asks “What really happened to Madeleine McCann?” 60 reasons which suggest that she was not abducted.
Anyone trying to make sense out of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann can find find out the thoughts of others for and against on “The 3 Arguidos” Where The Truth Flows Freely
Regards
Grenville
This little girls disapperance is very tragic, whether it was at the hands of her parents or a pervert.
What is very disturbing is the massive amount of attention this case has generated.
Look, thousands of kids die every day from preventable disease and malnutrition ,if these deaths got even a fraction of the attention that the Mccann case has generated the world would be a far better place.
Granted the world would be a better place if there wasn’t disease, abuse and hunger for people…of any age.
What is ultimately tragic and seems to rile most civilized people is the sense of betrayal a young innocent child must feel…especially the horror of a death at the hands of someone who is suppose to love and protect you above all others…and that would be your parents. We have just had a case in the States in the last few days where a young father strangled with his bare hands his wife and TWO beautiful young sons.
Is there a caring, civilized, humane and loving person alive today that can not sense this is the ultimate betrayal. In other word, imagine how YOU would have felt if your last moments on Earth had been spent knowing your death was at the hands of a parent you loved? Maybe caring parents understand this the best.
Regardless, I do appreciate you stopping by and taking time to comment.
Bev
The people of Rothley have receieved a wake up call with the delivery of these leaflets..Read the police files and Mrs Fenns statement. She heard Madeleine screaming and crying Daddy,Daddy from 10.30 until 11.45..on the night 1st May….This proves there were no checks. For those that do not know Mrs Fenn , she lives in the apartment above 5a. She heard Kate screaming on the night of the 3rd…”We have let her down, Gerry we have let her down.” Mrs Fenn looked over her balcony to see what was wrong..Mccann said a child is missing.(.not my daughter .)..a child…Mrs.Fenn said “Shall I call the police” Kate said they have already been called”…Kate lied….
People of Rothley who gave to the fund should realise if the Mccanns are involved in the disappearance of Maddie and their statements to police are very odd and do not fit the times they state, should also realise that the fund is fraudulent and that they have been robbed by the two nice doctors of Rothley.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving an informative update.
I’ve always thought there was just something odd to say the least about this baby girl’s disappearance!
I hope and pray the truth comes out some day so her little soul will get justice…in the mean time I pray for Peace for her blessed little soul.
The parents SHOULD really be looked at folks…just remember…how would you have reacted if it had been your baby?
http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/
For more information on the police files no better place..
My Big Desk….AnnaEsse…
Anna has spent hours translating Goncalos book into english. There you will read about David Payne and the alleged suspicions against him by two friends given in police statements. These allegations were held back from the PJ while they were conducting their investigation. Why? you may ask….a very good question’ nobody knows…The DVDs regarding witness statements were given to the British Press…not one of them has printed these statements…again Why? The statements are not gossip or hearsay they are factual and the british public should be told about them.
Here is a snippet from Goncalos book with regards to the investigation and the fund. The book if and when you read it is based on the investigation…facts…and not as some try to portray a bitter cop who has it in for the mccanns. It shows a man with passion and concern for the mccanns as he expresses his understanding for their lost child and shares in their grief. He is also a detective searching for the truth.
Quote
FRAUD OR ABUSE OF TRUST?
During a more relaxed moment at one of these meetings, I come out with an ill-judged comment. Inopportune or undiplomatic, but this is my reasoning: thinking about the kinds of crime that may have been committed if the McCanns were involved in their daughter’s disappearance, something occurs to me. If they were involved in one way or another, then a crime of fraud or abuse of trust is a possibility concerning the fund that was set up to finance the search for Madeleine. Donations have reached nearly 3 million Euros.
If such a crime exists, Portugal would not have jurisdiction to investigate and try it. The fund being legally registered in England, it would be our English colleagues who would deal with the case. Our English colleagues then realise a hard reality: the strong possibility that they would have a crime to investigate in their own country, with the McCAnn couple as the main suspects: a prospect that does not seem to appeal to them. I notice a sudden pallor in the faces of those British people present.
http://goncaloamaraltruthofthelie.blogspot.com/
Link to the book in English…
This is the police statement from a very worried doctor a friend ‘of the Mccanns and Paynes…Why was this information by british police not handed over to PJ…
Bamasteelmagnolia.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is information available to the public. I hope you will allow it to remain on your blog. if not I understand…People that support the Mccanns ask about where are the facts. Well here is a fact and this Doctor was very concerned…PJ should have been given this information to help with their investigation.
Last Name: Gaspar Forenames: Katherina
Date of Testimony: 16/05/2007 Number of Pages: 8
I give this declaration in relation to the McCANN family who are currently in Portugal. The McCANN family is composed of Gerry McCANN, his wife, Kate McCANN and their three children, Madeleine, of 4 years old, and Sean and Amelie, who are twins and of 2 years of old.
As is profusely divulged in the news, Madeleine is not with her family, at present, and has been missing for the last two weeks.
I will begin by explaining that I am married to Savio Gaspar and that we have two daughters. Exxxx of almost 3 years old and Ixxxx which is now 1 year old. I have been married to Savio for 11 years. I am a general practitioner as is my husband. I met my husband when we were (page 1) working together in Exeter, around 14 years ago.
In order to explain how we know the McCANN family, I would like to state that my husband knows Kate as they both attended Dundee University between 1987 and 1992. At that time, Kate name was Kate HEALY. I met Kate and Gerry at the occasion of their wedding, in 1998, in Liverpool. Both Savio and I went to the wedding, since Savio was an old friend of Kate, we were invited to the event.
From what I know, Savio did not know Gerry before the said wedding. After this time, we met as friends, probably around three times a year, and we would go out together for the weekend. I would say that we become intimate friends of Gerry and Kate.
I remember that in 2002 or 2003, Savio and I spent a weekend with Gerry and Kate in Devon. We maintained contact with each other via telephone.
In 2002/2003 Savio and I were living in Birmingham and the McCANN’S in Leicester.
In September of 2005 Savio, myself and Exxxx, who at the time was 1 and a half years old, spent our holidays abroad, in Mallorca. We went (page 2) on holidays with Kate, Gerry, and Madeleine, who should have been around 2 and a half years old, and the twins, Sean and Amelie, who were only months old. I remember that I was pregnant with Ixxxx.
On those holidays we also met Gerry and Kate’s friends.
There was a couple, whose names were Dave and Fiona, and whose surname was PAYNE, I think. I believe that they were married and had one daughter, 1 year old, named Lxxx. I remember that on these holidays, Fiona was pregnant.
There was another couple, whose names were Txxxx and Sxxxx, and whose family name I cannot remember who were also on holiday with us. They had two boys, of 1 and 3 years old, whose names I do not remember. I did not know these two families until we went on holidays together. As I recall, I think that David organised the holidays and we all stayed together in a big house while we stayed in Mallorca.
We spend a week on holidays, however, the McCANN family, and the PAYNE family stayed for two weeks. I believe that Txxxx and Sxxxx, and their two children, also stayed for one week.
Two or three days passed in Mallorca where we had fun (Page 3) with our children. Possibly around the fourth or fifth day abroad, I remember an incident that stayed recorded in my head. I say this in this way, because I have thought many times about the incident that I am about to describe.
One night, on holidays, the adults, that is, the couples aforementioned, were in a patio outside of the house where we were staying. We had been eating and drinking.
I was seated between Dave and Gerry who I believe were both speaking about Madeleine. I don’t remember the conversation in its entirety, but it seemed they were discussing a possible scenario. I remember David telling Gerry something like “she”, referring to Madeleine, “would do this”.
When he mentioned “this”, Dave was sucking on one of his fingers, pushing it inside and outside his mouth, while with the other hand he made a circle around his nipple, with a circulatory movement over his clothes. This was done in a provocative manner and carried an explicit insinuation in relation to what he was doing and making.
I remember that I was shocked at this, and looked at Gerry, and also at Dave, to gauge their reactions. I looked around (page 4) as if saying “did someone else hear that, or was it just me”. There was a nervous silence registered in all the conversations and afterwards, everyone began talking again.
I never spoke to anyone about this, but I always felt that it was very strange and it wasn’t something that someone should do or say.
Besides this [incident], I remember that Dave did the same thing once again. When I refer to this, I want to clarify that it was during a conversation in which he was talking about an imaginary situation, though I could not say exactly what about.
I believe that he was talking about his own daughter, Lxxx, although I cannot be certain. He put one of his fingers in his mouth and slide it in and out, and with the other hand, drew a circle around his nipple in a sexually and provocative way. I believe that he was referring to the way that Lxxx, would behave or do it.
I believe that he did this later on, during the holidays, but I cannot be sure. The last time, besides this one, when I was with Dave and Fiona was several weeks after the holidays, when Savio and I met Gerry, Kate, Dave and Fiona at a restaurant in Leicester.
I am absolute certain that he said what he said and that he repeated the same gestures that I referred, however that could have occurred in a restaurant in Leicester, though (page five) I believe that it was later on, in Mallorca. When I heard Dave doing and making this a second time, I took it more seriously.
I remember thinking whether he looked at the girls in a manner different from me or from the others. I imagined that maybe he had visited Internet sites related to small children. In short, I thought he was interested in internet child porn.
During our holidays I was more attentive at bath time after hearing Dave saying that.
During our vacation in Mallorca, it was the fathers who took care of the children baths. I had the tendency to walk close to the bathroom, if Dave was bathing his children. I remember telling Savio to be careful and to be there, in case it was Dave helping to bathe the children and, in particular, to my daughter Exxxx. I was very clear about this, as having heard him disturbed me, and did not trust him to give a bath to Exxxx alone.
When I heard Dave say that a second time, it reinforced what I already though in relation to his thoughts about little girls. During our stay in Mallorca, Dave and his wife, Fiona, accompanied by this daughter Lxxx, took Madeleine (page 6) with them to spend the day together, and to give Kate and Gerry a bit of rest and time to be with the twins. When I say this, it is not that I was worried with Madeleine’s safety, since she was also with Fiona and Lxxx, and also with Dave, as far as I know.
As I already referred, I was only with Dave and Fiona on one occasion, after Mallorca, and I have not spoken to them since that time. In the last two years, we have met, as a family, with the McCANNS, once in a while. That happens mainly at the children’s birthday, a time when we get together.
The first time I had knowledge of the terrible news about Madeleine’s disappearance trough the radio, my thoughts went immediately to Dave. I asked Savio if Dave was also on holidays with the McCANNS in Portugal but he did not know.
I watched TV meticulously, and seeing the coverage of the news, I understood that Dave was there, because I saw him, in the background, on the television images during the first days after the Madeleine’s disappearance. Based on that, I believed that he was on holidays with the McCANNS in Portugal.
Today, Wednesday, the 16th of May of 2007, at 17:40, I gave DC Brewer an A4 page containing 2 photographic images. I am going to reference these images as (ref KZG/1) (probatory element) that may (page seven) be presented as mean of proof, if necessary.
These photographs were taken during the holidays in Mallorca. In the photographs, Dave is wearing a white t-shirt and the woman in the photograph corresponds to his wife Fiona. The man who is holding the cup of wine in the photograph is Sxxxx. These photographs were taken whilst we were in Mallorca.
Add to this the strange police statements from Kate and David Payne…the evening of the 3rd 6.30 pm…. Payne called at the apartment while Mccann was playing tennis…Payne said he was there around 30 minutes….Kate says he was only there for about 30 seconds…
Dear Bev
A few days ago, three members of The Madeleine Foundation distributed leaflets in Rothley Leicestershire.
BRITISH PRESS reported wrongly that ten people were delivering leaflets through the night, one was on a motorcycle. For good measure these lies were added to by saying leaflets had been pinned to trees and notice boards
No MF members pinned leaflets to trees and notice boards, as this is UNLAWFUL and the culprits can be prosecuted.
BRITISH press, BRITISH government and the LEICESTER police have a lot to answer for, and some of them are in need of urgent removal from their jobs.
Best Wishes to you and your readers
Grenville Green
Sorry,
I should have mentioned the leaflets were INFORMATION leaflets giving 10 key reasons which suggest Madeleine McCann was not abducted.
Grenville
http://themccanngallery.blogspot.com/2009/08/stuart-prior-fss-kate-mccanns.html
Mr.Green, your leaflets get a mention here.
The British government asked that immediate consular assistance be given to the Tapas gang.
Within hours, the British Embassy in Portugal warned their government that there were severe inconsistencies in the parents versions of how their daughter had gone missing and that the government should not get involved. Repeat – not to get involved.
The Embassy was told to go ahead. Key players at the Embassy during that time were moved on.
Why are the Tapas gang being protected? Why is there a press ban on all information and evidences published by the Portuguese police and all statements, including the Gaspars?
If Geraghty had the connections to get the keys to the Church, could he have had connections to get keys for the Boavista golf club not far from his home?
Eddie and Keela should have searched Geraghty’s home I think this would have rattled a few cages.What looks like Dianne Webster is on Facebook looking rather garish if it is her…There is also now a Katherine Gaspar on Facebook…not sure if it is the Katherine.
Dianne has since removed her delightful face from facebook and now gone undercover..
A must read ,,,for those who doubt the Mccanns story.
Ironside ………… You are a Saint. I have always respected your posts enormously from the beginning.
Have often wondered why we haven’t seen statements from Geraghty. If he had the clout to get keys for the Church, he could easily have got the keys for the golf club.
Handy place to hide a bag or get hold of lime and fertisers etc. Not that I am even suggesting anything untoward you understand …………
Never leave a baby or very young child alone at home, whether asleep or awake, even for a few minutes. It doesn’t take long for unsupervised young children or babies to injure themselves.
Good advice from BUPA…
Even better advice for the Doctors Mccann
Never seen two innocent people trying so hard not to look guilty….
September 09, 2009
Gonçalo Amaral’s book prohibited from sale
by Ana Paula Azevedo
The 13th Section of the Civil Court of Lisbon has today conceded the injunction that had been presented by the McCann couple, the parents of Maddie – who disappeared in Praia da Luz in May 2007 – in the sense of prohibiting the sale of the book by Gonçalo Amaral, the former Polícia Judiciária inspector who defends the thesis that the parents were responsible over the disappearance and death of the child.
The book, Maddie – The Truth about the Lie – cannot be sold as of today, and all copies that are in shops or in storage must be collected.
The court has further decided to sustain the McCann couple’s request to prohibit the distribution of the movie that is based on the same book, and was broadcast by TVI.
The court demands Valentim de Carvalho and Guerra e Paz to collect all of the books that are still on sale in bookshops, forbidding them of ceding the rights of exhibition of the video and of sale of the book into other countries.
According to the same decision, the editors are not allowed to publish this or other books or videos that defend the same thesis.
Finally, it forbids Gonçalo Amaral to make any statements about the contents of the book or the video.
source: SOL, 09.09.2009
(developing)
+/-
+/-
by Joana Morais
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0QcehD7EC
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
However, this doesn’t prevent his wife from talking about it!
Dear Bev,
Further news for you and your readers:
Carter Ruck Send Letters to the Madeleine Foundation
Released 6.00pm. Thursday 17 September 2009
On 1 and 2 September in the post Debbie Butler and Tony Bennett received legal letters from Carter-Ruck, sent by staff working under the direction of Adam Tudor, Partner. As most of you will know, Carter-Ruck is universally acknowledged as the leading and most expensive firm of libel lawyers in the country and successfully obtained nearly £1 million in libel damages against various British media and newspapers on behalf of the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 7’ friends during the early part of 2008.
Both of us have received letters making the following six key demands:
1. To permanently take down our website at http://www.madeleinefoundation.org
2. To deliver up to Carter-Ruck all outstanding copies of the booklet “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann? 60 Reasons which suggest that she was not abducted”
3. To deliver up to Carter-Ruck all outstanding copies of the leaflet: “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann? – 10 Key Reasons which suggest that she was not abducted”
4. To erase all electronic copies of both the booklet and the leaflet
5. To use our best endeavours to remove all allegedly defamatory postings by either of us on any website, forum or blog, and
6. To permanently cease from making any further allegedly defamatory statements about the McCanns.
The nature of the alleged defamation is that we have publicly suggested that Madeleine McCann died in the McCanns’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz and that the parents bear at least a degree of responsibility for her death. In this respect we adopt the conclusions of Goncalo Amaral in his best-selling book published last year, ‘The Truth About The Lie”.
In addition, Tony Bennett received a separate legal letter in relation to postings he made about Brian and Patrick Kennedy on the now-defunct 3Arguidos website in July this year.
We cannot hide the fact that these letters and how to react to them have created some uncertainty and pressure as we decide how to reply. We are taking legal advice on what are clearly highly complex legal issues.
This pressure was increased when on Tuesday 15 September we received further legal letters from Carter-Ruck informing us for the first time that under something called the ‘Pre-action Protocol for Defamation’ we were expected to reply in full to their demands within 14 days. They have now insisted that unless we reply in full to all letters by tomorrow (Friday 18 September 2009) they will immediately instruct a barrister to draw up a libel writ.
It may be recalled that on 27 October 2008, Debbie Butler as Chairman of The Madeleine Foundation wrote to the McCanns themselves, Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns Chief Public Relations Officer, Carter-Ruck themselves and two of the McCanns’ many other lawyers, offering to withdraw or amend any statement we had made on our website in our ‘30 Reasons’ article or that was in our forthcoming book, ‘60 Reasons’ (which we published on 7 December 2008) that they could demonstrate to be untrue. No reply has ever been received to any of those five letters, until the letters we received on 1 and 2 September.
We regard it as wholly disproportionate to demand replies from us within 14 days when these letters did not arrive until 310 days after we wrote to them on 27 October 2008 – and we have said so in no uncertain terms.
We are consulting with lawyers and until we have received their advice which could include having to seek a barrister’s opinion, we cannot yet say how we will respond.
It is against this background that Debbie and Tony jointly admit to a misunderstanding between them during the course of 15 September which led to Debbie posting a notice on a Madeleine forum that she would not be working with The Madeleine Foundation ‘until further notice’. That misunderstanding has now been fully cleared up and we remain united in our commitment to the work of The Madeleine Foundation. Debbie will remain as Chairman and Tony as Secretary. We both wish to say sorry to our members and supporters who were troubled at the news that Debbie might be leaving and at the same time thank all of you who have been kind enough over the past two days to send us messages of goodwill and encouragement.
At the same time, Tony Bennett, having received appropriate legal advice, has already replied, earlier today, to the legal letter received by Carter-Ruck on behalf of Brian and Patrick Kennedy. Accompanying this statement is Tony’s on-the-record reply to that letter.
We should just like to add this. Any fees incurred for legal advice will be met personally by ourselves and the funds in The Madeleine Foundation’s bank account will not be used.
Our plans continue with our meetings in Cardiff on 3 October, south Manchester on 14 November, and of course our 2nd International Conference in the East Midlands on 27 & 28 February 2010.
Debbie Butler and Tony Bennett
With the movement of Tony and Debbie delivering leaflets in Rothley I would imagine a few have woken up from their sedated state.
A little gossip over morning coffee maybe, a sly look when kate is buying her lamb chops in the Butchers.A few mums at the school gate, glancing at kate with doubt in their eyes. All of this the Mccanns can probably live with, they are arrogant and superior to others.Fine for the moment, but let the people of Rothley stir a little more and start thinking if the Mccanns had anything to do with the disappearance of madeleine . What about the fund and the mortgage payments? Their visit to the Pope.Money they have given with good hearts to help the Dear Doctors…It is one regret I have that Tony did not print on his leaflet the statement from Mrs Fenn. The fine people of Rothley knew Madeleine, how would they feel if they had known madeleine was left sobbing screaming Daddy daddy for more than one and a half hours. How would they feel when seeing the Mccanns on Sky denying that the children ever woke, except for a small moment. When will the people of Rothley realise that the Mccanns are a double act, they are a couple of con masters and have taken the world for a ride.
IRON:
IRONSIDE, on September 19th, 2009 at Saturday,September,19,2009 Said:
“With the movement of Tony and Debbie delivering leaflets in Rothley I would imagine a few have woken up from their sedated state”.
Correction IRONSIDE–Three people delivered leaflets in Rothley – Debbie Butler, my wife Helene and myself.
Thanks for the correction Mr.Green. Either way it was a very good move. A very good morning to you.
Mr Grenville . Just a simple yes or No. Are you OK have you been threatened in any way. Also Debbie and Tony. Stevo are they all OK?
We are fine, and thank you for asking.
Kind regards
Grenville and Helene
I am glad if you wish me to post onything on any forums just let me know..
Gonçalo Amaral presented opposition to the Lisbon Civil Court’s decision that prohibited the ongoing sale of the book “Maddie: The truth about the lie”.
The former Polícia Judiciária inspector’s defence considers that the book does not reveal anything beyond what is included in the judicial process, which is public.
Lawyer António Cabrita says that the book “does not offend the McCann couple’s good name, consideration and reputation in any manner and does not harm the continuation of the searches for Madeleine in any form”.
Following an injunction by the McCann couple, the Lisbon Civil Court determined, earlier this month, to prohibit the sale of the book and any comments by Gonçalo Amaral about the English girl’s disappearance.
The former inspector has presented opposition to the dispatch today, and delivered a list of seven witnesses, including British policemen, who may be heard by the judge.
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0S6bRSCi9
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
September 24, 2009
‘The English Gag’: Amaral Defies the McCanns
Gonçalo Amaral pledged that he would not be silenced by the injunction ruled by the Lisbon Civil Court, prohibiting the circulation of the book ‘A Verdade da Mentira’ and the video, which defend the theory of Madeleine McCann’s death and the cadaver concealment by her parents.
He fulfilled his promise. The former PJ Inspector appears now with the book ‘A Mordaça Inglesa’ [The English Gag], to be presented on the 3rd of October in the Algarve.
Gerry and Kate seek compensation of 1.2 million. The court’s decision also prohibits Gonçalo Amaral to make any statements. Doing so he will have to pay a thousand euros to the English family, for each comment.
However, Amaral is not intimidated and challenges the McCanns by starting his book with a quote from Mário Soares after the 25th of April 1974 on freedom of expression.
Yesterday, Kate and Gerry were in Lisbon to “explore strategies” with their lawyers and advisers. The objective, according to Gerry, is to “get back on course and continue to search” for Maddie, who disappeared in Praia da Luz, Lagos, in 2007. To represent them in the Portuguese media, the couple hired the Public Relations company ‘Lift Consulting’.
Visibly nervous with the first return to Portugal [since they run away returned to the UK], Kate said she believes that her daughter is alive. “Madeleine deserves that we believe in her”, she said.
With a choking voice, Kate also admitted to return to Praia da Luz: “I want to return to the place where I embraced my daughter for the last time”. Gerry on the other hand said: “Although it is painful, we are learning to live without Maddie”.
in Correio da Manhã
Meanwhile from the Jornal de Noticias we can read the following:
Legal battle on the way
7 thousand books seized
The lawyer Isabel Duarte said that she was only authorized by the couple to speak about two cases against Gonçalo Amaral. “This does not mean that there aren’t more claims”. She also said that until now seven thousand books have been seized.
Conferences in Europe
In the Civil Court of Lisbon entered today the “counterclaim” of Gonçalo Amaral to the injunction that ordered him to be silent. Pending the decision, he is considering accepting various invitations to participate in conferences all around Europe.
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0S6cOYGGG
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Maddie’s parents are getting ready to act judicially against internet sites that question their behaviour through comments and texts that they consider to be defaming
by André Carapeto
After the injunction that hit former Polícia Judiciária coordinator Gonçalo Amaral, preventing the book from being sold in Portugal and in England, Gerry and Kate McCann are now committed to making all the uncomfortable internet pages that concern the disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine McCann, disappear.
Through their lawyers, Adam Tudor and Stephen Loughrey, from the offices of Carter Ruck, one of the most influential (and expensive) in England, Maddie’s parents want to discipline those who doubt their behaviour or suggest that they were somehow involved in their daughter’s destiny.
The famous law office that some months ago obtained hundreds of thousands of euro in compensation payments from some British media, for the McCanns and their friends who dined at the ‘Tapas Bar’ on the night that Maddie disappeared, has already taken a few measures in order to attack with the couple’s new legal offensive.
As far as everything indicates, those responsible for internet pages and blogs that are openly unfavourable towards the McCanns have already received intimations from Carter Ruck, ordering them to cease their activity, under threat of lawsuits for defamation and calumny.
Test card…
One of the main (if not even “the” main) targets for Maddie’s parents is the website that is owned by the Madeleine Foundation, headed by Anthony Bennett and Debbie Butler, who received, early this month, the letters from Tudor and Loughney, where they were asked to stop the foundation’s online page’s activity, as well as other demands made by Gerry and Kate.
But there is more: the heads of the foundation that was created with the purpose of combating child neglect, were demanded to hand over all existing copies of the book “What really happened to Madeleine McCann – 60 reasons that show that she was not abducted”, which was published in late 2008.
Apart from this ‘order’, the former English member of parliament who leads the foundation also received notices to shut down the activity of the website that was created in November last year, as well as the order to deliver to Justice the remaining leaflets that contain a summary of the book, which volunteers at Bennett’s service delivered into various English locations, including Rothley, the neighbourhood where the McCanns reside.
The former English member of parliament who heads the foundation also received intimations to delete all computer records, both of the book and of said leaflets, and to delete all allegedly offensive comments that exist on the webpage, and on interconnected forums or blogs, many of which are signed by Bennett himself.
But there is more…
Nevertheless, it is not only the Madeleine Foundation that is targeted by the McCanns’ offensive. The crosshairs also focus on blogs, including the “Three arguidos”, which is a forum that has been used for strong criticism of the behaviour of the English couple of doctors, since the night of the 3rd of May 2007.
Since they decided to stop giving interviews to the media, and discredited the action of the Portuguese police forces, the McCanns seem to have turned the search for their daughter into a struggle of their own, threatening to confront anyone who tries to contradict their position.
Over the last two years, since their daughter disappeared from apartment 5A at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Gerry and Kate have received unconditional support of some and severe criticism from others. After last year they secured a compensation payment of 700 thousand euro, which was obtained after they accused several newspapers in their country of defamation, and after six of the seven friends that accompanied them on their Portuguese holidays, under representation of the same law firm, also received compensation payments that neared 450 thousand euro, Gerry and Kate now threaten to go down the same route, with the internet as their target.
source: O Crime, paper edition, 24.09.2009
satirical image an H. original creation
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0S6dDKhgQ
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IRONSIDE, on September 25th, 2009 at Friday,September,25,2009 Said:
Maddie’s parents are getting ready to act judicially against internet sites that question their behaviour through comments and texts that they consider to be defaming
Dear Bev,
In the light of what is written here by André Carapeto
Quote:
“After the injunction that hit former Polícia Judiciária coordinator Gonçalo Amaral, preventing the book from being sold in Portugal and in England, Gerry and Kate McCann are now committed to making all the uncomfortable internet pages that concern the disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine McCann, disappear.
Through their lawyers, Adam Tudor and Stephen Loughrey, from the offices of Carter Ruck, one of the most influential (and expensive) in England, Maddie’s parents want to discipline those who doubt their behaviour or suggest that they were somehow involved in their daughter’s destiny”.
Do you think one of the most feared expensive influential law firms in the UK could have an influence in the USA ?
Could your site be closed and posters be disciplined because some opinions expressed, differ from those expressed by Gerry and Kate Mccann?
I personally do not think so, as the USA is the land of the FREE
Good morning Mr.Green , I am posting on American sites and they are shocked by what is happening..I live in Spain and the same applies the Mccanns cannot shut every blog up, our laws here are different. as you know Mr Amaral was here this week and has been interviewed this will be shown in 70 countries….Do not forget Spain lived under a dictatorship with Franco. The Spaniards have no intention of returning there with the help of a couple of child neglectors. We shall blog on.
Dear Bev,
I have asked this question of an American Legal Advice Internet Service:-
“Although there is a lot of activity presently on the internet by Gerry and Kate McCanns’ lawyers, I cannot believe Free Speech and opinion can be controlled.
As we cannot believe everything reported in the media, it follows that if the internet is controlled then free speech and personal opinion will be stopped. The free world, as we know it, will cease. What is next–concentration camps and gassing?”
This is the answer I received:-
“Absolutely not because free speech and free opinions are protected by the US Constitution in the United states but in other countries free speech may not involve the same protections that we do here. Their attorneys cannot ban any US based internet sites just because they dont like the content.”
IRONSIDE, on September 26th, 2009 at Saturday,September,26,2009 Said:
Good morning Mr.Green , I am posting on American sites and they are shocked by what is happening..I live in Spain and the same applies the Mccanns cannot shut every blog up, our laws here are different. as you know Mr Amaral was here this week and has been interviewed this will be shown in 70 countries….
Do not forget Spain lived under a dictatorship with Franco. The Spaniards have no intention of returning there with the help of a couple of child neglectors. We shall blog on.
IRONSIDE, on September 25th, 2009 at Friday,September,25,2009 Said:
I am glad if you wish me to post anything on any forums just let me know.
Good morning IRONSIDE Please keep doing what you are doing as you are an encouragement.
Good morning MrGrenville, I hope you and your good lady enjoy what is left of the weekend…
27 September 2009
Sunday Express Exclusive Interview with Sofia Leal
Sofia and Gonçalo Amaral
THE wife of Portuguese detective Gonçalo Amaral has denied they are locked in a personal battle with Kate and Gerry McCann and has spoken of their pity for the distraught couple.
By James Murray
“Everyone thinks we are fighting the McCanns but this is not true,” said 38-year-old Sofia Leal in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express.
“I tell people all the time that they are having to endure the hardest pain in the world, which is losing a child.
“As a mother I cannot imagine what kind of pain that is. It is so hard.
“Like Kate McCann, I am a Catholic. The image of pain in the Catholic church is not Christ on the Cross but Mary holding her child in her arms. It is the pain of the loss of a child and there is no worse pain in the world. We are sorry for that.”
That pain was etched on the face of Kate McCann when she made a fleeting visit to Lisbon last week to meet her lawyers and to appeal for help in finding her daughter, snatched in May 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.
Close to tears, Kate said: ‘‘She’s six now but we’ve just got to keep going. It has been very harrowing and draining. But there is no choice, she needs us to find her and bring her home.”
In Portimão, 20 miles up the coast from Praia da Luz, Sofia spoke of the anguish suffered by her husband, who coordinated the McCann investigation. The McCanns are suing him for £1million they believe he has made with his book about the case, The Truth Of The Lie, and a documentary.
They are particularly angered over his claims that Madeleine is not alive. Civil servant Sofia says her 49-year-old husband suffered post traumatic stress after he was removed as head of the Madeleine investigation in September 2007. He took early retirement the following month, even though he lost two-thirds of his pension.
“It was a bad time for Gonçalo,” said Sofia. Even in his sleep he was going over in his mind what had happened to him and how his career was brought to a premature end.
“I heard him talking in the night because of nightmares. Everything he did, every action he took was going through his head.
“I was worried because he is such a calm, tender man but luckily over the past few months the nightmares have stopped.” Sofia, who works in the Portimão mayor’s office and is responsible for three major projects, including a new Algarve airport, speaks English fluently and is both amused and angered by comments aimed at her husband from some people in Britain. “We know how Gonçalo is portrayed in Britain, the caricature of a foreign detective missing the clues, but the reality is that you will not find a better detective in Portugal.
“There were many times in the investigation when his bosses said, ‘You have done enough’ but he kept working and working, chasing all the leads.
“There are satellites which probably have close-up pictures of what was happening on the ground that day. He tried to get the images but he couldn’t. The US said the satellites were trained on Morocco at the time and that was it. That is what annoys him because he says the inquiry was not completed to his satisfaction.
“Goncalo loves me and our three girls very much but he lives for his job. For him an investigation is like a mathematical equation.
“One and one has to make two. Until the answer is found he will not give up.” From the proceeds of the book her husband has bought a Jaguar car but she insists he has not made a lot of money and that he will defend the legal action.
“We are now living on one-third of our budget for the month but that is OK for us because he made the right decision,” she said.
“If he was financially motivated, he would have stayed in his job for the full pension but that is not his way.”
His 25-year-old daughter from his first marriage, also called Sofia, has just passed a law degree. His wife has a daughter Rita, 11, from her first marriage and she has a daughter, Agnes, with Gonçalo who will soon be six.
This week there is a double birthday celebration, Sofia’s today and her husband’s 50th on Friday.
“We will see all our family and friends and enjoy ourselves,” she said. “We are so lucky to have three beautiful girls in the family.
“Gonçalo is very proud of them all. He is very good with them at home but my only complaint is that he is not strict enough with them. He lets them do what they want where I have to be a little stricter.
“He never yells at them but he can also be a little overprotective. He is always worrying about them having accidents in the playground or wherever. I could not wish for a better father.”
The couple met 10 years ago through a friend and married in June 2000. They spent their honeymoon in the Azores, where her husband dreams of spending his retirement.
in Sunday Express
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0SIfiaw7f
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Kate explains the abduction
Mccann talks about sedation…
Mccann has always denied the twins were sedated. Yet he himself states he believes the “abductor may have given them something because they did not wake.
What made Mccann change his mind? Could it be that their friend Fionan Payne became suspicious when she saw Kate keep putting her hand in front of the twins noses to check on their breathing. Fionas’ statement in the DVD Files..told police she thought kates actions were odd.
xxxx
two points from the mccanns pressconference in Lisbon that stood out.
Kate
“I want people to keep thinking madeleine is alive”
Mccann
“There is nothing to incriminate us in her death”
xxxxxxxxxxx
Slips of the tongue…maybe…but Oh so telling..
Mr Green There is a rumour that the Madeleine Foundation is back up…If so do you have the link. I cannot find it on the internet. Thank you.
http://madeleinefoundation.org/main/2009/09/carter-ruck-send-letters-to-the-madeleine-foundation/comment-page-2/
http://themaddiecasefiles.com/
All Translations to be found of the DVD Police Files…many thanks to Joana and Astro who work night and day to bring us the truth.
Good Morning IRONSIDE
I have just this minute been on the internet
The Madeleine Foundation
Combating Child Neglect
Is up and running again.
Good Afternoon, Mr.Green, I was highly amused to see the reason behind the closing of the site…have copied the letter and brought it over. Is that really the best they can do. Nothing about the 30 Reasons then? Silence is Golden and Oh so telling.
A good point scored for you Sir and those that believe in the truth.
xxxxxxx
By admin • Sep 27th, 2009 • Category: Headline
As you are aware, Carter Ruck has been trying for a long time to have this website shut down. With no real grounds for doing so, they claimed a copyright infringement which, due to hosting company rules, it forced the hosting company to temporarily suspend the website until either the disputed material was removed or a counter notification was filed.
Unfortunately the copyright department do not seem to work 24/7 as do the technical support dept. at the hosting company and efforts to have this resolved yesterday (Saturday) were unsuccessful. It would appear this will be sorted out tomorrow (Monday).
The images under dispute are:
The splash screen montage of Madeleine from the “Snow White” video overlaid on the bedroom in apartment 5A
A drop down box advertising the book in a semi-circle and;
The photo of the books in a semi-circle on the “our book” page
Clearly the latter two images cannot be a copyright violation because Tony Bennett took the photo himself. The McCanns never owned that image at any time.
The first image of Madeleine in the video is being given away freely on a poster on the Official Find Madeleine website. Therefore, the McCanns are giving it out freely on the one hand and then claiming they don’t want someone to use it on the other. This is as obvious a case of bullying from the lawyers as one will see.
Anyway, it will be sorted properly tomorrow.
For now, feel free to post comments in this thread. Carter Ruck’s action is a temporary “blip”.
http://thecouncilchamber.blogspot.com/2009/09/mccanns-silence-book.html
Another site that is willing to let you print the truth…
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/please-re-open-madeleine-mccanns-case
Please sign and help find this little girl. We need many more signatures.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Suppressed_Madeleine_Foundation_book_by_Tony_Bennett%2C_2008
Carter Ruck helping the Mccanns keep the truth from the British Public.
Problem with link…
Suppressed Madeleine Foundation book by Tony Bennett, 2008
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Released October 13, 2009
Summary
British libel lawyers Carter Ruck, acting on behalf of Kate and Gerry McCann, have issued a demand to Madeleine Foundation co-founder Tony Bennett to have this book and all electronic copies to be destroyed. The file has never been released and was used to create the book “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann: 60 Reasons which suggest she was not abducted”.
The book sold thousands after its launch at the end of 2008 and continues to sell, albeit at a peppercorn rate or sent free by Mr. Bennet to journalists and politicians. Due to the prospective financial implications of facing a libel case against arguably Britain’s top libel firm, Mr. Bennett has been forced to capitulate even though his supports say he stands by each and every allegation in the book.
The methods used by Carter Ruck while acting for Kate and Gerry McCann have been to silence anyone who challenges the abduction story that they told the police and which forms their alibi in the Madeleine McCann disappearance in Portugal in May 2007.
This file is easily verifiable against the many copies of the book in circulation – including a copy sent to every British MP in the spring of 2009.
If this file is suppressed and the book is destroyed, the public will not be able to read an alternative history of the case case as the McCanns have sought an injunction in Portugal against the chief inspector on the case who has recently had his own book injuncted pending appeal.
It should be noted that WikiLeaks does not have an opinion on Mr. Bennet’s arguments or the McCann case. Our interest here is to protect the integrity of the historical record.
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Non-governmental organization
The Madeleine Foundation
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PRIVATE EYE-AUTUMN SPECIAL EDITION 2009 ( Page 5 )
Legal News:-Eye readers will need no reminding of the super-injunction obtained by Messrs Carter-Fuck, on behalf of former Law Society president Michael Napier, to stop us reporting that he’d been officially censured for breaching conflict of interest rules,
“Freedom to report the truth is a precious thing both for the liberty of the individual and for the sake of the wider society,” the court of appeal said when it found in our favour after a five-month legal tussle.
These noble sentiments clearly failed to impress some high court judges who have carried on injuncting like billy-o
NHS:Drs Gerry and Kate McCann:Abuse of Power
3.10.09
Judge is bringing in privacy law by the back door
(originally posted on this blog on 10/11/08, but worth a re-read)
A High Court judge with a “hatred of free speech and the popular press” is bringing in a privacy law to the UK “by the back door”, a national newspaper editor has claimed.
Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, cited rulings by Mr Justice Eady in favour of the Formula One boss, Max Mosley, against the News of the World and an unnamed celebrity who had an affair with a married woman as examples of the erosion of freedom of expression. He claimed the judge had “a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media” and was therefore able to use the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act to thwart attempts to defend public decency by shaming those in high places found to have committed immoral acts.
Mr Dacre, who was speaking at the Society of Editors’ annual conference in Bristol last night, argued that without the ability to report scandal popular newspapers would lose a mass readership with “obvious worrying implications” for democracy.
“If Gordon Brown wanted to force a privacy law, he would have to set out a Bill, arguing his case in both Houses of Parliament, withstand public scrutiny and win a series of votes,” he said. “Now, thanks to the wretched Human Rights Act, one judge with a subjective and highly relativist moral sense can do the same with a stroke of his pen.”
Mr Dacre added: “I personally would rather have never heard of Max Mosley … It is the others I care about: the crooks, the liars, the cheats, the rich and the corrupt sheltering behind a law of privacy being created by an unaccountable judge.” He said: “Since time immemorial public shaming has been a vital element in defending the parameters of what are considered acceptable standards of social behaviour, helping ensure that citizens – rich and poor – adhere to them for the good of the greater community.”
Source: Independent
Censorship is not the answer
I am greatly concerned that eight parents including many NHS doctors have not been investigated or prosecuted by the British Government for leaving their babies and children alone each night of their holidays in Portugal. The fact that a three years old child has allegedly disappeared leaving few traces is surely enough proof that this was a disgraceful and shocking act on their part.
I am disgusted that Dr. Amaral was thwarted in his duties to carry out a thorough investigation of all the parents and that he was dismissed just before interviewing a family who are certain that they saw a child being carried away by a man they are almost sure is the father of Madeleine McCann on May 3rd 2007. It is inconceivable that some very important statements were withheld from the Portuguese police by the British police for more than five months.
It is essential that the British public is allowed to have all the information about this case and not just the information that the family’s spokespersons and lawyers permit. This is a national disgrace and has caused irreparable damage between Portugal and Britain.
The media must be allowed to report both sides of the story without delay. If there are injunctions in place with regard to the reporting of this case, the public needs to be told immediately so that we can ask why.
We have seen immeasurable coverage of an alleged abduction and yet there is not one shred of credible evidence to support this.
The police and public need to find out what really happened to Madeleine McCann.
Freedom of expression is a human right and not a privilege to be granted to the few.
16.10.09
McCann’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck, give up bid to keep Trafigura study secret
David Leigh, The Guardian
Lawyers for oil traders Trafigura finally abandoned attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in west Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.
Just after 7.30pm Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as “released forthwith” from any reporting restrictions.
An MP revealed the report’s existence to parliament this week, after the Guardian was hit with a “super-injunction” banning all mention of it and other UK media were then subsequently notified of, and therefore bound by it.
The Minton report, commissioned in 2006 from the London-based firm’s scientific consultants, said that based on the “limited” information they had been given Trafigura’s oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast , was potentially highly toxic, and “capable of causing severe human health effects”.
The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, including respiratory and eye problems, discomfort, and nausea, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city.
The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation.
Although the report was cautious in tone, pointing out that unreliable press reports and “mass hysteria” might have led to exaggeration of alleged ill effects, its contents were unwelcome.
Trafigura subsequently did not use the report in the personal injury report in the claim against them and did not dislcose the report’s existence.
It issued a series of public statements over the next three years saying the waste had been routinely disposed of and was harmless. Trafigura based this decision on other reports produced from an analysis of the slops obtained from the Probo Koala ship. Trafigura dismissed complaints of illness in a lawsuit brought by 30,000 inhabitants of Abidjan, before being eventually forced last month to pay them £30m in compensation and legal costs in a confidential out of court settlement.
The oil firm then conceded in a public statement that the toxic fumes could have caused “flu-like symptoms” to the inhabitants. But it was accepted in an agreed statement by both sides that expert evidence did not back the graver claims of deaths, miscarriages or serious injuries, made in previous official statements by the Ivory Coast and UK governments and in a UN report.
Before the settlement announcement, Trafigura’s lawyers Carter-Ruck obtained a super-injunction from a judge, banning the Guardian not only from revealing the existence of the Minton report, but also from telling anyone about the existence of the injunction.
They said the Minton report was confidential because it had been obtained for possible use in litigation.
Trafigura said the report was only preliminary and had proved to be inaccurate. They said hydrogen sulphide in the waste could not have broken down into a dangerous gas after the dumping and that other experts had concluded: “no other chemicals were released in concentrations capable of causing significant harm to human health”.
Carter-Ruck was unable to prevent the publication of internal company emails by the Guardian, which confirmed that Trafigura executives had been aware in advance that their waste was hazardous, and knew that it ought to have received expensive specialist treatment.
Company traders talked about making “serious dollars” from paying someone to take away their “shit”.
Attempts by Carter-Ruck to suppress the Minton report led to a controversy about parliamentary privilege this week, when the law firm initially tried to prevent reporting of parliamentary questions tabled by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly. They later abandoned this attempt.
Carter-Ruck was accused by angry MPs of potential contempt of parliament, and one Tory, Peter Bottomley, said he would report the firm to their disciplinary body, the Law Society.
Tonight Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor said: “I welcome the climb-down by Trafigura and Carter-Ruck. Now people can read the Minton report they will realise why it was in the public interest for it to be published. It has taken a five-week legal battle – involving journalists, lawyers, bloggers and parliament itself – to force this information into the open. Never again should a newspaper be threatened with contempt of court for reporting parliament. And judges should think again about the use of super-injunctions which are themselves secret. This is a good day for parliament, open justice and free reporting.”
TonightPierre Lorinet, Trafigura’s chief financial officer, told the Daily Telegraph: “Effectively that report was a draft report, a work in progress, very much when the event was happening and that report was effectively an analysis of possibles.
“We decided that our best course of action at the time was to get the injunction, because we didn’t want more inaccurate reporting on things which are very clearly wrong effectively.
It is a heavy-handed approach, absolutely. With hindsight, could it have been done differently? Possibly.
The injunction was never intended to gag parliament or attack free speech.”
The significance of my last two postings, regarding bully boy tactics by those who want to suppress free speech, and control all aspects of our lives including the INTERNET.
BRITISH PARLIAMENT ON TRIAL
Saturday, 31st October 2009, Friend’s House, 177 Euston Road, LONDON
The British Constitution Group will make the case
a) That TREASON has been committed by successive governments since the 1970s
b) That our Constitution, our institutions and the very fabric of our nation have been deliberately dismantled.
c) That the collective political establishment is not working in the interests of the British people.
d) That these acts have been unconstitutional unlawful, and represent crimes of treason and sedition
e) That greed and corruption have been the driving force behind this betrayed and we will name names.
We invite you as ordinary, decent people to bear witness to the evidence we present, and invite you to act as jury to decide whether or not our case is made, and if it is, join us in instigating a police investigation into those responsible
Tickets £15 (£13 for members) book on line at;-
http://www.thebegroup.org.uk/conference
Enough is Enough- LAWFUL REBELLION or live life in an EU dictatorship
———————————————————————————————————
European Union Constitution
French and Dutch people said NO to the European Union Constitution. People celebrated, and that should have been the end of the EU Constitution.
Lisbon Treaty ( re-packaged EU Constitution.)
Irish people said NO to the Lisbon Treaty and that should have been the end of the EU Lisbon Treaty
2009 the Irish people were asked to vote again on the Lisbon Treaty. After much pressure and bribery this time the Irish people said YES!
The Lisbon Treaty is a self amending treaty.
Sorry!
Typo-
e) Should read
That greed and corruption have been the driving force behind this BETRAYAL, and we will name names
Seems Martin Brunt has started thinking for himself and not what the Mccanns tell him. It won’t last though.
xxxxxxx
Madeleine McCann – Who Cares?
by Martin Brunt
I don’t know why, but I’m still finding it impossible to get a straight answer about Madeleine McCann from Leicestershire police.
I called to ask about Madeleine and almost before I’d asked the question was being given the old brush off: “It’s a Portuguese investigation, not ours.”
The Portuguese authorities closed their investigation in July last year. The press officer said she hadn’t heard or read about that.
Apparently, the Leicestershire force still passes on any potential leads to the dynamic Portuguese police who established precisely nothing about Madeleine’s disappearance during their 15-month inquiry.
I gave it 24 hours and called back. This time I was told that all the Leicestershire cops involved in the Madeleine case were on half-term holiday. So push off.
She didn’t actually say that, but it felt like she had.
Still, onwards and upwards. The last time I asked a Leicestershire press officer about Madeleine she got hysterical.
I hope that privately, at least, Madeleine’s home force shows a bit more care and thought towards her family.
in Life of Crime
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/#ixzz0UUMhvRBl
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
The Mccanns prove yet again that Madeleine is all about filling their pockets…Poor little Madeleine..
Frozen Assets
The quota of Gonçalo Amaral in his unipersonal company, a third of his salary as the manager and the values delivered to that company by way of author rights or via commercial trademarking of works made by the former Judiciary Police Inspector were seized obliging the order of the process for defamation brought by the McCanns.
“This is a siege, they are trying to asphyxiate me at the desk”, said the former Policeman to the CM.
The claim for damages follows the injunction that banned the book ‘Maddie – The Truth of the Lie’, written by Gonçalo Amaral, who led the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine in the Algarve. The English family – Kate, Gerry and their children, including Maddie – ask for 1.2 million euros to the former coordinator. The attachment is a precautionary measure until the decision of that judicial proceeding.
António Cabrita, Gonçalo Amaral’s lawyer, has already added the contestation to the the claim for damages. “What is in question here is an unconstitutional decision, to the extent that the book reflects the right of expression and freedom of opinion,” said the lawyer to the CM. António Cabrita alleges in the contestation that the book “has nothing offensive to the McCann family, nor accuses them of killing their daughter.” And he stresses that Amaral’s conclusions in the book are the same of the archived process, of which the final report leaves open several possibilities, including murder.
Gonçalo Amaral suspects of the intention of financial asphyxiation , given the high cost of court fees in order to contest and for which legal aid was sought (see support). “I do not have a fund, a fund to finance my defense,” said Gonçalo Amaral. And concludes: “Not only I am deprived of my basic right to freedom of expression but I also face constraints related to my defense.”
Details
Support
The Justice fee to contest a claim for damages of 1.2 million euros is worth more than two thousand euros. Amaral asked for legal aid, so that the contestation could be made, although there is still no decision regarding the support.
Publisher
The Publisher Guerra & Paz was also notified to hold back the royalties payable to Gonçalo Amaral. Valentim de Carvalho was also notified, because of a video based on the book, however it was not possible to confirm this information until the closure of this edition
Values
The McCann arrived at a figure of 1.2 million claiming that Amaral received 25% of author rights and that he charged for interviews. “Not true,” says Amaral.
The book is being sold in 5 countries and was to be published in England when the legal action took place.
in Correio da Manhã
Many thanks to Joana Morais..
21.10.09
Press Release by Gonçalo Amaral – 21.10.09
PRESS RELEASE
It may be written in every law that a citizen is free to think and to express his thoughts, but that will become completely worthless if it can be targeted by censorship in the case it expresses an opinion that is contrary to the status quo, to the interests of the dominant caste or to who simply has money.
The confrontation of responsible theses about objective facts should take place in the open field of democratic debate and not through recourse to courts and to juridical coercion. And yet, as is publicly known, a Portuguese court has immortalised the book “The Truth about the Lie” by deciding what cannot be opinionated and expressed in Portugal about the disappearance of Madeleine Beth McCann, by censoring a thesis that is based on logical reasoning about concrete facts and material evidence that are part of a criminal process and that never intended to diffuse, to the public, in a gratuitous and irresponsible manner, the notion that a third party holds any kind of responsibility in the disappearance of little Madeleine.
Even more serious. Having already been notified about the preventive arrest of his credits, the signatory fears that he may be prevented from defending his reasons in court, due to the very high monetary cost that the judicial action that has been filed against him by Gerry and Kate McCann impose to him, in terms of lawyers’ expenses and millionaire judicial costs, of which apparently only the indigent are exempt.
Whereupon follows that, at the moment, the signatory is not only deprived of his elementary right to freedom of expression, as he also faces constraints relating to his own defence, which cannot be designed but under the shadow of the expression of forbidden ideas and convictions, and in exchange for absolutely insufferable pecuniary amounts.
Thus the truth about the disappearance of Madeleine is at risk of being decided in the office. This is how we live in Portugal, as far as freedom and democracy are concerned.
GONÇALO AMARAL
Portimão, the 21st of October 2009.
Posted by Jill Havern at 21:29 Labels: Gonçalo Amaral
Mr Grenville, there are some conflicting stories going around can you confirm any of these…or is it the Mccanns trying to break the Foundation…
Target … the Madeleine Foundation blames parents Gerry and Kate McCann for their daughter’s disappearance
By NEIL SYSON
FRAUD cops are probing the bank account of a campaign group which says Maddie McCann is dead – and aims to blame her parents.
Controversial lawyer Tony Bennett helped set up the Madeleine Foundation, but its account is now frozen.
Detectives want assurances over tens of thousands of pounds sent in by people supporting his warped aims.
Bennett, 62, ran the account from his home in Harlow, Essex.
Much of the cash came from the sale of £4 books blaming the McCanns after the three-year-old vanished in Portugal in 2007.
The couple think many people may have mistakenly donated believing they were funding the hunt for Maddie.
The account holds £2,700 but Mr Bennett is thought to have £90,000 in private accounts.
A rift had developed between Bennett and foundation chairwoman Debbie Butler. Police stressed the case was still only an investigation and no arrests had been made.
A source close to Gerry and Kate McCann said: “This foundation is now in meltdown. They can’t wait to see the end of it.”
in the Scum
Ironside.
It is said a lie is half way around the world before the truth has got its boots on. Below is a statement by Tony Bennett which answers your questions.
———————————————————————————————————-
Statement by Tony Bennett, Secretary of The Madeleine Foundation, in response to an article in today’s (7 November) ‘Sun’
I woke up this morning to read an article in today’s ‘Sun’ newspaper notifying its five million or so readers that there is a ‘fraud probe’ in relation to the finances of The Madeleine Foundation.
‘The Sun’ did not contact me before printing the article.
The recent background to this article, for those not so far aware of events of the last fortnight, is as follows.
On 26 October, for reasons best known to herself, Debbie Butler, Chairman of The Madeleine Foundation, decided to launch a strong personal attack on a public internet forum, ‘Missing Madeleine’, which included many false allegations against me.
Due to this and many other related issues, the Committee of The Madeleine Foundation was left with no alternative by Monday 2 November but to expel her from membership under Paragraph 6 of our Constitution. On the same day, our bank was notified of a dispute, notified that one of the signatories to the account had been expelled, and informed that a members’ meeting would be held on 14 November when new signatories would be appointed.
The allegations by Debbie Butler of ‘fraud’ and financial impropriety followed these events. There is no truth in any of her claims.
I deal now with specific issues on ‘The Sun’ report.
Dealing with the false claim that I ‘ran the account from my home in Harlow’, the brief facts are these: 1. The branch of the bank in which the account is held is in Debbie Butler’s home town of Maidstone 2. The account was jointly operated in that not one penny could be taken out of the account without both Debbie Butler and I signing cheques.
‘The Sun’ article refers to the possibility that people might have mistakenly donated to The Madeleine Foundation thinking it was to support the fund to help find Madeleine. No-one donated on that basis. Incidentally Debbie Butler has publicly called for people who donated to the Foundation to ask for their money back. No-one has yet done so.
Yes, the account has just over £2,700 in it.
As for claims that people sent in ‘tens of thousands of pounds’, the actual total income to the Foundation between its establishment and the end of September 2009 was £8,104.05, made up a follows:
Income £ p
Loan from T Bennett 20 00
Loans from D Butler 350 00
Donations 590 00
Cash subscriptions 10 00
All Net PayPal Income
(payments for books,
subscriptions and
donations) 5580 00
Cash sales of the booklet 1464 90
Retail booksellers 19 15
TOTAL: 8104 05
Madeleine Foundation members were recently sent a set of income and expenditure accounts in our newsletter.
I now deal with ‘The Sun’ statement that ‘Mr Bennett is thought to have £90,000 in private accounts’. This is how that statement arose.
At the meeting with Kirwans, Solicitors, Liverpool, on 2 October 2009, the lawyers asked about our personal financial circumstances. I told them honestly that my current annual income was £14,000 (I have just filed my tax return) and that I had ‘a few tens of thousands’ saved up for my old age. This is where the ‘£90,000’ comes from.
I take this opportunity to say that I have not made one penny either from the sale of ’60 Reasons’ nor in any way from The Madeleine Foundation; indeed it was my declared intent at the outset to make not a penny in any way connected with Madeleine’s disappearance. Our accounts will shortly be audited and that will I trust make it still plainer that there is no fraud or financial impropriety or irregularity in the conduct of The Madeleine Foundation’s affairs.
Contrary to the hopes of Gerry and Kate McCann as expressed in ‘The Sun’ article that ‘The Foundation is now in meltdown’, we have new blood on our Committee, we have a members’ meeting shortly, and we have plans.
Finally I wish to take this opportunity to clear up a few false rumours that appear to have been put about on the internet by Debbie Butler and including statements made by ‘Stevo’, Debbie Butler’s friend, on what was our website, http://www.madeleinefiudnation.org
I have seen claims that Debbie Butler put large amounts of money into The Madeleine Foundation. That is wholly untrue. As the above record of income shows, she made a loan of £350 in the initial stages to help get ’60 Reasons’ printed and published. On 7 October 2009 she asked for the return of that loan and I sent her a cheque the very same day. However, in addition, as the bank records will prove, I sent her more than £350. I sent her a cheque for £500 which included a further £150 which was my best estimate of the amount she had underclaimed in postage and stationery to date. There is email correspondence on this issue which I am happy to disclose if asked.
Second, I have seen references made to a ‘mysterious amount’ paid out of The Foundation’s accounts. This was a sum of £800.00 expenses paid to me on 30 September on a cheque signed by Debbie Butler and which she knows about. The £800, which is fully backed by receipts, consists of a back claim for postage and stationery etc. and also a payment of £245.00 I made to Vera Steinke to finance a print run of 250 copies of the German translation of ’60 Reasons’ (income from those sales is pending). The large claim for postage etc. arose for two reasons.
First, Debbie Butler had become increasingly erratic in sending out ’60 Reasons’ to those who had paid for it via PayPal, and I was getting increasing numbers of complaints from people whose orders had not been fulfilled. I simply had to take over the sending out of the booklets to ensure that that side of our work was run efficiently.
Second, the press articles about the distribution of the ’10 Reasons’ leaflet in Leicestershire in August caused a huge upsurge of interest in our work and many new orders for booklets and other enquiries. Thus postage costs rose rapidly for the weeks after that.
I had planned to leave early to see my mother on the south coast this weekend, today 7 November is my late father’s birthday. When I’ve sent this off, we shall be away for the weekend, but if anyone has any queries I’ll be happy, as always, to answer them, after then.
Needless to say, when I have a moment, there will be a complaint from me to The Press Complaints Commission about the article, which appears to have been printed based on ‘information’ supplied by Debbie Butler and hs not in any way been checked with me.
I’m downcast but not defeated.
Tony Bennett
Thanks Mr.Green for the info…I no longer post on Stevos site but I have obviously today read what has been going on. I am concerned that Debbie has admitted herself that she has been in contact with Mitchel and Carter Ruck…What I do not understand if Debbie felt there was any ‘Fraud’ involved why has she gone to them. Anna esse also has every right to be angry with the fact that it appears Stevo has copied her translation of the book ‘Truth of the Lie’ stevo also claims to have been in contact with Amaral. Amaral denies any knowledge of this ‘contact’…it is very sad that this has come down once more to money. The root of all Evil…
I think it was only a question of time before the Mccanns got their claws into Tony. they have been waiting for the right moment. Lets not forget that Tony tried to have the Mccanns charged with neglect and rightly so. The Mccanns are a very arrogant self serving pair. I have also been reading up on Jim Gamble …a man not to be trusted it would seem. Well. what a surprise, when have the Mccanns ever been involved with anyone decent. it is not their style. Mafia types are what they look for. Of course I do not know Debbie or Tony and both are saying different things. For an outsider such as myself it is hard what to believe.i do however have a very bad feeling about Debbies involvement with >Mitchel and Carter Ruck. I will just stand back and see what develops. The whole episode has made me very sad and today has been a victory for the Evil mccanns. It has not gone unoticed by me that this was leaked to a Murdoch newspaper a great protector of the Mccanns. once again thank you Mr.Green.
Ironside
It is very sad Debbie has done what she has done with the encouragement of Stevo. In my opinion Stevo is behaving badly because he wants to control and keep The Madeleine Foundation web site as it is.
As you know from the Carter-Ruck papers and Tony’s response conditions applied and it is those conditions Stevo appears to want Debbie to breach.
I am of the strong opinion Stevo is using Debbie’s emotional state for his own ends.and it has backfired on both of them.
Tony is a man of Integrity, there is no fraud. and a British child is still missing..
We have a meeting on the 14th of this month, a new committee and all is not doom and gloom.
KBO (Keep Buggering On)
Sir Winston Churchill
REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
I could not sleep and it is 6-23 am. I along with millions all around the World will be remembering today the sacrifice of civilians and military in present and old conflicts for our FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.
IRONSIDE, on September 25th, you asked if you wish me to post anything on any forums just let me know.
I have been blocked from using Stevo’s site and in any event I do not want to waste my time there. As I said further up this thread—-A LIE is half way around the World before the TRUTH has got its boots on
Please copy and paste # the following on these two sites – -Joana Morais Blog and Abuse of Power, and any other with a proven track record of telling it as it is—-
IRONSIDE, on November 7th, 2009 at Saturday,November,7,2009 Said:
Thanks Mr.Green for the info…I no longer post on Stevos site but I have obviously today read what has been going on. I am concerned that Debbie has admitted herself that she has been in contact with Mitchel and Carter Ruck…What I do not understand if Debbie felt there was any ‘Fraud’ involved why has she gone to them. Anna esse also has every right to be angry with the fact that it appears Stevo has copied her translation of the book ‘Truth of the Lie’ stevo also claims to have been in contact with Amaral. Amaral denies any knowledge of this ‘contact’…it is very sad that this has come down once more to money. The root of all Evil…
I think it was only a question of time before the Mccanns got their claws into Tony. they have been waiting for the right moment. Lets not forget that Tony tried to have the Mccanns charged with neglect and rightly so. The Mccanns are a very arrogant self serving pair. I have also been reading up on Jim Gamble …a man not to be trusted it would seem. Well. what a surprise, when have the Mccanns ever been involved with anyone decent. it is not their style. Mafia types are what they look for. Of course I do not know Debbie or Tony and both are saying different things. For an outsider such as myself it is hard what to believe.i do however have a very bad feeling about Debbies involvement with >Mitchel and Carter Ruck. I will just stand back and see what develops. The whole episode has made me very sad and today has been a victory for the Evil mccanns. It has not gone unoticed by me that this was leaked to a Murdoch newspaper a great protector of the Mccanns. once again thank you Mr.Green.
Reply
#
Grenville Green, on November 7th, 2009 at Saturday,November,7,2009 Said:
Ironside
It is very sad Debbie has done what she has done with the encouragement of Stevo. In my opinion Stevo is behaving badly because he wants to control and keep The Madeleine Foundation web site as it is.
As you know from the Carter-Ruck papers and Tony’s response conditions applied and it is those conditions Stevo appears to want Debbie to breach.
I am of the strong opinion Stevo is using Debbie’s emotional state for his own ends.and it has backfired on both of them.
Tony is a man of Integrity, there is no fraud. and a British child is still missing..
We have a meeting on the 14th of this month, a new committee and all is not doom and gloom.
KBO (Keep Buggering On)
Sir Winston Churchill
Mr Green, Consider it done…
http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/11/citizens-in-defence-of-rights-and.html
Anyone who believes in the right to free speech ..please sign..
Transcript of interview with…’ASK THE DOGS SANDRA’ gerry Mccann
Sandra: Hello Kate, Hi Gerry. You have called us here, or invited us here to show these two new pictures of how Madeleine might look like now at the age of six and also to watch a video, a new appeal video, but you have been recently together in Lisbon. Have you truely felt that the portuguese public opinion is still with you?
Gerry: I think obviously there has been a lot written that is very negative, and ehm it is inevitable that given so much…, so much was written negative about us, that some people felt that we were involved, that we do feel now, that legal action has been taken and the judicial process has seen that there is no evidence to support what has been written.
Sandra: You are talking about Goncalo Amaral’s book?
Gerry: Yeah, but also with the publication of the file in the first place erm an initial process of the criminal erm file and regarding Madeleine’s disappearance. You know there is no evidence that we were involved and subsequently the action we have taken recently I think that people are now prepared to continue the search for Madeleine and that is why we are here today asking people to help us trying to get this very important message…
Sandra: But how can you explain that Goncalo Amaral has sold over 175.000 copies defending that you played the keyrole in Madeleine’s disappearance?
Kate: I mean I think it’s important to remember Sandra, the only victim in all of this is Madeleine erm and that is obviously why we are here today really, we are trying to, we are trying to (sigh) reach that person who knows something, and there is somebody who knows something, not the person who has taken Madeleine, but the person on the periphery, and that might just be erm a colleague of the person, a neighbour, a fami…, you know this person, the abductor, has got a mother, a brother, a cousin, a part of family, so that…
Sandra: Do you believe that the public opinion in Portugal right now after reading the book of Goncalo Amaral erm still can support you? Still can answer to that appeal?
Gerry: Now that’s the key point why we are taking action Sandra and that is part of the legal process as you know. There is already an injunction out against the book He is banned from repeating his thesis that Madeleine is dead and we were involved. Now that has been two separate judges plus the original judgemental file have said that thats what we will do with discussing the facts. Thats the correct place to discuss.Goncalo Amaral. And the Book…
Sandra: Are you saying that Goncalo Amaral doesn’t have the right to share his opinion, his conviction under the evidence he gathered into a book? He doesn’t have freedom of expression to say that and to publish it?
Gerry: There is a difference between freedom of expression and evidence to support a theory. What the judges have said there isn’t evidence to support this theory, so he shouldn’t be saying it. And is about as much as we want to say about him. You know that’s a legal process and we have challenged it, it’s been through the judicial process and thats….
Sandra: The files were closed and no thesis won. How can you explain that after Goncalo Amaral, Paulo Rebelo, the next investigator, also pursued this thesis? He also investigated the possibility of you both play the keyrole in Madeleine’s disappearance?
Gerry: It was investigated, the evidence was presented to the judiciary, and the judiciary concluded there was no evidence to support that thesis, that’s very…
Sandra: No DNA, but how do you explain…
Gerry: No no…
Sandra: …the coincidence…
Gerry: The DNA is only one aspect of it, there was no evidence to support our involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, that is the key thing. Madeleine is still missing, we are here as her family to continue the search. Now I can’t speak for people who have read the book but obviously it doesn’t stand up to critical appraisal (?).
Sandra: But this is the first time that you give us a big interview not being arguidos, not being arguidos. Since then. erm. So now I feel free to ask you this directly. How can you explain the coincidence of the scent of cadaver found by british and not portuguese dogs?
Kate: Sandra, maybe you should ask the judiciary because they have examined all evidence. I mean we are also Madeleine’s mum and dad and we are desperate for people to help us find Madeleine which is why we are here today. The majority of people are inherently good and I believe the majority of people in Portugal are inherently good people and I am asking them if they will help us spread this message to that person or people…
Sandra: So you don’t have an explanation for that?
Gerry: Ask the dogs (smirk) Sandra.
Sandra: Ask the dogs? No Gerry. Now I feel free to ask you, don’t you feel free to answer me?
Gerry: I can tell you that we have also looked at evidence about (haha) cadaver dogs and they are incredibly unreliable.
Sandra: Unreliable?
Gerry: Cadaver dogs, yes. That’s what the evidence shows, if they are tested scientifically.
Sandra: You read the files, Kate?
Kate: Yes I have read the files.
Sandra: What did shock you most? Any part of the… any detail that…you weren’t… aware of? Something that has really surprised you or you didn’t find anything?
Kate: Oh I have been through them and I have made notes and I passed that on to our investigation team obviously.
Sandra: And you found any evidence? Of anything?
Kate: Well obviously the only evidence I wanna find is who has taken Madeleine and where she is. They are the key things and until we actually get that bit of information you know we are always gonna feel like we are a long way away. But basically what we are doing is trying to get as much information as we can and trying to put the jig-shaw, jigsaw together, so finally we have the complete picture.
Sandra: And what about your friends? Did you have a pact of silence with your friends?
Kate: (laughing) You know the judicial secrecy?
Sandra: I know it but we don’t have it anymore.
Gerry: You have to put it into context of the situation that we were in…
Sandra: But now is the time to explain it…
Gerry: That, ar.. ar… article that was written in June was directly as a result of the journalist phoning all of us, and saying what can you tell us about it and we were under explicit instructions that we were not to talk about the details of the case, under judicial secrecy. So that is all that people did. And I don’t think that should be considered a pact of silence.We were told, that’s what we were to do. And you wouldn’t expect witnesses in other cases in any country to begin divulging information that may be useful to the perpetrator of the crime.
Sandra: Are you still friends? Do you plan another trips together or did it damage…?
Kate and Gerry: No No
Kate: We are still friends. We haven’t got any holidays planned but we are still friends. We are in touch with each other, we still meet up and see each other.
Sandra: Don’t you agree that there were a lot of details that in a certain way contribute to people to doubt of you, for example, when you went to the Vatican so quickly, all the contacts that you have made. Can I ask you Gerry, if you personally know Mr. Gordon Brown the Primeminister?
Gerry: (moving on his chair uncomfortably) No, and we still, we have never met Gordon Brown. We have spoken to him once on the phone several weeks after Madeleine was abducted. People have got to remember that, and what today is about… good ordinary people wanted to help find an innocent missing child. And that’s what happened. Clearly there was a huge amount of media coverage and people wanted to look at ways to help. Our government wanted to assist the investigation to find the missing child.
Sandra: Are they still supporting you, Mr. Gordon Brown still talks to you directly?
Gerry: We have had continued meetings with both the Home Office and also with the Foreign Office to discuss ways in which the search can continue. Obviously today is a prime example of law enforcement-LED initiative with CEOP with… in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, Interpol, Europol, and you know, the key thing is, that law enforcement believe we can get information from those who may know.
Sandra: How could you explain that Clarence Mitchell left the British Government where he was a press speaker to be your press speaker?
Gerry: Obviously, when Clarence came first out to Portugal working for the Government at that time he came out and spent I think almost three, two to three weeks with us, and he got to know us very very well, and he felt very very passionate about the search for Madeleine and when the opportunity arose, erm, you know, we asked him if he would come back and shield us from the intense media interest and that is what Clarence has done superbly well, and he has become an extremely good friend during this.
Sandra: But he must be paid.?
Gerry: He was paid, that’s right
Sandra: And now he must be paid?
Gerry: yeah, but you know…
Sandra: Isn’t it difficult for you to pay him?
Gerry: You know, in the first period Brian Kennedy paid his salary and then he was subsequently paid by the fund and now, you know, he works part-time on this, and he is a consultant for Freud Agency, so, you know, as the media interest dropped down, we haven’t needed a full-time spokesperson. He still works with us, we are working very closely with him and he has done a brilliant job protecting us and allowing us to have some degree of normality as a family considering the very very intense media interest.
Sandra: You have also hired a new communication agency back in Portugal. Why do you think you need it and is it easy for you to afford it?
Gerry: Well again, it is an agreement that it is funded out of Madeleine’s fund. It’s a decision that was made by the directors of the fund, because we felt… Kate and I are both directors of the fund, there are nine directors in total, that to really make the search successful we had to present information to the portuguese public, given how much had been written in a negative way about us, and obviously we want to work with someone who understands the portuguese culture and the portuguese media and how we could persuade people that Madeleine is still out there and still can be found….
Sandra: Until when do you think that you will afford all this? Two lawyers in Portugal, a news agency, Clarence Mitchell… I don’t know if you still have the two lawyers that you have hired here in London?
Kate: It’s not ideal, you know, Sandra. We wouldn’t have any lawyers, we wouldn’t need any appeal if we weren’t in the situation….
Sandra: But don’t you feel strangled? Don’t you feel that some day you feel it will be finished the money?
Kate: We have to do whatever we can to find Madeleine and obviously we have to look at sort of , you know, if the fund starts to run out we have to try and get more money in, we can’t stop…
Sandra: And how do you do it?
Gerry: Well, you know, people have been extremely kind. You have to remember that the fund was set up initially because so many people offered money to try and help and wanted to help and were prepared to donate. We would love nothing better for Madeleine to be found and for the remaining moneys in the fund to go to helping other families of missing children both in the UK and in Portugal, and that is one of our objectives when we have found Madeleine… AND her abductor, then the moneys will be used for that. Obviously if the money runs out… is running out, then we have to look at alternative ways of fundraising erm we have done small events, community events, which have been very good for team building. We have had a small auction in Madeleine’s school and the school where the twins are.
Sandra: Do you still have the support of Mr. Richard Branson, JK Rowling, this multimillionaire that initially gave you a lot of money?
Gerry: (burblegurgle) ..an independent investigation that has been funded completely out of Madeleine’s fund… I mean an event like today, there is no specific cost for it, and this is obviously the internet, people already have subscriptions, they can do this. There is the willingness of the population to help and I think we will find hundreds of thousands if not millions of people today will forward this link to their contacts in countries all over the world. That is cheap.
Sandra: Do you still have money in the fund?
Gerry: There is some money still in the fund and it continues to be used and we will use every single penny in that fund in the search for Madeleine.
Sandra: You have asked Goncalo Amaral to pay you 1 million euros for damage erm for the defamation for example. Do you need that money to finance the campaign?
Kate: The reason why we have taken action against Goncalo Amaral is the damage that he has done for Madeleine. That’s our main focus.
Sandra: Which motives could he have to make up all this story?
Gerry: We can’t speak for Goncalo Amaral.
Sandra: But I presume that you think something? Why should an investigator make it up, a story without evidence
Kate: It has to be financial gain, hasn’t it?
Sandra: You think that he made this with the commercial perspective?
Kate: You would have to ask him to get the answer to this.
Sandra: So this is your idea?
Kate: It’s a possibility, isn’t it. I mean I have….
Sandra: You think Goncalo Amaral is trying to win money playing with your, erm your child’s life?
Kate: We have to wonder why an ex-inspector of the PJ would want to convince the population that Madeleine is dead, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And that question should be asked.
Sandra: Do you feel that there is a difference of treatment between the portuguese authorities and the british authorities? In any moment did you feel, or do you feel still, that you were victims of the portuguese investigation?
Gerry: The key victim is Madeleine. I mean, that’s what the crime is about. We know we had to be investigated. And we have been investigated.
Sandra: Sorry Gerry, but you Kate said once, that you were feeling bad with what they asked you inside the PJ, trying to get a confession from you…
Kate: I know the truth Sandra, you know what I mean, and all I want to do is find Madeleine and I was upset…
Sandra: So have you forgotten everything that already passed? It’s passed for you both?
Kate: The only thing we can do now is look forward, you know, you know. There is lessons to be learned by everyone ourselves included, from what’s happened. But, all we want to do is find Madeleine and the only way of doing that is by looking forwards and trying to be proactive and see what we can do now, which is why this message has gone out today.
Sandra: Did you go back to work? Are you working already?
Kate: I am working full time in the campaign to find Madeleine. I am looking after Sean and Amelie.
Sandra: You don’t have any plans to go back to the clinic?
Kate: No I don’t, no I don’t
Sandra: You don’t. And talking about the twins. Now the time is passing. Two years and a half since Madeleine disappeared. They are growing up. How will you be able to explain them what happened one day they have the age to really understand it?
Gerry: It’s like filling in a picture for them with the information we have available and we will give them as their minds inquire, and as they are able to handle that information, then we will answer all of their questions openly and honestly.
Sandra: But what will you tell them
Gerry: Well, we will answer the questions. So what they ask us we will tell them. And we tell them exactly what happened and what information we know. And what we do know, is that we are continuing to look for their sister. They want people to look for their sister.
Sandra: But will you go into details about what happened?
Kate: We will be led by them. We have had avice from a child psychologist and they said Sean and Amelie would lead the way. If they ask a question answer them honestly. We are not gonna rush them, but if they ask something, then obviously we will answer them.
Sandra: They are in the same school where Madeleine was?
Gerry: Well she didn’t get a chance to start yet so, she was there, her place is there, and the twins are there now.
Sandra: The room, Madeleine’s room is still the same?
Kate: The bedroom? Yeah, it’s quite a few more presents in it now, but yeah, it’s still the same.
Sandra: And what do you keep telling the twins whenever they ask for her? I presume that they ask about her a lot of times?
Kate: Well they know she is missing, you know, and they know we are looking for her, and they also say things to me like, if they see things like a Madeleine sticker or a poster, they say “look Mummy they are helping to find Madeleine with us”, and they might point at other people saying “Mummy are they helping us to find Madeleine?” and you know, so *shrugs*
Sandra: Is it still very hard for you or are you getting used to this reality? Are you trying to live with it?
Kate: You have to, I think, you have to adapt and you have to function. And if we want to look after Sean and Amelie, and if you want to search for Madeleine, then you have to function. Erm. I am obviously stronger than I was say a year ago, and, obviously the emotion is still there…but…*sigh*
Gerry: Well we do as much as we possibly can to ensure that the twins see us happy, and see us happy with them, and they give us a tremendous amount of joy, and our life, you know, on a day-to-day basis superficially would look like any other family with two young children. Obviously one of our children is missing. And they know that and they know that that’s not good and they want her back and they understand why on occasion, you know, that we are particularly upset and… we all want Madeleine back to be a complete family again, but the twins are coping fantastic…
Sandra: You told me once that you are both living a nightmare. In your more optimistical perspective, what do you imagine, what do you think, it could be the best way to recover Madeleine.
Gerry: I think, the first thing today is that this message, it can be downloaded and distributed, be heard and seen by someone who knows, and it well tweak their conscience and get them to give information to bring Madeleine back.
Sandra: The last lead that you have shared with us was about a women in Barcelona. Has this anything to do with this appeal? (Kate shakes head?) Is it for that, that you are asking the relatives of people that can be involved in her disappearance, to call you?
Gerry: I think the first thing to say is that the investigation is to be dealt with by professionals and obviously we have got David Edgar working for us or law enforcement as a project (?). Today is about this appeal. It is completely separate. It is going out in seven different languages, we want it to be spread as far and as wide as possible because we don’t know where Madeleine is and we don’t know who took her and that’s why we need the public’s help to spread the email, an email to all your contacts. I know you have already done it, Sandra.
Sandra: Thank you very much to you both.
This is of course the David Payne statement that was presented by Dr Katherine Gaspar…have the Express got the guts to print it???
UK police chief hits back at Portuguese detective’s claims
8 November 2009 | Posted by astro Leave a Comment
The head of Leicestershire Police has rejected claims from a former Portuguese detective that his officers withheld a witness statement from the Madeleine McCann inquiry.
Chris Eyre, the Temporary Chief Constable, said “I can assure you that at no time were statements withheld and not passed on.”
Goncalo Amaral, the Algarve detective who was removed the inquiry early on, made his claim in a book, which is now banned.
Mr Eyre responded after Freedom of Information requests were submitted by the Sunday Express.
A team of Leicestershire family officers went to Portugal on 5 May 2007 to support the McCanns.
It has also emerged that the Foreign Office has withheld details about the investigation so as not to damage relations between Britain and Portugal.
An individual submitted Freedom of Information requests to get details of negotiations by John Buck, Britain’s former ambassador to Portugal.
The then Information Commissioner Richard Thomas refused in case it caused Portugal to lose trust in Britain’s discretion.
in: Sunday Express, 08.11.2009, paper edition only
Copied and pasted from the top of this page:-
Within the past week there has been a stunning turn in the case of the missing British tyke Madeleine McCann —cut
“Latest News ” from The Madeleine Foundation, which has nothing to do, and is not connected in any way shape or form with the McCanns quest for more money, to find their missing daughter http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/
Dear Bev
A letter from Portugal.
Dear friends,
My name is Gonçalo Amaral. I am a former Criminal Investigation Coordinator, and the author of the book “Maddie – The Truth about the Lie”, written with the purpose of contributing to the discovery of material truth and the performance of justice, and under the perspective of reinstating my reputation that was blackened in public.
This book was written under the use of my full rights, and stands as a technical opinion that is based on facts, indications and events that are part of the process that underlies the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
In September this year, an injunction was granted without previously hearing the defendant, based on lies and abusive interpretations of the intentions that were behind the creation of said book.
In order to render the defence of my rights more difficult, a request for damages worth 1.200.000 euros was filed, followed by the arrest of rights and goods.
The strategy of those who continue to dirty us was simple: the man is silenced, and the path to influence attitudes and behaviours, through the manipulation of public opinion at their pleasure, is opened. A campaign to discredit and to misinform is under way, at the same time as they try to asphyxiate us financially, in order to win the case without having to go to trial.
We will not conform to the limitation of our fundamental rights, through unconstitutional judicial decisions that put the responsible exercise of free expression at stake.
I thank all those who over the last couple of years have supported me, and who have signed the public petitions over the last days, as well as those who, through financial effort towards the recently created fund and a demonstration of solidarity, have reinforced my belief in the defence of values that should shape modern and democratic societies, freedom of expression, the discovery of the truth and the performance of justice.
As far as I’m concerned, I commit myself to embody the hopes of all of you, and not to give up, despite the survival of my own family being at stake, but the defence of those values and principles is essential.
To all, a heartfelt thank you.
Portimão, 2009-12-03
Grenville,
Thank you for the letter and the latest on this case.
Every May I wonder, think and pray for little Maddie…and believe it or not for the surviving McCann children. After all the same parents that left them alone that horrible night still have custody and “care” of their remaining children. To me that is a scary thought especially given the fact they appear to be making a living now on the “business of the disappearance of Maddie”.
Grenville, I’m aware that many people continue to read the piece I wrote regarding Maddie. It was a heartfelt piece for me to write, one I still feel to this day. I continue to leave comments open because I believe there are so many out there that still care about Maddie and what happened to her. They need a voice to keep Maddie’s memory alive. It seems a small way for me to help…
Thank you my friend for your perseverance…I know there is a little, worthy angel somewhere that thanks you too for remembering her before the world and seeking justice for her.
Bev
Dear Bev,
Thank you so very much for your wonderful letter of support x
I have asked Tony Bennett secretary of The Madeleine Foundation to send a copy of your letter to Gonçalo Amaral.
Gonçalo Amaral is in court today, to try and retrieve the book he wrote, which has been spirited away by the McCanns legal team. This legal team have filed a claim against him for 1.200.000 euros
Later in the day he will be launching his new book. “The English Gag”
The McCanns are in Portugal, and yet they would not return with their friends for a re-construction when Gonçalo Amaral was in charge of the investigation, and trying to leave no stone unturned, to find the McCanns missing daughter.
God Bless
Grenville
Dear Bev
An update from Portugal
Influenza A delays Gonçalo Amaral Opposition to McCann’s Injunction
11 December 2009 | Posted by Joana Morais.
McCanns flee from Portugal after being constituted arguidos, September 9 2007
The hearing of witnesses that were requested by Gonçalo Amaral in his opposition to the injunction made by the McCanns, which determines the prohibition to sell the book “Maddie, The Truth of the Lie” may be postponed.
The lawyer of the former coordinator of the case, António Cabrita, received this afternoon medical indications to stay at home in quarantine because his secretary is infected with the H1N1 virus.
António Cabrita immediately informed the judge at the civil court of Lisbon. On Friday morning two of the seven witnesses that have been requested by Gonçalo Amaral are scheduled to be heard within the opposition to the McCann’s injunction.
The seven witnesses called by Gonçalo Amaral’s defense are: Magalhães e Meneses, the Public Ministry prosecutor who held the Maddie Case Dossier; PJ chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida; PJ Inspector and McCann family liaison officer Ricardo Paiva, National-Joint Director of PJ in Faro Guilhermino Encarnação; PJ’s Heavy Crime Unit Director Luís Neves, Former Judiciary Police Inspector and Criminologist Francisco Moita Flores and Scotland Yard Inspector José Freitas.
This witnesses will testify to the fact that the thesis that is presented by Gonçalo Amaral in his book is nothing more and nothing less than the facts pertaining to the investigation.
If the judge accepts the defense lawyer’s request, the session may be postponed to December 21st.
Contrary to what the McCanns Spin Man suggested it is now apparent that the McCanns will visit Praia da Luz in the Algarve over the weekend (or maybe tomorrow in the afternoon in an attempt to boycott Gonçalo Amaral’s new book launch).
It does`nt look good for the McCanns
Even Sky news are playing fair http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/12/video-mccanns-at-lisbon-court.html
Portuguese Judicial Code
Article 138
Exposure or abandonment
1 – Whom endangers the life of another person:
a) By exposing her in a place where the person is subject to a situation which she cannot defend herself from on her own; or
b) By abandoning her in a defenseless state, for motive of age, physical defect or illness,when the agent had the duty to guard, watch or assist to the person;
is punished with a prison term of 1 to 5years.
2 – If the fact is practised by an ascendant ;or descendant, adoptant or adoptee of the victim, the agent is punished with a prison term of 2 to 5 years.
3 – If the fact results in:
a) Serious offense to the physical integrity, the agent is punished with a prison term of 2 to 8 years;
b) Death, the agent is punished with a prison term of 3 to 10 years.
Perhaps a book on the CARE and PROTECTION of minor children would be appropriate. One which clearly indicates how the children’s rights should be protected. A ‘what not to do’ guide to safe parenting.
1. Don’t leave three under 4 year olds alone night after night in and unlocked apartment in a foreign country.
2. Don’t leave the door unlocked so that the children can come look for you while you dine in a bar…..
This list could be endless in this case! The treatment of these children so appalling!
Not highlighting this reward at every opportunity, I would say is rather hampering the search, preventing those with information coming forward.
Perhaps news of it, through lack of publicity, has not yet reached the villains in the PDL wilderness?
I do not believe for an instant, any book Sr Amaral’s or any other could prevent any honest decent person, who believes the child is dead, to not come forward should information as to her whereabouts come to their attention. Even if one believes the child to be dead and you see a child resembling Madeleine, decent individuals would report this – hopefully to a proper police authority.
If McCann’s are speaking of the ‘villains of the piece’ having read the book, and not coming forward – Well that HUGE reward might just help in making them change their mind.
Let’s here more of it.
A.Miller
Just in time for X-mas
13 December 2009 | Posted by Joana Morais Leave a Comment
McCanns Selling good cotton T-shirts since 2007
Exclusive: Madeleine McCann search cash due to run out in three months
CASH funding the search for missing Madeleine McCann will run out in three months.
Maddie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, are now preparing to open talks with multimillionaire businessman Brian Kennedy to extend his backing.
The couple had feared the fund set up to trace their little girl, who has now been missing for 31 months, would be exhausted by the end of this month.
But they have boosted it with payouts won in legal actions against newspapers in Britain and abroad.
Glaswegian Gerry and Kate, both 41, flew to Portugal last week for a new libel action against former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral, who wrote a book claiming Madeleine died in an accident, but on Friday the trial was adjourned until next month.
It could see them net £1 million – cash that would be immediately diverted to the fund to find Madeleine, who was just about to turn four when she disappeared from their Algarve holiday home in May 2007.
Scots double glazing tycoon Mr Kennedy has not yet indicated that he will continue to contribute cash The McCanns’ PR man Clarence Mitchell, who also acts as spokesman for Scots doubleglazing tycoon Kennedy, said: “No one is worried about the situation.
“Brian Kennedy has not said he won’t continue to back the fund and the search will not cease until we have found her.
“As and when the fund diminishes, there will be talks with Brian and various other backers. There is approximately £500,000 left in the fund and there is enough money to keep going until early spring.
“Money is being spent more slowly. We had thought it would run out by the end of the year but the drain has not been so severe.
“If it had not been for the libel settlements, the fund would have depleted long ago. A lot of work that has been done has ruled things out.
“A number of leads are being followed at the moment. Kate and Gerry do feel that progress is being made.”
Kate and Gerry, who both work as doctors in Leicestershire, have pledged never to give up looking for their daughter.
The fund is keeping costs down by running a smaller team of detectives and concentrating the search on southern Spain, Portugal and northern Africa.
Kevin Halligen, an Irish crook who posed as a security consultant, was paid £300,000 from the fund and is now facing fraud charges
in Daily Record
‘I am the same Citizen who Believes in the Values of Justice and of Freedom’
13 December 2009 | Posted by astro Leave a Comment
The former Maddie case inspector tells how his life turned into hell after the injunction. His wife had to undergo shock therapy against depression.
Is ‘The English Gag’ a book to counter-attack the McCanns?
‘The English Gag’ is a book that was written from the point of view of defence and revolt against a decision that I consider to be unconstitutional, therefore against the law. It is a counter-attack from those who defend the “planned and premeditated abduction theory”, which, to say the least, offends the intelligence of any policeman, anywhere in the world. Even that of a common citizen…
Do you feel gagged?
I have no doubts about the “gag” that people wanted to impose on me, even when I was still a Polícia Judiciária coordinator. But I won’t be silenced, and I won’t stop trying to discover the truth. This is no obsession; the truth is a principle.
Why is [the book] published by a Spanish editor?
Because no Portuguese editor was brave enough to publish it. And this has nothing to do with any “conspiracy”, I think it is the fear that the editors feel of suffering major financial damages due to a hypothetical injunction, in fact an “undercover” prohibition. This is Portuguese censorship, which returns 35 years after the Spring of ’74 [revolution of the 25th of April 1974, which restored democracy in Portugal], with the agreement of our own judicial system.
Did you feel the need to portray a bit of your family life, namely in the chapter where you speak about your daughters and where you describe some emotions and situations that happened with them and with [your wife] Sofia?
Those who attack me should not forget that I am a “head of family”, with a wife and daughters, with other relatives and also with friends. Which is to say, I’m a citizen like so many others. I am not, nor have I ever been, that which my detractors want to make me look like. On the other hand, my family has suffered just as much or even more (if suffering is measurable at all) than those who attack us. To speak about family is to focus on the core issue, on what is important, on what matters above everything else.
The injunction that is being fought by you in court, which prohibits the sale of the book ‘Maddie – The Truth about the Lie’, the consequent seizure of assets and the freezing of all of your income sources, has this shaken you financially and emotionally?
It is an attack on all fronts, with the purpose of asphyxiating me economically, and putting my capacity of defence at stake. Just to give you an idea, for me to fight the main action, which demands 1.2 million euros from me, I will have to pay judicial expenses that amount to approximately 30 thousand euros. Firstly, I pay, and only then I am able to oppose [the action]. I think I answered that clearly. Given the fact that the judicial costs are indexed to the requested amount, [the plaintiffs] demand a lot, to prevent me from reacting. This is how it works for citizen Gonçalo Amaral or for (almost) any other Portuguese. The seizure of rights and assets is not a consequence of the request, it is a process “on the side”, which seeks to reinforce the asphyxia. An arrest is not obligatory when there is a request for compensation. But if both processes run simultaneously, as is the case, they ask a fortune from me, I have to pay in order to be heard, and I cannot use the means that I gained legally from my work, to defend myself.
According to the family’s British lawyer, Ed Smethurst, Madeleine McCann’s parents defend that you produced “continuous and gross” statements about the little girl’s disappearance…
Given the fact that the injunction, apart from everything else, also forbids me from speaking about the contents of the book ‘Maddie – The Truth about the Lie’, I can only tell you that what is written in there is based on the process that supported the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann. On the limit, it is a duly based technical opinion.
Are you confident, concerning the court’s decision?
I have no doubts. I am sure that the judicial system will work and that it will declare the unconstitutionality of the decisions that have been made so far, in a provisory manner.
What are you going to try to prove?
That in Portugal, in 2009, it is not possible to limit responsible freedom of expression.
Is the injunction only valid in Portugal?
Yes. There is neither in Portugal, nor anywhere else in the world, a court that is competent beyond its territorial jurisdiction, which is to say, beyond its borders. That is why apparently the couple’s lawyers seem to be on a world tour, selling the provisional injunction as if it were definitive, in the countries where the book is on sale.
Explain the arrest to me. Are you unable to touch anything that you own?
I would like to explain the contents of the arrest to you, but I do not know the specific decision that it is based upon, because, strangely enough, I have never been notified.
The McCanns have filed an action against you in which they demand a compensation of 1.2 million euros. Do you consider the possibility that you might lose and have to pay them that amount?
I consider the possibility of, and because I owe them nothing, apart from the damages that my family and me are suffering, me counter-attacking and demanding that or any other value from them. Which is to say, what they are doing to me, can also be done to them. Some people call it “karma”, or “you reap what you sow”. That is not the intention. It is a matter of following the judicial instruments that are available to citizens.
Have these two years been difficult?
If the path was easy, what would our merit be?
Who was, and who is now Gonçalo Amaral? Do you still fight for what you believe in?
I am the same father, the same husband, the same friend. What I have is more free time. I am also the same citizen who believes in the values of justice and of freedom.
If the McCann couple comes to Portugal to attend the trial, would you like to approach them to ask some questions, to tell them anything, any questions that remain unanswered?
… (Silence)
It has been said that you made a lot of money and even bought a Jaguar. Did you make that much money?
There are so many authors in Portugal selling (good) books. Many of them are even public figures, colleagues of yours. I still question myself (even though I know the answer) why they only mention the “money”, the “profits”, the “luxuries” of Gonçalo Amaral. You know, I was born into a very poor family, with six children to raise and to educate. Just like any other parent, I like to offer my daughters everything which they deserve and wish for. I would even spoil them more, it’s Sofia who doesn’t allow me. As far as the car is concerned, it is merely a car, which was bought by my consultancy firm.
Would you explain the story of the Jaguar to me…
It is called a Jaguar, but it was a lot less expensive than some lower category cars. When it was bought it was being sold for half its price. The brand had stopped producing that model. Apart from that, it was bought from the car dealer where Sofia’s family has always bought their cars, which made the negotiation even easier. But that is all that it is, really, a car.
The McCanns also accuse you of charging for interviews. Have you ever charged for one?
That is another lie that sustains the damage request. Apart from Bill Clinton, or any other world famous celebrity that charges for philanthropic purposes, do you really know anyone who is willing to pay 80 thousand euros for an interview?! To a retired cop?!
Sofia Leal: Deep depression supporting her husband
Has your family been hurt in this process?
This year in April, I started feeling very low. I did some blood tests and the result revealed that my body (this was not even a psychological matter anymore) was at its limit. The pressure had been huge (moving house, changing schools, changing jobs, defamation, Gonçalo’s early retirement). All the common patterns were fine, including the hormonal part. Nonetheless, until today nobody understands how I managed to get so far.
By the end of April, my body had not even a trace of adrenalin, dopamine or serotonin. In physical and emotional terms, I had given everything I had, plus what I didn’t have. The McCann couple, that is clearly and directly responsible, certainly knows what this means. Nevertheless, due to my psychiatrist and to my family that tried to protect me, I made it through the summer “on one foot”. Afterwards, and due to the processes, the threats, in October my body failed and broke down. I went through shock therapy that included being “shut off” for two weeks. My husband didn’t sleep, in order to “watch over” my sleep.
How do your daughters react to the information that they receive about their father?
Concerning the information that reaches the girls, it’s not easy, but there is a basic principle: to tell them the truth, according to their age. Rita, who is 11 years old and surprisingly mature, is able to understand almost like an adult. Ines, who has just become six, knows that Maddie’s parents loved her so much that they refuse to believe that she died. That her father, Gonçalo, who is a great policeman, with the help of other policemen, of the laboratory and of the dogs, managed to prove that Maddie died. But the little girl’s parents don’t want to believe that, and they don’t want her father to say that. But I always tell her that the parents didn’t hurt her, that we don’t know how it happened yet, but Maddie died. And that Gonçalo won’t give up on finding out “how”, because that is the only way that Maddie’s parents will believe, and she can become another angel just like Joana.
source: Nova Gente, 12.12.2009, paper edition only
I have just read on one of the Friends of Mccanns blogs that Kate said she did not go the apartment because they could not contact the British owner….This apartment is rented out by MW the Mccanns always claimed not to know Ruth Mccann…the same Ruth Mccann that lives within a mile of Kates parents…
I think the Mccanns did not go the apartment in case it was bugged by PJ.
23 December 2009 | Posted by astro
From Lusa, the central Portuguese news agency, yesterday:
“Madeleine: McCanns deny “censorship or undue benefit” in the prohibition of Gonçalo Amaral’s book
Lisboa, 22 Dec (Lusa) – Today, Kate and Gerry McCann rejected that the injunction that prohibited the sale of the book “Maddie – The Truth of the Lie”, by former PJ inspector Gonçalo Amaral, is “censorship or undue benefit”.
In a press release to Lusa agency, the parents of little English girl Madeleine McCann, who went missing in the Algarve in 2007, defend that the injunction, that starts being tried from the 12th to the 14th of January, at Lisbon Civil Court’s 7th Section, is “merely the result of the free pondering of the democratic rules and fundamental rights”, which, they stress, the couple and the book’s author are subject to.
“The decision to grant the injunction that apprehended the book already has two judicial stamps and can and should be publicised, because it is of interest to all citizens who, in the name of freedom of expression, are at stake of being publicly accused for life, after having been declared innocent by the courts”, Kate and Gerry McCann refer.”
‘Declared innocent by the courts’?
I definitely must have missed something.
The last bit that I heard, from any Portuguese judicial authority, concerning the couple’s innocence, was this:
“We believe that the main damage was caused to the McCann arguidos, who lost the possibility to prove what they have protested since they were constituted arguidos: their innocence towards the fateful event; the investigation was also disturbed, because said facts remain unclarified.”
That was the Public Prosecutor’s opinion about the missed reconstitution. In the famous archiving dispatch, which certain people fervently invoke to proclaim the McCann couple’s ‘innocence’, Dr. Magalhães e Menezes not only states that Madeleine’s parents’ and their friends’ statements concerning the checks on the children were not conforming to the truth of facts – he writes that by boycotting the reconstitution, they failed to prove their innocence and disturbed the investigation.
That is precisely why the archiving dispatch does not declare them innocent of any crime. It merely states that the process is archived, and arguido status lifted, because “there are no indications of the practise of any crime”.
It is worthwhile to mention that the Public Prosecutor actually had another option.
He could have proclaimed their innocence.
Portuguese law foresees two types of archiving:
a) an archiving because “enough evidence” was collected to prove that either there was no crime, or that the arguidos did not commit it under any circumstance; or
b) an archiving because it was not possible to obtain “enough evidence” to prove the crime or to accuse anyone.
I don’t think further comments are needed – because frankly, I have not lost my confidence in people’s ability to think by themselves and to draw their own conclusions.
In the mean time, if anyone finds out which “courts” have declared the McCann couple “innocent”, please be so kind as to share the information, because I hate to miss important things like that.
Merry Christmas.
astro
Comment from lj:
From someone who knows the Portuguese law and procedures:
The McCanns could have stopped the archival at any moment up to the end of the deadlines, or even force the reopening of the process now, if for example they requested to do the legal reconstruction with their friends, or if Kate McCann answered the 48 questions that were never answered, or if any of their Tapas friends requested to do new statements, etc..
Those would be evidences that would oblige the Public Ministry to reopen the process – which means that if the McCanns really wanted the process and the legal investigation into the disappearance [presumed death] of their daughter to continue, they could do it.
Also they could have asked for the investigation to go to the Instruction phase, which basically would have kept it open and would have given them the opportunity to be really cleared, not just not charged because there is not sufficient evidence yet. For some reason they did not push for that Instruction phase in 2008. Why not?
Original post on 3A
Madeleine police files under wraps
3 January 2010 brought over from the Joana Morais blog
Thousands of British police files detailing the hunt for Madeleine McCann will not be released unless those behind her disappearance are brought to justice.
Senior Leicestershire Police officers have remained tight-lipped about their role co-ordinating the search for the toddler since she vanished from a Portuguese holiday resort in May 2007.
But analysts at the force have drawn up a list detailing the mass of information they have gathered and considered whether they would ever release any of it to the general public.
The paperwork includes everything from correspondence with Government ministers, minutes of police meetings, details of leads and sightings to copies of letters from the McCann family.
Leicestershire Police said they will not release any information while the inquiry is ongoing and will never reveal the tactics of their investigation. But internal documents suggest some papers may eventually be published.
They stated: “Anything in relation to the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will not be released whilst it remains ongoing.
“Consideration may be given to releasing certain material, ie, that which would not reveal police tactics, when the circumstances surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance are fully known and the person/people involved have been brought to justice and a suitable period for any appeal has elapsed.”
Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, disappeared on May 3 2007 from Praia da Luz, nine days before her fourth birthday.
An investigation into her disappearance was carried out by the Portuguese police, supported by Leicestershire Police.
The force is responsible for co-ordinating British inquiries under the codename Operation Task.
in Press Association
From the Leicestershire Police, released on 18th December 2009: Operation Task Publication strategy [ PDF file- bellow in images, click to read]
Currently and since June 2008 there isn’t any Police force investigating the Madeleine McCann disappearence, be it the Judiciary Portuguese Police, Interpol, Europol, Scotland Yard or Leicestershire Constabulary Police.
The British police, and in particular, Leicestershire Constabulary have no jurisdiction on the so called ‘Maddie case’ – unless Kate and Gerry McCann decided, finally, to file a missing persons report in that Country.
Nevertheless, for an investigation to be ongoing that would mean that the case was indeed being worked, investigated by proper authorities and that is not the case, the process to Madeleine McCann’s disappearence is archived, waiting for better evidence, at the Portuguese Public Ministry.
As many of you have pointed out, the timing for this unnamed [no officer names] and unassigned [no journalists] press release is coincidentally odd, considering that one liaison officer, belonging to the Scotland Yard, who was an element of ‘Operation Task’, is supposed to be heard as a witness in less than two weeks time at the Civil Court of Lisbon for Mr. Amaral’s defense.
Is this a hint, of yet another impediment, similar to the 6 months old rogatory letters that had to be sent various times to the Home Office until they were accepted?
Will Goncalo Amaral get Justice when decisions like this are handed down?
Brought over from Joana Morais Blog
THENTHEREWERE4 said… 4
Murdoch was sued by 2 ex journalists in 1998. The journalists had been employed by a regional Fox TV station in Miami. The journalists uncovered and publicised the early use of a milk inducing hormone which had just been introduced to the dairy industry. The hormone increased milk yield by up to 30% and despite being sanctioned for use by the FDA is still to this day outlawed in the EC. The EC determined this hormone should be prohibited from use in the EC dairy herds as it appears as the cause of tumours, legions and even premature and painfull death of cows in the herd along with discoloured and teinted milk.
Advertisers in the dairy industry, led by Monsanto, the drug company that invented the treatment, quickly withdrew their financial support and terminated advertising contracts with Fox in the light of the reporters revelations. When challenged by Fox as to why they persisted with uncovering the dirty deeds of the US dairy industry, the reporters nobly insisted the public had a right to know and that Fox had a duty of care to the public to report the news fairly and without fear, favour or bias.
Fox sacked the reporters. The reporters sued for unfair dismissal. The judge who heard the case awarded total victory to Fox. The judge in open court said this case determined Fox did not have a duty of care to report the news fairly or without bias. This landmark judgement in a Miami county court determined Murdoch, indeed all news publishers, from thenceforth had no need of the inconvenience of the truth when reporting the news.
At a solitary strike, news output across the globe became a trivial pursuit and nothing more. The McCanns and their media machine were of course as media professionals all too well aware of the necessity or not of reporting the truth, the news, without disfigurement, fear or favour.
Good Morning Bev,
Stephen and I went to LISBON at our own expense to support Snr Goncalo Amaral. On our return I wrote an account of our visit on line and sent it to one of our National Newspapers and to date I have not heard anything from them:-
This is my account
Best Wishes
Grenville
———————————————————————————————————-
THIS REPORT WAS SENT TO THE EXPRESS EDITOR
This is the report which was filled in on line! At the time of sending you this copy,
I have not heard a thing from the Express Grenville.
Grenville Green
45 C**** C****
N***
N*** N** **
Mobile Tel: 07*****
23rd Jan 2010
Dear Editor
Because I feel strongly about the verbal abuse directed at the Portuguese Police in our British media regarding the McCann case, I felt compelled to travel to Lisbon to show my support for Goncalo Amaral at the 3-day Hearing last week.
I was impressed by the coverage of this event by your reporter Nick Fagge. Out of all our national newspapers, the Express published the most balanced and most comprehensive account, without resorting to cheap sensationalism. Therefore, I have decided to contact your newspaper with the account of my own visit.
I stood outside the “Palasio da Justice”, the Courthouse in Lisbon where Goncalo Amaral was defending his right of free speech, enshrined in Article 37.0 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.
I held up two notices reading “Freedom and Democracy on Trial in Lisbon” and “Portuguese Republic Constitution on Trial in Lisbon”.
The British press in general do not report fairly on Snr. Amaral and, in my experience, do not always report the truth. The latest insult to his integrity was the recent report that he had said “F*** the McCanns” just before the Court Hearing. He speaks very little English and had actually said, “Nao, forca aos McCanns” which, I understand, translates as “No, good luck to the McCanns”.
This vilification in the British press is typical of the ignorance and biased reporting of elements of the media regarding this case. To obtain an accurate over-view, including world-wide comments, I would encourage you to read the internet site of Joana Morais.
I demonstrated in support of Snr. Amaral outside the Courthouse, and then attended the Court Hearing for two and a half days, starting on Tues 12th January. I was accompanied by my son who has Downs syndrome.
On Thursday evening my son and I went to a fund-raising dinner at Frei Antonio, a restaurant in Mafra (approx 50km from Lisbon). We were warmly welcomed, and one woman we met there told us about her demonstration outside the Court. She had handed out red carnations which have come to symbolise a peaceful revolution in Portugal’s history. She had offered a symbolic flower to a VIP who had refused to take it. When asked why, he had replied “I don’t believe in it.” She asked, “What don’t you believe in, peaceful revolution or free speech?”
That evening I purchased Snr. Amaral’s second book, just published, entitled “A Mordaca Inglesa- a historia de um livro proibido” (The English Gag-the story of a banned book).
This Police Inspector, on a matter of principle, had found it necessary to leave the job he loved-incurring loss of income and substantial loss of pension rights-in order to write his first book, “Maddie-The Truth about the Lie”. It dealt with the evidence around Madeleine McCann, a British child, who disappeared from a holiday complex in Portugal in May 2007.
His second book, “The English Gag”, is an account of the banning of his first book and the attempt by the British Government to silence a Portuguese citizen, in breach of that country’s constitution. His account opposed the theory of abduction for which there is no reliable evidence.
We reluctantly had to leave our new-found friends as the taxi was waiting. Snr. Amaral shook my hand warmly and agreed to be photographed with us. I was left with a profound impression of a man with a depth of character who was gentle, thoughtful and warm. Several people had spoken that evening to warm applause, thus showing their unshakeable admiration for his courage.
The Hearing continues in February, but my fear is that decisions have already been made. I hope and pray that I am proved wrong and that Portugal’s constitution prevails!
Yours sincerely
Grenville Green
Grenville, you are a true crusader for truth and justice, my friend. Thank you for the riveting account. God Bless you and your efforts…and your sweet, special son. Bev
Bev,
This link came to my notice this morning!
http://mccannexposure.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/
Grenville
Thanks so much, Grenville! I read the latest article this morning and I must say, it’s the type of thing that make the hair stand up on the back of my neck! I’m thinking about Twittering the link to the site…what do you think?
Bev
Bev
Thank you for your kind comments and please twitter anything that will help to re-open this case.
Grenville
http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=158424&articleId=198960&func=6&channel=Money+%26+Finance&filterRead=false&filterHidden=true&filterUnhidden=false
Bev,
Snr Goncalo Amaral, will be attending the start of his second set of scheduled Court Hearing’s today, Wed 10 Feb.
To follow this in Portugal, and read it in English, please Google- Joana Morais,
Grenville
Bev
Freedom of speech article by Mike Hitchen
http://ionglobaltrends.blogspot.com/2010/02/madeleine-mccann-rainbow-takes-glitter.html
Grenville
Bev,
For the interest of your readers:-
Google Web Alert for: Madeleine Foundation
Memorandum submitted by The Madeleine Foundation – Penny Stock …
The Madeleine Foundation welcomes the opportunity to comment to the Select Committee on issues of privacy, libel and the Press Complaints Commission’s role , …
Best Wishes,
Grenville
Bev
I have just found this on —Little Morsals–
Grenville
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know true peace” ~ Jimi Hendrix
————————————————————————————————————
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Spnish TV 4 interview (with English subtitles) Sargento and Mercedes – Madeleine is dead.
Thank you to Judge Mental for pointing me to this interview, and also to my friend who sent the Youtube link to me via email.
YouTube video by Justice4Madeleine
Potentially damning evidence … Paulo Sargento (forensics expert who worked on the case from the second day of Madeleine’s disappearance) and Mercedes, author of her blog Hasta que se sepa la Verdad (Until we know the truth), speak bluntly about the McCann case, Goncalo Amaral’s banned book and the conclusion that Madeleine is dead.
Bev,
Although nothing to do with the mystery disappearance of a British child left alone in a holiday apartment, whilst the parents went out night after night.
This story is about a caring parent, who is going through hell, trying to get Justice for her Downs syndrome daughter Hollie Greig.
http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/hollie-greig-f15/please-stay-on-topic-robert-green-truth-spreader-or-peace-breacher-t482.htm#21958
FANTASTIC NEWS, HOT OFF THE PRESS
Direct Speech – A short interview with Gonçalo Amaral
20 October 2010 | Posted by Joana Morais Leave a Comment
Gonçalo Amaral, the former Judiciary Police Coordinator on the ban overturn to his book ‘Maddie – A Verdade da Mentira’.
by Paulo Marcelino
What did you feel upon learning about the decision taken by the Lisbon Appeals Court, which invalidated the interim injunction brought by the McCann couple against the book?
I had a sensation of freedom and the certainty that democracy had been strengthened.
What impact had on you the decision made at the first instance court, one year ago, that banned the sale of your book and forbade you from speaking publicly about the case?
It was very heavy for me and for my family. It had nefarious consequences and damages are still being assessed. It was extremely violent.
Will you speak about the case again?
I am considering to exercise the right of freedom that was returned to me.
Will the book be again be put up for sale?
The publisher will immediately recover the confiscated books in order to place them at the bookshops. And we will take other initiatives into consideration, including the publication in England.
What is the direct consequence of this decision [book ban] in the claim for damages [filed by the McCanns]?
It has a very strong impact because the arguments used by the applicants for requesting the main action are the same. We strongly believe that we are going to win this battle between truth and falsehood.
Long time viewer / 1st time poster. Really enjoying reading the blog, keep up the excellent work. Will most definitely start posting more oftenin the near future.
Tony Bennett Secretary of the Madeleine Foundation writes :-
Many people have been following this case in the British media but don’t know the other side of the story from the Portuguese point of view. I have tried to collect as much information as possible for those who are only just starting to realise there is more to this case than is being told in the British media.
——————————————————————–
From: Simon Hare
Subject: Madeleine Foundation
To: “ANTHONY BENNETT”
Date: Wednesday, 1 December, 2010, 13:58
Tony,
I’m aware you have posted online a number of issues relating to my film. If you have also formed these into a letter to my editor, as previously discussed, they will be addressed. Airing them online in advance is, at best, discourteous, at worst, potentially defamatory. You may already have sent a letter, but I have been working from home due to the weather.
I’m also aware that a number of posts by you and others associated with the so-called Foundation have accused me of lying, deception and unprofessionalism. I treat such allegations very seriously and intend to pass them onto our legal department. As I’m sure you are aware, libel laws apply as equally to forums and message boards as they do to the BBC.
Simon Hare.
—————————————————————-
REPLY: THE MADELEINE FOUNDATION TO SIMON HARE, 3 DECEMBER 2010
Dear Simon
Your comments are noted.
We do have a number of objections to the programme you made.
One of these was the vicious, nasty-sounding voice-over of the words I wrote on a forum after I attended the two sessions of the Department for Culture Media and Sport Select Committee on 10 March 2009. Your film didn’t mention by the way that The Madeleine Foundation had made a 50-page written submission to the Committee, which is why we were invited to attend it.
Many people assumed this was my own voice. This was because, contrary to BBC and TV best practice, you did not say, before the words were read out, ‘Mr Bennett’s words are read out by an actor’.
The most popular Madeleine McCann Forum on the internet is currently ‘Missing Madeleine’. To give a flavour of what many people thought on hearing the BBC actor’s words, here is one poster’s opinion from that forum, reproduced verbatim:
And Hare really rubbed it in the other night with a clip of Tony Bennett’s own voice that I’d never heard before from after he sat behind Gerry McCann at the House of Commons. “It was to send out a quiet message. We are looking over his shoulder checking out what he and his team are saying, watching them.”
It sounded like something out of a horror film Many others also referred to this clip in your film and said how horrible my voice sounded. This was a deliberate and unfortunately very successful deception perpetrated by the BBC. I naturally had to correct it as soon as I learned that so many people really thought that that was my actual voice.
I turn now to the subject of allowing Ms Butler to tell several untruths in her wholly false account of the events of 12 August 2009 when we leafleted in Leicestershire.
You will recall that when I learnt that you might be asking Ms Butler to appear in the programme, I wrote this to you:
“I cannot influence your choice of people to appear in your programme – but it was sold to us on the basis that this was an examination of The Madeleine Foundation. and I would seriously question what Ms Butler has to offer to that programme given all that has happened in the past 8 months since she was expelled”.
You then replied: “But at the moment I think it’s unlikely she will take part in our film as she expressed the belief that I probably ‘work for the McCanns’.”
Other assurances you gave suggested that you were not intending to use any film of Ms Butler.
Moreover, in discussions with you, you were made fully aware of Ms Butler’s entirely false allegations against me, made after she was expelled from membership. Indeed you were at my house the very day Detective Inspector Roe telephoned me and said that Essex Police were no longer going to pursue their enquiries against me.
Not only did the BBC have this clear proof that Ms Butler was capable of outright lying, but you had further concrete proof when she claimed to be doing a 1,000-mile walk across Spain in the height of the summer. It was clear to all observers that this was another deliberate and outright lie with no truth in it, and you will recall that you and I discussed this. She maintained the deception about this ‘walk’ for weeks and continues to do so to this day.
You were therefore on the clearest possible notice that no reliance could be put on any statement issuing from Ms Butler.
Yet you allowed her to speak without contradiuction about the events of 12 August. Moreover, contrary to your agreement to put to me any controversial points in good time before the programme went out, you gave neither me nor Helene Davies-Green any opportunity to rebut the false statements of Ms Butler (apart from a passing reference to my denying one of Ms Butler’s false statemenrts).
Three of us gave you in detail a true and consistent account of that day’s events. Yet the BBC decided to allow viewers only to hear the account of Ms Butler, of whose record of having deliberately lied you were fully aware.
I have therefore – again in response to many queries from members, supporters and followers of ours – had to publicly correct her false statements which you transmitted to viewers.
The statement of Debbie Butler about what happened on the day of leafleting in Leicestershire on 12 August 2009 was false in several respects, namely:
(i)] that she was ‘instructed’ to do anything that day
(ii)] that it was known in advance that the Restaurant and Tea Rooms in Mountsorrel was a place Dr Kate McCann had once visited with Madeleine
(iii) that any of us distributed leaflets there that day
(iv) that she was ‘instructed’ to leaflet the McCanns’ road. The Crescent
(v) that she only did so because Helene’s legs ‘turned to jelly’.
Further, you claimed in writing to us that “…the aims of our film are to examine what the Madeleine Foundation is, who its members are and what it is trying to achieve…I can assure you that I am motivated solely by an interest in examining your campaign in a full and fair manner.”
In our submission the film did not do those things. Your trailer referred to Goncalo Amaral as ‘discredited’. Your film said that the theory that Madeleine McCann was found dead in her parents’ holiday apartment was also ‘discredited’. This left the uninformed viewers with a fait accompli, namely: the detective is discredited, his theory is discredited, therefore members of The Madeleine Foundation and anyone with a contrary view must be wrong and there is no basis for them to continuing to question the McCanns’ account of events.
None of the reasons we gave you for believing that the McCanns still have many questions to answer were aired in the film.There was no mention of the alerts to a corpse given by a dog trained by one of the world’s top dog handlers. There was no mention of the many contradictions in the evidence and changes of story of the McCanns and their friends, which provide evidence that their stories may not be true. Viewers were not told that we have 500 pages-plus of in-depth analysis of the case on our website.
The viewer was therefore effectively told by you that there was no basis for our view of the case – and that therefore there must be some other motive for our actions. In that context, you allowed Dr Kate McCann two separate opportunities within the film to suggest that we were motivated by a desire to attack a vulnerable family and would then move on to attack another family.
When on 19 October 2010 we heard that the Portuguese Appeal Court had overturned the book ban on Goncalo Amaral’s book: ‘The Truth About A Lie’, we sought written assurances from you that, in the interests of fairness and balance, you would inform viewers that Mr Amaral’s book was now back on sale as a result of this Appeal Court ruling.
You replied: “I intend to include the development of the book ban being over-turned in my film”.
In the event you chose not to tell viewers that – and you described him as ‘discredited’ despite the fact that the second highest court in Portugal had just allowed his book to be read again, based on European Convention ‘freedom of speech’ principles. Whether that was your decision, or you were overruled by your editor and producer, we do not know.
I wish also to refer to the sequence of an MF member hiding behind a lamp-post. As you well know, that member had specifically stated to you beforeahnd that she did not wish to be filmed – and we had your written agreement to that effect. You could have dealt with that issue by simply telling viewers: “Another Madeleine Foundation member was distributing leaflets but did not wish to be filmed”. Why did you then try to film her and include that sequence?
Further, you played the song “I don’t care what the people may say’ whilst filming me. What was that meant to convey to the viewer? The only opinion poll ever done in this country, in the Sunday Times, found that 80% of respondents did not believe the McCanns were telling the whole truth. After watching the McCanns appear on a Spanish TV programme, 70% of viewers thought they were lying; only 30% thought they were telling the truth.
As you are well aware, there are many who doubt the McCanns’ version of events to a greater or lesser extent. The comments sent recently by members of the public on the subject of Madeleine’s disappearence to articles in the online versions of many newspapers make this abundantly clear, quite apart from all the views expressed on the Madeleine McCann discussion forums. It is partly because we do care what the people may say that we write our in-depth articles and publish our leaflets, so that people may gain a better understanding of the case.
Finally, you refer directly to my having accused you of ‘lying, deception and unprofessionalism’.
Pretending that it was my voice reading out my internet message and using a deliberately nasty-sounding voice in doing so was a deception on the viewer – as the sort of comments I have referred to above make clear. I do not resile from describing that as a ‘deception’.
We were deceived into assuming that you were not going to allow Ms Butler a platform and in deciding to use her you did not offer us the right of reply. I do not say and have not said that that was ‘unprofessional’. But others might.
Furthermore, you led us to believe that the un-banning of Amaral’s book would be mentioned in the film.
Nowhere have I accused you of lying and I am not aware of a single Madeleine Foundation member who has done so. Clearly hundreds of people have been commenting on the programme on the various Madeleine forums and I am sorry if some have used that word. Their comments are however not our responsibility.
Yours sincerely
Tony Bennett
By Tony Bennett, secretary of the Madeleine Foundation
6th Madeleine Foundation Conference – Shropshire – Summary Report
The following criticisms of Simon Hare and the programme he had put together were made:
*In the opening sequence, an impression was given to the viewer that by asking Simon Hare to meet with a member at the Nottingham Gateway Hotel, we somehow misled Simon Hare into thinking we had booked our conference there. This appeared to be a very deliberate misrepresentation. After he had asked for permission to attend the conference, we had clearly told him that we were meeting ‘at a community centre in Nottingham’. We had told him to meet at the Gateway Hotel and told him we would take him to ‘a nearby venue’. We had been absolutely straight about that, explaining that we did not disclose the venues in advance to anyone who had not registered, explaining that McCann-supporters had in the past openly threatened to disrupt proceedings. The accompanying background music to the clips of Nuthall Parish Hall was also designed to create a misleading impression of mystery.
* Simon Hare claimed that after leaving the Madeleine Foundation conference he was ‘still no nearer to understanding what the Madeleine Foundation was all about’. This was disingenuous at best. By that time, he had been able to read our entire website and had listened by invitation to a robust discussion by 19 members and supporters of what might have happened to Madeleine McCann.
* Simon Hare had promised in writing that as part of his obligation to produce a fair programme, he would ensure that viewers were told that the ban on Goncalo Amaral’s book being sold had been lifted on 19 October. That promise had been broken. Not only that, but in a trailer for the film he had described Goncalo Amaral as ‘discredited’
* The express purpose of The Madeleine Foundation handing in a petition to 10 Downing Street, and letters at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, was to press the government to hold a full public enquiry, with the power to summon witnesses, into all aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Simon Hare did not even mention this, despite promising in writing that he would make a ‘full and fair’ programme about our work.
* The arguments that we gave during interviews as to why we considered that the McCanns had questions to answer, e.g. the cadaver dog’s alerts, the McCanns’ reactions to the cadaver dog’s alerts, and the long list of discrepancies and changes of story, were all left on the cutting room floor and never made the film. Instead, Simon Hare dismissed the all the circumstantial and other evidence that Madeleine had died in the McCanns’ apartment as ‘discredited’. In short, the film did not allow us to make our case.
* The sequence of an MF member hiding behind a lamp-post was a breach of trust. The member concerned had specifically stated that she did not wish to be filmed and Simon Hare had agreed in writing to that, having been told that many MF members and supporters feared repercussions if they made public their questioning of the McCanns’ abduction claim.
* The playing of the song: ‘I don’t care what the people may say’ was cut into the film to convey a subtle, but inaccurate, message.
* The statement of Debbie Butler about what happened on the day of leafleting in Leicestershire on 12 August 2009 was false in several respects, and, again contrary to specific promises, was not put to the other three participants in the leafleting that day, namely Tony Bennett, Grenville Green and Helene Davies- Green. The following statements by Ms Butler were wholly untrue:
(i)] that she was ‘instructed’ to do anything that day
(ii)] that it was known in advance that the Restaurant and Tea Rooms in Mountsorrel was a place Dr Kate McCann had once visited with Madeleine
(iii) that any of us distributed leaflets there that day
(iv) that she was ‘instructed’ to leaflet the McCanns’ road. The Crescent
(v) that she only did so because Helene’s legs ‘turned to jelly’.
* Moreover, the other three had given to Simon Hare their account of the day’s events and none of those were used.
* During the making of the programme, Simon Hare had been given chapter and verse about Ms Butler’s malicious claim of fraud against Tony Bennett and full particulars of her repeated false claims to have walked across Spain in the summer heat, making it as plain as could be that her word on anything could simply not be trusted. Moreover, Simon Hare had given his promise that because of these concerns he would not be interviewing Debbie Butler for the programme.
* The longest clip shown of the Bristol leafleting was of a group of students challenging Tony Bennett. Other sequences showing Tony chatting to passers-by who were in full support of our campaign and asking to take away more leaflets to hand to others were clearly left on the cutting-room floor.
* No reference whatsoever was made to the in-depth articles on our website, e.g. about the contradictions, about the private investigators, about the Fund, about Robert Murat, about the trials of Goncalo Amaral, about Marcos Aragao Correia, etc., yet these form the core of our work, and the BBC promised a ‘full’ look at the work of The Madeleine Foundation.
* During the filming of Grenville Green, Simon Hare asked to film him running a Union Jack up the flagpole in his garden. He asked Simon Hare: “What do you want to do that for?” and refused.
These were not the only points of concern raised about the film. At stake had been the reputation of the BBC for fairness, integrity and honesty. What action we take to raise these concerns formally with the BBC has not yet been resolved.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i5UxCQunmk
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_JuW0TFnI
Dear all,
A brand new document concerning the Madeleine McCann case has been published today. It is titled simply: “Madeleine McCann: Fifty Facts” and focusses on the main facts about this case that the British mainstream media will not discuss or even mention.
We would recommend that you view it and then pass it on to all your contacts.
Currently, it can be viewed on the home page of:
http://mccannexposure.wordpress.com/
and also on the publicly viewable part of the JKHavern forum: “The complete mystery of Madeleine McCann”, on this thread:
http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t1844-50-facts-about-the-maddie-case-that-the-british-media-are-not-telling-you
The Madeleine Foundation would like to wish all our members, supporters and followers a very happy Christmas and a happy New Year.
From the Committee
22 December 2010
How did the alleged abductor snatch Madeleine in a time slot of no more than 3-4 minutes?
by Barbara Nottage
In February last year (2010), we cut about half of this article because we had a letter from Carter-Ruck, Britian’s best-known libel lawyers, claiming that Barbara Nottage’s article was ‘libellous’ to their clients, the McCanns.
However, since then, on 6 January this year (2011), the McCanns’ chief public relations spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, admitted on Radio Humberside that the McCanns’ claims that Madeleine had been abducted were ‘only an assumption’. He added, twice in the same broadcast, that the abduction of Madeleine was just, quote, ‘a working hypothesis’.
Up until then, the McCanns and their spokesman had always insisted that Madeleine’s abduction was ‘a fact’. In this same interview, Mitchell said he was ‘in daily contact’ with the McCanns by e-mail or ’phone, thus it is clear that his use of the words ‘assumption’ and ‘hypothesis’, three times within the same interview, was no accident.
An assumption may be challenged, and people may bring evidence to either try to prove or to disprove a hypothesis.
This means we can feel confident that in laying before you, the public, the known facts about the McCanns’ claim that Madeleine was abducted, and in analysing the evidence for and against the abduction ‘hypothesis’, we are not committing any libel.
So we are today [3 February 2011] reinstating Barbara Nottage’s article in full.
How did the alleged abductor snatch Madeleine in a time slot of no more than 3-4 minutes?
by Barbara Nottage
One of the curious aspects of the alleged abduction of Madeleine McCann is the extraordinarily tight timetable in which the abduction is supposed to have taken place. Dr Gerald McCann says he went to check on the children at about 9.05pm on 3 May 2007. He also said elsewhere that he had been an unusually long time in the apartment toilet, and that he had been inside all four rooms of the apartment. In addition, he told the world that he had had time during his visit to gaze down on Madeleine, whom he was to describe as ‘lying in the recovery position’, and think how lucky he was to have such a beautiful daughter. By this reckoning, He could not have left the apartment until around 9.10pm or several minutes later.
Meanwhile Jane Tanner, a close friend of the McCanns, has given statements saying that she saw what she thought was a male abductor carrying Madeleine away in his arms from the apartment at around 9.15pm – although we might note here that in August 2009 at a press conference, the McCanns’ chief private investigator, former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar, said that Jane Tanner might have seen a woman, not a man.
The abduction scenario
So let’s examine this situation more closely.
The scenario put forward by the McCanns and their friends runs as follows:
o The abductor must have been watching the apartment for several days before snatching Madeleine on 3 May.
o The McCanns went down to the ‘Tapas bar’ at the Ocean Club at around 8.30pm that evening, with other members of the group arriving during the next half-an-hour or so.
o Dr Matthew Oldfield ‘checked the apartment from the outside’ at around 9.00pm to 9.03pm.
o Dr Gerry McCann returned to his apartment (5A) from the Tapas bar to check on his children at around 9.05pm. The walk to the apartment would have taken one to two minutes. So on his own timing, he would have arrived there around 9.07pm.
o Dr Gerry McCann was briefly in all four rooms of their holiday apartment, during which time he checked his children. He also says he spent an unusually long time in the toilet – maybe up to 5 minutes, though we have never been told why. He tells us that he paused briefly over Madeleine’s bed and thought to himself how very lucky he was to have such a beautiful child.
o Dr Gerry McCann says he noticed that the door to the children’s room was ‘wider open than before’. He says that at 8.30pm it had been open at an angle of about 45 degrees (half open). He remembers (he says) that when he went to check the children at 9.05pm, the door was now open at an angle of 60 degrees (two thirds open).
o The fact that the door – according to Dr Gerald McCann – was now (at 9.05pm) more open more than it was before (at 8.30pm), has been used by him to suggest the possibility that the abductor may have been already in the apartment when he checked on the children, although he says he only realised this possibility some months after the events of the day. Dr Gerry McCann has said that the abductor might have been hiding behind a door or in a wardrobe while he spent several minutes doing his ‘check’ on the children.
o Dr Gerry McCann must have left the room, on his own account, at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm. He then says he encountered a TV cameraman, Jeremy (‘Jes’) Wilkins, on the road back to the Tapas bar at the Ocean Club, and was talking to him for several minutes between 9.10pm and 9.25pm (Jeremy Wilkins confirms the meeting, but says it only lasted three minutes).
o Ms Jane Tanner (partner of Dr Russell O’Brien) says she left the Tapas bar at around 9.15pm and saw a man walking ‘purposefully’, with a child in his arms, along the top of the road running alongside the McCanns’ apartment. She has maintained throughout that she saw this man at almost exactly 9.15pm.
o The McCanns maintain that they left their apartment unlocked. This contrasts however with what they said during the might of 3 May/4 May. In telephone calls to relatives, Dr Gerald McCann told them that an abductor had forced entry into the apartment by jemmying open the shutters. They appear to have changed this story after both the Manager of Mark Warners, Mr john Hill, and the police, found no evidence whatsoever of the shutters having been forced open. The McCanns now say, therefore, that the abductor must have entered their apartment through the unlocked patio door. But they maintain that the windows and shutters that they say they found open on Dr Kate McCann checking the children at 10.00pm were because the abductor must have made his escape via that route. They say the abductor must have opened the window and the shutters (which the McCanns say they had had left closed) from the inside, climbed through the window, and taken Madeleine through that window.
o Dr Kate McCann says she returned to the apartment to check on the children at 10.00pm. She says she ‘knew instantly’ that Madeleine had been abducted – and then so did Dr Gerald McCann, minutes later, when he says he arrived at the apartment. Dr Kate McCann later told a TV interviewer that because of the requirement for secrecy about the police investigation, she could not explain why she ‘knew instantly’ that Madeleine had been abducted. She has never explained this, even 2½ years later.
The photographs of the apartment taken by the Portuguese police on the day after Madeleine was reported missing do not show anything which would clearly point to an abduction, certainly not damaged shutters. No forensic evidence whatsoever of the alleged abductor has been found. There were no forensic traces in the room, and no fingerprints on the window, window frame or shutters except for one of Dr Kate McCann’s fingerprints. The lichen on the windowsill was undisturbed.
Going by the above scenario, which the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends have maintained, the abductor (if there was one) must have either entered the apartment before Dr Matthew Oldfield’s check at around 9.03pm and Dr Gerry McCann’s check which began at 9.05pm/9.07pm – a version put forward by the McCanns months after Madeleine was reported missing – McCanns now want us to believe – or after Dr Gerry McCann left at 9.10pm to 9.15pm and before he was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner at 9.15pm.
The problems with this abduction scenario
There are many problems associated with this specific abduction scenario above that the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends have generated.
As we have seen just now, there is no forensic evidence that the alleged abductor was even in the McCanns’ apartment, still less that an abductor climbed in or out of the window.
Further, the window is high enough in the children’s room to make it physically very difficult for an abductor to climb through it. It was reported to be 91cm. above the floor – exactly three feet. The window itself is only around 60cm x 60cm (2ft x 2ft). The abductor would therefore have had to climb some three feet, with Madeleine with him, in his arms or over his shoulder. In addition, he would have to have managed this feat without leaving any forensic traces on the window-sill.
Madeleine must have weighed at least two stone (12kg). A task such as this would have meant balancing against the window frame itself, in which case traces of clothing fibres would surely have been found. Even then, it would have been almost impossible to climb through this window even if Madeleine had been asleep. It is surely even more unlikely that the abductor could have laid Madeleine down on the floor or a bed in the children’s bedroom, then climbed out of the window, and then reached back inside the bedroom to pick Madeleine out of the room – all of this without Madeleine or either of the twins waking up.
This whole abduction operation would clearly have been still more difficult either if Madeleine had woken up whilst being abducted, or one or both twins had done so. To maintain the abduction scenario, therefore, it is necessary to believe that Madeleine slept through the entire abduction operation. The description given by Jane Tanner of an alleged abductor carrying a child also describes the child as quiet and presumably asleep.
Moreover, to escape via the window, as the McCanns claim, the abductor would have had to open the shutters. Mark Warners, however, explained that it was only possible to open the shutters from the inside. They are operated by pulling a cord, or strap, on the inside. It is a highly relevant fact (again confirmed by Mark Warners) that when these heavy metal shutters were opened, the whole process is extremely noisy.
But no-one heard the shutters being opened. Moreover, the children’s room was directly overlooked by a tall block of apartments on the other side of the street. Had the abductor really climbed out of that window, he would have been in the view of dozens of windows overlooking Apartment 5A. We now know that the shutters to Apartment 5A were actually closed when the police and Mark Warners’ staff arrived to check them. The McCanns’ initial explanation for this fact were that the shutters ‘must have been closed by the abductor as well as opened by him’. We have seen that the shutters could not be opened from the outside. This claim by the McCanns that the abductor ‘must have tried to close the shutters behind him’ prompts two related and very obvious questions:
1) having gained entry through an open patio door, what would possess an abductor to leave via a three-foot high, two-foot square closed window, with the shutters also closed? The McCanns’ abduction scenario would require him to have opened the windows and shutters, then tried to close the shutters behind him, when he could have simply walked through the already-open patio doors.
2) why and how, having allegedly scooped up Madeleine in his arms and opened the window and the shutters, would he have had the time and the physical ability to then close the shutters, all without making any sound or leaving any trace, without being seen by anyone, and without waking either Madeleine or the twins?
Moreover, all this would have had to have been accomplished in the dark – unless the alleged abductor switched the lights on when he entered the apartment and then remembered to switch them off again as he was making his exit. No-one saw any lights on in the apartment. The McCanns have admitted that they left the children in the darkness, with the shutters and curtains closed, when they went out for their evening’s entertainment.
Therefore, to sum up – according to the McCanns’ scenario, the abductor would have to have:
* First – either picked an opportunity to enter the apartment after the McCanns had left for the Tapas bar at between 8.30pm and 9.00pm – or entered the apartment immediately after he had seen first Dr Matthew Oldfield and then Gerry McCann enter and leave the apartment at around 9.05pm to 9.15pm;
[NOTE: if the former of these two alternatives, then the abductor must have been in the apartment with Dr Gerry McCann during the five to ten minutes or so he was checking on the children – as Dr McCann indeed claimed last year]
* Second – walked through the open patio door without being seen;
* Third – found Madeleine in the dark;
* Fourth – picked her up, without waking her or the twins, and without leaving any forensic trace on the bed;
* Fifth – opened the window – without leaving any fingerprints;
* Sixth – opened the shutters from the inside (with nobody hearing him doing so, and once again without leaving any fingerprints);
* Seventh – climbed through the window, somehow carrying Madeleine with him – again without being seen by anyone, and again without leaving any fingerprints;
* Eighth – he would then have had to close the very noisy shutters, using controls operated from the inside – while still having Madeleine in his arms, or having laid her down on the patio, and
* Ninth – he made his escape without being seen by anyone except for afew fleeting seconds by Jane Tanner at around 9.15pm.
The operation of climbing through the window would have been physically very difficult, if not impossible, to do without (a) even brushing away even a tiny piece of the years-old lichen growing on the window-sill or (b) leaving any clothing fibres or other forensic evidence.
He must in addition have accomplished this whole operation in near total darkness and without being seen or heard by anyone except Jane Tanner. At the very moment that Jane Tanner says she saw the alleged abductor, Dr Gerald McCann was chatting away to holiday friend Jeremy (‘Jez’) Wilkins. Neither man saw or heard the alleged abductor despite being so close.
If the abductor had Madeleine in his arms as he climbed out of the window, and bearing in mind he was in near darkness, he would have been unable to see anything below her or much to either side as he fumbled through the window and shutters and tried to escape from the apartment precincts. Why he would do this when there was an open patio door to walk back through is incomprehensible. The McCanns only came up with the scenario of the abductor entering the unlocked patio door and then escaping via the window after learning that there was no evidence that the shutters had been tampered with, as they had told their relatives the night Madeleine disappeared.
Finally let us look for a moment at another aspect of the McCanns’ scenario. They have claimed on many occasions that an abductor must have been ‘casing the joint’ for several days beforehand – and then pounced and abducted Madeleine when he had the chance. The McCanns claim that he would have been closely watching them, including observing what the McCanns claim as their routine of half-hourly checking.
The McCanns have gone further and have suggested – in a lengthy TV interview for the BBC’s Panorama programme – that the abductor must have been making notes on their movements, allegedly carefully observing the times of their departures from the apartment. But this does not seem plausible given that neither the McCanns, nor their ‘Tapas 9’ friends, have given any details of how often (if at all) they were checking on their children whilst out wining and dining – apart from on the night Madeleine was reported missing.
Another problem about the McCanns’ abduction scenario is that there is nowhere that the abductor could have been observing the McCanns’ apartment without being seen – unless, that is, he was living or operating from one of the flats opposite the McCanns’ apartment, some of which overlooked it. It is understood that the occupants of these flats have all been investigated and their statements corroborated. None of them had anyone in their flat who was watching the McCanns’ apartment, nor was anyone seen acting suspiciously or hanging around in that area during the week the McCanns and their friends were there, except for one man who has been identified and eliminated from police enquiries.
The other obvious problem about the claim of an abductor ‘casing the joint’ is this:- Suppose an abductor had been watching the McCanns’ apartment day in and day out. On the McCanns’ own timeline, he would have seen the McCanns leave for the Tapas bar at 8.30pm. If, therefore, as claimed, an abductor had been watching the premises, he would presumably have chosen a moment as soon as possible after 8.30pm to abduct Madeleine – i.e., immediately after Drs Gerry and Kate McCann had left for the Tapas bar (on their own account) at around 8.30pm.
Yet, if he had entered the flat just after the McCanns left at 8.30pm, how come he was not long gone 35-40 minutes later when Dr Gerald McCann did his check? After all, Dr McCann now believes that the abductor may have even been present for the entire five to ten minutes or so that he was doing his check i.e. between 9.05pm and 9.10pm/9.15pm.
Yet a further difficulty for this improbable scenario is that Dr Matthew Oldfield claims that he did two checks – one at around 9.00pm, (various times have been given for this alleged check) and the other around 9.30pm. Dr Oldfield claims that during his 9.00pm visit he ‘checked’ from the outside but saw and heard nothing. He also said that the shutters were ‘tight shut’. If indeed the abductor really had entered before both Dr Matthew Oldfield’s alleged check (around 9.00pm) and Dr McCann’s check (around 9.05pm), then he was exceptionally lucky, to put it mildly, not to have been detected by either man.
There are equal if not even greater problems with the suggestion that the abductor entered the apartment and removed Madeleine only after Drs Oldfield and McCann had done their checks. Would any abductor really have dashed into the apartment after first seeing Dr Oldfield checking the outside of the apartment at around 9.00pm – and then seen Gerry spending five to ten minutes checking between 9.05pm and 9.15pm? It would surely have been far too risky.
And if he entered the apartment after Dr Gerry McCann left at say 9.10pm at the earliest, he would scarcely have had time to enter the flat, remove Madeleine, open the window and shutters, close them behind him etc. and then be seen by Jane Tanner at 9.15pm.
Sadly, no British newspaper or magazine has offered an analysis, like the one above, of the unlikelihood of the abduction having occurred in the way the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends claim it ‘must have’ happened.
I conclude by saying that I am not saying the abduction of Madeleine never happened. But I confess I do find it very difficult to understand, given all that has been said about it, how it could have happened.
+++++++++++++++
UK Press Release by The Madeleine Foundation
Statement by Tony Bennett of the Madeleine Foundation:
Just for the record, this press release (link below) which purports to say that The Madeleine Foundation has evidence that Dr Gerald McCann killed his daughter Madeleine McCann, is a deliberate and vile hoax:
http://www.free-press-release.com/news-madeleine-foundation-have-evidence-that-gerry-mccann-killed-madeleine-mccann-1298769245.html
Again for the record, neither the Madeleine Foundation nor any of its members have ever stated that we believe that Madeleine McCann was killed by either of her parents.
Once again for the record, we have raised questions about the validity of the McCanns’ claim that Madeleine was abducted. Even the McCanns’ own spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, told listeners to a Radio Humberside interview with Peter Levy on 6 January that the McCanns’ claim that Madeleine was abducted was ‘only an assumption’ and no more than ‘a working hypothesis’.
Indeed, last year, on 19 March, in an interview for Channel 4, the same Mr Mitchell, who has been employed in senior positions in the past four years by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch’s son-on-law Matthew Freud, frankly admitted that Madeleine’s disappearance was a ‘complete mystery’.
The question arises: who would want to pretend to the world that the Madeleine Foundation believes that Dr Gerald McCann killed Madeleine?
The answer lies in a group of hard-line believers in and supporters of the McCanns.
One in particular has conducted a two-year campaign against The Madeleine Foundation and in particular its Secretary and Founder, Tony Bennett. His name is Ian West of Norwich, and he is generally known on the internet by the username ‘muratfan’, though he uses many other names, among them ‘John Smith’, ‘Peter Kovac’, ‘Nora Batty’ and many others, too many to enumerate.
During the past two years, his activities have included:
* Setting up hate blogs against The Madeleine Foundation and Tony Bennett, using their names in domain names he has created
* Using those blogs to spew a continuous stream of falsehoods against The Madeleine Foundation and Tony Bennett, including many vile and obscene lies
* Originating a Twitter account in the name ‘AJSBENNETT’, purporting to be Tony Bennett
* Opening an account on Yahoo Answers!, which he then used
* Publicising the availability of our book: ‘”What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann: 60 Reasons which suggest that Madeleine was not abducted”, which is available to read on various ‘torrent’ sites and other forums and blogs. Tony Bennett undertook to the High Court on 25 November 2009 not to sell or distribute or publicise our book and he has abided by that undertaking, save on one occasion when photojournalist Mike Gunnill of Maidstone, Kent, pretended to be Michael Sangerte of Berkshire, and wanted a copy of ’60 Reasons’ for a historical project he was engaged in. In fact, he was acting on behalf of Carter-Ruck and as soon as he received a copy of ’60 Reasons’, he passed it to Carter-Ruck.
Whilst on the subject of Mike Gunnill, he is also someone who uses many aliases, among them Jason Peters and Peter Tarwin. It is also of note that Gunnill appears to have a strange fascination with children’s home Haut de la Garenne in Jersey, where serious child abuse and possibly also child murders occurred over three decades. He proved his deep interest in this subject by reproducing literally scores of photos from this notorious institution on his website.
It is only Ian West who constantly publicises the continuing availability of ’60 Reasons’ on his various blogs, which is wholly counter-productive, as Carter-Ruck can do nothing about it and it only draws still more internet users to read our explanation as to why the McCanns’ claim that Madeleine was abducted has such little evidence to support it.
For the record once again, wherever it is brought to our notice that our book ’60 Reasons’ is reproduced without our consent on the internet, we take that up with the site owners or hosters concerned. For example, we were successful last year in requiring Scribd to remove ’60 Reasons’ from their wesbite.
We wish to make one further observation on this hoax press release on the ‘Free Press Release’ website. We believe this to be the work of Ian West/’muratfan’. In correspondence with Carter-Ruck, we have made them (and in turn the McCanns themselves) aware of Ian West’s activities and especially his strange promotion of our book on the internet. It is clear that the McCanns are both aware of Ian West and indeed approve of his actions.
We say this because the McCanns have a Facebook account, which is used by Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann to communicate with their supporters. The McCanns have used their Facebook account to support a blog created late last year by friends of theirs, called ‘Writing the Wrongs’. That blog in turn links to many forums and blogs created by or contributed to by Ian West/’muratfan’, and indeed links to other forums and blogs which engage in hate campaigns against The Madeleine Foundation and Tony Bennett.
By their enthusiastic and public support for the ‘Writing the Wrongs’ blog, and no doubt being fully aware of exactly which websites, forums and blogs ‘Writing the Wrongs’ links to, the McCanns, it would appear, give tacit approval and encouragement to people like Ian West/’muratfan’ and others who have engaged in the vilification of The Madeleine Foundation and Tony Bennett. Or at least, that is our assumption and working hypothesis
Thus the McCanns, by supporting such hate blogs and forums and not condemning them, have contributed to the bizarre situation where one of their strongest suppoerters and most ardent admirers sees fit to spend his time creating a hoax press release trying to make out that The Madeleine Foundation believes that Dr Gerald McCann killed Madeleine.
We have said it before and we say it again: we know of no evidence that Dr Gerald McCann killed Madeleine and we have never said this.
For any members of the public who read this statement of ours today, you may have cause to wonder as to what kind of mind, and for what ultimate purpose, someone would perpetrate such a hoax.
For our analysis of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, please visit the ‘Articles’ section on our website, http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk
For a deeper understanding of the case, you can also purchase via our website our latest book: ‘The Madeleine McCann Case Files: Volume 1′ (108pp, ISBN 978-0-9563351-1-1).
For a greater understanding of why there are so many questions about the McCanns’ account of Madeleine’s abduction, please see our ‘163 Questions’ article on our website. This is a copy of a letter we sent earlier in February to Transworld, publishers of the McCanns’ forthcoming book on Madeleine. The McCanns have issued statements saying both that their book will be ‘our version of the truth’ and at the same time ‘very truthful’. Our letter to Transworld, sent also direct to the McCanns, raised 163 unanswered questions about the case which we suggest should be answered by the McCanns in their book.
Statement issued by the Committee of The Madeleine Foundation
9.30am, Sunday 27 February 2011
Statement amended 10.15am 27 February 2011
http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2153-a-hoax-press-release-madeleine-foundation-statement-27-february-2011
Buying Kate McCann’s book won’t help find Madeleine
Hardlinemarxist | 06/05/2011 at 6:24 am | Categories: The Madeleine Foundation | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1up
PRESS RELEASE FROM THE MADELEINE FOUNDATION
6 May 2011
Contact details please see below
Buying Kate McCann’s book won’t help find Madeleine
With less than a week to go before the official release of Kate McCann’s book, ‘Madeleine’, The Madeleine Foundation, which is sceptical about the McCanns’ assumption that Madeleine was abducted, has warned the public that buying the book is unlikely to help to find Madeleine. The Committee has released the following statement:
“For a start, both Amazon and WH Smith have already cut the retail price of the book from £20 to just £10, meaning that the book is effectively selling for under £8. With the publishers and distributors needing to cover their costs, little will be left for the McCanns’ ‘Find Madeleine Fund’.
In addition, claims that the McCanns’ private investigation has been led by a couple of ex-detectives, Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley of the ‘Alpha Investigations Group’ detective agency have been exposed as false in a new article on The Madeleine Foundation’s website, published yesterday (5 May).
As our research shows, there is no such company. A company called ALPHAIG was however registered 6 weeks after the McCanns claimed that they had turned to ‘Alpha Investigations Group’ for help. This is solely owned by Arthur Cowley, its registered office is in Cowley’s home, and the company’s accounts reveal it has no employees and no assets. In other words, it is a sham company designed to create a false impression.
Moreover, despite spending millions of pounds of the public’s money on investigators, the general public has not been given one single usable piece of information about the alleged abductor. Altogether, a total of 18 different artists’ sketches have been given of ‘suspects’, ‘persons of interest’, and ‘persons we wish to eliminate from our enquiries’, two of them women. Even the McCanns’ own website does not update its visitors on who they are really supposed to be looking for. Worse, a video in the McCanns’ site of a man in a yellow T-shirt looks nothing like the artist’s sketch of the ‘ugly, spotty, pock-marked man’, said to have been seen near the McCanns’ apartment the week they were in Praia da Luz.
Furthermore, the McCanns’ private detectives, based in a house in Knutsford, Cheshire, purchased by multi-millionaire Brian Kennedy in 2007, have an appalling track record. The first company chosen, controversial Spanish detective agency Metodo 3, falsely promised that they had located Madeleine and that she would be ‘home by Christmas’ (2007).
The McCanns followed that by appointing fraudster Kevin Halligen, paying him a reputed £500,000 which he mostly spent on high living in the U.S. and Britain. Since October 2009 he has been in Belmarsh High Security Prison, fighting extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted on an alleged $2 million fraud. Another company, iJet, was paid by the McCanns in 2008 to field calls to its ‘Investigation Hotline’, but its Director publicly declared in 2009 that the McCanns had refused to follow up any of the public’s calls to that ‘phone line. A number of articles on our website examine in depth all aspects, many of them carefully hidden, of the McCanns’ private investigation operation to date.
On top of all these considerations, the McCanns’ current chief investigator, Dave Edgar, has made a variety of bizarre, contradictory claims about Madeleine’s whereabouts which lack credibility, like:
* that Madeleine was seen walking behind a couple in Dubai
* that Madeleine was taken to Australia on a yacht by an Australian-speaking ‘Victoria Beckham-lookalike’
* that an Angolan-born basketball-playing bouncer in Spain knows that Madeleine is in the U.S.
* that a letter from dying paedophile Raymond Hewlett which was then burnt by his estranged son Wayne Hewlett revealed the name of a gypsy gang leader whose gang had abducted Madeleine, and
* that he was ‘convinced’ that Madeleine was being held in a prison lair within10 miles of Praia da Luz, where the McCanns holidayed in 2007”.
The Madeleine Foundation is currently inviting the public to sign an internet petition calling for a full public enquiry into all aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Wey would like to see a judicial enquiry with the power to summon all relevant witnesses, including the McCanns and their friends, to give evidence on oath. We feel that such a public enquiry would be the best means of getting to the truth about what really happened to Madeleine.
There is a link to the petition on The Madeleine Foundation website: http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk
We are also helping the Madeleine McCann Research Group to distribute their ‘50 FACTS’ leaflet which lists 50 factual matters about the McCann case which the British media have failed to highlight.
Our original book on the case can no longer be sold or distributed after the McCanns threatened a High Court libel writ if it continued to be sold.
Our new book: ‘The Madeleine McCann Case Files: Volume 1’, continues to sell steadily.
CONTACTS:
Email: madeleinefoundation@gmail.com
’Phone:
07503 353941
07835 716537
01279 635789
Hard to believe they have the nerve to write a book…I feel sorry for the children still living with them…
Enough on the McCann’s lack of hanky panky…let’s hear word or two from Chris Freind regarding the Royal couple
Hardlinemarxist | 10/05/2011 at 5:43 pm | Categories: Madeleine McCann case – assorted commentary | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1v1
April was a busy time for the Royal Couple.
Preparations had been underway for months to deal with all the publicity that was sure to come. Facebook pages were established, marketing pieces created, a book written and carefully scripted interviews arranged, as publicists and advisors worked round-the-clock for the famous British duo. No detail was too small when planning such a momentous event, as the global media once again turned its focus on two of Great Britain’s most…interesting people.
Most amazing, all of this was accomplished despite the distractions caused by the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
May 3rd marked the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of then-3-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from a resort in southern Portugal because her parents chose to leave her — and her two younger twin siblings — alone in an unlocked room while they ate and drank the night away with friends.
But when you’re Gerry and Kate McCann, you take a backseat to no one, and certainly no wedding is going to upstage your “anniversary.” And so, in typical McCann fashion, they put on another strong display of offense in the ongoing “search” — not so much for their missing daughter, but for self-promoting headlines.
Who can blame them? Playing defense is no fun, doesn’t raise money nor generate publicity. And best of all, blaming everyone but themselves for an eminently preventable tragedy allows the McCanns to ignore reality about a poor little girl’s horrible fate.
*****
For the folks needing a refresher, you read it right. The McCanns, both physicians from Rothley, Leicestershire, in England, left their three children — with a COMBINED age of seven — alone, night after night, in their ground-floor resort apartment. Despite ample financial resources, they chose not to bring a nanny and refused to utilize the resort’s babysitting services.
Instead, they deemed it safer for the children to go it on their own, entrusting Madeleine to get her siblings and herself to safety in the event of a fire — hence the alleged reason for the unlocked door. Hey, I’m all for self-reliance, but, she was 3!
The story perpetuated by the McCanns is that Madeleine was kidnapped, despite virtually no evidence to support that claim. But the tragic nature of a girl gone missing gained international attention, and the search was on. Well, at least by the people who were actually out there looking for Madeleine.
Gerry and Kate took a different approach. Rather than get bogged down in the grunt work of looking for their daughter in places she might actually be, the parents decided that becoming international globetrotting celebrities was a lot more fun. Putting blood, sweat and tears into finding a missing child is tough, but hanging out with celebs and dignitaries is, well, cool!
So they arranged a private audience with the Pope, traveled to the United States to meet with America’s top leaders, kept web diaries about Gerry’s daily jogs, and threw lavish affairs. Of course, if Madeleine really had been kidnapped, she wouldn’t be in America, at black-tie events or in the Vatican.
If only they had thought to turn the “Find Madeleine” campaign into a money-maker! Oh wait, they did. To the tune of millions. And the result? To this day, many more questions than answers.
Despite being named suspects by the Portuguese police based on evidence that raised eyebrows — inconsistencies in G and K’s stories; elite dogs, trained to identify death, providing positive responses in Madeleine’s room; reports of Madeleine’s blood found in the trunk of a car the McCanns’ rented 25 days AFTER she disappeared; more blood discovered behind a sofa in the apartment, to name just a few — the case was eventually suspended without any arrest. And for that, we can thank the British government that exerted enormous pressure on the Portuguese.
With the complicity of the British media, everyone but the parents was blamed for Madeleine’s disappearance. The Portuguese detectives bumbled the investigation, the resort’s security was too lax, leads weren’t followed up in a timely fashion. And as numerous publications discovered, anyone who dared question the McCanns’ role were slapped with libel lawsuits by England’s most powerful barristers. And don’t forget the lead Portuguese investigator who was legally banned from giving interviews and publishing his book courtesy of Team McCann (those rulings were subsequently overturned) and was sued for millions in “damages.”
Kate’s book on the affair, (in which rumors spread that she was assisted by world-famous Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling) will be released this week. In it, she blamed the resort restaurant for making a note in their reservation book that the McCanns wanted a table within sight of the room, since the children would be alone.
“[The reservation] book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too…To my horror, I saw that, no doubt in all innocence, the receptionist had added that we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently.”
Nice try, Kate. But somehow, you forgot to mention the “horror” your daughter must have felt after being abandoned by her parents night after night, left alone in an unfamiliar environment in a foreign nation. And you also conveniently left out the fact that you couldn’t see the apartment from your table anyway, due to the six-foot wall obstructing the view. Translation: the tapas were more important than your three children, two of whom, interestingly enough, weren’t “kidnapped.”
So we’re supposed to believe that a child kidnapper just happened to be dining at the resort’s restaurant that night, on the off-chance some British couple’s child-care arrangements (or lack thereof) would be recorded in the restaurant’s reservation book? Which, by the way, is usually kept behind a desk, not in public view.
Either that, or someone on the kitchen staff, waiting in the wings for one of the McCanns to return from allegedly “checking” on the children. Maybe that’s why the tapas were so late in being served!
Frankly, I’m surprised that Osama bin Laden snatching Madeleine wasn’t in the book as a potential theory. Or that evil Voldemort from Harry Potter wasn’t somehow responsible.
Which brings us back to Rowling.
After hundreds of articles stating that Rowling was helping Kate write the book, the family spokesman finally got around to stating that Rowling did not, in fact, have ANY role in the book.
As with most things McCann, the facts here are loose and the truth sketchy. But as they say, “Any publicity is good publicity!” And Team McCann rolls on, garnering headlines and raking in the dough.
*****
Perhaps most ironic is Kate’s stated reason for the book:
“My reason…is simple, to give an account of the truth.”
Rowling’s help or not, discovering the real story behind the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann will take more than wizards and magic. Too bad we don’t have one of Harry Potter’s Remembralls, though, which fans will recall is the clear orb containing smoke that turns red when detecting that the user has forgotten something.
In Gerry and Kate McCann’s case, I’m betting the Remembrall would be glowing red-hot, since it seems they have forgotten the only thing that can help Maddie.
The real truth.
Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, http://www.FreindlyFireZone.com His extensive collection of columns hammering the McCanns for their negligence can be found in his website’s archives. Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick
Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.” Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in
Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national/international television. He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com.
Wow, I just can’t believe these people! I love the “bin Laden” comment though 🙂 Makes as much sense as anything they’ve thrown up into the air!
66 Chippingfield Tel: 01279 635789
HARLOW e-mail: ajsbennett@btinternet.com
Essex, website: http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk
CM17 0DJ
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Mr David Cameron
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
LONDON
SW1A
Dear Prime Minister
re: The need for a full public enquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
Last October your staff kindly received on your behalf our letter and petition in which we set out in detail the case for holding a full, independent, public, judicial enquiry into all aspects of the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann on 3 May 2007. A copy of that letter is attached for your information.
We write once again to express our dismay at your decision, at the express request of Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann, to allocate up to £3½ million, at a time of public expenditure restraint and cuts, on a review of evidence in the case by Scotland Yard which, we understand, may lead to a joint review of the evidence by a joint British-Portuguese team of detectives. Your decision has already been criticised by many media commentators on a number of grounds, including (a) the strong likelihood that it will take years and get nowhere (b) the involvement of Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers in persuading you to take this decision, and (c) the far-reaching implications your decision has for the principle of the operational independence of British policing.
On the latter point, we would anticipate your response being to state that the decision to undertake this review is the decision of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson. However, it is very clear that the decision is in effect a joint one between yourself, your Home Secretary Theresa May and Sir Paul Stephenson who, it appears, was induced by your promising his force £3½ million in extra funding, which is money which obviously has to be taken from budgets allocated for other purposes.
As before, our fundamental reason for asking you to set up a full public and judicial enquiry is that in our view, and in the view of many others, this would be a far better method of arriving at the truth than the proposed expensive and lengthy review process which you have just authorised, at the request of the McCanns. Everyone wants the truth about this case, which the McCanns’ own spokesman Clarence Mitchell admitted in March last year was ‘a complete mystery’. The question is how best to get at the truth.
The two rival explanations of what really happened to Madeleine McCann
There have always been two basic accounts of what may have happened to Madeleine.
The McCanns claim that in between Dr Gerald McCann, who was dining at the Ocean Club Tapas restaurant 120 yards (1½ minutes’ walk) away, completing a long check on his children at between 9.05pm and 9.10pm on Thursday 3 May 2007 – and their close friend Ms Jane Tanner, partner of Dr Russell O’Brien, claiming to have seen ‘a man carrying a child wearing pyjamas’ – an unknown abductor took Madeleine from her bed, without leaving any forensic trace whatsoever, and without being seen or heard by anyone except Jane Tanner.
The McCanns further claim that the Portuguese investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance was ‘a shambles’ and that the Portuguese police did not properly look for Madeleine and follow up all possible leads. The McCanns say they seek a review because, as they say, such a review just might ‘reveal that one vital clue’, or ‘provide the key that will unlock this mystery’ or ‘give us a vital missing piece of the jigsaw’, these being some of the phrases used by the McCanns to justify the expense of this review and their ongoing private investigation.
By contrast, a great many people consider that there is more than adequate evidence that Madeleine McCann died in the McCanns’ holiday apartment and that her parents and others have covered up this fact, and arranged to hold a hoax ‘abduction’ of Madeleine on the evening of 3 May 2007, Madeleine having already died before that evening’s events. That, as you will know, is the settled view of the former senior investigator in the case, Dr Goncalo Amaral, and most of his investigation team, along with other senior figures in Portugal. Dr Amaral does not say how Madeleine died, as he does not know, but in the absence of any other specific indications, he advances the view that she may have died as the result of an accident whilst her parents and friends were dining 1½ minutes’ walk away. Another view of what might have caused Madeleine’s death is the possibility that she was over-sedated by the McCanns.
We do not wish to review in this letter all the evidence that suggests that Madeleine did die in the McCanns’ apartment, but clearly the alerts of two of the world’s top sniffer dogs, trained by an internationally recognised British police dog handler, to no fewer than ten sites in the McCanns’ apartment, on their clothes, and in their hired car are significant, and remain so, even in the absence of the kind of corroborative forensic evidence that would lead to the dogs’ alerts being admissible evidence in a court of law. There is also a very large amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the McCanns and their friends have not told the truth, consisting of a number of changes of story and significant contradictions between their statements that go well beyond the kind of minor inconsistencies that often occur when witness are supplying statements based on their recollections.
The 48 members of The Madeleine Foundation, our many supporters, and a huge number of others subscribe to the view that the balance of evidence points in the direction of Madeleine having died in the McCanns’ holiday apartment. If that hypothesis is correct, then the McCanns’ motive for wanting a ‘Review’ which would now open up the many files that the Portuguese Police have up to now withheld would be clear: not to find Madeleine, but rather to trawl the files for any other evidence there may be against them, so that they can defend themselves and deal with any such evidence.
You may recall that the Daily Mirror published an article in February 2010 which referred to advice given by Lee Rainbow, described as Britain’s ‘top criminal profiler’, to the Portuguese Police in the McCann case. Part of the Mirror’s report ran:
QUOTE
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) expert wrote a report to Algarve police chiefs giving advice. Details of the confidential report emerged during the final day of a libel trial involving former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral, who led the Maddie investigation. Amaral is trying to overturn a worldwide injunction banning the publication of his book Maddie: The Truth of the Lie. In it he claims Kate and Gerry were involved in Maddie’s death and staged her disappearance. His lawyer, Antonio Cabrita, told the court Rainbow wrote: “It was Madeleine’s father who was the last one to see her alive.The family is a lead that should be followed. The contradictions in Gerald McCann’s statements might lead us to suspect a homicide.”
UNQUOTE
One commentator has written in the past few days: “For the Scotland Yard Review to now talk to Lee Rainbow would seem to be a logical and very good place for any British detective to now begin. Call in the very top man for a chat and seek his opinion on the way the investigation should proceed. Why? Because that is why Mr Rainbow was paid (by the very Home Office which has complied with the Prime Minister’s bidding and requested (or ordered) the inquiry). Lee Rainbow is recognised as the most skilful and adept adviser the U.K. has in its armoury. There’s more: the use of ‘Behavioural Investigative Advisers’ in serious cases is recommended at all senior detective training courses. Guess who is considered at the very top of the list of advisers? One Lee Rainbow; he wrote the paper. No PR campaign can ever diminish or cloud that fact. His opinion and views have to be faced and dealt with. It could start the ball rolling and, as in all good detective stories, you should begin right at the beginning and don’t stop until the Sherlock announces who-done-it”.
The advantages of a full, public and judicial enquiry
The main question now is whether the ‘Scotland Yard Review’, or a full public and judicial enquiry, would be the better means of establishing the truth about what really happened to Madeleine, and which if the above hypotheses is correct. Even the McCanns, through their spokesman Clarence Mitchell, accept that their claim that Madeleine was abducted is ‘only an assumption, a working hypothesis’. He said this three times in an interview with Radio Humberside on 6 January this year.
A public and judicial enquiry would have these hugely significant advantages.
It could summon witnesses. The witnesses in such a case need to be heard as soon as possible, all other things being equal. Four years have already elapsed. Already a key witness, Mrs Pamela Fenn, has died. She was the woman who lived above the McCanns’ apartment who heard a child (presumed to be Madeleine) crying and sobbing, ‘Daddy, Daddy’, for 75 minutes between 10.30pm and 11.45pm on Tuesday, 1 May. Already over seven further months have elapsed since we delivered our petition to 10 Downing Street calling for you to set up a public enquiry into all aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. There should be no further delay in setting up such an enquiry.
The appearance of witnesses at a public enquiry enables both a judge and the public to make judgments on the actions of those involved in any matter. Given the level of controversy about so many aspects of Madeleine’s disappearance, it is vital that we all have a chance to hear what these witnesses have to say. The witnesses can give their evidence on oath, and be questioned. A public enquiry is essentially a search for the truth; in this respect a public enquiry in this case would resemble the actions of a Coroner’s Court at an inquest, ascertaining the facts, without apportioning blame, that being a role for the criminal courts. Amongst other vital witnesses to such an enquiry would be not only the McCanns and their friends who were together with them in Praia da Luz on that holiday, but also of course the various police officers whop investigated the crime and assembled the evidence.
In this respect it is hard to know why the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends would have any objection to a full public and judicial enquiry. They have constantly assured us that they are telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what happened to Madeleine. Dr Kate McCann’s recent book, ‘madeleine’, also purports to be he truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The drawbacks of the ‘Scotland Yard Review’
By contrast, the ‘Scotland Yard Review’ that you have personally arranged has a number of apparent flaws and disadvantages, a number of which have been canvassed in the media and not least by members of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
The official Home Office announcement of the Review you have arranged said: “The Home Office today announced that the Metropolitan Police Service will be bringing their expertise to the case regarding the search for Madeleine McCann. A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘The government’s primary concern has always been and remains the safe return of Madeleine. Although she disappeared in Portugal, and the Portuguese retain the lead responsibility in the case, law enforcement agencies here have continued to follow up leads and pass information to the Portuguese authorities as appropriate. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have today agreed with Sir Paul Stephenson that the Metropolitan Police will bring its particular expertise to this case. Clearly, the detail of what that will entail will be a matter of operational judgment and it would not be appropriate to discuss at this stage’.”
One prominent journalist immediately wrote: “The Prime Minister’s decision to intervene in the case of Madeleine McCann could have political repercussions…the decision of Downing Street and the Home Office to effectively direct the Met Police to get involved is causing some unease. Some within Scotland Yard are uncomfortable at the way No.10 got involved – and now politicians are expressing worries too”.
As you will know, Lord Toby Harris of Haringey has raised major questions about how this decision was taken. He told the journalist: “It raises very big questions about political direction of the police. Presumably, if a Police and Crime Commissioner gave such an instruction it would be in contravention of the protocol published this week by the Government?…what we are looking at is a case where the Met has no direct responsibility. There is clearly an issue about the resources being used and are they in effect saying that the Met is the default investigator for every case in the world involving a British citizen? It’s not just a question of direct costs, it’s a question of opportunity costs too. Our detective capacity is limited as it is”.
Lord Harris later wrote on his blog: “I imagine that the senior leadership of the Metropolitan Police are not exactly happy about this. It again embroils their officers in a high-profile investigation, where the chances of success are unclear, and which will divert limited investigative resources away from other matters. This is in response to an open letter in the Sun and is entirely predictable in terms of the ‘pulling power’ of News International on Government policy. The intervention drives a coach and horses through the draft protocol…It is a dangerous precedent for politicians to tell police what to do – and might not be a good use of time and money”.
The same journalist as above wrote: “The Met had been examining the case, but as recently as last week had largely ruled out any chance of making significant progress. The Home Office has agreed to meet the costs of the investigation but it appears only after the Met Police Authority and City Hall made clear it was unlikely to be able to approve the extra spending”.
There journalist then a discussed whether you had ‘ordered’ or ‘requested’ this £3.5 million review: “The Prime Minister’s official spokesman tried to draw a distinction between a ‘request’ from the Home Secretary and ‘political direction’ from the Home Secretary. ‘It was done, yes, at the request of the Home Secretary, but it has been agreed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. It’s not direction, it’s a request’, he said. ‘The Prime Minister has been very clear that he wants to do everything we can to support the family’.” Asked if the PM was simply following a tabloid agenda in the hope of good headlines, the spokesman said: ‘We are responding to a request from the family in a particularly exceptional case’.”
An article by Sandra Laville in The Guardian highlighted the extraordinary difficulties your proposed ‘Review’ would involve, including Scotland Yard waiting for all the documentation to be supplied by the Portuguese police, translating it, and then also reviewing all the Leicestershire Police documentation. She explained, accurately, that the whole process ‘could take years’.
Lord Harris’s criticisms were echoed by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Bradshaw, Vice-Chairman of Thames Valley Police Authority. He told Channel 4 News: “I am mightily worried about the politicisation of the police force. Although these appear on the face of them to be fairly innocuous orders, it’s a fairly short step from there to telling the police they have got to investigate this rather than that. It becomes a PR exercise. Chief Constables are desperately worried that their operational independence will be compromised”.
Shortly after the announcement of the ‘Scotland Yard Review’ and your invovlement in promoting it, your official spokesman was quoted as saying: “The Prime Minister has been clear that he wants to do everything he can to support the family”. If this is the case, and if that is the main remit of Sir Paul Stephenson’s Review, then it would appear that the Scotland Yard detectives engaged on this ‘Review’ would effcetively be banned from pursing, as part of their review, any line of enquiry in support of the hypothesis that Madeleine died in the McCanns’ apartment and that the McCanns then arranged to hide and/or dispose of her body. It would therefore not be the independent, ‘start from scratch and consider all the evidence’ review that it is being held out to be.
The McCanns’ appeal to you and your reply were published in the Sun newspaper, clearly by prior agreement. You said in your public letter to Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann: “Your ordeal is every parent’s worst nightmare and my heart goes out to you both”. Such an approach strongly suggests that you and the Home Secretary have requested Scotland Yard only to look at the possibility that Madleiene was abducted, not at the other possibility that Madeleine died in her parents’ holiday apartment.
Yet a police source for Scotland Yard said that in conducting reviews…“What we do is painstakingly look at all the evidence, the paperwork, the CCTV, any suspects who came to light and were investigated. Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see what was always there”. As both Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann were suspects in the Portuguese and Leicestershire Police joint investigation, that should presumably mean that the Portuguese Police’s suspicions of the McCanns hiding Madeleine’s body must be thoroughly investigated, along with everything else. Yet that would contradict your spokesman’s claims that you have arranged this review ‘to support the family’.
According to a newspaper report: “Cameron’s spokesman denied that he and May had been directing police on an operational matter. ‘It was done at the request of the Home Secretary. It was agreed by Sir Paul Stephenson. That is not a direction’” he said. We suggest, again with due respect, as do many observers, that the distinction between Sir Paul Stephenson ‘agreeing to a request’ by the Home Secretary and yourself to carry out a review, and being ‘directed’ to do so, is minimal and essentially academic. Moreover, it is clearly not a decision he would have reached without you and the Home Secretary promising him £3.5 million, which it is said will ‘cover the cost of man hours, flights to Portugal, hotels, consultation fees from forensic firms and many other expenses’, presumably money taken away from some other Home Office budget or even from some other Department’s budget.
It appears, then, that you and the Home Secretary have interfered with the traditioanl operational independence of the police and leaned on Sir Paul Stephenson to allocate potentially dozens of detectives to this review (some reports say ‘30’). Quite apart from the public expenditure coming from the taxpayer to fund this review, this means that those detectives, and the ancillary staff supporting them, will be unable to pursue the prevention, detection and prosecution of other forms of crime. In this regard, and of course with due respect, we believe that your arranging of this Review sets a very dangerous and wholly unwelcome precedent of political interference with police operations. Sir Paul Stephenson will be forced to drag these qualified and experienced detectives away from other work they are engaged on or could be enaged on.
Further, Lord Harris and Lord Beaumont are by no means the only public figures so far to have questioned what your decision means in terms of the operational independence of our police force, which has always been regarded as sacrosanct. Another fierce critic is Green Party Metropolitan Police Authority Member, Jenny Jones, who said: “The review is a ludicrous waste of money and will deny other victims of crime the chance of justice, while using up valuable police resources”.
The influence of Rupert Murdoch
We must also raise in particular, as many others have done, the undue influence of Rupert Murdoch in this particular case, as Lord Harris for example has touched on. It is well known that the Sun’s campaign on behalf of Labour in 1996 and 1997 was a major contributory factor to Labour winning the General Election of 1997. Indeed, Ropert Murdoch’s Sun famously boasted: ‘It was the Sun wot won it’. More recently, your own closeness to the Murdoch empire has been noted. Many observed that the political attitude of the Sun switched from supporting Labour to supporting the Conservatives, after you met with Rupert Murdoch in 2009.
You also appointed ex-Murdoch man Andy Coulson, former Editor of the News of the World, to be your Director of Communcations. And in March 2010 you appointed the McCanns’ chief public relations adviser, Clarence Mitchell, to be No. 2 to Andy Coulson in your General Election team. Andy Coulson was recently forced to resign as your Director of Communications because of his apparent association with the illegal ’phone tapping carried out by many of his staff, full details of which are yet to be revealed.
Along with alleagtions of ’phone tapping by Murdoch’s News of the World, there have been repeated and credible suggestions that senior Police Officers from the Met regularly supplied the News of the World and other media with confidential police information, contrary to their terms of contract. The close relationship between top Met Officers and the Murdoch empire was exemplified by former top officer Andy Hayman moving to work for Murdoch almost immediately on leaving the Met.
Returning to Clarence Mitchell, it is clear that he has a close relationship with Murdoch and his newspapers. It is clearly relevant that in October 2008, when he began working for the McCanns on a part-time instead of a full-time basis, that he was immediately employed by Murdoch’s son-in-law, Matthew Freud, at Freud Communications. His ability to work both as Head of the 40-strong Labour government’s Media Monitoring Unit and then be employed by yourself suggests he is a person of major influence in top government circles. There remain major question marks as to why former Prime Minister Tony Blair considered it essential to despatch the Head of the government’s Media Monitoring Unit (Mitchell) to Portugal and of course about Gordon Brown’s interventions in the case.
Another indication of Mitchell’s close relationship with Murdoch is the number of times he has co-operated with both the Sun and the News of the World in promoting ‘exclusive’ stories about the McCanns in those newspapers. These stories have often been lacking in any serious evidential basis and were just media sensationalism.
I provide just one example: the Sun article of 1 September 2010. The basis of this was the claim that a notorious British paedophile, Raymond Hewlett, on his death-bed in a German hospital, had written a letter to his son, Wayne Hewlett, who hated him and from whom he had been estranged for over two decades. The letter had apparently been delivered by a ‘mystery man’, according to the Sun, and was said by Wayne Hewlett to contain an account of how his father had been drinking with a gypsy gang leader who was supposed to have admitted taking Madeleine McCann and arranging for her, for money, to be placed with a wealthy North African family. To cap it all, Wayne Hewlett said he had burnt the letter before going to the Sun with his story. The Sun’s promotion, with Clarence Mitchell’s help, of this clearly ridiculous story, casts doubt on the role of both the Sun and Clarence Mitchell in their promotion of such stories.
Added to the above, it is clear that the demands for this ‘Scotland Yard Review’ have been very much promoted by the Sun who published the McCanns’ letter to you and your reply simultaneously last Thursday.
Further, there was a disturbing article published in The Independent on 23 February this year by Cahal Milmo and Martin Hickman. Amonst other concerns, they noted that:
“Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, dined privately with senior executives at the News of the World seven times over a four-year period, during which the force turned down calls for the heavily criticised investigation into phone hacking to be reopened. Following a demand that it disclose its contacts with Rupert Murdoch’s News International, Scotland Yard revealed that senior officers met News of the World editors 13 times between 2006 and 2010 in the aftermath of the arrest of a reporter for phone hacking. Almost half of the meetings were between Sir Paul, now Britain’s most senior police officer, and an executive at the News of the World, Deputy Editor Neil Wallis. The Met…failed to investigate the full extent of the scandal. Dee Doocey, a Liberal Democrat Member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, branded the contacts ‘extraordinary’…She said: ‘Imagine the outcry there would be if the Commissioner was seen dining with a member of the public who was the subject of a police investigation’.”
Their report continued: “The closeness of the relationship between Scotland Yard and the News of the World has been repeatedly raised by critics of the original police inquiry into the activities of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and royal editor Clive Goodman…Despite the discovery by detectives of 4,332 names, 2,978 mobile phone numbers and 91 PIN codes at Mulcaire’s home, no-one was interviewed at the News of the World beyond Goodman…The Met said there was nothing unusual in senior officers dining with editors, but declined to detail meetings with other titles over the same period which would reveal if contact with the Sunday tabloid was unusually frequent. The meetings began with a dinner between Sir Paul and Mr Wallis in September 2006…They became more frequent in 2008 and 2009 with eight private dinners and social engagements, including an invitation for Sir Paul to attend the News Corporation summer party two years ago. Sir Paul also attended a private dinner that month with Mr Wallis, who was appointed Andy Coulson’s deputy in 2003.
The Independent report continued: “In July 2009, John Yates, now Deputy Commissioner, refused to re-open the criminal investigation into hacking despite revelations by The Guardian that ‘thousands’ of mobile phones may been targeted and that more than £1m had been paid to settle cases out of court. Four months later, Mr Yates had dinner with the News of the World’s editor, Colin Myler. Ms Doocey said: ‘I find it quite extraordinary that when allegations about illegal phone hacking were still unresolved the Commissioner thought it was appropriate to be regularly dining with the News of the World and News Corporation’.”
The Guardian pointed out that the number of meetings between Sir Paul Stephenson and the News of the World editors did not include many other social contacts, for example, “After the Annual Bravery Awards…ten days after the Yard had elected not to reopen its inquiry into the phone hacking, Stephenson and Yates dined with Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World and the then editor of the Sun, which sponsored the awards.” Reference was also made to ‘many other meetings and lunches shared between senior Met officers and former News of the World personnel who worked for the paper during the phone hacking investigation”.
Journalists have continued to cast doubt on the actions of the Met’s chief officers in relation to the ’phone hacking scandal, for example:
“There is now intense scrutiny of the police’s limited original investigation into the hacking affair, with claims of a cover-up. Although the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is reviewing all the evidence and will hold talks with Scotland Yard this week, there are demands for this investigation to be handed to a different police force or to the Inspectorate of Constabulary. Paul Farrelly, Labour member of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said: “They cannot be judge and jury in their own actions. In the past, the CPS has just done a cut-and-paste of the Met Police’s press releases on this matter. We must inject some independence into the review of how the Met Police shut it down and the CPS decisions on that.”
There were further criticisms of your meeting with Rupert Murdoch’s son James at a time when Rupert Murdoch’s bid for complete ownership of BSkyB was being discussed, with continuing debate about the closeness of your relationship to Rupert Murdoch and his media outlets including his newspaper editors. Questions being asked included:
Did James Murdoch authorise the payment of £700,000 to Gordon Taylor, the head of the footballers’ union, after his phone was hacked? And if so, why?
Why did News International pay private investigator Glenn Mulcaire £80,000, and also pay its former royal editor Clive Goodman, after they were both convicted of illegally intercepting phone messages and jailed?
How many people have received payments from the News of the World, or its parent companies, after threatening to reveal evidence of its journalists’ involvement in illegal phone hacking?
Did James Murdoch or Rebekah Brooks discuss the proposed News Corporation purchase of BSkyB with David Cameron during their dinner together at her house over Christmas?
Was Andy Coulson, or any other more senior News International executive, aware of Glenn Mulcaire’s £2,000-a-week payment? What services did they suppose Mulcaire was providing for that pay?
On 15 February this year, The Guardian wrote: “A high court judge, Mr Justice Vos, has criticised the Metropolitan Police for failing to adequately investigate allegations of ’phone hacking by the News of the World’. He said: “The Metropolitan Police had not done an appropriate job in analysing phone-hacking…information in their possession. They didn’t disclose highly relevant information. Scotland Yard had failed to fully comply with court orders requiring it to produce copies of Mulcaire’s notes relating to the two men”.
We also reproduce for inteest some recent comments on the Spoked On-Line blog:
“Cameron’s Maddie venture undoubtedly confirms how powerful is the PR impulse in his government. On the very day that Kate and Gerry McCann wrote an open letter to his government on the front page of the Sun (12 May), in which they implored him to devote more resources to finding out what happened to Madeleine in Portugal in 2007, Cameron got his Home Secretary, Theresa May, to write to Scotland Yard asking its officers to ‘do more’…this is a government easily swayed by the vagaries of PR and image promotion. Cameron seems to have instantly seen in the McCanns’ letter, not a moment of potential awkwardness that might require behind-the-scenes diplomacy with the family, but a shining opportunity to advertise his alleged skills of political leadership and commitment to British citizens…This flags up the allegedly awesome power of Murdoch and/or the McCanns…”
A Guardian writer made this comment during the past few days: “David Cameron has surrendered to a newspaper belonging to News International, whose vast array of illegal hacking activities is already tying up some of our most diligent detectives”.
Is the Metropolitan Police the right Police Authority to carry out this Review?
In addition to all the above concerns, there are further matters that highlight the unsuitability of the Metropolitan Police to carry out this ‘Review’.
It would appear that the ‘Review’ into the Madeleine McCann case is to be under the overall leadership of Simon Foy, Head of Homicide and Serious Crime Command, with Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell as the Senior Investigating Officer and Detective Chie Inspector Andy Redwood as the lead Investigating Officer. One report said: “Britian’s top cold case cop is to lead the hunt for missing Midland girl Madeleine McCann. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of the Metropolitan Police is the sleuth who inspired Waking The Dead TV detective Peter Boyd, played by actor Trevor Eve”. The Sunday Mirror however clarified this, stating that Redwood was only in charge of ‘the day-to-day investiagtion’ and was not in overall charge.
In an article by Justin Penrose in the Sunday Mirror, 15 May this year, headed: ‘Madeleine McCann: Detective in charge of search for missing girl led investigation into Jill Dando’s murder’, we were informed that: “The detective now in charge of the hunt for Madeleine McCann is the man who led the probe into the death of TV presenter Jill Dando. Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell was head of the team that won the conviction of Barry George – later quashed on appeal…”
Can it be right to leave this Review into the disapperance of Madeleine McCann in the hands of the man who was in charge of one of the most incompetent investiagtions of recent years in the U.K., leading to the wrongful conviction of an innocent man, huge wasted public costs on an investiagtion that got the wrong man, and resulted in hefty compensation paid in respect of the wrongful conviction and imptisoenment of Barry Bulsara? His record strongly suggests that he is just about the last man who should be entrusted with such a task.
As an example of the kinds of opinions about the case circulating close to the Metropolitan Police, we would resepctfully ask you to note the opinions of Dai Davies, former Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent, as set out in the Sunday Mirror on 23 September 2007. He wrote, inter alia:
“In my 38 years of police and private security work all over the world I’ve never known anything like the disappearance of Madeleine McCann…I spent a week in Praia da Luz where Madeleine went missing, ‘walking the shop floor’ as I call it, going over the available evidence and unearthing some startling new information about the case…I’ve discovered from lengthy talks with my barrister contact that Portuguese investigators have unofficially abandoned the hunt for Madeleine’s alleged abductor. There is now NO detective work being carried out by Portuguese police to link anyone other than the McCanns to Maddie’s disappearance. Officially, they say they’re continuing the search for an abductor. But their policy is now to only respond to sightings reported to them by Europol and Interpol…They remain convinced of the guilt of Madeleine’s parents…even as their “house of cards” case collapses around them…The police now need to halt their campaign to pin this awful crime on two innocent people and bring in new officers for a complete overhaul with fresh eyes…”
As it happens, Mr Davies makes a number of inaccurate statements about the Portuguese Police in his article, but the essential question to be asked is whether officers with that sort of mindset could ever robustly and without fear or favour investigate the hypothesis that Madeleine died in her parents’ holiday apartment. If you have told the public via the Sun newspaper that the officers’ role is ‘to support the family’, can anyone realistically expect them to pursue the evidence against the McCanns?
Moreover, there has been a long and very unfortunate history of corruption and cover-ups in the Metropolitan Police. The book ‘Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard’, by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn, reviewed a catalogue of corrupt activity in the Met, as did Graeme McLagan’s earlier book: ‘Bent Coppers’.
In an article by Hassan Mahamdallie a few years ago, titled ‘Metropolitan Police: a Long History of Corruption, Racism and Criminality’, he began: “The Morris inquiry is the latest in a series of investigations that should have exposed endemic…corruption in the Metropolitan Police…murders, armed robberies, drug dealing… pocketing millions in ‘dirty money’, high level cover-ups and the activities of the freemasons…”
During the Stephen Lawrence enquiry, for example, the authors said that: “During the Macpherson inquiry into Stephen’s murder, the Lawrence’s solicitors battled to make the links between corruption and racism. But they were blocked by the Met Police who were desperate to keep separate the question of police corruption in south-east London and the Lawrence murder. One Flying Squad officer who had investigated links between the Brinks Mat gang and police was prevented from giving evidence at the Lawrence inquiry. He said that this was done because “there are links between south east London criminal families and policemen, senior policemen, that go way back…and the Yard couldn’t afford for any of this to come out during the Lawrence inquiry”.
In recent years the conduct of senior Met Police Officers has been questioned in cases like the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the unlawful killing of Tomlinson at the recent G20 demonstration. In each case, senior Metropolitan Police Officers, including the former Met Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, tried to cover their tracks and obscure what really happened. One other case amongst many has caused concern, namely the murder of Daniel Morgan in 1987. It took six Met Police enquiries before any headway was made, and that was only because Daniel Morgan’s family absolutely insisted that no Police Officer who was a Freemason could have anything to do with this sixth investigation, to which the Met reluctantly agreed. At last, this sixth enquiry produced charges against three men, two of them former Police Officers, but the Met’s conduct in the pre-trial stages ensured that the judges had no alternative but to halt the trial.
At the original Inquest into Daniel Morgan’s death, a Mr Kevin Lennon, an accountant, who knew both Daniel Morgan and his business partner, Jonathan Rees, said that Rees had planned to murder Rees, telling him: “My mates at Catford nick are going to arrange it. Those police officers are friends of mine and will either murder Danny themselves or will arrange it”. Justice has not yet been done in that case.
From the foregoing we strongly suggest that the Met Police is wholly unsuited to carry out this highly controversial ‘Review’.
Our requests
In the light of all of the above, we make these requests:
(1) That you call off the ‘Scotland Yard Review’
(2) That you set up a full, public and judicial inquiry, with a remit similar to that of an Inquest, and with the power to summon witnesses and require their attendance. The remit should be a full and fearless search for the truth about when and in what circumstances Madeleine disappeared, the truth about the activities of Brian Kennedy, his alleged intimidation of witnesses (please see our previous letters and his conduct of the McCanns’ private investigations, how the Find Madeleine Fund has dealt with funds received, most of them from the public, and how that money has been spent, the role of the government and in particular Clarence Mitchell and his role in producing spurious ‘sightings’ of Madeleine and arranging an array of (to date) no fewer than 18 assorted suspects and ‘persons of interest’, and all other matters relating in any way to Madeleine’s disappearance.
(3) That if you and the Home Secretary still consider that there should be a ‘Review’, that you find another Chief Constable who would agree to carry it out, not the met Police
(4) That you and Theresa May make it crystal clear to both the reviewing team and to the public that this ‘Review’, if it is to proceed, will be able to pursue the hypothesis that Madeleine McCann died in her parents’ holiday apartment and that the McCanns conspited to hide her body.
Finally, we have these Freedom of Information Act questions to which we would appreciate having answers within the next 20 working days:
Please specify on what dates you or your staff, in connection with the Madeleine McCann case, have either met, or had e-mail or telephone communication with all the following:
Dr Gerald McCann
Dr Kate McCann
Clarence Mitchell
any other adviser to the McCanns
Sir Paul Stephenson
any other officers of the Metropolitan Police
any members of the family of Rupert Murdoch
any staff of the Sun
any staff of the News of the World.
On what date did you agree with the Home Secretary and Sir Paul Stephenson that the Met Police (Scotland Yard) should carry out a review of the case costing £3.5 million?
On what date did you agree with the Editor of the Sun that they would simultaneously publish your letter in reply to the letter from Dr Gerald McCann?
Thank you again for receiving our petition in October and we look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Bennett
Secretary
For the Committee of The Madeleine Foundation
McCann Exposure is Carter Rucked for a second time
Hardlinemarxist | 04/06/2011 at 9:00 am | Categories: Carter Ruck | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1yx
McCann Exposure is subject to defamation, harassment and copyright complaint via Carter Ruck on behalf of their clients Kate and Gerald McCann and Jon Corner. McCann Exposure’s response to Carter Ruck is reproduced in full below.
To whom it may concern,
Re: Carter Ruck’s correspondence to WordPress.com dated 3rd June 2011, regarding Gerald and Kate McCann – Defamation, Harassment and Copyright complaint.
As outlined in our previous correspondence, Carter Ruck does not have authority to ascertain whether Gerald and Kate McCann were complicit in their daughter’s disappearance or possible death. McCann Exposure contends that there appears to be little evidential support for the abduction thesis. This is a view shared by many others, including members of the official investigation team. The foundation of the abduction thesis appears to rely heavily on the reported sighting of the McCann couple’s friend, Jane Tanner. A sighting that has significantly developed in detail in the mind of the witness as time has passed by; quite a remarkable phenomenon per se. Quite possibly the only verifiable facts in the case is that Madeleine McCann is missing and that her parents choose to leave her largely unattended with her younger siblings for five consecutive evenings in May 2007. The latter of which is an action that can result in criminal proceedings of parental neglect in the USA, UK and similar proceedings in Portugal. Further, that the circumstances under which Madeleine disappeared and what subsequently happened remain a complete mystery (a term recently used by the McCann couple’s spokesperson, Clarence Mitchell).
Carter Ruck’s allegation that Mr. Anthony Bennett is “jointly responsible” for McCann Exposure is both unfounded and untrue. McCann Exposure suspects that this untruth likely emanated from agents of certain forums dedicated to seeking out and passing on information of possible defamatory comments made by Mr. Bennett to Carter Ruck. It is not McCann Exposure’s intention to imply that these agents receive monetary gain for their actions. To be clear, at no time has Mr. Bennett published articles at McCann Exposure, nor does he have access to the administration panel of McCann Exposure. He has submitted several comments on various articles; an action that any person visiting the blog can make should they so wish. McCann Exposure is not affiliated to Mr. Bennett or The Madeleine Foundation, or any of its individual members. Nonetheless, information of Carter Ruck’s planned complaints and intended actions of others relating to Mr. Bennett are appreciated.
In respect of the article that Carter Ruck cite as constituting defamation and harassment, McCann Exposure argues that the UK media first reported that The Madeleine Foundation was possibly planning a leaflet distribution around the time of Mrs. McCann’s book release. Sadly, the UK media is decidedly selective and biased in what is published at any given time. Whilst McCann Exposure has empathy for any parent that suffers the loss of a child, regardless of the circumstances in which the loss occurs, it is imperative that the fundamental human right in the practice of freedom of thought and expression and equality in access to information in order to formulate informed opinion is acknowledged. McCann Exposure, therefore, argues that they have the right to hold, freely express and publish opinion that covers all aspects of the case. Including those that question the claim that Madeleine McCann was abducted under circumstances posited by the McCann couple and others; notably the McCann couple’s private investigators.
As stated in our previous correspondence to Carter Ruck, dated the 3rd June, McCann Exposure’s chief objective is to provide a chronological archive of articles on what is arguably the most controversial and unprecedented child disappearance case of contemporary times. Thus, the vast majority of the articles published serve to document in full the twists and turns in the McCann case. McCann Exposure publishes and allows discussion on all aspects of the case. Publication covers a wide range of material, including that which frames the McCann’s in a positive light. It is a fact, however, that there are many commentators and researchers that vigorously challenge the abduction thesis. In light of this and McCann Exposure‘s objectives, Carter Ruck is hereby informed that McCann Exposure is not prepared to remove any articles published merely because the McCann couple and others do not wish for all aspects of the case to be considered.
In respect to copyright infringement, McCann Exposure has reviewed the McCann couple and Jon Corner’s concerns and can confirm the following:
Photographs of Madeleine to which the McCann couple holds copyright have been removed.
The photograph of Madeleine contained in the article “Terence Backer, the Independent gives his view on the McCann’s choice of photo“, has been removed and replaced with a link to an external hosting site.
A video containing material to which Jon Corner holds copyright has been removed. In addition to Carter Ruck’s complaint, a further article on McCann Exposure contained said video; this too has been removed and replaced with an external link to the hosting site Youtube.
Yours Sincerely
McCann Exposure
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Kate McCann’s book “Madeleine” is “an incredible self-serving propaganda piece” says self-proclaimed criminal profiler Pat Brown
Hardlinemarxist | 06/06/2011 at 1:12 am | Categories: Madeleine McCann case – assorted commentary | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1z3
Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Did Kate McCann read my Letter to her ?
Kate McCann has a new book out, Madeleine, an incredible self-serving propaganda piece which leads me to believe she must have read my letter (below from October 4, 2007). But, as can happen to people who may have a narcissistic personality disorder, they just don’t know when to SHUT UP. For, in the book, Kate’s explanations further lead me to doubt the McCanns’ claims of innocence in the disappearance of their daughter. One simple example is the most peculiar speculation of Kate that all her children may have been drugged by Madeleine’s ‘abductor’ both the night she went missing and the previous night. First of all, Kate, this would serve no purpose to the ‘abductor’ except to waste time and it would be difficult to accomplish. You must know that. So the only rational reason you are claiming the children might have been drugged would be to explain away the fact that, indeed, if it ever is proven they were, you have covered that issue by explaining you were concerned about the children’s lethargy and someone else is responsible. However, the only ones likely to have given the children drugs would be you and Gerry.
Any good lawyer will tell you to SHUT UP, but, no, you keep talking, Kate, and we thank you for it.
OPEN LETTER TO KATE MCCANN
Yes, Kate,
It isn’t your breast size or weight that is causing your problems. It is you and your narcissist evaluation of the situation and your PR team’s equally stupid assessment of the situation that is making you look so bad in the public eye.
I am a criminal profiler with years of experience dealing with parents of murder victims and missing relatives. Your behavior and the behavior of your husband fall far outside or the norm for grieving parents. Now, this may be because you are just terribly narcisstic folks who had nothing to do with your child going missing (outside of neglecting your children and putting your needs to party before their needs for comfort and safety, a narcissistic behavior if I have ever seen one). You and Gerry may simply be so narcissistic you have no understanding of how other people view your behaviors and your PR team may share your narcissism so that no one on your team has a clue to normal human behavior.
But, SHUT UP! Every time you open your mouths you do more damage to yourselves. You seem guiltier by the day. Your attempt at “damage control” is so obvious and so very much a day late and a dollar short, everything you do or say seems a cover up and a transparent attempt at proving your innocence.
Let me make clear what I think is weird about what you say and do:
You choose words about Madeleine’s disappearance which make it appear you know there is no abductor and that Madeleine is dead.
Both you and Gerry state your only guilt in the matter is not being their when Madeleine “was taken.” This statement makes no sense for abduction as Madeleine could not be taken if either of you were with Maddie when an abductor would have shown up. It makes more sense in the context that Maddie died while you were not in the apartment.
Your statements and attitude about Madeleine being alive do not square with parents who really believe their daughter is in the hands of a pedophile or pedophiles who are brutally raping and torturing her daily.
Your attempts at “finding” Madeleine do not represent the manner most parents would choose if they were actively searching for a live child but appear more to be the actions of parents trying to prove after the fact of a child’s death that they “cared” (not care) about her.
Your behaviors of “keeping a normal routine” and “keeping up one’s appearance” is admirable, but extremely bizarre. I don’t know any other parents of missing children who can appear so together and cheery. When my daughter cooked our kittens by accident in the dryer, I cancelled Christmas.
Gerry’s blog creeps people out. It is too upbeat. Terrified and distraught parents of missing children are rarely able to jog and play tennis and go to park with their other kids and have a fun time. Over a long period of time, maybe, but this is usually years after the nightmare begins. Some parents never recover from the trauma and it is common for marriages to fail and the brothers and sisters to feel their parents went absent after their sibling went missing.
Your ability to sleep at night after the first five days, Kate, is beyond belief. It is the behavior of one who already knows the answer and even then, is quite a narcissistic trait. If you believed your daughter was being raped as you lay in bed at night, sleep would be very hard to come by. I guess you finally realize this and your mother is saying that NOW you can’t sleep and Madeleine comes to visit you in the night. What changed, Kate?
Your PR team coming up with an answer to every accusation, answers that are ludicrous in themselves, makes you seem awfully defensive, and, if there is no way you or Gerry had anything to do with Maddie’s disappearance, you have nothing to defend. Furthermore, if all you care about is finding Maddie, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on such silliness. After all, as Gerry said, Maddie is the only important thing, right?
So, SHUT UP, Kate. SHUT UP, GERRY. Fire your PR team as they are totally worthless. If both of you really are innocent and your think Maddie is alive, return to Portugal. Start searching for real (and it took six months to set up a hotline?). Cooperate with the police. Take the polygraphs as you have zero to hide and, with competent polygraph examiners, the questions are so simple you can’t screw them up. I will even give you the four questions that should be asked:
“Did Madeleine die while you were present?”
“Did you return to the apartment and find Madeleine dying or dead?”
“Did you move Madeleine’s body at any time?”
“Did your spouse move Madeleine’s body at any time?”
These are simple questions. The answer to all of them should be “No.” There is no ambiguity in these questions (unlike a question such as “Do you feel responsible for the disappearance of Madeleine?” which you could if you acknowledge leaving her without an adult caretaker is irresponsible; an affirmative answer to such a question would be useless to the detectives as it could falsely indicate that you had something to do with Maddie going missing when you are only feeling guilty over leaving her unattended. Also, an affirmative answer could mean you simply do not feel responsible for what happened to Maddie no matter what happened to her as a total narcissist might).
The above four questions are simple and unambiguous and even a narcissist can’t misconstrue the meaning of the questions. The answers will be a simple “Yes” or “No.” Have the polygraph session videotaped so the police will be unable to do any underhanded scare tactics or interrogation that might distort the results of the tests.
Quite frankly, Kate, you and Gerry had everything going for you as parents of a missing child if you hadn’t left your children unattended night after night to go out partying. THIS is what made people dislike you. It was to your advantage that you are both relatively attractive people because IF you had big breasts and a porky physique and were not well-heeled professionals, you would have become suspects right off the bat and you would have not had the incredible monetary support you have been blessed with nor all those kindly letters. You would have been viewed as just a pair of slobs who probably abused their children as well as neglected them and you wouldn’t have gotten the phenomenal amount of publicity worldwide concerning Maddie’s disappearance. Other parents have gone public, run campaigns, and had web sites, but your fortune with publicity and support has been unprecedented. And, you complain, Kate, that people are treating you badly because you are fit! It was being fit and professional and well-off that got you so much attention. It was you and Gerry’s fitness as parents and your peculiar behaviors that got you the negative attention.
I have a final suggestion. Ask the PJ if I can come analyze the case. My organization will send me pro bono. As a criminal profiler I can analyze the actual evidence to advise the investigators as to the best investigate strategy. I have no problem determining this crime as an abduction and finding the creep that took Madeleine if the evidence points that way. I don’t have to like you and Gerry as people to view the evidence in an objective and professional manner. No one should be convicted of a crime simply because of personality and because people don’t like the individual’s personality. Solid physical and circumstantial evidence must exist to the point where there is no question as to who committed the crime. I would work very diligently to assist the PJ with the evidence and the facts and do a thorough crime scene analysis that would move the case forward.
Furthermore, if you and Gerry get charged in Madeleine’s disappearance and must truly defend yourselves, my services are available to you and your lawyers. I will be more than happy to analyze the evidence and, if you are innocent, do all I can to serve in your defense.
Good luck, Kate. May the truth be brought to light soon and you and Gerry get the justice you deserve in the case of your missing daughter.
All the best,
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
Note: Some people have misinterpreted sarcasm as seriousness in some of my wording in the post. My reference to Kate having written the book” because she read my letter” is just a general nod to her reason for writing this book; to do damage control and “clear up” the questions people have asked about them and the things they have said about them. I am not actually saying that letter specifically was the reason for her book. Also, my offer to come profile the case, while something I would be happy to do, was more in jest than a serious request to be brought in. Obviously, Kate and Gerry are unlikely to be calling me anytime soon.
The Daily Profiler Hosted by The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency
Pat Brown is currently making comments on the book Madeleine via her twitter account
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Would you leave your child alone?
Hardlinemarxist | 06/06/2011 at 12:50 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1yS
Scenario: You go out for dinner in a village style holiday resort abroad, leaving a child of nearly 4 and twins aged 18 months in an unlocked ground floor apartment, which is located next to a swimming pool and public road just outside the perimeter wall of holiday complex. The holiday resort is set out so as to allow tourists and local residents to mix together. The apartment, which is located on a street corner, is easily visible from a number of different viewpoints; but not the bar where you dine You return to check on the children somewhat sporadically – check times ranging from 20 minutes to 75 minutes or so later, and at other times still you entrust a fellow diner to check; this often involving non-visible checking, such as listening at doors or even windows from outside the apartments in order to determine if any child has woken.
It is an offence under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to neglect or abandon a child under the age of 16 for whom a parent or carer has responsibility, but the law gives no detail of what amounts to neglect or abandonment. Prosecution and/or conviction depend largely on the circumstances. The punishment can range from a fine to ten years’ imprisonment.
The court is to likely to take into account the age and maturity of the child, for how long he or she was left alone and the arrangements to ensure his or her safety. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) advises that babies, toddlers and very young children should never be left alone, advise endorsed by the UK Government.
In the scenario described, a child might wake and get out of bed, wander on to the main road or to the swimming pool, or anybody could remove a child from the property. The child is also exposed to accidents that frequently occur within the home. Accidental injury is one of the biggest single causes of death in the UK for children over the age of one. Every year, one million children under the age of 18 are taken to accident and emergency (A&E) units after being involved in accidents in the home. Many more are treated at home or by their GP. Falls are the most common type of accident to occur around the home. Choking and suffocation, burns, scalds and poisoning are other common types of accident, particularly for the under-fives (NHS, nd.).
There are lots of potential hazards in every home, such as hot water, household chemicals, fireplaces and sharp objects. Even the design of some houses with features such as balconies and open staircases can contribute to accidents.
Young children are not able to assess for themselves the risks all these things pose. Their perception of the environment around them is often limited and their lack of experience and development, such as their poor co-ordination and balance, can lead them to having an accident. Children are inquisitive and their curiosity can lead them into dangerous situations where accidents can happen. There are several factors that can contribute to an accident happening. For example, A lack of familiarity with surroundings, such as when on holiday and/or poor supervision. (Ibid)
The types of accidents children have in the home are often linked to their age and level of development. At an early age, babies are able to wriggle, grasp, suck and roll over. As they grow (six months to one year) they may also be able to stand, sit, crawl and put things in their mouth. As children get older they can walk and move about, reach things that are higher up, climb and find hidden objects. With their new found sense of freedom and movement, toddlers can move quickly and accidents can happen in a matter of seconds (Ibid).
It is in light of this knowledge that the advice of the NSPCC, which is endorsed by the UK Government., is to never, ever, leave babies, toddlers and very young children alone.
A small selection of related new stories:
Mother given 150 hours of unpaid community work after leaving her three young children sleeping home alone for 2 hours
Mother jailed for seven-and-a-half years after 22 month old daughter dies in fire after being left home alone for no more than three hours whilst she attended court hearing.
Three and two year siblings die in fire after being left sleeping home alone for an hour
Four year old boy left home alone for 15 minutes is rescued from burning house
Sleeping four year old boy dies after being left home alone for half and hour
Mother leaves sleeping three year old home alone for half and hour
Five year old child drowns in swimming pool after being left home alone whilst grandmother went to the grocery store
Advice on child safety and care
Children and poisoning
Children and swallowed objects
NHS advice regarding child accidents in the home, short video here and leaflet article here
Finally: Definition and advice on child neglect
The Facts versus the Fiction: Faked Abduction Vs Madeleine
Hardlinemarxist | 06/06/2011 at 1:48 pm | Categories: Madeleine McCann case – assorted commentary | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1zl
The Facts versus the Fiction
Posted by Stevo on May 17th, 2011 and filed under Famous Articles, TRUTH For Madeleine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Kate Healy/McCann launched her book in the United Kingdom on May 12, 2011—4 years and 9 days after Madeleine McCann was reported missing. Simply called “madeleine“, the book is Kate’s account of the events of that fateful day in May 2007 with a potted history of the McCann family and the events of the 4 years since the alleged abduction.
Eagle eyed followers of the Madeleine case have no doubt been dissecting every sentence of the book in the search for yet more clues as to what happened to the tiny 3-year old tot.
Meanwhile, Faked Abduction by Steve Marsden is back on sale after a second edition has recently been printed in the USA.
So how do the two books fare in terms of unraveling the mystery of Madeleine McCann?
To answer this question, it is essential to understand that the Madeleine disappearance revolves around a set of important facts that have not been satisfactorily dealt with by the McCanns and their friends who accompanied them on the holiday to Portugal. The main body of reliable evidence consists of the 11,300+ page, Portuguese police file that was released in August 2008. Additional evidence was provided by the chief investigating officer—Gonçalo Amaral—through his own personal account in his book Maddie: A Verdade Da Mentira (The Truth of the Lie.)
These important facts are the focus of Faked Abduction and are also dealt with by Kate in madeleine. Some of these issues are:
* Mrs Fenn hearing Madeleine crying for 75 minutes on May 1, 2007
* The status of the patio doors
* Madeleine’s whereabouts during the day on May 3, 2007
* The Smith family (nine people) who saw a man looking like Gerry McCann shortly before 10pm on May 3, 2007
* Jane Tanner’s sighting and the associated detail of that account
* The Yvonne Martin encounter on May 4, 2007
* The McCanns did not physically search for Madeleine on the night of May 3, 2007
* The David Payne/Gerry McCann paedophile allegations from the Gaspars
Mrs Fenn
In Kate’s book she was quite disparaging towards Mrs Fenn. Not mentioning her by name, she described the elderly tenant of the flat above apartment 5A as a woman with a “plummy voice“. Kate also admitted that she and Fiona Payne abused Mrs Fenn because of her reaction to the reason for the commotion in apartment 5A on the night of May 3.
Considering that Mrs Fenn’s testimony blows a big hole in the McCanns’ insistence that they checked their children every half hour or less, there is little wonder that Kate was so demeaning in madeleine. The Mrs Fenn issue is dealt with simply in Faked Abduction—there is a full copy of Mrs Fenn’s witness statement to police.
The Patio Doors
Early stories from the McCanns claimed that they entered the apartment through the front door adjacent to the car park and opposite the poolside tapas bar. This alibi subsequently changed when observers noticed that this would have meant the McCann children were all locked inside apartment 5A and therefore would be at risk if a fire broke out inside the apartment. The change in alibi was that the McCanns switched to claiming that they entered the apartment through the patio doors.
This aspect is not without problems and it doesn’t seem to be logical. The patio doors only lock from inside the apartment. On page 45 of madeleine, Kate claims “after the first couple of days we barely used the front door, coming and going through the patio doors and up and down the steps.” Is Kate really suggesting that each time the family left the apartment they left it unlocked with all their possessions inside? Who goes on a holiday and leaves their room or apartment unlocked like that? It makes no sense and this change in the alibi seems to be another part of Kate’s revisionist history.
Madeleine’s Whereabouts on May 3, 2007
The author of Faked Abduction is unconvinced that Madeleine was alive and well all day on May 3, 2007 and there is no cast-iron evidence to prove otherwise. Three weeks after the disappearance, a photograph—the so-called Last Photo—appeared in a blaze of glory to prove that Madeleine was alive in the middle of the afternoon on May 3. However, Faked Abduction provides evidence that the Last Photo was probably faked. Interestingly, on page 65 of madeleine, Kate stated “Fiona told me she’d spotted Ella there but not Madeleine” in reference to Fiona seeing the children from the creche at a beach activity on May 3.
The Smith Sighting
The sighting of a man carrying a small girl through the streets of Praia da Luz just before 10pm on May 3 is an important sighting because it also blows a huge hole in the alibi of Gerry McCann. For newcomers to the Madeleine disappearance, the story goes like this: A family—Martin Smith and eight others—were leaving a bar in Praia da Luz and walking back to their apartment around 9:45pm. They encountered a man hurrying through the streets carrying a small girl and their reaction was that it was a man and his daughter. 4 months later when Martin Smith was watching television back home in Ireland, he noticed Gerry McCann disembarking the Easyjet plane at East Midlands Airport while he carried his sleeping son, Sean. The sight of McCann carrying his son in the exact same way he remembered the man carrying the girl in the streets of Praia da Luz jogged his memory to the extent that he realised the man in the streets was Gerald McCann. This bombshell evidence was kept quiet from the press back in 2007 and until Amaral’s book and the police files were released in 2008, this aspect of the case was publicly unknown.
Faked Abduction discussed the facts about the Smith Sighting whereas madeleine deals with this by claiming it to be another encounter with the same man allegedly seen by Jane Tanner. A casual reader of the case could interpret Kate’s version of the Smith Sighting as being a logical extension of the Tanner Sighting. The reality is that the Smith Sighting always was a sighting of Gerry carrying Madeleine and it is something never addressed by the McCanns.
Jane Tanner’s Sighting
The detail of Jane Tanner’s sighting has changed numerous times and is flawed because of its inconsistency. One detail that has emerged in the past 4 years is that Tanner and fellow holidaymaker Jeremy “Jes” Wilkins claim to have encountered Gerry McCann in the street outside apartment 5A on the same side of the pavement as the apartment. However, McCann claims this 3-way encounter happened on the other side of the street. In madeleine, Kate addresses this but fobs it off by saying “…exactly where they were standing is not crucial” (page 71).
The Yvonne Martin Encounter
On page 86 of madeleine, Kate describes an encounter with British social worker Yvonne Martin on the morning of May 4. Only, she doesn’t mention Ms Martin by name. Again, this is another vital issue in the case that has been dismissed by the McCanns. Ms Martin thought she recognised David Payne from another case back in England and both Payne and Kate Healy refused any assistance from Ms Martin despite her professional credentials in social work. Why did Kate Healy not wish to elaborate on why this helpful lady made her feel uncomfortable? More to the point, why did Kate claim to not know “who she is or what she was really trying to achieve?” Kate has read the police file and she will therefore know who Ms Martin is and why she tried to help. Why did David Payne try to usher this lady away from lending her assistance?
No Searching by the McCanns
It is a well established fact that the McCanns never searched for Madeleine on the night of May 3, 2007. Instead, a small army of fellow holidaymakers and locals were out looking for the missing tot. This aspect is covered in Faked Abduction but in madeleine, Kate is not exactly truthful when, on page 83 she writes “As soon as it was light Gerry and I resumed our search.” The plain fact is that they never searched the previous night so how did they resume a search?
The Gaspar Allegations
On May 16, 2007 Savio and Katherina Gaspar were interviewed by British police in England in connection with concerns they had about Gerry McCann and David Payne. The Gaspars, Paynes and McCanns had all been on a previous holiday together on the Spanish island of Majorca in September 2005. What happened during that holiday caused the Gaspars to approach police with their concerns. Katherina told police when talking about David Payne:
I remember questioning whether looked at my children or the others in a different way. I imagined that he maybe visited Internet sites related to small children. I thought that he may be interested in child pornography on the Internet.
The Gaspar statements (included in Faked Abduction) are absent from madeleine. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Kate did not want these allegations from their doctor friends, the Gaspars, to be revealed in her book.
Obtaining the Books
Buy madeleine from major bookstores in the UK and online from Amazon (here).
Buy Faked Abduction online from fakedabduction.com (here).
The Madeleine Foundation responds to Carter Ruck’s recent accusations
Hardlinemarxist | 09/06/2011 at 7:00 pm | Categories: The Madeleine Foundation | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1AX
Dear Carter-Ruck
re: Your letters of 2 and 3 June to Automattic Inc.
My attention has been drawn to the contents of two letters you have sent recently by hard copy and e-mail to The Company Secretary, Automattic Inc., 60 29th Street #343 San Francisco, CA94110-4929, USA, and by e-mail to court-orders@wordpress.com and to dmca@automattic.com .
The first letter, dated 2 June 2011, was sent on behalf of your client Mr Brian Kennedy of Swettenham Hall, Cheshire. The second letter, dated 3 June 2011, was sent on behalf of your clients Kate and Gerry McCann and Jon Corner.
These two letters were an attempt by yourselves to get Automattic and WordPress to ‘pull’ the blog ‘McCann Exposure’, the owner of whom has passed on the above two letters, by terminating their hosting of the blog. The main issues your letter dealt with were alleged harassment, defamation, and alleged breaches of copyright by the blog owner of McCann Exposure in respect of the owner’s publication of certain photographs, a video, and some articles.
One thing that is noteworthy in both of those letters is that in neither of them do you refer to the decisions of first the Portuguese Appeal Court in October 2010 to lift the ban on Goncalo Amaral’s book on the case ‘The Truth About A Lie’, nor to the subsequent decision of the Portuguese Supreme Court in March this year to confirm that Mr Amaral’s book should remain on sale, despite your clients’ appeal against the earlier Appeal Court ruling. You therefore failed to inform Automattic that the two top Portuguese Courts have held that there is nothing so defamatory in his book as to prevent the Portuguese people reading what he has to say about Madeleine’s disappearance. His book accumulates evidence that Madeleine died in your clients’ apartment and goes on to imply that they must have had a role in hiding her body.
Of particular interest is that in giving his ruling in the Appeal Court in October last year, a copy of which you no doubt have to hand, the Judge very specifically referred to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the article that guarantees the right to free speech. In making his decision, he made it clear that the provisions of Article 10, notwithstanding that part of the Article that says that freedom of speech may on limited occasions be restricted ‘for the protection of the reputation and rights of others’, required him to adjudicate in favour of Mr Amaral’s right to have his hypothesis distributed and the right of the Portuguese people to read his hypothesis.
Moreover, despite your clients’ claims that Mr Amaral’s book is libellous, a claim your clients only initiated in the spring of 2009 after Mr Amaral’s book had already sold over 200,000 copies in Portugal, the final hearing to determine whether his book is libellous or not has not taken place, despite the effluxion of two years. So far as I am aware, no date has yet been set for this final trial of your clients’ application either. That means that the Portuguese courts have yet to determine whether or not the contents of his book are libellous.
At this stage I should point out to you and your clients that on 24 March 2010 I made an application against the U.K. government to the European Commission on Human Rights under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This application cited the notoriously oppressive libel laws in the U.K., which have caused Britain to be known the world over for ‘libel tourism’ – the practice of wealthy and powerful people from other countries using the British libel courts to suppress adverse comment about them. The application was registered in April 2010 by the European Commission as Application No. 20455/10. It claims inter alia that the levels of awards for defamation in the U.K., combined with the fact that there is no limit on the costs that can be claimed against an unsuccessful defendant in a libel action, amount to a breach of a citizen’s right to free speech as guaranteed by the Convention.
I am confident that the European Court will eventually uphold my appeal, not least because in the recent General Election campaign all three major political parties accepted that the points I have made above cried out for reform. As you will be fully aware, the Coalition Government has recently published a Libel Reform Bill, for which the date for public consultation to end is Friday of this week (10 June). The government has already accepted in principle the same arguments I put forward in my application to the European Commission on Human Rights, namely that the ability of wealthy clients like yours to use the libel courts to restrict criticism of them prevents potential defendants like myself from exercising their right of free speech; in my case that means interfering with my right to discuss in public my analysis of various matters connected with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
By the way, I do not mean that your clients are themselves wealthy; however, they do have very wealthy financial backers like Sir Richard Branson, Brian Kennedy and J.K. Rowling and others, and of course they have admitted to using some of the funds of their Find Madeleine Fund to pursue some of their libel actions, though so far as I am aware they have never disclosed precisely how much of those funds they have used for that purpose. Clearly they have the financial muscle to pursue me through the libel courts should they so instruct you.
Within the two letters referred to above, you included the following references to myself (for ease of reference I refer to them by numbered paragraphs):
In the first of those two letters:
You refer to certain photographs published on the McCann Exposure site, and then write:
“The actions of the person responsible for these photographs, who also authored the letter to Leicestershire Constabulary posted near the top of the page on 21 August, Mr Tony Bennett, are already the subject of civil proceedings and are now the subject of a criminal complaint”.
“For the record, Mr Bennett is the person pictured in the photograph outside Cypress House, one of our client’s business properties (The photograph is near the bottom, of the page complained of)”.
“In addition to publishing photographs of Mr Kennedy’s home and business addresses, Mr Bennett has also travelled to the home of Mr Kennedy’s former in-house lawyer, Mr Edward Smethurst, to take photographs and publish a leaflet to his neighbours”.
“Our client and Mr Smethurst consider this to be a clear breach of the criminal laws of harassment, and as such this incident has now been reported to Greater Manchester Police”.
“We are also instructed [by Mr Brian Kennedy] to complain directly to Mr Bennett, the person we understand to be jointly responsible for the website you are hosting, and are in the process of preparing a compliant on behalf of Mr and Mrs McCann and Mr Kennedy”.
“You should be aware that Mr Bennett has a history of pursuing obsessive and highly improper campaigns including most recently against Mr and Mrs McCann and individuals associated with them including Mr Kennedy; the website complained of is simply one of these outlets”.
“It is not the purpose of this letter to set out each and every false allegation which is contained in the [McCann Exposure] website, but needless to say, we will do so if necessary at the appropriate juncture”.
“By way of example only is a letter from Mr Tony Bennett to the British Prime Minister dated 18 May 2011 being published on the following page…”
[you then go on to quote significant passages from my letter of 18 May and give the link to the relevant page on the McCann Exposure website].
In the second of those two letters:
At the foot of page 2 of your second letter, you write:
“Around the time Kate McCann was finishing her book this week, The Madeleine Foundation was taking delivery of 10,000 leaflets entitled: ‘What happened to Madeleine McCann: 50 facts about the case that the British media are not telling you’.”
“It now plans to distribute them to homes and shops across the country. The leaflet is divided into four sections:
The major contradictions in the statements of the McCanns and friends
The highly trained British police dogs who detected the scent of a corpse
Strange things the McCanns have said and done
How the McCanns wasted public money on useless private detectives”.
“This is not the first time that the person we understand to be jointly responsible for the website, Mr Tony Bennett, has engaged in such activities”.
“Mr Bennett has previously published and distributed leaflets making similar allegations about our clients in the village where they live just before Sean and Amelie were about to start school”.
(M) “The incident caused immense hurt and distress to our clients”.
(N) “Since then Mr Bennett has largely confined his campaign of harassment to online attacks on our clients”.
(O) “However, in recent months he has taken to visit the homes of those who have assisted our clients through the Find Madeleine campaign, which was set up to continue the search for Madeleine McCann”.
(P) “Individuals such as Mr Brian Kennedy and Mr Kennedy’s former in-house lawyer, Mr Edward Smethurst, have had their homes photographed, their neighbours leafleted and photographs of their homes, together with addresses, published online”.
(Q) “Mr Bennett’s actions are now the subject of criminal complaint to the Greater Manchester Police”.
(R) “While we appreciate these are not all matters which directly concern wordpress.com in hosting this site, our clients feel they form an important part of the background to this complaint”.
Direct complaint against Mr Bennett (heading in your second letter):
(S) “We are also instructed to complain directly to Mr Bennett, and are in the process of preparing this complaint”.
(T) “Mr Bennett repeatedly published highly defamatory and completely untrue allegations about Mr and Mrs McCann”.
(U) “Our client brought a libel complaint against him which resulted in Mr Bennett giving undertakings to the Court which were enshrined in an undertaking to the High Court dated 25 November 2009”.
(V) “We enclose a copy of that Order; as you will see, it contains at Clause C an undertaking given by Mr Bennett not to publish any further libels about Mr and Mrs McCann.
(X) “Having chosen until now to turn the other cheek, our clients are no longer prepared to stand by, while he continues his vile and wholly misguided campaign to traduce them”.
(Y) “It is clear that a wide range of material published on the website in question (including the letter to the Prime Minister to which we refer above) represents a breach of the undertakings which Mr Bennett previously provided to the Court”.
(Z) “By allowing Mr Bennett to continue to use your service, you are facilitating his unlawful conduct”.
(AA) “While we have no doubt that this action has been entirely inadvertent on the part of wordpress.com, now that you are on notice of this conduct and of the Court orders, we would ask that you exercise your right to terminate his access under Clause 12 of your Terms of Service”.
Response: General Points
First, it is clear that your letter to Automattic is founded on a wholly mistaken belief that I am either the part-owner of, or that I have any say in the running of, the blog ‘McCann Exposure’. I understand that the blog-owner concerned has not only written to WordPress, Automattic and yourselves to make this crystal clear, but has also published those responses on McCann Exposure. Just to re-inforce the points the blog-owner has made, I have no part whatsoever in the ownership of that blog and no say whatsoever in the content.
As you and all your clients must be aware, there is a very significant community, based largely on the internet and international in scope, which continues to discuss the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and which continues to suggest that the Drs McCann have not told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what has happened to her. The McCann Exposure blog is simply one of dozens of forums and blogs which continue to discuss the case from a point of view of scepticism about your clients’ claims. Each forum-owner and blog owner decides what material they will include on their website and as it happens the owner of McCann Exposure has up to now published some material written by myself or published by The Madeleine Foundation.
Your letter to Automattic about the McCann Exposure blog deals also with an alleged infringement of copyright in respect of 13 photographs, mostly of Madeleine, a newspaper headline, and a video produced by Jon Corner, over which he claims copyright. These appear to be issues you have with the McCann Exposure site alone and not with myself or with The Madeleine Foundation website.
On our website, we do not knowingly breach anyone’s copyright, whether in the form of written material or in respect of photographs, and the authorship of photographs is mostly acknowledged. Our website was first launched on 20 October 2008 and during over 2½ years we have never had one single complaint about any alleged breach of copyright on our site.
Turning now to the allegations in your two letters to Automattic in which you claim that I have further ‘defamed’ your clients following the undertaking I gave to the High Court on 25 November 2009, I consider that since that date I have confined my comments on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann to what I believe to be reasonable analyses of the case and reasonable questions about Madeleine’s disappearance. I have, so far as I am aware, avoided, in line with my Court undertaking, direct accusations that your clients have, or are to be suspected of, causing the death of Madeleine or of disposing of her body, or that they have lied about what happened or have covered up what they have done.
Signing that Court undertaking was not, as you know, a vow of Trappist-like silence over the continuing mystery of what really happened to Madeleine McCann. As you will know very well, your clients’ own chief reputation manager, Clarence Mitchell, openly conceded in a Channel 4 interview in March 2010 that Madeleine’s disappearance remained, and I quote, ‘a complete mystery’. Hence the title of one of the many Madeleine McCann discussion forums, and one to which I contribute regularly: ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’.
Moreover, in an interview on Radio Humberside on 6 January this year, Mr Mitchell again openly conceded that your clients’ claim that Madeleine had been abducted was merely ‘an assumption’. Moreover, for additional emphasis, he not only once but twice added that the claim that Madeleine was abducted was just ‘a hypothesis’.
Given these accurate statements by him on behalf of your clients, it is clearly open to others to work on alternative assumptions, as indeed did the Portuguese Police on the advice of specialist crime adviser Lee Rainbow and police specialist Mark Harrison, especially of course after a cadaver dog and a bloodhound, trained by Mark Grime (who is recognised in many countries as a top handler of cadaver dogs) alerted in no fewer than ten locations associated with your client, but nowhere else in Praia da Luz. These alerts were in or around your clients’ apartment (four alerts), on the clothes of your clients’ family (three alerts), in the Renault Scenic car hired by your clients (two alerts) and on the pink soft toy, Cuddle Cat.
The legal advice I received following your letters to me of 27 and 28 August 2009 was clear. Direct and false accusations unsupported by facts render themselves liable to be treated as libel. However, by the same token, the rights of all citizens of Council of Europe countries to free speech, as enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (see also below) entitle one to, for example, criticise others and to challenge claims made by others. The advice I received also included very specific advice that asking questions about claims by others did not and could not amount to libel. Thus, for example, we wrote to your client Dr Kate McCann and her publishers on 31 January 2011 with a list of 163 questions which we felt it was reasonable for your client to answer in the book she published on 12 May this year. These 163 questions are questions which thousands of people also have in their minds about the case. Your client addressed only a handful of those questions in her book and even then her answers were not always clear. Thus those questions remain unanswered.
There is an unfortunate history of parents covering up the death of a child (whether the child has died by negligence, neglect, accident or deliberate act) by claiming that their child has been abducted. The current trial in the United States of Casey Anthony for the alleged murder of Caylee Anthony may provide another such example, a trial of course in which the evidence of a cadaver dog, Gerus, is at the heart of the case, and a case in which the judge has allowed the dog handler’s evidence. By contrast, there are scarcely any proven occasions where strangers have abducted very young children from within someone’s home or holiday home.
At this point it is relevant to point out that as soon as it became knowledge that two cadaver dogs had alerted to the scent of a cadaver at ten separate locations connected with your client, your client poured scorn on the reliability of cadaver dogs, on one occasion in a TV interview describing them as, and I quote verbatim, ‘incredibly unreliable’. Indeed, your client Dr Gerald McCann also claimed that cadaver dogs were unreliable based on the judge’s ruling in 2007 in the case of the murder of the wife of Eugene Zapata. The judge had declined to admit the evidence of a dog handler whose dog had alerted to the scent of death in three separate locations associated with Mr Zapata’s property and movements. In early 2008, however, Mr Zapata made a full confession in which he admitted killing his wife and moving her body to two separate locations, the very ones at which the cadaver dog had alerted.
Response: Specific Points in your two letters
I respond now paragraph by paragraph to the 27 points about me that you raised in your two letters to Automattic Inc.:
A and B. I confirm that it is me in the photograph in Wilmslow outside one of Mr Kennedy’s many business interests in Cheshire and confirm that I took photographs of the properties belonging to Mr Kennedy and Mr Smethurst.
C. Meetings of The Madeleine Foundation are held in various parts of the country and it was the occasion of meetings in, respectively, Cheshire and Lancashire, that provided opportunities to view and photograph the homes of Mr Kennedy and Mr Smethurst. As I think the owner of the McCann Exposure blog has made clear in letters to Automattic and to yourselves, both men are well-known, not least for their deep involvement in assisting your clients in various ways. In the case of Mr Kennedy, the location of his home at Swettenham Hall is widely known on the internet, including many pictures of it, most of them taken from far closer than I was able to get and in at least one case from a helicopter. No part of either Mr Kennedy’s or Mr Smethurst’s properties were entered in order to take the photographs. The photographs were no more intrusive, and arguably less so, than those available on Google Earth. Some of the Madeleine McCann Research Group’s recent ’50 FACTS’ leaflets were delivered in north-west Rochdale close to where Mr Smethurst lives. I am not aware of any of these leaflets or any others about the Madeleine McCann case or Mr Kennedy that have been delivered in the immediate vicinity of Mr Kennedy’s home.
D. You refer in this sentence to ‘this incident’ rather than ‘these incidents’, so I do not know if you are referring to Mr Kennedy reporting the matters referred to above as ‘criminal harassment’. Nor do I know if you are referring here to the taking and publishing of photographs together with publishing actual addresses or to the alleged leafleting or to a combination of both. Either way, I have had no contact yet from Greater Manchester Police. Last year an individual took a close-up photograph of my home and circulated it on the internet. Essex Police became aware of that incident as a result of other actions by that individual. In no way did they consider that taking a photograph of someone’s home and publishing it on the internet was ‘criminal harassment’ – and of course in advising me of this they also referred to the availability of such photographs on Google Earth.
E. Noted.
F. I wholly reject the false statement you have made in this letter and require you within 14 days to apologise for the comment, and withdraw the comment by your further letter to Automattic, failing which complaint will be made to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for your breach of the Solicitors’ Principles of Professional Practice. You refer to my having pursued a number of campaigns, which is correct. I object in strenuous terms to the use of the words ‘obsessive and highly improper’ with respect to any of the campaigns I have been involved with and ask you to withdraw that criticism on the record. I set out below a brief history of some of the main campaigns with which I have been personally involved and from that list you will see that none of them could be described as either ‘obsessive’ or ‘highly improper’:
various campaigns to improve the take-up of welfare benefits by the poor, both before and during my career as Welfare Rights Adviser from 1978 to 1992. In 1986-7 I organised a national campaign for the take-up of Income Support weekly allowances and grants which was the biggest-ever benefits take-up campaign organised in the U.K.
the establishment of two Credit Unions in Harlow, in 1980 and 1985 respectively, to help poorer-off families save and borrow money.
involvement in various campaigns to stop us joining the eurozone, at a time when the major parties and the government wished us to give up the pound. Hardly anyone in this country now thinks we should give up the pound sterling and join the eurozone.
acting as the Secretary of CREC, a campaign to demand a nationwide referendum on the European Constitution in 2003-4 and again to demand a nationwide referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2006-7
campaigning (currently) for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, a policy currently supported by over 75% of the British people
running a successful campaign in 2001-2 to stop the government forcing all car owners to display the letters ‘EU’ on their number plates; as a result car owners may now choose to display a national flag e.g. that of the UK, England, Wales or Scotland instead
heading a successful campaign, between 2001 and 2006, against local authorities unlawfully erecting road signs in metric units and against the government planning to spend around £1,000,000,000 on converting all our road and footpath signs to metric, a campaign that succeeded in February 2006 when the then Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling, in a BBC ‘Any Questions’ programme at Milton Keynes, publicly announced that the government was now going to abandon its plans to convert some two million road and footpath signs in Britain to metric
a successful campaign in 2006 to force Essex Police to reinvestigate the death of Stuart Lubbock, which led directly to the re-arrest of Michael Barrymore, Jonathan Kenney and Justin Merritt on suspicion of the murder of Stuart Lubbock. My book on the case published in 2007 demonstrated that the story of Stuart drowning in Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool was an elaborate and cunning hoax and that he never in fact entered Mr Barrymore’s pool that night. As part of that campaign I successfully demanded a top-level investigation into the case by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) which in 2008 published a report highly critical of Essex Police
a current campaign, with which I’ve been involved since 2007, on behalf of the father of Lee Balkwell, who died in suspicious circumstances in 2002. In this campaign, I have identified that the ‘cover story’ in this case that Lee died in a tragic accident in a concrete mixer at 1.00am on the morning of 18 July 2002 is an elaborate and cunning hoax and once again I have secured a top-level IPCC investigation into the case. The IPCC has already (in June 2009) publicly issued a preliminary report slating the original Essex Police investigation as ‘seriously flawed’ and in March last year a special review by West Midlands Police of the case resulted in their making 91 separate recommendations for action in the case which are now being followed up by Kent Police.
Not one of those campaigns, nor the totality of them, can by any stretch of the imagination be fairly described as either ‘obsessive’ or ‘highly improper’.
G. Allegations of defamation on the McCann Exposure website are a matter for the owner of that blog.
H. My letter to Prime Minister David Cameron dated 18 May 2011 sets out various factual matters relating to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and to subsequent events and I deny that there is anything defamatory within it.
I and J. Your letter-writer appears to be unaware that these two paragraphs are direct quotations from a major Daily Mail article on the case dated 15 April 2011, a copy of which is no doubt available to you. The Daily Mail simply reported facts about the leaflet, including its sub-headings, an article which resulted in many new hits on our website and enquiries about obtaining copies of the leaflet.
K, L and M. As a matter of record, I did not personally deliver any of the ’10 Reasons’ leaflet in the village of Rothley and I should be obliged if you would correct that fact when writing to Automattic.
N. I object to the use of the term ‘online attacks on our clients’. My main activity has been careful research into and analysis of a whole series of aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, as can be seen by the 50-plus articles on The Madeleine Foundation website, most of which have been wholly or partly authored by me. These articles include, by way of example: lies told by Robert Murat when he was first interviewed by the Portuguese Police, the activities of the Portuguese lawyer working on your clients’ behalf, Marcos Aragao Correia, the activities of your clients’ private investigators, Brian Kennedy’s personal involvement in contacting witnesses in the case and generating media events like the orchestration of the media blitz about ‘Monster Man’ or ‘Cooperman’, an analysis of the career of your clients’ friend Ray Wyre, an examination of some of the ridiculous ‘sightings’ of Madeleine reported in The Sun newspaper, a review of some of the many contradictions and changes of story as between the various accounts of events given by your clients and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends’, an analysis of the creation of the media myth that Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley jointly run a major private investigations company known as ‘Alpha Investigations Group’, and observations on the close nexus in this case between your clients’ chief reputation manager Clarence Mitchell and (a) the most senior members of the former Labour government (b) the most senior members of the current Conservative government and (c) Rupert Murdoch, his relatives, and senior staff of the newspapers he owns such as The Sun and the News of the World. It is unreasonable for you to characterise these researches and analysis as ‘attacks on your clients’.
O, P. Q and R. I have dealt with this above. Given the extraordinary and unprecedented world-wide publicity of Madeleine’s disappearance, generated solely by your clients and their advisers, it is scarcely surprising if an organisation like The Madeleine Foundation does not take a very close interest in scrutinising the activities of your clients’ closest backers.
S. Noted.
T. This is denied, especially insofar as my actions since 25 November 2009 are concerned. In this context the words of your client Dr Kate McCann in her recent book ‘madeleine’ are of interest. She writes (p. 312): “He [Tony Bennett] is still going around insinuating that we were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, only now he is just being slightly more careful about how he says it”. Your client’s comment simply reflects the fact that I have not been making direct accusations but instead have focussed on the entirely legitimate activity in a free speech society of raising questions about the case, circulating facts, and carrying out research and analysis. I may add at this point, as no doubt you and your clients are fully aware, that there are a great many on the internet who routinely make very direct statements about your clients’ alleged guilt regarding Madeleine’s disappearance and who from time to time indulge in personal attacks on your clients’ characters, something we have always avoided on The Madeleine Foundation website.
U and V. Noted.
W. See above under (T). This accusation is denied.
X. Noted.
Y. This is denied.
Z. I object in strong terms to your use of the word ‘unlawful’. Please within 14 days write to Automattic Inc. withdrawing the use of the term ‘unlawful’.
Noted.
I await your response within 14 days informing me that you have written to Automattic withdrawing and apologising for (a) describing my campaigning as ‘obsessive and highly improper’ and (b) describing my conduct since 25 November 2009 as being ‘unlawful’ and also making clear to them that I have never personally delivered any leaflets in the village of Rothley.
Finally, my records show that since November 2009, you have only twice sought to raise any objections by your clients to material on The Madeleine Foundation website or produced by The Madeleine Foundation. On one occasion you objected to an article in which we discussed the alleged unlikelihood of any abductor being able to remove Madeleine from your clients’ apartment [Ocean Club G5A] in your clients’ own time-frame of approximately 9.11pm to 9.14pm on Thursday 3 May 2007 without being seen or heard by anyone (not counting Jane Tanner) and without leaving any forensic trace. On another occasion you objected to our leaflet about Goncalo Amaral. On both occasions we took steps to withdraw the material in line with your clients’ requests.
Yours faithfully
Tony Bennett
http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/Carter%20Ruck%207%20June%202011.html
McCann Exposure’s response to Carter Ruck’s letters can be viewed here and here
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Sarcasm And The Class War by Peter Byrne
Hardlinemarxist | 12/09/2011 at 6:25 am | Categories: Media content | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1Ig
Book Review
Jones, Owen: Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, Verso, 2011, eISBN 978-1-84467-804-4, 298 pages.
“Chav-hate is a way of justifying an unequal society.” Page 137.
(Swans – September 12, 2011) Visitors to the United Kingdom over the past decade will have been puzzled by a word never taught them in their English lessons. What on earth was a chav? The thing had to be contemptible since there was a confident consensus against it. No one seemed afraid of it answering back. Always referred to with a self-satisfied sneer and muffled laughter, it was the object of ridicule as well as derision.
Owen Jones knew what chav meant. Then, one evening at a London dinner party, he heard the word once too often. The guests were educated professionals, men and women, ethnically diverse, some gay, all left of center in politics. They would have been surprised and amused to be called snobs or bigots. But they all joined in laughing at a joke about shoppers who bought their Christmas presents at Woolworth’s. They called these people chavs.
This angered Owen Jones though not because he was more radical in politics than the other guests. It was that he had been born and raised where people now thought themselves lucky if they could go on a spending spree in a dime store.
Stockport, a former industrial town in Greater Manchester, had been decimated in the 1980s by the Thatcher government. Like most of the UK that made things, its trade unions had been neutered and its industries closed down. Under the flag of globalization and the free market a way of life had been trashed. The community pride created by a tradition of skilled work in a local mine or factory was no more. Secure and decently paid jobs had gone.
Such areas had slipped into poverty and were completely demoralized. A job now meant being a shop assistant or call center employee. “Flexible arrangements” translated as low pay, no unions, and instant dismissal at an employer’s whim. The arrival of New Labour in 1997 reinforced the new regime.
Owen Jones attended a Stockport school starved of resources and was the only member of his class to reach university. He has no doubt that he made it only because his family was middle class. His mother taught in a college and his father held a reasonable job with the city of Sheffield.
His itinerary hasn’t led Owen Jones to share the mindset encouraged by the governments of Thatcher, Blair, and now Cameron. He doesn’t believe that his impoverished classmates could have followed him by dint of their individual efforts. The old chestnut about willpower and an upward tug on bootstraps rings more hollow than ever in a city where supermarkets have become the central institution. You work in them (often part-time) and then spend what money you have in them (often on booze). Some of your customers, luckier than you, will collect (often temporary) welfare. Owen Jones’s fellow students needed a leg-up from their countrymen and their country. The thrust of his book is to show by a close look at the nation why this is true.
In taking the measure of the fashionable slur chav, Owen Jones unmasks the confidence trick that has hoodwinked the UK for thirty years. Tony Blair echoed it with his “We’re all middle class now.” (Page 139) According to this imposture, there’s only one social class, and so there can be no class conflict. In fact the gleeful badmouthing of the chavs is nothing but a devious attack on the working class, which though morphed and now shy of the ballot box still very much exists. It hasn’t evaporated but become invisible and fragmented.
Owen Jones points out that by a taboo on the word “class” since the 1980s, the white working class was saddled with identity politics. Thereafter the only inequality that could be discussed was racial inequality. The white working class became a sub-group like Jamaicans or Bangladeshis. When successive governments stopped building public housing and began to eliminate welfare, the various groups became competitors. The so-called backlash against immigrants had begun.
The nativist parties promoting racism gained strength and their growth was inevitably greater in areas that had traditionally voted for the Labour Party. Polls show that the majority of the fascist-minded British National Party comes from the poorest categories of society. The white working class, solidarity forgotten, had become just one more mutinous tribe. The caricature was born of “a beer-bellied skin head on a council [public housing] estate, moaning about hordes of immigrants ‘coming in and taking our jobs’.” (Page 223) Those jobs had become rarer, less secure, and worse paid.
A prominent London journalist gave Owen Jones his view of the British working class. One half worked no more and had become a “feral underclass” kept alive by the welfare state. (They are “sick,” as Prime Minister Cameron dubbed the demonstrators who dared to take to the streets in August.) The other half, in a surge of respectability, had gone to university, got professional type jobs, and disappeared into the middle class with a pat on the back and a smile from politicians like Tony Blair. Such is the fantasy that floats like a cloud from the West Atlantic over the United Kingdom. There’s no point in counting the eight million men who still do manual work and who have never been inside a university. Sooner or later they will move upward or to the sub-basement of the social pile.
To these manual workers Owen Jones adds another eight million people in rudimentary clerical jobs and basic service work. If we include health workers and teachers this amounts to well over half of the British work force. Miners, dockers, and steel workers, all now extinct, were once the backbone of the British working class. Now workers, unprotected by strong unions or any unions at all, struggle on their own to maintain their rights.
As Owen Jones sees it, the dirty work of identifying these millions of workers with a “feral underclass” has been taken on with zeal by the media. “The working class majority,” in his words, “has been airbrushed out of existence in favor of the ‘chav’ caricature.” (Page 11) He watches the process at work in two headline-grabbing cases of children who disappeared. Why was the life of one of them considered more valuable than that of the other?
The answer was all too evident. Three-year-old Madeleine McCann was middle class. She had supposedly been plucked in May 2007 from a luxury resort in Portugal’s Algarve district. Her young and handsome parents were well-connected medical practitioners who lived in an up-market suburb of Leicestershire. Within two weeks British journalists had published 1,148 stories on the case.
The photos of the McCanns showed a couple who looked like an adman’s dream of elite consumers. We learned they were churchgoers and other details of their glossy but dignified lifestyle. Empathy for them was so easy it reached groupie proportions. Man and wife embodied the goal that Tony Blair urged everyone to strive for. So what if for the time being we had potbellies and crooked noses? Personal aspiration was the remedy. Bootstraps may be out of fashion, but a lone individual copulating to beat the band with the free market could reach his own gated paradise.
Shannon Matthews, nine, disappeared in February 2008 on her way home alone from a swimming pool. She lived in public housing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire — a place that had never recovered from the dismantling of industry in the 1980s. Shannon’s mother wasn’t photogenic, had given up on cosmetics, and at thirty-two looked like an old woman. She had given birth to seven children by five different men, which British journalists, always fastidious in moral matters, were quick to point out was hardly aspirational. Her present male companion worked at the fish counter of a supermarket. He favored rumpled tracksuits and a baseball cap.
Donors rushed to gather two million and a half pounds sterling as a reward for the return of Madeleine. Corporations and public figures got into the act. Members of parliament at Westminster wore a yellow ribbon in “Maddy’s” honor. The press repeated in sobbing prose that such things as losing a daughter didn’t happen “to people like us.” It wasn’t clear if the country had experienced a collective trauma or merely been swept by hysteria.
Up north in desolate Dewsbury a copycat operation got going. Wasn’t the ex-working class called upon to have aspirations too and turn away from chavvy ways? However, only 50,000 pounds could be raised, fifty times less than “Maddy’s” jackpot. The money came partly from the screaming tabloid The Sun, whose editors regularly invested in anything with lurid possibilities.
In the end, everything worked out well for the middle classes. Not that Madeleine McCann has ever been found. But Shannon Matthews turned up, alive though the worse for wear. Her mother had been in cahoots with her partner’s uncle to fake a kidnapping, rake in some cash and come up in the world. But the United Kingdom’s journalistic confraternity, not rich, not poor but to a man and woman in that aspirational middle that Blair assured them included everybody who mattered, wasn’t happy. Enterprise and individual effort, yes, but the Matthew family had exaggerated. The story that a distraught Kate McCann had accidentally killed her hard-to-manage daughter never got legs in the mainstream press.
The surprising turn of events did not prevent The Sun from getting its money’s worth. The Dewsbury housing estate was “like a nastier Beirut.” Its denizens were described as going into stores dressed in pajamas well into the afternoon. The entire national press got behind the project of denying humanity to Ms. Matthews and making her representative of all Britain’s poor. Here was the feral underclass dripping blood from tooth and claw.
Owen Jones does note a nervous underside to this middle-class triumph. Could Middle England’s assurance that it’s unchallenged merely be whistling in the dark? Does Shelly’s “Ye are many — they are few” still have relevance? Observers of the reaction to the social unrest across the UK of August 2011 will certainly agree with Stephen Pound who is quoted on page 131:
I genuinely think that there are people out there in the middle classes, in the church and the judiciary and politics and the media, who actually fear the idea of this great, gold bling-dripping, lumpenproletariat that might one day kick their front door in and eat their au pair.
Owen Jones has much that’s important to say. The working class still exists, and massively, though altered, despite the attempt to portray it as an antisocial rump on twenty-first century neoliberal society. But Owen Jones repeats himself. His repetitions don’t insert his argument in a rising crescendo. They are simply restatements, often in the same words.
Moreover, one of the strengths of his book can become a weakness. He has spoken to a vast number of people across the UK, from politicians to ordinary folk. He has their remarks on the tip of his tongue, but the way he scatters them in the book often confuses more than it clarifies. His chapters are another problem. Each doesn’t lead to the next and at times they seem to be vying with one another. Their overlapping often amounts to reiteration.
Such reservations, however, in no way alter the fact that Owen Jones is a fresh and necessary voice. His clear tones only rarely turn sardonic. He’s no firebrand but a cautious researcher who refrains from turning the tables and making demons of the middle class (Page 269):
At its heart, the demonization of the working class is the flagrant triumphalism of the rich who, no longer challenged by those below them, instead point and laugh at them. As this Conservative-led government pushes ahead with a program of cuts that makes the working class pay for the crimes of the elite, they have much to laugh at.
Swans Commentary
New post on McCann Exposure: Exposing myth, distortion, corruption and truth
McCanns v Bennett: 153 alleged breaches reduced to 25
by Hardlinemarxist
Word from Tony Bennett, retrieved from The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann (18/02/12), an interesting read I think you will agree A process server arrived this morning with the latest parcel from Carter-Ruck, this time containing another 400-odd pages and setting out the 25 ‘most serious’ alleged breaches of my undertakings (instead of the 153 […]
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Hardlinemarxist | 19/02/2012 at 5:22 am | Categories: Carter Ruck, The Madeleine Foundation | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1Qk
Grenville,
How valid is the latest news that they now believe Maddy may be alive? I keep hearing that on the news but have yet to see any hard evidence.
Bev
Hello Bev
You are right. There is no hard evidence that I am aware of Maddy is alive. To keep up with what is happening regarding Scotland Yard and in Portugal please take a look here. :-
Joana Morais is Portuguese
joana-morais.blogspot.com/Cached – Similar
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5 hours ago – An assortment of news, opinion, translated police reports and investigation process files on the McCann Case.
And here ;-
Little Morsals is English
littlemorsals.blogspot.com/Cached – Similar
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1 day ago – Little Morsals. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know true peace” ~ Jimi Hendrix .
Best Wishes
Grenville
Dear Bev this link will take you and your readers to a four part “Documentary”
http://blip.tv/richplanet/buried-by-mainstream-media-the-true-story-of-madeleine-mccann-part-1-6997432
Fantastic that the owner has given his permission for anyone to copy it, and send it far and wide.
Have a nice day Grenville
Thanks Grenville! I’ll check out.
BIG Development April 2016. and thank you Bev for keeping this thread open. XXX
Image for the news result
Madeleine McCann’s parents ‘seething’ as police chief wins libel appeal against them
Mirror.co.uk – 11 hours ago
Goncalo Amaral has won his appeal against an earlier ruling where he had to pay the …
Portuguese detective WINS his appeal against libel defeat to Madeleine McCann’s parents and will NOT have to pay …
Daily Mail – 16 hours ago
Libel conviction of ex-detective in Madeleine McCann case overturned
The Guardian – 7 hours ago
Grenville,
So good to hear from you! I think of Madeleine so often. Great news to hear Amaral won his case. It’s my pleasure to leave this open. I hope and pray someday there is an answer!
Best regards,
Bev
Published on 19 Feb 2016
Part 3 of 4
Part 1: https://youtu.be/GZV9Ten-HkY
Part 2: https://youtu.be/mFk1l_8lxq4