Madeleine McCann: Amaral ‘Fala Com McCanns’ And Ten More Years
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann: Ten more years, gawping at Kate McCann, Amaral the panto baddie (boo- hiss – f*** off) and libel…
FIRST the good news for the voracious media in the never-ending story of Our Maddie, as the Daily Star says:
MCCANN FIGHT MAY RAGE ON FOR 10 YEARS
After ten more years of Our Maddie, the Star will have to return to Katie Price updates. But ten years is not too shabby. If the Daily Express can do it with Princess Diana for a decade, the Star’s sister paper can darn well do it for Our Maddie. It’s the least it can do.
Former detective Goncalo Amaral has vowed to take the fight to get his controversial book published to the European Court of Human Rights if he loses his current case.
But legal experts say that process could take a decade. Mr Amaral’s book claims Madeleine died in her family’s holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
That the Amaral who told the McCanns to go fuck off? Only Martin Brunt tells us:
I’m beginning to think the former detective in the Madeleine McCann case has a point when he complains about the British media attacking him.
My Beeb colleague accused him of saying “F*** the McCanns” in an alleged off-guard moment when we all followed him out of court the other day.
What he actually said was “Fala com McCanns” which means “Ask the McCanns”.
So, aside from Amaral possibly hiring libel lawyer, what can we expect for the next 10 years? Well, there’s always Kate McCann to gawp at:
Irish Independent: “No pain compares to loss of our Maddy, says emotional Kate”
Speaking as she arrived at Lisbon’s main civil court, Mrs McCann acknowledged that this week had taken its toll. “If I’m honest, our daughter has been taken and nothing is ever going to be as bad as that,” she said. “It’s still been difficult, it’s been emotive, because I know what is in the case files, I know what the conclusions are. “So it’s difficult to hear something that’s incorrect and inaccurate. At the bottom of all this is a little girl. It’s important that we don’t forget that.”
Problem is that as yet no-one can prove what is and what is not correct. There is one fact: an innocent child is missing. Still, here’s another headline about Kate McCann, in the Mirror:
Kate McCann breaks silence over Madeleine court ordeal
Yesterday Kate said: “Hearing it has not been easy but this action will benefit Madeleine, which is our aim. It’s been positive because it’s shown again there is no evidence that Madeleine came to any harm or that we are involved.”
Indeed, there is not. But it is a sign of how little progress has been made in the search for the missing child that Mrs McCann should feel a need to restate her innocence.
And get this bit of filler from Anna Nicholas:
“Terrible, isn’t it?” I muttered in Spanish, fumbling for my euros. She nodded. “Absolutely. How could they leave their children all alone?” In some confusion I explained that I was referring to the latest headline about the role of the Portuguese police in the whole investigation. She wasn’t interested because rather like a needle stuck in the groove of an old vinyl, she was simply incapable of moving on from the moment in the story when Kate and Gerry McCann left their children unattended in a holiday apartment.
The McCanns might win in Portugal. They might lose. But if they win, what will they win? Money? The Press Gazette delivers:
Lawyers for a PR woman who sued The People have claimed more than 15 times her libel damages in costs. PR strategist for the Find Madeleine Fund Justine McGuinness, operating on a no-win, no-fee Conditional Fee Agreement, sued The People over a story which appeared in October 2007, and settled with the statement in open court on October claiming £5,000 in damages. It has now emerged that her lawyers LLP have presented Mirror Group Newspapers with a costs bill of £78,000.
The costs have been ramped under controversial no win, no fee rules in libel cases which allow claimant lawyers to charge up to a 100 per cent success fee to compensate them for the risk of failure…
But while we look for Our Maddie – chiefly by reading the papers, watching the telly – the monotony of no news is interrupted by libel cases and courtroom chatter. And there could be more to come. Sky News announces:
McCanns To Claim Ex-Cop ‘Broke Secrecy Laws’
Madeleine McCann’s parents are to lodge a complaint with Portuguese police claiming that former detective Goncalo Amaral broke his country’s strict judicial secrecy laws.
They will not let it lie:
Gerry and Kate McCann’s lawyer says they will formally accuse him of passing on information about the police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance before the case was closed – a criminal offence in Portugal.
He should have got a PR:
Isabel Duarte, the couple’s Portuguese lawyer, says Mr Amaral broke the law by sending a draft of his book to his publishers several months before the judicial secrecy period in the case was lifted in July 2008.
She said: “It seems that Goncalo Amaral passed information in the case files before the secrecy was lifted.”
Such are the facts.
A child is missing. There are no suspects. The parents are innocent.
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Posted: 15th, January 2010 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
