Madeleine McCann: Suing Amaral, Mark Lawson’s Fact And Fiction, And Bloggers Beware
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE GUARDIAN: “The Panama Mystery - Mr and Mrs Canoe’s case fascinates but can’t match crime fiction’s satisfying motives and denouement”
Mark Lawson does so love a good ending to a work of fiction and fact. A super-fiction. Take care you don’t confuse the two.
In his piece Lawson name checks them all: John and Anne Darwin, Radovan Karadzic, Fred and Rose West, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, Ian Huntley, Harold Shipman and…
As the trial was coming to a close, I was at the Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival, and newspapers were reporting the latest developments in the Madeleine McCann case.
Bingo! Where were you?
One of the reasons for the huge popularity of crime fiction is that the genre explores, in a sanitised environment, the fear and prurient fascination we feel when faced with murders and abductions. Real-life criminality and fiction have become a loop, communicating with each other: several of the books discussed at Harrogate featured missing children; in two years, expect a slew of novels about husbands and wives who mysteriously disappear.
Can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Now read on…
THE SUN: “McCanns to sue cop over book”.
DEVASTATED Kate and Gerry McCann are to launch a legal blitz in Portugal after the publication of a scandalous book about the disappearance of their daughter Maddie.
In The Truth Behind The Lie, ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral details ludicrous allegations about the couple and the pals they dined with when Maddie vanished in Portugal last year.
Who gets sued?
The McCanns plan to take action against Amaral, Portuguese newspapers which reprinted parts of the £10 book and bloggers who discussed it.
Anorak did not discuss the book’s merit. We did not reproduce a single quote from the book. But can bloggers who did be sued effectively? Many are men and women of straw. What can the outcome be? Best for bloggers, perhaps, to avoid the matter? Or get a crack moderation team – like Anorak. But what, then , of freedom of speech?
Says Amaral: “This book is not revenge, it is not persecution. We can discuss the case in court if they want.”
In the context of a libel case, they might well…
DAILY MAIL: “We failed, says Maddie police chief… but he refuses to apologise to her parents”
Says Amaral: “’There will be no apology, I was just doing my job.”
As a writer…?
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Madeleine McCann case: Portuguese police admit failings
The police detective who led the search for Madeleine McCann has admitted that there were some failings in the investigation but refused to accept responsibility for not solving the case…
Several hundred people queued up to collect copies of “Maddie The truth of the Lie” and many congratulated Mr Amaral for his courage to speak out.
BELFAST TELEGRPAH: “McCann case detective’s book to get English translation”
Who will review it if it published in the UK?
THE HERALD: “Sympathy for McCanns must be tempered”
Letters to the editor:
How kind Colette Douglas Home is to Gerry and Kate McCann (Comment, July 22). She uses many column inches pouring scorn on the Portuguese police (perhaps justifiably, I don’t know), showering Gerry and Kate with sympathy (I, too, feel for them), but only makes passing reference to the action that, had it not happened, would have prevented this heartbreaking event from occurring in the first place.
This is clearly their “decision to leave her sleeping while they met friends for dinner”.
- Allistair Matheson, Selkirk.
Colette’s opinion - that Gerry McCann is handsome and Kate McCann beautiful - is irrelevant. The eye of the beholder? Colette states: “And they will always carry the burden of their decision to leave her sleeping while they met friends for dinner.” What kind of parents, in a foreign land, needlessly leave their child, not yet four years old, asleep without a child-minder and out of sound or sight, while they indulge themselves with their friends?
The McCanns deserve all the anguish they brought upon themselves through poor judgment, and not endless public sympathy. Madeleine is the victim. I hope and pray that she is unharmed and is being looked after in loving care, however wrongfully.
- Donald C Irving, Ayr.
And on it goes…
Posted: 25th, July 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (626) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
July 25th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Maria
If most people are disgusted why are you wasting time trying to change our minds?
There’s only about 10 of us.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Karen Says:
” Ferd
Policemen don’t have clients - they have cases.
They work for the state and it’s in the public interest to know what they get up to. ”
Quite so. But there are rules what will be published, and how, and when, and what will be kept confidential for whatever reason. It’s not up to a single former police officer to privately publish details of his work for the public.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Maicen
Completely true. Chavs would have been crucified.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Noseycow Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Just_me
Thanks X
Chenier
You ? Nights? was I close with my Black leather speculation?
——————————
I rarely wear black leather in bed, though, for the right price, sorry, right guy, it could be arranged…
I’ve got to know a fair few nurses over the years, and I know what the nightshifts do to the poor souls.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Maria Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“” Most people are disgusted with it and it says little”"
Please point me to the reliable Poll Organisation where you gleaned this
very important data.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Maria
“Amaral, who was taken off the investigation last October, said last night: “This book is not revenge, it is not persecution. We can discuss the case in court if they want.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk
July 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Noseycow
Cos Amaral is a filthy foreigner and Kate and Gerry are Saints.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Dear lord these McCanns are a sick pair of people.Money money money.They were only cleared for now due to lack of evidence, ( they made sure the scene was a mess ) , and will be back on radar when there is real evidence.The evidence is they deliberately abandoned 3 kids under 4 to go on the piss every night and now blame everyone else, whilst wanting to make millions out of their stuff up.
Go find your “missing ” child and stop hassling about books and tabloids and suing people.
We need an election now to get rid of their mates in Labour…if they were working class yobs instead of bogus yuppies they would have been arrested for neglect the 2nd they arrived back in UK. I am so sick of the bleeding hearts and emotional blackmail on public by them and press at large. The victim here is NOT them ,but their daughter .Have they forgotten, they seem to add her as a PS to long winded BS speeches.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Maria
So why is it wrong for Ameral to profit from it, when the McC’s (who I would argue were responsible for the whole sorry saga in the first place) have made more than a few bob?
July 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Maria
Do you believe in miracles?
July 25th, 2008 at 10:05 am
brandon flours Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Interesting that Dr K asked if the twins could be tested for sedatives given by an intruder, in their system….several months into the Investigaion.
Around the same time that Dr G P was musing, on the car trip video, about them
being sedated by the “phantom”.
Mr Amaral’s comment that he was surprised that she suggested this, as being
a Dr….she would have known that any such intake of sedatives introduced by an
“intruder” would have long ago exited the system, was rather enlightening.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:05 am
69 agw:
My point is exactly that this is most probably NOT a matter of libel, but a matter of professional misconduct.
We might assume for a moment that the facts in the book are overall true. However, a policeman’s job should be to collect the facts, then present them to the prosecutor.
It is up to the prosecutor to decide whether there is a case. Should the prosecutor think he has a case, he should bring charges, and then it’s up to the court to decide about guilt.
If the prosecutor says there is no case, because the police says there is no evidence, then every police officer involved has to accept this.
Amarals book is embarrassing not so much for the Mccanns, but for the Portuguese authorities. Amaral plays judge and jury, exploiting his position as the “former leader of the investigation”. His lunatic approach to consideration of evidence, as displayed in the latest interview, will hardly stay undisputed by the Portuguese police.
Administrator: You totally miss or are blinkered to the point. If the McCann’s sue for libel in this case ..then ALL evidence could be presented to the court. Not provable in a criminal trial evidence, ALL evidence. It remains a highly dangerous route to take. Read Oscar Wilde’s tales of woe. There a trap was laid. Some should be extremely careful where they are treading in this particular case. …and don’t bother to come back and argue with me. I don’t argue…I administrate. -agw.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Just_me
Thanks X
Chenier
You ? Nights? was I close with my Black leather speculation?
July 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Nosey
From the snippets I’ve read, and the reports, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Mcs WERE basically quite happy with Amaral’s book. Most people are disgusted with it and it says little. Or is he really daft enough to risk being sued for libel? And, as you say, it keeps the focus on M. It also keeps the focus on the smear campaign which so many people are heartily sick of. It has merely increased sympathy for the Mcs.
Touching, isn’t it, that bit about dignity being more important than money!! Ah….bless!! I mean, the poor chap waited all of three days after they were cleared before publishing! Wonder when he was allowed to start spending pending publication………?
He’ll have a nice comfortable “retirement” out of it, anyway.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
“The lawyers are looking at pretty much everything.”
I bet they do
No holidays for them this year
http://www.thesun.co.uk
July 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Maria
Its in the files so …. you said wait and see the evidence …. its there !
July 25th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Noseycow Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Chenier Sorry
was a long night, the last of 7 over the last 10 days…
my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
————————-have no fear; I am familiar with the brain-dead nightshift thingy
July 25th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Maria
A study published in the April 25 Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital conducted over a six-week period in spring 1999 found that potential adverse drug events (defined as medication errors with the potential to harm a patient) occurred in the inpatient pediatric academic medical setting at three times the rate as in adult academic medical settings,
http://www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom/Site1339/mainpageS1339P1sublevel16.html
Doesn’t matter how highly trained you are - drugs and children are a dangerous mix.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Maria
Well, it’s a start, I suppose.
****
Spot on Maria!! and a rather big one as it is!
Correct as well …… lets get REAL - gosh I am agreeing with you today -
July 25th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Nosey - I have mailed you x
July 25th, 2008 at 9:58 am
chenier
That reminds me of a girl I went to school with, we were due our school reunion and she worried that no one would remember her and think she had got fat.
I encouraged her to go to it, saying she’ll be fine, we walked into the reception room and the first girl called her a different name and the next girl asked her when the baby was due!
I was speechless!!!! She was mortified !
July 25th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Chenier Sorry
was a long night, the last of 7 over the last 10 days…
my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:54 am
From Daily Mail
Mr Amaral, 48, told a press conference in Portugal he sympathised with their pain and admitted there had been failings in the 14-month search for the girl, who vanished from her parents’ rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3 last year.
—————————–
Well, it’s a start, I suppose.
BF
Madeleine’s grandfather once said that she might occasionally have given them Calpol. I read that somewhere, or saw it on TV. Can’t remember exactly but someone else might have the link? He was dismissing the unfounded the suggestion, smear, in fact, that they drugged their children. Remember the suggestion that they’d overdosed her????!!!!! You know….Kate being a fully-qualified anaesthetist?!
I think we need to get real here!
July 25th, 2008 at 9:54 am
chenier Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 9:52 am
“”"Nosy confused me with melanie.”"”
Well, what did you expect…having such similiar names.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Nosy confused me with melanie.
tsk, tsk…
July 25th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Brandon
Yes..I have a file over this but I am not sure I can post it + I cant give a link
The granpa was saying they “probably did it”(the sedation)
Sad gits
July 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am
wheres melanie have i gone blind ?
July 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Brandon
Get her an OJ from me.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am
‘During July and one of Gerry’s visits to England, a British Police officer visited him at home. In the fridge there was a piece of paper with some of Madeleine’s problems written on it. Madeleine apparently had problems sleeping and used to get up at night quite often. It is mentioned that Madeleine’s grandfather admitted that the children were given something to help them sleep. Mr Amaral says this can explain why the twins did not wake up and that it also may have been the basis of Madeleine’s tragic faith.’
Allegedly by my interpretation of the book.
So it was true too !
July 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Noseycow…
The Rookie cop was seconded to Portugal to help in the Investigation.
He turned up wearing a green and yellow wristband.
Continued wearing it for a few days.
Then after becoming more familiar with the Investigation and reports etc,
he removed the wristband and never wore one again.