Feeding frenzy or rabidity?
Gotta love the rag mags.

Bit like viewing an accident from a 1/4 of a mile away up the motorway

as for Hewlett- lets resurrect Jack the Nipper Ripper? as well..it’s gonna be a long summer..or the media could actually start to indulge in some serious and honest investigative journalism for a change…

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/New_view_from_Tappas_bar.jpg

Distraction.

@

I dunno, Blackbob, this is the first time since Murat that someone outside the family/friends has been named as “of interest” - for much of the time we’ve been served up with nameless and shadowy individuals such as Bundleman, Cooperman, Pimpleman etc who let’s face it could’ve been anybody.
My intincts tell me this is leading somewhere.

However, I have to agree with Clive that to give false evidence that would land someone with a long jail sentence would be even worse.

NOT that the Mcs have done any such thing, of course. Nor do I believe for one moment that they would. I remember GM answering a journalist pretty sharply just after Murat had been made arguido. The journalist asked him what he thought about it. GM answered that NOBODY should be seen as guilty until convicted in a court of law and he hoped everybody would remember that. And this was right at the beginning when he must have been hoping that something positive would come up. He still gave Murat, totally correctly, the presumption of innocence. I have no reason whatsoever to think the Mcs would falsify evidence in a court in order either to protect OR to convict someone else. Amaral has just been found guilty of doing the former.

Please don’t think I excuse perjury, EVER, for whatever reason. Just agreeing with Clive that there is a scale. Stealing a child is worse than stealing a car, for example.

Out with friends soon. Have a nice day/evening!

Moderator - Glitch in system

That is exactly why the U.S.has the Miranda Act - to protect suspects from police brutality and lies which took place way too often until the Supreme Court ruled NO MORE. It still takes place, when they think they can get away with it, and there are policemen sitting in jail for their brutality against suspects and their ‘buddies’ were sitting right in there with them for covering up and lying for them.

Here is a link to a horrible case that took place in NY years ago of police brutality and lies to cover it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/nyregion/04schwarz.html?_r=1

(More and more over here with cameras in our cell phones the public are filming police in public beating up suspects stopped and TV news showing the police brutality for all to see.)

To me there is nothing more putrid smelling than any cop who thinks they are above the law.

And, as I’ve always said, it’s all only opinion, and any opinion can be wrong. I keep a more open mind than you might think. I am only expressing a view based on what I see and read. Fascinating case, though.

Amaral will have to show that he still genuinely believes the Mcs are guilty of a crime/crimes despite the fact that the lengthy Portuguese investigation found otherwise. He will also have to provide some justification for making those beliefs public in the way he is doing, again, despite the official police findings. I don’t know Portuguese law. He may be able to do this. It depends exactly what he has to prove. But, if there’s no evidence for abduction, there certainly isn’t any for Madeleine’s body having been stuffed in the wardrobe…

As for being in a hole… if you claim abduction and there is no evidence, you thank Heaven and keep quiet once you’ve been cleared of any crime, and keep a low profile, I’d have thought! Not that I’ve ever been in such a situation!

Cheryl
I’ve seen the programme. Impressive.

Clive
The investigators had access to the files without agreeing to any terms at all, except with the Mcs. The McCanns have HAD the files for months. Totally free access. For obvious professional reasons, to protect their reputations, the investigators will have insisted on these terms. And the Mcs were perfectly happy, no doubt, because I assume they know that no such evidence will be found. Do you think they are totally mad? They would not risk being found guilty of anything now……not when they’ve been cleared for so long and nobody terribly significant was bothering them any more. Even Amaral would probably have gone away eventually, with his fat wad of cash, conviction or no conviction, but I can understand their wanting to put an end to it, for the twins’ sake. Should think they themselves are long past caring what anybody says about them.

Moderator - Amaral’s colleagues have been cleared of beating up Senhora Cipriano

It has been made quite plain, for those who don’t read, that Hewlett is just one of many leads these Detectives are following up on. Leads that were either not closely followed up on or just put away in the files to gather dust. These two men are doing a yoeman’s job that should have been done from the very beginning!

It could be just a coincidence Hewlett lived not far away from the Resort; it could be just a coincidence he went to that place several times, by his own admission; it could be just a coincidence he talked about the case a lot, if one wants to put total credence in what people who knew him say - what we do we have? THREE coincidences - one you can overlook one coincidence, you can overlook two but THREE? I’d say overlooking three coincidences is stretching it, time to at least talk to that depraved man, if for no other reason than to rule him out, which is one of the reasons the Detectives want to talk to him.

That paying of their mortgage with the Funds was brought out early on and I thought settled.

Interesting, this is all about finding Maddie and leads are now being followed up on, why are people insisting on drudging up old bad press on the parents at a time like this? Many are still obsessed with making sure the parents stay crucified with ugly insinuations and not letting go of the past. You ‘wannabe sleuths’ had your chance for 2 years and did a laughable job in failure. Let the true experts do their job and just maybe this case will come to a close

BTW, what “hole” were they in?

Nobody has ever charged them with anything. The Portuguese official investigation effectively cleared them of any suspicion. It’s true that Amaral is accusing them but so what? (a) He’s just been convicted of perjury so is anyone likely to believe him? (b) They’re suing him and it does SEEM impossible for them to lose. See Stig’s posts on this!

So…..what hole?!

OK. But covering up what, exactly? They have NEVER denied leaving the children. They never, for example, concocted a story to hide the fact that they had done the same thing every evening.

They even added, which they had absolutely no need to do, that Madeleine had asked them if they had heard her and Sean crying the previous night. Since this could only show them in an even worse light, it would appear that their only reason for saying it was, presumably, to alert the police to the possibility of someone having been hanging around then, in case any witnesses came forward to say they’d seen anything the previous night.

Where’s the cover-up?

And what they are doing now only draws further attention to the “neglect”.

If there was a fatal accident to Madeleine and they covered THAT up and hid her body in the wardrobe or on the beach (Amaral’s two suggestions) for later disposal from their car hired a month later (Amaral again), then that WOULD be a crime, although you may not call it “heinous”?? It would also involve HUGE wasting of police time AND obtaining money fraudulently. Two further crimes. They have not, of course, been charged with any crime at all.

You are right that they used a tiny amount of the Fund (relatively) to pay two mortgage installments when they were still in Portugal. I always thought it wrong, though not illegal. It’s none of my business, but they should, in my personal view, have got an overdraft for this, or family members should have helped them. After all, a consultant cardiologist is hardly going to be short of cash, for ordinary expenses! It was reported at the time that they had used up their savings staying on for so long in Portugal. From the legal point of view, they could have used the Fund for ALL their living/accommodation expenses while in Portugal, because staying there constituted helping the police etc. and, as such, was part of the search for Madeleine. BUT they didn’t do this. They used their own money until it ran out and then, wrongly, in my view, paid two mortgage installments from the Fund.

(This is all according to media reports, but then, so is the original “fact” that they paid two installments out of the Fund. Who knows bar the auditors?)

If it’s true, I wonder if they ever paid it back?