Leveson Enquiry 23/11/11 - McCanns to give evidence

On second thought I feel it better to post up the opened link, except the image cant be copied over.
Suggest people click on the link to view for themselves image captured of kate and gerry - worth it, to be taken in context with Blacksmith's article.

The Blacksmith Bureau

SUNDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2011

Appearances can be deceptive, Part Two



It’s a family affair
And so to the Leveson inquiry, which the McCanns, not having been hacked, have invited themselves into. It is primarily a show business affair and one’s main impression is that, with the exception of the Dowlers and their like, and leaving the McCanns aside for the moment, both sides are equally repulsive and deserve each other. Both are locked into a continuing private game: once the inquiry is finished, perhaps even before the comical denunciations are complete, the symbiotic relationships will resume, for showbiz can’t exist without cheap media to promote it, and the more down-market the celebrity the more down- market the promotional means required.

Perhaps another paper may close, some hackers will go to jail and the dredge end of the market will see abuses tightened up regarding the Dowlers and their like. But the real action in the media crisis involves transparency between media groups and governments, the so-called “back door or front door at number 10?” question, and its resolution will involve serious negotiations between serious players—not the question of the “persecution” by the paparazzi of paunchy showbiz figures stumbling out of nightclubs at four in the morning, with coke still sticking to their nostrils.

What a gallery, what a procession of dreadful, gungy celebrities have been parading before the lawyers and the “lay assessors” alongside: Big breasts, big hair, big claims, big ego—and that was just Steve Coogan.

Most of the celebs, of course, can bring down their righteous fury on the media knowing that it won’t really damage established relationships, or more importantly incomes, in the slightest, for all of them, Hugh Grant included, have agents and it’s the agents who will be picking up the phone...Hi, how are you?...I know, I know, these things get said...these are sensitive people, face it, and some of your guys ...what?...of course! Anyway Sol, life goes one...yeah, it’s out next week...am I offering you an interview? I certainly am...sure, sure...and photo ops...of course he wants it, he’s said his piece but he knows the score, I said to him what do you want, retirement? A desert island? No! he wants a living ,man, like we all do. So he’ll do the interview, don’t worry. How’s Claudine?

It’s good to talk

But now Kate and Gerry McCann, who appear to have wandered in from a different plot, are behind the microphone. Four and a half years and family genes have transformed Kate McCann from the svelte figure overcoming her grief to pose wistfully for the paparazzi on the Praia da Luz rocks, into a dead ringer for an ageing waitress in a Liverpool chippie, waiting to go out and snatch a fag. Some of this is irrevocable, some, knowing the McCanns, may be down to Kate, devoid of make-up, wanting to create the appropriate ruined image for the occasion. Whatever, she doesn’t have to try very hard. A quietly bizarre note is struck by her left hand which vanishes beneath the desk, presumably hanging on to one of Gerry’s fleshly body parts, a curious, gauche, lapse into immodesty not usually seen in formal daytime company.

Both of them have shocking complexions, greyish pink, more reminiscent of over-worked night-shift immigrants than provincial doctors. Gerry McCann’s eyes flicker continuously from side to side as he speaks; below them are two chestnut shaped lumps, one moment hardly noticeable, next, as his cheeks tighten, appearing to swell visibly with tension or suppressed fury. She sits, drooping, at his side while he does the talking, telling the assembly the now familiar story of the nightmare they have endured at the hands of the media, chiefly the press, and, less familiarly, what he wants done about it.

The voice itself is quiet and largely reasonable but as the subject turns to retribution his face speaks more loudly than words: this is something more than his nose-in-the-air chippiness: the more you watch his features as he develops his theme, the more stretched they become until, at times, the skin at the bottom of his chin is actually tugged upwards towards his bitterly narrow mouth. Extraordinarily, the man goes through virtually the whole of the session like that, absolutely consumed by anger and resentment, and the intensity of the body language produces a stir of perceptible, perhaps surprised, concern in the room. At times Leveson, not a notably gentle person, looks almost uneasy on their behalf.

Counsel takes Gerry through the multiple examples of wild and untruthful tabloid story lines. What, like “the shutters had been jemmied and the door was hanging off”? No, no, no. Ah, you mean, “Portuguese police try to frame tot’s parents?” No, they don’t include that one either: most of them, in fact, are the excremental output of the Desmond factory once his staff had grown sure that the supposed forensic evidence would send the McCanns down and leave them unable to sue.

As Gerry’s calls for retribution for this stuff, however politely expressed, continue undiminished, one is reminded, with a start, that the bent figure beside him was responsible for the analogous scream of anger which echoes through the pages of Madeleine: the craving for vengeance on Amaral and others who have wronged her is now on full view in her husband: asked why he is present, he offers no nonsense about being there for Mudelin’. He wants, he says, action, processes put in place to protect “ordinary people”. Against what, exactly? Why, activity which would fall well below the “standards that I would deem acceptable”.

Such as descending on his apartment to discover that his clothes and car have been seized by the police, as described on page 205 of Madeleine? Sorry, that’s us asking, not the inquiry. But Gerry, never strong on either magnanimity or legal details, certainly wishes that the inquiry’s powers stretched over the Portuguese border, for he urges that its resources should be used to track down the Portuguese person who might have leaked his wife’s misbegotten diary, so they can face proceedings for “contempt of court”.

A late episode in his testimony took us straight into Alice in Wonderland and the Red Queen, whose solutions always involved executions all round. Gerry’s calls for condign punishment for “repeat offenders”—journalists guilty of repeated inaccuracies— led to the intervention of the judge himself on behalf of the media! In response to Dr McCann’s mad demand that such repeat offenders should be banned from working at all, Leveson stirred in his seat and tried to bring him back to reality.

“I understand exactly why you're saying that,” said Leveson soothingly, “but just let me share with you the difficulty, that what journalists do is exercise the right of free speech...”

“Sure,” was the Red King’s brisk answer and then he was off again, the chestnut lumps above his cheeks standing forth once more, dealing with his beloved subject of appropriate punishment for his enemies.

“Yes,” said the judge as the end of this peroration, adding, “I wasn’t criticising you at all.”

What’s the score?

So much for the passions. How did he score on the truth index? Any improvement? The essence of Gerry McCanns’ account of their Portuguese experiences followed closely the story first outlined in his Edinburgh Festival interviews and then developed to the Commons select committee.

The media had “descended”, arrived out of the blue, confronting him on his return from Portimao police headquarters.
They were supportive and accurate at first. Then, as news died down and the parents decided to withdraw from their media campaign on behalf of their daughter, the media had to invent stories to satisfy the insatiable demands of their employers.
Most of the inventions were wild and offensive accusations that the parents were guilty of involvement in the death of their child, or even, for example, had “sold her”, much of the stuff being taken from the Portuguese media. These continued until they returned to the UK.
Because of the draconian Portuguese judicial secrecy rules they were unable to counter these monstrous fantasies.
None of this is true.

Media arrival

As all of us outside parliament and inquiry hearings know the media were contacted on a very wide scale during the night of May 3/4 by people working on their behalf and with their consent. With judicial secrecy plus the explicit instruction from the PJ “no media” in place it could not have been the Portuguese who alerted the media, let alone turned an “incident”, potentially liable to be resolved by daybreak like other missing children events, into a huge United Kingdom story. It was only possible for the media to have descended in their hundreds if they had been deliberately alerted en masse by agents of the parents.

For Gerry McCann, though, everything begins not with the group alerting the media, contrary to police instructions, during the night of May 3, but with the sudden appearance of the media crowd on the afternoon of May 4. As he told the commons committee:

“The first impressions really started on day one when we came back to Praia da Luz having spent the day in Portimao at the police station. Clearly, there was a huge media presence there already.”

But perhaps Dr McCann has been reading the demolition of this claim in the Blacksmith Bureau, along with the other websites which he tells the inquiry—chestnuts swelling?—he will deal with “going forward”. For he has altered his position just a little, even though, of course, he can’t contradict his previous claims. Now he has added in his written evidence to the inquiry:

”Jon Corner, a good friend and godparent to the twins used his media experience to release a number of pictures of Madeleine to the whole of the UK media in the early hours of the 4 May 2007 to publicise her image.”

So, a tiny change. Yes, but leaving aside all the other emails and phone calls made during the night of May 3, was Jon Corner doing this at the parents’ request?

No. McCann adds in his verbal evidence:

“... a very good friend of ours [Corner]who we spoke to in the early hours of 4 May took it upon himself [our italics] to issue photographs of Madeleine to all the major media outlets in the UK.”

Took it upon himself. That’s clear for the future then.

The change in media reporting

Websites such as the computer generated EMM news tracker listing Madeleine McCann stories certainly show a slackening of new information in July. But there is no correlation with the claims by the pair that they wished to take a lower profile: interviews with the couple in the media are shown not only to have continued unabated but to have increased in length and intensity as they began to defend themselves, rather than concentrating on “the search for Maddie”. The argument that there was a vacuum due to their attempted withdrawal which required filling by invented stories is clearly false.

The new stories

The new stories dating from July were not inventions of the media. Indeed an argument can be made—remember Oldfield crying on May 10—that for the very first time the media were reporting truthfully on the affair: that almost from the beginning, and certainly since May 10 the “search for Madeleine”, stripped of Team McCann/ Alex Woolfall inspired camouflage, consisted of investigation into the Tapas 9’s claims. That was the story but the early reporting, so much approved of, and inspired by the McCanns, never reflected the reality of what was actually going on.

Both in the House of Commons and in the Leveson inquiry the McCanns have distorted history by deliberately conflating the mad and disgusting inventions of the Express and other gutter papers reaching into September, with the truthful reports starting in July that they were the subject of police investigation themselves, reports which the parents did everything they could to deny or suppress, as Madeleine and Part One of this piece describes.

All along, again exemplified by Gerry McCann’s interviews in Scotland during the Edinburgh Festival, questions about why rumours of their possible involvement were appearing in both the Portuguese and UK media were met with the repeated response from the pair that it was a “mystery” why the stuff was being printed. But it wasn’t a mystery at all: the McCanns knew perfectly well why. And none of that had anything to do with the later mad and vicious nonsense about selling Madeleine and the rest.

That, from early July onwards, the police were deliberately leaking to the Portuguese press while overrating the strength of their evidence is irrelevant to the issue of why the UK were printing stuff suggesting that they were potential suspects: rightly or wrongly they were potential suspects, the media knew it and the parents knew it but chose to deny it.

Hostages to judicial secrecy

Finally, the parents maintained to the inquiry, as before, that they were constrained from answering their critics by the threat of two years imprisonment under the judicial secrecy rules, a quite extraordinary fib in the light of Kate McCann’s revelations in her book of how the pair had time and again successfully evaded the rules using family friends and allied journalists. This is one example of how the parents ignored that law any time it suited them in the war for support of the UK public, something that might be crucial for them in the long run:

Lori Campbell In Praia Da Luz, Sunday Mirror, 12 August: “There is also further "concrete evidence" that Madeleine was still ALIVE when she left the holiday apartment. Her kidnapper had a window of just five minutes to strike - from when dad Gerry last checked on the children until family friend Jane Tanner saw a man carrying away a child she is sure was Madeleine wrapped in a blanket...The new revelations rubbish reports in Portuguese newspapers this week that she was murdered or died in an accident inside the villa. And they come as local police Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa ruled Gerry and Kate out of the inquiry - and admitted for the first time Madeleine could be dead. Now, the Sunday Mirror can give a true picture of what happened when Kate found her daughter missing.”

The information was provided to Lori Campbell by Kate McCann. For a further strong example see the very important “Beyond the Smears” in the Times. The journalist in that story has admitted in writing that he was fed confidential information that had never appeared elsewhere by Gerry McCann. There are many other examples.

And we have:

Madeleine Page 246, September 7: “For a good couple of hours we were on the phone calling family and friends to make them aware of the situation and to give them the green light [our italics] to voice their outrage and despair [to the media] if they wanted to.”

Madeleine Page 246, September 7: “[Justine] was ringing selected newspaper editors in the UK. We knew only too well how we would be portrayed in Portugal that morning and Justine wanted to give the British media a broad outline of what was really going on...”

Gerry McCann answers questions under oath!…

As you can see, the evidence offered by this group of witnesses under the rules of the inquiry is being accepted without close examination for veracity, a procedure which rather suits Kate and Gerry McCann. Nevertheless there was one incident which gives us a very faint hint of how the McCanns might perform under real cross examination, rather than the easy ride provided both here and in the sycophantic commons committee hearings. In his written statement for the Leveson inquiry Gerry McCann wrote:

“When I gave evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in 2009 a number of questions were [sic] raised as to the presence or otherwise of the PCC during this period and their willingness to get involved. Whilst we understand that the PCC have said they tried to contact us through the British Embassy in Portugal in May 2007 the first we were aware of it was when the PCC gave evidence to the Committee in 2009....however when it came to the reporting of articles both defamatory and otherwise the PCC did nothing that we are aware of. The PCC did nothing proactive before our libel complaint. We did approach the PCC about these articles but the then chairman, Sir Christopher Meyer, explicitly told us that it would be better if we were to seek redress through the courts. I found it amazing that the press regulator could do nothing to regulate the press.”

Now just about every word in this paragraph was a serious misrepresentation of the facts, only this time they didn’t get away with it. It almost certainly came about because, in preparing his written statement for Leveson, McCann had copied out his original stuff for the Commons committee, completely forgetting that he was copying one of his own, er, mistakes. And the Commons committee had checked it out against another witness, Sir Christopher himself, and found it wanting, as one of their reports demonstrated.

The point was that, leaving aside the claim that the PCC had never contacted them, Gerry McCann was saying that Sir Christopher, on behalf of the PCC, was telling him that they didn’t want to know about the false stories and told him to sue instead. Sir Christopher’s version was very different. Which was true?

It appears that Sir Christopher, who clearly has his own views on the truthfulness or otherwise of Gerry McCann, wasn’t willing to leave to chance which version would be accepted by the inquiry. Did he approach Leveson legal staff? Someone, certainly, had drawn to inquiry’s attention to the facts as described in the commons committee report before the McCanns appeared.

…and gets stuffed

Counsel for the Leveson inquiry: There's a whole section [of the report of the commons committee] that goes to that [the PCC] issue. The position I think is—I'm back in your statement, paragraph 101— the PCC's position is that at an early stage they put a message out that they were ready, willing and able to assist you. This was in May 2007. Do you follow me?

McCann: Yes.

Counsel: I think your evidence is, well, you never got that message. Was that right?

McCann: [waffling] If I did, it was lost in the time when we were obviously dealing with lots of things, and I would say probably similar to Mrs Gascoigne who gave evidence earlier this morning, that I was only vaguely aware of the PCC at that time....[continues to waffle]

But counsel took him not just through that rather dodgy answer but to the other issue: who had told the truth about the PCC’s attitude, he or Sir Christopher Meyer?

Counsel: The general thrust of what you were told by Sir Christopher Meyer during the course of an informal conversation...is that if you wanted to deal with the issue of libel, well, then the route was legal recourse, legal action. But if you wanted to deal with it in some other way, then the PCC might be able to help?

McCann: Yes.

That, of course, was Sir Christopher’s version, not his. Counsel for the inquiry wanted to be quite clear for the record.

Counsel: Does that capture the sense of that meeting?

But McCann wouldn’t say yes or no. Instead he launched into a ludicrously long piece of damage limitation and flannel. Bored readers can ignore it but it gives a flavour of how Dr McCann is likely to deal with issues of the truth in future judicial settings, whether involving libel or other matters. Forget the flannel and remember the simple question: will he now confirm that it was Sir Christopher’s version that is correct, not his own?

McCann: It's probably fair to put in there that I had a number of conversations with Sir Christopher, primarily because we became friendly with his wife, Lady Catherine, through her work with PACT, so on that first occasion I met Sir Christopher and he broadly asked, "How are the media treating you?" and we were very open and at that point we said, "Considering the interest, not too bad”, and we didn't really have too much in the way of specific complaints. I did have further informal conversations and they also dealt with correspondence from Kingsley Napley over the period, but the gist of the conversations, and most of my dialogue with him, informal rather than written, was that we agreed with our legal advice and we took the best legal advice we could get, that the way to stop this was to take legal action and not to go to the PCC and I think Sir Christopher agreed with that.

If you search underneath that garbage you will detect the answer, “yes”: it is Sir Christopher’s answer that is correct. He had never told McCann to sue rather than dealing with matters through the PCC; Gerry McCann, on the contrary, had told him, that that was what he was going to do.

Tedious, we know, but just for once we have seen Gerry McCann’s veracity being tested in a legal tribunal concerned with facts, rather than in staged interviews with puppy-like interviewers, from which he can withdraw, or stalk out of the studio, at any time. For some of us the result is exactly what we would expect.

As for the rest there was a predictable conflict between the McCanns’ initial and written assertions of being innocent victims of the media, like Mrs Gascoigne perhaps, and the weighty evidence that the two sides were, and remain, as thick as thieves, negotiating, arguing, shouting, dealing, suing and settling right up into 2011, just like the cheap celebs and their agents. Not quite Mr and Mrs Dowler, somehow. But we knew that anyway, didn’t we?

So, the mixture as many times before. After four and a half years they continue to serve up evidence of why we can’t believe what they say. And each time the evidence grows a little stronger. Meanwhile the evidence for abduction…

Posted by john blacksmith at 15:10
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Oh, forgot to mention, I especially like the part where the Counsel confronts gerry about his untruthful written statement re PCC, Sir Christopher Meyer.
I hadnt realised he's had several convo with Meyer. So his lies that first he was not aware of PCC's offer of help, subsequently changed to - if he was aware must have got lost - to conceding he hadn't been truthful is quite amazing. He must have quickly realised by then the Counsel was in possession of Sir Christopher Meyer's written statement.

His written statements to LI, and Kate's bewk are ammunition for people they sued.

aiyoyo

Thank you for posting the latest from Blacksmith. One question - how come no picture - are we not allowed?

Both parts of Blacksmiths posts are here............

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t3916-appearances-can-be-deceptive-part-one-updated-with-part-two

Kate irritated was in the documentary by Amaral that the McCanns don't want you to see, and in the PJ files. The quote from the book that has been quoted here, is just a reactive statement to this. I would believe Amaral over the Mccanns, and learning kates irritation was at a time when I believed the mccanns, so this took me by shock and I always remember this

And if parents rather go on holiday to Spain than to Belgium to see a credible sighting....do you really need to understand any more about them?

Angelique wrote:aiyoyo

Thank you for posting the latest from Blacksmith. One question - how come no picture - are we not allowed?

HI
Not sure why you cant see it. I can but I am outside of UK.

I tried copying it here for you but cant attach it here.

If you still cant access and wish to view it (worth viewing imo in context to the article) pm me your email addy (only if you want) and I can send it to you.
Since I can copy and paste the image as a doc. pretty sure I can attach it onto email.

jd wrote:Kate irritated was in the documentary by Amaral that the McCanns don't want you to see, and in the PJ files. The quote from the book that has been quoted here, is just a reactive statement to this. I would believe Amaral over the Mccanns, and learning kates irritation was at a time when I believed the mccanns, so this took me by shock and I always remember this

And if parents rather go on holiday to Spain than to Belgium to see a credible sighting....do you really need to understand any more about them?

I don't think that the trip to Huelva was claimed to be a holiday - perish the thought that the McCanns put themselves before Madeleine! There's a very interesting topic - https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t3326-trip-to-huelva?highlight=HUELVA - which suggests that they weren't there, at least not when they said they were.

Posted by aiyoyo -

"Oh dearie me, these dictators even control their neighbours' free speech! Christ on a bike!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It wouldn't surprise me if all of the neighbours and people in the local area - shopkeepers etc - received a letter from Carter Muck, oops - I mean Ruck - advising them not to speak about the McCanns otherwise they may have a liable claim served on them.

I've only once seen a derogatory message about the McCanns on one of the more upmarket newspaper comment pages about someone who personally knew the McCanns and the children, it only lasted about 2 days then was "wooshed" into oblivion.

Newintown wrote:Posted by aiyoyo -

"Oh dearie me, these dictators even control their neighbours' free speech! Christ on a bike!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It wouldn't surprise me if all of the neighbours and people in the local area - shopkeepers etc - received a letter from Carter Muck, oops - I mean Ruck - advising them not to speak about the McCanns otherwise they may have a liable claim served on them.

I've only once seen a derogatory message about the McCanns on one of the more upmarket newspaper comment pages about someone who personally knew the McCanns and the children, it only lasted about 2 days then was "wooshed" into oblivion.

And this is supposed to be behavior of innocents (who have too many fears)!

Wonderful stuff - as usual I read it as slowly as I could, all the better to digest every word - poetry in motion!

Digressing slightly, I wonder if there are a load of p'eed of hacks out there dying for the floodgates to open? I am still aghast that Richard Desmond took all this lying down.

Cristobell wrote:Wonderful stuff - as usual I read it as slowly as I could, all the better to digest every word - poetry in motion!

Digressing slightly, I wonder if there are a load of p'eed of hacks out there dying for the floodgates to open? I am still aghast that Richard Desmond took all this lying down.

Maybe the collective might of CM and CR was too much for Richard Desmond. He chose the better of the two devils.
Had they stuck with process reports coming out of Portugal they might be able to argue their way out in court, but such headlines like Maddie was sold by hard up mccanns is quite difficult to justify as they've the avenue to verify that before printing.

Generally when plaintiff accepts payouts and apology they consider the matter put to bed, but not the mccans.
Gerry gatecrashed LI just to rehash the same old and baying for blood when he calls for punitive punishment for journalists.
He isn't satisfied until journalists he's after are punished or jailed. Such is his level of hatred for the press personnel. I wonder what x-notw executives feel now knowing that the mccanns made use of them then complained about them at LI.

If they were still in function I wonder would the mccanns have done that?

aiyoyo wrote:

Cristobell wrote:Wonderful stuff - as usual I read it as slowly as I could, all the better to digest every word - poetry in motion!

Digressing slightly, I wonder if there are a load of p'eed of hacks out there dying for the floodgates to open? I am still aghast that Richard Desmond took all this lying down.

Maybe the collective might of CM and CR was too much for Richard Desmond. He chose the better of the two devils.
Had they stuck with process reports coming out of Portugal they might be able to argue their way out in court, but such headlines like Maddie was sold by hard up mccanns is quite difficult to justify as they've the avenue to verify that before printing.

Generally when plaintiff accepts payouts and apology they consider the matter put to bed, but not the mccans.
Gerry gatecrashed LI just to rehash the same old and baying for blood when he calls for punitive punishment for journalists.
He isn't satisfied until journalists he's after are punished or jailed. Such is his level of hatred for the press personnel. I wonder what x-notw executives feel now knowing that the mccanns made use of them then complained about them at LI.

If they were still in function I wonder would the mccanns have done that?

I am wondering if he has gone into meltdown tbh, giving evidence at the LI was such a bizarre thing to do. I think they are playing a huge gamble here, and I can half see why. Their support has dwindled to a handfull of obessive loons, who have probably worn their fingers down to stubs through pressing the 'like' button on fb. Gerry believes he has the power to take things back to those heady, glory, days when he was planning an annual 'Maddy Day' with stars like Elton John and David Beckham. Alas it can only end in tears.

Apologies for digressing. The mccanns are not the most endearing couple to appear regularly on our televisions and they are really struggling now to rustle up a headline. Giving evidence at the LI will not win them any favours in the media world. Editors, journalists etc, too hold grudges and are probably the worst demographic in the land to have as enemies.

As always with this pair, I am wondering what their motives are?

aiyoyo wrote:[quote="rainbow ]Whether or not the Leveson enquiry do anything with what has been admitted, and I think we're all pretty much agreed they won't, ........

Effectively gerry is asking the Hack Inquest to gag the press from freedom to photo people at random and gag them from reporting on stories unless they got people written permission/sanction. That is not going to happen in a million year! One rule applies to all. It cant be one rule for gerry and kate and another for others. Although it may seem that way now going by the manner the lying pair use public fund to pay advisers and lawyers to control what comes out of the media.

Despite gerry incessant moaning, Leveson only asked for the leak diary to be investigated further. I take it they are not going to do anything about gerry's demand to gag the press because that's a tall order that will involve change in the years old constitution. A gag in that radical fashion hampers the press from its fundamental function and purpose and I cant see how Leveson is going to table that..


[/quote]

I did not interpret this evidence in quite the same way as yourself aiyo. I wondered if gerry was looking for some kind of back door payment (always about the money) - ie. you can use my image but pay me.

.Is this the one you are talking about ?

PeterMac wrote:.Is this the one you are talking about ?

Geez how did you mange to paste this image here? I have been trying to do that for Angelique who couldn't open the link. Anyhow good you've managed that.

BTW is that photo taken from the press? I know Blacksmith used is for his article.

They do look dreadful like walking dead.

Cristobell wrote:

aiyoyo wrote:[quote="rainbow ]Whether or not the Leveson enquiry do anything with what has been admitted, and I think we're all pretty much agreed they won't, ........

Effectively gerry is asking the Hack Inquest to gag the press from freedom to photo people at random and gag them from reporting on stories unless they got people written permission/sanction. That is not going to happen in a million year! One rule applies to all. It cant be one rule for gerry and kate and another for others. Although it may seem that way now going by the manner the lying pair use public fund to pay advisers and lawyers to control what comes out of the media.

Despite gerry incessant moaning, Leveson only asked for the leak diary to be investigated further. I take it they are not going to do anything about gerry's demand to gag the press because that's a tall order that will involve change in the years old constitution. A gag in that radical fashion hampers the press from its fundamental function and purpose and I cant see how Leveson is going to table that..

Yes, I see that gerry wants the press gagged aiyoyo, which of course will not happen (we hope), but I think with gerry it is always about the marketing. Perhaps he comes from a long line of barrow boys......... and would never miss the opportunity to earn a pound note.



He wants to gag the press for sure, but he also wants to control the it. I think he quite likes the idea of staying high in the public profile, but he wants his image polished and perfected by whatever means, like his heroes Blair and Cameron. This 'very private' couple cannot give up the limelight - they are hooked, addicted. I do not even think it is about the Fund anymore - there is no way they can recoup in donations and holiday tat, what they are paying out in legal fees - even the bestselling bewk will not be enough.

Pretty damning evidence from Charlotte Church at the Leveson Inquiry.

Charlotte Church waived $150,000 to sing at Rupert Murdoch's wedding 'in exchange for good publicity'

• 
  Singer and mother wanted money but management urged her to accept the 'favour'
  

Charlotte Church gave up a £100,000
fee for singing at Rupert Murdoch's wedding in return for favourable
coverage in the media mogul's newspapers, she said today.

The
singer - dubbed 'Voice of an Angel' - told the Leveson Inquiry she was
asked to sing at Mr Murdoch's wedding to Wendi Deng in 1999.

In
a statement, she said she was offered a fee of £100,000, but was told
if she waived it she 'would be looked upon favourably by Mr Murdoch's
papers'.




Testimony: Charlotte Church today described how she was hounded by the Press throughout her teenage years


The inquiry heard News International
denied the offer was made but Ms Church today said: 'I remember being
told that Rupert Murdoch had asked me to sing at his wedding to Wendi
Deng and it would take place on his yacht in New York.

'I
remember being told that the offer of money or the offer of the favour,
in order to basically get good press, to be looked upon favourably.

And I also remember being 13 and thinking, "Why on earth would anybody take a favour over £100,000?"'

She
said she and her mother were both quite 'resolute' about accepting the
money, but were urged by her management and figures from the record
company into taking the option of the favour from a 'powerful man' like
Mr Murdoch.

The inquiry
heard it was later claimed her performance was organised as a surprise
for Mr Murdoch, but Ms Church said she understood the request to be
specifically from him.




Deal: The singer waived a £100,000 fee in exchange for good publicity from Rupert Murdoch's newspapers


In her witness statement, she said
that accepting the waiver 'failed', adding: 'In fact Mr Murdoch's
newspapers have since been some of the worst offenders, so much that I
have sometimes felt that there has actually been a deliberate agenda.

'While newspapers such as Mr Murdoch's have not helped my career, they certainly damaged it.



Rupert Murdoch, with Wendi Deng on their wedding
day, reportedly offered Miss Church good coverage in his papers if she
gave up a £100,000 charge to sing at the reception


'I do of course accept television and
radio have been very significant contributors to my success. I have
little complaint at the contact of those media organisations or the
people they employ.'

Ms Church described a 'shadow network' of staff at hotels, restaurants and airlines who tip off journalists about her movements.

She
said intrusion by photographers had a 'massive impact' on her and her
family and had 'infiltrated' her everyday life, including when she takes
her young children to the nursery.

The singer told the inquiry: 'I haven't been on a holiday since I was 16 where I haven't been found and photographed.

'Much
of that I believe was bought information. If I haven't been followed to
the airport I can't really see how else it could come about.'
Explaining why she wanted to give evidence to the inquiry, Church described the media attention she received from the age of 12.

'I wanted to show through my experiences how I think it is imperative that children are protected,' she said.

'Also
after becoming a mother myself of two young children, I really want to
be able to protect my children in the future as much as possible. Their
privacy is their right.'
Ms Church said she was 'totally appalled' by a clock on The Sun's website counting down to her 16th birthday.


Witness: Ms Church leaving the inquiry with her legal team this afternoon

She said the clock was an 'innuendo' highlighting the fact she was reaching the age of sexual consent.

She
also told the hearing that The Sun published a story about her being
pregnant for the first time before she had even told her family.
Responding to Church's suggestion that
The Sun's story about her pregnancy derived from phone hacking, a
spokeswoman for the paper's publishers News International said: 'We are
not aware of any evidence to support this claim.'
'It was very hard and has had a
psychological effect on me. It feels like they put you through this
psychological grind and test your strength.'



The singer said she did a number of
paid interviews with Hello! and OK! magazines but stressed that the
money she received went to charity.


Describing her reasons for signing an
exclusive deal for a magazine article when her first baby was born, she
said she wanted to 'take away the value' of paparazzi pictures.

'My
decision was based upon the fact that photographs of my children would
have been taken anyway, with or without my consent, and this was the
lesser of two evils,' she told the inquiry.
Ms Church spoke of the embarrassment over stories sold by two of her previous boyfriends.

She
also told the inquiry about a story on a holiday she went on with a
group of girlfriends for her 18th birthday in June 2004, titled 'Vice of
an Angel', saying much of it was exaggerated or fabricated.

'It
was nowhere near that interesting or debauched,' she said. 'We were
just a couple of 18-year-old girls on our first girls' holiday.'

She
said one of the most damaging stories came after an interview she gave
to the Sunday Times, in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York,
when she was 15.


She claimed she had suggested it was
'demeaning' that firefighters had been asked to present showbiz awards,
but that had been turned into criticism by her of the firefighters'
celebrity status.

'I
felt at the time that the interview was going really well, he was asking
me really intelligent questions. I was used to being asked what my
favourite colour was still and how did my teenage friends deal with my
fame and things like that,' she said.

'When I eventually saw the piece I was just totally shell-shocked.'

Summing up, she said: 'A lot of this happened when I was a minor and while I was very young.

'It
was very hard and has had a psychological effect on me. It feels like
they put you through this psychological grind and test your strength.'

Ms Church said the main reason she had appeared before the inquiry was because of her children.

'If for any reason I am in the public eye by the time they are grown up, I really hope they won't be subject like I was.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067225/Charlotte-Church-tells-Leveson-Inquiry-waived-100-000-sing-Rupert-Murdoch-wedding.html#ixzz1f27HKdV4

Interesting readers comment from above article. (I presume they're referring to the McCann's?)

"How come we are allowed to comment on this at
the Leveson enquiry but not about people who have PR advisers, media
spokesmen and do half million quid book deals with the same organisation
they are bleating about?" 28/11/2011 18:47
Click to rate Rating 31

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067225/Charlotte-Church-tells-Leveson-Inquiry-waived-100-000-sing-Rupert-Murdoch-wedding.html#ixzz1f28uLqSZ

Charlotte Church waived $150,000 to sing at Rupert Murdoch's wedding 'in exchange for good publicity'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Flamin' heck, I've heard it all now. Talk about getting in bed with the devil.

Unbelievable!

aiyoyo wrote:

PeterMac wrote:.Is this the one you are talking about ?

Geez how did you mange to paste this image here? I have been trying to do that for Angelique who couldn't open the link. Anyhow good you've managed that.

BTW is that photo taken from the press? I know Blacksmith used is for his article.

They do look dreadful like walking dead.

Aiyoyo and Petermac

Many thanks both - I think it was because I was using iPad - it's hopeless - have now been able to read article and see said picture - agree this was not one of their best days image-wise.

I think they do still enjoy appearing at these official venues especially if they can gleen some of the limelight. But seriously they do it to promote themselves because they can. They are untouchable because of their backers, who will always support them - there is no other option for them - it's in the Rules.

I think Gerry loves the fact that "he can" it goes with his persona - the fact that he wants to gag everyone and vet all articles and images of them feeds his psyche.

His way or no way!

My way or the highway is it?
Well the highway is full of discerning people while gerry's isolated way is just full of ghosts.
He will keep hearing voices in his ear which propels him to go to battle with people on the highway.

He wont rest until those voices go away... will he ever have moments of inner peace again even if the media goes into oblivion?

Just seen this article link on twitter, a mistake or??? .............................




On my first foreign assignment as a reporter a few years back, I was sent to Portugal to cover the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. By the time I turned up in Praia da Luz, the only story in town was "Is Robert Murat guilty?". The friend of the McCann's had received the same treatment as Mr Jefferies. A Daily Mail double-page spread set the agenda: "Oddball of the Algarve". The story is still online, with a picture caption reading: "Suspect or scapegoat? Robert Murat claims he will not live unless Madeleine's true abductor is captured – is it all a pretence?" Well, is it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/amol-rajan-a-return-to-honest-reporting-is-overdue-6269385.html

candyfloss wrote:Just seen this article link on twitter, a mistake or??? .............................




On my first foreign assignment as a reporter a few years back, I was sent to Portugal to cover the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. By the time I turned up in Praia da Luz, the only story in town was "Is Robert Murat guilty?". The friend of the McCann's had received the same treatment as Mr Jefferies. A Daily Mail double-page spread set the agenda: "Oddball of the Algarve". The story is still online, with a picture caption reading: "Suspect or scapegoat? Robert Murat claims he will not live unless Madeleine's true abductor is captured – is it all a pretence?" Well, is it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/amol-rajan-a-return-to-honest-reporting-is-overdue-6269385.html

I believe mccanns know murat.
But as to whether murat helped them be it knowingly or used unknowingly I cant decide one way or another.

What is odd is he didnt sue the 2 Tapas who framed him, despite being to hell and his name dragged through mud.

candyfloss wrote:Just seen this article link on twitter, a mistake or??? .............................




On my first foreign assignment as a reporter a few years back, I was sent to Portugal to cover the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. By the time I turned up in Praia da Luz, the only story in town was "Is Robert Murat guilty?". The friend of the McCann's had received the same treatment as Mr Jefferies. A Daily Mail double-page spread set the agenda: "Oddball of the Algarve". The story is still online, with a picture caption reading: "Suspect or scapegoat? Robert Murat claims he will not live unless Madeleine's true abductor is captured – is it all a pretence?" Well, is it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/amol-rajan-a-return-to-honest-reporting-is-overdue-6269385.html

[youtube][/youtube]

Certainly an interesting choice of words to say that Robert Murat was a friend of the McCanns. Didn't they accuse him of being "a spotter for a gang of paedophiles" or something like that and he apparently didn't have a problem with it.

A weird reaction from Gerry to the simple question asked in the above clip but I guess that's par for the course with the McCanns.