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

Video Part 1 of 2 should be uploaded to Youtube in about 15 mins

Invinoveritas wrote:jd, I hope the link works, start at about 107 minutes in and you'll get the picture:

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearing/2011-11-23pm/

thanks Invinoveritas. My jaw dropped when gerry said he believed in freedom of speech & opinions and theories....need some time to recover myself from this

jd,

just having a good laugh about jatyk2 and their translations:

Gerry said in the survey, news circulated that "sinister" about their involvement in the abduction of her daughter, who quickly became "highly speculative". His wife, Kate, explained that he became depressed when the news began to Madeleine as dead and that his words have never had great weight against the power of the media.

Also asked about a newspaper has reported that the couple sold Madeleine to be without money, responded that this news was "nothing less than shameful."

no doubt bb1 will now post me on their wall of shame

Part 1 - Rest to follow shortly.

jd wrote:

Invinoveritas wrote:jd, I hope the link works, start at about 107 minutes in and you'll get the picture:

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearing/2011-11-23pm/

thanks Invinoveritas. My jaw dropped when gerry said he believed in freedom of speech & opinions and theories....need some time to recover myself from this

Thank you Invinoveritas

Particularly interesting as I said before the body language when they chat about the diary. Starts at 73.15 in video in above link where the questioner asks that about who copied the diary and gave it to the papers. Then at 75.24 Leveson saying we need to unpick where this story came from and a line of enquiry. Interesting. Watch the reaction of GM.

Full transcript of the McCann evidence to the inquiry here..........

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-23-November-20111.txt

This thread is getting quite long now, is it possible that any videos and transcripts are duplicated on a separate thread please for easy access?

23 November 2011 Last updated at 18:47

Leveson Inquiry: McCanns left 'distraught' by press



The parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann have told a judge-led inquiry into UK media practices they were left distraught by press suggestions they were responsible for Madeleine's death.

Gerry McCann told the Leveson Inquiry many of the stories were untruthful, sinister or, he believed, made up.

His wife, Kate, said seeing her private diary published in the News of the World made her feel "totally violated".

Earlier lawyer Mark Lewis said phone hacking was not restricted to the NoW.

Madeleine went missing aged three on holiday in Portugal in May 2007.

In the first stage of his inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson is hearing from alleged victims of media intrusion at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Asked why he and his wife had agreed to give evidence, Mr McCann said there was "one simple reason".

"We feel that a system has to be put in place to protect ordinary people from the damage that the media can cause by behaviour which falls far below what I would call acceptable."

Mr McCann said the couple had got the impression there was a "genuine want to help attitude from journalists" shortly after their daughter's disappearance and "a huge amount of empathy".

He also acknowledged that the media had been helpful on occasions, particularly when launching appeals - and thanked people who had come forward as a result of them.

But Mrs McCann said she felt the relentless coverage was "stopping their chances" of finding Madeleine.

"She was on the front page every day for a period.... When a story is so negative, it's not helpful," she said.

Mr McCann said the couple also quickly realised there was a "tremendous amount of speculation" and he believed "elements" of the police inquiry were being leaked to the Portuguese press, which was running stories based on "snippets of information".

These were picked up by the British press, which could not tell if these stories were true or not, he said.

"They didn't know the source, they didn't know whether it was accurate, it was exaggerated and often downright untruthful and often, I believe, on occasions, made up," he said.

Mr McCann said a Daily Mirror headline, which read "She's dead", was "one of the most distressing headlines that was presented as factual and it was just taken from a supposition".

He went on to say "more sinister elements" then started to creep in, the first of which was a Portuguese article which suggested a cover-up, "some sort of sinister agreement between us and our friends".

'Terrifying'

The inquiry also heard a flavour of the articles which led the couple to successfully pursue a libel action, including a Daily Star headline which read: "Maddy 'sold' by hard-up McCanns", which Mr McCann said "was nothing short of disgusting".

Mrs McCann said the same paper accused the family of storing her body in a freezer.

Mr McCann also described how on one occasion the News of the World's editor Colin Myler called them, "irate", because they had done an unpaid interview with Hello! magazine to promote a campaign for an alert system for missing children and "berated" them for not doing a NoW interview.

"He beat us into submission verbally and we agreed to do an interview the day after," Mr McCann said.

Kate McCann also told the inquiry that finding out her private diary - which the couple believe was taken for a time by the Portuguese police - had been published in the NoW in 2008 had made her feel "totally violated" and she wanted to "climb into a hole and not coming out".

"I'd written these words at the most difficult time of my life.... It was my only way of communicating with Madeleine," she said.


Kate McCann said she "felt totally violated" when the News of the World published entries from her diary
Mr McCann also talked about being constantly pursued by photographers and of the journalists camped outside their house in Rothley, Mrs McCann said: "Often they would spring out from a hedge so they could get a startled look so they could attach 'frail' or 'fragile'."

Mr McCann said he felt the couple "speak with experience about how powerful the media is and how much damage they can do", adding that he believed journalists that broke rules should "lose their privilege of practising".

Earlier on Wednesday, hacking victims' lawyer Mr Lewis, who represents the family of murdered Milly Dowler, said preserving the media's current system of self-regulation was "the preservation of no regulation at all".

He said the NoW had been the focus of the phone-hacking row because private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had written things down, but that evidence from his clients inferred other news organisations also illegally accessed phones.

Voicemail interception had been easy to do and that journalists would use it to "pry on things", he said.

"I don't think they necessarily thought of it as any worse - certainly at the beginning - than driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone."

Sheryl Gascoigne - former wife of ex-footballer Paul - and journalist Tom Rowland also gave evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday.

Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry is looking at the "culture, practices and ethics of the media" and whether the self-regulation of the press works.

A second phase of the inquiry will commence after the conclusion of a police investigation into NoW phone hacking and any resultant prosecutions. It will examine the extent of unlawful conduct by the press and look at the police's initial hacking investigation.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15860071



Analysis

Peter Hunt

BBC News


The McCanns' evidence was a searing indictment of the way the media can operate when in full flight.

The couple have suffered in many ways. Their daughter is still missing and in the process of trying to find her they have been damaged by the way their search has been reported. "It's your voice against the powerful media", was how Kate McCann put it.

A new low, after months and months of lows, came when Kate McCann's once private diary was published by the News of the World. The tabloid may have folded, but its publisher isn't off the hook. Lord Justice Leveson wants to know how the paper got hold of words a mother wrote at the "most desperate time" of her life.

The McCanns' motive for giving evidence was a simple one. They don't want others to experience what they experienced after Madeleine disappeared.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15860071

"There was absolutely no respect shown for me as a grieving mother or a human being." surely a much more appropriate phrase to use if you were sure your daughter had died, rather than just gone missing?

Why Kate and Gerry McCann are no longer afraid of the British press



What kind of people would accuse them of 'selling' a daughter? Esther Addley hears the couple's shaming testimony


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/23/leveson-inquiry-kate-gerry-mccann?CMP=twt_fd

Why Kate and Gerry McCann are no longer afraid of the British press

What kind of people would accuse them of 'selling' a daughter? Esther Addley hears the couple's shaming testimony



• Esther Addley
•guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 November 2011 19.49 GMT


Kate and Gerry McCann appear before the Leveson inquiry. Photograph: Pool/Reuters


Some people are frightened of the British media. Sheryl Gascoigne, a woman who 15 years ago contracted a brief marriage to Britain's best-loved footballer until she tired of his drunken beatings and left him, confessed to the Leveson inquiry on Wednesday that she was "scared of the repercussions" even of appearing before it, and of the fury she might call down on her children by giving evidence about crawling on the carpet of her living room to avoid being photographed through the curtains.

Kate and Gerry McCann, on the other hand, do not appear to be afraid of the press. What, after all, is it going to do to them? Accuse them of killing their three-year-old daughter Madeleine and transporting her corpse in their hire car? They've done that already, many times over. Report that they were undergoing IVF to get a "new" child to "replace" Madeleine? Done that too.

Suggest they were taking part in orgies and swingers' parties? That they had kept Madeleine's body in their freezer after murdering her? That they had sold their daughter into slavery to pay off family debts? They've seen it all before. Each one of those allegations appeared in a British newspaper in the months after this ordinary couple from rural Leicestershire became the victims of the most terrible crime any parent can imagine, the kidnap of their child.

Among the sorry litany of grievances outlined by the McCanns on Wednesday was a complaint about the way images of them, often obtained by photographers leaping out to startle them, had been "distorted" to fit a desired description of them as "frail" or "fragile".

And so I won't describe them as fragile, though both spoke in low voices and Mrs McCann, in particular, appeared bruised by the experience. It seems inappropriate in any case, since having survived that kind of onslaught they are evidently made of formidable stuff – or perhaps they have simply found no alternative than to doggedly continue.

But after four and a half years of hunting, at times almost alone, for a lost little girl, taking savage blows to their reputations along the way, they seemed pale and pained, badly beaten up. After a verbatim transcript of Kate McCann's personal diary was reproduced in the News of the World in September 2008, she felt, she said, "like climbing into a hole and not coming out, because I just felt so worthless that we would be treated like that". (The paper's news editor, incidentally, had told the McCanns' representative earlier in the week that it would be publishing a "supportive" piece that weekend.)

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of the McCanns' testimony, in which they relived what has a good claim to be the British media's most ignoble and shaming episode of recent times, is that little of this is new. Millions read the articles in question; plenty, too (though considerably fewer) will have seen grovelling apologies by some of the papers that published them, admitting that there was and remains absolutely no evidence that the child's disappearance was anything other than a terrible crime, the kidnap by a stranger.

And yet, for all that was familiar, the McCanns have not given evidence to a court or inquiry before, so some of the details they had to share of their backroom dealings with the media were new, and as edifying as you might expect. This was the first occasion, for example, on which they have told how an "irate" Colin Myler, then editor of the News of the World, personally telephoned them to "berate" them for granting an interview to Hello! to publicise a child safety campaign. They found themselves apologising to Myler, and, "beaten into submission", agreeing to an interview with his paper.

Nor was it widely known that when the couple finally decided to sue the publishers of the Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star, their behind-the-scenes efforts to avoid legal action having been met with such headlines as "Maddy 'sold' by hard-up McCanns", they were told by the group's lawyers that it would not apologise, but if they liked it would grant them an interview with OK! magazine. Express Newspapers eventually paid £550,000 to the Find Madeleine fund and published apologies. "They were on the front page," said Mr McCann. "We insisted."

The couple sat closely, shooting glances at each other from time to time. The sleeve of Mrs McCann's cardigan was rolled up, her husband's cuff pulled back as he frequently raised a glass of water to his mouth. Both were wearing on their right wrists the green and yellow cuffs they have sported since their daughter's disappearance, reflecting the colours used in Portugal and Britain to commemorate the missing. Remember Madeleine.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/23/leveson-inquiry-kate-gerry-mccann?newsfeed=true

the Guardian used to be a decent paper.

The coverage of the Mccann appearance today is like a black joke,

The coverage of the Mccann appearance today is like a black joke.
OOOPS cant say things like that no more in the uk pauline.

They think they're invincible. GM's smugness and arrogance must be life-long traits that he can't control. He's a very bad actor, they both are. Although I don't believe Kate's suffering is an act, she looks like a tormented woman to me. There's no denying how rapidly she's aged in the last four years.

Todays events have just confirmed to me how powerful (& far reaching) the 'PR' team is behind the McCann's. Then again, they've recieved this level of protection right from the beginning, why should today have been any different?

I'm still recovering form gerrys freedom of speech statement...that is some gaul. Its going to take time to recover from this one. Maybe he should be proving this to the ones that are being sued and threatened with losing their lifelong homes and pensions, imprisonment, for having 'their opinion'! Practice what you preach mccann

As for the diaries...wasn't it gerry who had an online diary/blog for everyone to see and keep up to date with their thoughts and feelings? Wasn't it kate who released the book to the world with all her thoughts/feelings (with hardly anything on Maddie in it)? isn't this 'book' already being publicised for paperback release in the UK next April 26th 2012?

To the 'Maddie is dead' headline....didn't gerry say himself on his online diary/blog long before the press made the headline and I quote "I hope Maddie isn't buried here'!!!!!!

Isn't their 'story' officially logged in the UK Foreign Office as a 'missing persons' case and NOT an abduction as there is no evidence of an abduction?

Wasn't it the PJ who made them the suspects based on the evidence or lack of evidence that they hold? It was't the press who decided to make them suspects

Press intrusion...who made the call to Sky news and Daily Telegraph before the police even got there on May 3rd 2007? If they didn't want press intrusion why make the calls, especially at a time when you didn;t know what happened to Maddie, she may have just wandered off and be found...they wanted the press intrusion alright

Why were posters already printed out and being handed on photographic quality paper within 2 hours of Maddie disappearing? and on paper unavailable to purchase in PDL. Where did they get this paper between 10pm and midnight as they discovered in their panic Maddie had gone?mmmmmmmmm...and why an old photo of Maddie

Why did they and all their Tapas friends phone everyone in sight pushing the point the shutters had been jemmied (and immediately putting down the Portuguese police) yet when proven it was a lie, all totally retract from this and admit they hadn't been and it was the patio door that was unlocked? yet 4 years later and having admitted the shutters were not jemmied, they are still going on TV interviews to this day to unsuspecting foreign countries telling their public the jemmied shutter lie with kates reconstruction, knowing full well they have admitted this is not true?

Why do their twins look so much younger in May 2007 than they did in April 2007? Why do Maddies cousins look incredibly younger in 2008 than they did in April 2007?

Why do they release pictures of their daughter with fully professional makeup sucking ice creams and laying in seductive poses? where are the pictures from the holiday? there are none of mother and daughter, friends, twins and daughter...none

This is from the top of my head.....I could go on and on

If you ever wanted proof that the UK is riddled with corruption controlled by ones with money...then look no further than the mccanns scam and the ones protecting them

This freak show this afternoon I think had 3 purposes. To get the public sympathy and back on side in believing their scam story. To put down at every opportunity the Portuguese and especially their press as they know next february they will be reporting truths from the forthcoming Amaral case, sowing the seeds now in the British heads how bad and biased the Portuguese are. Their continuing praise of clarence mitchell was suspect and a worry he may spill a few beans, so keep him on side with the lavishing praises of how wonderful he was

Oh and Smethurst....You are not forgotten either

jd, 24 Nov, 12.34 a.m.

That is a very strong message you have just posted. I wish I had your insight into all of what has been going on for the past 4 years and your articulate use of words. You and some of the other posters on this forum leave me in awe of the amazing work you have done into the creche records, deleted mobile phone numbers etc.

I truly wish that your message and others that have been posted on this board could be brought to the general publics' attention as to what has really been going on with the McCanns and to wake the idiots up such as some breakfast TV celebs, millionaire backers, and others.

Hopefully, one day, come February, they may see the light and to be shown up for the blinkered morons they all are.

I didn't get a chance to enjoy watching the Kate & Gerry show yesterday and was on twitter last night but I have just skimmed only 2 pages of their testimony and come up with 2 blatent lies.

1. Page 8

Sherbourne "Can I just ask you, though, have you ever had to give evidence before?"
Gerry McCann "No"

Gerry so WHAT is this then?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmcumeds/362/9031007.htm

2. Page 12

Sherbourne" You tell us in your witness statement that a photograph was made immediately available, provided to the broadcast media and to the press, and was, as it were displayed everywhere. Is that correct?

Gerry McCann "There's two elements to that. The first element was what we were doing on the night and obviously we had digital cameras and we were trying to get photographs printed of Madeleine from the holiday"

If that is true Madeleine aged quite a lot during 7 days Gerry!

candyfloss wrote:[youtube][/youtube]

Candyfloss you are fantastic.

He said Mad'line, then corrected himself very quickly closing his eyes knowing exactly what he just did !!!

candyfloss wrote:[youtube][/youtube]

Candyfloss can I ask one more favour please? Can you put this clip also on the Creche Enquiry thread

I'm still recovering from Gerry's freedom of speech statement...that is some gall. Its going to take time to recover from this one. Maybe he should be proving this to the ones that are being sued and threatened with losing their lifelong homes and pensions, imprisonment, for having 'their opinion'! Practice what you preach McCann

I feel sure that several people have made a careful note of the wording of that statement, and are ready to quote it at any future hearings !

Just browsing GM's statement, (reference on another thread.)

Para 100 " For example in July of this year the Daily Mail reported that Madeleine had been sighted in India. They did so without contacting Kate or me or any of the number of people searching for Madeleine..."

But Mitchell told the world that they had been contacted and had seen the photographs.
One or other is lying.
LYING.
Come on Carter-Ruck.
One or other is LYING. Is it your client, under oath at the enquiry, or His Oiliness, Clarence Mitchell ?

(Here follows a completely gratuitous reference to Tony Bennett, so that Carter-Ruck will find this post !)

PeterMac wrote:Just browsing GM's statement, (reference on another thread.)

Para 100 " For example in July of this year the Daily Mail reported that Madeleine had been sighted in India. They did so without contacting Kate or me or any of the number of people searching for Madeleine..."

But Mitchell told the world that they had been contacted and had seen the photographs.
One or other is lying.
LYING.
Come on Carter-Ruck.
One or other is LYING. Is it your client, under oath at the enquiry, or His Oiliness, Clarence Mitchell ?

(Here follows a completely gratuitous reference to Tony Bennett, so that Carter-Ruck will find this post !)

CM even said that they were dealing with the sighting info isnt it?

PeterMac wrote:

I'm still recovering from Gerry's freedom of speech statement...that is some gall. Its going to take time to recover from this one. Maybe he should be proving this to the ones that are being sued and threatened with losing their lifelong homes and pensions, imprisonment, for having 'their opinion'! Practice what you preach McCann

I feel sure that several people have made a careful note of the wording of that statement, and are ready to quote it at any future hearings !

Well, gerry's freedom of speech belief is restricted to people not saying that Mad'line is dead and they were involved.

The Press' freedom of speech came at high price when they'd to fork out to 'mccanns' fighting fund' - that's gerry's freedom of speech statement for you!

And the irony - they believe in freedom of speech so much that they hired anti-freedom of speech lawyers to represent them.

Why didnt LI ask him : what about your hire of CR? Has that anything to do with your freedom of speech statement?

Taken from Candyfloss's clip above.

“One(scratching behind left ear) of the articles that springs to mind actually, (moving all objects now in front of him) was a piece in a Portuguese news paper, where somebody talking to the Prosecutor and was asking what he thought had happened and erh, there was a quote(Kate now looks up at Gerry) saying they didn’t know whether (eyebrows raised) if Madeleine was alive or dead and erh, I think (closes eyes) the phone line was probably dead and that translated into the front page of the Daily Mirror (Kate quickly grabs glass of water) with a photograph of Mad’line,(frowns) Madeleine with a headline she’s dead,(looks to Kate, Kate puts glass down loudly) which we saw at 11.00 O’clock at night, (Kate nervously looks up and down towards the same person) we’re trying to go to bed and obviously (frowns) that was one of the most distressing headlines that is presented(raises shoulders once) as if it’s factual and it was just taken from that supposition,(Kate scratching right shoulder and looks towards Gerry) I don’t know probability, it was incredible.”

If anyone is any good at locating old front page headlines, can we try to find the one on the front of the Mirror that Gerry is claiming said "she's dead" please.