*NEW!* Judge Tugendhat will hear McCanns' CONTEMPT application 10.30am Wednesday 8 February

sharonl wrote:

The McCanns were represented by Jacob Dean (barrister), Adam Tudor, Isabel Hudson and two assistants.

After re-reading Tony's release, it dawns on me just how many heavy-duty legal eagles represented the mccanns against lone TB, supported by a strong-hold of 8 laymen. It just goes to show one side has unlimited money, while the other side has priceless friends.
The evil vs the good can't be more black and white than that.

I strongly believe the legal team of five comes with an expensive tag. I don't believe they work pro-bono, not on something like that anyway without publicity for CR. At most, Isabel Hudson's works may be thrown in pro-bono as she was (and is) the one tasked to monitor this forum. If she's charged hourly that could bankrupt the mccanns considering the countless hours she spent here. I would imagine her spying work here tallies with mccanns' statement that CR do a vast amount of work for them, quietly behind the scenes, mostly without charge.
However, I cant imagine a top Barrister and a senior partner of CR would work for no monetary returns for a pair of otherwise non-entities if not for missing Madeleine.

Isabel Hudson, and the two assistants might have been thrown in without extra charge to the mccanns for good measures in case CR couldn't cope with the notes taking especially considering there were 153 (vexatious) allegations mccanns wanted handled.

• To close our website, whose domain name was: www.madeleinefoundation.org‘

It's a shame they compelled MF to be closed. Personally, I feel TB should contest that.
So long as articles they considered to be libelous were removed, why should they stop TB running a website?
It's a blanket infringement on TB's right to freedom of expression which is not correct.
After all the hard work of TB and other people that went into that site, and it has quite a readership, why shouldn't it remain, in a democratic nation where free speech is a guaranteed liberty.

This was resolved as follows. The Judge invited Jacob Dean [the McCanns’ barrister] to take a 5-minute adjournment to consider whether he wished to reduce his 153 alleged breaches to, say, ‘the 10 most serious breaches’. He said that if the McCanns could prove those breaches, it was unnecessary to prove the other 143. After 15 minutes, the McCanns’ legal team came back into Court and said that they would submit a new application based on ‘around 25’ of the most serious breaches. The trial will then be confined effectively to an examination of just those 25 alleged breaches. The Judge gave them until 4pm on Friday 17 February to serve this new application on me. He also suggested to Mr Dean that Carter-Ruck needed to be much more precise than they had been about the words I used that were said to be in breach of the undertaking and which term of any undertaking they were alleged to breach.

Well, well, if they have to put in a new application listing only 25 breaches, I cant help wondering if the alleged breach of the sale of 60-reason leaflet would be included this time round because it would involve implicating their bait they used to entrap TB. If they rescind that, maybe it's valid reason enough for TB to cite their litigation intention was vexatious.

I had applied for an Order that one of the McCanns make a Witness Statement to (a) state what evidence there is that Madeleine McCann was abducted and (b) to state what evidence there was, as claimed in Isabel Hudson’s Affidavit, that any of my actions had, as the McCanns claimed, ‘harmed the search for Madeleine’. These applications were refused.
The Judge said that it was for the Claimants to give whatever evidence they felt was necessary to support their application to commit me to prison and that if I felt there was insufficient evidence that an abduction had occurred I would have the right to make submissions about this in my closing speech at the trial.

It's good to see the Judge is open-minded about that.


UNQUOTE TONY

Willo wrote:A good first day at the crease. Well done TB.

Just a thought though


Maybe by reducing the amount of breaches was the only way to keep Mike Gunnil out of the dock and at the same time make it look like they are doing TB a favour? Denying access to Mike Gunnill straight off would have been too obvious. So approve him, then hand back a get out clause.

Stella wrote:I agree T4two. All they needed to send to court yeasterday was a Barrister, without the entourage. Even a high profile murder trial does not have that level of people in attendance. Talk about overkill.

I have a feeling that as the Judge asked for only 10 of the most serious claims to be used at the trial and Carter Ruck came back with 25, this will already be working against Carter Ruck, for not following the Judge's request.

Willo wrote:I'm happy that the day went well and I'm hopeful of a fair trial thus TB's aquittal but......... It all feels too neat. C/R are not stupid. That nagging feeling that something from left field will emerge is in my head. I'm sure I was never so skeptical before Team McCann evolved.

aiyoyo wrote:
The wise judge no doubt had arrived at a conclusion that the relationship between mccanns and CR has gone beyond professional capacity.
At the end of the day although lawyers have to follow clients instruction, nonetheless the pivotal role of good lawyers is to advise their client appropriately. And, no sensible client will go against sound and good advice, especially if advised that going against Judge's recommendation would look unreasonable.

This countering of the Judge's suggestion will look bad alike for both mccanns and CR to the Judge, in that the mccanns came across as small minded difficult, unreasonable, and determined to compound the case, when 10 would be sufficient for their purpose. While CR came across as either unable to persuade their clients, or didn't persuade their client but in it together with the clients to overkill the defendant, when there is no need to weigh him down with boxes and boxes of unnecessary paper works to go through.

The entourage of 5 legal attendants representing mccanns would not have gone unnoticed by the Judge.
All this display of legal might just to take on TB - Goliath vs David springs to mind.
Can anyone imagine what would be the size of their legal entourage if they were on trial for the criminal act/s we cannot mention?

Willo wrote:I'm happy that the day went well and I'm hopeful of a fair trial thus TB's aquittal but......... It all feels too neat. C/R are not stupid. That nagging feeling that something from left field will emerge is in my head. I'm sure I was never so skeptical before Team McCann evolved.

Tony should seek to have the McCann couple declared vexatious litigants the next time he appears before a High Court Judge.

justme3 wrote:Why won't they take a lie detector test and clear this up, once and for all?

Stella wrote:Don't listen to Keir, he knows what side his bread is buttered.