Gerry McCann's brother-in-law, Tony Rickwood, removes his depraved images of women drowning from an internet site

mysterion wrote:I have never had a boss who knew anything about my private life apart from what I told him/her. If I had been asked, then I would have said, "MYOB".
If a husband has indecent images then he would be mad to allow his wife access. Password controlled surely.

If it's in the public domain, that Philomena's husband runs a deviant art site, then I think it would be extremely naive to think that Philomena did not know what her husband was doing.
He would be mad perhaps to allow his wife access, if he feared as most husbands would, that his wife would be ready to give him hell if she did find out.
But what is there to indicate that Philomena is not a part of this? It's as much a probability, since the whole world has access to this information, he hardly kept it a secret.

It's strange that, knowing how vocal Philomena has been from day one - though not let out of her cage too often recently to stop her making gaffes - it seems to have been a closely guarded secret that she even had a husband.

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:It's strange that, knowing how vocal Philomena has been from day one - though not let out of her cage too often recently to stop her making gaffes - it seems to have been a closely guarded secret that she even had a husband.

Absolutely correct...So we have to try and discover why....

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:It's strange that, knowing how vocal Philomena has been from day one - though not let out of her cage too often recently to stop her making gaffes - it seems to have been a closely guarded secret that she even had a husband.

Would you boast of such a catch for a husband? Perhaps even Gerry and Kate saw mileage in it, in a negative sort of way, rather like wanting to keep quiet about it.
It must be really inconvenient to have such a close relative, with such a proclivity when Tannerman has been evaporated and the focus is turning back towards Kate and Gerry's other claim, that of a 'paedophile ring /sexual abuse' angle (Page 129 'madeleine' by Kate McCann).

Veritas wrote:

Ladyinred wrote:As discussed on another thread a few weeks ago re. Ullapool school, I believe this guy is involved with GM's photoshopping.

What Photoshopping? 

Prove the photoshopping and we can speculate on a photoshopper. So far, though, there's no evidence of photoshopping - only wild speculation by people who know nothing about real world photography or photoshopping who insist that because an image is inconvenient to their hyper-complex conspiracy theory it must therefore be (a) faked,  (b) faked by a rank amateur somewhere in the extended family as a hugely transparent diy job, and (c) is non-apparent to two police forces, hordes of photographic experts and every credible forensic investigation team under the sun because either (i) they're all in on it or (ii) their credentials are worthless and cases should be solved in future by middle aged obsessives with wild imaginations over the internet who don't need discernible skills in order to rule on all manner of fields of investigation. 

Until something is materially and credibly demonstrated repeat visits to this same territory of 'photoshopped images' only serves to play into the hands of those who seek to detract from truth and to sully the material investigation conducted by the man whose face ais on the top banner of this forum and who the forum claims to have utmost respect for, by lumping it in with the most obtuse abject lunacyimaginable from the least credible agents imaginable. 

I weep for the fact that so much good is undone by the creation of a forum which gives equal place and importance in the name of freedom of speech, to lunacy and idiocy right alongside the truth less known. 

So to repeat the question... What photoshopped images?

I think, Veritas, that now might be a very good time to look at the questions about this photograph, the 'Last Photo', so to speak, from a different angle (as a cameraman might put it).

I am going in a moment to list a series of facts that might enable us to think in another direction on this subject.

I am not going to discuss or even suggest that the 'Last Photo' is photoshopped, except to make what I consider to be a couple of pertinent observations:

(a) the shadows on Madeleine, Amelie and Madeleine are all short and
(b) of consistent (short) length.

That tells me that the three persons on the 'Last Photo' were (as claimed by the McCanns) photographed at the same time, i.e. on the same occasion.

I would also observe that the shadows are of a length which would result from a photograph having been taken at around 'midday' (that is, when the sun is at its highest) during the week 28 April to 3 May.

From another thread, I have been informed that 'midday' at Praia da Luz that time of year (28 April to 3 May) occurs at about 1.35pm. Portugal has British Summer Time and so, like us, is an hour behind Central European Time.

NOW SOME RELEVANT FACTS

1. Immediately after Madeleine was reported missing, photos were prodcued by the McCanns for the police

2. They did not include any recent photographs

3. They did not include any photographs taken of Madeleine on that holiday - not even one

4. The 'Last Photo' was released via the AFP agency on Thursday 24 May (see mccannfiles, Times, SKY News etc.) On the very same day, Jane Tanner's description of a man she claimed to have seen on 3 May was also made public (but only after a personal intervention by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown)

5. Dr Gerald McCann left Praia da Luz to fly to England on Sunday 20 May ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 147)

6. We are told that Dr Gerald McCann met with British police on Monday 21 May

7. We are told that later that day, Dr Gerald McCann met Clarence Mitchell 'for the first time' and 'hit it off with Clarence striaghtaway'  
('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 148). We are not told if on that visit to England Dr Gerald McCann had any contact with either Philomena McCann or Tony Rickwood 

8. At lunchtime on Tuesday 22 May, Dr Gerald McCann arrived back in Portugal with Clarence ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 151)

9. On the evening of Tuesday 22 May, Philomena McCann 'flew in from Glasgow' ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 142)

10. At that time, Philomena McCann lived with Tony Rickwood, whom she later married

11. Tony Rickwood was involved in booking arrangements for a holiday in Turkey in June 2007 attended by him and Philomena and by the Camerons

12. Tony Rickwood is an expert photoshopper i.e. manipulating photographic images

13. Tony Rickwood has admitted publicly to a 'quicksand fetish', he has produced numerous images of naked women dying by drowning, and said he wanted to make a video of a quicksand death.


++++++++++++++++


FINALLY, Veritas, you wrote these rather harsh words:

Until something is materially and credibly demonstrated, repeat visits to this same territory of 'photoshopped images' only serves to play into the hands of those who seek to detract from truth and to sully the material investigation conducted by the man whose face is on the top banner of this forum and who the forum claims to have utmost respect for, by lumping it in with the most obtuse abject lunacy imaginable from the least credible agents imaginable.

Strong stuff indeed!

Do you at least see why the 'Last Photo' being produced from the McCanns' camera as many as 21 days after it was taken - and only after Dr Gerald McCann has made a round trip of 4,000 miles to England and back - raises a big question mark?

And if you do concede that it raises a question mark (as inevitably you must), what is your best explanation for this 3-week delay (and aalso for the singular dearth of other photos of Madeleine from that holiday)?  

Tony Bennett wrote:
12. Tony Rickwood is an expert photoshopper i.e. manipulating photographic images

13. Tony Rickwood has admitted publicly to a 'quicksand fetish', he has produced numerous images of naked women dying by drowning, and said he wanted to make a video of a quicksand death.

Has anybody here actually inspected an example of Mr. Rickwood's handiwork? I must admit I haven't! Are they convincing?

Tony Bennett wrote:

Veritas wrote:

Ladyinred wrote:As discussed on another thread a few weeks ago re. Ullapool school, I believe this guy is involved with GM's photoshopping.

What Photoshopping? 

Prove the photoshopping and we can speculate on a photoshopper. So far, though, there's no evidence of photoshopping - only wild speculation by people who know nothing about real world photography or photoshopping who insist that because an image is inconvenient to their hyper-complex conspiracy theory it must therefore be (a) faked,  (b) faked by a rank amateur somewhere in the extended family as a hugely transparent diy job, and (c) is non-apparent to two police forces, hordes of photographic experts and every credible forensic investigation team under the sun because either (i) they're all in on it or (ii) their credentials are worthless and cases should be solved in future by middle aged obsessives with wild imaginations over the internet who don't need discernible skills in order to rule on all manner of fields of investigation. 

Until something is materially and credibly demonstrated repeat visits to this same territory of 'photoshopped images' only serves to play into the hands of those who seek to detract from truth and to sully the material investigation conducted by the man whose face ais on the top banner of this forum and who the forum claims to have utmost respect for, by lumping it in with the most obtuse abject lunacyimaginable from the least credible agents imaginable. 

I weep for the fact that so much good is undone by the creation of a forum which gives equal place and importance in the name of freedom of speech, to lunacy and idiocy right alongside the truth less known. 

So to repeat the question... What photoshopped images?

I think, Veritas, that now might be a very good time to look at the questions about this photograph, the 'Last Photo', so to speak, from a different angle (as a cameraman might put it).

I am going in a moment to list a series of facts that might enable us to think in another direction on this subject.

I am not going to discuss or even suggest that the 'Last Photo' is photoshopped, except to make what I consider to be a couple of pertinent observations:

(a) the shadows on Madeleine, Amelie and Madeleine are all short and
(b) of consistent (short) length.

That tells me that the three persons on the 'Last Photo' were (as claimed by the McCanns) photographed at the same time, i.e. on the same occasion.

I would also observe that the shadows are of a length which would result from a photograph having been taken at around 'midday' (that is, when the sun is at its highest) during the week 28 April to 3 May.

From another thread, I have been informed that 'midday' at Praia da Luz that time of year (28 April to 3 May) occurs at about 1.35pm. Portugal has British Summer Time and so, like us, is an hour behind Central European Time.

NOW SOME RELEVANT FACTS

1. Immediately after Madeleine was reported missing, photos were prodcued by the McCanns for the police

2. They did not include any recent photographs

3. They did not include any photographs taken of Madeleine on that holiday - not even one

4. The 'Last Photo' was released via the AFP agency on Thursday 24 May (see mccannfiles, Times, SKY News etc.) On the very same day, Jane Tanner's description of a man she claimed to have seen on 3 May was also made public (but only after a personal intervention by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown)

5. Dr Gerald McCann left Praia da Luz to fly to England on Sunday 20 May ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 147)

6. We are told that Dr Gerald McCann met with British police on Monday 21 May

7. We are told that later that day, Dr Gerald McCann met Clarence Mitchell 'for the first time' and 'hit it off with Clarence striaghtaway'  
('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 148). We are not told if on that visit to England Dr Gerald McCann had any contact with either Philomena McCann or Tony Rickwood 

8. At lunchtime on Tuesday 22 May, Dr Gerald McCann arrived back in Portugal with Clarence ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 151)

9. On the evening of Tuesday 22 May, Philomena McCann 'flew in from Glasgow' ('madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 142)

10. At that time, Philomena McCann lived with Tony Rickwood, whom she later married

11. Tony Rickwood was involved in booking arrangements for a holiday in Turkey in June 2007 attended by him and Philomena and by the Camerons

12. Tony Rickwood is an expert photoshopper i.e. manipulating photographic images

13. Tony Rickwood has admitted publicly to a 'quicksand fetish', he has produced numerous images of naked women dying by drowning, and said he wanted to make a video of a quicksand death.


++++++++++++++++


FINALLY, Veritas, you wrote these rather harsh words:

Until something is materially and credibly demonstrated, repeat visits to this same territory of 'photoshopped images' only serves to play into the hands of those who seek to detract from truth and to sully the material investigation conducted by the man whose face is on the top banner of this forum and who the forum claims to have utmost respect for, by lumping it in with the most obtuse abject lunacy imaginable from the least credible agents imaginable.

Strong stuff indeed!

Do you at least see why the 'Last Photo' being produced from the McCanns' camera as many as 21 days after it was taken - and only after Dr Gerald McCann has made a round trip of 4,000 miles to England and back - raises a big question mark?

And if you do concede that it raises a question mark (as inevitably you must), what is your best explanation for this 3-week delay (and aalso for the singular dearth of other photos of Madeleine from that holiday)?  

Tony Bennett, 

Congratulations on producing 13 detailed points of tangent, speculation and abstracted circumstance by which you argue that the 'last photo' is questionable in its authenticity. Unfortunately I missed the part where you produced a photograph which demonstrates credible and reasonable proof of forgery. 13 points arguing that a photograph that shows no sign of manipulation is manipulated does not change the material veracity of the image. 

I'd make a couple of factual points. First, you say that Tony Rickwood is not an expert photoshopper. He is not.  Second, neither are you. Third, the fact that you place stock in the first point only confirms the second point. You have the appeartance of insisting that grand conspiracies exist because you insist that they must exist. I don't believe you demonstrate a rational objectivity in this regard. You don't demonstrate that you are eliminating the impossible, only doing the tango with the improbable and the implausible in order to overlook possibility. 

Let me give you an example... You've fixated on a 'last photo'. Just one. You've taken your extremely limited knowledge of a skeleton of a calendar, come up with 21 days, was it, and are selling the convenience of one photo emerging from 21 days, and are implying a narrative of pure speculation which frames the 21 days as the means to fabricate the one image. Implausible and not remotely extraordinary. What is incredible, however, is that essentially this 21 day period of conspiracy produced only one questionable image. Natural order of psychology, the wild conspiracy theorist obsesses over a narrative which manufactures a lie and goes to preposterous lengths to do it. The genuine detective thinks differently. After all, why produce a potentially incriminating fraud which could point suspicion right in your direction, when destruction of evidence cleans up all the potential mess? I'm not distracted by a 21 day window of opportunity to produce a photoshopped image that proves nothing, disproves nothing, exonerates no one and serves no purpose that simply saying 'we have no more photos' does not serve better. I wonder why such a self-defeating, complicating task took so long to achieve. The photo is a material exercise in futility, open to interpretation. More pertinent is the question of whether images were erased and destroyed, and why,  rather than how many were created. 

What if the last photo was a lone survivor of a 21 day conspiracy to thoroughly wipe the memory card? What if that's why it wasn't more forthcoming? What if police forensics COULD NOT be allowed the chance to recover data? What if that 'last' image was simply committed to a blank card? 

Further, you assume instantly that Rickwood's alleged fetish is that of a wicked, psychopathic, highly dangerous abuser who you seem to have no problem implicating by insinuation in either child abuse or endangerment, or direct involvement in the cover up of the death of his niece - a death which you also insinuate was organised, deliberate and malevolently intentional, even systematic.  There is no legislation for strangeness. But it also isn't safe to assume that the manifestation of fetish is inevitably the hallmark of a psychopath. It is just as much a component of the self-therapy of victims as it is an effervescent characteristic of dangerous deviants.

You can have your 13 points of specutslation and assumption,  which clearly make sense to you. But what you don't have is an image which supports the very need for those 13 question in the first instance. e

I'm with Veritas's logic and I think that his question deserves an answer before we consider Tony's subsequent questions about the dearth of pictures of MM. Tony's questions don't answer or satisfy Veritas's question:

What photoshopping?

I agree the words Veritas used are harsh and I recognise the frustration that occurs when you know something (because you happen to have a lot of experience in a particular area). You know that the people who don't have your expertise are wrong on the issue but all you can see is their insistence on bending the evidence to fit their theory and nothing you say will change that. It also reminds you that this forum is as, sadly, as biased and flawed as the pro-forums we'd like to be better than. For me that's quite disappointing.

Tony Bennett wrote:

12. Tony Rickwood is an expert photoshopper i.e. manipulating photographic images

13. Tony Rickwood has admitted publicly to a 'quicksand fetish', he has produced numerous images of naked women dying by drowning, and said he wanted to make a video of a quicksand death.

With regards to Tony Rickwood, as far as I know, he has produced ONE picture of a naked or semi-naked woman. All others are clothed. So, even though his tastes are very deviant, we must stick to the facts.

This is what Rickwood says about a nudeness/quicksand scenario:

"I would have to agree that for watching sinking, it has to be clothed. I'm not really into the erotic side of this and I agree with  that quicksand "adventures" normally happen by accident, so unless the victim is a naked rambler, it seems a bit too unreal for me. I much prefer the Explorer/Jungle Jane theme or the long-dressed running into trouble situation and especially where there is that lovely settling of the clothing across the quicksand, further encumbering the luckless (or lucky!) damsel. This of course only applies to female action. Blokes just don't do it for me at all. And as for practicalities- I, for one wouldn't jump into a bog up here at any time of the year without at least some thermal protection!"

I question his 'I'm not really into the erotic side of this'. What side of it is he into then?

We are right to question the Last Photo. Its release several weeks after the missing of Madeleine is very suspect. It must have been released that late in the day for very good reason! If it was not because of photo-manipulation, it must have been for something else.

Veritas wrote:

Tony Bennett, 

Congratulations on producing 13 detailed points of tangent, speculation and abstracted circumstance by which you argue that the 'last photo' is questionable in its authenticity. Unfortunately I missed the part where you produced a photograph which demonstrates credible and reasonable proof of forgery. 13 points arguing that a photograph that shows no sign of manipulation is manipulated does not change the material veracity of the image. 

I'd make a couple of factual points. First, you say that Tony Rickwood is not an expert photoshopper. He is not.  Second, neither are you. Third, the fact that you place stock in the first point only confirms the second point. You have the appeartance of insisting that grand conspiracies exist because you insist that they must exist. I don't believe you demonstrate a rational objectivity in this regard. You don't demonstrate that you are eliminating the impossible, only doing the tango with the improbable and the implausible in order to overlook possibility. 

Let me give you an example... You've fixated on a 'last photo'. Just one. You've taken your extremely limited knowledge of a skeleton of a calendar, come up with 21 days, was it, and are selling the convenience of one photo emerging from 21 days, and are implying a narrative of pure speculation which frames the 21 days as the means to fabricate the one image. Implausible and not remotely extraordinary. What is incredible, however, is that essentially this 21 day period of conspiracy produced only one questionable image. Natural order of psychology, the wild conspiracy theorist obsesses over a narrative which manufactures a lie and goes to preposterous lengths to do it. The genuine detective thinks differently. After all, why produce a potentially incriminating fraud which could point suspicion right in your direction, when destruction of evidence cleans up all the potential mess? I'm not distracted by a 21 day window of opportunity to produce a photoshopped image that proves nothing, disproves nothing, exonerates no one and serves no purpose that simply saying 'we have no more photos' does not serve better. I wonder why such a self-defeating, complicating task took so long to achieve. The photo is a material exercise in futility, open to interpretation. More pertinent is the question of whether images were erased and destroyed, and why,  rather than how many were created. 

What if the last photo was a lone survivor of a 21 day conspiracy to thoroughly wipe the memory card? What if that's why it wasn't more forthcoming? What if police forensics COULD NOT be allowed the chance to recover data? What if that 'last' image was simply committed to a blank card? 

Further, you assume instantly that Rickwood's alleged fetish is that of a wicked, psychopathic, highly dangerous abuser who you seem to have no problem implicating by insinuation in either child abuse or endangerment, or direct involvement in the cover up of the death of his niece - a death which you also insinuate was organised, deliberate and malevolently intentional, even systematic.  There is no legislation for strangeness. But it also isn't safe to assume that the manifestation of fetish is inevitably the hallmark of a psychopath. It is just as much a component of the self-therapy of victims as it is an effervescent characteristic of dangerous deviants.

You can have your 13 points of specutslation and assumption,  which clearly make sense to you. But what you don't have is an image which supports the very need for those 13 question in the first instance. e

To be fair to Tony, he is questioning the Last Photo, as many of us do. However, he is NOT saying that the Last Photo has been manipulated.

Perhaps I am missing something, but can you point out to me where Tony says the Photo has been photoshopped?

Extracted from the above long post pointedly directed at Tony Bennett:

Veritas wrote:  I'd make a couple of factual points. First, you say that Tony Rickwood is not an expert photoshopper. He is not.  Second, neither are you. Third, the fact that you place stock in the first point only confirms the second point. You have the appeartance of insisting that grand conspiracies exist because you insist that they must exist. I don't believe you demonstrate a rational objectivity in this regard. You don't demonstrate that you are eliminating the impossible, only doing the tango with the improbable and the implausible in order to overlook possibility.

Presuming there is an error in the second sentence and the intention is to claim TB said that 'Tony Rickwood is an expert photo shopper', I would ask what evidence Veritas is able to cite to substantiate their assertion that he is not?  Do they have personal knowledge of this individual, or are they otherwise uniquely informed as to what computer skills he does or does not possess?

What if the last photo was a lone survivor of a 21 day conspiracy to thoroughly wipe the memory card? What if that's why it wasn't more forthcoming?

If 'the last photo' had been subjected to a '21 day 'conspiracy' to wipe its existence and that of any other images from a memory card, I would consider it improbable for it to have survived such a lengthy and determined effort to erase it and question why the card had not simply been destroyed along with the camera/mobile phone or whatever other means by which the image had been captured.

What if police forensics COULD NOT be allowed the chance to recover data? See above.  Faced with a choice of risking imprisonment or destroying a computer/camera/mobile phone or other such equipment, I know what I'd opt for.

What if that 'last' image was simply committed to a blank card? Would the card be blank because it was new and unused before 'the last photo'was taken?  Or because the image had been deliberately transferred onto a blank card for other reasons before the card it originally appeared on was destroyed?

Having limited knowledge of the subject, I am unable to make an informed judgement as to whether 'the last photo' has been 'shopped' but, based on my observation of this and other photos which purport to be of Madeleine Beth McCann, it seems to me that the child said to be Madeleine in 'the last photo' is considerably younger than a child who was less than 2 weeks off her 4th birthday at the time it was allegedly taken.

Whilst writing, it would be remiss of me not to comment on this further example of Veritas's acerbic style which I find out of place on this forum and which, not for the first time, has caused me to question their agenda as they appear to be more intent on insulting other members than contributing any theories of their own which may go some way to explaining apparent anomalies which continue to tax the minds of many.  

bobbin wrote:

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:It's strange that, knowing how vocal Philomena has been from day one - though not let out of her cage too often recently to stop her making gaffes - it seems to have been a closely guarded secret that she even had a husband.

Would you boast of such a catch for a husband? Perhaps even Gerry and Kate saw mileage in it, in a negative sort of way, rather like wanting to keep quiet about it.
It must be really inconvenient to have such a close relative, with such a proclivity when Tannerman has been evaporated and the focus is turning back towards Kate and Gerry's other claim, that of a 'paedophile ring /sexual abuse' angle (Page 129 'madeleine' by Kate McCann).

It is indeed curious that Philomena's spouse has been kept under wraps.  Is it known when she wed Tony 'Swampman' Rickwood and is he a teacher too, or does he make his living from his artworks?

Far from having evaporated, Tannerman recently came forward and participated in a McCann sponsored Crimewatch style photoshoot a la Crecheman for which he donned a new suit of clothes and carried a real live child before, presumably, making off on foot again sans child having donated his fee to the lifestyle fund [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Nereid wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:

12. Tony Rickwood... [SNIPPED]

With regards to Tony Rickwood, as far as I know, he has produced ONE picture of a naked or semi-naked woman. All others are clothed. So, even though his tastes are very deviant, we must stick to the facts.

This is what Rickwood says about a nudeness/quicksand scenario:

"I would have to agree that for watching sinking, it has to be clothed. I'm not really into the erotic side of this and I agree with  that quicksand "adventures" normally happen by accident, so unless the victim is a naked rambler, it seems a bit too unreal for me. I much prefer the Explorer/Jungle Jane theme or the long-dressed running into trouble situation and especially where there is that lovely settling of the clothing across the quicksand, further encumbering the luckless (or lucky!) damsel. This of course only applies to female action. Blokes just don't do it for me at all. And as for practicalities- I, for one wouldn't jump into a bog up here at any time of the year without at least some thermal protection!"

I question his 'I'm not really into the erotic side of this'. What side of it is he into then?

We are right to question the Last Photo. Its release several weeks after the missing of Madeleine is very suspect. It must have been released that late in the day for very good reason! If it was not because of photo-manipulation, it must have been for something else.

Nereid, you may be referring to this message from Tony Rickwood on the 'Deviant Art' site, written by him this summer. His message was accompanied by a very naked lady in quicksand/mud:

"I've always wanted to do a sort of tribute to Enrique Romero who did, among others, the amazing AXA comic strip. A formative scene for me was when the heroine is led into quicksand by a jealous rival and left to sink to her doom. Now, ordinarily I'm not for doing nude artwork, but since it is in the spirit of the original comic series, I am making this one exception. It's not the best render, but I hope it comes across OK".

Well, we can all make of that what we will.

I do not know, however, if you have seen some of his pages and pages of quicksand photos. He gives his photos some quite graphic titles, here are solme of them:

"Don't quite know why"

"Desert sinkhole"

"Helpless"

"The Pond"

"Sinking fast"

"Grab"

"OMG!"

"Chillin'", and

"No escape".

Taking just those nine photos, three are of women with no clothes on, and one is only wearing a very skimpy bikini top. All of the remaining five are very lightly clothed.

Thanks to the efforts of CMOMM members, these photoshopped images are no longer on the internet. But several people have screen grabs of them, and these are amongst a file of evidence that Highland Council Education Authority is now investigating.

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:
12. Tony Rickwood is an expert photoshopper i.e. manipulating photographic images

13. Tony Rickwood has admitted publicly to a 'quicksand fetish', he has produced numerous images of naked women dying by drowning, and said he wanted to make a video of a quicksand death.

Has anybody here actually inspected an example of Mr. Rickwood's handiwork? I must admit I haven't! Are they convincing?

Yes. Several people have monitored his work and researched his history, back to his making arrangements with his then partner Philomena McCann for the holiday in Turkey in June 2007, just weeks after Madeleine was reported missing. Material relating to his property in Spain has also been researched.

Veritas wrote:

Tony Bennett, 

1. Congratulations on producing 13 detailed points of tangent, speculation and abstracted circumstance by which you argue that the 'last photo' is questionable in its authenticity. Unfortunately I missed the part where you produced a photograph which demonstrates credible and reasonable proof of forgery. 13 points arguing that a photograph that shows no sign of manipulation is manipulated does not change the material veracity of the image. 

2. I'd make a couple of factual points. First, you say that Tony Rickwood is not an expert photoshopper. He is not.  Second, neither are you. Third, the fact that you place stock in the first point only confirms the second point. You have the appeartance of insisting that grand conspiracies exist because you insist that they must exist. I don't believe you demonstrate a rational objectivity in this regard. You don't demonstrate that you are eliminating the impossible, only doing the tango with the improbable and the implausible in order to overlook possibility. 

3. Let me give you an example... You've fixated on a 'last photo'. Just one. You've taken your extremely limited knowledge of a skeleton of a calendar, come up with 21 days, was it, and are selling the convenience of one photo emerging from 21 days, and are implying a narrative of pure speculation which frames the 21 days as the means to fabricate the one image. Implausible and not remotely extraordinary. What is incredible, however, is that essentially this 21 day period of conspiracy produced only one questionable image. Natural order of psychology, the wild conspiracy theorist obsesses over a narrative which manufactures a lie and goes to preposterous lengths to do it. The genuine detective thinks differently. After all, why produce a potentially incriminating fraud which could point suspicion right in your direction, when destruction of evidence cleans up all the potential mess? I'm not distracted by a 21 day window of opportunity to produce a photoshopped image that proves nothing, disproves nothing, exonerates no one and serves no purpose that simply saying 'we have no more photos' does not serve better. I wonder why such a self-defeating, complicating task took so long to achieve. The photo is a material exercise in futility, open to interpretation. More pertinent is the question of whether images were erased and destroyed, and why,  rather than how many were created. 

4. What if the last photo was a lone survivor of a 21 day conspiracy to thoroughly wipe the memory card? What if that's why it wasn't more forthcoming? What if police forensics COULD NOT be allowed the chance to recover data? What if that 'last' image was simply committed to a blank card? 

5. Further, you assume instantly that Rickwood's alleged fetish is that of a wicked, psychopathic, highly dangerous abuser who you seem to have no problem implicating by insinuation in either child abuse or endangerment, or direct involvement in the cover up of the death of his niece - a death which you also insinuate was organised, deliberate and malevolently intentional, even systematic.  There is no legislation for strangeness. But it also isn't safe to assume that the manifestation of fetish is inevitably the hallmark of a psychopath. It is just as much a component of the self-therapy of victims as it is an effervescent characteristic of dangerous deviants.

6. You can have your 13 points of specutslation and assumption,  which clearly make sense to you. But what you don't have is an image which supports the very need for those 13 question in the first instance. e

Well! What an enraged response!

Shakespeare might well have put it like this: "Methinks he doth protest too much".

And you didn't even answer my question about why there was a 21-day delay - though you may have got close to my main line of thinking in paragraph 4 of your email (I have numbered them for ease of reference).

But anyway, let's patiently go through some of your points one by one. 

++++++++++++++

From Para 2. "I'd make a couple of factual points. First, you say that Tony Rickwood is not an expert photoshopper..."

REPLY: In your great haste, you misquoted me. I asserted that he was an expert photoshopper

From Para 2. "[Tony Rickwood] is not [an expert photoshopper]"

REPLY:  FWIW, those on the Deviant Art site where he was posting - until rumbled by CMOMM members - certainly regarded him as an expert photoshopper and praised his abilities. These comments lauding his abilities were in a section of the site titled: Deviant Art / Photomanipulation / Fantasy 

Para 3.

REPLY:  I won't quote any of that long paragraph, but it is a fact that the 'Last Photo' has been used by the McCanns to prove - without doubt, they say - that Madeleine was alive at 2.29pm on Thursday 3 May. It is a remarkable fact which you have not explained that although this photograph was available in the McCanns' camera on 3 May, it was not produced until 21 days later and only after Dr Gerald McCann had returned to England and Tony Rickwood's live-in partner (Philomena McCann) had flown to Praia da Luz   

In Para 4. you wrote this: "What if the last photo was a lone survivor of a 21 day conspiracy to thoroughly wipe the memory card? What if that's why it wasn't more forthcoming? What if police forensics COULD NOT be allowed the chance to recover data? What if that 'last' image was simply committed to a blank card?"

REPLY:  Here you have raised some very pertinent questions. I think these are the right questions to ask about the provenance of the 'Last Photo'. Side by side with your questions, I have at least three more: 1. Why was Alex Woolfall given access to the SIMcards of two cameras? 2. What did he do with all those images? 3. Under what circumstances did a SIMcard reach the home of a police officer from Hampshire on Tuesday 8 May? 

In Para 5. you make this assumption: "Further, you assume instantly that Rickwood's alleged fetish is that of a wicked, psychopathic, highly dangerous abuser who you seem to have no problem implicating by insinuation in either child abuse or endangerment, or direct involvement in the cover up of the death of his niece - a death which you also insinuate was organised, deliberate and malevolently intentional, even systematic".

REPLY: Completely untrue - you cannot draw that conclusion from anything I have ever said and I ask you to formally withdraw that entire paragraph on the record on this forum and without delay. By the way, it is not an 'alleged' fetish. It is a recognised fetish, even Wikipdia has an article about it. He not only admits to having had this fetish, but has elsewhere admitted that it has been a 'lifelong' fetish. I have certainly made the point that fantasising about women being killed in gruesome circumstances is a potentially dangerous fantasy. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?  

Para 6 - you wrote (I've corrected your spelling):  You can have your 13 points of specutation and assumption, which clearly make sense to you. But what you don't have is an image which supports the very need for those 13 questions in the first instance.

REPLY: A totally unfair comment. As you must concede, I stated 13 facts. There was no speculation and no assumption. Please also formally withdraw that additional false statement on this thread. 

My final point. I more than hinted in my earlier post that I accept that the photograph is a genuine photograph taken on the McCanns' camera during the week 28 April to 3 May 2007, and has not been photoshopped. But any competent photoshopper could easily alter either the date or the time of the photo.

Or both.

TB wrote:
"back to his making arrangements with his then partner Philomena McCann for the holiday in Turkey in June 2007, just weeks after Madeleine was reported missing. Material relating to his property in Spain has also been researched."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, God forbid, that such a 'trivial thing' like a missing, three years old, family member should get in the way of continuing to arrange a group of 26 family 'members' holiday, in Turkey, by members of the 'missing' child's family, just 6 weeks after that devastating 'awful event'.

Unless, of course, the '26' knew.........something we didn't/don't know.

Philomena McCann "they (McCanns) think that maybe she's with....."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

"they think that maybe she's with.....Tractorman, Cooperman, Bundleman, Tannerman, Posh Spice woman, Spottyman,  Scandanavianman, Smithman, Soothingcouple, Swarthyman, Sunglassesman, Shorthairedman, Longhairedman, Invisibleman (actually i made that last 'man' up! he,he) etc"

Tony Bennett,

I've never believed in setting up sacred cows for any reason, so it goes without saying that the kudos and credentials that others afford you as a reward for your past efforts mean nothing to me.

You illustrate certain problems with your position and your arguments right here.

First you demonstrate an utter lack of objectivity and an ability to demonstrate logical linear thinking. You instantly read emotion into everything that is written or spoken, and you inevitably filter it with a lens which anticipates not only conspiracy, but more particularly which anticipates conspiracy against YOUR viewpoint on the matter, and yours alone. Case in point, in your opening line of your latest post you accuse me, with a mock exasperation, of an 'enraged response.'

The mock exasperation you express as a means designed to establish your authority in the forum thread and to present yourself as a calm, collected and - more to the point - borderline offended recipient of an attack that you now have to (big sigh) take time to deal with. It is the equivalent of the fake outrage of a 'well, I never...' That's interesting in its own right. It demonstrates that you cannot distinguish between a rational and intelligent process, and your own personal involvement in it. You do see yourself as an authority, and you see all others as either challenging or supporting you. You no longer see the process objectively, you see yourself in every aspect of it - understandable given what pursuing your convictions has cost you - but in all cases avoidable and entirely unhelpful.

The designation of my post as an 'enraged response' is the mechanism you use not only to marginalise the content of the post, but again to establish your own authority - or so you think - as the calm, collected patriarch of this line of public speculation. You appeal to the reader to defer to your lead regardless of the substance of the debate. To do so you paint your own colours on the dialectic. I began with 'rational vs irrational', 'probable vs. improbable', 'possible vs. impossible' and challenged you to make that the framework, rather than insisting that your conspiracy theories be upheld solely for the sake of your devotion to them. But you cleverly repainted them, but not objectively... subjectively. And you attempted to colour them with your presumption of being able to divine moods, intention, emotion. You are barking so far up the wrong tree that it is almost comedic just how predictably you become self-confounding.

I charged that your insistence that Rickwood is a 'photoshop expert' proves that you are not a photoshop expert and are no good judge of photoshop experts. You missed the point, because you went right back to insisting before every reader that you could happily stand by your claim that Rickwood is a photoshop expert. You had no clue at all that it is your very lack of credibility in this field which damns you. If you were a good judge of photoshop expertise, you'd know exactly why photoshop experts would utterly disregard every image that you now obsess over from Rickwood's collection as being remotely related to any kind of photographic forgery to which you frequently ellude.

I charge that you are not rational and objective in your approach to this 'investigation' (public speculation), and you reply by fabricating complete nonsense about divining moods and intent in my posts, which only serves to demonstrate that you've gone down an avenue of defence of your position here that no credible rationalist or objectivist would ever venture, because the very act of doing so only serves to demonstrate that the cap not only fits, but that you're wearing it. And I've said it before and I'll say it again no doubt... If you don't understand what I'm saying in these last two points, if you don't 'get' where I'm coming from, you're only proving the point. These aren't mysteries. Intelligent people can grasp intelligent ideas.

But you prove the point further...

You resort to quoting Shakespeare referencing the Bible. 'Thou doth protest too much.' Almost clever, except for those smart enough to know what you're doing. Once again, you're putting the authority of your argument above all question, and anyone bothering to take the time to debate you must inevitably be 'protesting too much' and therefore must be part of the conspiracy to silence you, because you are so close to truth that you must be silenced... But even a schoolyard idiot can turn that one around, and accuse you of being so dogged in your devotion and pursuit of these lines, so insistent and forceful, that you are deliberately misleading away from a greater truth. Again, this trait is repeated.

It is the same trait that I raised yesterday, when I pointed out that you were irrationally devoted to insinuations about the 'last photo' being faked, I pointed out that the greater question was not whether one photo had been faked during the speculated 21 days, in a futile exercise that served nothing and became self-defeating, but whether any number of other photos had been destroyed, screened, withheld, consulted upon. But then, as you have now, you show devotion not to the process of investigation, but to the pressing of your personal theories. You become Stephen Birch, turning blind eyes to more credible alternatives, reinterpreting everything which is objectively undeniable in order to twist it to the framework of your conspiracy theory. You are woefully subjective in this regard.

To deal with your points...

'You haven't answered... why there was a 21 day delay.'

There isn't an answer. Only a supposition. Assumption. Preposition. The '21 day delay' and all the circumstances surrounding it are, in essence, your construct. You're abstracting, extrapolating and juxtaposing a myriad of circumstances and coincidences out of the context of any and all plausible human reasoning, and you are oversimplifying every single one in order to paint a single grand conspiracy theory in which malevolent intent and deliberacy are the underpinning agenda for all that has transpired. I can't answer it.

If I give the myriad human reasons why it might be so, if I even play devil's advocate for a moment and assume a version of events in which the principal participants are either not as guilty as is claimed, or are guilty of very conventional crimes of neglect and then ass-covering, rather than the arch-paedo-unwanted-child-genetically-modified-supplied-to-pedophile-swingers conspiracy theory version of events, I'm simply going to be accused of everything you accuse me of when you state 'you protest too much.' I'm going to inevitably become a part of your conspiracy theory, while I - and those who've kindly messaged me through this forum - simply see unfolding a rational, objective dialectic going on.

I could say that the 21 day delay gives all the hallmarks of being simple panic reaction. Even faked, an apparently 'authentic' kidnapping case would begin, not with the handing over of every piece of forensic evidence and every scrap of data, communication or the family snaps, but rather with the handing over of one or two 'portrait' type images to use for 'missing purposes.' Any more, any less, and it easily becomes suspicious. Over time, the stories have been evolving. The police note that there are no signs, and few windows for kidnapping. And the participants begin to steer the line of enquiry with their fleshed out retrospective 'suspicions', 'uncomfortable feelings', 'hindsight recollections' and the presence of unnamed figures in the background somewhere. Perhaps police begin to make connections to personal associations, or locations, and need arises,  that certain processes take place, away from the scrutiny of the media circus and the uncontrollable scene of the chaos which is now dominated by the authorities who have been set in motion.

You assume that the 21 day lag is all about the photo. There's a 99% probability that even if this was a conspiracy, the photo was not the subject of the 21 days, but rather a mere by-product of it - a by-product which demonstrates at best only marginal tampering - that of the creation date - and shows zero digital manipulation and none of the inconsistency that would have been inevitable from using amateur family photographs from a consumer camera in uncontrollable settings as the source material.

So in that respect, you can't tell anyone what the 21 days were about either. You're assuming that because a photo was made available to the police at the end of this time frame, that the time frame was all about making the photo available. I already pointed out that photographic fakery in the hands of a photoshop expert would not take 21 days, and that the convenient 'photoshop expert' that you're insinuating should be in the frame is not a photoshop expert at all. I guarantee you that Rickwood could not produce an unimpeachable photographic forgery if you gave him 365 consecutive days in which to do so. Further I went on to point out to you that the creation of a forgery would be a dangerous exercise in futility which could have resulted, within 24 hours, in the perpetrators being marched up the steps of the Portuguese legal system tout suite. I explained that 'less is more', and that IF the memory card in the camera was the subject of a deliberate effort at manipulation during those 21 days, that the more productive purpose would be deletion and destruction, which can be rightly pointed out to be a huge waste of time, since tossing a memory card in any number of drains would probably do the trick far quicker. Erasure of evidence is always a more efficient cover-up than the creation of futile (pointless) evidence. What is more likely is that the 21 days were spent doing something else, and the memory card, the 'last photo' wasn't even on the radar.

IF the parents covered up their own culpability, which I believe, the '21 days', and the sudden arrival of the last photo, are entirely consistent with an evolving narrative, with afterthoughts, and indeed with the evolving nature of the circumstantial developments, demonstrating if nothing else that the massive fundraising effort was not a preconceived motive, but rather an expedient bonus - for which the sudden need for a bunch of happy family heart-tugging snapshots is apparent. And to be fair, even Pinkie might be a genuine believer, but he has a job cut out for him as the PR for this family... his advice, and he knows it, has to prevent the public from associating the McCann's - from the outset - with child endangerment or dereliction of duty. And for that purpose a good PR would retrospectively advise the client to dig out a history of media which evoke the right emotions in those whose opinion is to be managed. Like every good PR, he believes what he's told, and he asks no more than he needs in order to enable him to act objectively in the interest of the client, without ever being legally culpable for anything less than savoury - especially if for some reason his assignment was from the highest levels in the land, and offered him the promise of good things in high places in the future.

I can fill your '21 day' timeline with a billion credible things, and all of them are supportable in the infinitely more probable narrative of the covering up of a 'disaster' arising from reckless parenting, without ever having to even reference a bizarre and inexplicable desire to create what wasn't already there, in a highly risky, self-defeating, futile exercise of photographic forgery and manipulation.

But there are other questions that you leave unanswered while you lay down the fog around your '21 day' timeline...

Why does the image in question show no sign of being digitally manipulated or artificially constructed?

Why does your theory insinuate the identity of an 'expert photoshopper' who is materially incapable of producing the kind of work that you're insisting has been conducted?

Why are you professing sufficient authority and expertise in subjects that your skills clearly demonstrate you have little to no knowledge of, in order to prosecute a single line of conspiracy theory at the expense of far more credible and supportable alternatives?

I note both your lack of a reasonable answer to these questions, and your insistence on pedantically nitpicking through my prose and suggesting that you can divine my mood, and raise them as evidence that you cannot, and will not, conduct a rational and objective debate on this subject like a mature and intelligent adult would - caring little for whether all the literary t's are crossed and the i's dotted, and instead focusing on the subject in hand.

I'm sure by the end of your post - which I'm only two paragraph's into so far - you will add up all the grammatical errors, misspellings, misplaced words, and conclude that I am an intellectually incapable idiot of shill who has conspired with the government and the McCann's to confound your stellar analysis and cast aspersion on your impeccable skills. Yeah. Either that, or I just wrote the whole thing on a 7 inch tablet computer, and prioritised the conveyance of ideas over the construction of prose. I know which one you'll believe - and try to sell. You're that predictable.

To clear up a few more points...

Frankly, I think you're getting off on repeating the words 'Deviant Art.' And you've been pulled on this before. If you were anything of any kind of graphic artist, you would know the Deviant Art website, why it exists, and what its MO and community characteristics are. You wouldn't be getting churlish giggles repeating its name if you had any sort of a clue. Yet again, your insinuations and suggestions cast aspersion on countless numbers of people as you recklessly smear dirt. It is a site shared by amateurs and professionals alike, enthusiasts, and caters to any and every form of legal digital art. The category to which you refer is clearly labelled 'Fantasy', which narrows the audience down a bit, out of all the enthusiasts participating on that site in the fields of graphic design, photography, fashion design and so on. To narrow it even more, your quarry has produced a specifically niche series of works which are arguably distasteful, frankly not remotely interesting, but seemingly shared a a relative few who have offered praise for the work. All, however, is relative. And just as you find yourself praised on this site by some who, it appears, are merely being polite, accolades in such a shallow and muddy pond are hardly hallmark accreditations for skill. Fans of images of ladies drowning in quicksand can call these images all the wonderful things under the sun, but frankly their interest in such a field kind of precludes my regarding them as mainstream artists.

But more than that, you are - I notice - appealing once again to the idea that you can somehow justify your collossal mistake of crediting this man with far too much skill. The fact that you take the Rickwood fans on an enthusiast website more seriously than any credible photoshop / digital compositing expert only serves to repeatedly demonstrate that your theory - which you sell with enthusiasm - is built on a foundation of - pardon the pun - pure quicksand. You're already up to your neck in that quicksand, and not only will you not recognise it, you won't stop kicking and struggling for long enough for someone to throw you a lifeline.

I've tried, as have others on various occasions, to encourage you to salvage your arguments - in the very forum that bears Goncalo Amaral's image and pledges support to his sane, rational, material investigation - by cutting yourself off from all lines of speculation which require your heavy dependence on intellectual suicide. They discredit all else. When all is said and done, you could be 75% right, but if the 25% where you are utterly wrong is so infantile, so childish, so ridiculous, yet managed to get past you, then your entire judgement gets called into question. 


"it is a fact that the 'Last Photo' has been used by the McCanns to prove - without doubt, they say - that Madeleine was alive at 2.29pm on Thursday 3 May. It is a remarkable fact which you have not explained that although this photograph was available in the McCanns' camera on 3 May, it was not produced until 21 days later and only after Dr Gerald McCann had returned to England and Tony Rickwood's live-in partner (Philomena McCann) had flown to Praia da Luz"


So what? There are two more plausible explanations that can be considered before ever we have to resort to your improbably far-fetched super-conspiracy. Assuming her demise and the complicity of her parents in covering matters up, first, that she was - indeed - alive at the time the image was claimed to be taken and met her end after that and the photograph is entirely legitimate. Second, that she did meet her demise earlier and an authentic photograph was minimally tampered with in respect of its creation date in EXIF data in order to present an alibi to a question that wasn't being asked at the time the family handed over a bunch of portraits to the 'missing persons' police at the outset of that episode. The EXIF data could be manipulated by individuals who did not even know how to use Photoshop, and most Photoshop users would not know how to edit EXIF as a 'core skill' because there's not much demand for graphics geeks to falsify the creation date of their works. True to form, you spend more time waffling about what data you've gathered from meterologists and azimuth this and timezone that and God knows what other utterly unnecessary minutiae which fast becomes a bubbling cauldron of voodoo which carries no more significance or consequence than being able to divine what colour the aura's of the persons in the picture were. It becomes self-defeating, self-confounding line of enquiry, when the simplest explanation requiring the least steps of conspiracy and connivance make the case perfectly.


"1. Why was Alex Woolfall given access to the SIMcards of two cameras? 2. What did he do with all those images? 3. Under what circumstances did a SIMcard reach the home of a police officer from Hampshire on Tuesday 8 May?"


1. Cameras don't have SIMcards. The fact that you don't know the difference between what they do have and what they don't have leaves me with grave concerns that you understand the subject enough to know what you're talking about. Who is Alex Woolfall and are there any possible explanations as to why he would reasonably be afforded that access, before we need to assume that the access was with criminal intent?
2. What images? How many? What of? You're assuming a lot about the cards and the images you say are on them, but you can't reasonably quantify what we're talking about here. We're simply discussing assumptions.
3. I didn't send a 'SIMcard' and I didn't receive the 'SIMcard.' I'm not a police officer from Hampshire. How should I know the circumstances of the alleged event. You tell me.



Completely untrue - you cannot draw that conclusion from anything I have ever said and I ask you to formally withdraw that entire paragraph on the record on this forum and without delay. By the way, it is not an 'alleged' fetish. It is a recognised fetish, even Wikipdia has an article about it. He not only admits to having had this fetish, but has elsewhere admitted that it has been a 'lifelong' fetish. I have certainly made the point that fantasising about women being killed in gruesome circumstances is a potentially dangerous fantasy. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?


Given the number of statements you've made in my direction which are completely untrue, I'm retracting nothing. I read your posts, and I go on what is insinuated there. Your repeated use of the term 'Deviant Art' has already been noted by others as lacking objectivity and being used by you as a pejoritive.

Incidentally, it is an 'alleged' fetish if you value your legal integrity in the matter. You have not heard from his mouth that this is his fetish, you have simply googled and come up with a name and a place, and you could have been wrong. Until a legal entity verifies the matter and it becomes an enforceable statement, it is an allegation. I'm sure you wouldn't want the public to assume that you are responsible for everything that a Tony Bennett from your neck of the woods might do. There's a difference between surmise and fact.

And yes, you've stated that it is a potentially dangerous fantasy. I also pointed out that it could be simply a troubling persistence of deep-seated psychological trauma or distress. He could be the victim, not the victimiser. As with the surmise of what he has 'admitted', until you can verify the nature, in a testable environment, you can't do any more than assume.




"Para 6 - you wrote (I've corrected your spelling):  You can have your 13 points of specutation and assumption,"

You're a smug bugger, I'll give you that. I'll counter with the fact that your 'correction' of my spelling was in itself incorrect. Now you can drop the spelling police routine,


"As you must concede, I stated 13 facts. There was no speculation and no assumption. Please also formally withdraw that additional false statement on this thread."


I'll concede nothing of the sort. There was speculation AND assumption. It is not a false statement. It will not be removed. One of your 13 statements called Rickwood an 'Expert Photoshopper'. That is patently false, demonstrably so, and I refute it. Correct it to be relatively correct (i.e. Rickwood is a better Photoshopper than Bennett, but by no means a verified expert capable of producing flawless digital manipulations) and we'll take a look at the other 12.

Well I take it you don't like Tony or his opinions much Veritas - it must have taken ages to write that lot. I gave up just over halfway through after wading through the barely disguised insults.

I hope you don't mind me quoting the following as I found it very interesting - something Clarence might have written/dictated himself (except it's not Clarence it's you Veritas).

Quote from Veritas

IF the parents covered up their own culpability, which I believe, the '21 days', and the sudden arrival of the last photo, are entirely consistent with an evolving narrative, with afterthoughts, and indeed with the evolving nature of the circumstantial developments, demonstrating if nothing else that the massive fundraising effort was not a preconceived motive, but rather an expedient bonus - for which the sudden need for a bunch of happy family heart-tugging snapshots is apparent. And to be fair, even Pinkie might be a genuine believer, but he has a job cut out for him as the PR for this family... his advice, and he knows it, has to prevent the public from associating the McCann's - from the outset - with child endangerment or dereliction of duty. And for that purpose a good PR would retrospectively advise the client to dig out a history of media which evoke the right emotions in those whose opinion is to be managed. Like every good PR, he believes what he's told, and he asks no more than he needs in order to enable him to act objectively in the interest of the client, without ever being legally culpable for anything less than savoury - especially if for some reason his assignment was from the highest levels in the land, and offered him the promise of good things in high places in the future.

End Quote

aquila wrote:Well I take it you don't like Tony or his opinions much Veritas - it must have taken ages to write that lot. I gave up just over halfway through after wading through the disguised insults.

I hope you don't mind me quoting the following as I found it very interesting - something Clarence might have written/dictated himself (except it's not Clarence it's you Veritas).

Quote from Veritas

IF the parents covered up their own culpability, which I believe, the '21 days', and the sudden arrival of the last photo, are entirely consistent with an evolving narrative, with afterthoughts, and indeed with the evolving nature of the circumstantial developments, demonstrating if nothing else that the massive fundraising effort was not a preconceived motive, but rather an expedient bonus - for which the sudden need for a bunch of happy family heart-tugging snapshots is apparent. And to be fair, even Pinkie might be a genuine believer, but he has a job cut out for him as the PR for this family... his advice, and he knows it, has to prevent the public from associating the McCann's - from the outset - with child endangerment or dereliction of duty. And for that purpose a good PR would retrospectively advise the client to dig out a history of media which evoke the right emotions in those whose opinion is to be managed. Like every good PR, he believes what he's told, and he asks no more than he needs in order to enable him to act objectively in the interest of the client, without ever being legally culpable for anything less than savoury - especially if for some reason his assignment was from the highest levels in the land, and offered him the promise of good things in high places in the future.

End Quote

I find it ironic that so many of you who thrive on making and passing veiled insults, insinuations, and implications not only automagically read them into what everyone else has to say, but when you do you even express moral indignation at the practice. Bizarre. In focusing on those things you doom yourselves to being polarised without being informed. Bravo. It's a pity you're so easily distracted by the veiled insults that your mind read between every line and gave no consideration to the upfront and direct comments that were made in print. 

I don't at all mind you quoting what I wrote, as long as you explain why it means something to you to do so, otherwise please take it down. Make a conclusion, and do conclude, but don't post something in such a way that it leaves room for inferrence, insinuation or veiled comment, since I know you have such an objection to those things. 

Incidentally, I don't know Tony so I can't tell you whether I like him or not. I fundamentally disagree with him on much, and am able and confident enough to deal with written exchanges and learn a lot about the intellectual characteristics behind the exchanges, and my sense is that where Tony goes with much of this is not helpful to the investigation conducted by the man whose face adorns the banner at the top of this website, nor the argument made by those who support that investigation and its resumption. 

And the post in question took me about 43 minutes. Every minute I donated and devoted in honour of the sane, intelligent and rational people who promote truth and receive as their reward the ire and ridicule and abuse generated by scandal-mongering wild conspiracy theorists and their behaviour, which drowns out the cogent appeal to intelligent objective investigation in the public arena.

candyfloss wrote:Veritas you have a right to reply to Tony's post, but I would make a polite request that you refrain from insults and name calling, there is simply no need for it and you can make your points without resorting to this. You are breaking forum rules.   So a reminder, anymore of this and you will no longer be a member of this forum.  This is a warning.

Thank you Candyfloss. Can you point out for the forum which insults and name calling you are specifically referring to? If you document them I will gladly and publicly account for them and correct or apologise for them where necessary.

You should have stuck with it Aquila, I found it refreshing to read such eloquent prose.

Admittedly there are a few 'ouch' moments for Tony, but this is an adult forum, and this is an adult debate.  Both parties are equally armed, and Tony has a right to reply.  

I don't have the expertise to know whether or not the 'last picture' was photoshopped, we don't have a definitive answer, but I would rather read ALL theories rather than be restricted to one.

Veritas wrote:

candyfloss wrote:Veritas you have a right to reply to Tony's post, but I would make a polite request that you refrain from insults and name calling, there is simply no need for it and you can make your points without resorting to this. You are breaking forum rules.   So a reminder, anymore of this and you will no longer be a member of this forum.  This is a warning.

Thank you Candyfloss. Can you point out for the forum which insults and name calling you are specifically referring to? If you document them I will gladly and publicly account for them and correct or apologise for them where necessary.

I think 'smug bugger' and 'you fool' (which I deleted by the way) is insulting, don't you?

I'm reminded of an outraged gentleman throwing down the gauntlet and asking for satisfaction 'pistols or swords, I demand satisfaction'.

For what it's worth I don't like this topic and have contributed nothing to it. I didn't spend around 43 minutes (I'm sorry but you can't spend around 43 minutes it's around half an hour or 45 minutes - 43 suggests you timed it   ) writing an indignant tome.

I'm sure that you can find a way to debate in a more reasonable manner (I'm not the best at being reasonable but then I don't profess to be as intelligent as you).

I found your opinion on PR very enlightening. Especially when you seem to think all good PR people believe their clients and only ask what they need to know.

Please don't try to draw me into your battle of wits. You've already suggested I'm witless. 

Unfortunately, if one takes 43 minutes to construct a post it is likely to be a lengthy read for anyone wishing to digest every point, nuance and/or grievance, Ergo I suggest this squandered energy could be harnessed and used to much greater effect with a little judicious editing.

We can all be less than succinct at times, but to have a realistic expectation of being read and engaged with in an ongoing debate means avoiding your reader having to experience the effect of sinking in an expanse of quicksand. Not the real deal, I know, for you esoterics out there, but the same sense of hopelessness as you are sucked relentlessly down.