'ROGUE OF THE DAY'

sharonl wrote:We don't have a thread for the idiot of the day but this fool really has earned a place somewhere, so I'll put him here    


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Perhaps we should have an 'Fool of the Day' thread.  Here's my contribution..

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Tracey Kandohla  - "make that a large one...."

Even looks like a fool.

Verdi wrote:

sharonl wrote:We don't have a thread for the idiot of the day but this fool really has earned a place somewhere, so I'll put him here    


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Perhaps we should have an 'Fool of the Day' thread.  Here's my contribution..

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Tracey Kandohla  - "make that a large one...."

Even looks like a fool.

I think she knows exactly what she is doing, which, IMO makes her worse than a fool.

Well, Congratulations to the vile McCann troll who spent years abusing those seeking justice for a 3 year old, even to the point of offering death threats.  Nigel Nessling has just well and truly earned a place  in the McCann Rogue Gallery as he is found guilty of downloading indecent images of children.  

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I am not surprised but I am disgusted that the Sensor on YouTube has taken action. That YouTube Video of the Documentary on the abuse in the Catholic Church has been taken down by YouTube. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

UK Database – Sex offenders register

Margaret Hodge – Childrens homes abuse & connections to P.I.E

Just how many children were abused in the Islington children’s home abuse scandal, and why did hundreds of children’s files mysteriously disappear in Islington ?

And yet more than three decades on we still do not know the truth …..

The main paedophile at the centre of the Islington child abuse scandal went on to abuse children across three continents.

Had allegations against Bernie Bain, the former head of the children’s home, been properly investigated and believed by Margaret Hodge in the 1980s countless children would have been spared.

But was he the only paedophile to abuse those children? We think not, and furthermore we believe a paedophile ring made up of influential people from backgrounds such as the police and politics were instrumental in the systematic abuse.

Margaret Hodge was the leader of Islington Council at the time, and went onto become Minister of State for Children. When she was alerted to the investigation she complained to the Chairman of the BBC. In the letter she attacks a victim of abuse as an ‘extremely disturbed person’.

All right-thinking people like to imagine, when hearing stories of the maltreatment and or sexual abuse of children in care, that they themselves would guarantee sanctuary. But often they simply don’t. A senior social worker, Liz Davies, and her manager, David Cofie, first told Margaret Hodge, then leader of Islington council, in 1990 of their suspicions that there was widespread sexual abuse of children in Islington care homes.

Hodge did NOTHING to help those kids and instead turned her back ! More on that further down ……

Margaret Hodge MBE MP (née Oppenheimer; born 8 September 1944), formally styled The Rt Hon Lady Hodge MBE MP by virtue of her appointment to the Privy Council and her late husband’s knighthood, is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Barking since 1994. She was the first Minister for Children in 2003 and was Minister of Statefor Culture and Tourism at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. On 9 June 2010 she was elected Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

Margaret Hodge’s family company pays just 0.01pc tax on £2.1bn of business generated in the UK

Second husband and his affiliation to the paedophile information exchange

Hodge divorced in 1978 and in that same year she married Henry Hodge (later Sir Henry), going on to have two daughters. Sir Henry Hodge was a fellow Labour Borough Councillor and in 1974 became Chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties who went on to become a High Court judge.

Sir Henry Egar Garfield Hodge, OBE –  Second husband

By 1978, PIE, the Paedophile Information Exchange and National Council for Civil Liberties had already been affiliated for three years. (just one year after Hodge became chairman) Another group, Paedophile Action for Liberation, a Gay Liberation Front offshoot, had also been affiliated to NCCL until it was absorbed by PIE. PIE, which campaigned for adults to have sex legally with children, only broke off its relationship with NCCL when it went undercover in 1982. Sir Henry Hodge died in 2009.

More on P.I.E (Paedophile Information Exchange) here including Patricia Hewitt  – Former Secretary of State for Health and MP Harriet Harman’s involvement

Islington Council and Child abuse controversy

Hodge was elected as a councillor for the London Borough of Islington in 1973. Hodge was appointed MBE in 1978. However, the end of her period at Islington, before taking up her parliamentary career, was marred by criticism of her response (in 1985) to serious child abuse allegations.

In 1985, Demetrious Panton complained about abuse that he had suffered while in the council’s care in the 1970s and 1980s. He did not receive an official reply until 1989, in which the council denied responsibility.

Channel 4 News on Islington Children’s Homes (Demetrious Panton interview)



In 1990, Liz Davies, a senior social worker employed by the borough and her manager, David Cofie, raised concerns about sexual abuse of children in Islington Council care. Correspondence between Hodge and the director of social work indicates that she declined a request for extra resources to investigate. In early 1992, Davies (not to be confused with the barrister and former Islington councillor) resigned from her post and requested that Scotland Yard investigate the allegations.

The Evening Standard then began reporting on the allegations of abuse in Islington’s children’s homes, shortly after which Hodge resigned to pursue a career with Price Waterhouse. In 1995, the “White Report” into sexual abuse in Islington Care Homes reported that the council had failed adequately to investigate the allegations.

In 2003, following Hodge’s appointment as Minister for Children, Demetrious Panton went public with his allegation that he was abused in Islington Council care and had repeatedly raised this issue with no effect. He accused Hodge of being ultimately responsible for the abuse that he suffered. Davies also went public with the issues that she had raised concerns about while working for the council.

Following a media campaign conducted by several national newspapers calling for her to resign from her new post, she responded to Panton by letter, in which she referred to him as ‘extremely disturbed’. Panton then passed the letter to the press which planned to publish it, only to be judicially restrained from doing so at the instruction of Hodge. The letter was eventually published, mainly on the grounds that the blocking of the letter was seen as disproportionate. Hodge was forced to publicly apologise and offered to contribute to a charity of Panton’s choosing as recompense.

A backbencher added. “She’s ruthlessly ambitious and seen as insincere. It’s ludicruous to claim she wasn’t aware of child abuse in the early 90s, and I just question why she wasn’t listening to the children. That apology was motivated by political expediency and people don’t see how she can survive.”

Sexual abuse of children

Demetrious Panton was abused in care. In 1978 he fell victim to a man called Bernie Bain, the head of a children’s home in the London Borough of Islington.

“He forced me into his bedroom, took off his dressing gown, um, I … I remember saying to him I don’t want this, I don’t want it, and I was 11, He was a brute, he was uncontrollable and there was just no escape, and that’s the best way to describe it, there was no escape and you just managed the situation as best as you could. You managed him and the situation and you protected yourself.”

But it was 17 years before a police investigation uncovered the true extent of the abuse. Detective Superintendent John Sweeney led the inquiry.

“I was deeply affected by taking some of the statements,” Det Supt Sweeney said. “It’s quite clear that he was a habitual sexual abuser. The abuse was extremely violent and we are talking about children, seven, eight year old boys, and for those individuals there’d be no-one more sadistic. So I formed the opinion that he was gonna be someone that was probably doing it now – at that time in 1995 elsewhere – so I had to try and find him.”

1995: Bain had been at large for at least 17 years. Demetrious Panton first made allegations against him in 1979, but no other children would talk and the case was dropped. Islington Council was off the hook. As for Bernie Bain it was a close call and although he left social services he was still free to pursue an abusive career which was to span three decades and cross three continents.

The tragedy is that it should never have happened. In 1985 Demetrious – just turned 18 – wrote to Islington Social Services. He wanted to go to the police again. He wanted the council to back him.

After four and a half years social services finally wrote to Demetrious. The two page letter, which has been described as little more than a brush off, urges him to “move on from those unhappy times”.

Nicholas John Rabet, former deputy superintendent of the council’s home in Grosvenor Avenue had links with the paedophile ring on Jersey. He escaped prosecution because of the then council’s gross mismanagement of the scandal and fled to Thailand.

14-year-old Jason Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is believed to have lived in Islington council’s Conewood Street home.

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Demetrious is a brave young man. He seems incredibly calm, and well adjusted, despite what has happened to him. Hodge is evil and vile.

Foreword

Nota Bene: After reading the article under discussion I contacted “The Olive Press”, asking for a retraction and an apology. I received neither acknowledgment nor reply
A week later I sent a repeat email.
This time Jon Clarke, publisher and editor replied, denying that anything was ‘libel’.
I sent a suggested form of words for the retraction and apology.
He replied repeating that they did not consider that there was any libel.


In view of this I believe I am entitled to assume that there is no reasonable prospect of a retraction, a correction, nor an apology.
The attitude of “The Olive Press” towards defamation may also be clear, as it was expressed in an article of November 2011, trumpeting under a 44-point-bold banner headline –
         WHY LIBEL IS NO BIG DEAL IN SPAIN                                                                   [1]

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In the previous Chapter “Fake News” I looked at an article by Jon Clarke, the owner and publisher of a free newspaper in southern Spain “The Olive Press”.
I showed how that article, published in 2017, was seriously divergent from, and often contrary to facts as reported by other people. Notably, and potentially seriously, it directly contradicted much of what Kate McCann herself had written in her autobiography “madeleine”. But there the matter rested. It was discussed on several Fora, but was largely dismissed as “the usual nonsense”.

In late March 2019 I went into a supermarket in southern Spain, purchased a bottle of wine and wrapped it in one of the free tabloid papers helpfully supplied at the check-out for this purpose.

On this occasion it was “The Olive Press”. Vol.13 Issue 314 to be precise.

On page 3 is an article on the recent Netflix documentary about missing Madeleine Beth McCann, saying “The Olive Press” played a “starring role” [sic] and entitled “Hoping for Answers”.

The article is not attributed and is written in the third person, but is clearly by Jon Clarke.
As the publisher and editor of the paper he is ultimately responsible for its content.

In it I am identified by name, occupation and location, and then subjected to the routine, gratuitous ad-hominen insults and abuse sadly so typical of what we have come to expect of those who uncritically support the ‘official’ story put out by Team McCann and their acolytes and apologists.

In that article, 7 column inches are devoted to Clarke and the Netflix documentary, whilst 3.5 column inches are devoted to maligning and defaming me. 293 words - v - 140 words
One third of the entire article is devoted to entirely gratuitous abuse.

Gratuitous in that it does not address the central point of the article, which is to emphasise the importance of Clarke and “The Olive Press” in the Netflix programmes.
Gratuitous in that yet again it sets up and then knocks down the straw-man argument about “proving that the McCanns did not kill Madeline’ which it is unlikely anyone actually believes.

I am a long since retired police officer as he accurately states, from a previous millennium and perhaps from a more robust generation. I am hardened to abuse of the sort we come to expect from drunks, drug users, criminals and tabloid journalists.

But there is more. He goes on to make four distinct statements about me.
It is in the public domain, published in 100,000 copies, with huge numbers of readers both on-line and via Facebook and Android apps - his figures, not mine - and so I give a quote

“The former Nottinghamshire copper has long trolled that the parents were guilty and even produced a libellous pamphlet on why they did it. . . .
. . [he] once tried to claim that Olive Press editor Clarke could not have been in Praia da Luz on the morning after Maddie’s disappearance.
In a disgusting blog post he also somehow suggested that Clarke may have been in some way involved.”

Strong stuff. So perhaps a measured and proportionate response is not altogether unexpected.

Let us pick it apart. Let us be clinically detached, ignore the sneering and abusive tone, forget the libel, and stick to the facts of what is being said. Keep our eye on the squirrel.

•       “Libellous pamphlet”
No pamphlet in this case has ever been adjudged to be libellous. Clarke is fully aware of this

•       [he] . . . even produced . . a pamphlet . . .
I have never produced any pamphlet, libellous or otherwise. Clarke knows this

•       once tried to claim that Clarke could not have been in Praia da Luz . . .
This is not true. Clarke knows this is not true

•       he … suggested that Clarke may have been in some way involved
This is not true. Clarke knows this is not true

Here we have four distinct and discrete untruths. Jon Clarke knows that each one is untrue.

We can be absolutely sure of this because in each case he has previously published the ’real, true’ facts in other places including his own newspaper. He has previously published the identity of the person who did produce a leaflet and engage in ‘robust discussion‘. And it was not me. So these are not mistakes, errors, typos, mis-information, general editorial sloppiness, nor any of the other excuses normally trotted out on these occasions.

These are lies.
It logically follows that Jon Clarke, Publisher and Editor of “The Olive Press”, is a liar
and that his newspaper “The Olive Press” deliberately and by design publishes lies.

* * * * * * * *

That might have been the end of the matter. As a person of reasonable fortitude I could have simply accepted that within the fortnight the cat litter trays, the parrot cages and the rubbish bins would have been cleaned and emptied, and that the lies would have disappeared with them – notwithstanding in the modern world they remain forever floating in the aether cloud of the internet.

But I suspected that I was dealing with something else; that I was dealing with organised and concerted mendacity. It is in the first part of the article, in which Clarke’s appearance in the Netflix documentary is featured, that we find very significant differences between what is being said now, and what was said in 2017, only two years ago, authored by the same Jon Clarke.

We need to examine extracts from these three versions together

2017 article in “The Olive Press”                                                                                            [5]

     “But for a couple of loving parents to murder their daughter, bury and cover all traces in an hour while on holiday is stretching it just a bit too far.
     But this didn’t stop the Portuguese police from charging them… “
     “When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns and told them I would do everything I could to help.
     “The only reporter on the scene till late that evening – apart from Sky News reporter Kate Burley, who happened to be on holiday there – I spent time grilling neighbours, . . ”
     “Incredibly, we had to wait till late afternoon before a couple of sniffer dogs had arrived, which was amateur to say the least, given that Maddie had been reported missing a full 18 hours earlier.

2019 article in “The Olive Press”                                                                                             [4]

     “The Olive Press Editor, 50, was the first journalist on the scene in Praia da Luz the day after police began their disastrous attempt to find the toddler.
     “ . . he takes the crew around the resort, and reveals his shock at how laid back the police operation was and how he met the McCanns in those early hours.
     “Initially there was just a small bit of tape in front of the apartment, and then a bit at the side where the patio doors were,” he revealed in the film.
     “It wouldn’t have been difficult to walk in and have a look round. It certainly wasn’t Fort Knox,” he added.

2019 transcript from Netflix documentary                                                                            [7]

     “This is it, this is it.”
     “This is now what was the Mark Warner complex, the Ocean Club, this one here 5a
     “I said hello to them as they were leaving and introduced myself to them as a reporter from the Mail, and they said “Hi”, and I think they may have also said “thanks for coming”.

     “That was really unfortunately all I could get out of them at that point, so there really wasn’t much opportunity, sadly, to talk to the family about what had happened the night before.

     “Initially there was maybe just a small bit of tape here in front of the apartment, and a little bit at the side where the patio doors were.”
     “And then there was a note on the steps leading up, saying ‘Don’t go past this point’.

     It went up, and I looked in and the door was open and I think I tried to speak.
I didn’t, . . . I didn’t want to push my way through the door or into the apartment which obviously would have been a crime scene, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate to do that, but I got the impression it wouldn’t have been difficult to do that at all, to sort of walk in and take a look around, you know it certainly wasn’t Fort Knox.”

Readers will already realise that some of this is contradictory. In 2017 he says he walked into the apartment and spoke to the McCanns there. In 2019 he says he spoke to the McCanns as they left, and then did not enter the apartment. So let us deconstruct these “versions of the truth”

We find a series of direct statements
         He arrived about 11:45am
         He was the only reporter till late that evening
         He was the first journalist on the scene
         Kate [Kay] Burley was there
         He walked into the apartment
         He did not walk into the apartment
         He met the McCanns in the apartment
         He met the McCanns as they were leaving
         He introduced himself, and told them he would do everything to help
         He introduced himself, and they said ‘Hi’, and may have said ‘thanks for coming’
         There were no dogs until late afternoon
         The Portuguese police charged the McCanns

What is truly astonishing about this whole series of statements is not merely that some contradict others. It is that there is documentary evidence available in the public domain in the form of professionally recorded contemporaneous Video, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that every one of those statements is untrue.
And Clarke, a professional journalist who has access to the internet and to search engines as we all do, must be fully aware that his lies can be, and will be exposed.
And yet he persists, and refuses to correct or apologise.

         He arrived about 11:45am

In her autobiography Kate covers the departure from the complex with the PJ for the initial statements. The statements are timed with Gerry McCann’s beginning at 1115, Tanner and Oldfield at 1130. Portimão police station is about 32 km from the apartment, and google.maps estimates the time to drive at around 32 min.
Allowing time for organising rooms, paper, interviewers and interpreters and other domestic matters this would indicate a departure time of around 1015 - 1030. This accords with Kate’s book, where she says “it was about 10am by the time a couple of PJ officers turned up”.

What Clarke has failed to notice or factor into his story is the one hour time difference between Spain, where he lives, and Portugal. This was pointed out in the ‘blog’ comments on the 2017 article, but he did not seem to grasp the importance of the detail.

This puts Clarke in PdL around 1045 local time or shortly before. In time to see the McCanns, Payne, Tanner and Oldfield leaving with the PJ in fact. And there is clear video evidence of this.

         He was the only reporter on the scene until late that evening

This is one of Clarke’s most bizarre statements. It seems totally pointless to print such an egregious lie about such an apparently unimportant issue.
The area was ‘swarming’ with reporters and camera crews. A group of 6 reporters including Clarke congregated in the car park outside apartment 5H waiting for them to leave. Clarke is seen on film speaking to one reporter, a woman, and standing within a yard of Len Port, a British journalist based just along the coast who had been there since 0830

         He was the first journalist on the scene . . .

This lie is repeated, even in 2019 when Clarke knew that the Netflix film would include video from 2007 showing this was simply untrue, and despite having access to Port’s book. He could have used the construction “among the first” but again chooses to print another untruth. It is unclear why. Len Port arrived about 0830, and has not only written about this, but was filmed by one of the camera crews. Port does not claim to have been the first – probably because he has no evidence that this was so, possibly because it is entirely irrelevant.

         Kate [Kay] Burley was there

In the 2017 article he names Kate Burley. Commentators on Clarke’s blog site pointed out the mistake in the name, and he altered the on-line version to KAY Burley. It was then pointed out that video exists of Ms Burley presenting the news in the UK that day, and that the person in question was actually a weather presenter, who was identified and named. He has never corrected the untruth, or apologised.

         He walked into the apartment

“When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns”

In fact the place had been sealed off the previous evening, the McCanns who had been in another apartment overnight – the Payne’s, 5H – either ‘keeping vigil’ (Kate), or sleeping (Gerry) moved their remaining possessions early that morning into their new apartment, 5G, and shortly after 1000 were on their way to Portimao with the PJ
During the morning and afternoon the forensic people were in the apartment, there were dog handlers outside, and the place was crawling with reporters and film crews

         He did not walk into the apartment

In the Netflix documentary Clarke has now changed his story. He will have been aware that Netflix had access to the contemporaneous video footage, and was planning to include some clips. Those include footage of the tape and the warning notice he refers to.

“I didn’t want to push my way through the door or into the apartment which obviously would have been a crime scene, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate to do that, but I got the impression it wouldn’t have been difficult to do that at all, to sort of walk in and take a look around, “

His use of the negative of the conditional perfect tense - “wouldn’t have been difficult” - is a clear admission that he did not enter. He also excuses himself from so doing by rightly stating that it would have been inappropriate because it was a crime scene – or at least a missing person scene – and because it was taped off.

         He met the McCanns in the apartment

But the McCanns were not there. They had spent the night in the Payne’s apartment, and then the entire day in Portimão. They arrived back in PdL around 2030 and went straight to 5G, their newly allocated apartment. Food was provided and they did not go out again until 2200 to give the short press conference by torchlight.

         He met the McCanns as they were leaving

This is more intriguing. For this you should view the relevant video clip above, which can be slowed, and ‘clicked’ frame by frame. Full details are given in the Appendices. A series of annotated stills from the video can be seen at Appendix B.

Clarke is seen standing in the car park among the group of six journalists. He then leaves toward the camera, shaking hands with one of the 5 GNR police officers. As he moves out of shot to the left, Gerry McCann is seen in the distance leaving the stairwell, and walking into the car park on the right of shot.
From this point the camera follows the McCanns, Oldfield and Tanner as they walk with a PJ officer in a leather jacket to the waiting cars. They are joined by Payne, and are seeing getting into the cars and driving away.
Clarke is seen emerging from a row of marked police vehicles on the right of shot, striding into the middle of the road close to Len Port, and taking a photo. At no point is he close to the McCanns. Seconds before the car pulls away Payne is seen winding down the front passenger window and says something indistinct.
So unless Clarke shouted at the open window as the car begins to drive away it is unlikely that this polite exchange could have taken place as described.
“I said hello to them as they were leaving and introduced myself to them as a reporter from the Mail, and they said “Hi”, and I think they may have also said “thanks for coming”.

         He told them he would do everything to help

It is unclear what part of a journalists professional duty it is to “help”. It suggests that the official story is already known. I shall return to this later

         He introduced himself, and they said ‘Hi’, and may have said ‘thanks for coming’

This is a very different story, and implies something far shorter and less formal than the previous version.

         There were no dogs until late afternoon

Here Clarke uses the words. “Incredibly, we had to wait till late afternoon. . .”
It is certainly incredible. It is unbelievable. We do not believe it.
For the simple reason that it is not true. It is another palpable lie.

Len Port describes dogs searching during the early hours of the morning -
“As I moved around the village on foot there was at least one obvious manifestation of police activity. Police officers with search dogs on leads were vigorously combing the vicinity of the apartments, the area around the village church, on down towards the seashore and along the full length of the long curving beach. It was all being done in silence.”

In the few video clips referred to it is possible to identify no fewer than four dogs with their handlers. Two are black, one is black and white, and the fourth is a large golden Labrador. And these are only those filmed in the immediate vicinity of the apartment. Len Port is clearly describing yet more further afield.

To ensure that this was correct I contacted a Portuguese journalist who has followed this case
I referred to sentences taken from Clarke’s 2017 article
“From the word go, they did not take this crime seriously. “
“Incredibly, we had to wait till late afternoon before a couple of sniffer dogs had arrived, which was amateur to say the least, given that Maddie had been reported missing a full 18 hours earlier.”

I received the following email [edited with grammar and spelling corrected]

Around 2.00 am, May 4th, there were already more than a dozen GNR officers at Praia da Luz. The lieutenant-colonel in charge of Algarve area also was there, around 3.00 am. He called off-duty officers and brought others from at least 6 precincts in the Algarve. There were also 2 K2 [dog] units, from Portimão.
Around 4.00 am, the GNR commander called headquarters in Lisbon and asked them to send more K2 units, dogs more specialised in searching for missing persons. Those 3 units left Lisbon around 4.30 am and arrived at Praia da Luz around 8.00, starting immediately the searches.
In the early hours of the morning of May 4th, there were more than 20 GNR officers at the place, all access to the building was cordoned off, nobody could get closer than 20 meters, so everything that Clarke says is just a lie…

Even more incredibly, the dog van and handlers were in the car park only feet from where Clarke walked as he left the scene. One camera crew was there taking film of the dogs and of the shutters, and was itself filmed doing so by a second film crew. It is inconceivable that Clarke did not notice, and so the inevitable conclusion is that for some reason he is choosing yet again to lie.

         The Portuguese police charged the McCanns
“But this didn’t stop the Portuguese police from charging them… “

It is difficult to know in which category of mendacity to place this, or whether to try to excuse it on the grounds of crass stupidity. But Clarke is not a stupid man. He is reasonably well educated and his craft depends on the use of the English language. He lives in a country with a Continental legal system ultimately based in Roman Law, and will be, or should be aware of the different roles adopted by GNR police, PJ, and of the role of the Public Prosecutor.

The McCanns have never been charged with anything. There is insufficient evidence to do so.
For many people that is the “causus belli”.

It is unlikely that Clarke has misinterpreted ‘arguido’ status as “charging them”. Most people by now understand the meaning of that term as ‘formal suspect’, equivalent to being ‘interviewed under caution’ despite the McCanns trying to deny that interpretation on oath at Leveson.

It may be instructive to compare Clarke’s mendacious style and somewhat Cavalier approach to truth, facts and evidence with what another British journalist, Len Port, who lives a short distance along the coast in Portugal, says in his book 'People in a Place Apart’

Ch. 24. THE MADELEINE MYSTERY
[Extract.] On arrival in the village before 8.30am on Friday 4th May 2007, I expected to see some urgent activity. A young British girl, Madeleine McCann, had gone missing the previous night. At first I saw no movement at all. The village was silent and still. While driving around, I came across a single police vehicle parked on the roadside at a junction of minor roads towards the back of the village. I parked directly behind it. A few uniformed police officers were standing outside a block of holiday apartments. The only other people in sight were two women in conversation close to a corner ground floor apartment, 5A.                                                                                                         [11]

Port then walked round the village, and was filmed by one of the many camera crews who were also beginning to arrive during the morning.
This is a still from one such video, showing Port by the pool to the south of the McCanns’ apartment. The heavy plastic tarpaulin screens of the notorious Tapas bar are clearly visible in front of him behind the yellow umbrellas.
If we look at the shadows of Port and of the palm tree and then replicate them on a N-S image from Google Maps, we observe that the image was recorded in the early morning, as stated.

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Later in the chapter Port says
“As I moved around the village on foot there was at least one obvious manifestation of police activity. Police officers with search dogs on leads were vigorously combing the vicinity of the apartments, the area around the village church, on down towards the seashore and along the full length of the long curving beach. It was all being done in silence.”
“The tranquility outside apartment 5A gradually changed. As the morning and afternoon wore on, the number of people arriving on the scene steadily increased. Curious passers-by mingled with reporters, photographers, TV cameramen and staff manning outside broadcast vans. A mixture of Portuguese, British and other nationalities, we all stood around asking each other questions and wondering what had happened to the little girl.”

Paulo Reis makes trenchant observations about this phenomenon of journalists and reporters ‘feeding off each other’ in his blog article.

Continued..

How much more of this can we take ?

These untruths are in a different league from the normal Team McCann and Mitchell mendacity.
We have become inured to the McCann tactic of simple reversal of statements when the objective facts prove inconvenient

* The curtains were wide open - v - they were tight closed
* The abductor got in through broken shutters - v - did not enter through the window
* Gerry entered through the locked front door - v - through the unlocked patio door
* They had no wristwatches - v - they checked the time by their watches
* We never lied to anyone - v - we told a lie about Gerry having a stomach complaint

The McCanns are stuck with those lies for all time. They will be endlessly repeated whenever any claim is made that the McCanns are telling the truth. They can never escape them.
The late Antony Sharples, writing as John Blacksmith, discussed this in “The Foundation Lie”  [13]

But Clarke’s untruths are of a different order of magnitude.

To redeem himself and to try to recover some scintilla of professional credibility Clarke has to admit that it didn’t happen AT ALL.
He has to admit that he simply made it up; to state openly, that as an‘Investigative Journalist’, or indeed a journalist of any hue, and the publisher of a newspaper and on-line outlet, he simply invented a story; invented a meeting, invented dialogue, and twisted the available facts to fit some unknown agenda.

It is no longer open to him to say, “Well it did, but just not quite in that way”

He either DID go into apartment 5A on arrival, or he did NOT

He either DID speak to the McCanns in the apartment shortly after he arrived in PdL on 4/5/7, or he did NOT

There either WERE police dogs present or there were NOT

The McCanns were either CHARGED or they were NOT

And these lies are now preserved on video, to be viewed by millions, exposed over and over again, for all time. He is stuck with it for all eternity.

Even if he had no ultimate editorial control the sequence must be:
- Netflix consult him about events
- Clarke inflates his own role about being first on the scene and first to speak to the McCanns
- Netflix write the screenplay to incorporate what Clarke said in the 2017 article
- Clarke is an important and integral part of the filming and editorial team
- Netflix put that part of the interview as voice-over to the video clip for emphasis
- "The Olive Press" then trumpets itself as playing a 'starring role' in the documentary

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He also makes another revealing change, which we are perhaps supposed not to notice.
Is he following the McCann and Mitchell Rule-book and changing the story to make it fit the facts ?

In the film he has – or they have – now completely changed the order of events from –
2017 - went in and THEN spoke to the McCanns in the apartment.
“When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns”.

to a complete reversal –
2019 - spoke to the McCanns as they were leaving (the film implying this was outdoors) and THEN went to the apartment
“I said hello to them as they were leaving and introduced myself to them as a reporter from the Mail, and they said “Hi”, and I think they may have also said “thanks for coming”.

Only then does he go to the gate and the stairs with the tape

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And we see the notice indicating that even he as reporter should not enter

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He waves to indicate something out of shot

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And says : "It went up, and I looked in and the door was open, and I think I tried to speak.”
The words “It went up, . . .” are, curiously, a voice-over to a clip from 2007 of the stairs, the tape and the notice with an unidentified woman in shot, left, who is clearly holding a microphone, clearly a news reader and speaking directly to camera probably LIVE.

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And his use of the construction "It went up," leads us to understand "The prohibition / the cordon / the exclusion zone went up, . . .
which makes his reluctance or failure to go into the apartment even more understandable and acceptable.

By saying he “tried to speak” he is also, of course, clearly admitting that there were already people IN the apartment to be spoken to. We know these were police and Forensic officers. As does he.
Which may be why he only “tried to speak” as his Portuguese may not be as fluent as his Spanish, and perhaps why he did not want to risk a confrontation and possible arrest, as he explains -

I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to push my way through the door or into the apartment which obviously would have been a crime scene, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate to do that,

[Just as an aside, the repeated “I didn’t . . [pause] . . I didn’t . . .” is potentially an interesting insight into the possible mental turmoil he may have been feeling as he repeated this version of a story he knew to be untrue and which he feared might one day be exposed]

The fact remains that the McCanns are in the shot – in an unbroken ‘real time’ sequence – from the car park, along the road, and getting into the car, and at no time does anyone approach them close enough to have a conversation. Tanner keeps behind the group, and Oldfield is seen using his body and arm as a physical shield the entire time. The sequence is unbroken until the first car is seen driving off and the camera pans to take in the entire convoy. The only ‘window of opportunity’ is when Paynes opens the passenger window, a sequence of rather less than 6 seconds, before the vehicle moves away.

Viewers must draw their own conclusions about whether Clarke really
“ . . . said hello to them as they were leaving and introduced myself to them as a reporter from the Mail, and they said “Hi”, and I think they may have also said “thanks for coming”.

We note his use of the deliberately vague “I think they may . . .” Is this his escape route ?

If so it is a very long way from the 2017 version.
“When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns and told them I would do everything I could to help.”

Does Clarke have an escape route from that ?
Or can we now accurately describe the 2017 version as a Lie, on the simple grounds that
HE DIDN’T – AND THEY WERE NOT THERE

How many more untruths do we have to tolerate before we are allowed to say about “The Olive Press” and Jon Clarke –
- not that this is just sloppy writing about poorly remembered events –
- not that this is mere tabloid trash journalism –
- not that this is nothing more sinister than trying to sell a few more copies with ludicrous attention grabbing “Freddie-Starr-ate-my-hamster” headlines –
- not that this is innocent mistake or inadvertent misunderstanding –

but that this is a quite deliberate, studied, careful and calculated series of untruths.
Falsehoods published to a very particular end.

And if so, would this make Clarke a calculated liar, or perhaps, since he is very free with the accusation of “conspiracy theorist”, is he himself merely a highly paid pawn in something much bigger, of which perhaps even he knows nothing ?

Cui Bono ? Who benefits ?

What was the point of lying about me ? What did it benefit anyone ?
What was the point of lying by claiming to be the only, or even the first journalist at the scene ?
What was the point of lying by saying he went into the apartment ?
What was the point of lying by saying that he spoke to the McCanns, there and then ?
What was the point of lying by saying there were no dogs; by saying that Kate (or Kay) Burley was there; of claiming that a road crew was still digging up the street “literally right outside the apartment“ ?

Why did he not write articles based on the truth? It can be just as critical, just as sneering, just as disparaging. I am no journalist, but it is not difficult to do.                                           [APP C]


What led or has caused Clarke to publish this entire series of egregious, false and defamatory statements in his own newspaper “The Olive Press” over many years, to say nothing of the ludicrous ‘new leads’ that were then so eagerly picked up by “The Sun” and others ? [Olive Press passim.]

* * * * * * * * *

Jon Clarke and “The Olive Press” are no strangers to criticism of their antics.

In 2013 FAPE, the Federación de Associationes de Periodistas de España - the Spanish Journalists’ Association, handed down a judgment against “The Olive Press” and Jon Clarke for having published a long article entitled “Maddie? Yes, but not the one we were looking for . . .” and found it infringed Articles 4 and 13 of the FAPE Ethical Code for not having respected the right to personal and family privacy of M.A., a minor, and of her parents, Mr. L. A. and Mrs. R. E., and also did not bother to check the sources of the information.                                                                               [APP E]

The judgment continues [my translation]. “In the reasoning of this resolution it states that the journalist has acted with remarkable flippancy and published a scandalous story based on very flimsy material. The information published in "The Olive Press" is an example of irresponsible sensationalism to attract the attention of the prospective reader. Its content is pure charlatanry, "gossip" in the language in which it has been written and in journalistic language “amarillismo", [sensationalist journalism] always reprehensible but much more when an innocent subject of the information can be endangered”

The facts are that “The Olive Press” latched on to a young British girl who lived with her parents in a small village in southern Spain. It was her misfortune to be called Madeleine. Her photo was published, against the specific wishes of her parents, the family home was clearly identified, and inevitably hordes of tourists descended to take photos. The article bore the sub-title "Has Olive Press solved the connection of the Axarquia with the disappeared Madeleine McCann?”

The answer was of course “No” which rendered the article otiose, irrelevant, and even more reprehensible.

Spurious ‘facts’ were invented about the parent’s employment and supposed travel to Thailand,

The journalist in question was contacted by the parents and exonerated herself saying that it was not her decision to publish the article in that way, but that of the editor Jon Clarke.

The incident in question had occurred over two years before publication.

Even more revealing is the fact that Clarke and “The Olive Press” had not contacted Operation Grange, nor apparently the Portuguese PJ with their ‘revelation’, and in reply to the complaint by the girl’s father it appears merely sent the draft of another article about their daughter, saying that in view of the complaint they had decided not to publish it.

The panel also noted “the report published in "The Olive Press" dominated its news items and pretends to be "investigative journalism" although this was cursory and elementary”

She was merely one of many victims of ludicrous and lurid Olive Press stories.

A paedophile took Madeleine McCann, not her parents - (by which we assume that what Clarke means was not that a paedophile had intended to take her parents . . . ! ?
I saw Maddie in a supermarket on the Costa del Sol
Ex-soldier claims he saw Madeleine McCann by a Nerja swimming pool
Spanish Maddie mystery solved
I saw Madeleine McCann playing outside Costa del Sol beach restaurant
Could Maddie be alive and well in Nerja?
Gypsy link to Maddie

Article 13 of the FAPE Code is very clear
Art. 13. The commitment to the search for truth will always lead the journalist to publish only facts of which he knows the origin, without falsifying documents or omitting essential information, as well as not publishing false, misleading or distorted information.
In consequence:
a) A journalist must substantiate the information published, which includes the duty to check the sources and to give the opportunity to the affected person to offer their own version of the facts.
b) Journalists are warned that the spread of false, misleading or distorted material, will result in an obligation to correct the error with all speed and with the same typographic and / or audiovisual display used for its dissemination. Likewise, they will publish an apology when appropriate.                                 [APP E]


******************

What is the force which drives a journalist who has been paid in the past by News International, to publish over a long period a series of stories clearly designed to defame and traduce the officers and the organisation of the Polícia Judiciária (PJ), and the officers and the organisation of the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), not to mention the British Police and specialists including a dog handler and the many journalists and camera crews who attended the scene in the first days.

What is the motive behind insisting that the investigation was anything but the best that could reasonably be done under difficult circumstances, particularly given the misleading and contradictory information supplied to them by ‘witnesses’ ?

As a wider issue, what or who caused the British Press to turn from initial professional detachment to an all-out assault on anyone who dared question the ‘official’ story put out by the McCanns and their large team of advisors and sponsors ? An assault which manifestly continues to this day.

A Portuguese journalist, Paulo Reis, has interested himself in this latter aspect, writing first on his blog site about three undercover visits he paid to PdL to observe the manipulation of other journalists  - particularly British - and recording their ‘methods’ of obtaining information, and more recently authoring a book, “A Guerra os McCann”. ('The McCann's War') which is currently on sale, with the English translation in final proof reading.

In it he is able to identify the exact date from which the British Press changed from normal professional detachment to a concerted and mendacious attack on the Portuguese, their lifestyle, their Police and their legal system.

We remember that the McCanns notoriously paid Lord Bell of Bell-Pottinger half a million pounds –we suppose out of the “fund” to keep their story on the front pages of the papers for a year, whilst simultaneously complaining to Leveson about ‘Press Intrusion’.

Which then raises the question - was Clarke himself an innocent dupe ?

And here we are forced back to the so-called “conspiracy theory” that much of what the British press have published from very early has been on a concerted attempt to deflect from proper consideration and analysis of the available evidence.

How many ‘pieces of silver’ are the Press and journalists paid to keep this up ?
Who is controlling it, and why ?


Post scriptum
Everything I have said is based on materials freely available to anyone who cares about the truth.
I have no special skills, no sources of information nor access to documents or photos and videos not in the public domain.
Everything here is available to every journalist and every police officer and every member of the general public – everywhere.
I have tried to provide extensive references, and in the Appendices are series of photos, made up of screen shots taken from the video footages from Friday 4th May 2007, so that readers may draw their own conclusions.
If I have made mistakes, they are entirely mine, and I will correct and apologise.


I don't ask you to believe me. I am not a journalist, just the intended victim of one.
All I ask is that before judging – before making a decision –
before coming to your own view – before forming your own opinion –
you look at the evidence for yourself
All you need to do is “Keep your eye on the squirrel”

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Is this all just silly nit-picking over a short article in a free Tabloid supermarket paper ?

My integrity has been impugned and I feel entitled to respond proportionately, by addressing the cohort of people who follow this case and who read the evidence and opinions about it.

Clarke is a journalist and publisher. His craft is the use of the English Language. He is an educated man. He speaks standard received English, using normal grammar and syntax
without any noticeable regional or national dialect forms.

When he writes “I did this, then, there” we can suppose he reasonably intends us to believe it.
If we then find we can not, serious questions are raised.
Amongst the serious educated British ex-pat population round Ronda the word most often used about The Olive Press was “embarrassing”. To move the paper from that to “consistently mendacious, unreliable and abusive” is a serious step.
The paper’s reputation may take some time to recover.

Post-Post Scriptum
Whether Netflix will be impressed to discover that they have been so cynically manipulated to put out across the world this series of untruths is not yet known. Only time will tell.

And only Clarke can tell us for which of the untruths he
and “The Olive Press” – and by association Netflix –
prefer to be remembered.

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Journalist Danielle Gusmaroli concocted and invented the entire Madeleine McCann 'Waterslide' story, embellishing it with totally invented details of date, time, location, activity, weather, speech, and clothing.

What we can now say, based on the first hand evidence of the witness in question (Vicky Boyd) is this -
“We now know on the basis of firm evidence, that Gusmaroli, a professional and experienced reporter, invented almost every aspect of this article, including in it details which were manifestly untrue, and capable of being exposed as such by simple investigation.”


But behind all this is a much more serious issue.

This is not just another in the long line of mendacious nonsense about sightings of suspects pedalled by poor journalists for cheap tabloids and populist Television shows. The outrageous mendacity and misdirection by Jon Clarke of The Olive Press has been exposed for what it is, but continues unabated.

This seems to be different.
This seems to be part of the deliberate attempt to provide false testimony that Madeleine was alive and well very specifically during the afternoon of Thursday 3rd May 2007. Its publication and distribution seems to have been timed to coincide with the release of the forged Pool photo with its altered date, and to corroborate that story.

The fact that it does no such thing is in one sense even worse – for the McCanns.

As the ‘evidence’ is analysed and dissected, only to be shown to be entirely without substance, to be invented, to be false and fraudulent, the more it becomes proof of the exact opposite.
Now we have TWO such stories, both referring to important and crucial events on one important day, but both proven to be false, and each contradicting the other.






It is the equivalent in a criminal trial of relying purely on an alibi as a defence. If it can be broken, you are finished.

As such it needs to be exposed and the people involved in this disgraceful act to be held to account and ultimately brought to justice.
Whether they ever will be, is, of course, an entirely different matter. 

One day, one, just one, person will be driven by a higher sense either of common decency or of overwhelming guilt at what they have done to purge their conscience and to tell the truth.

When that person does, it will be too late for everyone else involved in this disgusting charade to avoid the brickbats and the shame; the prosecutions and the sentences that will inevitably follow; the guilt by association, and the public disgrace and humiliation for all those on the periphery.

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