Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Gerry said"we know there are bad people out there"
Couldn't agree more with you G and many more people agree.

Blackpied wrote:Gerry said"we know there are bad people out there"
Couldn't agree more with you G and many more people agree.

Aha! According to his missus .... 'most people are inherently good'

The good .... the bad .... and the .... other one ....

Gerry McCann: 'We did not kill our daughter'

That's not what the link says though Gerry  see...:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-480825/Gerry-McCann-We-did-kill-daughter.html

Last updated at 12:32 09 September 2007

Madeleine's father Gerry McCann has spoken of his, and his wife Kate's, desperation to get back to the UK for the sake of their twins, Sean and Amelie.

He said: "It's not that we're running away. If there are two people in the world that can't run away it's us.

"The trouble is I don't know how long all this is going to take. It's four months already. Everything is slow. It's just the culture. Kate's not too bad, though. In fact, she's pretty resilient.

"But when we were trying to decide whether to return to Britain that's when this smearing started in the papers. And Kate just thought, 'They want us out!'

Gerry McCann gets into the hire car before setting off for the airport to leave Portugal

"I said, 'Kate, there's no point in staying if it's counter-productive.'

"She realised that was right but the thought of returning home brought back all the emotions of pain almost as bad as the first few days after Maddie vanished.

"That sense of loss and the thought of never seeing her again.

"Kate gets that more than I do. It's still intermittent grief and pain."

Gerry that what they had thought was their "worst nightmare" is now just getting "worse and worse." "It's such a vulnerable position. It's appalling. We've never had to say it until now...but we did not kill our daughter. I never believed it would come to this.

The McCanns deny being involved in their daughter Madeleine's disappearance

"But when the paranoia sinks in, you're under severe pressure and things are going down a certain line, then it does look bad.

"In a system that you don't know and you don't really trust it's incredibly frightening."

Although Gerry remains confident there is no evidence to link him and Kate with Madeleine's "murder", he admitted the latest twist of events had left him with "anxieties".

"I don't need to tell you how things don't stack up," he said.

"I know 100 per cent Kate could NOT have done anything. I know that's true from what I did that night.

"And in terms of what Kate knows about me, I was away from her for just ten minutes."

"As I said, I was away from the table for ten minutes," he said.

"Six minutes of that was spent speaking to another guest I met as I came out from checking on Madeleine.

"All of this can come out. And it doesn't stack up."

Speaking in an interview with the News of the World, Gerry also confessed he is frustrated they are not allowed to use any of the £800,000 Madeleine Fund to pay their mounting legal bills.

"It seems like a disaster that we've got this huge donated fund and now we're not allowed to use it for legal costs because we're under suspicion," said Gerry.

"We'd have to be patient but ultimately we'll have the opportunity to have all of the evidence examined and discover the whole picture about what happened.

"And that's what's sustaining me. At least now we've got a clearer view of what we're up against whereas what we had before was smear and innuendo.

"We know what we have to fight now. The problem is we DO have a fight, but before I wasn't quite sure. "You get paranoid when there's a political shift.

"Because of the amount of pressure there's been on the Policia Judiciaria, and all the criticism, you always wonder how far they'll go.

"Now I've seen what they've got I'm actually clearer in my mind why they've shifted and treated us so differently.

"I'm still concerned with their perception of the evidence, but that's for us to sort out with legal support."

Away just 10mins Gerry, then why when asked where Gerry was Kate said he's probably watching football

'Don't say anything until they've turned off microphone', Gerry warns Kate on Spanish TV

Wednesday 24 October 2007 10:37

Gerry McCann warned his wife: "Don't say anything till they've taken off your microphone" as she broke down in tears at the end of an interview on Spanish television.

Kate started sobbing as the 30-minute interview by a Spanish TV presenter drew to a close.

But instead of turning to comfort her, Gerry's immediate reaction was to whisper the warning in extraordinary scenes played out to millions of viewers.

The couple were savaged in a phone vote which accompanied an exclusive interview they gave to late-night programme 360 grados on Spain's Antena 3.

Nearly 70 per cent of the callers said they thought the McCanns were not telling the truth about their daughter's disappearance while only 30 per cent gave the couple their backing.

Gerry nearly stormed out of the television interview after being quizzed over drugging his children.

Sources said Mr McCann was "fuming" at being asked a question that the Spanish interviewer had promised not to pose. Mr McCann stormed out of a previous interview with another Spanish TV channel.

A source said today: "Kate and Gerry were annoyed towards the end of the interview because of the drugs question. Gerry was on the verge of another walkout."

A source close to the McCanns insisted Gerry's warning to Kate followed a question about allegations they had drugged their daughter which the programme makers had been told they could not ask.

The source said: "Kate was very upset she was asked the question and Gerry was furious. "What was said wasn't said because they have anything to hide."

"I don't know how anyone could harm anyone as beautiful as Madeleine."

In her first television interview since she was named as an official suspect in the search for Madeleine, she said she was as confident of finding her daughter alive now as she was on the day she went missing nearly six months ago.

"Maybe even more so," she said. "I think she is possibly being held by someone in their house but I don't know.

"I strongly believe Madeleine is out there and we have to do everything we can."

The 39-year-old GP broke down as she told how her life felt incomplete without her daughter, whose fourth birthday passed shortly after she disappeared.

"I feel sad and I feel lonely and our life is not as happy without Madeleine," she said.

"I feel anxious she is not with us."

The cameras were stopped while she composed herself.

When the interview resumed Mrs McCann revealed how her two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie ask about their big sister.

She said Amelie told her: "Madeleine is coming home to my lovely house and I am going to share my toys with her."

She continued: "They do ask about Madeleine. Madeleine was a big part of their life.

"They are not upset and they are not distressed but they are very much aware she is not there."

Her husband Gerry said: "The hardest thing for me is when they say, 'When is Madeleine coming back home?' and we have to say, 'We don't know but everyone is looking for her'."

Mrs McCann broke down again at the end of the interview when she was asked about the last time she saw her daughter.

Missing: 'I strongly believe she is out there and we have to do everything we can'

Mr and Mrs McCann gave their first television interview to the Spanish channel Antena 3 as they launched a new hotline targeting people in Spain, Portugal and North Africa, appealing to them for clues as to their daughter's fate.

They had been warned by their legal team that they could be prosecuted for talking publicly while still bound by the strict Portuguese secrecy laws.

But their lawyers cleared them to speak last week.

Broadcasters from all over the world, including Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters, had asked for the first broadcast interview, but the family wanted to target the Iberian peninsula.

Mrs McCann said: "Somebody knows something. It is not about us. It is about Madeleine.

"We have not even seen her since she was four. She needs our help. She needs her family."

Mr McCann, also 39, added: "We want people to try to help reunite our lovely four-year-old girl with her parents."

The couple said they were confident they would be cleared of any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

Mrs McCann declared herself "100 per cent" sure while Mr McCann said he was "much more optimistic" since a new officer, Paulo Rebelo, was appointed to the case.

The consultant cardiologist said: "We have not been charged with anything. Investigations are continuing. The only thing is finding Madeleine."

His wife added: "It really is secondary. I will take anything that is thrown at me."

Mrs McCann defended her and her husband against accusations they had seemed calm and "too cool" in the weeks and months after their daughter vanished.

"We know we are innocent, totally innocent. That is why we are calm. We know each other," she said.

Mr McCann said the couple remained "completely united" and added: "Nothing that has happened to us has come close to upsetting us the way Madeleine going missing did.

"We have our own heartache and grief but we are absolutely determined to help in the search."

He described the last time he saw his daughter, saying: "I was the last to see her. I saw her and thought how beautiful she was, and how lucky I was to be a father of three children."

The couple refused to discuss claims that DNA evidence was found in their apartment and their hire car, and dismissed claims that they sedated their children as "ludicrous".

But Mr McCann said: "We are certainly not scared.

"There is no evidence DNA tests will show anything other than us being completely innocent."

He said the group of friends who were with them in Praia da Luz - the so-called Tapas Nine - knew they were not involved in the disappearance.

He added: "They know we are innocent, absolutely. They will help us. They will clear our names."

Asked if he had any regrets, he replied: "Not from the minute we found Madeleine gone."

Roberto Arce, who interviewed the McCanns for the Spanish television programme 360 Grados, spoke later about the couple's demeanour and emotional state.

"Kate looked prostrate with pain," he said. "Much more depressed than I've ever seen her before. She cried for the first time.

"Gerry looked much happier with the massive campaign that's been put in place to find his daughter."

He added: "The McCanns don't say in the interview there are clues Madeleine - dead or alive - is in Spain.

"But privately they confessed afterwards there are.

"I can't say what they are and I'm not sure they're necessarily more solid than other leads.

"But they maintain there are, in Spain as well as in neighbours like Morocco, but that Spain's involvement in all this is very important.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/dont-say-anything-until-theyve-turned-off-microphone-gerry-warns-kate-on-spanish-tv-6683183.html

Jerry Lawton - another one ripe for the ducking stool..

Madeleine McCann: Parents 'blamed to boost tourism' - new Netflix documentary claims

PORTUGUESE authorities tried to fit up Madeleine McCann's parents over her disappearance to save the country's ailing tourism industry, a new TV documentary claims.

By Jerry Lawton / Published 16th March 2019



Double glazing tycoon Brian Kennedy, who has ploughed a chunk of his £400million fortune into helping Kate and Gerry with the search, accused Portugal of making the pair scapegoats to rescue its economy.

He claims authorities encouraged police to target the couple as suspects.

The country's tourism trade dwindled after the youngster's 2007 disappearance sparked fears child snatchers were at large.

Brian, former owner of Sale Sharks rugby club, told a new eight-part Netflix documentary The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann: "You could understand how the mood of public opinion would go from sympathy to vilification.

"Let's find somebody to blame for this that doesn't make us look bad.

"I think it's all tied into tourism, industry and tourism being down and finances, the GDP of the country.

"It's much easier to say: 'Aha, we've found some idea later that the parents could have been involved in this.'" Brian helped fund the McCanns' search for their daughter, who vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz while they dined with pals in a nearby tapas bar.

The documentary includes footage of Madeleine boarding a plane to go on the ill-fated holiday.

Speaking for the first time about his involvement in the hunt he said he was convinced of the couple's innocence within "12 seconds".

He stepped in after seeing the public turn against them when the original Portuguese police investigation - led by detective Goncalo Amaral - named them as suspects four months after three-year-old Madeleine vanished.

Before offering to help he insisted on meeting the doctors from Rothley, Leics, face-to-face.

"They both looked like a wreck," he said. "After 12 seconds just reading the emotions everything told me 100% that this woman is absolutely genuine - she a victim."

Brian went on to provide funding for the couple to hire the Spain based Metodo 3 private detective agency to look for Madeleine and PR expert Clarence Mitchell to help the search reach TV stations and newspapers.

The tycoon and his son Patrick even flew from the UK to Morocco in their private jet to personally check out one reported sighting of the youngster in the Atlas mountains.

They tracked down a Madeleine lookalike who had been seen with a dark skinned woman by a tourist but found blonde-haired children were common in the region.

The documentary revealed that while Metodo 3's pursuit of paedophiles on the dark web did not find Madeleine, the information they unearthed helped bust a 23-strong child sex gang in Spain.

The documentary suggests she was abducted from her family's apartment and may still be alive.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/765894/madeleine-mccann-parents-kate-gerry-blamed-boost-tourism-portugal-tycoon-brian-kennedy

Revealed: Cheshire millionaire funding Maddie campaign Liverpool Daily Post
 
Sep 22 2007
 
Millionaire businessman Brian Kennedy tonight confirmed he is providing financial backing to the parents of missing Madeleine McCann.
 
Mr Kennedy, who owns the Latium Group and rugby union team Sale Sharks, said he felt "compelled" to support Gerry and Kate McCann following the accusations made against them.
 
He said in a statement: "In light of the quite literally incredible accusations against Gerry and Kate McCann, which are clearly exacerbating their emotional torture, I felt compelled to offer, along with other like-minded businessmen, financial support and the full logistical support of the Latium team.
 
"That support is principally our in-house lawyer Ed Smethurst and (official spokesman) Clarence Mitchell.
 
"This will relieve the McCanns of the daily pressure of co-ordinating the legal teams that will expedite the clearing of Gerry and Kate's names, allowing all parties to refocus on finding Madeleine."
 
Cheshire-based Mr Kennedy is estimated to be worth £250 million and made his fortune in double-glazing and home improvement ventures.
 
His companies have included Weatherseal Holdings, Everest and Space Kitchens & Bedrooms. Earlier this year, St Helens Glass, which his company Latium Group bought in 2001, was closed down by Mr Kennedy. Around 400 people were made redundant.
 
The Latium Group of companies, which has annual turnover of approximately £400 million, is involved in plastics extrusion, conservatory roof manufacture, glass processing, home improvement retailing and property.
 
The Edinburgh-born entrepreneur previously owned Stockport County football club through his company Cheshire Sports and bought Sale Sharks in 1999.

[Acknowledgement:  pamalam of gerrymccannsblog]

Madeleine McCann: 'I listened for 15 seconds and knew they were innocent’

A wealthy British businessman was moved to help search for Madeleine McCann after her parents Kate and Gerry became suspects

By Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan
7:05AM BST 10 Sep 2014

Gerry and Kate McCann never ceased doing what they could to move forward the investigation – which they saw as stalled – into Madeleine’s disappearance. They held, always, to the belief that their daughter could still be alive.
When they returned to the UK from Portugal in September 2007, Gerry insisted it did not mean they were giving up their search for her. ''As parents we cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened.”
Three days later, someone who was to be of great and lasting assistance to them got in touch. Brian Kennedy, a wealthy British businessman, had been following events as they unwound in Portugal and wanted to help.
“I was incredulous,” he told us. “I’d been losing all hope and faith in human nature. I had been asking myself, 'How is this possible?’ [Kate] is grieving. My instincts were telling me there was a great injustice being done. I called my lawyer and said, 'I want you to reach out to these poor folks and see if we can help them’.”
Kennedy, the Scottish-born, Cheshire-based son of a window cleaner, then aged 47, had leapfrogged from trainee accountant to a management role in a kitchen-equipment company, then to the mobile-phone business, double-glazing and plastics. By 2007 his net worth as head of his company, Latium Enterprises, was said to be £250 million.

An experiment with retirement had driven him “nuts” and he was back in the business fray. When he began talking about trying to help the McCanns, friends and colleagues told him not to get involved, that his intervention would end in tears. “What,” he recalled someone saying, “if the parents turn out to be guilty?”
“I remember replying, 'What happens if they’re innocent?’ Can you imagine the horror of losing your daughter… and then the world turning against you and accusing you of being responsible for her murder? Is it not bad enough, the terror, the agony they are going through? I could understand it – I’ve got five kids. I told my lawyer, 'If you feel they’re innocent, then we’ll get behind them and help them’.”


Kate McCann in Portugal moments after she had been named an official suspect



His lawyer made contact with the McCanns and they met Kennedy in London. “Within 15 seconds of listening to Kate,” he said, “I made a decision, using all the emotional intelligence one builds up over many years. I was 100 per cent convinced of their total innocence. I told them that, one, we would find a top Portuguese lawyer to defend them, and get them off as arguidos [the McCanns had been designated “named suspects” by the Portuguese authorities days before they returned to England]. Two, we’d do everything in our power to influence the public’s perspective and views. And, three, we’d support them in setting up some private investigators … The Portuguese police had stopped investigating. It was urgent to get some other guys on to it.”
Top-level legal help was found in Portugal. At Kennedy’s bidding and at his expense, Clarence Mitchell – a government adviser who had previously acted as the McCanns’ spokesman in Praia da Luz, the holiday resort from where Madeleine had disappeared – quit his Whitehall job and came back on-board.
Kennedy prefers not to reveal how much he spent on helping the McCanns, beyond saying that there were “substantial” outgoings – principally legal and media-related costs. Stephen Winyard, the owner of Stobo Castle Spa, in Peebleshire, and Sir Richard Branson also contributed. However, it was Madeleine’s Fund – the not-for-profit company established to find her in 2007, the board of which Kennedy’s then lawyer joined – that would, in time, deal with the cost of private investigators, once that effort went into high gear.

Present at Kennedy’s first meeting with the McCanns in London were representatives of Control Risks, a firm specialising in security and crisis management. It had already sent detectives to Portugal to see the couple right after Madeleine’s disappearance, at the expense of an anonymous donor whose identity has never been revealed.
Kate McCann had not enjoyed that first encounter. One of the Control Risk operatives was a mysterious figure who introduced himself only as “Hugh”. He was one of the many former intelligence officers the company employed, and a main part of his role now was as a potential kidnap negotiator. Kate, already distraught, had not liked the James Bond atmosphere he brought with him. Besides, there would never be anybody other than hoaxers with whom to negotiate.
As the McCanns’ renewed use of Control Risks began to be mentioned in the press, noises of disapproval came from Portugal. “You cannot have private detectives intervening in criminal cases,” sniffed Carlos Anjos, head of the Polícia Judiciária’s union. The McCanns resolved to go ahead, motivated by advice Gerry had noted during a research trip to the US earlier that summer.
A document issued by the US Justice Department for use by parents of missing children, The Family Survival Guide, recommended considering using private detectives if they could “do something better or different than what is being done by law enforcement”. Given what they saw as the fiasco of the Portuguese police probe, the McCanns nurtured that hope.
“I had no experience at all with private detectives,” Kennedy remembered. “But the way you run a business is all about surrounding yourself with people who understand industries that you don’t understand.” He initially hired two former Metropolitan Police detectives, and in late September decided to follow up a rumour that Madeleine might have been sighted in Morocco. Kennedy and the detectives, who flew out aboard his private jet, hired a Moroccan tourist guide to accompany them to the mountain village where it was reported the missing girl might be. She was not there, but the guide – promised a reward – subsequently spoke of having travelled vast distances circulating Madeleine’s picture. “If I find her,” he said, “I will be rich. I have been promised I will never have to work again – maybe a million pounds.”
“I suppose,” Kennedy said later “we had been looking for low-hanging fruit. After a few weeks, though, we decided we needed to go about it in a very professional way.”
Brian Kennedy had set a potentially useful process in motion. Months earlier, the Portuguese police had produced a poor drawing of the man the McCanns’ friend, Jane Tanner, had seen carrying a child near the holiday apartment in which the McCanns had been staying on the night Madeleine vanished. Now, in England, a British forensic sketch artist took on the job of extracting more and relevant information from Tanner. This fresh image got major media coverage – raising the possibility of new leads.
Kennedy then cast around for suitable private investigators to hire, and picked Método 3, a Spanish company. The agency’s claims included having located 23 missing children and teenagers. Given that it was not legitimate for investigators to work for the McCanns in Portugal while the police probe was still under way, it was hoped that Método 3 – with its knowledge of the region and its connections in Spain – might prove effective.
It seemed, briefly, that the private detectives could also rebuild bridges with the Portuguese Polícia Judiciária. At the request of the head of Spain’s anti-kidnapping unit, two PJ officers met Método 3 operatives. But the points the private detectives raised did not interest the Portuguese.
Método 3 followed up on a vast number of potential openings in the hunt for Madeleine. Nothing tangible resulted, but they made some startling statements that kept the case in the public eye. “We are 100 per cent sure,” their boss, Francisco Marco, told the American network CBS, “that she is alive. We know the kidnapper. We know who he is and how he has done it.” On the BBC’s Panorama programme, he said: “We are very close to finding the kidnappers.” Then, in early December, he announced: “We believe she is in an area not very far from the Iberian peninsula and North Africa. And we have a fairly certain idea who she is with.”
No facts emerged, however, to back up these claims. According to The Daily Telegraph, a source close to the McCanns said the couple had begun to think “they might have been sold a pup”. A veteran Spanish police detective was derisive. Método 3 would solve the case, he said, “cuando las ranas crecen los pelos” – “when frogs grow hair”.
As the months slipped by, the McCanns made a move they were to regret. A contract was agreed with Oakley International, a US-based company described by a source close to the couple as being apparently “absolutely the best, but extremely secretive”. Oakley was said to employ former FBI, CIA and US Special Forces personnel. It was reportedly agreed that Madeleine’s Fund would pay the company £500,000 under a three-stage contract – with more to come should Madeleine be found alive.
The McCanns and Kennedy at first got the impression that Oakley was doing its job. Its investigators appeared to be collating and following up information that came in as a response to the parents’ appeals, and were conducting covert interviews in Portugal.
But it later emerged that hundreds of calls to a dedicated hotline were never checked by Oakley. Tapes of interviews conducted in Portugal were said to be useless, involving people irrelevant to the case. Specialists used by Oakley began to find that their bills went unpaid. An undertaking to deliver satellite images of Praia da Luz on the night of May 3, 2007, when Madeleine had disappeared, resulted only in pictures grabbed from Google Earth. With little or no real progress, and as funds continued to haemorrhage, Brian Kennedy called time.
Oakley’s boss Kevin Halligen, it turned out, was a fraud. After his involvement in the Madeleine case, Halligen was arrested in the UK in connection with charges relating to a trading company fraud, and extradited to the United States. He was convicted there on the fraud matter, then deported to Europe.
“The Oakley episode went sort of sweet and sour,” Kennedy told us. “There were genuine guys breaking their back, trying to make a breakthrough. The lion’s share was spent on the investigation, despite what the newspapers say… [But] it all ended in tears.”
It was a major setback, but Kennedy and the McCanns did not give up. On the recommendation of the head of Manchester’s Serious Crime Squad, they went on to hire an experienced former senior police officer, David Edgar. He put in much arduous, systematic work – and held the fort until 2011, when, following an appeal to David Cameron, Scotland Yard began investigating. The dossier the McCanns’ private detectives had gathered was passed to the Yard, and its probe continues today – as Operation Grange.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/11077525/Madeleine-McCann-I-listened-for-15-seconds-and-knew-they-were-innocent.html


Winters and Goose?  Shame on you Mr Telegraph!

‘DO THE RIGHT THING’ Madeleine’s McCann’s dad Gerry was sent coded message by investigator in bid to get him to come clean about Maddie’s disappearance, Netflix doc reveals

Senior cop suggested how Gerry should write a blog post aimed at the kidnapper - to help suss out if he was involved

   By Felix Allen

   28 Mar 2019, 16:58Updated: 28 Mar 2019, 16:59

A TOP cop sent Gerry McCann a coded message to "do the right thing" hoping he might confess what happened to his daughter Madeleine, a documentary reveals.

Jim Gamble, the senior child protection officer in UK's first Maddie investigation, encouraged Gerry to write the message himself in a blog addressed to the kidnapper.

Ex-cop Jim has told the new Netflix documentary he suspected the parents “from the outset”, although later he was sure they were not involved in Maddie's disappearance on holiday in May 2007.

He told the programme how he tried to prick Gerry's conscience while advising him on what to say in an online appeal in 2007.

Gerry was writing a blog post aimed directly at whoever might be responsible, pleading with him to drop Maddie in a safe place or at least reveal her fate.

He said: "If you have done something you regret, if you find yourself in a situation you never intended, it is not too late to do the right thing."

Jim, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said he had suggested the wording as a way to suss out if Gerry knew more than he was letting on.

He said: "In shaping that, I was actually talking to Gerry.

"I think it was the only way of delivering that message or reflecting that thought – if something had happened, if it was a mistake, it’s never too late to come out and stop all of this."

The former cop said his early suspicion was based on his experience that "statistically it’s likely to be the parents or somebody who’s in close proximity with the child."

But after working more on the case he is sure Gerry and Kate McCann did nothing wrong.

And he blasted desperate Portuguese police for "clutching at straws" by trying to blame the parents when their investigation failed to come up with any leads.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8740887/madeleine-mccann-dad-gerry-coded-message-netflix-documentary/

Was this the statement Gamble helped Gerry McCann prepare, as recently suggested?  It certainly wasn't Gerry McCann's witness statements of 4th and 10th May 2007 recorded by the PJ, as recent comments imply.

Year in, year out, folk still try to make mischief out of the tragedy of a little child.

In this article they're talking about one Brian Kennedy, but showing a photo of the other Brian Kennedy. Good investigative journalism as always.

Harrowing theory why Gerry and Kate McCann became persons of interest when Maddie vanished


Tycoon Brian Kennedy made the shock new claim in Netflix documentary The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann

Portuguese authorities tried to frame Madeleine McCann's parents for her disappearance to save the country's tourism trade, it has been claimed.

The shock new theory, aired by tycoon Brian Kennedy, who has ploughed cash into helping Kate and Gerry find their missing daughter, comes as thousands watched eight part documentary The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann.

Brian claimed the authorities had an incentive to make the couple scapegoats to rescue Portugal's ailing economy.

He claims authorities had reason to encourage the police to target the couple as persons of interest after three-year-old Maddie vanished in 2007.

Former rugby club owner Brian said: "You could understand how the mood of pubic opinion would go from sympathy to vilification.
"Lets find somebody to blame for this that doesn't make us look bad. I think it's all tied into tourism, industry and tourism being down and the country's GDP.

"It's much easier to say: 'Aha, we've found some idea later that the parents could be involved in this."

Brian, whose claims air in the Netflix documentary, helped fund the McCanns search for Maddie after she disappeared from their Pria Del Luz holiday apartment in the Algarve.

Speaking for the first time about his involvement he said he was convinced the couple weren't involved "within 12 seconds."

He described meeting the couple face to face after insisting on looking in their eyes before he donated any cash.

"They both looked like a wreck, after 12 seconds just reading the emotions everything told me 100per cent that this woman is genuine - she is a victim."


Brian then funded private detectives, PR expert Clarance Mitchell and even flew to Morroco in a private jet himself to check out a sighting.

While detective agency Metodo 3 didn't find Maddie the documentary tells how information they uncovered busted 23-strong child sex gang.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/gerry-kate-mccann-suspects-maddie-14144232.amp?fbclid=IwAR22TIRvNf7M8oJRCp9XeHu1ZQTLhKsfL1X5qrCLyTzk9yzAiJqKdDZQimU

In this article they're talking cobblers again,surely they must be 
embarrassed knowing people are well aware of what really happened.

Here's a nice little archived report to study the journalistic language of the tabloidism. Oh look, I've just invented a new 'ism - where would the world be if not for 'isms and 'ists

Start with the word Beast..

Beast on a bike targeted girl, 4, weeks before Maddie was snatched

McCann suspect's kidnap bid
By JASON JOHNSON, RYAN PARRY and GARY O'SHEA
17th November 2013, 12:01 am
Updated: 5th April 2016, 3:55 pm

A MAN on a motorbike tried to snatch a tot yards from where Madeleine McCann
vanished only weeks later, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.

The goatee-bearded scruff drove up to four-year-old Tirna Duncan on a moped
and reached out as if to grab her.

Tirna said he looked like the suspect who The Sun revealed was preying on kids
in Portugal before Madeleine vanished in 2007.

When he tried to grab Tirna, her parents spotted the beast and yelled at him
as they gave chase. He sped off, pulled over, shoved the moped in the back
of a white van and drove off.


The Duncans gave details of the kidnap bid to the British Embassy and Irish
police after they heard about three-year-old Madeleine.

Yet they have NEVER been quizzed by Portuguese or British detectives.

Mother Shauna, 42, from Londonderry, Northern Ireland said: “Maddie would
still be here if he had got Tirna. If we hadn’t shouted, he would have
lifted her.”

The Duncans saw the man lurking by their flat every day during their March
2007 stay in Praia de Luz and “up to 30 times” in all.

Mum-of-five Shauna said: “No matter what time I looked, he’d be there. He was
watching our children.”

The family’s two teenage daughters ran when they spotted him following them.

A private detective did visit the Duncans and showed Tirna the sketch of the
suspect. Shauna recalls her saying: “That’s the man who tried to get me.”

The Sun revealed on Monday that a man matching the suspect’s description tried
to lure a five-year-old in Portugal weeks before Madeleine was kidnapped.

Paedos linked to Brit boy

TWO caged killers probed over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann could face
new charges of sex assault on a British schoolboy.

Evil lovers Charles O’Neill, 50, and William Lauchlan, 36, are accused of
attacking a youth in 2007, while living in Gran Canaria, Spain. The latest
claim is said to be a “new allegation that hadn’t been made before.”

The pair, of Largs near Glasgow, are also suspects in the case of Spanish lad
Yeremi Vargas, seven. who went missing, in 2007.

The killers are serving life sentences in Scotland for the murder of Allison
McGarrigle, 39, in 1997, She had threatened to expose the pair.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/343927/beast-on-a-bike-targeted-girl-4-weeks-before-maddie-was-snatched/

'DOWNRIGHT LIES' Madeleine McCann conspiracy theorists paying £172 for copies of memoir written by disgraced Portuguese cop Amaral as greedy book sellers cash in

The discredited book Truth of the Lie was written by disgraced former Portuguese detective Gonçalo Amaral, who led the bungled probe into Maddie's 2007 disappearance

Exclusive

The Truth of the Lie was written by former Portuguese detective Gonçalo Amaral, who led the bungled probe into Maddie's 2007 disappearance.


Pictured is Amaral's book which the McCanns sued overCredit: The Sun Online


It has been listed for sale online - with asking prices reaching as high as £172Credit: The Sun Online

The controversial title was banned and Gerry and Kate were awarded around £375,000 in libel damages in 2015.

Amaral claims three-year-old Maddie died in the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz and her parents Gerry and Kate faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy.

There has been a surge of interest in the book after he featured on a new Netflix documentary about Maddie.

Paperback copies translated into English have surfaced online, after it was only previously available in Portuguese, to cope with demand.

DZK Books EU in Buenos Aires is selling the book for £172 on Amazon with free delivery.

Paper Cavalier UK in London has the book priced at £146.99, with £2.80 postage.

One seller, from Blackburn, Lancs, who has copies for £9.99 on eBay, said: "It’s a tough one, isn’t it? I feel so sorry for the child. I dread to think what actually happened to her."

The book became a best-seller in Portugal when it was first published in 2008, selling more than 200,000 copies.
'GROSSLY DEFAMATORY'

It was banned for several years after the McCanns launched a legal action against Amaral in 2009, claiming the book was "unfounded and grossly defamatory".

In 2015, Kate and Gerry were awarded around £357,000 in libel damages by a Portuguese court. A judge also banned further sales of Amaral's book.

However, in April 2016, Amaral won an appeal against the decision, meaning he could sue them for damages potentially in the tens of thousands.

The McCann's lost a subsequent appeal in Portugal's Supreme Court in February 2017.

Top judges also ruled that Maddie's parents had not been ruled innocent with regard to their daughter's disappearance.

The McCanns, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in a bid to silence Amaral.

The spotlight has been thrown back on the case by a new eight-part documentary called The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann on Netflix. The McCanns, both 51, refused to take part.

The Sun on Sunday revealed last week how the McCanns were hit with £29,500 in legal fees for Amaral, after losing their libel case.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8738452/madeleine-mccann-portuguese-cop-amaral-memoir/
.................

Disgraced cop .... bungled investigation !!!

Dingo baby mum says she'll support McCanns
Last updated at 19:09 12 September 2007


Lindy Chamberlain - the so-called Dingo Baby Mother - has offered to comfort the McCanns.
Australian Mrs Chamberlain was convicted of killing her two-month-old daughter Azaria after telling police a wild dog had stolen her during a camping trip at Ayers Rock in 1980.
The mystery of Azaria's disappearance attracted widespread publicity. Her body has never been found.
Mrs Chamberlain was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life.
But six years later, a jacket belonging to baby Azaria was found close to a dingo's lair at Ayer's Rock and she was freed on the grounds "she had suffered enough".
She was officially pardoned in 1988.
Today she said the McCanns' case echoes hers and that she would speak to them if they wished.
But she added: "Words don't mean anything. We all go through things in different ways."

The case inspired the 1988 film, A Cry in the Dark, starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. An opera about the Chamberlains' story was performed at Sydney Opera House in October 2002.
Mrs Chamberlain was originally found guilty of the murder in 1982 after the jury dismissed her claim that a dingo had taken the baby.

The court was told that she cut the baby's throat and disposed of the body whilst at a campsite near Ayers Rock.
Mrs Chamberlain, who was expecting her fourth child, then started her mandatory life term with hard labour after being sentenced in Melbourne, Australia.
Her husband, Michael Chamberlain, was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder.
During the seven-week trial the jurors were taken to the Ayers Rock site. Among questions raised was the possibility that a dingo's jaw would not be strong enough to carry off a baby.
The case took the world by storm and become known as "Australia's murder trial of the century".
Four years later on 2 February, a matinee jacket worn by Azaria was found partially buried in a dingo's lair at Ayers Rock - this seemed to back up Mrs Chamberlain's version of events.
She was released five days later. The Northern Territory government said it was because she had "suffered enough".
In September 1988 judges in Darwin pardoned the Chamberlains. Another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481405/Dingo-baby-mum-says-shell-support-McCanns.html

Heartless Portuguese TV reporter makes cruel Twitter joke at expense of missing Madeleine's parents when she tells misbehaving son 'Stop or I'm going to call the McCanns'

A successful Portuguese broadcaster has been slammed for making a cruel at the expensive of missing toddler Madeleine McCann and her family. 
Rita Marrafa de Carvalho, 42, told her 52,000 Twitter followers she warned her eight-year-old son she would 'call the McCanns' if he didn't behave at his birthday party.
The mother-of-two confessed she 'regretted it' but 'at least it worked'. 
Ms Marrafa de Carvalho is a leading Portuguese crime reporter and has worked on the McCann case over her 20-year career. 
Sources close to the youngster's parents Kate and Gerry described the joke as 'horrible' and that she should know better.

+4


Rita Marrafa de Carvalho, 42, has been slammed for a joke she made on Twitter about missing toddler Madeleine McCann and her parents 

+4


The mother-of-two, 42, told her 52,000 Twitter followers she warned her eight-year-old son she would 'call the McCanns' if he didn't behave at his birthday party


They told The Sun: 'It's a horrible thing to say. She should know the pain and heartache they are going through.
'There's always been this inaccurate misconception that Kate and Gerry were somehow responsible for Maddie going missing. This is another bitter attempt at suggesting that.' 

+4


Madeleine McCann (left and right) would be turning sixteen this month 
The TV reporter wrote on Twitter this week: 'At my eight-year-old son's party, with everyone running and screaming, spilling crisps and M&M's, and messing with everything they shouldn't, I confess I shouted: 'Stop or I'm going to call the McCanns.' 
'I'm not proud of it but it worked. At least with my child it did. He quietened down after that.' 
The 42-year-old, who has worked for state broadcaster RTP for more than two decades, has showed no sign of remorse over her remarks or removed the extraordinary post from her Twitter feed.
She was branded an idiot by one fan over her shocking claim and a 'naughty girl' by another.
But others appeared to egg her on, with one male admirer claiming he had 'killed himself laughing' and another encouraging her to make flyers for the next party which said: 'McCann Daycare. A place your children will never want to leave.'  
Her controversial tweet came less than two months after a veteran Portuguese journalist linked Madeleine's anguished mother Kate, 51, to the MI5.

+4


Sources close to the youngster's parents Kate and Gerry (pictured) described the joke as 'horrible' and that she should know better
Veteran journalist Jose Antonio Saraiva fed the wild conspiracy theories surrounding the Madeleine McCann mystery by alleging a female doctor had contacted him to insist her May 3 2007 disappearance was linked to her parents 'secret activity' because of her mum's 'suspected' MI5 membership.
And he gave the hair-brained idea oxygen in Sol - the weekly national Portuguese newspaper he founded nearly 13 years ago - by claiming it might explain Gordon Brown's decision to 'dispatch' then-British Ambassador John Buck to Praia da Luz after the youngster vanished from her parents' Algarve holiday apartment.
It was not clear last night if Marrafa de Carvalho's RTP bosses have been made aware of her Twitter taunt.
She is divorced from Jose Carlos Ramalho, the father of her two kids, but called him an 'extraordinary man and great friend' after their split and describes their children as her 'greatest work.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7171875/Portuguese-TV-journalist-Rita-Marrafa-Carvalho-makes-cruel-Madeleine-McCann-Twitter-joke.html

The Daily Mail today have done a child killer section.

I take complete offence on behalf of Karen Matthew's daughter whose photograph has been once again published. This little girl is no longer a little girl and her photograph is printed for her to see herself.

I take great exception to that and this is gutter press with no regard for the little girl who was the victim.

As usual with the McCann campaign there is a photograph of Kate McCann's launch in Birmingham with a convenient location of the missing child.

This missing child promotion was a complete farce.

This child's photograph remains on the internet to bolster Kate McCann's entry into the fold of Missing People.

Another child exploited.

'There's always been this inaccurate misconception that Kate and Gerry were somehow responsible for Maddie going missing. 


But this is exactly what the McCanns have told the world. Repeatedly.   And suing people who dare to think otherwise.
They insist that THEY were responsible for irresponsibly leaving the patio door unlocked and only going back every hour or so, whilst relying on unreliable others to do the intervening checks.
And they insist they had done this for every one of the previous four nights as well.

They have INSISTED that this is the story, and that surely lays a massive contributory responsibility directly on them, as parents.

There's always been this inaccurate misconception....

A Grauniad - should read..

'There's always been this immaculate conception'

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13561p725-media-mayhem-mccann-media-nonsense-of-the-day#403873

Are these disgraceful apologies for mainstream journalism aware of the fact that Kate McCann's autobiographical novel was also up for grabs on Amazon some while ago at some inflated price - when it was not longer in print. Sorry that should read 'order now, only three copies left (liable to fluctuation from one day to the next).

I can't remember the price quoted for the limited edition but believe me it was exorbitant considering the content.

At least Dr Amaral's book is factual and in accordance with the official PJ investigation. Not a work of fiction.

Anyone with a better understanding of book publishing correct me if I'm wrong but surely this kind of thing is determined by the marketeer - not the author.

I digress. Why should anyone who supports the investigation into the disappearance of a three year old little girl and the Portuguese case coordinator, be labeled a troll?

Can the same be said of all the hundreds of decent good hearted people who donated to the Find Madeleine Limited Company? Are they also trolls or is this one rule for one and another rule for another?

100 days after Madeleine was taken, her last words live on

Madeleine McCann's parents tell of moments of optimism and the fear they might never be able to return to their family home


Ned Temko
Sun 5 Aug 2007 01.02 BST   First published on Sun 5 Aug 2007 01.02 BST  

The imposing red-brick home, in an exclusive cul-de-sac in the Leicestershire village of Rothley, lies empty now. The grass is kept cut by neighbours. The kitchen table is piled high with unread letters from wellwishers around the world. One of them is addressed simply: 'To Madeleine, the little girl missing.'

The window shades in 'The Orchard' - home to four-year-old Madeleine McCann, her two-year-old twin siblings Sean and Amelie, and parents Gerry and Kate - are drawn. All but one. It reveals a ground-floor windowsill brimming with cuddly toys, awaiting the return of a little beaming, blonde girl snatched from her bed on a family holiday in Portugal 100 days ago on Saturday.

With the approach next weekend of that latest painful milestone, Kate has spoken for the first time of the final few hours before her daughter's kidnapping on the evening of 3 May in the holiday resort of Praia da Luz. 'Mummy,' she recalled Madeleine's bedtime words in a choked near-whisper, 'I've had the best day ever! I'm having lots and lots of fun!' Barely two hours later, Kate returned from dinner with friends at a tapas restaurant about 100 yards from their holiday flat to discover that Madeleine was gone. 'I was screaming her name,' Kate recalled. It was just total fear... panic and fear.

The initial jolt may have passed. But in two very different villages, one a few miles outside Leicester in the Midlands and the other on the sun-scorched Algarve coast, the painful sense of Madeleine's absence was powerfully in evidence last week.

Rothley's main square, centring on a gated war memorial, seemed strangely quiet - and empty. In the days following Madeleine's disappearance, the landlady at the pub opposite, the Royal Oak, caught the villagers' mood perfectly and organised a display of dozens of yellow ribbons around the five tall trees which encircle the tiny park.

In the weeks that followed, the dozens grew to hundreds. Wellwishers - first from the village, then from Leicester and London, and finally from all over the world - descended to add their handwritten messages of support. Dozens of cuddly toys soon covered the pavement and the benches.

Yet the weeks have since stretched on without any sign of Madeleine's return. Heavy recent rains left the toys limp and waterlogged. And some villagers became increasingly alarmed over what last Friday's Leicester Mercury, the local newspaper, dubbed 'grief tourists'.

With Gerry signalling his support, a decision was taken to find a more low-key way of demonstrating Rothley's shared sadness over the McCanns' ordeal. The toys have been washed, packaged and donated to children's charities.

A single symbolic yellow-and-green ribbon now adorns each of the trees around the park. A small candle in Madeleine's honour burns in front of the memorial.

Still, in The Crescent, the quiet road a mile away which has been home to the McCanns for the past year and a half, the sense of private loss still clearly runs deep. 'We so miss the hoots and hollers of joy from the kids and Kate and Gerry when the weather was nice,' remarked Brian Davinson, a retired local businessman who with his wife Jane are the family's nearest neighbours. 'I still remember,' he said smiling, 'Gerry, with his commanding voice, assembling the big swing-set that is in the back garden. It feels so strange without them here.'

More than 1,100 miles away, on the Portuguese coast, Kate confided last week: 'I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to go back into our family home. I can't bear the thought of it... We have so many happy memories in that house.' Then, after a pause, she added: 'Madeleine's room is shocking pink! She chose the colour.'
It seemed a rare admission - away from the relentlessly 'positive' focus that she and Gerry have sought to bring to the worldwide campaign to bring Madeleine home - that the worst may have happened to her daughter.

'I still have moments of panic and fear,' Kate said, holding back tears. 'It's not as intense and unrelenting as the first five days. Now, obviously, we have hope - and it's important to hold on to that.' Doing so cannot have been easy. In the weeks since Madeleine's disappearance, Portugal's largest-ever police investigation - backed by forces throughout Europe, North Africa and beyond - has thrown up repeated leads that have turned into dead-ends, 'sightings' that were later dismissed, hopes raised and then dashed.

The most recent, last week, came in Belgium. A children's therapist told police she was '100 per cent sure' she had seen the missing girl sitting at a restaurant table with an English-speaking woman and a Dutch man in a small town near Maastricht. Local police have said that they are treating the sighting 'very seriously'.
In Portugal, the response was more circumspect. One senior detective working on the case said: 'Of course, we hope it is for real. But there have been so many reports like this.' The man in charge of the investigation, Inspector Olegario Sousa, was non-committal, but slightly more upbeat. The key, he said, would be in the DNA tests Belgian labs were doing on a bottle from which the little girl was sipping a soft drink - expected in the next few days.

There has been only one public sign of a possible breakthrough. It came less than two weeks after Madeleine went missing, and it involved the 33-year-old son of one of the leading lights in Praia da Luz's closely knit British expatriate community. Robert Murat lives with his mother, Jenny, barely 50 yards down the road from the McCanns' holiday flat and had been pitching in as a translator in the Portuguese police's questioning of witnesses.

On 15 May, he was formally declared an arguido, or formal suspect - a status he retains under Portuguese law throughout the investigation until he is either released or charged. Though he has been questioned several times since, detectives said privately last week there was still no forensic evidence linking him to Madeleine's disappearance and no 'imminent' sign of whether he would eventually be charged. Kate and Gerry, meanwhile, have signalled their determination to continue to keep their daughter's plight in the public eye. They travelled to Spain last week to help distribute a new series of posters in the hope that local residents and the summer influx of tourists might provide what Gerry recently called the 'one phone call' that might bring their daughter back home safely.

For Kate, who has made only a few brief trips away from Praia da Luz since Madeleine's disappearance, the main focus has been on caring for the twins. 'They know she's not there, and they do miss her,' Kate said, confiding last week that at times a passing comment from Sean or Amelie about their missing sister 'catches me in the throat'.

Recalling her first visit back to Britain since the kidnapping, for a family christening in mid-July, she recalled boarding the plane with the twins. 'There was an empty seat on the plane and Sean said: "That's Madeleine's seat."'

Amelie, she added, will occasionally make a sudden reference to Cuddle Cat - the pink soft toy, Madeleine's favourite, which Kate now keeps almost constantly at her side. 'Amelie will point at Cuddle Cat and say: "Madeleine. Her Cuddle Cat. Looking after it." She's probably heard me saying that.'

Gerry, for his part, has been concentrating on explaining and expanding awareness of the 'Madeleine campaign' worldwide - most recently at the White House, where he met aides of the First Lady, Laura Bush. 'Gerry's way of coping is to keep busy and focused,' Kate reflected. 'He's a very optimistic, positive person.'
Alan Pike, brought in by Mark Warner from the Yorkshire-based Centre for Crisis Psychology to help the McCanns within days of Madeleine's disappearance, said last week that he was heartened by how well both Gerry and Kate were coping. Yet even Gerry, he said, 'like most people who go through an abduction, find that positive thinking is something very, very difficult to sustain 24/7.' The forthcoming 100-day 'anniversary,' he added, would be particularly difficult for both parents. Any such milestone 'gives rise to a lot of the physical reactions associated with the early days - the shock, the feelings of anger and the helplessness and, in this case, a lot of the feelings of guilt'.

He said: 'The hope is what keeps them going... But there are still those bad days - what Gerry has referred to as the dark places - and they are not pleasant.'

The search
3 May: Madeleine McCann disappears just days short of her fourth birthday
11 May: Businessman Stephen Winyard offers a £1m reward for information
15 May: Briton Robert Murat is named as an arguido, or formal suspect
30 May: Gerry and Kate McCann travel to the Vatican to meet the Pope
12 June: The McCanns visit Morocco following a possible sighting
15 June: Police search a field nine miles from Praia da Luz but find nothing
29 June: A couple are arrested for trying to extort money from the McCanns, falsely claiming to know where she is.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/aug/05/ukcrime.theobserver

How anyone can believe all that twaddle is beyond me,or maybe they don't and it is just sympathy.I can see the mucky lying hands of
Clarry all over it,unbelievable.

Twelve years ago - that's twelve years ago..

New arrests expected in Madeleine McCann case

September 6 2007

Portuguese police could reportedly be set to make new arrests in the Madeleine McCann case within the next 48 hours.

Reports this morning say the DNA of a potential suspect has been identified from samples taken inside the holiday apartment where the missing four-year-old was staying with her parents.

The DNA is understood to have been found in an area where the individual should not have been.

Madeleine disappeared from the apartment in the Algarve 126 days ago.

To this day we are still subjected to media reports about imminent arrests and probing new suspects.



https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/breakingnews_world/breakingnews_world_europe/new-arrests-expected-in-madeleine-mccann-case-28429129.html

Lest they forget..

Verdi wrote:Lest they forget..

The thing that puzzles me is that Eddie and Keela were brought in for a reason. Their alerts were followed up but then that's it. For example what is OG position on Eddie and Keela? I can't seem to find any acknowledgement of them. Maybe I haven't looked far enough, but it seems to me it is better to acknowledge (and discredit with evidence), rather than not acknowledge at all.

It could of course be argued that Operation Grange, aka the Metropolitan Police, have investigated both McCanns and their group of friends, including the evidence provided by Martin Grimes' report as regards his secondment to Portugal and the site inspection by Eddie and Keela. It could likewise be argued, if this be the case, why are they - eight years down the line, still chasing burglars etc.  The evidence is all there in the PJ files, all that's needed is to expand on that evidence with a vigorous fresh investigation - by the Portuguese police without outside interference.

Granted, all this nonsense about new suspects, new evidence etc. emanates from the gutter press not the police, or even a source close to.  You would think however, if Operation Grange were doing the job of reviewing/re-investigating the case, they wouldn't have reduced the team to four officers afew years back - indeed the case would have been sewn-up a long time ago.

Having said that, Mark Rowley made a spectacular faux-pas when he said during interview, the PJ had thoroughly investigated and eliminated the McCanns and they had no intention of going over old ground - even though that statement alone contradicted the remit of Operation Grange.

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14374-mccann-interview-and-videotranscripts#371708

Thanks to the PJ files being made public, we know the McCanns were not elminated from the PJ investigation.

The Metropolitan Police are under no obligation to publish reports nor comment on their policing but in this particular case, having spent so much public money and the case being so high profile, in my view they have a moral obligation to appease the public.

Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey, Patricia Hewitt and the Paedophile Information Exchange

The links that left Harriet Harman being forced to deny support for paedophiles date back nearly four decades when the Labour deputy leader was an official in the National Council for Civil Liberties



By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

8:09PM GMT 24 Feb 2014

The links that left Harriet Harman being forced to deny support for paedophiles date back nearly four decades when the Labour deputy leader was an official in the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Miss Harman, along with her husband Jack Dromey – now a frontbench Labour MP - and Patricia Hewitt, a former Labour Cabinet minister under Tony Blair, all worked for the council in the 1970s.

In 1975, the campign group – which lives on today as human rights watchdog Liberty – controversially granted official “affiliate” status to the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a body which lobbied openly for child sex.

Tom O’Carroll, PIE’s founder and described as a “sexually predatory” paedophile, was put one of the Council’s working groups, and in spring 1977 he was allowed to make a speech at the Council’s spring conference.

During this period, the Council stepped in to defend paedophiles against “hysterical and inaccurate” newspaper attacks.

One leaflet sent by PIE to MPs claimed: “Paedophiles are ordinary, decent, sensible human beings, no more sexually depraved than yourself, and with a capacity for loving and helping children which is at present being repressed.”

The organisation also submitted a report to MPs claiming that “girls as young as four months can achieve orgasm”, and that four-year-old children can “communicate verbally their consent to sex”.

However, within a few years the harm caused by paedophiles was clear and many of PIE’s activists were jailed. PIE was disbanded in 1984.

The focus returned to PIE’s activities in December when The Daily Mail newspaper first drew attention to the links with the modern-day Liberty.

Shami Chakrabarti, Liberty’s director, issued a public apology, saying it was “a source of continuing disgust and horror that even the NCCL had to expel paedophiles from its ranks in 1983 after infiltration at some point in the Seventies”.

The Mail also focused on the roles of the three Labour politicians, and published new claims last week. It said Miss Harman - the Council’s legal officer in 1978 until 1982 - wrote a briefing paper on the Protection of Children Bill, which sought to ban child pornography

Miss Harman had claimed such a law would “increase censorship” and argued that a pornographic picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered.

Miss Hewitt - general secretary of the Council from 1974 to 1983 - had published in 1982 a document called “The Police and Civil Liberties”, in which she wrote that "Conspiring to corrupt public morals is an offence incapable of definition or precise proof.”

Mr Dromey sat on the council’s executive committee for almost a decade, from 1970 to 1979, when the Council was working most closely with PIE.

Miss Harman, Labour’s deputy leader, initially tried to play down the claims. Her spokesman said: “The very suggestion that Harriet was in any way supportive of the PIE or its aims is untrue and misleading.”

The Daily Mail persisted, publishing a series of front page stories during the MPs’ half term break last week asking why the three Labour figures had failed to answer the claims.

After another front page yesterday Labour leader Ed Miliband, issued a limited statement in which he praised Miss Harman’s “huge decency and integrity”, insisting he did not “set any store” by the claims.

However last night Miss Harman broke her silence, condemning “horrible and untrue” allegations, claiming she was the victim of a “politically-motivated smear campaign” and insisting she had “done nothing wrong”.

Specifically Miss Harman denied that she had ever supported lowering the age of consent to 10, scrapping the law on incest, or sought to water down the law on child pornography in an 868-word statement.

She said: “They have accused me of being an apologist for child sex abuse, of supporting a vile paedophile organisation, of having a relaxed attitude to paedophilia and of watering down child pornography laws. These are horrific allegations and I strongly deny them all of them.”

Mr Dromey added that the allegations were “beneath contempt”, saying: “As a lifelong opponent of evil men who abuse children, the accusations of the Daily Mail are untrue and beneath contempt.” Miss Hewitt declined to comment.

Following the statements from Mrs Harman and Mr Dromey, Mr Miliband went for broke instructing his press aides to brief that he was “extremely angry” about and had "reached boiling point" about the Mail’s “smear by innuendo”.

The latest controversy comes nearly six months after the Mail claimed that Mr Miliband’s Marxist father Ralph "hated" Britain.

One aide told The Telegraph: “This has very much to be seen in the light of what the Daily Mail did in the Ralph Miliband row. They smeared by innuendo and by association then and they are smearing by innuendo and association now.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10659100/Harriet-Harman-Jack-Dromey-Patricia-Hewitt-and-the-Paedophile-Information-Exchange.html