The conduct of McCann supporters - and the effect on visits to the Madeleine Foundation website

McCann Supporters increase traffic to The Madeleine Foundation's website

On 25 July, two strong supporters of Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann began a particularly vicious campaign against The Madeleine Foundation and especially our Secretary Tony Bennett. This campaign continues.

In short, this has consisted of posting public questions on Yahoo! Answers, and other sites, which contain numerous and serious libels against us. This has been a sustained campaign with dozens of questions asked in the past 5 weeks.

What then happens is that they then answer their own questions, in the process committing further libels.

On some occasions, Tony and other members or supporters of The Madeleine Foundation have supplied factual answers on the internet to counteract the lies and libels of these McCann-supporters.

Can this be good news for The Madeleine Foundation?

We regard this as unacceptable campaigning and have contacted Yahoo! Answers to try and put a stop to it. So far we have been unsuccessful.

But if judged by visits to our website and sales of our new book: 'The Madeleine McCann Case Files: Volume 1', the campaign of these McCann-supporters has seriously backfired.

Ever since their campaign began, visits to our website have increased significantly and remain high. We have also seen an increase in sales of our most recent book.

This is reminiscent of what happened a year ago after we distributed our '10 Key Reasons' leaflet in parts of Leicestershire, including the McCanns' home village, Rothley. This attracted severe press criticism.

But because, as we know, very many British people are sceptical about the McCanns' claim that Madeleine McCann was abducted, and are hungry for the facts about the case which they feel are being denied to them by the British media, the adverse publicity led to the following developments:

* record numbers visited our website

* we received numrous offers of help e.g. in distributing the leaflet, offering to translate material for us

* sales of our '60 Reasons' book - now effectively banned as the McCanns claim it is libellous - rocketed

* over two dozen new members subscribed to us

* several kind donations were made.

We do not welcome the bad publicity that these McCann-supporters bring to us when their questions appear on the internet, for example under 'Google Alerts' for Madeleine McCann. But every cloud has a silver lining, and there's no doubt we are grateful for the extra traffic of people visiting our site - and obviously staying long enough to read some of our in-depth articles on the case.

We would make one further observation. These McCann-supporters have used the most odious tactics in their campaign on behalf of Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann. To give one example, a Mr Nigel Nessling of Ipswich has deliberately sent out false and obscene libels on the internet to others about our Secretary, Tony Bennett. Equally, a Mr Ian West of Norwich has published repeated and also obscene lies about members of The Madeleine Foundation on numerous websites, forums and blogs.

The hatred and profanity produced by these and other avid supporters of the McCanns has to be seen to be believed. They appear to be consumed with hatred simply because The Madeleine Foundation continues to raise reasonable questions about the McCanns' account of events in Praia da Luz in May 2007, not least our analysis of the many significant contradictions to be found between the police witness statements of the McCanns and their 'Tapas 9' friends.

We know that the McCanns and members of their family are aware of these hate-filled sites which support them so enthusiastically.

We have a question.

Have the McCanns done anything to try to restrain what they do?

They should do.

People like Nessling and West give the McCanns a bad name.

- The Committee of The Madeleine Foundation, 30 August 2010

Tony Bennett wrote:We have a question.

Have the McCanns done anything to try to restrain what they do?

They should do.

People like Nessling and West give the McCanns a bad name.

They most certainly do give the McC's a bad name. Their behaviour makes me question what the Mc's have got to hide that anyone who questions them are referred to as perverts, paedo's, porn stars, thugs, swingers etc. I don't know of one person who has been targetted by muratfan or Nessling etc who has been labelled a 'vile florist' or a 'nasty librarian' - NO, they have to be 'vile perverts' or 'nasty paedo's'.

It seems to me the only language the McCann supporters know is perverts and paedophiles etc.

My own feeling, therefore, is that the McCann camp is full of perverts and paedo's - especially as it is the Gaspar statements and allegations of David Payne's behaviour that seems to make the McCann supporters froth at the mouth - and I believe the questioning of their version of events must continue.

It's a variation on the old Streisand Effect at work again, ie that which a person or persons wish to keep hidden or suppressed by whatever means is magnified, highlighted and more widely publicised by their attempts to censor.

This particular variation involves rubbishing those who wish the truth to be exposed but as with the Streisand Effect in its original definition, the result is just the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Here is another magnificent example of how 'muratfan' is inadvertently promoting The Madeleine Foundation.

This came up on a 'Google Alert' for The Madeleine Foundation this morning:

Keeping A Check On Bennetts Libellous Posts....Tony Bennett Loves ...
By murat fan
To join our campaign for justice for Madeleine, contact The Madeleine Foundation at 66 Chippingfield, HARLOW, Essex, CM17 0DJ Tel: 01279 635789 email: ajsbennett@btinternet.com website: http://www.madeleinefoundation.org/ ...
Keeping A Check On Bennetts Libellous... - http://brenryanandco.blogspot.com/

I look forward to the 'phone calls!

edited by admin to add symbol of gratitude

What I find with these personal attacks on good folk is that they motivate me to work harder to find out the truth.

I do not like bullies and people being nasty about friends.

ufercoffy wrote:

''My own feeling, therefore, is that the McCann camp is full of perverts and paedo's - especially as it is the Gaspar statements and allegations of David Payne's behaviour that seems to make the McCann supporters froth at the mouth - and I believe the questioning of their version of events must continue.''

One shares ufercoffy's sentiments and believes that many of these fanatical people who lend support to the Tapas 9 have something to hide themselves. They have recently accused K Gaspar of making her statement because they think she may have been abused. For anybody to consider such a thought leads one to believe that the same may be true of some of them. Either that. or that they are in some way connected to abusers themselves

One wholeheartedly agrees with Mr D's post above.

For anyone to suggest that K. Gaspar may have made the statement because she may have been abused shows that whoever made the comment doesnt know the first thing about survivors of abuse. That comment would also be extremely offensive to any survivor of abuse imo.

Katherine Gasper’s statement gives the impression of a perceptive mother. What a shame Kate McCann was not so perceptive during her stay at PdL, had she been she may have noticed the swarthy child abducting paedophile that Gezza says watched them all week. Still, maybe Kate was preoccupied or her perceptiveness was dulled by too much alcohol.

The best way to counter is to post reply on yahoo
1) explaining MF is about combating child neglect and abuse;
2) provide a link to MF site and invite people to visit MF to judge for themselves.
3) At the same time, post up muratfang's and other sickos sites so that readers have the option to click on it to read the shites put out by the sickos.

That way people can judge which is a healthy campaign and which is a sick campaign.

What these 'sickos' do has the opposite effect, in that it is increasing counters to MF which can only be a good thing.

Maybe put a short article about sustained attack from pro-mccanns from people like muratfang providing link to their sick site, so that visitors to MF site are informed and can discern for themselves.