PeterMac's FREE e-book: What really happened to Madeleine McCann?

This relates to the article in ABC posted by Clarke on his Facebook page.

THE HUNTER OF MONSTERS.
THE JOURNALIST IN PURSUIT OF MADELEINE’S ASSASSIN
The British reporter started following the trail of the little girl the day after her disappearance.

“ABC is a Spanish national daily newspaper. It is the second largest general-interest newspaper in Spain, number one in Madrid, and the oldest newspaper still operating in Madrid. Along with El Mundo and El País, it is one of Spain’s three newspapers of record. ABC is known for generally supporting conservative political views. On 25 September 2009, ABC made its complete archives, dating back to 1903, available online, giving modern readers a chance to see contemporaneous news about the Spanish Civil War.”

So although it is published in a small stapled format it is definitively not a Red Top Tabloid.

For Clarke to get his book ‘advertised’ or featured on a double-page spread with full colour photo in a ‘Newspaper of Record’ is the equivalent of a piece in the Daily Telegraph or the The Times. It is beyond price, and will live in the archive forever. This press immortality perhaps explains why he is so proud of it. The Kudos is immense.

The ABC article was written by one of their professional Journalists, JJ Madueño.
Madueño lists English as one of his languages on LinkedIn and other professional sites. Clarke speaks Spanish, refined after 20 years living and working in Spain turning everyday Spanish into Tabloid English.

The Muck Rack web site is –
The all-in-one PR software you’ve been waiting for – A centralized Public Relations Management (PRM) platform to help your team build media relationships, collaborate from anywhere, and measure success.
Muck Rack for Journalists – Tens of thousands of journalists rely on Muck Rack’s free tools to showcase their best work with automatically updated portfolios, analyze news or receive alerts about any topic, and measure the impact of published stories.



Madueño has his own page on Muck Rack. The article Clarke is so proud of appears there.

Translation

On that very 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence. Mobile phones were not so widespread and the major British newspapers were looking to contact Jon Clarke (Cambridge, 1968) in this town in Malaga. He picked up, and was asked if he could go to Portugal. An English girl had disappeared there. << It didn't seem like an important case, but I went. I arrived at half past one in the morning in Praia da Luz >> recalls Clarke about his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.


This is clearly the first two paragraphs of the article. Journalists themselves post these extracts or summaries. They are not edited or touched by the site.

Here it is crystal clear that Clarke is saying – and it is in Spanish quote marks, indicating his direct speech – << I arrived at half past ONE in the morning in Praia da Luz >>.
The place is clear and the time is clear. From the context of the telephone call on ‘that very’ 3rd May, meaning that exact day, we can calculate that he arrived on Friday 4th May. At 1:30 am.

The final printed and on-line article, which has been slightly altered still quotes Clarke as saying
“It didn't seem like a big case, but I went to Praia da Luz," Clarke recalls of his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. That same night he met the little girl's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann.”

That same NIGHT from a 3rd May phone call means exactly the same thing. Clarke got to PdL in the early hours of Friday 4th. He was THERE after midnight of the night of 3rd/4th May 2007.

The implications are wide-ranging.


To drive to PdL and arrive at 01:30 means leaving his home by or before 20:30 and driving through the night, a lot of it along unlit rural roads. There was a waning gibbous moon, but cloud cover both in Malaga and Seville. This only cleared towards Faro airport.

The distance is given as 404 km, plus about 2km in PdL, and another 2km to his rural house outside the small village beyond Ronda. The time is quoted as 4h 11 min from the centre of his village to the roundabout on the main road leading to PdL, so at least 4h 30min in total driving time door to door overnight.
To this we must add a comfort and/or fuel stop, which he describes in detail in the book, and we may note that driving at night on unlit rural roads with the ever present danger of wild animals, boar, ibex, fox, badger, red or fallow deer jumping out of the woods either side is likely to moderate normal driving speed slightly.
Allowing his stated half hour to get ready and take his leave of his family after the alleged phone call, puts the call no later than 20:00 [8 pm.] on 3/5/7, and very possibly considerably earlier.

Ponder that for a moment.

The alarm was raised just before 22:00 [10 pm.] 3/5/7. Portuguese time or 23:00 Spanish time.

Even if we suspect that Clarke is still confusing Spanish time for arrival, this only moves the phone call to some time before 21:00 [9 pm.] 3/5/7 Spanish time. It does not alter the central issue, that the phone call was made not only a significant time BEFORE the report of the disappearance, but also well BEFORE the ’window of opportunity’ for any Abduction given in the signed and accepted statements of the McCanns and the Tapas 7.

Many years ago Clarke was faced with this exact suggestion and reacted in his usual aggressive contemptuous way. The article in the Olive Press by Clarke himself is dated 11th May 2017, and includes –

“He accused me of lying about the case, and crucially claimed I could not have got to Praia da Luz so quickly on the day after her disappearance.
He suggested I was actually staying there.”

Now, some 14 years after the original events, but only 4 years after that article, Clarke has clearly confessed to a fellow but more senior and respected journalist, and has admitted that he was there, did get there “so quickly” and by extension WAS staying there before his second appearance at 09:45 later that morning.

Whilst research continues to discover several more facts there remains an unease about Clarke’s future.

The ”official story” promulgated and broadcast so early and so long and hard by Clarke was designed to protect those who may have been responsible for the organisation and the selective release of information. Several have specifically denied their involvement in any greater scheme, and specifically of any prior knowledge at all of any “event’ before 10pm 3/5/7.

Clarke’s new admission that the Press telephones were ringing long before that time may be the earth tremor which eventually causes the edifice to crumble.

Many whose reputations and even their liberty depend on that fact’s NOT being known may not be pleased.
And when it is realised that small apparently unconnected pieces of evidence and fully documented personal communication already in the hands of researchers are now validated by Clarke’s admission, some may get very cross indeed. Including the McCanns and their backers.

As they were with the late Brenda Leyland, hounded to alleged suicide; with Mr Bennett, sentenced to imprisonment; with DCI Amaral, pursued through three tiers of courts and impoverished despite being completely vindicated; with several private detectives who allegedly discovered and reported inconvenient facts, who are variously dead in suspicious circumstances or in prison on supposedly unrelated issues.

They were not dismissed as cranks, or fools. They were not merely shrugged off as ignorant of the facts, as ill informed or misguided.
No. They were pursued at enormous expense.

Someone, or some organisation, spent a vast amount of money instructing Carter-Ruck to pursue Mr. Bennett right up to and then actually into the High Court. Forget Kate’s “pro bono” claim. The McCanns may not have paid for the work, but someone did.

Someone, or some organisation, paid a vast amount of money pursuing Dr Amaral through the Portuguese Court of First Instance, the Appeal court, the Supreme court - TWICE - and is now still paying for a case in the European Court of Human Rights.
That is out of the financial reach of normal people, (which is of course why they froze Dr Amaral’s assets and income from the start, hoping he would not be able to mount a proper defence.).

Someone directed Martin Brunt of Sky News to hound Brenda Leyland to her (alleged) suicide.
He didn’t decide to do it on his own. Both MetPol and LeicPol had stated there were no offences to investigate. Someone paid him to do it. And that Someone may also be funding this.

We may never know the true identity nor the motivation of the “Fat controller”, [Chapter 41] –
but Jonathan Lucian Stewart Clarke may inadvertently have taken us closer to discovering his or her identity, and that may not go down well.

If the Security Services were involved in this case, which some believe possible, Jon Clarke might do well to consider the adequacy of his Life Insurance, and pray he does not share the fates of Dr Kelly and Mike Todd.

****

The discovery of this admission and confession does go some way to explaining but not excusing Clarke’s 14-year history of being vague, inaccurate and untruthful about the time of his arrival in Praia da Luz and his various alleged immediate actions once there. He has clearly been under considerable stress caused by the ‘cognitive dissonance’ of having to fit a patently inaccurate account into known and provable facts.

We still do not know or understand much about Clarke’s movements, still less about his motivation nor of his level of understanding of his personal involvement in what increasingly appears to be something far more serious than “Tabloid Journalists Writing Rot”.

Given the time of his alleged phone call, it must have been clear even to Clarke that being called some considerable time before the “Abduction”, let alone the Alert, might make people following this case slightly suspicious.

Was the phone call simply to tell him everything was in place, and it was safe for him to leave because he would arrive after the alert, perhaps with a reminder that he should ring back about 5am so that the stories already on the presses and in the News rooms could be printed and released for the early morning editions?

Clarke has said, very clearly, that he arrived in Praia da Luz about 1:30 AM. [Clarke “Llegué a la una y media de la madrugada’, or alternatively 'that same night', which bears the same meaning but allows for any confusion between Spanish and Portuguese time.]. He has said that, it has been published in a Journal of Record in the name of a highly respected journalist, and he has encouraged his followers to read it.

The onus of explanation now shifts to Clarke.

And as another researcher has suggested – If Clarke was summoned to Praia da Luz just before, at, or even just after the time the McCanns and the Tapas 7 raised the alarm, he may well be guilty of Perverting the Course of Justice by withholding from the PJ right from the start that vital information which could have made an absolutely crucial difference to the course of the entire investigation. Instead of this Clarke told the world that he knew instantly that the McCanns were innocent.

Has Clarke suffered 14 years of chronic anxiety that the PJ, DCI Amaral, the Portuguese Public Prosecutor, Operation Grange, the German lawyer H. Fülscher and the prosecutor H. Wolters, not to mention the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of the Met., would one day find out the truth about his nocturnal visit to PdL, and would therefore realise that the stories that he first arrived at various times later that morning were untrue ?

If so, he can relax.
They do now.

Can Clarke now claim that this whole thing has been a big mistake; a misunderstanding; that the meaning got “lost in translation’ between two people each fluent in the other’s language; that it was written by nothing more than a Tabloid journalist who sensationalised or completely invented the story paying no attention to the facts, purely to increase circulation and sell a foreign language paperback book . . . ?

Let me assist.
NO.   He can not.
How can we know that ?

We placed a question on Clarke’s Facebook page. The first question was ’deleted’ within a day, so we replaced it.
We gave Clarke the “right to reply”; the time to explain; to issue an exculpatory statement; to blame others for misunderstanding or misquoting;
or other wording he chose.


After a week he had not chosen to do so.
It seems he stands by what was written in ABC.

It may of course be that yet again Clarke is blatantly lying or being so ludicrously boastful that he has failed to see that his fantasy cannot possibly fit the ‘official story’.
If so, then he has surely forfeited the right to describe himself as a serious Journalist.
If not, his admission may have fatally compromised the entire 14 year investigation.


REFS:

1. https://muckrack.com/jj-madueno-1/articles

2. https://sevilla.abc.es/andalucia/malaga/sevi-periodista-britanico-madeleine-enf-202110212008_noticia.html

3. Original ABC article in Spanish.

https://sevilla.abc.es/andalucia/malaga/sevi-periodista-britanico-madeleine enf-202110212008_noticia.html

Jon Clarke, 14 años para resolver el misterio de la pequeña Madeleine
El reportero Jon Clarke, editor de una publicación inglesa editada en la Costa del Sol, comenzó a seguir el rastro de la pequeña el día después de su desaparición
Advierte del peligro del presunto asesino, Christian Brueckner, un alemán que vivió en poblados 'hippies' de Granada y podría haber cometido más delitos
J.J. Madueño
MARBELLA Actualizado: 22/10/2021 18:49h

4. https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/


https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-48-part-two-and-now-stunning.html

Chapter 49 My Search for the Madeleine Call: One Researcher’s 14-year Hunt to Solve Europe’s most Elusive Phone Call.

First a brief re-cap.
In September 2021 Jon Clarke, owner and editor of a small free ad-sheet and newspaper available at supermarket check-outs in parts of southern Spain released a book entitled
“My Search for Madeleine: One Reporter's 14-Year Hunt to Solve Europe's Most Harrowing Crime”

[We gloss over the solecism inherent in the title, with the strangely confused concatenation of ‘hunting for the person’ and attempting to ‘solve the crime’, and remember that Clarke is before all else a Tabloid Journalist, and therefore his poor grammar, vocabulary and syntax must be accepted or overlooked]

The publishing of the book was preceded and accompanied by a publicity drive which included an appearance on Sky News on Kay Burley’s morning show; a longer down-the-line interview on a local radio channel; Twitter: notices on the internet on the Olive Press on-line pages; the OP facebook page;
and on Jon Clarke’s own FaceBook page. https://www.facebook.com/jon.clarke.3745. REFS 1,2,3

(This publicity strategy rapidly extended to removing less than effusive reviews on Amazon, whilst ensuring that the more sycophantic ones, including one posted in his own wife’s name, remained despite not being marked as ‘confirmed purchase’.)

On his Facebook page Clarke also posted a shot of the full double-page spread in the renowned Spanish newspaper ABC, inviting people to read it, and saying
“For those of you who speak Spanish, an interesting article about my work - and the Olive Press - in Spain’s oldest national newspaper ABC yesterday.
And for those that don’t; I’m not a monster but a ‘hunter of monsters’. Some of them will comment below :”



It certainly turned out to be an ‘interesting article’, including as it did the following words (in translation - original in the appendix)
“On that very 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence. . . . That same night he met the little girl's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann.“

[Explanation of the translation of the word “mismo” to mean the emphatic ‘that VERY day’, or ‘that EXACT day’ may be found in Chapter 48a]
The meaning is clear, but to ensure that this was not a gross or negligent error on the part of the journalist in question, one of ABC’s more senior and experienced journalists, we contacted Sr. JJ Madueño himself, and the website Muckrack.

The Muckrack website has been discussed in Chapter 48a, but essentially ‘scrapes’ the work of journalists on its extensive list, and posts the first 150 words of their articles within a very short time of that journalist's hitting the ‘Return’ or ‘Enter’ key on the computer to upload it to the public domain.

(It will come as no surprise to find that as with all things McCann, there are at least two versions)

The Muckrack entry is even more specific and detailed
“That very 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence. . . << It didn't seem like an important case, but I went. I arrived at half past one in the morning in Praia da Luz. >>, recalls Clarke about his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.”

We must bear in mind that Madueño has had no known involvement or interest in this case. The words he uses are put in quote marks, to indicate direct speech from Clarke. It is also clear for those who have followed this case that the article, almost in its entirety, will have been virtually dictated by Clarke, even if he did not write the actual words himself.

When Sr. Madueño was approached about the entry he denied knowledge of the Muckrack site, and said he would investigate what had been posted. Journalists can easily correct, edit or delete any of their own work. Two months later however the original entry has not been amended, even to bring it in line with the final published article.

This must surely leave his readers to believe that
– this is what he first wrote and uploaded,
– although the wording in the final printed version has been slightly amended it clearly means almost exactly the same thing, and that therefore
– he stands by both versions

Clarke was approached about the article and the Muckrack entry. The excoriating FAPE judgment against the Olive Press and Clarke himself was also mentioned. He responded in characteristic fashion, as he does when cornered, by issuing abuse, threats and attempting to intimidate.

On the first occasion he dodged the question entirely, rolled out the expected ad hominem abusive “Troll”, and suggested the interlocutor spent more time with his family. [Perhaps a bit rich, coming from a man who cheerfully boasts to the entire world in his book that he abandoned his own wife and children for several months]

The correspondence continued, to be replied to thus :
“Ha - I think one official complaint in 16 years (not even stood up [sic] - or contested) is a fabulous accolade! And you’ve got MANY MANY facts wrong - partly because FAPE only put one side out… [sic]
On top of that, one last time: I got to PDL early and spoke to the McCanns briefly - what’s the problem/issue? it was 14 years ago and neither I, they or the PJ,- and certainly not a troll - can know that exact time”
[One way might be to check with independent sources. Photos, news reel video, . . . Just a thought !]

The exchange continued and the next reply included the threat
“WRONG, WRONG, WRONG M*** - you are not only a bad liar but you clearly don’t understand Spanish - the girl was NOT pictured, the home was NOT identified.. and NO hordes of tourists descended on the house or the village…
You are getting close to libelling the newspaper and me … be careful… it’s taken very seriously here and in the UK”

The FAPE judgment has been dealt with elsewhere, [Ch. 31, Clarke, Lies, and Videotape] but one extraordinary thing about Clarke’s defence of his untenable position is that he seems to forget, neglect or ignore not only what he wrote in his own book, the subject of this entire enquiry, but also what he has published in his own paper about Libel in Spain.

To refresh memories, and to hammer home Clarke’s continuing egregious manipulation of facts and distortion of truth,
“we ran the story with two pictures, one of the village in which they lived and one of the name of the house, which inadvertently also gave the house number.”     (Book. p 113) REF 4

and





Spain, a modern democracy recently released from the clutches of a far-left Fascist dictatorship, has a modern written constitution in which freedom of speech and expression is high on the list of Citizens’ Rights. Portugal has the same and for the same reasons, as the McCanns discovered when they attempted to extort a huge amount of money from DCI Amaral for writing a factual account of the investigation.

Neither jurisdiction is interested in Libel cases based on lies told by the Plaintiff.

What then are the possibilities ?

First that it is simply UNTRUE
That Madueño is a negligent, poor, and casual journalist, who does not bother to ask questions or check anything he is told, or perhaps alternatively that he is from the Tabloid stable, and simply invents things he believes may flesh out a story he is writing.

Second that it is actually TRUE
That Clarke told Madueño the facts. Madueño then wrote the article including the facts he had noted, downloaded the photo of Clarke totally surrounded by two copies of his book, and the longer piece of script about the book itself from Clarke, arranged the double page for publication, and uploaded the finished article.
It was then ‘scraped’ for posterity by Muckrack.
Some little time later he went back into the article and made the time slightly less exact, for what reason we can only guess, changing “half past one in the morning”, to “that same night”, which makes little difference. It is not as exact, but just as precise.

Which is the more likely option ?
Clarke clearly solicited the inclusion of his book in ABC, and then advertised the article on his own Facebook page, with the words
“For those of you who speak Spanish, an interesting article about my work - and the Olive Press - in Spain’s oldest national newspaper ABC yesterday.”
He was urging people to read it, and is clearly proud that it appears in a newspaper of record.

There is no hint of a caveat, no suggestion of mistake or misinterpretation.

Madueño was clearly told the exact time of arrival and either wrote it in his journal or keyed it in direct, and he was also clearly told that the phone call was on that EXACT day, that fateful day, the day in question, which he clarifies so there shall be no absolutely no doubt, no mistake, not even the remotest possibility of a misunderstanding – in both versions – by giving the date as 3rd May 2007.

Can Clarke now accuse him of being nothing more than the lowest rank of gutter press Tabloid journalist, prepared to make up stories and fill in with invented details, who will lie and libel purely for financial gain . . . ?

No he cannot.
Madueño is a respected and trusted senior journalist employed by a paper of record.
He wrote what he did in good faith.

*****

Has Clarke finally been caught out, this time not by his lies or by stretching the truth beyond its elastic limit, but by inadvertently having told the truth ?
Has one proven mendacious and libelling journalist been exposed by a decent and honourable one ?

It might help to explain the quite extraordinary sequence of ‘versions of the truth’ he has given the world over the past 14 years relating to his arrival and presence in PdL, each apparently tailored to suit the particular story under discussion at the time or to appeal to a particular audience.
The arrival time now spans 0130; 0900; 0930; 0945-1015; noon; later that day; that evening; and very possibly several more which have not yet come to light.

As we have seen in a previous chapter the time of the call now moves to 8pm 3/5/7 at the latest, some time before the alleged events and a considerable time before the official announcements to the press.
Although individuals like Mitchell and Clarke himself may not have known the full background details, and in some cases would be used as ‘useful idiots’ and have the facts actively concealed from them, it is probable that the more senior members of the network did know rather more.
CEOPS, SIS, editors, Sky, and so on, appear to have been alerted a long time before, to enable them to get the outline logistical framework in place.

That the agreed story was badly developed, under-rehearsed and poorly executed was perhaps not to be expected of eight professional people, as it might have been thought that they would have come up with something a little better; certainly more persuasive and more coherent, and perhaps even backed by some evidence.

In this scenario, Clarke, Kandohla and Gusmaroli are mere stooges. Not-quite innocent victims.
Mitchell does not inspire belief in his intellectual agility and may also be a dupe, although some of his pronouncements lead to the belief that he may know much more.

Looking back at Clarke’s articles it is notable that the boastful ‘first on the scene’ idea does not appear until 2017. The 2007 piece makes no reference to his arrival, and by 2008 Clarke was telling the world he had arrived at ‘noon’, with no mention of speaking to the McCanns.
“I had been in Praia da Luz since noon on the day after her disappearance.”

The first/only journalist nonsense started on the 10th anniversary article in Olive Press, 2017, where both the ‘first on the scene” and speaking to the McCanns were seen for the first time. Since then both have been twisted and manipulated in a form of linguistic and logical torture which has squeezed any element of truth or meaning out of them.

Over the decade and a half we have noted and analysed various of the many outright untruths told by many of the parties, the McCanns, the Tapas 7, Mitchell, Solicitors, and many more. Many of the untruths and distortions were exculpatory, trying to get themselves out of impossible situations in which the objective facts placed them, but served merely to prove their infinite respective capacity for being economical with the ‘vérité.

Clarke’s lies are on another plane. He was not trying to get out of a situation. He was putting himself into a specific situation; attempting to position himself spatially and temporally – at a specific place at a specific time.

That at least was the theory, until now.

Now the suspicion grows that his previous attempts to place himself in PdL at a particular time were to conceal the fact that he was there at another time completely.
And that camouflage has now been stripped away. The cover story has been blown.
He is exposed, and trapped.

Strangely the FaceBook piece with all the remaining comments and questions has not been “whooshed” as were many previous ‘embarrassing’ questions or comments.



But perhaps even more strange is that Clarke has not posted anything else on his site since 23 October.
He has gone to earth; gone very quiet. It appears that all his bluster, abuse and threats have been exhausted, for the time being at least.

But the article itself is still on display. He has not taken it down.

It is still there and it says very clearly that










REFS:

1. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23olivepress&src=typd&f=live&vertical=default

2. https://www.facebook.com/OlivePressNewspaper

3. https://www.facebook.com/jon.clarke.3745

4. Clarke, Jon. MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime (pp. 113-114). OP Books. Kindle Edition.

5 https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2011/11/07/24455/


ABC Article – Original as Printed
El mismo 3 de mayo de 2007 una llamada a un teléfono de Ronda requirió su presencia. Los móviles no estaban tan extendidos y los grandes periódicos británicos buscaban contactar a Jon Clarke (Cambridge, 1968) en esta ciudad de Málaga. Acudió y le preguntaron si podía ir a Portugal.

Allí había desaparecido una niña inglesa. «No parecía un caso importante, pero fui a Praia da Luz», recuerda Clarke sobre su primer contacto con la desaparición de Madeleine McCann. Esa misma noche conoció a los padres de la pequeña, Gerry y Kate McCann. «Estaban destrozados y sentían que nadie les ayudaba», describe el periodista, que está afincado en la Costa del Sol.


ABC. Translation: [DeepL, edited]
On the very 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence. Mobile phones were not so widespread and the major British newspapers were looking to contact Jon Clarke (Cambridge, 1968) in this town in Malaga. He went and was asked if he could go to Portugal.

An English girl had disappeared there. "It didn't seem like an important case, but I went to Praia da Luz," recalls Clarke about his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. That same night he met the little girl's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann. "They were devastated and felt that no one was helping them," describes the journalist, who is based on the Costa del Sol.


Muckrack article
El mismo 3 de mayo de 2007 una llamada a un teléfono de Ronda requirió su presencia. Los móviles no estaban tan extendidos y los grandes periódicos británicos buscaban contactar a Jon Clarke (Cambridge, 1968) en esta ciudad de Málaga. Acudió y le preguntaron si podía ir a Portugal.

Allí había desaparecido una niña inglesa. «No parecía un caso importante, pero fui. Lleguéa la una y media de la madrugada a Praia da Luz», recuerda Clarke sobre su primer contacto con la desaparición de Madeleine McCann.


Muckrack. Translation: [DeepL, edited]
On the very 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence. Mobile phones were not so widespread and the major British newspapers were looking to contact Jon Clarke (Cambridge, 1968) in this town in Malaga. He went and was asked if he could go to Portugal.

An English girl had disappeared there. "It didn't seem like an important case, but I went. I arrived at half past one in the morning in Praia da Luz", Clarke recalls about his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-49-my-search-for-madeleine-call.html

Chapter 50: February 2022 A quiet Month for Madeleine watchers ?

As we have already noted, the Red Top gutter Tabloids were strangely quiet for the whole of February.
Possible reasons might include a ‘revelation’ that they had been wrong all along (unlikely); an executive decision to print no more rubbish without concrete evidence of the facts (equally unlikely); nervousness at the possible result of the law suit taken by Christian Brückner against SAT 1 and a named presenter/journalist Jutta Rabe (unlikely, but possible); lack of content generated by the Olive Press or similar fantasy machines (more probable) . . .

But behind the scenes some thing very strange has been happening.
A long email correspondence has been going on between the writer and Jon Clarke, owner, editor and journalist for the said Olive Press tabloid supermarket free advert-sheet.

I use the word “Correspondence” loosely. There is convention amongst civilised and educated people that a formal letter or email is at least acknowledged on receipt, even if the contents are merely ‘noted’. Clarke operates on a different level, and clearly thinks it is acceptable simply to ignore emails which pose embarrassing questions or raise inconvenient issues. (He has ‘form’ for this even when contacted by his own professional and disciplinary body in Spain – FAPE, Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España. about a complaint. He simply ignored documents and/or emails sent to him which led to a judgment in absentia which he subsequently sought to vilify as unfair for lack of due process. Needless to say FAPE were “not amused”.)

It started with a long and threatening email, beginning with the deathless, pompous and utterly risible phrase “It has come to my attention…“
Here on his throne, master of his media and property business empire, sits the great man at whose feet unworthy minions scurry to and fro’, humbly bringing things to his attention.
He did not compound the ludicrous cliché with ‘and I view with increasing concern. . .’ . Instead he used “yet again,” but the comic effect was no less.

Comic because in those few words are contained a statement fatal to the subsequent argument. The use of that phrase shows clearly that the author has no first hand knowledge, no evidence, no documentation to support what follows, and is resorting to pomposity and rhetoric to try to conceal that.

And the substance of the complaint which had come to his attention ? An angry accusation that I had published details of his home and his family.

Which of course I had not.

THE END ?

Well yes, but only in theory.

I replied asking for details so that I could take immediate action to rectify any inadvertent slip of the type he was describing.

His reply was more agitated, refusing – or being totally unable – to identify any specifics, reverting to the slightly pathetic “you know where they are“, and making vague references to photos of sign posts, ‘his road’, his wife’s and children’s names, and finished off, most strangely, with an insistence that I remove all reference to the name of his lawyer.

Over the next three emails it gradually became clear that the only thing he could point to was the ‘Open Letter’ which I wrote shortly after the publication of Clarke’s strangely titled book, “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime" (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.)

In the Open Letter I had actually praised the lawyer for his work, and out of courtesy referred to him by name. And where did I find the name ? In the book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.)

But because I detected a possible tension between him and his lawyer, and it did not materially alter the thrust of whatever argument I was making, I did change the wording to remove the name, though as I observed I was not sure how… “your lawyer, whom you have asked me not to name, but who is fulsomely thanked on the Acknowledgements page for helping you out of ‘plenty of scrapes’ has clearly been worth his weight in gold, and the ad hominem attacks on me are slightly more muted and vague than before. . .” was a significant improvement on the original. The lawyer’s name is of course still to be found in the book, “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.). at p.iv

I then looked further at the Open Letter, and at the short paragraph in which I defended myself against a specific allegation in the book. In the book Clarke, amongst other wholly irrelevant and gratuitous information, tells the world through his Amazon world-side sales, that he abandoned his wife and family for several months. He uses the word “separated” as men usually do, but since it is commonly the man who leaves the wife and children and goes off to seek excitement and fields of oats to sow, and it is usually the mother who remains loyal to her responsibilities to her children, the word is clearly a euphemism.

In my Open Letter response I simply told how I had visited the house and left chocolate coins with the child-minder to put under the Christmas tree for the children. And that was it. I had of course no idea about, nor any interest in, Clarke’s marital breakdown. And still don’t. I didn’t want to know, and I cannot imagine there is anyone else on the planet who ‘frankly, gives a damn’. But it is there in all its grisly and gratuitous detail in the book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) at p.68.

He seems proud of what he did. What his wife and his children think of being abandoned, and of his publishing the details, we may never know.

Clarke has then turned, or “spun” that into a bizarre allegation that I revealed details of the location of the house and of his wife and the children.

For those details one only has to read the book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) where dates of birth of children and wife are easy to determine.
Assuming of course that anyone is remotely interested in so doing.
The reality is that the book is stuffed with irrelevant detail which dilutes and diverts from the whole intended ‘who-dun-it’ effect.

But it gets better. Or worse, depending on your point of view.

I shall try to resist the temptation to use the words “extraordinary, strange, weird, ridiculous, and ludicrous,” but readers should sprinkle them liberally into what follows to get the full effect.

Clarke then went on to accuse me of a whole string of other ‘high crimes and misdemeanours’, endlessly repeating this meme about my having revealed details of the location of his house.

What is bizarre about this is that Clarke and his wife run a successful high-end rental business, centred on their own house. It follows, logically, surely, that at some stage in the rental procedure the location of the house has to be revealed. And so it turns out. Even searching for a place to rent in that top-end price bracket will take anyone to detailed maps, mostly from maps.google where it is pinned by name. Both names in fact.

I didn’t do that. It comes from Clarke’s and his wife’s own websites. So as not to incur Clarke’s feigned anger I shall not tell you where to look. But it is not difficult to find.
Why he accuses me of having done so may become clear later.

In one of the tirade of emails he also accused me of inventing the idea that he had been in PdL the night before.

I had to gently point out that it was his own publicity machine for the book, including his own Facebook page on which he trumpeted his double-page spread in one of Spain’s best newspapers, ABC, in which his allegedly verbatim quotes of having received the phone call “that same night” and having arrived in PdL at “one thirty in the morning” were recommended to all his readers. They are incidentally still there for the entire world to see, nearly six months later, as they are on the journalist-in-question’s Muckrack page. But he clearly objects to my discussing the issues raised by the claim.
Chapter 48 covers it in more detail.

Quite why he objects to his own words being quoted I have no idea, but would be open to suggestions.

**

I return now to the strange accusation that I have revealed details of his wife and children, and very specifically that I have deliberately thereby actively and knowingly endangering his family by revealing them. Precisely how it endangers anyone to know a date of birth, or that one child was named after a English king, and the other merely had the middle letter inserted (assuming this was not an inadvertent typographical error overlooked during negligent proof-reading) is not entirely clear.

There are at least thirty-six references in Clarke’s own book to his wife, his children and all their birthdays, including a botched attempt to conceal his wife’s name then negated by use of her familial abbreviation.

Let us remind ourselves that this purports to be a book about Madeleine McCann, and either the ‘search for her’ or the ‘investigation into the alleged crime’. The two issues become strangely elided with the ungrammatical and syntactically confused sub-title “One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve . . .”

[For non-english speakers:
In standard English the verb ‘to Hunt’ can be intransitive or transitive. You can Hunt, or Hunt for, an animal, a child or a solution to a problem. When used as a noun the same rules apply. You cannot conduct A Hunt – followed by a verb. You cannot Hunt TO Solve.
A Quest to solve, or A Hunt for an explanation or for a solution would be acceptable. Language is Clarke’s tool. He is a wordsmith, and should know better. Not even the excuse of 25 years of continuously writing to the dumbed down standard of the Tabloids excuses illiteracies and solecisms like this. And to have it in the sub-title of the book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) is embarrassing, humiliating, or funny, depending on your point of view]

What the ‘Hunt to Solve’ has got to do with Clarke’s family or any of the other padding in the first third of the book is not clear. And yet he accuses me of having released these details and thereby of endangering his family.

It is not only in Clarke’s book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) that he reveals details of his family.

In his own newspaper Clarke regales his readers with personal details of a family a trip to Rome to watch a Euro ’20 match. He illustrates this by publishing a large full-colour full-face selfie photo of his entire family eating sausage rolls at the stadium. And then further down the same page he publishes another photo of the entire family, now back home at their secret location, again full-face and full-length. In neither photo are his children’s eyes obscured in accordance with normal journalistic practice for the protection of minors.
Elsewhere in his own newspaper he has published a full length standing photo of him and wife, captioned with both their names. That particular photo was taken several years ago, but he published all the above within the past eight months. It is recent. He is still doing it.

Again I will not give the links to enable readers to find them, but it is all available on his website for which helpfully he provides a good internal search engine.

Do we assume that Clarke had the recommended full and meaningful conversation with his wife and his children about their own personal rights to privacy before doing this ?
I quote
“Children’s rights advocates have been urging parents to think twice before sharing information about their kids, including their pictures, because there is a conflict between the kids’ right to privacy and their parents’ right to post. Experts believe it’s important to ask your child whether they want their pictures to be shared with the world or not. These conversations will give kids the necessary feeling of autonomy, respect, and parental support, and help them develop their private and public identities.” Unquote

But even if he did, and then published, in print and STILL on the internet, why is he now accusing ME of having done it ?
He did.
I didn’t.
He exonerates himself but blames me.
Can anyone work that out ? (Answers on a postcard please)

There are several possible explanations, none of which may be correct.

Clarke may realise he has been ‘hoist with his own petard’; has been caught in his own trap. He may therefore be metaphorically either hiding under the blanket, the evidence for which is his refusing to reply to emails and pretending letters have not been delivered, or more possibly is acting like a cornered wild beast, liable to lash out at random in its attempts to escape.
If he was acting on the un-evidenced hearsay of a third party – whose identify we may guess at – he may now regret his actions, but be too proud to apologise, in the same way that he never admits that only one of the six or seven versions of his arrival in PdL can be the definitive one.

But that also suggests a large element of cowardice. An inability to come out into the open, state his case and defend his position.
In that regard he is of course following the pattern of all the “Abduction by paedophile” faithful. After fourteen long years they still have no case to put, no evidence to adduce, no position to take, and no defence except endless repetition of the original statement made by the two principal suspects, accompanied by attempts to silence any who dare to question it. And when they fail to silence they resort to ad hominen abuse, smears, sneers and innuendo, before resorting to failed appeals to the law.

There may be psychological issues which may underline this behaviour. A sense of self-importance, which morphs into narcissism, and in turn to one of the well known emotional signs, that of projection – the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds. More commonly projection refers to “unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don't like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.” The cheating spouse accuses the partner of infidelity; the boss accuses employees of submitting false overtime claims, whilst himself neglecting his own tasks and spending working hours playing golf, are the classic examples. “Projection does what all defence mechanisms are meant to do: keep discomfort about ourselves at bay and outside our awareness,” “This form of emotional displacement makes it much easier to live with ourselves … because everyone else is responsible for our misery – not us!
As a result of externalising our emotions and perceiving them in others, we create false self-images that portray us as “the victim” or “the good/righteous person” when the reality is that we aren’t.”

We see suggestions of this in another of his favourite attacks on me. That of describing me as ”a senior career detective”, and “a former career detective of three decades long [sic !]”

Quite apart from the infant-school solecism and basic illiteracy of the latter (p.117 Kindle) the facts – sorry to use that rude word – are easy to find.
Anyone who knows me, – or bothers to ask – will know that I was a detective officer for some time in my early service and was then selected and promoted into the training department to pass my skills to the next generation of officers. Later in my service I had “executive supervisory” responsibility for the CID under my command as the Divisional Operational commander. My front-line detective service amounts to less than one quarter of my total service.
All this he could have checked either by research on the internet, or by sending me an email or giving me a ring. He did in fact know it already though I concede he may have forgotten.

Just as he could have discovered the facts about Jill Havern, who he sneeringly refers to in his book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.), as “a controversial blogger by night and driving instructor by day”.

Clarke actually DID contact her by email a long time ago, and seemed delighted to be able to crow that he had discovered she was a driving instructor and that she lived in Cheshire.

Except of course, (those annoying and inconvenient FACTS again), she isn’t and she doesn’t.

So far as she can remember Jill has never been to Cheshire in her life, and has not been a driving instructor for a very long time. Nor was she when Clarke’s book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) was in preparation, and for more than half a decade before his email.

Wrong about the county. Wrong about the town. Wrong about the occupation.
Close enough for a geography student turned Tabloid “hack” (his word), turned Press magnate, turned amateur detective I suppose. But not the sort of attention to detail on which you could base a prosecution.

And remember that all this was available via a polite email or phone call. Most of the ‘facts’ in Clarke’s book “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) were not so easily available, and would have required extensive collation and cross-checking, neither skill common amongst “tabloid hacks”.

Talking of politeness my final three emails, two urgent ones to ask for details, links, references, screen shots or quotes to let me address and correct the alleged offences, and the final one, running to some seven pages, with documentary evidence in the form of the photos and screen shots I have mentioned, dismantling the entire series of allegations and accusations received not even an acknowledgment, let alone the courtesy of a reply.

I might have expected that from Clarke, who as we have noted has “form” for ignoring inconvenient letters and emails, but I did not expect that his lawyers to whom I copied the email, would similarly breach their professional codes. Neither replied. Whether this was on Clarke’s instructions, a breach of common courtesy, or Professional Negligence is impossible to ascertain at this point.

Or perhaps they too are going to claim they never received them.

And what was the point of all this nonsense ?

In his first email Clarke said that what I had done was highly illegal, and finished by telling me the email was a warning and that he would be launching legal action against me if I failed to remove the posts.
In his second he again demanded that I remove the personal information and photos I had posted on [sic] his home, plus his wife and children’s details.
By the third the tone became more muted as he realised he had no evidence, and the phrase “You know where they are” appeared, but he sought reinforce his stance with a threat of a costly law suit “if and when” he approached the UK courts.

Given that there were no posts, no photos, and no details, it made removing them rather tricky. And in a further email Clarke admitted that he did not have the time to “pick through the thousands of words . . .”

Or in plain English, either genuinely did not have the time to find the evidence to support his outrageous accusation, or more likely had come to the realisation that there was none.
Unfortunately in both this case and the Madeleine McCann case, and indeed every other case or which I have ever been involved or of which I have ever heard, evidence IS required.

It also, in English law, makes his whole tirade against me a specific offence under s2(1), Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Worthington-v-Metropolitan is the current leading case. The judgment was interesting in that the Justices of Appeal had some comments about clients who lie to their lawyers, and about lawyers who repeat the lies without asking even the simplest questions of their clients to establish the facts.

In Worthington the specific threat was also of legal action, and as in that case it is clear that the specified conditions which Clarke demanded I change did not in fact exist.

Whether his lawyers were complicit in all this and are now deeply embarrassed and ashamed at having been duped, again we may never know.

It goes without saying that since then there has been a deafening silence. From Clarke, from his lawyers and from the many others to whom he copied the entire correspondence. Whether he copied my final email to them including all the attachments. – the evidence – is unclear.

February was not quite as quiet as it looked.

https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-50-february-2022-quiet-month.html

CHAPTER 51 SOME RANDOM UNRELATED THOUGHTS

In a week when even the BBC has apologised and paid out a lot of your, the licence payers’ money for the disgraceful conduct and a series of blatant lies and libels by one of their top ‘journalists’ to get a sensational and “exclusive” story, and then covering it up at the highest levels in management for over a quarter of a century, I browsed through other organs of disinformation and junk ‘exclusive’ stories. In some cases “Exclusive” apparently means ‘appearing in no more than five other papers’, (rather like the definition of “top secret” meaning “tell no more than twelve”)
I focussed on some of the nonsense, including lies and libels published over the past 14 years, which continue to be covered up, denied, or simply ignored.

But first an Update.

In Chapter 50, “February 2022, A Quiet Month for Madeleine Watchers” I relate the extraordinary series of unfounded allegations and accusations made by Jon Clarke, owner, editor and journalist the Olive Press, levelled at me in a series of e-mails.
They included a totally false suggestion that I had identified the location of his house and thereby exposed him, his wife and children to some unspecified danger. I showed how Clarke himself with his wife had done exactly this as an obviously very necessary part of their property rental business, centred on the house in question, and sent Clarke, his wife and his two lawyers the documentary evidence, with the suggestion they they might like to take the appropriate steps themselves.
I have of course received neither acknowledgement nor reply from any of them.
But my attention was drawn by another researcher, to the fact that rental house is now tagged on maps.google with “Permanently closed”. This is a strange and ineffective way of anonymising it, unless of course it genuinely is permanently closed.
All very strange, and for anyone still remotely interested, intriguing. Or perhaps not.
***

Back to the nonsense.
My browser alerted me as always to the ever-absorbing Olive Press.

Many years ago, before tabloid journalists were roundly rebuked and shown to be ignorant, uneducated, scientifically illiterate, inaccurate, and apparently incapable even of basic and cursory research, they published on a fairly regular basis totally invented stories about burglaries where the house/apartment/camper van/tent had allegedly been filled with anaesthetic gas to facilitate the crime.
The story has a long history, and as recently as the expensive foray with their invented company ALPHAIG into the McCann case, Cowley and Edgar were solemnly and ridiculously invoking chloroform as the active stupefacient.
Proving, if any ever doubted it, that they were ill-educated charlatans without an ‘O’ level or CSE in Chemistry between them, and with no access to modern means of research. But far more seriously, that they had not taken into account that both their clients did have this knowledge, one having even been a Junior Registrar Anaesthetist, and that both would immediately realise the “Fund” was being defrauded. The contract was terminated shortly after this.

But the Olive Press and other tabloids ran nonsense stories of this type over several years, until finally the Royal College of Anaesthetists issued their statement dismissing the stories as ludicrous fantasy for all time. And the sequence of stories faded away with a whimper.      REF 1

But never one to pay much attention to anything as mundane as Facts, some years after this the press including the OP ran yet another two similar stories, one allegedly involving Richard Hammond and a second two pensioners in Spain. The issue was assigned to the cat-litter tray with due contempt.

Interestingly the Broadsheets queried the ”official story”. It seems the OP did not.     REF 2. REF 3

Now again we have something different but strangely similar as you may observe.

In the edition of 13th July 2022 the OP reports “Four women report being drugged intravenously at Pamplona’s San Fermín festival.”

I will give the full text so that readers may savour the delicious ironies (and marvel at the trademark strange syntax)      REF 4


“Four women have come forward after apparently being injected by strangers with drugs during San Fermin on Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
“The victims went to the emergency services in Pamplona reporting symptoms of dizziness and feeling as though they were about to lose consciousness.
“The first case allegedly took place on Saturday night, with several more reported about 2am.
“The four women stated that they felt disorientated after feeling a prick in their arm in what they described as a sensation similar to the feeling of being administered an injection.
“Police said they were taking the reports extremely seriously and advised anyone who suspects they are the victim of drugging or who felt dizzy or disorientated to seek medical assistance immediately.
“In recent months there are have been a number of cases of women reporting they had been drugged intravenously.
“In October of last year, a spate of druggings at nightclubs in the UK were reported across several cities, with victims being injected with unknown substances.
ENDS

As Tanner once notoriously said “I’m not making this up, you know”

I hardly know where to start.
Intra-venous. Means into the vein.
As opposed to intra-dermal, meaning into the skin, sub-cutaneous, meaning under the deeper layer of the skin, or intra-muscular, meaning into the muscle.
There are many other names for different injection sites, which are specialised and of no importance here.
But twice the OP insists it is Intravenous. Into the vein.
Anyone who has ever given blood for transfusion, had some taken for a blood test, or had a drip set up will know of the time and the skill required to find and visualise a suitable vein and then to puncture and slide the needle accurately and almost horizontally into it. There is a whole profession devoted to exactly this. Phlebotomists.
A drug administered in this way has a very rapid effect, as it is circulated to the entire body and particularly to the brain within a few heartbeats. Anyone who has had general anaesthesia will understand.

But the OP insists this was done to no fewer than four women, we may suppose given the time frame at a night club or dance hall, on the penultimate night of one of the most famous and well attended Fiestas in Spain. And that they then sought medical attention from the emergency services.

Is it not more likely that even if it happened at all, it could have been intramuscular, like the COVID and any other vaccination jab, into the deltoid or any other conveniently exposed muscle.
If it happened. To receive an injection involves a considerable degree of cooperation, at its most basic that of keeping STILL, and not twisting away as a natural reflex to the adverse stimulus, which can in turn cause tissue damage and acute pain.
We are told that the cases in the UK involved “unknown substances”.
Would not a medic in A&E when presented with this set of “facts” take a blood sample and send it immediately and urgently for analysis to identify the substance before the patient were considered for discharge ?

Then we are told that they felt “dizzy and disorientated”. That is surely the whole point of going to a night club after a entire day in the sweltering heat of July in Spain, watching bulls being run though the town and then ‘played’ and killed in the bull-ring, refreshing yourself constantly with the obligatory cerveza or vino tinto, before having a late dinner and being picked up by some young men in dashing uniforms of white T shirt and white trousers, with the red sash and neckerchief, and taken to the local discotheque, there to be spun round on the dance floor and bought drinks all night, before having to make a decision about where (and with whom) to sleep.
The music and the spinning and flashing lights are themselves capable of making most people ‘dizzy and disorientated’. Other ‘herbal substances’ are not unknown at these venues.

Is the OP once again pretending knowledge by giving too much detail and using specialised vocabulary, with the exact opposite effect when it is shown to be erroneous ?

There are dangers in detail.

One of the features regularly encountered when guilty persons try to exculpate themselves is that they have rehearsed the ‘story’ so many times that they add far too much detail, and fill in what they perceive as gaps which might be fatal to their account.

We have looked at this before, and have observed the many instances

“9:04 by his watch” being one of the first and most obvious.
No one would look at a watch in those circumstances when going to check a child, and no one would then make a mental note of the time to the nearest minute.
“after pudding” or ‘before the coffee” would have been perfectly intelligible. Even “I suppose a bit after nine’ would have been acceptable
But “9:04 BY HIS WATCH” is ludicrous, and clearly an invention.
A skilled detective will not ask too many questions at the start.
She will invite the witnesses or suspects to tell the story in their own words, and will not challenge even when something is said which is blatantly wrong.

The attention to detail comes in when the subsequent statement is analysed.

In one allegation against Brückner the victim was said to be clear that her assailant had a cross-shaped scar on his left thigh. Eventually the legal process allowed an inspection of his body by a medical practitioner, and one assumes a Scenes of Crime photographer to record anything found, or NOT found.
The nature of highly detailed evidence of that sort means that IF Brückner had such a scar he might, but only might be the person involved. If he didn’t he definitively wasn’t.

[SPOILER ALERT. – – – He didn’t. ]

Nor has he had facio-maxilliary and orthodontic surgery. But Clarke is so determined to frame his latest suspect that he seems to be convinced this must have happened to fit him into the photofit and very detailed description of the buck teeth and overbite given by another victim/witness in another case.
Indeed the whole of the past 14 years has, for Clarke and several others, been a question of imagining – but without detail – what happened, deciding who did it, and then looking for, or inventing, scraps of evidence and ‘sightings’ which can be interpreted or manipulated to support that pre-conception.

The more old fashioned way is to gather all the available evidence – of course including what the victim says – even if there are different “versions” from the same witness – and then seeing what it indicates, deducing from it a theory or theories about possible scenarios, and then testing each in turn to see which stands up to rigorous destructive criticism.

With Clarke things are different
MURAT : It must be him because . . .he has a glass eye, [he doesn’t] and speaks Portuguese
HEWLETT: It must be him because . . .he is a foreign itinerant. And dead.
MONTIERO: It must be him because . . . he is foreign and black. And also dead.
UN-NAMED FAMILY: It must be them because. . . they have a blonde girl called Maddie
(and even though I knew it wasn't her I printed the story anyway)
GERMAN at Alcossebres: It must be him because . . .he is foreign and has a VW van and a blonde girlfriend.
and now
BRÜCKNER: It must be him because he is foreign (see above) speaks German, once had long hair, and has convictions.

We must remember that in not one of these cases was there a single shred of evidence that any of them had done IT, largely because no one, not the PJ, not Grange, not the BKA, not M3, not Oakley International, not ALPHAIG, not the McCanns, not the Tapas 7, and not any of the hundreds of journalists and commentators, bloggers or tweeters, nor anyone else in the press, including Clarke himself, have ever been able to spell out coherently what IT actually IS; what happened; or how and when IT was or could possibly have been accomplished.
After 14 years of investigation that seems still to be the case.

Elsewhere in his book Clarke inserts a few more names, for reasons of his own. (Perhaps in case one of them ends up being convicted of something, when he will be able to say “I told you so”)
REID: conveniently dead
and then
NEY: It must be him because . . . (see above and fill in as necessary)
But here Clarke lets his guard slip when Ney is eliminated and he eloquently and revealingly uses the phrase . . . “It was so disappointing” [“MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) at p. 63.]

In 2012 Clarke published an ’exclusive’ about a man and child seen on a flight to Ibiza. Complete with photo. He did not apparently contact the PJ or Grange in the first instance but sent it to the Sun, Mirror, Star and Record, who syndicated it to 12 countries, whose own tabloid gutter press went to work on the story and published the photo of the little girl who was definitively NOT Madeleine.

In his book he comments on this, not with a sense of shame or with an unreserved apology for the unwarranted intrusion on privacy, but with the strangely worded phrase – even for Clarke – that he was “delighted … when Mitchell … praised the sighting”. [op.cit. p.59]

Quite what this is meant to convey is far from clear, but we may deduce that it reveals Clarke’s true motivation.
What he was eventually paid for this nonsense will never be known. But clearly in his murky and unprincipled world a third-hand unconfirmed story, complete with a photo of someone else entirely is worth a lot of money. As it was for Clarke with Kidman and Murat, both of which disgraceful episodes he details in his book without a hint of remorse for his actions.

It may be that by not reporting the sightings to the police he may hope he cannot be accused of Wasting Police Time. Except with Murat, obviously, and he can always blame Lori Campbell for that, since he is clearly still frustrated and furious with her having taken all the “glory” for framing him. [op.cit. p.24]

For the record three of his victims received libel damages, though notably not from Clarke, who is able to off-load his Libels to his paymasters.
Kidman £undisclosed but donated to a Children’s Charity, Murat £600,000. Malinka £ 100,000
***

When we try to work out what happened to Madeleine Beth McCann, we must recognise that is not a simple Cartesian proposition “cogito ergo sum” I think therefore I am.

IT doesn’t work like that. We cannot argue from bogus philosophical principals
‘Madeleine is not in bed, therefore she must have been abducted by a predatory paedophile’
and yet that is the intellectual level to which the Abduction acolytes and apologists have sunk.

Answering a question with a question does not make the first question go away. It simply doesn’t answer it, and by not so doing encourages listeners to repeat it, or to assume that the refusal to answer bears some hidden significance.

GM used this tactic outside the Court in Lisbon, Portugal, in February 2010 when asked a perfectly simply question by a perceptive journalist.

Journalist: What evidence do you have that there was an abduction?
KM: I know, I was there. I found my daughter gone. I know more than you do.
GM Where… where is ... where is… where is the child ? What other explanation can explain why she’s not here?

                                                                                YouTube video at 7:05.     REF 5

Neither of which, with respect, answers the question.

The question remains unanswered, even after 14 years.

********

CLARKE SABOTAGES PROSECUTION CASE, AND LETS BRÜCKNER WALK FREE ? [EXCLUSIVE]

It is now eight months since Jon Clarke posted an article advertising his book from ABC, the renowned Spanish Newspaper on his FaceBook Page.
As we noted in Chapters 48 and 49 the article and the Muckrack entry associated with it state unequivocally that Clarke received the phone call alerting him to the missing child “that VERY day” [3/5/7], and that he arrived in Praia da Luz in “the early hours of the morning” or in his own words, quoted verbatim “at 1:30 am”.
As we have calculated that puts the time of the phone call at around 8pm
He has been questioned about this detail, and has refused to answer, even characteristically resorting to “whooshing’ perfectly sound questions from the page.
A further question was posted a few weeks ago, and so far it remains on display. Unanswered.
So I preserve it here.         REF 6

Since my last post was "whooshed", I shall again ask the simple question. Do you stand by the content of this article and the Muckrack entry by Sn. Madueño associated with it , or not?

As we noted in Chapters 48 and 49, it is of the utmost importance to know the truth about this.
If it is wrong and misquoted or a misunderstanding, or simply an excess of braggadocio, then Clarke should say so, and finish the matter.
If he does not then Grange, the PJ, the BKA and now particularly H. Fülscher and Brückner will surely take an interest.
H. Fülscher might even subpoena Clarke to appear as a defence witness.

Let us spell out why.

IF the prosecution insists that the McCann’s and Tapas 7’s time-line is correct and that the ‘offence’, whatever it was, took place on 3/5/7 between 9:25pm and 9:28pm, and that the first phone calls to the police were made after 10:00pm . . .
THEN evidence that a phone call about a missing child was received about 8pm kills the prosecution case stone dead on Day 1 of the trial . . .
BECAUSE what is alleged against Brückner clearly did not and COULD NOT have happened. It is 14 years too late for the McCanns and Tapas 7 to change the timelines. Any of them.

The trial cannot proceed, and Brückner walks free, even if he did IT.

If Clarke can understand that he may realise he has a duty to tell the truth, on this occasion at least. The evidence he has put into the public domain thus far may be the key to the release of a man whom clearly he believes to be Guilty.

He is trapped. Only the truth will set him free. Wahrheit Macht Frei.



REFERENCES AND LINKS

1  https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/news-and-bulletin/rcoa-news-and-statements/statement-alleged-gassing-motor-vehicles

Statement on alleged gassing in motor vehicles

Despite the increasing numbers of reports of people being gassed in motor-homes or commercial trucks in France, and the warning put out by the Foreign Office for travellers to be aware of this danger, this College remains of the view that this is a myth.
It is the view of the College that it would not be possible to render someone unconscious by blowing ether, chloroform or any of the currently used volatile anaesthetic agents, through the window of a motor-home without their knowledge, even if they were sleeping at the time. Ether is an extremely pungent agent and a relatively weak anaesthetic by modern standards and has a very irritant affect on the air passages, causing coughing and sometimes vomiting. It takes some time to reach unconsciousness, even if given by direct application to the face on a cloth, and the concentration needed by some sort of spray administered directly into a room would be enormous. The smell hangs around for days and would be obvious to anyone the next day.
Even the more powerful modern volatile agents would need to be delivered in tankerloads of carrier gas by a large compressor. Potential agents, such as the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege are few in number and difficult to obtain. Moreover, these drugs would be too expensive for the average thief to use.
The other important point to remember is that general anaesthetics are potentially very dangerous, which is why they are only administered in the UK by doctors who have undergone many years of postgraduate training in the subject and who remain with the unconscious patient throughout the anaesthetic. Unsupervised patients are likely to die from obstruction of the airway by their tongues falling back. In the Moscow siege approximately 20% of the people died, many probably from airway obstruction directly related to the agent used.
If there was a totally safe, odourless, potent, cheap anaesthetic agent available to thieves for this purpose it is likely the medical profession would know about it and be investigating its use in anaesthetic practice.
14 July 2014


2
Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tv-presenter-s-family-robbed-by-gas-thieves-lkn6wlw03
HEADLINE Richard Hammond’s family ‘robbed by gas thieves’. [note the inverted commas]
“The knockout gas burglars of Saint-Tropez are either callous criminals or a myth fuelled by the accounts of traumatised victims.”

Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/02/richard-hammonds-family-robbed-sleep-amid-fears-saint-tropez/
“Fears are emerging that Saint Tropez's knockout gas burglars have returned after Richard Hammond's family were robbed in their sleep.”

But then further into the article the Telegraph observes
“Experts have doubted the claims, saying gasses such as ethers and chloroforms would cause coughing and spluttering to anyone exposed to high doses. It would not be possible to pump high enough concentrations of alternative gasses, such as nitrous oxide, through an entire villa to knock victims out for long enough, some experts have said.”

3
Olive Press
EXCLUSIVE: GANG GAS BRITISH EXPAT PENSIONERS BEFORE LOOTING HOME AND TORCHING CAR AFTER USING IT FOR MORE ROBBERIES IN SOUTHERN SPAIN
John and Jacqueline A, 72 and 70, had their car stolen from outside their house, after they were gassed at night by brazen thieves.
“I’m a light sleeper and our dog barks at the slightest noise so police are 100% sure we were gassed.






5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k5Q7QZNfFA
Outside Lisbon Court 10 Feb 2010
At 7.05 onwards
Reporter: What evidence do you have that there was an abduction ?
KM: I know, I was there. I found my daughter gone. I know more than you do.
GM Where… where is... where is…. where is the child ? What other explanation can explain why she’s not here ?






6
https://www.facebook.com/jon.clarke.3745

https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-51-some-random-unrelated.html

CHAPTER 52




For those who keep their eye on the “newsnow.co.uk” site it certainly seemed that August was ‘All quiet on the Madeleine front’ the only entries being the ludicrous stories about Rebecca Vardy’s having (allegedly) received threats and denigratory comments on her social media, including the insane one that she was in some way linked to the case of Madeleine McCann, and even (allegedly) accusing her of having been the one who ’snatched’ her.
This nonsense was duly churned by the red top Tabloids with their trademark lack of attention to detail.

***
When the previous Chapter, 51, “Some Random Unrelated Thoughts”  was referenced on the usual facebook pages, Jon Clarke of the Olive Press, who had been mentioned more than once, retorted in characteristic ad hominem (abusive) fashion . .    I quote:
"Jon Clarke
What a sad man - more lies and long, boring oft-repeated conjecture.
Sitting longer in a dark room than normal, but I suppose it must be hot there in Nerja - or is Maclewd [sic] hiding from someone or something?
His hatred for the media must have some basis in something - not that anyone on this dwindling forum will care to probe.”
There were of course no details of what was supposed to be untrue, any more than details were ever provided of how, where, when, or to whom I was supposed to have revealed details of his house and his family, an alleged act for which he threatened me with legal proceedings – to be started by midnight nine months ago –  and involved two firms of solicitors in the ‘conversation.   As a matter of record neither has had the decency or professional courtesy even to confirm receipt of my email reply.  But then neither has Clarke nor his wife who was copied by Clarke into all the exchanges.  (Vide Chapter 50, “A Quiet Month for Madeleine Watchers?”
I felt constrained to answer the specific point about the ridiculous and totally untrue allegation that I hold a “hatred for the media”, which I copy here so that readers will know where I stand.
 
QUOTE
“The day after this Chapter was published and ‘churned’ to various Facebook sites, Clarke responded in characteristic belligerent fashion, denouncing it as lies, and finishing with
“His hatred for the media must have a basis in something…”
which is as we might expect completely untrue. 

I do not hate the ‘media’
I am second to none in my admiration for good, and particularly for diligent investigative journalism.
We remember 
* Bernstein and Woodward, who brought down a President “the single greatest reporting effort of all time”, 

• Heather Brooke who spend over five years delving into MPs’ expenses, to reveal when it was finally published (by the Telegraph) that it was a scandal which led to several being imprisoned, others losing their seats, and to a wholesale review of internal systems within the heart of Parliament
  
  
• Sue Reid whose focus on the Tavistock Clinic has led to its being closed this very week
  
  
• Nick Davies on the phone hacking scandal
  
  
• Andrew Norfolk on grooming and trafficking in Northern towns
  
  
• Claire Newall on the corruption at the heart of FIFA
  
  
• and many more
  
  

What do they have in common ?
They all refused to accept the “Official Story”.  
Each one was determined to challenge of at least to check what they had been told, what the ‘experts” and the politicians and the Police and the Spokesmen were telling them.

… ‘that it was just a routine burglary (Watergate); that all receipts were properly inspected (expenses);  that this was recognised medical practice and did not cause harm to children (Tavistock)’ . . .

They refused to accept this and to drift away.
And the others ?   The hacks who turn up at incidents, ask damn-fool questions to which the answers are obvious anyway, and even more stupid ones which they must know cannot be answered for various reasons of legality, security or common decency ?   I do not hate them.  I pity and deplore them and the Tabloids which then publish the tripe they write, but I do not hate them.

The gutter press has a place to keep the illiterate masses happy.  Page 3 of the Sun was there for a reason.
The News of the World had its infamous place in the order of things, as do the Star and the Record

I reserve my contempt for those who passively accept the official line on anything whilst falsely claiming to be independent and to be investigating.  For those who pretend that pursuing a suspect who has already been exonerated is in some way helping an enquiry.  For those who by refusing to look at evidence, even as basic as a registration plate on a motor vehicle or the shutter on a window, and who by concealing facts make a saleable stories out of falsehood.   For those who fail to do even basic research, invent ‘facts’ to fit a story, or mistake personal prejudice for evidence.

But that is not “hatred’.   It may be contempt, pity, despite, scorn or many other things, but not Hatred. 
That may be reserved for those who use their publishing power to lie, libel and abuse those who lack adequate means of reply.”

END QUOTE

And so it is with the pathetic people who allegedly accused Rebecca Vardy of having been in PdL and having ‘snatched” Madeleine McCann. [Assuming of course that Vardy’s evidence can be believed.  It wasn’t in the High Court !]

But is there a qualitative difference between making that inane allegation, and printing the ridiculous and incidentally very serious allegation in a paper and on-line that Ms. Kay Burley of Sky News was in PdL at the time of the incident ?  It is clear to the entire world that she was not, since she was in the studios presenting the very news reports as the situation unfolded.  Everyone knows that.   The timed and dated video evidence can be found on YouTube, and yet Jon Clarke published in his own newspaper and on-line years later that it was so.

And despite the passage of time, despite its having been pointed out to Clarke over several years, and despite himself appearing on Burley’s own news ‘show’, Clarke has never amended the on-line version, nor to my knowledge published a correction to the hard copy.

(IT IS STILL THERE on Clarke’s own website.   I have just accessed it to check.  The reference screen shot shows clearly the time and date Tue 13 Sep. 13:15 [EEST])

That same paragraph contains the preposterous lie about the deep trench. 
Here it is in all its gruesomely and risibly mendacious detail.
“The only reporter on the scene till late that evening – apart from Sky News reporter Kay Burley, who happened to be on holiday there – I spent time grilling neighbours, before noticing that a road crew was still digging up the street to lay sewage pipes literally right outside the apartment. The trench was nearly two metres deep and three men continued to shuffle around inside it.”

Olive Press Exclusive ?  Buy One Lie, Get One Free ?.   Actually get TWO free, since he wasn’t the first journalist on the scene either, (till late evening or at any other time, but we’ll charitably count that as One)
What can one say ?  What do we do with the extraordinary suggestion that having been first at the “scene”, he spent time footling around ‘grilling neighbours” BEFORE even noticing a six foot deep trench “literally” right outside the apartment . . . ?
Despair ?
Perhaps it is a mercy that everyone else can see right through this, and can find the truth.

To explain to newcomers, or to ram it home to those who want to believe something else . . .
…only reporter on the scene – – – – – he wasn’t
…Kay Burley on holiday there – – – – – she wasn’t
…trench - literally right outside – – – – – there wasn’t

Three lies on one short sentence. Even for Tabloid journalist that is pushing towards a record.

Also still on-line, on Clarke’s own Facebook Page is the article and advert for his book, “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.).

The article in the one of the three leading Spanish newspapers, ABC,  and under the name of one of their most respected journalists, Sr. JJ Madueño, first quoted Clarke as having said he got the phone call ‘that same day’ which can only refer to Thursday 3/5/7, and that he arrived in PdL at 1:30am the following morning, which can only mean Friday 4/5/7.
This was amended a little time later in the print and on-line version to arriving in the “early hours of the morning”, which amounts to the same thing, but the original was accurately copied by the MuckRack website, as well as by diligent ‘investigative researchers’ who took screen shots and noted links, and is preserved to this day.

This has been discussed before, at Chapter 48 “My Search for Madeleine”.  and assuming it was different from either of the printed versions, Clarke has failed or refused or been unable to explain the details of what actually did happen.

He has however left the article on his Facebook page, and after 11 months it must surely be the case that the reading public are entitled to be permitted to analyse its veracity.

The reference screen shot shows the date and time, Tue 13 Sep 13:38  [EEST]
It also shows that this has been on-line, presented by Clarke as the “journalistic truth” since 23 October 2021.
I quote from a commentator writing recently in the context of lockdown for COVID, and the revelations which are gradually unfolding that the advisors and the PM were NOT in agreement, and that decisions were being made which were NOT in accordance with the best advice.
“Journalists Knew that it was either wrong, or as least not the unanimous and settled solution as they presented it.  They were therefore either coerced, or conspirators.”
“It is not the function of journalists to be the gatekeepers. It is their duty to report all the facts, and not their job to select.”
He goes on to say
“Decent journalists are becoming exasperated at the unprofessional nature of what their colleagues are doing.”

There are of course, still some decent journalists in the world.

Readers may recall the uproar after Meghan Markle (Duchess of Sussex) claimed that when she attended the premiere of ‘The Lion King’ in 2019, a cast member from South Africa told her, “When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.”
This was swiftly debunked by a couple of real investigative journalists, who tracked down the only South African cast member, and found he had not even been at the Premier. 
They followed by ‘tirelessly’ investigating further – by making another phone call – and spoke to the only other South African, the composer of the soundtrack. He HAD been there and had spoken to Meghan, but denied having discussed anything of the sort, and reported that he only spoke to her for a few minutes about the film itself and didn’t mention Mandela at all.
Is this a case where “recollections may vary” or was it a simple Lie ?

There is also at least one other decent journalist who wrote and published a simple account of the proceedings before the ECHR in the case of “McCann & Healy -v- Portugal”, pointing out, contrary to the nonsense in the Tabloid press that it was NOT a case against Dr Amaral, that case having been concluded in Portugal in 2017.
But the gutter press continue to churn out nonsense.  It is inconceivable that not one Editor, sub-editor or member of the legal team does not understand the legal process.  That they continue to publish the same parallel untruths could lead sentient people to believe they are being controlled and paid.

And now the inevitable judgment has been handed down – that one of their complaints was not even admissible, and the other whilst legally admissible was rejected partly on the grounds of the McCanns’ own behaviour – Editors are showing either that they still don’t understand, or that they are in the pay of someone who is still controlling what they write. 

*****
What do we know and what can we prove about Clarke and his visit to PdL ?

We know he was there.  We have independent evidence, timed and dated photographs and video of that, some of it aired on Sky news bulletins, by Kay Burley herself, on the day in question.
We know he looked towards the window and the shutters. We have independent evidence, timed and dated photographic and video, of that. 
We may surmise that he observed that the shutters were not broken, forced, smashed or jemmied.  It is possible, though extremely unlikely, that this did not register with him.  What is certain is that he remained in PdL for some days or weeks, during which the lies surrounding the shutters were circulated, and that he had time to revisit to scene to make his own independent observations.
In any event he did not, and does not to this day, tell his readers the facts. They have to resort to their own research for that.

Whilst conducting the necessary research for this chapter, checking references and ensuring that quotes were copied accurately, I came across YET ANOTHER more recent ‘version of the truth’.

This one was clearly written by Clarke himself, and appears under his sole authorship.
It is in the ‘i’ newspaper, and may be viewed on-line at the address in the reference section.  [It is behind a paywall, but this can be defeated by using the 12ft.io/ site as the prefix, as can most paywalls.  I give the original link, and the amended one for those who choose not to pay a subscription for nonsense.]

The first paragraphs will indicate to regular readers and followers of the endless changes of Clarke’s story that all is well. Nothing has changed.  He continues to alter the story as time goes on.

“I was one of the first reporters on the scene after Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. This is what I remember”

Note:  Not THE first. He is now ONE OF the first.  This is demonstrably TRUE, but a reversal of what he has been violently arguing for the past 14 years.

“It’s been 15 years and five days since I rolled into the sleepy seaside resort of Praia da Luz as a journalist covering the Iberian Peninsula, expecting a three-year-old toddler to have turned up either dead in a pool or alive by a miracle.”
Note:  This directly contradicts one of the statements in his own book, where he talks of his financial situation, and eagerly grasps the opportunity to take on a “MEATY” case, whilst only a few pages before saying he thought Madeline might have been found even before he arrived.   Attempts have been made to reconcile these two positions, so far without success.   [pp. 21 & 37/437. Kindle ed.]

“I was on the scene only 12 hours after Madeleine McCann went missing and I am as certain today as I was then that she was abducted by a predatory paedophile.”
Note:  This implies that immediately on arrival he became convinced of “abduction by predatory paedophile”, without a moment of consideration of other possibilities, or of the lack of evidence for this particular assertion.

“What was remarkable back then, during those early hours, was just how lackadaisical the police effort was to find her. When I arrived, a couple of local cops milled around, while a few expats scratched their heads.“
Note:  Now that Clarke is admitting he arrived around 10am, his insistence that there were only a “couple of cops” is directly contrary to the known and observable facts, though interestingly this might have been more persuasive for an arrival time of 1:30am, as was reported in his article in ABC.   He is filmed on several occasions with GDR police, with PJ officers, close to dog handlers and their dogs and vans, forensic staff, quite apart from the many fellow journalists with whom he seen comparing notes.  All this is supported by contemporaneous news-reel video and photographs, the links to which are provided below in the references.

Then comes the remarkable revelation > > >

“So unsecured was the crime scene I could literally walk up some steps under a flimsy piece of police tape and right into the apartment. I would have been nearly the 30th person to have left my DNA imprint in the holiday rental in just a few hours. Thankfully, I had the good sense not to try.”

In this extraordinary paragraph the first sentence is in the simple past, and indicates – in standard usage – that Clarke DID walk up some steps.   His [mis]use of the word “literally” has been commented on before, in the context of the “Deep trench”.  (:copyright: J Clarke)    See Chapter 33 “Entrenched Lies”
He seems to believe it acts to negate what follows, rather than merely to exaggerate and emphasise what is being said in the informal usage, without being ‘literally’ true in the formal sense of ‘exact’.

The second sentence uses a conditional perfect “I would have been . . .”, indicating that he did was not and not.
And the final sentence tells us definitively that he did not.

[for non-native English speakers “I could walk” = I did walk. It was possible and I did.
 “I could have walked = I didn’t walk, even though it was possible
“I would have been nearly the 30th person = I wasn’t, because I didn’t do it, though it was possible ]

But in his own book, written, proof-read and edited by him, and vetted for content by two solicitors, Clarke tells us that, in fact, he DID.

“… I walked up the short flight of stairs to the apartment, number 5A, – completely unimpeded by police – to speak to the parents, as any decent journalist is programmed to do on arrival at a job like this. I walked inside the open front door and bumped straight into the McCanns,…”

[Clarke, Jon. MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime (p. 23). OP Books. Kindle Edition. at p 22/437]

And in many other articles he has told us the same, that he did enter, sometimes up the stairs from the side entrance and through the patio doors, sometimes by the front door, and that he spoke to the McCanns, either briefly or at length, or as they were leaving, sometimes not until later that day, or alternatively at the press conference. On other occasions there is no mention of this important meeting, leading us to believe that on balance it may not have happened at all.

I made a crude attempt in Chapter. 46 “Jon Clarke through the Looking Glass” to list the many ‘versions’, and in Appendix A I have revisited and updated this list.  Readers will be able to judge for themselves the veracity of Clarke’s writings, and then to assess for themselves the likelihood of anything else he writes or has ever written being remotely associated with the facts.   

The rest of the article includes the by now familiar litany of Brücker’s admittedly sordid and criminal past, but at the end, where Clarke clearly loses editorial control, the whole effect and purpose of this sales enterprise is destroyed by the ‘advert’ for the book.

“Jon Clarke is an author and journalist. His book ‘MUST LEAVE: My Search for Madeleine’ [sic] is available on Amazon.”

On Amazon.es a search for this brings up two items; one a book about “Big Potato and the strange things people search for”; the other a table top game “The Search for Planet X”.
Which may inadvertently and gratifyingly be serendipitously appropriate under the circumstances.

The article is also stylistically “Vintage Clarke”. He cannot resist the usual sneering scorn when he describes Mark Williams-Thomas as “Ex-policeman turned Journalist . . . “
As opposed to “ex-Geography student turned hack reporter” perhaps ?

Nor can he resist moving his own goalposts, when he says, confidently, “and over the next year or two Christian Brueckner will finally be charged with the murder of Madeleine McCann.”
For a long time Clarke has been telling any who bothered to listen that Brückner would be charged within weeks, or by the summer.   Now the months and the summer have come and gone his ground seems to be less firm. Or possibly his ‘mole’ in Wolters’ office has been unearthed.

Strangely, given the wealth of detail in his book, in this article he does a “reverse ferret”, a U turn, a complete altering of course as he accuses the PJ of incompetence.    “It comes after first pointing the finger at Murat (an unusual chap, who has never explained three late-night phone calls on the night Maddie went missing), when the facts, assuming the book is accurate on this, are that HE, Jon Clarke, in collusion with Lori Campbell pointed the finger at Murat.  They set him up.  The PJ had a look at him. The British gutter press feasted on him, and he was awarded £600,000 in libel damages, none of which was payable by Clarke or Campbell, of course.
[And by the way, despite the lie Clarke keeps publishing, Murat does NOT have a glass eye.  He has a detached retina.]

But Clarke cannot let him go.  “He has never explained three late-night phone calls . . .”
The McCanns have never explained the 64 deleted calls and SMS messages on their phones, a fact which Clarke does not merely gloss over.  He studiously (or obediently ?) never mentions it.

And then the endless Lie Eternal, believed only by acolytes and apologists, but provably FALSE.
”the parents, who were quickly cleared of any involvement in her abduction…”
How often do reasonable and sane people have to keep pointing out that this is NOT TRUE ?
How long before the gullible and factually challenged begin to realise they have been lied to ?

Firstly – It wasn’t Quickly. The McCanns were Arguidos from 7/8 Sept 2007 to 21 July 2008, a period of some ten and a half months.

Secondly – the Parents were not and have not ever been CLEARED.  That is what half of the entire case in the ECHR was about.  The parents themselves KNOW they were not cleared.  That is why they have spent so much money complaining about it.
Why journalists of a certain persuasion cannot understand this is unclear.
The suspicion is that most of them do fully understand, but are paid to pretend otherwise.
Alternatively they could just admit to being stupid.

Notably there has not to date, and to my knowledge, been any mention of the ECHR judgment in the Olive Press.

Let me once again quote the Justices of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Portuguese Republic, sothat perhaps with repetition it begins to sink in.  I have bolded some parts to assist in this process.

“"It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case. In truth, that ruling was not made in virtue of Portugal's Public Prosecution Service having acquired the conviction that the appellants hadn’t committed a crime.
"The archiving of the case was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn't managed to
obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants.
"There is therefore a significant, and not merely a semantic difference, between the legally
admissible foundations of the archive ruling. It doesn't therefore seem acceptable that the ruling,
based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence."
They added: "It's true that the aforementioned criminal inquiry ended up being archived, namely
because none of the apparent evidence that led to the appellants being made 'arguidos' was
subsequently confirmed or consolidated.
"However even the archive ruling raises serious concerns relating to the truth of the allegation that
Madeleine was kidnapped."
The ECHR held that this was an entire neutral and correct statement of the legal position, and in no way implied guilt. It simply did not permit the parties to infer their own innocence.

The depth and breadth of misinformation / lack of understanding / deliberate mendacity / paid dissembling, or whatever it is which drives some journalists is on of the factors which has made this case so remarkable.  

Never in the Field of Modern Journalism have so Many been lied to for so Long by so Few.  
[with apologies]


https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2022/09/chapter-52-august-was-also-quiet-month.html


Appendix

CHAPTER 52



There are five separate details of his initial involvement which Clarke changes ad libitum.

• Time of the initial phone call
  
  
• Time of his arrival in PdL
  
  
• Number of journalists present on his arrival
  
  
• Entry to Apartment 5A
  
  
• Speaking to the McCanns
  
  

And there are now at least Sixteen sources of ‘information’.    Many are written by Clarke or were clearly under his editorial control.  All are different.

• Article Olive Press 2008. 
  
  
• Article Olive Press 2017  
  
  
• Article Olive Press 2019. 
  
  
• Interview with Sandra Felguerias within the Netflix transcript. 2019
  
  
• Netflix publicity 2019 
  
  
• Netflix Documentary - transcript 2019.
  
  
• Article CLOSER Magazine 2020.  
  
  
• Article BELLA Magazine 2021.   
  
  
• “My Search For Madeleine” - Book by Jon Clarke 2021. 
  
  
• Article ABC - JJ Madueño, but clearly written or dictated by Clarke Oct 2021 
  
  
• Article ABC - JJ Madueño, amended version Oct 2021
  
  
• Muckrack entry - JJ Madueño Oct 2021
  
  
• Interview for Ex-pat Radio Channel  Sept 2021
  
  
• Interview for Sat.1, German  31 Jan 2022
  
  
• Article CLOSER Magazine online – May 2022.  
  
  
• ‘i’ newspaper - May 2022
  
  

• Time of the initial phone call
  
  

0630   – Book (estimated from ‘left before 7, after ablutions and cup of tea and saying goodbye . . .’
0715.  – Olive Press 2017
0700-0730. – Olive Press 2019
0700-0730.  – Sandra Felguiras Interview
0700-0730. – Netflix Transcript
approx 2000 Thursday 3/5/7. – calculated from time of arrival in article in ABC
approx 2000 Thursday 3/5/7. – calculated from time of arrival in Muckrack entry

• Time of his arrival in PdL
  
  

Noon (1200). “been there since noon;  …. some 15 hours after Madeleine disappeared” – Olive Press 2008
1145 (or 1045)  [NB: 1145 may be Spanish time, 1045 Portuguese time] – Olive Press 2017.  
0945-1015.  – Book
0130.  – Article in ABC (1st version as printed)
“That same night” = 3/5/7.  – Article in ABC (2nd version as printed)
0930   (This is arrival “at the scene”.  0130 is given as arrival in PdL)   – Article in ABC (both versions).
0130  – Muckrack entry
‘just hours after” –  Closer online 2022
12 hours after Madeleine’s disappearance  – The ‘i’ paper


Available Independent Evidence:   
Video film exists, was shown across the world, and is preserved on YouTube showing that Clarke was in PdL by 0945, and was already and by then familiar with the scene and with some GNR officers, with whom he is observed shaking hands as he leaves the group of journalists outside the stairwell serving apartment 5H.

• Number of journalists present on his arrival
  
  

Not stated.   – Olive Press 2008
Only reporter – ‘till late that evening, – apart from Kate/Kay Burley …’   – Olive Press 2017
First journalist        – Olive Press 2019
First UK Print Journalist.   – Netflix Publicity
One of the first Journalists.  – Closer magazine 2020
First British Journalist.  – Book
‘First British Journalist under contract to a British Newspaper’ ( paraphrase) – Expat radio interview
First journalist – Closer online 2022
One of the first Journalists.  – The ‘i’ paper 2022

Available Independent Evidence:   
Video film exists, was shown across the world, and is preserved on YouTube showing Clarke in PdL at 0945, speaking to and sharing notes with the group of five other journalists outside the stairwell serving apartment 5H.

Video also exists and is preserved on YouTube of British Journalist Len Port, an ex-pat who lives just along the coast in Portugal, walking round within the Ocean Club complex, by the pool towards the Tapas bar.
Port reports having arrived at 0830.  The length and the orientation of the shadows of the palm trees round the pool confirm this time.

• Did Clarke Enter Apartment 5A ?
  
  

NO MENTION. – Olive Press 2008
YES – “I was firstly able to walk into the apartment.”  – Olive Press 2017
NO –  “It wouldn’t have been difficult to walk in… It wasn’t Fort Knox “ – Olive Press 2019
NO –  “It [the tape or the prohibition] went up and I looked in.”  – Netflix transcript
YES – “up the short flight of stairs to the apartment. I walked in the front [sic] door.”   –  Book
YES – “I crossed, knocked on the door and the parents came out.”  – ABC - both versions
NO –  “went straight up to the apartment “  [? 5H  ?] –   Expat radio interview
NO –  “That evening I saw the parents up close for the first time…”.  SAT.1 interview
NO –  “I could literally walk… Thankfully I had the good sense not to try.”    – The ‘i’ paper


Available Independent Evidence:   
The McCanns moved out of Apartment 5A in the early hours of the morning and the scene was sealed after initial photographs were taken.  They spent the rest of that night with the Paynes in Apartment 5H, variously “keeping vigil” (Kate), or sleeping (Gerry) whilst hundreds of residents and holiday makers supervised by Police searched the entire resort for several hours.
The relevant piece in Kate McCann’s book “madeleine” makes it quite clear that they did not return to 5A that day.

The ExPat radio interview is capable of being interpreted as a visit by Clarke to Apartment 5H, the Payne’s apartment, and speaking to a third party who relayed the message and the answer to and from the McCanns.  On Clarke’s admissions the information gained seems to have been “Madeleine”,  and “Thanks”.

• Did Clarke speak to the McCanns, and if so, when ?
  
  

NO MENTION.     – Olive Press 2008
YES - “In the apartment”.     – Olive Press 2017
YES - “as they were leaving.”     – Olive Press 2019
POSSIBLY – “I think I tried to speak to them [sic]”      – Netflix Transcription
YES –  “a few hours after arriving;  later that day”  – Closer Magazine
YES – “at a press conference that night”.  – Bella Magazine
YES – “in the apartment”. – Book
YES – “that same night (Thursday 3/5/7).  – ABC both version
YES –  “I … knocked on the door and the parents came out”.  ABC both versions
NO (or YES via third party) “I asked, yer know, could I speak to the parents . . . they just told me the name . .
And, yer know, I said who I was and from the Mail and I would do my best to help, and they were like
“thanks” and that was that.    So I didn’t, I can’t say I really interviewed them.”    Expat Radio interview
NO – “That evening I saw the parents up close for the first time and realised how traumatised they were and how much they were grieving.”  [from German]  SAT.1 interview
NO MENTION –   The ‘i’ paper

Available Independent Evidence:   
The Senior crime correspondent for Sky News, Martin Brunt was in PdL for 10 days.  During that time he admits he did not manage to speak to the McCanns

Clarke clearly states during the ExPat Radio interview that he did not interview the McCanns.
The implication from the SAT.1 interview is also clear.  


https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2022/09/52-appendix-updated-from-chapter-46-jon.html


References
https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2022/09/chapter-52-references-1-2-httpswww.html

CHAPTER 53




THE BOOK
As we continue the analysis of the evidence, we are inevitably drawn back to Kate’s book, written either by herself alone, with assistance of a ghost writer, or wholly by a ghost writer.  We may surely assume that for a book of this importance the manuscript or proof would have been submitted to lawyers to ensure there was nothing self-condemnatory, to press relations agencies to ensure the correct “spin’ was preserved, to the ‘Fat controller’ [qv.] to ensure that the official “story’ was not being inadvertently undermined, and almost certainly to the Tapas 7 to ensure they were not inadvertently compromised.
We focus again on a salient point in the ‘story’.

People have remarked on Kate’s and Gerry’s remarkable failure or refusal actually to search for their daughter on the night in question.

Kate records it in the book – so it must be true . . .

QUOTE
“Back in the apartment the cold, black night enveloped us all for what seemed like an eternity. Dianne and I sat there just staring at each other, still as statues. ‘It’s so dark,’ she said again and again. ‘I want the light to come.’ I felt exactly the same way. Gerry was stretched out on a camp bed with Amelie asleep on his chest. He kept saying, ‘Kate, we need to rest.’ He managed to drift off but only briefly, certainly for less than an hour. I didn’t even try. I couldn’t have allowed myself to entertain sleep. I felt Madeleine’s terror, and I had to keep vigil with her. I needed to be doing something, but I didn’t know where to put myself. I wandered restlessly in and out of the room and on to the balcony. At long last, dawn broke.   
McCann, Kate. Madeleine Transworld Digital. Kindle Edition.” (p. 81).
Kate ‘kept vigil’ for Madeleine, - again we have observed that this is a tradition afforded to the dead on their first night after death for various religions and superstitious reasons, as well as being a good way of foiling body-snatchers, and perhaps above all of ensuring that the person is question was not merely in a deep coma, and that by the morning the temperature of the body had fallen below a level consistent with continued existence. . .  and stared at a candle flame whilst Gerry slept.

In the chapter in question. Ch 8, Kate uses the word ‘Dark’, no fewer than 6 times.

She wants us to believe that the search was useless because of the dark.  Because it was night time.

Strangely the 100 or so holiday makers and staff who joined the GNR police officers and searched through the night found themselves under no such constraints.   The street lights were working, and the Police officers and some people may be supposed to have brought flash-lamps.

But then there was the moon.

The skies had cleared by about 8pm, on 3/5/7 the weather front with the heavy cloud bank which had ruined their holiday for the four days from the Sunday evening drifted off to the west and the sky was clear.  This much is evident not only from meteorological reports and charts and weather satellite images which uncritical believers refuse to engage with or understand, but also from the many photos, timed and dated, on Flickr and other internet sites as well as first hand contemporaneous accounts from a locally based British ex-pat whose previous career was inextricably involved in observation of weather.

The sky was CLEAR, and there was a ‘full’ moon.
Sunset on Thursday 3/5/7 was at 2022. 
Civil twilight ended at 2050
The moon rose at 21:53 on Thursday 3/5/7, and set at 07:23 on Friday 4/5/7

(It was in fact a ‘waning gibbous’ Moon.  Astronomical Full moon was the night before. (2/5/7 - 3/5/7), except that the 100% cloud cover prevented people’s seeing it).  But to the naked and untrained eye it was a Full moon.  To the trained astronomer like Gerry McCann’s brother-in-law, ‘Quicksand Tony’, the tiniest sliver of the western edge was now in darkness.   99.6% of the moon’s earth-facing surface was illuminated.  It would have been very bright and cast shadows on the ground in places where they were not obliterated by light from the street lamps.   Almost bright enough to read a newspaper by, a phenomenon with which we are all, surely familiar.  

It was, in short, NOT dark.   And certainly not so dark that frantic parents would not at least try, or pretend to try, to search.

But Kate insists it was Dark.

All of this is of course freely available to any who believes that Kate’s and Gerry’s account is unequivocally True, and contains nothing but the objective facts.  But of course those who ‘believe’ will not trouble themselves with researching or considering the objective facts.  That is part of the issue.

The moon-set on 4/5/7 was at 08:05
Sunrise on 4/5/7 was at 06:36
Civil twilight on 4/5/7 began at 06:08
Ponder that for a moment. There is a huge bright full moon which is still in the sky reflecting the light of the sun, and is still there when the sun itself ‘comes up’.  One in the west, the other in the east. 
Even ignoring the presence of the moon, Civil twilight began at 06:08 on 4/5/7.  
Civil twilight, for those new to the term, is what we used to call ‘lighting up time’ for motor vehicles. To half an hour after sunset and from half an hour before sunrise.  The sky is light all over, but the sun is still below the horizon.   One can read a newspaper outside under the open sky, the sky is light blue, and colours are clearly visible.  In lay terms it is ‘daylight’,  Street lights switch off.

But Kate insists it was Dark.

*****
THE DAM

The recent events at the Arade Dam and reservoir are still fresh in people’s minds.  Briefly, in May 2023 another search of a small area of the bank was carried out by the Portuguese, with observers from the BKA and Grange.  After three or four days of activity they all packed up and went home.  
Press reports varied from simple inventions – that “items of interest in the McCann case” had been found and were being taken to Germany for analysis, a statement so obviously ridiculous that a responsible local journalist felt constrained to correct it by pointing out that had anything been found it would have been retained by the Portuguese authorities, who still “own” the case, – to more credible ones that items of women’s underclothing had been found in the undergrowth. 
That anyone considered this unusual at secluded areas round a well known beauty spot, shows a remarkable lack of experience or imagination.
Then we were told that “soil samples’ had been taken back to Germany for comparison with soil found on or in Brückner’s VW van.   Brückner was arrested in Milan, Italy in 2018, having travelled from Switzerland.  There might of course still have been sufficient material on whichever vehicle he was using at the time for forensic comparison after eleven years plus the time between his last visit to the dam and his arrest four countries and 2,500 km. away. 
However the contamination and ad-mixing with material from every other place he had visited during that decade might just render any comparison less than evidentially conclusive.

For many unthinking believers that must still be reassuring, if only at the sub-primate intellectual level of  “If the soil matches, then he must have abducted and killed Madeleine”
Well sadly not. Brückner was a frequent and possibly regular visitor to the Arade dam.  Of that we can be sure because Jon Clarke tells us so in a long article published in his Olive Press on 2nd June. 
It is as usual headlined “Exclusive”.

For the full luxurious experience of fanciful journalism I recommend reading it in full, at Appendix A (rather than paying for it on the website.)
In it we are told of the inevitable ‘secret camp’, which Clarke was the ONLY journalist (obviously) to visit last year.  We are told Brückner came frequently for weekends, and sometimes the whole week, and that “conveniently” the ‘secret camp’; “had a flat stretch of land to park his van”.

It may be worth puncturing the balloon even at this stage by observing that the BBC reported on 25th May, rather over a week before Clarke’s exclusive “All the work carried out around the reservoir was on a peninsula jutting out into the Arade dam from its Western shore …  The spit of land has a small car park on it, which is often used as an unofficial campsite.”

So we search for the “exclusive element and realise it must be in the Headline.
“GROUND ZERO - THE ‘DRUIDIC CIRCLE HIDEAWAY OF  . . .”   
(Keep reading, It gets better)
“Styling out [sic] a living area with a rudimentary table, hewn from a log, he even made an eccentric stone bench down by the water’s edge, facing north east, back towards his native Germany.   Next to that, a fire pit and perfect stone circle, the type druids might once use [sic !] for ritual gatherings and sacrifices.”

To the list of secret societies invoked in this saga, Freemasons, Knights Templar, Catenian Brothers, Rosicrucians, . . . we now have to add DRUIDS, and we are faced with the dreadful but hilarious thought that Clarke may be amongst those who believe that stone circles and druids were somehow linked.
[Druids are a Celtic Iron age phenomenon. Stonehenge was build ca. 5,000 years ago, over 2,000 years before the Iron age even began. The last Druids disappeared around the 2nd c.AD during the Roman occupation.]

Elsewhere, though sadly not included in Clarke’s piece there were stories of a ‘Shrine’, and of an arrow formed of stones placed in formation on the ground. 
“Consisting of boulders in the shape of an arrow pointing towards a picnic site which was dug over by police last week, the makeshift memorial was weighed down by a large rock and had a bouquet of flowers and a photograph of abducted Madeleine on it.”
Given that there was a car park, a camping area and flat land with a clear access to the reservoir, is it not at least possible that children and young adults have used this spot as a playground for three generations; that some child played with making a stone circle, and then as with cairns on hill tops across the globe, others added to it over the years.  Is there evidence that the log was “hewn’ by Brückner,    (Or ‘Brueckner’ as Clarke insists on his trademark mis-spelling through the entire article), or that he ‘styled out’ the eccentric stone bench.

And given the modern propensity for people to set up “shrines’ at the scenes of accidents or deaths,  or to dump motorway service-station flowers in front of ceremonial gates, and to tie teddy bears to lampposts with piano wire; and that the scene of Madeleine’s death is not known except to a select few, then is it not just possible or even probable that someone who believed the official story might have been moved to make their own useless gesture in this way?
In other news outlets but by-passing the Olive Press entirely, we were assured that the ‘real focus’ of the search was for a gun and some video tapes stolen from Brückner by his close friends Manfred S and Helge B, which were then thrown into the dam.  This had in fact been fully recorded by DCI Amaral a VERY long time ago.

So far so good, and almost a reason to do bit of a search, now that the water level of the dam is about 10 metres below the level of 2007 and so much new ground has been exposed.

The only problem with this is that as DCI Amaral recorded - - - 
it’s the wrong damned dam.
The gun, if any, was thrown, if it was, into the Santa Clara dam, about 30 km. to the North . . .
“Or Not, as the case may be.”

Even Clarke averts to this later in his piece “he spent a lot of time at the Barragem da Bravura, nearer to Praia da Luz, as well as further inland at the Santa Clara reservoir, in Alentejo,”.

We may suppose that the soil from each of those areas and from every other area he visited during the decade in question, will be on whichever vehicle or vehicles he was using at the time, just as the very same soil will now be on Clarke’s vehicle, the PJ’s vehicles, and the hire cars used by Grange and the BKA.   
Are the other two dams to be next year’s diversion from the search for the TRUTH ?

* * * * * * 

CLARKE

Some time ago I mused about how Jon Clarke’s wife would respond when confronted with the full details of his bizarre attempt to blame me for giving out details of his house and the names of his wife and family when in fact not only had I not done so but he had, and was continuing to do. 
But now, increasingly, it appears that we may have an insight into how Mrs Clarke reacted, not only to that revelation, but also to the fact of Clarke’s publicising his wilful abandonment of his family for some months, of which he makes much in his book and boasted to the whole world, 
and to her terrible realisation that the large reformed farmhouse with the rental wing named after their daughter was bought and renovated with the proceeds of two egregious libels, one potentially marriage-breaking aimed squarely and vindictively at a dedicated young mother like herself.

Clarke’s own Facebook page (of which more later) having once revelled in the fact of his marriage “Got married.  -   18 October 2010”
now states “No Relationship to show”,  but then goes on to give the correct first names of his two children, as it has for some time.   
Add to that the fact that the rental house into which he ploughed so much of the money obtained from selling the proven grossly libellous stories about Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, and latterly about Robert Murat, seems to be officially listed as “permanently closed”, and we may begin to work out her response.

“The Murat wing of Kidd-Law Mansion is permanently closed.” ?

*****

And whilst we are on the subject of Clarke

Sometime ago readers will remember that questions arose about an entry on Clarke’s own Facebook page, where he advertises his book though a double page article in the prestigious Spanish newspaper ABC.
To recap:   in the article it is stated that Clarke arrived in PdL at 0130 on 4/5/7 having received a phone call “that very day” – indicating 3/5/7.  A short time later the article was amended to read “in the early hours of the morning” [original in Spanish.  See refs]

When Clarke was questioned about this he became defensive and initially denied he had given those times.

=AZWQWnZWLLHGX8gsYMOclJ9D9co3O9Of4sZ4NaxZijNHCPtnhi4NggopHINgJJPC1Zmcx2oxaO-P8_IwFgTZ1YEUAcapvawK8enRCyn193fGpe81JWRn0GyojWiDRAOIo2taPDTd6GOh54bE2BTqdm5T45T6mI7hwa5Z20HIjM160zDlX42H2ZpczFKklROgjpA&__tn__=R]-R]Jon Clarke
@Sharon L.  eh? Where did you get these incorrect times from?!!

When it was pointed out that they were his words in his article on his facebook page he resorted to his usual invective and ad hominem abuse, whilst in this case simultaneously offering an apparent explanation:  that it was a “typo’.

=AZWQWnZWLLHGX8gsYMOclJ9D9co3O9Of4sZ4NaxZijNHCPtnhi4NggopHINgJJPC1Zmcx2oxaO-P8_IwFgTZ1YEUAcapvawK8enRCyn193fGpe81JWRn0GyojWiDRAOIo2taPDTd6GOh54bE2BTqdm5T45T6mI7hwa5Z20HIjM160zDlX42H2ZpczFKklROgjpA&__tn__=R]-R]Jon Clarke
@PeterMac No Plod - just like me he doesn’t have time to waste his time correcting something at your request … for the last time: it’s a typo, you prat!
A ‘typo’ or typographical error is normally defined thus: 
“- also called a misprint, is a mistake made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material.”
It is more generally understood as typing ‘hte’ or “th4” for ‘the’;  typing 1.30 for 10.30; or in an extreme case writing 30µg instead of 3µg on a prescription.

But here we surely have something different.  These are not simple slips of the keyboard.   They are perfectly typed and are consistent one with another.   They have also been proof-read and passed for publication.

Looking first at the editorial round the article we find
Trans: "It didn't seem like a big case, but I went. I arrived at half past one in the morning in Praia da Luz," recalls Clarke…”.

In the article itself we read
Trans: "On that very day 3 May 2007, a call to a telephone in Ronda requested his presence ... He answered and was asked if he could go to Portugal, where an English girl had disappeared. "It didn't seem like an important case, but I went to Praia da Luz", recalls Clarke about his first contact with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. That same night he met the little girl's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann."
Originals in Refs.
That is not a slip of the post-prandial finger on a sticky keyboard. The various versions are consistent.  It looks as if the reporter has accurately transcribed what he was sent or told.

How can you mistype “Llegué a la una y media de la madrugada . . .”   = “I arrived at half past one in the early hours of the morning” ?
We could understand the ‘typo’ claim if it had read “I got there at 1.30 in the morning” when what had been intended was  “I got there at 10.30 in the morning”, but the deliberate use of words rather than numerals, and the inclusion of the Spanish “Madrugada” – which has no direct English translation, but indicates the hours between midnight and dawn, during which in the intense heat of the Spanish summer much activity takes place in the streets of towns and cities to take full advantage of the cooler night air . . . makes the claim less persuasive.

[See Appendix for further discussion of Madrugada.]
And the strange grammatically redundant construction “just like me he doesn’t have time to waste his time correcting something at your request…” ignores that fact that the article is STILL on Clarke’s OWN facebook page, and has been since 23 October 2022.  [a/a. 10/6/23], and characteristically twists the truth that no one is requesting a ”correction”. 
What people are asking for are the facts.   
Asking whether this is correct, or not.
And if not, what is the truth.
And why was it published in this form and allowed to stay in the public domain for so long.

Clarke surely has the ability to edit his own page.  One might have thought that an important point like this, which despite what he may argue goes right to the core of the matter, should be resolved.   But perhaps he is part of the “Confusion is good” school of thought  [:copyright: G. McCann]




2022. A LOOK BACK

2022 was probably confusing for those who tried to follow the Brückner saga using the Olive Press and its syndicated articles as a guide.

In January we were told definitively that Bruckner was to be charged

In May we were told this was to happen “within months”
On 3 May (09:10) Clarke changed to “in the summer”
and later the same day (17:45) this changed again to “this month”
and the churned version in the London-Post made it “within weeks’
By 19th May it had changed again to “charges over Maddie – who was abducted while on holiday in Praia da Luz, age 3 – will come by the end of the year.”   and then hilariously added
“Whether it’s crime, the environment or politics, the Olive Press has its finger on the pulse.”
Clarke’s May article was churned by the London Post to read “‘will be charged within weeks’  an investigator has sensationally claimed today.    Jon Clarke said he had been informed of the bombshell development by a source in the office of the team of German investigators probing the jailed sex offender.”

By contrast the mainstream papers of record took a slightly different line
The Times on 6th May had already reported  "No charges in sight . . . in the foreseeable future,
says the prosecutor”
But Clarke blundered on, and on 23 June told the world that Brückner was to be charged “The crimes – three rapes and two child sex assaults – are expected to come to court in the early autumn.. .  “I hope it will only be some weeks or a month,” he [Wolters] added. “I hope this year we will charge and prosecute him for these crimes. In total, three rapes and two child sex offences.”
A prosecution against Brueckner, [sic] 45, in the case of abducted Madeleine, who vanished in Portugal, in May, 2007, will follow immediately after.”
But by late June even the gutter press had had enough. The always reliable Sun, churned by the Daily Mail – told us that none of the Clarke’s claims of the Cross shaped scar on the thigh of the ‘rapist’, and the maxillofacial surgery which he insisted Brückner had had, so that Clarke could link him to a poorly drawn photofit sketch of someone with a notable overbite, were all nonsense, and had not been true or accurate or factually correct all along.
Hardly surprising since whoever invented this ludicrous story seems to have failed to investigate is the actual COST, and the TIME a procedure to realign the jaw and front teeth actually takes.  
As usual the red arrows point directly back to Clarke on this hogwash.
A quick search on the internet will reveal the timescale for facio-maxilliary or orthognathic procedures 
“The team do work together over an 18-month to two year period. The teeth are moved orthodontically over the first nine-month to 12 months. Then the surgery takes place, and then the braces are used to fine-tune the tooth position for a further 6-12 months after the surgery.”
The invented € 7,500 cost is also way out.  “ Altogether with the orthodontist and surgery, you’re looking at about £20-25,000.”
So the idea that immediately after abducting and murdering Madeleine, Brückner nipped over to Germany, had a bit of quick dentistry and surgery to redesign his skull and maxilla lasting no more than the time taken for a filling or a root canal, and then flew back to resume his career as a rapist and murderer is clearly abject and total nonsense.  

At this point the Tabloids began to change the narrative to a slightly more acceptable but still incomprehensible “…a meeting to see if there was enough evidence to charge’ . . . or some such unintelligible drivel, and along the way some hack floated the idea that they were going to have a ‘mock trial’.  

Yes, really.  I am not making this up [:copyright: J.Tanner]  Such is the intellectual and experiential level of modern Tabloid journalists.

Just as an aside, lest anyone believes Tabloid journalists are basically decent and honest people :-

CASE HISTORY - MODERN TABLOID JOURNALISM
This is a report from the current (June 2023) case brought by the Prince Harry and others currently in the High Court in England (a.a mid June 2023)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12095985/Im-professional-liar-says-convicted-phone-hacker-helping-Prince-Harry-sue-newspapers.html
QUOTE
A convicted phone hacker and 'self-confessed professional liar' told the High Court today how he is assisting Prince Harry and others to sue British newspapers.
Graham Johnson agreed that he had cheated members of the public, 'destroyed people's lives with surgical impact' and had 'no integrity at all' when he worked at the News of the World.
He told the court it was true he had once described one of his own newspaper articles as '1,500 words of b******s' in which he had invented a sighting of a phantom wild cat known as 'the Beast of Bodmin'. He agreed this was 'a carefully crafted piece of deception designed to fool everybody’.
He was giving evidence during a seven-week trial in which Harry and three others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers alleging phone hacking, bugging, blagging and deception, which it denies.
He told Mr Justice Fancourt how he was helping the prince and other celebrities pursuing hacking claims against newspapers, including those at groups publishing the Mirror, the Sun and the Daily Mail.
It was put to him by the Mirror group's KC Andrew Green: 'Mr Johnson, why should the court believe you, a self-confessed professional liar who engaged in illegal activities for many years?' Mr Johnson agreed he had repeatedly engaged in unlawful behaviour at the News of the World in the 1990s, and the Sunday Mirror in the early 2000s, but said of his nefarious skills: 'I don't use them in the witness box under oath at the High Court.
He was sacked from the now-defunct News of the World in 1997 for fabricating stories and worked at the Sunday Mirror until 2005.
He was convicted of phone hacking in 2014 and given a two-month suspended sentence. But he says he converted to 'truth-telling' in 2007 and now runs a website, which he claims is committed to exposing wrongdoing and 'organised crime' in Fleet Street.
His behind-the-scenes role was questioned by Mr Green, who quizzed him about his tactics in recruiting witnesses to the cases against the newspapers.
END QUOTE
He was sacked for fabricating stories and THEN employed by the Mirror.   Ponder that.
Just as Rebekah Brookes was sacked when the News of the World was closed because of HER actions, and immediately employed by the same Murdoch organisation as editor of the Sun.
Just as the egregious Guzmaroli who invented the story about the waterslide resigned, emigrated, and was immediately employed on the other side of the world - by yet another Murdoch owned organ.

They really are all in the cess pit of tabloid journalism together.


CLARKE AGAIN

Clarke’s ability to rewrite history is a source of endless fascination.
A little time ago the following exchange took place on Clarke’s own FaceBook page during a discussion of his book. “MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.)

START QUOTE
=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Jill Havern
On the back of this book Jon Clarke REPEATS the lie that "Jon Clarke was the first journalist at the scene when Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007."
So the FIRST SENTENCE on the COVER is a demonstrable LIE.
Jon seems incapable of toning it down to something acceptable, such as:
JC was at the scene within a few hours on that first day . . .
He was among the first few journalists . . .
All of which would be acceptable
Len Port got there at 0830.

=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Jon Clarke
@=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Jill Havern First of all who is Len Port ? He’s not a national UK journalist but a local hack working for the Algarve Resident, that has consistently supported Disgraced detective Amaral and his books and which has consistently casted doubt on the McCanns… plus a lot more that we will be exposing at some point soon …
On top of that who’s to say he was there at 8.30?!! He certainly wasn’t making himself clear to me and given I was representing 3 UK national newspapers I talked to EVERYONE there when I arrived.
Does Len support your evil narrative by any chance ?

=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Jill Havern
WHY does Jon Clarke persist in this "I was the First journalist on the scene" nonsense, as he's written on the back cover of his novel?
We have film of Len Port by the pool, early morning, with long shadows
and we have film of Clarke in a huddle of 6 journalists outside the apartment block, looking over the shoulder of a girl, reading her notes
about 5 minutes before the McCanns leave at 1000.
Len is one of those in that group.
And Jon didn't speak to the McCanns either as can be seen in the video because they were on their way to the police station and didn't return until later that evening.
The camera never lies Jon. But you DO! Persistently! 
https://youtu.be/DRe3g25ma4o


=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Jon Clarke
@=AZVoZ2iczfoVX0YpP5Mns-as3CAT2q4MwhStPINnSY0rqrNTltHYRevFfK6ZRe8dV62iCQCcEdye0WCP4WKRlCPdOTjCzK-mhgDQ5wJw62BRwPdHGFoScicH-J_OOaw-sow&__tn__=R]-R]Nick Bennett I’m not attacking Len, just saying I was the first journalist from the UK media there that morning and I genuinely didn’t see or meet Len, but I wouldn’t have been hanging around in the pack in front of the apartment anyway … I was looking for clues.
END QUOTE

One hardly knows where to start.
“. . .  who’s to say he was there at 8.30?!! He certainly wasn’t making himself clear to me and given I was representing 3 UK national newspapers I talked to EVERYONE there when I arrived.”

Len Port says he arrived at 0830; there is contemporaneous video of his walking past the pool where the length of the shadows make it incontrovertible that this was the early hours of the morning.
Why should Port make himself “Clear’ to anyone ?
And Clarke adds that he ‘talked to everyone” where previously he has insisted, violently and abusively that he was the FIRST or ONLY journalist at the scene.

and now the BIG BACKTRACK on everything Clarke has said over the previous 11 years
“… I was the first journalist from the UK media there that morning” 
We have been suggesting that form of words for a decade or more, but have been roundly and very publicly abused and rebuked for it.

‘I genuinely didn’t see or meet Len, but I wouldn’t have been hanging around in the pack in front of the apartment anyway … I was looking for clues.”
But he did, he did, he was, and he wasn’t.
Clarke surely knows by now since we have posted it many times, that there is newsreel video film of his hanging around in the pack in front of the apartment (No 5H incidentally not 5A) in a huddle of FIVE other journalists, including Port, and that he was not “looking for clues” at that time, but looking over shoulders and copying what others had written whilst waiting for the McCanns to come out of the apartment as they did just 18 seconds after he moved away and shook hands with the GNR inspector.
And the few clues that he looked at, like the obviously UNbroken, UNforced, and UNsmashed shutters, he negligently or purposefully ignored, and continues to ignore to this day.

To refresh memories the link to the videos is given in the Refs, and stills from that video showing Clarke with Port in the huddle of hacks are included for those who refuse to research for themselves lest they find something to challenge their ‘beliefs’.

* * * * * 
There is something slightly disturbing about Clarke’s endless manipulation of the truth.   It increasingly appears that he does it to suit the “Zeitgeist” – the ‘spirit of the moment’.
He is clearly paid handsomely for his stories, but seems to use them to influence the uninformed public’s perception and belief in the instant issue.

We can perhaps understand the motive behind the cynical pecuniary advantage and financial benefit obtained by publishing untruths, though clearly cannot accept it when it involves egregious libels.

Again however we are drawn to two possible explanations.  That Clarke is being used as a ‘useful idiot’, which is unlikely, or that he is fully aware and willingly in the pay and contracted for large sums of money to publish things on behalf of whoever is pulling the strings – The Fat Controller ?[qv. Ch. 41]

I cannot think of another explanation, but I confess I do not know the truth at the moment

Whether it will ever be told is another matter altogether.

****
https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-53-another-round-up-of.html


References and Appendices: 
https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-53-references-and-appendices-1.html

Chapter 2024. Pontifications

As the case enters its 17th year we asked the principle prolific pontificators for their predictions and pipe-dreams for what 2024 might bring


1     CS, ex-Met Detective

“The most likely scenario is that Madeleine was stolen to order by Slave traders and smuggled into Africa for a rich family who wanted a white child”.     [GENUINE QUOTE]

Mahdi found in Morocco

Madeleine Beth McCann (19 years) is now known as Mahdi bint Gerald al-McCann, Begum Mohammed al-Fahd al-Alawiyyin

Princess Mahdi is the ninth wife of Prince Mohammed al-ʿalawiyyīn al-fīlāliyyīn
She lives in the harem of his palace a long distance outside Marrakech.  She is Muslim, having undergone the necessary surgery to ensure that she was in possession of ‘perfect little genitals’ ( K McCann, ‘madeleine’ p.129) shortly before her marriage on her 7th birthday.  The traditional lid from the newly opened tin of Halal Sardines was used for the procedure.

The marriage was consummated on her 10th birthday in accordance with guidance in Bo’ok and ʻilm al-ḥadīth’, specifically the Hadith ‘al Jami' - Ibn Wahb”

She has seven children, and is shortly expecting her eighth.     She remembers that on her fourth birthday she was taken by a winged horse, first to Jerusalem, then to Mecca, and thence to Marrakech.  She has been told this for as long as she can remember.

When asked for a comment the eunuch in charge of the harem sent this reply:

“أريد أن يعلم والدي أني رأيت من خلال كذبهم التغطية على ما فعلوه..  






________________________________________________________

2    Jon Clarke
“EXCLUSIVE By Jon Clarke in Huelva.  Olive Press, 18 Feb 2011

Marcelino Jorge Italiano, 36, has told Spanish police that a group of high-ranking lawyers, based in Faro and Albufeira on the Algarve, are linked to a paedophile ring that abducts children.
“I know these people were involved and I have been told that Madeleine may now be in America,” 
[GENUINE QUOTES]

Maddie found in Harlem, New York C, NY

“Good time Maddy” has been found in a Speakeasy in Harlem, NYC, 
It is called “Room 623”, on 119th St. between Frederick Douglas and St Nicholas  [ Go 55 yards east, past Rosa’s Pizza, down the alley on the left, knock four times on the green door, ask for “Luigi”, and push a $20 bill through the letter box ]

She is a dancer, musician, and good-time girl, much (and often) loved by the clientèle.  She is thought to be worth over 2.5m USD in fees, tips, and IOUs.

She has been arrested in many Police raids but still has an unblemished record, having on each occasion diligently demonstrated to the Custody Sgt. on night duty who fully participated, the use to which she puts her ‘perfect little credentials’. ( K McCann, ‘madeleine’ p.129 [edited])

When asked for comment she replied :
“Y’all can pay like any other punter, or y’all can go and REDACT yourselves and REDACTED and REDACTED . . .”






__________________________________________________

 
3    EDGAR AND COWLEY,   Welsh pigeon fanciers and part time fantasists detectives

Hardened ex-RUC cop Dave Edgar … is convinced that little Maddie is imprisoned in a hellish lair…in a cellar or dungeon in the lawless villages around Praia da Luz….  
 And despite fresh leads… the east Belfast man insists the golden-haired youngster is being held just 10 miles from where she was snatched in Praia da Luz two years ago.
But he warned that the sprawling wilderness where he believes Maddie is languishing is almost impossible to search completely.   Maddie is most likely being held captive, possibly in an underground cellar, and could emerge at any time, … [GENUINE QUOTES] [yes, really !]

Maddy found in Hellish Lair

After 15 years of ‘tireless’ searching of the “Sprawling Wilderness” behind Praia da Luz, Jedward and Owley finally found the Hellish Lair in which Madeleine had been hidden since 2007. 

It took a long time to find because the three hellish golf courses and the five lawless Urbanisations would not allow uncontrolled access to Irish-Welsh pigeon fanciers, but it was eventually found in the rough behind the 16th hole of Espiche Golf, cleverly disguised as a sand-trap bunker.

Clearly Madeleine has not been idle for the past decade and a half, and has done substantial modifications to her cellar or dungeon.

Madeleine vaguely remembered the opening words of a childrens’ book from years ago  “In a hole in the ground there lived a little girl. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Little Girl’s hideyhole, and that means comfort.”

The extensions now include bathroom, kitchen-dining area, sun terraces, kitchen garden, and she has plans for a pool. She has three children by Meriadoc and Peregrine with both of whom she shares a loving threesome QWERTYUIOP+ family relationship

When asked for a comment she replied : 
Im anír- na n- eriol, cin réd -o Sauron. Im anír- baw echor -o mal.  (Sindarin elvish),
which in the Common Tongue is “I want to be alone, you son of Sauron.  I want no ring of gold.”   






____________________________________________________


4    Sir Mark Rowley. Now Met Commissioner [!]

“So, one of the lines of enquiry, one of the hypotheses was could this be burglary gone wrong ?  Someone is doing a Burglary, panicked maybe by a waking child.”   [GENUINE QUOTE]

Maddy accidentally sold at auction

Christerby’s auction House.  31st June 2007
Auctioneer:  The Hon. Tarquin Wrynkle-fforskynne, OE
“And now we come to Lot 47.  A mixed lot including assorted silver and plateware with some considerable damage; 9 assorted wristwatches, 3 of them allegedly Rolex - two with badly scratched crystals, and one without a strap; seven British passports, no photos, two out of date;  various other passports; a Canon Powershot camera, in mint condition;  and one small female child, dating from around 2003, slight blemish to right eye, otherwise certified to be in working order, unregistered, might be usable as scullery maid or chimney sweep.”

“Start me at £100, No ?  75 anywhere?  
60 ?  Thank you, Sir,   Do I hear 65?
65.  70 anywhere ?  90 on-line now
100 in the room. Thank you Sir, 
120 on-line from Dubai,  200 on-line from Singapore
300 from Jeddah
500 now on-line from Mecca.
Any advance on 500 pounds ?
500 pounds going twice
Done. Lot 47 sold for 500 Pounds.“ (Hammer falls.  Light applause)  

Please Note;  Hammer Price, Buyers’ premium, postage and packing, plus insurance must be paid in full before the contract is deemed to be concluded.







___________________________________________

5    Jon Clarke. [again] (Olive Press.)  Netflix 2019

“There was a big trench here, from about here going down . . . leading down from here, all the way down the road about this wide, and six foot deep.   And there was [sic] two or three guys working in the trench . .   And you think . . . could she have fallen down there.”  [GENUINE QUOTE]

Madeleine found living in underground pipe system

For years people in Praia Da Luz have reported a mysterious creature on the beach at full moon.  Reports were usually ignored, because they were made after bar closing time.  No footprints could be distinguished from those left by tourists in the soft sand, and no further action resulted.

It was recently reported that a strange creature had been seen emerging from the storm water outlet at the eastern end of the beach close to the Rocha Negra outcrop.

GNR specialists entered the storm drain system, and found side branch pipes to reduce the flow onto the beach and prevent erosion. The drought in the Iberian Peninsular means they are dry.  

These had sand floors, one was fitted out with a driftwood bed and bedding of shredded fishing net and sailcloth.   One had pallet shelving with plastic bottles and food included dried up pizza.

There was no trace of the creature, but the officers concluded it was humanoid and sentient.
Night vision cameras were put in place round the town, and at 0245 the creature was captured as it emerged from an inspection cover outside the Ocean Club on R. Dr.  Franscisco Gentil Martins.

The creature has been identified as human, female, estimated at no more than 20 years old.  It has long blond hair, a pale skin, poor vision with a visible defect in one eye, walks with a stooping gait, and is capable of only limited mixed-accented speech, tentatively identified as British.

When asked if it was “Maddy”, it clutched a pet limpet and hissed “My name’sss  Madeleine - preciousss” in an indignant tone. ( KM, p.349), whilst gnawing on a raw fish.

Investigators are working on the hypothesis that it may be the legendary Madeleine McCann, who survived falling into the deep trench ( JC) right outside No 5A ( JC) and found her way into the town’s storm drain system before the access and inspection points were installed and the deep trench filled in so quickly that no one else noticed it. ( JC).  She may have survived for years on takeaways dropped into the storm drain system, but then found the outlet onto the beach and lived on raw fish, crabs, shrimps and anemones foraged from rock-pools in the moonlight.

The creature, affectionately named Smeagoleine or Gollumaddy by local children, is being cared for by Social workers at the local Zoo, Rua Mentirosa do Sacana, 666.  

€10 entrance, children half price, 10am - 6pm, closed Sundays and Bank Holidays 

Chapter 56: Still no update

I started writing this chapter a long time ago during the ‘silly season’ with an observation about the total lack of any ‘news – invented or otherwise’ – since the failure of the search at the Charade Dam to produce anything of interest to the Gutter Press.   Cleary the publicity machine had been negligent because suddenly, out of the blue came several stories, invented or exaggerated.

They include:
The rape of Hazel Behan in 2004
A painting of what Madeleine might look like today. 
More details or inventions about the reason for the search of the Charade dam
News that Neflix and Amazon are competing with new versions of a Madeleine film
And perhaps more

It will surprise no one that Jon Clarke, Owner and Editor of the Olive Press features heavily.

Ms. HAZEL BEHAN

The story is that Ms Behan was a holiday rep. in Portugal, went out with some friends to a club, walked home alone, and was then attacked in her flat by a masked and black lycra-clad man who climbed in through her window, addressed her by name, threatened her with a “huge” knife, tied her up, raped her for four hours [sic], filming the whole event [sic], and then climbed out of the window, or onto a balcony depending which “version of the truth’ you prefer to read.
A dreadful event by any standards.
Ms Behan has waived her right to anonymity and has spoken to the press, who have repeated her story, the details varying across different outlets as they are altered to make it sound convincing.

Nevertheless the Press, led by Clarke, is apparently convinced - on NO credible evidence at all - that her assailant was none other than Christian Brückner. [qv.  passim, ad naus.]

Alleged witnesses to the events include a man who saw the assailant climb in through the window, and another or possibly two who saw him running away.
It is not clear whether either took any steps to intervene, or reported the matter at the time, except to the German police 18 years later.


The Olive Press helpfully posts photos of the outside of the building, and pinpoints the window of the first floor apartment


                                        Olive Press Photo                                 My Annotation with measurements

Whether this was the window in question is in some doubt, as to enter the flat he would have had to climb first onto the concrete “box” with the tap below the window, then hoist himself up and through the very small opening, probably no more than 80cm square, though if 2 of the three panes could have been opened it might have been 1.5m side.


Other sources speak of a balcony and a sliding door, which is slightly more credible 

In any event we note that he MUST have been carrying at the very least
A Huge Knife 
A length of rope
A fully charged VHS camcorder and tape(s).   [another ‘witness’ is clear that Tapes were involved]
NOTE:  It is not clear whether the whole event, including the tying up, and threatening with the knife was included in the film, or if that was preparatory to the scene being set.
 
Many will remember that in the early 2000s VHS video recorders were large unwieldy items which often needed two hands to operate.   Given that Brückner is a known and convicted thief it is also likely that it was stolen, and thus from the late 1990s, when they were largely shoulder held and weighed even more.   [HDV models came out in 2003, and the mini-DV even later]


There is no mention of a bag of any sort in which the necessary equipment including the knife and the coil of rope would be contained, nor of how this was taken through the window, which on any test would itself require both hands free and considerable athleticism to negotiate.
Did he for example go through head first, and if so on what did he land ?.  Or feet first and trust he would not injure any important part of his anatomy as he jumped down into the dark room   
Did his equipment perhaps include a torch ?

The assailant is reported to have been wearing a black spandex suit and mask.  His footwear is not specified.
The witness who came forward to say he observed all this activity apparently did not think to alert the authorities, neither does he mention any of the equipment reported by Ms Behan.
The witness who saw the assailant running away also makes no mention of any equipment or bag.

Brückner has been charged with this offence.  Neither the extent nor the detail of the evidence against him is known.


Newly released Painting of what Madeleine might look like today

Most of the Tabloids covered this - though strangely not the Olive Press, perhaps on the not unreasonable grounds that Clarke’s current belief relies on Madeleine having been murdered.

It turns out to be little more than a re-hash of yet another article from 2021, by the same self-publicist, but this time with a bit more nonsense copy attached.
Details in the refs. but here is sample of the nonsense
“An artist has created pictures of what she believes missing Madeleine McCann would look like now - and says she thinks she looks like her sister, who was recently pictured for the first time.
Simone Malik has created the portraits in a bid to help track down the missing child, who she believes looks like her younger sister Amelie, who is now 18. Amelie was pictured for the first time since being a toddler in May this year, when she attended a vigil for the 16th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.”

A glance at the photo in question next to one of the ‘artist’ may give us a clue

                      This is from 2021                                                       and this from 2023  



As someone commented. “She has done a self-portrait. Badly.”
Quite why she did not simply draw a picture of Amelie is not clear.  






There follows a lot of guff about the shape of the tip of the nose - assuming that 3 year olds have “shaped noses” -  and how it ‘matches that of her aunt Philomena’s “wide nose and square tip”

To remind people of how wide and square Philomena is … and of the shape of her nose.  




But the whole nonsense serves to remind us that there are two distinct and warring factions in the “Abduction“ believers.




The first faction is further split into two sects.   In the one sect are the  “living like a princess with an “Arabian Nights” Sultan; OR  living with childless parents who have looked after her as their own child for 16 years”…,  and in the other are the more sinister “Sex slave; paedo sex ring; Red Shoes; International traffickers; Freemasons; Catenians; Knights Templar; Podesta brothers; Clement Freud, …” school.

The second faction is currently represented by Herr Wolters, Staatsanwalt [State prosecutor] for Niedersachsen, and his abject acolyte and publicist Jon Clarke who is apparently convinced that Madeleine was abducted and then murdered and disposed of very shortly after, and keeps telling the world through Clarke that letters to this effect have been sent to the McCanns and the Met Police Operation Grange.   Both have denied ever receiving any such letter.

For them therefore the picture of what Madeleine might look like today might be   






And in case anyone thinks that is tasteless, let us remind ourselves that one of the reported aims of the search at the Charade dam was for Madeleine Beth McCann’s REMAINS in the area so helpfully identified by Clarke himself with his ‘secret camp’, the table hewn from a log, stone arrows and the wonderful “Druidic circle”, even down to the detail of the flat area of ground Brückner used as a secret campsite - which turned out to be a car park.


CHARADE DAM “SEARCH”

a.a.  3 Feb 2024
It has now been EITHER 255 days since the end of the “search” operation at the CHARADE Dam – according to the Mirror, which reported its ending on 25th May,  OR 262 days – according to Clarke’s favourite paper, The SUN, which said it ended on 18th May.   As always you can choose whichever “Version of the Truth” suits your standpoint.  You are unlikely to find the truth or the facts in any of the newspapers.


It actually makes little difference to the fact that nothing of significance seems to have been found.  Even Jon Clarke’s ‘mole’ [qv.] in H. Wolter’s office seems to have gone underground.

We repeat the eternal question – For what were they - allegedly - looking ?



Various clearly invented stories spoke of looking for Madeleine’s body, or her body parts; for a gun; for video tapes [qv]; for clothing; for her pyjamas; even bizarrely for a single fibre from the pyjamas to be compared with the pyjamas they had already found in Brückner’s Van .  All very clearly pure fantasy written to fill the spaces between the adverts in the gutter press. 

Frankly no one seemed to know, except we must suppose the officers in charge of writing the Operational Order, securing the funding, the permissions, organising the logistics, the transport, the accommodation, the equipment, the commissariat, the toilets, the Press liaison, and everything else involved in a Police operation – not to mention the more senior officers and officials in the Finance Department who authorised the considerable expense. 

The final “full on-cost” bill for that number of officers and equipment for a whole working week will run into tens of thousands.     Assume 1 x Det Insp, 2 x DSgt, plus 10 x DCon, or Special Ops PCs
Full annual on-costs are £95,000, £76,000 and £62,500   (Met. 2021 figs.  FOI answer)
A total of £865,000 pa, or £16,000 for one week.   PLUS of course all the rest,  Hotel, vehicles . . . meaning we can reasonably double that to £30,000.    [And also PLUS of course per diem and out-of-pocket expenses claiming for which for Police Officers has become almost an Art form ]
My informed guess is no less than £50,000 so far as the Force Finance Departments were concerned
Add flights and other travel and it could be nearer £/€ 80 - 100,000



Perhaps a little known publication, the Pop Culture Press, ‘a music magazine founded in 1986 in Memphis, Tennessee that covered the local Memphis underground scene as well as touring bands and underground music of the era ‘– got it right when they reported . . .

“It has been a while since Madeleine McCann's ongoing disappearance grabbed headlines. In the months since a hoax involving a woman claiming to be the missing girl happened, police have also raced against time to make the connections with their key suspect … 
According to Sky News, German authorities took a final stab at connecting prime suspect Christian Brueckner to the missing girl's case.  The authorities searched the Barragem do Arade Reservoir…”


My emphases serve to show how perspicacious this might be.  The implication is clear. 
“Make the connections . . .; Connect the suspect . . . to the missing girl’s case . . “
They were apparently doing what several unscrupulous journalists have been doing; something which is warned against and avoided by professional police officers.



Decide on your suspect, and then find anything you can to pin on him or to fit him up, whilst studiously ignoring anything which does not help.  And if that doesn’t work, invent something.

Only a few months after  [August/September 2023] one of the most dreadful miscarriages of justice in modern times in the UK was been revealed – that of Mr Andrew Malkinson who served 17 years for a rape which he did not and could not have committed – the first 7 years as laid down at sentencing, the second 10 years because he refused to admit his Guilt and was therefore ineligible for release on licence (!) – it is surely right to consider what is being attempted in the case of the “Reported Disappearance of Madeleine Beth McCann”, both by gutter journalists and apparently by the State Prosecutor of Niedersachsen, Germany.


They have a convenient suspect. He is Foreign = not Portuguese.  He is itinerant. He has a criminal background, some of which involves sexual offences.  He was in Southern Portugal at the time of the ALLEGED events . . .  . . .
and I stop there.

It is the “ALLEGED-nature” of the events which should cause all decent and thinking people to stop. 

There is STILL – after a more than a decade and half – no evidence in the public domain nor known to any of the detectives or other professional persons who investigated to support the contention that Madeleine was “Abducted from her bed in Apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, PdL, between 2120 and 2125 hrs on Thursday 3rd March 2007”
Not a single bit, scrap, jot, tittle, iota, smidgin, fragment, speck, grain, shred or crumb, except the endlessly repeated insistence from the two Prime Suspects that it was so.

The two principle suspects have been aided and abetted in their insistence that their “Version of the Truth,” the “official story” is the only one permitted, by several organisations.  Some, like PR specialists Bell-Pottinger did it very openly and purely for the money, reporting that they were paid half a million pounds Sterling to keep the “Official Story’ on the front page of every newspaper for a year, which they very successfully did.   Others like Libel Lawyers Carter-Ruck by aggressively threatening penury and imprisonment on any who think for themselves and come to a contrary conclusion.

The result everyone can see.  The Media, TV News included, now NEVER deviate from the format  – “Abducted from her bed on Thursday 3rd March 2007 whilst her parents dined a few yards away”
– and begin their discussion of whatever nonsense has just been published from that starting point.  The results are always the same.   They get nowhere because the premiss is almost certainly false.

We have covered Jon Clarke’s egregious role in this style of investigation over several chapters showing his propensity to latch onto one person, to decide he is the Prime-Suspect-of-the-Week, and only then to cast around for anything which might add to that suspicion.

We remember the sorry sagas of Robert Murat - eventually awarded over £600,000 in libel damages after two British newspapers published Clarke’s (and Lori Campbell’s) story, and the long succession of other suspects and stooges, culminating – for the time being at least – in the identification of Christian Brückner.


A MUSING ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES

In all the abuse heaped upon and thrown at researchers  and seekers after the TRUTH, chief amongst the invective is the accusation that they/ we are Conspiracy Theorists.

But the Abduction Cult is in itself a perfectly formed Conspiracy Theory, 

I QUOTE
“Definition:
Conspiracy theories are generally designed to resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and absence of evidence for it are misinterpreted as evidence of its truth, whereby the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proven or disproven.  Studies have linked belief in conspiracy theories to distrust of authority and political cynicism.

Some researchers suggest that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological, and that it is correlated with lower analytical thinking, low intelligence, psychological projection, paranoia, and Machiavellianism"


“Sometimes it’s amusing to poke fun at conspiracy theorists. After all, most of them believe irrational stories with little to no evidence, and attempt to fit contrasting evidence to their theory – as opposed to actual scientists, who realise their theories could be wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.”



Gerry McCann used this most blatantly in his reply outside the court in Portugal to a persistent and therefore irritating reporter who asked what evidence there was for an Abduction 

GM: “What other explanation is there,  Where is… where is… where is the child. . .?”
He had no other way of getting out of the question.  There was and is no evidence of abduction, and plenty suggesting other explanations, but he could not admit that.  
They had already decided that “Abduction from bed by Paedo***” was to be the final Version of the Story, and that they would stick with it forever.



FURTHER MUSINGS

We covered some time ago the issue of the Absence of Evidence being definitively capable, in some cases, of being Evidence of Absence.    Chapter 17-some-philosophical-thoughts


And as researchers, using the scientific method, we have to acknowledge that we do not have all the details of the case, we are not party to all the details of the PJ’s evidence, nor of whatever the BKA may have found during the search of the Charade Dam, and certainly not what evidence H. Wolters has in his prosecution brief.

We surely must acknowledge that as open-minded reasonable and disinterested observers (to use its correct meaning) -
It MAY BE that H. Wolters does have concrete evidence that Brückner murdered Madeleine
It MAY BE that H. Wolters already knows how Brückner managed to abduct Madeleine
It MAY BE that H. Wolters and his team already know and can explain how all this was done without leaving any forensic trace
It MAY BE that H. Wolters has managed to collect all this evidence without any of the world’s media becoming even dimly aware of it, without a single police officer or civilian having ‘leaked’, and crucially WITHOUT H. Wolter’s having notified the defence lawyer, H. Fülscher, as he is BY LAW compelled to do under the rules of Disclosure . . .

If any of the above were objectively true, we might also expect Clarke’s ‘mole, spy or snout’ in H. Wolters’ office to have reported something which Clarke could then have published and sold to his usual sources of lucre, and we would also have expected one or more BKA officers to have leaked something to the German Press.

If this is the case it leaves open the question as to why H. Wolters has not already charged Brückner with the offences revealed, nor why, apparently, he has not even moved to have him interviewed under caution with his solicitor present, a stage in the process which will have to be completed before he can be charged.

In English and German law the rules are very simple.

6,121 days have now passed since Madeleine Beth McCann was Reported Missing 
16 years, 9 months and one day

The world waits . . .    and waits . . . . . . . . . . . .    and waits


REFERENCES:


1 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24217791/maddie-suspect-christian-b-reported-running-alleged-rape/

2 https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2023/10/02/new-witness-saw-maddie-mccann-suspect-flee-rape-of-young-irish-expat-victim-felt-she-was-being-watched-before-christian-brueckner-climbed-into-her-home-and-launched-four-hour-assault/

3 “By the early 2000s, digital camcorders had become the norm, and VHS camcorders were gradually phased out of the market. The last VHS camcorders were produced around 2008, marking the end of an era for this once-dominant format.”
https://www.kentfaith.co.uk/blog/article_when-did-vhs-camcorders-stop

4 https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1812296/Madeline-McCann-artists-impression

5  https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/artist-draws-what-missing-madeleine-30928637

6 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22476473/madeleine-mccann-search-end-cops-silent-dam/

7 https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/22/madeline-mccann-portuguese-police-to-search-local-dam-where-supect-was-seen

8 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/madeleine-mccann-police-reveal-results-30119434

9 https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/police-officer-costs-1

10 https://popculture.com/trending/news/madeleine-mccann-update-police-collect-evidence-reservoir-search/
11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_conviction_of_Andrew_Malkinson
12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
13 https://www.iflscience.com/apollo-astronaut-says-aliens-prevented-nuclear-war-earth
14 https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-17-some-philosophical-thoughts.html


https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2024/02/chapter-55-still-no-updat-e-i-started.html

Chapter 57: STOP PRESS: BRÜCKNER HAS SOME MATES ROUND FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY

From the plethora of nonsense news items emanating from the cloaca maxima of the British gutter press in recent weeks I singled out one which bore the hallmark of the desperate attempt to find anything to help secure the conviction of Christian Brückner for a crime which not only may he not have committed, but which may itself not have been committed in the first place.

As always it stems from the pen of Jon Clarke, owner, editor, publisher and journalist of and for the Olive Press.

It involves an ‘allegation’ that Brückner had a few mates round for a beer and a bite on his birthday 10 years ago.   This is said to be in some way of note, not to say reprehensible because his birthday was only a few weeks after his having been spoken to by the German Police about his movements and activities between 1/3/7 and 31/3/7.   Of which more later.

Why is this a strange story ?    Well. . .  it involves photographs of the alleged party.   And photos for which Clarke claims Copyright  [sic] in the written ‘photo byline’ or caption along the bottom of each of them
Let that sink in. 
And if it doesn’t do so immediately, let us remind ourselves of the law of copyright in a photograph.

UK
In the UK, the law on copyright provides that the author of the work (the photographer) is the owner of a picture they have taken (s11 Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988), unless they are an employee or there is some other agreement in place which affects ownership.  For example, if the photographer has signed an agreement which transfers the ownership of the photo to a third party. The fact that a celebrity is the focus of the photograph is irrelevant.


USA
US law is the same, as it is incidentally across most of the civilised world
When it comes to photography, United States law says that the photographer automatically receives the copyright of each an every photo he/she takes.
If you want legal ownership of a photo or other creation which is not yours originally, you can make arrangements.  If the creator/photographer is willing, you can can purchase the copyright.  This exchange will involve signing a contract for legal proof of the transfer


As a Spanish resident and professional publisher and experienced journalist Clarke, and/or of course his “amazing British law specialist REDACTED REDACTED in REDACTED who has got [him] out of plenty of scrapes”.  [Book p. 8 Kindle edition; p. iii print edition paperback] - will also be fully aware of The Royal Decree covering this exact point.
Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril, (in case they want to refresh their memories)


So unless Clarke himself took the Photo, or the other named person, one Rainer Burkhard [full name Rainer-Josef Burkhard - a fellow journalist  and therefore unlikely to have been at Brückner’s birthday party in 2013] took it and has signed a contract handing to or sharing the copyright with Clarke, that statement is simply untrue.  It is wrong.  And Clarke as a professional journalist of many years standing KNOWS or should know, that it is wrong and untrue.  In plain Anglo-Saxon English it is a LIE.   
In Clarke’s case of course - yet another lie.

But of course Clarke clearly wants to be paid extra for the photo, as he did for the ludicrous and hilarious photo of the “Secret compound”, which turned out to be a screenshot from Google Earth Street view, carefully cropped to exclude the large white print road name overlay, and the house and restaurant directly opposite,  but marked very clearly  “Image: Olive Press Spain”, and not “Image Google Earth” as it in fact was.
See chapter 40, “Anatomy of a Revelation” for details, and Appendix A for a précis of what he did last time we caught him at it.


Clarke has ‘form’ for this.   And no doubt claimed copyright in the stolen photo of Kidman and Law when he sold it for a Country House Ransom to the tabloids in the UK - though that photo can no longer be found for obvious reasons.

What it means in simple terms is that we can cheerfully ignore all such nonsense and print the photos here.

But then we come to the photos themselves.

One is in the Olive Press,  where Clarke reinforces his statement that this is Brückner with the text 
“The images give a rare glimpse into the 47-year-old paedophile’s private life and inner circle. 
They were taken at his own 37th birthday party at a rented kiosk he called home for four years – and just weeks after he was first questioned over his links to Maddie in November 2013. 
One photo shows him dressed in a striped tie and white shirt as he stands next to a spread of Iberian-inspired food – including Spanish tortilla.”

The photo shows Brückner (IF it is he) in a neatly ironed White shirt and a tie, standing next to a Black table with formal high-back black dining chairs, two tortillas españolas and an assortment of neatly presented and appetising finger foods on three oval platters.   A “rare glimpse” indeed into his private life.

Assuming this indeed is the occasion of his birthday then “Just weeks after” is correct.   It is actually a month. 4 weeks. He was invited for interview on 6/11/2013, and his date of birth is 7/12/76



[As the world knows the McCanns were celebrating just DAYS after they reported Madeleine missing, and were interviewed about it by the police, but so far as I know that photo has never been published in the Olive Press.   If I am wrong on that point I apologise in advance ]
 
The second photo is in the Mirror - and probably other syndicated tabloids who churn ordure.  
I lose the will to live after reading just one !

REF 6

It shows Brückner in a Black shirt, possibly polo style, wearing no visible tie, with friends sitting on different chairs round a White table, drinking from different beer bottles

Again Clarke unlawfully claims Copyright

And so on it goes.


They are all ripped off - screen shots - from a YouTube video published THREE YEARS AGO
This explains their grainy nature

The video was published by Der Spiegel TV to YouTube in June 2022
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifTRpSfz-g      is the link


The photos are to be found at 1:33-1:42, and 7:17 onwards

Here is a screen shot, a few seconds before the more tightly focused one captured by Clarke, showing the time stamp, and the fact that it was uploaded by DER SPIEGEL TV three and three-quarter years ago.

Translation of the header from the video
906,181 views Jun 17, 2020
For the past two weeks, SPIEGEL TV reporters Claas Meyer-Heuer and Thomas Heise have been researching the immediate environment of Christian Brückner, the alleged murderer of Maddeleine [sic] McCann. Now they have managed to meet one of his closest friends. They learnt from Björn R. that the missing Maddie had long been a topic of conversation among his friends. They also found out that there had been a blatant breakdown in the investigation. Exclusive information about the criminal life of Christian Brückner. 


(The question immediately arises  – Was Björn R. the photographer and owner of the copyright ?  And if so did he relinquish it to Der Spiegel TV ?)


It also shows more clearly the White table, black shirt and the white chairs with the blue coloured plastic or fabric back, of the low-back, bent metal and stacking design, totally different from the more formal black high-back dining chairs in the first photo.

It is fairly clear to all sensible and reasonable persons that the two photos are NOT of the same event, highly unlikely even to be in the same house or on the same day

What can we conclude ?

That Clarke has YET AGAIN taken screen shots of COPYRIGHT images, and illegally passed them off as his own, probably - almost certainly - for pecuniary advantage = financial gain,  and in order to do so has appended his name and his unlawful and wrongful claim to ownership of the copyright ? 
Or something else, which for the moment escapes me ?

What are the consequences of this ?
1 Most obviously we discover that Clarke loves to publish untruths, which by now is hardly a revelation.
Does he commit an offence by claiming Copyright which in law he does not possess ?
Indeed he might.
Infringement is usually treated as civil claim leading potentially to an award of damages against the infringer.
However, in certain circumstances, it can be prosecuted as a criminal offence, with fines, damages and even imprisonment awarded by a criminal court.
If found guilty of copyright infringement in a magistrate’s court, your business could be fined up to £50,000 and you could face a jail term of up to six months.
If the case reaches a Crown Court, fines can be unlimited and the maximum sentence up to ten years’ imprisonment.


It is submitted however that it is unlikely that a tabloid journalist in a foreign country is likely to be sued by whoever DID take the photos in question, since he, whoever it was, has clearly breached trust by putting them into the public domain and letting Der Spiegel TV publish them.

2 We reinforce our view with this further evidence that Clarke is an arrogant bully who sprinkles “copyright” and “Image: Olive Press Spain”  at random on plagiarised and “stolen” material to intimidate some and to acquire money from others.  This is wholly in line with his ridiculous threats to sue for libel anyone who avers that he WAS at the scene in PdL at 1045hrs on 4/5/7 - as he himself has said he was . . .   [ Yes – I know it makes no sense but I shall cover it again in the next chapter and try to see if any of us can fathom what he is talking about…],  and his ludicrous threats to me to face legal proceedings if I did not immediately remove details of his house and his children from something I had - allegedly - written.   With copies to his solicitors.    
I could not, because I had not.   

It is clear that Clarke had not bothered to read the article in question, and even more clear that neither had either of his solicitors, or they would have prevented his being humiliated by my reply.  As a matter of fact neither solicitor was professional enough to acknowledge receipt of my reply, which may indicate that they do not actually act for him in an official capacity at all, and their names may have been taken in vain and been sprinkled into the text of the threat in a vain attempt to intimidate.       
It failed. 

Nor in fact did his - then - wife reply.  She had, possibly unwillingly, been copied into the correspondence, but amendments to his personal Facebook Page to the effect that there is “No relationship info to show”, and the permanent closing of their lucrative luxury rental property some years ago may help to explain this.


3 Newspapers and Magazines pay extra for photographs to go with editorial copy.    A LOT extra.  It is therefore far more remunerative to send a photo or two, however they have been acquired.    But if that photo is not properly accredited, or, as in this case FALSELY accredited to the person sending it, using the specific words ‘Copyright’ or  “Image: Olive Press Spain”, it is arguable that an offence of Fraud, under s.2 Fraud Act 2006, (previously known as “Obtaining money by Deception”, s 15 Theft Act 1968)  has been committed against those publishers, and that they in turn have been exposed to suit for breach of the original and real copyright.


How this helps the case against Brückner, which Clarke seems to have made his most recent life’s ambition, is unclear.

FOOTNOTE:
The publications in question have been or are being made aware of the possibility that they may have been deceived and falsely charged for the publication of the photos, and that they in turn may therefore inadvertently have been guilty of publishing without proper and accurate accreditation.

REFERENCES

1  https://www.ipcareers.co.uk/profession-overview/who-owns-the-copyright-of-your-image

2 https://cramerimaging.com/copyright-ownership-vs-use-license

3 MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime"  (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.)

3A Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril,
https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-1996-8930

4 https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-40-anatomy-of-revelation.html

5 https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2024/02/11/revealed-how-madeleine-mccann-suspect-christian-brueckner-joked-that-the-british-toddler-was-in-his-basement-as-unearthed-photos-show-the-paedophile-enjoying-a-spanish-themed-birthday-party/

6 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/christian-b-partied-after-being-32107897

7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifTRpSfz-g

8 https://www.startuploans.co.uk/business-guidance/what-is-copyright-law

9 https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-50-february-2022-quiet-month.html

APPENDIX A
From Chapter 50
Olive Press Secret compound photo, with accreditation claim


Google earth Street view


Google earth street view of the road demolishing the “Secret Compound” absurdity


Overlay of Olive Press claimed photo and Google earth screen shot. 
Note the fruiting head of grass in the centre to confirm this is the original source, and was NOT taken by Clarke or the Olive Press