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Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Mm11

Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Regist10
The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann™
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Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Mm11

Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Regist10

Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport

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Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Empty Submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport

Post by sharonl 22.04.19 19:39

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmcumeds/memo/press/ucps3802.htm

Memorandum submitted by The Madeleine Foundation

Executive Summary

The Madeleine McCann case has been unique. It would be unwise to change existing media procedures based just on this one case. Different considerations apply to the libel of Robert Murat and to the alleged libel of the McCanns.



'Abduction' has frequently been claimed by parents of young children when it later turns out that he child has died and the parents are responsible, whether the child has died as the result of an accident, negligence, neglect or deliberate act. It is important that the media are able to engage in reasonable and fair discussion of the weaknesses of any particular claim of abduction, without fearing the consequences of a possible expensive libel action.




1. The Madeleine Foundation welcomes the opportunity to comment to the Select Committee on issues of privacy, libel and the Press Complaints Commission's role, whilst at the same time believing that the Madeleine McCann case is unique and deserves special consideration in its own right.



2. We wish to offer observations and comments on the following matters on which you are seeking views:

(a) Why the self-regulatory regime was not used in the McCann case, why the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has not invoked its own inquiry and what changes news organisations themselves have made in the light of the case;

(b) Whether the successful action against the Daily Express and others for libel in the McCann case indicates a serious weakness with the self-regulatory regime;

(c) The interaction between the operation and effect of UK libel laws and press reporting;

(d) The observance and enforcement of contempt of court laws with respect to press reporting of investigations and trials, particularly given the expansion of the Internet;

(e) What effect the European Convention on Human Rights has had on the courts' views on the right to privacy as against press freedom;

(f) Whether financial penalties for libel or invasion of privacy, applied either by the courts or by a self-regulatory body, might be exemplary rather than compensatory; and

(g) Whether, in the light of recent court rulings, the balance between press freedom and personal privacy is the right one.



3. Given our area of interest, we shall focus on (a), (b) and (c). The Madeleine Foundation was formed at a public meeting in January 2008. Our aims can be viewed on our website: www.madeleinefoundation.org. We campaign on the obvious child neglect issues raised by the Madeleine McCann case - and seek to assist in finding out what really happened to Madeleine McCann. To this end, our Secretary Mr Tony Bennett has written a book on the case: "What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann? - 60 Reasons which suggest she was not abducted". Reference will be made to passages of that book in this submission. A copy of the book accompanies this submission and we will supply a copy to each member of the Select Committee if required.



The truth about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and how that truth will shape the conclusions of the Select Committee



4. We cannot begin to discuss the role of the libel laws and the Press Complaints Commission in a case such as that of the 'disappearance' of Madeleine McCann unless we first take account of the context. Supremely, that context involves recognising that there are two very opposing views of what really happened to Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz in May 2007. We shall set out those two views in a moment.



5. We would suggest that a major function of the reporting news media - radio, TV and newspapers - is to give us the facts, the truth - allowing us to draw our own conclusions. It is often said, however, of certain newspapers, that they 'don't let the facts get in the way of a good story'. And in the context of newspapers losing sales to the internet, and TV-viewers switching to the internet for news, the pressure to increase sales or viewers, and 'tell a good story' at the expense of staying true to the facts, is growing stronger.



6. The Press Complaints Commission's primary role is to ensure 'fair' and 'accurate' reporting, as its Code provides. This, we acknowledge, is a particularly difficult task when a factual issue is hotly contested and also becomes one of worldwide media interest, as was - and remains - the case, with the Madeleine McCann mystery. Here, then, is a summary of the two main views on the case, with a brief look at who supports each view.



Viewpoint A: Madeleine McCann was abducted at round about 9.15pm on Thursday 3 May while her parents and their friends were dining at a Tapas bar 120 yards away



7. This has been the claim of the McCanns from their first announcement that Madeleine had been abducted at around 10.00pm on Thursday 3rd May 2007. The 'fact' of the abduction was put into the media with lightning speed. The Daily Telegraph had an online article, reporting the 'fact' of the abduction, filed at 00.01am on Friday 4th May. TV and press reports giving details of how and when Madeleine was supposed to have been abducted circulated and multiplied rapidly.



8. During the course of 2007 it became clear that the McCanns were claiming the abduction took place at around 9.15pm on 3rd May 2007. In September 2007 Dr Gerry McCann - as several papers reported - publicly suggested that the abductor might have been in the apartment with him as he was checking the children between 9.05pm and 9.10pm. What we claim is the weakness of the evidence for the abduction is the focus of our booklet: "What Really happened to Madeleine McCann" and the Committee is respectfully referred to the facts and arguments there.



9. Those who hold that Madeleine was abducted view all discussion of an alternative view with hostility. The McCanns' press spokesman Clarence Mitchell, together with unnamed legal 'sources' who advise the McCanns, have characterised such views as 'libellous'. They have gone further and described the original senior investigator in the case, Snr Goncalo Amaral, as guilty of deliberately attempting to smear them, and to fabricate evidence against them, whilst at the same time failing to conduct a proper search for the alleged abductor.



Viewpoint B: Madeleine McCann died in Apartment 5A some time before the evening of 3rd May (for reasons that no-one can yet be sure about) and that the McCanns and some of their friends have helped to cover this up by removing and hiding the body



10. This, crucially, was the clear view of the Senior Investigating Officer, Snr Goncalo Amaral, who directed the investigation until removed from it on 2 October 2007. It was also the view of his team. We shall say more about the circumstances of Snr Amaral's removal from the investigation and how he himself has been treated by the British media in a moment.



11a. Leicestershire Police in conjunction with the Portuguese Police made a joint decision to call in the services of the cadaver dog-handler, Martin Grime. Uniquely in a case such as this, due to Portuguese laws which now allow the publication of selected material from a police investigation when an investigation is suspended, videos of these dogs in action, allegedly scenting the smell of a corpse in nine different locations, can be viewed on many websites and have been seen by hundreds of thousands already.



11b. The blood-hound Keela also alerted to blood in several of the same locations. The Sun newspaper published a link to the 'cadaver dog videos' on its internet edition. Other newspapers have since done so. The cadaver dog evidence is discussed on pages 6-9 of our booklet. Given the claim by the dog-handler and his senior officer, Mark Harrison, that the cadaver dog Eddie who detects the smell of human corpses had never once given a false positive in 200 previous outings, it was scarcely surprising that the British media sought to give prominence to the dogs' findings. They should not be criticised for that.



12. We admit that if viewpoint 'B' above is true, it necessarily follows that the McCanns have been trying to deceive us all about what really happened. It is a sad fact, as we explain in the very first section of our booklet, that in many cases over the years, parents of 'missing' young children have claimed abduction, only for the truth later to emerge that they themselves were in some way responsible for the child having died, whether by accident, neglect, negligence or deliberate act. We list many such examples.



A summary of media coverage of the Madeleine McCann case



13. Before going on to discuss the implications of the media coverage, and the libel actions, the implications on all of that for free speech and a free press, and before presenting our recommendations, we will review, chronologically, the main elements of the media reporting of the case:



14. Phase 1 - May to July 2007: Massive coverage of the search for Madeleine; huge coverage of the McCanns' visits to the Pope, the White House, Morocco, Germany etc.; acres of newsprint about new alleged 'sightings' of Madeleine in many countries; some interviews with the McCanns; little coverage of the child neglect aspects of the case; much coverage of the activities of abductors with liberal references to 'gangs of paedophiles', 'international networks of paedophiles and child traffickers' etc.; many references to Robert Murat behaving 'suspiciously' and to him being made an 'arguido'



15. Phase 2: August 2007 to February 2008: First doubts about the McCanns' abduction claim surfaced at a press conference in Germany in June. Doubts grew as the press in Portugal and Spain in particular reported on leaks from the Portuguese Police about such issues as DNA and the scent of death allegedly found at the McCanns' apartment and in the hired Renault Scenic. There was huge reporting of the McCanns being made suspects, and lengthy interviews with the McCanns, their content being tightly controlled by the McCanns' PR team, Clarence Mitchell for example laying down a condition that they would require a minimum of two hours' notice of all questions. Many more reports of 'sightings' followed, including massive coverage on nearly all front pages of a blonde girl being carried on the back of a Moroccan peasant, later proved to have been her own child. Attacks on the 'sacked' and 'disgraced' Snr Amaral built up as he was accused of having beaten a confession out of Leonor Cipriano in 2004 (In September 2005, Ms Cipriano, along with her brother, were both convicted of the murder of her 8-year-old daughter Joana, having initially claimed that she had been 'abducted'). A one-hour Panorama documentary on the case on 19 November 2007 discussed the case but the lead interviewer, Richard Bilton, did not probe or test the claim of abduction. It should be noted here that at the time Madeleine 'disappeared', the McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, held the post of Head of the Media Monitoring Unit for the Central Office of Information, and was therefore close to the very heart of the government's 'spin' operations.



16. Phase 3: March to July 2008: More reported 'sightings'. The first of three sets of libel proceedings was concluded, with huge awards being agreed by the defendant newspapers, in turn, to the McCanns, to Robert Murat, and finally to the friends of the McCanns, known popularly as the 'Tapas 7'. On 19 March, the press announced that the McCanns had agreed �500,000 libel damages; on 17 July Robert Murat settled for �550,000 (and two others, Sergei Malinka and Micahela Walczuch, were said to have settled for �200,000 between them). Finally the 'Tapas' 7' settled for a further �375,000 on 15 October. The first of these awards - to the McCanns - unquestionably put an end to speculative stories about the McCanns' possible involvement in the death of Madeleine and/or in a cover-up of her death.



17. These massive libel awards contributed towards the process of ending all debate in the mainstream media on how Madeleine McCann went missing. Then in July 2008 came the announcement by the Portuguese judicial authorities that there was 'insufficient evidence' to charge anyone with a crime. If she had been abducted, the abductor had not been identified and there were no leads on him. If Madeleine had died in Apartment 5A, for which there had seemed to be at least a good range of circumstantial evidence, then there was not enough forensic evidence to lay charges, whether for causing or allowing the death of a child, preventing an inquest, or perhaps perverting or interfering with the course of justice.



18. Phase 4: August to December 2008: The suspension of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance meant that interest in the story plummeted. There is no real sense that the police are likely to, or even want to, turn up new evidence. Yet, arguably, some of the most sensational evidence in the case has now been made publicly available, namely with the systematic release by the Portuguese police of large chunks of the evidence collected by the police in the case - something which of course could not happen in the U.K., as the integrity and confidentiality of an investigation is normally stoutly protected e.g. by exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000.



Evidence that Madeleine was not abducted



19. For those who may not be aware of it, thousands of pages of evidence and exhibits on the case have now been disclosed by the Portuguese police. They include dozens of witness statements, including those by the McCanns and their friends, from we say it is possible for example to identify significant contradictions and changes of story.All of this evidence has been placed on several of what might be termed 'McCann-sceptic' internet forums, the leading one of which, for over a year, has been 'The 3 Arguidos'. Here, videos can be viewed, original documents in Portuguese are being translated, and the evidence discussed. The 3 Arguidos, incidentally, has as its strap-line: "Because we do not believe in our press!", and many contributors on that site explain how they have ceased to buy British newspapers because they are offering no discussion whatsoever of the evidence that Madeleine was not abducted.



20. In addition to all of that, we have a very comprehensive book by Snr Goncalo Amaral titled 'La Verdada de Mentira' ('The Truth about a Lie'), in which he gives an investigator's-eye view of the evidence and presents a convincing case that Madeleine McCann died in Apartment 5A (probably as the result of an accident, he says) and that the McCanns did indeed cover up her death. His first print-run of 200,000 copies has already sold out in Portugal and been translated into German, Danish and Norwegian. It is being translated into several other languages and English translations are available on the Internet. There is widespread discussion of its contents on the continent. But not in the U.K.



The impact of the libel awards on freedom of the press and free speech



21. This is what Mr Justice Eady said when announcing, in the High Court, the decision of Express Newspapers to agree to pay �550,000 damages to the McCanns:



"The general theme of the articles was to suggest that Mr and Mrs McCann were responsible for the death of Madeleine, or that there were strong or reasonable grounds for so suspecting, and that they had then disposed of her body; and that they had then conspired to cover up their actions, including by creating 'diversions' to divert the police's attention away from evidence which would expose their guilt. Many of these articles were published on the front pages of the newspapers and on their websites, accompanied by sensational headlines".



22. Because of that libel award, and the other two, there is a reluctance to even discuss the mystery of Madeleine's disappearance. There appear to be - we say contrary to the evidence - a general acceptance by the mainstream media that she was abducted, though we note that many newspapers take care to use phrases such as 'disappeared', 'went missing' or 'reported missing', rather than 'abducted'. Discussion of the evidence emerging from the Portuguese police files has thus been stifled. On October 26, The People ran a short piece referring to The Madeleine Foundation's website. It ran:



McCanns fury over 'neglect'

Exclusive by Marc Baker -- 26 October 2008



Missing Maddie McCann's furious parents have vowed to sue a lawyer who suggests they are guilty of child neglect. Anthony Bennett, 61, is urging the Government to bring in a "Madeleine's Law" making it a criminal offence to leave children under 12 on their own. His website attacks doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41, over the disappearance of Maddie, now five, from their holiday flat in Portugal last year. McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Our lawyers are watching him. They are constantly monitoring his claims, which we consider are libellous." A legal source close to the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, said: "They are more than annoyed and deeply offended. They say enough is enough. All they are trying to do is get their daughter back."
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