The McCann Team and the nuclear industry>>> Dr Gerald McCann and COMARE, Edward Smethurst and BNFL, Edward Smethurst's apartment in Praia da Luz

Tony Bennett wrote this article on 21 August 2015. It deals with possible links of Gerry McCann to Britain's nuclear industry. It was revised and updated by MMRG on 16 May 2019. 

The point of this post is simply to point to two possible sources of previous connections between the McCanns and the man who since May 2007 has been their 'co-ordinating solicitor - and since 2008 Director of Madeleine's Fund - senior Lancashire Freemason Edward Smethurst.

Most of the information below is known to longstanding members on CMOMM but for guests and those who have not seen all this put together before, l give the references below.

The involvement of Dr Gerald McCann in the nuclear industry watchdog COMARE has been well covered here and elsewhere. The forum-owner of UKJustice, 'John', brought this matter up again in three posts on his forum on 12 & 14 April 2014, these are reproduced below.

Edward Smethurst and BNFL

Less well-known is the long-term involvement of Edward Smethurst in the nuclear industry, from 1993 to 2000. He got his first 'real' job as a solicitor in the Legal Department at British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, Sellafiled, in 1993. Conveniently for Smethurst the Head of BFL's Legal Department at the time was Alvin Shuttleworth, another very senior Freemason in the Lancashire Province, who had effectively brought up and 'mentored' the teenage Smethurst after his father died in mysterious circumstances (see below). It is understood that Smethurst was primarily involved at BNFL in making sure that families living near BNFL whose children had contracted leukemia were denied their claims.

I've reported before on here that a thoroughly reliabe source informed me some years ago that Edward Smethurst had taken his annual holidays every year since 1999 in Praia da Luz, usually renting the same apartment each year.

The nuclear industry connections and the coincidence of Smethurst having had his summer holidays in Praia da Luz ever since 1999 (when he was 29) does rather make one query the claims that Dr Kate McCann made on page 268 of 'madeleine' (Hardback version). Here she wrote: "On Wednesday 12 September [2007] Gerry was contacted by Edward Smethurst, a commercial lawyer".

Her claim is that Brian Kennedy had heard about the McCanns' plight (having just been made arguidos on 7 September 2007) and wanted to help. So, so the story goes, he asked the McCanns, via his Latium company's in-house lawyer, Smethurst, in a phone call on Wednesday 2 September, to meet Kennedy in London two days later.

But when they got there that Friday [14 September], present were not only Kennedy and Smethurst, but a veritable battery of some of the nation's top lawyers. Staff from Control Risks Group were also present (though Kate doesn't name them). The meeting was held at Kingsley Napley's offices, and Angus McBride, one of their senior lawyers, evidently got up at the crack of dawn that morning - as Kate reports in her book that he drove up to Rothley in the early morning and then drove the McCanns down to London.  

I have always wondered if the McCanns, Brian Kennedy and Edward Smethurst had been acquainted before Madeleine's reported disappearance.    

Here are the references:

THE POSTS ON UK JUSTICE
   
Gerry McCann and his involvement with Government Quango COMARE in 2007

« on: April 12, 2014, 08:19:14 AM »

Quote

At the time of Madeleine's disappearance and in addition to being a cardiologist, Gerry McCann was a medical advisor to COMARE, a government committee which monitors radiation in the environment.  He was listed as a member of the Medical Practices Sub Committee.

His involvement is recorded in the COMARE 12th Report, a pdf copy of which is attached.

COMARE > Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment.

COMARE is an independent expert advisory committee with members chosen for their medical and scientific expertise and recruited from Universities, Research and Medical Institutes. Members have never been drawn from the Nuclear or Electrical Power Supply Industries.

The Committee offers independent advice to all Government Departments and Devolved Authorities, not just the Health Departments, and is responsible for assessing and advising them on the health effects of natural and man-made radiation. It is also asked to assess the adequacy of the available data and advise on the need for further research.

COMARE's terms of reference are "to assess and advise Government and the devolved authorities on the health effects of natural and man-made radiation and to assess the adequacy of the available data and the need for further research".

www.comare.org.uk/index.htm

 COMARE12thReport.pdf (549.8 kB - downloaded 201 times.)

To put the events into simple language, COMARE was set up by the Labour Government to look into claims about radiation emanating from nuclear power stations and electricity pylons.  It was also tasked with investigation medical scans and radiation. These issues were controversial so it was in the Governments interest to have reports which were sympathetic to their policies.

Gordon Brown became UK Prime Minister a few weeks after Madeleine's disappearance. In 2004 his younger brother Andrew joined French energy firm EDF Energy, as head of media relations, where as of 2011 he held the position of director of corporate communications. EDF were lobbying to build nuclear power stations in Britain (Hinkley Point) and Gordon Brown wanted to restart the nuclear power plant building programme in Britain. Brown's brother Andrew was associated with Gerry McCann through COMARE

Public relations firm Bell Pottinger represented both the McCanns and Mark Warner Holidays, who arranged that fateful holiday for the McCanns, their friends and others at the Ocean Club in the Portuguese holiday village of Praia da Luz that fateful week (28 April to 5 May 2007). 


Bell Pottinger also provided PR for the nuclear power industry, have close connections with New Labour (Tony Blair gave its Founder and CEO Tim Bell his peerage), have helped sell New Labour's unique vision of democracy in Iraq and and have been heavily involved with several of New Labour's disastrous IT schemes. [Bell Pottinger spectacularly collapsed in 2017 after an international scandal over its having deliberately lied on multiple occasions on behalf of senior South African political figures - MMRG].

These facts alone raise some interesting issues.

There has been much written about the involvement of the British government in the Madeleine McCann case with direct comparisons being made to other similar cases of British children who have disappeared while abroad.  Various reasons have been suggested for that involvement.

Was Gerry McCann's involvement with COMARE in the weeks before Madeleine's disappearance purely coincidental or was there a connection?

Was and is the British Ggvernment's unprecedented involvement in this case driven by issues other than those of simply investigating the case of a missing child?

Why was Brown and now Cameron so willing to spend £millions on this case while others such as Ben Needham get little support?  


[NOTE: The Ben Needham case DID eventually get huge government assistance, partly via South Yorkshire Police. This resulted in a verdict by South Yorkshire Police, after they sent a team to the Greek island of Cos at enormous expense, that Ben Needham had probably been run over by a digger-driver that day and left for dead or buried.


 That conclusion satisfied very few people. Ben was last reported to have left his mother's cottage on Kos on the motor-bike of his uncle, Stephen Needhm, aged 19. Under hypnosis, he gave significant indications that Ben Needham had had a fatal accident on his bike that afternoon and that he had covered up this fact - MMRG].





EDWARD SMETHURST AND BNFL

http://www.edwardsmethurst.co.uk/Home – Edward Smethurst

Edward Smethurst

Edward Smethurst Award Winning Manchester Solicitor

Edward started his career as a Litigation Solicitor in Manchester City Centre before moving in 1993 to work at British Nuclear Fuels Limited (“BNFL”). Edward spent 7 years working for BNFL specialising in high value litigation matters and contentious matters generally. During this time he also dealt extensively with Employment matters.

In 2000, Edward joined Ultraframe...

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http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/driven-to-succeed-948682

Driven to succeed

20:38, 18 April 2010

By Manchester Evening News

ON the eve of his 13th birthday tragedy struck Edward Smethurst. While the young boy was spending the night at his grandparents' house, fire swept through the home he shared with his father who died in the blaze.

His parents had divorced when Edward was six and, after the death of his father, he then went to live with his grandparents. However, his grandmother died a couple of years later and his grandfather had a stroke, leaving Edward to fend for himself. By the age of 16, he was living alone in bed and breakfast accommodation.

[PIC: Lawyer Edward Smethhurst with Latium in Wilmslow]

ON the eve of his 13th birthday tragedy struck Edward Smethurst. While the young boy was spending the night at his grandparents' house, fire swept through the home he shared with his father who died in the blaze.

His parents had divorced when Edward was six and, after the death of his father, he then went to live with his grandparents. However, his grandmother died a couple of years later and his grandfather had a stroke, leaving Edward to fend for himself. By the age of 16, he was living alone in bed and breakfast accommodation.

"I had an extremely hard childhood," he says. "The fire was devastating and as it was my 13th birthday, the story was on the front page of the Manchester Evening News and the Rochdale Observer.

"When my grandfather became ill, I had to live in a B&B for a couple of years. It was awful, but my father had wanted me to succeed and that spurred me on."

Against the odds and after many hours working in a butcher's shop to make ends meet, Edward passed his A levels and got a place at the University of Leeds to study law.

On his 18th birthday, he inherited a small sum from his father's estate and bought a terrace house in Rochdale, from where he commuted to Leeds while embarking on his first entrepreneurial venture - `wheeler dealing' in used cars and caravans, and investing the cash in more houses.

Building roots

Today, Edward's property portfolio consists of a number of working farms across Greater Manchester. He has a property lettings business in the Lake District and a small building firm that specialises in farm and barn conversions.

He is also a highly-respected lawyer who works as legal director at entrepreneur Brian Kennedy's Latium Group. Mr Kennedy is the main backer of Kate and Gerry McCann in the fight to find their daughter Madeleine. As the family's legal co-ordinator, Edward played a pivotal role in securing £550,000 in libel damages from Express Newspapers. He also directs the legal teams in the UK and and runs a team of private investigators searching for Madeleine.

Edward says: "My role is to oversee the teams. I am not a libel lawyer and left that to the team from Carter-Ruck who secured a huge settlement as well as an unprecedented front page apology after the newspapers printed highly defamatory articles about Gerry and Kate McCann. I am also on the board of the Madeleine Fund - No Stone Unturned. It is an extremely high profile case and every effort is being made to find Madeleine."

He is also an ambassador for Cancer Research in the north west and UK representative for the European Company Lawyers Association, playing an instrumental role in bringing the organisation's annual conference to Manchester this month.

All this is on top of his day job. "It has been very long hours recently, but I like to do as many good things as I can."

After graduating from Leeds with a 2:1, Edward completed his law exams at Manchester Metropolitan University then joined Manchester law firm Halliwells where he specialised in commercial litigation.

An eye for business

At the age of 23, he joined the in-house legal team at British Nuclear Fuels Limited. By then, Edward's fledgling property development venture was a successful enterprise, and he was keen to learn more about business. He says: "I felt that I was both an entrepreneur as well as lawyer, so it seemed the logical move."

As a commercial litigator for BNFL, Edward travelled the world dealing primarily with shipping litigation. "My work took to me Japan, America, South Africa and even Panama where I dealt with attempts to halt nuclear shipments from various pressure groups."

Edward spent seven years at BNFL, working his way up to senior legal adviser, but he had aspirations to join a plc board by the time he was 30 and fulfilled that when he joined Clitheroe-based conservatory maker Ultraframe in 2000.

In 2006, the group was bought by Brian Kennedy in a £58m deal, and Edward was the only one of the 13 directors to be kept on.

While his sideline in property development has been "a lot more lucrative" than his law career, he still has ambitions in the corporate world.

"The events in my childhood gave me a strong work ethic as well as a huge amount of motivation to fulfil my father's desire that I succeed in life."


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After working in a butcher's shop to make ends meet, he defied all the odds to qualify as a lawyer, starting his first job in Manchester, at what became Halliwells, as a commercial litigator.

He later joined the British Nuclear Fuels Limited as an in-house lawyer while also starting his own property investment company.

He now owns a portfolio of houses and a number of working farms across Greater Manchester.

Despite the tragedies earlier in his life Edward, who has also chaired the Law Society's Commerce & Industry Group North West for the last 18 years, was sure of one thing: that whatever he put his mind to, he was going to succeed. His drive and determination and commitment to the legal sector earned the 43-year-old the honour at last week's awards.

Edward said: “After losing my dad, I have come a long way in my life and especially in my career. “I come from quite a humble background, I've got a strong work ethic and, ultimately my hard beginning in life has been the driving force behind my success.

"To receive the award at a relatively young age of 43 is very humbling. “It was a total surprise and very very special, particularly as it was voted on by the members of the Manchester Law Society.”

Edward is also committed to his charitable work. He is a fund-raising ambassador for Cancer Research and has played a key role in Kate and Gerry McCann's quest to find their daughter, Madeleine. He is the family's legal co-ordinator and chairs the Madeleine's Trust – No Stone Left Unturned company.

Edward is the chairman and founder of Palladium Associates, a risk consultancy business whose clients include Barclays, Bank of Ireland and Eversheds. He is also the chairman of Prosperity International Sports Management, which represents footballers, both national and international, as well as Olympic athletes.

As well as running those businesses, which he launched in Rochdale's Ashworth Valley district two years ago, he acts as their in-house lawyer.

He said: “In-house lawyers represent at least 20 per cent of the profession. I started my career as an in-house lawyer at BNFL before joining the Latium Group, where I worked with Brian Kennedy and still represent him.” As for the future, Edward has no plans to slow down.

“I want to carry on developing Palladium and Prosperity. For me it's not all about money - it's about trying to do the best that you can.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/business/professionals/s/1487632_winner-humbled-to-receive-achievement-award-at-manchester-legal-awards


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