Robert Murat wins slander case as Kate McCann visits Luz

http://theportugalnews.com/news/robert-murat-wins-slander-case-as-kate-mccann-visits-luz/28371

Robert Murat wins slander case as Kate McCann visits Luz

by Brendan de Beer, in General · 09-05-2013 10:23:00 · 0 Comments

A Lisbon court has ruled national daily Correio da Manhã pay a total of 15,000 euros to Robert Murat who was dragged into the case of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann after volunteering to act as a translator between Portuguese authorities and the McCanns.

In its judgment, the court found that publishing false allegations such as “Robert Murat is a predator who visits sites containing sexual violence” was not in the public interests and infringed upon his rights.
The newspaper frequently quoted anonymous police sources and alleged leaks by investigators in their coverage of the case to substantiate its claims.
“This is the 33-year old Englishman police believe dragged little Maddie from the bed in which she was sleeping up to the house where he lives with his mother”, the newspaper wrote in May 2007 shortly after Mr. Murat was declared a person of interest or arguido and questioned by police in a marathon 19-hour-long interrogation session in Portimão.
Following these and several other extraordinary statements as to his alleged personality and behavioural traits, Mr. Murat was forced to regularly wear a disguise when going out in public, all the while receiving threatening telephone calls and letters.
His real estate business was ruined as a result of the negative publicity, though he has since managed to set up a successful computer business in the Algarve.
Back in 2008, Robert Murat received 757,000 euros in damages from a number of British newspapers for false allegations they published. Amongst them were the Sunday Express, to which Robert Murat gave an exclusive interview last Sunday which was published on their front page under the headline, ‘Bring Them All Back to Portugal’. This was a call made in reference to Kate and Gerry McCann and the remainder of the so-called Tapas 9 coming to the country to carry out a reconscontruction of events leading up to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Kate McCann this week visited the Algarve.
One of her first visits was to the Nossa Senhora da Luz church to pray and light candles.
Sources close to the family said “she will spend a few days in Praia da Luz. She feels close to Madeleine there.
“It is a private trip alone, away from the spotlight, and a time for quiet reflection. She still has a lot of friends there”, the source was quoted as telling the Daily Mirror.
In a post on the findmadeleine.com site, Kate McCann confided that “it’s difficult to know what to write as each year passes, still without news of Madeleine. In many ways, nothing’s changed. We still worry about her, we miss her as much as we ever did, we remain as determined as ever to find her and to know what has happened.”
She praised the “significant progress” over the last year in the work of the Metropolitan Police and said the family remains greatly encouraged by their work and the many things they have managed to uncover so far.
“We continue to hope and pray that the Met working with the Portuguese Authorities will lead to a significant breakthrough. We need to find Madeleine and bring some peace to our family.”

“It is a private trip alone, away from the spotlight, and a time for quiet reflection. She still has a lot of friends there”, the source was quoted as telling the Daily Mirror.

So she claimed, but none of her "so called friends" has come out to speak up for her so far.

More importantly, the AG when shelving the case said they had no friends there and were not familiar with the terrain, implying their alleged criminal activities would have been impossible to have been carried out so effectively without knowledge and help.

Kate has now put her foot in mouth, proving the AG was wrong.
She's now publicly (through their source likely to be Pinky or maybe even Mr or Mrs themselves) admitting to the Press she did have friends there and LOTS of them as well.
Maybe the AG should review his deliberations, and ask Kate to list all her friends there and start interviewing each and every one of them.

Kate cant have it both ways - either she has plenty of friends there supporting her or she lied.

The Camerons (Sandy and Trish) had friends in the Algarve who lent them a car as from the 5th of May. So the family I presume had friends there as well, likely expats as one would not go on holiday with two cars.
What with four golf courses in the vicinity but Gerry not once having mentioned golf but firmly pointed us to tennis, tennis and errm tennis. Yet in the book we are told Gerry'd been a few times to Portugal to play golf.
What's more natural than to return to a place where you've had a short holiday, which you know to have good golf courses and a mid-price holiday resort close by? Not a whisper.

The Algarve is known as 'little Britain', the helpful John GeriatrixGeraghty lives there, I believe a member of the Ltd.Co. board has or had a holiday flat there and yet they knew no-one?

KM seems to be changeing track, imo hanging on the coat tails of April Jones, the three woman who have turned up in Ohio, giving her hope Madeleine will be found. If she had wanted the visit to be private it would have been, she has allowed the leak of her visit to be known, so no suprise there same old Kate craving attention.

Did she do the same last year and the prievious years?

tigger wrote:The Camerons (Sandy and Trish) had friends in the Algarve who lent them a car as from the 5th of May. So the family I presume had friends there as well, likely expats as one would not go on holiday with two cars.
What with four golf courses in the vicinity but Gerry not once having mentioned golf but firmly pointed us to tennis, tennis and errm tennis. Yet in the book we are told Gerry'd been a few times to Portugal to play golf.
What's more natural than to return to a place where you've had a short holiday, which you know to have good golf courses and a mid-price holiday resort close by? Not a whisper.

The Algarve is known as 'little Britain', the helpful John GeriatrixGeraghty lives there, I believe a member of the Ltd.Co. board has or had a holiday flat there and yet they knew no-one?

Do you mean the fund? Don't think Geraghty is a member of the board is he tigger?

I took that to mean Edward Smethurst. He became a director in January 2008, having supposedly only met the McCanns the previous September, if I recall correctly.

Ugh; while checking this out, I stumbled onto the Stop The Myths site!

aiyoyo wrote:

“It is a private trip alone, away from the spotlight, and a time for quiet reflection. She still has a lot of friends there”, the source was quoted as telling the Daily Mirror.

So she claimed, but none of her "so called friends" has come out to speak up for her so far.

More importantly, the AG when shelving the case said they had no friends there and were not familiar with the terrain, implying their alleged criminal activities would have been impossible to have been carried out so effectively without knowledge and help.

Kate has now put her foot in mouth, proving the AG was wrong.
She's now publicly (through their source likely to be Pinky or maybe even Mr or Mrs themselves) admitting to the Press she did have friends there and LOTS of them as well.
Maybe the AG should review his deliberations, and ask Kate to list all her friends there and start interviewing each and every one of them.

Kate cant have it both ways - either she has plenty of friends there supporting her or she lied.

The only "friend" we've been allowed to see had to fly all the way from Canada to be with her.

Perhaps Kate befriended locals and ex-pats in the aftermath of the abduction and during her months there until return home. Given what was going on, I doubt this was socialising, she probably has met a few people living there who have become supporters and see her when she visits. They are entitled to their privacy if they want to avoid media glare accompanying Kate,

I'm not aware that an abduction has been proven. Just saying.

Was giving the basis for Kate having made friends out there. I doubt that she would have made any had they been told what we believe is the truth !

russiandoll wrote:Perhaps Kate befriended locals and ex-pats in the aftermath of the abduction and during her months there until return home. Given what was going on, I doubt this was socialising, she probably has met a few people living there who have become supporters and see her when she visits. They are entitled to their privacy if they want to avoid media glare accompanying Kate,

If ex-pats there befriended her post the incident, then IMO that kind of friendship would have been transitionary and lost after the Mccanns were made suspects and fled home.

Moreover the locals there were anti-mccanns blaming them for spoiling their quaint little village with their pulp fiction.
Ex-pats there were not bombarded with constant pinky spun, plus living in PDL meant they would have been aware of the locals sentiment, perhaps also shared the same sentiment, meaning skeptical of the mccanns' story, and probably hating what they did to Amaral.

I doubt Kate has any real friends there, at least not that sort she can rely on for blind support, unless she counts Isabel Duarte as friend. JMO anyway.

candyfloss wrote:

tigger wrote:The Camerons (Sandy and Trish) had friends in the Algarve who lent them a car as from the 5th of May. So the family I presume had friends there as well, likely expats as one would not go on holiday with two cars.
What with four golf courses in the vicinity but Gerry not once having mentioned golf but firmly pointed us to tennis, tennis and errm tennis. Yet in the book we are told Gerry'd been a few times to Portugal to play golf.
What's more natural than to return to a place where you've had a short holiday, which you know to have good golf courses and a mid-price holiday resort close by? Not a whisper.

The Algarve is known as 'little Britain', the helpful John GeriatrixGeraghty lives there, I believe a member of the Ltd.Co. board has or had a holiday flat there and yet they knew no-one?

Do you mean the fund? Don't think Geraghty is a member of the board is he tigger?

No I didn't mean Geraghty who had or has a holiday flat there. I know he lives there and was very helpful (although he didn't know them before) in obtaining the church key (I believe) and in returning the Renault to the garage in September 07 after they'd left.

Did the Tannerl/Murat slander/libel case ever go ahead? Not heard anything about that for ages.

The parts quoted below should not be ignored imo, [ underlining is mine]

"the court found that publishing false allegations such as
“Robert Murat is a predator who visits sites containing sexual violence”
was not in the public interests and infringed upon his rights.
The
newspaper frequently quoted anonymous police sources and alleged leaks
by investigators in their coverage of the case to substantiate its
claims.

...the newspaper wrote in May 2007 shortly
after Mr. Murat was declared a person of interest or arguido and
questioned by police in a marathon 19-hour-long interrogation session in
Portimão. "

So, the court has pronounced its judgment. It has to be an either or situation by the looks of it. Either the person making the statement to police about Mr Murat decided to go to the media shortly afterwards with his salacious pronouncements on Murat's sexual tastes and behaviour, or the allegations of police leaking the information to the press were true.

What do people think happened here?