Court orders libel payout for McCanns

[Raptor]

Madeleine McCann's parents win libel payout



Madeleine McCann investigation

A Portuguese court has awarded the parents of missing Madeleine McCann damages of £357,000 after a libel case.


Kate and Gerry McCann sued ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral, who led the search for their daughter, following claims he made about them in his book.


Mr Amaral, who claimed the McCanns faked Madeleine's abduction, must also pay interest in excess of £70,000.


Madeleine went missing in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz in 2007, aged three.




The former police officer can appeal against the ruling.


In his book - The Truth Of The Lie - Mr Amaral alleged Madeleine had died in the family's holiday apartment in the Algarve, and that her parents had simulated her abduction and hidden her body.


The McCanns, from Rothley in Leicestershire, said the claims exacerbated their anguish and discouraged people from coming forward with information after Madeleine disappeared.

<figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"></figure><figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"><figcaption class="media-caption">

Kate and Gerry McCann pictured at the libel trial in Lisbon last year </figcaption></figure>Mr Amaral, who initially headed the inquiry into Madeleine's disappearance, was taken off the case in October 2007.


His book, published in 2008, has been a bestseller in Portugal.


The McCanns were originally seeking 1.25m euros (almost £900,000) in damages from Mr Amaral, his publisher and a company that produced a documentary based on his book.
During the trial, Mrs McCann told the court that when she had first found out about the allegations she was "quite desperate because of the injustice I felt towards my daughter and our family as a whole".

"It was very painful to read and I also felt anxious and fearful because of the damage I felt it was doing here in Portugal," she said.

<figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"></figure><figure class="media-landscape full-width has-caption"> <figcaption class="media-caption">

The McCanns sued Mr Amaral following claims he made in his 2008 book, The Truth Of The Lie </figcaption></figure>Portuguese authorities dropped their investigation into Madeleine's disappearance in 2008, but Scotland Yard started a review in May 2011, after Prime Minister David Cameron responded to a plea from the McCanns.


In 2013, the Met Police opened a formal investigation, known as Operation Grange, which remains ongoing.


In June 2014 police officers used dogs to search several sites in the Praia de Luz resort, as well as "ground penetrating radar" to look for disturbed earth, but their searches did not yield any results.



BBC News

[piggzy]

If this copper was so bad the judge should have said so were the poor girls shitty parents and ordered the money be paid into some childrens charity.
They don't deserve a penny imho! How many millions have they already costs the system in the UK and Portugal ???

[consoles]

Think if you had a child abducted you would see it in a dif light.

[piggzy]

You don't think they were neglectful ????

Would never have left my children like they did to have Tapas and Wine ..... I would want my children there enjoying the sun and good food with me !!!

[darkstar]

Think if you had a child abducted you would see it in a dif light.

abducted or killed bye the parents ?? It was the chief policeman making the accusations not just some bloke on the street ..

i dont one know for sure what happend but I do know the maccans have made a mint out of this

[DJ OD]

Fucking scammers.

(Thats all of them BTW, cunt that wrote a book to mince some cash and the mc'can world tour crew.)


DJ OD

[Over Carl]

Think if you had a child abducted you would see it in a dif light.

Even thought I've never met you irl, I am quite certain you wouldn't leave your kids (if applicable) prone to being abducted so you could have dinner and drinks away from them. I also suspect if you had they cash the had, that you may even actually consider doing exactly what the McCanns with, but using a crèche or babysitter.

As mentioned in another thread, if a child dies in tragic circumstances to a poor/badly educated family it will be jumped on as abuse. However if the families tend upwards of middle class, we should ignore that they may be less well educated then the poor/uneducated family to the consequence of bad decisions, and we are meant to ignore that they could easily have spent money to prevent the problem - money that many poorer couples often somehow struggle and find.

Bottom line - either all child tragedies are open season and we should stop investigating child deaths. Or we do it properly with no preferential treatment for anyone, especially those who were in much better positions to avoid the whole problem.

In addition with regards to the McCanns, while it is disputed who took Maddie, it is undisputed they neglected their children which led to this tragedy. As their child neglect facilitated their book, shouldn't POCA be applied to seize these funds that the McCanns have only managed to make as a result of their crime?

[TJB]

i dont one know for sure what happend but I do know the maccans have made a mint out of this

And they have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives.

They should never have left the kids alone. Any one of them could have just wandered off before they were taken. Why the hell they didn't take their kids and let them fall asleep in their buggys I will never know.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[blacksheep]

Whatever happened, in effect, they killed the child either by neglect/leaving her alone or at their own hands - surely they should be up for manslaughter at least?

[Squizza]

I won't leave my child out of my sight in the house! I would never even pop next door to the Neighbours to collect a parcel or drop something off if no one else was in the house with him when he is in bed..
Educated people do not do what they did. Totally irresponsible to leave your children 'home alone' whilst enjoying yourself.

What is different to this scenario to others were children have been left at home whilst parents go on the lash? The McCanns appear to have avoided what usually happens to those people.

15 month Jail Sentence : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ome-alone.html
(USA) Charged with neglect, children taken from her: http://www.wesh.com/news/mother-leav...e-say/32175906
6 month suspended sentence, children living with Grandparents now: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...Australia.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...every-day.html

[piggzy]

I think they got away with it because it happened on foreign soil. Had it happened in this country I think social would have had something to say. Perhaps a bit of a grey area in our bureaucracy ?

Perhaps because of all the media attention our authorities stepped back in case of negative backlash.

In my mind they should be punished because it only serves to send out the wrong message to all the chavs over here. "It's fine to leave your kids at home and go on the lash. There will be no bollocking if it goes pete tong!"

[Squizza]

I cannot help but to think 'money' is involved...

In the UK we love a good gossip.. Look at the rubbish they sell in the Newsagents - Hello, Chat, Bella etc... newspapers have also printed nothing but trash for as long as I can remember.. The Sunday Sport looks like a serious paper when you scan through them all now.

So, going back to 'money' - The tabloids and other media outlets have made a killing out of this story over the years and continue to do so. I always find it suspicious when some stories hit the national/international press where as others struggle to make the local news. Someone must have been behind getting them to 'sell' the story early in exchange for some sort of protection...

Does anyone else feel that she will be 'found' in the next few years to keep the drama going?

[piggzy]

In my mind she's 'brown bread'. Doubt they will ever find out the truth.

[DavidF]

I remember reading Owen Jones 1st book "Chavs" and he described the media reaction to the disappearances of the two children Maddie McCann and also Shannon Matthews. Now knowing the "facts" of both cases as we do now we can all say "Well it was obvious that the Mattews kid was due to a demented family" but when the news broke we did't know what had happened.
Remember Maddie - What was it ? About £100k reward if memory serves me correct, Compared to £5k for Matthews kid. One child according to our media was worth more of a reward than the other.
Also on the back of the Matthews kid incident I also recall the leader of the opposition one David Cameron stating that the Matthews kid abduction was a sign of an underclass in "broken Britain", References made to families having spent a lifetime on benefits and this having been a cause of this underclass where everyone abuses their kids.....Completely making a political and ideological statement on the back of one family having abducted their kid !!
Did we hear anything about the broken middle classes due to the McCanns case ? Nope we got treated to endless interviews sponsors throwing cash into the maddie fund, Celebrities helping out ect ect ect....all very noble and for a good cause.....But no stigma, Nothing. The only difference between the two cases is we don't know what happened to Maddie - It could be that her "family" are actually more "bad" than the Matthews turned out to be. We know the doc gave the kids some sort of sedative to "relax" them before they went out. Wonder what the reaction would be if it had been a family from a council estate on holiday in benidorm giving their kids the same sedatives ?

[DJ OD]

Don't get me started on this shit.

Ive aired my views on the McCann's here in the past, feel free to search lol

They are guilty as sin and got away with it all, and to make matters worse they profited from it. No matter how they dressed it up...


DJ OD

[Over Carl]

Rather than talk about this specific case, I'm going to talk about a couple of other things.

For instance get caught drink driving, and you will get banned as you are risking other peoples lives. However if you actually kill someone behind the wheel while pissed it is obvious the sentences will be a whole league above as it was no longer hypothetically risking people's lives, but doing so and actually causing the worst kind of damage possible. If we apply the same logic........

Now I'm going to talk about Squizza's post. I have no idea wtf is going on but I can also see something seriously isn't right.

A few months ago a girl called Alice Gross was kidnapped and murdered quite near to me.

Initially the police simply considered her a runaway/missing person and her family got a network going putting out posters and flyers.

Few days later police actually take the case seriously and launch the biggest manhunt since 7/7. Insane amounts of video footage was reviewed so her final steps were well known. It had been confirmed she had gone on a walk while waiting for her father to return home from work, and was in fact on her way back home and approximately about a mile from her house. Rather than initially concentrating on that final leg of the journey (where she was eventually found), it appears initially the entire route was given the same priority even though any idiot would know most of that search was pointless.

At the same time an immigrant called Arnis Zalkans had also been reported missing and it was realised he had been convicted of murdering his ex wife. The police also produced videos of Alice's final journey showing Arnis had indeed been cycling approx. 15 mins behind Alice who was walking along the same canal tow path.

After much searching, Alice's body is found underwater, and Arnis' body is found hanging a few days later quite close by.

So we have a nice simple story, nutter from abroad kills young girl then kills himself. Sounds like a perfect open and close case until we probe deeper.

Firstly why the biggest manhunt since 7/7 for this one girl? Had police requested permission from all the other families with missing children to ignore their cases and dedicate all the resources to one case? *

I also thought it was unusual the press didn't make much of a fuss when it is known that Arnis' landlord is a convicted paedophile.

I remember when all the specialist teams of divers etc were parked on Uxbridge Road during the manhunt, but after divers looking under water (shallow water, approx. 3-4 ft depth), and officers + sniffer dogs conducting fingertip searches nothing was found.

Then after the teams left, they returned a few days later and found Alice's body underwater in a shallow narrow canal that had already been thoroughly searched just 2-3 days before.

Not many days after this, Arnis' body is found hanging and seriously decomposed, apparently at an area used for camping by foreign East Europeans, although there has never been any indication in the media that these supposed Eastern Europeans were ever seen or spoken to. Also somehow the sniffers and officers all managed to miss a body that had been hanging for at least a couple of weeks.

We should also consider the two bodies were found near occupied canal boats, near a building site, and very near West Middlesex Hospital.

My honest opinion is that the grim truth to this case will never be known.

However a few months after the event when I couldn't get to sleep one night I thought I would read up again to see if anything had been uncovered.

The final bit that really disturbs me is that the supposed killer who supposedly stalked and killed his prey while on a bicycle wasn't actually even seen at all on the last camera that Alice had been spotted on, so I cannot understand how he could have even been at the scene unless he was put there later.

* The final part of the police response I found very bizarre is that the floral tribute from the community at the Hanwell Clock Tower was watched by 2 police officer 24 hrs a day for a few weeks. I'm amazed at the parents of all the other subsequent missing children who were noble enough to request police to watch over flowers rather than find their children.

Not saying I know what happened, but I can tell when something stinks, and this isn't the first time. In this instance I suspect the family were reasonably well off and educated, but I don't think that is a factor to any foul play which is why I mention this as a footnote.

[DJ OD]

I used to live fairly local to the area but I don't recall the case. But then I tend not really read or listen to the news much. As u say that indeed stinks to hell of something. What though, no idea...

Defintlely not the first time nor will be the last. Were the girl and the bloke lovers? Was she a crackhead? Did the parents do it? Were they ashamed of something? Either way Joe public will never know.



DJ OD

[Chubbs]

People are getting confused here, yes they are cunts, you can't call them murdering cunts.

[diablos]

Who knew not looking after your kid could be so profitable, will we ever find out what really happened to the only real victim in all this.

[Mobileman]

People are getting confused here, yes they are cunts, you can't call them murdering cunts.

They bloody are ! Guilty from day one I say just not proven [emoji53]