Text messages and calls "can now be submitted in court as evidence" - Portugal Resident

May 21, 2015 Portugal Resident has an article entitled "Text messages and calls 'can now be sumitted in court as evidence'"

It states: "Indeed it could have changed endless police investigations in the past - not least the original Madeleine McCann inquiry."

Am I correct in assuming (since the "original" Madeleine McCann inquiry is mentioned) that these messages could now be used as evidence
in any subsequent inquiry? www.portugalresident.com (All assuming of course that the messages are still in existence.)

my thoughts exactly interested. is I tpossible that the content of the texts are available somewhere with the provider.

tanszi wrote:my thoughts exactly interested.  is I tpossible  that the content of the texts are available somewhere with the provider.

I've read of U.S. cases where providers have retrieved years old messages when requested for use in court cases. Sorry, I can't provide specific cases but it can be done apparently.

http://portugalresident.com/text-messages-and-calls-%E2%80%9Ccan-now-be-submitted-in-court-as-evidence%E2%80%9D



portugalpress on May 21, 2015


Text messages and calls “can now be submitted in court as evidence”



In a historic ruling, Évora’s court of appeal has clarified that text messages (even if they are not read) and mobile phone records can now be used in criminal cases and do not require any authorisation by a judge.

But emails - which can be accessed by mobile phones - can only be used if the person to whom they have been addressed has read them.

The decision was announced in today’s Diário de Notícias which claimed the law up until now has been “unclear in this context”.

Indeed it could have changed endless police investigations in the past - not least the original Madeleine McCann inquiry.

As TVI24 reveals, in 2007 Portimão Judge Pedro Frias “refused the PJ the right to look at text messages on Kate McCann’s mobile phone”, justifying his decision on the basis that “telephonic interceptions could not be authorised after the event”, and that he “could not authorise the consultation of written messages sent and received before receiving a request” to this effect.

Indeed TVI has run an exposé on the “controversial judge” (see our story elsewhere), adding that in 2007 “there were many voices” speaking out against this decision.

Now, as a result of the appeal court’s decision, the PJ would have had a great deal more investigative freedom.

Évora’s judges were asked to rule on the law following a case of theft in Serpa where the suspect had “inadvertently” left his mobile phone at the scene of the crime.

To find out who he was, police had gone through the man’s text messages and phone records.

The Public Ministry had argued that this was the kind of action that only a judge could authorise, but the panel defended that, “in essence”, a message kept in digital support “had the same protection as a written letter received in the post that had been opened and then filed in a personal file”.

Referring specifically to the case in Serpa, which DN stressed “should now apply to other cases”, the use of this kind of material should not require “previous intervention by a judge” to be authorised as proof.

Within hours of running the story, DN had received a number of commentaries both for and against.

natasha.donn@algarveresident.com

Merci to "frencheuropean" for posting the entire article. Further to my comments above and as I was trying to get to sleep last night, it occurred to me that Dr. Amaral knows the content of the messages and hopefully this is the information he has alluded to as being key to the case.

interested wrote:Merci to "frencheuropean" for posting the entire article.  Further to my comments above and as I was trying to get to sleep last night, it occurred to me that Dr. Amaral knows the content of the messages and hopefully this is the information he has alluded to as being key to the case.

I do hope so.

Dont get your hopes up, I am sure PT will find another way of pouring cold water on all this evidence and feed their good citizen Dr Amaral to the wolves.
I used to like to holiday in the Algarve, but not any more, after what their government and corrupt legal system did to him.

duncanmac wrote:Dont get your hopes up, I am sure PT will find another way of pouring cold water on all this evidence and feed their good citizen Dr Amaral to the wolves.
I used to like to holiday in the Algarve, but not any more, after what their government and corrupt legal system did to him.

Just wondering if you think the British Government had any input into what the Portuguese Government "did to him". Many believe, for whatever reason, the Blair/Brown Government colluded (had a secret "understanding") with Portugal not to charge the McCanns with Madeleine's "disappearance".

interested wrote:

duncanmac wrote:Dont get your hopes up, I am sure PT will find another way of pouring cold water on all this evidence and feed their good citizen Dr Amaral to the wolves.
I used to like to holiday in the Algarve, but not any more, after what their government and corrupt legal system did to him.

Just wondering if you think the British Government had any input into what the Portuguese Government "did to him".  Many believe, for whatever reason, the Blair/Brown Government colluded (had a secret "understanding") with Portugal not to charge the McCanns with Madeleine's "disappearance".

I think it was co-operation. But why? Maybe the involvement of MI5 would explain it, if they one day have to release their information about child abuse.
(I can't understand that they are allowed to sit on it)

Do we know whether this law allowing text messages and phone call content in court in Portugal is definitely retrospective?

comperedna wrote:Do we know whether this law allowing text messages and phone call content in court in Portugal is definitely retrospective?

Probably for every case except this one.

I know...I'm being pessimistic again!

Yeah. There's bound to be one rule for this case and a different one for all others.

comperedna wrote:Do we know whether this law allowing text messages and phone call content in court in Portugal is definitely retrospective?

That is the pertinent question. I'm at the back of the class, just trying to keep up, but the way I read the article, I get the impression that the earlier decision that the messages could not be introduced as evidence has been struck down and the messages can now be included as evidence in any other future inquiry. I'm mindful of Dr. Amaral's statement that there are "things" he hasn't said yet. Until I hear otherwise, I'm optimistic that my humble interpretation is correct......but, like I said, I'm at the back of the class (particularly when Portuguese legal matters come up).

No laws that I know of are retrospective.

Claudia79 wrote:No laws that I know of are retrospective.

Thanks for that "Claudia79". I suppose then that my understanding is all wet. I thought perhaps the earlier "interpretation" of the law, being struck down, meant that the new "interpretation" should have been applied eight years ago. The result being that the messages can be used as evidence if the case is brought to Court as a result of a NEW inquiry.

Claudia79 wrote:No laws that I know of are retrospective.

and for very good reasons.

That's true... rather careless wording of mine. I guess it amounts to saying was the original decision, under the law then, to exclude certain evidence, valid.

interested wrote:

Claudia79 wrote:No laws that I know of are retrospective.

Thanks for that "Claudia79".  I suppose then that my understanding  is all wet.  I thought perhaps the earlier  "interpretation" of the law, being struck down, meant that the new "interpretation" should have been applied eight years ago.  The result being that the messages can be used as evidence if the case is brought to Court as a result of a NEW inquiry.  

'new inquiry' could be the key.

weissnicht wrote:

interested wrote:

Claudia79 wrote:No laws that I know of are retrospective.

Thanks for that "Claudia79".  I suppose then that my understanding  is all wet.  I thought perhaps the earlier  "interpretation" of the law, being struck down, meant that the new "interpretation" should have been applied eight years ago.  The result being that the messages can be used as evidence if the case is brought to Court as a result of a NEW inquiry.  

'new inquiry' could be the key.

That's exactly my hope - a NEW inquiry.

Claudia79 wrote:No laws that I know of are retrospective.

For signatories, Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits it in criminal law. The UK has introduced some tax laws from time to time which have had retrospective effect.

Mystery of Madeleine parents' secret emails 'intercepted by police'
By FIONA BARTON
Last updated at 11:12 09 August 2007



The friends who were with Madeleine McCann's parents on the night she disappeared have tried to shake off a growing whispering campaign against them.

They have spoken out after a Portuguese newspaper claimed police had 'intercepted' emails and phone calls between Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends.

These, the newspaper reported, provided 'decisive proof' that Madeleine was not kidnapped, but died in the family's holiday apartment in Portugal.


 
Anger over rumours: Kate McCann and Gerry McCann pictured with their twins, hidden by the pushchair canopy
Read more...
Volvo in Belgian Madeleine 'sighting' had fake plates, say police
Madeleine's parents come under vicious attack from suspect's lawyer
Police wait for results of Madeleine holiday home blood tests
Diario de Noticias, a respected national daily, said 'police sources' insisted the intercepted 'messages' were key evidence.

Other newspapers have already made a series of lurid and unsubstantiated claims about the McCanns.

Yesterday, stung by such claims, their friend Rachael Oldfield, a 36-year- old London recruitment consultant, suggested the police could be 'leaking' confidential information to the Press.

"I think there are some leaks coming from the police, but a lot of what I have read recently has been completely untrue," she said.

"Whether a journalist has had a bit of information and made the rest up, or the police are feeding some truth or untruths I just don't know."

Scroll down for more...
Rachael Oldfield and Fiona Payne who were with the McCanns in Portugal
Another of the party, Dr Fiona Payne, said: "You cannot attach any significance to what is being reported (in the Portuguese press)."

Mrs Oldfield, who is married to doctor Matthew Oldfield and has a one-year-old daughter, said: "It is very hurtful and it is all rather ludicrous. But it is difficult to defend because the investigationand everything in it is confidential.

We don't want to jeopardise the investigation in any way or Madeleine's life. We are a bit stuck, really."

The Oldfields were at dinner with the McCanns and the rest of their party, Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien from Exeter, Fiona and David Payne from Leicester and an unnamed woman, when Madeleine vanished from her bed in the holiday apartments in Praia da Luz on May 3.

The adults told police they had taken it in turns to check on their sleeping children, including Madeleine and her two year old twin brother and sister, in nearby apartments.

Scroll down for more...
The McCanns during their interview on Sky News said that they would not comment on any speculation regarding Madeleine's disappearance
Madeleine has been missing for three months
In statements to the Policia Judiciaria investigators, which were leaked to Sol magazine, Mr McCann said he first checked his three children at 9.05pm and thought it 'strange' that the bedroom door was ajar.

He checked the window and shutters, which were both closed, and left...

Jane Tanner said she took her turn ten minutes later and saw a darkhaired man carrying a child in his arms as she came back.

Minutes after her return, according to police statements, Matthew Oldfield checked the children and noticed nothing unusual.

Mrs McCann went at 10pm and said she found the apartment window open, heavy metal shutters raised and her daughter missing.

Police say there are discrepancies between the timings given by the McCann party and staff and other diners in the restaurant that night.

One Portuguese newspaper yesterday, which quoted 'police sources', said:

 "If everything happened as the English holidaymakers say, in terms of their checking the children, it would be almost impossible for a kidnap to have taken place."

Mrs Oldfield said: "There would only be a small window for somebody to do it (abduct Madeleine), but presumably if somebody had been watching our movements then it would have been possible."

The McCanns, who on Tuesday denied stories in the Portuguese press that implied they had 'accidentally' killed their daughter, spent an hour with detectives yesterday afternoon.

They learned that a possible sighting of Madeleine in a Belgian cafe had been largely discounted after tests on a drinking straw used by the little girl spotted showed the DNA of an adult male.

If I remember, Gerry McCann was seen in an Internet cafe a few days after Madeleine went 'missing'.