Any new press regulation MUST SATISFY THE MCCANNS"

Any new press regulation MUST SATISFY THE MCCANNS" - Financial Times


LEVESON EYES TURNING WORDS INTO ACTION

by Ben Fenton


The Leveson inquiry will finish its principal evidence-gathering phase this week and begin looking for consensus on how 90 days of evidence can be moulded into a system of press regulation which satisfies the victims of libel or intrusion, MPs and newspaper owners.

The tribunal, set up almost exactly a year ago, has heard from hundreds of witnesses, ranging from prime ministers, films stars and media moguls to junior civil servants, rank-and-file reporters and people who would have remained anonymous but for Fleet Street’s excesses.

The formal end of “Module 3”, which looked at the relationship between the press and politicians, is due on Wednesday. After that, Module 4 will feature witnesses who have been thinking, and writing, about regulatory solutions to the issues of press misconduct, abnegations of privacy and lawbreaking that the previous three modules have highlighted.

There have been 18 submissions on the future of regulation that the inquiry has thought worthy of publication on its website. None of them offers solutions, or even opinions, on some of the most damning testimony Lord Justice Leveson has heard, which showed the embarrassing extent to which politicians and police officers became intimates of newspaper owners and editors.

Instead, the submissions centre on how best to police the press without impinging on its own policing role as protector of ordinary individuals against organs of state or local administration. To use Lord Leveson’s phrase from his inaugural speech as inquiry chairman, they seek to answer the question: “Who guards the guardians?”

Much of the most powerful evidence of the past 86 days of hearings has come from ordinary people whose misfortunes brought them under the interrogatory lamp of press attention. The parents of missing Madeleine McCann or Milly Dowler, the murdered teenager, are the most quoted examples: in both cases they have, after enduring gross suffering at the hands of reckless journalism, received huge sums of money in recompense.

Lord Leveson found an ally 10 days ago in David Cameron, the prime minister, for his view that any new system of regulation for the press would have to satisfy the McCanns and the Dowlers.

But perhaps more difficult for the inquiry, or Mr Cameron, to satisfy was the case of Margaret Watson.

In one of the earliest sessions of the inquiry, she described how articles about the murder of her teenage daughter by one of her classmates in a Glasgow school were so distorted by the agendas of their authors, and so misrepresented the facts of the case, that they contributed to the later suicide of her 15-year-old son, found dead with a magazine piece about his sister’s case clutched in his hand.

Lord Leveson has said a plea by Tony Blair, the former prime minister, for regulation to separate fact from comment, to prevent agenda-driven journalism from playing fast and loose with accuracy, was a far more difficult task than just punishing phone hackers, intrusive paparazzi or purveyors of cynical defamation.

The judge has steered clear of favouring or opposing any particular form of regulation. But he has made it clear that he is opposed to constraining the freedom of the press and also that “tinkering at the edges” of the current system of the Press Complaints Commission will not be good enough.

Over the final three weeks of evidence, he will try to thrash out the issues presented by the newspaper industry, which wants to retain control of a self-regulatory body through funding, and by strong opponents of the press, who would be happy to see parliament set the rules of behaviour for newspapers. Neither is likely to find favour in the Leveson report expected some time in October.

But that report will have to resolve problems such as how to force owners like Richard Desmond,proprietor of the Express and Daily Star papers, from opting out of regulation altogether, or how to regulate the press if the internet remains a jungle of privacy invasion, distortion and defamation.

To the relief of many, and the trepidation of some, the inquiry is now in its last days, where actions will take the place of millions of words.

Well there you have it, the Mccanns rule and you seriously think this farce of a review will actually find justice for Madeleine ! Somehow I think not.

mara thon wrote:Well there you have it, the Mccanns rule and you seriously think this farce of a review will actually find justice for Madeleine ! Somehow I think not.

So who died and made them King and Queen? Just why are they so bloody important???

mara thon wrote:Well there you have it, the Mccanns rule and you seriously think this farce of a review will actually find justice for Madeleine ! Somehow I think not.

sadly i dont think so

Justiceforallkids wrote:

Lord Leveson found an ally 10 days ago in David Cameron, the prime minister, for his view that any new system of regulation for the press would have to satisfy the McCanns and the Dowlers.

I've heard it all now. Proof that you can rise to the dizzy heights of public office without any intelligence.

Remind me again, who will remain the official suspects when the case is reopened?

Lord Leveson found an ally 10 days ago in David Cameron, the prime minister, for his view that any new system of regulation for the press would have to satisfy the McCanns and the Dowlers.[i]


Is this a direct quote from somebody, i.e. were they mentioned by name as specific people needing to be "satisfied" ? If yes, well I will leave and quietly have a breakdown. If no, the words spin and poetic licence spring to mind.

margaret wrote:

Justiceforallkids wrote:

Lord Leveson found an ally 10 days ago in David Cameron, the prime minister, for his view that any new system of regulation for the press would have to satisfy the McCanns and the Dowlers.

I've heard it all now. Proof that you can rise to the dizzy heights of public office without any intelligence.

Remind me again, who will remain the official suspects when the case is reopened?

No doubt a suitable "patsy" will be found, preferably a dead one.

Iris wrote:

mara thon wrote:Well there you have it, the Mccanns rule and you seriously think this farce of a review will actually find justice for Madeleine ! Somehow I think not.

So who died and made them King and Queen? Just why are they so bloody important???

I know many people who would like to know just why this couple seem to rule everything in UK, more and more people are questioning this, but I doubt very much any truth will prevail in our lifetime.

I would say the author of this article, in paraphasing Cameron, has distorted what was actually said unless there is something beyond the following response.

Transcript:

20 A. I've read some of the evidence that's been put forward,
21 and frankly some of that evidence is incredibly
22 shocking. Some of it is really heartbreaking. The test
23 of a regulatory system is not does that make the
24 politicians happier? The test of the system is: is it
25 going to provide proper protection to ordinary families

1 who, through no fault of their own, get caught up in
2 these media maelstroms and get completely mistreated?
3 And the evidence of the Dowler family and the evidence
4 of the McCann family is incredibly powerful in that
5 regard.
6 I will never forget meeting with the Dowler family
7 in Downing Street to run through the terms of this
8 Inquiry with them and to hear what they had been through
9 and how it had redoubled, trebled the pain and agony
10 they'd been through over losing Milly. I'll never
11 forget that, and that's the test of all this. It's not:
12 do the politicians or the press feel happy with what we
13 get? It's: are we really protecting people who have
14 been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by
15 this process. That's what the test is.

Cameron's point is simple and straightforward - does a new system of press regulation protect those that need to be protected. Nowhere does he suggest those affected in the past have any say or sway in what is done.

I've been given grief by a poster on You Tube, who will not believe that the McCanns have done anything wrong. He keeps bleating on about no evidence being found in the McCanns apartment He also said that the PJ didn't agree with Dr Amaral's theory that Madeleine died in the McCanns apartment.

I went to the PJ files website and I found the report by Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida which he sent to the Coordinator of the Criminal Investigation. C.I. Almeida, concludes that after analyzing all of the evidence gathered, that the child is dead and the parents were responsible for cadaver occultation. He also states that the entire group was lying, since the first day of the investigation.

My goodness, the McCanns must know something that makes them immune from prosecution and able to call all the shots in this case. Chief Inspector de Almeida couldn't have made it plainer, that the McCanns have played a huge part in Madeleine's disappearance. I suspect if it was one of the children of the McCanns mates, who disappeared, they would be banged up in prison by now.

Incidently I put the information regarding C.I. Almeida's report, in a reply to the poster on You Tube, the poster appears to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

I'm still hoping that the review will conclude with the case being reopened and the McCanns and whoever helped them escape from justice prosecuted.

If it is true that any new press regulation, must satisfy the McCanns, I'm going to send David Cameron and Theresa May, an email that contains the report of Chief Inspector Almeida. I didn't have a reply to my last letter and I don't expect a reply to the email I will send, but I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I have forwarded information that shows what kind of people the McCanns are and what sh**houses, the ones who are protecting them are.

Chris wrote:I would say the author of this article, in paraphasing Cameron, has distorted what was actually said unless there is something beyond the following response.

Transcript:

20 A. I've read some of the evidence that's been put forward,
21 and frankly some of that evidence is incredibly
22 shocking. Some of it is really heartbreaking. The test
23 of a regulatory system is not does that make the
24 politicians happier? The test of the system is: is it
25 going to provide proper protection to ordinary families

1 who, through no fault of their own, get caught up in
2 these media maelstroms and get completely mistreated?
3 And the evidence of the Dowler family and the evidence
4 of the McCann family is incredibly powerful in that
5 regard.
6 I will never forget meeting with the Dowler family
7 in Downing Street to run through the terms of this
8 Inquiry with them and to hear what they had been through
9 and how it had redoubled, trebled the pain and agony
10 they'd been through over losing Milly. I'll never
11 forget that, and that's the test of all this. It's not:
12 do the politicians or the press feel happy with what we
13 get? It's: are we really protecting people who have
14 been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by
15 this process. That's what the test is.

Cameron's point is simple and straightforward - does a new system of press regulation protect those that need to be protected. Nowhere does he suggest those affected in the past have any say or sway in what is done.

Exactly! Furthermore it's sometimes interesting to listen to the things politicians do not say as well as to what they do, so it's perhaps worth remarking that Cameron talked about meeting the Dowlers and how he would never forget that experience, but he didn't say anything of the sort about the McCanns.

T4two wrote:

Exactly! Furthermore it's sometimes interesting to listen to the things politicians do not say as well as to what they do, so it's perhaps worth remarking that Cameron talked about meeting the Dowlers and how he would never forget that experience, but he didn't say anything of the sort about the McCanns.

He did in fact say something similar during the morning session (the earlier quote was from his afternoon session):

20 A. I don't recall the exact provenance of this whole issue.
21 What I remember is that I had a meeting with Kate and
22 Gerry McCann as leader of the opposition, and anyone
23 who's met them or obviously read about the story, you
24 can't fail to be incredibly moved by what has happened
25 to them and all the efforts they've made to try and get

1 Madeleine back, and I followed this up as
2 Prime Minister, but I can't remember the exact
3 provenance of who called who and when, and what have
4 you, but I think it was -- the police clearly had played
5 a role in trying to keep the investigation going, and
6 the government has helped them with that.

mara thon wrote:

Iris wrote:

mara thon wrote:Well there you have it, the Mccanns rule and you seriously think this farce of a review will actually find justice for Madeleine ! Somehow I think not.

So who died and made them King and Queen? Just why are they so bloody important???

I know many people who would like to know just why this couple seem to rule everything in UK, more and more people are questioning this, but I doubt very much any truth will prevail in our lifetime.

More and more I doubt there will be justice for Madeleine. I think the cover-up goes so far up the food chain that it can't be exposed. It pains me to say that but when you have the Prime Minister saying press regulations MUST SATISFY the McCanns, it has to make you wonder just who is in charge of the review.

i live in hope that one day justice for madeleine will come --- but reading this everything is against justice whatever it may be --- i hope the mcanns go away stay away and we dont have to see the smug shits again they make me wanna heave ----

kathybelle - My goodness, the McCanns must know something that makes them immune from prosecution and able to call all the shots in this case.


My feelings exactly kathy.

cherry1 wrote:kathybelle - My goodness, the McCanns must know something that makes them immune from prosecution and able to call all the shots in this case.


My feelings exactly kathy.

I`ve always thought that, but if they did have knowledge of scandalous secrets, the secret service would have bumped him off by now.

Perhaps thats why he/they have kept themselves in the spotlight???