End of the status quo?/Blacksmith

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The Blacksmith Bureau

Sunday, 26 August 2012
End of the status quo?


Hogan-Howe bleats

Well, the Yard have spoken. Those who speak darkly of a whitewash, both our Portuguese friends who have the perfectly valid excuse that they don’t know the British system any more than we know the Portuguese, and UK citizens, should reflect for a moment.

A “whitewash”, if it means anything, means a positive result for the McCanns – some sort of exoneration or some way of putting the case against them to sleep. But the statements of Hogan-Howe and, before him, Redwood clearly indicate that nothing has been found to provide any basis for such a finding: the status quo remains and, if no more money is provided, it will still remain when the review is closed down.

We might ask proponents of such an outcome a very simple question. A whitewash posits a joint effort by police, secret services and government – oh dear, even describing it sounds silly – to give the couple a clean bill of health. The resources of the three bodies are easily sufficient to knock together in a weekend false but irrefutable documentary evidence excluding the couple without going through the palaver of a review. So why haven’t they done it?

Now, back to reality.
The status quo

The factual status quo, remember, remains the definitive Portuguese prosecutors’ archiving summary which released the McCanns from their arguido status, stating that there was no evidence of any crime by the pair and that they had failed to demonstrate their innocence.

Let’s turn to the 2012 BBC Panorama report which, unlike its 2007 predecessor, was made with the co-operation of the British police. In that programme Redwood said that the review was unique in its comprehensiveness:

DC Redwood: We are drawing together information from three separate sources; the legal enforcement bodies within Portugal, the UK law enforcement agencies of which obviously the police are a main part and also and unusually the private investigation world which as we know is an element that was used by Mr and Mrs McCann to further the search for their daughter… and so what we’ve done over the past number of months is bring into one place, i.e. here at Belgravia all of those, all of those pieces of the jigsaw.

Police forces leak important details when they are worried about resources – if they have any. It is evident from Hogan-Howe's comments that the triple sourced investigation has found nothing to add to or modify the prosecutors’ conclusions and, in particular, hasn't located any new suspects.

The views of those in Portugal, the only country with first-hand knowledge of the case and the only country with knowledge of what the McCanns actually said when examined by the police (rather than what Kate McCann, a self-confessed liar, claims they said) and the only country to have considered the case against the pair judicially (in the civil courts) are fairly clear. The Portuguese appeal court judges stated in 2010 that the prosecutors’ “opinions”, while valid, were neither judicial nor definitive and that the “death in the apartment” claim remained an equally valid and non-excluded theory of events. As for the public, both educated and otherwise, we have Panorama again.

Carlos Anjos:I think something happened accidentally in the flat that night. In general I think most Portuguese investigators think the same as me. And I think there will be problems for the British authorities.

Bilton (Panorama): Despite Kate and Gerry McCann no longer being suspects, Portuguese public opinion hasn’t changed and it continues to be influenced by the man who initially led the investigation before he was removed.

Isabel Duarte: I feel alone because I don’t feel support, not in public opinion. I have friends that don’t want to talk to me about the case. Because everyone believes in Goncalo Amaral. Everyone believes that I am defending a father and a mother who have killed the daughter and got rid of the corpse.

Everyone.
Our footballers are the best in the world

We have this:

Bilton (Panorama): Here [i.e. in Britain] people seem to be open-minded.

There is not the slightest evidence for Bilton’s comment. If “open-minded” means “willing to consider anybody as a perpetrator” then it is absolutely untrue, indeed absurdly so. The clear view in Britain, as put forward by the police (Redwood), a judge (Leveson), Parliament (the media select committee), all the television stations and their bosses, (Desmond, Murdoch), their reporters (Brunt, Simmons) all the quality newspapers and their editors on oath at Leveson, all the tabloids and their journalists (in front of Leveson again) and most of the readers’ comments in response to the latter’s stories, is that Kate & Gerry McCann had nothing to do with the disappearance of their daughter and cannot be considered as suspects.

It is clear that such unanimity can't be the result of “hushing up” – it is of course much too widespread. More importantly it is also clear that this unanimity of public opinion cannot be based on the evidence either, since, to take just two examples out of hundreds, the Portuguese prosecutors’ views quoted above are never quoted in full and are therefore unavailable to the majority: only the “no evidence” section, not the “failure to demonstrate their innocence” one is quoted in the UK media; and the Portuguese appeal court judgement that Amaral’s interpretation of the evidence was of equal validity to that same, legally untested, prosecutors' opinion, is almost unknown in Britain.

Something is wrong. One of these two countries is clearly not “open-minded” and is not looking coldly at all the evidence, even though it believes it is.There isn’t any alternative, is there? If UK opinion is right then Portugal’s is delusory and vice versa. Which one is it, Portugal or the United Kingdom? The country with all the first-hand knowledge of the case cited above or the country whose only real connection to the affair is that the former arguidos were born in and have a loud voice in it?

Perhaps readers will have a clearer idea now why we refer to the case as a “psychological” one. On the evidence above one country or the other, at least as expressed publicly, is psychologically incapable of accepting possible evidence and interpretations brought to its attention and is convinced that the other country’s view is wrong.

There is nothing new or revolutionary about this – it has happened throughout history once those enemies of the truth, national loyalties, are brought into action, whether in war, diplomacy or something as harmless as a football tournament. And it is the public media, the tabloids in particular, who have always been in the forefront of fanning atavistic flames. That’s something of a clue for the open-minded, isn’t it – which of the two countries was the first to whip their redtops into action and create an “enemy”? And citizens of which country used paid agents to influence those tabloids?
Times change

Sometimes, however, events force the truth on unwilling recipients. It may be that this four year status quo is finally about to end – but not through any efforts of Scotland Yard. In Britain the first of the prosecutors’ conclusions, the favourable one, has sufficed for all purposes. In Portugal the other conclusion, that the pair “failed to demonstrate their innocence” is, assuming Goncalo Amaral can sustain his efforts, about to be tested.

In Portuguese law libel claimants have to prove their accusations: Kate and Gerry McCann will finally have to demonstrate their innocence of involvement in the child’s disappearance in court if they are to win their case. To prove libel they will have to show that the prosecutors’ report, the one that has been so useful to them, is wrong. And then they will have the Herculean task of overturning the findings of the court of appeal judges on the validity of Amaral’s theory. If it were clear that developments since 2010 had overtaken the judgement they might have a good chance. If Scotland Yard had managed to dig up a single suspect or even a tiny piece of real evidence, anything, for the lawyers to put before the court they might be home and dry. But the cupboard is empty.

Bad luck Kate, bad luck Gerry. You can blame nice Mr Redwood.

(Plaudits with reservations: First Redwood is a DCI, not a DC - big difference; Second, only alluding to part of what he said is unfair - what he actually said was a big fat nothing)

Those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance will be brought to Justice. Of that, I have no doubt whatsoever.

Carlos Anjos:I think something happened accidentally in the flat that night. In general I think most Portuguese investigators think the same as me. And I think there will be problems for the British authorities

This bit jumped out at me - Now why would there be problems for the British authorities !

There worried how they are going to spin it....how are they going to get around that information Which is in the files.....mis- translation?

The End Is Nigh wrote:

(Plaudits with reservations: First Redwood is a DCI, not a DC - big difference; Second, only alluding to part of what he said is unfair - what he actually said was a big fat nothing)

Those responsible for Madeleine's disappearance will be brought to Justice. Of that, I have no doubt whatsoever.

Good morning TEIN.

D.C.I. Redwood did say something even if it was utter rubbish, he said that Madeleine is either alive or dead. I would love to know how much was this senior police officer was being paid, to state the obvious.

Yes indeed - covered all bases as blandly as possible. It was clearly stated at the beginning of the Review that no progress reports would be given and, in essence, none were.

I don't know at whose behest SY found themselves obliged to appear on Panorama (I suspect it was the path of least resistance) but in my opinion it would have been better to have politely but firmly declined regardless of the speculation that would have engendered.

The point is, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. But, having elected to appear, it was inevitable that interested parties of any and all predisposition would latch on to those words that suited them.

Personally, I still think that Redwood achieved the aim of giving precisely nothing of any value away. I'm not saying his delivery was as good as it should have been - it patently wasn't - but nonetheless, job done.

As for cost - very little. All part of the overhead.