Gerry McCann bitching...............

Madeleine McCann's father has accused the media of making up stories once news of the investigation into her disappearance dried up.


McCann says the media was initially willing to help



Gerry McCann said his first instinct when Madeleine disappeared was to appeal for information so people would come forward.

"At that point we were desperate for information, and desperate for our daughter to be found," he told MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport committee.

"We were desperate, and that is why we spoke to the media, and did our appeals."

But, he said, once information about Madeleine became more scarce a number of ficticious stories began to surface and "it became a free-for-all!"

"We saw pressure on journalists to produce stories, when there was not anything new to report. I would say there were fictitious stories which were not necessarily libellous or defamatory. Then clearly there was another turn when we were declared as arguidos, and then it was a free-for-fall."

Dr McCann said that early on, in Portugal, there had been "an order" to the media coverage.

"We agreed that we did not mind being filmed going about our normal activity but we weren't going to be engaging in stories on a day-to-day basis. That seemed to work quite well. Both sides seemed quite happy. What we envisaged was that demand would rapidly tail off, which it didn't. That took me by surprise."

However he said the most damaging part of the media coverage was the suggestion that there was evidence Madeleine was dead.

Dr McCann said he and his wife could not forgive that.

The McCann's spokesman Clarence Mitchell, who is also appearing in front of the committee, said journalists in Portugal were under immense pressure to deliver stories for their newsdesks.

"We had a pack of reporters in Praia da Luz looking for a front page and we had a pack in Leicestershire trying to talk to the family, to get an insight. All of them were competing on a daily basis to get their version of the story into the paper. Sometimes I would have reporters coming to me saying 'I have got to get a front page splash by 4pm or my job is on the line', if I said 'sorry we haven't got anything', they would say 'we are going to have to write it anyway'."

Mr Mitchell said they had had "anecdotal evidence" that certain newspapers were getting "massive sales" from the story.

"That is undoubtedly the reason why Madeleine McCann was on the front pages for as long as she was. For a lot of the time we were not doing anything, it was the media feeding on itself. It was a "circle of lunacy", he added.

Dr McCann said the broadcast media had been "by and large, more responsible" than newspaper journalists but he said they had not been entirely happy with their coverage.

He said he and his wife had decided to take legal action against the Daily Express "as a last resort".

"There is a gap there in the legislation," he said.

Mr Mitchell said the McCanns had not gone to the Press Complaint Commission because the Commission itself would have advised them to use legislation to get compensation.

Echoing Max Mosley who gave evidence to the committee earlier, Dr McCann said: "I complained about stories that were involving invasion of privacy.

"There has to be some degree of control, I believe, or deterrent to publishing particularly damaging stories, where they have the potential to ruin people's lives."

Mr Mitchaell said he agreed with Madeleine's father.

"I will stand here and I will very much defend freedom of speech, but I think when people's lives are put in jeopardy, by different mechanisms, then that has to be addressed."

Dr McCann said that in today's "changing media landscape" self-regulation was something that the media needed to improve.

"I'm not sure personally whether self-regulation is keeping up with that technology and it is something they will need to address in coming months and years," he told MPs.

**********************************************************************************************************************


What Gerry means is that the media published things that made him feel uncomfortable! ie THE TRUTH!

So what did they need Clarence Mitchell for, if not to control the press? What Gerry is really saying is that its fine for the public to believe their lies but when people question their lies they blame the media.

Pillock.

Alpha wrote:So what did they need Clarence Mitchell for, if not to control the press? What Gerry is really saying is that its fine for the public to believe their lies but when people question their lies they blame the media.

Pillock.

I personally think what Gerry is saying is that CM did a piss poor job for them!!!

The media monitoring money from the find was spent for nothing then right??

OMG!!!! I dont believe it!! Tony Bennett is sitting right behind Gerry in the video on Sky

However did he manage that!!! No wonder Gerry was so nervous and I wonder if CM was sweating in his seat!!

:Theman:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG!!!! I dont believe it!! Tony Bennett is sitting right behind Gerry in the video on Sky

However did he manage that!!! No wonder Gerry was so nervous and I wonder if CM was sweating in his seat!!

:Theman:

I didn't see a link to a video???

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG!!!! I dont believe it!! Tony Bennett is sitting right behind Gerry in the video on Sky

However did he manage that!!! No wonder Gerry was so nervous and I wonder if CM was sweating in his seat!!

:Theman:

I didn't see a link to a video???

Its to the left of that story on sky:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Madeleine-McCanns-Father-Gerry-Accuses-Media-Of-Making-Up-Stories-About-The-Investigation/Article/200903215238513?lpos=Politics_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15238513_Madeleine_McCanns_Father_Gerry_Accuses_Media_Of_Making_Up_Stories_About_The_Investigation

2.26 minutes.....

Oh yeah!! Hahahaahaha Tony made him sweat!

eddie wrote:Oh yeah!! Hahahaahaha Tony made him sweat!

I just dont believe Gerry can sit there and say that the media have made money out of Maddie's name!

Who got them to Portugal in the first place and who used the money to pay their mortgage??

Hypocrit!

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:Oh yeah!! Hahahaahaha Tony made him sweat!

I just dont believe Gerry can sit there and say that the media have made money out of Maddie's name!

Who got them to Portugal in the first place and who used the money to pay their mortgage??

Hypocrit!

You know what? I was looking at pics of Gerry today and he has a really mean face....really hard and really mean. He looks bitter and like he is a tight-arse when it comes to money....you know how you can just tell??

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:Oh yeah!! Hahahaahaha Tony made him sweat!

I just dont believe Gerry can sit there and say that the media have made money out of Maddie's name!

Who got them to Portugal in the first place and who used the money to pay their mortgage??

Hypocrit!

You know what? I was looking at pics of Gerry today and he has a really mean face....really hard and really mean. He looks bitter and like he is a tight-arse when it comes to money....you know how you can just tell??

I agree but when you look at his sister and how thick and nasty she sounds...then look at his frog face brother Jayem....no wonder Gerry is tight assed

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:Oh yeah!! Hahahaahaha Tony made him sweat!

I just dont believe Gerry can sit there and say that the media have made money out of Maddie's name!

Who got them to Portugal in the first place and who used the money to pay their mortgage??

Hypocrit!

You know what? I was looking at pics of Gerry today and he has a really mean face....really hard and really mean. He looks bitter and like he is a tight-arse when it comes to money....you know how you can just tell??

I agree but when you look at his sister and how thick and nasty she sounds...then look at his frog face brother Jayem....no wonder Gerry is tight assed

Whats he want? He started the media circus going.

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG!!!! I dont believe it!! Tony Bennett is sitting right behind Gerry in the video on Sky

However did he manage that!!! No wonder Gerry was so nervous and I wonder if CM was sweating in his seat!!

:Theman:

I didn't see a link to a video???

Its to the left of that story on sky:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Madeleine-McCanns-Father-Gerry-Accuses-Media-Of-Making-Up-Stories-About-The-Investigation/Article/200903215238513?lpos=Politics_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15238513_Madeleine_McCanns_Father_Gerry_Accuses_Media_Of_Making_Up_Stories_About_The_Investigation

2.26 minutes.....

Saw it and i think is hilarious that Tony sit so near!

pm wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG!!!! I dont believe it!! Tony Bennett is sitting right behind Gerry in the video on Sky

However did he manage that!!! No wonder Gerry was so nervous and I wonder if CM was sweating in his seat!!

:Theman:

I didn't see a link to a video???

Its to the left of that story on sky:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Madeleine-McCanns-Father-Gerry-Accuses-Media-Of-Making-Up-Stories-About-The-Investigation/Article/200903215238513?lpos=Politics_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15238513_Madeleine_McCanns_Father_Gerry_Accuses_Media_Of_Making_Up_Stories_About_The_Investigation

2.26 minutes.....

Saw it and i think is hilarious that Tony sit so near!

Is that really tony bennett?

Gerry & Max on Newsnight with Paxman

Hullo viewers,

Richard Watson is in Northern Ireland for the programme tonight, with the latest on the three killings in as many days which have shocked the community and left politicians emphasising that the new peace deal will not be shaken. Richard will be examining how much support there is for the gunmen who reject the new order.

Two men with a lot to say about the state of the media have been appearing before MPs at Westminster. At first sight, the grievances of Max Mosley and Gerry McCann could hardly be more different. The Formula 1 boss won a High Court ruling against a Sunday newspaper after it ran a story about his private life. He now says journalists should be obliged to approach the subjects of their stories before a word is printed. Mr McCann and his wife won substantial damages from several papers over untrue allegations following the disappearance of their young daughter, Madeleine, in Portugal. What links both men is a disquiet about the media 'going too far' at a time of dwindling circulation and revenues. Max Mosley and Gerry McCann will both be on the programme as we debate issues of privacy and free speech.

And David Grossman trains his dry and perspicacious gaze on the ambitions of the Tory party in Europe ahead of the forthcoming elections. Read more about the Tories? European dilemma here:


Join us at 10.30pm.

http://bbcnewsletter.blogspot.com/


For all his complaints about the press Gerry is doing the rounds YET again

Jacqui I just didnt believe it. Paxman mentioned abduction and I wanted to throw my slippers at the tv

Gerry MacCann`s words - "The media have given a complete disservice to Madeleine."

NO Gerry, you & Kate are the only people who gave disservice to Madeleine that fateful night she disappeared, & all the other nights you left your THREE year old & her younger siblings ALONE while you went out with your friends - friends I hasten to add who also left their children alone.

Even now when she`s still missing you give Madeleine the disservice of not answering all the questions the Portuguese police put to you. You refused to do a reconstruction. I`ve known people whose dog/cat has gone missing be willing to do anything to help find their pet than you did to help find a human being.

Definition of Disservice - a harmful action; an injury. The act of walking out, closing the door, & leaving three children under the age of four in an apartment without adult supervision was the disservice to your daughter Madeleine, NOT anything the media has done surrounding this case.

I really do believe that the British media have done Maddie a great disservice.

Not in the way that Gerry McCann is implying though.

Since day one, the British press have toed the McCann party line. They have never once questioned the why or the who, and they have never reported on behalf of the real victim in this case, the child herself.

They've shown sympathy to the adults, and not once questioned their routines or behaviour or the danger that these children were put in night after night.

There has been no investigative journalism whatsoever, or a single headline from the childrens' perspective.

The whole lot should be ashamed of themselves. Maybe if the media had reported things differently from the off, today's view of the case would be a different one.

http://www.the3arguidos.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29489&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Yes, It's Tony. I watched it on TV and Gerry looked decidely tense and uncomfortable for a long time. When questions were first put to him, he wandered off onto something else. Tony just sat taking notes and looking very calm.
The lawyer managed to get the Carter Ruck bit into every sentence, I thought the commercials were on. Clarence was very feeble, pushing his journalisic credentials and trying to act as though he was one of the boys with the committe members, but he seriousle slipped up when he described the journalists in PDL as an, "alcohol fuelled pack" and had to retract that when asked if he was suggesting that the reports in the UK press were the result of drink.
The most interesting thing for me was how the word "abducted" was avoided. Even Gerry talked about a disappearance.

justagrannynow wrote:Yes, It's Tony. I watched it on TV and Gerry looked decidely tense and uncomfortable for a long time. When questions were first put to him, he wandered off onto something else. Tony just sat taking notes and looking very calm.
The lawyer managed to get the Carter Ruck bit into every sentence, I thought the commercials were on. Clarence was very feeble, pushing his journalisic credentials and trying to act as though he was one of the boys with the committe members, but he seriousle slipped up when he described the journalists in PDL as an, "alcohol fuelled pack" and had to retract that when asked if he was suggesting that the reports in the UK press were the result of drink.
The most interesting thing for me was how the word "abducted" was avoided. Even Gerry talked about a disappearance.

I wonder how Gerry and Kate and the rest of their supporters will backtrack if and when a piece of evidence comes to light that can get them convicted. I really long for that day.

Gerry McCann talks to Jeremy Paxman : A Flimsy and Snipped Interview



Gerry McCann pre-recorded interview with Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman.

Transcript - thanks to Reggie Dunlop (3 Arguidos)

Jeremy Paxman : Well earlier I spoke to Gerry McCann. I asked him if he'd been shocked by how the media had behaved.

Gerry McCann : It's more than shocked ... ur ... we were heart ... ur ...we felt that there has been a complete disservice done to our daughter, who is still missing. And that is the thing which is hardest to actually forgive. .... er .... There was no regard for that. There was no regard for the feelings of both Kate or myself, ... er ... our other children, in fact, our wider extended family.

Jeremy Paxman : Do you think you were naive?

Gerry McCann : I th ... it ... Of course we were naive in that ... in the sense that we have never been exposed to the media previously and I ... I think, though, that we were better protected than menemy ... than many, Jeremy.

Jeremy Paxman : But then you had this entire media circus ....

Gerry McCann : It really was a circus.

Jeremy Paxman : .... camped out, around you, but you collaborated with them when it was convenient to you, didn't you? And you would announce photocalls and whether or not you'd be speaking that day - or maybe tomorrow or the day after. D'you .... d'you think to some degree you .... you reaped a whirlwind?

Gerry McCann : (smiling) We reaped a whirlwind? - No, (cough). I presume you're taking a very much a "devil's advocate's" position here on what you're doing. We have very clear objectives of what we wanted, and any parents would take the opportunity of trying to get information into the investigation that might help find their daughter. And that's what our clear objectives were. .... Um .... I think the one thing we'd probably do slightly differently is the .... the dividing line between 'when does media covering a story ... er ... on a daily basis' which happened and did discuss today about the aspect of when .... um .... we finished our trips ... er .... particularly to Germany, Holland, Morocco, where we felt there might be information relevant, we stayed on in Portugal because emotionally we were not ready to leave, and we felt closest to Madeleine there, and we fully expected, at that point, the media attention to die down, and .... and it didn't. And I think, with hindsight, we probably should have drawn a much clearer line in the sand, and even about being photographed.

Jeremy Paxman : We, the consumer, of course, see this scrum of photographers and cameramen and reporters surrounding a couple to whom a terrible thing has happened, and we only see it from one side, but what's it like when you're on the other side?

Gerry McCann : It's very intimidating, particularly when you've never experienced anything like that before and I have to say when I came back from the Police station, .... er .... on Friday the 4th of May and saw the mass of media ... er ... internationally gathered, I ..... it fills ..... the prospect of having them .... um .... door-stepping, invading your privacy, raking up anything from, y'know, your school days to potentially university, to things that have absolutely no relevance in the ongoing search, filled me with dread.

Jeremy Paxman : Do you draw a lesson about what aught to be done? I mean, it's a very broad question, but do you draw a lesson?

Gerry McCann : I mean ....Simplistically - and it is simplistically because the regulation and the law surrounding it and self-regulation is clearly is quite complex, and what we would call for is some move - and if it is a backward step ... We want more responsible reporting and we want accountability for what's written, particularly when it has the potential to seriously damage .... er .... peoples' lives, and I don't know how a family who were less supported than we were could have coped, because we had a point very, very close to completely breaking.

Jeremy Paxman : Can you tell us finally, what's happening with the search for Madeleine now?

Gerry McCann : I think that one thing, today, we would like to re-emphasise is the search for Madeleine is very much ongoing. ... Um ... We have .... er .... a lot of activity going on behind the scenes .... er .... We will become public with the activity when feel we need more information in a specific area . But ... er .... Madeleine's fund is ... er ... funding an ongoing search. We're very, very keen to work with the authorities both here and in Portugal, to try at the very, very least to find Madeleine and find who took her.

Jeremy Paxman: Gerry McCann, thank you.

Gerry McCann : Thank you.

... AND SOMETHING TO REMEMBER....

The British media does not do responsibility. It does stories
by Simon Jenkins

The frenzied reporting of the missing McCann child serves neither the interests of the family nor the cause of justice

The media coverage of the missing McCann child has largely escaped censure. This is because it concerns an ongoing tragedy and because the grief of those directly involved is so real. Neither justifies freedom from comment. The coverage has been absurdly over the top and cannot have served the interests of the family, or the eventual cause of justice.

I was astonished to see the BBC news department sending its star presenter, Huw Edwards, to southern Portugal to handle what was essentially a single thread story with at least two other onscreen reporters in place. The corporation must be stiff with under-employed staff. Presumably as a result of this decision, the McCanns regularly led the 6 o'clock news, ahead of Gordon Brown's leadership bid - even when there was nothing new to report from the Algarve.

In this voracious feeding frenzy the media presence in Portimao was reduced to extremes of invention to justify the prominence the story was getting back home. We learned of false sightings, car chases, child traffickers, barren women, beach paedophiles and dark dungeons. A "suspect" was enveloped in private detective work way beyond any consideration for natural justice. The sympathy a reader or viewer was bound to feel for the McCanns was overwhelmed in an exploitative swarm. Star footballers were signed up, as were Hell's Angels, MPs wearing yellow ribbons and ministers meeting deputations. It was as if a missing child were this year's Make Poverty History campaign.

Madeleine has become Maddy, an angel face in the clutches of a monster. The reasonable attempts of the McCanns to avoid publicity and be seen to cooperate with the much-battered Portuguese police were as broken sticks in a tornado of coverage. No aspect of the case was left intact by invading armies of counsellors, paediatricians, psychologists, criminologists and trauma consultants. "Every parent's nightmare" became the nation's nightmare. Families closed their doors to the world, hugged their children close and cursed Portugal.

To suggest that this might not be a good way of finding a missing child is clearly spitting in the wind. It is possible that publicity in the McCann case might have induced witnesses to come forward in the immediate aftermath of the girl's disappearance. It is equally possible that media hysteria could drive a cornered criminal to desperate measures to cover his or her tracks. Is it worth the risk?

There were 798 child abductions in Britain in the last period for which figures are available (2003-4), of which most were intra-family but 68 were "by strangers". Of these, a majority were quickly and quietly resolved, by information being available and acted on before the captor realised. Twenty-five of them took longer, in addition to dozens from preceding years. Since the disappearance of Madeleine on May 3, another 450 young people have gone missing in Britain. While many are teenagers, none has received anything like the attention given to the McCanns.

So what made this case so special as to merit the trans-shipment of Fleet Street's finest and the BBC's chief news-reader? The answer is that a "big news story" is not a systematic concept. It does not emerge onto the page according to some calculus of merit, as satirically suggested by Michael Frayn in his novel, Towards the End of Morning. It does not claim its place on the front page via a table stipulating five dead Englishmen (or one Londoner), 50 dead Europeans and 1,000 dead Chinese.

To acquire front page status a story must compete with dozens of similar human interest stories on a particular day, boosted by happenings over the light news period such as a bank holiday. Hence the phenomenon that alsatians only attack children at Easter and there is a "road carnage horror" every Christmas, though statistics on both are constant through the year. The story should relate the ordinary lives of readers, as did the Soham murders, but not the deaths of the Morecambe Bay Chinese cockle pickers. It must contain tears, suspense and mystery.

Such features are not cynical or strange. A newspaper story strives to attain the quality of a novel, if only because it knows that readers like novels, as television viewers like soap operas. The human imagination is attuned to narratives that have beginnings, middles and ends, preferably ends that carry some moral message. Under this pressure what is extraordinary is not that newspapers sometimes make things up (and get them wrong) but that they make so little up.

The McCann story ticked all these boxes. It was not another runaway teenager or the death abroad of another "promising gap-year student". It was a heartbreaking and open-ended mystery. Any parent could relate to it. Any reader could, by expressing sympathy and showing vigilance, participate in relieving pain and possibly solving the case. This might involve intrusion into private grief and blatant xenophobia, but that is hardly a media novelty. Britons travelling abroad seem to feel entitled to the same consideration by the authorities as they would get at home, and journalists feed that unreasonable expectation.

I have found the coverage of the McCann story prurient and tedious beyond belief. That the BBC should regard it as more important than Brown's ascension to national leadership crumbles my faith in that great organisation. Tabloid values have come to British public service broadcasting with a vengeance and without even the commercial pressure of the private sector. It is like the daily attention given to the kidnapping of the BBC's brave Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, when dozens of other kidnappings, including of journalists, go unreported.

In this spirit I must constantly remind myself that the British media does not do responsibility. It does stories. And stories tell better when they are about individuals, not collectives. The media is unconcerned with what people like me find decorous or important. It kicks down doors and exposes the hidden corners of the human condition. It fights competition, plays dirty and disobeys the rules. There is nothing it finds too vulgar or too prurient for its wandering, penetrating lens.

Journalists may have cooked the McCann story to a burnt crisp. But they cook many other stories that way and I say, thank goodness. There are plenty in power who feel too much was written and said on the Royal Navy hostages, on cash-for-honours, on BAE sleaze and on David Kelly. Tough luck on them.

Damilola Taylor was just one among many youngsters whose lives are ruined or lost on Britain's sink housing estates, conditions highlighted by the extraordinary publicity attached to his case. Many brave people are killed for trying to impose order on Britain's streets, but it was the teacher, Philip Lawrence, who captured the public's imagination. Sometimes there is no better way to alert the nation to street violence, racism or even the dangers faced by families abroad than through the tragedy visited on an individual victim.

The British press plays hard cop to the soft cop of the British constitution. It goes where politics dares not tread, certainly the present pusillanimous parliament that still cannot find a way of holding the government to account for Iraq, as congress is finally doing in America. The press does not operate with any sense of proportion, judgment or self-restraint because it is selling stories, not running the country. The unshackled and irresponsible press sometimes gets it wrong. But I still prefer it, warts and all, to a shackled and responsible one.

Source: The Guardian, Friday 18 May 2007


By Joana Morais

Gerry McCann attacks 'irresponsible' press coverage

By Paul McNally


A former journalist- spinning a carton character as the alleged abductor

Journalists covering the disappearance of Madeleine McCann "blatantly made up" stories in the pursuit of sales, her father has told MPs.

Giving evidence to the media select committee's inquiry into press standards this afternoon, Gerry McCann accused the British press of "disgraceful conduct".

And he said that if he had not taken legal action, the media storm – which he called "the Kate and Gerry Show" – might have "resulted in the complete destruction of our family".


Look in to my eyes - a death sentence if Maddie was kidnapped

Kate and Gerry McCann received a £550,000 libel payout from Express Newspapers last summer over a series of more than 100 defamatory articles.

"Our family has been the focus of some of the most sensational, untruthful, irresponsible and damaging reporting in the history of the press," McCann told MPs.

"We saw pressure to produce stories when really there wasn't anything new to report. That was the point where half-truths were making the front-page news.


Look in to my eyes - a death sentence if Maddie was kidnapped

"I always believe that other than maybe quite marked exaggeration to some front-page headline stories, I never really believed that many could be absolutely blatantly made up. I believe that was the case with Madeleine."

He later said of the newspapers' coverage: "Madeleine was a commodity and profits were to be made."


The McCanns On-line shop

McCann claimed the worst distortion came when British journalists in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luiz – who did not have access to many sources – took articles in the Portuguese press and embellished them.

"A single line buried deep in an article in a Portuguese newspaper – usually unsourced – it was front page and exaggerated to the extent where we had ridiculous headlines," he said.

'Intense pressure'

The McCanns' press officer, former BBC journalist Clarence Mitchell, said reporters on the ground were under "intense pressure from their newsdesks".

"We had a pack of UK reporters who were looking for their front page," he told MPs.

"They had no other traditional sources that would be available to them – and because of that they didn’t push any further


True Fact

"Something that was just a suggestion or allegation in the Portuguese press, by the time it made it across the Channel became a fact in the story when in fact they were complete distortions or entirely untrue."

Mitchell said there was also a "circle of lunacy" – where small nuggets of information would go from the Portuguese press to the UK papers and back again, picking up momentum on the way.

"Clarence I would often hear on the phone to journalists expressly telling them it was rubbish. It was still published," McCann said, claiming journalists typically only gave a few hours’ notice ahead of publishing a story.

True Fact

He added: "The most damning and damaging aspect of all the coverage that Kate and I cannot forgive was the presentation that there’s a substantial body of evidence that Madeleine is dead.

"If you portray a missing child as dead and people believe she’s dead without due evidence then people stop looking."


McCann's Pope Media Event: manipulation?

McCann said he had an informal conversation with Press Complaints Commission chairman Sir Christopher Meyer, who advised them that "legal redress was the way to address the issue" of defamatory stories appearing in the papers.

Adam Tudor from the McCanns’ lawyers, Carter Ruck, told the committee: "The PCC is perceived as being overly friendly, it lacks teeth. It can’t force apologies.”

He said if the McCanns had gone through the PCC instead of the courts, "it would have led the Express to thinking they were off the hook".


Death of free speech in the UK media

"By going to the PCC, Kate and Gerry would have been sending out a signal that they had no appetite to see this through and could perhaps be fobbed off," he said.

McCann added: "Undoubtedly we could have sued all the newspaper groups. But that wasn’t what we were interested in.

"The Express were the worst offenders by some distance and were the ones who, after the quiet period, rehashed it. It was a very easy decision."

Source: Press Gazette

By Joana Morais

"McCann added: "Undoubtedly we could have sued all the newspaper groups. But that wasn’t what we were interested in."

What a total dickhead this bloke is.

Did you see the fracas in the Comments section of the Independent this morning? The paper reported yesterdays events and the Comments section started off with a really first class destruction job on the McCanns. It was so well written. That brought the pros out, posting in mis spelt, illiterate English, attacking the 3As, Bren and Tony Bennett. One of them, (or they might all have been the same poster for all I know) posted Brens name, address and telephone number up, or they said that is what it was. They also attacked Tony Bennett and called him a nazi. Thankfully, Bren and Tony have complained, the comment section has been taken off, which is a pity as there were some good points made on there.

Just goes to show, all these McCann supporters from the forums which brag about their "responsible debating" and they have to resort to such childish tactics. Obviously they have no answer to the facts if this mornings episode is anything to go by.

Fern wrote:"McCann added: "Undoubtedly we could have sued all the newspaper groups. But that wasn’t what we were interested in."

What a total dickhead this bloke is.

what an appropriate banner for Gerry