Express

Usual shit comming out, although I didn't know he owned a luxury retirement home.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/574547/Maddie-libel-detective-ruined-Retirement-retreat-seized-cover-McCann-payout

? for me it's a rather surprisingly well balanced article:





EXCLUSIVE Maddie libel detective ruined: Retirement retreat seized to cover McCann payout

THE luxury home where former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral, central to the Madeleine McCann investigation, hoped to spend his retirement is boarded up and desolate.

By James Murray

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, May 3, 2015

"MARK KEHOE
Detective Goncalo Amaral and his controversial book
It is a place he aimed to retreat to after writing a book about the distressing case. Now, ruined and shamed, he will almost certainly have to sell it to pay libel compensation to Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry.

But the property, in millionaires’ development Cerro Azul, near the town of Olhao, has been seized as an asset by a Lisbon court which last week ruled that Amaral must pay the McCanns 500,000 euros (£357,000) compensation for allegations he made in his book.

Amaral suggested that evidence showed that Madeleine died in the apartment from which she went missing, a claim that caused the McCanns untold distress. They are still searching for their daughter, who, if alive, would be 12 on May 12.

Guard dogs patrol inside the house while Amaral, who is now broke, lives with his father in Lisbon following his divorce from his wife Sofi a. She lives with their teenage daughter hundreds of miles away in Faro – a city that the
abandoned property overlooks.

A family friend said: “He bought the property about 10 years ago as an investment and as somewhere to live with his family during retirement but events have taken a different turn.

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“The property is an asset of the court. He still has a loan, which would have to be paid back, with the rest potentially going to the McCanns, leaving him without anywhere to live except his father’s small home. “Everything he has worked for all his life could be lost.”

To help pay his legal fees, a fund in Portugal has raised about £5,000 and now a woman living in England, Leanne Baulch, has set up a “gofundme” crowd funding site, which has raised £3,000.

After analysing the judgment from judge Maria Castro, Amaral has decided to appeal, which could take two years, buying him time to raise more money. Describing the judgment as “unfair” he says he will appeal until the “very last judicial instance”, which signals it could end up in Portugal’s Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights.

Supporters point to a section of the judgment saying it was a proven fact that British police dogs detected the scent of human blood and a cadaver in Apartment 5a of the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, from where Madeleine vanished eight years ago today.

Amaral used this evidence to suggest in his book that Madeleine had died in the apartment, a theory vehemently rejected by the McCanns who still hope that she is alive somewhere.

The judge felt Amaral’s theory caused the McCanns anger, despair and anguish but she said it was not proven that they had been destroyed from a moral, social and family point of view beyond the pain that the absence of their daughter causes them.

Kehoe
Amaral’s retirement dream is locked up by the Portuguese courts while he is facing ruin

People bang on my gate and someone broke in once. I just don’t feel safe

The couple had sought 500,000 euros compensation for Madeleine and 100,000 euros for each of their twins Sean and Amelie, now 10, but the judge threw that out. She has still to decide if Amaral had the right to promote his theories under freedom of expression.

While the legal dispute looks set to last for a further five years, the anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance is being quietly remembered in Luz.

On the noticeboard of the Nossa Senhora yellow and white church, where the McCanns regularly prayed, there is no mention of Madeleine or the special prayers which will be said there today.

There are no pictures or posters of her and the only visible sign of the case is on Stop street signs. Someone using a sophisticated stencil has added “McCann Circus”, highlighting the view of many who feel the case should be forgotten and people should be allowed to get on with their lives.

Despite the costly Scotland Yard and Portuguese police investigation, the Sunday Express found that key witnesses have still not been spoken to.

MARK KEHOE
oad signs in Praia de Luz emblazoned with slogans to Stop the McCann Circus
Jenny Murat, 78, the mother of wrongly accused Robert Murat, has potentially breakthrough evidence but no one has spoken to her. At 8pm on May 3, 2007, she went to a supermarket and then drove past Apartment 5a and saw a woman hanging around. Her notes from the time say: “There was a woman standing on the corner under a lamp post.

“I don’t remember much of her other than she was of slight build and was wearing a plum coloured jacket. She moved around the lamp post as if trying not to be noticed.”

As she turned into the driveway of her home, Casa Liliana, she was nearly hit by a car going the wrong way. “When I stopped to open the gates I could not see the car but the woman was in the road looking in my direction.”

After her son was wrongly made an arguido (Portuguese for suspect), she contacted Hugo Swire, a Tory MP in Devon, and Leicestershire police about her sighting but, astonishingly, she has not been interviewed to this day.

Speaking at home this week, she told the Sunday Express: “I am happy to speak to Scotland Yard. This woman was just outside Apartment 5a and it didn’t look right. It could be relevant.”

After 12 years she has put Casa Liliana up for sale. “It is very sad but the place has become a tourist attraction for all the wrong reasons,” she said. “I get people banging on my gate and someone broke in once. I don’t feel safe. Robert’s life has been badly damaged by lies. It never goes away, it never ends. It gets you down.”

She will live with her daughter, Sammy, in Devon, but Robert, wife Michaela and their four-year-old son will remain on the Algarve.

“I might buy a small flat in Luz but we will see,” said Jenny. “It is not the same place.”

I posted that Express article last night under the above title and commented then that I too thought it was the most accurate article we are likely to see - so I agree frencheuropean. I think the Express is the only newspaper ever likely to show any 'anti' tendencies - the rest are too scared or are in the McPockets anyway.

i agree it is a well balanced article. so he was lucky enough 10years ago to get a mortgage for an apartment in a nice place.

Nice reference to the "Gofundme" site for donations towards Amaral's legal fees.

At last we get a new suspect, 'Hooker lady' !

There was a woman standing on the corner under a lamp post.

WHO IS HOOKER WOMAN?

Badboy wrote:WHO IS HOOKER WOMAN?

Jenny Murat said she saw a woman standing under a lampost. You can't make this crap up!!

She may have been the Russian Olygogs fancy bit.

He must use alot off electricity.....there are three boxes outside on the wall.

kitti wrote:The paper can't even get the amount  off children right...he has TWO children

One lives in the UK with her mum and the other one is with the German wife.

I think they are apartments and he owns one off them and they are making it look like he owns the whole lol

Are we talking about Mr Amaral?

kitti wrote:Are we talking about Mr Amaral?

I was talking about Robert murat with thr 2 children comment.

Lioned wrote:At last we get a new suspect, 'Hooker lady' !

There was a woman standing on the corner under a lamp post.

It was either Marlene Dietrich or Dame Vera Lynn

oh bill that's so funny

bill516 wrote:

Lioned wrote:At last we get a new suspect, 'Hooker lady' !

There was a woman standing on the corner under a lamp post.

It was either Marlene Dietrich or Dame Vera Lynn

Or could even have been George Formby. He had a thing about lamp posts!!

So doubtless did your namesake, Keela! :-D

I don't recall Dame Vera ever singing about, or loitering under, lamp posts!

It's gratifying to read that there is good coming out of the recent bad news.

http://portugalresident.com/brits-raise-thousands-for-maddie-cop%E2%80%99s-libel-appeal