Carter-Ruck spokesman denies recieving responce from Madeleine Foundation !!!

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44360&c=1

McCann lawyers seek to shut website
23 September 2009

By PA Media Lawyer

Lawyers representing the parents of Madeleine McCann, the British child remains missing after disappearing in Portugal in 2007, have started a legal battle to close down a website which claims Madeleine is dead and that her parents were in some way responsible for this.

Kate and Gerry McCann have instructed London law firm Carter-Ruck to seek the closure of MadeleineFoundation.org.

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry have consistently made it clear they will not dignify the actions of the so-called Madeleine Foundation with any comment whatsoever.

"However Carter-Ruck's position is now clear and it is in the hands of Kate and Gerry's defamation lawyers."

In a statement on its website, the Madeleine Foundation says libel lawyers Carter-Ruck also demand it to hand over all remaining copies of leaflets and booklets it has published, or is planning to publish, to support its claims.


The foundation said chairman, Debbie Butler, and secretary, Tony Bennett, were now taking legal advice.

The website carries letters it claims were sent to Carter-Ruck in response to its communications - however a spokesman for the law firm said it had not yet received any response.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May, 2007, while her parents dined with friends nearby.

Express Newspapers paid Kate and Gerry McCann £550,000 in damages in March last year after alleging that the couple were responsible for the death of their daughter in a series of articles.

In July, 2008, four newspaper groups agreed a six-figure libel settlement with Robert Murat, at one point named by Portuguese police as a formal suspect in Madeleine's disappearance.

Not a very good law firm are they? Course they received the letters pull the other one CR

margaret wrote:Not a very good law firm are they? Course they received the letters pull the other one CR

I would imagine that Debbie or Tony sent them by registered post. If so, someone would have had to have signed for it.

and if they did they can check the signature online at royalmail.com ( as long as they have the reference number)

Isn't there a postal strike on in some parts of the country?

What's the betting they've used that as an excuse.

tell carter ruck to get to ****
tell them you did a clarence !!!!
you sent it in a brown envelope with carter ruck left hand of the devil on it and it should have got there.

the one and only big_l wrote:tell carter ruck to get to ****
tell them you did a clarence !!!!
you sent it in a brown envelope with carter ruck left hand of the devil on it and it should have got there.

was gonna post but changed my mind :(

oh sod it

Nearly four...nearly fucking four...she was fucking three and her bastard parents left her alone so they could get pissed, no matter how its dressed up they fucking neglected her and now they want to seek 1.2 million in damages - fucking despicable pair

Even if this was true.....what sort of law firm are they??? Telling the press about what should be private matters!


I'd hardly call that professional!

arachnidae wrote:was gonna post but changed my mind :(

oh sod it

Nearly four...nearly fucking four...she was fucking three and her bastard parents left her alone so they could get pissed, no matter how its dressed up they fucking neglected her and now they want to seek 1.2 million in damages - fucking despicable pair

I agree with those sentiments.

Get em Goncalo wrote:

arachnidae wrote:was gonna post but changed my mind :(

oh sod it

Nearly four...nearly fucking four...she was fucking three and her bastard parents left her alone so they could get pissed, no matter how its dressed up they fucking neglected her and now they want to seek 1.2 million in damages - fucking despicable pair

I agree with those sentiments.

Me too and before they hit on Goncalo Amaral they wanted to sue the Pt Police for One Million but I guess the lawyers tol them where to...I hope the Pt people told them the same.

It looks to me they have got all the legal and political help they require , we as ordinary members of the Public have no means to stop them ? Opinions please, as i cannot see anyway out of this case.Other than the neglectors are free!!!!

Laffin Assasin wrote:

The website carries letters it claims were sent to Carter-Ruck in response to its communications - however a spokesman for the law firm said it had not yet received any response.

This spokeman is a LIAR!

Hmmm...on one thread, we have the "most feared libel lawyers in the UK" complaining about a photograph that is in the public domain anyway. And on another thread, they are claiming that "it must have got lost in the post".

Is that honestly the best they can come up with? I have heard better excuses from schoolboys who haven't done their homework. Next thing they will be telling us that "Cuddlecat ate it".

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:cq3Xp-GZNMAJ:madeleinefoundation.org/main/2008/11/tuesday-november-4-2008/+letter+to+ed+smethurst+tony+bennett+3+arguidos+forum&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk

The Madeleine Foundation
c/o Mr A Bennett
66 Chippingfield
HARLOW
Essex
CM17 0DJ
e-mail: ajsbennett@btinternet.com

The article in ‘The Sunday People’ – and our response
On Sunday 26 October, the ‘Sunday People’ published a short article titled: McCanns’ Fury Over Neglect’

Here is the link:

http://www.people.co.uk/news/news/tm_headline=mccanns-fury-over-neglect&method=full&objectid=20839962&siteid=93463-name_page.html

This article included a number of important statements, namely:

That the McCanns have vowed to sue our Secretary, and author of ‘What really happened to Madeleine McCann?’ for suggesting that they may be guilty of child neglect
That the McCanns’ lawyers (in the plural) are ‘watching him, and constantly monitoring his claims, which they consider are libellous’.
The McCanns’ reported ‘fury’ seemed to centre on the ‘30 Reasons’ article on our website.

We have made it very clear on our website that we will not knowingly publish anything incorrect or libellous. We have made it doubly clear that if there is any fact in ‘30 Reasons’ which can be proved to be incorrect, we will be happy to correct it. As we have already shown, we meant what we said as we made a small number of corrections to our website during the first week it went ‘live’.

We therefore decided to write direct to the McCanns themselves, the McCanns’ lawyers and to their main PR spokesman, Mr Clarence Mitchell. We reproduce a copy of that letter below.

We should explain that Mr Smethurst is described as the lawyer ‘co-ordinating’ legal help to the McCanns. This legal help to the McCanns has been very considerable. Unusually, it included three lawyers from Leicestershire being flown out on an emergency basis to Portugal the day after Madeleine ‘disappeared’. Incidentally, we have never understood how these lawyers could materially assist the search for Madeleine. It includes top extradition lawyer in the U.K., Michael Caplan Q.C. – the man who helped General Pinochet to avoid extradition to Chile on murder charges – and top extradition lawyers in Portugal. So we thought he would be the key man to write to; if he was co-ordinating all those lawyers, then he would surely be co-ordinating the watching and monitoring of our website.

It should be noted that Mr Edward Smethurst is the in-house lawyer to the Latium Group, which is wholly owned by multi-millionaire Mr Brian Kennedy, the double glazing magnate. In other words, Mr Smethurst works for Mr Kennedy and is entirely working under his direction and control. It is Mr Kennedy who is has personally backed the McCanns with large sums of money, believed to top £1 million, and has also made mysterious visits to witnesses in the case, which almost certainly breached Portuguese laws on maintaining the integrity of their criminal investigations.

Mr Smethurst has stated that he works for the McCanns ‘pro bono’ – a Latin legal phrase meaning ‘for free’. Maybe. But his real master is Mr Brian Kennedy.

Very similar letters to the one we reproduce below were also written to:

The McCanns themselves
Their well-known chief publicity agent, Mr Clarence Mitchell, who was seconded from his £75,000-a-year post as Head of the Media Monitoring Unit of the Central Office of Information to help the McCanns
Michael Caplan Q.C., and
Bates, Wells and Braithwaite, another of the McCanns’ many Solicitors and also Solicitors to the private trust called the helping to Find Madeleine Fund, which has raised millions of pounds but has refused to date to answer repeated queries about how much has been raised for the fund and what it has been spent on.
As of today (3 November) we’ve had neither a reply nor an acknowledgment. We’ll keep you posted.

We reproduce below the letter I sent to Mr Edward Smethurst on 27 October:

The Madeleine Foundation
Combating child neglect

[address withheld]

Tel: 07867 887066
e-mail: butler683@btinternet.com
Website: www.madeleinefoundation.org

Monday 27 October 2008

Mr Edward Smethurst
In-house lawyer to Mr Brian Kennedy
c/o Latium Management Services
Ground Floor, Cypress House
3 Grove Avenue
WILMSLOW
Cheshire
SK9 5EG

Dear Sirs

re: Alleged libellous statements by the Madeleine Foundation and Anthony Bennett

I am writing to you following two telephone calls by journalists to our Secretary Mr Tony Bennett on Friday (24th) and in response to an article in ‘The People’ Sunday newspaper yesterday (26th) which I now quote in full:


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26 October 2008

McCanns fury over ‘neglect’
Exclusive by Marc Baker

Missing Maddie McCann’s furious parents have vowed to sue a lawyer who suggests they are guilty of child neglect.

Anthony Bennett, 61, is urging the Government to bring in a “Madeleine’s Law” making it a criminal offence to leave children under 12 on their own.

His website attacks doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41, over the disappearance of Maddie, now five, from their holiday flat in Portugal last year.

McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “Our lawyers are watching him. They are constantly monitoring his claims, which we consider are libellous.”

A legal source close to the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, said: “They are more than annoyed and deeply offended. They say enough is enough. All they are trying to do is get their daughter back.”


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The article states: “Our lawyers are watching him”. From various newspaper articles, we have noted that your role is as co-ordinator of legal advice to the McCanns, so we take this to be a reference either to yourself, or to other lawyers whose activities on behalf of the McCanns you are co-ordinating.

The article in ‘The People’ refers to ‘Mr Bennett’s website’. For your information, it is not his website; it is operated by members of the Madeleine Foundation.

It seems from the article in ‘The People’ that the McCanns and their lawyers are mainly exercised about the article: “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann? – 30 Reasons which suggest that Madeleine was not abducted”, which appeared publicly for the first time live on our website last Sunday (20 October).

The first thing to say is that Britain is of course a free country with freedom of speech as additionally protected, for example, by the European Convention on Human Rights, under the Articles which allow freedom of expression and freedom of conscience and belief.

It is the honest belief of members of the Madeleine Foundation that such evidence as there is in the public domain – and there is now a lot of it – suggests that Madeleine McCann was not abducted. It is not libel to give an opinion on a controversial issue, so long as that opinion is founded on facts and on a genuinely-held conviction as to where those facts lead.

As you will be aware, there are frequent examples where a young child has died at his/her family home (or temporary residence elsewhere e.g. on holiday) and the family claim that their child has been abducted. Indeed, there have been a considerable number of such high profile cases in the past year or so, such as the cases of Caylee Anthony, where his mother Casey Anthony was charged with first degree murder earlier this month; Antoine Brugerolle de Fraissinette, the boy reported missing from the Clermont Ferrand area of France last month; Harmony Jude Creech, killed in August 2007; the Hungarian toddler Dominik, found buried in nearby field after being reported missing by his parents in October 2007; Leonardo Giovanni Sendejas, killed in 2007; Riley Ann Sawyers (also known as ‘Baby Grace’, killed 24 July 2007; and of course the ‘baby in the attic’ case.

The history of cases where a young child has died in the family home – whether by accident, negligence, neglect or deliberate act – surely entitles all of us to view with scepticism all similar claims of abduction as were made in the above cases, especially where the child concerned is very young and the claim is made that they were snatched from within the family’s home.

And this was precisely the view taken, in the case of Madeleine, by the initial senior investigating officer in the case, Mr Goncalo Amaral. As you know, he has now published a book, in Portuguese, titled: “The Truth about A Lie”. In that book, he describes in detail the steps he took in his investigation and has analysed his reasons for believing (a) that Madeleine McCann died in Apartment 5A at the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, (b) that the McCanns, possibly with help from some of their ‘Tapas 9′ friends, arranged to hide her body, and (c) that her body was moved from a location in or close to Praia da Luz sometime after 28 May in the car hired by the McCanns, a Renault Scenic.

You will no doubt also be aware of the brilliant work done by Mr Amaral in the case of the killing of 8-year-old Joana Cipriano. This was yet another case where the family maintained that Joana had been abducted, allegedly on her way to or from the local shops. It was Mr Amaral whose diligence and forensic enquiries eventually proved that the family were lying; the poor girl had in fact been brutally murdered by her own mother and uncle, and her body disposed of in graphic circumstances which it is unnecessary to go into here. He successfully proved charges of murder against that couple who are now serving lengthy prison terms. He thus has a good track record of pursuing difficult investigations where a missing child is concerned.

Our views about the mystery of why Madeleine McCann is now missing do not differ from those of Goncalo Amaral. We note that on at least one occasion, the McCanns’ official spokesman, Mr Clarence Mitchell, has spoken of a possible libel action against Mr Amaral, and Mr Amaral has reported that Mr Mitchell contacted him immediately prior to the book’s publication, apparently asking him if he ‘knew what he was doing’ and warning him that he had ‘better take care’. This is all documented and in the public domain. Mr Amaral’s book has now been out for over three months. As you will doubtless be aware, substantial parts of it have been translated into English and are freely available to view on the Internet. Yet there has been no sign of any legal action against Mr Amaral or the book’s publishers and distributors. It is understood that his book is currently being translated into several other languages.

On top of Mr Amaral’s book, which is based on first-hand forensic evidence and analysis, the Portuguese police have also made available thousands of documents and pages of evidence in the case. This has tended to confirm many (though not all) of the many rumours about the case published in newspapers prior to July 2008.

The ‘30 Reasons’ article which Mr Bennett has written has been based on, for example, extracts from Mr Amaral’s book, viewing the video and written evidence released by the Portuguese police in July 2008, and numerous Internet references, including of course the encyclopaedic website mccannfiles.com, run by Mr Nigel Moore. We believe the article to be entirely factual and not to contain any errors.

Should your clients believe that there are statements made in the ‘30 Reasons’ article which are factually incorrect, we invite them, thorough yourselves or otherwise, to let me as the Chairman of the Madeleine Foundation know.

Since we published ‘30 Reasons’ just over a week ago, a few minor errors have been drawn to our attention. We took immediate steps to correct those errors by placing up corrected versions of our article on 22 and 24 October respectively.

It is not in the interest of the Madeleine Foundation to publish inaccurate information. Therefore if you can substantiate that any factual statement we make in ‘30 Reasons’ is incorrect, we undertake to change it as soon as practicable.

The article in ‘The People’ suggests in a couple of places that ‘the McCanns’ lawyers’ have already been watching our website and/or various comments made by Mr Bennett about the case. If so, then you will no doubt have seen the original invitation made publicly on our website, which reads:

“We have done our best to ensure that the information below is accurate – not easy in this case of claim and counter-claim, rumours, smears and, not least, lazy and inaccurate media reporting of the case here in the United Kingdom. In addition, new facts are being released by the Portuguese police to the media at the current time. So, we welcome any corrections from readers who think we may have got any facts wrong or where information clearly needs to be updated”.

You will also have noticed the following statement I made on Tuesday 22 October, again in a prominent position on our website:

“Update 22 October 2008. We’re very grateful for the many encouraging responses received to our publishing ‘30 Reasons’ and to news of our forthcoming book. We also thank those who have already contacted us pointing out minor errors of detail in our earlier ‘30 Reasons’ article. All the necessary corrections have now been made. If you spot an error, or indeed if you have suggestions to make about ‘30 Reasons’, please don’t hesitate to contact us” – Debbie Butler, Chairman, The Madeleine Foundation

To date, we have corrected those few statements in the original article which have been reported to us as incorrect. We have not had any communication from the McCanns, or those representing them, seeking to correct any statement in ‘30 Reasons’.

Whilst writing to you, I wish to clear up one or two matters regarding your own involvement in the case of ‘missing’ Madeleine, and I should be grateful if you could answer the following questions please:

(1) you have been described as acting for the McCanns on a ‘pro bono’ basis. Was this statement true and has it remained true ever since?
(2) you have frequently been described in various newspapers as the person ‘co-ordinating’ the legal advice and help to the McCanns. Was this statement true and has it remained true ever since?
(3) you have frequently been described in the press as the ‘in-house lawyer for Mr Brian Kennedy’ and his Latium Group empire. Was this statement true and has it remained true ever since? If so, we note Mr Brian Kennedy’s extensive involvement both financial and otherwise e.g. making many visits to various countries on behalf of the McCanns, and therefore our working assumption is that you are in effect employed by Mr Kennedy to work on the McCann case and taking your instructions from him and not direct from the McCanns. If our working assumption is incorrect, please advise.
(4) does your co-ordinating role in the McCann case extend to co-ordinating the work of Bates, Wells and Braithwaite on behalf of the private company The Helping to Find Madeleine Trust, which has raised millions of pounds from the public? We ask because we have endeavoured via the Trust’s Solicitors, Bates, Wells and Braithwaite, to find out answers to a number of very important questions about how much money the fund has raised and on what that money has been spent. Bates, wells and Braithwaite, on instructions from the Trust, refused to answer even one question.

Yours faithfully

Debbie Butler
Chairman
The Madeleine Foundation

the one and only big_l wrote:tell carter ruck to get to ****
tell them you did a clarence !!!!
you sent it in a brown envelope with carter ruck left hand of the devil on it and it should have got there.

Alpine Aster wrote:

the one and only big_l wrote:tell carter ruck to get to ****
tell them you did a clarence !!!!
you sent it in a brown envelope with carter ruck left hand of the devil on it and it should have got there.

:risas:

Have they looked down the back of the sofa? It might have slipped down there.

What stunt are they trying to pull now with this limp excuse?

fabulous coverage related to pitchforks with rosiepops and co throwing eggs and pretending to be part of our group -I,ll take a raincheck

there is no such thing as a classy rabble -see my response on the other thread-my name is woodward not tinkerbell do I read like I fell out of a xmas tree?

why were you all horrible to Cameron ?

Apologies if she's genuinely upset deborah, only, with recent events some of us felt that we were being incited to do something which could negatively impact on the quest for justice for Madeleine

oh sorry - just reading quickly and saw you all being rather out of character

deborah wrote:why were you all horrible to Cameron ?

I think because the "f" word was used in the wrong context and because a rallying call for all of us to, basically, riot in the streets. They have been doing that in my adopted country and have been tear gassed and attacked in all sorts of ways. Plenty of people wounded and dozens in hospital. None of us would want that and we don't appreciate being goaded into doing it. Maybe the a cameraon is genuinely naive and misguided but his suggestions were not welcome

a cameron wrote:not a guy and not attempting to 'goad' anyone into 'mass' rioting.

a girl who has suggested this - as many of us have done, on the 3a's, mirror etc - as a way to put out the word to more people. i dont quite see the rationale behind being aggressive towards me.

with regard to the f word....it was a response to a very funny post.

I do not feel aggressive towards you. The leaflets are doing a better job than us taking to the streets en masse. At least you are still here and that is good.