What the papers say - Amaral V McCanns trial

fred wrote:

carlymichelle wrote:oh dear...... he sounds like a idiot...

Well if he sounds like an idiot, looks like an idiot, chances are he is an idiot Carly

hey fred hows wilma heheh on a serious note i have never heard this tool speak but how he can kiss the mcanns ass like he is is beyond me!!!

ach don,t be too hard on poor tony it isn,t just us he hates ,he also hates the aussie,s well since his wife left him he hates anybody thats into bushcraft.

fred wrote:

carlymichelle wrote:oh dear...... he sounds like a idiot...

Well if he sounds like an idiot, looks like an idiot, chances are he is an idiot Carly

The idiot doesn't even deserve a single comment.

the one and only big_l wrote:ach don,t be too hard on poor tony it isn,t just us he hates ,he also hates the aussie,s well since his wife left him he hates anybody thats into bushcraft.

Laffin Assasin wrote:

the one and only big_l wrote:ach don,t be too hard on poor tony it isn,t just us he hates ,he also hates the aussie,s well since his wife left him he hates anybody thats into bushcraft.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243596/Shes-terrifyingly-hes-boiling-rage-So-HAVE-McCanns-trial.html

This is worth reading but much too long to paste.....honest!!!

here you go, yes it is long!

Last updated at 8:16 PM on 15th January 2010
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Kate and Gerry McCann arrive at a court in Lisbon, Portugal, earlier this week
During the first few weeks after Madeleine McCann's disappearance, Goncalo Amaral came to symbolise all that was wrong with the abysmally mishandled Portuguese police investigation into the case.
A portly provincial CID chief who was plainly out of his depth and had a penchant for long, wine-fuelled lunches and leaking favourable stories about himself to the Press, he was removed as head of the investigation after six months.
And when he was later revealed to have perjured himself to cover up a brutal interrogation by members of his team, detractors scoffed that his name ought to have been spelt with an 'o', as in 'amoral'.
In an extraordinary transformation of fortunes, however, he is now a Portuguese national icon, 'courageously' fighting for the right to express his bombshell theory: that Madeleine was not abducted, but died accidentally, and her parents, Gerry and Kate, covered up her death.
As Amaral arrived at a Lisbon court this week for the cause celebre case that has turned him into an unlikely hero, he clearly revelled in his new-found popularity.
Mobbed by cheering, flag and banner-waving supporters (mainly women of a certain age), he smiled and signed autographs before a barrage of cameras.
Though he is 50 and a father of three daughters, Amaral sported a faux diamond ear-stud recently given to him by his (much younger) second wife, Sofia Leal: surely a ludicrous accessory for a balding, middle-aged man in a gumshoe's mac and trilby.
Yet for Gerry and Kate, who froze with contempt as the star witness sashayed past them to take his seat in court, this unedifying spectacle was just the start of a week that has once again tested their powers of resolve to the limit.

Goncalo Amaral, who is accusing the McCanns of covering up their daughter Maddie's death
For three long days, the couple were forced to listen as a procession of witnesses supported the distressing central assertions in the controversial memoir Amaral has written about the hunt for their daughter.
Melodramatically titled Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie, the book had become a best-seller in Portugal by September, when the McCanns won an injunction ordering it to be removed from the shelves.
Up to 330,000 copies of the £10 paperback are said to have been sold in Portugal and Europe before it was withdrawn, reportedly netting Amaral more than £1 million.
In the book, which has been turned into a TV documentary and DVD, the former police chief states with absolute conviction his belief that three-year-old Madeleine was not abducted from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, as her parents have always claimed.
Instead, he claims she died by accident, after falling from the sofa and hitting her head on the floor while the McCanns dined with friends in a nearby tapas bar.
Madeleine McCann went missing in May 2007, just days before her fourth birthday
When they realised what had happened, according to his shocking theory, they panicked and concealed her body, thus precipitating the biggest and most perplexing missing person inquiry of modern times.
Regardless of whether they believe these unsubstantiated views, the majority of the Portuguese people insist that Amaral has every right to express them.
For in a country that threw off the shackles of dictatorship only 35 years ago and where state censorship is still remembered by the older generation, freedom of speech is sacrosanct.
Having been pilloried for leaving their three children alone on the night their elder daughter vanished, Kate and Gerry find themselves under vitriolic attack from the Portuguese media yet again.
This week's court case was brought by Amaral, who is seeking to have the injunction lifted so he can sell thousands more copies of his book, which his publishers hope to launch on the huge U.S. and British markets.
But the hearing would never have come about had the McCanns not sought the ban in the first place and instead allowed the public to make up their own minds about the unsubstantiated theories of a failed police chief with many axes to grind.
This week's skirmish is not the end of the McCanns' battle to silence Amaral.
Win or lose, they are intent on suing him for libel damages to recoup every penny he has earned from the book, promising to donate the money to the fund they set up to find Madeleine.

Amaral claims Madeleine died by accident, after falling from the sofa and hitting her head on the floor while the McCanns dined with friends in a nearby tapas barFor his part, should the Lisbon courts find against him, Amaral has pledged to fight on, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
Though this case will be decided within two months, the McCanns seem certain to be trekking back and forth between their home in Leicestershire and Lisbon for many months - or even years - to come.
Watching the couple suffer more attacks on their reputations this week - Kate painfully thin and close to breaking point; Gerry pugnacious, as always - you have to ask why they have chosen to put themselves in the firing line yet again.
Why have they embarked on a course of action that has effectively placed them - rather than the man who bungled the police investigation - on trial?

A terrifyingly thin Kate and stressed Gerry are clearly not coping well with the trial
And worse, in a court where they can be subjected to the most damaging and baseless slurs without recourse to rigorous cross-examination.
Many PR experts would have advised them to simply ignore Amaral and his unproven 'theory', so depriving his book of the global publicity the case has received this week.

Why have the McCanns embarked on a course of action that has effectively placed them - rather than the man who bungled the police investigation - on trial?Before answering the questions about the McCanns, it is worth recounting the former police chief's part in the flawed inquiry and how his book came to be written.
On May 3, 2007, when Madeleine vanished from Apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, Amaral was in charge of CID at the nearest big town, Portimao.
As he recalls in the memoir, he was informed about her disappearance just after midnight.
The McCanns are attempting to prevent the publication of Amaral's book Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie
The McCanns were adamant that Madeleine - who had been left alone with her twin brother and sister, Sean and Amelie, then 18 months old - must have been snatched. But he quickly became sceptical.
When I spoke to him at length this week, he claimed to have approached the case with professional dispassion, but his opinion appears to have been influenced at least partly by deep cultural differences between him and the McCanns.
As a traditional Portuguese father with three daughters, he was appalled to discover these British parents had left their three small children alone while they enjoyed dinner with friends, even though the restaurant was only yards away.
As the hours and days passed, however, other factors coloured his views, not least the McCanns' apparent determination to whip up publicity via what one witness this week described disdainfully as a 'media circus'.
Though Amaral insists he has no time for conspiracy theories, it seems he began to see them everywhere.
For example, why had the couple's holiday friends trampled all over the apartment, tarnishing potentially vital evidence: was this ' contamination' deliberate?
Then there was the behaviour of the British authorities, including the police officers who arrived in Praia da Luz four days after Madeleine vanished. Why were they seemingly so unco-operative with the Portuguese police and protective of the McCanns?
He remains convinced that his team was systematically obstructed by the British in some arcane plot orchestrated from on high, and he has just published a second (not banned) book expounding this theory, titled The English Gag.


Former detective Goncalo Amaral poses with his book
According to the court testimony of the McCanns' liaison officer, Ricardo Paiva, the suspicions of Amaral and his team were hardened by what was seen as a turning point in the police investigation.
It came when a weeping Kate phoned Paiva, in late July 2007, to report a disturbing dream in which she had seen Madeleine lying on rocks overlooking a beach at Praia da Luz. The detectives took this to be a clear signal that the McCanns knew full well that their daughter was dead.
Soon afterwards, sniffer dogs were called in to the search, but though they were said to have detected 'the scent of death' in the couple's holiday apartment and Renault Scenic hire car, no forensic evidence was found to support this.
There are serious questions about the reliability of these dogs, which also seemed to sniff out human remains at a Jersey children's home, which has since been discounted.
Furthermore, Gerry McCann insists Kate never had the supposedly incriminating dream, let alone reported it.
'I don't know if something has been lost in translation, but that didn't happen,' said the 41-year-old heart specialist, struggling to maintain his composure during a break in the proceedings. 'These are Goncalo Amaral's witnesses.
'I think it is particularly disappointing that certain police officers who considered us as possibly involved have not been able to change their views, despite the lack of evidence.'

Kate and Gerry McCann haven't given up hope on finding their missing daughter

Speaking to me during the court lunch-break on Thursday, however, Amaral remained defiantly on the offensive. With a female supporter acting as interpreter, he said he wrote his 200-page book in just two months, fuelled by endless cigarettes at his home on the Algarve.
He didn't work from police documents or diaries, but purely from memory, he told me, tapping his head for emphasis. And he used a personal computer kept disconnected from the internet for 'security' reasons.
But what possible justification did he have for writing the memoir, the profits from which have been frozen by the court (though not before he could acquire a new Jaguar), if it wasn't to get rich and settle scores in the process?

'I'd like to remind everyone that the book is on trial - not Kate and I'The decision was not taken lightly, he says, but came after he had discussed the likely fall-out with his wife, a civil servant who has suffered clinical depression attributed to the stress of the case. (However, Mrs Amaral had recovered sufficiently several months ago to pose on the beach for a Hello-style photo-shoot with her husband, for which they chose to wear matching white outfits).
'This case finished my career and the British newspapers just vilified me. I saw it was necessary to defend myself,' he told me, insisting that though he lost a third of his pension by resigning early, money was not a factor.
'If everything had gone properly, I wouldn't have needed to write the book. (But) it was a need for me to write a testimony of all that was done.
'That was my intention: to make public that part of the investigation that was unknown, and defend myself before all those who were saying the Policia Judiciaria (Portuguese police) were incompetent; that I was incompetent.'

Loss: Kate and Gerry McCann in the days after Madeleine's disappearance
Mindful-of the injunction, he declined to elaborate on his theories about Madeleine's disappearance. Whatever her fate that night, though, didn't he have some degree of sympathy for a couple who had lost their daughter?
'As a policeman I can't have sympathy or empathy because I have to be objective and leave my feelings apart,' he said.
'As a father, I sympathise with them and their pain and loss. It's not about blame or recrimination.'
This response is hardly convincing. As the case goes on, he will doubtless set aside his 'fatherly' sentiments to renew his damaging accusations.
Yet for all the torment the McCanns have endured this week (at one point, Madeleine's abduction was described as a 'fairytale' that saved them from prosecution for child neglect) and the harrowing accusations to come, they maintain they are right to fight this case.

'I'd like to remind everyone that the book is on trial - not Kate and I,' said Gerry.
While he believes in the principles of free speech, the rights of his family - including the daughter he and Kate steadfastly believe to be alive - have to be defended, too.
Though some will question the McCanns and their motives, according to the family's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, the hope that Madeleine will be found alive is the main reason they dragged themselves back this week to a country that offers them scant welcome and has brought so much heartache.
'Obviously they were aware some of the old allegations and charges by certain police officers would be rehashed, but they feel this was a case that just had to be brought,' he says.

'People won't believe she is alive if they read this book and that could stop them coming forward with vital new leads' 'They believe it's important not only for their good name and reputation, and the damage Mr Amaral continues to do to it, but also because his allegations are damaging their continuing search for Madeleine.
'People won't believe she is alive if they read this book and that could stop them coming forward with vital new leads.
'One of the things that greatly worries Kate and Gerry is this: if, as we now know, the Portuguese police did not investigate her disappearance properly from the outset because they didn't believe it had happened, then what has happened to all the information they received?'
What indeed? And assuming it was retained and is gathering dust in a police archive, might it conceal that one little clue upon which Kate and Gerry's hopes rest?
The clue which, if meticulously examined, could bring back their little girl after so many false dawns?
Even if this is only a remote possibility, surely it should be explored - but not by a flashy detective who is so cocksure he knows all the answers he can't see beyond his own giant ego.
• Additional reporting by Vanessa Allen

ann_chovey

Well done and many thanks. It"s an interesting Article and a bit too pro- mcCann but I suspect that is Vanessa Allen"s contribution and David Page has taken a more balanced view. Whatever happens you can be sure there
will be few donations to the Fund, especially since is was reported just two months ago that Halligen had
received £300,000.00 from the Fund. Also, weren"t the McCanns given until September 08 to appeal against
the case being shelved.? They did not appeal so why bleat now about they are the only ones searching for
Madeleine.!!

Hi Beattie.... no probs. it is long and cluttered with ads to be removed too. Parts of it have Vanessa's dabs all over it, but it does have the bare bones of the case.

I can't see the fund rumbling on for much longer, if you look at the messages of support on the site they are mainly from abroad , Russia, S. Africa and kids on facebook. A few stalwarts still hanging around, but I think the whole thing is grinding to a halt. Time will tell.

It wouldnt surprise me now if the general public start to take an interest in this case again.....personally I think it stopped when the McCanns arguidos status was dropped....now that it's done another turnaround surely everyone will be itching to know why the book was banned!

How strange it was to see Kate and Gerry McCann, this time wrapped up in winter clothes, dominating news bulletins once more. Walking together towards a Portuguese courtroom, they looked gaunt and emotionally scalded; still haunted by their poor, missing Madeleine.
It was a reminder that while time has moved on for us, for them the clocks stopped on a sunny evening in spring nearly three years ago when their daughter disappeared from their holiday apartment and vanished from the face of the earth.
This, of course, was the beginning of an enduring nightmare for the couple, who also have four-year-old twins. For the sake of these other children, more than anything else one suspects, they have had to somehow carry on as normal.

Ordeal: The McCanns in Portugal this week looking gaunt and emotionally scalded
Christmas, they said recently, was a particularly painful time. It is scarcely credible that they manage to get through it all, although their matching pinched expressions tell their own story.

For the McCanns, the dread fight continues, not only to find their daughter, but - even now - to try to clear their names. For out there in the internet ether brews a persistent whispering campaign against them, fuelled by the fireside fanatics who take a voyeuristic delight in every child-in-peril story, from Baby P to Sarah Payne.


More from Jan Moir... JAN MOIR: A rude awakening for some Togs, but at least the bad boy of broadcasting has grown up 12/01/10 Jan Moir's view from the sofa: Tough and unforgiving, like Heather's new haircut 11/01/10 JAN MOIR: Forget the icy roads, where's our own grit? 08/01/10 JAN MOIR: What do we want? Stodge. When do we want it? Now (before we freeze to death!) 06/01/10 Down into the Celebrity Big Brother quagmire we go (again) 04/01/10 JAN MOIR: It's time to exterminate David Tennant from the TV schedules 01/01/10 JAN MOIR talks to Baron Pearson of Rannoch, the gloriously eccentric and accident-prone new head of UKIP 28/12/09 SANTA SPEAKS: It's the interview they all wanted. But JAN MOIR (who's been a very good girl all year) has bagged the one - and guess what, Mr Claus isn't as cuddly as you'd think 22/12/09 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
And across the courtroom from them sits another man who seeks to do them harm.
The McCanns are back in Portugal, peeling open old wounds as they continue their libel case against Portuguese investigator Goncalo Amaral.

He is trying to overturn the banning of his book The Truth Of The Lie in which he questions the McCanns' account that Madeleine was taken while they were eating with friends. Indeed, he goes further and accuses them of covering up their daughter's death.
The McCanns' great fear, they say, is not just what people think of them, but that if they think Madeleine is dead, they will stop looking for her.
'It is the book that is on trial, not us,' said Mr McCann.
Yet that is not quite true, is it? Nothing in the Madeleine McCann case is ever that simple.
Part of the problem is that the McCanns can be difficult to like. His belligerence and her icy composure don't play well with an audience looking for histrionics and emotional meltdowns on camera. It's not like this in the movies!
And there are moments when, even though his wife clearly sees publicity as a necessary evil, Gerry McCann can appear to enjoy the limelight a little too much for comfort.
There were - and are - moments when the energy and occasional fury he ploughs into the campaign to find his daughter seem to be a conduit for his own feelings of guilt. Sometimes, as he rages, it is almost as if it was our fault that Madeleine had gone missing.
Yet, faced with the sullen recrimination of the Portuguese police which continues to this day, what was his option?
And if the McCanns really are guilty of accidentally killing their own daughter and covering it up - and I don't for a moment believe this to be the case - would they be embarking on this new, difficult, high-profile legal fight? Would it not be more likely that they might dismiss the book as rubbish and just get on quietly with their lives? Proving innocence is most important to the innocent.
The couple made a terrible mistake. They left their children alone. Yet although thousands of parents have done this, the McCanns - despite what Gerry says - will for ever be on trial in the court of public opinion until Madeleine is found, dead or alive.
Or - and this is a long shot - whoever did this is finally shamed by a sudden, flaming spark of decency in an ossified soul, and somehow finds it in their conscience to supply a piece of information, anonymous or otherwise, that might end the living torture of this wretched, blighted family.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1243368/JAN-MOIR-A-love-story-Yes--way-settle-old-scores.html#ixzz0cnTudKsN

2nd story down

Ambersuz wrote:It wouldnt surprise me now if the general public start to take an interest in this case again.....personally I think it stopped when the McCanns arguidos status was dropped....now that it's done another turnaround surely everyone will be itching to know why the book was banned!

I agree, had the McCanns left well alone Amaral"s book would only have been of interest to the likes of us. If
the injunction is lifted it will go flying off the shelves and the McCanns look very suspicious for trying to ban it.

This bit is sooo true!

There were - and are - moments when the energy and occasional fury he ploughs into the campaign to find his daughter seem to be a conduit for his own feelings of guilt. Sometimes, as he rages, it is almost as if it was our fault that Madeleine had gone missing.

no it's just our fault that it is not all over now

don't you remember Gerry saying 'this is getting boring now' when being asked again about old stuff to do with her ' going missing '

I mean cmon people shouldn't we have moved on by now


not when it is just starting to get going

tabs wrote:no it's just our fault that it is not all over now

don't you remember Gerry saying 'this is getting boring now' when being asked again about old stuff to do with her ' going missing '

I mean cmon people shouldn't we have moved on by now


not when it is just starting to get going

gerry will be rageing when the shoite really starts to hit the fan,cant wait,

Big L, walked straight into a laugh, bless

Funny there seems to have been a parting of the ways between Kate and Gerry, firstly her blog where she refers to "my daughter" and now this.

I believe it was kidnap, but they were involved!

It would be pretty extraordinary to sue Goncalo as they have if he is actually telling the truth! I wonder if Maddie going to get sprung? Unlikely I know, but it would enable her to prove him wrong, maybe that is what he is wanting her to do. I do not underestimate the intelligence of Goncalo or the personal risks he has taken.

Of course the other odd thing is Gerry suddenly rushing home and leaving her in Pt. That was clearly not planned given Clarence said they planned to stay for the whole case. Clarence seems to have disappeared as well, maybe I am hoping for too much, but is there a big crack appearing in Team McCann.

Fiona and Kate versus Clarence, Gerry and David, I wish!

Call me a cynic, but didn't she have the chance to step into the "Witness-Box" and say this ??

A statement from the witness-box, under oath would be a lot more convincing for me.

I'll stand in one, if anyone want's to send me a "Farter-Mike Osullivan" letter

Oh, on a lighter note, Agnew, BBC east midlands editor, is connected to some of the "raptors" via TWITTERING TWATS.

Police chief could face charges Sunday Express

By James Murray
Sunday January 17, 2010

FORMER police chief Goncalo Amaral could face criminal charges if it is found that he breached secrecy laws in his book and documentary about Madeleine McCann, writes James Murray.

According to the McCanns' lawyer, Mrs Isabel Duarte, he published and broadcast information which should have remained private in an attempt to prove his theory that Madeleine died in the family's holiday apartment.

In the documentary, a police dog is seen barking by a cupboard where it is alleged Madeleine's body was put.

Mrs Duarte said Mr Amaral had no right to show film of police dogs in the apartment.

"It is a criminal matter to reproduce the film of the dogs,so he could be prosecuted," she said.

Mr Amaral, 50, was in court last week trying to lift an injunction banning his book, The Truth Of The Lie.

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Its a criminal matter to show the dogs? Is it?

Cadaver dogs don't bark at nothing and the fact that the dog barked at what it did is food for thought. Glad Amaral let this video be shown.

Yer I bet, lets wait and see, if it had come from the Telegraph or The Guardian I " may" believe it, the Express...... NO FUKCING CHANCE!!!