The McCann v Gonçalo Amaral libel trial as it happens.

[stephen25000]

I am also uncertain as to what the court will establish, Portuguese law not being something I have studied. But I have no doubt Isabel Duarte has discussed these matters with her clients.

No matter what is established in reality though, the mere fact that the parents did go and challenge the lies and allegations of Amaral is important. To have chosen not to do so would have put the twins in a more difficult position whatever the outcome.

As for what this court can rule...

The question of human rights, it must be remembered, is not as simple as it initially seems. When dealing with Human Rights and Freedom of Speech then the question of the rights of one person against those of another have to be balanced.

Though Amaral may, as the previous court judged, have the right to publish, this court is taking the further step of now deciding whether the rights of the McCanns to their reputations outweigh the rights of Amaral to make widespread public accusations against them, and whether his publication of a thesis has damaged the search for a missing child.

The two courts are not in fact being asked to judge the same matters at all. It is not a matter of overuling a previous decision but taking it into account as one factor among many in a more complex balancing of rights and responsibilities.

Interesting, the use of the word 'thesis'.

Trademark of gm.

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Also, in an investigation, police don't just look at one theory, they will run parallel lines of inquiry ,unless they have undeniable indications of one or more perpetrators of a crime, and that they do not have, that is clear.

The latter paragraph highlights why the SY investigation is a complete waste of money in this case. They have 'persons of interest', well what does that mean exactly ?

Well in the case of SY, it means they don't have a CLUE, IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Interesting, the use of the word 'thesis'.

Trademark of gm.

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Also, in an investigation, police don't just look at one theory, they will run parallel lines of inquiry ,unless they have undeniable indications of one or more perpetrators of a crime, and that they do not have, that is clear.

The latter paragraph highlights why the SY investigation is a complete waste of money in this case. They have 'persons of interest', well what does that mean exactly ?

Well in the case of SY, it means they don't have a CLUE, IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.

In fairness to SY, Stephen, we don't actually know exactly what they are doing as they've been pretty tight-lipped .
And we have no way of knowing if the little they have given over to the press is some kind of diversion or not.

[stephen25000]

In fairness to SY, Stephen, we don't actually know exactly what they are doing as they've been pretty tight-lipped .
And we have no way of knowing if the little they have given over to the press is some kind of diversion or not.

Thanks for the reply Sherlock.

Time will tell on this one.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Thanks for the reply Sherlock.

Time will tell on this one.

Hopefully it will.

Change of modus operandi of all major players, accompanied by PR blackout....

Looks like something is cooking

[stephen25000]

Hopefully it will.

Change of modus operandi of all major players, accompanied by PR blackout....

Looks like something is cooking

Yup, maybe back to the out of court settlement ?

[AnneGuedes]

Three such odd delays caused do seem most odd, though each in itself is almost certainly founded in truth.

We have to trust the Judge, she has the signed documents proving the causes of the delays.

[icabodcrane]

Yup, maybe back to the out of court settlement ?

Could they do that in the middle of a trial  ?   

[stephen25000]

Could they do that in the middle of a trial  ?

Just my suggestion, we need an expert in Portuguese Law.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Yup, maybe back to the out of court settlement ?

I was actually thinking about something having altered in the investigation as a whole, maybe behind the scenes, that we don't know about. Everyone with the nebulous statements and mysterious looks.

[ferryman]

Interesting, the use of the word 'thesis'.

Trademark of gm.

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Also, in an investigation, police don't just look at one theory, they will run parallel lines of inquiry ,unless they have undeniable indications of one or more perpetrators of a crime, and that they do not have, that is clear.

The latter paragraph highlights why the SY investigation is a complete waste of money in this case. They have 'persons of interest', well what does that mean exactly ?

Well in the case of SY, it means they don't have a CLUE, IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Nonsense. 

It is conclusively disproved that the McCanns took Madeleine anywhere dead in the car, and from there, the rest of Amaral's thesis falls apart ...

[C.Edwards]

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Nonsense. 

It is conclusively disproved that the McCanns took Madeleine anywhere dead in the car, and from there, the rest of Amaral's thesis falls apart ...

How is it conclusively disproved?  Without going into unpleasant detail, there are a number of ways that this could still have been achieved.  You are merely running with your propaganda again.  Once again, the results of DNA tests on the residue in the car were not conclusive either way.  You are starting to sound a bit desperate.

[Redblossom]

It has yet to be proved that Amaral's and other's basic theory of Madeleine's accidental death is incorrect. The lack of forensic corroboration has not eliminated that possibility by any means, and as for the abduction, no proof at all.

Nonsense. 

It is conclusively disproved that the McCanns took Madeleine anywhere dead in the car, and from there, the rest of Amaral's thesis falls apart ...

No it wasnt, unless  you can  furnish the forum with any report which DISPROVED IT

you cant, so youre better off going to watch Last of the Summer Wine or somethng....lol

That is not to say Madeleine WAS transported in the Mccanns car, but thats not the point here is it? The point is your continual posting of inaccurate information, Im bemused and wonder who exactly  you are trying  to kid
 

[AnneGuedes]

How is it conclusively disproved?  Without going into unpleasant detail, there are a number of ways that this could still have been achieved.  You are merely running with your propaganda again.  Once again, the results of DNA tests on the residue in the car were not conclusive either way.  You are starting to sound a bit desperate.

We have to admit that the car thesis attempts to offer a decent solution but is totally implausible.

[Rachel Granada]

We have to admit that the car thesis attempts to offer a decent solution but is totally implausible.

Indeed, the car "thesis" is execrable.  You would think that the PJ would have had the decency to await the full reports before waving that rubbish in Gerry's face.

[C.Edwards]

We have to admit that the car thesis attempts to offer a decent solution but is totally implausible.

Why do we have to admit that?  It's entirely possible that the car was used to transport any one of a number of things associated with and not limited to a dead body.

Sticking with the trial, an interesting opinion piece that some may not have read yet.  Pro comments are, of course, welcome but would be helpful if they included reasons why this piece should be ignored (in part or wholly) other than just "it's written by someone who doesn't agree with the McCanns". 

That the McCanns are perfectly happy to let others do their lying for them has been evident ever since they separately and severally fed their kith and kin the line about their holiday apartment having been broken into. They did their own line in perjury though. Kate McCann herself proclaimed before Lord Justice Leveson: 'There were no body fluids' (found in their hire car), despite having long ago attempted to explain away that very discovery as possibly arising from the transportation of soiled nappies, previously worn by bodies no doubt.

That was until quite recently. Michael Wright's testimony in Lisbon on their behalf has since 'pushed the envelope' significantly.

Maybe Wright forgot where he was. Maybe he did not properly understand what he was being called upon to do. The script was so new to him after all, that he had to jot it down on a hotel napkin. Whatever the reason, he is now in the very precarious position of possibly becoming a defendant himself, should Goncalo Amaral, win lose or draw, exercise his right to sue Mr Michael Wright for giving false testimony against him (we shall come to the specifics in due course).

First a word or two about correlations; those slippery statistical things that, even when significant, prove nothing (see: www. correlated.org). They are often appealed to as indices though, just like the behaviour of sniffer dogs in fact. And what might the principle of correlation have to do with the McCanns vs. Amaral? Gerry McCann, newly arrived on the scene, gives us a clue:

GM - "The law has changed, and I think that Kate and I know better than anyone else what we have experienced, and what we have gone through, the facts of the file and the damage that has been caused to the search for Madeleine."

Notice that his conclusion is not 'the damage that has been caused to the search for Madeleine by Goncalo Amaral’s book'. That might just have been untrue, the more especially if the court should eventually find otherwise. Furthermore, 'damage' is left clinging to the lifeboat of 'the facts of the files', which Kate and Gerry 'know better than anyone else' just as they do 'what they have experienced'. Which raises the obvious question as to why those with such superior knowledge did not elect to speak for themselves in the first place? (Could it have had something to do with point one above, perhaps?).

It rather appears that Gerry McCann, having watched proceedings from a safe distance, has been parachuted in to provide additional data; data that will strengthen the correlation earlier witnesses, including Michael Wright, have laboured in vain to establish - the three-way correlation (as yet unspoken by Gerry McCann, who is obviously saving himself for the witness stand) between Goncalo Amaral's book 'The Truth of the Lie', the McCanns' interminable suffering, and the damage done to the 'search' for Madeleine (whether defined as a brand or an activity is unclear).

The story so far is that, according to the McCanns' writ, an unquantifiable degree of damage and suffering (unquantifiable except in terms of financial compensation demanded) can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the publication of the Amaral book. Several witnesses for the McCanns having now been heard, this putatively indisputable association appears somewhat less convincing, especially given the earlier, widespread announcement of the McCanns' arguido status and immediate release to the public of the process files upon relaxation of this status in 2008, the year in which A Verdade Da Mentira, to give it its Portuguese title, was published.

A major difficulty for the McCann case therefore is the impossibility of disentangling these, shall we say, causal elements, in order to apportion 'effect' with any degree of accuracy. And that's just as regards Portugal, both productions being in Portuguese in the first instance. Hence we have heard attempts to convince the court that the Goncalo's book is the more credible/influential on account of its being easier to read and digest, say, in a day. The significance of the all-important correlation is therefore weakened. From being 'entirely responsible' the book is inevitably down-graded to 'largely responsible' - at worst, if at all, given that quantitative attestation has so far been conspicuously absent from any witness testimony to date (no doubt that is what Gerry McCann intends to bring to the table). The issue does not rest there however.

The 'search' for Madeleine McCann has been considered a worldwide activity since her parents first stepped aboard that hired Learjet on their tour of Europe, and then 'did America'. If that nasty paperback edition of the Algarve Police Gazette (or the film of the book) had any meaningful effect upon its readers' searching intentions, that effect would have been restricted to Portugal, Brazil and one or two African communities. To maximize the return on their investment in proceedings, the McCanns need to be rewarded (compensated seems altogether inappropriate a term) for damage to their search elsewhere on planet earth. All English speaking zones should cover it, i.e., virtually everywhere else. Except everywhere else doesn't speak or read Portuguese necessarily.

And so we begin to close in on Michael Wright's folly.

It is difficult to apportion individual effectiveness, should two or more publications on a single subject emerge at around the same time (e.g., Newton - Leibniz, Darwin - Wallace). Better, in principle, if there is a lapse of time in-between, following which one can assess any influential change(s) occasioned by subsequent accounts. The histrionic Ms Stilwell, who might care to reflect upon what happened to her namesake Frank after he shot Morgan Earp in the back (they almost lost count of the bullet holes Morgan's brother Wyatt put in his body), would have it that there was a rebellious upsurge of anti-McCann feeling following introduction of Amaral's material to the world. She is, however, wholly unable to offer evidence in support of such a claim. Just like those witnesses who have preceded her.

One of those witnesses was Michael Wright, whom we know, thanks to the astuteness of the lady judge, was 'coached' before giving evidence. His approach to the complete absence of reliable data on search and suffering effects (those phenomena obviously more familiar to the McCanns) was to broaden the contiguous alignment of 'The Truth of the Lie' and the official files (the Portuguese scenario), so as to embrace translations available via the internet, English in particular, and endeavour to push home the claim that the book took precedence in the public mind. Of course for that situation to pertain, the relevant materials had to be publicly available at the same time.

As we have seen, Michael Wright, clearly influenced as much by his understanding as his knowledge, has made two very specific claims on the McCanns' behalf, viz:

'They knew before the shelving of the case, that a book would be published.'

'They read the book when I sent them the translation that was on the internet in August 2008.'

Whereas attention was previously drawn to the possible unreliability of this 'evidence' in the light of the McCanns' own admissions, come September 2008, that neither of them had bothered to read the book in question, one may now be altogether more specific. It wasn't the McCanns who lied on this occasion, but Wright, who lied to the court.

The translation that appears on the Internet is taken from the French version of Goncalo Amaral's book, L'Enquête Interdite - 'The Forbidden Investigation'. The French edition of the book was not published until 03 May 2009. There has never been a translation from the Portuguese. And in case anyone should protest that Wright had the English narration of the broadcast documentary in mind, that programme did not materialise until April 2009 either.

Exactly what translation of A Verdade Da Mentira does Michael Wright believe he discovered on the Internet in August 2008 therefore; a translation communicated to the McCanns that very month and which, for their part, they did not read?

Not only should Wright's testimony be stricken from the record, but it should be regarded as prejudicial to that of any other of the McCanns' witnesses who appeal to the same 'translated' source in support of whatever claim they might make (or have made) regarding supposed adverse effects upon the plaintiffs.

As for Michael Wright, the best advice one might offer is 'Lawyer-up mate!' That's what funds (sorry, friends) are for, is it not?

Link to piece: http://www.mccannfiles.com/id232.html