Perhaps you are unaware of the fatuousness of your comparison?
How many ex-policemen have set out to destroy anyone (manifestly demonstrated to be innocent of any crime after exhaustive investigation of two years) in a best-selling book, sold in several countries of one continent?
I hadn't read down before I made my reply, which mirrors yours.
It bemuses me that so much weight is given to the word of a person who was in effect the architect of his own downfall long before the Drs McCann set foot in Portugal.
Expensive divorce, trying to defraud his brother over property, threats to an ex mistress and her family, defrauding the taxman, drunk driving with his daughter in the vehicle, expensively failed libel actions, what he saw as demotion to a desk job and a criminal conviction for perjury.
I think in 'The Truth of the Lie' we have an example not of 'trial by media' but an example of 'lynch law' in which the Drs McCann ... who along with Madeleine are the real victims here, have been tried and convicted of involvement in Madeleine's disappearance in a spiteful book.
That they had no option but to take action against that, is proven by posters here who ignore all evidence to the contrary and support the flawed theory outlined in the book nearly eight years down the line.
That such opinion harms the search for Madeleine? The negativity of the numerous tiresome FOI requests; the negative petitions; the opposition to Operation Grange and organised campaigns mounted such as trying to bring down the Missing People website and tying up the CW switchboard when the police were waiting to take calls which might have included information about Madeleine's case.
There is no mystery why this action had to be taken ... the only mystery is why it is still in the Portuguese courts so many years down the line.
SNAP! you beat me to it DCI
