I think you might be right about The PJ. They did use edited parts of a video. This surely can't be legally allowed. Although as it happens it didn't work.
As for the other case, The Judges and The Jury did gasp and find them guilty.
I'm not sure that it isn't allowed. If it was edited to bluff a confession, that might well be legal. The problem was that the PJ hadn't counted on the McCanns realising that it wasn't a blind inspection. They HAD wondered if evidence had been planted, but seemingly, upon seeing the video, they even dismissed that.
If Kate's account is true (and I have no reason to think that it isn't), the footage certainly impressed her lawyer who apparently encouraged her to consider "confessing" to a lesser offence - and he is apparently a good one. I expect that he was taken in by the "shock" footage and probably thought that he was acting in her best interests at the time.
I can quite understand how some Portuguese are convinced that the judicial system favours the "rich" over the poor and that if they had been poor Portuguese people, they would have been locked up with the keys thrown away.
I can understand some Portuguese feel that it is unfair that the McCanns were never charged, let alone had to face trial, as a poor Portuguese person with little education and with only an inadequate defence by pro bono lawyers can end up in jail for crimes that they may never have committed either.
However, the logic seems to be upside down. Why should the McCanns have been tried and found guilty even if they weren't because this may have happened to their own compatriots?
That sounds like: "If I can't have it, you can't either".
Isn't the real question about education and access to adequate defence?
People were delighted when the investigation was finally reopened. In some quarters, that delight turned sour when it turned out that the McCanns weren't suspects. Since then, there have been attempts to get it shut down again. Why? Were some people only interested in having the investigation reopened on the proviso that the McCanns were going to be charged as opposed to getting to the bottom of the truth of her disappearance?
The other mantra that suddenly popped up when it became clear that the McCanns were not about to be charged was that it's not fair that Madeleine has had more attention than other missing children. That may well be true. However, the issue - IMO - shouldn't be about decrying the attention paid to her case, but about stimulating public awareness that other missing children (or adults) ALSO need more attention.
As far as I'm aware, the McCanns HAVE tried to highlight that other missing people should have more attention paid to the cases of their missing loved ones.