McCanns "not in the clear" - removal of their "formal suspect" status does not mean they are innocent, judges say

MCCANNS 'NOT IN THE CLEAR' Removal of Kate and Gerry’s ‘formal suspect’ status does not mean they are innocent in disappearance of daughter Madeleine McCann, judges say

Portugal’s Supreme Court has cast doubt over the parents of missing Madeleine once again - claiming there are 'serious concerns' in abduction theory

BY MATT WILKINSON  8th February 2017, 9:57 pm

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2819783/removal-of-kate-and-gerrys-formal-suspect-status-does-not-mean-they-are-innocent-in-disappearance-of-daughter-madeleine-mccann-judges-say/

Andrew wrote:Portuguese Bombshell

The McCanns aren't cleared

..... Just predicting the next batch of headlines before I log out.

Evening all. Been out for a meal, got back in and seen this.... I know it's been mentioned elsewhere... But I wanted to mention it here as well...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kate-gerry-mccann-not-totally-9782804

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2819783/removal-of-kate-and-gerrys-formal-suspect-status-does-not-mean-they-are-innocent-in-disappearance-of-daughter-madeleine-mccann-judges-say/

Sorry, trying to catch up - but this news is great.

Mods - get a new thread open when you can.

... It's all clicking into place folks.

Very nicely indeed.

Great stuff..

Andrew wrote:... It's all clicking into place folks.

Very nicely indeed.

Great stuff..

Still want to hear from GA directly.......but am hopeful things are happening now.

Personally... I don't think we will for a while now. He's done his job... He knew the score and the result a long time ago.

Hopefully he will be sat back relaxing on a beach somewhere while things really start to happen. Which they are doing.

He's won and needs to take some time out... The truth will out... Err...  TTWO, and he's always known that.

What a great man and an absolute legend.

The truth always wins.

I just hope I chose my username wisely.

Been a long time coming to read the below in the MSM:

MCCANNS 'NOT IN THE CLEAR' Removal of Kate and Gerry’s ‘formal suspect’ status does not mean they are innocent in disappearance of daughter Madeleine McCann, judges say
Portugal’s Supreme Court has cast doubt over the parents of missing Madeleine once again - claiming there are 'serious concerns' in abduction theory

KATE and Gerry McCann face fresh heartache after judges said they had not been cleared over daughter Madeleine’s disappearance.
Portugal’s Supreme Court has said the removal of their “arguido” — or formal suspect — status should not be “equated to proof of innocence”.

The country’s most senior judges claimed the investigation into them was only shelved in 2008 because of a lack of evidence.
And they said there were “serious concerns” over the theory that Madeleine had been abducted from their Ocean Club apartment in Praia da Luz, in May 2007.

Absolutely first class. Great stuff.

TheTruthWillOut wrote:I just hope I chose my username wisely.

Of course you did, squire.

The truth always wins. Eventually.

Snipped:

Fresh anguish for Madeleine McCann's parents as Portugal's supreme court insists they haven't been proved innocent over their daughter's death
Kate and Gerry McCann always claimed they were innocent of any wrongdoing
Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral's allegations Maddie died in their holiday flat and her parents faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy
Court in Lisbon said lifting of 'suspect' status did not mean they're innocent
Leading defence lawyer for the McCann's, Tony Bennett, has been caught muddled up in a pile of socks desperately trying to discredit key witnesses, whilst trying to fight and ban anyone who suggests the 'last photo' might've been Photoshopped

Ha! Where did that come from? Brilliant :-D

canada12 wrote:

Andrew wrote:Snipped:

Fresh anguish for Madeleine McCann's parents as Portugal's supreme court insists they haven't been proved innocent over their daughter's death
Kate and Gerry McCann always claimed they were innocent of any wrongdoing
Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral's allegations Maddie died in their holiday flat and her parents faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy
Court in Lisbon said lifting of 'suspect' status did not mean they're innocent
Leading defence lawyer for the McCann's, Tony Bennett, has been caught muddled up in a pile of socks desperately trying to discredit key witnesses, whilst trying to fight and ban anyone who suggests the 'last photo' might've been Photoshopped

Ha! Where did that come from? Brilliant :-D

I think we can guess who missed his vocation.

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-09/kate-and-gerry-mccann-not-formally-cleared-over-disappearance-of-daughter-madeleine/

ETA - looks like the ITV one has been pulled actually.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/09/kate-and-gerry-mccann-havent-been-proved-innocent-over-maddies-disappearance-6436728/









Kate and Gerry McCann haven’t been proved innocent over Maddie’s disappearance


Richard Hartley-Parkinson for Metro.co.ukThursday 9 Feb 2017 6:55 am









Portugal’s highest court has said that Madeleine McCann’s parents have still not been proved innocent over their daughter’s disappearance.

Kate and Gerry McCann have strenuously denied any wrongdoing despite extraordinary and unverified claims from former police chief that Maddie died in their flat and that they faked her abduction to cover it up.





But Portuguese Supreme Court judges who ruled last week against their last-ditch appeal over Amaral’s 2008 book ‘The Truth of the Lie’ said the lifting of their status as ‘arguidos’ or formal suspects and the archiving of the criminal case into Maddie’s disappearance did not mean they were innocent.

The court issued its devastating put-down in its full 76-page ruling on the McCanns’ fight against a lower court’s decision last April to reverse their 2015 libel win against the former detective.






The couple were left facing a huge legal bill and the nightmare prospect of being sued by Amaral, who led the initial hunt for Madeleine when she vanished, after being told last Tuesday the Supreme Court had gone against them in a ruling which was not made fully public until yesterday.

Judges made it clear in their decision their job was not to decide whether the McCanns bore any criminal responsibility over their daughter’s disappearance and it would be wrong for anyone to draw any inferences about the couple’s guilt or innocence from their ruling.






But they added: ‘It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case.

‘In truth, that ruling was not made in virtue of Portugal’s Public Prosecution Service having acquired the conviction that the appellants hadn’t committed a crime.

‘The archiving of the case was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn’t managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants.

‘There is therefore a significant, and not merely a semantic difference, between the legally admissible foundations of the archive ruling.





‘It doesn’t therefore seem acceptable that the ruling, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence.’

They added, highlighting the McCanns’ Tapas Nine friend Jane Tanner’s much-questioned sighting of the suspected ‘abductor’: ‘It’s true that the aforementioned criminal inquiry ended up being archived, namely because none of the apparent evidence that led to the appellants being made ‘arguidos’ was subsequently confirmed or consolidated.

‘However even the archive ruling raises serious concerns relating to the truth of the allegation that Madeleine was kidnapped.’




The McCanns were told their ‘arguido’ status had been lifted on July 21 2008 when the Portuguese probe into Maddie’s disappearance was shelved, three days before Amaral published his controversial book.

The former detective was ordered to pay the couple £430,000 by a Lisbon court in April 2015 after they won round one of their lengthy judicial battle.

Mr Amaral got that ruling – and a ban on selling his book – overturned on appeal in April last year.




The decision by Lisbon’s Court of Appeal sparked the Supreme Court fight which was resolved last Tuesday.

The Supreme Court judges said the McCanns claimed Amaral’s book and a TV documentary based on the book formed no part of case files made public in 2008 and would have damaged the honour and good name of any ‘innocent person who had been cleared through the shelving of the criminal investigation.’

But they stated: ‘We consider the invocation of the violation of the principle of innocence should not be taken into account here, since this issue is not relevant to the resolution of the question that needs to be decided here.’

They said the ‘crucial question’ for them was how to resolve the rights of Kate and Gerry McCann to their ‘good name and reputation’ and the rights of Goncalo Amaral and the other respondents including the book editors to the constitutionally-inshrined right of ‘freedom of expression.’

Concluding Amaral had not acted ‘illicitly,’ they ruled his book was not a personal and unjustified attack on the McCanns with a ‘defamatory intention’ behind it which would not be protected by freedom of speech rights.

Describing the book and the TV documentary based on it as an ‘opinion’ based on the logic of facts and evidence contained in the criminal case files, they added: ‘Our opinion is that rather than an injurious animus, the intention was informative and defensive.’

The Supreme Court ruling means Amaral will not have to pay the McCanns the compensation he was ordered to hand them after the first court ruling in 2015.

The payment was frozen when he launched his successful appeal.




At the weekend it emerged the ex detective, removed as head of the investigation into Madeleine’s May 3 2007 disappearance after criticising British detectives, was writing a new book about the unsolved mystery.

It is understood he will be critical in the new book of some of the things Scotland Yard did in their review and later ongoing investigation of the case.

The former cop insisted from day one of his court fight with the McCanns that everything he wrote in his book was based on the publicly-available case files.

Kate and Gerry, both 48, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have said they will sue if ‘The Truth of the Lie’ is sold in Britain.

They said in a statement after learning of last week’s Supreme Court ruling against them: ‘What we have been told by our lawyers is obviously extremely disappointing.

‘It is eight years since we brought the action, and in that time the landscape has changed dramatically, namely there is now a joint Metropolitan Police and Policia Judiciaria investigation which is what we have always wanted.




‘The police in both countries continue to work on the basis that there is no evidence Madeleine has come to physical harm.

‘We will of course be discussing the implications of the Supreme Court ruling with our lawyers in due course.’

It is believed the McCanns are discussing the possibility of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The 20,000 page ‘Madeleine files made public in 2008 contained a report by public prosecutors which said: ‘ No element of proof whatsoever was found which allows us to form any lucid, sensible, serious and honest conclusion about the circumstance of Madeleine’s disappearance from the apartment…including, and most dramatically, establishing whether she is alive or dead, which seems more probable.’

Referring to the McCanns’ much-criticised decision to leave their daughter, then three, alone with younger siblings Sean and Amelie while they ate tapas nearby, it added: ‘We must also recognise that the parents are paying a heavy penalty over the disappearance of Madeleine for their carelessness in monitoring and protecting their children.’

Portuguese police chiefs said late last year they were ‘completely in tune’ with British detectives still investigating Madeleine’s disappearance, appearing to end years of tension between the two forces whose theories on the youngster’s fate have differed wildly.

Portuguese prosecutors reopened their probe into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in May 2014, and are now working in close coordination with Scotland Yard’s scaled-down Operation Grange probe into Madeleine’s fate

So suddenly no one wants to comment, surely a first, not even a close friend...

[snipped from the Sun article]
Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, did not want to respond to the judges’ findings last night.
A spokesman said: “It’s entirely a matter for their lawyers.”

I hoped this would happen but I'm still shocked at the speed the whole McCann house of cards is toppling

Poe wrote:I hoped this would happen but I'm still shocked at the speed the whole McCann house of cards is toppling

I think everyone is stunned into silence    It was a shock to see that lot this morning though.   So what next I wonder?

The Met?

We need a poll!

What do you think will happen next?

The book is published

The early morning knock on the door

Nothing - it's a whitewash I tell you

And, of course no poll would be complete without .....The Smiths

Hows this one for size. .....
The McCanns are lambasted by the newspapers accused of everything bar killing M. Their characters are destroyed and then OG publish a Ben Needham style statement saying they know what happened(tragic accident etc!)but have insufficient evidence to prosecute.....McCanns exit stage left for island in med close to PdL or perhaps that would be too close and they may go to the land of plenty down under. Everyone in Uk left bemused!
Anyone else agree to my little scenario??

Bampots wrote:Hows this one for size. .....
The McCanns are lambasted by the newspapers accused of everything bar killing M. Their characters are destroyed and then OG publish a Ben Needham style statement saying they know what happened(tragic accident etc!)but have insufficient evidence to prosecute.....McCanns exit stage left for island in med close to PdL or perhaps that would be too close and they may go to the land of plenty down under. Everyone in Uk left bemused!
Anyone else agree to my little scenario??

Nope. You're forgetting about the super (inaudible) that, if it means super-injunction, severely constrains what the press can say and are assuming that OG are actively pursuing the truth, for which there is no evidence whatsoever

Bampots wrote:Hows this one for size. .....
The McCanns are lambasted by the newspapers accused of everything bar killing M. Their characters are destroyed and then OG publish a Ben Needham style statement saying they know what happened(tragic accident etc!)but have insufficient evidence to prosecute.....McCanns exit stage left for island in med close to PdL or perhaps that would be too close and they may go to the land of plenty down under. Everyone in Uk left bemused!
Anyone else agree to my little scenario??

Nope, sorry.  They would not have kept at it so long imo.