Sonia Poulton's documentary

Andrew wrote:

Dee Coy wrote:Thanks, costello

Andrew, this next is pure theory and hypothesis, but bear with me.  Just say there has been a cover-up from day one because of something larger that was happening in Luz that week involving important people maybe connected in some way to the McCanns and the Tapas or perhaps quite seperate from them.

Madeleine's disappearance brought focus to the resort and the goings-on and the activity which needed to be concealed was threatened to become public. This is why the HO stepped in and the words "National Security" became associated with the case. The McCanns became the beneficiaries of this in that the protecion of them also meant the protection of the larger issue.

But now the case is too huge. Too many people - like us - have stuck their noses in and too much is known about the finer minutiae of the case for it to be whitewashed. OG has failed to provide a satisfactory solution - it is floundering. The greater secret is once more in jeopardy as people want answers and justice, for Maddie, Brenda and Goncalo. Something's got to give. By letting the McCanns stand trial for their part in this (if any) gives the questionners their closure and also retains the protection of whatever else was happening there.

That's what I mean by the McCanns been "sacrificed".

Once again, pure theory and hypothesis and just asking a question.

Sorry,  missed this post.

Yeah, again see where you're coming from.

I agree to an extent. Always thought that there was some non related stuff going on in the vicinity.. Casa Pia and a few big guns were very worried etc.

Although nothing connected to the Mc's. At all. Maybe the Mc's wanted to try and connect the disappearance to it...

Forgot what I'm saying, but the Mc's are on there own, have been for a while, and will continue to be so until the bitter end.

And it will be bitter. Them fighting for their lives.

Andrew I honestly think this case is huge, Casa Pia is interesting and yes could throw some light on why we are still here right now. As for the McCanns they are just small fish in a very large pond, in my opinion.

If OG are on the road of a cover up of something bigger than the mcs, or both, how could they sacrifice the mcs? Would they not squeal and blow the bigger issue? Could the mcs be protected without knowledge of a bigger issue and just think they're smarter than police and most believe them? In any case, would Portugal be willing to go with this after the way they've been slammed for the past 8+ years?
Just questions btw.

dogs don't lie wrote:If OG are on the road of a cover up of something bigger than the mcs, or both, how could they sacrifice the mcs? Would they not squeal and blow the bigger issue? Could the mcs be protected without knowledge of a bigger issue and just think they're smarter than police and most believe them? In any case, would Portugal be willing to go with this after the way they've been slammed for the past 8+ years?
Just questions btw.

This is just a bit of hypothesis ddl but I do think Gerry McCann has, lets just say a valid insurance policy, I do believe he knows he is well protected. Again just my take for what it is worth.

I agree. Gerry knew he was well protected because of the millions he accumulated and spent on being protected.

Not anymore though.

Imo, blah blah.

It's gone ten by my watch, but still struggling with this protection racket. Like something out of a Krays film.

I get the early protection, well everyone and anyone, wanting to jump in for profit purposes.. But don't get the protection now.

If OG were protecting them then they would now be called the McSeeyoulater.

Gone, whooshed. Through the curtains, or unlocked door and be gone. For ever.

No protection now. Mitchell and Gamb, Chipping in as they're both from the beginning.

Both wanted to make money. Both know they're too far gone to backtrack.


Digressing, as lost my train of thought.

Cheers.

Yes, I agree, I just can't go with the protection racket all. Remember all of those interviews in the early days (Gerry's famous Ask the Dogs Sandra) Gerry storming off after being asked pertinent questions. Kate;s admission on Womens hour that she didn't search....and many people being appalled that they had left young children on their own,

Then being arguido'd, the friends all being questioned, and by that point, with the exception of wee Lorraine Kelly, there was not a single bit of actual support, requests to meet with senior govt employees turned down, yes with their massive PR machine, paid for by the fund they were able to turn that around in terms of public perception, but even that is waning now, and the money is running out and I see even less signs of protection as the Mc's go into meltdown over Snr Amaral's fund, twitter pages and the like, whereas if they were protected these types of things wouldn't be happening imo

costello wrote:

dogs don't lie wrote:If OG are on the road of a cover up of something bigger than the mcs, or both, how could they sacrifice the mcs? Would they not squeal and blow the bigger issue? Could the mcs be protected without knowledge of a bigger issue and just think they're smarter than police and most believe them? In any case, would Portugal be willing to go with this after the way they've been slammed for the past 8+ years?
Just questions btw.

This is just a bit of hypothesis ddl but I do think Gerry McCann has, lets just say a valid insurance policy, I do believe he knows he is well protected. Again just my take for what it is worth.

Agreed.

May I ask what some poxy, average Joe, Leicestershire doctor has an 'insurance policy '.....

Andrew wrote:May I ask what some poxy, average Joe, Leicestershire doctor has an 'insurance policy '.....

Not tonight Andrew.

Mimi wrote:

Andrew wrote:May I ask what some poxy, average Joe, Leicestershire doctor has an 'insurance policy '.....

Not tonight Andrew.

Ok, sorry mimi.

Way past my bedtime.

Lost cuddlecash. So I'm trying to find it. Been abducted apparently, but getting some more cash to pay a bunch of fraudsters to relocate it.

Christ, not going well, but luckily got lots of cash to sue. Anyone who doesn't believe that cuddlecash got snapped up by aliens gets silenced. All that money that conned. Millions but unfortunately all gone down the toilet.

Money runs out then luck runs out.

The Mc's are running out of both. And quickly.

Imo and goodnight.

Night night Andrew.

Sorry mimi, yes good night and apologies.

Back again, so what's the discussion..

Seriously though, I agree with Andrew, what could the secret be, what is this "highly sensitive/person/situation etc that must be forever covered up?

Sheesh we've just already read all about our current Pm's predilection for dead pig heads...what the heck could be more embarrassing than that?

And lets face it, in this digital age, we all know everything about everyone, look at all of the historical cases....man pats woman on the ass in 1978, gets convicted as sex abuser in 2014!

So there's hardly big cover ups going on imo

I have always had a sneaky suspicion this case is not as straightforward as we think. Cover up is maybe the wrong word but there is something that is keeping these two from jail.
The suggestion that they were caught up in a bigger operation in PDL is quite possible. In other words when something happened to Madeleine, parties were alerted that swooped in to prevent disclosure of ( insert x) TPTB needed to assist with the clean up and came up with an abduction rather than a murder/accidental death scenario.
Why does this not work for me? Because IF this had the slightest chance of mucking up a huge sting, we would never have heard of the McCanns in Portugal. The body would have been repatriated and little M would have been reported as dying at home of natural causes. No fuss, no press etc.
I also can't buy into the government climbing on board to save face after falling for the ruse. What Prime Minister would back a situation in a friendly foreign country, in a situation where, 9 times out of 10, the last person to see the victim, is the person who committed the crime? Without at least waiting for a report from the police, we are to believe T Blair thought it a good idea to protect 2 ordinary doctors who may have offed their own child. Nah!
So my money is on the belief that they were all in on it from the start. There is plenty to suggest pre-planning imo. The Macs insurance policy is they were acting out a part. Something went badly wrong. Phone calls were made. Death was unexpected so a new scene was quickly written. Not all played their part. Result-chaos.

if that were the case, Chirpyinsect, would it suggest something in particular (special) about Maddie herself?
regarding cover ups and government corruption/mismanagement in general, such things obviously do happen because we know of many
however we have to be careful in light of the recent collapse of allegations against certain MPs (coincidentally by political opponents)
these stories have been on investigative websites for years but the one against Leon Brittan has now been dismissed
the one against Ted Heath still has to be concluded but I think it's nonsense
of course you could say that dismissing these cases is all part of the cover up but I doubt it, the quality of the so called witnesses has been pathetic

Not necessarily anything special about M, no. Perhaps what lies beneath the agreement to go along with a hoax abduction( if that is what it was ) lies in the apparent mystery surrounding a certain file.
Now suppose your livelihood is under threat and your kids could be removed from your care because of a serious allegation against you. Suppose you are offered a deal to make it all go away. Lend us your child for a social experiment. What could possibly go wrong?
I am not saying this did happen but it explains much for me.

susible wrote:I will reserve any judgment on a possible cover up until after Grange and the Portuguese investigation have concluded, if it fails to deliver anything of substance, then I will be forced to agree it was a waste of time and money, but until then I am prepared to be optimistic.

As for us writing on forums, that is a bit different to printing a story in a newspaper or screening a documentary.  All manner of ongoing cases have discussion forums etc but often the general public are unaware of them, so there is no harm done.  On saying that though, I totally disagree with the naming of random people who just happened to be in PdL and putting all of their private information online and scrutinising every aspect of their lives, when the chances are remote to non existent that they had any involvement in  Madeleine's disappearance.  Fortunately this forum does not do that, but it used to a constant source of concern for me at the other place.

ETA and Candyfloss and Freedom make sure that people are not posting libelous information, it is all said as our opinion only..not stating anything as fact

Once our words are in the public domain, what happens to them thereafter is beyond our control. The 'bang, bang' comment on a Facebook group became the front page of several newspapers and interpreted as a death threat to Kate McCann.

You have reservations about Sonia's documentary, may I ask if you had same reservations about the Richard Hall videos? What influence do you think Richard's videos might have on a future criminal trial? I think in this age of mass information and mass communication, it is impossible to prevent a high profile case being discussed by anyone. For the McCanns it will be very difficult to persuade a Judge to abandon a case because of the way in which it has been reported in the media, given that much of the reporting has come from the McCanns themselves. Historically, high profile cases have always been discussed by the public, even back to the days when the paper sellers were shouting 'roll up, roll up, the Ripper strikes again', telling people not to discuss a case, is simply not a viable option.

I agree it is morally wrong to dissect the personal lives of people involved in this case through no choice of their own, and indeed, it was the constant and appalling abuse of the Smith family that drove me to leave the other forum. It is a toxic place that appears to be devoted to destroying the reputations of those who are trying to get the truth about the cover up into the public domain, Justice for the little girl has long been forgotten.

I agree about the ridiculous out of all proportion the "bang bang" comment made, that is why I stay away from facebook groups because they tend to get infiltrated by all sorts (who can forget David Bret and all of the garbage he spewed.

Yes, I was a bit concerned about the Richard Hall video, but it's restricted to youtube and despite what some people may think, doesn't really have that big an audience. TBH I haven't watched any of them...had too much of the dear leader stamped all over them, and after reading various synopsis particularly in relation to the accusations thrown at the Smiths (again) I'm glad that I didn't waste several hours of my life, watching a documentary full of stuff that I already knew. I suppose that's part of the problem for me, If there is entirely new information, that none of us know about, which, doubtless there is, then I would rather the police had it and used it to secure a conviction, rather than possibly alerting the perpetrators to backfill their story to cover the discrepancy, or at worst have any possibility of a fair trial scuppered if everyone believes that the Mc's must be guilty as a result of what they've seen/read etc. Yes, people come here to read about the case, but they were generally sceptical anyway and all the forum does is give them more information.

In fact, if I'm being totally honesty, if there were charges and a trial and I was selected for jury duty, I would have to admit that I had been following the case for 8 years and as such had already formed an opinion and therefore would be unsuitable...sounds crazy I know, but I wouldn't want a trial to collapse because someone did some digging and discovered that I had been posting on forums about the case for years therefore making me biased

I do understand where you are coming from, but the fact is, the McCanns chose to put this case and their campaign into the public domain, they even paid £500k to keep their story on the front pages of the newspapers.  I don't really see how they can claim they have been compromised by the media coverage, when they have their own press office and media spokesman for 8 years!

As for the jury question, I don't know if the British jury system works in the same way as the jury system in the USA, where the Defence and Prosecution teams can veto jury members before the trial begins.  I think in the UK, the onus is on the potential jury member to declare if they have any personal interest in the case.  It may be that in the more high profile trials, there would be more stringent checking of the jurors' backgrounds, but I honestly don't know.

susible wrote:I agree about the ridiculous out of all proportion the "bang bang" comment made, that is why I stay away from facebook groups because they tend to get infiltrated by all sorts (who can forget David Bret and all of the garbage he spewed.

Yes, I was a bit concerned about the Richard Hall video, but it's restricted to youtube and despite what some people may think, doesn't really have that big an audience.  TBH I haven't watched any of them...had too much of the dear leader stamped all over them, and after reading various synopsis particularly in relation to the accusations thrown at the Smiths (again) I'm glad that I didn't waste several hours of my life, watching a documentary full of stuff that I already knew.  I suppose that's part of the problem for me, If there is entirely new information, that none of us know about, which, doubtless there is, then I would rather the police had it and used it to secure a conviction, rather than possibly alerting the perpetrators to backfill their story to cover the discrepancy, or at worst have any possibility of a fair trial scuppered if everyone believes that the Mc's must be guilty as a result of what they've seen/read etc.  Yes, people come here to read about the case, but they were generally sceptical anyway and all the forum does is give them more information.

In fact, if I'm being totally honesty, if there were charges and a trial and I was selected for jury duty, I would have to admit that I had been following the case for 8 years and as such had already formed an opinion and therefore would be unsuitable...sounds crazy I know, but I wouldn't want a trial to collapse because someone did some digging and discovered that I had been posting on forums about the case for years therefore making me biased

It would be a shock to the McCanns and anyone else involved if a criminal trial was held in Portgual. I don't think they have a jury system there.

That's true DFM and very possibly the reality of the situation as the UK case is most likely to be about fraud imo

Right. A trial in Portugal in relation to involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine would be before one or three judges - so no interference of "public" knowledge - and as such no mention of "fair trial" or not. Whereas a trial in the U.K. could be for fraud, which carries a sentence of 20 years.
Inasmuch as I understand the situation.
And in line with PeterMac: "think Al Capone" ...

Sections 9 of the offences against the person act.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/9

9 Murder or manslaughter abroad.

Where any murder or manslaughter shall be committed on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the Queen’s dominions or without, and whether the person killed were a subject of Her Majesty or not, every offence committed by any subject of Her Majesty in respect of any such case, whether the same shall amount to the offence of murder or of manslaughter, . . . F1, may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined, and punished . . . F1 in England or Ireland . . . F1: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall prevent any person from being tried in any place out of England or Ireland for any murder or manslaughter committed out of England or Ireland, in the same manner as such person might have been tried before the passing of this Act.

Walt wrote:Sections 9  of the offences against the person act.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/9

9 Murder or manslaughter abroad.

Where any murder or manslaughter shall be committed on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the Queen’s dominions or without, and whether the person killed were a subject of Her Majesty or not, every offence committed by any subject of Her Majesty in respect of any such case, whether the same shall amount to the offence of murder or of manslaughter, . . . F1, may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined, and punished . . . F1 in England or Ireland . . . F1: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall prevent any person from being tried in any place out of England or Ireland for any murder or manslaughter committed out of England or Ireland, in the same manner as such person might have been tried before the passing of this Act.

That paragraph is as clear as mud to me.  The Dewani's trial took place in South Africa.  Shrien Dewani was born in Bristol.