Charity worker in Maddie sick joke row

June 25, 2008 – 12:00 pm

Published: Wednesday, 25th June, 2008 12:00

A charity boss from West Kilbride has been suspended over a sick joke about Madeleine McCann.

Senior manager Lynn McBain was suspended earlier this month after referring in a staff newsletter to the 4-year-old girl who went missing from Praia da Luz in Portugal over a year ago.

Some readers were left shocked after she joked that “McCann oven chips” had disappeared from her oven after she left them there for 20 minutes.

The 10-page booklet for Enable Scotland - who campaign for a better life for children and adults with learning disabilities - also allegedly insulted the family of a woman with learning difficulties, who is a client of the charity.

(Top) Posted in Largs & Millport Weekly News | 1 Comment »

McCANN POLICE ARE GUILTY OF CRUELTY

June 2, 2008 – 1:00 pm

Tony Parsons   2/06/2008

Kate and Gerry McCann could still face charges of neglect, according to the first published court ruling on the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Official documents in Portugal show that the police there have not yet ruled out bringing such charges. This hardly feels like a positive step in either finding Madeleine, or discovering what happened to her.

In the course of their 13-month investigation, the Portuguese police have failed to come up with any answers at all about the disappearance.

It’s unforgivable that they have not removed the weight of suspicion from Kate and Gerry, who have paid an unimaginably high price for eating dinner 50 yards from where their children slept. One more question for the bungling plods of Portugal. Haven’t these people suffered enough?

(Top) Posted in Daily Mirror Articles | 5 Comments »

Edited transcript of the judgment

May 28, 2008 – 3:22 pm

Edited judgment from the Tribunal da Relação de Évora in the investigation of Madeleine McCann

Judge: Ribeiro Cardoso

1. In the case files pending in the Public Prosecution Services in which they are investigating the disappearance of M.M. and the eventual carrying out of the crimes of abduction, homicide, exposure or abandonment of a child and concealment of a corpse, the prosecutor in charge of the case under investigation

The Penal Procedural Code, promoted, amongst other operations, a request of the 3 national mobile telephone operators (TMN, Vodafone and Optimus) for digital support (CD or DVD) of the complete listings of telephone traffic to calls received and made in the period of time between April 28 2007 until September 9 2007, including cellular location and trace-back, as well as all calls on roaming and SMS and MMS messages and their respective content, for the following telephone numbers: (Ten telephone numbers follow)

- Telephone number as yet unidentified which during May 2 2007 sent 14 written SMS messages to G.M. and another 4 on the day following M.M.’s disappearance.

- The request from mobile telephone operator TMN, the dispatch on digital support (CD or DVD), the complete listing of telephone traffic referring to the calls received and carried out in the period of time between 20H00M of May 3 2007 and 12H00M of May 4 2007, including cellular location and trace-back, as also all calls on roaming and SMS and MMS messages and their respective content, of the following mobile numbers:

2. However, the Instructional Judge, by ruling of 24.09.2007, did not authorise the dispatch on digital support (CD or DVD) of the content of any message sent or received by SMS or MMS pertinent to all the above referred telephone numbers, as he concluded, such would mean attaining knowledge of the content of telephone conversation or communication already carried out, without the previous judicial authorization ruling, and because there is no legal support for such a request.

3. Refusing to accept this ruling, the prosecutor interposed the present appeal:

“i) – We present our dissent to Criminal Instructional Judge’s ruling - namely the part in which he did not authorise “the dispatch on digital support (CD or DVD) of the content of any message sent or received by SMS or MMS.

ii) – There is no reason to distinguish, as the judge did, between the two types of communication – content of SMS and MMS messages and listings of telephone traffic pertinent to the calls received and carried out. Where the law does not distinguish, nobody else may.

iii) – The right to protection against the invasion of privacy or intimacy runs no bigger risk or being violated by the access to the content of SMS and MMS messages than the knowledge of the precise circumstances of time, place, method and frequency of the calls received and made.

iv) – If the procedural law makes reference to the use of communications already carried out, it is to expressly authorize those, as defined linear and unequivocally in number 1 of article 189th of the Penal Procedural Code.

v) - In order to preserve the right to protection against the invasion of the privacy or intimacy of the communicants of the SMS or MMS messages in the case under appraisal, protecting, via judicial surveillance, any abusive invasion to that intimacy

vi) – In not authorizing the access to the content of the SMS and MMS messages, the ruling violated the dispositions of articles 179th, 187th and 189th of the Penal Procedural Code.

In these terms, revoking the appealed ruling and ordering its substitution with another which requests of the three national mobile telephone operators the dispatch on digital support (cd or dvd) of the content of any message sent or received by SMS or MMS and their respective content of all telephone numbers.”

5. The judge maintained the ruling, stating, essentially, the following:

“To attain knowledge of the content of communications carried out by SMS or MMS, because they are communications carried out by telephone, one must necessarily obtain a previous judicial authorization and it must result from interception carried out and authorized by that ruling, pertinent to the ongoing communication.

In my point of view and with due respect one cannot compare detail of traffic (those pertinent to listings of numbers dialed and received) with detail of content (pertinent to the content of the communication made – the words exchanged) with intent to treat them in the same way, due to their nature. It is not the same to know that on day X, at a certain hour, a communication was established between numbers Z and K, in a specific locale (traffic detail) and knowing what was said, arranged or discussed.

As there is no mobile phone legally apprehended, I also think it is not legal to use the rules pertinent to the apprehension of correspondence, running the risk of, in such a way, relegating the demands placed upon the interception of undergoing correspondence, which is what would happen if one was to order the operator to dispatch the content of those communications carried out via telephone, even if technically possible.

Finally, the statement “recorded on digital support” refers to the communications carried out by a different technical means than that of the telephone, ie. E-mail, in real time, via information network, etc, therefore, with due respect, such has no application herein”

8. Matter to be examined

In view of the motivations presented by the appealer, the matter to be decided is simply establishing whether it is permissible or not to request of the three national mobile telephone operators to dispatch on digital support (cd or dvd) the content of any message sent or received by SMS or MMS and their respective content pertinent to all the telephone numbers with reference to the period of time therein indicated.

9. In view of that exposed, we rule the appeal interposed by the public prosecutor, unfounded, consequently maintaining the appealed ruling.

Évora, 2008.04.29

Fernando Ribeiro Cardoso

(Top) Posted in The Times Online | No Comments »

Madeleine McCann’s parents investigated for neglect

May 28, 2008 – 3:20 pm

David Brown, May 28, 2008

The parents of Madeleine McCann are being investigated for possibly neglecting their daughter on the night she disappeared from their Portuguese holiday apartment, it was revealed today.

The first published court ruling on the Madeleine case confirms that the police inquiry covers homicide, abandonment, concealment of a corpse and abduction.

The reference to “abandonment” suggests that Portuguese detectives are investigating if there is evidence that Kate and Gerry McCann were negligent in leaving their daughter alone on the night she was reported missing. The charge carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence.

Mr and Mrs McCann, both doctors from Rothley, Leicestershire, have strenuously denied negligence and said they were just 50 yards away at the time their daughter was taken.

The court ruling also reveals that the public prosecutor wants access to the content of text, audio and video messages from 10 mobile telephones believed to belong to Kate and Gerry McCann and seven of their British friends.

Investigators are particularly interested in the content of 18 text messages allegedly sent from an unidentified mobile number to Mr McCann between May 2 and 4 last year. They also want details of all calls made between members of the group between 8pm on May 3 and midday of the following day.

Madeleine was reported missing at 10pm on May 3 from her bedroom at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz. Her parents and their friends had been dining at a Tapas restaurant while Madeleine and her twin 18-month-old siblings were asleep.

The investigation has been covered by Portugal’s strict laws on judicial secrecy which meant that even Mr and Mrs McCann, who were made official suspects last September, have been unable to access details of the inquiry or any evidence against them.

However, details of the investigation have emerged in a court judgment, seen by The Times, after prosecutor Magalhães e Meneses was refused access to the content of the group’s telephone messages.

He had requested a “complete listings of all telephone traffic to calls made to and from” numbers between April 28, when the group arrived in Portugal, and September 9, when the McCanns left the country. He also sought details of the locations of the mobile telephones which would allow detectives to recreat the movement of the group.

The request for access to the messages was rejected by instructional judge Pedro Frias at the court in Portimão. He said it would breach the right to privacy and that Portuguese law did not allow for the retrospective interception of telephone calls.

The Évora Supreme Court of Justice has now rejected the prosecutor’s appeal and published its reasons, giving the first glimpse into the investigation.

Judge Fernando Ribeiro Cardoso rejected the application, saying: “The details of the content of the messages can only be objected to interception in real time, with due judicial authorization.”

Portuguese police had hoped to stage a reconstruction of the events surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance tomorrow. However, they have been forced to abandon the re-enactment after some of the McCanns friends said they could not see the value in returning to Portugal to take part.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: “We are pleased to see that the investigation covers abduction. Kate and Gerry have had legal advice in both Portugal and Britain which say that everything they did was within the boundaries of reasonable behaviour.”

He said that Mr McCann had no knowledge of the texts referred to on May 3 and 4 and had received only a few calls on his mobile in the six days the family had been in Portugal prior to Madeleine disappearance.

(Top) Posted in The Times Online | No Comments »

You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours

May 22, 2008 – 9:43 am

The recent departure of Peter Hill from the board of the PCC is yet another indication of the nepotistic climate that exists within the PCC (Press Complaints Commission). The “family” in this case being the numerous people on the board who have connections within the industry they are supposed to be regulating.

How can such an organisation operate properly when there are clear conflicts of interest?

Their motto says “fast, free, fair”.

Agreed, their service might be free and fast but is it fair?

They had a record number of complaints about the xenophobic article by Tony Parsons in the Daily Mirror. Almost 500 complaints were received on that one article and the article is repeated in tapas9.info (here).

Considering record complaints for a single article, the PCC ruled that it did not breach its code of practice.

Maybe that was because the Mirror Group are represented on the PCC Board by Tina Weaver of the Mirror Group? Or was it because Dianne Thompson CBE of Camelot PLC is on the board? Either way, the two have a recent business partnership which calls into question their inclusion on the PCC Board.

There’s nothing like a good old scratch

Camelot and the Daily Mirror have a recent partnership (here). On April 28, 2008, Camelot and the Mirror ran a promotion for its scratch cards. With all these business partnerships and affiliations, how can the PCC possibly adjudicate fairly and at arms length?

Camelot and the Mirror haven’t always been business pals. Rewind to 2001 and there was the famous scandal of Camelot denying a lottery win to the Totts - a couple who should have been paid out £3,500,000. The Mirror gave Camelot a battering in that story and Camelot’s stance was that they couldn’t break the rules and pay the Totts their money. Hmmm, so why do Camelot regularly break the rules in paying out winnings to under 16s?

If we look at the 17 PCC Board members in detail we see that the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, DC Thomson, The Daily Mirror, South Wales Evening Post, Kent Messenger, Johnston Press and The National Magazine Company are all represented. Most people are unaware of the papers owned by these companies. DC Thomson publishes more than 200 million newspapers and magazines annually. Johnston Press owns 140 papers up and down the UK and is one of the top 3 publishers of local newspapers.

Adjudications

A close examination of adjudications reveals that there are few, if any, decisions against publications where they have board member representation.

Ian Nichol is an interesting character to have on board. He is also a commissioner on the CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission). Ian’s Bio at the CCRC says “Ian Nichol…

is a chartered accountant and the Commission’s specialist in finance and fraud cases. Throughout a career working with many of the major accountancy firms Ian gained specialist experience of complex financial and tax investigations. From 1992 to 2001 he was a partner in the business advisory firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Latterly he ran his own consultancy business before joining the Commission in 2003. He has been co-author and editor of a number of books in the taxation and finance areas. Ian is also a Commissioner of the UK Press Complaints Commission, and has a particular interest in media coverage of crime and justice issues.”

Considering the type of reporting on the McCann case and Ian Nichols’ interest in miscarriages of justice, is this another reason why the McCanns are befriended by the British press?

If Ian isn’t all that interested in the McCanns, perhaps his CCRC colleague, Julie Goulding is;

Julie Goulding: is an experienced lawyer and was also an NHS Trust Chief Executive and clinical practitioner for many years. Julie trained at Hempsons a firm specialising in health care matters where she was involved in defending doctors, dentists and NHS Trusts in both civil and criminal cases. Julie continues to undertake pro bono work in civil cases. She joined the Commission in January 2007.

Of course, these are just the commissioners. The chairman of the PCC is Sir Christopher Meyer. His wife Catherine has strong connections to NCMEC, Ernie Allen, and Amber Alert. Defending the McCanns in March 2008, Lady Meyer said “A Europe-wide missing-child alert system would have “without doubt” saved Madeleine McCann”.

Peter Hill of the Daily Express did not stand a chance at the PCC. The die was already cast after the £550,000 payout to the McCanns. This is the strongest indication to date as to why the other newspapers have escaped the wrath of Team McCann. It would appear that they are being protected by the PCC along with all the other benefactors.

(Top) Posted in Tapas9.info Story | No Comments »

PCC rebukes Davies book claims over resolved complaints

May 22, 2008 – 8:44 am

22 May 2008

By Colin Crummy, Martin Stabe

The Press Complaints Commission chairman has hit back at accusations by journalist Nick Davies who claimed the independent body had not considered a large number of complaints made to it.

“I think he got it really badly wrong,” said PPC chair Sir Christopher Meyer of the claims made in Davies book, Flat Earth News. “He was unable to read the statistics properly, or at least his researchers were.”

“He didn’t realise that all adjudications are rulings but not all rulings are adjudications so he came out with some tiny piddling figure and compounded that with those that we don’t entertain.”

The PCC said Davies looked at the global figure and compared this with the small number of complaints formally adjudicated upon.

This, it said, failed to factor in the number of complaints which were outside the PCC’s remit, duplicate complaints and complaints that had been resolved without the need for formal adjudication, all of which are included in the top line figure.

Meyer was speaking at a briefing on the PCC’s annual report, which has been published today.

The independent body received a record 4,340 complaints and made 1,229 rulings in 2007, according to the report.

Three-quarters of the complaints were about accuracy. Nine per cent were about privacy and six per cent alleged intrusions into grief or shock.

The PCC issued 1,229 rulings in 2007, including 560 in which it found no breach of the Editors Code and 483 which were solved to the satisfaction of the complainant.

The figures represent a 31 per cent increase in complaints and a 20 per cent increase in rulings relative to 2006, but the report stressed that the increase in complaints was most likely due to greater visibility of the PCC and the ease of complaining by e-mail.

For the first time, complaints about online versions of articles outnumbered complaints submitting hard copies.

Meyer said there was no evidence the rise in complaints was due to a collapse in journalistic standards but that increased public awareness of the PCC had contributed to the rise.

In addition, the figure was inflated by multiple complaints about a small number of stories.

A Daily Mirror piece by Tony Parsons criticising Portuguese police in the Madeleine McCann investigation, titled “Oh, up yours, señor”, received 485 complaints, more than any other piece. However, none of these resulted in a finding that the Code had been breached.

Heat magazine’s stickers poking fun at the disability of Katie Price’s son Harvey drew 143 complaints.

The report confirms figures that the PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer provided to the House of Lords in January.

Newspapers’ growing multimedia activity online led to several new types of complaints to the PCC in 2007, Meyer noted in his report.

For the first time, the PCC dealt with complaints about taped conversations being broadcast and children being filmed in school.

The PCC made its first rulings about audiovisual material on a newspaper website in 2007 when it rejected a complaint against the Northwich Guardian, which had embedded a YouTube video of an arson attack on its website.

Adherence to the PCC code could be seen as a kitemark for quality for online news, Meyer suggested in his report.

However Meyer said there was more the industry need to do to raise public awareness of the avenues of redress the PCC offers.

At the briefing, Meyer also Meyer said that the departure of Daily Express editor Peter Hill from the PCC this month had been due to a number of factors including the Express newspapers row over payment with the Newspaper Publishers Association and the group’s libel payout to the parents of Madeleine McCann.

He added that Hill was due to leave the PCC because he had reached the end of his term there.

(Top) Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Meyer: Why Express editor left PCC

May 22, 2008 – 8:25 am

guardian.co.uk, by Stephen Brook and Owen Gibson, Thursday May 22 2008 at 8am

The Daily Express editor, Peter Hill, left the Press Complaints Commission board partly because of the row between Express Newspapers and the Newspaper Publishers Association, according to the chairman of the press watchdog.

Sir Christopher Meyer said the row, along with Express Newspapers’ coverage of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, were factors in Hill’s departure from the PCC, announced last week.

“There was a bunch of stuff. The Express Newspapers and the NPA had a row over payments, there was controversy over Madeleine McCann. Put all that together and it was time to rotate him out,” Meyer added, speaking as the PCC unveiled its annual report for 2007 today.

In March the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday made front page and high court apologies and paid the McCann family £550,000 in damages over a string of false stories about the four-year-old’s disappearance.

Despite the withdrawal of Richard Desmond’s Express Newspapers from the NPA, whose members fund the PCC, the regulator will continue to hand down adjudications involving the company’s four national titles.

Meyer also addressed the controversy over Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who attacked the PCC when he launched his book Flat Earth News earlier this year.

Davies criticising the PCC, alleging that it only adjudicated and ruled on a tiny number of the complaints lodged with it.

“He was unable to read the statistics properly,” Meyer said. “He failed to understand the statistics - he got them utterly wrong.”

Meyer added that Davies used a global number of complaints to the PCC in his calculations.

This figure included complaints that the PCC has no jurisdiction over and were referred to other media regulators including the Advertising Standards Authority and Ofcom.

Releasing its annual report, the PCC said the number of complaints it fielded had soared by almost a third last year.

But the self-regulatory body claimed the rise as a victory for its increased visibility to the public.

The PCC said the headline rise in complaints in 2007, to 4,340, could also mask more meaningful statistics because many fell outside its remit and the overall total was inflated by multiple complaints.

Of those, the PCC ruled on 1,229 and reported a 347% increase in resolved complaints since 1996.

Meyer claimed the rise was further evidence that the PCC was succeeding in its mission to become more visible in the eyes of readers and making it easier for them to submit complaints.

The overall total was inflated by hundreds of complaints against a Tony Parsons column about the Portuguese police in light of the Madeleine McCann investigation and a Heat magazine sticker featuring Katie Price’s disabled son.

Parsons’ article in the Daily Mirror attracted a record 485 complaints from readers, although the PCC ruled that it did not breach its code of practice.

A separate complaint from the Portuguese ambassador was “resolved amicably”.

The Heat sticker attracted 143 complaints, accusing the magazine of poking fun at Price’s disabled son Harvey. The case was later resolved to Price’s satisfaction.

Some critics have suggested that the rise in complaints is evidence of falling standards. Others point to the small percentage of cases that are actually formally adjudicated on - in 2007, 16 were upheld and 16 rejected.

Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, this week told MediaGuardian: “It takes a particular skill for spin for the PCC to proclaim the success of self-regulation in the face of sharp rises in complaints about media inaccuracy and falling public trust in journalism.”

But Meyer said 2007 had been one of the most important years in the development of the PCC since its inception 17 years ago.

He added that he was “very much influenced by my time dealing with the press on the other side of the fence in the mid-1990s”, referring to his spell as former prime minister John Major’s press secretary.

“I think things were much worse then. If the figures are up by a third, the notion that press standards have slipped by 30% is ridiculous. It’s much more to do with increased visibility,” Meyer said.

For the first time, more complaints were received about stories that were read online than in print, according to the PCC annual report.

To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

(Top) Posted in Guardian Online Articles | No Comments »

Where is the high shelf in Madeleine’s bedroom?

May 19, 2008 – 11:58 am

The News of the World recently paid a large sum of money to apartment 5A owner, Ruth McCann. The money was to pay for photos of the interior of the bedroom where Madeleine slept with her twin siblings Sean and Amelie.

Early reports and many since May 2007 have described how Kate McCann “knew” that Madeleine had been taken. When questioned about this on her Woman’s Hour interview, she declined to elaborate on how she knew that Madeleine had been taken and hadn’t wandered off.

A recurring part of this story is that Madeleine’s favourite toy—CuddleCat—was placed on a high shelf in the room and was therefore out of reach of Madeleine.

Ex Metropolitan Police boss, Lord Stevens said to the News of the World in 2007;

“Meanwhile, the police investigation that started so disastrously has turned to farce. Every apparent stream of evidence has been either missed, fatally compromised or is simply ludicrous.

For instance, Mrs McCann being allowed to hang on to Madeleine’s favourite toy CuddleCat. Consoling for her, of course, but that’s not the point—it had gone to bed with Madeleine, been taken from her and placed on a high shelf, presumably by the abductor.

CuddleCat was therefore vital evidence. Even a rookie detective should know it was highly likely an abductor’s DNA would be on it.”

Lord Stevens’ comments were made in 2007, before the News of the World published the photos in May 2008. Had Lord Stevens looked at the bedroom, he may have had something different to say about it:

There is no shelf in the bedroom!

(Top) Posted in Tapas9.info Story | No Comments »

TALKS OVER RE-ENACT BID

May 19, 2008 – 8:31 am

Madeleine McCann’s parents and their friends could return to Portugal in the next two weeks to re-enact the night of the youngster’s abduction.

Clarence Mitchell, the family’s spokesman, said talks were going on among the group over whether it would be useful.

However, it is understood they are wary of returning to Portugal, where Mr and Mrs McCann remain formal suspects.

Police in Portugal are reported to be pushing for the group to return to Praia da Luz for the re-enactment, which would be to help the investigators and would not be televised.

Mr Mitchell told reporters: “The discussions about the possible visit by all nine are ongoing. It is down to the friends - as well as Kate and Gerry - to decide whether they want to go back.

“Of course, Kate and Gerry would do anything they could if they thought it would help find their daughter.

“There are some serious questions surrounding the value of the proposed exercise.”

(Top) Posted in Leicester Mercury | No Comments »

Lady Meyer in pursuit of abducted children like Madeleine McCann

May 18, 2008 – 12:04 pm

Mandrake by Richard Eden, last Updated: 12:04AM BST 18/05/2008

Frustrated at not being able to offer more assistance to the parents of Madeleine McCann, Lady Meyer has set her sights on co-ordinating the search for abducted children.

The wife of our former ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, tells me that she is trying to persuade Boris Johnson to establish a headquarters for such searches.

“There are hundreds of charities in London who offer services to missing or abducted children,” she said at the launch of Rachel Johnson’s novel Shire Hell. “I’m proposing one centre of excellence which amalgamates all the charities and would be much more efficient in helping people.”

Catherine Meyer speaks from experience: she set up the charity Parents and Children Together after her former husband denied her access to her two sons.

(Top) Posted in Daily Telegraph Articles | No Comments »