Your blog is a breath of hot air but anyone wanting some actual meat with their gravy should look elsewhere.

I think there is a lot of hard evidence that the McCanns rely upon their freely admitted neglect (the facts but not the offence of course) as a means to defend themselves. The charge of abandoment was the only serious charge against the McCanns that the prosecutor specifically excluded as being inappropriate on the facts. In relation to the other more serious offences the were investigated for homicide, kidnapping, trafficking, no comment and I think that speaks volumes. He was leaving the way open for further evidence to be obtained to prove one of those more serious charges.

There was only jurisdiction for the neglect charge in Portugal and as noted the prosecutor was looking at a serious form of neglect but found this was inappropriate on the facts and I can clearly understand why from a legal point of view. It is their defence, weak I know but what they are saying is that neglect allowed some lurking predator to get in and steal Maddie, apparently. It does not form the basis of what it is thought the McCanns actually did with Madeleine.

There was no jurisdiction in UK to prosecute them for neglect as Tony Bennett found out. The charge is simply not serious enough. And do you know what they would have got, a smack across the wrists and interventions from SSD, which they got anyway.

There is a legal rule that says if you want to prosecute someone on any given set of facts you must bring your whole case before the court. You cannot keep coming back later to add more serious charges once there has been a prosecution for a lesser offence. So, upon your reasonsing, if they had got the slap across the wrists for neglect, they could not, at some future date have been charged with either homicide or kidnapping and trafficking, they would have completely got away with those far more serious charges. Now is that what you call Justice for Madeleine?

There is a similar rule in civil proceedings, it is called res judicata, look it up. It means the judgment of the court in the former proceedings stands and cannot be challenged in later proceedings. When the evidence is assembled by a number of UK authorities working on this case to hit them with the charges, they will get them, in full including for very serious fraud.

You seem to miss the point regarding Amaral, without him – who would have kept the McCann’s on the run? It matters little to me what his motives might be, as the (potential) ends justifies the means.

I don’t care who seeks to ‘out’ the McCann’s, as long as they do. After all, the McCann’s have the misplaced support of the UK establishment – some pretty unpleasant people with some dubious motives supporting them.

My own (and many other people’s) motive is simple – an injustice has occurred and continues to develop and grow. Even the basic wrong that a fund which was to find a child but has actually been used to pay off a mortgage and to defend the perpetrators of the neglect which resulted in the child being missing (regardless of the nature of the event) needs to be addressed – and is not being addressed by the ‘establishment’.

So, as I say, I think the motive of Amaral is irrelevant.

By criticising Amaral you display tacit (unintentional?) support for what must be, in my opinion, one of the most elaborate avoidances of a neglect charge of all time and it either displays an incredibly myopic viewpoint, or one which has a far deeper understanding and awareness of the issues involved than I enjoy (and would take us into the bizarre and kaleidoscopic world of conspiracy theories!).

Anyway, I too can respond to some of your views by rolling around the floor laughing, but I prefer to challenge than to blank another’s view…ROFL denies the others right to an opinion and their right to express it (i.e. ROFL clearly equates to a blank rejection of an opinion and is as much a ban on opinions as an injunction!).

I think those who demonstrate they want to make money out of this tragedy are a grave cause for concern, most especially her own parents. To me, there is overwhelming evidence they were involved in her disappearance but I do not agree there is overwhelming evidence that she is dead and they disposed of her body. We get bloggers quoting Goncalo Amaral and Almeida but that is not evidence! They should look to what the Pt official file says and British Police also. There is a big difference between evidence against the parents of telling lies and seeking to cover up what happened and evidence that Madeleine actually died and they hid her body. I just find it offensive that so many bloggers feel the need to keep on and on repeating that and going into the gory details of what supposedly happened and the disposal of her body without any evidence to back these gory thought processes. When there is such a lot of other evidence against the McCanns why do they just ignore this? Because it does not specifically confirm what they seem to need to believe?

Mr Menezes has just stated in court the McCanns could have been charged with kidnapping and trafficking Madeleine, but when you point this out to bloggers they just ignore you. What is wrong with people? Are they more concerned about their conspiracy /death theories to the extreme extent that they do not even care that this little girl may still be alive and suffering terribly? Do they ever stop to think that if she were to be recovered she may read all these terrible things?

There is such a partisan approach between supporting these warring adults, Goncalo Amaral on the one hand or Kate and Gerry on the other, it is really unpleasant. So very many just do not give Madeleine a passing thought. When you read the arguments of either they are not backed by the genuine evidence (or lack of it) in the case.

Reasonable people know this couple were involved, there is ample evidence to confirm that, but do not know precisely how and that was the position of the Pt AG when he shelved the case. He did not say they were innocent, he said there was insufficient evidence to form the basis of any charge, the evidence such as it was did not even prove if she was dead or alive. UK have never shelved this case and I am sure try to locate Madeleine, with the assistance of Interpol and other jurisdictions including Portugal, dead or alive. They also make clear they intend to bring those behind her disappearance to Justice. To me those people quite obviously involve her own parents and I feel others too.

Maybe people could just start listening to and respecting the police instead of hurling insults from both sides of the fence and remember this is not about a win for the McCanns or a win for Goncalo, it is about Madeleine and what is best for her. If she is dead that means people showing her respect and understanding she has a right to a decent burial and to justice. But she may be alive and it is about time people accepted that and respected her human rights, to be treated as a missing person, until there is clear and unequivocal evidence to the contrary. Do people ever think of the rights of the twins and how distressing and damaging all these gory death theories would be for them to read? Children should come first, not adults, that should surely be the sad moral from all of this?

I just wish people would start thinking about the human rights of a child, that is all I would like to see and for Kate and Gerry to just for once have the decency to walk away from their demands for one million pounds which they of all people, simply do not deserve! Particularly when we can see how that money is spent, on an endless line of bent detectives some of whom are even in custody or on reputation management and media manipulation, neither of which serves the McCanns stated goal of finding her. They have never demonstrated any concern for her, only themselves. I hope that before too much longer they are arrested and there is some resolution to this case, but have always been clear finding Maddie was so important to that.

They have never looked like’grieving parents’ yes they looked ‘shell shocked’ and three years on to show some emotion is a bit late. This is what is hitting hard and fuelling their critics. They have used the money donated to pay mortgages etc and then accuse the detective of making money out of their daughter. As the public have donated money for the search the public has the right to know both sides of the sordid affair. ‘On the scene evidence’ has been destroyed unintentionally or not as the detective states could be true. The man has a right to air his opinon as he was forced out of his job for standing up for his beliefs of what actually happened. If he hadn’t been forced out, this book would never have been written. I am finding it hard to believe that the Police dogs failed. The scent of death was in the apartment. There is a saying that a perpetrator always wants to go back to the scene of the crime. Mrs Mc Caan’s recent request to go back to the apartment is also questionable????Their continuous globe trotting has interferred with the investigation. The Police in both countries and Interpol were unable to do their job as on the scene evidence was hardly there, and could have been destroyed intentionally or not. The law should bring a speedy end by the introduction of lie detectors to this ongoing drama that will go on forever.

MODERATOR: The three words deleted from your comment are not a FACT, it is your opinion, a libellous opinion, a libellous opinion which you wish this blog to take responsibility for, kindly post it on the front of YOUR house, and then you take the legal liability, NATCH?

Madeleine is still missing, that’s what is important to resolve.

I agree with JLawyer.

And futhermore I do not trust the McCanns. They are bound in a conspiracy of what sort I do not know. Their reactions and statements display a weird thought process which leaves me with a vague feeling of unease as to whether they have told the whole trusth and nothing but the truth.

I am not saying that they are directly implicated.

The most important part of the McCanns argument from my point of view is that if people think she is dead, they would not bother to look. How would that be justice for Madeleine if she is still alive no matter how slim the chances of that?

As for all this making of money on Madeleine’s back? I think it is wrong and terribly sad.

In this case the detective has not solved or proved a thing. Morally, he has no right to profit financially from this tragic case. It is repugnant.

However. As has been pointed out, the McCanns have squandered their own reputation – incontrovertibly they left their young children alone whilst they went out for food and drink.

Moreover, my instinct tells me that there was something very wrong about the manner in they conducted themselves in the aftermath. The tackiness of the nouveau riche in New Labour Britain, or people propagating the maxim ‘if you’re gonna tell a lie, tell a big one’?

It is impossible to say, and unless one of them has a Lady Macbeth moment that is how it will remain.

Seeing that poor girl’s photo again chokes me up a bit.

Kind Regards
Chaz

George. The attorney General ruled that there was no evidence to link the McCanns to the disappearance of their daughter.

I respect the AG’s verdict.

MODERATOR: Don’t try that again George. Its not big and its not clever.

I’ll settle for that, can we stop the parents and anyone else from making money out of this?

We don’t allow newspaper comment that could be prejudicial to a trial after an arrest – we need something similar to prevent any money making or comment that could be prejudicial in this sort of situation.

Edited to add: It’s hard to believe that a rapist, once charged, can have more rights than a missing child……

But who’s searching for her? And who will alert the authorities if they see her (no matter how unlikely that might be) but think it can’t be her, because she’s dead?

Perhaps the best solution is stopping the former detective making money out of Madeleine, stopping him declaring her dead and donating the money to a fund that’s for all missing and abused children in Portugal.

Nor does it make it right and proper that someone who was only involved in part of an investigation should financially profit from writing a book about it, effectively declaring that the case is solved, before the case is resolved.

Nor is it right that people should financially profit by claiming damages for libel before it is clear – by the case being resolved, not shelved – that their reputation is entirely blameless.

This is all about adults shouting ‘me,me,me’, my rights, and precious little about a small child who is but a pawn in this game.

but they are facts aren’t they? His entire book is based on his experience of the investigation and the facts. Or have I missed something?
If they aren’t facts then why didn’t Scotland Yard send an officer to dispute the Portuguese police report?
Hopefully with this case we will get a little closer to the facts.
It would be helpful if those responsible for her disappearance, the parents, for ultimately they are responsible for their own children, would just tell the truth. They have been truthful throughout, that is indisputable, we just don’t know how big the lie is.