Carter-Ruck and the Madeleine Foundation - after the lifting of the ban on Gonçalo Amaral’s book ‘The Truth About A Lie’
STATEMENT FROM THE MADELEINE FOUNDATION, 27 OCTOBER 2010
We have been asked by many whether, now that Gonçalo Amaral’s controversial book ‘The Truth About A Lie’ is back on sale in Portugal, we intend to put our book ‘60 Reasons’ back on sale again.
The answer is ‘No’. In giving that answer, we’d like to explain the current position on what we can and can’t say about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Our Secretary Tony Bennett has given an undertaking to the High Court not to sell or distribute ‘60 Reasons’, to deliver up all hard copies of the book in his possession or control, and similarly not to distribute further copies of a summary of that book in a 4-page leaflet: ‘10 Reasons’ - and to deliver up all remaining hard copies of that leaflet. The remaining hard copies of both publications were delivered by hand to Carter-Ruck’s office on Saturday 31 October 2009.
He also undertook to ‘to use his best endeavours’ to delete or otherwise prevent access to any previous defamatory allegations of his concerning the McCanns published on four websites mentioned in a letter from Carter-Ruck. This he also did, as the record shows.
He further undertook not to repeat allegations that the McCanns are guilty of, or are to be suspected of, causing the death of their daughter Madeleine McCann, and/or of disposing of her body, and/or lying about what happened and/or seeking to cover up what they had done.
This undertaking was not given by The Madeleine Foundation as an organisation. However, we are mindful of the terms of that undertaking, and therefore we shall not be selling or distributing either the ‘60 Reasons’ book or the ‘10 Reasons leaflet’.
Two of the stated aims of our group, as set out in our constitution (which is on our website), are:
- “to pursue - in conjunction with others - the truth about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance on 3 May 2007” and
- “to investigate the facts behind the extent of British government involvement in this case and the reasons for it”.
We shall continue to pursue these aims, in particular by means of in-depth articles which research and analyse aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. You can find these on the ‘Articles’ section on our website.
Correspondence with Carter-Ruck during 2010
There has been correspondence with Carter-Ruck about the work of The Madeleine Foundation over the past few months, some of which we have published on our website. We give here a summary of that correspondence:
Carter-Ruck claimed that one of the articles on our website, by Barbara Nottage, about the lack of direct evidence that there actually was an abduction, was libellous. After due consideration and to be on the safe side we cut half of that article.
2. Our leaflet: ‘Your Questions Answered about Gonçalo Amaral’
Carter-Ruck said this leaflet of ours was libellous and asked us to cease distributing it. They objected in particular to us mentioning Gonçalo Amaral’s book, which they said was full of unfounded allegations against the McCanns. We stopped distributing it in July, but after due consideration resumed distributing it on 2 October 2010, ‘Gonçalo Amaral Day’.
Just 17 days later, the ban on Mr Amaral selling his book, which had been made by a lower Portuguese court 13 months previously, was lifted by the Portuguese Appeal Court. Our leaflet counteracts the lies in the British media falsely portraying Mr Amaral as a ‘disgraced’ and ‘bungling’ detective. So we intend to carry on distributing it.
3. Our video of the 48 questions by the Portuguese Police that Dr Kate McCann refused to answer
In July, we released on to YouTube a video of our Secretary Tony Bennett reading out the 48 questions asked by the Portuguese Police of Dr Kate McCann, all of which she refused to answer. They were read out without any additional commentary, exactly as they were asked - and exactly as can still be found on the BBC website and many other places on the internet.
In addition, Tony explicitly gave, in an introduction to his reading, the two key reasons the McCanns themselves have given for Dr Kate McCann refusing to answer those questions:
- that she has the right to silence under the European Convention on Human Rights, and
- that she and her husband believed that the Portuguese Police had ceased looking for Madeleine and were trying to ‘frame’ them.
This video was watched by 2,000 people in its first 2½ days, but was ‘pulled’ by YouTube at the same time as we received another letter from Carter-Ruck objecting to it. We have now relaunched the video on vimeo; here is the link: http://vimeo.com/14180705
‘60 Reasons’ on the Internet
Ever since we stopped selling ‘60 Reasons’ due to the libel letters from Carter-Ruck, our ‘60 Reasons’ book has been re-published on many internet sites, many of them so-called ‘torrent sites’ which specialise in reproducing books that are difficult to obtain for one reason or another.
It is not our responsibility if other people choose to reproduce our material. We have no funds with which to take action for breach of copyright.
Whenever we learn of a new site that has published ‘60 Reasons’, our policy is to attempt to contact the owners of that site, pointing out (a) that they are in breach of copyright and (b) that the book is considered libellous by the McCanns. We recently discovered, for example, that ‘Scribd’ had a copy of our book on their site. We wrote to them asking them to remove it and they have since withdrawn ‘60 Reasons’ from their website.
One curious aspect to this is that a strong supporter of the McCanns, whose internet username is ‘muratfan’, keeps on finding new sites where ‘60 Reasons’ can be found and publishing links to them on one of his many blogs. He thinks, entirely wrongly, that by doing so it will be easier for the McCanns to take Tony Bennett to court for ‘breach of undertaking’. In fact, all that he does, especially as his blog articles are frequently brought to internet users by means of ‘Alerts’ on Madeleine McCann, is tell loads more people where out book may be read.
As a matter of policy we do not inform people via our website or elsewhere where ‘60 Reasons’ may be read on the internet.
Discrepancies in the statements
We have on a number of occasions pointed out in writing to Carter-Ruck that one of the most concerning aspects of this case is the number of clear contradictions in the evidence given by the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends in their witness statements about what happened in the week they were all in Praia da Luz. These contradictions have never explained by the McCanns and their group of friends, except by glibly describing them as ‘minor inconsistencies’. It is not libellous to publish details of these discrepancies and to discuss them. We shall continue to do so.
Carter-Ruck still act for the McCanns
We wrote several letters to Carter-Ruck about these issues in August and September, but we received no replies. This led to speculation on the internet that Carter-Ruck were perhaps no longer acting for the McCanns. We wrote to them about that on 5 October. Our letters and their reply are below.
Correspondence with Carter Ruck:
Letter from Carter Ruck 15 July 2010
Reply to Carter Ruck 21 July 2010
Letter received from Carter Ruck - August 3 2010
Tony`s reply to Carter Ruck Aug 16 2010
Letter to Carter Ruck (20 August) asks the McCanns to set the record straight on 16 key contradictions about the alleged events on the day Madeleine was reported missing.
Letter to Carter Ruck 31 August 2010
Letter to Carter Ruck 9 September 2010
Further letter to Carter Ruck 5 October 2010
Eventual Reply from Carter Ruck 6 October 2010
Article filed 27 October 2010
