Tony Bennett outside offices of Latium M S Ltd

Goncalo Amaral, the detective sued over Maddie, is to visit UK, 09 January 2010

Goncalo Amaral, the detective sued over Maddie, is to visit UK Daily Mail By MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER Last updated at 10:01 PM on 09th January 2010 The Portuguese detective being sued by Kate and Gerry McCann over his allegations about their role in their daughter's disappearance has been invited to give a talk in Britain. Goncalo Amaral, who led the police investigation, is due to speak to a conference next month in Nottingham organised by the Madeleine Foundation, which claims the missing girl was not abducted. Madeleine, then three, disappeared during a family holiday to Praia da Luz in May 2007. Next week, Amaral is due to appear in a Lisbon court to fight a £1million libel action brought by the McCanns over his book on the case. In it, he accused the couple of neglecting their children, questioned their need to employ a spokesman and claimed British police were 'too close' to them. Amaral, 49, authorised making the McCanns official suspects, or arguidos, in their daughter's disappearance, but was later sacked after criticising British police involvement in the case. A source close to the McCanns said they were 'concerned' by his visit. ------------------------------- Anti-McCann summit insult The Sun Ordeal ... Gerry and Kate McCann today fly back to Portugal in a £million libel fight against sacked cop Goncalo Amaral By Neil Syson Published: Today (11 January 2010) A GROUP who accuse Kate and Gerry McCann of child neglect are giving them more grief - with a summit near their home. They have invited the bungling Portuguese cop who claimed the couple were involved in daughter Madeleine's disappearance to be a VIP guest. Founder Tony Bennett yesterday denied trying to upset the McCanns by picking a venue next month just seven miles from their home in Rothley, Leics. His "Madeleine Foundation" blames the pair for leaving Maddie alone when she vanished aged three on holiday in Praia de Luz in 2007. The anguished McCanns, both doctors aged 41, today fly back to Portugal in a £1million libel fight against sacked cop Goncalo Amaral, 54. Mr Bennett said: "If he emerges victorious there will be an atmosphere of celebration in the camp." ------------------------- Sacked Portuguese cop who led hunt into Madeleine McCann's disappearance to give talk in Britain Scottish Daily Record Jan 11 2010 THE cop who led the hunt for Madeleine McCann plans to visit the UK to talk about his claims that her parents are to blame for her disappearance. Portuguese former police chief Goncalo Amaral also criticised British police involvement in the case. And he was pictured enjoying boozy lunches when he should have been working. He was eventually sacked. Next week, he will appear in a Lisbon court to fight a £1million libel action brought against him by Kate and Gerry McCann after he published a book accusing the couple of killing their daughter. Now Amaral, 49, has been being invited to the annual conference of the Madeleine Foundation pressure group. Their members believe she is dead and her parents bear some of the responsibility. The McCanns have asked their lawyers to consider what action can be taken to prevent him speaking at the gathering, near Nottingham, at the end of next month. The couple already have a High Court injunction banning the foundation's secretary Tony Bennett from making any allegations about Madeleine's disappearance. Sources close to the McCanns said the couple were "deeply concerned" about the conference - due to be held on February 27 and 28 at The Liberal Club in Melbourne, Derbyshire - and the invite to Amaral. He was put in charge of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance in May 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday, during a family holiday in Praia Da Luz, Portugal. He was the one who authorised their status as arguidos, or official suspects. But he was removed from his post after five months and then retired. His 224-page book, Maddie - The Truth Of The Lie, was published in July last year.

Gonçalo Amaral awaits completion of hearing before deciding whether to participate in conference, 12 January 2010

Gonçalo Amaral awaits completion of hearing before deciding whether to participate in conference ionline By Lusa Agency 12 January 2010 Translation by Nigel Moore Gonçalo Amaral was invited to speak at a meeting of sceptics in Britain about the abduction of Madeleine McCann, but the former Inspector of the Judicial Police will await the outcome of the hearing in which he is a defendant. The first response to the request, last August, by the Fundação Madeleine [Madeleine Foundation] was positive, but later Gonçalo Amaral expressed reservations, said the secretary of the organization, Tony Bennett, to the Lusa Agency today. "However we have since received a message that said he was concerned with the defamation process in court and could only confirm after the completion of the hearing," he added. An injunction prohibiting the sale of Gonçalo Amaral's book "Maddie - The Truth of the Lie" began its hearing in Lisbon today, and will last until Thursday. The McCann family seek the protection of rights, freedoms and guarantees and, in addition, claim damages of at least 1.2 million euros from Goncalo Amaral due to statements deemed defamatory. As coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Judicial Police (PJ) of Portimão, Gonçalo Amaral was part of the team of investigators who tried to determine what happened to Madeleine McCann. In the event that Gonçalo Amaral is uanble to avail himself, the group is considering inviting another person of Portuguese nationality for the second conference to be held on 27 and 28 February in Birmingham. The condition of admission - Bennet has stressed - is that they are sceptical of the idea that Madeleine McCann was abducted on the evening of 03 May 2007 from the apartment where she spent a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Algarve. "Those who believe in the abduction are not welcome," he added. The so-called Madeleine Foundation, created in 2008 by a group of Britons, advocate that the law be changed in order to charge parents who leave their children alone and they want to uncover the truth about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann." In August last year, the organization met with controversy by distributing pamphlets in which they defended that the parents of Madeleine McCann should be prosecuted. Tony Bennett said to Lusa today that the Foundation continues to demand an inquiry conducted by a judge. "A British child has disappeared and there should be an inquiry by a British court," he said. The Foundation plans to publish a book in February with eight testimonies collected from the Portuguese police and admits it will distribute Gonçalo Amaral's book "The Truth of the Lie" if publication can be authorized in the UK. It also maintains support for Gonçalo Amaral during the hearing in Lisbon, at which the president of the Foundation, Grenville Green, has attended in person. The hearing of the injunction, on the ban of the sale of Gonçalo Amaral's book "Maddie - The Truth of the Lie", began today in Lisbon, attended by Kate and Gerry McCann, parents of the child who disappeared in 2007 in the Algarve. In the process, the McCann family claim that the book 'Maddie - The Truth of the Lie" and the video with the same title, based on the documentary broadcast on TVI, disclose the thesis of Gonçalo Amaral, which they consider unsustainable, of parental involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

McCanns' new agony, 07 February 2010

McCanns' new agony The People 7 February 2010 Kate and Gerry McCann face fresh heartache after discovering two books about their daughter Maddie's disappearance may be published. Tony Bennett, barred by injunction from making allegations in the matter, plans to release The Madeleine Case Files Vol 1. And Stephen Marsden will publish Madeleine McCann: Faked Abduction. Clarence Mitchell, acting for doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41, said: "We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who defames them." The pair are due in Lisbon on Tuesday for ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral's bid to overturn a ban on his book, which questions their account.

Maddie poll sicko, 16 April 2010

Maddie poll sicko The Sun By NEIL SYSON Published: Today (16 April 2010) A WOULD-BE UKIP MP took part in a vile leaflet campaign blaming Madeleine McCann's disappearance on her grieving parents, The Sun can reveal. Helene Davies-Green, 62, delivered flyers titled "Ten Reasons Why Madeleine Was Not Abducted" to Kate and Gerry's neighbours. It was produced by the anti-McCann Madeleine Foundation, of which the wannabe politician is a committee member. Mrs Davies-Green's husband Grenville is the group's chairman. The folk singer is standing in Cambridge South for the right-wing anti-Euro party on May 6. Doctors Kate and Gerry, both 42, were left "horrified, angry and upset" by the deliveries in their village of Rothley, Leics, last August. The flyer claimed if Maddie died in the family's holiday flat in Portugal in 2007, those who caused or allowed the death "got away with it". Mrs Davies-Green also handed out pamphlets branding the McCanns' spokesman "a master media manipulator" with the group's founder Tony Bennett in Oxford last year. The foundation has claimed Madeleine, three, was NOT abducted in Praia da Luz and that her parents were to blame for her "death". A UKIP spokesman said last night: "Whilst having every sympathy with the McCanns and their predicament, UKIP believes in the freedom of speech."

PJGA Statement On The "Madeleine Foundation", 13 June 2010

PJGA Statement On The "Madeleine Foundation" PJGA.blogspot.com 6.13.2010 [Refers to statement appearing on http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/GoncaloAmaralday.html website (see above), which says: 'We plan fund-raising initiatives ourselves and will forward the proceeds directly to Mr Amaral. We began our donations to him with a payment to him of 578.35 euros (£500) earlier this month.'] As of 12 June 2010 no donations made by Mr. Anthony Bennett or by the "Madeleine Foundation" had arrived to the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral' PayPal account or Bank Solidarity account. Whatever Mr. Bennett is claiming, and the recent "Madeleine Foundation" proposals (click on the left image to read) are not supported in any way by the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral' nor by Mr. Gonçalo Amaral. The unauthorized use of the PJGA's Legal Defence Fund details by the "Madeleine Foundation" and/or by Mr. Bennett as if that organization and/or individual partakes with the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral' is undesirable and unwanted. Extract from the PJGA Manifesto published on 11.06.2009 "The book "Maddie: A Verdade da Mentira" was subject to an injunction that sought not only the suspension of sales of the book and the DVD that was based on it, but also of any and all divulgation of the thesis that is defended by Dr. Gonçalo Amaral, author of the book and former Judiciary Police coordinator, about the 'Madeleine McCann' case. Through this action, a ban was imposed not merely on the written work, but on an entire line of thought: the expression of an opinion, based on the facts of a police investigation; a rational, responsible, mature decision. Nonetheless, said injunction was merely the tip of an iceberg. In the main action that it refers to, Madeleine's parents seek to extort the sum of 1.2 million Euros from Dr. Gonçalo Amaral – an astronomical amount that is out of any proportion, both legal, and ethical. A second injunction succeeded in apprehending belongings and professional income from the defendant, stifling his capacity to respond in financial terms, given the fact that judicial and process costs are indexed to the value that is demanded through the main action. In this manner, stripped of his freedom of expression and economically asphyxiated, the siege on a Man who, at huge personal and family cost, seeks nothing more than the reopening of a judicial process, in order to conclude an investigation that so many consider has been cut off halfway through, closes in." The Legal Defence Fund/Solidarity Account was constituted to support Gonçalo Amaral in his struggle to regain his inalienable Right to Freedom of Expression as consecrated in the Portuguese Republic's Constitution exclusively through the payment of judicial expenses and whenever it is proved necessary. Cheques or donations made out personally to Gonçalo Amaral and/or to his family members are not accepted, and will be returned. Financial resources that are deemed excessive in the future will be delivered to a social institution, dedicated to support children in need. More information at Press Release – Defence Fund and Charter of Principles. ------------------------- Statement by PJGA Re Madeleine Foundation  http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/home.htm Sunday, 13 June 2010 Last night the following statement was put out by the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms: Project Justice Goncalo Amaral' on their 'pjga' website: 'As of 12 June 2010 no donations made by Mr. Anthony Bennett or by the «Madeleine Foundation» had arrived to the ‘Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral’ PayPal account or Bank Solidarity account. Whatever Mr. Bennett is claiming, and the recent «Madeleine Foundation» proposals (click on the left image to read) are not supported in any way by the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral' nor by Mr. Gonçalo Amaral. The unauthorized use of the PJGA's Legal Defence Fund details by the «Madeleine Foundation» and/or by Mr. Bennett as if that organization and/or individual partakes with the 'Citizens for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms - Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral' is undesirable and unwanted.' In response, The Madeleine Foundation wishes to make the following brief statements: 1. We had been in correspondence with Mr Amaral about our intention to make a donation direct to him. On 5 June we sent him an International Money Order for 578.35 euros, that is, £500.00 at the current rate of exchange. This was sent by AirSure i.e. by registered post. In view of the letter from Mr Amaral below, we will now arrange for that sum to be sent via the PayPal donation button on the PJGA site. 2. In response, we received by e-mail, sent at 13.54 on Friday 11 June, the letter below - direct from Mr Amaral. We had not intended to release a copy of his letter, as correspondence between him and us is confidential. However, for the written record and to clarify matters, we now do so: Dear Mr Bennett, Thank you very much for your continued interest in the cause of Justice. Nonetheless, I do not wish to accept any finantial support myself, which I am sure you will understand. I would suggest that any donations that you wish to make to help sustain legal assistance, are directed towards the solidarity account that has been opened by Project Justice Gonçalo Amaral. PJGA's solidarity account has the following bank details: BPI - Banco Português de Investimento, Sete Rios, Lisboa BPI – Banco Português de Investimento, Sete Rios branch, in Lisbon NIB: 0010 0000 438 0385 000 1 62 IBAN: PT 50 0010 0000 438 0385 000 1 62 Swift: BB PI PT PL Best regards, (Gonçalo Amaral) 3. We shall continue to recommend that those who wish to support Goncalo Amaral personally in his defence of the various claims against him do so via the PJGA and there is already a prominent link to the PJGA and the PJGA Fund on our website. As a matter of record, since our announcement of our proposals for a Goncalo Amaral Day, several people have already notified us that they have made new donations to this fund in support of Mr Amaral. 4. Individual members of The Madeleine Foundation Committee contributed to the £500 donation sent direct to Mr Amaral. A personal donation made by a Madeleine Foundation Committee member in March was sent with the accompanying message: "With best wishes from The Madeleine Foundation". 5. Again, just for the record, we have sent Mr Amaral a copy of all our publications, including our recent booklet: "The Madeleine McCann Case Files: Volume 1" and our new leaflet "Your questions answered about Goncalo Amaral". We also has a matter of courtesy sent him the biography of him which appears on our website, in our section on Goncalo Amaral, inviting correction if we had made any error in what we said. We do not invite his support or comments on any of our campaigns as we recognise that it could harm his defence if he was seen to be actively involved in any way e.g. if it was known that he supported any particular leafleting or other campaign. However, we make sure we keep him informed about our actions. Statement by The Madeleine Foundation 9.00am Sunday 13 June 2010

Carter-Ruck letter to Tony Bennett, 15 July 2010

'The letter is marked 'STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL'. Those words must be respected in correspondence, for example, concerning official or trade secrets, adopted children and many other matters concerning minors, and other matters where confidentiality must be respected. It does not apply to legal letters about libel, and particularly so in this unique case where the McCanns have ensured that the whole world knows of their campaign to find Madeleine. This letter may therefore be published.' - Tony Bennett, 21 July 2010 -----------------------

Carter-Ruck letter to Tony Bennett http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/ 15 July 2010 And by email: ajsbennett@blinternet.com STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL Mr Tony Bennett 66 Chippingfield HARLOW Essex CM170DJ MOST URGENT Dear Sir Gerry and Kate McCann As you are of course aware, we act for Gerry and Kate McCann. You will recall that on 13 November 2009 you formally undertook (amongst other things) not to repeat any allegations about our clients to the effect that they were guilty of, or to be suspected of causing the death of Madeleine McCann; and/or of disposing of her body; and/or of lying about what had happened and/or of seeking to cover up what they had done. These undertakings were enshrined by way of Court order of 25 November 2009. You have continued to 'campaign' on issues relating to the disappearance of our clients' daughter, and while you have purported since then to have abided by your undertakings, it is clear that you have on a number of occasions breached those undertakings. For example, it has been brought to our clients' attention that in a post entitled "A short letter to Theresa May about her proposed re-investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann" you referred to a letter you apparently sent the Home Secretary on 4 July 2010. This post continues to be published at the following page: http://iillhavern.forumotion.net/mccann-case-f3/a-short-letter-to-theresa-may-about-herproposed-re-investigation-into-the-disappearance-of-madeleine-mccann-t1151. htm The text of the letter you quote states: "Could you please let me know in Writing whether any such re-investigation will actively pursue the line of enquiry mentioned in the interim and final reports of the Portuguese Police that Madeleine may have died in the McCanns' apartment and her body hidden?" In the post you make it clear that your intention in publishing the letter is to encourage others to adopt it as a template so that they will send similar letters to the Home Secretary. You then go on to state: "Well, the letter-writing to the Home Secretary has begun, let's make the early trickle into a mighty flow from all those who do not believe that the McCanns are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann." Your actions in respect of the so-called "Goncalo Amaral Support Project" have also been brought to our clients' attention, in particular the so called 'Goncalo Amaral Awareness Day" which is scheduled to take place this Saturday 17 July 2010 and your leaflet which has been circulated by way of email and is headed: "Your questions answered about Gonçalo Amaral The man who declared the McCanns suspects over the disappearance of Madeleine" This publication goes on to state that "Mr Amaral stunned the world by pulling in the McCanns for questioning as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter. Three days later, an interim report from Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida, the senior investigating officer in the case, gave reasons for the police's belief that Madeleine had died in her parents' apartment" and "In [Amaral's book, 'The Truth about a Lie], he explains why he and his team had good grounds for believing Madeleine had died in her parents' apartment and covered up her death." The rest of the piece is dedicated to defending Mr Amaral, to correcting the "many lies" allegedly told about him in the media, and to rebutting criticism made of him generally and in particular in connection with the investigation into the abduction of Madeleine McCann. There can be little doubt that, as you no doubt intended, readers of this publication will have understood it to mean that there are indeed strong grounds to support Amaral's suspicion that Madeleine McCann died in our clients' care and that they subsequently conspired to cover up her death. Similarly, our clients are aware of a posting you published at 1:03am on 12 July 2010 in which you state: "Goncalo Amaral is a Portuguese detective who has sacrificed the rest of his career to bring us what he sees as the truth about a missing three-year-old British girl, Madeleine Beth McCann." As we note above, Mr Amaral is well known for having espoused the view that Madeleine McCann died in our clients' holiday apartment, and that our clients covered up her death to evade any liability - this is, of course, a central thesis of his book "The Truth about a Lie." As such, readers would again have understood this posting to suggest that Amaral's theory is correct and that our clients did indeed conspire to cover up the death of their daughter. This theory is, however, completely untrue and simply does not withstand proper scrutiny. In case you are labouring under a misunderstanding as to the law, you cannot hide behind quotes or purported quotes from other people when publishing outrageous slurs of our clients. Finally, your video recording entitled "Madeleine McCann: The 48 Police Questions Kate McCann Refused to Answer" has been brought to our clients attention. The video, uploaded to You Tube on 13 July 2010 continues to be published at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZQOlx7WAMA&feature=player_embedded In light of the conduct to which we refer above, there can be no doubt whatsoever that notwithstanding your undertakings, you remain intent upon continuing to allege at every available opportunity that there are strong grounds to suspect our clients of being responsible for the death of their daughter, and of conspiring to cover it up. We have advised our clients that your conduct represents a number of clear breaches of your undertaking to the court. Our clients have exercised extraordinary restraint to date, and from the outset have been reluctant to dignify your utterly misguided 'campaign' by engaging with you. However, they are extremely concerned that your misconceived and deeply offensive attacks against them are harming the search for their daughter Madeleine. Indeed your behaviour often appears deliberately designed to do just that. As such, they cannot and will not allow you flagrantly to continue to libel them and to continue to breach the undertakings which you gave to the Court. The purpose of this letter is to require your immediate confirmation: 1) that you will not republish (or authorise anyone else to republish) the leaflet to which we refer above concerning Goncalo Amaral, and in particular that you will not distribute (or allow others to distribute) any hard copies of the leaflet; 2) that you will remove the leaflet from your website(s), from where we understand it can be downloaded; 3) that you will immediately remove the video referred to above from You Tube and will undertake never to publish it again; and 4) that you will not otherwise breach the terms of the undertaking you gave, whether by suggesting that Goncalo Amaral's widely-publicised (and entirely baseless) suspicions about our clients are correct, or in any other way whatsoever. We look forward to hearing from you by no later than 4pm on 16 July 2010 and in the meantime must expressly reserve all our clients' rights against you, and in particular their right to bring proceedings for contempt of Court against you. No doubt you will show this letter to your fellow members of the "Madeleine Foundation". Should they, or indeed anyone linked to them, disseminate serious falsehoods about our clients, we shall advise our clients to pursue those individuals directly for appropriate legal relief. We would urge you to seek legal advice upon this letter and in particular on the consequences of your repeated breaches of the Court undertakings you gave. Yours faithfully Carter-Ruck ------------------------- Initial email response from Tony Bennett 19 July 2010 Dear Sirs, Both myself and some members of The Madeleine Foundation Committee have now had an opportunity to view your letter. This follows my telephone call to you from Bournemouth at 10.42am on Friday 16 July and my voicemail message left at 1.28pm the same day, to neither of which you responded. In response to your letter e-mailed to me at 6.10pm on Thursday 15 July: (1) The '48 Questions' video with myself reading out the 48 questions that your client Dr. Kate McCann refused to answer on 7 September 2007 does not seem to us to be capable of being construed as libellous. Not only is it merely the reading out of the questions she refused to answer, but I took the specific precaution in the introduction to the video, acting on legal advice, to put your client's point of view, namely: a) that she had the right to remain silent (under both Portuguese and British law) and was acting on legal advice, and b) that she believed the Portuguese Police were in error in suspecting her and her husband of any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine, and were not therefore looking for Madeleine as she believed they should have been. Your letter asks me to 'Remove the video referred to above from YouTube'. The video was taken down by YouTube during Friday 16 July. Your letter urged us to 'seek legal advice upon this letter...' I am in the process of seeking legal advice and that will include advice on whether that YouTube video is libellous. (2) You asked for the leaflet about Mr Goncalo Amaral 'to be removed from our website(s)'. The Madeleine Foundation Committee agreed to remove this last night, and where the downloadable version used to be, there is now the following notice: "On 15th July Carter Ruck asked us to remove this downloadable leaflet on Goncalo Amaral. We have agreed to this request pending receipt of legal advice". (3) You objected to a paragraph in a posting I made on 4 July this year on a forum run by Jill Havern, at this link. http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/mccann-case-f3/a-short-letter-to-theresa-may-about-her-proposed-re-investigation-into-the-disappearance-of-madeleine-mccann-t1151.htm I have taken immediate action to remove the paragraph you objected to and the following notice now appears on Mrs Havern's forum instead of the offending paragraph: NOTE: The first sentence of this posting has been removed following legal objections to it raised by Mr Stevie Loughrey of Carter-Ruck in a lettter I received from them on 15 July 2010. (4) In the light of your letter, an urgent review of the content of The Madeleine Foundation website has been undertaken, and last night additional material and links have been removed where there was a doubt in our minds as to whether any material could be construed as libellous. I shall address the remainder of your letter as soon as practicable and of course after taking the legal advice which you urge me to take in the final sentence of your letter. Finally, your letter is marked: 'STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL'. I should like to advise you that a vociferous and regular supporter of your client on the internet, namely 'muratfan', whom we believe to be XXXX XXXX of XXXX, is boasting that he has read your letter. Yours faithfully Tony Bennett ----------------------------- Subsequent letter response from Tony Bennett From: Anthony Bennett Tel: (01279) 635789 email: ajsbennett@btinternet.com Carter-Ruck Solicitors 6 St. Andrew Street LONDON EC4A 3AE Wednesday 21 July 2010 Dear Sirs re: Your clients Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann - Your letter of 16 July This letter follows my responses to your e-mail of 15 July by telephone from Bournemouth on Friday 16 July at 10.28am and again at 1.28pm and my e-mail to you dated 19 July (reproduced below) and timed at 7.36am. Further actions following receipt of your letter In addition to the actions mentioned in my previous e-mail that we have already taken in response to your letter of 15 July, we have made several further changes to the material on our website concerning Mr Gonçalo Amaral, Gonçalo Amaral Day etc. In specific response to the demands you made about our leaflet, The Madeleine Foundation has decided in addition not to distribute this leaflet any further nor print further copies of it. Several thousand copies had already been distributed in the weeks leading up to Saturday 17 July which we termed 'Gonçalo Amaral Awareness Day'. The claims of breaches of my undertakings given on 13 November 2009 I have carefully studied your letter. You claim that: "We have advised our clients [the McCanns] that your conduct represented a number of clear breaches of your undertaking to the court...it is clear that on a number of occasions you have breached [your] undertaking...there can be no doubt whatsoever that notwithstanding your undertakings, you remain intent upon continuing to allege at every available opportunity that there are strong grounds to suspect our clients of being responsible for the death of their daughter, and of conspiring to cover it up". In support of this claim, your letter refers specifically to the following six matters only: (1) My letter to Theresa May, Home Secretary, dated 4 July 2010, a copy of which you and your clients have clearly seen (2) A posting on a thread on a forum now called 'The complete mystery of Madeleine McCann', run by a Mrs Jill Havern. The title of this forum was I understand named after your clients’ Chief Public Relations Officer, Mr Clarence Mitchell, himself referred to the disappearance of Madeleine as 'a complete mystery' in a Channel 4 TV interview in March this year (3) The contents of The Madeleine Foundation's recent leaflet: 'Your Questions Answered About Gonçalo Amaral', of which you claim "...readers of this publication will have understood it to mean that here are indeed strong grounds to support Amaral's suspicions that Madeleine McCann died in our clients' care and that they subsequently conspired to cover up her death..." (4) An internet posting by me on a forum, said to have been made at 1.03am on 12 July which you said "...would lead readers to have understood that Amarals' theory is correct and that our clients did indeed conspire to cover up the death of their daughter. This theory is, however, completely untrue [your underlining] and simply does not withstand proper scrutiny'. You based this on my words that "Amaral...has sacrificed the rest of his career to bring us what he sees as the truth [my underlining] about...Madeleine..." (5) Allegedly 'hiding behind' quotes or purported quotes from other people 'when publishing outrageous slurs of our clients' (although you do not cite a single example in your letter) (6) The video recording: 'Madeleine McCann: The 48 Police Questions Kate McCann Refused to Answer'. You do not give particulars of any other alleged breaches of my undertakings. You also in the penultimate paragraph of your letter advised that any individual 'linked to The Madeleine Foundation' who 'disseminates serious falsehoods' about your clients places her/himself at risk of being pursued for 'appropriate legal relief'. On page 3 of your letter, you made four demands. I respond as follows: Demand 1. The Madeleine Foundation has agreed not to republish 'Your Questions Answered About Gonçalo Amaral' nor to authorise anyone else to republish it. We shall not be making any further distribution of the leaflet. Demand 2. The downloadable version of 'Your Questions Answered About Gonçalo Amaral' was removed on 18 July from The Madeleine Foundation website as a result of your request. The non-downloadable version has also been removed from our website since your letter. Other material about Gonçalo Amaral remains on our website though in view of the undertaking I gave to the court we do not on The Madeleine Foundation website link to his book nor indeed to the documentary he made, although as you must know, many other forums and blogs do so. Demand 3. The YouTube video you refer to which went live on 13 July was removed by YouTube as you already know on 16 July. We have no plans to republish it on YouTube or elsewhere. Having said that, we do not accept that to reproduce what the Portuguese Police have themselves published as the official record of the questions they asked Dr Kate McCann can possibly be construed as 'libellous', especially since these have been in the public domain for almost two years and, so far as I am aware, your clients have made no challenge to date as to their authenticity. The BBC website carries exactly the same list of 48 questions that your client refused to answer; it can easily be found in its archive for 2008. Demand 4. I have endeavoured at all times to draw a distinction between the information which Mr Amaral gives in 'The Truth About A Lie' about his investigation and the deductions he makes from that information. For example, in explaining the 'Gonçalo Amaral Support Project', we wrote this: "Why is G.A.S.P. needed?" ANSWER: Before giving you the details, why did we set up our new campaign on behalf of Mr Amaral? Our reasons include: The fact that without his book, A Verdade da Mentira ('The Truth About A Lie') there is much important information [my underlining] surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann that otherwise we would not know". To give one example, in one chapter of his book, Mr Amaral explains how your clients' friend Jane Tanner on the afternoon of Sunday 13 May came to identify Robert Murat as the man wearing mustard chinos she said she'd seen carrying a child at around 9.15am on Thursday 3 May, the night Madeleine was reported missing. These and other facts, we say, are important to an understanding of the case, whether Mr Amaral is right, or mistaken, in his views on what really happened to Madeleine. To give a second example, Mr Amaral explains how, when he was re-interviewed by police on 10 and 11 July 2007, Mr Murat gave a very different story about his movements from 1 to 4 May 2007 inclusive than he did when first taken in for questioning on 14 May. We are advised that there can be no ban on reasonable discussion of these and other important facts in Mr Amaral's book. His theory is another matter. I am happy to repeat my undertakings given previously to the court. In particular, in the light of your e-mail, I will refrain from suggesting that Mr Amaral's suspicions about your client may be correct, whilst at the same time we are advised that to continue reasonable discussion of the information he has provided us is not libellous. So far as Mr Amaral is concerned, it must also be remembered that your clients' libel action against him has not yet been heard. It could well be that the Portuguese libel court will not uphold your clients' allegation of libel. He has just as much right to defend himself against what he sees as lies and smears against him in the British media (and to have people in Portugal, the U.K. and elsewhere support him), as your clients have a similar right to defend themselves against what they claim is libel. In your clients' case, they appear to have been able to call on the services of your firm with regularity. As your clients have but one wage-earner, it seems reasonably clear that your fees must be being paid from other sources, possibly unnamed benefactors (such payments would of course be liable to be declared to the Inland Revenue as income). One assumes that the donations made by the general public to the Find Madeleine Fund are not being used since we recall statements by your clients and their Chief Public Relations Officer that those donations would not be used to fund lawyers' fees and court costs etc. Mr Amaral is in a very different and difficult financial position. There does not appear therefore to be an 'equality of arms' in the current libel action against Mr Amaral although this principle is now enshrined in British civil litigation. That is another reason behind our support for him. Furthermore, the legal advice I have received is that neither myself nor anyone else can be prohibited by a libel court or otherwise from reporting on and making reasonable comment on information in the public domain, and especially so given that this information comes specifically from police sources. I give two examples. The interim report of Inspector Tavares de Almeida, dated 10 September 2007, gives an accurate summary of the police investigation up to that point. It has been published. It can therefore be commented on, both by those who disagree with what he says, and those who agree. Similarly, in the interlocutory hearing in your clients' libel action in Lisbon in January 2010, the Public Ministry Prosecutor, Magalhães e Menezes, who made the decision to archive the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, was quoted by the press as saying: "The death thesis is the most likely one to explain Madeleine McCann's disappearance". Furthermore, Inspector Tavares de Almeida, who was actively involved in the investigation, was quoted in the same hearing as saying: "Gonçalo Amaral does not usurp the conclusions of the investigation; his conclusions come from investigation itself". These comments were made on oath in a court of law. They cannot easily be dismissed. The legal advice I have received is that anyone is entitled to publish these statements (as the Portuguese press and media have done) and, within reason, comment on them. Similarly, as you will appreciate, the final report of the Policia Judiciara archiving the investigation specifically left on the table the two main theories in the case: (a) that Madeleine was abducted and (b) that Madeleine died in your clients' apartment. This incidentally is why I and others have raised perfectly legitimate concerns with the Home Office about the statements that have been made in the press since March about your clients having meetings with the former and current Home Secretaries and their senior civil servants about a possible 'review' or 're-investigation' into Madeleine's disappearance. It appeared to us (we may be wrong) that your clients were seeking to persuade the Home Office to approach an as-yet unnamed British police force to carry out a re-investigation into Madeleine's disappearance which would have concentrated exclusively on your clients' assertions that Madeleine was abducted, and would not examine other possibilities. As I have done in the YouTube video of the '48 Portuguese Police Questions' which your client refused to answer, I will in any comments on the disappearance of Madeleine give due prominence to your clients' 'take' on any matter. In that YouTube video, I refrained from making any comment except to ensure that, right at the beginning, your client's position was fairly explained, i.e. your client's right to silence, your client having relied on legal advice in refusing to answer questions, and your client believing the police were wholly wrong to place her under suspicion instead of looking for Madeleine. The Madeleine Foundation Committee has asked me to point out that under our Constitution, our objects include: "To pursue - in conjunction with others - the truth about Madeleine McCann's disappearance on 3 May 2007. The Committee plans to continue to research and analyse all aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine and that includes giving due prominence to all cogent evidence that Madeleine was abducted. I reproduce my e-mail sent on Monday (19th) below. Yours faithfully Anthony Bennett

Gonçalo Amaral Awareness Day, 17 July 2010

Gonçalo Amaral Awareness Day http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/GoncaloAmaralday.html We have declared Saturday 17 July 'Goncalo Amaral Awareness Day'. We have produced a new leaflet in support of Mr Amaral (see below) and we would like your help please in distributing as many of these as you can, on that day, or during the week before. ------------------------- Leaflet: Your questions answered about Gonçalo Amaral http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/Leaflets.html Your questions answered about Gonçalo Amaral The man who declared the McCanns suspects over the disappearance of Madeleine In this leaflet, we try to answer your questions about Mr Gonçalo Amaral, the Portuguese detective who led the investigation into the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann on Thursday, 3 May 2007. Four months later, Mr Amaral stunned the world by pulling in the McCanns for questioning as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter. Three days later, an interim report from Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida, the senior investigating officer in the case, gave reasons for the police’s belief that Madeleine had died in her parents' apartment. Less than a month later, Mr Amaral was removed from the investigation (not 'sacked' as the media claimed). The British media have, since then, criticised his investigation, often referring to him as 'disgraced'. He was accused of beating a Portuguese woman, Leonor Cipriano, into falsely confessing to murdering her daughter. He retired from the police to write a book, A Verdade da Mentira, 'The Truth About A Lie'. In it, he explains why he and his team had good grounds for believing Madeleine had died in her parents' apartment and covered up her death. A year after his book came out, the McCanns brought a libel action in the Lisbon High Court claiming, as damages, the £1 million profits he and his publishers had made from the book's sale in 9 European countries. The case will be concluded later this year. We felt it was time the British public knew the facts about Mr Amaral. Here we answer some frequent questions people have about him: 1. What career did Mr Amaral have before he led the Madeleine enquiry? ANSWER: Mr Amaral was an experienced, respected, senior detective. One of his colleagues described him as 'incorruptible'. He had many successes in bringing drug dealers to justice and in one year netted the biggest haul of illegal drugs of any detective in Portugal. His most famous case was his success in bringing the killers of 8-year-old Joana Cipriano to court and ensuring that they served long jail sentences for their appalling crimes. 2. Wasn't Mr Amaral accused of beating and torturing Joana Cipriano's mother into making a false confession? ANSWER: Yes he was. And most unjustly. Joana was reported missing by her mother, only after she had apparently been missing for two days. The sad truth was that Joana had come back from the village shops to find her mother in bed with her uncle. After an intensive investigation led by Mr Amaral, both voluntarily confessed to having brutally murdered her and disposed of her body. Today they are serving 16-year-jail terms for her murder. 3. What about the photos of her in the press showing her with black eyes? ANSWER: Since being convicted of their crimes, both the mother and the uncle have tried to claim they were beaten by Mr Amaral and his men and forced to confess to something they had not done. However, it is clear that Leonor Cipriano suffered her injuries as a result of a beating by fellow female prisoners after being taken to Odemira Prison. During a recent court case, the Director of Odemira Prison was forced to admit to asking her Prison Medical Director to lie about the cause of Ms Cipriano's injuries. Ms Cipriano changed her story many times. 4. Why was Mr Amaral removed from the Madeleine investigation? ANSWER: Shortly before he was removed, he made some 'off the record' comments to a Portuguese journalist detailing how the British government was interfering with his investigation. A leading Portuguese newspaper published his remarks, giving the Portuguese authorities an excuse to remove him from the enquiry. As Mr Amaral has set out in a second book, 'The English Gag', Prime Minister Gordon Brown was told of his being removed from his post before he was. Mr Amaral has provided evidence of British government interference in his enquiries in his two books on the case. As we have shown elsewhere, the British government heavily influenced this investigation from the outset, sending several top-level people out to Portugal in the first week alone, including staff from MI5. We aim to cover this topic in more detail on our website in the coming months. 5. Wasn't his enquiry incompetent, as the British news media suggest? ANSWER: No. As was clear from the interim police report of 10 September 2007, the investigation was severely hampered by overwhelming international media coverage, requiring the police to follow up literally hundreds of false 'sightings' of Madeleine. Despite that, the police conducted a meticulous investigation with the help of hundreds of police officers. The interim report was very thorough. We have reproduced the whole of it in our recent book on the case: 'The Madeleine McCann case Files: Volume 1', available for purchase from our website. 6. But isn't it true that the police failed to secure the crime scene properly? ANSWER: This is one of many false stories about the Madeleine McCann investigation put about in the British media. What most people do not know is that despite the McCanns and their friends apparently genuinely believing that an abductor had taken Madeleine from her room, they themselves tramped all over the McCanns' apartment and allowed several others to do so before the police arrived. This contaminated the crime scene, making the Portuguese police's task much more difficult. In fact, the police sealed the crime scene later that night as soon as they were reasonably able to. The McCanns also criticised Mr Amaral, amongst other things, for never meeting them and never visiting the crime scene. But then the head of any major criminal investigation must be a good delegator. Mr Amaral's enquiry was also hampered by many inconsistencies in the accounts given by he McCanns and their friends and by the McCanns' refusal to disclose certain information such as their telephone, credit card and medical records. 7. Is it true that Mr Amaral and his publishers have made £1 million from the sale of Mr Amaral's book? ANSWER: Yes. We must remember that in trying to bring us the truth about what really happened to Madeleine Mr Amaral gave up his job many years ahead of his normal retirement date, thus losing huge amounts of both salary and pension entitlement. The McCanns threatened to sue Mr Amaral and his publishers for libel when his book. 'The Truth About A Lie', was first published in July 2008. But they did nothing about it until over a year later, by which time his book had sold over half a million copies across Europe. The McCanns have never explained why they waited for over a year to take action, but they are now claiming the £1 million profits the book has made. As a result of the McCanns' libel action, Mr Amaral's book has been banned from sale in Portugal since September 2009. 8. Was Mr Amaral convicted of filing a false report in the Cipriano case? ANSWER: Yes. However, he has appealed, and under Portuguese law his sentence, a suspended prison term of 18 months, cannot take effect until his appeal is heard. He was found not guilty of any suggestion of being involved in the alleged beating of Leonor Cipriano and her brother. On the basis of precious little evidence, he was found guilty of 'filing a false report' about the case. There are many indications that Mr Amaral's trial was politically motivated. In this connection we would commend our article on the prosecutor in this case, Mr Marcos Correia. We have a lengthy investigative article about him on our website. 9. What kind of help and support does Mr Amaral need? ANSWER: His most urgent need is for financial help towards the huge costs of his legal expenses for defending the McCanns' libel action and the various unjust criminal charges bring levelled against him. It is very easy to support him; his representative Mr Paulo Sargento has created a website to give practical help to him. You can donate by PayPal. Here is the link: http://pjga.blogspot.com/ -------------------   Gonçalo Amaral Awareness Day http://mccannexposure.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/goncalo-amaral-awareness-day/ Posted: 17/07/2010 Morning all Well, today is the day, the day. Goncalo Amaral awareness day – the day that we aim to tell the world that Goncalo Amaral is a honourable and well respected Portuguese citizen and a great cop, not the lazy, boozing thug that the he has been portrayed as in the UK media, Clarence Mitchell controls what comes out in the media and the media have lied and libelled Mr Amaral. Please spare a thought for Mr Amaral and his family today. Many thanks to those of you who have ordered you leaflets and will be distributing them today, for those of you who cannot get out and about today please would support the cause by: 1. Downloading the leaflet and sharing it with your friends and family 2. Sharing the leaflet electronically by passing it onto all your contacts by e-mail, twitter, Face book etc. Please let us know how you get on The leaflet is downloadable from our website and can be found here http://bit.ly/aPe0dW Sharon Lawrence * "HLM says, myself and Sir Verbatim handed out over 430 leaflets in central London yesterday (July 17th), a large proportion of these were received with interest and led to a number of lengthy conversations. -------------------------------------------- Breaking News http://mccannexposure.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/breaking-news-2/ Posted:18/07/2010 Update from Tony regarding the distribution of The Madeleine Foundation's Amaral leaflets - "The leafleting by myself and another member in the heart of the shopping centre in Bristol went very well with around 1,000 leaflets handed out between around 11.30am and 4.30pm. A bonus was to meet up with one of our most active members who lives in Somerset and the three of us had a valuable meeting. Whilst we had two females who voiced opposition to our campaign, that was far outweighed by many positive comments and several people taking leaflets to hand to family and friends, along with some who shook our hands, thanking us for raising our doubts about the case. One vocal opponent, who began by saying: 'No. I don't want anything to do with the b____y McCanns', soon changed her tune when she realised that we were questioning the McCanns' account, not raising funds for them. As has by now been reported elsewhere, we have received a three-page letter from Stevie Loughrey, an American or Canadian, from Carter-Ruck – and an immediate priority for us is to address their concerns in that letter. I will post more about the Bristol leafletting and about our response to Carter-Ruck in due course but please be patient for a little while." ----------------------------- Gonçalo Amaral Awareness Day, 17 July 2010 http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/Leaflets.html 19 July 2010 THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! Copies of our leaflet were distributed in the following areas during the week leading up to, and including, Saturday 17 July 2010: Birmingham Borehamwood Bournemouth Bristol Cardiff Devon Dover Elstree Harlow Hayes Hazel Grove Hull London Rhondda Cynon Taff Southampton Stockport Uxbridge West Cumbria A small distribution by a Madeleine Foundation member also took place in Wyoming, U.S.A. Please watch out for more news on our website about Goncalo Amaral Day, 2 October 2010 From the Committee of The Madeleine Foundation, 19 July 2010

Leicestershire Police letter to Tony Bennett, in response to query concerning Brian Kennedy's alleged interference with witnesses, 30 July 2010

Leicestershire Police letter to Tony Bennett http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/PDFs/Reply from Leics cops.pdf 30 July 2010 Mr Anthony Bennett 66 Chippingfield HARLOW Essex CM170DJ Dear Mr Bennett, I write to you regarding your letter to Detective Inspector Graham and the Chief Constable of Cheshire dated 12th July 2010. Unfortunately, DI Graham is not available at present to reply to you and so I am responding on behalf of the Leicestershire Constabulary and other UK police forces regarding your letter. As I am sure you are aware, the Leicestershire Constabulary is conducting an enquiry called Operation Task. This is the UK policing assistance given to the Portuguese authorities investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3rd May 2007. The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is a Portuguese-led one. Our role from day one has been, and continues to be, to co-ordinate and complete any UK-based enquiries that the Portuguese Police request us to do. Once these enquiries have been completed, the results are passed back to Portugal. We are not investigating any of the matters as laid out in your letter. Yours sincerely, DC Robert Waddington Operation Task Leicestershire Constabulary Original letter from Tony Bennett http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/Leics cops re Kennedy.html From: Anthony Bennett 66 Chippingfield HARLOW Essex CM17 0DJ Tel: 01279 635789 e-mail: ajsbennett@btinternet.com Mobile: 07835 716537 Monday 12 July 2010 Chief Constable Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters St. John ENDERBY Leicestershire LE19 2BX For the attention of D.I. Mick Graham, current Senior Investigation Officer BY RECORDED DELIVERY Dear Sir, re: Evidence of the crime of interference with potential witnesses: Mr Brian Kennedy, Swettenham Hall, Swettenham, CONGLETON, Cheshire [re Madeleine McCann investigation] I write to bring to your attention evidence of the crime of interfering with witnesses, and possibly perverting the course of justice, which it appears may have been committed by Mr Brian Kennedy of Swettenham Hall, Swettenham, near Congleton, Cheshire. It is the common law duty of every British citizen to bring to the notice of  the police or the courts evidence of possible crimes. This letter is in direct fulfilment of that common law duty. I am notifying you of this matter as it appears to me that you continue to be the lead police force investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. According to a letter I have received recently from Mr Ian Lister of the Freedom of Information Section in the Home Office, your force continues to pursue an active investigation into crimes committed in relation to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The matter concerns his role in organising and paying for the so-called 'private investigators' employed by Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann. It is known that since September 2007, or quite possibly well before then, he was organising the appointment of private investigation agencies and individuals, ostensibly for the purpose of finding out the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann. His decisions included appointing the highly controversial Spanish detective agency, Metodo 3. You may recall that its boss, Francisco Marco, who himself has had brushes with Spanish law enforcement agencies, notoriously claimed in December 2007 that he was 'hot on the heels' of Madeleine's abductors, that his team 'knew where they were hiding Madeleine', and that Madeleine would be 'home by Christmas'. Mr Kennedy subsequently hired private companies known as Red Defence and Oakley International to continue the apparent process of searching for Madeleine McCann, both of which were effectively run by Kevin Halligen. Halligen charged Kennedy and/or the McCanns' 'Find Madeleine Fund' a reputed £500,000 for his various services. Last October, however, he was arrested, as he is wanted for a $2 million fraud in the United States, and is currently serving time awaiting extradition proceedings in Belmarsh Prison, London. The evidence that Mr Kennedy interfered with witnesses The evidence that Mr Kennedy interfered with witnesses comes from a number of sources. A prime source is an article in the Evening Standard by Mark Hollingsworth, published August 2009, which has never been contradicted by Mr Kennedy. The full article is attached for your information. It is these extracts from the article that give rise to the most concern that Mr Kennedy has committed a crime. The following must be borne in mind in considering the evidence below: The fact that the search for Madeleine McCann has become the most publicised missing child case by far in the history of the world The fact that whether Madeleine was abducted, or whether something else happened to her, a monstrous crime has been committed against her The fact that Madeleine was a three-year-old British girl at the time she was reported missing. It is a crime in this country to commit crimes against a British citizen abroad and also to commit crimes in connection with a crime against a British citizen abroad. I shall now quote from Mr Hollingsworth's article: "Kennedy commissioned private detectives to conduct an investigation parallel to the one run by the Portuguese police. But his choice showed how dangerous it is when powerful and wealthy businessmen try to play detective. In September 2007, he hired Metodo 3...the investigation was dogged by over-confidence and braggadocio. 'We know who took Madeleine and hope she will be home by Christmas,' boasted Metodo 3's flamboyant boss Francisco Marco". "Until now, few details have emerged about the private investigation during those crucial early months, but an investigation by the Evening Standard shows that key mistakes were made...the Evening Standard has spoken to several sources close to the private investigations...and discovered that: • The involvement of Brian Kennedy and his son Patrick in the operation was counter-productive, notably when they were questioned by the local police for acting suspiciously while attempting a 24-hour 'stake out'. • Key witnesses were questioned far too aggressively, so much so that some of them later refused to talk to the police. "By April 2008, Kennedy hired Henri Exton, a former undercover police officer who worked on M15 operations, and Kevin Halligen, a smooth-talking Irishman who claimed to have worked for covert British government intelligence agency GCHQ...for a fee of £100,000 per month plus expenses. "Halligen...born in Dublin in 1961, has been described as a 'Walter Mitty figure'. He used false names to collect prospective clients at airports in order to preserve secrecy, and he called himself 'Kevin' or 'Richard' or 'Patrick' at different times to describe himself to business contacts...he even installed a covert camera to spy on his own employees. He claimed to have worked for GCHQ, but in fact he was employed by the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) as head of defence systems in the rather less glamorous field of new information technology, researching the use of 'special batteries'. He told former colleagues and potential girlfriends that he used to work for MI5, MI6 and the CIA...very little of this is true. "During the Madeleine investigation, Halligen spent vast amounts of time in the HeyJo bar in the basement of the Abracadabra Club near his Jermyn Street office. When not imbibing in St James's, Halligen was in the United States, trying to drum up investors for Oakley International. On 15 August 2008, at the height of the McCann investigation crisis, he persuaded Andre Hollis, a former US Drug enforcement agency official, to write out an $80,000 cheque to Oakley in return for a ten per cent share-holding. The money was then transferred into the private accounts of Halligen and his girlfriend Shirin Trachiotis to finance a holiday in Italy...In a $6 million lawsuit filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, Hollis alleges that Halligen 'received monies for Oakley's services rendered and deposited the same into his personal accounts' and ‘repeatedly and systematically depleted funds from Oakley's bank accounts for inappropriate personal expenses'." It is known from other sources that Mr Kennedy personally spoke to Martin Smith from Ireland, another potential witness. Mr Smith and his family were holidaying in Praia da Luz at the very same time as the McCanns were on holiday there in April and May 2007. Mr Smith and other members of his family made statements claiming that they had seen a man looking very much like Dr Gerald McCann carrying a young girl through the streets of Praia da Luz at around 9.50pm on the evening Madeleine was reported missing. Here is the report of Detective Sergeant Liam Hogan of the Irish Gardai, based in Drogheda, County Lough, which refers to Kennedy contacting Mr Smith: "I took an additional statement from Mr Smith as requested. His wife does not want to make another statement. I showed him the video clip and he stated that it was not the clip that alerted him but the BBC News at 10.00pm on 9th September 2007. "He has been contacted by numerous tabloid press looking for stories. He has been contacted by Mr Brian Kennedy, who is supporting the McCann family, to take part in a photo-fit exercise. He has given no stories or helped in any photo fits. He sent a solicitor's letter to six papers in relation material that was printed that was misquoted. The 'Evening Herald' paid his solicitor's fees and all papers printed an apology. His photograph appeared in another tabloid paper and this matter is being pursued at the moment. I do not believe that Martin Smith is courting the press and my view he is a genuine person. He is known locally and is a very decent person". Why did Kennedy contact Martin Smith? Also, at some point, Kennedy arranged for a witness, Gail Cooper, to meet Melissa Little B.Sc. (Hons), PS, FBI Diploma, which resulted in the sketch of a person who became known on the internet as 'monster man', with a long pointy face, moustache, long hair at the back of his head, but no glasses. His sketch appears in Folio 3979 of the Portuguese Police files. He was said by Gail Cooper to have been seen acting suspiciously in Praia da Luz days before Madeleine disappeared. A while later, Gail Cooper discussed her sighting with the British media but added further details to her story, describing seeing 'monster man' acting suspiciously on a three separate occasions: firstly when he was walking in heavy rain on the beach at Luz, later that day when he called at her apartment claiming to be a charity collector, and two days later when she says she saw him hanging around a children's outing arranged by Mark Warner. She told the reporters she had found the man 'disturbing'. In none of her alleged sightings did she see this man 'walking purposefully', yet Miss Little prepared a second sketch showing Mrs Cooper's 'monster man' striding out and in a very similar pose to that based on Miss Tanner's most recent recollection. It seems clear that Miss Little exercised a high degree of artistic licence. The final report of the PJ submitted to the Portuguese Attorney-General in June 2008 was dismissive of Gail Cooper's evidence. Here is an extract from that report: "In a later phase of the investigation, detailed at pages 3965 to 4113, we deal with a claim emanating from the private investigation instigated by the McCann couple, and publicly announced by their spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, of a suspect who was supposedly was undertaking a collection in Praia da Luz at the time of the disappearance. A photo-fit picture of this suspect was created of this individual by a witness - Gail Cooper - who saw him, see page 3979. "This was immediately compared with the photo-fit from Jane Tanner, despite her description not having a face (see page 3977). But Jane Tanner alleged that they were one and the same person, with an 80% degree of certainty. In order to assess the credibility of the description and of the drawing, it is important to highlight the fact that the witness (Gail Cooper) was first of all interviewed by the British authorities and in a very detailed fashion (see page 3982). She said she saw this person only one time, collecting at the door of the residence she was occupying during her holidays. "However, a few months later, in a new witness statement, the same witness stated  that she saw this individual three times, during one of which he was said to be watching, in a strange way, the children at the Paraíso Restaurant. She did not supply this information at the time of her first witness statement to the police in the U.K.  After the publication of the photo-fit, we were notified of a myriad of claimed sightings of this individual, most of them from the U.K., but some also from Portugal (see page 4130). "All of this information was duly evaluated as to its credibility. Nothing has come of this photo-fit until now, despite innumerable persons contacting us to see they had seen persons supposedly of similar appearance". As the Portuguese police put it, the alleged Gail Cooper 'sighting' of 'monster man' had 'emanated from the private investigation instigated by the McCann couple'.  Brian Kennedy himself arranged for Gail Cooper to meet the 'forensic artist', Melissa Little. The police need to ask how Kennedy and his investigators found Gail Cooper in the first place, and why Kennedy seemed anxious to find and promote witnesses who backed up the abduction claim whilst at the same time interfering with other witnesses to the extent that they were intimidated from making statements to the police. Paul Gordon was another witness contact directly by Brian Kennedy. In a statement, he said: "To the best of my knowledge I never met the McCann family and never delivered the key to anyone other than the staff of Mark Warner...I want to add that since January this year I have received numerous phone calls, messages and visits from the press regarding the collector of donations, which in turn put me in contact with other people such as Brian Kennedy, Kate and Gerry McCann. I feel that this is a constraint that makes it difficult to take the more correct decision...I tried always to cooperate with the police in every way possible...There are certain times when I feel like a pawn in chess". It is also known that Mr Kennedy flew out to southern Portugal in November 2007, together with his in-house lawyer at the Latium Group, Cheshire, Mr Edward Smethurst. There, the pair of them met with one of the three suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Mr Robert Murat, and his lawyer, Mr Francisco Pagarete, and members of Mr Murat's family. That meeting may well have constituted a specific breach of Portuguese criminal law, which strictly forbids anyone to interfere with an official criminal investigation. There are further references I can supply should you wish to pursue this matter further. Clearly the main source here is Mr Hollingsworth, the writer of the article, and the Evening Standard itself. I should be glad if you could inform me whether or not you will be commencing an investigation into these serious alleged crimes. Yours sincerely Anthony Bennett ENC. Mark Hollingsworth article

Carter-Ruck letter to Tony Bennett, 03 August 2010; with response, 16 August 2010

Carter-Ruck letter to Tony Bennett http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/PDFs/Carter Ruck Aug 3 2010.pdf 3 August 2010 And by email: ajsbennett@blinternet.com STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL Mr Tony Bennett 66 Chippingfield HARLOW Essex CM170DJ Urgent Dear Sir Gerry and Kate McCann We refer to your letter of 21 July 2010 and your email of 19 July 2010. We note that you claim to have taken legal advice upon our letter of 15 July 2010. Given the frankly incoherent and illogical contents of your letter, we must say that we find it difficult to believe that you have taken any legal advice. We should be grateful if you would confirm the name of the solicitor whom you consulted, as the legal advice you claim to have received, or at least your understanding of it, appears to be incorrect in a number of fundamental respects. You have speculated as to the financial basis on which our clients instruct us. This is, of course, no concern of yours, but suffice it to say that your speculation about our clients' funding arrangements is entirely misplaced. In particular, we have never been paid a penny by the Find Madeleine Fund. While our clients dispute much of the content of your letter to the Home Secretary, no complaint was made about the fact of your having sent that letter. Our clients' complaint related to your publication of the letter (and the defamatory allegations contained therein) on the internet, for which there can be no defence. Neither we nor our clients have any knowledge of a Mr Ian West or of anyone with the internet user name "muratfan," and have not leaked our letter to him or to anyone else as you implicitly allege in your letter. It is noteworthy however that while you seek to criticise us for having leaked our letter, which was marked "Strictly Private and Confidential", you have posted it on the newsletters page of your website. While you claim to be complying with the requests contained in our letter of 15 July 2010, including that you do not continue to publish the "48 questions" video you made, we are aware that you are actively encouraging others to circulate the recording (or versions of it) and copies of the 48 questions, and that you have recently been republishing articles/postings by others, many of which clearly allege that our clients are guilty of, or are to be suspected of, causing the death of their daughter Madeleine McCann. In the circumstances, we must require your immediate response to this continuing clear breach of the undertakings which you gave to the Court, which appears to demonstrate how disingenuous your purported assurances are. Yours faithfully Carter-Ruck -------------- Response from Tony Bennett http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/Aug reply to CR.html From: Anthony Bennett Tel: (01279) 635789 email: ajsbennett@btinternet.com Carter-Ruck Solicitors 6 St. Andrew Street LONDON EC4A 3AE Monday 16 August 2010 Dear Sirs re: Your clients Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann - Your letter of 3 August 2010, received 9 August This letter follows my e-mail to you dated 10 August. I reply to your letter paragraph by paragraph as follows: Para 1. Noted. Para 2. Also noted. Para 3. I find it of interest how your clients’ secrecy about how their libel actions and letters are funded, along with other matters that they keep very secret, contrasts with their world-wide and very public appeal for everyone on the planet to look for Madeleine and to give to your clients’ appeal fund. Para 4. Our letter to the Home Secretary was sent on 12 March this year and appeared on our website soon afterwards. It was therefore posted five months ago, during which time there has been no objection from your clients to that letter being on our site. Insofar as that letter recites various factual matters connected with the police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, it says no more than, for example, the evidence given by several Portuguese witnesses in the hearing in January this year of Mr Amaral’s appeal against the banning of his book ‘The Truth About A Lie’ the previous September, evidence which caused your client Dr Gerald McCann a considerable amount of discomfort, or so it appeared from his demeanour on television, the morning after all that evidence was reported in the British press under such headlines as: a) Daily Mirror: “Brit police: Treat the McCanns as suspects: McCanns should be treated as suspects, Brit profiler told Portuguese police” b) SKY NEWS: “McCanns Braced For More Cover-Up Claims" …with several other newspapers covering the same issue in different ways, for example the Daily Star reported: “Amaral claims the then three-year-old died in an accident in her parents' holiday apartment while they dined with pals nearby. He alleges that her doctor parents then hid her body to conceal the tragedy”. The Daily Express also reported as follows: “During the hearing yesterday Mr Amaral's lawyer Antonio Cabrita held up a report by Lee Rainbow, head of the UK National Policing Improvement Agency, who is an expert in building profiles of possible offenders. Reading from the report Mr Cabrita said: “The family is a lead that should be followed”. Mr Cabrita told the court the report had formed part of the police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance but had never been made public before. Portuguese police made Kate and Gerry McCann formal suspects, or arguidos, in October 2007. The status was lifted in July 2008. Last night a spokesman for the NPIA said that it was common for them to advise officers to consider the possibility of family involvement in disappearance cases. Mr Amaral's book, ‘Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie’, alleges that Madeleine died in her family's holiday flat and her parents faked her abduction”. So far as I am aware, your clients did not instruct you nor any other lawyer to sue any of these papers for libel. It would be frankly ludicrous if newspapers were allowed to report for example the evidence of those Portuguese police witnesses in Lisbon and we could not. Once again, if there is any specific part of the letter to the Home Secretary that you think libels your client we will give consideration to removing it. Para 5. If you look carefully at my letter of 21 July, I did not criticise, contrary to the claim in your letter, any possible ‘leaking’ of your letter to ‘muratfan’. I merely advised you that ‘muratfan’ was boasting that he had seen your letter; I did not criticise you, or him. Notwithstanding your comments, it is nonetheless of more than passing interest that on 4 August whilst I was away on holiday ‘muratfan’ posted up details of the letter you sent me the previous day which were surprisingly close to the mark. I continue to search for an explanation as to why ‘murtfan’ continually makes posts which do suggest a close connection of his with members of the McCann family. As I believe ‘muratfan’ to be Ian West, it was not surprising to learn that an Ian West was amongst those photographing guests at the Richard-Branson dinner at the Rooftop Restaurant, 99 Knightsbridge, to mark the 1000th day since Madeleine was reported missing. Para 6.  This paragraph lacks particulars. The record of both myself and The Madeleine Foundation is that if errors or alleged libels are brought to our attention, we will remove them, as we have done on occasions in the past. On the subject of the ‘48 Questions’ video, I wrote this to you in my 21 July letter: “The YouTube video you refer to which went live on 13 July was removed by YouTube as you already know on 16 July. We have no plans to republish it on YouTube or elsewhere. Having said that, we do not accept that to reproduce what the Portuguese Police have themselves published as the official record of the questions they asked Dr Kate McCann can possibly be construed as ‘libellous’, especially since these have been in the public domain for almost two years and, so far as I am aware, your clients have made no challenge to date as to their authenticity. The BBC website carries exactly the same list of 48 questions that your client refused to answer; it can easily be found in its archive for 2008”. You elected not to respond to my comments and my  position remains that there is nothing libellous about the YouTube video we made and which as you know was removed by them on 16 July. You claim that I have ‘recently been republishing articles/postings by others, many of which clearly allege that our clients are guilty of, or are to be suspected of, causing the death of their daughter Madeleine McCann’. You need to be specific. I do my best to stick to the terms of my undertakings whilst at the same time exercising my right to question what others say or claim. As my track record shows, I will remove any posting on our website or that I have made elsewhere if you would please name the articles or postings in question and explain in clear terms how your clients say they are libellous. Para 7. Again, you refer to ‘this continuing clear breach’ of my undertakings to the court yet you do not give particulars. I refer to my comments above under Paragraph 6 of your letter. One of the main problems with the accounts given by your clients, the rest of the ‘Tapas 9’ group of friends and others is the number of clear contradictions. I will take you now to one area of contradictions - the accounts given by your clients and others about events in the afternoon and early evening of Thursday 3 May 2007. Below are 11 statements or accounts of events made by your clients or others (A to K). After reproducing them, I will briefly discuss them: A. GERALD MCCANN 4 MAY He says nothing about what he was doing in the period before 7.30pm on 3 May 2007 B. GERALD MCCANN 10 May At 12h30 they started lunch, the meal having lasted an hour until 13h30. After that time they made their way to the resort play area, the deponent left by the front door and the rest of the family by the rear door that, once again, he shut and locked from the inside. As to the front door, he does not know exactly if he locked it. ----- That they stayed in the play area for approximately an hour until 14h30/14h35. After that they left the twins next to the creche at the TAPAS, they signed the register and the three (deponent, KATE and MADELEINE) made their way to the creche at the main reception, where they arrived at 14h50 and delivered MADELEINE, not being able to say precisely who signed the register. ----- The deponent and KATE returned to the OCEAN CLUB by the short-cut and at the secondary reception they asked the lady employee if there was a vacant tennis court they could reserve. They were told there was a vacancy between 14h30 to 15h30. As it was already 15h00, they began to play immediately. At 15h30, the tennis instructor arrived, who instructed each of them until 16h30. ----- They stayed in that place, talking, until 16h45 at which time the twins went to the meal area. At 17h00, as usual, MADELEINE arrived accompanied by the teachers and the other children. After her arrival, MADELEINE ate, [the meal] having ended at 17h30. ------ After 17h30 they went to the apartment, the deponent having entered by the main door, which he did not lock while he was inside the residence. KATE and the children entered by the rear door, after this had been opened from the inside by the deponent. ------ That they bathed the children, the deponent having left at 18h00 for a tennis game only for men, at which were: DAN, tennis instructor; JULIAN, with whom he had played tennis several times; and CURTIS, with whom he had also played. ------ During the afternoon of that day the rest of the group members, including the children, were at the beach, [they] having returned at 18h30, the time at which he saw DAVID PAYNE next to the tennis court. DAVID went to visit KATE and the children and returned close to 19h00, trying to convince the deponent to continue to play tennis, to which [entreaty] he did not accede as he had already been playing for about an hour and had to go back to his wife. Nevertheless, RUSSELL, DAVID and MATTHEW stayed to play. ----- At 19H00, he made his way to the apartment, finding KATE and the children playing on the sofa. About 10 to 15 minutes later, they took the children to the bedroom and they all sat on MADELEINE'S bed to read a story. C. KATE MCCANN 4 MAY She also says nothing in this statement about events prior to about 7.30pm on 3 May. D. KATE MCCANN 6 MAY The lesson ended an hour later, at around 4h30. Gerry continued playing tennis with a guest called JULIAN who belonged to his tennis group, while she went for a jog along the beach, for around half an hour. During that period she saw the rest of the group, children and grown-ups; she was disappointed as nobody had told her that they were going to the beach and Madeleine surely would have loved to have gone with them. She cannot confirm whether she went to the apartment between the tennis game and the jog. When she finished jogging, at around 5h20/5h30, she went to the TAPAS area. Gerry was there, as well as the twins and Madeleine who were having dinner at separate tables. Madeleine had been taken to the area by the nannies. Her parents were required to sign the register when the meal was over, at around 5h30. During the meal Kate asked Madeleine if she was sad because the other children in the group had gone to the beach without her; she replied that she wasn’t, but was rather tired. She asked Kate to carry her back to the apartment. Kate agreed, and Gerry led the twins back to the apartment, as well. Tiredness was due to the intense daily activities, not to any sickness. They arrived at the apartment at around 5h40, earlier than usual, because Madeleine was tired, their other friends were at the beach and Gerry had an all-male tennis game at 6h00. At the apartment they both bathed the children, and close to 6h00, Gerry went to the tennis courts, right after the children had finished their bath. They entered the apartment by the main door, with the key. She does not know if it was locked, and presumes it was Gerry who opened it. At lunch-time they also entered through the same door. After the children’s bath, already alone, she put pyjamas and nappies on the twins, and gave them each a glass of milk and biscuits. Before bathing the children and because it was early, they had thought of taking them to the recreation area, but then decided against this because of tiredness. While the children were eating and looking at some books, Kate had a shower which lasted around 5 minutes. After showering, at around 6h30/6h40pm and while she was getting dry, she heard somebody knocking at the balcony door. She wrapped herself in a towel and went to see who was at the balcony door. This door was closed but not locked as Gerry had left through this door. She saw that it was David Payne, because he called out and had opened the door slightly. David’s visit was to help her to take the children to the recreation area. When David returned from the beach he was with Gerry at the tennis courts, and it was Gerry who asked him to help Kate with taking the children to the recreation area, which had been arranged but did not take place. David was at the apartment for around 30 seconds, he didn’t even actually enter the flat, he remained at the balcony door. According to her he then left for the tennis courts where Gerry was. The time was around 6h30-6h40. After David left, Kate dressed and sat with the children, Madeleine on her lap. She was wearing a top, she doesn’t remember what colour it was, a green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim trousers, sports shoes and white socks. She read a story to the children in the living room, on the sofa in front of the balcony door, identified on the diagram with the letter D. At 7h00,  Gerry arrived and entered through the balcony door. He sat on the sofa identified with letter E. She doesn’t know if the story was finished, but thinks she was still sitting on the sofa. E. DAVID PAYNE in his statement of 4 May says virtually nothing about the events of the afternoon and early evening of 3 May. F. DAVID PAYNE ROGATORY STATEMENT to Leicestershire Police April 2010 (Extract) 1485 (Leicestershire Police): "Alright, what I now want you to concentrate on David is the important day really, Thursday the third of May. I want you to try and put yourself back in to that, it may help you if you think of the time when the alarm was raised, that may well bring you back to the beginning of the day and try and remember as much as you can, the time you got up, I know that you said on the first interviews that you couldn’t remember an awful lot but try as best you can to remember from say midday onwards." 00:01:48 PAYNE “Mm yeah, err on that particular day err me and Fiona had you know gone down to the beach, we err took the dinghies out err as usual we went, you know we had the kids, err we had lunch err in the apartment. Err that afternoon I wanted to go down err to the Ocean, err to the beach and err you know windsurf err Matt and Russell had gone down there, they were, had taken the catamaran out. So I went down there err while Fiona and Dianne were looking after the girls in our apartment. Err I was down err windsurfing, I must have been windsurfing for a couple of hours, err saw Matt and Russ out on err the catamaran and then after we finished there we you know we met on the beach, played with the girls on the beach and then we went to the err the restaurant which is on the err overlooking the beach and you know we had err the evening meal there. Err after we had the meal we got some ice cream and then err we decided that we were gonna go up and play tennis so I left err with err Russell, we left the, err the girls at the restaurant and we went up to the, err back up to the Ocean Club. Err I, as I say I’m not sure you know what happened to Matt and Russell at that particular moment but I remember then you know I went over to see err Gerry at the err you know tennis courts, just to see you know what was happening, and err decided that we’d, you know I’d come, come back to play tennis and err Gerry had asked me just to pop in and check everything was alright err with Kate or you know again I can’t remember the exact reason whether he was just making sure it was alright that he could stay there and you know more time but you know he’d asked me to pop in. So I walked back err from the tennis courts, err back to err you know Kate and Gerry’s apartment and the time you know looking at, you know we’ve looked obviously at photographs since then and you know the time that we’ve got that I was you know going to Kate’s about six thirty, err and I went into their apartment  through the patio doors. The three children were all you know dressed you know in their pyjamas, you know they looked immaculate, you know they were just like angels, they all looked so happy and well looked after and content and I said to Kate, you know it’s a bit early for the you know, for the three of them to be going to bed, she said ah they’ve had such a great time, they’re really tired and you know err so I say, you know I can’t remember exactly what, what you know the night attire, what the children were wearing but white was thepredominant err colour, but you know just to reinforce they were just so happy, you know seeing you know obviously Gerry wasn’t there but they were just all, just so at peace and you know they looked like a family who’d had such a fantastic time and err yeah then I left there, went and got my stuff, went back to the tennis courts and then err there was me, Matt and Russell and I think Gerry played a little, for a little while but he decided that he’d, he’d played enough tennis for that day and err was going back and so it left with me, Russell and err Matt and err Dan who was the, the you know the tennis coach from Mark Warner. Err so we played some tennis and you know we were having a good knock and then it was getting a bit late so err we, you know we left the tennis courts, went back to our respective partners to get ready to go out, you know it was, it was, you know certainly after half past seven that we’d, you know we’d left the courts, perhaps even a bit later than that. Err when I got back err I think because Fiona had done a lot of babysitting and left me playing tennis she said well I’m gonna go for a very quick run so she went for a run on the beach, you know, err got the kids ready, bathed, got them ready for err to go to bed but again you know as we’d got back late err from the tennis courts you know the whole time err for that evening was not, you know later. And then we just got ready to go and by the time Fi had got back from the run we’d all had showers, we were all ready to go and the girls were asleep and we were happy to leave the apartment, it was you know it was sort of gone quarter to nine. Err we walked down, the three of us, err you know to the Tapas area err we bumped into Matt, he was walking err back to the apartment and err you know he was, he was, you know semi-jokingly said oh I’ve come to check because you’ve taken so long and you know which actually transpired that they were quite err getting agitated because you know the time the table was booked at half past eight andyou know it was approaching nine o’clock and you know they thought it was, it wasn’t appropriate that we weren’t there you know as early as we should have been. So then Matt carried…err back, you know, to the apartment and we went to the table. Err when we sat, sat down I err sat next to Gerry and err youknow of course the next few minutes just started chatting to Gerry and you know I said to him you know this is you know has been one of the best days I’ve had in a long time you know and we were just chatting about what we’d done and he was reciprocating just saying you know what, what a fantastic day they’d had, what a fantastic week it was and you know just a general consensus was that you know it was just a fantastic time. Err again I was aware that err you know that other people were leaving the table, err I know that err the, err between Russell and Jane they were leaving the table err to look after Evie. It transpired that at some stage she’d been unwell and err Evie, sorry then Russ, so Russell was basically, was missing the part of the main course and then Jane went you know and ate hers and then disappeared off to take over so we all you know I think made the same joke that Jane said oh I’ve gone to relieve you know Russell and you know that’s, and then you know I remember the other people that night you know again it’s in part of the things that we discussed after but you know I was sort of aware as well that there was, rather than all just checking on their own they were just cross-checking as well but still you know very err frequently..." G.  Kate and Gerry McCann: Beyond the smears Article by David James Smith December 16, 2007 For six months David James Smith has examined the evidence surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann for The Sunday Times Magazine. In this, the most comprehensive - and authoritative - investigation yet, he addresses the key issues facing Gerry and Kate as they prepare for Christmas without their daughter That week in Praia da Luz, the week the McCanns were made suspects in their own daughter's ‘death’, I was out there talking to them and to family and friends. I was at the home of the Anglican vicar Haynes Hubbard, sitting with him and his wife, Susan, while their own three children pottered around us. That evening, Thursday, May 3, at just after 8pm, by their account, Kate and Gerry McCann were having a glass of wine together in apartment 5A on the ground floor of Block 5 of the Waterside Village Gardens at the Ocean Club. Their three children were asleep in the front bedroom overlooking the car park and, beyond it, the street. Madeleine was in the single bed nearest the door. There was an empty bed against the opposite wall, beneath the window. Between the two beds were two travel cots containing the twins: Sean and Amelie. Gerry had bought the wine at the Baptista supermarket, 200 yards down the hill. They had lived and worked in New Zealand for a year and that particular bottle, Montana sauvignon blanc, was their favourite. It was the sixth day of their week’s holiday in the Algarve and they were reflecting on the enjoyable time they’d had, how surprisingly easy it had been with the children. “Gerry had knocked up at the start of the 4.30pm tennis-drills session, but had decided not to exacerbate an injury to his Achilles tendon, so had dropped out and waited around by the courts until the children came back from the kids’ clubs at 5pm for tea. That had been one of the most enjoyable times of the holiday, all the children together for tea, then the adults playing with them afterwards. Gerry was in his apartment at 7pm, had a glass of water, then a beer, while the children sat with Kate on the couch having stories with a snack. The children were clearly shattered - the last thing any of them needed was a sedative and, anyway, it was not something the McCanns ever did. They put them to bed after a last story. The twins were asleep virtually the moment they lay down, Madeleine not far behind them. They were first to the table at the restaurant at 8.35 and spent some minutes talking to a couple from Hertfordshire - two more tennis players - at the next table, who were eating with their young children. As they chatted, Gerry thought how lucky he was, his children asleep nearby, he and Kate free to come and enjoy some adult time at the restaurant and not have to sit with their children, as this couple were”. H. DAVID PAYNE was quoted in newspaper reports on 24 September 2007 (144 days after Madeleine was reported missing) saying that ‘he saw Madeleine being put to bed’ at ‘around 7.00pm’ on 3 May 2007. I. THE PANORAMA PROGRAMME OF 19 NOVEMBER 2010 In a Panorama programme transmitted on Monday 19 November (just three days after the McCanns, their friends, their lawyers and advisers met at Rothley Court Manor and just six days after Brian Kennedy and his lawyer Edward Smethurst and suspect Robert Murat and his lawyer Francisco Paragete met in secrecy at the Eveleighs’ villa in Burgos along with Mrs Murat), presenter Richard Bilton said the following, and I quote directly from a transcript of the documentary: BILTON: “The week long holiday is coming to a close. Day 6: it's Thursday, May 3rd. We've produced this model of the Ocean Club to clearly show the key areas and where people were. The tennis courts and pool area, the Tapas Bar and here apartment 5A where by 5.30 in the evening the McCanns say the children have been picked up from, their kids' clubs, and they were all back together. At 6, Gerry McCann has his third tennis lesson of the day, so he leaves the flat. He says as a family they talked about bringing the children back out to play in the area by the courts. At 6.30 Gerry McCann asks a friend, David Payne, to pop in on Kate to see if the children are coming down. He goes to the flat, he says all is well, but the children are too tired and are already in their pyjamas. At 7, lesson over, Gerry McCann goes back to the apartment. He says he reads the children a story and all three are asleep by 7.30. The couple say they have a glass of wine before, and, at half past eight, they leave for the Tapas restaurant, it's on the complex about 70 metres away. They'd eaten here every night of their holiday with their friends. They can't see the front or the side of the apartment but they can see part of the back, though even that view is partially obscured by bushes”. J. ARGUIDO STATEMENT OF DR GERALD MCCANN, 7 September 2007 Regarding the episode where he spoke to David on the 3rd of May, he says that he was playing tennis at 18h30 when David appeared near the tennis court and asked him through the net if he was going to continue playing. The deponent said he didn’t know because Kate might be needing help to look after the three children, even more so because they intended to bring them to the recreation area after their showers. He thinks that David offered to check if Kate needed help, which he did, and returned minutes later. Concerning his previous statement, where he states that David returned half an hour later, at around 19h00, he says that he returned to the tennis court after half an hour, as this time frame refers to the second time he returned to the tennis court, after dressing up for the game. K. Gerry's fears for Kate on the day Madeleine disappeared Last updated at 01:24 19 October 2007 Crucial new details of the day Madeleine McCann went missing can be revealed today. According to sources, Gerry McCann asked one of their friends to check on Kate and the children while he had a tennis lesson. Mr McCann spoke to David Payne shortly before 6.30pm while playing on the court at the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz. [Picture: Concerned: Gerry asked a friend to check on Kate and the children] The source said: "David Payne saw Madeleine at around 6.30pm. "He popped in because Gerry wanted to make sure Kate was OK. Gerry was playing tennis and David said he was going past. "I expect it was said [by Gerry] as: 'If you are heading back that way, stick your head in and see if Kate is all right'. The exchange between Mr Payne and Mr McCann had fuelled Portuguese suspicions about Mrs McCann's frame of mind on the day Madeleine disappeared. Detectives in Portugal suspect she killed Madeleine by accident and that Mr McCann helped her cover up the death - which is vehemently denied by the McCanns as a smear. But Mr Payne's evidence now forms part of the Portuguese investigation. It is part of new details of the day which can be revealed for the first time. [Picture: Portuguese police have suggested Kate was struggling to cope with her three children] A source close to the McCanns has revealed further details of events as they unfolded in the hours before Madeleine went missing from her family's holiday apartment on 3 May. The source said Mrs McCann went jogging around Praia da Luz while Madeleine and twins Sean and Amelie played in the resort's children's club. The McCanns then took the children for tea before Mr McCann went for an hour-long tennis lesson - starting at 6pm - with the resort's coach. During that time, Mrs McCann was alone with the children in their two-bedroom apartment bar the crucial few minutes during which Mr Payne made his visit. Mr Payne is understood to have told police he found Mrs McCann happily coping with her three children, including Madeleine. Mr Payne, 41, is bound by Portuguese secrecy laws and cannot speak out about the events on that night. But today he said: "Kate is a fantastic mum. She can cope. She is a very able person." Mr Payne, who has known the couple for at least five years, added: " I have never witnessed anything untoward in all that time." The source said there was now a fear Portuguese police may have misinterpreted Mr McCann's request as some indication his wife was struggling with the children and needed help. But the source said Mr Payne, a senior research fellow in cardiovascular sciences, had "never given the impression this was a woman stressed out". The source added: "The impression I get was Kate was having a lovely time with the children." The evidence of Mr Payne, 41, and the McCanns' dining companions that night - dubbed the "Tapas Nine" - is vital in clearing the couple of any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance. It is understood that none of their friends has been interviewed by Portuguese police since giving official witness statements back in May. Portuguese newspapers claim police want to interrogate them again and that a judge has given the go-ahead. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If we now analyse the above statements and news reports, we see the following: 1) In their first statements to the Portuguese police, the McCanns and Dr David Payne say very little if anything about events in the afternoon and early evening of 3 May, certainly nothing about an apparent visit by Dr David Payne to your client Dr Kate McCann. 2) When your client Dr Gerald McCann speaks of Dr Payne visiting Dr Kate McCann, he speaks of Dr Payne leaving for the apartment at about 6.30pm and not returning until 7.00pm - half-an-hour later. 3) Dr Payne in his statement refers to a visit which clearly took some considerable time. He says he saw the children already dressed in their night gear, mostly white, ‘angelic-looking’, and is reported elsewhere as saying he saw them ‘being put to bed’. 4) By contrast your client Dr Kate McCann says she was showering whilst the three children were playing, heard a knock, slipped a towel round herself, answered the door, only kept the door ajar and did not allow Dr Payne in, and that the whole episode lasted a mere 30 seconds. 5) If we then go on to look at the accounts of your clients Dr Kate McCann and Dr Gerald McCann playing tennis, we have the following discrepancies: In (B) above, Dr Gerald McCann says that he left Madeleine at the crèche at 2.50pm, asked about playing tennis at 3.00pm and says he went straight on to the court at that time (it is not mentioned whether they were already in their tennis gear and had their tennis rackets with them at this time or whether they had to go back and change and get their rackets and balls etc.). He said: “…they asked the lady employee if there was a vacant tennis court they could reserve”. By contrast, in one of her statements, Jane Tanner explains why Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann did not go down to the beach as follows: “All went down to the beach as a group, but not with, but Kate and Gerry didn’t come then because they’d booked this private, you know, this private lesson”. Dr McCann says that he and Dr Kate McCann played tennis until 3.30pm, then they played tennis until 4.30pm, but it is not clear what they both did until 5.30pm. Then, at 5.30pm, they went to the apartment, when according to your client he walked through an unlocked door but then had to go round to the front door, unlock it and let his wife and children through the locked door, a somewhat convoluted procedure on the face of it. Dr Gerald McCann says nothing about having a meal with the children at the crèche. Then they bathed the children between 5.30pm and 6.00pm, then Dr Gerald McCann went to play tennis with Dan, Julian and Curtis, then Dr McCann happened to see Dr Payne around the tennis courts, then Dr Payne returned from seeing Dr Kate McCann at around 7.00pm and said ‘Come on Gerry, let’s play tennis’, or words to that effect, at which point Dr Gerald McCann said ‘No, I’m going back to the apartment’. At about 715pm the whole family was apparently sitting on Madeleine’s bed reading stories. In Dr Kate McCann’s version, it is said that she went jogging from 4.30pm to 5.30pm, a fact not mentioned by Dr Gerald McCann in either of his first two statements. She says that when she finished jogging, at around 5.20pm to 5.30pm, she went to the ‘Tapas area’, where her husband was already. According to Dr Kate McCann, Dr Gerald McCann was already there, and she says she sat down and ate with the children. Her statement says: “During the meal Kate asked Madeleine if she was sad because the other children in the group had gone to the beach without her”. Dr Kate McCann then says she carried Madeleine back to the apartment, with her husband ‘leading the twins back to the apartment’. Just as an observation en passant, with a child nearly four years old it would be usual for the father to carry the heaviest child. Dr Kate McCann adds that the couple had ‘thought of’ taking the children back to the recreation area but decided against it because the children were ‘too tired’. She then says that after getting out of a shower at about 6.30pm/6.40pm, Dr David Payne knocked on the door, she put a towel around her and spoke to him for about 30 seconds.  She makes two important statements. She says he didn’t even enter the apartment, being left on the balcony. She also says: “David’s visit was to help her to take the children to the recreation area. When David returned from the beach he was with Gerry at the tennis courts, and it was Gerry who asked him to help Kate with taking the children to the recreation area”. Now, if Dr Gerald McCann is correct (see above) in saying that the couple had already decided to bath the children at 5.30pm and not take them down to the recreation area, why would he then, around half-an-hour later, send Dr Payne up on a fruitless visit to the apartment to persuade his wife and children to come down to the recreation area after all. With the greatest of respect and without wishing to commit libel in saying so, it seems totally inexplicable. Next, Dr Kate McCann says that while her husband was away, she “read a story to the children in the living room on the sofa”. She is not sure if she had finished this when her husband returned. This differs from the account of the couple reading stories to the children on Madeleine’s bed, which Dr Kate McCann does not even mention in her statement. Then we have the statement of Dr David Payne. Part of his statement deals with the circumstances of his visit to the apartment to see your client Dr Kate McCann. He says: “ I remember then you know I went over to see err Gerry at the err you know tennis courts, just to see you know what was happening, and err decided that we’d, you know I’d come, come back to play tennis and err Gerry had asked me just to pop in and check everything was alright err with Kate or you know again I can’t remember the exact reason whether he was just making sure it was alright that he could stay there and you know more time but you know he’d asked me to pop in. So I walked back err from the tennis courts, err back to err you know Kate and Gerry’s apartment and the time you know looking at, you know we’ve looked obviously at photographs since then and you know the time that we’ve got that I was you know going to Kate’s about six thirty, err and I went into their apartment  through the patio doors”. So, in terms, Dr Payne says that he ‘went to see Gerry at the tennis courts’, presumably therefore knowing that he would be there. He says he thinks that Dr McCann asked him to go there ‘just to pop in and check everything was alright err with Kate’, which of course differs entirely from Dr Kate McCann’s account that her husband had asked Dr Payne to see if she would like to come down with the children to the recreation area. 6) I now come to examine in more detail the contradictions relating to a visit Dr David Payne is said to have made to Dr Kate McCann at around 6.30/7.00pm on the night of 3 May: Dr Payne says, wholly contrary to Dr Kate McCann’s account, that not only did he not knock on the front door and stand talking to Dr Kate McCann for 30 seconds but, he says, strolled in through the open patio door. Moreover he then gives much detail about what he saw when he was in the apartment, whilst of course your client Dr Kate McCann asserts that he never even entered it. He says that while he was in the apartment, he saw: “…The three children were all you know dressed you know in their pyjamas, you know they looked immaculate, you know they were just like angels, they all looked so happy and well looked after and content and I said to Kate, you know it’s a bit early for the you know, for the three of them to be going to bed, she said ah they’ve had such a great time, they’re really tired and you know err so I say, you know I can’t remember exactly what, what you know the night attire, what the children were wearing but white was the predominant err colour, but you know just to reinforce they were just so happy, you know seeing you know obviously Gerry wasn’t there but they were just all, just so at peace and you know they looked like a family who’d had such a fantastic time and err yeah then I left there…” In item (H) above, a newspaper account clearly given to the newspaper by Clarence Mitchell, says that Dr David Payne ‘saw the children being put to bed at 7.00pm’. Dr Payne then says in his statement that (after 7.00pm) Dr Gerald McCann played tennis for a while with him, Dr Matthew Oldfield and Dr Russell O’Brien. Dr Gerald McCann maintains that he did not play after 7.00pm. Moreover, Fiona Payne in her Rogatory Interview gives these replies to her interrogator: “I don’t know who was playing who, but there was certainly Gerry, Matt, erm, you know, Russ and Dave, erm, and typically being men, it was all quite competitive and, erm, and far different to the women’s tennis. Erm, Kate and the kids, I think, as I said earlier, weren’t there and, you know, they, as Gerry said, were just absolutely knackered and Kate was getting them bathed and ready for bed. It wasn’t a surprise that they weren’t there. Erm, and I know Dave had said to me later, because he, erm, after tennis he’d said he’d checked on Kate and the kids before going to tennis”. 1485 (Leicestershire Police): “How did that come into your conversation?” Fiona Payne’s reply: “Because he was saying how angelic they all looked and he said to Kate when we all sat down at the Tapas table as well and he was sort of joking how they looked like perfect children, because they were all sat there, all clean in their pyjamas, having a story”. 1485 (Leicestershire Police) then asks: “Yeah. But when did he, specifically, when did he tell you?” Reply: “I think it was when we were getting the kids ready for bed and we were back in our apartment”. 7) I come now to item (G), an account written by David James Smith for ‘The Times’. It purports to give an accurate account of events in Praia da Luz and is headed indeed by the proud and confident boast: ‘…the most comprehensive - and authoritative - investigation yet…’  It was a boast that he could perhaps make with a certain amount of justification, given that he said it was based on several interviews with your client Dr Gerald McCann himself. So far as the tennis-playing is concerned, Smith writes: “Gerry had knocked up at the start of the 4.30pm tennis-drills session, but had decided not to exacerbate an injury to his Achilles tendon, so had dropped out and waited around by the courts until the children came back from the kids’ clubs at 5pm for tea”. Thus in this account Dr Gerald McCann wholly contradicts his wife who said: “The lesson ended an hour later, at around 4h30. Gerry continued playing tennis with a guest called Julian”. 8) Dr Gerald McCann in his account says that he returned to play tennis at 6.00pm and Dr Payne says that he continued to play at 7.00pm. That would seem unlikely if he had genuinely had an Achilles tendon injury which at 4.30pm prevented him from playing any more tennis. At this point it is pertinent to observe that according to their accounts, Dr Gerald McCann arrived at the tennis courts at 3.00pm and remained there throughout for four whole hours except, he says, for briefly visiting the crèche just before 5.30pm and bathing the children between then and 6.00pm. 9) From David Smith we now get an account of what happened at 7.00pm which varies significantly from the accounts given by Dr Gerald McCann and Dr Kate McCann about the reading of books to the children. Dr Gerald McCann tells David Smith: “We all sat on Madeleine’s bed reading stories”. Dr Kate McCann says: “I [not her husband] read stories to the children on the sofa”. But Smith’s account says: “Gerry was in his apartment at 7pm, had a glass of water, then a beer, while the children sat with Kate on the couch having stories with a snack”.  One or two other points about this are worthy of note en passant. In Dr Kate McCann’s first statement (D above), she refers only to giving ‘milk and biscuits’ to the twins (not to Madeleine). She then decides to take a shower. The reference to ‘not being able to remember what coloured top Madeleine was wearing’ is curious to say the least when the McCanns produced, around three weeks after she was reported missing, and only after Dr Gerald McCann had returned to England for a couple of days at the end of May, the so-called ‘last photo’ of Madeleine, apparently taken at 2.29pm, when she was clearly wearing a pink dress or top. Finally, Dr Kate McCann says this: “After David left, Kate dressed and sat with the children, Madeleine on her lap. She was wearing a top, she doesn’t remember what colour it was, a green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim trousers, sports shoes and white socks”. David Payne either left when he arrived at about 6.30pm (Dr Kate McCann’s version) or half-an-hour later (Dr David Payne’s version). But Dr Gerald McCann says this: “That they bathed the children [between 17h30 and 18h00], the deponent having left at 18h00 for a tennis game only for men”. It seems very strange therefore that between half-an-hour to an hour after Madeleine was bathed, Dr Kate McCann says she is on her lap ‘wearing a top, she doesn’t remember what colour it was, a green long-sleeved t-shirt, blue denim trousers, sports shoes and white socks’. Moreover, the descriptions ‘green long-sleeved T-shirt’ and ‘blue denim trousers’ hardly accords with what Dr David Payne recollects seeing: three ‘angelic’ children dressed in white. 10) Turning now to the Panorama programme of 19 November 2007 (Item (I) above), which again was thoroughly researched, presenter Richard Bilton asserts: “At 6, Gerry McCann has his third tennis lesson of the day, so he leaves the flat. He says as a family they talked about bringing the children back out to play in the area by the courts”. This account first of all contradicts the David James Smith article which states that Dr Gerald McCann was unable to play any more tennis after 4.30pm on account of his Achilles tendon injury. Moreover, the claim that the couple talked about bringing the children out to play in the recreation area after 6.00pm is flatly contradicted by Dr Kate McCann’s account that the children were very tired at 5.30pm, and that the couple decided to bath them and get them ready for bed between 5.30pm and 6.00pm and had by that time ruled out the children going out to play any more. Richard Bilton’s account continues: “At 6.30 Gerry McCann asks a friend, David Payne, to pop in on Kate to see if the children are coming down”. Once again, this does not accord at all with Dr Kate McCann’s account that they had already decided to bath the children and get them ready for bed. 11) In Dr Gerald McCann’s ‘arguido’ statement of 7 September 2007, he states: “He says that he was playing tennis at 18h30 when David appeared near the tennis court and asked him through the net if he was going to continue playing. The deponent said he didn’t know because Kate might be needing help to look after the three children, even more so because they intended to bring them to the recreation area after their showers”. Clearly, then, although Dr Gerald McCann told David James Smith that he was unable to play tennis because of an Achilles tendon at 4.30pm, he was in fact playing a game of tennis at 6pm. We are now told, however, that the reason that Dr Gerald McCann sent Dr Payne up to his apartment was ‘because Kate might be needing help to look after three children’. Here he again claims: “We intended to bring [the children] to the recreation area after our showers”, despite Dr Kate McCann, back on 6 May, stating to the Portuguese police that the two of them were bathing the children between 5.30pm and 6.00pm, having already decided that the children were not going out any more. There is also that curious reference to bringing the children to the recreation area ‘after their showers’. Dr Gerald McCann does not mention having a shower at all. And Dr Kate McCann said she had just stepped out of the shower when Dr Payne came a-knocking at her front door. 12) If we now turn to Item (K), in what appears to be another article directly sourced from Clarence Mitchell, we learn: “The source said: ‘David Payne saw Madeleine at around 6.30pm. He popped in because Gerry wanted to make sure Kate was O.K. Gerry was playing tennis and David said he was going past. I expect it was said [by Gerry] as: ‘If you are heading back that way, stick your head in and see if Kate is all right’.”  So now the story has changed again; this time Dr Payne goes not to fetch Dr Kate McCann and the children down to the recreation area but instead: ‘To make sure that Kate is O.K.’ We may note that this article, quoting the source, says: “The McCanns then took the children for tea…” That is not consistent with the accounts of your clients who say, rather, that the children were already having tea in the creche when they joined them. We might also note a very important further contradiction. While Fiona Payne states that Dr David Payne returned to the apartment at 7.10pm, he himself maintains that he was playing tennis until nearly 8.00pm”. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It is manifest from the above that there are many contradictions in the various accounts, just concerning this one period of time. I might mention briefly another area about which your client Dr Kate McCann has been asked, namely why she was so adamant on visiting the apartment at 10.00pm on 3 May 2007 that Madeleine had been abducted. During the period your clients were ‘arguidos’, Dr Kate McCann consistently said that she could not answer that question whilst they were under arguido status, because of Portugal’s ‘strict judicial secrecy laws’. However, after their arguido status was lifted, they were asked again about this but your client has failed to answer the question: what made you so certain that Madeleine had been abducted? It is one of the central questions in the whole case, yet your client has not given us an answer, despite asking the world to help look for Madeleine. Your clients cannot be surprised if people speculate about why she keeps so silent on this crucial issue. Whilst there are many areas of contradictions to explore, based on the various statements made by your clients and the rest of the ‘Tapas 9’ about events from 28 April to 3 May, I will, finally, and again merely for illustrative purposes, deal briefly with another set of contradictions and matters which have not been fully explained by your clients and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends. You will be aware that one of them ripped off the cover of Madeleine’s ‘Activity Sticker Book’ to write down a ‘timeline’ of the evening’s events, followed by a second, slightly different timeline. It is understood that these were written down by Dr Russell O’Brien. Here is what they said: Ripped out sticker book cover: Timeline 1 8:45 pm Matt returns 9.00-9.05 - listened at all -  all shutters down Jerry 9.10-9.15 in the room + all well ? did he check 9.20/5 - Ella Jane checked 5D sees stranger & child 9.30 - Russ. Ella Matt check all 3 9.35 - Matt check see twins 9.50 - Russ returns 9.55 - Kate realised Madeleine 10pm - Alarm raised Ripped out sticker book cover: Timeline 2 8.45pm. all assembled at poolside for food 9.00pm. Matt Oldfield listens at all 3 windows 5A, B, D ALL shutters down 9:15pm Gerry McCann looks at room A ? Door open to bedroom 9:20pm Jane Tanner checks 5D - [sees stranger walking carrying a child] 9.30 Russell O'Brien in 5D. Poorly daughter   l 9.55pm 10:00pm. Alarm raised after Kate Gerald It will be seen that both timelines are clear in saying that ‘all were assembled’ at 8.45pm, followed by Dr Matthew Oldfield going to do his check at 9.00/9.05pm and Dr Gerald McCann doing so at 9.10/9.15pm. There is an obvious question about why Dr Gerald McCann felt it necessary to check on his children almost immediately Dr Matthew Oldfield had returned saying that he had checked and that everything was fine. That has never been explained by your clients. Dr Matthew Oldfield says that “at around 8.45pm, he and his wife left their daughter asleep in the apartment and went to the ‘Tapas’ restaurant. That the couple Kate and Gerry, Madeleine's parents were already at the restaurant. That they had arrived at the restaurant five minutes before them. The rest of the adults arrived at the restaurant around five minutes after the interviewee and his wife. That the last to arrive at the restaurant was the couple David and Fiona. That the latter arrived at the restaurant at around 21h00”. According to that account, therefore, the ‘Tapas 9’ were not ‘assembled’ until 9.00pm. He goes on to say that at 9.05pm he left the restaurant with the express intention of checking on the children, saw the windows closed, and reported that all was well. Yet, we learn from him that “after this check, he returned to the restaurant, saying that all the children were asleep. However, Gerry, Madeleine's father, went to the area of the apartments to check for himself if the children were asleep...Five minutes later, Gerry came back to the group in the restaurant”. [It is generally agreed by the witnesses that Dr Gerald McCann was away from the table for 15-20 minutes, mostly talking to Jez Wilkins]. Dr Oldfield does not, indeed cannot, explain why Dr McCann goes to do a check. His claim of Dr McCann returning in 5 minutes is contradicted by Dr McCann himself, who says it took 15 minutes, and by Dr Kate McCann who says that he was away from the table for so long that they thought he must have returned to the apartment, not to check on the children, but to sneakily have a look at a football match on the TV. Dr McCann was later to admit that he did spend several minutes checking in the apartment and spent ‘an unusually long time’ on the loo. Jane Tanner’s statement says that both she and Dr Russell O’Brien and Dr David Payne and his family arrived at 9.00pm, not 8.45pm - and Russell O’Brien’s statement confirmed this. If we then look at Dr Gerald McCann’s statement of 10 May, he says that Dr Matthew Oldfield did not tell him he had checked on the McCanns’ children - a clear conflict with Dr Oldfield’s statement. Dr McCann says: “At around 21h00, MATTHEW stood up from the table, saying that he was going to check on the children. Nevertheless, he did not say that he would go to check on the deponent’s children, and it was only after the disappearance of MADELEINE that he told him that at 21h00 the shutters of the children's bedroom window were closed. At 21H05, MATHEW returned, the time at which the deponent left the table to go check on his children”. Dr Rachael Oldfield, however, in her statement of 4 May, is clear that Dr Matthew Oldfield did say he had checked on the children: “He had been to check the children's bedrooms, his own apartment where his daughter was sleeping but also that of the twins and Madeleine. He listened at both closed shutters and didn't hear any noise. He also checked to see if there was any noise in Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner's apartment. He said that he hadn't heard any noise”. She elaborates still further on this in her statement of 10 May: “After about 4 minutes, MATTHEW returned to the table when they ordered the food, and said he had ‘listened’ to his daughter and to the O’BRIEN and MCCANN children, outside the front by putting his head [ear] against the shutters of the windows of their respective bedrooms and that everything was calm with the children”. Dr Matthew Oldfield further muddied the waters by saying in his statement of 10 May that the main purpose of his departure from the restaurant was to chase up the Payne family, whom he said were late. Rachael Oldfield confirmed that in her statement of 4 May. He told the Portuguese police: “…David, Fiona and Dianne were still not present - and as he could see their apartment lights burning - he resolved to go to them, clarifying that he did not reach that apartment as those people were already on their way to the restaurant. He clarifies [further] that he met them near the living quarters, at the corner next to the main door of the McCann apartment. Benefiting from meeting them next to their apartment, he adds that, on his own initiative, he made a ‘listening check’ at the bedroom window of Madeleine McCann and the twins at 21h05”. According to this account, then, the full party did not assemble until 9.05pm, not 8.45pm. Russell O’Brien in one of his statements supported that version: “So Matt, erm, around nine o’clock, give or take a few minutes, but around that sort of time, he got up and said ‘I’ll go and drag them out’.” If we now turn to Dr David Payne’s statement of 4 May, he states: “Concerning yesterday evening, he, his wife and his mother-in-law arrived at the restaurant at around 8.55pm. According to what he remembers, when they arrived, all the members of the group were present, apart from the children, who were in bed”. That, of course,  contradicts Dr Matthew Oldfield’s account that the main purpose of his visit was to chase up the Paynes, catching up with them near his apartment, and then thought, only as an afterthought, that he would also check on the children. Dr Russell O’Brien’s statement also conflicts with Dr Oldfield. He says: “He remembers that Matthew Oldfield left the restaurant, around 21H00, having gone to the apartments to ensure that no noise was coming from within. Neither does Dianne Webster in her statement of 4 May mention being chased up by Dr Oldfield; she merely says: “We left the apartment at around 8.45pm accompanied by my son-in-law and her daughter, and  went to join the rest of the group at the ‘TAPAS’ restaurant”. Furthermore, on 10 May she changed the time of her arriving at the restaurant to 9.00pm, and in relation to meeting Dr Oldfield on the way, made a robust denial: “Asked specifically whether, on the journey to the restaurant, if they had passed either of the two individuals described in the preceding paragraph [Dr Oldfield or Dr McCann], she answered categorically not”. That in turn was completely contradicted by Fiona Payne in her Rogatory Interview where she asserts: “Erm, on the way down, we went down the normal way, as I say, out onto the main road and round the corner. And just as we were approaching, erm, probably outside kind of the, Kate and Gerry’s gate, that sort of area, erm, we bumped into Matt who was heading back to chase us up, erm, and we had a joke, you know, we’re always late. He carried on up to check on Grace and we carried on down to the ‘Tapas’ Bar and when we got there everyone else, bar Matt, was sat at the table”. The times of everyone’s arrival are contradictory. They were certainly not ‘assembled at 8.45pm’ as Dr Russell O’Brien’s notes on Madeleine’s ripped-out sticker book claim. Different reasons are given as to why Dr Matthew Oldfield left the table. It is not agreed if he met the Paynes en route or, if they did meet, where that was. In passing, there is obvious concern about the statements of Jane Tanner and Dr Russell O’Brien about their child Evie who, according to their statements, was sick on the evening of 3 May. We read in Jane Tanner’s  statement of 4 May, for example, that the couple left three-year-old Ella and one-year-old Evie on their own when they went down for dinner, despite ‘Evie ‘not feeling well, so did not go to her Kids Club’ that morning. Tanner then says that she “…bathed her children, read them a story and put them to bed. Evie was unwell and having trouble sleeping, so stayed with her father. She says she went to the restaurant on her own at about 8.30pm. She says that Dr Russell O’Brien ‘arrived at the restaurant at about 9.00pm, having got Evie to sleep. She tells us that at around 9.15pm she ‘left, to go to her apartment to see whether her daughters were O.K’. She says that ‘After checking on her daughters, she returned to the restaurant’ then ‘15-20 minutes later’, her husband Russell and Matthew left to check on the children, when Dr Russell O’Brien is said to have ‘found Evie’ ‘restless and crying’. In Dr Russell O’Brien’s statement, he says that “he had to change all the sheets and his daughter's clothing as she had vomited”. If this is all a true account, one can only express astonishment that this couple were prepared to both go off and dine at the ‘Tapas’ restaurant knowing that their one-year-old baby was sick. If the baby, as reported, then woke up whilst they were both eating their tapas and drinking, and ‘had vomited’, the couple were very lucky indeed that nothing worse happened to Evie that night. In his Rogatory Interview, Dr Russell O’Brien clarified these matters as follows: “ I thought it was probably about, you know, it was time we did a check and I also needed the toilet so rather than just go to the toilet, which was almost up to the portal, I got up and Matt, erm, said ‘Oh I’ll come and do a check as well. So me and Matt walked back to the, to the, erm, to the flats, erm, this would have been about, about kind of twenty-five past nine, Matt came to my apartment [at about 9.30pm]…I went straight to Apartment 5D, I could hear at the door that Evie was murmuring’, well ‘at the window’ rather than ‘the door’, I think… window’, yeah. I think it’s the opposite way round really, I went to the toilet to urinate, and I knew, I knew, because Evie was awake, I was staying anyway, so I went to the toilet to urinate and then checked on Evie and she had been sick’, so I think I actually went…yeah, I had a pee first because I was a little desperate. I started to clean her up and change her. “Matt came into my apartment and asked if I needed any help. I said ‘No, go back and tell Jane that Evie is unwell…given the amount of stick that that I’ve had with the Portuguese press for not requesting any fresh sheets for Evie, I think I’d actually like to point out that the, that this wasn’t some third world apartment and it did actually have a washing machine…it says that we never requested any, we never requested any further sheets and if they were sick all over them then how could this be true. But there was a washing machine in the building…I told [Matt] to go back and tell Jane that Evie was unwell, I’d obviously cleaned her up and changed her…it was then that I would have had time then, it was then I started, I got her out, I gave her a quick wash in the bath, changed her, got the sheet off the cot, and at least, whether I started the washing machine then, but at least I put them in the washing machine and then sat down with Evie. But I want it [my statement] that there was a bloody washing machine in the apartment…I got the dirty linen and her clothes off and at least I think, there was a few bits of sick and I probably gave them a rinse off in the bath and then just shoved them in the washing machine, whether I started it then or did it later I’ve no idea…as a man I can use a washing machine, staggering though that may sound..." These are matters of child welfare and child safety that clearly also involve your clients as they too admitted leaving their children for significant periods six nights in a row (see the articles in the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror by Lori Campbell on 5 August 2007). It would be wrong to prohibit discussion of such child welfare issues as clearly arose in this case, both on the very same evening, with one child left on her own with a three-year-old waking up crying, having vomited, and another, left alone with her two-year-old twins allegedly abducted, whilst the group was wining and dining about a minute-and-a-half’s walk away. Both the contradictions in the case and the lack of explanation from your clients about a number of matters naturally give rise to discussions on the internet and elsewhere, which are extensive. I have done my best to remain within the confines of the undertakings I gave to the court, but those undertakings, so I am advised and understand, do not inhibit me from making legitimate observations on the facts, as I have done above, nor from analysing them. Another point your clients may need to bear in mind, in dealing with alleged libel of them on the internet, is that there are forums, blogs, YouTube videos, tapes and writings etc. where many people make very robust statements making allegations against your clients in very much more direct terms than anything I have written or distributed since 13 November 2009. It may be that if this matter ever went to court, a jury might well decide that my comments since 13 November 2009 have been reasonably restrained in comparison with comments made by many others which might with rather more justification be described as ‘libellous’. Yours faithfully Anthony Bennett

Maddie fraud case KO, 24 September 2010

Maddie fraud case KO The Sun Published: Today (24 September 2010) Fraud allegations against a retired lawyer who helped set-up a group questioning Madeleine McCann's abduction have been thrown out by cops. Essex police investigated the bank accounts of the Madeleine Foundation and founder Tony Bennett. Police investigated two Foundation cheques totalling £1,622.50 which, he said, had been paid into his personal account in respect of expenses, but found there was no evidence of criminality. Three-year-old Maddie disappeared from Praia de Luz, Portugal, while on holiday with her doctor parents Kate and Gerry in May 2007. ------------------ News from The Madeleine Foundation, 24 September 2010 http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/ 24 September 2010 Today's report in 'The Sun' corrects their report of 7 November 2010, which was based on an entirely malicious and fabricated story by our former Chairman Debbie Butler. I would just like to add this. Within 24 hours of learning that there was a police investigation, I had provided police in Harlow with a full set of receipts covering both cheques. These included amounts I had personally paid out for postage, stationery, hire of the hotel in Harlow on 1 August 2009 and other expenses. The current Committee of The Madeleine Foundation has had our accounts fully checked by an accountant and I would like to reassure you that there is absolutely no issue about any fraud of any kind within the Foundation. Two more things. First, £2,677 of our funds remain frozen by the action of Ms Butler on 4 November in asking our bank to freeze our account. This waas desppite our having advised our bank on 2 November that there was a dispute with Ms Butler and that new signatories to the account would be approved at our forthcoming meeting on 14 November. Second, in view of persistent claims in some quarters that I have 'made money' from my book or form The Madeleine Foundation, I must state that the reverse is true. As our Committee can confirm, I am well over £1,000 out-of-pocket due to my activities to obtain truth and justice for Madeleine McCann. Finally, a heart-felt thank you to those who have actively supported me one way or another, and of course all who have strived and are genuinely striving in their own way to uncover the truth about what Clarence Mitchell said earlier this year was a 'complete mystery', most of all of course Goncalo Amaral. Tony Bennett Secretary The Madeleine Foundation

Tony Bennett, 26 September 2010

Tony Bennett The People (paper edition) September 26, 2010 WE reported in November 2009 that Tony Bennett, founder and secretary of the Madeleine Foundation - a controversial organisation which does not accept that Madeleine McCann was abducted - was under police investigation in respect of allegations that he had pocketed up to £90,000 of donations from people who thought they were helping the official Find Madeleine Fund. The police have now concluded their investigation into the two allegations of fraud and found insufficient evidence of any criminality.