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Goncalo
Amaral
has announced that he intends to market his book, on which the
Lisbon Courts
lifted a BAN recently, in the UK
Despite the books obvious popularity, especially in Mr.
Amaral’s
home Country PORTUGAL,( as well as many other Countries), after a
successful, contrived Court action by the
McCanns,
it was eventually banned in September 2009.
I, (along with many others, I am
sure), wish Mr.
Amaral all the luck in the world
Sadly, however, he is going to
NEED it........................
For I truly believe that this book,
along with copies of the DVD Documentary which was based on the book,
will NOT see the light of day here in the UK.
For if they DID, they
would produce a rather unique and untenable set of circumstances, for
publishers, the MEDIA, for the very laws of Libel and for the
ESTABLISHMENT itself that has resolutely thus far sought to
protect the
McCanns at every turn.
For if we cast our
minds back to MARCH of 2008, we find that the EXPRESS
NEWSPAPERS dared to repeat what
Goncola
Amaral
and the Portuguese Media had suggested: That Kate & Gerry
McCann
were involved in the disappearance of their daughter.
For daring to do so,
it cost them £550,000 paid to the
McCanns
in an “out of Court settlement" not to mention Court costs which
would have been at LEAST equal to this amount).
They THEN paid a
further £375,000 to the ‘Tapas 7’ for repeating
SIMILAR allegations, which in turn they nicely ALSO donated to
the
McCanns. (SORRY, the “Find Madeleine” fund).
For those who do
not KNOW anything about the Proprietor of the Express newspaper
group, they may perhaps suspect nothing untoward in this
apparent climb down and substantial payment by the Newspapers
the ‘Daily Express’, ‘Sunday Express’, ‘Daily Star’ and ‘Sunday
Star’
I have never met Express Newspapers
Proprietor,
Richard Desmond. I know many that have and feel
confident I know SOME things about him.
I know that he is
extremely forthright and has a notorious temper.
His well known ‘party
piece’ is an impersonation of Adolf Hitler singing a chorus of "Deutschland
über
Alles
He is alleged to have
once locked a senior Executive in a cupboard. He denies throwing a
chair at the head of one of his own senior executives but admits, "I
pushed the chair."
He also denies that he
once ordered an executive to stand on the boardroom table, pull his
trousers down and call himself a "cunt" because he
was late for a meeting.
There are certainly
many who have had dealings with him, who attest to
having been on the receiving end of just that foulest of expletives.
He has accumulated
quite a wealth, partly due to his publication of soft-Porn titles,
starting with Penthouse. It was the
beginning of a magazine empire that went on to include such
salacious names as Asian Babes, Readers' Wives
and Big Ones to name but a few.
Although he has since
SOLD these titles, he still runs his own soft-core Pornography
channel on Satellite/Cable TV, as well as now owning the ‘Channel 5’
TV channel.
He greatly enjoys his
reputation of being a man who takes no prisoners, of behaving like
an underworld gangster.
According to ‘Private Eye’, just within
this past week, in a meeting with executives with ‘Endemol’,
designed to negotiate a deal to screen the now defunct ‘Big
Brother’ Reality show, he offered them a “pittance” for
permission to screen it on Channel 5.
He violently smashed his glass down on the table and called them
“Fucking Wankers” when they refused his offer.
(Funnily enough, exactly the same terms he used on Executives when
trying to negotiate a purchase of the ‘Telegraph’ newspaper some
years ago).
As the Eye pointed out, he notoriously exhibits “tight-fistedness”
and “foul-mouthed thuggery”.
You get the
picture?
Now try and align these traits and characteristics with someone who,
without a single Court appearance, threw up his hands, took out his
wallet and coughed up well over a MILLION Sterling
for doing no more, (and in some cases, much LESS), than what many
other Newspapers, magazines and media outlets had ALSO already done,
which was to merely report on the allegations that were emanating
out of Portugal.
I once commented,
ACCURATELY I surmised, (although perhaps tastelessly), that
the only way Richard Desmond would willingly part with money to the
McCanns
was if he were successful in persuading KATE to appear nude in one
of his less than salubrious magazines!.
How can it possibly
BE, that this fearless GIANT of the Media World, a man who by his
own admission likes to challenge the very borders of
“acceptability”, not only parted with what was for HIM, an
unprecedented amount of money, but also published FRONT PAGE
APOLOGIES on all publications, a move described by the
Media commentator Roy
Greenslade
as "unprecedented". ("I think this is an amazing
stand-down, a U-turn, by the Express newspapers," he
said.).??
Like so much with the
case of Madeleine
McCann,
perhaps we shall never know. I am certainly in no position to
suggest the reasons, and like so much with anything to do with the
McCanns
and their missing daughter, hard EVIDENCE is a bit
thin on the ground.
But there ARE a few issues which bother me.
When Desmond first
announced his intention to acquire the Express Newspapers group, he
was ridiculed and lambasted from all sides, his critics asserting
that he would never pass a “fit and proper person” test to make such
an acquisition.
According to the ‘INDEPENDENT’
(amongst other newspapers), in 2000, within “minutes” of walking
into the Express headquarters, Desmond received a call inviting him
for a chat with Tony Blair.
Mr. Blair's Labour
critics believe the meeting produced a promise that the Government
would not block the acquisition.
Sure enough, in
February 2001, the then trade and industry secretary, Stephen Byers,
announced that he would not block the Desmond deal.
Richard Desmond promptly gave the Labour Party a £100,000
donation.
Perhaps more importantly for New Labour, Desmond, (an obviously
blatant Capitalist), suddenly declared himself a ‘Socialist’, and
faithfully printed Blair and Brown Mantras in his newspapers.
I guess that’s the way business and politics work.
But it has always confounded and perplexed me as to
WHY, the most resilient, independent, vociferous,
FEARLESS publisher, a man who has frequently been referred
to as an ‘OUTSIDER’ and as a man who apparently cows down to NO-ONE,
should so quietly, almost reverently, bow down with very little, if
ANY tangible pressure.
When Desmond was
seeking to acquire a LONDON Evening Newspaper, he announced that he
would call it the ‘Evening Mail’. This was
a JOKE, on Desmond’s part.
He famously LOATHES
the Daily newspaper the Daily Mail, and
his declaration of the intended title was a prank, purely designed
to irritate the Daily Mail group.
It worked spectacularly. It was inevitable that Associated
Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail, would object to such a
flagrant misappropriation of their trade name.
They issued a writ and
TOOK DESMOND TO COURT to prevent him from using
that name.
Even though it was a Joke, and no such title, (or
indeed nightly NEWSPAPER), would ever have existed, Desmond
went to Court and FOUGHT the case!!.
He lost, but thought
the case worth it, if only to cause angst and grief for his enemies.
Because that’s exactly the kind of guy he is.
In its front page
apologies to the
McCanns,
the Express Newspapers wrote:-
"A number of articles in the newspaper have suggested
that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine
and then covered it up. We acknowledge that there is no evidence
whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are
completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's
disappearance."
About as Clarence
Mitchell-esque
as one could get. (No doubt
Clarenece
got to actually write it himself).
But as I pointed out
in a previous Blogging, the basic, fool-proof, cast-iron defence in
a Libel or other Defamation case, is where the assertions being made
are TRUE.
And if the UK is to allow the publication of
Goncola’s
book, based on the LISBON Court findings who,( as well as
re-establishing
Amaral’s
right to freedom of speech), declared that as the book was based on
Police records, it was essentially a TRUE account!!;
then where does that leave Richard Desmond?
Surely, if
Amaral’s book can be deemed to be an accurate and TRUE
account, then not only is Desmond free to RE-PUBLISH his
assertions and accusations relating to the
McCanns,
copied from the Portuguese Press, but he could technically SUE the
McCanns
and the
Tapas
group for his MONEY BACK, based on them PERJURING
themselves, could he not?
After all, the News of the World are clearly
rubbing their hands in expectation over Tommy
Sherridan
and his wife, who have GONE ON TRIAL over allegations that they LIED
in their £200,000 LIBEL Victory over the Newspaper a few years ago.
However, as much as I
would relish such a prospect as seeing Clarence Mitchell make
pleading noises with the public for donations to help out
Kate and Gerry in their legal plight, it’s never going to
happen.
Because underneath all
this murky subterfuge, staged propaganda and fabricated garbage put
out by the so called ‘Media’, lays an unknown secret.
Or perhaps SEVERAL secrets.........
As I have been wont to
say on many occasions, we may NEVER know what happened in
Praia
de
Luz in May 2007.
But what we DO
know, surely without question, is that since that fateful
night when a little girl was reported missing, Madeleine
McCanns
parents, (who were subsequently made criminal
SUSPECTS
in the case), have enjoyed privileges, freedoms, rights,
advantages, treatments and PROTECTIONS afforded by the British
Authorities, its POLICE, its Celebrity Culture, its Press and Media
and, most tellingly, its Politicians and GOVERNMENT.
And to completely
usurp that state of affairs with the TRUTH, just because of a
decision made by those “bungling Porto Judges” in Lisbon, would be a
truth too far. Perhaps for too many people.
I’m sure that Richard
Desmond is cursing the
McCanns
as ‘C***s’, (under his breath of course), as I
write......................... |
