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Resume of today’s Case Management hearing
sharonl Today at 7:26 pm
.Tony has asked me to post this brief resume of today’s Case Management
hearing.
QUOTE TONY:
The hearing was only ever about getting the matter ready for trial.
The hearing lasted around 1 hour and 50 minutes. The McCanns were
represented by Jacob Dean (barrister), Adam Tudor, Isabel Hudson and two
assistants.
Carter-Ruck had proposed a timetable for serving and filing evidence
ahead of the trial and proposed that the trial would last for 1-2 days,
to be held as soon as practicable on or after 10 April.
I made a number of applications at the hearing, which out of courtesy I
notified to Carter-Ruck by hand on 2 February.
My application to have a ‘McKenzie friend’ [lay helper] with me at the
hearing was granted by consent, and I thank my friend who acted as my
McKenzie helper today.
I made an outline application to be allowed to apply for one part of the
original undertaking I gave to be rescinded. This was granted. I have
until 22 February to submit that application. That involves paying a
Court fee of £80.00 and submitting detailed reasons for that
application. At this point I will say that I do not propose to seek to
rescind any of the following undertakings, all of which I have abided by
except for the sale of one book to Mr Michael Gunnill (see below):
• To deliver up all hard copies of “What really happened to Madeleine
McCann? 60 key reasons which suggest that she was not abducted” (known
in short as ‘60 Reasons’) to Carter-Ruck
• To deliver up all hard copies of the leaflet entitled “What really
happened to Madeleine McCann? 10 key reasons which suggest that she was
not abducted
• To destroy any electronic version of ‘What really happened to
Madeleine McCann? 60 key reasons which suggest that she was not
abducted”.
• To destroy any electronic version of the leaflet entitled “What really
happened to Madeleine McCann? 10 key reasons which suggest that she was
not abducted
• To close our website, whose domain name was:
www.madeleinefoundation.org‘
• To use my best endeavours to delete or otherwise prevent access to any
and all defamatory allegations about the Claimants published by him on
the website http://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net
• To use my best endeavours to delete or otherwise prevent access to any
and all defamatory allegations about the Claimants published by him on
the website http://democracyforum.co.uk
• To use my best endeavours to delete or otherwise prevent access to any
and all defamatory allegations about the Claimants published by him on
the website http://www.anorak.co.uk
• To use my best endeavours to delete or otherwise prevent access to any
and all defamatory allegations about the Claimants published by him on
the website www.truthformadeleine.com
• To pay £440.00 towards the Defendant’s costs [subsequently reduced to
£400.00.]
I applied for an Order that ‘the Claimants [the McCanns] do specify
which words they allege constitute alleged breaches of my undertaking’.
This was because of what I claimed was a lack of clarity in the McCanns’
application. The Practice Rules are very specific in requiring that in a
contempt of court allegation, the Claimants must be precise and full in
explaining to the Defendant precisely why he is alleged to be in breach
of an undertaking to such an extent that he deserves to be sent to
prison.
I had also asked for more time to prepare my defence. The Judge was
concerned about the volume of paperwork I was faced with [153 alleged
breaches of the undertaking] and said that ‘there is considerable force
in Mr Bennett’s request for more time to prepare his defence’.
This was resolved as follows. The Judge invited Jacob Dean [the McCanns’
barrister] to take a 5-minute adjournment to consider whether he wished
to reduce his 153 alleged breaches to, say, ‘the 10 most serious
breaches’. He said that if the McCanns could prove those breaches, it
was unnecessary to prove the other 143. After 15 minutes, the McCanns’
legal team came back into Court and said that they would submit a new
application based on ‘around 25’ of the most serious breaches. The trial
will then be confined effectively to an examination of just those 25
alleged breaches. The Judge gave them until 4pm on Friday 17 February to
serve this new application on me. He also suggested to Mr Dean that
Carter-Ruck needed to be much more precise than they had been about the
words I used that were said to be in breach of the undertaking and which
term of any undertaking they were alleged to breach.
The Judge granted me until 9 March to reply to the McCanns’ revised
application [the McCanns had originally asked for my response by 22
February.
The McCanns will then have the right to reply to my response. They will
have to serve this on me by 5 April.
I applied for an Order that Michael Gunnill be produced as a witness and
was able to inform the Judge in outline of how Mr Gunnill had obtained a
’60 Reasons’ book from me by entrapment, and how Mr Gunnill had boasted
about doing this ‘on behalf of a third party’ which I believed to be the
McCanns, via Carter-Ruck. I was granted permission to apply for a
Witness Order against Mr Gunnill requiring to attend the trial and give
evidence. I shall be doing that shortly.
I had applied for an Order that one of the McCanns make a Witness
Statement to (a) state what evidence there is that Madeleine McCann was
abducted and (b) to state what evidence there was, as claimed in Isabel
Hudson’s Affidavit, that any of my actions had, as the McCanns claimed,
‘harmed the search for Madeleine’. These applications were refused. The
Judge said that it was for the Claimants to give whatever evidence they
felt was necessary to support their application to commit me to prison
and that if I felt there was insufficient evidence that an abduction had
occurred I would have the right to make submissions about this in my
closing speech at the trial.
I applied for the McCanns to produce certified English translations of
the two judgments against them in the Portuguese Court of Appeal
(October 2010) and Portuguese Supreme Court (March 2011). The Judge
refused, after asking the McCanns’ barrister if Dr Amaral’s book was now
freely available in Portugal, to which of course he agreed. He said that
if I considered these relevant, I should produce these myself. One of my
supporters at the hearing kindly volunteered afterwards to see if she
could obtain these for me.
The trial is scheduled for 2 days, any time on or after 17 April 2012.
In conclusion, I would like to thank each and every one of the eight
people who kindly troubled to attend court to support me, and it was a
pleasure to buy them all lunch at the Dulcis Cafe afterwards.
UNQUOTE TONY |
