A Knight On The Tiles by Dr Martin Roberts

This latest scoop, analysis, exposé, call it what you will, proffered by Dr Roberts is all of those things, but primarily it is the latter, an exposé. An exposé, given Antonella Lazzari's previous track record, that treats the woman all too lightly for my money.

And what a hack record it is, being described by myself previously, as Antonella Lazzari's list of shame, for it is nothing other than that, shameless. A shameless list of hackery of appalling taste and manipulation churned out in the gutter press with one purpose in mind, to sway public opinion away from the obvious. The obvious being of course, that the McCanns are guilty of all they are suspected of.

But what Dr Roberts exposes in his piece below, is not just a case of bad journalism, it exposes something far darker than that. It exposes a degree of pre-knowledge, pre-planning, and a catalogue of lies that border on the criminal. And this to say nothing about the morality of Lazzeri's concerted efforts, both present and past, conspiring to sanctify the parents of a long dead Madeleine McCann. 

~

A Knight On The Tiles

By Dr Martin Roberts
23 June 2016

Where might a titled visitor to Praia da Luz choose to go for the occasional not-so-incognito tipple?
The following list of PdL bars catering for English clientèle is derived from those recommended by two tourist guide web sites, namely: Cafe & Bars - Bars info

Locations
The Bull
 Clive’s Bar
 Godots
 Junction 17 (aka Carlos’ Bar)
Kelly’s
Luz Tavern
JD’s
The Snug (opened 2011)
Olly’s Bar (opened 2011)

Intriguingly, neither the bar Barroca (known until 2011 as The Plough and Harrow) nor The Pig’s Head (situated in Burgau) appears among these specifically ‘English’ suggestions.

Which means that a complete stranger (a visiting journalist, say) would not be drawn to them necessarily.

Now let us suppose our inquisitive journalist was smart enough to check out their options before arriving. They might, if they were particularly interested in the ombibulous habits of a deceased dipsomaniac, see fit to exclude those establishments more recently inaugurated. That would still leave them with more than half-a-dozen venues to visit.

Then what? Do they embark on a pub-crawl spread over the two or three days they have at their disposal? And to what purpose exactly – simply to establish that ‘Kilroy woz here’?

All of which brings us to the question of how it was that Antonella Lazzeri and her photographer side-kick found themselves in the Pig’s Head on Friday 17 June, barely three days after the UK media had ‘unmasked’ the late Sir Clement Freud and asking after his patronage there. It turns out he had visited that venue just once, twenty years ago. Big deal. The very next day Antonella announces to the world that Freud and Robert Murat were ‘on nodding terms’, the latter also having visited the Pig’s Head but once, a mere eight years or so ago (see how their paths don’t quite cross?).

But Lazzeri’s real ‘shock-horror’ discovery is that Freud frequented that other place (Bar Barroca), which, under its previous identity (The Plough and Harrow), had garnered an unfortunate reputation, predicated upon the alleged behaviour of the then landlord’s son, Christian Ridout.

How on earth did Antonella come by the information that this Luz centre locale was once nicknamed the ‘Plough and Paedophile’? Would either the present licensee or a current client have told her that? Nor does she explain who gave this little drinking secret of Freud’s away (protecting her source no doubt). It presented her with the platform for her scurrilous article though. For without a connection, however tenuous (if not fabricated), to impropriety of some sort, the discovery that Sir Clement was known to go out for a drink every once in a while wouldn’t have sold many copies. Nor would it pump oxygen into the ailing abduction hypothesis put forward to explain the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

By making it to the Pig’s Head, some two miles distant from the Ocean Club, Antonella Lazzeri seems to have gone out of her way, literally, to uncover a non-connection with the McCann case. Was she sober at the time, having already crossed the other candidate venues off her sightseeing list? Or did she only call into the two inconspicuous establishments as previously instructed, if indeed she visited Bar Barroca at all?

Give the devil his or her due. Antonella quite possibly researched the Plough and Harrow 'nearby', as she puts it, before she left London, the origins of the epithet ‘Plough and Paedophile’ having previously been announced by the Daily Mail – nine years ago come December.

As our diligent lady journalist has seen fit to inform us, “Christian Ridout, 32, whose parents owned the bar and lived next door to Murat, has never been traced.” Except that two of her very own SUN colleagues, Gary O’Shea and Emma Smith, had already traced him.

Following the Mail’s lead by just a couple of months (February 2008), they reported that Ridout was working as a Hollywood paparazzo, under the pseudonym Dexter Troy. Apparently they “found the ex-DJ there after a tip from a fellow snapper”, despite O’Shea’s being credited with writing from Praia da Luz. (It clearly takes a special talent to become a SUN journalist)

Maybe next time Antonella needs a photographer with local knowledge of PdL she’ll know who best to contact.

Dr Martin Roberts

You Are the Company You Keep

People have frequently asked, if the McCanns were innocent, why would they need Michael Caplan QC, known for having represented Augusto Pinochet in extradition proceedings?

Equally one might ask, why would they need the ever transparent* David Rose? Or even the despicable BBC for that matter?

Why indeed?

Read on.

Panorama walk-out over McCann film

David Rose
Sunday 25 November 2007 10.25 GMT
Last modified on Friday 8 January 2016 07.43 GMT

Why did TV journalist David Mills, the producer of a Panorama film on the McCann affair, quit the project before it was transmitted last week? The Observer's David Rose reveals the inside story of the latest row to hit the BBC's flagship show

In the credits at the end of last week's Panorama special on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, one name was conspicuous by its absence - that of David Mills, the programme's original producer. His name had disappeared from the end credits despite the fact that it was his company, Mills Productions, that had done all the research and was responsible for bringing the exclusive footage at the film's heart to the BBC.

Two weeks before transmission last Tuesday, Mills - one of Britain's most respected documentary-makers, who in his 40-year career has made 120 investigative films for broadcasters including the BBC, Granada, Thames and America's CBS - walked out of the programme after a furious row with Panorama's editor, Sandy Smith, over the programme's approach and argument.

He then wrote a stinging email to the BBC attacking Panorama for losing its journalistic passion. It has created a stir in the media world, mixing as it does the controversial issues of the McCanns and how their story is covered, journalistic balance and television current affairs.

'I had written a draft script and had already been told it was compelling,' Mills said. 'Sandy turned up with a completely different version and basically imposed it on me. I told him, "I cannot edit the film to this: it's a completely different show, and I'm not going to do it." To have this happening is very depressing.'

The incident - one of several controversies Panorama has faced this year - suggests, Mills said, that 'the BBC is no longer interested in serious current affairs'. BBC sources confirmed last night that the decisions about the programme's shape had been taken 'close to the top' of the BBC management hierarchy - which has already conducted a series of internal meetings over how the corporation should approach McCann case coverage in general.

As one of those interviewed by Mills and the programme's reporter, Richard Bilton, I can attest to how different the programme shown was to what they told me less than a month ago that they were envisaging. Along with The Observer's Ned Temko, who has covered the case for this newspaper, I ended up on the cutting-room floor. At that stage - as Mills's draft script makes plain - his intention was to make an analytical, investigative programme that would have been very critical of the Portuguese police, not only for the errors in their investigation, but for their apparent campaign of disinformation designed to put pressure on Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. It would also have criticised both the local and British press over allegations that they recycled unfounded rumours with little sign of fact-checking or detachment.

It would, as Mills confirmed again yesterday, have scrutinised the various allegations that have been floated against the McCanns and concluded they are baseless: 'We had an investigative team looking into the story for weeks. Our assessment was that the purported DNA evidence was weak and inconclusive, while so far as we could tell the supposedly significant "discrepancies" between the stories told by the McCanns' friends about the night of Madeleine's disappearance amount to very little indeed.'

The original film would have compared Madeleine to the JonBenet Ramsey case in Colorado, about which Mills has made three previous documentaries. After the body of JonBenet, a child beauty pageant winner aged six, was found in her parents' Boulder home, they were vilified by the police and media, despite their continued insistence that they had nothing to do with her death. They claimed she had been killed by an intruder. Mills's version of the McCann Panorama featured an interview - eventually not used - with JonBenet's father, John, in which he said that the Colorado police 'did a great job of convincing the media and the world that we were guilty, but they couldn't charge us, because of course they had no case'. Years later DNA evidence proved beyond doubt that JonBenet had been killed by an intruder. John Ramsey told Panorama: 'It's a life-time damage. No question about it.'

The programme on the McCanns that was broadcast by Panorama was much less ambitious. It recited the case both for and against the McCanns, but had nothing harsh to say about either the police or the media. It did include new material, including a video diary shot of the McCanns in Portugal by their friend John Corner - footage that had been acquired by Mills and had led to his company getting the BBC commission.

It also cast doubt on some of the wilder claims published by the tabloids, and contained the first interview with Jane Tanner, one of the McCanns' companions on the holiday in Praia de Luz last May, who said that she was certain she had seen a girl who looked like Madeleine being carried in the street by a strange man around the time she is thought to have disappeared. But the programme avoided firm conclusions.

Having handed the film's editing over to a colleague, Mills emailed Smith on Monday, the day before transmission, saying he felt compelled to remove both his name and his company's from the credits. 'In part this is because its muddled structure and lack of narrative drive means it is far below the standard of any work that I or my company would wish to be associated with,' the email said. 'In part, too, my decision reflects the programme's intellectual impoverishment. The McCann case poses issues of real importance which Panorama should have examined. That it is instead running a laboured, pedestrian, extended news report is shameful.

'But the most important reason for my decision is that because the programme is insufficiently analytical it verges on the dishonest. Our lengthy investigation revealed that there is no meaningful evidence against the McCanns... The real question must be how, without any meaningful evidence, the Portuguese police and the media in Portugal and Britain have been able to convince most people that the couple were involved.'

Mills had been working closely with a CBS team, which also used the video diary footage. They, he told Smith, had concluded it was 'ludicrous' and 'crazy' to think the McCanns could have caused the death or disappearance.

Smith emailed Mills back, accusing him of wanting to broadcast 'advocate journalism', and pointing out that the broadcast version did describe some of the allegations against the McCanns as 'tenuous, to put it mildly'. Smith said that, while it was true that the programme 'changed substantively,' this was because 'it is a current affairs programme and it was overtaken by events'. He added: 'To get Jane Tanner and some of the McCann family meant that some of the other stuff moved to the edge, and the original version was just not journalistically as important.'

Mills disagrees. 'So far as I can see, investigative journalism at the BBC is over,' he said. 'The broadcast script contains nuances that suggest that the McCanns still have a case to answer. The BBC should have had the courage to state that this is simply not so.'

Clarence Mitchell, the former BBC reporter who is the McCanns' spokesman, said Kate and Gerry were 'content' with the broadcast version and accepted that events meant it had to change. He said they had spoken to Bilton and told him they considered the film to be 'fair'.

Other McCann family members were less happy. John, Gerry's brother, whose interview was broadcast, said: 'It wasn't the programme that I was told they were going to make. They've made something very different, and I am disappointed, because I'd hoped the full story was going to be told. Nevertheless I'm pleased they interviewed Jane Tanner. She said she saw Madeleine being abducted, and we want people to remember that.'

The row follows controversies over previous films this year, such as a report on Scientology by former Observer journalist John Sweeney, in which he lost his temper and turned - in his words - into an 'exploding tomato,' and a story claiming that wi-fi technology might be harmful, which was denounced by some scientists as 'irresponsible'.

As someone who once spent a year reporting for Panorama myself, I know that no BBC programme is more closely scrutinised and, sometimes, fought over. The fact remains some of its most distinguished contributors, including Tom Mangold and John Ware, have left in recent years, and that it has been repeatedly accused of punching below its weight. Mills is not a marginal figure, and the CBS film with which he was collaborating was much firmer in its conclusion that the McCanns had to be innocent.

Last night the BBC hierarchy was closing ranks to resist Mills's arguments. Outside the corporation, they may not be as easily dismissed.

'Your programme verges on the dishonest'

From: David

Sent: 19 November, 2007 12:12

To: 'Sandy Smith'

Subject: credit

Dear Sandy,

As you know, in the end I felt I could not leave either my name or my company credit on the programme.

In part this is because its muddled structure and lack of narrative drive means it is far below the standard of any work that I or my company would wish to be associated with.

In part, too, my decision reflects the programme's intellectual impoverishment. The McCann case poses issues of real importance which Panorama should have examined. That it is instead running a laboured, pedestrian extended news report is shameful.

But the most important reason for my decision is that because the programme is insufficiently analytical; it verges on the dishonest. Our lengthy investigation revealed that there is no meaningful evidence against the McCanns. Our CBS colleagues concluded that it was 'ludicrous' and 'crazy' to think them involved and that ... 'the child was abducted'.

The real question must be how, without any meaningful evidence, the Portuguese police and the media in Portugal and Britain have been able to convince most people that the couple were involved. Yet while the programme drips innuendos against the McCanns, it does not put a single challenging question to anyone in the Portuguese police or to anyone in the media. This is truly astonishing.

David Mills
Guardian

Tip of the hat: ?

*Transparent in this instance, being far from a compliment.

David Rose Previous

David Rose "Coconut-Dog" Man Madeleine McCann

An odd title you might think, but reason enough for choosing it.

Since near as long as I have been familiar with the name David Rose, I have been aware of the role of this piece of human detritus, that of Gatekeeper (Wiki) and general lacky for the security services.

What I wasn't aware of however, until today, was the existence of a "confession" to that effect.

Spies and Their Lies

David Rose
New Statesman
1 October 2007

British intelligence has long used clandestine "undeniable briefings" to release information real and false to tame hacks including David Rose...

My secret life began, as if scripted by P G Wodehouse, with an invitation to tea at the Ritz. The call came at the end of the first week of May 1992. I was the Observer's home affairs correspondent, and at the other end of the line was a man we shall call Tom Bourgeois, special assistant to "C", Sir Colin McColl, the then chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. SIS (or MI6, as it is more widely known) was "reaching out" to selected members of the media, Bourgeois explained, and over lunch a few days earlier with McColl, my editor, Donald Trelford, had suggested that I was a reliable chap - not the sort, even years later, to betray a confidence by printing an MI6 man's real name. Would I like an informal, off-the-record chat? You bet I would. "I make no apologies for the cliché," Bourgeois said, "since we do need a way to spot each other. I will be in the lobby, with a rolled-up copy of the Times." More Where in my opinion, the veracity of every word is questionable.

If the veracity of every word is questionable, then why am I featuring this slithering visage of the globule of evil that forms itself into a vaguely human form every now and again that is, David Rose?

Well it was the viscous, shit-smelling goo that forms the life ooze of netherworld evil that pollutes the soil of the earth, once again shifted itself into the shape of David Rose and brought us this

I confronted the sweaty, corpulent figure in an ill-fitting jacket twice last Friday: the first time at 10am, as he sat slurping coffee and cakes at the Kalahary cafe in Portimao with his colleague, Chief Inspector Guillermino Encarnacao; the second just before 3pm, when the two men made their way from a restaurant to a waiting black Mercedes, in which they were driven 400 yards to meet officials at the courthouse. Lies, beatings, secret trials

Pretty bad huh? But nowhere near as bad as Rose's attempt to trash everything and everybody, dogs included, who seek some kind of justice for the victims of the appalling abuse, including murder, that were carried out at Jersey hell-hole, Haut de la Garenne.

'Human bone' at centre of Jersey children's home inquiry is actually a piece of wood or coconut shell
By David Rose
18 May 2008

The "remains of a child" discovered by police investigating allegations of abuse at a former children's home on Jersey is really a small piece of wood or broken coconut shell, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

The discovery of the fragment in February prompted police to open an inquiry into a possible murder at the Haut de la Garenne home; and this week detectives are set to announce further evidence which they believe shows that another two dead children were buried in the cellar. 'Human bone'

Rose does not however opine on the organic structure of numerous childrens' teeth uncovered in similar locations. But of the cadaver dog's findings, no such reticence.
 

His [Harper's] murder inquiry began when Eddie, an "enhanced victim recovery dog", began barking in the cellar of Haut de la Garenne – the sign, according to its handler, that he had detected the scent of human remains.

By coincidence, the dog, from South Yorkshire Police, is the same animal that supposedly picked up "the scent of death" in the apartment where Madeleine McCann was last seen in Praia de Luz in Portugal.

Supposedly.

But nice of you to bring the McCanns up, for it is a certain McCann supporter, one that operates on a sub level to the rest of us, both intellectually and morally, that, in spite of the appalling suffering of the children Haut de la Garenne, quotes Rose and his coconut in incessant tweets on Twitter.

And does it with some glee I add.

Clicking here may seriously damage your intellect

No agenda here then? Articles by David Rose Journalisted


Bungled Jersey child abuse probe branded a '£20million shambles'

How police chief Lenny Harper lost the plot over the Jersey children's home 'murders'

 

 'Human bone' at centre of Jersey children's home inquiry is actually a piece of wood or coconut shell

 

 Madeleine special investigation: The damning case against the Portuguese police - and how Kate and Gerry are coping one year on

 

Madeleine: Detective to be tried for perjury in child murder case

 

 Panorama walk-out over McCann film

 

 Lies, beatings, secret trials: the dark side of police handling Madeleine case

 

Madeleine: Police on trial for torture

Articles NOT by David Rose

Child abuse scandal can of worms – just who is Daily Mail reporter David Rose?

Daily Mail ‘fixer’ David Rose defends paedophilia accused and attacks child abuse victims. Again.

The Death of Satire? The Mail’s David Rose complains about being smeared

Paedo Files: a look at the UK Establishment child abuse network (Lobster)

High level child abuse cover-up? Why has Theresa May barred a US journalist from the UK?

Sonia Poulton Brenda Leyland Madeleine McCann

I don't think the article needs an introduction, other than perhaps to mention the inquest of Brenda Leyland. A very shabby affair, a very shabby affair at best.

Update: Audio courtesy of Alan's Antics. Listen

The Untold Story of Madeleine McCann

A War of Information

Production  Journal (2014 - Present)
Sonia Poulton
October 2014

* An innocent woman is dead after posting her opinions on Twitter. Martin Brunt from Sky News door-stepped her after being given her personal details by 'concerned members of the public'.

We are told she has committed suicide after she was repeatedly shown on air and then hounded by members of the British media. Murderers and paedophiles struggle to get the amount of coverage she did.

What was her 'crime'? None, actually, as Leicester Police confirm several months later, but that hasn't stopped the demonisation to death of this woman.

The 'problem' for her is she eloquently opposed the abduction theory of Madeleine McCann and it is my experience, as a journalist of almost three decades, that this is one story where questioning the official narrative is a frowned-upon and seemingly dangerous pursuit. Poor Brenda Leyland. RIP.

* I can't get over Brenda's death. I only had two communications with her on Twitter about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann but her passing has resulted in me screaming inwards. The whole thing stinks and I am disgusted by media peers who primarily act as if she deserved to die. Just awful stuff being written about her.

It's times like this that I realise I am an outsider who managed to get inside. It's a lonely place when people you've worked with for almost 30 years, people who bang on endlessly about freedom of speech and encroaching censorship, and who show no compassion for another human being hounded to death - first on Twitter and then by mainstream media - for expressing her opinion.

* I can't settle. I don't trust what media is telling us about Brenda's suicide. I don't trust the people involved with this case and I don't trust the vicious individuals who are online 24-7 attacking those who dare to question the official abduction theory. I decide to make a YouTube expressing my feelings. I am shocked by the sheer volume of responses. People Tweeting, Facebooking, You Tubing and blogging: 'at last, a journalist who's prepared to stand up and be counted'.

* The story of Madeleine's disappearance has, across the mainstream media board, been portrayed in exactly the same way. Having studied the case since the beginning, including reading end to end the Portuguese police files, I know the story is far from straightforward. Certainly, it's not as simplistic as we have been told. That is what I want to tackle.

It is not an attack on Kate and Gerry McCann but a desire to help find out what happened to Madeleine. Given that millions of pounds have been dedicated to this search, it is clearly a matter of public interest.

I realise that there's not a UK TV company who will commission me to make a documentary that questions the abduction theory in the way that it needs to be questioned. Primarily because most broadcasters have played a part in maintaining the abduction theory and, in turn, shooting down those who oppose it. Like Brenda.

But there's also the issue of how litigious Kate and Gerry McCann have been with media. They have successfully fought, and won, numerous cases against media outlets and executives are worried to put their necks on the line.

I suspect that a TV company will be interested as time progresses but I wouldn't want it financed, and therefore shaped, from the beginning by one. I wonder how I could finance such a project? As a freelancer and a single parent I am not in a position to finance it myself but I know it needs to be made. I mention it to a couple of TV producers of my acquaintance. Both tell me roughly the same thing. 'don't do it, it will be the end of your career'.

How can one story have cowed the media so much? That, on its own, is worthy of investigation but I'm uncertain how it is going to be possible. I will ponder it.

* Mid month and I receive a call from Dave Eden, a former whistle-blowing cop, who has a production company and an online media outlet. He wants permission to use my YouTube in a story they are doing about Brenda and Madeleine. I tell him to feel free to share it far and wide.

I then reveal my frustration about not being able to explore the story from a different angle. Right there and then he says "Let's make that documentary, I'll finance it." I don't need asking twice.

With hindsight I realise the naivety of that moment. The fact is none of us had a clue what a murky, obstacle-prone arena we are entering into. We set out to do it because it needed to be done. Neither Dave or I have ever made a documentary from scratch but seeing as no one else in my profession is prepared to speak up, I don't see what choice I have. I didn't come into journalism to be quiet about things that matter.

* End of the month and we begin filming the documentary outside Brenda Leyland's front door in Leicester, a short drive from the McCann family home. It seems the right and proper place to start. Overnight we stay at the hotel where she died. Our small four person crew all report feeling extremely disturbed during the night. It's horrendous to imagine Brenda fleeing here and dying in the way we are being told. Poor Brenda.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 2014

* I take part in a debate on Sky News with media personality Katie Hopkins who has become famous for making bigoted and sensational comments. I mention the dossier that was given to Sky and which led to the death of Brenda Leyland. Within 15 minutes of the debate airing, Sky release a video of it.

It has been edited from six minutes to just over two minutes and has turned me into someone who is pro-censorship. Interestingly, and not entirely unexpectedly, any reference to the dossier has been edited out.

* Days later I manage to get hold of one of the producers involved to ask him what happened. He said there was a temporary editor on who was responsible. He reassured me that such a misleading edit would not be done again, but it's too late.

Hopkins has begun to distribute the edit seeing as it makes her look good and it makes me look as if I want to stop people expressing their views on the Internet. Absurd, of course. Given the reason this documentary started in the first place, it's ironic at best.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 2014

* I've talked to a number of people online who have spent many hours disputing, in great detail, the official abduction theory. I ask them to appear in the documentary. All, bar two, refuse. The reason is the same; they are scared that Brenda's fate will befall them.

It's so sad that people are frightened to speak up. Many of them are anonymous online. Several tell me that they are forced to be anonymous because the abduction theory supporters, who frequently refer to themselves as a 'team', have previously contacted their employers and tried to get them sacked - and only for expressing an opinion.

I'm not sure if I believe this story, it sounds a bit conspiratorial for my liking. Until it happens to me, that is. I have collated all the evidence to prove this happens. It's shocking how extensive this is. It is with a legal representative for my protection.

* One of the original McCann defenders, a late middle-aged woman with a social network account that reads like an erupted sewer, has taken it upon herself to start leaving public warnings on social networks for me.

She has long time claimed that she knows the McCanns. People tell me I should be concerned as she was involved in publicly outing Brenda Leyland before her death.

* There are some utterly vile people supporting the abduction theory - and publicly lying in their desire to support Kate and Gerry McCann - and so I contact the Find Madeleine Fund, which the McCanns work on, and inform them of the level of abuse that is carried out in their name.

I want to know if they are happy about these online abusers. I hear nothing. I know the email has been seen because it sends me a notification that it has.

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January 2015

* We continue filming. I am conscious that this is an unusual situation for me. Generally, I enter into a story investigation with no firm conclusion but a desire to explore the truth of the matter.

However, having studied this case from the beginning in 2007, I have never fully accepted the abduction theory as it lacked, what is know in journalism, 'the ring of truth'. Nonetheless I am determined to keep searching for evidence to prove the story, one way or another.

* A former senior policeman, who was involved in the Sky report which led to Brenda's death, has started yelping like a man possessed on Twitter about me. He is not happy about the documentary.

He has been involved with the case from the beginning and has become firm friends with the McCanns. He has taken it upon himself to publicly attack me alongside people who have been trolling me for three years and ever since I began exploring the issue of child abuse in the Establishment.

He openly attacks me alongside a failed politician who is responsible for a misinformation blog about child abuse. Oddly, the ex-cop now has a company that specialises in tackling online abuse. You can't make this stuff up.

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February 2015

* People are already impatient for the documentary to surface, I can't blame them. They have waited eight years, and millions of pounds of public money later, for an alternative view to be aired.

Eight long years in which people have theorised about media blockages on the case. Well I am already experiencing them and people expect me to be able to pull rabbits out of hats and remove the obstacles to this story getting out. I wish I could.

The thing is, like me, most people online have no clue about the true process involved in making a documentary. I get messages saying that I should put the documentary 'on the internet' but that's besides the original point.

There are over 36,000 entries on the subject on YouTube with hundreds of thousands of comments disagreeing with the abduction theory - but that is where it remains: on the Internet.

This is a story that needs to be challenged in mainstream media and on TV and that's where such a documentary needs to be.

Of course there are many advantages on YouTube. You don't have to go through a gatekeeper who has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and it takes a fraction of the time to do it compared to what it takes to create a film to the standard demanded for TV.

The pros, though, do not outweigh the cons and that is it is too easy to dismiss the veracity of YouTubes because they do not go through the same scrupulous fact checking demanded on TV.

Anyone can make a YouTube and there is no comeback from a legal perspective. A lawyer tells me it's because YouTubes are easy to discredit as the work of amateurs with flawed research.

It's interesting that despite Kate and Gerry suing many media outlets, there is no suggestion of the same happening with the multitude of online videos even though there are some excellent, well-researched ones.

We plough on, driven by the need for the mass majority to understand that there is something very wrong with the version we have been force fed.

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March 2015

* I'm at Sky News for a TV debate even though critics say I shouldn't be on Sky because of Brenda's death. Fact is, these people are missing the crucial point that I stand up for many injustices - including disability discrimination, corruption and poverty - and it is absurd not to use a platform as big as Sky in which to raise awareness to these issues and more.

After I have talked on air, I return to the green room to get my bag. A producer follows me in. He wants to have 'a chat' with me. He says he is aware of the film and he wants to know if there is a 'conflict' with me being on Sky and the film I am making.

I tell him that the film is highly critical of the actions of Martin Brunt and the subsequent death of Brenda Leyland.

Personally, I want to continue working on Sky as there is something else that makes my regular appearances work in favour of the documentary. It's this: when the film is released, and the likely savaging I will take, it clearly shows that Sky thought highly enough of me to repeatedly feature me as a 'journalist and social commentator'. My critics, blinded by their need to tar me, fail to understand any of this and the attacks on me mount daily.

* One of the most prolific McCann supporters, and one who threatened to put Brenda's home details online, has the temerity to show up at Brenda's inquest. It's shocking. Some of these people have no shame. During a break in the inquest, I approach her with a camera and ask her why she is here. She runs away. She wasn't quite so cowardice when she was part of the team bullying Brenda.

Back in the inquest, she sits behind me, pokes me in the back and asks if I want to do a proper interview with her after the inquest. I say yes, absolutely.

After the inquest I wait outside for her. She never appears. One of the ushers tells me she has been hiding in the toilets and has left via the back door. Something - or someone - has clearly changed her mind about speaking out. Mind you, I probably couldn't trust a word she says on camera, anyway. She's been revealed as a prolific liar and bully.

Online she previously claimed that she worked for the police but on camera earlier she denied it. Another rent-a-gob liar upholding the official abduction narrative but a coward away from the relative safety of the Internet.

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April 2015

* We've encountered a problem with the archive footage we will need. It's fairly extensive and costly. I ache to have the freedom of making a You Tube where you can mostly use what you want free of charge, without clearance and under a fair use policy. Alas, a commercial broadcast is a whole different ball game.

First the copyright owner has to agree to use of the material and second, a price has to be agreed. We are looking at tens of thousands of pounds. It's a lot for a small production unit but Dave is right behind this.

* More defamation online about me. It's a shock to discover how many duplicitous characters are online and claiming to want justice for Madeleine but are actively working against the film by taking everything I say and twisting it in deep, dark and immoral ways. I am now use to daily assaults on my character on Twitter, Facebook and in blogs.

One of the shady characters has teamed up with a long term stalker of mine, a man with a history of serious sex attacks, and has run a series of tweets on a forum claiming they are mine. They are violent and vicious tweets written by my stalker and yet the man claims they were written by me. Thankfully, several of the posters call the man out and he is forced to admit that the tweets are not mine at all. The games people play. The question is: why?

*The Daily Star, a British national daily newspaper, has run a piece claiming that the documentary is being made by Lee Ryan, a former lottery winner and my former partner. The article is a lie.

Lee has supplied some filming but that's it. The entire film is my research (with the help of several case researchers supplying fantastic material) and my script. Interestingly, the piece is written by Tracy Kandohla. A woman who has written many biased articles about the case for a number of British newspapers.

Kandohla was at Brenda's inquest and she fixed her sights on Lee outside the court and asked him questions about the documentary. He told her it was not his film. He was clear about that. We have that all captured on film.

Kandohla clearly didn't realise that and so she sold a lying article to a newspaper hoping to cash in on Lee's former tabloid notoriety from over 20 years ago. I'm not surprised. She is too close to the case for any serious objective reporting.

At Brenda's inquest she bragged to me, and others, that she knew Kate McCann so well they did exercise classes together and that she regularly lunched with the McCann's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, who she quoted in the article.

Mitchell, a Rottweiler when it comes to defending the abduction narrative, refers to me in the article as someone with 'conspiracy theories'. Extraordinary bias, of course, and this is what passes for journalism in this case. That's an indication of what we are up against.

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May 2015

* We're filming in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the eighth anniversary of Madeleine's reported disappearance. What a beautiful part of the Algarve. The locals are happy to give their opinions off-camera, but not on it. Just like those back home in England, really. I wonder how this story is ever going to be fully told if people are too scared to speak up?

One villager tells me their lives have been turned upside down, people he grew up with originally viewed each other with suspicion because there was an alleged 'kidnapping paedophile' in their midst, he tells me no one believes that now and they are waiting for the day that the official story is fully challenged.

* We finally manage to get Clarence Mitchell on film. He is furious as he has successfully avoided us from the start of filming. His actions show this is a man who is unaccustomed to not controlling media output. Colleagues tell me to beware. Mitchell has many contacts in the media. I'm way past caring how this documentary may, or may not, harm my career. That's a superficial concern to me.

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June 2015

* Dave, from the production company, called. There's a problem with money.
His bank have informed him that all funds are frozen until further notice and pending investigation. What has happened....?

* Undeterred, Dave and I begin editing two versions of the documentary. I have written two scripts. One for a TV edit and one for a long form version. After three weeks in editing we realise in order to complete the project to the necessary standard, we need the backing of a large documentary company. I begin making contact with several reputable ones.

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July 2015

* I am put in touch with an executive at Journeyman Pictures. I spend over an hour one Friday explaining our investigation to her. She loves it and tells me to leave it with her so she can arrange a date for me to come in and talk the project through with her colleagues. She promises to call me after the weekend. The call never came and, despite several attempts to reach her, she refused to take my call.

* A colleague suggests I approach TVF, another large documentary maker and distributor in the UK. Tom, the head of TVF Digital, 'gets it' immediately and, after much persuasion, we begin working together on a TV edit.

As I write this, I recall something he said: "I keep thinking this could take me down but at least I'll go down with you." I am barely reassured but I thank him for his belief in me.

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August 2015

* Tom thinks he has 'just the person' to help me create the type of TV documentary that will get us over the obstacles. It's a former colleague of his who he rates highly.

She has previously produced, amongst other things, a documentary about Kate Middleton which was said to be 'not the usual PR gloss'. Her business partner had also won a BAFTA so I figure this is someone who knows the business well enough and could get our documentary into the right places. It wasn't to be.

* We have the meeting with the producer. She is quick to express her utter disdain for Brenda Leyland. She describes her as 'an unsympathetic character' that people 'wouldn't get'. She feels that Brenda shouldn't be in the final film. I tell her, in no uncertain terms and not repeatable here, that I wouldn't have done the film without what happened to Brenda and to leave her out would be a betrayal of my principles.

Mind you, her disdain is not reserved for Brenda. She said there was a general feeling that people who obsessed about the case online, from both sides of the argument, were seen as weirdos and commissioning editors were not interested in portraying them as anything but.

I left that meeting knowing I couldn't work with her and I expressed as much to Tom a couple of days later. I was still angry with what she had said about Brenda.

Still, she's what I call a 'meme person'. Fills her social media account with memes that say things like 'I would rather live my life like a lion than die a coward' but in reality she's not got the strength to make the difference to this case in the media. All meme, no action. Next.

*I am losing count of how many FOIs I have had rejected now. Apparently Madeleine's disappearance is an issue of 'national security'. Not sure how that is possible but either way trying to get info from Government and Police about this case is akin to getting blood from a stone. It's not going to happen.

*The McCann trolls - and by this I mean the ones who smear and savage those questioning the official story - have written so much about me online it's shocking.

One forum has 80 pages about me, mostly cobbled together from my old articles, and hardly any current discussion about Madeleine. The important thing, clearly, is to destroy me. I suspect poor Madeleine was lost in this a long time ago.

This is a game of saving names and, certainly, money from Madeleine's public fund has been used for reputation management. A very odd state of affairs in the case of a missing child. In almost 30 years of journalism I've never known anything like it.

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September 2015

* Despite having to oversee the day-to-day running of TVF Digital, Tom has taken up the challenge of co-producing a TV edit with me. After several weeks of beavering away he announces he is leaving TVF. Having now worked on this project he says he misses the creative process of film and wants to return to that. He says he is giving me advanced notice so we can complete the film before he leaves. I'm gutted by this turn of events.

* We are starting to get feedback from commissioning editors in the UK and other territories. Globally we're told that there isn't as big a market of interest for the Madeleine story as we had thought. I disagree with this but he says that's what his sales team are telling him.

In terms of UK commissioning editors, we are told that no one would consider our film until legal investigations - the current Operation Grange - is finished.

That's fair enough. I have been conscious not to cause any potential sub judice problems. Ultimately, I just want justice for Madeleine McCann and Brenda Leyland and I don't want the British taxpayers to have shelled out £12million on an investigation without some decent closure.

* Journalist and broadcaster, Andrew Pierce, interviews me about the case for his LBC radio show. He allows me sufficient space to say what I need to without saying anything that will get either of us in trouble. I am impressed with his approach. He also interviews a former Metropolitan senior policeman about the case and it sounds like the cop ate the official abduction press release for breakfast.

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October 2015

* Tom has fallen on the back burner, he admits that he has a lot of personal stuff going on. Nonetheless I am insistent that we will release a teaser trailer on the first anniversary of Brenda's death. I wanted desperately to have had this film out already but that has proven to be unrealistic. I feel the least I can do is release a short trailer to acknowledge the dreadful passing of Brenda Leyland.

On October 4th - a year to the day since Brenda was reported dead - we release the trailer. Later in the day, the official Find Madeleine Twitter account says it is closing down. Newspapers report on the closing of the account but not on the trailer. I am shocked. Not.

* I receive a telling email from a producer I work with. He says there may be a problem in the future because of the new boss. I have no idea what he is talking about. Over the next few months I discover that the new boss is someone who has socialised with the McCanns and my work with the company dries up.

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November 2015

*The attacks on me are so great the Metropolitan police are now involved. I have been targeted for over three years ever since I started writing about child abuse in the Establishment and these same people have now teamed up with the McCann trolls who have been smearing and defaming me. Like attracts like, I guess.

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December 2015

*Dave and I have a meeting with a production company that has worked with mainstream broadcasters. The owner sees the potential and wants to work on a TV edit with us. We will start in January.

* As the year draws to a close, my PA and I decide that we can no longer answer social network questions about the documentary. Throughout the process we worked to be as transparent as possible, completely aware that what this case lacked was that: transparency.

However, enemies of this investigation, and there are a few, have taken the info given out and twisted it to try and work against the documentary.

Sadly, that means we are also restricted from keeping the genuinely interested up-to-date. I hate it when a few rotten apples ruin a barrel but this documentary - and what it is about - is too important to allow for mischief at this stage.

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January 2016

*The deal with the production company has fallen through. More obstacles, more difficulties. I wonder if it's time to call it a day. We've had over a year of challenges, obstacles, loss of income and I have to re-evaluate all this.

Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe all the thousands commenting on the Internet have it wrong. Maybe Brenda Leyland got it wrong. Maybe the abduction theory is right.

I recall a quote 'You're allowed to change your mind...as soon as it becomes clear'.

And I realise that, to date, we have found nothing substantial to make me change my mind. Because of that, we will continue on.

People tell me that as soon as Operation Grange concludes there will be a market for our version. Others have pointed out that there is still an investigation in Portugal and I must be careful not to interfere with the due process. There are so many conflicts to satisfy in this story it's a mammoth task. But not impossible. And it's that outside possibility that drives us on.

That and the fact that we have secured unique footage with those at the heart of this case. Footage that has been copied and securely stored away. Footage that will prove to be immensely valuable to this story in the future.

* My home is now wired up to the Metropolitan Police and we have been placed on 'special schemes' which means that calls from our home are given priority. This is crazy. I am only doing my job but I am being heavily attacked and threatened for it.

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February 2016

* My attackers have now started claiming that I, somehow, have received the funds that were donated to Gonçalo Amaral's Just Giving Fund. This is public donations for the ex-Portuguese cop who has been pursued by Kate and Gerry McCann after he refused to conform to the official abduction narrative.

It beggars belief. These trolls are without morals. They will do and say anything to stop the story being questioned and to deflect from it. Regardless of whether it harms the case for getting justice for Madeleine or not. That is not their priority. Destroying the messenger is.

*I give a talk at a London University. I give them an insight into what my working life, with all the threats and smears, is like. The students are incredibly supportive. This is what it is about for me. Educating those in the dark and fighting against media censorship.

* A strange day as I find myself in the unusual position of partly agreeing with something that Katie Hopkins has said. Having had more than my fair share of TV and radio debates with her, including the Sky debate that was edited and the meaning distorted, I did not expect to read an article of hers that made any sense at all. We are well known opposites but I have to acknowledge her piece for the MailOnline about Madeleine and her parents. She has made errors in it but the essential message - that something is wrong here - still carries.

The comments section is particularly illuminating. Many people expressing relief that not all the media is tamed. She has backed up what I know to be true about media obstruction and the MailOnline - as the most widely read online newspaper in the world - is a fantastic platform to do it from. It doesn't mean I will support her from now on, of course not, but I am reminded of the old adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

* A positive development. A wealthy man has offered to back me in travelling overseas to talk with a broadcaster. Our journey continues.....

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I was naive to think that the British media could openly support my stance. People do in the background but they fear their livelihoods will be put in jeopardy if they go public.

I make it my business to not talk publicly about the media organisations I am currently working with behind-the-scenes for fear they will be targeted, too.

The truth remains, there are people in influential positions in the UK and they have no appetite for questioning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I have discovered that they will go so far as to penalise you if you publicly question the official abduction narrative as I have.

This is a story with friends in high places and it involves people who have promoted the abduction of Madeleine McCann to feather their own nests. Irrelevant of the fact that the official abduction narrative does not add up.

Never mind, I have faith that the full story will be explored. Either by me and our small (but passionate and dedicated) team or by someone else prepared to stand up and be counted.

The court of public opinion refuses to accept the official story lock, stock and barrel, and one day our media will have no choice but to truly reflect those serious misgivings. Link

Sonia Poulton
© Copyright Sonia Poulton 2015

Respect Sonia, respect.

Yes Mark, the Prime Minister is a Disgrace

Yes Mark, the Prime Minister is a disgrace.



"Vigilant Guardians" a timeless rant from the artiste.



A quieter reflection on the Sun and its readers.

Kate McCann Never Less Than Dignified

Kate McCann Never Less Than Dignified

Famous faces pick their person of the year

Liz Hunt, Sunday Telegraph columnist
29 Dec 2007

Kate McCann. Madeleine’s mother suffers daily the torture of knowing she should have been there for her child and has endured the agony of being implicated in her death. Yet she has never been less than dignified, and her focus on finding her daughter has not wavered. link

Takes your breath away doesn't it?

This somewhat less than dignified begging bowl made its appearance in Pria da Luz shortly after the McCanns disappeared their daughter, Madeleine. 

And disappeared her they did, make no mistake, Madeleine McCann was not abducted. And should anybody like to argue the fact in a court of law, fine by me, bring it on. They can have their day, and I'll have mine.

Let me give you a brief analogy a shorter, hypothetical version of what you will find at the link above, the essence of the thing so to speak.


Scene, any courtroom in the land.

Gerry McCann: I apologise for being late your honour, my car had a punctured tyre.

Judge: Sergeant, please check Mr McCann's car.

Anon

Sergeant: No sign of a flat tyre m'Lud.

Judge: Mr McCann, that defence may be good enough for the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, but it is not acceptable to this court. (Take him down)

For flat tyre substitute jemmied shutters. (Take him down again)

Good enough for the Home Secretary; it must be mustn't it, why else would Theresa May be in the same room as Kate McCann, let alone rubbing shoulders with the woman.

Well not quite rubbing shoulders, I think a little body language, intentional or otherwise, has come to the fore in that picture. I don't know what that says to you dear reader, but I know what it says to me?

Tut tut Theresa, surely Kate McCann no longer reeks of her daughter's cadaver, it must be something else then? Proxemics is it?

Why Theresa May you might ask? Why not, it's her watch?

For every vile stunt pulled by the McCanns has been at the pleasure of previous and present Home Secretaries.

I will just say one thing more then I shall move on to the offending article.

When this shabby edifice finally comes tumbling down, as it must, of that much you must be well aware, you won't for shame Home Secretary cry, "Well I never! Who'dathunkit? Not for shame you won't.

To dignity then and the offending article.

Do I really need to add my comments to this deplorable drivel?

No, I'm sure I don't, I don't think I have the stomach for it. What I might do however is borrow a tweet I spied yesterday, yes, that will suffice and I'm sure you might agree.

A LIST!!! a fucking list. I weep.

Gerry and Kate McCann reveal the reasons why they miss Maddie
By Tracey Kandohla
6 Nov 2015

Kate and Gerry McCann include her smile, her dimples, her sense of humour, her “chat” and her excitement in the festive build-up
The parents of Madeleine McCann have compiled a heart-rending list of all the things they miss about their long-lost daughter in the run-up to Christmas.
The list accompanies a picture of the couple standing at their front door in Rothley, Leics.

The photo, taken for the charity Missing People’s Home for Christmas Exhibition, is among 12 pictures of -families who have missing loved ones.
The exhibition – at The Crypt in London’s St-Martin-in-the-Fields – highlights the plight of thousands of people across Britain who are living in limbo after the disappearance of a family member.

A charity spokesperson said: “These powerful images depict families standing by their front doors, symbolising the hopes and fears experienced by those desperately waiting for news.”

The picture of heart doctor Gerry and former GP Kate , both 47, is on public view until November 22. The couple, parents to 10-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, refuse to give up hope of finding their eldest child, who would now be 12.

Madeleine disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in May 2007.

Missing People’s Jo Youle said: “The exhibition will give the public the opportunity to stand with these families missing a loved one by sharing messages of support.”

Her smile
Her laughter
Her eyes
Her dimples
Her sense of humour
Her smartness
Her imitations of people and characters
Her voice, her ‘chat’
Her company
That knowing look
Her singing
Styling her hair
Chasing her round the garden
Sharing her excitement in the run-up to Christmas
Sharing anything
Spoiling her on her birthday
Shopping with her
Going to a cafe with her
Holding her, hugging her, kissing the top of her head
Lying next to her
Our complete family of five
Everything
We miss her

Who else but the Mirror?

Metaphoric Comprehension by Dr Martin Roberts

METAPHORIC COMPREHENSION

By Dr Martin Roberts
20 July 2015


Metaphorical understanding is arguably the most powerful intellectual device we have. Fascinating to study, and no less so to employ, the metaphor is without doubt of inestimable value when it comes to the transference of ideas. Take the following, for instance:

Throughout the entire history of high-rise construction, there have been only three recorded instances of steel-framed structures collapsing as a result, supposedly, of fire damage. All three instances occurred in New York on September 11, 2001.

To be compared with:

“I can’t ever remember where the Government has acted as a PR adviser/stroke minder for a family in a situation like this. This is just one of the factors that make this story so extraordinary.” (Roy Greenslade - former tabloid editor, speaking of the McCann case).

It makes one pause for thought rather. The sort of thought that might accompany a further comparison:

The BBC’s Jane Standley describing the recent collapse of building 7, the World Trade Centre, while standing with her back to an image of said building, intact and still erect.

With

“Some more breaking news for you this morning. Errr... We're just hearing that a search is underway for a 3-year-old British girl who's gone missing in the Algarve area of Portugal; and she went missing last night. Hundreds of people have been searching for the girl; and that search continuing this morning. So we will try to get as much on that as for... for you as soon as we can; errr... that, errr... missing girl in Luz and we will bring it to you as soon as we get further detail.” (Transcript: Nigel Moore).

Notice the time of the broadcast – 7.48 a.m., on the morning of 4 May, 2007.

‘“Yaddah, yaddah”, what’s the matter?’

Bridget O'Donnell (the Guardian, 14.12.2007) wrote:

“The next morning, we made our way to breakfast and met one of the Doctors, the one who had come round in the night. His young daughter looked up at us from her pushchair. There was no news. They had called Sky television - they didn't know what else to do. He turned away and I could see he was going to weep.”

That tells us all we need to know, surely, especially as only two days later (16.12.07) we had confirmation of same, sort of, from David James Smith, on behalf of Timesonline no less:

“It is widely believed among the Portuguese media, and perhaps the police too, even now, that the McCanns called Sky News before they called the police. For the record, Sky News picked up the story from GMTV breakfast television, at around 7.30am the following day.”

‘For the record’ – Got that!

Well Jill Renwick certainly got it (the message from Kate McCann that is) via a 7.00 a.m. communique (text or voice, the account is a touch ambiguous in that regard). According to Bridget O’Donell (again):

‘McCann family friend, Jill Renwick, revealed how panicking Kate sent her a text saying: ''I need help.'' Jill Renwick has known the McCanns since they all worked together at a Glasgow hospital more than a decade ago.

‘She spoke to Kate at 7am on the morning after Madeleine vanished and said: ''Kate was at the police station in hysterics. When we spoke she said the police weren't doing enough.''’

Helpfully, the Guardian (2.6.07) embellished Renwick’s commentary with: "They didn't know what to do. So I phoned GMTV.

(We’d better just gloss over the fact that the McCanns did not even leave for the police station until after 8.00 a.m. that morning or we’ll lead ourselves astray).

The sequence of events is perfectly clear is it not? Kate McCann ‘phones Jill Renwick, who in turn ‘phones GMTV, who break the story, so that SKY News can run it a few minutes later. The Tapas 7 then ring SKY Television (to ask for confirmation, or a set-top box perhaps, who knows?). End of story.

Well it might have been had Martin Frizell not ‘relived the moment’ in the company of Kate Garraway, for the purposes of last year’s Channel 5 documentary, Madeleine McCann – A Global Obsession, the ‘promo’ for which reads:

“In May 2007, Frizell - then editor of GMTV, ITVʼs breakfast programme - took the unprecedented decision to put a call through to the studio from a family friend of the McCanns. A three-year-old British girl had gone missing in the sleepy Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz and the family was distraught. By that afternoon, it was the leading news story on a number of channels.”

Sensing the importance of what he had just heard, Frizell put Jill Renwick in direct contact with his presenters that morning. As Frizell himself recalls:

“On May 4, 2007, I was the editor of the country’s most popular breakfast show broadcasting to millions of viewers every day. It was a Friday. It was just after 8.00 a.m. and the mood was lighthearted.”

For her part Kate Garraway describes how:

“We were having a generally jokey moment on a Friday morning and, suddenly, and I think you can even see on the footage, I sort of go a bit like that ‘cause you, the call came through on my earpiece saying – “we’re going to do an interview with a woman, she’s really concerned about her friend, her friend’s child has gone missing and she’s desperate for help.”

The actual broadcast dialogue that Friday morning (4 May, 2007) proceeded as follows:

KG: “We’ve got some more breaking news for you this morning, very serious story is developing and is coming through to us and it’s of a 3-year-old British girl has gone missing in Portugal. We can speak now to Jill Renwick, who err, who’s a family friend – ‘What can you tell us about what happened?’”

JR: “They were just, you know, watching the hotel room erm, and going back every half-hour….and the shutters had been broken open and they’ve gone into the room and taken Madeleine.” *

Martin Frizell (in documentary mode once more) continues:

“My instincts had been right. The story that we’d just broken was developing fast.”

So fast, in fact, that SKY News had broken it some fifteen to twenty minutes earlier!

Moral support is later offered by Mary Nightingale (ITN):

“I remember seeing the Maddie story on GMTV first of all.”

So too did David James Smith no doubt – for the record of course.

Apparently Martin Frizell has, for the past seven or eight years, been under the mistaken impression that it was he and his GMTV colleagues who ‘broke’ the McCann story via the UK broadcast media, when it was SKY News after all. Which obliges us to return to that vexatious question of who informed SKY News, since the record (as espoused by David James Smith at least) is clearly wrong in that respect.

The first default setting in this instance would appear to be the Tapas 7, one of whose members let it be understood (by Bridget O’Donnell) that they had ‘phoned SKY Television before breakfast that Friday morning. Whoever they were, they must have put the call in before that 7.48 a.m. broadcast, obviously.

It seems, however, as if ‘they’ was something of a proxy vote as far as Bridget O’Donnell’s doctor was concerned. With the sole exception of David Payne, none of the Tapas 7 made any ‘phone calls early on the morning of 4 May. David Payne’s solitary pre-dawn ‘ping’ was at 1.17 – way too early to have been a news feed for SKY, whose reporter was only just learning the details at the time of the 7.48 broadcast.

Which leaves the McCanns.

Gerry made a number of calls. He also sent and received several text messages (which I think we might dismiss as a sensible means of communicating an out-of-the-way emergency to a televised news desk). Concentrating on his voice calls up to and including 7.15 therefore, we may note that none of them involved SKY Television, as their switchboard number simply doesn’t feature in the schedule.

What about Kate McCann? She made so many calls before 10.30 that morning the phone ‘ping’ map couldn’t keep pace! It must have been she who had SKY Television on ‘speed dial’ therefore.

Just how likely is that? Are we to attribute such initiative, such presence of mind, to the same woman who, by 7.00 a.m., thought only of contacting a friend in the UK with a plea for help, and left said friend to dial GMTV on her behalf?

Someone clearly contacted SKY News, and did so before Jill Renwick spoke to anyone at GMTV. They were either very quick off the mark that morning, or even quicker the night before. On balance it would appear that the McCanns were not that fleet-of-foot (24 hours elapsed before they were ready to face the press, Gerry McCann reading from a prepared script – it didn’t take that long to write his little ‘words cannot describe’ speech, surely?).

Should anyone feel this conclusion to be unjustified, they might prefer to place a little more faith in SKY News’ own reporter, Ian Woods:

“It is absolutely not true that they (the McCanns) reported it to SKY News before they reported it to the police. We didn’t know that Madeleine had disappeared until 8.15 on the Friday morning – not the Thursday night, the Friday morning, at 8.15, and that was because a friend of the McCanns, knowing that their child was missing, and knowing that they were desperate, ‘phoned a television station called GMTV – another television station, not SKY News – and did a telephone interview at 8.15 on the Friday morning. That was the first time any journalists knew anything about this. Kate McCann did not call SKY News. And I know that it has been put out there as an accepted fact, and I’ve heard, you know, Carlos Anjos talking about this on Portuguese television, that he knows that the McCanns called SKY News. It…it…it is just not true.”

Run that by me one more time, Ian…

“8.15 on the Friday morning… was the first time any journalists knew anything about this.”

‘Believe half of what you hear, three-quarters of what you see’ so they say. Well, here’s that three-quarters once again (‘Breaking News’ being broadcast by SKY at 7.48 a.m.):

Given Ian Woods’ effective denunciation of his own broadcasting company, what could possibly have been incriminating about his either inferring or explaining that someone contacted SKY that Friday morning after Kate McCann had ‘phoned them – someone like Jill Renwick, for instance? Why deny knowledge if it springs from an admissible source?

The implication appears to be that the source itself was inadmissible.

So if it wasn’t the McCanns, then who was it? In sum, not only do we not know the ‘who’ in this instance, we do not know the ‘whence’ either.

There are good grounds for suspecting the FCO’s earliest diplomatic initiatives to have been kick-started from within the U.K. Should the paradoxical appearance of a press release in the Telegraph, timed at 12.01 on 4 May, be substantiated in all respects, then it too will ultimately have been FCO progeny, since an FCO spokesperson was cited therein.

Is it at all reasonable to suppose that the FCO could have had a vested interest in statements issued via the press, but not those broadcast on national television?

Martin Roberts

 * Before we had even heard the name Madeleine McCann, the script had been written, distributed, and was being learned by rote, albeit to an embarrassing degree, by seemingly every member of the McCann's extended family and various friends. The source of which, and undeniable, Kate and Gerry McCann. Madeleine McCann Was Not Abducted Includes a section on the phone records.

Mummy Mummy What Does a Hack Look like?

Update below.

Well sweetheart, there are those that come in tins . .

and there are those that don't.

And there are some that come all singing, all dancing.

And it is of the all singing, all dancing, that we are going to take a little look at today.

Now unless you have been living in a MSM newsroom (BBC included) for the last fourteen years, you may have come to your own conclusion, that there is something not quite kosher with the official narrative as to what happened on that world changing day, the day of America's new Pearl Harbour, September 11 2001.  

Far beit for me to set before you examples gleaned from the terabytes of data already writ on the subject, your tent is already pitched in the reality camp, or it is pitched in the official camp,the camp where our two featured hacks are firmly ensconced. What ever you may believe, it is not my purpose here today, to try and convince you otherwise. Rather it is to look at some of research claims, and integrity if you wish, of our chosen hacks, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.

The Truth is Out There

Saturday, September 10, 2011
By Jonathan deBurca Butler

Pile upon pile of files are laid out on the floor or hastily stacked up on the writing desk.

The only dash of colour is the pink and yellow post-it-notes that peek out from the heaving folders. Some carry obscure reference numbers, others recognisable words like ‘Taliban’, ‘Clinton’, and ‘Al Qaeda’.

Stuck to the frame of a large, light-giving window is a pleasant, black-and-white photo of the couple smiling. Below it is the cover of their latest book, The Eleventh Day, with the dramatic picture of the vomiting explosion that followed the crashing of American Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower of The World Trade Center at 9.03am on September 11, 2001.

Their study-library is the type of room for which an anxious parent might scold an obsessively studious teenage child. In the case of Summers and Swan, it is the other way around.

“Every night, we come back into the house, sit down at the dinner table [with their three teenage children] and start talking about September 11,” says Swan. “And then Tony looks up at me and says to the children, ‘We’re not going to talk about the book now.’ And they don’t believe us.”

For the last five years, from their base and home near Cappoquin in Co Waterford, Summers and Swan have been investigating and writing about the most infamous day in modern history.

It has been a tough slog. Summers, who was born in London and whose father was from Kerry, has lived in the area since 1973. Having worked for the BBC in war zones, he was offered the opportunity to write a book on the Romanovs in the early 1970s, which he thought “might earn enough to get me a new car.” It topped the bestsellers list and afforded him the choice of his own work. Several successful books followed; later, while researching a book on J Edgar Hoover, in Washington, Summers met Swan, who was then working for The London Independent.

“Well, Tony hired me to be his researcher,” says Swan. “He claimed it was going to be two weeks’ worth of work. And it ended up being two years. And when he could no longer afford to pay me, he offered to marry me.”

Swan, who was born and raised in Connecticut, says that moving from the capital of the USA to the somewhat more easygoing and sleepy Waterford countryside was a culture shock.

“Moving from a big city, where everything was happening, to the back-of-nowhere was hard,” she says. “But now I treasure the back-of-nowhere and I wouldn’t change it. I’m never, ever sorry that I did it.”

The couple’s home is situated opposite an early 19th century castle, on the River Blackwater. In this somewhat idyllic setting, they have worked on numerous books and biographies, including Official and Confidential: The Secret Lives of J Edgar Hoover and The Arrogance of Power: The Secret Life of Richard Nixon.

In the era of 24-hour-news, quick-fix facts and panting, speculative conclusions, Summers and Swan stand out as champions of old-school journalism based on diligence and digging around.

Really?  champions of old-school journalism based on diligence and digging around.

“It’s no longer feasible to spend the amount of time that we would typically spend on a book anymore,” says Swan. “This book we turned out more quickly [than usual], although it still took the guts of five years. But, you can’t have it both ways. And this is a product of the internet. The problem with the internet is that they expect you to turn out beautiful copy that’s new, and breaks news while sitting in your house doing nothing except reading other stories on the internet.

 Quite.

“But that’s not how good journalism is done. We go down the road, we interview people, we read thousands of documents and spend a lot of time on the phone, but at the end of the day we have to think, we produce the goods.”

Ah so! That's how it's done is it?.  But that’s not how good journalism is done. We go down the road, we interview people*

 We go down the road, we interview people* Do you really? I'm glad you've cleared that one up. But pray forgive me if I mark this lesson in good journalism with a small * Should I forget.

As for producing the goods, might you afford me the question; for whom?

In the case of The Eleventh Day, they most certainly do. It is a compelling (and often harrowing) read from start to finish and with 116 pages of notes and sources listed at the end, it is clear that this tome was a labour of love for both writers.

“We saw that all sorts of sane people were actually confused,” says 68-year-old Summers. “And what we do for a living is take controversial cases or people, and as an old friend of mine used to say, pick them up by their ankles and shake them to see what change comes out. So it sounds like a cliché, but we were trying to get at that elusive thing called ‘something like the truth’.”

Confused are they? Poor souls. ‘something like the truth’ But the actual truth?

One of the strongest aspects of this investigation is how it debunks the conspiracy theorists; people and academics who believe that the Bush administration was involved with the attacks. “We thought we’d poke around and see what we got,” says Summers. “And, in the end, we found nothing. And, really, the conspiracy theorists’ theories do not stand up, they’re not backed by the evidence. And it has blurred a whole lot of it that is serious.”

By academics, am I to assume that includes Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth? One of the strongest aspects of this investigation is how it debunks the conspiracy theorists; people and academics But you are probably right, there being only 2,343 of them and two of you.

“And, in the end, we found nothing. Fancy! And, really, the conspiracy theorists’ theories do not stand up, they’re not backed by the evidence. No? But then that's the trouble with conspiracy theorists (and haters) all the trouble they go to, when all they have to do is read one of your books. Aren't they silly?

“We felt that we owed it to these people who were looking at the internet and reading these [conspiracy] books to turn the whole thing upside down and subject it to hard treatment,” says Swan.

 We felt that we owed it to these people who were looking at the internet and reading Your altruism knows no bounds.

That hard treatment does not in any way let the Bush administration off the hook. The administration comes across as incompetent, hot-headed, and, in the case of facing down Iraq but never asking questions of other more-economically powerful Arab states, frightened.

Within hours of the attacks, the administration, much to the disbelief of high-ranking intelligence agents, was targeting Iraq. It was later proved that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11. Indeed, Osama bin Laden despised the Iraqi leader.

The chapters dealing with bin Laden show him to be a complex character; at one moment intelligent and charismatic, at others a childish bully, but always a religious zealot. The book also reveals that the intelligence agencies knew of the arrival of one, if not two, of the terrorists before the attacks, but failed to act.

There are insights into chief terrorist Mohamed Atta and the other 18 self-proclaimed martyrs and it becomes abundantly clear that their motive was Palestine — something Summers says “people in the States need to understand.”

“We want people to read this book because, to be quite honest, this was a cataclysmic event for the world,” says Swan.

We want people to read this book You don't say? You wanted people to read another of your books quite recently, how did that work out for you?

“It has shaped all of our lives. It has shaped the lives of our children and it will continue to do so. And they should have their lives shaped by the truth, as far as we can know it. People should know what to be afraid of and what not to be afraid of, and know what the lessons are from this and not have them peddled by an administration or by fantasists.”

 The Eleventh Day by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan is published by Random House Irish Examiner

And now a little look at what set the ball rolling. The audio clip I had listened to previously, but it wasn't until my colleague and researcher, Maren, a lady from the Netherlands, came up with the article, did the whole thing come together.

Answers on a postage stamp please.

Sometimes it's what you don't do that speaks volumes. Or in this particular instance, it's not what's there that's telling, rather it's what isn't there that screams from the rooftops.

The blog of Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swan Where you will be rather hard pressed to find any mention of:

Odd that.



Update: Where to begin?

Perhaps by stating that when I opined about the rubbish some people write, it was at the time, without association to our chosen subjects, Summers and Swan.

Let me set the tone.

Further our discussion on the properties of aircraft aluminium.

People do write some shite.

In the case of the 757 that hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the building and the other was forced off by the impact with the building’s load-bearing columns. The remains of the plane then entered into the building in a state “closer to a liquid than a solid mass.”

Close to a liquid than a solid mass. Utter shite in fact. It's not a pie tin from the corner shop we are talking about, it's aircraft Aluminium. For want of a better but less technical description, it's as hard as fuckin' iron.

To cut a long story short, the scribbler of said merde, non other than establishment shills for 9/11, Popular Mechanics.

Debunking Popular Mechanics: Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth link

Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11: Truth 9/11 Research.net link

Although at the end of the piece, I did utter this tongue-in-cheek remark:

 Can’t help but wonder how much of the content of Summers and Swan book is attributable to Popular Mechanics?

So dear reader, if you have managed to guess what's coming and think there may be a prize for doing such? Sorry, we don't give out prizes for easy peasy.

Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report - The Pentagon

Mete Sozen: Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 757's 124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the behavior of concrete buildings. What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. "If you expected the entire wing to cut into the building," Sozen tells PM, "it didn't happen." Popular Mechanics

No, but you might expect a few broken widows in the area of impact. Which of course, there were none.

Truthers and Consequences: The Trouble with Dean Hartwell’s “Perspective”

Turning to the crash of American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hartwell complains that we do not say at what time the mangled debris – some with AA markings – “arrived” on the Pentagon lawn. The Eleventh Day, however, contains several eyewitness accounts of an American Airlines plane crashing into the Pentagon, as well as a detailed explanation of the disintegration of the plane on impact by the respected engineering professor Mete Sozen. Even a casual reading of this information makes it obvious that it was after this impact that the debris arrived – to use Hartwell’s word – on the Pentagon lawn. Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swan

Nice quote. Nice research.

And you wonder why your work of fiction on Madeleine McCann was pulled to pieces?

Try being less of a hack.

As well as.



A sweeping flourish of the bonnet to Maren. Research.