Tony Bennett
Former Member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2008
- Messages
- 217
- Reaction score
- 11
A reply to Cuddington Carol
CC: Here are some things I truly believe:
I believe that speculation is a lot of fun, like working on a puzzle or writing a story, and can make one feel very clever.
REPLY: Outwith the context of trying to work out what really happened to Madeleine McCann, given the huge weight of evidence against them already in the public domain, I would agree with you.
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CC: I believe that the McCann story is extremely interesting.
REPLY: Agreed.
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CC: I believe that the behavior of the parents was neglectful to the point of being criminal.
REPLY: In that case, can I take it that you would have supported the application I made in the criminal courts here in the U.K. for a summons against both the McCanns for child neglect – back in November 2007? It remains the only attempt to date to charge the McCanns with an offence relating to what you calk their ‘criminally neglectful’ conduct?.
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CC: I believe that a great deal of their behavior and many of the circumstances in their situation seem inexplicable and questionable.
REPLY: Agreed.
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CC: I believe that regarding any serious crime, it is important to speculate, to question, to scrutinize, and to do so until there is an indisputable answer.
REPLY: Also agreed.
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CC: I believe that to condemn anyone either in public opinion, or in court, without conclusive, solid and certain evidence is truly wrong.
REPLY: Here I think we must begin to part company. ‘Condemn’ is a strong word. Many decisions in the courts here in the U.K. are made on what is called ‘the balance of probability’ i.e. more than 50% likely. To give you an illustration, in a case of child neglect, there may be insufficient evidence to convict someone of a criminal offence ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
But the Social Services/child welfare agencies, to protect children, can, do and should act on ‘the balance of probability’ - by taking a range of measures to protect children at risk, short of securing a criminal prosecution. Here, for example, we place children on what is known as a ‘Child Protection Register’.
Perhaps I would choose the word ‘criticise’ rather than condemn. And we do have conclusive and solid evidence on which to criticise the McCanns.
The leading voluntary child welfare organisation in the U.K. is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They say that young children should never be left alone. The McCanns totally disregarded that advice. They are Doctors.
And you yourself have condemned them by describing their conduct as ‘criminally neglectful’.
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CC: I believe that there is simply not enough evidence available to the public to conclusively lead anyone watching this story, no matter how clever he/she may be, to come to a decision which they should wholeheartedly believe.
REPLY: But many of us believe differently - and if the totality of the evidence against the McCanns were to be set out fully here, it would be enough in the minds of the majority of people to satisfy them that Madeleine died in Apartment 5a in Praia da Luz and her body hidden. That to my mind is proved to a very high degree of probability. How she died is another matter altogether on which we have relatively little evidence.
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CC: Aside from that, here are some things I wonder about:
1) Wasn't there some kind of evidence made public that they never sedated the other two children - hair analysis or something? I think I recall something about that - but not sure, and like many things in this case, it could be spin... but didn't that come about at some point?
REPLY: What the McCanns did was this. They waited four months. They then went to a drugs-testing agency whose identity, so far as I know, they did not disclose. They proclaimed that the agency found no evidence of sedatives being used on the children (the twins). But they did not disclose what drugs they were tested for.
Now, what use is that? The presence of drugs in the hair is usually eliminated after 3 to 6 months. We don’t know what drugs they tested for.
But the fact that they undertook these tests only after four months tells us a lot. They weren’t willing to risk it before. And they won’t disclose the results. It looks to me - and many others - like a clumsy attempt to try and prove that they never sedated their children.
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CC: Weren't the police officials in Portugal in charge of this case also scrutinized in the media for some pretty unethical means of "wrapping up" other cases, involving some very "intense" ( for lack of a better description) questioning/investigating of "suspects"?
REPLY: What this boils down to is a pathetic attempt to smear Goncalo Amaral. The complainant is one Leonor Cipriano. To read the British press, you would never realise that Leonor Cipriano and her brother Jose Cipriano were convicted of child murder and covering up the murder of Leone’s child Joana, aged 8, murdered because she caught her mother and uncle having incestuous sex together. There was ample for forensic evidence plus confessions from both parents. Leonor Cipriano now claims she was beaten into making a confession. Her claims are very dubious, to put it mildly.
And, on the evidence on which the jury convicted them, her allegations have no bearing on her guilt for a terrible crime. It should be noted that the evil couple claimed first of all that Joana had been abducted and went on national television sobbing about the loss of their precious daughter etc. etc. It was a desperately difficult criminal investigation, but the man who successful secured the convictions in this case was the senior investigating officer, Goncalo Amaral.
The vilification of a good detective, Goncalo Amaral, is to the eternal shame of the British press. I have covered this in much more detail towards the end of Madeleine McCann General Discussion Thread No. 23.
One other thing I will say about this. The fact that you associate Goncalo Amaral with the unethical clearing up of another case proves two things: (a) the outstanding success of Clarence Mitchell’s PR work on behalf of the McCanns (to date), and (b) the laziness and supineness of the British press which has failed to tell us about Amaral’s formidable success in this most gruesome case.
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CC: Why would so many people with lives and reputations to protect (the friends of the McCann's) be involved in such a conspiracy, knowing how much they have to lose, and how awful they could end up looking? Knowing a little toddler was missing, or hurt, or dead? Would the friends all really cover, as it is likely more than one would know something - even if it was just that things were not as they seemed, that the stories didn't jibe - though perhaps they could give no definite answer as to what happened. Personally, I truly love my friends, but don't think I could gloss over a kid gone missing or odd behavior or discrepancies in a story. The level of heartlessness involved from so many seems unlikely - not to mention the level of serious trouble they could get into... that alone would scare out of me the facts as I truly know them to be.
REPLY: They would all be in serious trouble of it transpired for example that they were all into sedating their children, contrary to recommended medical practice and of one of them had been killed as a result. Remember too that there may be other things that were going on that we don’t know about. A credible account of how both David Payne and Gerry McCann were once overheard making sexualised remarks about ther own children was given to British police within 10 days of Madeleine’s disappearance. The couple who overheard their remarks on a previous holiday were so alarmed that they would not let Gerry McCann near their apartment.
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CC: Is it not possible that someone other than the McCann's and their friends were involved in this?
REPLY: As well as, maybe.
++++++++++
CC: It doesn't seem the most likely case, given everything else we've heard, but is there anything to fully rule that out? Without ruling that out, can one really be sure?
REPLY: Just look alone at the evidence from the cadaver dog (Eddie) and the bloodhound (Keela) alone. Then look at the extraordinary things - I counted at least seven of them - that the McCanns said back in September 2007, when the cadaver dog evidence first surfaced. That evidence is powerful evidence that Madeleine died in Apartment 5a and her body may be have been conveyed in the Renault Scenic that they hired.
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CC: Based on the prior question, is it rational to so firmly 'believe' one has an answer?
REPLY: Yes, entirely rational, when you look at the totality of the evidence in this case. And we are only saying we have some answers, not every answer.
++++++++++
CC: And finally, here is my suspicion and opinion, which amounts to very little even in my own mind ( see the last point I made regarding "things I truly believe"):
I think it is likely the parents are hiding something. However, I don't really know what that may be. I think that their behavior regarding her disappearance is very strange, but at the same time, I wonder if there is one, and only one, means of grieving, of dealing with a crisis, of dealing with the humiliation of horrible parenting made public, and its consequences made public, of dealing with the media during such a crisis? No, clearly not... so I must grant them that.
I don't have all the facts. I only have various pieces of 'evidence' and speculation as the media has presented, and who knows to what degree any of that is whole or real. Still, based solely on what has been presented in the media, it is hard to escape that something is up with these two... as the many theories here have examined... The smell of corpses, the traces of blood, their behavior in the media, the odd reactions of their friends, their lack of solid answers to certain questions they should be able to answer, all lead one to think something is up with these two, and possibly a few others who know the real score... but what is up with them, I really don't know, and what that real score is, I also don't know... That said, I would not be surprised if they were found somehow responsible for their daughter's disappearance...However, unlike many here, I remain unsure.
REPLY: I respect that and am sure we all do given your stated reasons. Quite apart from the evidence in this case, we must also bear in mind that in 99% of all cases where the parents of young children claim that their children have been abducted from their very own homes (or temporary holiday addresses abroad), it turns out later that the children are dead, either by accident, negligence, neglect or deliberate act, and a member of the family is responsible.
++++++++++
CC: And last but not least...
I predict we will never know, or if we do it won't be for a VERY long time. With the level of exposure, I think there would be some kind of more solid lead by now, and that given the intense interest and outrage surrounding the story, it is unlikely that this would fade away in light of any real lead. I suspect she is likely dead and we won't know any time soon... This is very sad...
REPLY: And due to heavy interference by the British government, which I have summarised elsewhere
++++++++++
…but also the reason why the speculation should and will continue, and (scary though it may be - thank goodness this isn't a jury in a court of law) we can carry on having fun and feeling clever.
REPLY: Please believe me, Cuddington Carol, we do not in any sense do this to ‘have fun’ or ‘feel clever’. You have badly misjudged the intent of all the McCann-sceptics on here (and elsewhere) if you think that for one moment. All of the McCann-sceptics that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting on this forum share, I am sure, my own conviction that this is about getting truth and justice for Madeleine, who has been denied this by her parents and those helping them. It has been well said that the dead have no-one to fight for justice for them but the living. We do this because we believe that little Madeleine herself would want us to pursue the truth about what happened to her, which plainly the McCanns and their advisers and PR people are, so far successfully, hiding from us.
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CC: Here are some things I truly believe:
I believe that speculation is a lot of fun, like working on a puzzle or writing a story, and can make one feel very clever.
REPLY: Outwith the context of trying to work out what really happened to Madeleine McCann, given the huge weight of evidence against them already in the public domain, I would agree with you.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that the McCann story is extremely interesting.
REPLY: Agreed.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that the behavior of the parents was neglectful to the point of being criminal.
REPLY: In that case, can I take it that you would have supported the application I made in the criminal courts here in the U.K. for a summons against both the McCanns for child neglect – back in November 2007? It remains the only attempt to date to charge the McCanns with an offence relating to what you calk their ‘criminally neglectful’ conduct?.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that a great deal of their behavior and many of the circumstances in their situation seem inexplicable and questionable.
REPLY: Agreed.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that regarding any serious crime, it is important to speculate, to question, to scrutinize, and to do so until there is an indisputable answer.
REPLY: Also agreed.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that to condemn anyone either in public opinion, or in court, without conclusive, solid and certain evidence is truly wrong.
REPLY: Here I think we must begin to part company. ‘Condemn’ is a strong word. Many decisions in the courts here in the U.K. are made on what is called ‘the balance of probability’ i.e. more than 50% likely. To give you an illustration, in a case of child neglect, there may be insufficient evidence to convict someone of a criminal offence ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
But the Social Services/child welfare agencies, to protect children, can, do and should act on ‘the balance of probability’ - by taking a range of measures to protect children at risk, short of securing a criminal prosecution. Here, for example, we place children on what is known as a ‘Child Protection Register’.
Perhaps I would choose the word ‘criticise’ rather than condemn. And we do have conclusive and solid evidence on which to criticise the McCanns.
The leading voluntary child welfare organisation in the U.K. is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They say that young children should never be left alone. The McCanns totally disregarded that advice. They are Doctors.
And you yourself have condemned them by describing their conduct as ‘criminally neglectful’.
++++++++++
CC: I believe that there is simply not enough evidence available to the public to conclusively lead anyone watching this story, no matter how clever he/she may be, to come to a decision which they should wholeheartedly believe.
REPLY: But many of us believe differently - and if the totality of the evidence against the McCanns were to be set out fully here, it would be enough in the minds of the majority of people to satisfy them that Madeleine died in Apartment 5a in Praia da Luz and her body hidden. That to my mind is proved to a very high degree of probability. How she died is another matter altogether on which we have relatively little evidence.
++++++++++
CC: Aside from that, here are some things I wonder about:
1) Wasn't there some kind of evidence made public that they never sedated the other two children - hair analysis or something? I think I recall something about that - but not sure, and like many things in this case, it could be spin... but didn't that come about at some point?
REPLY: What the McCanns did was this. They waited four months. They then went to a drugs-testing agency whose identity, so far as I know, they did not disclose. They proclaimed that the agency found no evidence of sedatives being used on the children (the twins). But they did not disclose what drugs they were tested for.
Now, what use is that? The presence of drugs in the hair is usually eliminated after 3 to 6 months. We don’t know what drugs they tested for.
But the fact that they undertook these tests only after four months tells us a lot. They weren’t willing to risk it before. And they won’t disclose the results. It looks to me - and many others - like a clumsy attempt to try and prove that they never sedated their children.
++++++++++
CC: Weren't the police officials in Portugal in charge of this case also scrutinized in the media for some pretty unethical means of "wrapping up" other cases, involving some very "intense" ( for lack of a better description) questioning/investigating of "suspects"?
REPLY: What this boils down to is a pathetic attempt to smear Goncalo Amaral. The complainant is one Leonor Cipriano. To read the British press, you would never realise that Leonor Cipriano and her brother Jose Cipriano were convicted of child murder and covering up the murder of Leone’s child Joana, aged 8, murdered because she caught her mother and uncle having incestuous sex together. There was ample for forensic evidence plus confessions from both parents. Leonor Cipriano now claims she was beaten into making a confession. Her claims are very dubious, to put it mildly.
And, on the evidence on which the jury convicted them, her allegations have no bearing on her guilt for a terrible crime. It should be noted that the evil couple claimed first of all that Joana had been abducted and went on national television sobbing about the loss of their precious daughter etc. etc. It was a desperately difficult criminal investigation, but the man who successful secured the convictions in this case was the senior investigating officer, Goncalo Amaral.
The vilification of a good detective, Goncalo Amaral, is to the eternal shame of the British press. I have covered this in much more detail towards the end of Madeleine McCann General Discussion Thread No. 23.
One other thing I will say about this. The fact that you associate Goncalo Amaral with the unethical clearing up of another case proves two things: (a) the outstanding success of Clarence Mitchell’s PR work on behalf of the McCanns (to date), and (b) the laziness and supineness of the British press which has failed to tell us about Amaral’s formidable success in this most gruesome case.
++++++++++
CC: Why would so many people with lives and reputations to protect (the friends of the McCann's) be involved in such a conspiracy, knowing how much they have to lose, and how awful they could end up looking? Knowing a little toddler was missing, or hurt, or dead? Would the friends all really cover, as it is likely more than one would know something - even if it was just that things were not as they seemed, that the stories didn't jibe - though perhaps they could give no definite answer as to what happened. Personally, I truly love my friends, but don't think I could gloss over a kid gone missing or odd behavior or discrepancies in a story. The level of heartlessness involved from so many seems unlikely - not to mention the level of serious trouble they could get into... that alone would scare out of me the facts as I truly know them to be.
REPLY: They would all be in serious trouble of it transpired for example that they were all into sedating their children, contrary to recommended medical practice and of one of them had been killed as a result. Remember too that there may be other things that were going on that we don’t know about. A credible account of how both David Payne and Gerry McCann were once overheard making sexualised remarks about ther own children was given to British police within 10 days of Madeleine’s disappearance. The couple who overheard their remarks on a previous holiday were so alarmed that they would not let Gerry McCann near their apartment.
++++++++++
CC: Is it not possible that someone other than the McCann's and their friends were involved in this?
REPLY: As well as, maybe.
++++++++++
CC: It doesn't seem the most likely case, given everything else we've heard, but is there anything to fully rule that out? Without ruling that out, can one really be sure?
REPLY: Just look alone at the evidence from the cadaver dog (Eddie) and the bloodhound (Keela) alone. Then look at the extraordinary things - I counted at least seven of them - that the McCanns said back in September 2007, when the cadaver dog evidence first surfaced. That evidence is powerful evidence that Madeleine died in Apartment 5a and her body may be have been conveyed in the Renault Scenic that they hired.
++++++++++
CC: Based on the prior question, is it rational to so firmly 'believe' one has an answer?
REPLY: Yes, entirely rational, when you look at the totality of the evidence in this case. And we are only saying we have some answers, not every answer.
++++++++++
CC: And finally, here is my suspicion and opinion, which amounts to very little even in my own mind ( see the last point I made regarding "things I truly believe"):
I think it is likely the parents are hiding something. However, I don't really know what that may be. I think that their behavior regarding her disappearance is very strange, but at the same time, I wonder if there is one, and only one, means of grieving, of dealing with a crisis, of dealing with the humiliation of horrible parenting made public, and its consequences made public, of dealing with the media during such a crisis? No, clearly not... so I must grant them that.
I don't have all the facts. I only have various pieces of 'evidence' and speculation as the media has presented, and who knows to what degree any of that is whole or real. Still, based solely on what has been presented in the media, it is hard to escape that something is up with these two... as the many theories here have examined... The smell of corpses, the traces of blood, their behavior in the media, the odd reactions of their friends, their lack of solid answers to certain questions they should be able to answer, all lead one to think something is up with these two, and possibly a few others who know the real score... but what is up with them, I really don't know, and what that real score is, I also don't know... That said, I would not be surprised if they were found somehow responsible for their daughter's disappearance...However, unlike many here, I remain unsure.
REPLY: I respect that and am sure we all do given your stated reasons. Quite apart from the evidence in this case, we must also bear in mind that in 99% of all cases where the parents of young children claim that their children have been abducted from their very own homes (or temporary holiday addresses abroad), it turns out later that the children are dead, either by accident, negligence, neglect or deliberate act, and a member of the family is responsible.
++++++++++
CC: And last but not least...
I predict we will never know, or if we do it won't be for a VERY long time. With the level of exposure, I think there would be some kind of more solid lead by now, and that given the intense interest and outrage surrounding the story, it is unlikely that this would fade away in light of any real lead. I suspect she is likely dead and we won't know any time soon... This is very sad...
REPLY: And due to heavy interference by the British government, which I have summarised elsewhere
++++++++++
…but also the reason why the speculation should and will continue, and (scary though it may be - thank goodness this isn't a jury in a court of law) we can carry on having fun and feeling clever.
REPLY: Please believe me, Cuddington Carol, we do not in any sense do this to ‘have fun’ or ‘feel clever’. You have badly misjudged the intent of all the McCann-sceptics on here (and elsewhere) if you think that for one moment. All of the McCann-sceptics that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting on this forum share, I am sure, my own conviction that this is about getting truth and justice for Madeleine, who has been denied this by her parents and those helping them. It has been well said that the dead have no-one to fight for justice for them but the living. We do this because we believe that little Madeleine herself would want us to pursue the truth about what happened to her, which plainly the McCanns and their advisers and PR people are, so far successfully, hiding from us.
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