I suspect I am not alone in feeling deeply uncomfortable at the coverage given to Robert Murat, the man being questioned by Portuguese police over the disappearance of three year old Madeleine McCann. The Daily Telegraph had a huge picture of him on their front page this morning and the 24 hour news channels are giving him blanket coverage. He hasn't been arrested, he hasn't been charged, yet the media are acting as if he's been banged to rights already.Today, he won his case and has been awarded £550,000 damages. The British press got off lightly in my opinion.
The last time this happened was in Ipswich when a man was given similar treatment over being questioned over the death of the murder of the five prostitutes. He was released without charge, yet his life was left in ruins after he was turned over in the media. News editors should be asking themselves some searching questions today.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Murat Wins Court Case
Last May I didn't make myself very popular with THIS post, where I defended Robert Murat, the man subjected to disgraceful newspaper headlines regarding the Madeleine McCann case. I wrote...
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27 comments:
Oh come on Iain. There was no court case. There was an out of court settlement. The amount was not AFAIK £550,000 which is the amount the parents won for their charity. It was six figures between 11 newspapers.
Correction and apology. The BBC online are reporting that the amount is exactly the same. Seem to be vaguer on the News Channel. Sorry again. But he won damages NOT a court case.
Absolutely delighted for him, and pleased to see that you took up the cudgels on his behalf.
The witch-hunt that developed in the aftermath of the little girl's disappearance was an absolute disgrace.
What about the Portuguese Police who obviously encouraged all the lies around Madeleine's disappearance, to hide the fact that their record on paedophile abduction is woeful, including covering up the paedophile actions of Portuguese politicians.
Welcome to the EU where politicians rape your children, and then get your friends arrested for doing it.
Barroso knew of longterm reports of paedophile abuse in Portuguese children's homes when he was Prime Minister, and did nothing.
Brussels is the world centre for child prostitution. EU couldn't make it up.
Interesting that yet again the Daily Star and the Express are coughing up,just weeks after a half million pay out to the Mc Cann`s.....No Class these days but thats the price you seem to pay for being owned by a porn baron!!!
Classic example of lazy policing: fit up the local weirdo. Colin Stagg, anyone?
At worst, all Murat ever did was take the same sort of interest in the case as the newspaper journalists were themselves displaying!
So he's not still an official suspect then?
I think that’s right Iain but somewhat off topic this seems a suitable moment to suggest that chemical castration is the only way to go with paedophiles convicted by a court rather than by the Press. The Spectator gave us a bit of an insight into the world of these ...”people” concerning the case of Roger Took
“The five-year-old girl cowers naked and crying in a corner. She is so frightened that she urinates. One of the men in the room hits her repeatedly. The others laugh. Another man picks her up and throws her face down on the bed. Then the men rape her. She dies soon afterwards of atrocious injuries.
This is the scenario that the respected art historian and curator, Roger Took, boasted repeatedly about in internet ‘chat rooms’ to fellow paedophiles. In the chat rooms, Took relates how a Dutch man bought the child in Cambodia, kept her for a week and how Took was part of the group who enjoyed ‘splitting her apart’ one night. After Took was arrested last April, the police interviewed him in connection with the child’s murder but Took insisted it was mere fantasy and the police passed the case on to Interpol. Fantasy it could be, but the fact so many like-minded men laughed and masturbated over a helpless child’s torture, terror and death is chilling and profoundly disturbing.
Roger Took was sentenced this February to a minimum of four and a half years in prison as part of an indeterminate sentence for 17 other crimes relating to child abuse. They included molesting two of his step-granddaughters and the possession of 260 photographs, including 102 ‘Level 5s’, which mean they contain images of children being tortured or penetrated, including by animals. One photograph showed a penis entering the vagina of a baby. Many images showed small children shackled to chairs or bars, in obvious pain”
( Spectator )
Not exactly easy reading is it . Gives you a bit an idea what that relatively innocent sounding ‘convicted of having images really means’ We might also wonder why Rose West is sitting in a comfy cell whining about her sausages when she did all this and more many times . Surely she should not be alive.
That was the first post of yours I read. Good one too.
Actually Iain, the case was settled out of court before it went to trial.
chris paul - when will you run out of hairs to split - soon I hope.
Rushing in to criticize with incorrect facts (which at least you correct), you conclude:
"... he won damages NOT a court case."
Nah, nah, ni, nah nah ... I got you Iain !
Bloody child.
I said something similar in my blog at the time, also mentioning the Barry George case & the thousands of schoolgirls kidnapped & sold by our KLA friends. It looks likely that Barry will get justice but the Kosovo schoolgirls remain unpersons to our media. Indeed with del Ponte admitting knowing the KLA had been dissecting people & selling us the organs their fate looks worse than ever.
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/search?q=murat
Well done Murat. Now for Max Mosley: hope he stiffs the News of the World for a couple of million.
Our press is the worst in the world for invasion of privacy and salacious scandal. Choke, Murdoch,choke.
High time that the Mccann's stood trial to sort out, did they or didn't they.
Surely, the answer is to stop buying the bags of shite masquerading as tabloid newspapers?
Hang on. Didn't Verity assure us that Murat was guilty as Hell? Didn't she give us a long list of reasons why he had to be the one? Did she use the phrase "mark my words"? Oh, dear...
Doctor Syn said...
"Hang on. Didn't Verity assure us that Murat was guilty as Hell?"
Verity doesn't live here any more.
She has gone off with her tail between her legs.
Nice one, From what i see the bloke has been wrongly accused. I just hope the amount awarded is enough to repair the damage!
You have a good editorial style and sometimes take a view that does not have great exceptence in the tabloid media.
I miss Verity
Vervet ... Murat did not win Court Case. Iain's headline is wrong. How is it childish to point that out?
For the moment Murat is still officially a suspect but that is irrelevant. The papers could not stand up their claims. Publishers are not allowed to libel suspects, accused, defendants or even convicts.
Murat will be in court on Thursday to hear "live" apologies from at least some of the offenders.
"The British press got off lightly in my opinion."
Couldn't agree more. £550,000 divided between 11 papers is very light for what the crowing bbc (rightly, for once) described as just about the worst thing you could be accused of.
Chris Paul, July 15, 2008 3:37 PM
.... £550,000 which is the amount the parents won for their charity.
Chris Paul - what charity would that be then?
There seems to be the attitude in large sections of the press that they should just publish any and every unsubstantiated rumour they hear if it will sell papers. If 1 in 10 of those whose lives you ruin sue you; you still profit overall from the sales of the other nine stories.
It's woefully cynical and until there are some major changes in the regulation of the press it's only going to get worse.
Me too. Always combative, usually right, didn't take any PC bull & knew why Singapore is doing better than us.
Chris Paul is only almost right on his pedantic point. There will still be a statement read in court. To say "out of court" suggests he knows little about court procedure in defamation cases.
On the substantive point, however, Iain is totally correct. The press got off very lightly. As for the ghastly Lori Campbell of the Mirror, she should sacked and never employed by any paper again. It is one thing to pass on a suspicion to the police (correct), quite another to make a news story out of it.
PS - Am blogging on the Mosley case if anyone is interested
Verity doesn't live here any more.
She has gone off with her tail between her legs.
Really? That is excellent news. Whilst I make it a point to read Ian's front page most every day, I haven't bothered much with the comments for some while because her presence made them so unpleasant.
I don't know why Verity isn't amongst us. However, she has often taken 'holidays' and then reappeared to help make life a misery for leftoid twats. Hope she comes back soon.
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