Square One

 1. Introduction

Those who read us know that we’re rarely, if ever, optimistic. That doesn’t make us pessimistic. We like to have as a motto for our attitude to preclude the worst, hope for the best and prepare for the likely.

In the case of the Lisbon trial, the likely was the best. So we were prepared for it.

It was not a ‘not-if-but-when’ instance because it remained vivid in our memory the disappointment we felt when hearing of the 1st Instance Court decision, one only comprehensible if one understands that the judge went beyond what the plaintiffs had argued for and totally beyond what the proven and unproven facts she herself stated and decided to question whether Mr Amaral, taking into account his particular profession, could have legally written the book when he did, which was before the case was officially archived.

When 99.99% said that the decision would be in favour of Mr Amaral, the First Instance court judge hit us with that remainder 0.01% and decided in favour of the McCanns, sentencing Mr Amaral to pay them 500,000€ in indemnity, an amount completely unheard of between private claimants in Portugal.

We first got to hear on Monday at 22:10 that the Supreme Justice Court session was going to take place on the next day, Tuesday.

That would mean a decision (one of many) reached, written up (one of many) and released the next day, on Wednesday.

So we prepared ourselves to spend Tuesday waiting.

So it was quite a surprise when a friend of ours, on Tuesday at 15:13 told us, via my FB message that Mr Amaral had won:

It is quite a memorable experience to try to type when caught by surprise and filled with exhilaration and excitement, so much so that even the simplest copying and pasting becomes a task equivalent to solving a mathematical equation while juggling 3 raw eggs.

It took me 2 whole minutes to write the simplest of posts on FB at 15:15:

“http://www.stj.pt/ficheiros/tabelas/Decididas/Civeis/1s-2017-01-31.pdf

Mr Amaral has WON!!!”


2. Winning v Not Losing

With all we shared that mixture of feelings of rejoicing seeing justice finally prevailing and of sadness upon fully realising the unjust distress the man suffered because of such tardiness in the serving of said justice.

It was a day of mixed feelings but what mattered was that finally Mr Amaral had the shackles taken off his ankles. His days on the receiving end of this case before the Portuguese legal system are over.

Not wanting to douse the enthusiasm of anyone, let us say that we were wrong when we said that Mr Amaral had won. In terms of the case, he won nothing and it is very important people realise that.

In fact he has lost much in this case. He has had to pay his lawyers – here a word of gratitude to all who contributed to the GoFund initiated by Leanne Baulch that significantly helped him in this aspect for his legal defense against the appeals in the Appeal and Supreme Justice Courts – but also has lost years of his life in court proceedings.

Yes, he won his assets back, which is immensely important but they were something he should have never lost. But winning back is not the same as winning, it’s just not losing.

Not losing is not the same as winning. We wrote a post about that back in September 2014 called “Losing v Winning”.

Then we said and maintain:

“The McCanns will not lose in the damages trial in Lisbon. In fact, they cannot lose it.

Please read on – it's not what you are thinking.

Before you think we have turned our coats on the issue, we haven’t. Please read again what we have written.

Those words do not state a personal opinion. We’re stating a fact: the McCanns cannot lose as much as Mr Amaral cannot win.

The outcome for the McCann, as they are the plaintiffs, is only one of two: they either win or they don’t win.

The outcome for Mr Amaral, as he’s the defendant, is only one of the two: he either loses or he doesn’t lose.

For the McCanns there’s no losing, for Mr Amaral, no winning. For the first, the worst case scenario is them not winning, for the latter, the best case is not to lose.”

So when we said Mr Amaral had won, what we should have said was that Mr Amaral had not lost. But that wouldn’t be as much fun nor pay justice to the immense happiness we were feeling then.

But the time has come to return to earth and that is what happened: Mr Amaral didn’t lose the Supreme Justice Court decision and that means the McCanns didn’t win it.

Hopefully we soon hope to show the reader why this is so important.


3. Banned v Allowed Book

The reader might say, as the papers have said, that he has won the right to publish his book.

This is wrong because outside the short period between the sentence of the First Instance Court of the Cautionary Action and it being revoked by the Supreme Justice Court on refusing to accept the appeal by the McCanns against the Appeal Court sentence of overturning, the book was never banned.

People have to be aware that on Jan 30 2017, Mr Amaral’s book was not banned in Portugal. The Supreme Justice Court sentence did not change that fact, it confirmed it.

To understand, the statement of banning the book during this process:

- From publication to First Instance Court sentence on the Cautionary Action by the McCanns to ban book, book ALLOWED.

- First Instance Court sentence on Cautionary Action, book BANNED. Because we were dealing with a Cautionary Action, the Court’s sentence takes effect immediately. We explained how a Cautionary Action worked in our post “Dura Lex Sed Lex”

- From First Instance Court sentence to Appeal Court sentence on the Cautionary Action, which ruled to revoke the First Instance Court sentence, book BANNED because the McCanns appealed this sentence to the Supreme Justice Court.

- From Appeal Court sentence to the Supreme Justice Court sentence on Cautionary Action, book BANNED.

- Supreme Justice Court sentence on Cautionary Action, upholding the Appeal Court sentence on Cautionary Action, book ALLOWED.

- From Supreme Justice Court sentence on Cautionary Action to First Court trial sentence, which was to ban book, book ALLOWED because Mr Amaral appealed to the Appeal Court.

- From First Instance Court trial sentence to the Appeal Court trial sentence, which was to revoke the lower court’s sentence, book ALLOWED. Not because of this court’s sentence but because, as the McCanns appealed to the Supreme Justice Court, things were kept as when the First Instance Court trial decided, which was book allowed as per above.

- From Appeal Court trial sentence to Supreme Justice Court trial sentence, book ALLOWED.

- Supreme Justice Court trial sentence, upholding the Appeal Court trial sentence of revoking the First Instance Court trial sentence, book ALLOWED.

So, as it can be seen, outside those months in 2010, the book was always allowed.

Unlike with the Cautionary Action to seize Mr Amaral´s assets which was decided at First Instance Court level and only on Jan 31 2017 was a final decision taken – in favour of Mr Amaral – that made it void, so only then could have them back.

The difference between the 2 is that the Cautionary Action on the book was designed to prevent outcomes, the spreading of possible slander and possible profiting from that outcome, while the one on the assets was to prevent Mr Amaral from getting rid of his estate and then not have enough money to pay a possible unfavourable sentence.

Back to the book, one must note that never for a single day, hour or minute was Mr Amaral’s book banned in the UK or in any other country.

Whatever has impeded its publication, it isn’t the Supreme Justice Court’s decision that will change that.


4. Square One

So all those claiming that the McCanns should be arrested because of the Lisbon trial decision is without reason.

To be clear, the McCann v Amaral (& Others) in Lisbon was a legal attempt by the couple to seek financial compensation for damages caused by the publication of a book written by him.

Not once, as we pointed out, was fact discussed. All was based on the right that the assumption (not declaration) of innocence guaranteed the couple and which was breached by the fact the book stated that they were involved in her death and disposal of her body.

Note the discussion was around if Mr Amaral could legally say what he said and not whether what he said was true or not.

On January 31 2017, the Portuguese judicial system declared that he could say what he said but never declared that what he said was true.

The McCann legal team made sure that would never be said.

If Mr Amaral had won he would have proven his point but because he simply had not lost it just means the McCanns were unable to prove theirs.

If one wants to be prejudiced one can say that said decision can be interpreted as Portugal protecting one of its citizens irrelevant of truth in the exact same way the UK has done so blatantly with the McCanns.

Do note that it all came down to a battle of rights, meaning that nowhere was it said the McCanns were wrong and shouldn’t be enjoying the right of a good name derived from their presumed innocence. Or, to say it in other words, for the public the courts to recognise the McCanns had a point and they just favoured Mr Amaral’s.

The slant given to the Supreme Justice Court session by the media, by saying it was a secret one, seems to support clearly this prejudice.

To be very clear, that decision was taken as secretly as were all others that day. In fact, as secretly as any decision taken by that court. The judges meet to decide and they do it behind closed doors as they should.

Interestingly, no one mentioned this sort of secrecy of the Appeal Court decision as it was done in the same manner. And in that spirit one could also say that the First Instance Court judge locked herself up in a secret room to decide in favour of the McCanns. Ridiculous to say the least.

Anyone putting a cloak of secrecy over the Supreme Court Justice decision is clearly inferring an agenda.

Legally, the McCanns are as guilty today as they were on January 30. The court decision cannot be used against them.

So what has changed since the Lisbon trial decision?

The answer is simple, after that decision, we are in Square One of the game.

Note, we did not say we were BACK on Square One. We are saying that we are finally on it.

All these years, what has happened is that the players have been choosing the colour of the pieces they wanted to play with, deciding on tactics to use when the game began, setting up the board to that effect but they never actually played the game.

Now that there are no more loose ends in Portugal, the players can line up at the starting line, grid, square or whatever one wishes it to call it.

We have called it Square One.

That’s why all these years we have linked the outcome of the Lisbon trial to the outcome of the Maddie case. We said that only then would the game begin.

The fact that it hasn’t started before Tuesday has proven us right.

The Ben Needham game, which has been played alongside Maddie’s for years – although we must confess that we only realised that last October – is also on its Square One.


5. Hypothesis

Both games have the same possible outcomes:

#1 – Silence: Stop speaking about case. Archival in Maddie’s case – which leaves things as she being abducted and that’s it – and continuance of status quo in Ben’s.

A very realistic outcome in both cases. In Ben’s, it seems that the very vague official death by accident in farmhouse proximity served together with the media’s that the digger did it, seems to have comforted the British public – after 3 months and a half no one but us is questioning the official thesis – so why not use the same arrogance and haughtiness with Maddie?

With Ben it was, he’s dead, and now we promise to look for his body if something new comes up; with Maddie it will be we tried really hard but… and now we promise to look for her if something new comes up. Now go home.

#2 – Patsy:  In Ben’s case, South Yorkshire police would confirm officially that it was Dino Barkas whodunnit at the farmhouse even if it goes against logic, reasoning and above all, common decency.

In Maddie’s case would be the Third Option, we suppose in its latest version, the child trafficking gang. That or some other invention depending on which direction the sick winds of inspiration happen to be blowing at the moment.

#3 – Truth: Expose the real culprits of the cases.


6. The reaction

Although the game has only started now, it is its final stretch.

It‘s expected for all sided to pull out all their big guns.

So it’s very important to watch attentively for each move. Please keep in mind that not to move is a move, so one has to keep an eye on what is moving and on what is not.

In terms of moving ‘stuff’ what we have seen up to now was the media reporting on the trial decision, Kate McCann and the Missing People Choir on Britain’s Got Talent and the threat of libel to anyone daring to publish the book in the UK.

a. Media reporting

Not very good for the McCanns.

The media made it very clear that Mr Amaral, the detective who was responsible for the investigation of Maddie’s disappearance in Portugal says in the book that the parents were involved in covering-up her death.

It also made very clear that the McCanns are broke as we spoke about in our post “Follow the money”. But this has a slight twist to it. As the articles are about legal proceedings it is making it clear that the McCanns are spending the money donated to them on this instead in what it was intended for. Wasting donated money and going bankrupt while doing so.

Also the media is making it seem the McCanns have accepted  that this the end of the road for them on what concerns Mr Amaral. It’s ridiculous to think that they didn’t consider a possible negative outcome from the court when they submitted the appeal to it, so them now showing the need to consult with their lawyers is ludicrous. They went after Mr Amaral with donated money and have come out of it with a hand filled with air and penniless.

Not saying, as was said previously, that Mr Amaral is to receive anything from them. He doesn’t have to and the media has that clear by saying that while a court sentenced the detective to pay a ridiculous amount to the couple, which was overturned by 2 higher courts. It also makes clear the McCanns face humongous court costs.

Not a word, as far as we could see, of Mr Amaral getting anything from the McCanns.

This silence makes Mr Amaral less the bad guy that has been portrayed in Britain for years. Him not being the bad guy, someone or some people must take that role in the plot. There is always a bad guy or guys in a narrative.

b. Britain’s Got Talent

Kate McCann’s participation in Britain’s Got Talent has all the hallmarks of being a staged event. No, not an event on a stage, but a staged event.

Who has ever heard of secret auditions in a program where contestants thrive on publicity? One just has to see all the backstage clips from those shows to see how eager everyone is to get their 15 minutes of fame.

Then, it’s supposed to be a part of a campaign to get visibility for a Missing People campaign and they do it secretly?

Lastly, it’s was, supposedly on Sunday but the media only decided to report it late Tuesday, after the unfavourable verdict had come out from Lisbon. Coincidence, we think not.

Kate’s talent, as far as we could understand, was not to sing but was to read a speech. Really? Read a speech in a secret audition? To whom? To the jury and no one else? Where is the visibility in that?

By having such an odd secret audition, one can be led to think that it was something that never happened but was written up to be fired off as soon as any news came from Lisbon.

That Missing People has no qualms in lending their name to the McCanns is not exactly a novelty. They have been warned plenty of times but continue to insist on keeping Mrs McCann as an ambassador. So it’s unsurprising it seems to have no shame dragging in the names of Claudia Lawrence, Lee Boxell, Luke Durbin, Sandra Hall, Lucia Hawkins, Charles Horvath, Quentin Godwin and Alice Gross to support the Maddie hoax.

Interesting to see that within a campaign called ‘Find Every Child’ of the 9 cases listed 6 are of adults: Quentin Godwin (18), Luke Durbin (19), Charles Horvath (21), Claudia Lawrence (35), Lucia Hawkins (42) and Sandra Hall (56).

If Britain’s Got Talent has also decided to lend their name to this hoax is up to whoever is responsible for deciding about this show. However, one cannot set aside the possibility of the secret show having taken place.

What matters is that the message is clear: Oh woe is me!

The McCanns pleading – or someone for them – that they are to be spared because their name is joined at the hip with such a noble cause. A plea for clemency.

If cringing was measurable, its measuring unit a ‘pathetic’ and the scale went from 1 to 10 ‘pathetics’, we would say this effort rated around 422 pathetics.

Also, taking into account that this is the time to call for the big guns, with all due respect for Mr Cowell, we think that he’s rather insignificant when compared with the firepower the McCanns – or someone for them – were able to muster back in 2007 and in the following years.

The sympathy campaign did not go well on Loose Women either. The overall feeling was that it distanced itself from the McCanns.

c. Libel threat

We think the Daily Star article has been put together using some old info. There are no direct quotes from McCanns or anyone else about the court case.

The quote by Clarance Mitchell goes back a long way and forgetting that he has been publicly fired by the McCanns.

The Sun echoed the article and added the inaccuracy that the funding for Operation Grange was given up to August.

Having the Daily Star and the Sun as the platform to issue a threat is not the best way to have it taken seriously.

The book has been read by millions and if need be, it can be published outside the UK in English and be purchased online. All publicity helps but how many other books wished to have all the good publicity this one already has?

We are divided between this being someone stirring the pot or an orchestrated effort to make the McCanns look even guiltier. Or both.


7. Not moving

If we have observed what has moved, so to speak, one must notice what hasn’t.

Now that the game has really started, is the time to show the true colours.

One particular corner of the internet has remained strangely quiet. A corner of the internet in which Operation Grange is to it as Scientology is to Tom Cruise.

For years, even before Operation Grange was set up, it has been a very reliable gauge as to what the establishment was up to.

Its silence tells us that no decision has been taken as to what Operation Grange will or can do next.

Silence is something that has the ability of not telling whether they will pounce or if they will just start to whistle singing in the rain and archive the case.

And if Operation Grange is in the balance so is everything else.

The media doesn’t exactly know what to do or say, so plays safe and doing what the Portuguese say “uma no cravo outra na ferradura” or, translated, one on the horseshoe nail the other on the horseshoe.

It says that the parents are involved in Maddie’s disappearance and simultaneously continues to fiddle play the trafficking gang tune.

The first, they say, was said by Mr Amaral and the second they say was said by Scotland Yard.

The first statement is true and the second is not. Mr Amaral has said in his book that the McCanns were involved in her disappearance but Operation Grange has never mentioned the gang, very much like South Yorkshire police never having mentioned that Barkas did it.


8. Milestone

If in the Ben Needham case, silence, or total lack of action is a real, not to say likely possibility, in the Maddie case it simply isn’t.

Operation Grange has to come to a conclusion. No way around that.

Even if to say they will dissolve and go silent. And that has a very limited timeline: end of April.

That’s when – according to British criminology science – the crime is no longer of interest because there are no more public funds for it.

We are counting that by then all will be clarified.

The players are on Square One but the decision is on one person and one person only: Theresa May.

She, and only she has to decide between 2 options, in our opinion.

The first is how much she needs the British elite for Brexit – with this we are not implying the elite has voted for Brexit or Remain, what we are saying is that we think she may feel she needs the elite,  irrelevant of vote, for what she has decided to do.

As we have explained there is no way to nail the McCanns and T7 alone. To go for the truth she will have to judge if only hitting those with a social status below Freud will antagonise those above him and who she needs support from in these times of uncertainty.

The second, is to balance between the credibility the UK will gain if it transparently goes for the truth and the lack of by maintaining this malignant farce.

If she decides on the first she will have opted for silence, if she opts for the second she will decide for truth.

That simple. All up to her.

But we have skipped option #2 – Patsy.

If the 2 mentioned above, #1 – Silence and #3 – Truth, are possible (we would say the only ones possible) in a scenario of logic and reason, option #2 – Patsy has suddenly become a possibility with the new age we’re living in.


9. Alternative fact

The problem with options #1 – Silence and #3 – Truth is the current era we live in.

It hasn’t been called anything yet, so we will call it the “Alternative Facts Era”.

Everyone has heard about it but we doubt that many have really thought about the implications and the reasons why it has happened.

One day we might write about it and how the Maddie case played a very important role in the blooming of this new era.

But for now, we have gone from distrusting the media to disbelieving it. Before, the media told some lies, now it tells only lies. The truth is selectively chosen by each one.

The movement that had the objective of fighting the establishment’s use of the media to manipulate has just been manipulated into welcoming that exact same manipulation.

We will try to explain by using colours. Some, like red, blue, green, orange, yellow and pink already have political connotations. So we will use shades of purple: lavender, violet, mauve, raisin, grape, thistle, magenta, mulberry, wine and eggplant.

With the objective of discrediting the media as it has been achieved, all the establishment has to do is place a magenta news item in a magenta newspaper and that will make all the magenta people even stauncher in their magentaness.

It is completely irrelevant if it’s true or not.

As colourless truth no longer exists, whatever the magenta newspaper publishes is for the magenta people the magenta truth to be followed by the magenta believers.

Whatever the lavender, violet, mauve, raisin, grape, thistle, mulberry, wine and eggplant media publish will be a lie, even if it’s true. And to these, whatever the magenta media says is a lie, even if it’s true.

And if whatever the avender, violet, mauve, raisin, grape, thistle, mulberry, wine and eggplant media publish that disproves what the magenta media has, that proof will be disbelieved by the magenta people and just taken as the effort of others to propagate falsities against them.

For the other purples to send the magenta people to look for fact is as useless throwing a stone into a lake and hoping it will float.

And do spare the magenta as the same happens in lavender, violet, mauve, raisin, grape, thistle, mulberry, wine and eggplant communities.

It’s a delirious situation whereby the other side only tells the truth when their words agree with us, and in all the other areas where they don’t, which just happens to be the most, then they’re just being utterly stupid.

No need to check facts. If what is said is in accordance with what one believed before it was said, it’s true, if it doesn’t, it’s not.

Everyone refuses to adjust their filters.

To establish a parallel between this and the Maddie case, and because we do have the experience of what we’re talking about, we have repeatedly and exhaustively sent the pro-McCanns to read the PJ Files, to read facts.

Have they? We know they have but have publicly denied ever doing that except when those facts benefit them. Have facts that we told them to check ever changed the opinion they express publicly about the case? No, it hasn’t.

They have acted like the described of the magenta people above all these years and we watched, and now suddenly the world has become filled with pro-McCanns on all subjects.

People have closed themselves in a personal reality wherein whatever the media reports that is pleasing is true and whatever isn’t is a blatant lie. As said, no fact checking needed, it’s either truth or lie simply because it is what one wants to read.

And when challenged what is the most common response? “Trust me, all you read is not true, I KNOW”.

When one asks another person, what would it take for you to think the way the other side does, the answer always is “Oh God, NOTHING, nothing on this earth would!!” showing the flexibility of one’s receptivity to listen. But always expecting the other side to do so.

And the establishment smiles and manipulates.

It will continue to publish magenta news in magenta papers and lavender news in lavender papers irrelevant of what truth or fact is because they have the certainty that the lavender people won’t check facts and if they do, they will set aside whatever is inconvenient.

All this to say that if the establishment decides to go for an “alternative fact” conclusion to the case, it is free to do so.

Note how the Britain’s Got Talent episode is within the parameters of what we have just said above. It’s as if Kate read her speech and the tears she is said to have caused the judges are from an alternative world.

The reader will say that it can’t happen because the reader will be there to protest tirelessly. Sorry to douse enthusiasm but to protest today is so common and expected that it is almost like saying that one is extraordinary because one is able to write.

In this scenario, option #2 – Patsy is feasible. It has already been tried and with apparent success with Ben Needham.

All the establishment has to do is put out a version of events that is vague enough that will be impossible to confirm and then simply not listen, much less respond to any question anyone has to ask.

The only thing stopping it is the credibility the United Kingdom is to feel it needs at this point in time with both the world and its citizens.


10. Conclusion

The Lisbon trial decision has put an end to loose ends of the case in Portugal.

Now the real game has begun, and indeed it has.

In all of the above we have not mentioned the current PJ investigation. For us it will simply follow whatever suit is decided in the UK.

All the pieces are set to pounce on the McCanns, however that is only a possibility which weighs as much as the others.

For us, there’s only one certainty: the Maddie case has to have a conclusion before the end of April.

As for us, we will again return to observation perch and watch. Return when and if we think necessary.

To do, for example a post on the real importance of the make-up picture and evidently it has nothing to do with paedophilia. We don’t want to but if we have to, we will.

Our lasts words on this post, could not be other than congratulating Mr Amaral on the outcome of the trial.

Sir, please try to overcome the best way you can what has been taken away from you and cannot be returned.

We have fought in your corner all these years and your plight deserves that we continue to do so.