On
January 13th.,
2010, Gonçalo Amaral went to a court session about the appeal he has
made, against the decision of a lower court that ordered him to pay
Kate and Gerry McCanns half
a million euros, in libel damages and banned the sale of his
book. The parents of Madeleine McCanns argued that Mr. Amaral, in the
book “The Truth of the Lie”, accused them of faking their
daughter's abduction. On
February 2017, the Portuguese Supreme Court, on a final decision,
revoked the order to pay the damages and kept a earlier decision to
quash the ban on the sale of the book.
When
that court session finished and Mr. Amaral went out, a reporter from
BBC East Midlands asked him a question.
The
former police chief replied, in Portuguese, “Fala com os McCanns”
(“Talk whit the McCanns). Mike
O’Sullivan, the journalist, went on air, reporting that Mr. Amaral
said “F*** the McCanns”, and reproduced his answer with a
“beep”, instead of the first word.
The
BC journalist, in his report, said that his cameraman and his sound
technician both confirmed they hear clearly the word “F***”. No
other British journalist heard that word. Mr. Martin Brunt,
who was there and wrote a couple of posts in his blog “ALife of Crime” insulting all Portuguese journalists, likecalling “colhões” (“balls”) to the stories published byPortuguese Press about Maddie’s disappearance, came out
defending Mr. Amaral.
“My
New Best Friend”
was the tittle of his post, on January 15th.
“Spare a thought for my new best friend Goncalo Amaral. I’m
beginning to think the former detective in the Madeleine McCanns case
has a point
when he complains about the British media attacking him. My Beeb
colleague accused him of saying “F*** the McCanns” in an alleged
off-guard moment when we all followed him out of court the other
day”, he wrote.
Martin
Brunt finished the post with a ironical comment: “What he actually
said was “Fala com McCanns” which means “Ask the McCanns”.
The rest of us, through our interpreters, understood perfectly
what he was saying. I think he needs a good libel lawyer. Isabel
Duarte may be free when she has finished pursuing him over his book
on the Madeleine case.”
The
"Daily Star", on January 15th,
was
the only newspaper to print the truth (something not very common,
on that newspaper) and they wrote that "BBC bosses sparked a row
after accusing Goncalo Amaral of a four-letter tirade against Kate
and Gerry McCanns. They insisted the ex-detective said: “F*** the
McCanns,” when asked by a BBC reporter if he felt his allegations
were hurting the couple. But last night it was claimed he said: 'Fala
com McCanns,' which means: 'Speak to the McCanns".
The
recording was so clear that, as the "Daily Star" refers,
"rival TV companies refused to broadcast the footage after their
translators studied it. But it was broadcast, with the key word
bleeped out, by the BBC in the East Midlands."
British
newspapers took the BBC fake story as granted and made headlines with
it. Tom
Wells and Antonella Lazzeri
wrote, in “The Sun”: Vile
cop: F*** the McCanns”, on January 14th.
“THE ex-cop who led the Madeleine McCanns probe sparked new outrage
last night after launching a four-letter tirade against the missing
child's parents. Brazen
Goncalo Amaral spat, "F*** the McCanns"
when asked by a BBC TV reporter if he felt his wild claims about
their daughter were hurting them (…) Amaral, axed after leading the
abortive early investigation into Maddie's disappearance in 2007,
flipped
before entering a court
in Portugal's capital, Lisbon.”
Martin
Fricker,
on “The Mirror” had a story with this tittle: “Disgraced
Portuguese detective in four letter outburst at Kate and Gerry
McCanns”. Referring that Mr. Amaral was questioned by another
reporter, Martin Fricker wrote: “Disgraced
detective Goncalo Amaral yesterday let rip at Kate and Gerry McCanns
with a foul-mouthed outburst.
The former policeman was asked if his book about their daughter
Madeleine was hurting the couple when he
barked: “No, f*** the McCanns.” Amaral
then laughed
as he walked off,
despite being caught on camera insulting a couple who have suffered
so much anguish in recent years (…) reporter
Mike O’Sullivan said: “I was astonished, and
so was my cameraman, that
a former senior police officer could
use
a term like that against the McCanns.
It really was crude.”
A family
friend of
Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, added: “It’s
disgraceful and gives a true measure of the man".
Also
in “The Mirror”, a
piece of garbage named Tony Parsons,
a crude racist and xenophobic, insulted everybody, as it was his
habit, every time he wrote about Portugal and the Portuguese police:”
Maddy
McCanns cop adds insults to injury”, was the tittle of his
column. “If, as has been suggested in Portugal, there was a “media
circus” around the disappearance of Madeleine McCanns, then it is
the
Portuguese police who are the clowns. Cruel, stupid, spiteful clowns
(..) The Portuguese police were shown up as a bunch
of clueless amateurs
by the Madeleine case, and – shamed,
embarrassed, infuriated
– they turned their rage on the McCanns (…) Even now, the
Portuguese cops treat Kate and Gerry McCanns with a grotesque lack of
respect.
Asked if he cared that he had hurt the McCanns, Goncalo Amaral told a
BBC reporter: “No, f*** the McCanns.” A
class act, that fat copper, who has sought to make money out of a
stolen child
– and the endless grief of her parents."
BBC
took almost one year to react and never apologized to Mr. Amaral.
Only after dozens of complaints from viewers the Editorial
Complaints Unit (ECU)
analyzed the case and had a soft conclusion, excusing the reporter:
“The
reporter's belief, reinforced by others on the program team who
viewed the recording, was that Sr Amaral had indeed used an English
phrase which included an offensive term
applied to the McCanns. On
further examination, however, it became clear that Sr Amaral had been
speaking Portuguese, and that an inoffensive phrase had been
misconstrued."
The
decision taken was that, "in future, the team plans to use
interpreters if clips from interviews are unclear"...
No comments:
Post a Comment