Tag Archives: McCanns

McCanns, Libel and the press

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Warning: This is a blog. It is personal opinion. There is no evidence that Kate and Gerry McCann killed their daughter then created a media storm to mask their evil deeds. If you do not wish to read personal opinions please read no further.

Now, generally speaking, I am not the biggest fan of the UK media in general and I am certainly not a fan of tabloid press. I find both the Daily Express and the Daily Star to be offensive, trashy newspapers. Despite this, today I feel sorry for them and, part of me feels there has been an interesting twist in the UK law courts. From the BBC news website:

Madeleine McCann’s parents have welcomed a libel settlement and apology from Express Newspapers for suggesting they were responsible for her death.

In a statement the McCanns said they were pleased that the newspaper group had admitted the “utter falsity” of the “grotesque” stories written about them. [followed by]

The papers said: “We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance. “

OK, on the surface this seems reasonable and for years the tabloid media has been getting away with printing nonsense stories. However, this has normally been seen as just the way the tabloids print “news”. The idea that they can now be taken to court where I think something interesting has happened.

First off, as a sort of position statement, I think that, while there is no evidence Kate and Gerry McCann actually killed Madeleine there are a few issues that strike me as odd. Not least of these is the very fact the McCann’s felt the need, while under so much pressure to find their daughter, to take out a libel action against the newspapers. There was a risk they could have lost, and if so the “find Maddie” fund would have had to cover their expenses. Even though they have won it brings them no closer to a conclusion to the whole sorry deal. All this, coupled with the very existence of a “family spokesperson” leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Compare and contrast this with the behaviour of Shannon Matthews mother when she went missing. In the early days there was no hint of rich benefactors funding a “find Shannon” account, there was no family spokesperson and, with the recent media hints that the mother was in fact to blame, no signs of a libel action. Why is that? Is it because Karen Matthews is pretty much a “working class oik” while the McCanns are upper middle class professionals?

Anyway, before I wander too close to the line at which the McCanns decide to take legal action against this blog (they can have every single penny this blog has earned to date if they really want…), the other ramification of this case is how it may influence others.

Keeping with the topical nature of the McCanns, lets use Robert Murat as an example. Here we have an example of someone who the general media has declared guilty since pretty much day one. In Mr Murat’s case this is not the newspapers making sly allusions that he may be guilty, pretty much everything written about him says he is the “one.” The Daily Mirror even printed an ironic tirade by friends of the McCanns heaping more suspicion on Murat:

Fiona Payne, Russell O’Brien and Rachael Oldfield insisted they saw him outside Kate and Gerry McCann’s flat on the night Madeleine, four, was snatched – despite his denials.

Despite all this, there is not one shred of evidence that Murat was the criminal. Can we expect to see a large scale libel action? (Well no, Murat doesn’t have a huge fund to bankroll such things…).

In fact, pick up any paper any time of the year and you will read articles in which people are made out to be things they are not. Suspects in rape cases are often named (with all the ensuing problems) but I can not recall a single time, when someone was found innocent, a retraction was published.

Using the Mirror as an example, a while ago a children’s TV presenter Mark Speight was implicated in the death of his girlfriend. For the whole time, he was linked in a manner that would make the casual reader assume the weight of evidence was against him, then today they print an article headlined: “Kids’ TV star Mark Speight won’t be charged over girlfriend’s death.” That is it. No huge payout to assist the investigation into her death, no front page apology. Just a short piece to say he wont be charged.

Amazing isn’t it.

At least now, thanks to the McCanns and their tireless crusade for justice, everyone who has a slightly negative mention in the press can use the vast fortunes of rich strangers to fund their legal defence cases…

[Cynical footnote: I sometimes wonder if the legal action was at least partially motivated by the fact the McCanns have pretty much dropped off the media radar, and since the Shannon Matthews case everyone had pretty much moved on – their donations may have even been starting to dry up…]

Commenting on excuses

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In case commenting on comments isn’t pleasingly toroidal enough for you, this post is a comment on the BBC’s comments on its own coverage of the McCanns. (A piece by Peter Horrocks, head of TV News)

As someone who watches way too much Lawn Order for their own good, my immediate response to the Madeleine story was a mite cynical from the start.

My cynicism deepened as the parents became a media attraction for the whole world. There was huge public engagement in praying for Madeleine’s safe return. The parents got an audience with the Pope and attended services all over Europe. Sunday attendance of any number of Catholic churches was massively boosted by appealing pictures of a wide-eyed three-year-old girl stuck on their noticeboards and invitations to join in praying for her safe return..

I was appalled at the idea of belief in a god who must be an almost inconceivably evil bastard if he could easily save a three-year-old from a horrific fate but was too selfish to do it unless lots and lots of people asked him really really nicely.

But then I’m an atheist so I could hardly have an interest in people believing in a divine being that was at least as humane as the average non-omnipotent “sinner”. We all know god hates amputees. Maybe he feels the same aversion to 3-year-old girls.

The British media has turned this into a ubiquitous daily concern. Until a couple of weeks ago, the family have been presented as saints, who made a simple mistake. Every non-development of the case has been filtered through the wider families or the parents’ odd profesional spokespeople.

The xenophobia shown in the British media’s contempt for the Portuguese justice system has added another unpleasant aspect to the whole show. It is assumed that the Portuguese police are comedy Clouseau figures who couldn’t solve a crime that took place inside a police station without framing an innocent devout Catholic pair of English doctors. The Portuguese media was portrayed as completely irresponsible, when they first suggested the police line of enquiry might take that this turn. By the British tabloids. Yes, really. I did say the British tabloids.

Now the pendulum has swung wildly in the opposite direction. The formerly-sainted McCanns are now treated as fair game for public pillorying. The sound of the media desperately covering its own back is almost making an audible swoosh.

Even the BBC is in there, trying to justify its coverage in a pretty comical way. This piece tries to meet the critics who claimed that following the McCanns home in a helicopter and showng them on pretty well every news item, even when there is no news, is pretty unjustifiable. Their excuse is the extra millions of people who’ve watched the news because they have followed the story avidly. (Yes, obviously, that must include me.)

Debates about whether they’ve been treated in particular way because they’re of a certain class, for instance, is just speculation – individuals’ own views. People are entitled to their own views, but I don’t think that should form part of our news coverage.

I don’t think we have been biased in favour of them. In particular we’ve stressed all along, but especially in the past few days, how important it is not to refer to them by their Christian names. There’s a danger in over-familiarity. I know that many other TV and radio networks have been absolutely extraordinary, always talking about it in terms of sympathy and their feelings.

So what he is saying is that the fact that this is a professional couple has nothing to do with the more or less completely sympathetic coverage? Come on. Please. Does anyone believe that? Other children go missing on a distressingly regular basis but the cases get nothing like this level of coverage. If you doubt the class basis of the UK media concern, see the Observer’s May article as an example.

On the front page of most newspapers yesterday, the family portrait of the McCanns testifies to the image of middle class stability. No single parent – more easily accused of fecklessness – here. Gerry McCann is a cardiologist, his wife a GP. Exercising responsibility is ingrained in their respective professions. Yet the voices of critics challenging the McCanns’ considered decision are already being heard, fuelled by hindsight

This was basically saying – in unbelieving horror – people have even dared to challenge doctors’ right to leave their toddlers alone in a strange hotel room. That article goes on to say “Which of us hasn’t made mistakes with our kids?” and to claim, in contradiction of the evidence, that it would be OK, or at least a borderline case, under UK law. Obviously not for feckless single parents, of course, but these ARE doctors.

Another strand in the coverage is the McCann’s Catholicism. They are almost always referred to as “devout” Catholics. So obviously they couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong as Catholics don’t ever commit crimes… Their very Catholicism is in itself a mite eccentric by the UK’s social standards.

Very few people in the UK go to Church regularly. By Christian standards, Catholics are better attenders than Protestants but even Catholics don’t normally go to Church every week, let alone every few days. Young science professionals are particularly unlikely to attend any Church. Which makes it odder still that the family’s Catholic adherence has been a very central theme of the whole event. And that prayers – so blatantly proving ineffective – have been central to the exhortations to the public.

Returning to the BBC editor’s piece, the claim that the BBC didn’t call the parents “Kate” and “Gerry” is odd. This cannot by itself characterise the BBC coverage as completely objective. I love the “particularly in the past few days” bit. The writer is basically saying – well we may have been uncritically pro-McCann-family until the Portuguese police started “liking” them (in the old NYPD-Blue-speak). Now we’re afraid that we’ve backed the wrong horse, along with the rest of the media, and we’re stepping back a bit from our previous viewpoint.

During the whole course of this event, there have been only the slimmest bases for anyone in the media to present anything as “truth”. This situation is basically unchanged now from a month ago, but the media pendulum has swung from “saints” to “demons” and will probably swing back.

Apart from anything else, would it be possible to find a judge or jury who haven’t heard so much about this case that their opinions have been formed long before they hear any formal evidence? There would be no chance for anybody to get a fair trial.