It's Called Collusion... Well Not Really

It is in fact another fine post from John Blacksmith entitled, Beneath the smoke and mirrors. And if you're wondering, it's not about the Six Counties either.

Beneath the smoke and mirrors

Our friend Clarence Mitchell was honoured by his peers in the trade for his achievement in swinging opinion behind the McCanns. Since the acknowledged supporters of the pair were numbered in millions before his appointment and stand now, according to the bright new petition,at some thirty thousand plus, there might be something amiss with their assessment.

There always is. People who work in the news and presentation industry have a natural tendency to over-estimate the importance of their trade. And sometimes the sheer scale of the noise and excitement can draw the rest of us into thinking that the media fuss represents what is really going on.

For the interviews, the acres of newsprint, the campaigns, the PR triumphs and disasters – what have they all actually achieved?

Delay.

Nothing more has been accomplished, not victory, not defeat, not the elusive “clearance”, just delay. And what is delay but the temporary suspension of hard reality, not the reality itself? The last three and a half years amount to one long delaying squirm by the people at the heart of the affair, dramatic, newsworthy, fascinating but ultimately futile. The longer they try to disguise the truth, the worse it continues to get.

It all derives from one decision by the parents and some of their friends, something that can never be undone, for the evidence about it is known, documented and continuing to surface. We are moving to the later stages of the slow – agonisingly slow - demolition of their case piece by piece, not in the media but in the interview rooms, the lawyers’ offices, the courts and the judges’ chambers.

It’s called collusion


As we pointed out to Mr Simmons, the oldies are the goodies. The examples we gave were all linked and they stand out with increasing clarity amid the litter of answered questions (the ones that didn’t matter, such as the “tenth tapas”) and discarded theories (Gordon Brown, where are you?). They all represent the doomed attempt to escape the charge that they colluded to conceal the truth of what happened on May 3.

As is well known the Tapas 7 won substantial libel damages regarding their behaviour on May 3 and afterwards, without testifying in court. According to a statement by Mr Adam Tudor of our friends Carter Ruck, some of the settlement was for claims that “the friends had covered up the true facts and misled the authorities”, in other words that they had not told the truth. The newspapers did not defend the action.

That was in October 2008: three months after the prosecutors’ archiving report and release of the case files; six months after the rogatory interviews, the details of which, however, were not known to the UK press at that time; over a year before the Lisbon gagging injunction hearings. If only the archiving report really had meant the end of the case!

Shall we repeat the “libel” but with the incontrovertible evidence this time that the newspaper lacked? more