The McCanns To Testify About Press Intrusion? Well, That Should Be Fun

R.F.Wilson writes from London: This is getting really funny: Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry, set up to look into the way the press operates in Britain in the light of the phone hacking revelations and journalists paying off cops for information, is going to hear evidence from Gerry McCann, part of the now famous double act, Kate and Gerry McCann, about press intrusion into his and his wife’s lives.

What press intrusion? The McCanns have manipulated the press with such skill that it allowed them to raise millions to finance the search for their daughter Madeleine, who had gone missing from their holiday apartment in Portugal in May 2007. Incidentally, the press that has been supposedly ‘harassing’ the couple didn’t really raise the most important issue about this whole matter: why didn’t social services in Britain take away two other small children from the McCanns whom they left alone with Madeleine while they were having dinner with friends at the local restaurant? Social services are usually very determined to take vulnerable children into their care, if they suspect parents of not looking properly after them. So how come the McCanns were given special treatment?

Anyway, the Leveson inquiry is actually going to waste its time on listening to Kate and Gerry’s tearful story of how they were mistreated by the newspapers. I hope they manage to keep a straight face while he is doing it and the members of the inquiry wouldn’t burst into sarcastic laughter themselves. Because the McCanns should be the last people in Britain, if not the world, to complain about press intrusion. They have become celebrities ever since their daughter disappeared, all thanks to the media giving them way too much attention and not really asking any tough questions. They can complain as much as they want about press intrusion but in reality they depend on this coverage in their supposed search for their daughter. I say ‘supposed’ because it should be crystal clear to them by now that she is dead and has been dead for the past four years.

But the McCanns wouldn’t be the only strange choices to be giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry. There is also actor Hugh Grant, who has been able to revive his career prospects on the strength of having been a ‘victim’ of phone hacking by the News of the World. In the real world Mr Grant should be grateful to the press to be still interested in him and his pathetic films, but as he was once caught out by hacks picking up a hooker on the mean streets of Los Angeles, Hugh wants revenge. Without actually realising that he looks like an idiot in his desire to prove that he’s been a victim of press intrusion. Still, a nice addition to Gerry to make a strong case for regulating the press so that it would allow pricks like them to get away with whatever it is they want to get away with and still enjoy the coverage that they would want to see in the press.

There’ll be other strange people giving evidence as well this week, but the real question is this: why the hell does everyone allow a bunch of pathetic celebs and grieving victims of press intrusion to actually decide how the press should operate? These people shouldn’t be telling anyone how the press should be run. They are all getting their compensation and raising their public profiles anyway, so they can go to hell with their hurt feelings. Especially Gerry McCann.

–End–

11 Comments

1. Zora McCartney says:

   November 21, 2011 at 11:48 am

   For the life of me, I don’t understand why the McCanns were given core participant status at the Leveson inquiry. Ever since the bumper payouts from the Express and NOTW, they’ve been treated with kid gloves by the UK media. No doubt they have injunctions preventing the reporting of the Gaspar statements and God knows what else. Interesting too, the Kate felt so ‘mentally raped’ by NOTW’s publication of her diaries that she happily accepted a princley sum from the very same newsgroup to serialise her book!
2. Poppy Miller says:

   November 21, 2011 at 12:27 pm

   #McCanns? Experts in running-with-the-hare and hunting-with-the-hounds. Read-my-lips
   poppymeze. blogspot.com/2011/08/twenty-questions.html
3. Rocki says:

   November 21, 2011 at 12:41 pm

   CRIMINAL PROFILER PAT BROWN FACEBOOK
   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Speech-and-the-Case-of-Missing-Madeleine-

   Just a few examples of their criminal activity . Robert Murat would have been hacked, I would imagine the ‘fraudulent fund’ will cough up to keep him silent.

   MCCANNS SUED FOR LIBEL
   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/11/hackgate-leveson-mccnns-sued-for-libel.html

   PAEDOPHILE ALLEGATIONS:
   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/11/leveson-hackgate-drgerry-mccann.html?spref=tw

   MCCANNS FRIENDS SETTING UP ROBERT MURAT
   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/11/hackgate-leveson-vodaphone-robert-murat.html

   THE FUND NEEDS INVESTIGATING FIGURES DO NOT ADD UP
   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/11/leveson-pressreform-mccanns-fund-needs.html
4. Rocki says:

   November 21, 2011 at 1:43 pm

   How crazy has this become, the same dog that alerted to the death of Madeleine McCann also alerted in the Kate Prout murder. Sky News have censored cadaver dog alert !

   http://steelmagnolia-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com/2011/11/mccann-sky-censor-cadaver-alerts-in.html
5. BlackCat says:

   November 21, 2011 at 10:49 pm

   I have a sneaking suspicion that there was NO neglect of the children…because the children were NEVER alone! Paulo Rebelo, who picked up the investigation after Mr. Amaral was dismissed believed that the children were all together in one of the apartments and someone (adult, either one of the Tapas9 or someone else) was babysitting them. This was discussed in the portuguese press. They had to say the children were alone in order to make their abduction story credible/possible.
   NO children left alone = NO neglect = NO abduction possible
   Children alone in apartments = Children vulnerable = opportunity for abduction by evil stranger
6. Zora McCartney says:

   November 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm

   Ah yes, the cadaver dog….Gerry’s claim that these dogs are ‘notoriously unreliable’ is totally contradicted by Kate’s claim that the cadaver scent detected on her clothing came from the SIX corpses she came into contact with in her 1.5 day a week job as a GP BEFORE she went on holiday i.e. 3 months prior to detection. Like so many things in this case, this just does not add up. 
7. Rocki says:

   November 23, 2011 at 12:14 pm

   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/05/hacgate-day-120-mccanns-spokesman-andy.html

   McCann and the key players in the cover up of their childs death !
8. Rocki says:

   November 23, 2011 at 12:16 pm

   http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/11/leveson-inquiry-kate-mccanns-diary-well.html

   The diary and Kates obsession with paedophiles
9. Rocki says:

   November 23, 2011 at 12:19 pm

   I will not be watching this afternoons drama performance but for those who want a ‘view’ of whats to come…be my guest !
   http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/03/gerry-mccann-oral-evidence-transcript.html
10. S_N_A_F_U says:

    December 1, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Poppy Miller are you by any chance posting as Adult Miller on Sky?
11. S_N_A_F_U says:

    December 1, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Zora McCartney, whilst I sincerely believe that Kate & Gerry are responsible for what ever harm befell their daughter & should at the very least be charged with Child Neglect ( for starters ), there is in your post the mention of the Gaspar Statements. Do not fall into the trap of giving credence to Katrina Gaspars statements. They are Totaly irrelevant to the events that occured in appt.5a in PDL, they are Not evidence of a crime & K. Gaspar destroys her own credability as a witness when she finishes her description of what she alleges DP did around the diner table on a previous holiday by crossing into the realms of fantasy when she claims
    “I imagined that he maybe visited Internet sites related to small children. I thought that he may be interested in child pornography on the Internet.”
    You can Not convict anybody of a crime based on ” I imagined ” & ” I Thought ”
    She did Not witness him visiting any such Web Sites & had No proof he was interested in Child P’orn “  Any Prosecutor presenting Imagination & Thoughts as Eveidence would be laughed out of court & deservedly so !
    Therefore lend no credence to K.Gaspars tainted statememts & the Paedo Ring Theory spouted by many, which I believe is a Red Herring by those involved in Crime to Divert attention away from the Scientific Evidence that a Suspicious Death occured in Appt.5a in the Ocean Club in PDL