20-09-22, 14:32
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Re: Madeleine McCanns' Parents LOSE Legal Battle Over Portuguese Detectives' Allegati
Madeleine McCanns' Parents LOSE 13-Year Legal Battle Over Ex-Portuguese Detective's Allegations
Kate and Gerry McCann had taken legal action over former Portuguese detective inspector Goncalo Amaral over his false suggestion that they were involved in Madeleine's disappearance
BBC News 20 SEP 2022
A court has ruled against Madeleine McCann 's parents in the latest stage of their 13-year legal battle over allegations made by a former Portuguese detective inspector
Goncalo Amaral led the initial investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance
The European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that the Courts in Portugal did give the McCanns a fair hearing after they tried to claim damages against the retired officer who alleged they were involved in Maddie's disappearance.
Goncalo Amaral only led the initial investigation for a few months before being replaced, after the three-year-old disappeared on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, on May 3, 2007.
No trace of the young girl has ever been found.
Lawyers for Kate and Gerry McCann argued that the Portuguese Courts had breached their right to respect for a private and family life in the way the courts there dealt with their libel claims against Amaral.
Kate and Gerry were questioned by police in September 2007, but later cleared of any wrongdoing.
In April this year paedophile Christian Brueckner was named as Portuguese police's prime suspect for the first time.
Madeleine McCann's parents break silence after losing 13-year legal battle with ex-cop
Former Policia Judiciaria officer Amaral made his allegations in 2009 memoir The Truth Of The Lie.
The allegations were dismissed by Portugal’s attorney general Jose Pinto Monteiro, and there is no suggestion the McCanns did any wrong-doing.
Madeleine's parents, from Rothley, Leicestershire, lost their civil reputation case before the Portuguese courts and appealed their claim to the ECHR claiming that the former inspector's statements damaged their reputation, their good name and their right to be presumed innocent.
They also complained that they were unable to obtain redress before the domestic civil courts of Portugal.
They argued that the reasoning in decisions issued by the Supreme Court of Portugal on January 31 and March 21, 2017, at the close of an action for damages brought by them, breached their right to be presumed innocent.
Madeleine McCann vanished on holiday in 2007 No trace has ever been found of the girl
In a judgment published on Tuesday (September 20) the ECHR found that the couple's reputation suffered by the fact they were made official suspects in the case for a short time.
And that that information was in the public domain, rather than Amaral's comments.
The ECHR said: "The Court considered that, even assuming that the applicants' reputation had been damaged, this was not on account of the argument put forward by the book's author but rather as a result of the suspicions expressed against them, which had led to their being placed under investigation in the course of the criminal investigation (the prosecutor's office decided to take no further action in July 2008) and had led to intense media attention and much controversy.
"The information had thus been brought to the public's attention in some detail even before the investigation file was made available to the media and the book in question was published.
"It followed that the national authorities had not failed in their positive obligation to protect the applicants' right to respect for their private life."
Kate and Gerry McCann
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