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News from a UK tabloid that the parents
of Madeleine McCann are banking on money
donated to the Find Madeleine Fund to
pursue former PJ policeman Gonçalo
Amaral through the courts has caused a
major stir on social media - not least
because the couple vowed in 2007 that
this could never happen.
A report in Sky News said nine years ago
that trustees had announced that “Money
from the Find Madeleine campaign will
not be used to fund Kate and Gerry
McCann’s legal costs"..
Sky went on to affirm that the McCanns
“had already said they would not use the
cash - more than £1 m - to pay any legal
bills, even if the trust had let them”.
But according to Jerry Lawton of the
Daily Star, this has all now changed.
Forging ahead with an expensive appeal
against the decision by three Appellate
judges in April to exonerate Amaral
(click here), the McCanns are
effectively going for broke, explains
Lawton.
They have been ordered to pay both their
own and Amaral’s court costs, he said,
but this will clearly be suspended while
their new “legal bid to silence the
former detective” is considered by
Portugal’s Supreme Court.
“If they lose, the legal bill could wipe
out the Find Madeleine Fund set up using
public donations to help the search for
their daughter”, Lawton warns.
A friend of the couple confirmed the
situation, saying the parents from
Rothley have been left “exasperated”.
“If they lose there will be a big legal
bill to pay”, said the friend -
confirming the money would have to “come
from the fund set up to find Madeleine”.
Commentators who feel the coordinator of
the original police investigation was
well within his rights to freedom of
expression to pen his damning book
“Maddie: A Verdade da Mentira (The Truth
of the Lie)” are beside themselves.
Retweeting the link to Lawton’s story,
the consensus on social media is that
the couple is prepared to use money that
was not donated to fund court battles.
“This is misuse of funds”, a source
writing into the Resident has
complained.
Even though Amaral’s defence has been
funded by donations (click here), the
source said this was very different to
the situation of the McCanns.
“The difference is that Amaral’s money
was donated specifically for his legal
costs and for no other purpose”, said
the source.
“The Madeleine Fund is specifically for
the search for Madeleine, and the
directors said at one point that it
could not be used for legal expenses”.
Former trustee and one-time GMTV
presenter Esther McVey - who only a few
months later resigned from the Fund and
went on to become a Conservative MP -
said the decision was taken despite the
fact that “it would be legally
permissible to use the money for a legal
defence”.
There was a “spirit which underlies the
generous donations to Madeleine’s fund”,
she explained in 2007, and it was this
spirit that trustees had the
“responsibility to steer”.
The row is exacerbating an already
difficult time for the McCanns: an ‘old
chestnut’ from the past, South African
Stephen Birch has resurfaced on social
media to launch a crowd-funding appeal
to buy the Praia da Luz home where, he
claims, Madeleine’s remains lie buried
under the driveway. |
