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Matthew Baggott says it was correct 'not to put the record straight'
over false reports about Madeleine McCann case.
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Kate And Gerry McCann, who were awarded
£550,000 damages by Express Newspapers for inaccurate
reporting in 2008. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images |
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The UK police were right not to "put the record straight" over false
reports claiming Gerry and Kate McCann were implicated in their
daughter's disappearance, the Leveson inquiry has heard.
Matthew Baggott, the former chief constable of Leicestershire police,
told the inquiry on Wednesday he could not have released information
about DNA tests conducted in the UK to counter leaks by the Portuguese
police that falsely claimed they showed the McCanns had hidden Madeleine
in the boot of a hire car in Portugal.
Baggott said there were both legal and professional reasons for this.
Portuguese secrecy laws made it "utterly wrong to have somehow, in an
off-the-record way, have breached what was a very clear legal
requirement upon the Portuguese themselves", he told Lord Justice
Leveson.
He also said the Leicestershire force's priority was to maintain a
positive relationship with the Portuguese police, with a view to
"eventually ... resolving what happened to that poor child".
Last November the Leveson inquiry heard how the Daily Express reported
there was DNA evidence that could show the little girl's body had been
stored in the spare tyre well of a hire car.
It turned out the analysis conducted in the UK was "inconclusive" and
there was no foundation for making that allegation. Express Newspapers
paid £550,000 damages to the McCann's in 2008 for inaccurate reporting
by the Daily Express and the publisher's three other titles.
Leveson asked Baggot about evidence submitted by a Daily Star crime
reporter two weeks ago that the Leicestershire police "knew perfectly
well that the results didn't demonstrate that", and could have given
off-the-record briefings to British journalists not to report a DNA
link.
"Even with the benefit of hindsight, sir, I'm still convinced we did the
right thing and I think integrity and confidence, particularly with the
Portuguese, featured very highly in our decision-making at that time,"
said Baggott.
He added: "So the relationship of trust and confidence would have been
undermined if we had gone off the record in some way or tried to put the
record straight, contrary to the way in which the Portuguese law was
configured and their own leadership of that."
When they appeared before Leveson late last year, Gerry and Kate McCann
told how they were left distraught by false claims in the UK press that
they were responsible for their daughter's disappearance or her death.
Leveson later accused the Daily Express of writing "complete piffle" and
"tittle tattle" about Madeleine McCann. |
