Chapter 29: Fake News
Chapter 31: Jon Clarke – Olive Press LIES and VIDEOTAPE
Chapter 32: On Lies and Conspiracies
Chapter 33: Jon Clarke Entrenched Lies
In view of the seriousness of this issue and of the allegations, the chapters in question and some of the comments from CMoMM have been forwarded by the MMRG to the NETFLIX Producer and Director - Emma Cooper, and Chris Smith.
By PeterMac (28 May 2019)
What can Clarke now do ? He has a few options
He could utilise the standard McCann Defence.
Sue someone – for something
Or more realistically think carefully about his options
1 Say and do nothing – and hope it will all pass over and be forgotten.
2 Continue to maintain that his story is correct and everyone else is wrong
3 Apologise, correct, explain, and beg forgiveness
Each of these has certain problems
1 Say and do nothing – and hope it will all pass over and be forgotten. This option passed a very long time ago, probably by early June 2007. The McCanns and their money have kept it in the public eye for the past decade. And given the level of global interest it is not simply going to pass and be forgotten.
Every time a journalist publishes or says something different from what has been said before, the interest is renewed and a tighter focus is put on the point raised.
So this option will simply exacerbate the situation, as the diffusion of the core lies and the clamour for explanation increase exponentially.
2 Continue to maintain that his story is correct and everyone else is wrong – has the unfortunate problem that there are three different, contradictory and incompatible stories, so Clarke would have to choose one of them, and discard the other two before he could adopt this posture. He would then have to deal with those two before he could attempt this. (Or possibly even come up with a fourth and say the previous three were false.)
3 Correct, apologise, explain, and beg forgiveness.
Correction, apology and explanation do not seem to be in the lexicon of any of the participants in this saga. The McCanns have never apologised for “leaving the children” – leading to the perhaps justified suspicion that in fact they didn’t. For Clarke to do this would be astonishing. He would have to admit three separate and mutually irreconcilable lies, perpetuated over a 12 year period and published in global media. He would have to admit to the world that he had deliberately and cynically mis-led many people on significant issues concerning the disappearance and probable death of a little girl; his readers, his advertisers, and the producers at Netflix.
He might also be pushed to come clean about what actually DID happen.
To set the record straight in fact. And that may be a step too far. We understand that.
He was highly paid for what he did, and is clearly still paid for it. An audit trail might lead back to his handler and ultimately to whoever is coordinating the campaign, and they might not be willing to be exposed by a ‘maverick’ suddenly breaking ranks and going ‘rogue’. Given that some deaths are already associated with this case, he might feel he is in physical danger. He is no stranger to this, and made much of it in his book “The Costa Killer”. So no one would blame him for not wishing to join the late Dr Kelly, Mike Todd or Brenda Leyland.
That does not condone his continuing mendacity, his serial invention of new versions, new stories, new sightings, nor stop us condemning him for having done it in the first place.
But given that his personal reputation has been destroyed by the very medium of film which he clearly hoped would enhance it; that his paper “The Olive Press” is now exposed as having published deliberate falsehoods over more than a decade; and that the internet is going to record these matters for all time . . .
perhaps he should do something.
He is trapped.
In the same way that the McCanns are trapped by forced and jemmied shutters, which weren’t
In the same way Kate McCann is trapped by curtains wide open, and curtains tight closed
In the same way they are trapped by the Pool Photo taken on Thursday 3rd, which wasn’t
In the same way Gerry is trapped by standing on the right, with Tanner and Wilkins on the left
To get out of the traps they have to explain why they said it.
Can we feel sympathy ?
Towards the McCanns for the death of their eldest child - undoubtedly. But for little else
To Clarke in his present predicament, if he refuses to correct, apologise and explain ?
More difficult.
To Jon – to Kate and Gerry – to the Tapas friends –
It is never too late to do the right thing.
* * * * *
Added by PeterMac today (30 May 2019)
Once again I have been criticised for taking a journalist's words at face value, and for not understanding that Clarke may be telling the truth.
So let us look again in detail at the words used in version 3.
“Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived later that morning. But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.
“A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry.”
I am told to consider that he may be, perhaps subconsciously, trying to tell us the truth ?
Is the truth that he did see the McCanns for the first time a few hours after he arrived - and as they were leaving.
We know that the McCanns left Pdl shortly after 1000 and did not return until 2030 at which point they went straight to their new apartment, and emerged only around 2200 to make their press statement by torchlight.
But 2030 or 2200 is not ‘a few hours later’ when compared with Clarke’s own reported arrival at 1145 (his timing), or 1045( Portuguese time), or even the 0945 that we have calculated it must more probably have been to fit the inconvenient facts into the equation.
That is 11 or 12 hours later.
So let us try to believe, and work back from his “a few hours later”.
’As they were leaving’ must therefore be ‘a few hours [after]’ his arrival.
Let us try to work these three statements together into a coherent whole, without assaulting his words too much
AMALGAMATION (MY EDIT AND ELISION)
Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived.
But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.
A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry as they were leaving. I introduced myself to them as the reporter from the Mail, and told them I would do everything I could to help.
They said “Hi”, and thanked me for coming and for reporting on the case.
This puts him in PdL or nearby the night before, or certainly in the very early morning of 4/5/7. Perhaps as early as 6 am. A long time before Len Port for example, and before the morning shift of the GNR and the PJ had arrived to take over from their colleagues on the night shift.
This would in turn explain much of his observed body language on the Netflix film, where he is relaxed and on friendly handshaking terms with the Senior GNR officer, who clearly know already who he is. Equally clearly he already knows his way around the area and its layout. He states as fact that he had never previously visited.
This scenario gives him time to have identified the apartment, and noted the tape and the few officers keeping watch during the night - but allows him not to have to describe the Forensic teams, fingerprint officers, dogs, vans, handlers, GNR officers, journalists, camera crews, and News presenters, all of whom arrived some time later, and which we can clearly see on Netflix were cluttering the scene and blocking the roads by 0900. He can cheerfully ignore them all, since he can say he was describing the earlier situation – when [he] arrived.
It also gives him time to wander south into the village, as Len Port did, and discover the roadworks which feature so strongly, but inaccurately, in the Netflix production.
In which case he may well have been “the first journalist on the scene”, he may well have found ‘hardly anyone [ ] around” and I may owe him an apology. If so, I offer it. Here. Now.
In return however we shall expect an explanation of when and from whom he received the phone call, what details he was given about the case, who instructed him on the angle his reporting was to adopt, the time he left home, where he stayed during the night of Thursday 3rd May 2007, and much else.
Including why he lied about it.
It may of course be either that this is a Clarification too far, or that I am totally wrong, and that three apparently incompatible untruths must stand, unreconciled and unexplained.
***********
Perhaps as an aside we should look at what the McCanns think of irresponsible journalism.
In Leveson the following exchange took place.
Dr Gerald McCann in reply to Lord Leveson: [Solecisms included]
“Thank you, sir. I would like to emphasise that I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but where you have people who are repeatedly carrying out inaccuracies and have been shown to do so, then they should be held to account. That is the issue.
I don't have a problem with somebody purporting a theory, writing fiction, suggestions, but clearly we've got to a stage where substandard reporting and sources, unnamed, made-up, non-verifiable, are a daily occurrence”.
Clearly the McCanns do not like irresponsible and mendacious journalism any more than any one else does.
“Carrying out inaccuracies . . . shown to do so . . . should be held to account . . .
“Substandard reporting and sources, unnamed, made-up, non verifiable . . . daily occurrence
For 12 years of egregious examples of inaccurate journalism, sub-standard reporting, unnamed, made-up, and non verifiable sources we need look no further than “The Olive Press”, and its Editor and proprietor Jon Clarke.
Whether he will ever be held to account is another matter.
* * * * *
1. Disgraced Olive Press Editor, Jon Clarke, and his THIRD version of the same story
2. PeterMac's new Chapter for his e-book: JON CLARKE - Olive Press Lies and Videotape
3. Jon Clarke's role in 'Maddie in US' claim
4. Jon Clarke, disgraced editor of The Olive Press: A paedophile took Madeleine McCann, not her parents
And from Google:
Consumer reviews about Jon Clarke Olive Press
Consumer reviews about Jon Clarke Olive Press Spain (Luke Stewart Media SL)
The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann review – a moral failure
Jon Clarke's response is to block me on twitter - that'll teach me for caring about what really happened to Madeleine won't it?
