JOINT STATEMENT BY DEBBIE BUTLER (CHAIRMAN) AND TONY BENNETT (SECRETARY) ON LEGAL LETTERS RECEIVED FROM CARTER-RUCK

As far as i can tell butler and bennett are'nt going to take it down and they are still posting out leaflets to those requesting them.

Mulleena wrote:As far as i can tell butler and bennett are'nt going to take it down and they are still posting out leaflets to those requesting them.

Are the pair of them on a death wish??
Or are they really THAT stupid?
Oh well...
Suppose if you're gonna go down, may as well go with a bang.

Peaceful1 wrote:

Mulleena wrote:As far as i can tell butler and bennett are'nt going to take it down and they are still posting out leaflets to those requesting them.

Are the pair of them on a death wish??
Or are they really THAT stupid?
Oh well...
Suppose if you're gonna go down, may as well go with a bang.

Think so, or a big splash .......glug glug glug.....

I see it, but I don't believe it - Bennett is arguing with Carter Ruck:

http://madeleinefoundation.org/main/2009....ine-foundation/

He was asked what he was going to do:

Reply by Tony Bennett

I cannot yet say whether we will comply in part or in whole or not at all.

We have taken initial legal advice and have been told that the issues are so complex, that the case is of national and international importance and that there is a great deal at stake for both parties, therefore we have been advised to seek further advice from a barrister.

I cannot unfortunately disclose what legal advice we have received and cannot anticipate what the barrister might advise.

We have asked Carter-Ruck for a short period of further time therefore in which to receive and consider that legal advice.

I can dislcose however that we are clearly advised that it is reasonable for us to seek a further slight delay in making a substantive response to Carter-Ruck, since the McCanns and their advisers were aware of the contents of our website and booklet back on 20 October 2008 – and for reasons we are yet to find out delayed for 311 days before taking any action whatsoever regarding the contents of either.

That is we suggest a wholly unreasonable delay, if the McCanns and their lawyers genuinely believed, as they now claim, that our website ‘threatened serious harm to the McCanns’ reputation’.
I would add that whenever the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell was asked about our actions, be it our website, the publication of our ‘60 Reasons’ booklet or our ‘10 Raesons’ leaflet etc., he has always responded with the same words: “We will not dignify The Madeleine Foundation by making any response”.

Dr Gerald McCann said the selfsame words in his blog entry for 19 August 2009, just eight days before Carter-Ruck wrote their legal letter

He doesn't get it, does he?

http://justathoughtyouknow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=guests&thread=115&page=17

christabel wrote:I see it, but I don't believe it - Bennett is arguing with Carter Ruck:

http://madeleinefoundation.org/main/2009....ine-foundation/

He was asked what he was going to do:

Reply by Tony Bennett

I cannot yet say whether we will comply in part or in whole or not at all.

We have taken initial legal advice and have been told that the issues are so complex, that the case is of national and international importance and that there is a great deal at stake for both parties, therefore we have been advised to seek further advice from a barrister.

I cannot unfortunately disclose what legal advice we have received and cannot anticipate what the barrister might advise.

We have asked Carter-Ruck for a short period of further time therefore in which to receive and consider that legal advice.

I can dislcose however that we are clearly advised that it is reasonable for us to seek a further slight delay in making a substantive response to Carter-Ruck, since the McCanns and their advisers were aware of the contents of our website and booklet back on 20 October 2008 – and for reasons we are yet to find out delayed for 311 days before taking any action whatsoever regarding the contents of either.

That is we suggest a wholly unreasonable delay, if the McCanns and their lawyers genuinely believed, as they now claim, that our website ‘threatened serious harm to the McCanns’ reputation’.
I would add that whenever the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell was asked about our actions, be it our website, the publication of our ‘60 Reasons’ booklet or our ‘10 Raesons’ leaflet etc., he has always responded with the same words: “We will not dignify The Madeleine Foundation by making any response”.

Dr Gerald McCann said the selfsame words in his blog entry for 19 August 2009, just eight days before Carter-Ruck wrote their legal letter

He doesn't get it, does he?

http://justathoughtyouknow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=guests&thread=115&page=17

His arrogance will be his downfall.

He is clinging to a life raft and inevitably sinking. Carter Ruck will have justification for a delayed response up their sleeve as an ace card. The Rothley drop dropped him in it.

The McCanns and their legal advisers gave him and his despicable followers enough time to reconsider their vile actions over and over again. K&G reluctantly decided at the last hour, after more evidence of outright harassment and ever more forum encitement to hatred and defamation, to make a legal move against this odious person. This shows that they themselves are not vexatious but are unwilling litigants who have been provoked beyond endurance into action. (I should have been a lawyer. I´d crucify him).

The man is a fool and is hanging on for rescue. Will his Barrister (God help him!) want to pit his wits against Carter Ruck????

Zavvi wrote:

Peaceful1 wrote:

Mulleena wrote:As far as i can tell butler and bennett are'nt going to take it down and they are still posting out leaflets to those requesting them.

Are the pair of them on a death wish??
Or are they really THAT stupid?
Oh well...
Suppose if you're gonna go down, may as well go with a bang.

Think so, or a big splash .......glug glug glug.....

The more I think about this the more i I believe that it will all end in a sigh and a winge and a whisper......but it will continue in some other form. To explain:
There is no way TB can afford a Barrister and an International court case, let alone win such a contest. My forecast is he will give way, moan and move his foul endeavours to continue to wreak havoc with the lives of K&G, from the perceived safety of an internationally placed website under yet another guise.

Unless it can be legally prevented under international law as it stands at the moment. Anyone know?

2 clues as to his state of mind made me think the above...the wingeing moan about the Carter Rucks being the most expensive libel team in the UK (why was this relevant?) and the moan at the end about waiting on the opinion of a Barrister. YES because his own lawyer or legal adviser has assuredly informed him he would need one, and that he would have a massive fight on his hands. And that all he can hope for now is a little more time. I am lovin this.....this is not schadenfreude by the way, this is retribution.

They won't publish it because they never publish anything I write, in fact they never publish anything unlsess it is saying yes Tony, no Tony, 3 bags full Tony and Oh look what a big brown nose I have got Tony!

It is now 2 hours after close of business on Friday 18th September and the MFoundation is still open and taking orders for the leaflet and the book.

What´s next folks?

You know, I actually, seriously think bennett believes he will win?!? His arrogance is blinding him to the truth, he just cannot see it, he really thinks he can take on the McCann's, Carter-Ruck et all and win!
:duh:

This is what bennetts wanted all a long a chance to have his day in court, I believe he is drawing up a list of witnesses he wants subpoena Dave Edgar and Martin Grimes being amongst them what a plonker!!

vee8 wrote:You know, I actually, seriously think bennett believes he will win?!? His arrogance is blinding him to the truth, he just cannot see it, he really thinks he can take on the McCann's, Carter-Ruck et all and win!

Vee, I think he is so deluded he thinks he can beat CR! He just doesn't seem able to grasp that everything he has said, done and published is based on a tissue of lies, gossip and innuendos? It is actually quite alarming for someone who was once a solicitor.

Can you imagine him in court? NOTHING of what he thinks is the truth is even going to be allowed, because it is 'hearsay' and hearsay is inadmissible in a court of law in this country. The idiot has not grasped that to prove himself right he first has to prove that Madeleine is dead and that her parents did it, and this is impossible for him to prove, so therefore anything he has to say is just neither here nor there and he will not win and this is without all the incriminating evidence I know they have on them both!

Besides this there are other things which may happen which he will also be forced to answer to

Well he wanted his day in court, let him have it and if he thinks he will be able to quiz the McCanns in court, he is very much mistaken, yet again, the man is a plastic coated idiot!

Madeleine Foundation replies to Carter-Ruck re Dr Gerald and Dr Kate McCann
Tony Bennett Today at 7:38 pm

Letter sent today (18 September) to Carter-Ruck

From: Tony Bennett M.A.
Tel: 01279 635789
e-mail: ajsbennett@btinternet.com
66 Chippingfield
HARLOW
Essex
CM17 0DJ

Friday 18 September 2009

Carter-Ruck
International Press Centre
76 Shoe Lane
LONDON
EC4A 3JB

Your Ref: IH/DH/13837.1
For the attention of Isabel Hudson

Dear Sirs

re: Alleged libel of Dr Gerald McCann and Dr Kate McCann-Healy

Following
your letter of 27 August and my e-mail of 11 September, and yours of 15
September, I have now taken legal advice as you suggested in your
letter.

In short, the advice received is that the legal issues
involved in replying to your letter are so many and so complex that the
advice of expert counsel is needed. I am not therefore in a position to
reply in full to your letter at this time as I had hoped.

I can
say that one of the many issues which counsel will need to consider in
detail is the delay in your clients taking the action they have now
done in threatening libel proceedings.

It was as long ago as
Sunday 26 October when, in response to the setting-up of The Madeleine
Foundation website on 20 October 2008, your clients’ chief public
relations spokesman, Mr Clarence Mitchell, was reported in The People
newspaper as saying, and I quote his words directly from the article:
“Our lawyers are watching him. They are constantly monitoring his
claims, which we consider are libellous”.

So, even before 26
October, nearly 11 months ago, your clients’ lawyers believed that some
of my claims (or those on The Madeleine Foundation website) were
‘libellous’.

Furthermore, the enclosed letter was sent to your
firm on 27 October under a Certificate of Posting, which we hold, from
Madeleine Foundation Chairman Debbie Butler. Virtually identical
letters were also sent direct to your clients, to their co-ordinating
lawyer Edward Smethurst, and to Mr Clarence Mitchell. That letter
clearly advised your clients that we were content to remove or amend
any statement on our website which they could demonstrate to be untrue.
That remains true to this day.

Our book: “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann?” was published on 7 December 2007, over nine months ago.

I
am advised therefore that your demands for an immediate response have
to be weighed against your clients’ inaction to date, despite your
clients having purportedly identified material as libellous before 26
October 2008. Clearly your clients having delayed action for so long
must allow me to take reasonable steps to deal with the many requests
and legal issues within your 27 August letter.

I need to inform
you that tomorrow (19 September) I begin a pre-booked holiday in this
country until 1 October. I shall then be out of the country from 7 to
16 October taking my Zagreb-born 89-year-old mother on a pre-booked
trip to Austria, again booked before 27 August, which was triggered by
a most unfortunate family tragedy when a close relative, film-maker
Gerhard Friedl, committed suicide in July. My mother will be visiting
and staying with his family. On both occasions I shall of course be
unable to deal with correspondence and on each occasion I shall not be
in internet contact. Please ensure that Adam Tudor makes very careful
note of that. Should you require proof that both holidays were booked
prior to 27 August, I can supply that.

It is very possible that
I will not be able to see and consider counsel’s advice before leaving
the country on 7 October. Given the complex nature of the legal issues
at stake, from which I am sure your firm would not dissent, and taking
into account your clients’ long delay in taking any action about the
contents of either our website or our book, my Solicitor considers it
would be reasonable to ask you to wait until, say, one week after
Friday 16 October, in order to be able to reply fully to your letter.

I
note your e-mail of 15 September in which you give me until 18
September to furnish you with a ‘substantive reply’. You quoted the
‘Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation’ which you showed me for the first
time by e-mail attachment on 15 September. You completely failed to
notify me of this Protocol, as you should have done, when you first
wrote your letter to me on behalf of the McCanns on 27 August.

It
is a matter entirely for you and your clients if you decide now to
instruct barristers to draft particulars of claim, writs etc. because
this letter does not contain a substantive response to your clients’
demands. However, I can be certain that should this matter proceed to a
court hearing, the court would take into account issues of
proportionality and fairness in deciding whether you had waited a
reasonable period for a response.

Factors that the court would
undoubtedly take into account, notwithstanding the two week period
mentioned in the Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation, include:

1) Your delay of over 10 months between the publication of our website and writing to me

2)
Your delay of exactly 10 months between the letter sent to you, the
McCanns, Clarence Mitchell and two other of the McCanns’ lawyers by
Debbie Butler on 27 October 2008 and your letter of 27 August 2009

3)
Your and your clients’ failure to take any steps to complain about any
of the specific contents of either the website or the booklet to me or
to Ms Butler despite specific offers to withdraw or amend any
statements in them that your clients could demonstrate to be untrue

4)
The question of why, if your clients claim, as they do, in your letter
of 27 August, that ‘the publication of the allegations complained of
self-evidently ‘threaten very serious harm to our clients’ reputations’
they did not act immediately to injunct the website and booklet and
apply for them to be, respectively, taken down and pulped at the
outset. If they had done, they could have avoided the damage they say
has since been done by hundreds of thousands of people visiting our
website and reading our booklet

5) The gross imbalance between
your clients who are wealthy enough to be able (several times) to hire
the country’s top libel lawyers - and myself, whose annual income is
below the tax threshold

6) The holidays, that I can demonstrate
have both been pre-booked, which will seriously interfere with my or my
Solicitor’s ability to respond within the 14-day period mentioned in
the Pre-Action Protocol

7) The undoubted complexity of the legal
issues involved in this particular and unique case which in all
fairness you must concede justifies a further delay whilst a
barrister’s opinion is sought - you yourselves know the complexity of
the issues.

I turn now in addition to the following relevant extracts from the Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation, which you sent.

First,
regarding the 14-day period you have given me for reply, you made no
mention of this in your initial letter received on 1 September 2009.
You should have done.

Second, in your further letter dated 16
September, you say: “The 14-day period is the period prescribed by the
Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation”. That is untrue and I believe a
deliberate misrepresentation of the Pre-Action Protocol. Given that
your website claims that you are ‘the most feared libel lawyers in the
U.K.’, you have a responsibility not to mislead those to whom you are
writing, and here the Professional Code of Conduct for Solicitors is
relevant. Principle 17.01: ‘Fairness’ states: “Solicitors must not act,
whether in a professional capacity or otherwise, towards anyone in a
way which is deceitful…”. I regard your statement that the 14 days is
‘prescribed’ as deceitful as you know it is not ‘prescribed’.

Indeed, the Protocol states the following, inter alia:

a)
“If the Defendant believes that s/he will be unable to respond within
14 days, then s/he should specify the date by which s/he intends to
respond”. That is what I am doing by this letter

b) “The
[Defendant’s] Response should include whether more information is
required…If more information is required [by the Defendant], then the
Defendant should specify precisely what information is needed to enable
the claim to be dealt with and why”. I do require further information
and this is set out below.

c) Paragraph 1.5 notes that the
overriding objective’ is to ‘deal with a case justly’ and the Protocol
goes on to define several relevant considerations, including the
following which seem to me to apply very much in this particular case:

(i)
ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing [clearly they are not
at the moment since Adam Tudor is reported to on a sizeable monthly
retainer for advising the McCanns on libel issues and the McCanns can
afford to instruct the most feared libel lawyers in the land
(ii) dealing with the case in ways that are ‘proportionate’
(iii) the importance of the case [given its international significance, that must be a factor in this case]
(iv) the ‘complexity of the issues’, and
(v) ‘the financial position of each party’ (see point (c) (i) above).

You
did not mention any 14-day ‘response time' in your initial letter, as
you should have done, and when you did mention it you claimed it was a
‘prescribed’ time limit when on perusal of the Protocol it clearly is
not. I shall therefore be reporting your conduct to the Solicitors
Regulation Authority.

Information needed

As is manifest
form Paragraphs 3.4 and 3.5 of the Code, it is clear that I have the
right to ask for reasonable information before considering my
substantive response and my legal options.

The information I and my Solicitor require is not much. It is simply this:

Why,
after Debbie Butler wrote to you, to the McCanns themselves, to
Clarence Mitchell and two other sets of the McCann’s many lawyers on 27
October, did you leave it until 27 August 2009 to write a letter
claiming that our website, launched on 20 October 2008 and our booklet,
published on 7 December 2009, ‘threatened very serious harm to our
clients’ reputations”.

The Pre-Action Protocol is crystal clear:
“In particular, time is of the essence in defamation claims…almost
invariably, a Claimant will be seeking an immediate correction and/or
apology as part of the process of restoring his/her reputation”.

The
information I seek is this: I want to know why your clients delayed
over 10 months from the launch of our website before they instructed
you to write your letter of 27 August.

I think there can be only two reasons:

Either:
(a) you advised them at the time (after all, Adam Tudor appears to have
been on a monthly retainer from the McCanns for some considerable time)
that, having regard to the Pre-Action Protocol, they should sue
immediately for defamation, but for whatever reason they refused to
take your advice,

Or: (b) you failed to advise them of Paragraph
1.4 of the Pre-Action Protocol and the overriding need to act quickly
if anyone think their reputation is being tarnished. The Protocol is
plain: “Time is always [not sometimes] ‘of the essence”.

Please
convey your clients’ explanation for not acting sooner to restore what
they claim caused ‘serious harm’ to their reputation, but instead
waiting for over 10 months to write to me, as soon as convenient.

In
addition, as you will have seen from yesterday’s letter, I have taken
legal advice on the other letter you have sent me about your clients
Brian and Patrick Kennedy and have been able to furnished you with a
substantive reply which I think meets all your clients demands. That
was for two reasons: (1) the legal issues were far less complex and (2)
your client’s demands were far less extensive in that case.

I am
in no way ducking or delaying a reply and as soon as I have further
legal advice regarding your clients’ demands, I or my Solicitor will
reply in full and substantively.

I am willing to undertake
therefore that either my Solicitor or I will respond in full to your
letter of 27 August on or before Friday 23 October.

Given

(a) your failure to inform me initially of the existence of the Pre-Action Protocol,
(b) the misleading information you gave me subsequently about it,
(c)
that Paragraph 1.5 of the Pre-Action Protocol gives a number of
situations where a response in 14 days may not be practicable, and
(d) given that from tomorrow I shall be absent on pre-booked holidays for 21 out of the next 26 days,

I
consider that an undertaking by me to reply no later than by 23 October
meets the critieria in the Pre-Action Protocol and I suggest that, if
proceedings are commenced by your prior to that date, a court would
find my request not unreasonable in the very peculiar circumstances of
this case.

If we are practically able to reply sooner, we will.

I
wish also to correct a further inaccuracy I have noted on page 2 of
your letter. The final paragraph of your letter states: “…you recently
chose to plumb new depths by posting leaflets to residents of the
village in which our clients live with their children”. I must inform
you that I have never ‘posted’ or delivered or distributed any of the
‘10 Reasons’ leaflets nor indeed any other information or leaflet about
Madeleine to anyone in Rothley. You need to withdraw that claim from
your letter.

Finally, a Mrs Brenda Ryan, a former owner of the
3Arguidos Forum which you mention in your original letter, has asked me
to covey the following information to you:

QUOTE:

I need
to make my position very clear. I have no control over the 3Arguidos
site. I am not still in a position to have a say over the postings that
you referred to in your letter to Carter-Ruck. I do not have a copy of
the database and neither do I have any access rights to the database. I
had no access to the database prior to the 3Arguidos going down and
before I left. I never had access to the server side of things or the
capability to back up the database. Please inform Carter Ruck that I
was not the owner of 3Arguidos after 28th May 2009 (the date being
prior to your postings about the Kennedys in July), and that I was not
even an administrator when they wrote to you on 27th August. I merely
forwarded you the e-mail address of ‘BeoWulf’ [the current owner]. I
have no control over the 3Arguidos, its database or whether it would
ever come back on the internet.

UNQUOTE

Yours sincerely

Tony Bennett

ENC. Letter of 27 October 2008 from Ms Debbie Butler, Chairman of The Madeleine Foundation, to Carter-Ruck

Bennett has seriously lost the plot, I cannot quite believe this, but yes, he definitely is trying to teach Carter Ruck libel laws.

Oh dear, I would just about say that now, he has just booked himself a court appearance.

See you in court Debs and Tone, I for one will be attending!

And Rosiepops, you will be keeping us to date on all the happenings? I suspect Tony's family and Debs' as well will be getting a well deserved break from those two.....

Rosie I do have the utmost faith in Carter Ruck. No worries there. (Although it´s quite true I am a half a glass empty sort of a person!) But I am very interested in the global legalities of this case though and wonder what is the likely scenario if TB caves in and goes quiet and gets slapped and says sorry (although it may well be too late for all that now!) but then turns up somewhere else later on from a website in Spain or Portugal or the US with the same agenda under another name.
We are seeing a precedent regarding international laws of incitement and defamation, especially with regard to the Internet aren´t we?
Believe me Rosie I am not pessimistic about Carter Ruck, quite the contrary. I am just trying to fast forward into the future because there are always going to be evil doers out there, even if TB and Butler are carried off tomorrow. For me anyway this whole issue is not about them. It´s much more interesting than that. I think it has to do with how one protects the individual from trial by internet.
But you are right. Let´s wait and see how things pan out. Can´t wait for the next instalment!

CR sure know how to spoil a holiday - how can Tony enjoy these two holidays when he's in so much legal trouble?? If I had been Tony, I think I would have cancelled my holiday.

Have just now read his latest letter. Extraordinary arrogance, breathtaking. What now I wonder.

rosemary wrote:Have just now read his latest letter. Extraordinary arrogance, breathtaking. What now I wonder.

In other words, you can all bl**dy well wait untill I'm good and ready to answer you, and not before! The man's arrogance is simply breathtaking, isn't it?!

The defence of a limerick

There was a young lady called Gaynor
Who aspired to be a personal trainer
But she wanted much more
And soon switched to law
On hearing the size of Adam Tudor's retainer



Penned by Bennett and posted on MM forum not long ago.
He may as well laugh while he can afford to, not sure butler will be laughing alongside him though somehow.
Still i have a two man tent she can have if needs must!!