Letter from Carter Ruck - The Madeleine Foundation

urred Fax: mO zasiliss
Our Rel
AT/ltVMp/i3837,s
12 August 201 1
By post and email: ajebennett@btinternet,com
Prlvate snd Confi dential
Mr Tony Bennett
06 Chippingfietd
Harlow
Essex
CM17 ODJ
Carter*Ruck
MOST URGENT
Dear $ir
Kate and Gerry Mccann
As you are aware, we represent Kate and Gerry Mc0ann.
We write to inform you that, given your flagrant and numerous breaches of the
undeilakings which you geve to the Court by way of e consent Order dated 25
November 2009 ("the orderl'), our clients have heen lefi with no alternative but to
now instruct us to instigate contempt of court prooeedingr against you.
Gar"ter- RuCk Solicitors
6 StAndrew Strcet
London EC4A 3AE
T 020 73s3 5005
F 020 7353 s553
DX 333 Grancery Lane
wwri,\r.carter-rud+com
We enclose a further copy of the Order, with which you are atready familiar, and
which sets out the sanctions whlch are available to the Court if the Order is breached
end a contempt of Court thereby committed.
As such, it is vital that you appreciate the gravity of the position in which you heve
placed yourself, and we must urge you to seek legal advice as soon as possible-
Proceedlnge for contempt of court
We must begin by making clear that the decision to apply to the Court to commit you
for contempt has not been taken lightly by our clients, As with your conducl which
formed the subject of our clients' original complalnt against you in Augu$t 2009, our
clients have tried to turn a blind eye to the campaign which you have relentlessly
pursued against them, on the basis that their overriding priority has always been the
ongoing search for their daughter.
However, our client$ have once again hecome increasingly concerned about the very
serious damage which may be caused to lhe search for their daughter by your
persistent attempts to promulgate the assertion that Madeleine died (or that it is to be
suspected that she died) in their holiday apartment and that they conspired (or are to
be suspected of having conspired) to pervert the course of justice by disposing of her
bocly and lying about her death. Despite your attempts to suggest otherwise, such
aesertions are completely without foundation and there is no credible evidence to
support them.
This is not, of oourse, the firct time that we have wrltten to you to point out that you
are in contempt of Court; we refer ln particular to our letters to you of 5 February, 15
July and 3 August 2010. While it is tho case that you confirmed you would cease to
PCR r-7t9538.3
Plrtnart
Artdr$r Stiphonran
Aksdair fopper
Guy l4ar?n
NigelTah
Rrlth CollNrd
Cuncron Odey
Chire Gll
Adrrn :liJdor
Magnus Bqd
leAbcl Hu*on
Prtur.Ehip $cfsttly
Helen 8urrluck
F€{ullt€d b, *E
Sqlichbrs Fogdatr'on
6rfir\gr;.qr
SM I'to.44769

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publish rnaterial which forrned the subiect of those complaints, you have subsequenry
gone on to publish a large volume or rery *i;ii"; *iit[iilr on your own website and
elsewhere.
Carter- Ruck
our clients have given you every opporlunr.ty to comply with the undertakings which
you gave, and we have in the past'go1g to.some terigths to exprain to you why _
contrary to your purported position - -publicationr vo, n?ue made or procured have
constituted both actionabre ribers and'ptaced vou'in-.'Jitempt of court. However,
despite our efforts to.exprain tnu pos;tion,J?
td: ;rd *0,,u our crients giving you a
number of opportunities to desisi from this nerraviorri-it'ie olear that you hlve no
intention whatsoever of complying *itn your undertilingr, and therefore our ctients
have resotved now to seek voui co"rnmin"i6;;;i;d?;llourt,
We rnust also make clear that while our clients reject as absurd the ,,theories,,which
you advance about Madeleine's disappearance, niither our clients noi we sier (ano
have never sought) to prevent you from ralsing'those lro**rn*,, with the appropriste
authorities - whether it be the law enforcernenGgencies, eiected repre$entatives such
as your Member of Parliament, the Home gecre[arv oi even 1as v"u itl"ulisJ oon*l
the Prime Minister' Nothing in this letter shoulo u" interlrited as an attempt to fetter
your rights in this regard.
However, what our crients do object to - and where your conduct is crearry
indefensible
- is your publication of tatse ano oetamatory altegations about thern
?!l4iclv' a.nd in particular on your own webait* uno on ttre *.osites of others, as weil
as through the publication end dishibution of riaCI cop-y material such as the *60
reasons" leaflet snd the leaflet concerning concato Aniirar. sJrh ;;;Juif not o,.,ry
seriouslv and uniustifiably defames orrr cliejrts, it iin oniyi*rr to damage the search
for Madeleine lt is foi these t*"tJn" that our .riunti ilere foroed to teke action
leading to the court order of 25 November eoog ail r iirpurt of which you are in
contempt.
Breach of the undertakinge which you gave
Given the gravity of the position and of your spproach to this matter
below
to date, we
to
seek
spell out the position clearly. ' t-r'
We refer you to the terms of the Order which enshrined the undertakings which you
gave to the High Court' These undertakings include (at paragreph c and Schedule A)
the undertaking:
"not to releat ellegatians that the Cla.imants are guilty of, or are ta ba suspected
of, causing the. death af their daughter Madeteiie twccinn; uniri aiipitring ot
her bady; and/or lying abaut what happened and/or ar seeiing to cwei up wnat
they had done"
The consequences of giving the undertakings contained in the Order meen that the
publicatlon by you of any such further allegatiorrs constitute$ a conlempt of Court, as
wellas being actionable in tibel.
We have advised our clients that on a number of occasions you have published
allegations which clearly and flagrantly breach this undertaking.
You will recall from our correspondence in 2009 that one of our clients' principal
complaints against You. concerned the publication by you of defamatory r"[*riil on
the website www,madeleinefou,ndetion.o.rg. you were at great pains to stress
rep.eatedly that control of the ".org" website had effectiveti Ueen seizecl ny its
webmaster, that the webmaster had refused your request-s mr tne siie to oe
*uspended and that you therefore were unable to decure the site's guspension.
rcRr-7tt538.3

Notwithslanding this, ..you
subsequently went on to produce arrother "Madeteine
Foundation" website, with a '
. .,',org.ukn extension namety
llvq'qladelqinefounHqtion.org-gh. - upon which iou have jublisneJ a targe
allegations numuer
about of
ouf ctients wtricrr suggest (and/-or *ouio f,ave neen understood by an
ordirtary reader to susgest) that they iie to 'nu iuipr"ilo oi ruurirg th" d"ath ir
daughter;
u.,.i,
and/or disposing of .her
body; and/or rying auoriwhat nEppeneJ'rnulor or
seeking to cover up what they had done,
Larter- Kuck
Merely by way of example, we refer to allegatlons published on your wobsite which are
contained in an "open letter to David Cemeron" of 1B May 201 1, and which include the
following:
"By contrast, .a, great many paople consicler that therc ls more than adeguate
evidenca that Madeleine McCann died in the McCanrts' hatiday apartmint and
that her parents and othors have cavered up this fact, ani a,;r;g;J i;'hotd a
haax'abduction'of Madeleine an the evening of 3 May 2007, Madebine havirtg
alrcady died hefore that evening's evenfs. That, as you wiil know, is ffra seff/ed
view of the former senior investigator in the cas,e, Dr Goncalo Am'aral, ani most
o! his investigatian !?ay,. qlong with ather senlor figurcs in portugat,'nr Amarat
does nof say how Madeleine died, as he does not-know, but in ihe absence of
any other specfrc indications, he advancas the view thet she may have died as
the rosult of an accidant whitst her parcnts and fia.nds were diniig 1% minutes,
walk away. Another view of what night havo caused Madataine'i deaffi r.s lhe
passibility that she was oyer-s€dated by the Mcianns.
We da not wish to reviow in this letter all the evidenre that suggesfs thaf
Madaloine did dte in tha MaCanns' apartment, but ctearly tha alefts of two of the
wotld's top sniffer dogs, trainad by an intemationatty recognised British potioe
dog handler, to na fewer than fen slles in tha McCanns' apartment, on their
clothas, and in their ftirad car are signiftcant, and rcmain so, 6ven in the absence
of the kind of conoborative forertsic avidence that would laad to the dogs, alarts
heing admissible evidence in a court of law, There is a/so I very tage imount of
circumstantial evidence suggest/ng that the McCanns and their friends have not
told the truth, canslstlng of a numbar of changes of stary and significant
contradictions belween their statements that go well beyond the kind of minor
lnconslsfencies that often occur when witnass arc supplying statamatlts based
on th e i r rec:al I ectio n s.
The 48 members of rhe Madeleine Foundation, aur many supporfers, and a
huge number of athers subscnbe to the view that the balance of evidencp polnfs
in the dirc)tlon of Madeleine having died in tha Mc?enns'hotiday apartment. lf
that hypotnesrs is conect, then tha MoCanns' motive far wanting a 'Revi1w,
which would now op€n up the many filas that the Porluguese Polr-ce have up to
now withhald would be clear: nat to find Madeleino, but nther to tmw! the frtes
for any ather evidence thare may be against them, $o that they can defend
ffiernse/yes and dealwith any such evidence.
(FOr the avoidance of any doubt, we must once again malte clear that our ctients do
not challenge your entitlement to write in these terms to the Prime Minister, instead
their complaint relates to the publication of the letter on your website and elsewhere).
Itls beyond doubt that readers of thls letter would have understood it to allege that our
cllelts (to adopt the wording of the Order) "are to be suspecfed of, causin{ tna death
of their daughter Madaleina McCann; andlor disposing af her body; and/or-tying about
what happened andlor of seeking to covw up what they had dono., Rs suCh, it is
equally beyond doubt that you have breached the undertakings containecl in the
Qrder, thereby placing yourself in contempt of Court.
The letter to the Prime Minister is but one example of a large number of publications
by you of material whi6h constitutes a breach oi our undeiakings, not onty on your
own website but on other websites, and in hard copy. ln this t"garO we refer to the
PCR l-7r e538,3

enclosed schedule ancl bundles of material published by you since November Z00g (ie
since you gave your undertakings) upon which our cliente will rety as evidenoe of the
contempt of Court committed by you and which our clients now require you to remove
in full frorn the internet and otherwise to refrein from further publishin6. Due to the
very large volume of materlal publlshed by you generally, we rnust reserve our clients'
rights to add to this schedule should any further offending publications be drawn to
their attention,
Carter- Ruck
Your retponse to complaints contalned in our letter to Automsttic lnc of 3 June
20t1
ln your letter to us of I June 2011 you have sought pre-emptively to "defend" your
actione, by way of a letter to us which responded to e libel complaint mada on our
client:s' behelf to Automattic lnc, the l$P of the "McCann Exposure" website, and which
eppears to have then been passed to you, Our letter to Automattic included
complaints dbout poslings of yours, orr the baeis that these postings corrstituted both
actionable libels and a breach of the undertakings which you gave to the Court.
As previously, the arguments you put forward range from being (at best) legally
irrelevant to completely spurious and as such we have no intention of addressing them
in any detail here.
However, we must make clear that your purported belief (as slated in your letter of I
June 2011) that you have "so far as fyau] ate awate, avoided, in lina with fyour] Court
undeftahing, diract accusaflons" against our clients, is entirely misplaced.
Equally rnisplaced is your attempted reliance on statements made by our clients'
spokesman Clarence Mitchell that Madeleine's disappearance rernains a "complete
rnystery," or that the auggestion that Madeleine had been abducted was merely "an
assumption" or a "hypothesis." For you to suggeot, as you apparently do, that such
staternents somehow justify you publishing allegations such as those conteirred in the
materialto which this letter referE is completely misconceived,
You heve also purported to suggest that you can evade liability under the law of libel
and circumvent the terms of your undertakings to the Court by positing allegations as
questions. That is sirnply not correct. A number of your publications which raise such
"questions" - including "163 Qaestions that the McCanns shou/d answer in their
fotthcoming "vary truthful" boe('- would clearly be underEtood (and we have no doubt
that you intended them to be understood) to mean that there are grounds to suspect
our clients of having lied to the police about their daughtef s death.
Of course, in a large number of other instances - including the letter to David
Cameron from which we quote above - you do not even put your allegations in
question form but instead state as a fact that you belleve that Madeleine died in the
holiday apartrnent and that her parents conspired to cover up the dealh.
You shoulcl el$o be awarre that neither the apparent rulings of the Portuguese Courts
nor the fact that you claim to have issued an application in the European Court of
Human Rights challenging UK libel laws (to which you refer in your letter to us of I
June 2011) has any bearing whatsoever on our clients' claim against you,
Co{tclusion
Our clients' overriding purpose in bringing complaints against you has always been to
prevent your dissemination of false and defamatory allegations about them which risk
causing damage to the ongoing search for their daughter, in addition to unjustifiable
darnage to their reputatione. For this reason, they did not (as they were clearly
entitled to do) insist that you pay them libel damages after they complained to you in
2009, and were content to accept undertakings from you that you would desist from
PCRt-7te5t8,3

IUI\Y I]LI\NL I I
PAGE A2/85
the behaviour complained Qf, narnely the publication of alleg_ations ,,that the claimants
are guitty ef, er ar'. to be suspeo&'ol ,;;;;it-ii;,alii ,, tneir daushter Madetsine
Yf"-il[;f!{"i[l;tr;:]',,:trtizi:li;;"J:'i;i';"iix* *nit iiiiii'i''tnaor or
Despite our clients exercising such re.s-traint,.you heve persisted with this course of
conduct' even afler our clieilts tiao'written to vou-ol it r***, then three further
occasrons since you gave the uno"rt"r.ing;i" ;; ;il;#iti *ucure your compriance.
As such' our clients..have concluo"o rj,rl_:oneiderabte regret that there i$ no realistic
iJ::ffi,'#l[i3:lllt bv the unuertarinss wtricn vou sa-vt unress you are committed
Accordingly' we hereby put you on notice that we wi| now be.,preparing en apprication
to court to cornmir vl; i"r g;;i#pi -wt*" i*irirg'ri';"liprication we wirr arso seek
directions from the cly.rt ror you"io serue evideice in-lesponse and for a court
hearing to be conveneo thereaftLrlo'Ionsioer the apprication,
As we note above, you h,ave previousry [ad a pnactice of removing or amending
specific pubrications iolrowing
'iu
*IJipi or "
*'ipl;.,ft;T our crients, onry then,
after a short pause, to-go
"; t"_ouil*r; nu -rr"gri';"r'*n,"n are the subject of the
court order in anotheif,;^;; ii in"Jtrr"r. *ay: A;su"n, *'trit* rye
wgu]d naturary urge
you to remove the pubrications-now-tgm-praineo-;t
t"; set out in the aftached
schedure, to the extent tn"t 1rt""*-iontinue i;; prbji*n*o, and to desist rrom
publishing any similar material, ** **t mat