MADELEINE MCCANN PARENTS WANT JAIL FOR EX-SOLICITOR'S ‘SLUR’
ABOVE: The parents of Madeleine McCann, Gerry and Kate, are mobbed by reporters
Enough is enough
McCann solicitor Isabel Martorell
MADELEINE McCann’s parents yesterday asked a judge to jail a retired solicitor who has repeatedly accused them of covering up her death.
Doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 44, claim Tony Bennett, 65, is in contempt of court for breaching promises that he would not repeat the allegations.
After a number of attempts to stop the harassment their solicitor Isabel Martorell told Mr Justice Tugendhat at the High Court in London: “Enough is enough.’’
She said the case, which was due to start last month, had been adjourned while talks on a settlement between the two sides were on-going.
The lawyer said they had taken action against some other people but the couple “try as far as possible to turn the other cheek”.
Mr Bennett told the judge the McCanns were powerless to stop others making the same allegations as him.
Then-three-year-old Madeleine vanished from the couple’s Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007.
The hearing continues today.
Madeleine McCann: Legal action over cover-up allegations
Mr Bennett is representing
himself at the hearing
A man who claims he is campaigning to find out what
happened to missing Madeleine McCann has appeared before a judge accused of
contempt of court.
Tony Bennett, from Harlow in Essex, had previously agreed not to publish allegations linking the girl's parents to her disappearance.
He did so in an undertaking at the High Court in London in 2009, but he is alleged to have breached this 26 times.
Mr Bennett denies breaching the High Court ruling.
Giving evidence at the High Court, Mr Bennett said if he had "trespassed", then he would "like to apologise to the court".
"I was at no time deliberately trying to flout the undertaking," he said.
David Cameron
The judge will deliver his verdict on whether Mr Bennett is in contempt of court at a later date.
The court heard Mr Bennett wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron alleging Kate and Gerry McCann were involved in their daughter's disappearance, then published the letter online in May 2011.
Mr Bennett also wrote to Home Secretary Theresa May and Det Ch Insp Andy Redwood, the Scotland Yard detective leading the UK police review into the Madeleine case, and published these letters online.
Adrienne Page QC, representing the McCanns, said there was no complaint about Mr Bennett writing the letters.
The McCanns claim Mr Bennett
has breached an earlier High Court undertaking However, she said: "The complaint is the publication to the world at large.
"This is advocacy, espousing, campaigning for the McCanns being involved in a cover-up and lies."
Madeleine disappeared when she was three years old in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
At one time Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley in Leicestershire, were made suspects by the Portuguese police, along with another man.
In July 2008 the Portuguese Attorney-General said there was no evidence linking her parents to any crime.
Ms Page said the McCanns had not brought the court action to punish Mr Bennett or send him to prison.
She said: "They want to put a halt to the persistent breaches of the undertaking by Mr Bennett."
1 comment:
Mr Bennett now apparently owes McCann and Mr Smethurst about £350,000 in legal costs and has a 3months prison sentence suspended for 12 months.
Maybe he will in future realise he cannot play with the law or take the law into his own hands. If Kate and Gerry are criminally liable in the disappearance of their daughter, only the police can deal with this. I hope he will now remember this.
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