Carter Ruck threatens bloggers over ‘Maddie - the Truth of the Lie’
Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of the missing - presumed dead - Madeleine McCann, have employed the services of newspaper-threatening, superinjunction superstars Carter-Ruck (previously best known for helping to cover up Parliamentary proceedings) to threaten with a lawsuit any blogger who posts the text of Goncalo Amaral’s book which, in English, is titled “Maddie - the Truth of the Lie”. Amral is a former police detective who worked on the McCann case. While I take no interest in the truth or falsity of Mr. Amaral’s book, this shows yet another attempt by Carter-Ruck to suppress free expression using British libel law and injunctions.
Solicitors at Carter-Ruck must be quite familiar with the Streisand effect - the idea that attempts to supress otherwise uninteresting information make it immediately more interesting. Well, consider this one an own goal. I had heard precisely nothing about Mr Amaral’s book, but it took me less than five minutes to find a full PDF of the book in Portugese and in French translation, as well as a rough translation into English. Carter-Ruck made it particularly easy by including the URI of the website they were complaining about in the letter. Just saying. There’s also a video based on Amaral’s book which has been translated into English. You may be able to find it if you, err, have a look on a popular Internet video site owned by Google.
Really, well done Carter-Ruck. These threats are really helping your clients.
