From: Tony Bennett M.A.

66 Chippingfield
Tel: 01279 635789 HARLOW
e-mail: ajsbennett@btinternet.com Essex
CM17 0DJ

Carter-Ruck Friday 18 September 2009

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 2008 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