Since news that the parents of Madeleine McCann have lost their third court bid for damages against former PJ coordinator Gonçalo Amaral, relative silence has settled over the British media.
Only one tabloid appears to be flying provocative headlines, while it has been left to a fringe news site to put them into ‘journalese’.
The Daily Star proclaimed yesterday that the “Fund set up to find missing Madeleine Mccann could be wiped out”.
Radaronline ran with the far more sensationalist assertion that parents Kate and Gerry “are facing bankruptcy”.
The truth is possibly somewhere in between - which, as Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã admits, “will be expensive” whatever the final amount.
The ruling by Supreme Court judges released last week leaves the Leicester couple liable for not only their own court costs, but those incurred by Amaral in a series of hearings.
The Star maintains that “no figure has been agreed, but it will be six figures and could use up all the cash left in the fund set up to find Madeleine, if trustees agree to release the cash”.
CM appears to have misread the Star’s story, and suggest the final figure for the couple’s court costs will be €100,000.
This could not possibly ‘wipe out’ the Find Madeleine Fund, as this stands - according to the Star - at £714,800 (or €826,000).
At no point in any of the stories following up on this protracted legal battle has there been any clue as to whether Amaral will be lodging his own civil action for damages - a possibility he has floated in the press in the past (click here).
Indeed, Amaral has been keeping his own silence as he works hard on the finishing touches of his second book on the Madeleine mystery - aimed for a publishing date at the end of April to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the child’s disappearance.
