It wasn't many minutes after this, that I shut up shop for the day and went out. I had heard quite enough by this time.
Watching someone openly pursue an agenda, does tend to have that effect on me.
Robert Jay Q.C.
David Pilditch
Lord Justice Leveson
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3 Q. The McCanns were given arguido status under Portuguese
4 law I think on 7 September 2007?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. It might be said, well, you could not write the story.
7 There was no imperative to write stories which you knew
8 wouldn't stand up to legal scrutiny. Do you see that
9 point?
10 A. Yes. But the position that we were in was that this was
11 probably the most significant development that had
12 happened up to that time in the investigation.
13 Q. Sorry, what was, Mr Pilditch?
14 A. Well, when the McCanns were named arguidos. It's not
15 something you could ignore. It's not something where
16 you could just present a story that was based on
17 a comment from the McCanns' official spokesperson.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Did you do any work to find out
19 precisely what that meant in Portuguese law?
20 A. Yes, a lot of work, yeah. We spoke to lawyers in
21 Portugal, and it was explained to me that there were
22 subtle differences between arguidos and suspects.
23 There's no legal equivalent.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: They're merely entitled to have legal
25 representation and have other advantages, isn't that
P 64
1 right? That's what Dr McCann told us, I think.
2 I remove the word "merely" from what I just said.
3 A. No, we were given a completely different version by the
4 lawyers in Portugal. We were told that effectively an
5 arguido is a suspect. It gives the police an
6 opportunity to put much tougher questions than they
7 could to a witness, and they were allowed legal
8 representation and I think the McCanns themselves were
9 given some very, very tough questions from the
10 Portuguese police.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So proceedings in English terms would
12 be active?
13 A. There are subtle differences, but I don't think they
14 were arrested or anything like that. But effectively
15 that was the -- was what was explained to us by the
16 lawyers in Portugal.
17 MR JAY: Yes. I'm not sure whether you fully saw the point Blah blah
