Another eventful week online has seen the parents of Madeleine McCann shut down the Twitter account set up to find their daughter due to an “avalanche of offensive commentaries” from supporters of the family of Ben Needham – the toddler who went missing from the Greek island of Kos in 1991. The toxic mail was prompted by the findmadeleine feed’s “blocking” of an account supporting the hunt for Ben after Ben’s mother publicly questioned the £10.1 million (€13.6 million) of taxpayer’s money ploughed into the ongoing police hunt for Madeleine, when only €800,000 has been spent over many more years looking for her son.
But as the wrangle plays out in British and Portuguese press, another glitch has come to the surface.
Internet meddlers have “blocked” the gofundme page raising money to help beleaguered former detective Gonçalo Amaral fight the civil case taken out against him by the McCanns.
Whereas the page could previously be found by Google in a simple internet search, this week it suddenly became untraceable.
Bizarrely, search engine Bing still leads users to it – which has led to the online question: “Has Google prevented the search for Gonçalo Amaral Go Fund Me page… and if so why?”
The truth is that the page still exists and has now raised over €68,000.
In the British press this week, Jerry Lawton of the Daily Star stated that “a new libel case” begins tomorrow in Lisbon that could see appeal judges “strip the couple of £357,000 (just under €500,000), which they “hope to use” to find Madeleine.
A legal source has confirmed that the appeal is in the process of being considered but there is no indication for the time being when judges will reach a decision.
Nonetheless, what the Gofundme appeal online has ensured, said the source, is that Gonçalo Amaral is in a position to continue his legal fight, which he has repeatedly said centres on his own right to freedom of expression.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
