prior to March 2010
(Source: Factiva database):
53 articles: "boozy" or "boozer" (Examples)
418 articles: "disgraced, disgraceful, disgrace" (Examples)
440 articles: "outrage, outrageous" etc.
37 articles: "bungling"
23 articles: "Keystone cops" (or Kops) (or Keystone cretins)
("Keystone" cops has been used by English speaking people to describe bumbling or inept cops; based on old movies of the Keystone Kops. Extremely insulting articles.)
42 articles: "Goncalo Amaral" and "lunch"
(Includes all the "boozy lunch" "two hour lunch" etc. Why is it newsworthy that a man eats lunch?)
45 articles: "inept"
220 articles: "sacked" or "fired"
(Note: Amaral was TRANSFERRED off the Maddie case and then chose to quit.)
49 articles: "hampered" "hampering" "hindered" "hindering" (the investigation);
43 articles: "outburst"
(regarding his statement re: McCanns and the British police)
43 articles: "shameful" "shame" "shamed"
14 articles: "evil"
146 articles: "torture" "tortured" "attacked" (re: Leonor Cipriano)
Other terms used to describe Goncalo Amaral and/or his colleagues.:
- "Oh, up yours, senor" (Title of column in the Daily Mirror by Tony Parsons - about which the Press Commission received 485 complaints.)
- sweaty oafish
- Inspector Clueless
- corpulent figure in an ill-fitting jacket
- fat, sweaty cop
- out of his depth
- liar
- lazy
- failed police chief
- giant ego
- manufacturing a case
- dishing dirt
- making stuff up
- feeding smears to the press
- spends hundreds of pounds per week at Carvi fish restaurant
- witch hunt
- stupendously stupid
- fragile macho pride
- swaggering plods
- lumbering yokels
- clueless
- corrupt
- biased
- Portuguese tormentors
- leaked information to the media
- vital evidence was ditched
- crucial documents were ignored
- weeks were wasted
- a shambles from the outset
- ignored sightings
- worked only four hours a day
- dirty tricks
- scarily amateur police investigation
- flawed inquiry
- beleaguered police
- evil suggestions (re: the McCanns)
- bizarre allegations
- vile slurs
- just want a convenient confession, true or false
- career in tatters
- abysmally mishandled Portuguese police investigation
- "Amaral was the main reason Kate and Gerry were named as suspects, despite there not being a shred of evidence that the couple were involved"
(Blogger note: cadaver dog alerts to McCann items only, Gaspar statement, Smith family sighting, refusal to answer police questions or return to Portugal for reconstruction, changes to statements re: the night Maddie disappeared, etc.)
- "Life on Mars" police (refers to a British television program, extremely insulting articles)
- "It was bad enough for the McCanns that their child was snatched. It was worse luck still for it to happen in a backwater policed by incompetents."
(In other words, Portugal is a backwater country and it's police force is incompetent. A general statement rather than a specific complaint about this particular case.)
- spectacularly stupid, cruel Portuguese police”
- pigs
- filth
- fitting up her parents
- it is the Portuguese police who are the clowns
- Cruel, stupid, spiteful clowns
- bunch of clueless amateurs
- turned their rage on the McCanns
Portuguese citizens
- leering bumpkins
- sardine munchers
(This began when Tony Parsons said about the Portuguese Ambassador to Britain "If you can't say something constructive about the disappearance of little Madeleine, then you just keep your stupid, sardine-munching mouth shut.")
- "... a scathing attack by on the Portuguese media...
'The Portuguese press have behaved abysmally, fed inaccurate stories by the Portuguese police, which all turned out to be a load of garbage,' ~Sir Richard Branson quoted in The Observer 30 Sept. 2007
- The BBC's refusal to publish an appropriate apology regarding their broadcast in which it was claimed Dr. Amaral had replied to a reporter's question by saying "Fuck the McCanns". This was not true, as was eventually (inadequately) admitted by the BBC. The lie was echoed by many other British newspapers. None have corrected their error. Goncalo Amaral does not speak English and had replied politely to the reporter in his native Portuguese.
See:
How the Lie Spread through the British Press
BBC Formal Response
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