Sonia Poulton · @SoniaPoulton
28th Jan 2015 from TwitLonger
Open letter to Jim Gamble #mccann
Following your Twitter attack on me yesterday - and continued today - I reiterate my request to invite you for an interview with regard the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
I was shocked by your vitriolic outburst regarding doorstepping the McCanns. Given that you were not there when it occurred I find you speak without full knowledge of the situation. For a former policeman to speak without understanding of what I have or have not done, is worrying given your high media profile around this case.
For the record, I approached the McCanns at their Leicester home. This is a practice you have publicly applauded when it applied to a single, older woman expressing an opinion e.g. Brenda Leyland also from Leicester. And yet, apparently, it is not to your taste when it comes to those who are at the heart of a story of enormous public investment.
Doorstepping, in matters of public interest, is a valid journalistic tool and I stand-by my decision to do it in this case.
This approach followed interview requests to the McCanns and I made it clear that there were unanswered questions - even more than the 48 police questions that Kate refused to answer when it came to searching for her child - and I sought to help by using whatever appropriate tools I have at my disposable. It is the McCanns who use the expression 'No Stone Unturned' and I believe what I set out to do then, and continue to do, assists rather than obstructs that.
When I received no response to an interview, after several requests over the period of a year, I realised that I had a public duty to pursue this. Thus, myself and a small camera crew went to the McCanns house and asked to talk with them.
Kate, I should point out, didn't find my approach at all 'attacking' as you insist on shrieking all over Twitter, until I told her why I was there and what questions the public - the very public who have been funding the search both through private donations and the current Operation Grange investigation - want answering.
I am not dissuaded from this action even by your use of emotive words in an apparent attempt to create a negative narrative about this documentary and what we are setting out to do. I am relieved that the wider discerning public are finally getting a glimpse of the machinations of those claiming to seek justice for Madeleine McCann.
I have previously asked you for an interview for the documentary I am making called 'The Untold Story of Madeleine McCann'. This is for a number of reasons.
There is your involvement in calling for legal punishment of those you regard as 'trolls' when, in fact, they are mostly just the people who dispute the official version of events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance.
Also, I wish to address the fact that you were involved in the Sky report by Martin Brunt - which featured the doorstepping of Brenda Leyland several days before her death - coupled with your euphoric public congratulations of this action on the day the report was repeatedly aired.
The Sky report, as you know, was based on a so-called dossier of those who oppose the official abduction story. I am given to understand that I feature in that dossier, as did Brenda Leyland. It is no secret that people involved in said dossier were in contact with you prior to Martin Brunt doorstepping Brenda Leyland. People, I have evidence of, who were involved in continually bullying and provoking Brenda Leyland.
Given that experts and commentators have now had a chance to examine Brenda Leyland's social network output regarding the case, and have concluded that she was not a 'troll', I believe - along with many others - that you have questions to answer regarding your role in her public hounding.
I am making this an open letter because I am aware of the deep public interest surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine, not least the millions of pounds that hard-pressed British taxpayers are funding for this, but also because you chose to be public in your condemnation of me and this documentary.
It is also, unquestionably, a unique-ly 'online case' in some regards in that many, many people globally have flocked to the Internet to express their horror at the case receiving such biased reporting in mainstream media.
It is an open secret that the McCann's version of events is widely disputed. Due, in part, to the inability of the couple and their friends to present a consistent account of events. This is out there in the public domain thanks to the work of the Portuguese Police. So it is that people have taken, en masse, to the Internet to express anger, dismay and frustration at the coverage which frequently fails to match reality.
I know you are aware that there are significant rumours surrounding your involvement with the McCanns during the time you were in public office at CEOP. I have seen the tweets that people send to you and the Facebook comments made about you.
I understand what it means to be smeared and I believe that I have a responsibility, as a journalist (of almost three decades), to put those accusations to you. I am not interfering with any on-going police investigation just doing what journalists are supposed to do.
I find it alarming, as do many Twitter observers, that you chose to use social media in a futile attempt to undermine me professionally with childish insults. All the while encouraging your followers to behave in a mob-like fashion towards me. Is this not contrary to what you claim to represent?
However, as many have pointed out, your public attacks have merely served to reinforce what people already believe regarding your somewhat blinkered approach to this case. Certainly, the way you have behaved over the last 24 hours towards myself and others has presented us with the perfect way to illustrate this in the documentary.
As a former policeman, I cannot fathom why you continue to insist that an abduction is the only reasonable conclusion to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
For those who have taken time to truly look at the case - those same people you block on Twitter and refer to as ranters and trolls - and away from the PR-led version of the media coverage, it is clear that there is so much more to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann than we are frequently led to believe.
I wonder, have the facts become immaterial in your quest to defend the McCanns at any cost? I am happy to be proved wrong.
So, Mr. Gamble, what is it to be? I offer you a full recorded interview (and a final mutual agreement of your contribution to the documentary) so you can be assured that your message will not be taken out of context.
I hope, rather than continuing to behave in a deeply unprofessional, evasive and questionable manner, that you take up this invitation.
If you choose not to, then people will make up their own mind why this might be. Your call.
Sonia Poulton
January 28, 2015