Ellie kidnapping case - mole in Public Prosecutor's Office warned kidnapper

Ellie kidnapping case - mole in Public Prosecutor's Office warned kidnapper of police movements

Created: 02 March 2014


Evora Court’s decision in the Ellie Silva kidnapping case has astounded those following the case as clear evidence of corruption of a public official simply has been ignored.

This Evora decision was reached after 8 months of investigations under the ‘secret justice’ regime and clearly shows the full extent of the involvement of an employee of the Albufeira public prosecution service who was caught red-handed offering advice on the phone to Filipe Silva.

While Ellie was missing her mother and step-father were driven frantic with worry as the PJ searched the country for the child. Meanwhile a member of staff who was working for the public prosecution service and was close to the case, was feeding information to Filipe Silva - and was caught red-handed doing so.

The Evora hearing also saw evidence of the involvement of Mr. Filipe Silva's Mother, Ana Maria Silva, and of his lawyer, Nuno Remedios of Oporto, neither of whom are yet being investigated as accessories to this crime or any other relating to the kidnapping.

This decision that the employee at the Public Prosecutor’s Office was in no way obstructing justice in the search for Ellie will be appealed at the Supreme Court by Ellie’s mother. Civil and criminal complaints may yet be filed against this employee who was clearly abusing her position as a public servant to help Mr. Filipe Silva evade arrest for the crime of kidnapping a child.

Complaints have already being made to the Secretary of State, the Minister of Justice, Members of the European Parliament and many more will follow over the coming weeks.

Corruption in the public sector is not acceptable and is particularly abhorrent when it involves a state employee prolonging the kidnapping of a child by warning the kidnapper what measures are being taken to find him.

More must be done to ensure that favouritism, nepotism and outright corruption is eradicated in cases that should be centred on the best interests of a child.

Ellie has been ordered by the Faro court to remain in the Dom Pedro hotel in Funchal while her mother seeks life saving medical treatment for her unborn twin brothers, who are due to be delivered in Ireland next week.

Ellie has been living in this hotel room with her Grandmother and Filipe Silva since 11th October 2013. Her father allows Ellie no contact with her mother.

The Faro civil court has set a date in March to hear Mr. Filipe Silva's latest tactic, his application for full custody of his daughter. Silva is unmarried, has no other children, and has failed to pay towards his child’s support since 2011. Silva awaits trial for kidnapping and defamation and has repeatedly disrespected the Faro civil court’s decision on custody and he is not allowed to take Ellie off the Island of Madeira in case he kidnaps her again. Silva is from the Algarve and the case is being heard in Faro. The Ombudsman’s office has recently requested that the Superior Council of Magistrates investigate this case to determine exactly what is going on in Faro with this case.

Ellie has confirmed that during the seven months that she was missing, she did not attend school and was kept in an apartment in Oporto with a man called Alfonso Marques who works for North Sails in Porto. Filipe Silva’s lawyer, Dr. Nuno Remedios, a member of the Portuguese Bar Association, lived in the same apartment block and visited Ellie regularly while the Policia Judiciaria were hunting for her. During the time Ellie was missing she was not allowed to have any contact with her mother.

Ellie has not seen her mother or little sister since October 2013 and is currently confined to a hotel room in Funchal, no sort of life for a little girl. An additional and very real worry is that she will be being subjected to a campaign of parental alienation by her father and her maternal grandmother. Trained psychologists have said that this could have a long lasting, damaging affect on any child.

This is exactly the sort of blatant abuse of power by a public official that the government professes to want to eradicate. If it is serious, the appeal will be heard soon and a just result recorded. The courts should protect children and not the interests of those willing to use a corrupt system.


http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/1602-ellie-kidnapping-case-state-corruption-on-a-grand-scale

Thank you, Max, yes, this needs to be seen as widely as possible.


Evora Court’s decision in the Ellie Silva kidnapping case has astounded those following the case as clear evidence of corruption of a public official simply has been ignored.

Evora again! Not the first time a verdict has come from that court which is so bizarre it flies in the face of anything resembling justice, is it?

I missed this:

Ellie has confirmed that during the seven months that she was missing, she did not attend school and was kept in an apartment in Oporto with a man called Alfonso Marques who works for North Sails in Porto. Filipe Silva’s lawyer, Dr. Nuno Remedios, a member of the Portuguese Bar Association, lived in the same apartment block and visited Ellie regularly while the Policia Judiciaria were hunting for her.

Spotted by Myths:

http://stopthemyths.prophpbb.com/post217866.html?sid=7c73b6aebdb09f5ccfff79b2194b9df9#p217866

WTF ? -MOLE IN PT PUBLIC PROSECUTORS OFFICE !

What is wrong with these repugnant people?      

http://portugalresident.com/shock-court-decision-opens-new-can-of-worms-in-ellie-kidnap-case#sthash.CEyQUxdA.dpuf


Shock court decision opens new can of worms in Ellie kidnap case



A leaked court report has revealed extraordinary behind-the-scenes manoeuvres by an Albufeira magistrate in the high-profile abduction of nine-year-old British Ellie (Giselle Silva) by her Portuguese father, Filipe Silva.

The report, shown to the Resident over the weekend, itemises no less than 25 tapped phone conversations that took place between the magistrate and Ellie’s paternal grandmother early last year as the net tightened around Silva following seven-months ‘on-the-run’ with his daughter.

The conversations show that the magistrate was firmly on the side of Ellie’s father.

In one, she tells Silva’s mother: “Everyone knows it isn’t kidnapping…”; in another she advises the woman “not to worry” and tells her it is very important for her son to say “that he doesn’t want to make a statement” when questioned by police.

The fact that the inquiry went on to find that there was no evidence of complicity between the female magistrate and Filipe Silva has “appalled” even those outside the child’s Irish family.

Ellie’s mother Candice Gannon said at the weekend that even Portuguese people who have read the document are astounded - both by the involvement of a criminal prosecutor as by the decision of the high court of Évora “not to see anything wrong with the involvement”.

“Like everybody else, I am very concerned about this decision which seems to ignore the very obvious moral and ethical issues regarding the highly unusual level of help and assistance offered to an Algarvian ‘arguido’ by an Algarvian criminal public prosecutor,” she told us.

“Everybody I have spoken to agrees it is exactly as we thought it was all along - a case of out-and-out corruption in which Ellie and I never stood a chance.

“I would be lying if I said that this document did not confirm what most people already knew about this case over the past 20 months - corrupt Portuguese officials supporting the local national, without any regard whatsoever for either the child or the child's distraught mother (a foreigner!)”.

Candice, now married to Philip Gannon, and a long-time resident on the island of Madeira added: “Needless to say, we will be looking for our own answers to these questions in the European courts in what is sure to become a very high profile ECHR case against Portugal.”

As Candice spoke to us, Ellie remains confined to a hotel in Funchal with her father because Faro Civil Court refused to allow her to travel to Ireland with her family.

This side of the drama (reported in the Resident in November) came after Candice’s twin-pregnancy developed complications late last year. The 29-year-old has had to remain in Ireland awaiting the birth of her sons, due to be induced this week.

Meantime, Silva still awaits his trial over the kidnapping of Ellie in the summer of 2012. He has since filed for full custody of his daughter, and that application is due to be heard on March 24 in Faro.

By NATASHA DONN news@algarveresident.com

Photo: Candice Gannon with daughter Ellie Silva and younger daughter Olivia

Stop press:
As the latest controversy plays out, Ellie learnt that she is now big sister to two twin baby brothers, Henry and Charles, born “safe and well” after a lot of worry and concern in Ireland on Tuesday morning.

Meantime, “there hasn’t been a single day that Olivia (4 in July) has not asked where Ellie is. She misses her terribly. We all do,” step-father Philip Gannon told the Resident.

“I would be lying if I said that this document did not confirm what most people already knew about this case over the past 20 months - corrupt Portuguese officials supporting the local national, without any regard whatsoever for either the child or the child's distraught mother (a foreigner!)”.

God Almighty. If anyone ever doubted that there are corrupt elements in the Portuguese judiciary, here's the proof.

http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/twin-joy-for-ellie-mum


Birth of bouncing baby boys helps heal pain for tug-of-love mum Candice


Friday 14th March 2014


The beaming 29-year-old, whose daughter Ellie was kidnapped for seven months by her Portuguese ex, gave birth to identical twin boys Henry and Charles in Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital this week.

And the jubilant mother and her businessman husband Philip said: “We are overjoyed. The fact they were born in Dublin made it even more special.”

The couple’s fight to regain custody of nine-year-old Ellie, who was forced by a Faro court to stay in Portugal pending custody proceedings, will now resume in earnest.

The Gannons, who have another daughter Olivia (3), had to travel home to Dublin to have their twins, because the unborn babies were diagnosed with a potentially fatal condition called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS).

It can only be treated with a procedure called fetoscopic laser ablation surgery, which is not available in Portugal but can be done at the Rotunda.

Meanwhile, little Ellie has been forced to stay with her father Filipe Silva (36), who kidnapped her in July 2012 and went on the run.

Playboy Silva was arrested in February last year, after the Sunday World ran a campaign to find Ellie.

Despite being nabbed by cops in Lisbon, it was over four months before Silva was charged with kidnapping.

Candice applied to the Portuguese authorities to take Ellie (pictured above) with her to Ireland, but officials ruled the little girl could not leave the country and therefore had to stay with the father who kidnapped her.

Silva has applied for full custody, and for the past several months Ellie has been forced to live with him and his mother in a hotel room on the island of Madeira.

Candice, who was granted full custody of Ellie before she was kidnapped, has blasted the Portuguese legal system for handing a child back to the man who abducted her.

But this week, her heartache at being torn away from Ellie was softened by the birth of her boys, who had to be delivered slightly premature at 36 weeks.

One of the identical twins had to be put on a ventilator for a day, but now both are in their mother’s loving arms.

Candice said: “I am just so happy everything went well and the boys are doing so well. I will be in hospital for five days and I can’t wait to get them home.”

Proud dad Philip said: “The team at the Rotunda were just fantastic. There were possible complications so they had to be induced a little early.

“But everything went well and they are brilliant.

“We want Ellie here, to be with her sister and her new brothers, but we have had a year-and-a-half of pure torture.

“We applied to take Ellie with us, even on a temporary basis, but the Portuguese authorities would not allow it. They would not even allow her to come on holiday.

“The babies have to be monitored for the next 18 months and can’t fly, so Ellie should be here with her family instead of stuck in a hotel room.


“Any sane person would know where the best place for Ellie is – with her loving family. There is not a day that passes that Olivia does not ask after Ellie. She misses her terribly.

“And Ellie will be so excited to see her new brothers. She will be 10 in a few months and would love to help looking after the babies.
“Instead, she is stuck in a hotel room in Madeira with a man who has never paid maintenance. He is not there a lot of the time, but just leaves Ellie with his |mother.”

The couple have also been stunned by a decision by the Portuguese authorities not to charge a State prosecutor who was caught on tape giving advice to Silva’s family while he was on the run.

In 25 taped phone calls, the woman prosecutor was heard telling Silva’s mother Ana Maria how Silva could avoid detection and being charged.

But a court in the city of Evora has ruled that the phone calls did not show Encarnacao Pires had colluded in the crime of kidnap.

Furious Philip said: “How much punishment is one person expected to take?

“A corrupt prosecutor was caught red-handed, but nothing is done about it.

“The whole system is stacked against Candice and in favour of the Portuguese father.”

Candice said: “Everybody I have spoken to agrees it is exactly as we thought it was all along – a case of out-and-out corruption in which Ellie and I never stood a chance.

“It shows a corrupt Portuguese official supporting the local national without any regard whatsoever for either the child or her distraught mother, who happens to be a foreigner!”

The Gannons are considering taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights.

jim.gallagher@sundayworld.com

That whole case is a disgrace and does NOTHING for the image of Portugal.

Makes them look like illogical uncaring monsters quite frankly.

Custody triumph over kidnap victim Ellie Silva


Created: 24 April 2014


Faro court today issued a final decision in the long-running case of kidnap victim Ellie Silva whose safety and future has been at stake since her father kidnapped her and then applied for custody pending his trial.

The judge found 100% in favour of Candice Gannon, Ellie’s mother, and awarded her full custody of Ellie while confirming that Candice has done nothing wrong, that the kidnapping of Ellie was totally unjustifiable and ordered that Ellie should be raised by her mother in Ireland.

Candice Gannon will exercise full parental responsibility over all day-to-day issues and will exclusively decide on Ellie’s place of education which will be in Ireland.  Ellie may still spend Easter and Summer holidays in the Algarve with her father, assuming he is not in jail for his daughter’s kidnap.

This news comes at the end of six painful years and the decision from the Portuguese court means Ellie can now legally relocate outside Portugal.

The Gannon family have faced constant battles with two trials for custody, a highly publicised kidnapping and decisions from the high court, Supreme Court and constitutional court.

Family life in Dublin beckons and Candice and her husband can celebrate their 4th wedding anniversary in the knowledge that justice has at last been done and Ellie can rejoin her sister Olivia and newborn twin brothers when finally she leaves the hotel room in Funchal, Madeira where she had been ordered to live with her natural father who faces charges relating to her kidnap.


http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/2138-custody-triumph-over-kidnap-victim-ellie-silva

Frankly, I hope Ellie never has to go back to Portugal again after this, or her father and his chums in the judiciary are liable to do it again.

Posted by jomad on April 25, 2014


Judge (finally) agrees: “Ellie to go home”


A Faro judge has finally pronounced on the heartbreaking custody battle that saw nine-year-old Ellie Kelly Silva kidnapped from her mother and kept in hiding by her father for seven agonising months.

But it is not over yet.

Ellie is still in Madeira with her father Filipe Silva and grandmother - and despite the Judge having found “100% in favour” of Ellie’s mother Candice, the family will not truly believe it has won until Ellie is home safe and sound with her baby brothers and four-year-old sister Olivia.

“It is tricky”, stepfather Philip Gannon agreed after receiving the news the family has fought six agonisingly painful years for.

“There have been so many twists along the way and until Ellie is safely back in Ireland, we still have a lot to worry about.

The huge plus is that at long last the law has come out categorically on the family’s side.

“The Faro court judge found 100% in Candice’s favour and awarded her full custody (which of course she already had)”, Philip Gannon told us.
“This was a 500-page decision which is very detailed and highly critical of Ellie’s father’s behaviour”, he added.

“The police have not given powers to use force to take Ellie to the airport, but I think the court will react very quickly if her father tries the "she doesn't want to go" ruse!”

Gannon is now preparing to fly to Funchal within the next few days to finally bring his step-daughter home.

Wife Candice has to remain in Ireland as she is still recovering from an extremely difficult twin birth, and her babies are too young for the ride.
Talking about the judge’s decision, Gannon said: “The judge confirmed that Candice did nothing wrong, acknowledged that the kidnapping was totally unjustifiable and ordered that Ellie should be raised by her mother in Ireland.

“Candice will exercise full parental responsibility over all day-to-day issues and will exclusively decide on Ellie’s place of education in Ireland.
“Ellie will spend Easter and Summer holidays in the Algarve with her father (if he is not imprisoned for kidnapping her).

“This is very good news - it could not be better in fact! It has taken over six years to get a decision from the Portuguese courts to legally relocate Ellie out of Portugal.

“Six long hard years of constant battle on a daily basis with two trails for custody, a kidnapping and decisions from the high court, Supreme Court and constitutional court - all done in a foreign language!”

Now, in what should be the final hurdle, Gannon is setting about informing Filipe Silva’s lawyer “of a time and place” where Ellie can be collected.

Notwithstanding the mental trauma that the last few years have caused both Ellie and her mother - not to mention other family members - bystanders are still reeling over the fact that a custody hearing could have gone ahead at all when one parent was awaiting trial for kidnapping the child in question.

Filipe Silva spent seven months on-the-run with his daughter after abducting her in the summer of 2012, yet a trial date for this offence has still to be announced.

Even more baffling were the revelations last month that an Albufeira magistrate had been in touch with Silva and his mother during Ellie’s kidnapping, and had been firmly on the duo’s side.

It was “twists” like this that kept Ellie’s mother and stepfather in states of permanent suspension and mental turmoil.

Even Ellie’s little sister Olivia appears to have felt the strain.

“She has been asking us every day when Ellie is coming home”; Gannon told us. “Now at least we can give her an answer”.

The Algarve Resident hopes to bring further news of Ellie’s longed-for return to her family as soon as it happens.

http://portugalresident.com/judge-finally-agrees-%E2%80%9Cellie-to-go-home%E2%80%9D#sthash.n32i4OaM.dpuf

Thank you, Max.

Ellie's family would be well advised to NEVER set foot in Portugal again.

I agree Bonnie, this bit worries me though

“Ellie will spend Easter and Summer holidays in the Algarve with her father (if he is not imprisoned for kidnapping her).

I wonder if that is written in the legal documentation, which her mother must abide by, because that would allow an opening for her father to do the same again.
If I remember correctly, this started with him not returning Ellie from a holiday.

OMG what a thought.   

Especially given the way some in the Portuguese legal system colluded with him....I hope they join him in jail.

Senseless really.

Posted by portugalpress
on May 05, 2014


Ellie on the way!


“We’re out!”- the delighted two-word email arrived at the Resident’s offices mid-morning as little Ellie Kelly Silva finally embarked on the new life the Portuguese courts say she deserves.

Photographed here with step-father Philip Gannon, the pair were on the steps of the plane that was about to take them from the island of Madeira back home to Ireland.

It’s a photograph that hides six years of legal wrangles and a bitter custody battle that saw Ellie snatched from her mother by her Portuguese father, and kept undercover for seven agonising months.

But now, at long last, it looks like life will become a great deal easier.

Ellie is flying home to mother Candice and a jubilant family reunion.

Meantime, her father - Vilamoura businessman Filipe Silva - awaits trial for his daughter’s abduction.


http://portugalresident.com/ellie-on-the-way#sthash.E0yk24bv.dpuf

Great news - and I really, really hope she doesn't have to go back.

Posted by portugalpress

on May 07, 2014


“Sinister plot” almost blocked Ellie’s reunion with mother



Photo: Ellie with mother Candice and sister Olivia in their Dublin home

They literally “got out in the nick of time”. Anyone who has been following stories of tug-of-love nine-year-old Ellie Kelly Silva will have breathed huge sighs of relief on Monday when she finally flew from Portuguese soil to be reunited with her mother and younger sister Olivia, and meet her new twin baby brothers Charles and Henry.

But what no one could have known was that there was a “sinister plot” at work in Portugal to overturn the Faro Court decision awarding custody to Ellie’s mother after six years of legal wrangles - and a seven-month stretch of agony in which Ellie’s father kidnapped his daughter and kept her in hiding.

As far as the Resident can understand, Silva enlisted the support of TV station TVI which broadcast an extraordinarily biased and emotive report, full of poignant images of the child and her father, and ending with a psychologist affirming that “impossible as it is to believe there are still courts in Portugal that do not attend to the higher interests of the child”.

The broadcast went out almost exactly at the moment that Ellie finally rushed headlong into the arms of her delighted mother Candice in Dublin.

But if lawyers had had their way, she would never have got there.

“The plan had been to keep us in Madeira until the smear campaign had been aired,” Ellie’s step-father Philip Gannon explained from the safety of the family’s new home in Ireland.

“Our lawyers had actually advised us to arrange Ellie’s delivery to the airport on Tuesday, but I insisted on Monday as I had heard Silva was working on another biased TV report.

“I also insisted on getting an emergency travel document from the embassy.

“What a difference a day makes! Had Ellie not have flown out with me today, she would have gone back to him as he had temporary custody.

“I would not have rated my chances of getting another court order for Tuesday after his propaganda campaign was aired.”

Indeed viewers unaware of the background to the story would all have been visibly shocked by the report’s contention that this was a case where justice had “failed”.

The prime-time news feature - replete with dramatic music and apparently “spontaneous” recorded declarations by Ellie that she wanted to remain with her father - made one serious mistake. Not once in its 14-minute stretch did it mention the fact that Filipe Silva is awaiting trial for having kidnapped his daughter and held her for seven months.

The Gannons have now instigated legal proceedings over the programme, saying it was "ludicrous" in its bias.

“This really was a very close shave,” 37-year-old businessman Gannon agreed.

Meantime, he told us, “Ellie is grinning from ear-to-ear. She just came running toward me at the airport and said ‘get me out of here’. I picked her up and literally ran up the stairs to the restricted boarding area.”

As the incredible day wound to a close on a happy family finally complete with all its children in Ireland, Candice Gannon told us: “I was afraid to believe that this was actually happening until Philip finally brought Ellie through the front door! She ran up the stairs and we just hugged and cried.

"We both new that her ordeal was finally over”


http://portugalresident.com/%E2%80%9Csinister-plot%E2%80%9D-almost-blocked-ellie%E2%80%99s-reunion-with-mother#sthash.9p1GXBb2.dpuf

The plan had been to keep us in Madeira until the smear campaign had been aired,

Sounds very familiar, doesn't it? Tame 'psychologists' - not Sargento again by any chance? - smear campaigns on TVI?

WTF is wrong with Portugal?

They sound like some crazed tinpot place in the far reaches of the globe.

Disgusting!

Posted by jomad on October 09, 2014


Court (finally) to put Ellie kidnap father in the dock


It has taken over a year of inexplicable delays but at last Portugal’s tortuous legal system seems to be working towards justice in the case of a little girl stolen from her mother for seven agonising months.

Giselle (Ellie) Silva’s high-profile kidnapping by her father, Vilamoura businessman Filipe Silva, received endless column inches two years ago - but even after police found the child and restored her to the custody of her Irish mother, Silva was left living life a free man.

This is in stark contrast to what happened only last month to the father and grandmother of another kidnapped child.

Paulo Guiomar and his elderly mother have both been jailed pending the trial into the two-year kidnapping of Guiomar’s daughter Maria Alice.

As Ellie’s mother Candice told the Resident it looks, at long last, like the authorities have woken up to the real horror of what parental kidnapping means.

In the case of nine-year-old victim Maria Alice, two years of brainwashing are being delicately unscrambled. The child’s mother Carla Evangelista has appealed for understanding as the family grapples with recovering the carefree little girl that was snatched from them in the summer of 2012 and made to live in an attic in Belgium, deprived of friends or proper schooling and kept with her formerly long hair tightly cropped.

In Ellie’s case, brainwashing had less time to work. She is now back in the fold of her fun-loving family in Ireland - “going to a super school and just being a happy, nine-year-old, enjoying life with her younger sister and baby brothers”.

After six years of agony at the hands of Faro family court, the Gannon family have been informed that Ellie is no longer under the court’s jurisdiction.

“It’s just great news”, stepfather Philip told us yesterday.

“The same week we got this information, we heard that the superior council of magistrates investigating the Faro instructional judge in the criminal case for kidnapping has ensured that this trial will now take place - without any further delays”.

As he explained, it looks like all the months of legal battling and psychological agony are paying off.

Gannon got his step-daughter out of Portugal last summer within hours of an extremely biased documentary being aired on prime-time television. The 14-minute feature ended with the words of a Portuguese psychologist saying:“impossible as it is to believe there are still courts in Portugal that do not attend to the higher interests of the child”.

The film’s plan, Gannon told us, had been to generate pressure to change the terms of Ellie’s custody arrangements.

“I would not have rated my chances of getting out with Ellie after the propaganda campaign was aired”, he added.

Anyone who saw the programme and knew the story of Ellie’s ordeal would have been shocked by the programme’s level of bias. Not once in the emotive report on the case of a child snatched from her loving father did it mention that the father was actually awaiting trial for the child’s kidnapping.

Needless to say, the Gannons instigated legal proceedings over the programme, but ever since, justice has been dragging its feet.

Now at last there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Indeed, news this morning is that the lawyer representing Filipe Silva is also to be investigated by the Lawyers association ethics committee.


http://portugalresident.com/court-finally-to-put-ellie-kidnap-father-in-the-dock#sthash.xwFSodv0.dpuf

Gannon got his step-daughter out of Portugal last summer within hours of an extremely biased documentary being aired on prime-time television. The 14-minute feature ended with the words of a Portuguese psychologist saying:“impossible as it is to believe there are still courts in Portugal that do not attend to the higher interests of the child”.

The film’s plan, Gannon told us, had been to generate pressure to change the terms of Ellie’s custody arrangements.

“I would not have rated my chances of getting out with Ellie after the propaganda campaign was aired”, he added.

Anyone who saw the programme and knew the story of Ellie’s ordeal would have been shocked by the programme’s level of bias. Not once in the emotive report on the case of a child snatched from her loving father did it mention that the father was actually awaiting trial for the child’s kidnapping.

Needless to say, the Gannons instigated legal proceedings over the programme, but ever since, justice has been dragging its feet.

Do we know who the 'psychologist' was? Not media whore Sargento, by any chance? The whole shocking business is just the kind of indecent propaganda he seems to thrive on.

bb1 wrote:Gannon got his step-daughter out of Portugal last summer within hours of an extremely biased documentary being aired on prime-time television. The 14-minute feature ended with the words of a Portuguese psychologist saying:“impossible as it is to believe there are still courts in Portugal that do not attend to the higher interests of the child”.

The film’s plan, Gannon told us, had been to generate pressure to change the terms of Ellie’s custody arrangements.

“I would not have rated my chances of getting out with Ellie after the propaganda campaign was aired”, he added.

Anyone who saw the programme and knew the story of Ellie’s ordeal would have been shocked by the programme’s level of bias. Not once in the emotive report on the case of a child snatched from her loving father did it mention that the father was actually awaiting trial for the child’s kidnapping.

Needless to say, the Gannons instigated legal proceedings over the programme, but ever since, justice has been dragging its feet.

Do we know who the 'psychologist' was? Not media whore Sargento, by any chance? The whole shocking business is just the kind of indecent propaganda he seems to thrive on.

The name of the psychologist doesn't seem to be mentioned now, but guess which TV channel interviewed Ellie's father, Filipe Silva :

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/father-claims-he-took-ellie-from-her-mum-out-of-love-29076093.html