Thank you.

You may take that view.

I wasn't there.

Yes. It's tragic.

It is a story that was published in the Daily Express and I think a number of other papers about how incompetent the Portuguese police appeared, but Madeleine continued to be missing, the interest in the story remained very high, there were new developments each day, of which the newspaper ...

No, these would be conversations that I would have with the news editor of the day, or -- over a number of days. I explained the difficulty of establishing exactly what did happen in certain circumstances, the information I received or the new information I'd learnt about. This would be ...

I think you have to ask the editor that, sir.

I can't think of another situation similar to this.

Yes.

No, not of its truth, but the Madeleine story was on the front page of the Daily Express more than any other newspaper because he decided it would sell newspapers. It became an obsession of his. I don't know quite how -- what more to say.

Because the editor at the time decided it was the only story he was interested in and put it on the front page almost regardless of how strong the story was.

No.

The working day would start about 8 o'clock in the morning, when you'd speak with the news desk, explain what the developments had been overnight, explain what stories the Portuguese papers were running, and you'd probably last speak with them about 8 o'clock in the evening ...

I'd certainly verify the story as best as I could and try to be as accurate as I possibly could be, but, as you've heard before, you couldn't get the police to verify anything at all, therefore you'd have to rely on less credible sources because ...

Yes.

In Portugal, I wouldn't be thinking about if it came to the High Court, in all honesty. I would be doing my best to verify the story as best as I could. I wouldn't be thinking about a potential libel case some time in the future. I think ...

From the outset of my filing stories from Portugal, I'd always make the news desk aware of who the source of the story was, how much credibility we'd give to it, but ultimately said to them they had to make the decision whether or not they thought it ...

My sources certainly would be amongst those, as we all made friends with different people and there were different people there at different times, I certainly had two journalists I trusted and spoke to almost -- well, on a daily basis, as well as other people I spoke to more infrequently.

That's right, yeah.

Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

My statement is just there. Excuse me.

I do. I don't think I have it with me. It's in the other bundle. Excuse me.

It's Nicholas Hilton Fagge.