Obviously I need to step carefully with this post given that the parents of Madeline McCann find plenty of time in their search of their missing daughter to sue the pants off of anyone that can help fund their mortgage repayments, but I'm surprised at myself for not having yet made a posting about this couple. The reason for the posting is news that a set of papers are giving the McCann's over £500,000 in a libel settlement and apologising to them for what they've reported.

Now I would usually be the first to say that firstly the tabloids deserve all that they get on this sort of issue and that secondly it serves them right for being speculative rumour mills rather than reporters of the news. However, I have to wonder what exactly it is they are apologising for?

The Daily and Sunday Express, along with the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday are to pay a "substantial" sum and print front-page apologies. Kate and Gerry McCann's lawyers said that some of the newspapers' articles were "grossly defamatory". The couple say all the damages will be donated to the Find Madeleine fund.

It seems as though, before a case is even resolved, you are able to claim yourself what the truth is. Of course the real issue here is that the Express group don't have a backbone to follow through their reporting. If they honestly believed in what they were selling rather than just pumping out claptrap to attract sales then perhaps they'd take a different stance on this. As it happens though they are too worried that ultimately they may be wrong and get sued for millions rather than hundreds of thousands.

But the case ISN'T resolved, the questions still do hang about just how complicit the couple were in their daughters disappearance as vile a thought as that may be. How exactly a couple are able to take couples to court over issues such as libel when there is frankly not enough evidence in the public domain for them to substantiate their claim is beyond me.

I don't like this couple, I don't like that they felt it was ok to act like they did so recklessly with their children, I don't like how they pulled strings with influential people to get their case to the top of the media heap, I don't like how they used the fund for finding their daughter to pay for their mortgage and I don't like how they seem to think that just because they turn the tap on when it comes to tabloid press that they somehow have control over where the water runs. This is just another thing on top of that list for me to despise them for.