The McCanns 14th anniversary nonsense begins

Still, another one for the 'Troll' box.

Such are the vagaries of social media.

Interesting that everyone is furious about it.
Which tends to show that they too know, know, that Madeleine died 14 years ago.

If an 18 yr old blonde turns up complete with coloboma, would you as parents not want her investigating ?
But obviously not.

It's not as though they can't afford an investigation - £750k put aside for that very purpose. Yet again, they give themselves away. Apart from which, they would have drained that fund if they didn't know where Madeleine was.

Verdi wrote:Most definitely not funny - stupid little girl!

This girl on TikTok thinks she could be Madeleine

This girl on TikTok thinks she could be Madeleine McCann and people are *mad* at her

‘On which planet is this considered funny?’

3 hours ago Hayley Soen

Someone on TikTok has gone viral sharing a theory that she could be missing girl Madeleine McCann, and people have not found her “joke” very funny at all.

The video, which has over four million views, begins with captions which read: “My mates joke about me being Madeleine McCann.” It then goes on to claim that the girl in the video was staying in the Praia da Luz area, where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from, at the same time as the disappearance.

 
There was another girl who claimed she is Maddie a couple of years ago around these times. so every couple of years someone comes and claims she's Maddie.. Why don't they stop this scam, it's enough they milked people for the last 14 years.  She's 18, she's an adult. They can use the excuse she has a right to go missing.  Stop looking for concentrate how to bag the McCann's and whoever else is involved in her death.

CaKeLoveR wrote:It's not as though they can't afford an investigation - £750k put aside for that very purpose. Yet again, they give themselves away.

Has Operation Grange in company with Social Services rushed around to Miss Tik Tok to obtain a DNA sample in order to rule out any possibility that her friends may be right? 

Is Carter - Ruck standing by to sue Tik Tok or the young lady in question?

Thought not...

They cannot even be bothered to keep up the pretence any more can they?

Why would anyone bother to take notice of this stupid girl, it's obviously nothing but a cheap prank.

The girl should stop hanging out with her girlfriends, they are clearly encouraging her to make a fool of herself and be their stooge.


McCanns private investigation files

Still, promotion of the story by mainstream and social media has the desired effect. Another for the troll box and a good distraction.

Silentscope wrote:

CaKeLoveR wrote:It's not as though they can't afford an investigation - £750k put aside for that very purpose. Yet again, they give themselves away.

Has Operation Grange in company with Social Services rushed around to Miss Tik Tok to obtain a DNA sample in order to rule out any possibility that her friends may be right? 

Is Carter - Ruck standing by to sue Tik Tok or the young lady in question?

Thought not...

They cannot even be bothered to keep up the pretence any more can they?

Riley Ann Sawyers went missing (God bless her) in USA and there was media interest that her dead body was Madeleine.

Kate McCann’s ‘horror’ at what hotel staff wrote before Madeleine McCann’s disappearance

KATE MCCANN responded in "horror" when she discovered a particular detail about her daughter Madeleine's disappearance in police files, according to her memoirs.

By Kate Nicholson
PUBLISHED: 10:30, Tue, May 11, 2021 | UPDATED: 12:33, Tue, May 11, 2021



Madeleine McCann would have been celebrating her 18th birthday with her family tomorrow had she not suddenly disappeared on a family holiday in 2007. The mystery surrounding her disappearance remains unsolved, 14 years after the infant went missing in Praia da Luz, Portugal. The case has been a source of anguish for Madeleine’s parents ever since — her mother, Kate, even wrote a memoir in 2011 detailing the difficulties that came with her daughter’s unexplained absence.

In the book, ‘Madeleine: Our daughter’s disappearance and the continuing search for her’, Kate explained her “horror” when she found a note from her holiday apartment complex in Portuguese police files a year after their doomed holiday.

She wrote: “It wasn’t until a year later, when I was combing through Portuguese police files, that I discovered the note.”

She and her husband Gerry were not allowed to look at the investigation files until more than a year after Madeleine vanished.

When the documents were released to the public, Kate said she spent six months examining the 5,000 pages of information — one of which pointed to a particular message.

It was a message left by a member of staff, after the McCanns and their seven adult friends made an 8.30pm booking at the tapas restaurant where they had been eating every evening

It was difficult for the restaurant to accommodate the nine adults alone, so “after having a word with the receptionist at the pool and tapas area”, the group were pencilled in for a table for the rest of their week.

All of the adults collectively agreed to go back and check on their own children — there were eight in total — back at the nearby resort at various times throughout each mealtime.

Kate continued: “The note requesting to get a block booking was written in a staff message book, which sat on a desk at the pool reception for most of the day.

“This book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too.

“To my horror, I saw that no doubt in all innocence and simply to explain why she was bending the rules a bit, the receptionist had added the reason for our request: we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently."

She added "we now bitterly regret" this decision, and "will do so until the end of our days".

This month on their website, findmadeleine.com, Kate and her husband Gerry wrote: “Every May is tough — a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen.

“This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday.

“Enough said.

“The Covid pandemic has made this year even more difficult for many reasons but thankfully the investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued.”

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They added that they “hang on to the hope” that they will see their beloved daughter again.

In 2014, the McCanns also spoke to the BBC’s Fiona Bruce and explained why they still had some optimism that Madeleine would be found one day.

Gerry said: “Very early on we got advice from NCMEC, saying that there are a whole lot of reasons children get taken, that’s the first thing.

“They’ve recovered hundreds of children in unusual circumstances.

“I suppose the scenario, and it's not been ruled out, Madeleine was taken by someone who wants a child and she’s being loved and cared for, that’s the best scenario, but of course there are many others.”

Kate also wrote in her memoir about the other cases of abduction where the children were recovered many years later.

She concluded: “How many more children are out there waiting to be found?”

Last June, Madeleine's case came back into the public eye when German authorities revealed a 43-year-old German prisoner, identified as Christian B, was considered a suspect.

German investigators classed it as a murder inquiry, with one prosecutor Hans Christian Wolter telling the BBC that the public would “come to the same conclusion” as him that Madeleine was likely to be dead if they “knew the evidence we had”.

'Madeleine: Our daughter's disappearance and the continuing search for her' by Kate McCann was published in 2011 by Transworld Publishers Ltd and is available here.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1434458/kate-mccann-madeleine-mccann-portugal-disappearance-18th-birthday-horror-spt

Ok so there’s a new ‘trend’ of people on TikTok claiming they’re Madeleine McCann

This is… weird?

5 hours ago Hayley Soen

Last week, there was a girl who went viral on TikTok saying she thought she could be missing British girl Madeleine McCann. But now, it looks like the video has become part of a much wider “trend” as TikTok is literally flooded with people claiming they’re Madeleine McCann too.

This comes 14 years after Madeleine disappeared when she was aged three, from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3rd 2o07. Ahead of Madeleine’s 18th birthday this week, her parents Kate and Gerry have said they “hang onto hope” that they will find her, in a statement posted on the Find Madeleine website.

In the first video, an unnamed TikTok user points at captions which read: “My mates joke about me being Madeleine McCann.” It then goes on to claim that the girl in the video was staying in the Praia da Luz area at the same time as the disappearance.

The clip concludes with a picture of Madeleine, compared to a picture of her as a child – where they do like strikingly similar. Madeleine McCann has an eye condition known as a Coloboma, which is extremely rare and means she has a freckle under her pupil – it appears the girl in the TikTok video may have something similar too.

The video didn’t go down well, with comments calling it “sick” and others asking “why would someone joke about this?”.

A further video claims the creator has an apartment in Praia da Luz which they have been going to for as long as they can remember. She says she is the same age as Madeleine, and when she was younger her parents were stopped in an airport and asked to prove she wasn’t the missing girl.

Another TikTok video seems to poke fun at the whole “trend”, literally sharing photos saying her parents are Kate and Gerry McCann. She claims she looks exactly like Madeleine and hasn’t been able to find a birth certificate under her own name. Someone in the comments said: “On which planet is this considered funny?”.

There are a number of videos where creators share pictures of themselves as children, and then compare them to pictures of Madeleine. One shares a childhood picture saying it’s a “popular opinion” that she looks like Madeleine McCann, before asking viewers to share their thoughts. Another also posts comparative pictures before concluding that she often gets “accused” of being Madeleine and that she had to “prove to police I wasn’t her”.

Another video comes from an ex-Leeds Uni student, who famously went viral in 2017 when she posted screenshots from in her group chat saying she thinks she is Madeleine McCann. In the new video, captioned “when you can’t leave the house without being recognised for being Madeleine McCann”, she poses alongside all the news stories at the time of when she shared her theory.



Even more strange, there are a number of users impersonating Madeleine, and changing their profile pictures and bios to look as if they are her – when she went missing. They are also commenting on videos as though they are her.

https://thetab.com/uk/2021/05/11/tiktok-madeleine-mccann-users-videos-trend-204772

 Very indeed. Why do people feel the need to mock a dead child? It's just hideous. Disturbing.

They're self obsessed, vain, shallow, and will do or say anything at all for their fifteen minutes. They are of a particular age group.

It falls straight into the McCanns hands - more ammunition for the 'troll' roll.

It reflects very badly on decent folk whose only concern is the disappearance of a little three year old girl who has been so badly let down by her own family and the authorities.

A thorough disgrace to humanity.  Stupid stupid children, such behaviour doesn't warrant adult.

Madeleine McCann: A timeline of the investigation into the British girl’s disappearance

Child vanished from Portuguese holiday resort 14 years ago and never found but emergence of new suspect last year has brought fresh hope of answers and closure

Joe Sommerlad 4 hours ago

This Wednesday should have seen Leicester schoolgirl Madeleine McCann turn 18 and celebrate the milestone with her family and friends, a bright future of infinite possibilities lying before her.

Instead, she remains one of the most famous missing people in the world, her disappearance from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May 2007 still unsolved after 14 years of investigation and still the subject of intense interest among the public and press.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, recently posted a statement on the Find Madeleine website marking the upcoming birthday by reiterating their hope of being reunited with their long-lost daughter.

“Every May is tough - a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen,” they wrote. “This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said.

“We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again. As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what. We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts.”

Here’s a reminder of the events of the case, a year after the emergence of a new suspect in Germany revived the prospect of the mystery finally being solved.

The story began when the McCanns - affluent doctors Kate and Gerry, their three-year-old daughter Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings - joined a group of seven family friends and their five children on holiday at the Ocean Club in the village of Praia da Luz on the south western tip of Portugal on 28 April 2007.

After a pleasant spring break by the sea, the adults in the party went out for dinner at the resort’s open-air tapas bar on 3 May, gathering at 8.30pm. The children were left behind sleeping in their respective apartments with the doors unlocked and a rota system in place among the parents to ensure that someone returned every half-hour to check on them.

When Kate McCann took her turn and returned to her apartment at 10pm, she raced back to the restaurant screaming “Madeleine’s gone! Someone’s taken her!” The police were quickly called and 60 staff and fellow guests searched the complex, calling out the girl’s name in vain until daybreak the following morning.

Border police and airport staff were put on alert and hundreds of volunteers joined the efforts to find the missing girl over the coming days, the case fast becoming a sensation.

The Portuguese authorities would later attract criticism over their conduct in the crucial earliest hours of the investigation when the trail might still have been warm, accused of making rudimentary mistakes like failing to conduct a house-by-house search of every local residence or interview all of the other guests at the resort, acting slowly to erect roadblocks and potentially compromising forensic evidence at the crime scene through carelessness and incaution.

The police initially stated that they believed Madeleine was still alive and had been abducted from the room by a stranger as the parents described their “anguish and despair” over her vanishing, a worst fear realised for any parent.

On 26 May, police issued a description of a suspicious man seen on the night of the girl’s disappearance. The individual in question was spotted by Jane Tanner, one of the McCanns’ dining companions, who said she had seen a Mediterranean man with dark hair and beige trousers carrying a child close to the apartment when she went to check in on her own children. Scotland Yard would later come to dismiss the sighting as a red herring.

The search continued as the summer progressed amid a wild media circus and with huge fundraising activities underway, the McCanns setting up Madeleine’s Fund on 15 May to raise cash to support further investigation and keep the profile of the case high, attracting generous donations from celebrities like Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, JK Rowling and Coleen Rooney. By 30 May, the case was such a cause celebre that they were being flown out to meet the Pope at the Vatican in Sir Phillip Green’s Learjet.

A local man, Robert Murat, subsequently became its first suspect and had his house and car searched, his swimming pool drained and his electronic devices confiscated but no evidence was found to link him to Madeleine and the matter was soon dropped.

By June, the Portuguese police admitted that they had failed to protect potentially useful evidence at the scene as frustration with the lack of developments grew and the media began to question whether the McCanns themselves had been involved in the matter.

Lurid tabloid allegations suggested the couple and their friends might have been swingers and that the McCanns, as physicians, might have been in the habit of sedating their children, while others claimed inconsistencies in their version of events.

The intensity of the hostility towards the parents would later be described by Roy Greenslade of The Guardian as “no journalistic accident, but a sustained campaign of vitriol against a grief-stricken family”, singling out The Daily Express and Daily Star for particular condemnation.

In July, assistance offered by former South African police officer Danie Krugel - who claimed his handheld “matter orientation system” could help to find Madeleine - was rubbished, while British police sent over two springer spaniel sniffer dogs to search for DNA.

Relations with the local authorities would ultimately sour as the latter came to resent British intrusion into a Portuguese inquiry, according to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan’s book Looking for Madeleine (2014).

By August, Madeleine has been missing for 100 days and police admitted for the first time that she may never be found. They also told the McCanns that they were no longer considering the matter an abduction case but, rather, a murder inquiry.

The McCanns themselves were interviewed as “arguidos” (suspects) by Portuguese police in September, with the parents told that the dogs had discovered DNA evidence from the missing girl in the boot of their holiday rental car, lines of inquiry that had already been leaked to the British press. They vehemently denied having any part in her disappearance.

Despite being listed as suspects (a designation that would linger until the following July), the McCanns were allowed to return to Britain on 9 September. A day later, chief inspector Tavares de Almeida of the Policia Judiciaria in Portimao signed a nine-page report concluding that Madeleine McCann had died in their apartment as a result of an accident, that the tapas dinner and rota checks on the McCann children had been part of a planned cover-up, that the family’s friends had helped to mislead the police and that the McCanns had concealed the body and then faked an abduction. A public prosecutor subsequently applied for the confiscation of Kate McCann’s diary and Gerry McCann’s laptop plus the group’s phone records.

On 2 October, chief inspector Goncalo Amaral was removed from the case and transferred after alleging that the British police were only interested in pursuing leads favourable to the McCanns. He would later publish a book, Maddie: The Truth of the Lie, the following summer, resulting in a lengthy libel battle with the McCanns that would run back and forth through the courts until March 2017.

Back in Britain, Gerry McCann issued a video that November in which he speculated that his family had been watched by a “predator” during their stay at Praia da Luz. His wife had come to believe that a potential perpetrator could have seen a note in the resort’s guest book visible to all in reception noting their dining arrangements on the evening of Madeleine’s disappearance. The couple followed up on 20 January 2008 by releasing a sketch of a “creepy man” they said other holidaymakers had said they had seen loitering at the Ocean Club.

In April, a month before the one-year anniversary of the fateful night, Portuguese police travelled to Leicestershire to conduct further interviews with the McCanns’ friends.

Then, on 21 July, Portugal’s attorney general, Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro, announced that there was no evidence to link either the McCanns or Robert Murat to the disappearance and closed the case, unsolved.

With the trail cold and no closure in sight, the McCanns continued to publicise their cause, issuing computer-generated images of how Madeleine might look now that she had aged on 3 November 2009 and condemning the release of previously unseen Portuguese police files - detailing possible sightings of their daughter - to British newspapers in March 2010.

The McCanns published a book of their own about their ordeal in May 2011, entitled simply Madeleine, which was serialised in The Sun as the newspaper led a campaign calling on British prime minister David Cameron to launch a new inquiry. He did so.

Commenced by home secretary Theresa May, the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange would be led by commander Simon Foy and comprise a team of three detective inspectors, five detective sergeants, 19 detective constables and six civilian staff.

It began to yield results in 2013, with Scotland Yard formally announcing a new investigation in July and saying in October it had identified 41 potential suspects. That same month, BBC Crimewatch released an e-fit image of a man of particular interest who had been seen in Praia da Luz with a child matching Madeleine’s description in May 2007.

Detectives arrived in Portugal in January 2014 promising new arrests and finally searched the village in June, interviewing four people the following month but without unearthing new information. The quartet would be definitively ruled out in April 2017, before the UK government said it would continue to fund the investigation until 2020, having already admitted it had cost £10m in its first four years of operation.

That investment had enabled detectives to have tens of thousands of documents translated, investigate over 8,000 potential sightings, take 1,338 statements, collect 1,027 exhibits and investigate 650 sex offenders and 60 persons of interest, all without definitively establishing the truth.

The Madeline McCann case lay dormant before suddenly exploding into life in June 2020 when German media revealed that Christian Brueckner, a 43-year-old prisoner with a track record of child abuse and drug trafficking, had been identified as a new suspect by the public prosecutor of the German city of Braunschweig.

He had reportedly been living in a Volkswagen camper van in the Algarve at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance and one woman has since come forward to suggest she saw a girl that might have been Madeleine speaking German in a supermarket in Portugal in 2017.

German investigators classified their probe into his movements as a murder inquiry, saying they are working on the assumption that Madeleine is dead and reporting last July that they had found an abandoned cellar beneath his former allotment near Hanover where she could, theoretically, have been held captive.

Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor leading the investigation into Brueckner, has said he is “very confident” the inmate is responsible for kidnapping her.

“If you knew the evidence we had you would come to the same conclusion as I do but I can’t give you details because we don’t want the accused to know what we have on him - these are tactical considerations,” he told the BBC last December.

It was recently revealed that Madeleine’s Fund still had £773,629 to spend as of 31 March 2020, meaning the McCanns can continue to bankroll a private investigation to find their daughter long after the police hunt is finally drawn to a close, should they choose to.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/madeleine-mccann-news-missing-latest-b1844976.html

I don't usually bother with comments because they are invariably from the same source of McCann critics and/or supporters.  I'll make an exception on this occasion..

Fact check ^^^

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.  

Idle spiteful commentary not helpful.  

Helpful to the parents yes but not Madeleine McCann!

Shame on you Mr Independence!  For your edification - build (not Bild) on it..

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/

Madeleine McCann parents' 18th birthday message as they leave gifts in untouched room

Kate and Gerry McCann still leave gifts and cards in Madeleine's untouched bedroom and, on her 18th birthday today told their daughter 'we love you and are waiting for you'

ByMartin Fricker
21:18, 12 MAY 2021

Madeleine McCann’s parents vowed on her 18th birthday today: “We’re never going to give up”.

Kate and Gerry McCann still hope she will be found alive, 14 years after she vanished on holiday in Portugal in 2007, days before her fourth birthday.

They said in a poignant message: “We love you and are waiting for you.”

Devoted Kate and Gerry marked daughter Madeleine’s 18th birthday on Wednesday by leaving cards and gifts in her room, untouched since she vanished 14 years ago.

The couple posted a photo of her on the Find Madeleine campaign Facebook page, writing alongside it: “Happy 18th birthday Madeleine.

“We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”

Kate, 53, and Gerry, 52, had asked pals to mark the day in a low-key manner.

The Facebook post came a week after they marked the “particularly poignant” 14th anniversary of her disappearance.

Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz days before her fourth birthday in May 2007.

Prosecutors want to question German paedophile Christian Brueckner over her disappearance and claim to have evidence that she is dead.

But Kate and Gerry, 53, of Rothley, Leics, refuse to give up hope that Madeleine is still alive and will one day be found.

In another post on the Find Madeleine page last week they said they “need to know what happened to our lovely daughter”.

Scotland Yard’s hunt for Madeleine’s abductor continues, with four detectives still working on Operation Grange.

A top-level summit between German, British and Portuguese detectives is due to take place in Lisbon this summer.

The Mirror revealed in January that cops are launching a push to find the “missing piece of the jigsaw” that could snare Brueckner.

German and Portuguese investigators are to carry out new interviews of key witnesses in the Algarve who knew him.

Brueckner, 44, was named as the prime suspect for Madeleine’s disappearance by German prosecutors last June.

They believe he abducted and killed the three-year-old.

He is currently serving a seven-year term in a prison in Hanover for raping a pensioner in Praia da Luz in 2005.

His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher insists the German has nothing to do with the youngster’s disappearance.

Last week the couple posted on Facebook: “Every May is tough – a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen.

This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said.

“The Covid pandemic has made this year even more difficult for many reasons but thankfully the investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued.


“We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again.

“As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what.

“We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts.

“We still receive so many positive words and good wishes despite the years that have gone by.

“It all helps and for that we are truly grateful – thank you. Kate and Gerry.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-parents-18th-birthday-24096738

When did Madeleine McCann go missing? A timeline of what happened as family marks her 18th birthday

The three-year-old disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007, sparking one of the most famous missing persons cases in history

Madeleine McCann’s parents have said they will spend her 18th birthday today hanging onto the hope they will one day see her again.

The three-year-old disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal back in 2007, sparking one of the most famous missing persons cases in history.

Parents Kate and Gerry posted online: “This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday.

“As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what.

“We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts. We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again.”

Madeleine McCann – a timeline
The day she went missing
Madeleine went missing from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May 2007. This is what happened on that day:

7.30am: Madeleine asks her parents at breakfast why they had not been in the apartment when she woke up and cried the night before. Kate and Gerry McCann make a mental note to constantly check their children are settled when they go for a meal later that night. The family spend time around the pool during the day and the children go to a kids’ club while Gerry and Kate have a tennis lesson.

3.30 – 5.30pm: There are four separate sightings of bogus charity collectors in Praia da Luz. E-fits of two Portuguese men are later issued by police. One man approaches a property on the Rua do Ramalhete, near the Ocean Club.

4pm: A man is seen near the 5A apartment the McCanns were staying in. According to witnesses, he is white, has blondish fair hair, described as being quite close-shaven, and is aged between 30-35 years old.

5 – 6pm: Kate gets the children ready for bed while Gerry goes to play tennis again.

7pm: Gerry returns and Madeleine is read a bedtime story. The twins are put in a travel cot next to Madeleine’s bed.

7.32 – 8.02pm: The current lead suspect in the case, Christian Brueckner, is known to have received a phone call in the area of Praia da Luz from a person who was not in the area. The caller is described by German police as a “key witness”.

8.30pm: With Madeleine and their twins asleep, Kate and Gerry leave apartment 5A at the Ocean Club resort and go to a tapas restaurant 100 yards away in the resort’s grounds to eat with a group of seven friends.

9.05pm: Gerry returns to the apartment. He sees all three children fast asleep before returning to the restaurant. On the way back he stops to chat to a guest.

9.15pm: Another parent in the group, Jane Tanner, walks past the McCanns’ apartment as she checks on her own children. She sees a man carrying a child near the McCanns’ apartment. In 2013, police disregard the sighting after a British holidaymaker says it was him carrying his own daughter from a crèche.

9.30pm: Matthew Oldfield, a friend eating with the couple at the tapas bar, offers to check on the McCanns’ children as he checks his own in the apartment next door. Hearing no noise from the children’s bedroom, he assumed all was fine and left without seeing Madeleine.

10pm: An Irish family returning from a night out see a man carrying a blonde-haired child, aged about three or four, possibly wearing pyjamas walking down a street towards the beach a few minutes’ walk from the McCanns’ apartment.

Kate McCann returns to the apartment and discovers that Madeleine is missing. The bedroom window is open and the shutter raised. Police are called and 60 staff and guests search the complex for Madeleine until daybreak.

What has happened since?
The search for Madeleine has been ongoing for 14 years, with the Metropolitan Police continuing to treat her disappearance as a missing persons inquiry.

The inquiry – known as Operation Grange – launched in 2011 and has cost more than £11 million to date.

Brueckner, the prime suspect, was regularly living in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007.

He was identified in June last year, and is currently serving time in prison in Germany for drug smuggling and rape.

The McCanns themselves were made suspects by the Portuguese police shortly after Madeleine’s disappearance, partly due to a misinterpretation of DNA evidence.

Their suspect status was lifted in July 2008 due to a lack of evidence, but not after they suffered baseless accusations of their guilt, particularly in the tabloid press. The McCanns received damages from Express Newspapers in 2008

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/madeleine-mccann-missing-when-what-happened-timeline-investigation-18th-birthday-family-997640

Poignant message for Madeleine McCann on her 18th birthday
“We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.
The campaign group keeping the memory of missing Madeleine McCann alive has vowed it is “never going to give up” its search as it marked her 18th birthday.
The well-known image of Madeleine in a pink sun hat was posted on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook group with the words “Happy 18th Birthday Madeleine!”
It was captioned: “We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”
https://www.kentlive.news/news/uk-world-news/poignant-message-madeleine-mccann-18th-5407866

Meanwhile a Group dedicated to investigating the circumstances of Madeleine's disappearance have vowed
"We're never going to give up"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9573237/Police-probing-Madeleine-McCann-case-dramatic-new-evidence-against-Christian-Brueckner.html


"German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has now revealed that new evidence has been gathered in recent days, though he declined to reveal specifics. 
He told the Sun: 'We are still building the case and at some time in the future we shall share the details with the suspect and his lawyer — but now is not the time.
'I cannot disclose the type of evidence we have been given, it is not forensic I can tell you that but it is new circumstantial evidence which all adds to the working theory that he is the man responsible.
'We have always insisted that the man we identified as the main suspect is the man we believe committed the crime and we are not looking for anyone else. I am optimistic that we will solve this case.' 
Authorities hope to be in a position to charge Brueckner by the end of the summer, with a reconstruction soon due to take place in the Praia da Luz resort following a tip-off from a key witness.
A RECONSTRUCTION ? ? ? ?
That could be interesting

HAPPY 18th Birthday, Madeleine! 

Are they serious?

Have they forgotten 'it won't be a one year anniversary, it will be sooner than that'?

Strange that only the British Press report these fantastically well timed ‘new pieces of evidence’ that have arrived in the past few days.

The German press make no mention of Herr Wolters or any evidence at all...

A new picture of Madeleine as she could look like aged 18 has been generated, here is the link.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.rtl.de/cms/verschwundene-madeleine-mccann-waere-jetzt-18-jahre-alt-so-koennte-sie-aussehen-4758491.html%3FoutputType%3Damp&prev=search&pto=aue

VITAL NEW EXPERT DISCOVERED  

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/madeleine-mccann-detectives-only-hope-24090479

Madeleine McCann detectives' 'only hope' of cracking case is 'confession from suspect'
EXCLUSIVE: German police have been investigating Christian Brueckner and carrying out searches of his former properties, but have so far only provided circumstantial evidence tying him to Madeleine McCann's disappearance
The only way Madeleine McCann detectives will crack the case is through a confession from the prime suspect, a former police officer has claimed.
...
Ex-chief inspector Mick Neville, who founded the Met Police’s Central Forensic Image Team in 2012, believes officers are just hoping for a confession from Brueckner.

He told the Daily Star: “If there’s any [evidence] worthy of charging him, we would have known about it by now.
“There’s nothing, there’s no tangible evidence whatsoever connecting him to the crime.

“He’s a reasonable suspect, given he’s looking at child pornography and the fact we know we know he was in the area with a vehicle but that’s about it really.”
...
Mr Neville believes one of the fundamental issues in the investigation is the interpretation of “concrete evidence”.
He previously said: “The German prosecutor has stated several times that he has concrete evidence that Madeleine is dead.
“But the meaning has been lost in translation. In English the phrase means ‘irrefutable’ but in German it means ‘reasonable suspicion’ or ‘more than a rumour’.

Verdi wrote:Madeleine McCann parents' 18th birthday message as they leave gifts in untouched room

Kate and Gerry McCann still leave gifts and cards in Madeleine's untouched bedroom and, on her 18th birthday today told their daughter 'we love you and are waiting for you'

ByMartin Fricker
21:18, 12 MAY 2021

Madeleine McCann’s parents vowed on her 18th birthday today: “We’re never going to give up”.

Kate and Gerry McCann still hope she will be found alive, 14 years after she vanished on holiday in Portugal in 2007, days before her fourth birthday.

They said in a poignant message: “We love you and are waiting for you.”

Devoted Kate and Gerry marked daughter Madeleine’s 18th birthday on Wednesday by leaving cards and gifts in her room, untouched since she vanished 14 years ago.

The couple posted a photo of her on the Find Madeleine campaign Facebook page, writing alongside it: “Happy 18th birthday Madeleine.

“We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”

Kate, 53, and Gerry, 52, had asked pals to mark the day in a low-key manner.

The Facebook post came a week after they marked the “particularly poignant” 14th anniversary of her disappearance.

Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz days before her fourth birthday in May 2007.

Prosecutors want to question German paedophile Christian Brueckner over her disappearance and claim to have evidence that she is dead.

But Kate and Gerry, 53, of Rothley, Leics, refuse to give up hope that Madeleine is still alive and will one day be found.

Well this is clearly taking it's toll on Gerry - he's aged a year just within the article!

the mirror wrote:Kate, 53, and Gerry, 52, had asked pals to mark the day in a low-key manner.

The Facebook post came a week after they marked the “particularly poignant” 14th anniversary of her disappearance.

Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz days before her fourth birthday in May 2007.

Prosecutors want to question German paedophile Christian Brueckner over her disappearance and claim to have evidence that she is dead.

But Kate and Gerry, 53, of Rothley, Leics, refuse to give up hope that Madeleine is still alive and will one day be found.

I find it utterly bizarre that this 'Christian B' nonsense is still going, I really thought it would have faded discreetly by now.  But the prospect of a reconstruction, as mentioned upthread, is very interesting indeed.  I wonder what will come of that, if anything.