The British Press gets better every day. - Donal MacIntyre investigates....again.

POLICE are investigating a childless couple who they suspect could have abducted missing Madeleine McCann.  
But if they have Madeleine they are not childless, are they ?
The pair, who had told friends they would kidnap a child after becoming frustrated with adoption red tape, are among the list of 38 new suspects drawn up by British cops.  
Oh, joy. Announce it to their friends, beforehand.  No doubt the friends have made full statements implicating their friends and the child has been recovered . . . . No ?
A review by London’s Metropolitan police led them to the couple and detectives are now investigating the theory that they smuggled the missing toddler out of Portugal aboard a boat.
Why investigate the theory ?  Why not recover the child if you have been led to the couple. ?
The man had inherited a large amount of money around the time Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007, from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, and it’s believed he could have used the money to set up a new life.
    Believed . . .  could have  . .   Good strong evidence then
And it’s the childless couple theory that is fuelling the last remaining hope that Maddie could still be alive.  
   So if this theory is wrong, she is dead ? Logical, Captain.
This week cops said there is still no proof she is dead.      
But there will be if this theory is wrong.  See above.
Other theories centered around paedophile gangs and lone sex offenders, but the investigation is now focusing on one individual who, having struggled with adoption procedures in Portugal, threatened to kidnap a child.
   One individual ( tautology) or a childless COUPLE, which is by definition - TWO.
The individual is believed to have told friends that he was so frustrated with adoption procedures in a number of countries that “he would take his own child” if necessary.  
   I think you may mean "Take someone else's child"
The Metropolitan Police have been aware of this line of inquiry for the past two years, but it’s only since British PM David Cameron ordered a fresh review that they had the resources to follow it up independently of the Portuguese authorities.    
  No money for the petrol you see !  I bet the McCanns are really happy that no one bothered to ask for the petrol money out of the "Fund" two years ago
Sources close to the new investigation have told the Sunday World that they believe Madeleine was stalked and targeted for abduction in the days before she disappeared.
The English suspect, who has never been interviewed by UK or Portuguese Police officers, is understood to have been driving a four-wheel drive car at the time of the kidnapping.  
If he was driving at the time, who did the kidnapping ?  And I thought you said the Met had been led to the couple. So once led there, why not interview them and recover Madeleine
The theory suggests that the planned abduction of Maddie involved at least two people and it is claimed that the suspect used a newly-purchased yacht, which was moored about an hour away from Praia da Luz, to leave the country.
An hour by sea, or an hour by car, or by Private jet.

Scotland Yard officers involved in the new probe also believe that it is likely the suspect had somehow accessed a key to apartment 5A, where the McCanns stayed with their three children.
Why would he need a key.  The parents left the patio door open every night
The new review – launched in 2011 amid frustration with the bungling of the original investigation, which saw the McCanns wrongly identified as suspects in their daughter’s disappearance – has discovered 195 new leads and 38 persons of interest, including known sex offenders who were in the country at the time.
The Scotland Yard team of up to 37 detectives have re-interviewed the McCanns and their friends
Have they, by Jove. That is a slip if it is true,  but then again, see all the above. who holidayed together and who were eating at the tapas bar in the resort when Maddie went missing. None of them are   (None IS  !)  among the list of 38 individuals police confirmed.
Police also reviewed over 30,000 documents from the Portuguese authorities and material gained from the private investigators hired by the McCanns over the last six years.
The Metropolitan Police team has declared that the “new witnesses and new evidence” points to a likelihood that Maddie is alive and is being held captive in a similar vein to the spate of recovered childhood kidnap victims that have been discovered in Austria and in the US.  
But they were repeated raped and tortured, and at the start you said this was a childless couple who wanted . . .but perhaps that is why they weren't allowed to adopt
The McCanns and the Met officers have taken hope from these horrific cases and point most recently to the case of Cleveland monster Ariel Castro (52), who kept three young girls captive for a decade until cries for help from one of his victims, Amanda Berry, revealed their existence to the world.  
This gives them "Hope" ! ! ! Words fail me.  These people are not human
Operation Grange’s Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, who is leading the new inquiry, says: “The review has given us new thinking, new theories, new evidence and new witnesses.”
The force is understood to have reviewed material from top-secret US spy satellites, which were recording material near the resort where Madeleine McCann disappeared five years ago.  
Not top-secret any more then
The spy cameras, which can detect the number plate of a car from five miles up, had been denied to the Portuguese authorities, but details of it have been confidentially released to the UK review team to help them with the latest enquiry.  
And now confidentially released by the Sunday World.
The satellite information – which will be used to help identify cars around the Mark Warner complex – was used to check out a red car which was spotted by witnesses on the night and has now been used to review movement related to the 4x4 vehicle.
Clarence Mitchell, the former BBC reporter and spokesperson for parents Kate and Gerry McCann said: “It was a big step forward in establishing what happened and, hopefully, in bringing to justice whoever is responsible for Madeleine’s abduction.”  
It WAS a big step forward.  WAS, or IS ?

PeterMac wrote:
This HAS to be a spoof. No reporter could get away with this, surely.

tigger wrote:What a lovely thought! These people have told their friends and in six years none of these have seen a link between the worlds' most famous missing girl with a unique eye defect and their new 'adopted' child.

Either that or this couple is living in a hellish liar themselves and getting pretty fed up with having to hide out in the wilds of wherever without TV or anything that might make the child suspect these are not her real parents - she still retains a memory of having had other parents up to six years ago, naturally this child has never been to school anywhere either, the risk of someone else spotting her is too great.

IRELAND. The land of IRE.
Ire:  noun,   Anger:    synonyms : rage, fury, wrath, outrage, temper, crossness, spleen; annoyance, exasperation, irritation, displeasure, indignation, vexation, chagrin, pique;

scrants wrote:http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/134657/SATELLITE-CLUE-TO-MADDIE-KIDNAP
I seem to recall that the Americans later said that the satellite was turned towards Morocco at the time.

Beanie wrote:So a couple desperate to have a child, having been turned down for adoption, stalked the McCanns to snatch Madeleine. Why take a 3yr old when you can have a much younger child, one of the twins. We are also led to believe that this person made loads of money and bought himself a boat. If they know he has bought a boat they must have his name, so name and shame him. Why is his face not headlines on every news channel?

If this couple have the money they are said to have there are many children readily available to purchase, by adoption, from many countries. Why were they targeting Madeleine, what was so special about her? why not take one of the other Tapas children? 

Another problem I have, WHY is the evidence of the police dogs being completely ignored.

IMO, if Madeleine WAS taken it was because the McCanns children and their children alone were the only ones left unattended without any checks whatsoever throughout the evening all week.

PeterMac wrote:

POLICE are investigating a childless couple who they suspect could have abducted missing Madeleine McCann.  
But if they have Madeleine they are not childless, are they ?
The pair, who had told friends they would kidnap a child after becoming frustrated with adoption red tape, are among the list of 38 new suspects drawn up by British cops.  
Oh, joy. Announce it to their friends, beforehand.  No doubt the friends have made full statements implicating their friends and the child has been recovered . . . . No ?
A review by London’s Metropolitan police led them to the couple and detectives are now investigating the theory that they smuggled the missing toddler out of Portugal aboard a boat.
Why investigate the theory ?  Why not recover the child if you have been led to the couple. ?
The man had inherited a large amount of money around the time Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007, from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, and it’s believed he could have used the money to set up a new life.
    Believed . . .  could have  . .   Good strong evidence then
And it’s the childless couple theory that is fuelling the last remaining hope that Maddie could still be alive.  
   So if this theory is wrong, she is dead ? Logical, Captain.
This week cops said there is still no proof she is dead.      
But there will be if this theory is wrong.  See above.
Other theories centered around paedophile gangs and lone sex offenders, but the investigation is now focusing on one individual who, having struggled with adoption procedures in Portugal, threatened to kidnap a child.
   One individual ( tautology) or a childless COUPLE, which is by definition - TWO.
The individual is believed to have told friends that he was so frustrated with adoption procedures in a number of countries that “he would take his own child” if necessary.  
   I think you may mean "Take someone else's child"
The Metropolitan Police have been aware of this line of inquiry for the past two years, but it’s only since British PM David Cameron ordered a fresh review that they had the resources to follow it up independently of the Portuguese authorities.    
  No money for the petrol you see !  I bet the McCanns are really happy that no one bothered to ask for the petrol money out of the "Fund" two years ago
Sources close to the new investigation have told the Sunday World that they believe Madeleine was stalked and targeted for abduction in the days before she disappeared.
The English suspect, who has never been interviewed by UK or Portuguese Police officers, is understood to have been driving a four-wheel drive car at the time of the kidnapping.  
If he was driving at the time, who did the kidnapping ?  And I thought you said the Met had been led to the couple. So once led there, why not interview them and recover Madeleine
The theory suggests that the planned abduction of Maddie involved at least two people and it is claimed that the suspect used a newly-purchased yacht, which was moored about an hour away from Praia da Luz, to leave the country.
An hour by sea, or an hour by car, or by Private jet.

Scotland Yard officers involved in the new probe also believe that it is likely the suspect had somehow accessed a key to apartment 5A, where the McCanns stayed with their three children.
Why would he need a key.  The parents left the patio door open every night
The new review – launched in 2011 amid frustration with the bungling of the original investigation, which saw the McCanns wrongly identified as suspects in their daughter’s disappearance – has discovered 195 new leads and 38 persons of interest, including known sex offenders who were in the country at the time.
The Scotland Yard team of up to 37 detectives have re-interviewed the McCanns and their friends
Have they, by Jove. That is a slip if it is true,  but then again, see all the above. who holidayed together and who were eating at the tapas bar in the resort when Maddie went missing. None of them are   (None IS  !)  among the list of 38 individuals police confirmed.
Police also reviewed over 30,000 documents from the Portuguese authorities and material gained from the private investigators hired by the McCanns over the last six years.
The Metropolitan Police team has declared that the “new witnesses and new evidence” points to a likelihood that Maddie is alive and is being held captive in a similar vein to the spate of recovered childhood kidnap victims that have been discovered in Austria and in the US.  
But they were repeated raped and tortured, and at the start you said this was a childless couple who wanted . . .but perhaps that is why they weren't allowed to adopt
The McCanns and the Met officers have taken hope from these horrific cases and point most recently to the case of Cleveland monster Ariel Castro (52), who kept three young girls captive for a decade until cries for help from one of his victims, Amanda Berry, revealed their existence to the world.  
This gives them "Hope" ! ! ! Words fail me.  These people are not human
Operation Grange’s Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, who is leading the new inquiry, says: “The review has given us new thinking, new theories, new evidence and new witnesses.”
The force is understood to have reviewed material from top-secret US spy satellites, which were recording material near the resort where Madeleine McCann disappeared five years ago.  
Not top-secret any more then
The spy cameras, which can detect the number plate of a car from five miles up, had been denied to the Portuguese authorities, but details of it have been confidentially released to the UK review team to help them with the latest enquiry.  
And now confidentially released by the Sunday World.
The satellite information – which will be used to help identify cars around the Mark Warner complex – was used to check out a red car which was spotted by witnesses on the night and has now been used to review movement related to the 4x4 vehicle.
Clarence Mitchell, the former BBC reporter and spokesperson for parents Kate and Gerry McCann said: “It was a big step forward in establishing what happened and, hopefully, in bringing to justice whoever is responsible for Madeleine’s abduction.”  
It WAS a big step forward.  WAS, or IS ?

This HAS to be a spoof. No reporter could get away with this, surely.

PeterMac wrote:There is so much totally "Irish" stuff in that piece.
The idea of satellites flying at a height of 5 miles, for example.  The lowest possible continuous orbit is around 100 miles.  Concorde flew at over 11 miles . . .  It is just nonsense.
And if you can't adopt a Portuguese child, you can do what Madonna and all the rest of them did, go to Africa, China or almost anywhere in the third world and buy one.  Or two, or however many you want.
And isn't it Disney how it has to be a NEW yacht.
And why would an English person or couple be trying to adopt in Portugal, and think he / she / it / they had any chance of success ?

I do so hope it is a spoof, but sadly it comes from a man who is Irish, writing in a paper from Ireland, and one can never be sure, to be sure, to be sure.

IRELAND. The land of IRE.
Ire:  noun,   Anger:    synonyms : rage, fury, wrath, outrage, temper, crossness, spleen; annoyance, exasperation, irritation, displeasure, indignation, vexation, chagrin, pique;

plebgate wrote:I think he must be taking the Pee BIG TIME.  

Excellent post from PeterM and as somebody posted earlier in the thread - why not name and shame this couple who inherited a million, because as rightly pointed out, if friends reported them they must know their names and if they have gone on the run, why not contact their families and put a photo out worldwide.

I am sure after six years people would still be able to recognise them, but if not I think it would be possible to arrange an aged progessed photo.   

After all, taxpayers' money is no object.

You're right Aiyoyo, never heard anything like it in my life.

plebgate wrote:@PeterM   

Top of the Morning to all posters from the lucky leprachaun.