Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Yes it was posted

Good

What a wholly misleading headline that was written by Martin Fricker and printed in 2010!

Not only did GA NOT say a vile four-letter word (and I know they were made to issue an apology) - it translated as "talk to the McCanns" and not "F*** the McCanns", BUT he had already been removed from the investigation and was retired so why should he have been "finding missing Maddy" in 2010?

Verity wrote:What a wholly misleading headline that was written by Martin Fricker and printed in 2010!

Not only did GA NOT say a vile four-letter word (and I know they were made to issue an apology) - it translated as "talk to the McCanns" and not "F*** the McCanns", BUT he had already been removed from the investigation and was retired so why should he have been "finding missing Maddy" in 2010?

That's the 'intelligent' tablid you're denigrating here .  Martin Martin Fricker's got history as regards reportage of all things McCann.  Another source close to the Clarence Mitchell syndicate methinks.

It's enough to make any self respecting journalist jump ship - I'm sure there must still be good guys out there, although a dying breed.  How they get away with publishing this calibre of rubbish I know not - so much for press standards!

Is there such a thing as an " intelligent tabloid " especially when it comes to " reporting " on all things McCann ?

At times it appears that every day is 1st April ! 

If at some point Dr Amaral chose to sue the press ( not that I think he would go down the same route as the McCanns he has more dignity ) he could certainly have a field day !

DEATH PLUNGE MYSTERY Maddie cops probing death of Brit man and his wife who fell 50ft from Portugal apartment

The 69-year-old Brit man was found lying lifeless alongside his wife after they appeared to have plunged to their deaths from the fifth floor of a holiday apartment in Cascais, Portugal
By Gerard Couzens
3rd November 2017, 12:49 pm
Updated: 3rd November 2017, 2:08 pm


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Comments

A BRIT man was found lying lifeless alongside his wife after they plunged to their deaths from the fifth floor of a holiday apartment in Portugal, cops said.

Police from the same force tasked with probing Madeleine McCann’s disappearance are investigating the double tragedy at the holiday resort of Cascais.
A Brit man was found lying lifeless alongside his wife after they appeared to have plunged to their deaths from an apartment in Cascais, Portugal
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A Brit man was found lying lifeless alongside his wife after they appeared to have plunged to their deaths from an apartment in Cascais, Portugal

Local reports today pointed to a possible suicide pact after detectives found letters inside the couple’s flat highlighting their financial problems.

The 69-year-old man and his 53-year-old Portuguese partner are thought to have died instantly after plunging from their block, which is just a short walk from the Atlantic.

A neighbour raised the alarm at 6.30am yesterday after finding the two bodies lying near the entrance to the apartment block in Marechal Carmona Avenue.

Paramedics rushed to the scene but could do nothing to save them and they were pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
Police from the same force tasked with probing Madeleine McCann’s disappearance are investigating the double tragedy at the holiday resort of Cascais
Rex Features
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Police from the same force tasked with probing Madeleine McCann’s disappearance are investigating the double tragedy at the holiday resort of Cascais

The Policia Judiciaria confirmed they are leading a probe but have not yet made any official comment.

Officers from a local homicide department were also mobilised along with forensic experts, who are said to have taken away medicine from the couple’s home as well as letters they wrote - the content of which has not been officially disclosed.

The results of autopsies carried out at Lisbon’s Forensic Medicine Institute have also not been made public.

The floor the couple plunged from, around 50 feet up from the ground, is the top floor of the apartment block.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4835170/maddie-cops-probing-death-of-brit-man-and-his-wife-who-fell-50ft-from-portugal-apartment/




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As if the paper couldn't get more shameless, now a double suicide goes from a sad event to a chance to write 'Maddie' in another headline. By the Sun's logic here, we should all refer to Scotland Yard as 'Ripper Cops'. I've actually contacted Gerard Couzens for comment - he was good enough to post his number on twitter, but predictably been ignored (though perhaps I was a shade too sarcastic in my message).

Witness tells of Madeleine's disappearance



Kate McCann was transformed after the disappearance 

By Nick Britten
12:01AM GMT 15 Dec 2007

A witness in the Madeleine McCann case broke her silence to protest the innocence of the girl's parents and recount the terrible night she disappeared.

Bridget O'Donnell and her partner Jeremy Wilkins befriended Kate and Gerry McCann during their week-long holiday in Portugal and have now given the most insightful account yet of their agony after the "catastrophic" disappearance of Madeleine.

Miss O'Donnell, who worked as a producer on the BBC's Crimewatch programme, said she has "always believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent".

She dismissed police theories that Madeleine was killed inside her parents' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz by revealing that on the night of May 3 Mr McCann was as chatty, "calm and relaxed" as ever, until the discovery that his three-year-old daughter was missing from her bed.

She also criticised Portuguese detectives for failing to take a statement from her and her partner, and said police officers did not even recognise a photograph of Madeleine the day after the incident.

Speaking about the night Madeleine went missing, Miss O'Donnell told The Guardian: "Our baby would not sleep and at about 8.30pm, Jes [Mr Wilkins] took him out for a walk in the buggy to settle him. Gerry was on his way back from checking on his children and the two men stopped to have a chat.

"They talked about daughters, fathers, families. Gerry was relaxed and friendly. They discussed the babysitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too, if they had not been on holiday in a group.

"Jes returned to our apartment just before 9.30pm. We ate, drank wine, watched a DVD and then went to bed. On the ground floor, a completely catastrophic event was taking place. On the fourth floor of the next block, we were completely oblivious."


Confirmation of the conversation between Mr Wilkins and Mr McCann is crucial because police believe at that time Madeleine was already dead and Mr McCann was hiding her body.

It also corroborates the timeline of events given to the police by the McCanns and their friends.

Miss O'Donnell described how the tragic event led to an immediate, physical transformation in the McCanns after the loss of their daughter.

She said during the holiday they got to know them and their group. "One man was the joker," she said. "He had a loud Glaswegian accent. He was Gerry McCann. He played tennis with Jes. Gerry was outgoing, a wisecracker, but considerate and kind."

She added: "Kate was calm, still, quietly beautiful; Gerry was confident, proud, silly, strong."

She next saw the McCanns two days after Madeleine's disappearance.

She said: "The physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening. Kate's back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves into the angular manifestation of a silent scream. Gerry was upright, his lips drawn into a thin, impenetrable line."

She said the first she had known about Madeleine's disappearance was when one of the McCanns' friends began banging on their apartment door at 1am.

"Jes got up to answer. I stayed listening in the dark. I knew it was bad; it could only be bad. I heard male mumbling, then Jes's voice. 'You're joking?' he said. It wasn't the words, it was the tone that made me flinch.

"He came back in to the room. 'Gerry's daughter's been abducted,' he said. I jumped up and went to check our children. They were there. We sat down. We got up again...

"We wondered what to do. Jes had asked if they needed help searching and was told there was nothing he could do; she had been missing for three hours."

Miss O'Donnell said that while parents were out looking for Madeleine, she saw no police until one turned up with a "slightly sweaty" translator, who turned out to be Robert Murat, the only other official suspect in the case beside the McCanns.

She said police failed to ask Mr Wilkins for a statement and when the officer pointed to a picture of Madeleine and asked if it was her daughter, "my heart sank for the McCanns".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1572657/Witness-tells-of-Madeleines-disappearance.html

Journalistic sensationalism pure and simple.  Makes you me wonder just how far the Wilkins are involved - not forgetting Rachael Oldfield's connections with the BBC.

My months with Madeleine

Bridget O'Donnell - December 2007

It was a welcome spring break, a chance to relax at a child-friendly resort in Portugal. Soon Bridget O'Donnell and her partner were making friends with another holidaying family while their three-year-old daughters played together. But then Madeleine McCann went missing and everyone was sucked into a nightmare

We lay by the members-only pool staring at the sky. Round and round, the helicopters clacked and roared. Their cameras pointed down at us, mocking the walled and gated enclave. Circles rippled out across the pool. It was the morning after Madeleine went.

Six days earlier we had landed at Faro airport. The coach was full of people like us, parents lugging multiple toddler/baby combinations. All of us had risen at dawn, rushed along motorways and hurtled across the sky in search of the modern solution to our exhaustion - the Mark Warner kiddie club. I travelled with my partner Jes, our three-year-old daughter, and our nine-month-old baby son. Praia da Luz was the nearest Mark Warner beach resort and this was the cheapest week of the year - a bargain bucket trip, for a brief lie-down.

Excitedly, we were shown to our apartments. Ours was on the fourth floor, overlooking a family and toddler pool, opposite a restaurant and bar called the Tapas. I worried about the height of the balcony. Should we ask for one on the ground floor? Was I a paranoid parent? Should I make a fuss, or just enjoy the view?
We could see the beach and a big blue sky. We went outside to explore.

We settled in over the following days. There was a warm camaraderie among the parents, a shared happy weariness and deadpan banter. Our children made friends in the kiddie club and at the drop-off, we would joke about the fact that there were 10 blonde three-year-old girls in the group. They were bound to boss around the two boys.

The children went sailing and swimming, played tennis and learned a dance routine for the end-of-week show. Each morning, our daughter ran ahead of us to get to the kiddie club. She was having a wonderful time. Jes signed up for tennis lessons. I read a book. He made friends. I read another book.

The Mark Warner nannies brought the children to the Tapas restaurant to have tea at the end of each day. It was a friendly gathering. The parents would stand and chat by the pool. We talked about the children, about what we did at home. We were hopeful about a change in the weather. We eyed our children as they played. We didn't see anyone watching.

Some of the parents were in a larger group. Most of them worked for the NHS and had met many years before in Leicestershire. Now they lived in different parts of the UK, and this holiday was their opportunity to catch up, to introduce their children, to reunite. They booked a large table every night in the Tapas. We called them "the Doctors". Sometimes we would sit out on our balcony and their laughter would float up around us. One man was the joker. He had a loud Glaswegian accent. He was Gerry McCann. He played tennis with Jes.

One morning, I saw Gerry and his wife Kate on their balcony, chatting to their friends on the path below. Privately I was glad we didn't get their apartment. It was on a corner by the road and people could see in. They were exposed.

In the evenings, babysitting at the resort was a dilemma. "Sit-in" babysitters were available but were expensive and in demand, and Mark Warner blurb advised us to book well in advance. The other option was the babysitting service at the kiddie club, which was a 10-minute walk from the apartment. The children would watch a cartoon together and then be put to bed. You would then wake them, carry them back and put them to bed again in the apartment. After taking our children to dinner a couple of times, we decided on the Wednesday night to try the service at the club.

We had booked a table for two at Tapas and were placed next to the Doctors' regular table. One by one, they started to arrive. The men came first. Gerry McCann started chatting across to Jes about tennis. Gerry was outgoing, a wisecracker, but considerate and kind, and he invited us to join them. We discussed the children. He told us they were leaving theirs sleeping in the apartments. While they chatted on, I ruminated on the pros and cons of this. I admired them, in a way, for not being paranoid parents, but I decided that our apartment was too far off even to contemplate it. Our baby was too young and I would worry about them waking up.

My phone rang as our food arrived; our baby had woken up. I walked the round trip to collect him from the kiddie club, then back to the restaurant. He kept crying and eventually we left our meal unfinished and walked back again to the club to fetch our sleeping daughter. Jes carried her home in a blanket. The next night we stayed in. It was Thursday, May 3.

Earlier that day there had been tennis lessons for the children, with some of the parents watching proudly as their girls ran across the court chasing tennis balls. They took photos. Madeleine must have been there, but I couldn't distinguish her from the others. They all looked the same - all blonde, all pink and pretty.

Jes and Gerry were playing on the next court. Afterwards, we sat by the pool and Gerry and Kate talked enthusiastically to the tennis coach about the following day's tournament. We watched them idly - they had a lot of time for people, they listened. Then Gerry stood up and began showing Kate his new tennis stroke. She looked at him and smiled. "You wouldn't be interested if I talked about my tennis like that," Jes said to me. We watched them some more. Kate was calm, still, quietly beautiful; Gerry was confident, proud, silly, strong. She watched his boyish demonstration with great seriousness and patience. That was the last time I saw them that day. Jes saw Gerry that night.

Our baby would not sleep and at about 8.30pm, Jes took him out for a walk in the buggy to settle him. Gerry was on his way back from checking on his children and the two men stopped to have a chat. They talked about daughters, fathers, families. Gerry was relaxed and friendly. They discussed the babysitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too, if they had not been on holiday in a group. Jes returned to our apartment just before 9.30pm. We ate, drank wine, watched a DVD and then went to bed. On the ground floor, a completely catastrophic event was taking place. On the fourth floor of the next block, we were completely oblivious.

At 1am there was a frantic banging on our door. Jes got up to answer. I stayed listening in the dark. I knew it was bad; it could only be bad. I heard male mumbling, then Jes's voice. "You're joking?" he said. It wasn't the words, it was the tone that made me flinch. He came back in to the room. "Gerry's daughter's been abducted," he said. "She ..." I jumped up and went to check our children. They were there. We sat down. We got up again. Weirdly, I did the washing-up. We wondered what to do. Jes had asked if they needed help searching and was told there was nothing he could do; she had been missing for three hours. Jes felt he should go anyway, but I wanted him to stay with us. I was a coward, afraid to be alone with the children - and afraid to be alone with my thoughts.

I once worked as a producer in the BBC crime unit. I directed many reconstructions and spent my second pregnancy producing new investigations for Crimewatch. Detectives would call me daily, detailing their cases, and some stories stay with me still, such as the ones about a girl being snatched from her bath, or her bike, or her garden and then held in the passenger seat, or stuffed in the boot. There was always a vehicle, and the first few hours were crucial to the outcome. Afterwards, they would be dumped naked in an alley, or at a petrol station with a £10 note to "get a cab back to Mummy". They would be found within an hour or two. Sometimes.

From the balcony we could see some figures scratching at the immense darkness with tiny torch lights. Police cars arrived and we thought that they would take control. We lay on the bed but we could not sleep.

The next morning, we made our way to breakfast and met one of the Doctors, the one who had come round in the night. His young daughter looked up at us from her pushchair. There was no news. They had called Sky television - they didn't know what else to do. He turned away and I could see he was going to weep.

People were crying in the restaurant. Mark Warner had handed out letters informing them what had happened in the night, and we all wondered what to do. Mid-sentence, we would drift in to the middle distance. Tears would brim up and recede.

Our daughter asked us about the kiddie club that day. She had been looking forward to their dance show that afternoon. Jes and I looked at each other. My first instinct was that we should not be parted from our children. Of course we shouldn't; we should strap them to us and not let them out of our sight, ever again. But then we thought: how are we going to explain this to our daughter? Or how, if we spent the day in the village, would we avoid repeatedly discussing what had happened in front of her as we met people on the streets? What does a good parent do? Keep the children close or take a deep breath and let them go a little, pretend this was the same as any other day?

We walked towards the kiddie club. No one else was there. We felt awful, such terrible parents for even considering the idea. Then we saw, waiting inside, some of the Mark Warner nannies. They had been up most of the night but had still turned up to work that day. They were intelligent, thoughtful young women and we liked and trusted them. The dance show was cancelled, but they wanted to put on a normal day for the children. Our daughter ran inside and started painting. Then, behind us, another set of parents arrived looking equally washed out. Then another, and another. We decided, in the end, to leave them for two hours. We put their bags on the pegs and saw the one labelled "Madeleine". Heads bent, we walked away, into the guilty glare of the morning sun.

Locals and holidaymakers had started circulating photocopied pictures of Madeleine, while others continued searching the beaches and village apartments. People were talking about what had happened or sat silently, staring blankly. We didn't see any police.

Later, there was a knock on our apartment door and we let the two men in. One was a uniformed Portuguese policeman, the other his translator. The translator had a squint and sweated slightly. He was breathless, perhaps a little excited. We later found out he was Robert Murat. He reminded me of a boy in my class at school who was bullied.

Through Murat we answered a few questions and gave our details, which the policeman wrote down on the back of a bit of paper. No notebook. Then he pointed to the photocopied picture of Madeleine on the table. "Is this your daughter?" he asked. "Er, no," we said. "That's the girl you are meant to be searching for." My heart sank for the McCanns.

As the day drew on, the media and more police arrived and we watched from our balcony as reporters practised their pieces to camera outside the McCanns' apartment. We then went back inside and watched them on the news.

We had to duck under the police tape with the pushchair to buy a pint of milk. We would roll past sniffer dogs, local police, then national police, local journalists, and then international journalists, TV reporters and satellite vans. A hundred pairs of eyes and a dozen cameras silently swivelled as we turned down the bend. We pretended, for the children's sake, that this was nothing unusual. Later on, our daughter saw herself with Daddy on TV. That afternoon we sat by the members-only pool, watching the helicopters watching us. We didn't know what else to do.

Saturday came, our last day. While we waited for the airport coach to pick us up, we gathered round the toddler pool by Tapas, making small talk in front of the children. I watched my baby son and daughter closely, shamefully grateful that I could.

We had not seen the McCanns since Thursday, when suddenly they appeared by the pool. The surreal limbo of the past two days suddenly snapped back into painful, awful realtime. It was a shock: the physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening - I felt it as a physical blow. Kate's back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves in to the angular manifestation of a silent scream. I thought I might cry and turned so that she wouldn't see. Gerry was upright, his lips now drawn into a thin, impenetrable line. Some people, including Jes, tried to offer comfort. Some gave them hugs. Some stared at their feet, words eluding them. We all wondered what to do. That was the last time we saw Gerry and Kate.

The rest of us left Praia da Luz together, an isolated Mark Warner group. The coach, the airport, the plane passed quietly. There were no other passengers except us. We arrived at Gatwick in the small hours of an early May morning. No jokes, no banter, just goodbye. Though we did not know it then, those few days in May were going to dominate the rest of our year.

"Did you have a good trip?" asked the cabbie at Gatwick, instantly underlining the conversational dilemma that would occupy the first few weeks: Do we say "Yes, thanks" and move swiftly on? Or divulge the "yes-but-no-but" truth of our "Maddy" experience? Everybody talks about holidays, they make good conversational currency at work, at the hairdresser's, in the playground. Everybody asked about ours. I would pause and take a breath, deciding whether there was enough time for what was to follow. People were genuinely horrified by what had happened to Madeleine and even by what we had been through (though we thought ourselves fortunate). Their humanity was a balm and a comfort to us; we needed to talk about it, chew it over and share it out, to make it a little easier to swallow.

The British police came round shortly after our return. Jes was pleased to give them a statement. The Portuguese police had never asked.
As the summer months rolled by, we thought the story would slowly and sadly ebb away, but instead it flourished and multiplied, and it became almost impossible to talk about any-thing else. Friends came for dinner and we would actively try to steer the conversation on to a different subject, always to return to Madeleine. Others solicited our thoughts by text message after any major twist or turn in the case. Acquaintances discussed us in the context of Madeleine, calling in the middle of their debates to clarify details.

I found some immunity in a strange, guilty happiness. We had returned unscathed to our humdrum family routine, my life was wonderful, my world was safe, I was lucky, I was blessed. The colours in the park were acute and hyper-real and the sun warmed my face.

At the end of June, the first cloud appeared. A Portuguese journalist called Jes's mobile (he had left his number with the Portuguese police). The journalist, who was writing for a magazine called Sol, called Jes incessantly. We both work in television and cannot claim to be green about the media, but this was a new experience. Jes learned this the hard way. Torn between politeness and wanting to get the journalist off the line without actually saying anything, he had to put the phone down, but he had already said too much. Her article pitched the recollections of "Jeremy Wilkins, television producer" against those of the "Tapas Nine", the group of friends, including the McCanns, whom we had nicknamed the Doctors. The piece was published at the end of June.

Throughout July, Sol's testimony meant Jes became incorporated into all the Madeleine chronologies. More clouds began to gather - this time above our house.

In August, the doorbell rang. The man was from the Daily Mail. He asked if Jes was in (he wasn't). After he left I spent an anxious evening analysing what I had said, weighing up the possible consequences. The Sol article had brought the Daily Mail; what would happen next? Two days later, the Mail came for Jes again. This time they had computer printout pictures of a bald, heavy-set man seen lurking in some Praia da Luz holiday snaps. The chatroom implication was that the man was Madeleine's abductor. There was talk on the web, the reporter insinuated, that this man might be Jes. I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and then realised he was serious. I looked at the pictures, and it wasn't Jes.

Once, Jes's father looked him up on the internet and found that "Jeremy Wilkins, television producer" was referenced on Google more than 70,000 times. There was talk that he was a "lookout" for Gerry and Kate; there was talk that Jes was orchestrating a reality-TV hoax and Madeleine's disappearance was part of the con; there was talk that the Tapas Nine were all swingers. There was a lot of talk.

In early September, Kate and Gerry became official suspects. Their warm tide of support turned decidedly cool. Had they cruelly conned us all? The public needed to know, and who had seen Gerry at around 9pm on the fateful night? Jes.

Tonight with Trevor McDonald, GMTV, the Sun, the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Express, the Evening Standard and the Independent on Sunday began calling. Jes's office stopped putting through calls from people asking to speak to "Jeremy" (only his grandmother calls him that). Some emails told him that he would be "better off" if he spoke to them or he would "regret it" if he didn't, implying that it was in his interest to defend himself - they didn't say what from.

Quietly, we began to worry that Jes might be next in line for some imagined blame or accusation. On a Saturday night in September, he received a call: we were on the front page of the News of the World. They had surreptitiously taken photographs of us, outside the house. There were no more details. We went to bed, but we could not sleep. "Maddie: the secret witness," said the headline, "TV boss holds vital clue to the mystery." Unfortunately, Jes does not hold any such vital clues. In November, he inched through the events of that May night with Leicestershire detectives, but he saw nothing suspicious, nothing that would further the investigation.

Throughout all this, I have always believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent. When they were made suspects, when they were booed at, when one woman told me she was "glad" they had "done it" because it meant that her child was safe, I began to write this article - because I was there, and I believe that woman is wrong. There were no drug-fuelled "swingers" on our holiday; instead, there was a bunch of ordinary parents wearing Berghaus and worrying about sleep patterns. Secure in our banality, none of us imagined we were being watched. One group made a disastrous decision; Madeleine was vulnerable and was chosen. But in the face of such desperate audacity, it could have been any one of us.

And when I stroke my daughter's hair, or feel her butterfly lips on my cheek, I do so in the knowledge of what might have been. But our experience is nothing, an irrelevance, next to the McCanns' unimaginable grief. Their lives will always be touched by this darkness, while the true culprit may never be brought to light.

So my heart goes out to them, Gerry and Kate, the couple we remember from our Portuguese holiday. They had a beautiful daughter, Madeleine, who played and danced with ours at the kiddie club. That's who we remember.


· Bridget O'Donnell is a writer and director. The fee from this article will be donated to the Find Madeleine fund (findmadeleine.com).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/dec/14/ukcrime.madeleinemccann

This has been posted-up a number of times in the past - always worth a bump.  A perfect example of the lengths protagonists will go to support the prime suspects in a very serious crime and/or capitalize on the disappearance of a innocent little three year old child - Madeleine McCann.

Lest they forget..

MADDIE MYSTERY WOMAN

Madeleine McCann cops ‘hunting mysterious woman in purple seen loitering near Portuguese apartment just TWO hours before three-year-old went missing’

Brit gran claims the woman was just staring at the building where Maddie was sleeping

Exclusive By Tracey Kandohla - 1st May 2017


A MYSTERIOUS "woman in purple" is the prime suspect British cops are thought to be searching for in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

A British gran told how she remembers seeing the female loitering outside the very apartment from which Maddie was snatched just TWO HOURS before the child's distraught mum Kate discovered she was missing in 2007.

Jenny Murat, who lives just 100 yards away from the now infamous apartment 5a of the Ocean Club complex, since renamed the Garden Club,  told how she was struck by the “bizarre behaviour” of the stranger staring at the flat.

She told how she had driven to get some shopping when she was on her way home at around 8pm and saw a woman standing by a lamppost.

Mrs Murat added: "It was the middle of the evening and I saw the woman standing on the corner of the street just watching intently.

"I don’t know who she was but she caught my eye because she was dressed in purple-plum clothes.

“It struck me as strange because it’s so unusual for anyone, particularly a woman, to be standing alone on the street in our resort, just watching a building.

"The next morning we heard that a little girl had gone missing and I later told police about the woman I’d seen right outside.
“It was unusual to see a woman standing alone. I didn’t recognise her and don’t have a clue who she is but is seems a bit suspicious.

"If she is important to the policy inquiry I hope they find her wherever she may be."

The woman in purple, whose name is being withheld by police, has become the latest focus of Scotland Yard’s high profile operation to find the girl’s kidnapper.

Mrs Murat added: "What happened that night to Madeleine was most awful and now ten years on we need answers."
Met Police believe the woman is a prime suspect and may hold the key to Maddie’s fate - but incredibly they are thought to have never quizzed potential witness Mrs Murat.


But they did talk to Brit holidaymaker Jeremy Wilkins, a tennis playing holiday pal of Maddie’s dad, who had also spotted a woman lurking in the area.

It is understood from sources close to the investigation that the woman had a connection to a worker at the resort where the McCanns were staying.

A police insider yesterday said they were ready to “move in” and arrest the woman, who is not currently living in Portugal, in the latest “hugely significant line of inquiry.

The source said: “Detectives have scoured Europe looking for this woman who is thought to hold the key to solving the entire case.

"They want to know exactly where she was on the night Madeleine was taken from the apartment.

"After months of tireless police work they will soon be in a position to move in and finally get some answers after a decade of dead ends.”

Metropolitan Police said it would not comment on active investigations.

As Maddie’s parents medical worker Kate, 49, and eminent heart doctor Gerry, 48, face the “unwanted” decade anniversary of their daughter’s kidnap, Mrs Murat said: “Those poor parents need to know what happened.”

Pensioner Mrs Murat, 79, told how the Maddie case had worn her and fellow locals down.

She said: “It’s been non-stop for 10 years and some locals have become very fed up with it.

"It’s not helped our lovely resort in respect of tourism but slowly people are coming back to visit in bigger numbers than ever.”
Mrs Murat said her heart went out to Maddie’s parents, saying: “It’s never ending for them and they must need some answers.

All people want is for there to be a happy ending for that family. I hope after all this time there can be a resolution.”
Her son Robert Murat, who at the time was living in the family home Casa Liliana, had helped police translate in witness interviews only to become an “arguido”, an official suspect, in Maddie’s disappearance himself. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Businessman Robert, 42, who grew up in Devon, lives in Lagos, a neighbouring resort to Luz.

In a rare media interview to mark the sixth anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance in May 2013, he said of the Met Police inquiry: “They need to start from the beginning.”

He said: “I am available to help on the proper legal basis. I think everybody who was around at that time, holidaymakers and people at the Ocean Club, should be interviewed again.

"The timeline needs to be made crystal clear because there is still so much confusion, such a mess.

“But you cannot lose sight of the fact that a child was taken and we need to know what happened to her. I believe it will come out one day.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3453712/madeleine-mccann-search-latest-therories-woman-purple-portugal-apartment/

According to Any Redwood during his revelation moment on Crime Watch, Tannerman had not only been located but had for years held on to the pyjamas his child was dressed in.

Meanwhile there was the Smith family sighting to focus upon and two glaringly different efits of what was supposed to be the same man were offered up.

Andy Redwood is long gone and Crime Watch has recently been axed .
Now it's alleged SY is hunting down a woman in Bulgaria with a dead husband who may have been a paedophile and may have been spotted by Jenny Murat whose son was made arguido.

There is a tiny part of me that would love to think SY is playing a blinder but reality tells me it's all bunkum.

Police investigating Madeleine McCann disappearance head to Bulgaria in search of paedophile's widow known as the 'woman in purple'

• A ‘woman in purple’ is keeping Operation Grange alive - the search for Maddie
  
• She was seen by British expat Jenny Murat before the youngster went missing
  
• Police are now searching Bulgaria in an attempt to find her and question her 
  
• It is understood the woman's husband, who is now dead, was a paedophile  
  

By Gareth Davies For Mailonline and Neil Tweedie for the Daily Mail
Published: 09:28, 5 November 2017  |  Updated: 09:38, 5 November 2017

@aquila What's the betting when they find this woman whose husband could be another dead paedophile patsy like Raymond Hewlett whose son burned a deathbed confession letter SY is hoping to find and was wearing purple who vanished because it was splashed all over the newspapers that she'll have kept the purple sweater she was seen wearing at the same time as Jane Tanner who was also spotted wearing a purple sweater whose probably thrown it away by now just like crechedad kept his childs pyjamas before the two Smithmen who look like Gerry McCann became the focus who pointed the finger at Jenny Murat's son who was made an arguido then got thousands of quid compensation because he was victim of the biggest f*ck up and who (she, Jane) lives in Exeter and not Bulgaria and refused to take part in the reconstruction and hasn't been reinterviewed because SY is playing a blinder, or maybe not?

Get'emGonçalo wrote:@aquila What's the betting when they find this woman whose husband could be another dead paedophile patsy like Raymond Hewlett whose son burned a deathbed confession letter SY is hoping to find and was wearing purple who vanished because it was splashed all over the newspapers that she'll have kept the purple sweater she was seen wearing at the same time as Jane Tanner who was also spotted wearing a purple sweater whose probably thrown it away by now just like crechedad kept his childs pyjamas before the two Smithmen who look like Gerry McCann became the focus who pointed the finger at Jenny Murat's son who was made an arguido then got thousands of quid compensation because he was victim of the biggest f*ck up and who (she, Jane) lives in Exeter and not Bulgaria and refused to take part in the reconstruction and hasn't been reinterviewed because SY is playing a blinder, or maybe not?

A great precis of what's being presented to the public.

Jane Tanner was let off the hook by Andy Redwood's infamous 'revelation moment' declared during the crimewatch Madeleine McCann Special in October (that month again) 2013.  He 'apprently' discovered a hermit that came forth from the blue to relieve Tanner from the burden of her phantom abductor.

Now post October (just) 2017, four years later, Jane Tanner is again let off the hook by a source close to the investigation - the purple woman of Bulgaria.  Well I never!

Who will rid us of this turbulent woman?

Whatever happens on the road to the grande finale, one things for sure - the Portuguese will be blamed !!!

Verdi wrote:Jane Tanner was let off the hook by Andy Redwood's infamous 'revelation moment' declared during the crimewatch Madeleine McCann Special in October (that month again) 2013.  He 'apprently' discovered a hermit that came forth from the blue to relieve Tanner from the burden of her phantom abductor.

Now post October (just) 2017, four years later, Jane Tanner is again let off the hook by a source close to the investigation - the purple woman of Bulgaria.  Well I never!

Who will rid us of this turbulent woman?

Whatever happens on the road to the grande finale, one things for sure - the Portuguese will be blamed !!!

I rememberl watching Crimewatch. At the time I totally believed the abduction narrative, but when the Tanner sighting was explained away, because an innocent dad had come forward, I realised something was very amiss. I expected this toddler-carrying dad to be named and maybe interviewed to explain why it had taken so long to come forward, but, nothing. Light bulb moment.

this purplement woman, surely

The Daily Tablet

Cops from London's finest in a last ditch attempt to solve the Maddie case are looking at one final lead before all stones have been unturned. 


We can reveal today from a source close to a close source to Scotland Yard,  a retired cop has been tipped-off about a mysterious new witness who has been holed-up in the lawless hills of Praia da Luz for over ten years and has now come forward with information vital to the investigation.
   
The Operation Grange team, now down to a supervisory DCI, a desk clerk and the tea lady are preparing to scour Europe looking for this mysterious witness, said to have been lurking around the Ocean Club hotel before, during and after the toddler was abducted from her bed while her parents were only an unturned stones throw away at a nearby boozer.  It has been rumoured that the witness died following an unfortunate accident with a South African patented heavy duty sludge gulper, sometime between 2007 and 2013.

This latest news comes just in the nic of time, as the illegal unofficial investigation is due to be wound down in six months from the last six months when the latest Home Office fuel injection runs dry.

A source close to the family said that Gerry and Kate are buoyed up by this latest development.  They still believe Maddie is a findable little girl and will be home for Christmas.  

The cops are appealing [?] to anyone who may have seen this person, said to be a traveler moving under many aliases,  Tannerman, Smithman, Crecheman, Sagresman and Maxman.  If you've seen him/her, please immediately contact the nearest cop shop or Mrs Murat information gathering street stall in your area.  Do not approach this wo/man, the person is said to be unpredictable.



This chilling picture is not what it seems.

https://guernseypress.com/news/2007/06/20/missing-maddy-loved-her-guernsey-holiday/

Missing Maddy loved her Guernsey holiday

News | Published: Jun 20, 2007

MISSING Madeleine McCann has been to Guernsey. Her parents, Gerry and Kate, are close friends with islanders Steve and Lottie Evans, who today broke their silence to help support the international search.
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Read more at https://guernseypress.com/news/2007/06/20/missing-maddy-loved-her-guernsey-holiday/#dxWzHPQOKmKbcMoU.99

MISSING Madeleine McCann has been to Guernsey.

Her parents, Gerry and Kate, are close friends with islanders Steve and Lottie Evans, who today broke their silence to help support the international search. Until now the couple, who have known the McCanns for 12 years, have kept a low profile to shield their own children - Joel, 7, and Noah, 3.

The boys are good friends with Madeleine and her family, who stayed with them during a half-term visit to the island only last October.

Six months later, on another family holiday in Portugal, Maddy was snatched from their villa in Praia da Luz, sparking a worldwide hunt for her abductors.

'We are devastated at what has happened to Madeleine, but we were torn as we wanted to protect our own children from the story as much as we could,' explained Mrs Evans.

'Joel has an idea of what is going on. He thinks Maddy got up out of bed and is lost. Now someone else loves her so much they want to keep her.

'Noah is not as aware. He keeps seeing her picture on the Town Church and asking why Madeleine's photo is there. Then he asks when is she is going to come back to Guernsey to bake cakes with him.'

The couple have been in regular contact with Kate and Gerry since the story broke on 3 May.

Steve, a consultant at the Medical Specialist Group, and Gerry, also a doctor, have been friends since they first worked together in Napier, New Zealand.

Lottie, who is a nurse, had gone there with her husband and when Kate went over to work there as a doctor and met Gerry, the four became firm friends.

After their return, they kept in touch with the McCanns and their children, including twins Sean and Amelie, who first came to Guernsey when they were four months old in 2005. Madeleine is said to have particularly loved the beach at Vazon.

'Today, Gerry and Kate are never far from our minds,' said Mrs Evans.

'We have texted them lots and called them. I think both Steve and I try not to think too much about Madeleine because it doesn't bear thinking about. We are trying to think about Gerry and Kate instead.'

--------------




Steve Evans

sandancer wrote:Is there such a thing as an " intelligent tabloid " especially when it comes to " reporting " on all things McCann ?

Oh yes - look, it's even got a hashtag to prove it

Mirror Online: The intelligent tabloid. #madeuthink

They got that right - it certainly makes you think....

Madeleine McCann: time to forget?

As the fourth anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance approaches - and coincides with a new book written by her mother, Kate - Olga Craig returns to Praia da Luz to see how the Portuguese resort has put the incident behind it

By Olga Craig

7:00AM BST 24 Apr 2011

It is the spiritual sanctuary to which Kate and Gerry McCann return time and time again with each passing year. Usually their visits are in private, occasionally with close relatives. But it is here, in the tiny, white-washed 17th-century church of Our Lady of Light, overlooking the sea in Praia da Luz on the Algarve, where the couple feel closest to Madeleine, their cherished oldest child, who next month will have been missing for four years. Here is where Kate, especially, in the words of parish priest Father Haynes Hubbard, her Portuguese pastor and confidant, “comes back to cling to the hope that their daughter will come home”.

The church has always been where the McCanns and their supporters have gathered, particularly during those dark days following May 3 2007 when Madeleine, then just days short of her fourth birthday, vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in the seaside village. It has been here they have found succour and strength. Here that they still hope one day to return to give thanks and salvation for the safe return of their child, who will turn eight next month.

Yet today, as another agonising anniversary looms for the McCanns, there is, surely, something missing? While the congregation prays daily for Madeleine, the photographs of the little girl, forever frozen in time as the chubby-cheeked, gap-toothed toddler she was when she vanished, are nowhere to be seen. Once, they adorned the walls and pews. “Find Madeleine” posters, replaced when they faded, were pinned near the altar and yellow and green ribbons, symbols of the campaign launched to search for her, adorned the porch. Now there are none.

“There are pictures of Madeleine in the church,” Fr Hubbard says hesitantly. “But you can’t see them, they are hidden. They are not on display. People were hurt and scarred by everything that was said and done and it has frightened them off. Many are now cautious to openly display their hope.”

He is wary; uncomfortable, perhaps. He chooses his words with care. For while he – and many in his congregation – continue to pray in hope rather than in despair, the sad truth is that Madeleine McCann has become an awkward, painful and, perhaps unpalatably, at times taboo topic in Praia da Luz. Tragically, though perhaps understandably, the overwhelming atmosphere here is of a community uncomfortable with its connection to a lost little girl. Some have simply airbrushed her from memory while others, who at the time were highly vocal in the “Find Maddy” campaign, now distance themselves.

A few, one suspects, feel guilty that the locals did not handle the disappearance in a more organised – and less hysterical – manner. As Inez Lopes, editor of the local newspaper, Algarve Resident, points out: “People want to move on, not be forever attached to or identified with Madeleine. Of course we still feel for the McCanns but we want to be associated with a happier place. Frankly, it was an isolated incident that could have happened anywhere in the world. Right now Portugal is in the grip of a financial crisis. In Praia da Luz the feeling is that it has hurt our local economy. Tourism was affected by it, businesses closed. I don’t think the local business community can be blamed for wanting to return to being nothing more than a holidaymakers’ haven.”

Many of the principal characters in the case – which saw the McCanns by turn being comforted and protected by the Portuguese and expatriate communities alike as grieving parents; then vilified and shunned when they were, wrongly, accused of being involved in the disappearance – have moved on. Others want to banish all reminders of Madeleine’s existence and some openly display anger that this once prosperous tourist town is now synonymous with the abduction and possible murder of a child. Just a month ago, fresh posters were either torn down or had paint splattered over them within 24 hours. Reluctantly the McCanns have accepted that their campaign reminders are no longer welcomed by many locals.

And while no one would deny that the McCanns have borne the brunt of the anguish and opprobrium, they are not alone in that suffering. Within weeks of Madeleine’s disappearance Robert Murat, a British expatriate who had made Praia da Luz his home, was under investigation. The villa he shared with his elderly mother Jenny was searched by police and sniffer dogs and its grounds dug up. Mr Murat was questioned repeatedly by police and became the public scapegoat for the international outrage over Madeleine’s abduction. He was vilified in print, spat at in the streets and besieged in his home. In time, he too was exonerated. The scars of his public savaging, however, remain. These days he is rarely seen in public in Praia da Luz. He has since married his long-term girlfriend Michaela (she, too, was wrongly accused of involvement) who eight months ago gave birth to their son, Benjamin.

“No one wanted to know how I felt, or what I was going through at the time,” he says with an understandable trace of bitterness. “From my perspective, I have a new life with my wife and baby son.”

None the less, Mr Murat and his family have found it difficult to return to anonymity. “It’s still talked about here. All the time. But everyone is more cautious, less willing to take events at face value,” says Tuck Price, a close friend of Mr Murat and his staunchest supporter when he was wrongly accused. “Madeleine’s disappearance is an uncomfortable reminder that perhaps we had all become too complacent. Just last week I had my four-year-old nephew and his 12-year-old sister staying. And yes, I was more vigilant. I kept a closer eye on them than maybe I would have before Madeleine disappeared.’’

Mr Murat’s aunt and uncle, Sally and Ralph Everleigh, were also hounded during the spell he was under suspicion. Though they were never accused of any involvement they were harassed and cold-shouldered: for nothing more than being deemed guilty by association. “It was a horrendous time,” Mrs Everleigh recalls. “Our house was bugged, our phones tapped. Of course the McCanns have suffered a tragedy that they will never be able to come to terms with. How could they? But the stress of the whole situation made my husband ill. We suffered in our own way.” Little wonder, then, that each year, as the May 3 anniversary approaches, the couple leave their home and spend a few weeks in Gibraltar to escape the attention.

There are many in the tourism trade, too, whose businesses have been affected by what Ms Lopes describes as the “double whammy of the recession and the Maddy effect”. Several shops are boarded up and closed, and the resort seems a little more shabby, a little more down-at-heel. Restaurant owners mutter or grimace dismissively when asked how they have been affected. “Badly,” is the morose, monosyllabic response of one café owner. “We don’t want to talk about it,” say most. “We want the holidaymakers back.” It hasn’t helped, naturally, that Portugal’s weather is currently unseasonably poor. Last week, Praia da Luz was lashed with torrential rain, its few tourists forced to huddle in cafés clad in sou’westers and gumboots.

Mrs Ruth McCann (no relation) who owned the 5a apartment that was rented to the McCanns through the Ocean Club complex from where Madeleine was snatched, has tried for two years to sell. Though she dropped the price to £255,000 (£50,000 less than similar properties sell for) she didn’t have a single inquiry. The flat has lain unoccupied since the McCanns left it to return to their Leicestershire home in Rothely in September 2007. And it shows. The varnish on its front door has become faded and stripped by the sun; its garden is overgrown and the hedge, in contrast to those adjacent, is unkempt and bedraggled. “I keep asking the Ocean people to cut it,” says Ian Fenn who inherited the apartment above from his mother, Pamela, who died last month.

Mr Fenn, who lives in England, visits the flat monthly and has witnessed its transformation from white-washed holiday home to a ghoulish, run-down tourist attraction. “There are always tourists who stand outside and get their friends to take their photograph outside 5a,” he says wearily. “They find some ghastly attraction in being pictured at the spot when a little girl was abducted. Gerry McCann did come up to apologise to my mother for all the unwanted attention – which was incredibly kind as he has endured a grief and pain that no parent should ever have to withstand.”

There have been subtle changes, too, in the Ocean complex. On the night their daughter was snatched, the McCanns and seven other British couples in their party, dined in the complex, leaving all their children – in adjacent apartments – alone. They did not lock the doors, fearing the children would be trapped should a fire break out. Neither did they pay for a baby-sitting service, saying they didn’t want to leave their children with strangers. Instead, in a decision that will forever haunt the couple, they opted to take turns checking on all the sleeping children at half-hourly intervals. Today, the dining area has been turned into a pizzeria and is no longer open in the evenings. And though the McCanns have received world-wide sympathy, they know that those fateful decisions will always be questioned.

In the complex several British families, hoping to escape what they believed would be brisk Easter weather at home, were holidaying in the Ocean complex last week. Mike and Liz Atwood from Birmingham and their three children – Toby, 12, Lucy, nine, and four-year-old Tom – were among the few who braved the pool during the brief spells when the monsoon-like rains ceased. The family has holidayed in Praia da Luz many times and though Madeleine’s disappearance disturbed them, they have opted to return each year.

“But, of course, we are more vigilant,” Mrs Atwood admits. “This is a friendly, family-orientated resort and the Portuguese are well-known for how lovingly they treat children. But we just don’t let the kids out of our sight. We wouldn’t dream of going out for dinner and leaving them alone. I don’t mean to be critical of the McCanns. All parents can empathise with how grief-stricken they are. How bitterly they regret those decisions. They are paying a dear and heavy price and no one would wish it upon them. It has certainly made us be more attentive.”

On Praia da Luz’s beach, too, parents keep a keen eye on their children. Between heavy showers, as some played in the sand clad in stout boots and raincoats, their mothers shivered on the sea front watching them. “I don’t even want to sit in the café where it’s warm,” one said. “I would rather get wet and cold and know they are safe.”

Among the local Portuguese community too there have been many whose lives have changed immeasurably since Madeleine's disappearance. None more so, perhaps, than Gonçalo Amaral, who initially headed the botched and woefully inadequate police investigation. Since being dropped from the case, he has become a thorn in the McCanns’ side. While Kate awaits the launch of her own book on May 12 (Madeleine’s birthday) in which she tells the story from her perspective, and the proceeds from which will hopefully boost the vastly depleted Find Madeleine campaign, she and husband Gerry face a renewed legal battle with Amaral. They had already clashed over his sensationalised and dubious account of events, cryptically entitled The Truth of The Lie in which he attempted to justify his decision to brand the couple as suspects, which the McCanns called “mistaken” and aired his highly speculative theory that Madeleine died in apartment 5a. When he was barred from publishing it, he set about writing another which is also timed to launch near Madeleine’s birthday.

This weekend, while he refused to comment on his book, his wife Sonia defended his decision to publish a second. “Gonçalo has worked hard on this book,” she said. “He has spent days and nights assessing the evidence. In it he will say his investigation was cut short and he will explain what he would have done if he had been allowed to continue.” The timing of the publication, she insisted, was “coincidental. We are not trying to cash in on the anniversary”.

None the less, the timing will be hurtful for the McCanns who had hoped their court battles had dissuaded him from further comment. “It’s just one more painful thing they must face,” says one relative. “Quite why he wants to hound them when it has been proved definitively that they are completely innocent, no one knows.”

This weekend, while the congregation of Our Lady of Light held traditional Easter services, doubtless many said silent prayers for Madeleine, although she was not mentioned by name. Many will leave the village for the anniversary, others intend to make an appearance at the vigil in the church on May 3. In their home town of Rothely, Kate and Gerry will be steeling themselves to attend their fourth service that marks yet another year without a trace of Madeleine.

Both vigils will be emotion-filled. Prayers will be said, fervent hopes for a happy outcome – which, with the passing of time, becomes ever less likely – voiced. In Praia da Luz, however, quietly and behind the scenes, one man will spend the day remembering Madeleine in a more practical way. David Edgar, the Ulster-born ex-police officer whose Alpha Group Investigations has taken over the search, will hope that the anniversary – and publication of Kate’s book – will jog a long-forgotten memory.

That finally there will be a resolution to what has become an enduring mystery: the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/8469932/Madeleine-McCann-time-to-forget.html

What a load of old mawkish twaddle - it's got all the fragrance of Bridget O'Donnell and her 'Months With Madeleine'.

Verdi wrote:

Did they carry their " rape whistles " with them while cavorting round the poles ? 


Down their bras maybe ?