Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

“I believe Madeleine is still alive and the case can be solved. I would strongly consider coming back to help as a private investigator if required. In fact, I would be happy to come back on board.”

A rather bold statement from someone who doesn't appear to have a clue about things in general, let alone the disappearance of a three year old child

This is the same bloke who not so long ago publicly declared he thinks Madeleine McCann is being held in the lawless hills of Portugal




Eh - Maddie who?

He also warned they could strike again !

Err , 11 years later Dave and " they " still haven't " struck " again ! 

Maybe " they " are waiting for a bigger window ?

You'd be happy  to get back on board , pension pot not enough Dave ? 

The Fund is running low as well ( have they paid Portugal yet anyone know ? ) 

All these ex detectives jumping on the bandwagon wanting to join the circus created by the McCanns and Mitchell , for Madeleine ? No ! For themselves ? Yes ! 

Just imho of course !

Verdi wrote:

“I believe Madeleine is still alive and the case can be solved. I would strongly consider coming back to help as a private investigator if required. In fact, I would be happy to come back on board.”

A rather bold statement from someone who doesn't appear to have a clue about things in general, let alone the disappearance of a three year old child

This is the same bloke who not so long ago publicly declared he thinks Madeleine McCann is being held in the lawless hills of Portugal




Eh - Maddie who?

And his sidekick is the bloke who set up the bogus PI company Alphaig Limited.

Over £12million allegedly spent via Operation Strange and still no search of that hellish lair. seems to me that Bert and Ernie here are a couple of hellish liars. Just my opinion of course

Yeah, but, Pamela Gurney is on the case and knows knows that Madeleine is in the hellish lair.
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t12736p525-twitter-news-and-important-information-only-please#388420

It's only a matter of time now before Kate and Gerry start spending some of the public money to search them thar hills.

That's if they haven't spent it all on building equipment or a house, of course, as reported by Tracey Kandohla.

Jill Havern wrote:Yeah, but, Pamela Gurney is on the case and knows knows that Madeleine is in the hellish lair.
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t12736p525-twitter-news-and-important-information-only-please#388420

It's only a matter of time now before Kate and Gerry start spending some of the public money to search them thar hills.

That's if they haven't spent it all on building equipment or a house, of course, as reported by Tracey Kandohla.

Of course she knows. And if Gerry & Kate were in direct contact with Gordon Brown, why can't Ms Gurney be in contact with the Moroccan King?

SharonL wrote:  ...... seems to me that Bert and Ernie here are a couple of hellish liars.

Bert and Ernie of the lawless Flintshire hills   !

Howz about Shylock and Whatsup or Bill and Ben or Stan and Ollie?



I feel a caption contest coming on  

Verdi wrote:

SharonL wrote:  ...... seems to me that Bert and Ernie here are a couple of hellish liars.

Bert and Ernie of the lawless Flintshire hills   !

Howz about Shylock and Whatsup or Bill and Ben or Stan and Ollie?



I feel a caption contest coming on  

Edgar and Cowley missed their vocation. They could have been rich and famous, just by being themselves.

The intelligent tabloid #makesuthink..

Madeleine McCann files: Timeline of evidence of Maddie's disappearance


At 7.30pm on May 3, 2007, little Madeleine has breakfast with her family. By 10pm that night she had been taken - here's the evidence so far

ByTom Pettifor & Andy Lines: 14th October 2013

May 2006

Almost exactly a year before Madeleine disappeared an intruder is caught looking into a British child’s cot on a ground floor apartment in the same block.

The man is scared off by an older child who screams.

DCI Redwood said the incident had many of the “hallmarks” of Madeleine’s disappearance.

The parents were dining next door at the time of the incident.

May 3, 2007
7.30am

The family wake and have breakfast in their apartment.

Kate said: “It was at that point that Madeleine said ‘where were you when Sean and I cried last night?’

"And it was one of those questions that kind of throws you.”

Gerry and Kate had spent the previous four nights having dinner with their friends at a tapas restaurant after putting the children to bed.

Gerry said: “I just made a mental note if we go out tonight we just need to be make sure we are checking them.

"We wouldn’t like to think they might wake up be crying and looking for us.”

5pm

Kate returns from a jog.

She said: “Madeleine looked really tired. She was really pale and quite washed out.”
6pm

The McCanns return to their apartment and Gerry goes out to play tennis.

Kate gets them ready for bed.

Kate said: “We read a story and Madeleine asked if she could put my engagement ring on which she did quite a bit. She had that on and it was just a really nice moment.”
7pm

Gerry returns from his tennis match.

He said: “We were sitting all on the couch together and they all had their jammies on and milk.”

Kate sat with the children on Madeleine’s bed and read them a story.

She then put the twins into their travel cot and said goodnight.

The groudfloor bedroom had one window that had a shutter on the outside that was right down.

The window was closed along with the curtains.

Kate said: “As always I just closed the door. Not right over but just so it was open a little bit so the light from the living room would get through. I have to say it was quiet within seconds. They were all so tired."
8.30pm

At 8.30pm the McCanns leave the apartment via the patio sliding doors after pulling the curtains closed.

They leave the door unlocked.

They are met at the tapas restaurant by their friends Matt and Rachael Oldfield and Jane Tanner and her partner Russell O’Brien.

9pm

Around 9pm Matt left to make sure his children were okay.

Shortly after he had gone the remaining three of the group arrived at the tapas restaurant.

Gerry tells Kate he is going back to the apartment to check on the children.

He said: “As I went in I noticed that there bedroom door was open slightly wider than I had left it so I actually went into the room and I could see the twins and Madeleine was lying there sound asleep.”

At around 9.15pm Gerry checks on their children and finds all sleeping soundly.
9.20pm



At around 9.20pm Jane Tanner went to check on her children and saw a man close to the McCann’s apartment carrying a child in pink pyjama’s similar to those Madeleine was wearing.

This man had been the prime suspect ever since.

However, the Met have now tracked down an innocent British father who they believe was the man Ms Tanner witnessed.
9.30pm

Kate stood up to go and check on the children but Matt Oldfield had done the same to check on his kids and offered to do it for her.

Russell O’Brien also went to check his children.

Matt came back and said everything was fine.

Russell stayed at his apartment as his daughter was unwell.

At around 10pm Kate returns to the apartment and finds Madeleine is missing.
In Kate McCann's own words

Kate said: “So at 10 o’clock I got up to do the next check so I headed back to that apartment the usual route and I just stopped and listened in the living room for a bit.

"It was all quiet but it just caught my eye that the children’s door was quite far open and at that point I thought it must have been when Matt checked and he left it open.

"As I was just drawing it over it was like it had been caught by a draft and it just slammed shut.

"At that point really as I opened it a bit I kind of looked into the room and I guess I was looking at Madeleine’s bed and I couldn’t make her out and then I realised actually she’s not in that bed and I thought, ‘I wonder if she’s woken up and gone into our bed’.

"She wasn’t in our bed and that was the first time I guess you know when panic kicked in and it was literally at that point the curtains that were closed kind of whooshed and I could see that the window had been pushed right open and the shutters were up.”
Images and E-fits

THE KEY SUSPECT

Two images of a man wanted in connection with the case were released today.

The man was spotted by the Smiths, an Irish family, who said they saw him carrying a small child at around 10pm on the night Madeleine went missing close to the McCanns’ apartment.

He is white with short brown hair and of medium build and height.

At around 10pm the Smiths, an Irish family, saw a man on Rua da Escola Primária, approximately 600 meters from the Ocean Club, carrying a young girl and walking in the direction of Rua 25 de Abril away from the McCann’s apartment.

They described the girl as four years old, wearing light-coloured pyjamas, with blonde hair and pale skin.

Two e-fits of the man were released today.

He is described as white, aged between 20 and 40, with short brown hair.

He is of medium build. Medium height and clean shaven.

In September 2008 a team of private investigators produce two e-fit images of the man seen by the Smiths but they are not made public until this week.

An unnamed girl told police she saw a man on April 30, at 8am and May 2, at noon.

He is described as white, 30-35 years old, thin build, short light coloured hair, shaved to 1cm in length, with spots on his face described as being caused by shaving.

On both occasions he had black sunglasses with a thick frame, and was wearing a black leather jacket.

This image was previously released in 2008 when Portuguese police files were released.

A different witness saw this man again near apartment G5A, on May 3 at 4pm.

He is described as white, normal build, blondish fair hair, quite close shaven, aged between 30-35 years old.

Police have said 2A and 2B could be the same man.

This is one of two men who approached a property on the Rua do Ramalhete, near to the Ocean Club, on May 3 at 4pm.

He is described as Portuguese, with medium length wavy hair, aged 25-30 years old.

He is said to have spoken good English.

This image was previously released in 2008 when Portuguese police files were released.

This is of a charity collector who called at apartment G5A on the April 25 or 26, between 2.30pm and 3pm.

He is described as Portuguese looking, aged 40-45 years old, with short dark hair, slightly grey at sides.

He was carrying, a clip board or pad, receipt book, and an ID card with his photo on it - but in that photo he had a goatee beard.

This image was previously released in 2008 when Portuguese police files were released.
....................

To view efits click here..

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-files-timeline-evidence-2372091



Who needs a detective when you've got investigative journalism at the intelligent tabloid that #makesuthink
?

Britain's diplomats 'were told not to support Murat'
13 December 2007
The Daily Express


BRITISH diplomats had been ordered to "avoid offering support" to suspect Robert Murat, it was reported yesterday.

It was claimed that a Foreign Office memo sent the instruction to staff three days after Murat was named a formal "arguido".

His mother Mrs Jenny Murat is also reported to have complained to diplomats that he was not given the same support offered to the McCanns.

While they had the backing of Government ministers, all Murat was offered was "a kit with a toothbrush and a towel, and a list of lawyers who gave special prices".

Last night his lawyer Francisco Pagarete said: "He feels he has been abandoned by his own government. This extremely serious order confirms the lack of support which the family has felt since the beginning. He does not oppose in any way the support which has been given to the McCanns."

Yesterday Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported that the Foreign Office document, dated May 17, justified the order because of "the specific nature of the case". It said British diplomats "were already helping Madeleine's parents".

The newspaper reported: "An internal document sent by the Foreign Office orders British diplomats 'to avoid offering support' to Murat unless charges are presented against him."

John Buck, British Ambassador to Portugal when Madeleine vanished, joined the McCanns in the Algarve days later.

Three family liaison officers from Leicestershire Police flew in to assist the couple.

The Foreign Office sent press officers Sheree Dodd and Clarence Mitchell to Praia da Luz to help with the media.

El Mundo claims Murat's only support was a meeting with two low-ranking diplomats weeks after being named a suspect.

Mrs Murat went to the UK to complain to her MP. The politician contacted the Foreign Office and met two diplomatic staff from the Algarve. They were assured Murat would get the same support as the McCanns – but only if he was charged.

Jill Havern wrote:Britain's diplomats 'were told not to support Murat'
13 December 2007
The Daily Express


BRITISH diplomats had been ordered to "avoid offering support" to suspect Robert Murat, it was reported yesterday.

It was claimed that a Foreign Office memo sent the instruction to staff three days after Murat was named a formal "arguido".

His mother Mrs Jenny Murat is also reported to have complained to diplomats that he was not given the same support offered to the McCanns.

While they had the backing of Government ministers, all Murat was offered was "a kit with a toothbrush and a towel, and a list of lawyers who gave special prices".

Last night his lawyer Francisco Pagarete said: "He feels he has been abandoned by his own government. This extremely serious order confirms the lack of support which the family has felt since the beginning. He does not oppose in any way the support which has been given to the McCanns."

Yesterday Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported that the Foreign Office document, dated May 17, justified the order because of "the specific nature of the case". It said British diplomats "were already helping Madeleine's parents".

The newspaper reported: "An internal document sent by the Foreign Office orders British diplomats 'to avoid offering support' to Murat unless charges are presented against him."

John Buck, British Ambassador to Portugal when Madeleine vanished, joined the McCanns in the Algarve days later.

Three family liaison officers from Leicestershire Police flew in to assist the couple.

The Foreign Office sent press officers Sheree Dodd and Clarence Mitchell to Praia da Luz to help with the media.

El Mundo claims Murat's only support was a meeting with two low-ranking diplomats weeks after being named a suspect.

Mrs Murat went to the UK to complain to her MP. The politician contacted the Foreign Office and met two diplomatic staff from the Algarve. They were assured Murat would get the same support as the McCanns – but only if he was charged.

I read this as they were hoping that Murat was man who had to pay the price, like Barry George.

Hi NickE,so the McCann's were not charged either but they still had"Protection" from Ambassador John Buck,Sheree Dodd,Clarence Mitchell,Leicestershire Police Officers,Gold group 8 May 2007?

but when it came to protecting a "Patsy" or Colt Severs?

Just shows the inequalities of life,"It's not what you know,its Who you know",Gordon Brown or his Brother,"Fellow Masons",Cliff Richards knows  about the Knights of Malta and No it isn't a song!

Verdi wrote:

To start..

Madeleine McCann: 'I listened for 15 seconds and knew they were innocent’

Just goes to show how human perception can be so polarised - In 2007 when the story broke and the McCanns read their first public announcement regarding the 'abduction' I listened for 15 seconds and I suspected they were guilty.

Just goes to show what a con the whole charade is!

I listened for 15 seconds and I suspected they were guilty.

Amen!  A Kanga after me own heart..



  by the way!

Yes - That's the footage! But I still can't pinpoint why I responded to them so negatively from the very beginning. After all who was I to judge how people should behave and express grief under such circumstances...but the gut has a mind of it's own. 

Anyway thanks for the welcome Verdi - glad to be onboard.

Because the speech lacks sincerity, it's amateur dramatics and Gerry McCann is reading from a script by torchlight as opposed to speaking from the heart?

To compound my thoughts, here's another media appearance only four days after Madeleine's alleged disappearance..



Nothing to say to Madeleine?

Madeleine's father cheered by police

13th July 2007

The father of missing Madeleine McCann has received a standing ovation at an awards ceremony for Britain's bravest police officers.
 
Gerry McCann thanked officers for their help in the search for his four-year-old daughter and urged them not to give up the hunt.
 
He wiped away tears after a poignant video of his daughter was shown at the Police Bravery Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
 
He said he and his wife Kate were now fully aware of the police's "sterling work".
 
Madeleine was snatched from her bed as she slept in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3.
 
Mr McCann told his audience: "Over the past 10 weeks Kate and I have been reminded of what a wonderful job you do.
 
"The role of our forces is often not appreciated until you really need their help.
 
"Kate and I would like to thank all of the police officers in the UK that were involved in the operation to find Madeleine for their sterling work."
 
He also praised the Portuguese police and other forces in countries where Madeleine has supposedly been sighted for their "commitment and co-operation".
 
Mr McCann said: "It's been 70 days since Madeleine was snatched from her bed as she slept. Each of those 70 days has been unbearable for her family. No child should be separated from its family in such a way."
 
He once again praised the "support and kind words" he and his family have received from members of the public, adding: "We will not give up and we will not stop searching for her."

Sky News

Anne-Marie Wright is the wife of Michael Wright, who openly admitted before a court of law in Lisbon, that he monitors the internet, as a representative of the McCann family and support network.  Michael Wright has been heavily involved with this case since the very beginning, he must be aware of the darker side of things..

Help bring Madeleine home
 
By Jenny Speak:  18th May 200

THE distraught Skipton relations of abducted four-year-old Madeleine McCann have urged everyone, especially holidaymakers, to do everything in their power to help bring her home.
 
Anne-Marie Wright is the cousin of Madeleine's mum, Kate.
 
The four-year-old was snatched from the family's holiday apartment in Praia Da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal, on Thursday May 3, sparking an international police investigation.
 
Mrs Wright said the little girl's abduction had rocked the whole family.
 
She said she had last seen Madeleine in February when she, her mum Kate, dad Gerry and two-year-old twin siblings, Amelie and Sean, came to stay in Skipton from their home in Leicestershire.
 
Mrs Wright said: "We had a lovely time with them and the children all get on particularly well. Our children, Katie and Patrick, love Madeleine, Sean and Amelie. We went to Aireville Park, went swimming, went to Hesketh Farm Park, walked along the canal towpath to look at the Rosie and Jim barge. Madeleine is a big Rosie and Jim fan."
 
The Wright family first heard of Madeleine's disappearance in the early hours of Friday May 4, when Mrs Wright's mum, Sheila Cowell, called with the news.
 
Mrs Wright's husband, Michael, then drove another relative to join Madeleine's grandparents in Liverpool and then went out to Portugal to help with the search.
 
Mr Wright is still in the Algarve and is keeping his wife and children informed of developments in the investigation and how Mr and Mrs McCann are coping.
 
Mrs Wright said: "It's all been very emotional and upsetting. Some days he said they are really focused and coping and getting things done and other days they are devastated."
 
She said she had spoken to Mrs McCann on the phone on Sunday.
 
"It was just really difficult and the conversation you don't want to ever have with anybody. She just seemed very numb.
 
"I just asked how she was coping and talked to her about the massive support there is.
 
"Ever since this happened people have been coming up to me - there's a really strong feeling - and everybody has been saying their thoughts are with them."
 
Mrs Wright said the whole family had been glued to the television for news of Madeleine.
 
"It's upsetting to see people who you know and love on the television. You have to pinch yourself. It's just bizarre."
 
She added: "They are a delightful family and Kate and Gerry are kind, caring, devoted parents.
 
"It makes you wonder why something as horrible as this can happen to such good people.
 
"Everyone in our family desperately wants Madeleine back with her mum, dad, brother and sister."
 
Mrs Wright said the family was trying to spread the word about Madeleine's abduction as far and wide as possible and urged people to go to the sky.com/news website to print off posters.
 
She said: "It would be particularly useful to expand the reach of the publicity to other countries in Europe and North Africa.
 
"We are asking people to think of contacts they may have who would be able to display the poster in areas accessed by the public.
 
"Prime locations would be banking halls, post offices, ATM locations, large retail outlets such as garages and supermarkets, public transport, trains, buses, taxis etc."
 
Madeleine's parents, who are both doctors, have also set up a trust which will accept donations to fund the search for their daughter. Details can be found at www.findmadeleine.com

http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/1406650.help_bring_madeleine_home/

McCann friends to clarify Madeleine evidence



From Times Online David Brown
November 8, 2007

The friends who were dining with the parents of Madeleine McCann on the night she disappeared have offered to speak to police again after concerns about contradictions in their evidence.

Kate and Gerry McCann hope that the seven friends will help to clear them of involvement in their daughter's disappearance and provide new clues about a mystery abductor.

The friends are Russell O'Brien, 36, and his partner, Jane Tanner, 37, Matthew Oldfield, 37, his wife, Rachael, 36, David Payne, 41, his wife, Fiona, 34, and her mother, Dianne Webster.

The group, who have become known as the Tapas Seven, were dining with Mr and Mrs McCann at a restaurant on the Ocean Club complex on Praia da Luz during the two hours before Madeleine was reported missing at 10pm on May 3.

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday that two of the friends had contacted Portuguese detectives asking to be “re-questioned so they can ‘correct' details of their original statements”.

The newspaper reported: “These two members of the group have asked for their identities to be kept secret because they fear that as a result of the ‘clarifications' they intend making about what happened the night Madeleine disappeared, they may be pressured by people linked to the McCann family.”

The key inconsistency being investigated by detectives is a claim by Mr O'Brien, an A&E consultant, that he was looking after his own daughter in the 30 minutes before Madeleine was reported missing, the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha reported today.

Mr O'Brien is reported to have told the Polícia Judiciária in his initial statement that he had asked for the sheets on his daughter's bed to be changed because she had vomited.

However, the newspaper quoted a source at the Ocean Club saying: “No person in that group requested any cleaning service, neither during that evening nor on the following days.” It added: “The cleaning staff never saw beds that had been vomited upon, and none of the English guests spoke to them about it”,

The Diário de Notícias newspaper claimed that the McCanns' friends had wanted to clarify the amount of alcohol drunk during the evening of Madeleine's disappearance and the number of checks made on their children.

The group is reported to have told police that they had ordered six bottles of wine, but two remained virtually untouched by the time Madeleine was reported missing. Leaks from the police investigation suggested that the group usually ordered drinks before dinner, drank up to 14 bottles of wine with their meal, and liqueur afterwards.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, said that the friends had all been contacted after the El Mundo report and insisted it was “totally untrue”. He said that the couple's friends had said they were happy to be reinterviewed by police if it resolved any apparent inconsistencies and hastened the McCanns being cleared.

“Contrary to a report in the Spanish press today, and after consultation amongst Gerry and Kate McCann's friends, I can deny that any approach has been made by their lawyers asking to amend or change the witness statement of any of them. This report is simply untrue,” he said.

“Kate and Gerry's friends, who were with them on May 3, have consistently told the truth and remain happy, indeed they are keen, to be reinterviewed by the police if necessary to clarify any inconsistencies in the statements that the police may think they have identified.

“The friends believe that if such interviews or reinterviews take place it can only lead to Gerry and Kate being eliminated from the inquiry swiftly.”

The McCanns were made arguidos, official suspects, by Portuguese detectives in September the day before they finally flew back to Britain after four months in Portugal.

The Times reported on Monday that the McCanns' lawyers had included the names of their seven friends on a list of twenty-five people they have asked Portuguese police to reinterview.

The couple believe that the witnesses will prove they were not involved in Madeleine's disappearance and could provide vital evidence about her abductor. The list includes employees of the Ocean Club, the British nannies at the resort who looked after Madeleine and a number of other holidaymakers in Praia da Luz who have not been interviewed fully by police.

The seven friends are likely to request to also be made official suspects before being reinterviewed so that they have the right to have a lawyer present and to allow detectives to question them about any suspicions.

Dr Payne, a cardiovascular researcher from Leicester, was the last person not part of the McCann family to see Madeleine, when her father asked him to check on his wife and children at 6.30pm.

Ms Tanner, from Exeter, claimed she had seen a stranger carrying a girl from the McCanns' ground-floor apartment at about 9.15pm, However, another witness says he was outside the apartment at the same time but did not see them.

Dr Oldfield, an endocrinologist at Kingston Hospital in southwest London, has said that he entered the McCanns' apartment to check on the children about 30 minutes before Madeleine was reported missing by her mother. He told police that although he had seen the two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, their elder sister's bed was out of his sight.

Mrs Payne, Mr O'Brien and Mrs Oldfield are reported to have told police that they saw Robert Murat, the other official suspect, at the Ocean Club on the night Madeleine disappeared. Mr Murat, 33, insists he spent all evening with his mother.

Mills denies Kate McCann parallel

Heather Mills, the estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney, denied today that she had compared herself to Mr and Mrs McCann in her complaint about media coverage.

In an interview last week she had said: “Look what they're doing to the McCanns. The woman has lost, and the poor father, have lost their daughter. What are we doing as a nation?

“What are we doing persecuting a woman that is devastated behind closed doors and trying to hold it together, as I have for 18 months?.”

However, she told GMTV this morning: “I didn't compare myself to the McCanns, and then they wrote that I did, so all they're doing is giving us more ammunition to use in the case.”

Fiona Phillips, the GMTV presenter, later told MS Mills that they had received an e-mail from Madeleine's grandmother, Susan Healey, praising her for speaking out and thanking her for supporting Mr and Mrs McCann.

Mills replied: “I can't imagine what they're going through, and that's really, really kind of them. I would never compare myself to them in that situation, nobody can ever imagine what they're going through.

“One day, when they can have the freedom to tell their story, then I'm sure that will be very cathartic for them as well.”

[Acknowledgement pamalam at gerrymcannsblog.co.uk]

Madeleine McCann 'was snatched by paedophile ring to order'

British police were told that Madeleine McCann was snatched by an international paedophile ring which photographed her three days before she vanished, police files have disclosed.

An email sent by the Metropolitan Police a child abduction ring based in Belgium placed an order for a
This is the full email sent by an intelligence officer on the Met's vice squad on March 4 this year to counterparts in the Portuguese and Leicestershire police



By Caroline Gammell in Portimao

9:13PM BST 06 Aug 2008

According to an email sent by the Metropolitan Police a child abduction ring based in Belgium placed an order for a "young girl".

Three-year-old Madeleine was spotted while on holiday in Portugal by someone connected to the gang who took a picture of her.

The photograph was sent back to Belgium where the paedophile ring agreed that she should be abducted, the email states.

Three days later on May 3rd last year Madeleine was taken from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve while her parents ate at a nearby restaurant.

The astonishing revelation supports Kate and Gerry McCann's long-held theory that their eldest child may have been taken by a child smuggling ring.

The email, sent by an intelligence officer on the Met's vice squad on March 4 this year to counterparts in the Portuguese and Leicestershire police, marks a significant development in the case of the missing girl.

Just last month Portuguese police closed their investigation and cleared the McCanns of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.

The email was revealed for the first time in police files made public this week.

The Met Police were tipped by an anonymous source, the files showed.

Met officer John Shord wrote the email to Leicestershire Police on March 4 which was passed on to Operation Task – the British end of the investigation into Madeleine McCann.

It said: "Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.

"Somebody connected to this group saw Maddie, took a photograph of her and sent it to Belgium. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken."

DC John Hughes, from Leicestershire Police, forwarded the email to the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) at Portimao in the Algarve on April 21, the files showed.

The next day the email was sent to Ricardo Paiva, one of the three Portuguese police officers leading the investigation.

On April 28, Portuguese police faxed the information to Interpol in Lisbon and asked them to investigate it as a matter of urgency.

Interpol replied on May 23, passing on all information gathered from its bureaus in London, Brussels, Germay and Finland.

On May 27, Interpol in Lisbon sent an urgent fax to Portuguese police asking for more information, but an undated return fax told them they had all the information that there was.

The email emerged in volume 14, appendix five, of the vast Portuguese police dossier into the closed investigation which was released to the public on Monday.

Paulo Rebelo, the head of the police investigation into Madeleine, ordered that the information be placed in the case file.

The inquiry was then shelved on July 21, less than two months after Interpol was told there was no further information about the paedophile ring.

Belgium has featured in the case already. There was an alleged sighting last August in Tongeren on the Dutch Belgian border but it was later ruled out.

The country was at the centre of one of the most notorious paedophile investigations of recent years which saw Marc Dutroux jailed for life in 2004 after being convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering young girls.

He was found guilty of kidnapping and raping six girls, killing two of them and causing the deaths of two others. The case surrounding Dutroux, 47, an unemployed electrician and a convicted paedophile, shocked Europe in the mid-1990s.

Mr and Mrs McCann, from Rothley in Leicestershire, have spent the last 15 months trying to find their daughter who disappeared from her family's apartment in Praia da Luz last May.

For 10 months the couple had to battle to clear their own names of suspicion after they were named as suspects.

Only now, is a picture emerging of what may have happened.

It destroys the PJ's theory that the couple accidentally killed Madeleine and then tried to dispose of her body.

The couple’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “Their private investigators will be pursuing this line as an absolute priority to establish if it has been fully investigated and properly ruled out.

“They have got some of the information already from their lawyers and investigators and they are waiting to hear from them what is legitimate, what is promising and what is not.

“They are frustrated by the delays and the mistakes that were made. They have learned an awful lot about this kind of thing and God forbid she has fallen foul of any of these types.”

A friend of Mr and Mrs McCann added: “Trafficking into Belgium forms a very strong part of their investigation as does trafficking into north Africa.

“There is definitive hard evidence that this is very much alive and happening and they have looked into the fact that someone was targeting children and they may well have been stealing to order.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Unsubstantiated information was received by CO14 relating to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

“This was passed on to Leicestershire Police on 4th March 2008. The information was further discussed with Leicestershire Police verbally and all possible lines of enquiry were conducted.

“Leicestershire Police passed the information on to the Portuguese authorities.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2512536/Madeleine-McCann-was-snatched-by-paedophile-ring-to-order.html

Networked Knowledge - Media Reports

On 17 October 2007 Caroline Gammell / Aislinn Simpson of the Daily Telegraph reported “Booker winner writes of dislike for McCanns”.

They said that Booker prize winner Anne Enright has launched an astonishing attack on Kate and Gerry McCann, describing in detail why she does not like the couple. That sentiment is even the title given to her 2,000 word essay which appeared in the London Review of Books under the headline Disliking the McCanns. Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, remain official suspects in the disappearance of their four-year-old daughter Madeleine, who went missing on May 3 from the Algarve and whose case has attracted worldwide attention. The 45-year-old Irish novelist, who has two young children aged four and seven, was the surprise winner at Tuesday night's literary awards ceremony for her book The Gathering. Writing before she won this week's prize, she said: "Disliking the McCanns is an international sport. "I disliked the McCanns earlier than most people (I'm not proud of it). I thought I was angry with them for leaving their children alone. In fact, I was angry at their failure to accept that their daughter was probably dead. I wanted them to grieve, which is to say to go away. In this, I am as bad as people who complain that 'she does not cry'."

She wrote: "Most of the animosity against the McCanns centres on the figure of Madeleine's beautiful mother. I am otherwise inclined. "I find Gerry McCann's need to 'influence the investigation' more provoking than her flat sadness. "The sad fact is that this man cannot speak properly about what is happening to himself and his wife, and about what he wants. "The language he uses is more appropriate to a corporate executive than to a desperate father. This may be just the way he is made. This may be all he has of himself to give the world, just now. "Then I go to bed and wake up the next day, human again, liking the McCanns."

Her views came to light as reports in Portugal claimed police want to carry out a "minute by minute" reconstruction of Mrs McCann's movements on the night Madeleine went missing. Despite the re-invigorated police investigation with Portugal's second most senior detective Paulo Rebelo taking the lead, the dectectives' suspicion still surrounds Mrs McCann. Police are said to believe she was responsible for her daughter's death and relied on her husband to help cover it up, an accusation angrily dismissed by the McCanns.

Detectives have also been given formal permission by investigating judge Pedro Daniel Don Anjos Frias to seize extracts of Mrs McCann's diary and the desktop computer used by Mr McCann while in the Algarve. Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas reported on Wednesday: "According to the theory among PJ, the little girl's body was hidden before the alarm was raised. "Kate McCann is at the centre of this theory. The Policia Judiciaria want to reconstruct her movements minute by minute and step by step."

Mark Williams-Thomas, a former Surrey Police child protection officer, said such a reconstruction was long overdue. He said: "A reconstruction is an important part of any investigation and would normally be done in the very early days. I would be amazed if they had not constructed a timeline months ago. "I think we are seeing a different approach being brought by the new head of the inquiry, who wants to go over everything until he is satisfied, which is quite right."

A family friend revealed Portuguese police had not approached the McCanns for assistance in any reconstruction. "Kate and Gerry have always been more than happy to assist the Portuguese police with their enquiries. There has been no new approach, or indeed any approach from the police since they have returned home to Rothley." But on his blog, Mr McCann welcomed the police inquiry: "It is very encouraging that Mr Rebelo's officers will be seemingly reviewing all the material in the inquiry, which will hopefully identify areas for further investigation."

In the UK, the results of an independent investigation carried out by five criminal investigators who travelled to Portugal will be shown on Channel 4's Dispatches: Searching for Madeleine on Thursday night. The team, led by retired Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson, was given full access to the Portuguese police files and assessed how officers in the Algarve dealt with the case. It is now 168 days since Madeleine disappeared and despite the revamped investigation, no trace of the little girl has been found.

Source: 17 October 2007 Caroline Gammell and Aislinn Simpson of the Daily Telegraph reported “Booker winner writes of dislike for McCanns”.

Madeleine McCann drugged, says grandmother



By Aislinn Simpson in Praia da Luz
2:50PM BST 01 Oct 2007

The grandmother of missing Madeleine McCann believes the four-year-old was drugged by her abductor to stop her screaming out and raising the alarm.

Eileen McCann, Gerry McCann’s mother, said it was the only way a stranger could have snatched her granddaughter as she lay sleeping in her parents’ rented apartment at the Ocean Club in the Algarve town of Praia da Luz on May 3.
Speaking on the 150th day since Madeleine went missing and ahead of a renewed publicity campaign aimed at finding her, the 69-year-old told the Belfast Telegraph the family were “going through hell” as the endless stream of police leaks about Gerry and Kate’s involvement in their daughter’s disappearance continued.

Mrs McCann, who lives in Scotland and runs a pub, said: “I really believe they (whoever took her) gave her a drug.
“There is no way they carried her out of there without her awakening.

“If she was taken when she was sleeping by somebody she did not know, she would have screamed the place down.”

The McCanns have denied claims in the Portuguese press that they themselves gave their children sedatives so they could go out to dinner with their friends.


It has been reported that police are working on a theory that Kate McCann killed her daughter accidentally, and the couple hid her body before eventually disposing of it.

But Mrs McCann dismissed claims that her granddaughter’s DNA was found in a Renault Scenic the McCanns hired weeks after Madeleine disappeared as “nonsense” and insisted that her son and daughter-in-law, both aged 39 and doctors, were innocent.

“Little Amelie is wearing Madeleine’s sandals and she is in and out of the car. Cuddly toys are in it. Madeleine’s toys are in it. Madeleine’s tops are in it that Amelie is wearing. It’s nonsense,” she said.

It also emerged today that the McCanns are considering suggestions by Scottish relatives that they take advice from psychics to find their daughter.


The couple, from Rothley in Leicestershire, have had more than 1,000 approaches from people claiming to be mediums and offering help but although any information deemed to be credible has been passed on to police, the McCanns have had no direct contact with any of them.

“They are desperate for help and even some family members are suggesting it as a possible route,” a friend said.
“It looks like one or two family members are saying why don’t you have a look at so and so.”

Next week, posters will be put up on billboards in Spain, Portugal and Morocco as part of a renewed campaign to raise awareness about Madeleine’s disappearance.

Although their status as official suspects means they cannot discuss details of the case or rebut some of the rumours circulating about it, Kate and Gerry McCann are also hoping to conduct a series of television interviews with Spanish and Portuguese networks.

“They are certainly looking at what they can do in line with the legal constraints and if that happens in time for the advertising campaign that would be great,” a source said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1564727/Madeleine-McCann-drugged-says-grandmother.html

Madeleine McCann: First pictures of Dutch sighting suspects

New photos of the couple believed to have been seen with Madeleine McCann three days after she disappeared have been released.

By Chris Irvine

6:58AM BST 08 Aug 2008

They show a dark-featured man with a moustache in his late 30s, who was speaking in Portuguese when Madeleine was allegedly spotted, and a brown-hair woman in her 40s who was talking French.
Madeline McCann suspects
The sketches were drawn by a police artist for the Daily Mirror on the evidence of Anna Stam

The sketches were drawn by a police artist for the Daily Mirror on the evidence of Anna Stam, 41, who claims to have seen the trio in Amsterdam.

Ms Stam's report was one of a number of potential sightings that emerged in the official police files released this week.

According to a witness statement to Dutch police, the girl entered Ms Stam's party shop in early May last year with a man and a woman and two other children.

The man - who "did not look like a nice person" - appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English, telling Ms Stam they had a small circus in France.

Ms Stam was then approached by the young girl at the back of the shop, who asked her in unaccented English: "Do you know where my mummy is?"

When she was told her mother was in the store, the child replied: "She is not my mummy," adding "She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy."

The Dutch woman thought the girl looked "very much like" Madeleine apart from the colour of her hair.

It emerged yesterday that there were three more sightings of Madeleine, then aged three, in nearby Belgium in the weeks after she disappeared.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2521152/Madeleine-McCann-First-pictures-of-Dutch-sighting-suspects.html
....................

The beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da

From Nick Cave to Kate McCann, it’s time we judged parents a little less

Hadley Freeman

6th May 2017

Parents of missing children are demonised by a public needing to reassure themselves it could never happen to them

This is a story about missing children, and what happens to those who are left behind. Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a story told so many times it has taken on the form of a litany: Praia da Luz, the tapas restaurant, the open window. Madeleine vanished, but she is ever-present in the public consciousness, whereas thousands of missing children are just that – wholly missing.

There has been much hand-wringing in the media over this disparity: was it because Kate and Gerry McCann are white and photogenic? Or because Madeleine was blond and cute? Or because she vanished in a country where journalists also take their cute kids on holiday? To which the answers are yes, obviously, but this is to miss the point; the argument should be not that the McCanns deserve less attention, but that other missing children should get more. In an interview last weekend, Kate McCann said she felt “guilty” and “embarrassed” about the £11m spent on the search for her daughter. The only people who should be embarrassed are those who sneer that there should be some kind of cap on the amount of sympathy, or a time limit placed on a parent’s hope. In recent weeks, the tabloids have been eagerly publishing spurious decades-old sightings of Madeleine, seen crying for her mother in the company of “suspicious men”. It is hard to see what any of this is supposed to achieve, beyond torturing the McCanns.

The common take on the McCann coverage is that middle-class newspaper readers related to them and so cared more about the story than, say, that of Ben Needham, the British toddler who vanished in Kos in 1991. And yet in both cases the parents were instantly vilified: Kerry Needham for being working class, Gerry and Kate McCann for being too self-possessed and attractive. The parents of missing children are often demonised by a public that need to reassure themselves that this could never happen to them. Those parents were feckless, foolish, bad – not like us, the good parents. If anything, the relatability of the McCanns made them even more terrifying, and thus more necessary to condemn.

When Nick Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur died in 2015, after falling off a cliff while on LSD, parts of the media were so keen to blame his father they became self-parodic. Much was made of the singer’s previous drug habit, as though no other parent on the planet had ever taken drugs, while the Times tutted that Cave had “an obsession with death” and watched “super-violent” films with his children.

In an extraordinary interview in American GQ, Cave recently said: “I don’t want to give too much oxygen to the matter of responsibility because it raises a point that only someone who knows nothing about parenting, drug-taking or bereavement would suggest.” Even so, he added: “You can find yourself indulging in all sorts of irrational and self-destructive thoughts – self-pity, self-blame – because they form a direct connection to the small but present part of you that just wants to die.”
I have written a lot about missing or dead children: Etan Patz, the six-year-old who vanished in New York in 1979, and whose face haunted American parents in the 80s; JonBenét Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty contestant found dead in her home in 1996; Noah Pozner, the youngest victim of the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings. All very different stories, all connected by a vilification of the parents by a public so terrified of anything like that happening to them. A police officer once described it to me like this: “You know that moment when you lose sight of your child in a shopping mall? Imagine that feeling lasting for 30 years.” But there is no need for anyone to pull an Andrea “as a mother” Leadsom here; anyone can feel that fear, as if your arm has been ripped off your body and your heart pulled out after it.

The cynical take on Madeleine McCann is that she is gone for good: why are we still talking about this? “Her parents need to accept their share of the blame and let her go,” one notoriously bilious columnist wrote. There is a condescension towards parents of missing children and their magical thinking, their desperate hope that the family will one day be reunited. But it’s their critics who are engaging in the worst kind of magical thinking, believing that if they turn bereaved parents into the demonised Other, they will protect their own children. All they are doing, really, is revealing that they know the terrible truth: that this could happen to any of us, and we would never stop looking.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/06/nick-cave-to-kate-mccann-time-judged-parents-less
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Talking of notoriously bilious columnists, I do wish the likes of Ms Freeman would brush-up on their subject before embarking on commentary for public consumption.

Freedom of speech/press is all very noble in theory but it doesn't shouldn't give carte-blanche to random invention for the sake of sensationalism or career advancement.

Kate McCann fears daughter Madeleine tried to warn her of an intruder

MASS PRAYER

With the bumbling Portuguese police getting nowhere, terror-struck Kate McCann turned to all she had left: divine intervention.


Five hours after Madeleine went missing, she tried to mobilise a mass prayer at  3am.


First she telephoned her friend Father Paul Seddon, the priest who had married  her and Gerry in 1998, and then her best friend Michelle back in the UK.


'I needed her to get her large Catholic family praying too,' said Mrs McCann,  who had already been on her knees in her bedroom, 'begging God and Our Lady to  protect Madeleine and help us find her'.


Unsurprisingly, her friend Michelle was asleep and her partner Jon, who  answered the phone, was at first reluctant to wake her.


Mrs McCann said: 'Poor Jon - I don't think he could quite get his brain in gear  for a moment or two. "No one's listening" I wept. "Nothing's happening".' After arranging the mass prayer, Mrs McCann could not sleep, but her husband  told her: 'Kate, we need to rest.'

WHY THEY HAD NO BABYSITTER

Leaving Madeleine with a babysitter who none of them knew would have been  'unwise', Kate McCann declares in her book.


Explaining why they did not make use of the babysitting service offered by the Ocean Club, she said the couple never even thought about it.



She said: 'I could argue that leaving my children alone with someone neither we nor they knew would have been unwise, and it's certainly not something we'd do  at home, but we didn't even consider it.


'We felt so secure we simply didn't think it was necessary.' With the infamous tapas restaurant 'so near', the McCanns and their friends  decided to do their own child-checking service, said Mrs McCann, adding: 'It goes without saying that we now bitterly regret it.'



However British police later told the couple their holiday apartment, being a corner flat on the ground floor, next to two roads and with secluded entrances, made it a perfect target for criminals.


Read more..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384828/Kate-McCann-fears-daughter-Madeleine-tried-warn-intruder.html

Maddie yacht mystery

A YACHT which left the Algarve just hours after Madeleine McCann disappeared has vanished without trace, the Daily Express can reveal.

PUBLISHED:  23:10, Fri, Aug 7, 2009

Nick Fagge

The luxury Swedish cruiser sailed out of the Portuguese harbour at Portimao on May 4, 2007, the morning after four-year-old Madeleine disappeared. It has not been seen since.

Last night there was growing speculation that Madeleine might have been whisked out of Portugal on the mystery boat.

The captain of the Bayliner yacht had told port authorities it was going to the Algarve port of Albufeira – as is required under Portuguese law – but the boat did not arrive.

Attempts by the Portuguese navy to track down the boat – one of six that left the marina that day – have failed. All the other yachts were accounted for.

A source close to the Portuguese authorities told the Daily Express: “The yacht from Sweden was the only boat that the Portuguese police could not trace.”

The disclosure comes a day after private detectives working for Kate and Gerry McCann revealed a “significant” new lead in their hunt for the missing youngster, now aged six.

An Australian woman in Barcelona appeared to be waiting to take delivery of her “new daughter” just 72 hours after Madeleine disappeared.

Lead investigator Dave Edgar, a former detective inspector, said he believed the girl from Rothley, Leicestershire, could have been smuggled to the Spanish port in a yacht.

The woman, described as a glamorous Victoria Beckham lookalike, was seen standing on the dockside of Barcelona’s Olympic Marina pacing up and down and “agitated”.

When approached, she asked a 41-year-old British man three times; “Are you here to deliver my new daughter?”

Investigators are now trying to trace the woman, described as white, aged between 30 and 35, 5ft 2in tall, of slim build and wearing expensive clothes.

It is possible Madeleine could have been abducted on the orders of a childless couple, desperate to have a family, and taken to Barcelona to meet her new “parents”.

Last night private detectives searching for Madeleine said they had received a massive response to their appeal about the Australian woman.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, said: “Many hundreds of calls had come in overnight, particular from Australia.
“Some names have been put forward and all of this information is now being analysed and prioritised by the detectives,” he said.

The mystery boat had been sailing along the Algarve coast close to Praia da Luz where Madeleine disappeared.

And records show it has previously docked at Barcelona’s Marina Port Vell, next to the Olympic Marina where the Australian woman was spotted.

The Portuguese source said: “It’s possible that the boat went to Barcelona. The yacht left Portimao on the morning of May 4, 2007.

“It left saying it was going to Albufeira in Portugal. It is a legal requirement to give a destination but it did not arrive in Albufeira.

“There were six boats that left Portimao that day. All have been accounted for apart from the Swedish boat.”

In Sweden all vessels measuring over 12 metres (40ft) long must be registered with the Swedish Maritime Administration.

But inquires with their head office in Stockholm yesterday found no record of the yacht.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the McCanns’ investigators on 0044845 8384699 or email them at investigation@findmadeleine.com

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/119199/Maddie-yacht-mystery
...................

Mary Celeste?  The Bismark?  The Titanic?  SS Cotopaxi?  Luxury cruisers don't just disappear off the face of the high seas - as the Portuguese cops bungled their investigation, maybe the Metropolitan Police should be seriously investigating the case of the missing luxury yacht, or is it just yesterdays news, like all the other planted diversions?

News of the World apologises for publishing Kate McCann's diary

Ben Dowell:  22nd September 2008


The News of the World yesterday apologised for publishing extracts from Kate McCann's private diary without her permission.
In a statement published in the newspaper and on its website, the paper said it published the extracts "in the belief held in good faith" that the diary's author had given them permission to publish the contents.

The newspaper's full statement read: "Last week we published extracts from Kate McCann's diaries and explained in the article that we were doing so to 'nail the lies' about Kate created by selective leaking from the diaries by Portuguese police.

"We published the extracts in the belief held in good faith that we had Kate's permission to do so.

"It is now clear that our belief was misplaced, and that in fact Kate neither approved of nor knew that the extracts were to be published. Upon learning of our error we immediately removed the extracts from our website and we today offer Kate our immediate and sincere apologies."

The statement adds that the newspaper will make a financial contribution to the search for Madeleine McCann and said that the paper "remains wholly supportive of the McCanns and their continuing campaign to find their daughter".

The News of the World's statement is the second apology from a newspaper group to the McCann famly [sic grauniad] this year.


In March, Express Newspapers' four titles, including the Daily Express and Daily Star, published front-page apologies for a series of articles about the family with the two papers agreeing to pay a "very substantial" sum to the Find Madeleine fund.

A News of the World spokeswoman was unable to comment at the time of publication.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/sep/22/madeleinemccann.newsoftheworld

The Madeleine McCann Syndrome

Vicky Allan Senior features writer: 30th April 2017

FEW can have missed the fact that this week marks the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Even before today’s official BBC interview with the McCann’s, the coverage, over the week has been building, like a familiar wave coming back into shore, here to remind us, as if we could ever forget, about the girl who went missing from an apartment bedroom in Praia de Luz and has never been seen again — at least, not outside the recurring images of her that teem across our media.

Last week, brought those familiar photographs of “Maddie”, her face frozen at three years old, back into the news again, along with a spew of articles on the case, most of them saying very little of substance, many of them just reviewing what we already know, or don't know. There were reports that investigators still have a "critical line of inquiry" to explore, a forensic expert who said Facebook facial recognition software could help solve the crime, but mostly this last week’s 'Maddie coverage' has been about marking time. She’s been gone for ten years, we are reminded. A decade on, and the obsession with this one missing girl still has us in its hold. Hope still lingers. We see her everywhere. She haunts our fiction and television — shows like the abduction drama, The Missing – yet we never see the real, live her.

It’s natural to remember such an anniversary, particularly when, as for the McCanns themselves, it is a marker of personal loss and time passed. The official website of the Find Madeleine campaign, carries a message from Kate and Gerry that says: “Ten years - there's no easy way to say it, describe it, accept it. I remember when Madeleine first disappeared I couldn’t even begin to consider anything in terms of years. Shawn Hornbeck abducted and kept hidden for over four years, Natascha Kampusch for over eight years. I couldn't go there. And now here we are...Madeleine, our Madeleine - ten years.”

But for us, the public, and the media, the anniversary marks ten years of an obsession with a still unsolved crime. Throughout all this time it has felt as if Madeleine has never been out of the papers for very long. Partly, of course, that was because her parents doggedly and eloquently kept her there. Partly it was because the media saw that Maddie sold papers and brought in television viewers. Partly it was because people became fascinated with what was one of the first big reality whodunnits of the online age. They became hugely invested in their own opinions on how the investigation was being conducted, what the McCanns were like as parents.

When the story first broke, it triggered a nationwide surge of sympathy, and panic, touching on that fear that lurks in the soul of all parents – for what mother or father hasn’t felt that lurch of panic after losing site of their child for a few minutes in a supermarket or the park. Stories of missing or lost children have long tugged at our hearts, populated our fairy tales. No doubt we are hardwired to respond to them.

What was it about the Madeleine case that turned it into such a global preoccupation? “It’s hard to imagine any one story,” said PR consultant Michael Cole, in the documentary, Madeleine McCann A Global Obsession, “that could have ticked more boxes, rung more bells in the human psyche than this one. It’s every parent’s nightmare.” But it was more than that. It was every parent's nightmare wrapped up in the right demographic packaging. It brought together a kind of perfect storm of factors, starting with a pretty, very young, blonde white female victim - the so-called Blonde Angel Syndrome, which sees the press fixate on a young blonde white female more than any other type of victim. Couple that with good-looking, middle-class parents, one a cardiac surgeon, the other a GP; a holiday crime location, outside the UK, in Portugal, and hence a fear and suspicion of the foreign - and you have a crime almost designed to captivate the public.

Where it happened was of significance, and revealed a whole layer of prejudice. “The fact that the Madeleine mystery – and I use my words carefully – began abroad,” wrote Dr John Jewell, of the School of Journalism, Cardiff University, “ in less affluent, less prosperous Portugal may also be significant in why we’re so interested. This is because (in a sense) we as nation can absolve ourselves from responsibility. Despite evidence to the contrary in terms of crimes committed against children in Britain, we can tell ourselves that this is a crime that happened because the family was abroad.”

What we observed with Madeleine McCann was a kind of moral panic. Initially it tapped into the intense cultural fear, around paedophiles, the fairytale fear that some “other” was lurking out there, ready to steal our children, particularly those that are cute and blonde and very young.

Actually Madeleine was just one of many British children who go missing in a year. In the UK around 50 children are abducted by strangers annually, but we hear very little of most of them. Not every missing child becomes a Madeleine McCann. This is partly because not every missing child is white, blonde, female, and the daughter of middle-class parents.

As feminist writer, Joy Goh-Mah has said: “In the UK, if asked about cases of missing children, most will be aware only of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007, despite a child being reported missing every 3 minutes. While her disappearance is no doubt a huge tragedy, we have to wonder why it is Madeleine McCann, a pretty white girl, who has captured the sympathy of the public, and not girls with names like Aamina Khan, Elizabeth Ogungbayibi, or Folawiyo Oladejo, all of whom are listed on Missing Kids UK.”

American comedian Jon Stewart once pointed out wryly that the following equation might give an indication of how much airtime child abductions get on TV: “y (minutes of media coverage) = Family Income x (Abductee Cuteness ÷ Skin Color) + Length of Abduction x Media Savvy of Grieving Parents”. Madeleine MCann had all those factors in spades.

The 'Blonde Angel Sydrome' was also termed “Missing White Girl Syndrome” by the journalism academic Sarah Stillman. “International headlines,” she wrote, “deliver the lurid details of British three-year-old Madeleine McCann’s disappearance while on holiday with her family in Portugal, but offer few clues about the fate of Esmeralda Alarcon, one of more than 400 young women to go missing in the border [town of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico].”

When we look at the other tales of missing, abducted or murdered children and young women, that have dominated international headlines in recent years, it’s clear that the obsession with Madeleine is part of a pattern. Even if one looks at the media just in the last week, it's possible to see that same story being told again and again, our ongoing obsession with this particular type of victim. Last Tuesday, for example, the British tabloids threw up in quick succession the following stories involving white, middle-class, mostly blonde, girls: Natasha Kampusch talking on Good Morning about her eight years of hell, kept as a slave in a cellar in suburban house near Vienna, Austria, and sending out a message of hope to the McCanns; a report on a new Netflix film which asks if the six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsay was killed by members of a Colorado child porn ring; a story on how the daughter of Soham murderer Ian Huntley has said she'll never call the notorious killer her 'dad', with, yet again, that poignant photograph of Holly and Jessica in their football tops.

The constant reiteration of the story of the stolen white girl has to correspond to some kind of myth that is being sustained. Washington Post writer, Eugene Robinson, described it as the “damsel in distress” saga. Writing on the way the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Haywood, a blonde, white American on holiday on the Caribbean island of Aruba, had caused a similar international media frenzy, he criticised what he saw as a “meta-narrative of something seen as precious and delicate being snatched away, defiled, destroyed by evil forces that lurk in the shadows just outside the bedroom window. It's whiteness under siege. It's innocence and optimism crushed by cruel reality. It's a flower smashed by a rock.”

But, for all the McCann's middle-class identity helped secure the story a profile, it also helped created a backlash. The fact that the McCann case was getting the kind of attention that other disappearances, of working-class, black or boy children, might have not done, seemed to fuel some of the criticism. Right-wing columnist Amanda Platell has observed: “Her disappearance divided the nation on class lines, because I lost count of the number of people who wrote to me and said, if she had been the daughter of a couple of unemployed people living in Liverpool, she would have been off the front pages in a matter of days.”

Would a working-class story have generated such coverage? In some ways we found out – since the following year the story broke about the disappearance of Shannon Matthews, daughter of Karen Matthews, a mum living on benefits in Dewsbury, Yorkshire. As writer Cole Moreton observed when he reported on the story, both the reward money raised and the media presence there in Dewsbury, were far smaller than had been drawn to Praia da Luz the previous year. Of course, it would soon be discovered that the whole thing had been a scam and Karen Matthews was dubbed “Britain’s Worst Mother”. But was that lack of coverage, till then, because the child and parent involved were working class, and not as obviously photogenic as the McCanns?

Both Karen Matthews and Kate McCann have been criticised, and for different reasons. Matthews because she lied and put her child at risk, Kate McCann because she was considered, by some, guilty of a kind of middle-class neglect when she went out and ate at tapas on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance, leaving her daughter alone.

Indeed one of the things that has marked out the Madeleine McCann story, is not just the intensity of feeling around her disappearance, but also the ferocity of the backlash against her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, who some saw as publicity-hungry and attention-seeking, and others considered to have been let-off-the-hook because of their class and connections.

One study by a team at the University of Huddersfield revealed that around 150 abusive tweets are directed at the McCanns every day. Inevitably, with the McCanns back in the media spotlight again, there has been a fresh surge of such abuse. A search of “McCann” on Twitter last week revealed comments such as: “Why are they still looking for Madeline McCann when thousands of kids with regular backgrounds have gone missing & we never hear about them?” Another questions: “What normal parents leave 3 young children on their own, whilst on holiday in a foreign country.”

This is typical of the relatively low levels of empathy often exhibited for the parents of children who have been mysteriously abducted or murdered. Suspicion, of course, is natural. We know that most child murders are committed by family members. But there is something more going on here. Clarence Mitchell, who has represented the McCanns for 10 years, spoke on Australian television last week and described how he thought that for many members of the public "the situation just didn't fit the stereotypical ideal that many people have, wrongly, that something like this can't happen to a family like them…Once it was reported that the family weren't with the children when Madeleine went missing, then the judgment squad kicked in and they were 'guilty of neglect' at the very least.”

That this happens isn’t surprising. We are hard on each other as parents, suspicious, and keen to accuse other parents of neglect, or worse. Part of this, maybe, is a way of comforting ourselves. If we can find fault, that allows us to tell ourselves that if we do things right, we can protect our children. We can, even in this age of moral panic over paedophilia, keep them out of harm's way.

Ten years on and we can see the way our society has been marked by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. We can also see the way in which, our response to the tragedy says so much about who we are, and who we value. The McCann story is also now an integral part of our narrative of modern childhood and parenting, a kind of fairy tale warning that works its way into the arguments that exist over stranger danger, hyper-protectiveness, and what a good parent and, in particular, a “good mother” is. What parent now, after all, could possibly leave a young child alone in a hotel, apartment, or any other room, and not think for a moment of missing Maddie?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15255912.The_Madeleine_McCann_Syndrome/

Madeleine McCann: 'I listened for 15 seconds and knew they were innocent’

A wealthy British businessman was moved to help search for Madeleine McCann after her parents Kate and Gerry became suspects

By Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan - 10th September 2014

Gerry and Kate McCann never ceased doing what they could to move forward the investigation – which they saw as stalled – into Madeleine’s disappearance. They held, always, to the belief that their daughter could still be alive.

When they returned to the UK from Portugal in September 2007, Gerry insisted it did not mean they were giving up their search for her. ''As parents we cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened.”

Three days later, someone who was to be of great and lasting assistance to them got in touch. Brian Kennedy, a wealthy British businessman, had been following events as they unwound in Portugal and wanted to help.

“I was incredulous,” he told us. “I’d been losing all hope and faith in human nature. I had been asking myself, 'How is this possible?’ [Kate] is grieving. My instincts were telling me there was a great injustice being done. I called my lawyer and said, 'I want you to reach out to these poor folks and see if we can help them’.”

Kennedy, the Scottish-born, Cheshire-based son of a window cleaner, then aged 47, had leapfrogged from trainee accountant to a management role in a kitchen-equipment company, then to the mobile-phone business, double-glazing and plastics. By 2007 his net worth as head of his company, Latium Enterprises, was said to be £250 million.

An experiment with retirement had driven him “nuts” and he was back in the business fray. When he began talking about trying to help the McCanns, friends and colleagues told him not to get involved, that his intervention would end in tears. “What,” he recalled someone saying, “if the parents turn out to be guilty?”


“I remember replying, 'What happens if they’re innocent?’ Can you imagine the horror of losing your daughter… and then the world turning against you and accusing you of being responsible for her murder? Is it not bad enough, the terror, the agony they are going through? I could understand it – I’ve got five kids. I told my lawyer, 'If you feel they’re innocent, then we’ll get behind them and help them’.”



His lawyer made contact with the McCanns and they met Kennedy in London. “Within 15 seconds of listening to Kate,” he said, “I made a decision, using all the emotional intelligence one builds up over many years. I was 100 per cent convinced of their total innocence. I told them that, one, we would find a top Portuguese lawyer to defend them, and get them off as arguidos [the McCanns had been designated “named suspects” by the Portuguese authorities days before they returned to England].

Two, we’d do everything in our power to influence the public’s perspective and views. And, three, we’d support them in setting up some private investigators … The Portuguese police had stopped investigating. It was urgent to get some other guys on to it.”

Top-level legal help was found in Portugal. At Kennedy’s bidding and at his expense, Clarence Mitchell – a government adviser who had previously acted as the McCanns’ spokesman in Praia da Luz, the holiday resort from where Madeleine had disappeared – quit his Whitehall job and came back on-board.

Kennedy prefers not to reveal how much he spent on helping the McCanns, beyond saying that there were “substantial” outgoings – principally legal and media-related costs. Stephen Winyard, the owner of Stobo Castle Spa, in Peebleshire, and Sir Richard Branson also contributed. However, it was Madeleine’s Fund – the not-for-profit company established to find her in 2007, the board of which Kennedy’s then lawyer joined – that would, in time, deal with the cost of private investigators, once that effort went into high gear.



Present at Kennedy’s first meeting with the McCanns in London were representatives of Control Risks, a firm specialising in security and crisis management. It had already sent detectives to Portugal to see the couple right after Madeleine’s disappearance, at the expense of an anonymous donor whose identity has never been revealed.

Kate McCann had not enjoyed that first encounter. One of the Control Risk operatives was a mysterious figure who introduced himself only as “Hugh”. He was one of the many former intelligence officers the company employed, and a main part of his role now was as a potential kidnap negotiator. Kate, already distraught, had not liked the James Bond atmosphere he brought with him. Besides, there would never be anybody other than hoaxers with whom to negotiate.

As the McCanns’ renewed use of Control Risks began to be mentioned in the press, noises of disapproval came from Portugal. “You cannot have private detectives intervening in criminal cases,” sniffed Carlos Anjos, head of the Polícia Judiciária’s union. The McCanns resolved to go ahead, motivated by advice Gerry had noted during a research trip to the US earlier that summer.

A document issued by the US Justice Department for use by parents of missing children, The Family Survival Guide, recommended considering using private detectives if they could “do something better or different than what is being done by law enforcement”. Given what they saw as the fiasco of the Portuguese police probe, the McCanns nurtured that hope.

“I had no experience at all with private detectives,” Kennedy remembered. “But the way you run a business is all about surrounding yourself with people who understand industries that you don’t understand.” He initially hired two former Metropolitan Police detectives, and in late September decided to follow up a rumour that Madeleine might have been sighted in Morocco. Kennedy and the detectives, who flew out aboard his private jet, hired a Moroccan tourist guide to accompany them to the mountain village where it was reported the missing girl might be. She was not there, but the guide – promised a reward – subsequently spoke of having travelled vast distances circulating Madeleine’s picture. “If I find her,” he said, “I will be rich. I have been promised I will never have to work again – maybe a million pounds.”


“I suppose,” Kennedy said later “we had been looking for low-hanging fruit. After a few weeks, though, we decided we needed to go about it in a very professional way.”

Brian Kennedy had set a potentially useful process in motion. Months earlier, the Portuguese police had produced a poor drawing of the man the McCanns’ friend, Jane Tanner, had seen carrying a child near the holiday apartment in which the McCanns had been staying on the night Madeleine vanished. Now, in England, a British forensic sketch artist took on the job of extracting more and relevant information from Tanner. This fresh image got major media coverage – raising the possibility of new leads.

Kennedy then cast around for suitable private investigators to hire, and picked Método 3, a Spanish company. The agency’s claims included having located 23 missing children and teenagers. Given that it was not legitimate for investigators to work for the McCanns in Portugal while the police probe was still under way, it was hoped that Método 3 – with its knowledge of the region and its connections in Spain – might prove effective.

It seemed, briefly, that the private detectives could also rebuild bridges with the Portuguese Polícia Judiciária. At the request of the head of Spain’s anti-kidnapping unit, two PJ officers met Método 3 operatives. But the points the private detectives raised did not interest the Portuguese.


Método 3 followed up on a vast number of potential openings in the hunt for Madeleine. Nothing tangible resulted, but they made some startling statements that kept the case in the public eye. “We are 100 per cent sure,” their boss, Francisco Marco, told the American network CBS, “that she is alive. We know the kidnapper. We know who he is and how he has done it.” On the BBC’s Panorama programme, he said: “We are very close to finding the kidnappers.” Then, in early December, he announced: “We believe she is in an area not very far from the Iberian peninsula and North Africa. And we have a fairly certain idea who she is with.”

No facts emerged, however, to back up these claims. According to The Daily Telegraph, a source close to the McCanns said the couple had begun to think “they might have been sold a pup”. A veteran Spanish police detective was derisive. Método 3 would solve the case, he said, “cuando las ranas crecen los pelos” – “when frogs grow hair”.

As the months slipped by, the McCanns made a move they were to regret. A contract was agreed with Oakley International, a US-based company described by a source close to the couple as being apparently “absolutely the best, but extremely secretive”. Oakley was said to employ former FBI, CIA and US Special Forces personnel. It was reportedly agreed that Madeleine’s Fund would pay the company £500,000 under a three-stage contract – with more to come should Madeleine be found alive.

The McCanns and Kennedy at first got the impression that Oakley was doing its job. Its investigators appeared to be collating and following up information that came in as a response to the parents’ appeals, and were conducting covert interviews in Portugal.

But it later emerged that hundreds of calls to a dedicated hotline were never checked by Oakley. Tapes of interviews conducted in Portugal were said to be useless, involving people irrelevant to the case. Specialists used by Oakley began to find that their bills went unpaid. An undertaking to deliver satellite images of Praia da Luz on the night of May 3, 2007, when Madeleine had disappeared, resulted only in pictures grabbed from Google Earth. With little or no real progress, and as funds continued to haemorrhage, Brian Kennedy called time.

Oakley’s boss Kevin Halligen, it turned out, was a fraud. After his involvement in the Madeleine case, Halligen was arrested in the UK in connection with charges relating to a trading company fraud, and extradited to the United States. He was convicted there on the fraud matter, then deported to Europe.

“The Oakley episode went sort of sweet and sour,” Kennedy told us. “There were genuine guys breaking their back, trying to make a breakthrough. The lion’s share was spent on the investigation, despite what the newspapers say… [But] it all ended in tears.”

It was a major setback, but Kennedy and the McCanns did not give up. On the recommendation of the head of Manchester’s Serious Crime Squad, they went on to hire an experienced former senior police officer, David Edgar. He put in much arduous, systematic work – and held the fort until 2011, when, following an appeal to David Cameron, Scotland Yard began investigating. The dossier the McCanns’ private detectives had gathered was passed to the Yard, and its probe continues today – as Operation Grange.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/11077525/Madeleine-McCann-I-listened-for-15-seconds-and-knew-they-were-innocent.html
....................


What's that funny smell ....?

Private jet on standby to pick up girl police thought was Maddie was funded by double-glazing multi-millionaire touched by family's plight

• Blonde, English-speaking girl in Morocco convinced authorities it was Maddie
  
• Brian Kennedy, who sold Everest for £63million, paid for private jet on standby 
  
• One of two heartbreaking near misses revealed this week by Clarence Mitchell 
  
• The other involved a repeated, early-morning tip-off about her being on a farm 
  

James Dunn - 29th April 2017


The private jet put on standby with the engine running to pick up the young girl detectives thought was Madeleine McCann was funded by double-glazing multi-millionaire Brian Kennedy.

Father-of-five Kennedy, who made £63million by selling Everest in 2003, did not know the couple but agreed to cover the costs of 'Team McCann' because he was touched by their plight.

He paid for the plane on standby after an English-speaking girl matching Maddie's description was found in Morocco 12 months after her disappearance.

Kennedy, the former owner of English Premiership rugby team Sale Sharks, and his son had vowed to do 'whatever we can' for the family, which also involved covering legal fees for the family, The Sun reports.
 
Clarence Mitchell, who has been heavily involved throughout the last decade, revealed two heartbreaking incidents when the family thought that Maddie had been found.

Writing in the Telegraph, he said: 'All the information coming back to us suggested heavily that it could be Madeleine, so much so that an aircraft was put on stand-by, with its engines running, waiting to fly to pick her up.

'Kate and Gerry sat tight. They had learned by that stage to be sceptical, not to give in to natural hope only for it to be dashed. They preferred to wait until the Moroccan authorities had checked it out. And when they did, it became clear she was not Madeleine.'

The other incident came a few months previously, when Mr Mitchell continuously received phone calls at 3am revealing that Maddie was at a farm, which matched a very distinct description, but again turned out to be a false lead.
Mr Mitchell had been working with the McCanns full-time after initially serving as an adviser to them while working at the Foreign Office.  


Mr Mitchell had been working with the McCanns full-time after initially serving as an adviser to them while working at the Foreign Office.  

The former BBC journalist previously covered Princess Diana's death as a royal correspondent and stood as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Brighton.

He set up his own communications consultancy last year.

Madeleine vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3, 2007, when she was three years old – with her mother Kate saying the 10th anniversary is a 'horrible marker of time, stolen time'.

But former Scotland Yard detective chief inspector Mick Neville has revealed that Facebook's cutting-edge facial recognition software could help find Maddie, who would now be 14 years old.

When Facebook users upload an image the social media platform maps facial features and 'recognises' other users - making tagging easier.

Mr Neville, a forensics expert, believes the state of the art technology could be used to trace Maddie because of a distinctive blemish in her right eye.

Earlier this week British detectives working on the Madeleine McCann case said they are still pursuing 'critical' leads as the 10th anniversary of her disappearance approaches.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said there are 'significant investigative avenues' that are of 'great interest' to both the UK and Portuguese teams.

Officers have sifted through some 40,000 documents and looked at more than 600 individuals since 2011 with Mr Rowley confirming that four people considered as possible suspects in 2013 have been ruled out.

Kate and her husband Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have always vowed to never give up hope of finding their daughter.

Asked if police were any closer to solving the case than they were six years ago when the UK investigation was launched, Mr Rowley said: 'I know we have a significant line of inquiry which is worth pursuing, and because it's worth pursuing it could provide an answer, but until we've gone through it I won't know whether we are going to get there or not.

'Ourselves and the Portuguese are doing a critical piece of work and we don't want to spoil it by putting titbits of information out publicly.'

Mr Rowley said they are no longer the subject of further investigation and have been ruled out of the inquiry. Meanwhile, police working on the case continue to receive information on a daily basis.

He described the possibility of a 'burglary gone wrong' as a 'sensible hypothesis' which has not been 'entirely ruled out'.

The senior officer was asked about the theory of a sex predator being responsible for Madeleine's disappearance.

Mr Rowley said: 'That's been one key line of inquiry. The reality is in the modern world in any urban area if you cast your net widely you will find a whole pattern of offences.

'You will find sex offenders who live nearby. And those coincidences need to be sifted out, what's a coincidence and what may be linked to the investigation that you are currently doing.

'Offences which may be linked have to be looked at and either ruled in or ruled out.'

Mr Rowley said there was still a 'lot unknown' in the case, adding: 'All the different hypotheses have to remain open.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4459160/Double-glazing-millionaire-paid-Maddie-private-jet.html

Madeleine McCann held on private orders of José Manuel Durão Barroso

Madeleine McCann is being held captive on the personal and private orders of Portuguese politician, José Manuel Durão Barroso. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Barroso

A decisive breakthrough in the case of Madeleine McCann has been made with new revelations published by the English investigative reporter, Christopher Story. Following the receipt of several death-threats, the latest at lunchtime on Thursday 18th September 2008, Story has released details and named names.

Behind the abduction of four-year-old Madeleine McCann from the Ocean Club Resort, Praia da Luz, Portugal, on Thursday 3rd May 2007, was a shadowy German organisation called the Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst (DVD) and the Portuguese politician José Manuel Durão Barroso, the 12th President of the European Commission.

According to Christopher Story, the DVD, based at Dachau, near Munich, has been extensively involved in paedophile child abduction operations for many years, both in Europe and abroad. Selected children are kidnapped, degraded for perverse purposes, filmed and murdered in the production of snuff movies for the international child pornography trade. Senior politicians in several countries are clients and agents of the DVD.

It was reported on Thursday 7th August 2008 that the Metropolitan Police (London) confirmed in an email that Madeleine McCann was abducted on the orders of a paedophile organisation based in Belgium and controlled by the DVD for the European Commission. The DVD's procedure is that an adult client is sent three photographs of children and chooses one of them. The selected victim is then abducted to meet the client's sexual requirements. After a photographer had taken pictures of various children at the Ocean Club Resort, Praia da Luz, three pictures were given to José Manuel Durão Barroso. He chose Madeleine McCann, an English girl from Rothley in Leicestershire.

José Manuel Durao Barroso (52) was born in Lisbon on the 23rd March 1956. He is married to Margarida Sousa Uva. The couple have three children: Luís, Guilherme and Francisco. Barroso was in office as the 117th Prime Minister of Portugal from the 6th April 2002 to the 17th July 2004. He actively supported the war in Iraq and provided the venue for talks between US President George Bush Jnr and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Portuguese Azores on the eve of the conflict.

The current position is that the DVD is refusing to release Madeleine McCann in order to protect Barroso and certain others among its well-known agents and clients.

One of the DVD's bases in Germany is located to the right of the railway line that runs through Unterweilbach, Prittlbach and Hebertshausen into Dachau. It is adjacent to the Hebertshausen Bahnhof in an empty area ending in a very steep bank, against which 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot dead in cold blood during the Second World War. Set into the bank is an odd-looking building with a security gate approached by a path. Beyond this gated entrance is a doorway. Inside the doorway, investigators have photographed evidence of recently used black magic paraphernalia.

The Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst (DVD), is the secretive pan-German Nazi Strategic Continuum. Over the years, German DVD agents have included President George Bush Snr, The Right Honourable Sir Edward Heath KG MBE (President of The Oxford Union 1938; British Prime Minister 1970-74) and Baron Jenkins of Hillhead (Roy Harris Jenkins, British Chancellor of the Exchequer 1967-1970; British Home Secretary 1974-1976; The Sixth President of the European Commission 1977-1981; Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1987-2003).

Current DVD assets are understood to include the Bush White House, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister from 1977-2007, Sir John Scarlett KCMG OBE, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 GO-2 (London), and several of the senior people at the US Office of Naval Intelligence (Washington).

It is said that many of the high-status British agents of the German DVD were recruited by the Hugh Trevor-Roper DVD cell at Oxford University. Trevor-Roper (Baron Dacre of Glanton) was a prominent English modern historian specialising in the Nazi period.

It has emerged recently that Trevor-Roper worked as a double agent for the German Abwehr. He was active at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg (1945-1949) providing obfuscation and false histories to enable the covert escape of senior Nazi operatives and scientists, including Adolph Hitler, from Germany in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The escaping Nazis were secreted into the American military-industrial complex or into American controlled locations in South America and Antarctica.

The Trevor-Roper DVD cell at Oxford is also said to have recruited, or manufactured leverage upon, several American Rhodes Scholars at Oxford University, including President Bill Clinton and David Evan Kendall. Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford, in 1968, at the time when Trevor-Roper was Regius Professor of History. Kendall was Clinton's personal lawyer during the Lewinsky scandal and subsequent Senate impeachment trial in 1998. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1966.

Exploiting his privileged position as a director of The Times newspaper (London), Trevor-Roper was centrally involved in the DVD disinformation fiasco connected with the 'Hitler Diaries' hoax of 1983. Tony Blair was at St John's College, Oxford, from 1974-1976. Later in life he became a close protégé of Roy Jenkins. MI6's John Scarlett was at Magdalene College, Oxford, from 1968-1971, and was awarded a first class degree in History.

Christopher Story's Global Analysis News Announcement dated 20.09.08 can be found here. In addition to the Madeleine McCann case, it covers several much larger issues to do with international political and financial corruption.

alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2008/09/madeleine-mccann-held-on-private-orders.html