Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Hi Jill Havern, I ask a very serious question and it is in regard to what can be described as a " Paedophile Ring" and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann,a  Marc Dutroui similar type of Gang?

Madeleine's parents, Kate,Gerry McCann had stated previously,"Paedophiles" had taken Madeleine?

Do you believe a "Paedophile Ring" was in operation during Madeleine's disappearance?

IF Yes?

Why would they take a possible deceased child?

As DCI Andy Redwood couldn't confirm as to whether or Not Madeleine was alive when leaving the apartment,remit,Abduction?

Is everyone now going to go on the "Record" the dogs were wrong,even UK Police remain very tight lipped on this subject,alerts to clothes,DNA/LCI Forensic Evidence,suddenly cannot develop positive results,then the products were contaminated,what a "*ucking coincidence"?

This obviously would have to revolve around evidence of such practices being carried out,as Both the Metropolitan Police Service and Interpol found No Evidence of a "Paedophile ring " operating during 2007-08?

Was this the Truth?

The previous stories involving European Union Leaders,now Royal Yachts and the son of the present Queen having close strange relationships to Convicted Paedophiles,from within the Church of England,Covered up for decades?

As I stated before 2+2=?,without proof it's a "Thesis",a most alarming one,considering all of the supposed input of CEOP,Big Jim Gamble, Metropolitan Police Service,Gold group 8th May 2007, did they take their eyes off the Ball,mesmerised by whom?

The Tapas 7/9,Kate,Gerry McCann are Not Suspects,when will you lot ever learn?

Operation Grange are right up to their Neck in involvement of Madeleine McCann's disappearance,is this to be another One of those "WhiteHall Cover Ups" you bet bottom dollar,Yes /No, truth?

Neverending story

Esther Addley - 2nd June 2007

The abduction of Madeleine McCann has sparked an unprecedented global campaign. Esther Addley reports on the family's desperate efforts to keep her in the headlines


On Wednesday, it was the Vatican. Yesterday it was Madrid, next will be Berlin, then Amsterdam, then most likely Morocco.

Tomorrow will mark a month since Madeleine McCann, nine days shy of her fourth birthday, vanished from a holiday apartment in southern Portugal, and this week her parents, still clasping treasured photographs and her increasingly dog-eared cuddly toy, have taken the search to the rest of Europe and beyond. After their audience with the Pope, they spent yesterday meeting the Spanish interior minister and local journalists, before appearing on the country's version of Crimewatch to make another emotional appeal to whoever is holding their daughter. Further ministerial meetings and press appearances are planned. After that, according to those close to the couple, the schedule has not been finalised; what is certain is that it will be far from quiet.

Until the evening of Thursday May 3, Kate and Gerry McCann were an anonymous couple from a small East Midlands town. Today they are at the centre of what has become an international publicity hurricane of quite unprecedented scale. Their daughter's face, screened at the FA Cup final, was seen by an estimated 500 million people; a short video about the toddler was also shown at the Uefa and Heineken cup finals, while Liverpool players posed before their unsuccessful Champion's League bid behind a banner that read: Bring Maddie Home. Gordon Brown, while campaigning to become Labour leader, has worn a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with the McCanns; many of his colleagues did the same, along with David Beckham, countless premiership and SPL football teams and the England cricket team.

JK Rowling, Sir Richard Branson, the theatre impresario Bill Kenwright, the philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter and Jacqueline Gold of the Ann Summers sex shop chain, have each pledged hundreds of thousands of pounds for information leading to Madeleine's safe return; one Scottish businessman offered a million. Sir Philip Green loaned his private jet, which took the couple to the Vatican and brought them back in time to tuck Madeleine's twin siblings into bed. BP, Exxon, McDonald's, Carrefour, the French bank Crédit Agricole and the Spanish Banco Santander are displaying her poster around Europe; Vodafone, O2 and the Spanish Telefonica network have sent text messages to their subscribers. In the US, Madeleine's face has appeared on the cover of People magazine, and Oprah Winfrey has invited the family on to her talk show.

A month on, this much we know about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. At about 9.30pm on the second to last evening of the family's holiday, she was asleep in their rented apartment alongside the twins, Sean and Amelie. At 10pm, when Kate McCann went to check on her children, she was not. Nothing else is certain. The police search of the area surrounding Praia da Luz, the resort from which she vanished, was wound up after a week having yielded "zero results", police said, and despite the designation of a British man in the town as an official "suspect", he has not been arrested. The only piece of information that is known came from a friend of the McCanns who was rushing to meet the couple for dinner at about 9.30pm on the night of Madeleine's disappearance when she saw a man carrying away a child in pink pyjamas.

A beautiful child, snatched from her bed while two babies slept alongside, will always be headline news. Yet rarely has the world's media had so much to say - daily, inexhaustible, blanket coverage - about so very little hard information. The McCanns themselves, say friends, have been bewildered at the scale of the coverage, while at the same time feeling a compulsion to ramp it up, convinced that someone will be stung into coming forward. They can scarcely have imagined that, a month on, the perfect media storm would appear very far from blowing itself out.

The McCanns were immediately certain that their daughter had been kidnapped and determined to publicise her disappearance as widely as possible, ensuring that, from the very first moments, the hunt for Madeleine was as much about the media coverage as it was the police investigation. Jill Renwick has known the couple since they all worked together at a Glasgow hospital more than a decade ago. She spoke to Kate at 7am on the morning after Madeleine vanished: "She just said, 'Help me, please help me'. She said, 'We've been searching all night until 4.30am, and then everybody left us'. At that stage there was only one police officer at the door. They didn't know what to do. So I phoned GMTV."

She also phoned the McCanns' wider circle of friends, who mobilised to phone anyone they could think of to beg for help. Renwick's sister called someone she knew in CID, someone had a connection with Des Browne, the defence secretary. One friend lives close to the Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, said Renwick:  She also phoned the McCanns' wider circle of friends, who mobilised to phone anyone they could think of to beg for help. Renwick's sister called someone she knew in CID, someone had a connection with Des Browne, the defence secretary. One friend lives close to the Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, said Renwick:  "She knocked on her door and said, 'I know you must think I'm mad but my friend's wee girl is missing, can you do anything to help?' Though they are not friends, Gordon Brown's brother John lives in the same street as Renwick: "I stopped him in the street the day afterwards and said, 'These are my friends. Do you think you could speak to Gordon about it?' And he said of course. I don't know if anything came about that way."

In Praia da Luz, meanwhile, the couple rapidly found themselves the beneficiaries of high-level media advice. The holiday firm Mark Warner reacted with admirable speed to the kidnap. By Saturday morning its managing director and UK operations director were in the resort, along with two trauma counsellors and Alex Woolfall, a PR specialist contracted by the firm. Woolfall, head of crisis management at leading PR agency Bell Pottinger, who advised Monsanto during the storm over GM food, would become for a fortnight the family's adviser and press go-between. He is probably one of the people in Britain best placed to manage such a situation, and it showed. Very swiftly, the storm of TV and print journalists camped outside the family's apartment had established a number of informal rules of engagement: Kate and Gerry would be left largely alone to take their twins to playgroup, for instance; TV cameras would remain fixed. It was made known to reporters that the family wanted their daughter to be referred to as Madeleine rather than the tabloid-coined Maddy.

"We were aware from the outset that there was a huge amount of media interest," said Woolfall, "and they in all the conversations I had with them were very keen to see the media as a partner."

Thus began a carefully scheduled round of interviews, photo-opportunities and press conferences. Helped by the wider family at home, additional photographs were released of Madeleine: a picture of the toddler in an Everton top mobilised the club and Kenwright, its chairman, to their own gestures of support. A holiday snap of the family in Donegal was splashed across the Irish papers. Vigils in Scotland and Leicestershire ensured the presence of their local media in Praia da Luz.

Back in the UK, relatives launched a website and fund to handle some of the many thousands of offers of support they had received; in the first 48 hours the site had received 75m hits, becoming the fastest-growing website on the internet. But however much access the family offer, they cannot hope to meet a demand that remains, a month on, apparently insatiable. Some 62% of all traffic on the Google news website last week consisted of searches about Madeleine.

Woolfall said that, despite their determination to appear before the press as much as possible, the couple have been amazed at the interest in their story. "This couple don't suddenly see themselves as celebrities. If you had actually met them, sat in their apartment and seen them with the twins, they are just like any other couple. But they find themselves having to ask themselves: what can we possibly do that means we will be able to sleep tonight, knowing that we have done everything today that we could have done?"

Brian Kennedy, Kate McCann's uncle, is also chair of the Find Madeleine fund. "There have been a number of sizeable donations but there have also been a huge number of very small ones. It's been very moving. We're incredibly grateful." Part of the money raised - £581,000 by yesterday afternoon - will be used to support the wider family in their campaigning, he said.
Woolfall left Praia da Luz after a fortnight; the McCanns are now being advised on behalf of the Foreign Office by Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter. He organised, in association with British embassies around Europe, the current publicity tour. If anything, say members of the still sizeable press pack accompanying the McCanns, the media operation has become even more professional.

Despite the couple's remarkable drive, Renwick said the tour was taking its toll on her friend. "I think she finds the nights the hardest," she said. "They are busy during the day, they have quite a lot going on, but once the twins have gone to bed and its just the pair of them ... of course it will hit you then."

They are also terribly nervous of overkill. "Although it seems as though Kate and I are in the media all the time, that is not the case," Gerry McCann said yesterday in Madrid. "I can assure you that Kate and I are getting a lot of quality time with Sean and Amelie. Spending time with them helps us cope with the fact that Madeleine is missing."

Team McCann, as the family campaign calls itself, shows little sign of running out of ideas. Assuming Madeleine has not been found, they plan to target the Tour de France, golf tournaments, Grand Prix events, the Isle of Man TT, perhaps even the publishers of the new Harry Potter novel. Leicester hospital has planned a summer ball in aid of the fund; Squirrel Hayes first school in Biddulph, Staffordshire, will be doing their bit on Wednesday with a fashion show.

Meanwhile back in Portugal the investigation continues. Earlier this week it was revealed that the police's latest approach is to check through hundreds of messages from clairvoyants claiming to have information about Madeleine.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/02/ukcrime.comment

You can't beat the Guardian for a touch of the melodrama.

What happened to Madeleine McCann? Six possible theories examined

Accident, burglary and abduction have all been suggested as possible explanations for Madeleine's disappearance.

11:58, UK, Wednesday 03 May 2017

By Martin Brunt, Crime Correspondent

There have been hundreds of different theories about how Madeleine McCann went missing, but they mostly fall into six main categories.

The Parents

The first senior detective on the case, Goncalo Amaral, believed Madeleine died in the family's rented holiday apartment and her parents covered up her death and disposed of her body.

The suspicion appeared to be supported when British sniffer dogs - trained to detect body scent and blood - reacted in the apartment and in a car which was hired by Gerry and Kate McCann about three weeks after Madeleine disappeared.

The misinterpretation by Portuguese investigators of the results of forensic swabs taken from the apartment and car led to Kate and Gerry McCann being questioned and made "arguido" - official suspects.

The couple were ruled out when the Portuguese case was closed, unsolved, after 15 months. They have always denied any part in their daughter's disappearance and two Portuguese investigations and a Scotland Yard inquiry have found no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Would two doctors, trained to preserve life, choose not to raise the alarm, but instead dispose of their daughter's body, and have the means to do so without a car and in a foreign country, before joining friends for dinner as though nothing had happened? And keep such a secret for years while drawing global attention to themselves and their campaign to find Madeleine?

Burglary-gone-wrong

Madeleine wakes up and disturbs a burglar.

He panics and attacks her, then decides to carry her off, dead or alive.

In 2014, Scotland Yard - through the Portuguese police - questioned four local suspects on this theory. They came under suspicion because of their mobile phone contact and location at the time of Madeleine's disappearance, as well as their backgrounds, but were later ruled out. The Yard is still pursuing the general theory, but Portuguese police dismissed it.

Wouldn't a burglar who is disturbed simply get out of the apartment? Detectives say you cannot apply cold logic to a criminal reacting under pressure. If you have eliminated other theories, you pursue the one where you have some evidence, however thin it is, until you disprove it as well.

Such a spontaneous act is likely to lead to mistakes, a trail of evidence and detection.

Attacked by a local paedophile

Madeleine was the victim of a paedophile who snatched her and later killed her - burying or hiding her body, possibly in the sea.

Witnesses saw several suspicious men watching the McCanns' apartment in the days before and on the day, though Scotland Yard said some have been eliminated.

This was the theory pursued by Portuguese detectives who reopened their investigation in 2011 after studying a series of attacks in resorts along the Algarve coast in the years up to 2007. A man had entered the apartments and villas of mainly British holidaymakers and molested young girls while they slept.

There were attacks in Albufeira, Carvoeiro and Silves.

Portuguese investigators believed one man was responsible for those attacks and identified former Ocean Club waiter Euclides Monteiro as their suspect. He was already dead after being killed in a freak tractor accident in 2009.

He was eventually ruled out by DNA evidence, but that means a predator or predators were still at large when Madeleine vanished.

Detectives argue that paedophiles prefer older, pre-pubescent victims and only rarely would risk taking a child from inside a building. They tend to panic after the deed and the bodies of their victims are eventually found not far away.

Such a serious attack is often the culmination of a history of escalating behaviour by a sex predator who may already have a criminal record for lesser offences and be more easily identified.

Abducted by childless couple

Madeleine was taken by or for a couple who could not have children of their own or had lost a child. This could also apply to a woman - or even a man - who wanted a child to keep.

The hole in this theory is that such a kidnapper would be more likely to take one of the younger children, Madeleine's twin siblings Sean and Amelie, who were sleeping beside her and were only two years old.

They would have been less likely to wake up and resist and would remember far less or nothing at all of their old life as they grew up.

The theory would be most welcomed by Madeleine's parents because it would probably mean that she is alive and being cared for.

Taken by child traffickers

Madeleine was kidnapped by a gang, taken abroad and sold into slavery. In 90 minutes she could have been driven to the Spanish border or put on a boat in nearby Lagos marina and taken to Morocco hours before police suspected Madeleine had been abducted.

It was an early theory explored by Portuguese investigators after a report that Madeleine had been photographed on the beach by a stranger. It could have been part of a selection process.

Human trafficking gangs are known to operate in the northwest African country of Mauritania, which in 1981 became the last country in the world to abolish slavery. Many are still thought to be kept in slavery there today.

Several witnesses reported possible sightings of Madeleine in Morocco, a country on the trafficking route to Mauritania. Her parents went to Morocco to make appeals for help in the weeks after their daughter's disappearance.

This may be the the most logical explanation for a child vanishing without trace, as Madeleine did.

Accident

Madeleine woke up and went looking for her parents, opened the unlocked patio doors and walked out of the apartment, down the hill and fell into a big roadworks pit where she died or was knocked unconscious and was not spotted when the hole was filled in the next morning.

This theory assumes Madeleine, who was nearly four, would have been able to open the curtains, slide open the patio door and then shut the curtains and door behind her - as well as open and shut the garden gate to the road.

If she went looking for her parents it's likely she would have followed the route down the hill but, instead of continuing towards the roadworks, turned into the pool complex where they were eating. It was a journey she had taken regularly and in the dark street she would probably have been attracted by the light and noise.

Other accident scenarios suggest she walked out and was hit and killed by a car, whose driver panicked and disposed of her body. Or, she wandered off and squeezed herself into some remote, small place and couldn't get out or climbed into a well and drowned.

You can see our special documentary Searching for Madeliene [sic] on Sky News, at 8pm tonight.

https://news.sky.com/story/what-happened-to-madeleine-mccann-six-possible-theories-examined-10852674

Well, I can see the potential there for a blockbuster documentary equal to the infamous untold story that was - about as appetizing as a spam sandwich !

Hi Verdi,quite striking that Martin brunt gives a polished version of what two trained doctors are trained to do,"Preserve lives",he never mentions how the Control risk Group were assimulated to Portugal?

The Couple were ruled out when the case was closed in 2008?

Clever Martin,they were not ruled out Martin,as you well know.

No mention of the "Secret Contract" eh Martin,Sky News Corporation,Rupert Murdoch,2007/08,Mr Brian Kennedy,Mr Robert Murat?

No mention of what the Supreme Court of Portugal had decided on 25 January 2017,"Not innocent of involvement in Madeleine McCann's disappearance",why is that Martin,cherry picking for your favourite couple, eh Martin?

Praia da Luz: Ocean Club is going to dismiss employees

by Rui Pando Gomes

Comment by 3 argudios member: "Effectively you have a prime suspect back in the country creating a video of his alibi!! Its insane!!"

On the day that Gerry McCann arrived in Portugal to record the private reconstitution about what happened to his daughter Maddie on the 3rd of May 2007, 21 workers from the Ocean Club, the resort where the little four year old girl disappeared from, were dismissed. The justification, apart from the global crisis’ effects: “As a result of the unfortunate Maddie McCann event”, which has forever damaged the image of the resort in Praia da Luz and sent tourism away.

On the side of these problems, and despite the fact that neither he nor his group of friends collaborated with the police in a reconstitution of what happened that night, it was a smiling Gerry who presented himself in Praia da Luz yesterday – to record a documentary about the day when he mysteriously lost his daughter.

On the day that this media show took place, Greentrust, the company that runs the resort, advanced a collective dismissal action, which in a first phase includes 21 of the 48 Algarvian employees. The dismissal note mentions that the company’s financial problems are serious and “the perspectives for 2009 render the firm inviable”. The main fault is placed on the bad publicity that has been caused by the Maddie case. According to the firm, “the bad results of 2007 were caused by the abovementioned McCann case”.

In May 2007, the firm had 130 employees. During the following year, several were discharged and only 60 remained. This year 48 has been left, and after the most recent collective dismissal, 27 are left, who “are also at risk”, according to a source at the firm.

“I have a family and children to raise and now I’m out of work. We ask this McCann couple to leave us at peace, please”, one of the workers told Correio da Manhã.

Daughter of McCanns’ friends plays Madeleine

The reconstitution, which is being produced for British ‘Channel 4’, is being recorded with 15 actors. One of them represents Maddie, whose role will be played by “a child from a couple that is friends with Gerry and Kate”, Clarence Mitchell, the couple’s spokesman, revealed to the journalists.

Apart from Maddie, the rest of the cast plays the nine couple’s friends, known as ‘Tapas 9’, and an alleged abduction suspect, tourists and residents of Praia da Luz, and Ocean Club employees.

“Let us live in peace”

“Go home” and “let us live in peace” were some of the sentences that some residents of Praia da Luz shouted at Gerry and the team that is producing the documentary, which will be broadcast worldwide. “What are they doing here? They didn’t help the police when they should have, and now they put on this show to ruin our lives even further”, an upset resident who didn’t wish to be identified told Correio da Manhã, fearing reprisals, because she realises that the couple “is very powerful”.

“Police didn’t accept reconstitution for tv”

The Polícia Judiciária tried twice to carry out a reconstitution of the night of the disappearance, but at no time did the couple and its friends show themselves available. Clarence Mitchell, the couple’s spokesman, justified that the reconstitution was not made at an earlier time because back then “the police refused to broadcast it on television”.

Now that the investigation process has been archived, the couple believes: “This documentary may generate new information to help find Madeleine”, Mitchell referred.

The reconstitution will be available on the www.findmadeleine website, while the Channel 4 documentary is being negotiated with several European countries, including Portugal.

“They want to broadcast lies into the world” (Gonçalo Amaral, former Polícia Judiciária coordinator)

Correio da Manhã – The PJ wanted to carry out a reconstitution of Maddie’s disappearance. The McCann couple and their friends didn’t accept. What relevance does this media-exposed reconstitution have?

Gonçalo Amaral – None. It may be interesting to register the lies that these persons want to broadcast into the world. It’s another marketing operation.

- Are the Judiciária and the Public Ministry being ridiculed?

- I believe so. It’s regrettable that the Portuguese authorities failed to force these persons to come to Portugal to carry out a judicial reconstitution, for the truth to be discovered.

- Only two of the friends are taking part in the reconstitution. Aren’t the others important for the truth to be discovered?

- It would be interesting to know the reason why Mr David Payne is not taking part in the reconstitution. He might explain for how long he bathed the children and at what time. They’re not interested in explaining that.

Notes

GNR security – The documentary’s production hired the security services of four members of the GNR [local police force]. Yesterday, two guards were in location until 6 p.m. They were substituted by a new team, that followed the recordings until midnight.

Two days of filming – The filming will stretch over two days. Gerry McCann was interviewed yesterday, and scenes were recorded at the Tapas restaurant, where the couple dined on the evening that their daughter disappeared. Today, filming will take place near the church of Praia da Luz.

Scene with suspect – One of the scenes that were recorded yesterday involved a man that one of the couple’s friends, Jane Turner, says she saw walking by, carrying a child on the night when Maddie disappeared from the apartment.

Murat: No role in the movie – Anglo-Portuguese Robert Murat, who was one of the arguidos in the case, over suspicion of being linked to an abduction, is not taking part in the reconstitution movie, spokesman Clarence Mitchell revealed.

Gerry: Team consultant – Maddie’s father, Gerry McCann, does not take part in the filming but is a team consultant, just like Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield, friends who were on holiday with the couple.

Kate: “Not ready” – Kate McCann, the missing girl’s mother, “is not ready to return to Portugal yet”, according to what Clarence Mitchell, the couple’s spokesman, told the journalists.


source: Correio da Manhã, 05.04.2009

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https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/04/clarence-mitchell-mocks-unemployed.html

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/04/gerry-mccann-took-false-maddie-to-praia.html
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Little girl threw a “tantrum” during filming

The false ‘Maddie’ from the new McCann documentary didn’t make the production’s work easy, and on Saturday night refused to cooperate in the filming despite the insistence of her mother and of the other actors.

The little four-year-old girl, who is the daughter of Kate and Gerry McCann’s friends, ended the night of Saturday crying and fighting in her mother’s arms.

Wearing socks and a pyjama that was identical to the one that Madeleine allegedly wore on the night of the disappearance, the little girl, who somewhat resembles the true Maddie, was always in the company of her mother and of the wife of the Anglican priest of Praia da Luz, but not this made it possible for the filming to be concluded, and everything was postponed to yesterday evening, away from the disapproving looks from members of the public who were present on location.

It was at around 11.45 p.m. on Saturday evening that Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesman ended up apologising to the journalists, saying that it would be impossible to photograph or film the child that evening.

“Can you see that… It’s so cold and the child is standing there wearing socks”, a member of the public protested incredulously, adding that “it had to be English people to do something like that.”

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Source: Duarte Levy for 24horas, 06.04.2009 translated by Astro

Seven months after the deadline passed for reopening Maddie case, Gerry whinges that no one is looking for her...

By James Murray

DEVASTATED Gerry McCann wants police to reopen their investigation into the disappearance of his kidnapped daughter Madeleine.

The heart specialist said: “At the minute there is no law enforcement agency actively looking for Madeleine – looking at the evidence, saying: ‘Where are the gaps and what more can we do?’ That’s what we need.”

Investigators working for Gerry and his wife Kate have spent months poring over the shelved Portuguese police files on the two-year-old case.

They are also working on a Channel 4 documentary about the kidnapping, which will include a reconstruction of the night Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007, with actors playing the McCanns and their seven friends.

Speaking in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz after working as a consultant for the programme, Gerry, 40, played down any criticism of the Portuguese police.

He said: “They worked extremely hard and there were many different pressures. If you look back there were probably mistakes on all sides.”

He was not offended when some locals gave him a cool reception on his return to the resort last weekend.

“I can understand that,” he said. “They don’t want the media intrusion and the negative association with Madeleine’s abduction.

“I didn’t feel any evil around Praia da Luz. What happened here could have happened anywhere.

“I’m sorry for any harm caused and I want to thank the local population for their support and tolerance.

“Kate and I haven’t come back due to the media exposure and the controversy such a visit would pose.

“I hope people understand why we are doing what we’ve done.

“Madeleine is still missing. We need to do everything reasonable to get any information. The best thing for everyone is that she is found and whoever took her is caught.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/94629/Gerry-Mcann-Reopen-hunt-for-Maddie

When you've spent half your life poking around the hearts of others, stands to reason you ain't got one of your own.

By James Murray

Secret tunnels beneath the Portuguese seaside town where Madeleine McCann vanished two years ago today may hold the key to her disappearance.

The tunnels, dating back to Roman times, have never been thoroughly searched, despite repeated requests.

Documents in Portuguese police files, published today for the first time, suggest a vital line of inquiry was ignored and have led to fresh calls for a proper investigation into the tunnels.

A British woman wrote to UK detectives saying: “There are six to eight tunnels under Praia da Luz that the PJ [Portuguese police] have not searched. There is a tunnel under the church, there are tunnels under Estrela da Luz apartments. These have not been searched.

“The archaeologist involved with these tunnels was arrested as an abuser in the Casa Pia case but later released [this was a notorious child abuse scandal centring on orphanages in Lisbon].

“Does this not send alarm bells ringing? Something not right in Portugal. Why are the PJ not searching these tunnels and the church?”

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Quote from Gerry McCann:
"When I was praying I started thinking of all the things that were happening. There were lots and lots of ideas in my head and how we could make things better and I was really feeling very down and not sure which way to proceed. I had this mental image of being in a tunnel and instead of the light at the end of the tunnel being extremely narrow and a distant spot, the light opened up and the tunnel got wider and wider and went in many different directions. I talked to you (Kate) about it and said, 'I am not prepared to pursue one path. We are going to do everything in our power to influence things.'

"It was almost like something - I am not saying it was the Holy Spirit - came into me and gave me that image. That is when I really felt I had a clear path."

Was it a religious experience?

"I can't say it was a vision because I am not clear what a vision is but I had a mental image and it certainly helped me decide. I became a man possessed that night. The next day I was up at dawn, making phone calls."

By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 7:19AM BST 05 May 2009

In their first US television interview, a frequently tearful Kate McCann told Winfrey of her "feeling of absolute helplessness" on discovering her daughter, then nearly four, had gone missing from their hotel room in the Algarve two years ago.

The McCanns used Winfrey's show, which is broadcast in more than 100 countries, to give new impetus to their campaign to find their daughter.

Madeleine's bedroom at her home in Rothley, Leics, was "all ready, waiting," her mother said.

"I go in (the room) about twice a day to talk to her, just to say hello really ... tell her that we're going to do everything we can to find her."

She said it made her angry when the Portuguese police revealed that she and her husband, Gerry, were suspects because "it suddenly dawned on me that they weren't looking for Madeleine and they weren't looking for the abductor".

The couple said there was no evidence that she was dead. "I don't feel that she's that far away," said Mrs McCann.

The hour-long programme focused heavily on an age progression photo of Madeleine, which shows her as she would look today, about to turn six, although Mrs McCann admitted she could not relate to the image as her daughter.

Mr McCann said it was "not too late" for the abductor - whom they are convinced is male - to "do the right thing", adding: "They can hand her over to a priest or someone in authority."

Holding hands frequently during the studio interview, both parents wore the yellow and green wristbands that have become a symbol of their campaign.

During a section of the programme filmed at the family home, Mrs McCann's eyes welled up with tears as she showed the camera pictures drawn by Madeleine that she could not bring herself to remove from the refrigerator.

"She was like my little friend all the time," she said. When she worried about how her daughter was now, she admitted she sometimes fretted about the "little things".

"Is someone brushing her teeth? Is someone rubbing her tummy if she's not feeling well? It's all those things you do as a mother."

Madeleine disappeared from her bed as her parents dined with friends in a nearby tapas restaurant on the fifth night of the family holiday.

Addressing their much-criticised decision to leave their children unsupervised in the apartment as they ate, Mrs McCann told Winfrey: "I could persecute myself every day about that, and I feel awful that we weren't there at that minute."

Source: Telegraph
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Here's a few more things that Katie did as 'a mother':

Left 3 babies alone in an unlocked apartment despite them having cried for 75 minutes on a previous night
Ran to the tapas bar to raise the alarm, leaving the twins alone again
Left the twins in the creche, with a predator on the loose, after Maddie disappeared so they could tour Europe
Deleted mobile phone records
Left the locals to search for her daughter while she and Gerry 'prayed like arabs' on the bed
Left her fingerprints on the jemmied shutter which wasn't jemmied
Washed cuddlecat
Washed the curtains
Pushed the sofa against the wall
Smashed a bed
Went jogging instead of searching
Refused to answer 48 police questions
Refused to take part in the police reconstruction
Refused to take a lie detector test
Lied to the police
Wrote a fake diary
Accepted millions of pounds in donations which was used to pay their mortgage
Made excuses for the dna found behind the sofa and in the hire car
Told police she took Cuddlecat to work and it got contaminated by six corpses
Had Maddie made a Ward of Court
Put pressure on Gordon Brown to interfere with the investigation
Fled Portugal the minute they were made arguidos

Kate McCann's critics quiet at last

By Fergus Shanahan
Tuesday, May 5, 2009

TWO years on, the tide seems to have turned at last for Kate McCann.

It really does seem to be sinking in to even her most vicious critics that she played no part in Maddie's disappearance.

You only had to watch Kate on America's Oprah Winfrey Show to see how utterly destroyed she is.

At least half the country spent several weeks thinking she was up there with Myra Hindley and Rose West. I got a lot of outraged emails when I stood up for her from the start.

But I bet you this. As the foreign holiday season gets under way (for those who can still afford it), how many parents will nip down to the bar for five minutes leaving their kids asleep in their room, thinking "How can anything happen to them in the middle of a big, well-run place like this?"

Source: The Sun (appears in paper edition only)

Madeleine McCann: British detectives fly to Portugal

• 29 January 2014
  

British detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have flown to Portugal and spoken to local officers, Scotland Yard has said.

Madeleine was three when she disappeared in 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Algarve.

Portuguese police said the detectives were in Faro on Tuesday.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, senior investigating officer in the case, is understood to be one of those who travelled to Portugal.

A high-profile campaign run by Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, and a Portuguese police investigation, have failed to locate the missing girl.

Burglaries

Last week, Portugal's attorney general's office acknowledged they had formally received a letter of request from the British authorities for assistance in their enquiries.

It was reported that the request concerned assistance to arrest three suspects who were carrying out burglaries at the Ocean Club complex in Praia de Luz, in the Algarve, where the McCanns were staying.

In the 17 days before she disappeared, there were two incidents in the McCanns' block, one burglary and one attempted burglary.

Police have said the possibility that Madeleine had been snatched by burglars as part of a bungled break-in was a key line of inquiry.

Between January and May 2007, when Madeleine went missing, there was a four-fold increase in the number of burglaries in the area.

Scotland Yard launched a new investigation into Madeleine's disappearance last July, two years into a review of the case, and made renewed appeals for information.

The detectives met their Portuguese counterparts at the Faro Judiciary. Scotland Yard confirmed a team of officers had been in Faro as one of a number of regular trips they have made in connection with the inquiry.

Thursday 3 May 2007: Timeline

• 20:30 Kate and Gerry McCann leave their apartment to have dinner at a Tapas bar
  
• 21:05 Gerry McCann checks on Madeleine and her siblings
  
• 22:00 A man is seen carrying a child wearing pyjamas heading towards the ocean
  
• 22:00 Kate McCann raises the alarm that Madeleine has gone missing
  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25945924
.....................

B..b..b..b..b..burglars?  One major problem with this feerie, no evidence - and that's an emphatic no! 

No (and that's emphatic 'n all) level headed parent would leave their child/ren in an unlocked apartment, in a strange place, alone in the dark unless a prior rendezvous had been arranged for a specific visit for a specific reason.

The BBC has conveniently disposed of Jane Tanner's fictitious sighting to be replaced by the 10:00pm sighting in favour of DCI Andy Redwood's revelation moment in the form of Martin Smith and family, as per the October 2013 BBC Crimewatch production.

Hey-ho - why let truth stand in the way of a good old fashioned detective novel.

Madeleine McCann detectives urge paedophile Ray Hewlett to talk to them

A detective working for the McCanns yesterday urged paedophile Ray Hewlett: “Talk to us and prove you’ve nothing to hide.

By Stephen Moyes & Ryan Parry: 26 MAY 2009 Updated 30 JAN 2012

A detective working for the McCanns yesterday urged paedophile Ray Hewlett: “Talk to us and prove you’ve nothing to hide.”

Dave Edgar issued his challenge after Hewlett refused to be interviewed in a German cancer hospital about where he was when Madeleine vanished.

He will try again today to get Hewlett, 64, to talk. He said: “There’s nothing ruling him out of the investigation. If he’s got nothing to hide he should speak...His evidence could be crucial.”

Together with fellow detective Arthur Cowley, they were frustrated yesterday after flying to see Hewlett in a German hospital where he is recovering from throat cancer only to have him refuse to talk to them.

Former detective inspector Mr Edgar, speaking from the hospital in Aachen, said: “It is desperately disappointing because we have flown a long way out here to see him.

“There is nothing ruling Hewlett out of the investigation. If he’s got nothing to hide he should speak to us.”

Hewlett’s partner Mariana also refused to talk to the pair, who are working for Kate and Gerry McCann, when they rang her flat yesterday.

Mr Edgar and Mr Cowley want to ask Hewlett about claims that he and his family were camping an hour’s drive from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished from the McCanns’ flat there on May 3, 2007.

The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the investigators would try again today to persuade 64-year-old Hewlett to see them.

He added: “Raymond Hewlett is now well aware that the investigators wish to speak to him. However the investigators are still waiting for a definitive response from Mr Hewlett. Clearly, if he is to be eliminated from their inquiries, it is incumbent on Mr Hewlett to talk to the investigators and the investigators continue to hope that he will do so.

“To that end, the investigators will stay in Germany with a view to interviewing him on Tuesday at the latest.”

The detectives arrived in Aachen on Sunday and met German Mariana, mother of six of Hewlett’s children.

Mr Edgar said: “We spent 10 minutes with Mariana. We asked for a message to be sent through her that we need to talk to Hewlett.

“We were unsure at that point whether she would co-operate or not.

“It would appear certain now that he does not want to talk to us. We want to know where Hewlett was when Madeleine McCann went missing.

“Does he know anything about Madeleine McCann and will he speak to us? This is the first named person we have flown out to see. We want to eliminate this man from our inquiries as quickly as possible.

“His evidence could be crucial but we won’t know until we’ve spoken to him.

“It is a matter of urgency because of his medical condition.”

A friend of the McCanns said: “If our men come away from Germany empty handed, that begs more questions than it does answers.”

Hewlett, jailed three times in the UK for sex assaults on young girls, has strenuously denied having anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.

The British investigators cannot force Hewlett to answer their questions because private detectives do not have police powers.

Ex-fairground worker Hewlett is in an intensive care ward. He is said to have asked the hospital to remove his details from their computer system.

The McCanns’ friend added: “The hospital is now refusing to confirm if Hewlett is in there and we know he is.

“His wife initially was prepared to convey messages to Hewlett but is now playing silly games.” The investigators yesterday saw

Aachen’s state prosecutor Lutz Bern Klau to ask him to set up a meeting with Hewlett.

But Mr Klau said: “Germany is a free country. Hewlett is not wanted in this country for any crime. There is nothing I can do to help the private detectives..”

Mr Klau did say his office is assisting West Yorkshire police with their request to speak to Hewlett in connection with an alleged sex attack in 1975.

He said no request for help had been submitted by Portuguese police, who are still in charge of the official Madeleine inquiry.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-detectives-urge-paedophile-396059

Unbelievable !

In the printed (June 09) Scottish version Anna Smith - apparent voice of Scotland, had this to say:

"Paedo Shame
The more I hear about the Algarve, the sicker I feel. Investigators hunting for Madeleine McCann say the area is awash with paedophiles, with seven sex attacks on kids in the last 4 years.

Perhaps that's why those thicko cops pointed the finger at the McCanns - by blaming them and moving on, nobody would dig up their dirt. They continue to ignore new evidence and hope what they always hoped - that this case would just go away.

Their priority from day one was the effect this awful tragedy was having on tourism.

I will never set foot in Portugal again for the shameful way they have treated the McCanns, and the sheer ineptitude of the investigation.


An email was sent to Anna Smith of the News of the World to voice concern about her racist article and received the following response:

RE: Lies and defamation‏
From: Smith, Anna (anna.smith@notw.co.uk)
Sent: 01 June 2009 09:18:48
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Hi

Thanks for this, and glad to know you read my column- even if you don't agree. I was writing in essence about the police, and and I don't know where you get your information, but it is universally accepted that they bungled the investigation from day one and have hampered it since. That is the fact of the matter whether you like it or not. I have contacts and friends who have homes in the area and have been appalled at the way they have been upset that the McCann case has affected tourism. That is also the fact of the matter. And you may remember the shouts and anger of the local people when Maddie's mother ran the gauntlet in the street on her way to the police station. I will never forget that, but I didn't mention that in my column. But that is also a fact that you seem to ignore.

I stand by everything I say, and judging by the emails I have had, so does many of my readers.

Cheers
Anna

Anna Smith again - McCann internet attacks are so sick




06/06/2009

I HAD the misfortune to encounter some of the lowest forms of human life last week.

Thankfully it was only on the internet. My comments about the bungling, thicko Portuguese cops who mishandled the Madeline McCann case upset a bunch of lowlifes who are so sick and twisted that they have set up a website forum dedicated to attacking the McCanns.

It's appallingly cruel and filled with horrendous attacks on a tragic couple, who for the rest of their lives, will count the cost of their mistake.

What kind of people would devote so much of their energy to that level of vitriol?

What kind of morons would be on web forums in the middle of the night spitting hatred to total strangers, when the only real issue here is that a little girl is still missing?

Agree? Disagree?

I hope to God the McCanns don't read it. The internet has a lot to answer for. It has given spineless cowards a place to hide while they drip poison, masquerading as people who want to get to the truth.

There has to be some way we can legislate to shut these people down.
-----
Discussion at the 3 arguidos: anna smith - notw wants to shut 3as down

Comment by a 3 arguidos member:

"There are thousands upon thousands of web sites that amongst other things; promote suicide, peddle child pornography & paedophilia, encourage young girls to starve themselves to death, teach people how to knock up a bomb, spread and incite racial hatred and homophobia, fleece vunerable folk of all their life savings.....etc. etc.

And she wants to see legislation to stop people living in a democracy, the right to free speech and opinion?"

Well well well - another gatekeeper, Scotland's answer to S.. s .. s .. s .. s .. sorry, forgotten the name.  Cerberus guarding the gates of hell..

Anna Smith:  Biography

Anna Smith is an award-winning journalist who spent a lifetime in daily newspapers, reporting from the frontline all over the world. She has covered conflicts from Somalia to Rwanda to Kosovo, where she witnessed the plight of tragic refugees, genocide and hideous ethnic cleansing. She has also worked on major investigations, unmasking drug dealers and paedophiles, as well as reporting on the Dunblane Massacre, to 9/11, where she was one of the first journalists on the scene in both world shaking events.

She writes novels full time now, using her vast experience as a journalist to create the hugely popular Rosie Gilmour character, a gritty Glasgow journalist who tears down the walls of corruption and will stop at nothing to get her story. Anna lives between her homes in Scotland and the West of Ireland - and also in Spain to escape the British weather. Her highly acclaimed debut novel, The Dead Won't Sleep, is the first in the series, exposing corruption and child abuse at the very top of the establishment, echoing real news stories that are being reported at the moment, even though the novel was published three years ago.

The second in the series is, To Tell The Truth, and takes Rosie on a terrifying investigation into the kidnapping of a three-year-old girl from a beach in Spain while on holiday with her parents. It's a fast paced story of people trafficking and international child porn, and is set in Glasgow, Spain and Morocco.

Book three, is Screams In The Dark, is a harrowing tale of refugees going missing in Glasgow. When a torso is found floating in the River Clyde, Rosie is on the trail of international criminals from London to Belgrade and uncovers a network of evil. It's a story close to Anna's heart as she reported from Kosovo at the start of the war when stricken refugees were spilling across the border in their thousands.

Her latest in the series, is Betrayed, where Rosie takes on the criminals in the Ulster Volunteer Force in Glasgow. It's a gripping story of cocaine smuggling, of divided loyalties, of love and regret, and ultimately of betrayal.

http://www.annasmithscotland.com/Biography.html

Paedo Raymond Hewlett admits visiting Madeleine holiday flats

Paedo's shock confession to holiday couple: 'I know Maddie resort very well..I’ve parked near flat several times.'

By Simon Wright - 23 MAY 2009

The McCanns

The British paedophile linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has sensationally confessed to being outside her holiday apartment “many times”.

Convicted pervert Raymond Hewlett, 64, has admitted knowing the resort where the McCanns were holidaying “very well” and said he had parked a van close to their complex on several occasions.

And last night a man who shared a Morocco campsite with Hewlett and his family for three months described how the drifter was obsessed with the missing youngster.

Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Mirror, former Scots Guard Peter Verran, 46, revealed how Hewlett, his German wife Mariana, 33, and their six children arrived at the campsite where he was holidaying in Chefchaaouen in a battered Dodge truck. It was May 2007 – shortly after Madeleine’s disappearance.

“He seemed like an old hippy traveller who had dropped out,” said Peter, who runs an internet business selling antiques and collectibles from his home in Fowey, Cornwall.

“We got talking at the toilet block. He brought Madeleine up straight away. He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her.

“He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, ‘Madeleine’s not in Morocco’.

“I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia Da Luz really well. He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying. He said he’d been there many times and had often parked his van close to the apartment.

“He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating when Maddie disappeared. He had a lot of detail about the layout. He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing. He said they were lying.”

Yesterday it emerged that Portuguese police did speak to Hewlett about Madeleine’s disappearance – but ruled him out as a suspect.

Peter also revealed that pothead Hewlett made wild and unfounded claims that the McCanns – both doctors, from Rothley, Leics – were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.

“One of Hewlett’s theories was that there had been an accident and Kate and Gerry had killed her and were trying to cover it up,” said Peter.

“He even made the crazy suggestion that her mum and dad had sold her to gipsies. He said it was common knowledge among locals that Praia Da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then traffic children.

"I asked him why he’d left and come to Morocco. He told me he’d had to leave Portugal in a hurry. He said he’d packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area. That was just after Maddie was taken.”

Peter, who is partially disabled, met his Moroccan wife Nisrine, 25, when he was holidaying in Agadir.

They married in May 2007 and when they encountered Hewlett at the remote campsite, they were enjoying an extended honeymoon touring the country in a camper van.

“We’d been there a week or so when Hewlett and his family just rolled in in a big blue Dodge truck,” said Peter, who has two children from a previous marriage. “I didn’t see him for a few days. I just saw his wife and kids. She’d checked them in to the campsite and seemed to be handling all the paperwork. In Morocco, you have to have the right papers to stay anywhere. Looking back, it seems Hewlett was reluctant to be seen by anyone in authority.”

After a few days, Peter began bumping into Hewlett and they started to chat. “He told me he had been in Southern Ireland once but had to leave in a hurry,” said Peter. “He explained that he and his wife were travellers and they moved around a lot. He said he spent his days sitting around smoking dope while his six kids played.

“The kids were a bit weird. They were very withdrawn and couldn’t speak properly. They never went to school and spent all day playing in the mud.

“Hewlett told me he was ill and suffered with pains in his chest. One day he said, ‘I think I’ve got cancer’. I told him to go back to England to get checked out and to sort the kids out with a proper home. He said he didn’t want people poking their noses into his business.’’

Peter told how he and Nisrine would eat meals with Hewlett’s family – and Hewlett would often talk about Madeleine. “He went on and on about the McCanns and kept telling me all his theories about what he thought had happened,” said Peter. “Looking back, maybe it was a way of making sure we didn’t think he had anything to do with it.”

Peter, who spent six years in the Army before working with people with learning difficulties, recalled how in the three months they were all together he only saw Hewlett leave the camp once or twice. “Most of the time he stayed on the campsite,” he said. “He was never short of money though. He bought diesel, a motorbike and engine parts. I don’t know where he got his money from. He said he’d made cash from car boot sales.”

Then, one day in August 2007, Hewlett announced he and his family were leaving. “He said his wife’s visa had run out and his passport was out of date,” said Peter. “They packed up and left quickly.”

Peter and Nisrine returned to the UK in November 2007 and had occasional texts or phone calls from Hewlett. “He said he was back in Tavira, near Praia Da Luz, doing car boot sales,” Peter said.

“In June last year, he rang to say he had throat cancer. The next I heard they were in Spain. He called to ask for money and I sent him £50. I couldn’t bear the thought of his kids starving. I even offered to pay for him to come back to the UK. I didn’t get a reply and we lost touch.

“Then suddenly this week he was in the newspapers linked to Maddie’s disappearance. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was such a massive shock. It makes my blood run cold. We haven’t been able to sleep much since the news broke. I keep feeling guilty that I should have noticed something and gone to the police. But I just thought he was an odd drifter. I pray he hasn’t had anything to do with it, but now I just don’t know.”

Detectives working for the McCanns are now investigating former trawlerman Hewlett. And officers from Leicestershire Police – the McCanns home force and in charge of liaising with Portuguese authorities – have said they want to speak to two British holidaymakers who tracked down Hewlett.

Cindy and Alan Thompson raised the alarm after they realised he and his family had been staying at a camping site an hour from Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished. The couple helped to trace him to the hospital in Germany where he is being treated for throat cancer.

Last night Leicestershire Police were made aware of the Sunday Mirror’s new revelations. Hewlett is also wanted for questioning by West Yorkshire Police over a child sex attack in 1975 and by Greater Manchester Police investigating the 1975 abuse of an eight-year-old girl.

In 1972, he abducted and sexually assaulted a neighbour’s six-year-old daughter. He was sentenced to 18 months and released after a year. In 1978 he attempted to rape a nine-year-old girl and was jailed four years. In 1988 in Mold, Cheshire, he kidnapped and assaulted a 14-year-old girl and was jailed for six years.

He was described by one judge as “extremely dangerous” and once featured on a Crimestoppers list of Most Wanted Paedophiles.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedo-raymond-hewlett-admits-visiting-395741
....................

Freedom of the press = print whatever you like - who cares. The 'Intelligent Tabloid # makesuthink' Mirror has a lot to answer to as regards investigative journalism. Freedom of speech should not equal carte blanche to propagate whatever lies you wish - this nonsensical 'freedom of speech' notion is beginning to pee me off big time.

Opinion Sunday Express (appears in paper edition only)
July 2009

Ray of hope for McCanns

OUR THOUGHTS today are with Kate and Gerry McCann (not the little girl who survived this traumatic ordeal, or her parents, but Kate and Gerry McCann) who, we hope, will take heart from the extraordinary news from South America. Six years ago, a little girl disappeared in Panama and has now turned up again, unharmed, in Ecuador. It seems miraculous but her parents, just like the McCanns, never gave up the search.

It proves that there can still be a happy conclusion to their long and painful search for little Madeleine.


Everything is about the McCanns!

Here in the McMail dated 29 Oct. 2007...it states Kate has weekly counselling sessions if true this will be on record. Kate will need these reports to prove her mental state....Hope she has not lost them, she does tend to lose things.

'I don't know how long she will hold on for', says Kate McCann's anxious mother
By VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 14:26 29 October 2007

Kate McCann's mother spoke frankly yesterday about her fears for her daughter's health, saying: "I don't know how long she will hold on for . .. I don't know if any human can take such pressure."
She told a Portuguese magazine: 'What mother would not go insane if they lost a child?"
But the McCanns' spokesman was forced to deny that Mrs McCann was suicidal after the magazine headlined the article: "Kate's mother fears she will kill herself."
Scroll down for more...

Clarence Mitchell said: "It is beyond offensive to suggest Kate is suicidal. She is not.
"She is, however, a woman under immense pressure and her mother is perfectly entitled to defend her."
In the interview with 24 Horas, Susan Healy, 61, said: "I don't know how long she will hold on for.
"It doesn't seem like it but she has a very strong inner force. But with such cruelty, honestly I don't know - I don't know if any human can take such pressure."
She added: "Kate is an only child. If it was me, I'd die. But she can't let herself get so low.
"She has to think of her family, of Gerry and the twins.
"Sean and Amelie need their mother. But I'm afraid, I'm very afraid. I don't know how she's handling all this."
Mrs Healy, of Allerton, Merseyside, has spoken before of her worries for her daughter's health as she has endured the six-month investigation into Madeleine's disappearance. Other relatives have told how her family ensure the 39-year-old is never left alone and prepare her favourite meals to encourage her to eat properly.
Mrs McCann, a GP and devout Catholic, has weekly counselling sessions to help her cope, but has found it increasingly difficult to control her emotions.
The mother of three has told of "dark moments" and days when she cannot stop crying.

Friends say she is dreading Saturday, which marks the six-month milestone since Madeleine vanished.
The family has rallied round the couple since May 3, and Mrs Healy said she spoke to her daughter every day on the phone.
Mrs Healy said Gerry McCann, also 39, now kept the media coverage of the case away from his wife, in case it upset her, something she said she agreed with.
She said her daughter faced "a war" she could not win, adding: "People criticise her anyway.
"If she cries it's because she's faking, if she doesn't cry it's because she's cold.
"My God, there's no bigger pain in the world than to see a daughter suffer and to be accused or tried in the public square for something she did not do."
During the interview Mrs Healy frequently repeated her call for critics to be kinder to Mrs McCann, saying she was an excellent mother.
A friend said Mrs Healy's words had been "twisted" in the magazine's headline and added: "It's ludicrous and yet another horrible slur.
"Kate and Gerry are stunned at such an irresponsible report and twisting of words.
"Of course Kate is not suicidal. She has had so much to deal with but her priority is her family."
Mrs Healy last night denied she ever thought her daughter would commit suicide, saying: "Although Kate is under the most immense pressure, she would never, ever contemplate ending her life, for two reasons.
"One, she still wants to find Madeleine and, two, for the sake of her other two children."
• David Cameron has said he feels "desperately sorry" for the McCanns. The Tory leader, whose daughter Nancy is three, the same age as Madeleine when she went missing, told the Mail on Sunday: "It must be awful not knowing what happened to your daughter and desperately wanting her back."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-490317/I-dont-know-long-hold-says-Kate-McCanns-anxious-mother.html

Here in the McMail dated 29 Oct. 2007...it states Kate has weekly counselling sessions if true this will be on record. Kate will need these reports to prove her mental state....Hope she has not lost them, she does tend to lose things.

If there be any truth in Kate McCann having weekly counselling sessions, it can only be with Mr Alan Pike, the social worker slash self proclaimed psychologist.

I quote..

I was not there to judge the reaction of Kate or Gerry, but I would say that their behaviour was consistent, according to my knowledge of that which they were experiencing. I helped them deal with the situation and offered them face to face counselling on many occasions, since the day I met with them in Portugal and in Leicester. They and the rest of the family have access to a 24-hour telephone help line. At CCP we use a psychological method in each of clinical interventions that allows the patient to relive their traumatic experience, discuss his or her physical and emotional reactions and after provide counselling and support that helps them deal with these emotions in the short and long-term.

Since the return of Kate and Gerry to the U.K., I have worked for them privately but my relationship here has been exclusively clinical in nature.

Witness statement - Alan Robert Pike, Crisis Counsellor:  7th May 2008
....................


This same person appeared before the Lisbon court as a witness for the McCanns.  His testimony didn't go down too well - less than convincing one might say but then, social workers are not qualified to assess in such circumstances.  If you want to impress, you really do need an assessment by a qualified psychologist/psychiatrist.

I Smashed Bed In Rage At Cops



Original Source: SUN: 09 MAY 2011
By ANTONELLA LAZZERI and OLIVER HARVEY

KATE McCann tells today how she wrecked a bed as she kicked out in rage after the first day of the shambolic police hunt for her abducted daughter Madeleine.

The mum, 43, broke down with frustration at the lack of action in the vital first hours after Madeleine, three, vanished in Portugal.

In her heart-rending new book - serialised all this week in The Sun - Kate also tells of her shock and outrage when Portuguese police later made her and husband Gerry, 42, suspects:

As soon as it was light Gerry and I resumed our search. We jumped over walls and raked through undergrowth. We looked in ditches and holes.

The most striking thing was we were completely alone. Nobody else, it seemed, was out looking for Madeleine.

There didn't seem to be much sense of urgency.

According to the Policia Judiciaria files, two patrol dogs were brought to Praia da Luz at 2am on May 4 and four search-and-rescue dogs at 8am. The tracker dogs did not go out until 11pm.

There had been no house-to-house inquiries.

It was about 10am by the time a couple of PJ officers turned up to take us and our friends to the police station in Portimao.

I was appalled by the treatment we received. Officers walked past us as if we weren't there. Nobody asked whether we were OK. Our child had been stolen and I felt as if I didn't exist.

It was gone 2pm at the police station in Portimao before I was interviewed.

As Joao Carlos, a Portuguese detective, led me up the stairs, I inquired whether he had any children. He told me he hadn't. "But don't worry. We will find your daughter." It was exactly what I was yearning to hear.

It was 7.30 by the time one of the PJ officers drove us away from the police station. Ten or 15 minutes into our journey, the police officer had a call from his station. He suddenly swung the car into a U-turn and drove us at 120mph back to Portimao.

Had Madeleine been found' Was she alive' Was she dead' I was crying hysterically and praying for all I was worth.

Back at the police station somebody showed us a photograph from CCTV of a blonde child with a woman in a petrol station shop. We were asked whether the little girl was Madeleine. She wasn't. We were sent on our way, devastated.

Four months later, doctors Kate, 43, and Gerry, 42, were still in Portugal. She recalls with horror how she learned police had made them the main suspects.

On August 2 I had a call from Gerry. The police wanted to come over at 10am. Something to do with forensics.

It was 5pm when they eventually showed up. They told us they wanted to shoot some video footage of our clothes and possessions.

The forensics people would then take these away and return them the following day.

They offered no explanation. We were all asked to leave the villa. When we were allowed back, I was devastated. They had taken my Bible, Cuddle Cat (Madeleine's favourite toy) and my diaries.

It was on Monday August 6 that the atmosphere changed.

At the Policia Judiciaria's request, Gerry went to meet them at a cafe in Portimao. He returned minus the car. The police had impounded it for forensic testing.

Madeleine had been missing for over three weeks when we'd hired the car, but perhaps it still needed to be ruled out of the investigation. That lunchtime I was ambushed by journalists and TV cameras.

It emerged that there had been stories in some Portuguese papers suggesting Gerry was somehow involved in Madeleine's disappearance.

Sniffer dogs had discovered traces of Madeleine's blood in apartment 5A, it was claimed.

It was insinuated she died there and her body had been dumped in the sea. The following day it was reported a sample of "blood" had been sent to the UK to see whether a DNA profile could be extracted from it.

We had seen no blood that night - neither, as far as we knew, had any been found by the police or the forensics team from Lisbon.

Two days later, Kate and Gerry went to the police station to meet investigator Luis Neves and Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the Algarve Policia Judiciaria. It quickly became clear they were focussing on the McCanns, Kate recalls.

There had been a shift in the investigation, they said. Tell us about that night, they said. Tell us everything that happened after the children went to bed. I gave them every detail I could remember, as I had before.

Neves stated bluntly they didn't believe my version of events. It "didn't fit" with what they knew.

Didn't fit' What did they know' They proposed that when I'd put Madeleine to bed that night, it wasn't actually the last time I'd seen her. But it was. It was! I was being bullied. I assume these tactics were deliberate - knock her off balance by telling her that her daughter is dead and get her to confess.

On and on it went. Then it was Gerry's turn. Through his tears he pleaded with the two men: "Do you have evidence that Madeleine is dead' We're her parents. You have to tell us."

"It's coming," Neves told him.

Our liaison officer Ricardo Paiva arrived. He told us about two springer spaniels brought out to Portugal by the British police to assist in the search.

Keela, who could alert her handler to the tiniest trace of blood, had done so in apartment 5A. Eddie, a dog trained to detect human remains, had indicated somebody had died there.

The police appeared to be telling us, on the say-so of a dog, that someone had definitely died in apartment 5A and it must have been Madeleine.

On Thursday September 6, Kate was interviewed at Portimao police station in the presence of her lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu. Within hours both she and Gerry would officially be classed as arguido, or suspects.

There were three PJ officers in the room. Joao Carlos asked most of the questions, which I answered in as much detail as I could. Back at the apartment later that night my lawyer Carlos reiterated that the situation was not good. The PJ had a lot of "evidence" and I was certain to be made an arguida in the morning.

First he cited video footage the police had shot of the reactions of the blood and cadaver dogs in apartment 5A and also around our hire car.

I was totally perplexed. If, as the PJ alleged, Madeleine's blood was in the boot of our car, which we had not rented until May 27, how on earth had it got there' Did this mean someone had planted it' I could see no other explanation.

The police theory, it seemed, was that we had hidden Madeleine's body, then moved it later and buried it elsewhere.

A witness claimed to have seen Gerry and me carrying a big black bag and acting suspiciously. This was absolute nonsense.

Friday 7 September. After a measly two hours' sleep we got up and braced ourselves for the day ahead.

The street leading to the police station was again lined by huge crowds of press and onlookers.

Carlos had advised me not to answer any of the questions put to me. He explained that this was my right as an arguida and the safest option. Any responses I gave might unintentionally implicate me in some way.

Then they started. What had I seen and heard after entering apartment 5A at 10pm on 3 May 2007' Who called the police' At what time' Who contacted the media'

Ricardo Paiva played a more prominent role in the interrogation this time, giving me his spiel about the dogs. "These dogs have a 100 per cent success rate," he said.

"Two hundred cases and they've never failed." I just stared at him, unable to hide my contempt. These dogs had never been used in Portugal before, and he knew little more about them than I did.

Ricardo started a video player. I saw the dogs going into apartment 5A, one at a time, with the handler.

Each dog ran around the apartment, jumping over beds, into the wardrobe, generally having a good sniff.

At one point, the handler directed the dogs to a spot behind the couch in the sitting room, close to the curtains. He called the dogs over to him to investigate this site.

This was not what I'd call an exact science.

The film show continued. Now we were in an underground garage where eight or so cars were parked, including our rented Renault Scenic.

It was hard to miss. The windows were plastered with pictures of Madeleine. One of the dogs ran straight past our car, nose in the air, heading towards the next vehicle.

The handler stopped next to the Renault and called the dog. It obeyed, returning to him, but then ran off again. The handler instructed the dog to come back several times and directed it to certain parts of the vehicle before it eventually supplied an alert by barking.

Each time a dog gave a signal, Ricardo would pause the video and inform me blood had been found in this site and that the DNA from the sample matched Madeleine's.

He would stare at me intently and ask me to explain this. These were the only times I didn't respond with a "No comment."

Instead I said I couldn't explain it, but neither could he.

When researching sniffer-dog evidence later, Gerry would discover false alerts can be attributable to the conscious or unconscious signals of the handler. We would later learn that in his written report, the handler emphasized such alerts cannot be relied upon without corroborating evidence.

As I walked out of the interview room at 3.15pm, Gerry was on his way to Portimao for his interrogation. Like me, he was officially declared an arguido at the start of the proceedings.

Bishop Ellis RC School, Leicester, raises £6,000 for McCann's fund

10 May 2009
KATE PAIN IS 'EASED'

Tracey Kandhola

Kate McCann has publicly thanked her community for helping ease her pain over missing Madeleine.

She praised their "amazing support" during a fund-raising auction night for Maddie at the school that is still waiting to enrol her daughter.

"What could have been a really sad time has been made positive because of you," she said on Friday just days after the second anniversary of the disappearance.

"Thank you for your continued support and for joining us here tonight. It helps us so much."

Nearly £6,000 was raised by 200 people for the Find Maddie Fund at Bishop Ellis RC School in Thurmaston, Leics, near the family's home village Rothley.

Local firms and groups donated items, including a signed shirt from Maddie's father Gerry's rugby team Leicester Tigers. Kate, in a "Don't Give Up On Me" Maddie vest, said: "It's still her school and it'll be her brother and sister Sean and Amelie's in September."

One local said: "It was a fantastic night. Madeleine is still very much in our thoughts and prayers and we want to ensure the community doesn't forget her."

Gerry has told how the Maddie Fund, which once topped £2million, could empty by the end of the year. Madeleine will turn six on Tuesday.
-----
Source: People.co.uk


Kate's uncle Brian Kennedy, uses the Roman Catholic school to link to the McCanns Fraudulent Fund

Portuguese Prosecutor Asks to Seize 'Mystery Object' in Madeleine McCann Probe

Published September 13, 2007

A Portuguese judge reportedly is deciding whether to grant an emergency request by the public prosecutor in the Madeleine McCann case seeking to seize a "mystery object" described as being vital to the investigation.

Evidence suggesting that Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing girl who disappeared just short of her fourth birthday, were involved in their daughter’s death was passed to the judge late Tuesday night.

In addition to the prosecutor's request, the judge will consider whether the couple should be charged.

The judge has a number of options, including ordering the couple to return to the Algarve to be placed under house arrest, or submit to further police questioning. He also could order additional searches and wire taps. The judge has 10 days to make his ruling.

The public prosecutor's request to seize an “object” vital to the inquiry could include searching areas such as a lawyer’s office or a place of worship, which are protected under Portuguese laws.

The Daily Mail reported that sources claim the item is Kate McCann's diary.

The newspaper also reported that police want to confiscate Madeleine's toys, including her favorite Cuddle Cat, which Kate McCann has very publicly held on to since her daughter vanished.

Police reportedly also want to examine the toys for forensic evidence to see how much DNA they contain of Madeleine.

Yesterday was a day of significant developments in the case, including:

— The handing over to the public prosecutor of 10 box files containing more than a thousand pages of evidence detailing DNA results, police interviews with the couple, witness statements, intercepted e-mails and tapped phone calls;

— Police telling Portuguese newspapers that a large quantity of Madeleine’s hair was found in the trunk of the car that her parents hired 25 days after she disappeared;

— Detectives briefing local newspapers that bodily fluid with an 88 percent match to the child was also found in the car; and,

— A visit to the McCanns’ home in Rothley, Leicestershire, by a senior police official.

In a statement outside his offices in Portimão, a spokeswoman for José Cunha de Magalhães e Meneses, the prosecutor, said that he believed that the files contained sufficient evidence to change aspects of the McCanns’ status in the case. He passed the case on to the judge who rules on crimes still under investigation.

In another development, Portuguese Attorney General Fernando Jose Pinto Monterio entered the investigation, appointing a second public prosecutor to the case.


Luis Bilro Veinõ, from the Evora district in central Portugal, will work with Cunha de Magalhães e Meneses to help with the vast amount of evidence. He is one of Portugal’s most senior public prosecutors and a member of the governing body, the Conselho Superior da Magistratura Portuguesa. Monterio said that he hoped that “objectivity and serenity” would now prevail, and said that during such a complex investigation it was necessary to make “uncomfortable investigations”.

Indicating that the investigation could yet be widened away from just Britain and Portugal, the attorney general said: “The investigations did not end so we will need more interventions from the police. After that we should re-evaluate the restrictions it is possible to impose and which level of international co-operation we will need.”

Detectives are convinced that Kate McCann was in some way linked to the accidental death of her daughter, and that she and her husband then disposed of the body.

Hair and bodily fluids have been found in the trunk of the car that the McCanns hired shortly before visiting the Vatican. Police have said that the amount of hair in the Renault Scenic is too much simply to have been transferred on Madeleine’s clothing and other belongings when the couple moved to a villa in the resort.

One trace of bodily fluids has an 88 percent match with the child, rather than the 100 percent match that was previously reported, detectives said in an off-the-record briefing on Monday night. They denied that blood traces had been found.

The McCanns, both 39-year-old doctors, vehemently deny any involvement in the death. They fear that they are being framed by police and that evidence is being planted.


The latest developments came as Dr. Michael Baden, a world-reknowned forensic expert with the New York State Police, told The Times of London that a decaying body would produce a “mass of material” unless it was tightly wrapped.

Baden, who has investigated hundreds of child murders, said: “In a body which had been decaying for 25 days you would expect to find a mass of material unless the body was tightly wrapped. But if it was so tightly wrapped, how was the hair able to escape?”


Baden said that bacteria causes the body to putrefy and the decomposing tissues merge with the blood. The lining of the nose and mouth are the first to liquefy. It would still be possible to obtain a good DNA sample from such material.

Mr Baden added: “From the details that have been reported I do not think there is evidence that a corpse was in the trunk."

If the judge approves new searches they will focus on the streets around the church in Praia da Luz, the resort where Madeleine vanished shortly before her fourth birthday. Police sources told local newspapers that the child’s body could have been concealed in the area, where roadworks were being completed, in the days after her disappearance before being later moved.


The McCanns went to pray for their daughter in the village’s 18th-century church, Nossa Senhora da Luz. Within an hour of reporting the child missing they asked for the local Catholic priest, and a few days later were given keys to the church so that they could visit at any time.

Father José Manuel Pacheco, the priest, said: “I find it perfectly normal that the police will carry out new searches in Praia da Luz, and not excepting the church.” However, he said he had not been informed that the church itself would be searched.

Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Small, head of Leicestershire's special crime investigation unit, spent an hour at the McCanns’ home yesterday. The East Midlands force refused to confirm or comment on the visit. Portuguese police are still waiting for further tests to be returned from the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham.

The Times of London and Daily Mail contributed to this report.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/09/13/portuguese-prosecutor-asks-to-seize-mystery-object-in-madeleine-mccann-probe.html

The homecoming: The McCanns return to Britain without Madeleine

• By Ian Herbert
  
• Monday 10 September 2007
  

The eyes of the world might have been on their homecoming, but the end-of-holiday mundanities were the same as any when Kate and Gerry McCann tried to put Portugal behind them on their return to Leicestershire yesterday.

First, there were their two-year-old twins to stir from half-sleep after the drive home from the airport. It was left to Kate to unbuckle Amelie and carry her to the oak front door which the GP had last passed through joyfully, with three children in tow and a beach holiday in sight, on a spring day more than three months ago.

There was some help with their four large black suitcases from the Special Branch officers who had chauffeured them the 16 miles from East Midlands airport to Rothley.

But only Mr McCann seemed to have the know-how to unfasten the two child seats from the unmarked police car. Palpably exhausted, he spent three minutes grappling with them – close enough to one of the 100 journalists at the gate to hear his live running commentary, while a TV network's helicopter buzzed overhead. Just a few more dreadful moments in a passage of his life which has been full of little else in recent months.

The McCanns, awakening to their first day in Britain without Madeleine today, are "quite upbeat and quite buoyant" to be home, according to one family friend – their return giving them "a new confidence" that they will clear their names despite their status as arguidos (suspects) in the police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance. But the break in Gerry McCann's voice as he spoke in the heat of the apron at East Midlands airport, his son Sean in his arms, provided a different perspective on quite what it meant to leave Britain with three children and return with two.

"Despite there being so much we wish to say, we are unable to do so, except to say this: we played no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine," he said.

As the 39-year-old spoke, the mysteries surrounding the Portuguese police investigation were as baffling as ever, with reports in the Portuguese press suggesting yesterday that a judge had rejected a police application to keep the couple in Portugal.

Members of the McCann family disclosed on Friday that police had told the couple their suspicions that Kate accidentally killed Madeleine stemmed from an apparent trace of the child's blood found in the back of a Renault Scenic car they hired 25 days after her disappearance. It was said to have been detected by the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham.

But FSS sources have now cast doubt on that and suggest that DNA samples found in the back of the car were too degraded to provide a complete match with Madeleine's DNA. Portuguese police are awaiting the results of further tests being carried by the FSS.

The McCanns' decision to return to Britain came at the 11th hour. Although a rental agreement on the house they have used in Praia da Luz was due to expire next week, they initially decided after the events of last week to extend their stay in Portugal.

In the words of one family friend, they did not want to appear to be "running scared" and as late as Saturday, their resolve was intact. But the growing backlash against them in Portugal and the increasing unpredictability of the police investigation drove their decision, disclosed in the early hours of yesterday, that it would be better for them and their children if they left.

If the beach holiday had run its natural course, they would have returned on a Thomsons flight to Coventry, months ago.

Instead, yesterday's journey started with them driving themselves up the Algarve's A2 motorway, with photographers in pursuit, before catching the 9.30am easyJet flight 6552 to East Midlands. They were given a VIP room during their brief time at Faro airport and were afforded what privacy is available on a budget flight – the two front rows were cleared on the aircraft for their group – though that did not stop curious holidaymakers approaching them with questions as they endeavoured to settle the children.


The couple's family had done what they could to assist their return to their home, Orchard House, a detached mock-Victorian property on a five-year-old housing development. Mrs McCann's uncle, Brian Kennedy, carried in a bag of provisions shortly before they arrived. The front lawn was freshly cut and the laurel hedge neat. A yellow ribbon was visible on the Vauxhall Corsa parked outside the double garage.

But the short drive from airport to house was full of dreadful reminders for mrs McCann, returning to Rothley for the first time. From her seat behind the driver in the Special Branch Ford Galaxy, she might well have seen the image of her child in the local newsagents' window advertising Madeleine "bands of hope". Or else the cluster of cameras around the eternal flame for Madeleine which burns across the road from the newsagents.

Every other telegraph post advertised last Saturday's funfair at the local Bunny's Field – an event which, had fate taken a different course, the five McCanns might have attended.

At the house, Mr McCann asked Mr Kennedy to communicate that there would be no more statements unless the police investigation develops in some way. And so it was left to this most loyal supporter of the couple, who has had his own wife's illness to contend with of late, to communicate the enormity of recent events. "It has been the most trying three or four days of their lives," Mr Kennedy said. "They are very tired, shattered – as anyone would be."

The events of the past few days have affected the people of Rothley, too – with a sense that ambiguities now exist where they didn't before. "I don't know what I think because I don't know the facts," said one villager, who would not be named.
When Madeleine first went missing, that kind of statement would have been considered a profanity in a village where the war memorial was festooned with yellow ribbons and flowers.

"There's a surprising amount of uncertainty among people here," said a local newspaper journalist. "There was anything but, in the early days. We couldn't even gauge people's opinions about whether they felt there was an element of neglect [in the McCanns' leaving Madeleine unattended] without upsetting people."

But empathy for Mrs McCann and what she is going through was also in evidence. "I've been begging them to leave," said Tracey Warburton, from Birmingham, who travelled to the Algarve to join the search for Madeleine, in the early days of the inquiry, and who met Mr McCann in the process. "The last time she [Mrs McCann] drove that road [home] she had her baby with her," Ms Warburton pointed out.

James McDonald, a villager who works at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, said there was "a feeling of warmth" in the village and the hospital. "There's a sense for me that they're kindred spirits, being medics," he said.

Other villagers fear the couple's return will presage an unwelcome switch of media focus from the Algarve to Rothley. "I saw the TV helicopter at the golf club this morning," said Norman Ellis, 62. "It's unsettling. For a time we thought it was a police chopper. It's all taken us a bit by surprise."

Among neighbours, there was also uncertainty about how to approach the couple. Nigel Warner, a financial services executive who lives in the same cul-de-sac and who had grown accustomed to seeing the McCanns with their children in the 18 months since the doctors moved into the village, will wait until the time is right before delivering a card in support.

"I'll be guided by anybody who talks to them first," he said. "No one wants to stand on anybody's toes."

At the McCanns' house, there were friends on hand to help them pass what must already seem like endless hours and deal with the enormity of what they have experienced. "It's just good to have them back," said one friend, Amanda. "We're going to rally round as much as we can, and whatever Kate and Gerry need, we'll be there for them."

There was also a sense that the twins, at least, were relishing the return to normality which their parents crave for them. Both took great delight in removing from the window sill a long line of cuddly toys.

But life is far more uncertain for their parents. Though the couple's Portuguese lawyer expects no developments for several days and has returned to Lisbon, evidence could be passed, in their absence, at any time to the public prosecutor in Portimao, where they have been questioned. The police investigation "is not over by any means", police spokesman Olegario Sousa said.

For the McCanns, there is nothing to do but wait.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-homecoming-the-mccanns-return-to-britain-without-madeleine-401866.html

How often do the suspects in the death of their missing child get chauffeured home by 

Special Branch  having fled the country where the incident occurred ?

Only in McCann land it appears !

Madeleine McCann investigator didn't listen to ANY tip-offs given to hotline - and squandered £500,000

By Daniel Boffey In Washington
Updated: 12:06 BST, 29 August 2010

A private eye whose company was paid £500,000 from a public fund to find Madeleine McCann squandered the money on a series of bizarre schemes that had no chance of locating the missing child.

Kevin Halligen, who claimed to have experience in the British secret services, was arrested last week in an Oxford hotel after an FBI manhunt over an unrelated £1.3million fraud case in America.

His investigations company, Oakley International, was taken on in March last year by the Find Madeleine Fund and her parents Kate and Gerry McCann.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal today that despite setting up a hotline for potential informants and witnesses, none of the hundreds of calls received by a call centre hired by Halligen, 48, was listened to by Oakley investigators - and Halligen also bragged to his colleagues that he had executed a series of peculiar tactics to find Madeleine.

He claimed to have hired an actor to pretend to be a 'drunken priest' who would seek confessions as he toured the bars of Praia da Luz, the resort where Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

And he told colleagues that a family with a Madeleine lookalike daughter had been paid to set up home in a nearby resort in order to tempt out a potential kidnapper.

Meanwhile, a paper trail obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows that Halligen, a former director of a catering firm, launched an extraordinary spending spree on hotels, cigar bars, restaurants and luxury goods while he was in the pay of the Find Madeleine Fund, and in the period shortly after he was fired last summer.

Documents show that in his first two months as lead investigator in the search for Madeleine, Halligen spent £7,000 on a personal chauffeur.

A few months later, on a short trip to New York with a girlfriend, he lavished £1,600 on Salvatore Ferragamo leather goods, £5,500 on handbags, £500 on an Italian meal, £150 on a pair of designer glasses and £900 on a three-night stay at the five-star Renaissance Hotel.

And in a one-month visit to Washington, where he owned a £1.5million mansion, he spent more than £3,000 on dining out and £6,000 on a room at the US capital's Intercontinental Hotel.

He also paid out more than £50,000 on plumbing and mosaic tiling for his house in Great Falls, Virginia - a property in which he has never spent a night because of constant home-improvement work.

The revelations will dismay everyone who donated to the Find Madeleine Fund. But perhaps of most concern is the lack of attention paid to the hundreds of phone calls received by the Madeleine hotline.

Halligen and Oakley International, based in Washington, failed to listen to a single call received on the hotline set up for potential informants by Kate and Gerry McCann last year.

Johan Selle, the director of operations at iJet, the US firm that managed the Find Madeleine phone line, revealed that for a year nobody even asked his company if they could listen to any of the calls received.

Mr Selle said his operators, in Annapolis, Virginia, had answered 'hundreds of calls', but the information seemed wasted - possibly squandering valuable leads.

He said: 'We delivered Oakley a report with a summary of the calls and said if they wanted to come back they could listen to the recording, but nobody did.

'For someone with an understanding of the case it would be very easy for some to say that maybe 80 or 90 per cent of the calls were hogwash, but there may be a percentage where one would say maybe we should listen to this one or listen to that one. But our understanding is that this never took place.

'We are not sure whether Halligen provided our report to the family or to the trust or to those working with them or to the teams working after him, because no one came back to us.

'We sent the report to Oakley group and our assumption was that they were using it as a piece in the puzzle. But it appears that wasn't the case.'

The firm says it was not paid for it services by Halligen or Oakley International.

Two of Halligen's former colleagues in the investigation, John Taylor and Dr Richard Parton, said they became concerned early on in their working relationship with the self- styled 'super-spy'.

Dr Parton, whose company Psyintel was employed for its expertise on interview techniques, said he and his partner had been encouraged by Halligen to get involved with the high-profile case.

Halligen had also mentioned other future projects that could net them millions of pounds, although these schemes never came to fruition.

But Dr Parton said fears over Halligen's suitability for the job first arose when the private detective suddenly asked him to stop calling him Richard, the name by which they had known him for several years. He then also raised details of Halligen's extraordinary tactics to find Madeleine.

Dr Parton, who claims he was later left with an unpaid invoice for £50,000, said: 'It was very strange. I had met him years earlier and it had been Richard. Then before a meeting with some people who wanted a presentation on my techniques, I was asked to call him Kevin from then on. I thought it was odd but he was so secretive and that was just the way he was.

'Whenever we had a meeting he would also always immediately say that he needed to leave for a flight. Every time. He would always also try to get the conversation around to talking about the psychological characteristics of a sociopath.'

Dr Parton added: 'I repeatedly told him his investigators on the ground in Portugal were not doing a proper job but he insisted lots of things were going on I didn't know about.

'That is when he told me about some of his schemes, such as the drunken priest seeking confessions from people drinking in the bars of Praia da Luz and the family with a girl who looked similar to Madeleine. This family were set up, apparently, in a resort near to Praia da Luz just to sit and wait and see what happened.

'It was all such a waste of money and time.'

However, it was only later, when tape recordings of interviews undertaken in Praia da Luz were sent to Dr Parton and Mr Taylor, in Washington, that they started to fear the worst for the investigation.

Mr Taylor said: 'The quality of the interviews was terrible, very amateurish. The noise in the background was bad, the interview questions were useless and the subjects were irrelevant. I told them to stop wasting time and money on such low-key figures - homeless people and receptionists who knew nothing.'

Things came to a head after Halligen reneged on repeated promises to pay their invoice. Dr Parton said: 'I took him to one side and asked when I was due to be paid. Three days later he disappeared. He had fled to Rome with his girlfriend.'

It was then that Dr Parton and Mr Taylor started to contact others who had been hired by Oakley International. Mr Taylor added: 'He would hire lots of people to do work but only pay a few of them. Meanwhile, he was spending lots of money on his own lifestyle. It only gave the appearance that work was being done.'

They also contacted Maria Dybczak, a trade lawyer for the US Commerce Department, whom they understood to be Halligen's wife. It emerged she had agreed to go along with a fake wedding service to keep up appearances for Halligen.

Dr Parton said: 'She admitted she wasn't proud of it but she had been tricked, too. He claimed that a job he was doing with the CIA meant that he couldn't have his name on a marriage certificate.

'She was manipulated into going along with a fake wedding with an actor posing as a priest. He said they would get properly married a few weeks later, but that never happened.'

Shortly afterwards Halligen fled to Rome with a girlfriend, named in a writ filed by another former colleague as Shirin Trachiotis, a glamorous doctor based in Washington.

Almost immediately after arriving in Rome on their first-class Lufthansa tickets, Halligen withdrew hundreds of thousands of pounds more from Oakley International's bank accounts and spent £8,000 on a luxury hotel before slinking back to the UK a few months later.

Dr Parton said: 'He has left a trail of debts across America and the UK. But the horrible truth is that he stole from the McCanns what they really couldn't afford - time.'

Following a short hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court last week, Halligen was refused bail and was remanded in custody until December 2, when the next stage of his case for extradition will be heard.

The US Department of Justice issued an indictment for Halligen, from Surrey, earlier this month alleging that he tried to defraud a London law firm.

They claim he took £1.3million as part of a deal to secure the release of Dutch business executives arrested in the Ivory Coast. Instead, it is claimed, he spent it on a mansion, a gift to his girlfriend, cash machine withdrawals and debit-card transactions.

Kate and Gerry McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell refused to be drawn on the details of Oakley's investigation, much of which, it is understood, the McCanns were unaware of. He said: 'The first phase of the contract was satisfactorily seen through, such as the setting up of the hotline. Towards the end of it there were question marks about delivery and the relationship was terminated.

'Given Mr Halligen is in custody it is inappropriate to comment further.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231757/Madeleine-McCann-investigator-didnt-listen-ANY-tip-offs-given-hotline--squandered-500-000.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0xyToP5Yd

Madeleine witness breaks her silence: 'I am certain that Kate McCann is innocent'

Friday 14 December 2007

Gerry McCann told a fellow tourist in the minutes before Madeleine vanished he would never have left her alone if he had not been on holiday with friends.

Bridget O'Donnell, who befriended Kate and Gerry McCann while staying at the same resort, today broke her silence to declare the couple innocent.

She described Mr McCann as "relaxed and friendly" at a time when police have claimed Madeleine was already dead in the apartment.


Ms O'Donnell, who worked as a producer on BBC1's Crimewatch, revealed that she had debated with the McCanns the childcare arrangements at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz and recalled admiring them for leaving their children to sleep in their apartment as they ate at a tapas restaurant nearby.

"I admired them, in a way, for not being paranoid parents, but I decided that our apartment was too far off even to contemplate it," Ms O'Donnell said.

She and her partner Jeremy Wilkins saw Gerry and Kate McCann by the pool hours before Madeleine disappeared. "We watched them idly - they had a lot of time for people, they listened," Ms O'Donnell said.

"Kate was calm, still, quietly beautiful. Gerry was confident, proud, silly, strong."

Ms O'Donnell also told for the first time of a crucial encounter that night between Mr Wilkins and Mr McCann just a few minutes before Madeleine went missing.

Mr Wilkins, a television producer, was taking his baby son for a walk in a buggy to try to get him to sleep when he bumped into Mr McCann outside their holiday apartment. Though they were not part of the McCann's group of friends - whom they nicknamed "the Doctors" - Mr Wilkins had played tennis with Mr McCann.

The chance meeting on the night Madeleine vanished has been subject to endless speculation and is critical in confirming timings.

Ms O'Donnell, writing in today's Guardian, said: "Gerry was on his way back from checking on his children and the two men stopped to have a chat. They talked about daughters, fathers, families.

"Gerry was relaxed and friendly. They discussed their baby-sitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too if they had not been on holiday in a group."


Ms O'Donnell told how she and her partner were in their holiday apartment when Madeleine was discovered missing at 10pm on 3 May by Mrs McCann.


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

They were woken in the night by a friend of the McCanns to help with the search, and shared in the shock and distress that overwhelmed the Mark Warner resort the next morning.

A policeman called with a translator, who turned out to be Robert Murat - soon to be the first official suspect in the case.

He "had a squint and sweated slightly," said Ms O'Donnell. "He was breathless, perhaps a little excited... He reminded me of a boy in my class who was bullied."

Ms O'Donnell criticised police for basic errors, saying that one officer did not appear to have a notebook but wrote their details instead on a scrap of paper, and that he mistook a photocopied picture of Madeleine which she had been given during the search for a photograph of her own daughter.

"My heart sank for the McCanns," she said when reflecting on the quality of the police investigation.

Madeleine vanished on May 3, turning the McCanns' lives to horror.

Ms O'Donnell said that two days after Madeleine vanished the appearance of the McCanns - later made official suspects - was in complete contrast to their relaxed manner even in the minutes before the alarm was raised.


"The physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening... Kate's back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves into the angular-manifestation of a silent scream," she said, reinforcing claims that Mrs McCann could not be implicated in her daughter's disappearance because even an actor could not fake such anguish.

"Gerry was upright, his lips now drawn into a thin, impenetrable line."

Ms O'Donnell also dispelled conspiracy theories, declaring: "There were no drug-fuelled 'swingers' on our holiday - there was a bunch of ordinary parents worrying about sleep patterns."

Ms O'Donnell added: "Throughout all this I have believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent.

"Secure in our banality, none of us imagined we were being watched. One group made a disastrous decision; Madeleine was vulnerable and was chosen. But in the face of such desperate audacity, it could have been any of us."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/madeleine-witness-breaks-her-silence-i-am-certain-that-kate-mccann-is-innocent-7300663.html

McCanns: Find girl in Swedish photo

By ANTONELLA LAZZERI

Published: October 2009

DETECTIVES were last night desperately hunting a girl who was photographed in Sweden - after computer-matching showed she could be missing Madeleine McCann.

The girl, who was pictured at a car show, bears a strong resemblance to Maddie, who would now be six.

Her jawline is identical and her eyes are the same colour as Maddie's.

After the snap appeared on a website, Swedish police were inundated with calls from the public saying how much it looked like Maddie.

They also received a spate of calls from visitors who believed they had seen Maddie at the car show.

Face-mapping technology used by British police identified the girl as a possible match, and Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry have now asked for an urgent investigation.

Maddie - snatched from her family's holiday villa on Portugal's Algarve coast in May 2007 - has a distinctive mark in her right eye.

But the photo of the girl in Sweden is not clear enough to show if she has the same characteristic.
The girl was with a man and a woman at the car show, held in Sweden's capital Stockholm in August.

The man was Swedish but the girl spoke perfect English.

The woman remained silent, and the snapper said both adults refused to be photographed.

Kate and Gerry, both 41, of Rothley, Leics, have seen the photo and believe it should be investigated.

A source close to the couple said: "They feel it bears a resemblance to what Maddie would look like now.

"They can't be certain but feel it can't be dismissed. It should be looked into.

"The girl does look quite like Madeleine, especially around her jaw.

"It is enough of a similarity for the investigators to look into it further."

The couple's official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry and their investigators are aware of the picture and are liaising with the relevant authorities.

"The investigation team are looking into it."

Swedish police are now liaising with British cops and the private detectives hunting Maddie.

The photographer failed to note the girl's name, and Swedish police have so far been unable to find her.

The photo is not the first time the search for Maddie has been linked to Sweden.

The Sun told in August how a Victoria Beckham lookalike asked a man at a marina in Barcelona, Spain: "Are you here to deliver my new daughter?"

One of the yachts linked to the woman came from Sweden.

The luxury cruiser was one of six recorded as having left the Algarve port of Portimao the morning after Maddie vanished.

All the other boats have been traced and eliminated from the investigation.

But all efforts to find the Swedish yacht have failed.

An investigator revealed: "It has apparently vanished without trace.

"The captain told port authorities he was going to the Algarve port of Albufeira, but the boat never arrived and has not been found since."

Detectives hunting the Posh Spice lookalike, who spoke with an Australian accent, believe it is possible that Maddie was whisked away from Portugal by boat.

Gerry McCann this week spoke at an international legal conference in Madrid, where he told delegates: "We will never give up hope, we will never give up searching for Madeleine."

a.lazzeri@the-sun.co.uk
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Didn't Tony Bennett get threatened with legal action for using a pic of Maddie on his website? But it's ok for the McCanns to keep issuing pics of innocent children for publication in the national press....

Can you imagine how frightening it would be for a child to see a headline like this?

Which website does this photograph appear on? What did this girl say if she spoke in "perfect English"? What did the man say if he was Swedish? If the adults refused to be photographed, why did they have no such qualms about the girl? Why is her face disguised?  Surely it would help in the search if we could see for ourselves.

I disguised her face because I thought it was disgusting that this innocent child had her face plastered all over the front page of the Sun with the headline that Cops were hunting her.