Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

"McCann detectives believe kidnapper may have had key"


Sunday October 11,2009

By James Murray

The kidnapper of Madeleine McCann drugged her and her twin brother and sister so they would all be quiet while she was snatched.

A duplicate key may also have been used to gain entrance to the holiday apartment where the children were sleeping, say investigators.

It means the monster is still a threat to children living or holidaying on Portugal’s Algarve and must be caught urgently as he is highly likely to reoffend.

Former police detectives David Edgar and Arthur Cowley have spent months re-analysing every shred of evidence.

They are convinced the abductor went to the family’s apartment on May 3 2007 fully prepared with sufficient drugs, probably chloroform, to knock out all three children.

The fact that Sean and Amelie, then just 18 months old, failed to wake when the alarm was raised, nor even as they were taken to another apartment in the cold night air, has persuaded the detectives that they, too, must have been drugged.

Had the twins been tested for drugs immediately, any medication used could have been established, making it easier to identify the kidnapper, but vital time was lost.

Chloroform can be made easily and other sedatives, such as the horse tranquilliser ketamine, are commonly in circulation in the criminal underworld.

Even now, however, experts say there may be forensic clues on clothing or bedding which could yield a breakthrough.

The Sunday Express can further reveal that the McCanns’ private detectives are working on a solid theory about exactly how Madeleine was abducted.

Just as television investigator Donal MacIntyre suggested in this paper three weeks ago, they believe there was a dry run prior to the kidnap that fateful night at apartment 5a of the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz.

While checking the layout of the apartment the night before, the kidnapper probably woke Sean, who in turn woke Madeleine. In the morning she had told Kate and Gerry she was frightened.

The fact that the children woke up is thought to have persuaded the kidnapper to use knock-out drugs when he returned the next night to take Madeleine, three.

On the question of the duplicate key, holidaymakers often left front door keys under the doormats during the day.

A theory emerging is that the kidnapper had a duplicate key to apartment 5a, which could have been used on the night to enter by the front door.

Mr Edgar and Mr Cowley do not believe Madeleine was taken through an open window as it would have been awkward, time consuming and there were no forensic clues left behind.

It is far more likely, they say, that he simply walked out of the front door with her in his arms. It had been thought that the front door was double locked, making it impossible to open from the inside, but this doubt falls away if there was a duplicate key.

The theory suggests the kidnapper had been targeting the apartment for a long time and had a detailed knowledge of the lock system.

With the front door unlocked, it is easy to simply pull a latch across to open it from the inside.

Another possibility is that the front door was not double-locked when Kate and Gerry left through the unlocked patio doors to join their seven friends at the resort’s tapas bar some 30 metres from their apartment.
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Source: Sunday Express
Fiona Payne's statement: Kate kept checking twins to see if they were breathing





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http://www.mccannfiles.com/id16.html

Kate Marie McCann

Mother of Madeleine Beth McCann

Date of birth: 05 March 1968

Place of birth: Allerton, Liverpool, England

Maiden name: Kate Marie Healy

Date of marriage: 1998

Education: Notre Dame Catholic High School, Everton Valley, Liverpool (11-18 years)

Employment: P/T GP (General Practitioner) in Melton

Kate studied medicine at the University of Dundee, in Scotland. She initially specialised in gynaecology but later changed to become an anaesthetist.

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A few comments from a forum:

"The fact that Sean and Amelie, then just 18 months old, failed to wake when the alarm was raised, nor even as they were taken to another apartment in the cold night air, has persuaded the detectives that they, too, must have been drugged."

Well, there you go.

Regardless of the bizarre, implausible, stupid and rococo pseudo-explanation the pseudo-detectives offer for their discovery of the logical impossibility after all this time ... they have still confirmed that the children did not awaken.

Now, given that they insist an abduction took place and that was the reason for the drugging, and they base the drugging - none of which is supported by any evidence whatsoever - on the failure of the children to awaken, we are left with the now-declared FACTS that the children did not awaken during the alleged abduction and that this is an oddity in the case which requires an explanation.

We are one step closer to the truth, by accident and stupidity.

This is a critical mistake by the McCann side. The biggest one for some time. Why is this provoked?

At any rate ... why drug three children and take the eldest? How does one person drug all three simultaneously? Which would you drug first?

The problem remains: none awoke during an abduction. THAT is the fact. This drug theory arrives only afterwards in an effort to explain that one damning fact. And it is a piss-poor explanation.

The fact remains. And the easiest point of departure for an explanation of this fact is ... they did not awaken because there was no abduction.

Cue PC Plod's hand on the shoulders of Mr & Mrs.
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On the night of May 3, Kate McCann was just panicking, frightened for Madeleine and wondering what happened to her, according to a statement from Fiona Payne. She described to police what she saw, when she returned to the McCann apartment, after searching the area around Ocean Club, with other members of the group of friends, for five to ten minutes, following the alert that Madeleine was missing.
She went inside the children's room, noticed Madeleine's bed had the sheets quite kind of neatly, and the twins were fast asleep in their cots. While she opened the cupboards in the room, they remained asleep and didn't stir at all - something she thought was odd.

Kate McCann was frightened and the sensation of not being able to do anything made her angry, howling and punching and kicking walls – the reason why she was covered in bruises the next day, according to the statement of Fiona Payne.

Questioned if the twins didn't wake up, at all, she said they didn't and Kate kept going into the twins, kept putting her hands on the twins to check they were breathing, as she seemed very much concerned in checking they were okay.
Fiona Payne remembered that the twins never wake up, with all the noise, the screaming and the shouting, not even when police came and the lights were turned on – something that she thought, at the time, was weird.
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Well, well, well the detectives are finally making progress. All three children were drugged, the person responsible for Madeleine's disappearance had a key to 5a. Come on now Cowley and Edgar you are almost there, you now need to figure out who would have had access to drugs and who had a key (or would have had access to one) for 5a.

Suggestion -

The process of elimination

Access to drugs - Doctors - self prescription and illegal substance use is rife, abudance of academic papers to support this too.

Access to key - 1st - Apartment occupants, 2nd - friends of apartment occupants
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And from Himself at the McCann Gallery:

Must have been the abductor then, made the bed I mean, he is some geezer I will have you know, let's take a look at what he managed to achieve in the ten minutes between McCann leaving the apartment at 9:05 and Tanner's sighting at 9:15.

He has entered the apartment via the only route available, the chimney, because he didn't come through the locked front door and he didn't come through the patio door because McCann and Wilkins were conspiring, sorry talking, immediately outside, and he wasn't already in the apartment as Goncalo Amaral has proved in his documentary.

Single handedly, and we must presume in the dark, he has sedated all three children, what other explanation can there be for Madeleine not to cry and the twins to remain comatose for hours on end despite all the uproar that was gong on at the time?

So once having removed Madeleine from her bed our thoughtful abductor, in the dark, sets to and makes the bed, and a pretty damn good job he made of it if you ask me. I mean with that kind of natural domesticity he wouldn't have a problem getting a position anywhere as a maid or a cleaner.

Having made the bed our geezer has noiselessly opened the shutters, don't forget in the still of the night our good doctor was talking with Jez Wilson, program maker and good mucker of Donal MacIntyre, not but a few meters away, what they were discussing I know not, perhaps our good doctor was relaying his recent proud father moments, or perhaps his recent conversion to Islam as only a lttle later that evening he would demonstrate

So having noiselessly raised said shutters, our abductor geezer negotiates, in the darkened room the various obstacles, whilst carrying a silent Madeleine, and then proceeds to climb out of a small window, the ledge of which being some three feet of the ground.

He achievement in all this is quite remarkable, if not surely unique, for our abductor has completed all this without leaving at the crime scene, not one skin cell, not one fibre, not one fingerprint, not one shoe-print, not one scuff mark, nothing, nothing at all, zilch, zero, it's just as though he was never there at all.

SUNDAY EXPRESS COMMENTARY

IT IS both a scandal and a crying shame that almost two and a half years after Madeleine McCann went missing the forces of law and order have failed to solve the mystery, bring her kidnapper to justice and find her.

Portuguese detectives working closely with Leicestershire Police and with limited support from Scotland Yard have amassed bulging case files but precious little hard evidence or, more importantly, any suspects.

The Portuguese investigation has effectively been shelved, with senior officers saying it will only be reopened if they receive credible new information.

So now finding Madeleine has become the responsibility of two retired middle-ranking police detectives working as private investigators for Kate and Gerry McCann.

While David Edgar and Arthur Cowley have done a solid, credible job so far, Home Secretary Alan Johnson should now ask Scotland Yard to set up a cold case review team to follow through on the pair’s fresh leads and work closely with their Portuguese counterparts.

For there is still so much work to be done. As a matter of urgency all forensic material, including Madeleine’s blanket and bedding, must be re-examined as the culprit must have left a trace of a knock out drug.

Scotland Yard must demand spy satellite images of the resort as the kidnapper is probably on film casing the apartment in the days, weeks and months before the kidnap. There must also be a proper, systematic search of all the scrubland in and around Praia da Luz as it is likely the kidnapper hid in the undergrowth for several hours after the kidnap and almost certainly left clues behind.

Mr Edgar is believed to be looking at five or so “persons of interest” but he has limited resources. That is why Scotland Yard must restore public confidence by taking over the investigation.

The public has a right to expect its government will spend whatever it takes to capture the most heinous of criminals, child abductors.

in Sunday Express, paper edition only
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Quote of the Day: "That is why Scotland Yard must restore public confidence by taking over the investigation."  

Feeding the Beast… Madeleine McCann’s Father, Gerry, Explains Why He Sued the Press

Two years after the dramatic abduction of his daughter, Madeleine, which captured the attention of the international press, Gerry McCann was at the Madrid venue of this year’s international conference to tell the world’s lawyers and media why his family sued the press for libel and why he wished they should have sued earlier. FUNKE ABOYADE was there

Gerry McCann, father of abducted British girl, Madeleine, last week spoke with media lawyers and indeed, the media from across the world about his family’s experience and distress following the abduction of the 3 year old and the subsequent publication by the press of defamatory allegations against them.

McCann spoke at last Tuesday’s session on International Approaches to Reputation Management at the Campo de las Naciones, Madrid venue of the IBA conference. The session dealt with the different approaches that could be adopted by lawyers in various jurisdictions to protect their clients’ reputations.

On May 3 2007, Madeleine was snatched by a yet unknown abductor as she slept whilst her parents dined at the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz where the McCann family was holidaying. Her abduction sparked off unprecedented international media attention, initially sympathetic but which later turned hostile in the UK and Portuguese press.

Dr. McCann relived the agony, trauma and feelings of helplessness of his family in the months following their little girl’s disappearance. To add to that agony, the UK press which had initially been sympathetic, turned hostile and went to town with wild and unfounded allegations which implied that the McCanns, both Medical Doctors, had somehow been involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.

McCann, who spoke in an emotional laden voice, told the audience, ‘Many of the stories were written with little or no foundation’.

His presentation included a slide show that ended with a heartrending poster of his daughter headlined, DON’T GIVE UP ON ME. The poster had two photographs of Madeleine, one as at the time of abduction and the other, a computer simulated photograph to show how she might look, two years on, aged 6. The poster remained on the giant screen until the end of the 3 hour session.

McCann recalled the unwarranted media intrusion in his family’s personal life, saying that 200 journalists were camped out on their front lawn the day after they returned to the UK. Thereafter, they followed the couple even whilst out jogging and once on the golf course. Just the week before they had, he said, even followed his wife, Kate, into a dress shop!

He called for responsible journalism as he recalled some of the more scurrilous headlines by some leading British newspapers.

At the interactive session which included panelists from Canada, the United States, Belgium, Germany and his own lawyer, McCann explained why no family should ever have to go through what they went through again.

He also explained why, in spite of his counsel’s advice to the contrary, they decided to settle the cases out of court. The focus, he explained, was on finding Madeleine and they didn’t want to fight their battles on too many fronts thereby getting distracted. The fact they would have received much higher damages had they proceeded to a full trial was not enough to deter them from accepting a lesser sum for settling out of court. The sum, almost half a million Pounds, went to the fund set up to find the missing child.

Their seven friends who had been on holiday with them and who were also libeled similarly sued and received sums in out of court settlements which they donated to the fund.

In addition, there were unprecedented front page apologies to the McCanns by the concerned newspapers.
‘There has to be a deterrent’ McCann asserted, ‘it’s not enough to say sorry, someone has to pay’.

By September of 2007 the media had turned against the McCanns causing them in Dr. McCann’s words, ‘unspeakable distress’.

McCann who gamely fielded questions from the sessions two co-Chairs said, ‘Our whole family could have been destroyed by this’.

He described the double edged sword nature of the media: they intruded upon their privacy and at the same time, provided an opportunity to help them out in the search for Madeleine.

There was a lively debate about where to draw the line between private and public boundaries for the press, with some speakers worrying about the danger of ‘feeding the beast’.

Others expressed the view that investigative journalism should not be curtailed as it very often had played a role in uncovering the truth. They referred to recent the Scott Peterson case in the United States where media investigations revealed that the grieving husband of a missing pregnant woman was actually the perpetrator of her hideous murder. They also pointed out similar cases like the Kelly Anderson case and the Jon Benet Ramsay case, the latter still unsolved even though accusing fingers had long pointed at the child’s parents. Ramsay’s mother recently died of cancer and so the truth may never be known.

McCann however insisted, ‘It is the Police’s job, not the media, to investigate. Our whole family could have been destroyed by this’.

A panelist also expressed worry that it was unacceptable for the press to be investigators, judge and jury stating that it was a dangerous trend.

McCann expressed the view that the effect of the libel complaints was more cautious reporting.

In hindsight, he said, whilst he would have made the same decision to engage the media to enhance the search, he would have withdrawn earlier from allowing them to photograph his family and would have taken legal action earlier against them.

In his recommendations he noted that the media was incredibly powerful and appealed to them to remember that there were ‘real people at the centre of every story’.

The intense debate left one wondering whether such parameters as discussed would apply in Nigeria. For instance, McCann’s insistence that it was the job of the Police and not the media to investigate.

The Nigeria Force, not in the best of times noted for its investigative prowess, had failed to solve almost all the high profile murder and assassination cases put its way over the last decade, since the advent of democracy. It has similarly failed to resolve murder cases of the lowly placed. In fact if anything, the Nigeria Police is more known for embarrassing and frequent cases of ‘accidental discharge’ as well as the deliberate gunning down of innocent citizens, the most recent being just last week in Yaba, Lagos.

Its record in the political arena is not different. More often than not, the Nigerian media has been the one to unearth facts which the Nigeria Police has either been reluctant or unable to fish out.

The question is: Would Dr. McCann’s view that the media should not investigate work in Nigeria?
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Source: This Day (African views on global news) - article whooshed.

Sunday October 18,2009

By James Murray

HOME Secretary Alan Johnson is prepared to ask US spy chiefs for satellite images which may show the face of Madeleine McCann’s kidnapper, following intervention by the Sunday Express.

Hope of new progress came after it emerged Leicestershire Police never made a formal request to the Home Office for views of Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve at the time the little girl vanished in May 2007.

The quality of pictures taken by satellites in space is now so good they can reputedly identify the colour of someone’s eyes.

Last night a senior source with the Portuguese police said: “We know US spy satellites regularly sweep over Portugal looking at military installations and government facilities.

“So we thought they might actually have images of Praia da Luz on the day of the kidnapping and the preceding days.

“We hoped spy images may have captured the kidnapper watching the apartment prior to the event or even on the day itself. Obviously, having a picture would have speeded up the apprehension of the offender.”

Yet more than two years after Madeleine was snatched no help has been forthcoming, despite early requests from senior Portuguese detectives.

The Portuguese source explained: “This was fully discussed with Leicestershire Police and officials with the British Government.

“We were confident of getting progress because of Gordon Brown’s interest in the case and this apparent special relationship between Britain and the United States.

“Your ambassador to Portugal even visited our officers soon after the kidnap.

“The bad news for us is that we got nowhere with this avenue of inquiry, which was both frustrating and infuriating.”

For, despite all the talk, nothing appears to have been done officially with the British government and the formal requests were never made.

Last night a spokesman for Mr Johnson said extensive checks within the security intelligence community had failed to discover any formal request ever having come to them through Leicestershire Police from Portugal.

However, he said that if a request were now made Mr Johnson would see whether he could offer any assistance in trying to persuade the Americans to become co-operative.

The issue appears so sensitive that Prime Minister Mr Brown may have to speak directly to US President Barack Obama in order to achieve co-operation.

The Sunday Express sought explanations for the extraordinary situation from the US government’s ultra- secretive National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

The agency’s lawyers are now considering a Freedom of Information request from the Sunday Express.

A spokesman for the agency said: “NGA does not provide imagery to private citizens or private companies. For reasons of national security we do not discuss specifics about what images we have or our capabilities.”

Private investigators working for parents Kate and Gerry McCann, who live in Rothley, Leicestershire, have also tried to access US satellite images, but with no success.

Source:  Sunday Express
Some comments from Joana Morais' blog

by João Mira Godinho/Paulo Marcelino

The satellite images of Praia da Luz, on the night of the 3rd of May 2007, were one of the PJ’s first concerns when the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann started. Nonetheless, at that time, the North American authorities informed that they did not exist because the satellites had been deviated that night.

‘It was said that the two geostationary satellites [which could have images of Praia da Luz] were rotated towards the Gulf of Cadiz, where a navy exercise was taking place’, Gonçalo Amaral, the former PJ coordinator who led the case investigation, explains to Correio da Manhã.

‘It was a very serious possibility for learning who the abductor was, and more’, says Gonçalo Amaral, adding that the Judiciária wanted the images from the moment of the disappearance, but also ‘those of the hours and even days that preceded it’.

Confronted with the information that the satellites had been deviated, the PJ ended up making no formal request. ‘I have doubts that anyone else tried to access those images’, says the former PJ coordinator, questioning the reason why ‘the McCann couple, that says it is powerful, never tried to obtain the images in order to solve the mysterious disappearance’.

Contacted by Correio da Manhã yesterday, Clarence Mitchell, Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesperson, justified that ‘the images that existed two years ago were useless’. He states that ‘if there were images, the abductor would have been caught a long time ago’ and denies any recent request from the British authorities to obtain the registers.

‘As far as we know, no diplomatic effort in that sense is being made’, the McCanns’ spokesperson asserted.

The British authorities yesterday denied that they were making any diplomatic contact in order to obtain the North American satellites’ registers.

Details

Murat sues Robert Murat has taken the witness that pointed him out for sexually devious acts, in the Maddie process, to court.

Investigation Clarence says that the hired private detectives continue to follow ‘strong leads’.


source: Correio da Manhã, 20.10.2009

So where exactly does 'freedom of the press' fit in?  Freedom to print whatever you like without fear of repercussion?  Freedom to propagate false information - lies - propaganda?  Freedom to defend the prime suspects of a criminal act?  Freedom to act on behalf of an elected government - elected by the people?  Freedom to scandalize?  Freedom to incite rebellion?  Freedom to titillate?

Is this what democracy is all about?  Freedom to say what you damn well like without fear of censorship?

The Madeleine McCann industry: How a three-year-old’s disappearance became a troubling national obsession

Ten years on, the story of the girl who went missing from her holiday apartment continues to generate a lot of heat - but not necessarily much light

Adam Lusher
Monday 1 May 2017 17:30

You can read it on the official Find Madeleine website: the statement of Kate and Gerry McCann.

“Madeleine, our Madeleine,” write the parents of the missing girl. “Ten years … a horrible marker of time, stolen time.”

You can watch their “heartbreaking ” interview with the BBC’s Fiona Bruce, marking the tenth anniversary of three-year-old Madeleine’s disappearance from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on 3 May 2007.

Or you can consider the words of Kate and Gerry’s web statement: “We are bracing ourselves for … the rehashing of old 'stories', misinformation, half-truths and downright lies which will be doing the rounds in the newspapers, social media and 'special edition' TV programmes.

“[We] truly hope that those reporting on the 'story' over the next couple of weeks will have a conscience.”

Then you can read the newspapers: “Maddie ‘cremated’ – heartbreaking new slur by Portugese ex-cop”; “Maddie body hidden in coffin” [the same ex-cop, who is involved in a long-running legal battle with the McCanns]; and “World exclusive: prime suspect is a woman” (as followed by this website and many, many others.)

Then, if you want, you can read the online discussion forums, still going strong after all these years, where every story is dissected, and where some feel able to assert, with the unshakeable confidence of those convinced they know the truth - (though they might not know, or have met, the McCanns) – that “revolting” exploitation and deceit are involved.

And if you fear you might have missed something, your friendly newsagent may still be able to supply you with one of the pull-out supplements that some newspapers have produced for the tenth anniversary of little Maddie’s disappearance.

How you view it all probably depends on your hunch – (and who doesn’t have one?) - about what happened to Madeleine.

Some will praise fearless public interest investigation, possibly emphasising that most of it has been done by those outside the mainstream media (MSM).

Others will suggest the story has only been kept alive by slick PR beyond the resources of less savvy, less middle class parents with less photogenic children. Sometimes this is swiftly followed by the accusation that the parents, both of them highly intelligent doctors, have “something to hide”.

Still others will despair that Madeleine McCann has become an industry, making money for journalists, commentators and lawyers – while doing precious little for the missing girl herself.

Those seeing it as an industry may – fairly or unfairly - seek to examine one of those “special edition documentaries” broadcast last month by Australia’s Sunday Night programme.

First there was the headline-generating build-up: a cinematic trailer promising major new developments and a “groundbreaking TV event”.

Then came the show itself, mentioning theories that Madeleine had been killed by a drunk driver, or snatched by human traffickers, and saying that detectives wanted to talk to a Praia da Luz resort worker who may know more than they have so far divulged.

The show also discussed a claim that MI5 might have helped hide Madeleine – it came from Goncalo Amaral, the talkative Portugese ex-cop behind the ‘Maddie cremated’ line, who was sacked as lead investigator in the case in October 2007 after accusing British detectives of only chasing leads the McCanns wanted following.

Then came the programme’s aftermath: no arrests, so far, but a statement from the lawyer of one of the experts featured in the show.

US-based criminal profiler Pat Brown has said she was misrepresented, and has, according to her attorney, identified “multiple claims” against the programme makers – who may well be instructing their own lawyers to challenge the allegations.

This comes six years after other lawyers got involved over Ms Brown’s self-published book casting doubt on the McCanns’ account of how their daughter disappeared. After Amazon heard from libel law firm Carter-Ruck, acting for the McCanns, the book was withdrawn from the online bookseller.

In a lengthy blog post, Ms Brown has now explained how she became a television commentator and why she participated in the Australian documentary.

“I never expected to be on television,” she wrote. “But, after I started working in criminal profiling, I got a call from one of the big cable networks. They were in a panic because the guest they had invited couldn't make it at the last moment.

“I did the interview. I started getting calls for more interviews.”

Fifteen years later, she said, she has made more than 3,000 media appearances – far from all of them about Madeleine McCann. As well as current investigations, she has been a “valued expert” in the documentaries The Unsolved Death of Cleopatra and Mystery Files: Jack the Ripper.

“What I wanted to do,” she explained, “Was change methods of crime analysis so we would not have so many cold cases languishing in every state in the country.”

Her participation in the Australian show, she stressed, was not about the money.

“I doubt any participants were paid,” she said, “And, if they were, believe me, these kind of shows are cheap”.

She acknowledged there would be two schools of thought: “Pat Brown is not a real profiler. She is a McCann hater and published her book because she wants to make money off the pain of the parents and an innocent missing child.”

And among her supporters: “Pat Brown is the one professional outside of Goncalo Amaral who has not backed down from speaking the truth.”

“I did the show,” she said, “Because I wanted the truth out there in the MSM. It was an opportunity to speak out on the Madeleine McCann case, something that had been off limits for over seven years in the MSM.”

The idea that the case is off limits to the mainstream media might amaze some, including the McCanns.

In November 2011 they told the Leveson Inquiry that British newspapers had declared “open season” on them.

At least in the early days, some reports seemed to do little more than repeat speculation in the Portuguese and Spanish press, with the addition of quotation marks and words like “allegedly” to give a little bit of legal distance from the initial allegation.

Some editors, it seemed, had noticed how a McCann splash could generate the kind of interest hitherto reserved for the latest "sensational twist" in the Diana, Princess of Wales story.

“We had anecdotal evidence from the British journalists in Praia da Luz that the story of Madeleine's disappearance had caught the imagination of the British public and was driving sales in the UK,” Gerry McCann told the Leveson Inquiry. “As a result those journalists were under intense pressure from their newsdesks to file more copy."

It is possible, however, that the involvement of the lawyers has taken at least some of the edge off the media frenzy.

In March 2008 the Daily Express and the Daily Star had to make front page apologies after the McCanns started libel proceedings in relation to more than 100 articles published by the two daily newspapers and their Sunday sister editions. The High Court heard the false claims included allegations that the McCanns killed their daughter, sold her to pay off debts, or were involved in “wife-swapping”.

Then in July 2008 the McCanns started proceedings against Mr Amaral after he published his book The Truth of the Lie, in which he claimed the McCanns faked the abduction of their daughter after she died because of an accident in the family’s holiday apartment.

The McCanns won an initial libel case against Mr Amaral in 2015, but this was overturned on appeal and in a judgement in Portugal’s Supreme Court. The McCanns told Fiona Bruce they will now be appealing to the European courts because the rulings against them were “terrible”.

The ongoing legal disputes, then, may have persuaded journalists to tread carefully – but it seems there is no shortage of material allowing them to plod on.

The known, indisputable facts may be few: Madeleine was reported missing at 10.14pm on the evening of 3 May 2007; her parents said they had left her sleeping in the apartment and gone to dinner with friends at a tapas bar 50 yards away, with one of the group checking on the toddler every half hour.

But out of that has grown a near infinity of leads or blind alleys – as well as incessant questioning from critics armed with hindsight and demanding to know why the McCanns didn’t play safe and get a baby sitter (especially after it emerged there had been burglaries in a resort described in the first, sympathetic reports as a secure middle-class haven).

On 25 April, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the man in charge of Operation Grange, Scotland Yard’s six-year, £11m review of the case, wrote of his team having examined over 40,000 documents, out of which thousands of enquiries were generated.

“We continue to receive information on a daily basis,” he said. “The team has looked at in excess of 600 individuals who were identified as being potentially significant to the disappearance.”

There was, he added, to a television interviewer, “a significant line of inquiry which is worth pursuing.”

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

Of course, such a tantalising hint became a headline.

Look hard enough, and you will find stories about how lessons have not been learnt about the failure to find Madeleine, and about how all the speculation has drowned out debate about how to respond to a similar child disappearance in the future.

But such stories seem to gain far less traction than the latest “hugely significant new clue” or "sensational new development” or even – “What was Madeleine’s cuddle cat and how important was it to the police investigation”?

And Madeleine is still missing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/madeleine-mccann-case-theories-parents-kate-gerry-latest-developments-new-leads-evidence-media-a7712196.html

November 3, 2009

Viral video targets family and friends of Madeleine abductor

Sean O’Neill, Crime Editor

A viral message directed at a friend, relative or partner of the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, telling them that “it is never too late to do the right thing”, went online at midnight.

The video was created to “infiltrate the internet” by spreading from news websites to blogs and social networks until it is the first thing that appears when the missing child’s name is typed into a search engine.

Jim Gamble, the head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said that the message was founded on the belief that, like Jaycee Dugard in California and Natasha Kampusch in Austria, Madeleine could be rescued or reappear despite being missing for more than two years ago.

“This is about hope, it’s about collective hope. I believe this message will deliver answers for us,” said Mr Gamble, who studied 11 child abduction cases in which the victims had reappeared after long periods in captivity.

Mr Gamble launched “A Minute for Madeleine” with a plea to internet users to view the video and disseminate it.

Harnessing the power of the viral message is a new technique in an investigation but the core idea of the 60-second film is based on the old detective’s adage that “everyone has a best friend” and someone will talk.

Madeleine was 3 years old when she went missing on a family holiday in Portugal in May 2007. The new video contains “aged progressed” images of how she might look today, aged 6. One shows the girl with blonde hair, while the other shows her with dark hair and tanned skin, as she might look if she was being held in a hot country.

The message has gone online in seven languages — English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German and Italian — and will be promoted around the world by police forces, missing persons agencies and Interpol.

It represents the first time that a British law enforcement agency has taken the lead in the international hunt for the missing girl. Her mother, Kate McCann, will conduct a series of television interviews today to promote the message.

Mr Gamble stressed that the video was not a public appeal but a message to one person who knew or suspected that someone close to them had taken the child. “It’s aimed at prompting the conscience of the person who is keeping the secret,” Mr Gamble said.

“The person we are looking to reach is likely to be a partner, family member, friend or colleague of the person or people who were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.” He said he believed that the abductor would be regularly checking the internet for developments in the investigation and would be “rattled” by the video, which was prepared with the help of psychologists.

Mr Gamble said: “This is not the normal criminal psychology approach. We’re not looking at the criminal, but at the associate and saying to them, ‘You can redeem yourself’.

“We believe there is someone out there who is associated and who knows. This person doesn’t need to see an age progressed image of Madeleine — this person knows who Madeleine is and who committed the crime.” Mr Gamble stressed that there were no new leads, nor fresh intelligence behind the launch of the message. He added: “In a case like this the investigation is never closed”.
-----
Source: Times Online (article whooshed)

By Mail On Sunday Reporter

Last updated at 12:02 AM on 08th November 2009

A child psychologist is helping Madeleine McCann's twin siblings come to terms with her disappearance.

The parents of Madeleine McCann have revealed how a child psychologist is helping them to tell their two other children about her disappearance.

Gerry McCann: Madeleine's brother and sister want to fight beast who took her

Kate and Gerry McCann said they would be ‘frank and open’ with their four-year-old twins Sean and Amelie when they ask why their sister is still missing.

Mrs McCann, 41, said experts have said the youngsters will ask about Madeleine’s disappearance when they are ready.

‘We’ll be led by them,’ she said. ‘We’ve had advice from a child psychologist and they’ve said Sean and Amelie will lead the way.

‘If they ask a question, we’ll answer them honestly. I’m not going to rush them, but if they ask something then I’ll answer them.’

Mr McCann, 41, a heart specialist, added: ‘We will answer their questions openly and honestly. What they ask, we’ll tell them. We’ll tell them what happened and what information we know.’

Three-year-old Madeleine, went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.

Last week, the McCanns released digitally enhanced pictures of how she might look as a six-year-old.

The images, based on the idea she may be held captive in southern Europe, Africa or the Middle East, show her with dark skin and dark hair.

Mrs McCann told a Portuguese chat show that the twins had helped her ‘adapt and function’ despite her grief.

Mr McCann added: ‘We do as much as we possibly can to ensure that the twins see us happy.

‘They give us so much joy and our life superficially would look like any family with two young children.

‘Obviously one of our children is missing. Sean and Amelie know that and they know that’s not good, and they want Madeleine back.’
-----
Source: Daily Mail

Sunday Express, Sunday November 08, 2009, paper edition only

The head of Leicestershire Police has rejected claims from a former Portuguese detective that his officers withheld a witness statement from the Madeleine McCann inquiry.

Chris Eyre, the Temporary Chief Constable, who recently apologised over a mother and daughter driven to suicide, said "I can assure you that at no time were statements withheld and not passed on."

Goncalo Amaral, the Algarve detective who was removed the inquiry early on, made his claim in a book, which is now banned.

Mr Eyre responded after Freedom of Information requests were submitted by the Sunday Express.

A team of Leicestershire family liason officers went to Portugal on May 5 2007 to support the McCanns.

It has also emerged that the Foreign Office has withheld details about the investigation so as not to damage relations between Britain and Portugal.

An individual submitted Freedom of Information requests to get details of negotiations by John Buck, Britain's former ambassador to Portugal.

The then Information Commissioner Richard Thomas refused in case it caused Portugal to lose trust in Britain's discretion.

‘Pray like mad,’ begs tearful Kate McCann

Steven Swinford - 4th May 2008

THE mother of Madeleine McCann broke down in tears before a packed church yesterday and urged the congregation to "pray like mad" for her daughter's safe return.

Gerry and Kate McCann marked the first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance by attending a service at their local church in Rothley, Leicestershire.

In an impromptu speech Kate said: "Please stay with us, stay with Madeleine and keep praying. Pray like mad."

In an interview before the anniversary the couple revealed they had been given new hope in the search by the "massive" response to their appeal for fresh information last week.

Their team of private investigators are combing hundreds of recorded calls and e-mails for further leads.

Gerry said: "The lines have been overwhelmed; we've had to call additional operators in.


"Who knows what is going to be the key piece of information? The abductor does not live in isolation; the abductor was in Praia da Luz; the abductor needs food and water."

The couple took the opportunity to reject claims that they appeared cold and unemotional in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine's disappearance.

Kate recently viewed footage from last year and said she could not recognise herself.

Gerry added: "One week on \ Kate went to an Anglican service. I was working that day, being interviewed. And Kate was being carried; it looked like she was going to die."

The couple believe that the anniversary could be one of the last chances to put Madeleine's image in the public eye.

Kate said: "The media attention will wane after Madeleine's fifth birthday later this month. Media-wise it could be our last chance."

Brian Kennedy, the home improvements tycoon backing the McCanns, admitted yesterday that he flew to Portugal last November and spent an evening with Robert Murat, apart from the McCanns the only other official suspect. A source close to Kennedy said he was "gathering information".

Kennedy's lawyer, Ed Smethurst, approached Murat through a mutual friend and said that Kennedy wanted to offer him a job.
But the job offer never transpired. Kennedy spent the evening with Murat and his lawyers at his aunt's house in Praia da Luz, discussing Madeleine's disappearance.

He left with a "flea in his ear" after being confronted over reports that Metodo 3, the McCanns' private investigators, had suspicions about Murat.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pray-like-mad-begs-tearful-kate-mccann-dptnxhtsmzn
....................

Is it common parlance in Christian circles to 'pray like mad'?  What is she praying like mad for - a miracle?  Dream on!

Hi Verdi, I take it that the Portugal PJ case had been put on hold,(Lack of evidence) November 2008?

When Brian Kennedy had met up with Robert Murat,(job offer, assignment completed,Martin Brunt,contract,Sky News?),as if the case had not been filed by then,weren't they interfering with a Police investigation?

how has Mr Brian Kennedy been allowed to have so much significant involvement into person's he,d never met,with a very large magnet of people from Carter Ruck,Adam Tudor etc?

Have you seen the film,"Man on Fire" Denzil Washington,La Hermandad!

Have the McCanns really chosen the best private detectives to find Madeleine?

by RICHARD PENDLEBURY

Last updated at 22:15 02 December 2007



£50,000 a month in fees. A sleepy office 700 miles from the crime. Outrageous claims of progress. Have the McCanns really chosen the best private eyes to find Madeleine?

The heavy oak front door swings open and a dog sidles through the gap, sniffing at the marble stair outside.

It is not a bloodhound, as one might expect to find at the headquarters of what is currently the world's most high-profile and - allegedly - tenacious private detective agency, but a black poodle called Royale.

A woman is calling it as I step past and inside. She stares at me, puzzled, then scuttles off, leaving me alone in the art nouveau entrance hall, which smells of cigars and stale perfume.

Silence reigns. No buzzing telephones. No banks of computers. No staff obviously waiting for, or working towards, the breakthrough - even though they are "very, very close to finding those responsible", according to the boss.

At one end of the office suite, overlooking the street, is a dark and empty room with huge, buttoned leather armchairs.



An old man, with a mournful face and a grey three-piece suit to match, is standing in the shadows watching me. He cannot speak English, it seems.

A large number of box files are piled on a side table, at least suggesting some recent activity.

It is only then, above the paperwork, that I see it, the first evidence of the reason for my visit. It is a small poster bearing the word 'Missing'.

Below that is the now iconic face of four-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, seven months ago.

Occupying the first floor of an elegant block in central Barcelona, this is the office of the Metodo 3 detective agency.

It claims to be the biggest in Spain. Now they are arguably the most famous on the planet, having been hired in early autumn by Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

Outside the realms of fiction, private eyes rarely have any kind of public profile. But the McCann case is different.

Metodo 3, and in particular its director Francisco Marco Fernandez, is generating the kind of publicity enjoyed by sleuths such as Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot.

"Our staff interviewed the McCanns for ten hours, enough time for us to tell if they were trying to fool us," he told a Spanish newspaper on taking the case.

"My specialists assure me they are not hiding anything. I would not risk the prestige this agency has gained over 23 years without being convinced there is a case. For me this is a special case."

That is something of an understatement. With 40 men and women allegedly on the trail between the Atlantic coast and Saudi Arabia, Metodo 3 is being paid £50,000 a month, earning them £300,000 over the six-month contract.

The bill is being picked up by the Find Madeleine Fund, which has so far raised £1.1m. Some £700,000 has already been spent on the inquiry and publicising Maddie's disappearance.

The Madeleine McCann case has shown the Portuguese police to be a laughing stock. But is Metodo 3 any more capable of solving the case?

You might ask why the McCanns chose a Spanish agency 700 miles away from the scene of the crime. One reason is that it is illegal in Portugal for a private investigation to be carried out on a case that is being pursued by the police.

A jail sentence of two years can be imposed for what could be construed as an obstruction of justice.

Off the record, the police say they will tolerate Metodo 3 - as long as they don't interfere with evidence or speak to witnesses. Some obstacle.

Nor have doubts over the private sleuths' abilities been lessened by their repeated extravagant, if not reckless, pronouncements.

The latest inflated claim was made last month to a BBC Panorama team, when Francisco Marco, son of the firm's founder, proclaimed: "We're 100 per cent sure Maddie is alive."

He added: "We're sure she was abducted and we are very, very close to finding those responsible."

The claim caused an embarrassed Clarence Mitchell, the McCann's official spokesman, to brief the media that the private detective had simply got "carried away".

They were not nearly as close to a breakthrough as had been depicted.

The question has now become one of the agency's credibility.

"With an average of 2,000 cases per year, we have established ourselves as the Number One company in the Spanish market," boasts Metodo 3 on its website.

It lists its areas of expertise as being: insurance, financial, legal, franchises, fraud, mutual insurance, patent and trademark falsification, information protection and due diligence.

However, there is no suggestion of missing persons, or even cases outside the commercial sphere. Indeed, in a 2003 interview, Francisco Marco said:

"As we're not specialists in dealing with private individuals, we stayed away from this area.

"Our focus is companies. Many detective agencies deal with private matters such as infidelities but we want to make this for business people and businesses... Since detective work is mostly in the private field (family, infidelity, etc) we decided that our target was the business area. And there is where we have been ever since."

It emerged last week that five senior members of the company were once arrested in a phonetapping-scandal linked to leading politicians and businessmen.

Their offices were raided and police seized guns, ammunition, listening equipment, cassettes and transcripts of taped phone calls.

But the 1995 case was dropped by a judge after defence lawyers levelled accusations of police entrapment.

Manuel Marlaska, a journalist from Spain's best-known investigative magazine Interviu, says: "They are the most prestigious detective agency in Spain.

"But the work they are doing now seems strange. They do not have any experience of working with such a high-profile case as that of Madeleine McCann.

"Most of their work is to do with investigating company fraud."

This is perhaps reflected in the fact that all of Metodo 3's senior directors are lawyers rather than former policemen.

One well known missing persons case that the firm has been linked with is that of Francisco Paesa, an arms dealer and double agent.

Working with the Spanish government in the 1980s, Paesa had sold missiles to Eta, the Basque terrorist group. The weapons were secretly fitted with surveillance devices and, as a result, important arrests were made.

Paesa also helped expose Luis Roldan, the corrupt former head of the Spanish Guardia Civil. The arms dealer then faked his own death in Thailand and his family lodged a death certificate in a Spanish court.

The authorities were not convinced that he was dead, suspecting that their double agent had disappeared with the money stolen by Roldan.

But Paesa was tracked down by Metodo 3 - acting on behalf of a client who claimed to have been defrauded by him - in Luxembourg, living under the name of Francisco Pando.

While they got their man, this was more of a fraud case with added glamour, not a possible child murder or abduction involving paedophiles.

Despite the fact that no reference to them appears on its website, Metodo 3 has claimed involvement in 23 cases of missing children.

The firm boasted that it had cracked them all, including the rescue of a teenage boy from the clutches of an "evil pervert".

But these claims have never been substantiated and without more detail are impossible to verify. Spanish police say they can neither confirm nor deny the claims.

What then of Metodo 3's performance so far in the McCann case?

In October, its boss Francisco Marco declared he was 'convinced' Madeleine had been "kidnapped to order" by a Moroccan paedophile gang and spirited out of the country. He now knew she was being held in the Rif mountains.

This sparked a rash of sightings of blonde girls in Morocco, to which Metodo 3 agents were sent.

Morocco's interior ministry eventually felt moved to declare that Metodo 3's reports had no credibility and the agency's theories were also questioned by a prominent British crime profiler.

Metodo 3's insistence that Madeleine was abducted by a paedophile gang who stole the child to order showed a "distinct lack of understanding of paedophiles and how they work", criminal analyst Mark Williams-Thomas warned.

Mr Williams-Thomas, who worked on the Sarah Payne murder inquiry, said: "If Madeleine was abducted by a predatory paedophile the likelihood of her surviving after 48 hours are slim.

"But if she is alive she would not be out in the open and spotted by general members of the public. She would be hidden away. Even in these remote areas of Morocco, nobody could risk her being seen."

There was one further question: why on earth would Metodo 3 announce a possible lead before it had been thoroughly checked out?

In fact, why was Francisco Marco apparently showing his hand at every turn?

He has gone on the record as being 'certain' that Madeleine was seen on May 4 in northern Portugal.

Recently Metodo 3 were briefing the media that they believed Madeleine had been abducted by British expat suspect Robert Murat, his German girlfriend Michaela Walczuch and her estranged husband Luis Antonio.

Ms Walczuch says she has an alibi. In this tangled mass of claims and contradictions the private detectives are beginning to resemble the discredited local police they were brought in to replace.

However, Metodo 3 has also clearly got under the skin of the Portuguese police. On the day that I visited the firm in Barcelona, a police source described the Spanish agency as 'small fry' adding 'they are irrelevant'.

When I visit, the Metodo 3 nerve centre could not be more low key.

After whispers in a back room a thirtysomething man eventually appears and tells me that no, the agency will not be responding to police brickbats. In fact, there will be no statements at all: "We are not attending the press today."

I am politely ushered out, as Royale, the disobedient poodle, is finally collared and persuaded to return. The ace manhunters have at least got their dog.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499292/Have-McCanns-really-chosen-best-private-detectives-Madeleine.html

Madeleine: Pictured in handcuffs, the McCann detective once held over phone tapping

By DANIEL BOFFEY

Last updated at 18:16 25 November 2007

The private detectives hunting for Madeleine McCann were once arrested in a phone-tapping scandal linked to leading politicians and businessmen.

Five senior members of the family-run firm Metodo 3 – including director-general Francisco Marco, who is liaising with Kate and Gerry McCann – were held amid claims of industrial and political espionage.

Mr Marco's mother, Maria Fernandez Lado, 57, who founded the agency 23 years ago, was pictured in handcuffs after being arrested as she handed a client a cassette allegedly containing a phone-tapped conversation.



In a raid on Metodo 3's Barcelona offices, police seized handguns, ammunition, listening equipment, cassettes and transcripts of taped phone calls.

But the 1995 case was dropped by a judge after defence lawyers levelled accusations of police entrapment.

However, The Mail on Sunday's findings – including transcripts of conversations in which Mr Marco's mother allegedly offers a tapping service – will bring into question the suitability of the firm in running the McCanns' investigation.

It is not known if the McCanns are aware of Metodo 3's past. But a fellow private investigator said last night: 'They have portrayed themselves as the best investigators in the world. The truth is they are nothing of the sort. Their murky background is riddled with controversy.'

Metodo 3 hit the headlines three weeks ago after lawyer Mr Marco boasted that he would find Madeleine, below, in months.

He said his agency was '100 per cent sure' Madeleine was alive and 'not maybe...but very close' to finding the four-year-old's abductor.



It was reported that the firm has up to 40 detectives on the case. However, company accounts reveal a section of Metodo 3 made a net loss of £61,500 in 2005 and had a full-time staff of just 12. They claim they now have 27.

The McCanns commissioned Metodo 3 on a six-month contract as Portuguese police targeted them over their daughter's disappearance and appeared to lose interest in finding her alive.

Gerry McCann has privately voiced his trust in Metodo 3, which was hired by the couple's multi-millionaire-backer, Brian Kennedy, a double glazing tycoon.

Yet in a police investigation Mr Marco's mother, known as Marita, was arrested as she handed over a recording of a tapped phone call.

She was also taped in an undercover sting allegedly claiming: 'I did tapping... fundamentally for people I had known for a long time.'

Also held were her husband Francisco Marco Poyuelo, 60, Francisco Marco, 35, his brother Francisco Gabriel Fernandez Lado, 36, and employee Oscar Trujillo, 40. The detainees were held in custody for 48 hours but were never charged after an investigating judge threw the case out.

Detectives had persuaded a businessman to meet Marita posing as a client. It was a clear-cut case of police entrapment.

However, a police report and a transcript of a conversation claims Marita allegedly offered to illegally tap phones for £15,000 to £21,000.

In the police transcript Marita allegedly told the 'client': 'Phone tapping...It's very dangerous at the moment. It's very dangerous, very dangerous. But not dangerous for me!'

Police had launched the operation after Spanish phone giant Telefonica suspected an employee was involved in illegal tapping and industrial espionage.

Officers monitored worker Sergio Sancelestino's phone calls and discovered he had close links to Metodo 3. A police report stated: 'It was established that Sergio Sancelestino maintained frequent contact with the management of the Metodo 3 detective agency, and that they could be carrying out illegal phone-tapping, obtaining large financial rewards for those jobs.'

Undercover police claim they watched as Metodo 3 and three Telefonica employees tapped a telephone.

Police swooped as Marita handed over a tape, then raided six other addresses. But four months later the case was 'archived' and the judge said there was no evidence Metodo 3 had been involved in phone tapping or profited from it.

Francisco Marco yesterday claimed that the allegations made against his company had been provoked by their own investigation into state corruption.

He said: 'The judge said it was all made up by the police.' He added his firm was very healthy.

The McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said the agency retained their confidence and was not acting illegally for them. Meanwhile, it was reported in Portugal that police had looked at whether the McCanns had 'sold' Madeleine.

The theory was later dismissed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-496238/Madeleine-Pictured-handcuffs-McCann-detective-held-phone-tapping.html

McCanns could face charges over security firm

David Brown: The Times in Praia da Luz
September 25, 2007

Kate and Gerry McCann could face criminal charges for using a private security company to investigate the disappearance of their daughter, a senior Portuguese judge has said.

The couple have been secretly receiving advice for more than four months from Control Risks Group, which employs former members of the British intelligence services and special forces.

News of the investigators' role has led to deep concern amongst the authorities in Portugal, where it is illegal for private detectives to become involved in criminal cases.

A source close to the McCann's legal team has confirmed the involvement of Control Risks Group but insisted it is simply providing advice on the hunt for Madeleine rather than becoming actively involved in searches in Portugal.

He said: "You can assume that they are doing some things that the Portuguese police can't do. Nothing illegal is being done in Portugal."

Antonio Martins, president of the Association of Portuguese Judges, told the 24 Horas newspaper: "It is still up to the state to carry out criminal investigation. That kind of activity has no legal standing. Anything that results from private investigation has no substance."

The judge said that Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, from Rothley, Leicestershire, could be charged with "obstruction of justice" if prosecutors find evidence of a parallel investigation. The couple are already official suspects in the disappearance of their daughter from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz 145 days ago.

A high-ranking officer in the Polícia Judiciária, which is investigating the disappearance of Madeleine shortly before her fourth birthday, said that the investigators could be arrested if they are found operating in Portugal. "If they come here they will be running a serious risk of being arrested," he said.

Carlos Anjos, President of the Judicial Police Inspector's Union, accused to Mr and Mrs McCann of using "diversion tactics". Mr McCann had previously said that they had decided not to use private detectives.

"This is just another McCann strategy who today say one thing and tomorrow something completely contrary," said Mr Anjos "This can only be another diversion tactic from the McCanns."

Meanwhile, the only other official suspect in the case yesterday denied a report that he was seen outside the Ocean Club resort on the night Mrs McCann claimed that Madeleine had been abducted from her bed.

Robert Murat, 33, has insisted he was at home with his mother at their villa 100 yards from the resort where Madeleine was staying. Mr Murat later worked as an official translator for the police investigating Madeleine's disappearance.

Charlotte Pennington, who worked as a nanny in the Ocean Club resort, said: "He was outside the lobby just before we started on our big search.

"He was adamant that he wasn't there. But he was. He was there in the road, he was just looking. It was about 10.30. He was just watching. I didn't know his name then. But the next day he was our interpreter and I met him then. He didn't take part in the searches, but he was there."

Miss Pennington, 20, from Leatherhead, Surrey, said she was one of the first people to go into the McCann's two-bedroom apartment and was interviewed by Portuguese detectives for more than four hours.

Mr Murat insisted today: "I certainly was not there that night. She [Miss Pennington] never saw me. At no point that night was I there outside that apartment. I can confirm that I did translate for her but I did not say anything more."

Mr Murat said that he had not been accused of being seen at the resort by police until three friends who were staying in Praia da Luz with the McCanns returned to Portugal to give evidence against him at the police headquarters in Portimao.

Portuguese police brought together Mr Murat, from Hockering, Norfolk, and Rachael Oldfield, 36, Dr Russell O'Brien, 36, and Dr Fiona Payne, 34, to compare their versions of events on July 12. The friends told Mr Murat that they saw him at the Ocean Club on May 3.

Mr Murat said: "It was the first I heard of it. I don't know why they don't look at the people who were outside the apartment that night. They must have a list."

A Portuguese newspaper claimed yesterday that British sniffer dogs had searched the British homes of the seven friends who were dining with the McCanns while their daughter was allegedly being abducted.

The unconfirmed report in Jornal de Notícias said that a "cadaver" dog had detected the scent of a corpse on clothing in one of the homes. It was claimed that Portuguese prosecutors are to write to the friends asking them to return for more questioning.

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police, which is leading the British end of the investigation, said: "As the inquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is a Portuguese police investigation it is not appropriate for us to comment on it.

"Our role is to assist the Portuguese authorities, when and if they request it, with UK based enquiries. But because it is a Portuguese investigation, and because of the judicial system there, we are not able to disclose the nature of those enquires."

A source, who has knowledge of the Leicestershire police inquiry, told the Evening Standard today that officers thought it unlikely that that the couple would be charged.

"It is very unlikely that British police would question the McCanns on behalf of Portuguese now. That would have to be done there," he said. "It looks like the case is moving away from the McCanns and officers here feel it is unlikely they will be charged. It is not clear how much longer Leicestershire police will be involved in the investigation."

First Madeleine McCann book to be published


The book ends with the return of the McCanns to the UK

By Megan Levy and agencies

8:11AM GMT 31 Oct 2007

The first book on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is set to be published next week by one of Portugal’s best known crime reporters.

Hernani Carvalho’s book, Maddy 129, traces the 129 days between four-year-old’s disappearance from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz to her parents being named as official suspects in the case.

Mr Carvalho told the Daily Mail that his investigation, with co-author Luis Maia, produced a "series of questions" about the timing of Madeleine’s disappearance.

The book did not present a theory about what happened to Madeleine, but analysed what Mr Carvalho said were discrepancies in the case.

The book ends with the emotional return of Kate and Gerry McCann to their home in Rothley, Leicestershire on September 9, which marked the "the end of a cycle", Mr Carvalho said.

“After all the information about the case, what stands out is a series of doubts and contradictions, facts that do not fit,” he told the Daily Mail.

"We don't have a theory about what happened to Madeleine. What we have is all the things that are said to have happened and do not match up.”

Mr and Mrs McCann are formal suspects, or arguidos, in the police investigation, however they have strenuously denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567950/First-Madeleine-McCann-book-to-be-published.html

Madeleine: Now British police ask if twins are 'at risk'

By SAM GREENHILL, DAN NEWLING and NEIL SEARS
Last updated at 08:11 11 September 2007

The McCanns are under investigation from British police and social services to assess whether their twin son and daughter are at risk.

Given the gravity of the allegations facing the McCanns, social services have no choice but to examine any possible risk to young children who have endured four months in the glare of the media spotlight.

The couple awoke yesterday after their first night back in the village of Rothley since they flew home on Sunday without Madeleine.

When they realised, last Thursday, that Mrs McCann was to be made an official suspect in the disappearance of her daughter, they vowed to remain in Portugal to clear her name. However, during 13 hours of interrogation, Portuguese detectives threatened her with the terrible ultimatum of confessing - or losing her twins.



Officers said they would charge both her and her husband in connection with the case, and claimed that bail would be denied while they awaited trial.

This would have resulted in the twins perhaps being taken into care by Portuguese social services for at least a year.


Hurriedly, the McCanns arranged to return to Britain - only to find that Leicestershire police were discussing them social workers.

John Coughlan, Joint President of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, explained: "In cases such as this, social workers working for the host authority need to make a sober assessment of the facts in the case.

"At the meeting they would try to establish what they know and what they don't - and would use that to try and determine whether there is any real risk to the children.


"If they decide that there is a risk, they would then consider what they are going to do about it, step by step."


He added: "In most cases, social service workers do not come crashing down the drive and snatch the children. They are much more likely to take a more measured approach."


Technically, if social workers conclude that there is a real risk to the twins, they could move to take the two children away from their 39-year-old parents.

In this case, the Leicestershire social workers are unlikely to have a great deal of reliable information about the McCanns' behaviour.

As the Portuguese police force would not hand over information that may be used in a criminal prosecution, the British social workers may therefore decide to carry out an initial interview with the McCanns before taking further action.

Nevertheless, Mr McCann's sister Philomena revealed that the family are preparing for the worst.

She said: "Madeleine's godmother is down at Rothley right now and she is prepared to step into the breach if Gerry and Kate are asked to return to Portugal.

"The family are more than willing to look after the children and they will not become wards of the state here or anywhere else."

Yesterday the McCanns were visited at their large modern home by a police "crime reduction officer" who explained that he gives information about "personal safety".


The visit raised fears that the couple could be targeted by members of the public who believe they are responsible for Madeleine's death.

Back in Portugal, a police source said phone calls to and from the couple form "a major strand" of the inquiry.

For more than a month, the couple have been under round-the-clock surveillance, with their calls recorded and their e-mails intercepted by the Portuguese police.

Now it is alleged that something said on the phone has added to detectives' conviction that Madeleine died the night she went missing.

The Mail has discovered new details about the conclusions drawn by the British scientists.

Portuguese police believe the crucial forensics supports their case that some terrible harm came to Madeleine in the apartment.

A source in the UK said last night the results of toxicology tests were "significant", indicating that police are focusing on some sort of medication or poison in the apartment.

The McCanns have repeatedly denied accidentally overdosing their daughter on sedatives to help her sleep while they went out to dinner.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-480931/Madeleine-Now-British-police-ask-twins-risk.html

By Tony Bennett, Secretary of the Madeleine Foundation

On Friday 12 March this year, The Madeleine Foundation wrote to the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, making a number of points in relation to any proposed review of or re-investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

One of our key points was that any review or re-investigation should not be carried out by Leicestershire Police, as we believed them to be wholly discredited in terms of their failure to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance without fear or favour. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph last week: “A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that the Home Secretary had a private meeting with Kate and Gerry McCann. Leicestershire Police stand ready to co-ordinate and complete enquiries if further information comes to light in the UK; or if requested to do so by the Portuguese authorities, who continue to lead on the overall investigation’.” We strongly advised the Home Secretary to select an independent police force to carry out any review or re-investigation, not Leicestershire.

The Daily Star report

Yesterday's [18 March] Daily Star carried this report (below), announcing that West Yorkshire Police had been approached by the Home Office to carry out some kind of re-investigation into the Madeleine McCann mystery.

SHANNON MATTHEWS COPS DRAFTED IN TO SEARCH FOR MADDIE

18th March 2010 - By Jerry Lawton

THE police team who found hoax kidnap victim Shannon Matthews are to probe Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET) will study Portuguese police files.

Madeleine’s doctor parents Kate and Gerry, both 41, are said to be “delighted’’ at the move. It follows a meeting with Home Secretary Alan Johnson at which they begged him to relaunch the official search for their daughter.

He asked the Child Exploitation Centre And Online Protection Centre to appoint a new investigating force. They have called in HMET, whose officers found Shannon, then aged nine, alive 24 days after she vanished in Dewsbury, West Yorks, in February 2008. Detectives worked out her disappearance was a plot to claim reward money dreamed up by her mum Karen, 34, and stepdad’s uncle Michael Donovan, 40, who were jailed for eight years.

Portuguese and British police forces have been at odds since Madeleine vanished from her family’s Algarve holiday apartment in May 2007, days before her fourth birthday. A source told the Daily Star: “It’s hoped we can clear the decks and start over again.”

The case was archived as unsolved in July 2008, and the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, have had to hire private detectives to search for her.

[ Source: http://dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/126788/Shannon-Matthews-cops-drafted-in-to-search-for-Maddie/ ] (article whooshed)

Is this move to be welcomed?

After all, a source is quoted as saying: “It’s hoped we can clear the decks and start over again”

The report in the Daily Star included this quote: "The Home Secretary Alan Johnson…asked the Child Exploitation Centre and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to appoint a new investigating force. They have called in the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team of West Yorkshire Police".

The relationsip between the McCanns and Jim Gamble of CEOP

It’s clear from this, if the Star report is accurate, that the decision to appoint the West Yorkshire Police Force was made by CEOP. And that means it was made by its Chief Executive, Jim Gamble.

CEOP is an unusual type of organisation. It has the powers of a police force, yet is not subject to the usual types of regulations covering the actions of a police force. Notably, CEOP is exempt from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. It is something of a law unto itself, though answerable, certainly, to the Home Office, who appointed Mr Gamble.

There appears to be an unusually close relationship between the McCanns and Jim Gamble.



Most recently, Jim Gamble invited Dr Gerald McCann to speak at a CEOP-organised conference on abducted children. Held on 26 January at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Bloomsbury, London, the closing speech of the conference at 4.00pm was given by Dr Gerald McCann. The welcome address was of course given by Jim Gamble himself. The press release about the conference hailed its purpose as: “To explore the issues associated with a variety of child abduction cases, predominantly focussing on sexually motivated stranger abductions”.

Mr Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ chief public relations adviser, admitted on 19 February in a Channel 4 interview that the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was ‘a complete mystery’. In addition, the final Portuguese Police report in July 2008 said that they had been examining two alternative theories side by side: (a) abduction and (b) death in the McCanns’ holiday apartment. Given the absence of any compelling evidence of an abductor, still less an abduction by a ‘sexually motivated stranger’, it is reasonable for us to ask: “Why was Dr Gerald McCann chosen to make the final address to this conference?"

Late last year, Jim Gamble featured in the worldwide dissemination of what was called a ‘viral video’, titled ‘A Minute for Madeleine’ which, once again, drew attention to the fact that Madeleine was still missing, and urged people to search for her. Speaking at a news conference to launch the video, Gamble said:

“The person we are looking to reach is likely to be a partner, family member, friend or colleague of the person or people who were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance. The video is a message aimed at prompting the conscience of the individual to remind them that it’s never too late to do the right thing.”

He went on to compare the disappearance of Madeleine to the snatching off the street at the age of 11 of Jaycee Lee Dugard case, who then spent 18 years in captivity in a Californian backyard before being found by officials. The commentary in the video is by Gamble, who asserts that ‘Madeleine is now six’ and then shows an artist’s impression of what she might look like now. He went on in the video to emphasise that ‘someone out there’ is holding a secret and should come forward.

Incidentally, the ‘Minute for Madeleine’ viral video brings out the uncanny resemblance between the CEOP logo and the coloboma defect in Madeleine’s right eye. This similarity can be seen very clearly towards the end of the video as the CEOP logo is seen to move ever closer to Madeleine’s right eye ( Link: Home page on http://ceop.police.uk/ ).

At the same time, he toured TV studios with the McCanns giving interviews on SKY NEWS and on ITV’s ‘Good Morning’. The McCanns and he had clearly pre-arranged what each would say, as Dr Gerald McCann parried a question and said ‘Jim will be answering that”.

On the ‘Good Morning’ programme, Gamble came out with a strange statement: “It is the first time [a viral video] has been done…it has the potential to get to the person we are looking for. We are not looking for someone who has seen this girl particularly. We are looking for the person who knows or strongly suspects the individual or individuals involved in Madeleine's disappearance - the person who for a long time has perhaps struggled with their conscience keeping a terrible secret”.

Why did he not want the person who has ‘seen’ Madeleine, only the person who might ‘know something’ about those involved in Madeleine’s disappearance?

Will the West Yorkshire Police conduct a fully independent re-investigation into all possible explanations for Madeleine’s disappearance?

We’ve seen that there is a close nexus between the McCanns and Jim Gamble, who has personally selected the West Yorkshire Police to carry out this re-investigation, We question therefore whether that police force will truly be given a remit to ‘start from scratch’ and be permitted to examine not only the abduction scenario but also the possibility that Madeleine died in her parents’ holiday apartment. For example, will the West Yorkshire Police talk to Goncalo Amaral, the original senior investigating detective in the case, whose book ‘The Truth of A Lie’, which outlines the evidence that Madeleine died in Praia da Luz, has sold half a million or so copies throughout Europe?

Before taking up his current job as the head of CEOP Gamble was a superintendent in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and then became Head of the National Crime Squad. Whilst there, he set up the National Crime Squad's specialist response cell - the Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) - and was involved in the creation of the first international law enforcement partnership to combat child abuse online - the Virtual Global Taskforce.

As head also of NCIS (the National Criminal Intelligence Service), he headed the highly controversial Operation Ore investigation into those downloading images of child sexual abuse. Operation Ore is a topic we may revert to in a future article. It was criticised by some for wrongly accusing individuals of downloading child portnography just because they had accessed a certan website with a credit card, whilst others were certain that Operation Ore had discovered a number of prominent people who had been viewing extreme child sexual abuse but was refusing to prosecute them.

Mr Gamble says he first became involved with the McCanns as a result of receiving a letter from them which ‘deeply moved’ him and prompted him to offer to help. But his views have been controversial. He has suggested a number of times that even people viewing extreme images of child sexual abuse should not be sent to prison, which prompted this response from Michelle Elliott, director of the childrens’ charity, Kidscape. She told the BBC: “They are just as guilty as the people taking the photos. If they didn't view, the child wouldn't be abused. Therefore I think those people deserve prison”.

Conclusion

The fact that Jim Gamble has an extremely close understanding with the McCanns, actively promoting the theory that Madeleine was abducted by a paedophile at every opportunity, and is the person who has recommended West Yorkshire Police Force to carry out any review or investigation, is of very great concern.

Whoever is entrusted with re-investigating this difficult, sensitive and highly controversial case must be given a full brief to go wherever the evidence leads, and not simply adopt the abduction theory and continue merely to follow up a procession of claimed ‘sightings’ of Madeleine.
-------
Related: http://gerrymccan-abuseofpower-humanrights.blogspot.com/2010/03/madeleine-mccann-case-review-by-shannon.html

http://themccanngallery.blogspot.com/2010/03/review-by-uk-police-nonsense-or-thin.html

Former Portuguese detective claims Madeleine McCann was cremated in latest slur during TV interview on the case

Goncalo Amaral claims she was hidden in British woman's coffin and cremated
Former detective claims church where parents prayed is key to solving the case
Comes hours after Kate and Gerry McCann revealed they still hope to find her
McCann vowed to continue to fight Amaral through courts over previous claims

By Tracey Kandohla For Mailonline and James Dunn For Mailonline

Published: 01:56 BST, 1 May 2017 | Updated: 12:05 BST, 1 May 2017

ormer Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral has claimed Madeleine's body was cremated in a TV interview that will add to her parents' anguish.

The detective, one of the leading investigators early in the case, made the wild statement hours after her parents vowed to take him back to court over other claims.

Amaral made his latest statement on a TV documentary to be aired tonight on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance from the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal.

It comes just hours after a moving interview with her parents, in which they revealed they have still not given up hope on seeing Madeleine again.

Amaral said she may have been hidden in another British woman's coffin as she was cremated, and said the church where Madeleine's parents prayed was key.

He said: 'We had information three figures went into the church via a side door at night. They had a box and there was to be a cremation of a British woman.

'It is possible the child's remains were in this box and cremated as well. The parents had the key to the church,' reports The Sun.

The claim is the latest spark in a long dispute between Amaral, who was booted off the Madeleine case, and Kate and Gerry McCann.

Amaral, 57, claimed in The Truth Of The Lie that Madeleine died at the McCann's holiday house and Kate and Gerry covered it up.

The McCanns won a libel case against Amaral in 2015, and he was ordered to pay them 250,000 euros (£209,000) each in damages.

But this was overturned on appeal and that decision upheld in another court this April, meaning Amaral is now able to sue the McCanns for damages potentially totalling tens of thousands of pounds.

During the interview, BBC presenter Fiona Bruce asked the McCanns: 'One of the police officers in Portugal has been a thorn in your side for many years, he was thrown off the investigation but then he wrote a book ... and you fought it through the courts.

'At the moment you've lost and he's won. Is this the end for you now, are you going to continue to fight him?'

Mr McCann replied: 'I think the short answer is we have to because the last judgment I think is terrible.

'I think it's also important to say that when we lodged the action was eight years ago, and the circumstances were very different, where we felt there was real damage being done to the search for Madeleine at that time, particularly in Portugal.'

Mr McCann added that it was important to challenge Mr Amaral in the European courts on behalf of the wider family, including his children.

Agreeing that Mr Amaral's claims needed to be challenged, Mrs McCann said: 'I find it all incomprehensible to be honest

'It has been very upsetting, and it has caused a lot of frustration and anger which is a real negative emotion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4461526/Detective-claims-Madeleine-McCann-cremated-coffin.html

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3450890/shamed-ex-portuguese-top-cop-goncalo-amaral-claims-madeleines-body-was-hidden-in-coffin-then-burned/



Olive Oyl - The Daily Tablet

Brits launch Maddie probe

10/04/2010

BRITISH police are to launch a new probe into missing Madeleine McCann after massive failures were found in the Portuguese investigation.

Our top child protection cop Jim Gamble has completed a fresh look at the three-year-old investigation for the Home Office.

He told ministers there were huge holes in the original inquiry that need to be revisited if they want to "come close" to reaching UK standards.

It will come as a bitter pill for Portuguese investigators who have fended off criticism since Maddie disappeared in 2007.

Portugese police left 'gaping' holes

But parents Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41 and both doctors, are "delighted" [my emphasis] at the move.

Failures in the original investigation are said to be "so gaping" that British authorities feel it is their duty to look at it again.

This time police will review all the leads using technology and standards expected in a homicide or kidnap case in the UK.

Mr Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, found a basic failure to collate information and join up links that should have been made.

Telephone records were not properly analysed, missing early opportunities for leads.

And Kate and Gerry McCann were named as Arguidos, or formal suspects, by Portuguese police - something that the review says would not have happened if the probe had been carried out in the UK.

Mr Gamble found no evidence sufficient to make them suspects. His findings have now been formally submitted to the Home Office with recommendations to re-investigate.

The damning review has now set the Association of Chief Police Officers the difficult task of trying to decide who takes on the mammoth task. It is already predicted to be "an extremely costly" investigation that, even if done properly, will probably never be solved. [my emphasis]


Damning: Jim Gamble

A source said: "It is something that has to be reviewed. It is only right that the McCanns are given the satisfaction that everything that could be done has been done. It now comes down to who is up to the job."

The Home Secretary Alan Johnson is expected to announce that the new probe will NOT be carried out by Leicestershire police, the McCanns' local force. The review has highlighted failures within their handling of the case and ruled them out of the review. [my emphasis]


Instead ACPO are now asking around their top cops to see who could take on the very difficult and complex investigation.

The source added: "It will be extremely costly and sadly is unlikely to result in a positive outcome. [my emphasis]

"As much as we would all like this to end with good news for the McCanns, the fact is there have been a lot of missed opportunities and no-one will ever be able to reclaim the time and evidence lost."

Two thousand pages of evidence released earlier claimed Portuguese detectives failed to follow up leads.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson ordered officials to examine the "feasibility" of British detectives having a fresh look at all the evidence back in March.

Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, met Mr Johnson to plead for help in their search for their daughter who vanished aged three from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

GOT a child abuse story for the News of the World that you'd like covered up? Email newsdesk@notw.co.uk or call 020 7782 1001
-----

These 12 questions were formally sent to the Home Office on 19 March 2010 by the Madeleine Foundation:

1. On what date or dates has the Home Secretary Alan Johnson had meetings with one or both of the McCanns?
2. Who else was present at these meetings: in particular, was any lawyer or other adviser for the McCanns present?
3. On what dates did meetings take place between one or both of the McCanns and staff of the Home Office?
4. Please identify all the staff who met with the McCanns and again identify whether the McCanns had legal or other representatives with them.
5. On what date did the McCanns first approach the Home Office asking for a review or re-investigation by a British police force into Madeleine’s disappearance?
6. Is the Home Office carrying out what the Daily Telegraph called ‘a scoping exercise’ to evaluate what form any review or re-investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance may take’ and, if so, on what date did that scooping exercise
commence?
7. Why, according to the press, was Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, Mr Jim Gamble, given the role of advising the Home Office as to which police force should carry out any review or re-investigation?
8. On what date did the Home Secretary ask Mr Gamble to perform this role?
9. On what date did Mr Gamble make his recommendation?
10. Did he, as reported, recommend West Yorkshire Police to carry out a review or re-investigation?
11. Has West Yorkshire Police, as reported, been asked to carry out a review or re-investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann?
12. If so, what is the brief or remit that the Home Office has given to West Yorkshire Police?


Related link: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/mccann-case-f3/the-new-madeleine-mccann-re-investigation-jim-gamble-doesnt-bring-clean-hands-to-it-t827.htm

Experts say Madeleine McCann's body is almost impossible to find

24 Apr, 2017 7:34pm

We'll likely never know what happened to Madeleine McCann because she may have been dumped in one of hundreds of ancient wells not far from the spot she disappeared, experts claim.

The remote area around the Ocean Club resort in Portugal, where the three-year-old British girl vanished from her holiday apartment in 2007, has been described as the perfect place to hide a body, those connected to the case say, according to news.com.au.

"It's almost impossible," retired Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton told Channel Seven Sunday Night program of Praia da Luz, in the Algarve region of Portugal, where the McCann's were staying.

"It would be impossible without specific information or intelligence which enabled you to focus a search in a particular area.

"It is a large area, with a very low population, of scrubland, of ancient wells. There are areas there where humans probably don't go from one year to one decade even to the next. It would be really easy to secrete something there and be really confident that it wouldn't be found."

The area is home to as many as 500 wells and has been described by forensics expert Professor Dave Barclay as "the most hide-a-body-able place I've ever been in my life."

"I'm sure the reason this case has run as long as it has and still arouses fantastic interest even now is because every single one of the explanations, the possible explanations is implausible, and yet we know one of them must be correct," he told the program.

"It might be solved if Madeleine's body is found and there is evidence either on the body or in the location where the body is found that would point to somebody but otherwise, I don't think it will ever be solved.

"There is just no physical evidence whatsoever that we can use at this time, even to eliminate some of the theories."

A local reporter said bones might be found "five to 10 years from now" only if a person who lived in the area decided to clear out one of the hundreds of deep wells to put it back in operation.

In two fresh theories aired by the program, Detective Sutton said an employee of the holiday resort where Madeleine was staying likely had information investigators wanted.

Professor Barclay also suggested the little girl may have wandered out of the apartment looking for her parents, who were dining at an adjoining tapas bar, and could have been run over by a car. The driver may then have tried to dispose of her body to cover up the accident.

"There is an employee, somebody who worked within the Ocean Villas (sic) complex who it is felt has some information or some knowledge which might be of assistance," Detective Sutton said.

Madeleine McCann would be 14 on May 12. Since her disappearance, there have been 8685 reported sightings of her across 101 countries, according to the program.

"People say to me 'Maybe she's been stolen to order' (and I say) 'Don't be ridiculous," Madeleine's father Gerry McCann said of the theory that she had been abducted as part of a sex trafficking operation.

"But actually compared to everything else that's happened, that's a possibility."

The program claims a wave of crime on the Algarve in the lead up to Madeleine's disappearance had been whitewashed by Portuguese authorities, including 12 incidents of an intruder breaking into the properties of UK families within a 60 kilometre radius of the McCann holiday villa, half involving a man hopping into bed with little girls.

Nannies working at the resort had also reportedly been given "rape alarms" and told it was not a safe place.

"The fact that there were random paedophiles going around taking children out of holiday apartments probably would have been quite a disincentive to families turning up for their holidays," Professor Barclay said, suggesting it might also explain why UK police had not given up the $20 million investigation.

Gerry McCann described allegations made by Portuguese detective Goncarlo Amaral that British intelligence agency MI5 know what happened to Madeleine but are covering it up as absurd.

"It's caused a lot of upset and has damaged the search," he said.

Madeleine's mother Kate told the program she had initially been reluctant to go to Portugal on holiday because she didn't want to travel with three small children - Madeleine and her twin baby siblings - but had been convinced by friends.

The McCanns cling to the hope that their daughter "might come out of the woodwork" like other children who have been abducted and held against their will for years and say they will never give up the search.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11844047

Can the McCanns be thinking straight?

By Terence Blacker: The Independent
May 2010

Three years have passed since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and her parents are determined that the search for her should not slip out of the world's headlines. To keep the story alive, they have just released a moody video, complete with a musical soundtrack, which includes a photograph of the three-year-old wearing make-up and gazing into the camera. It is that image which, predictably, has featured in the media,

It seems a bizarre and unsettling development. Clearly, Kate and Gerry McCann have been living through a nightmare of unimaginable horror and perhaps, even after three years, they are not thinking straight. If so, someone should surely have pointed out to them that, in a case over which paedophilia casts an obvious shadow, it looks downright weird when a photograph which has the effect of sexualising the missing child becomes part of the campaign to find her.

Obviously, the make-up game and the photograph were innocent at the time but, when the private picture is released into the public domain in these circumstances, something altogether nastier kicks in.

What was the point of this exercise, apart from getting more news coverage? At a time when there is justified concern over Primark selling Little Miss Naughty padded bras for eight-year-olds and allegations that Playboy brands are being aimed at the primary school market, the circulation of this can only feed prurience of the very worst kind.

Maybe it was a misjudgement, but it confirms a niggling sense that the McCanns' publicity–at-all-costs campaign has seriously lost its way.

By Emily Andrews
Last updated at 2:57 AM on 11th May 2010

This is the heartbreaking moment when the parents of murdered schoolboy Jimmy Mizen were met and comforted by Kate McCann at a service in memory of young victims of knife and gun crime.

McCann, who of course is still tormented by her own loss - the disappearance of her daughter three years ago - shared a sympathetic hug with Barry and Margaret Mizen on the steps of Westminster Cathedral.

The Mizens showed immense courage as they spoke of their ‘incredible pain’ at the service staged on the second anniversary of their son’s death and attended by Prince Charles.

Full story in Daily Mail

Madeleine McCann: Is this the man who snatched her?

THIS is the sensational picture of a suspicious man on the beach which could lead to a breakthrough in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

By James Murray
PUBLISHED:  00:00, Sun, May 16, 2010


Snapped inadvertently in the background of a holiday photo, the mysterious man strolls along after a rain shower, staring out to sea at Praia da Luz.

The picture was taken at the Portuguese resort days before Madeleine, then three, vanished during the evening of May 3, 2007.

Briton Gail Cooper was having lunch with family and friends in a beachside cafe and taking photos when she saw him wandering along the beach, apparently in a world of his own.

“It was odd to see him walking around the beach alone in showery, cold weather.” she said.

Mrs Cooper, 53, added that a few hours after the snap was taken, the same man visited her at her rented villa 20 minutes’ walk from the beach. The £2million holiday property was in a quiet road near the Mark Warner complex where Madeleine and her family were staying.

During a tense conversation on the doorstep, the man sought cash with what she called “an obviously made-up story” that he was collecting money for an orphanage in a nearby town, where the children of Britons killed in a car crash were being cared for.

Just under a week after the unnerving encounter, when Mrs Cooper had returned home to Britain, Madeleine was taken from her holiday apartment.

Alarmed, Mrs Cooper contacted British detectives because of her ­concerns about the man on the beach and handed over the photograph, taken by a ­member of her holiday party.

Months later private investigators working for Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann asked Mrs Cooper to work with an FBI-trained artist to create a drawing of the man she had seen at the beach and villa.

She described him as having protruding teeth, a handlebar moustache and wind-blown dark hair. In the photo the man is ­turning slightly towards the sea, so it is not possible to tell whether he has a moustache.

However, he does appear to bear a resemblance to a man the McCanns’ friend, Jane Tanner, saw walking with a child in his arms at about the time Madeleine disappeared.

Ms Tanner saw him crossing a road yards from the McCanns’ apartment and it is widely believed that he was the man who abducted Madeleine. She also worked with an artist to ­create a drawing of the man she saw. It did not include facial features as she did not see his face.

The man Ms Tanner saw, ­walking in the glare of an orange street light, was wearing light coloured trousers and a dark top and appears to have slightly hunched shoulders.

The man in the photo was also wearing light coloured trousers, a dark top and appears to have slightly rounded shoulders.

Mrs Cooper, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, said last night: “I am 98 per cent certain the man in the photo was the same man who made the strange visit to our ­holiday villa. His hair looks neater in the photo, but he is quite far in the background.” The picture was given to detectives in Leicestershire who are liaising with detectives in ­Portugal, but Mrs Cooper said she was never told whether the man had been identified.

“I believe it would be useful for the investigation if he was to come forward,” she added. Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, are hoping that new Tory Home Secretary Theresa May will call for a review of all the evidence in the case.

If you can identify the man in the photograph please call the Sunday Express on 0208 612 7073 or contact the website ­Findmadeleine.com. (not the Police then, James?)
--------------

That's suspicious. He's not carrying the doll on blurred pic...

I've heard of soft focus but this is ridiculous - isn't focus used to enhance an image, not completely obliterate it?



Using a digital device, be it mobile phone or camera, is it possible to take such a blurred picture - unless of course it's deliberate !?!

Gail Cooper's got some explaining to do come doomsday.

Having said that, just reverse the image, you can see how former DCI Andy Redwood's revelation moment was inspired..



Looks like Mr Redwood has also got some explaining to do!

Madeleine McCann and the Scots sex beasts on the run

30 Scots sex beasts on the run abroad News of the World (Scottish)

COPS ADMITS WHEREABOUTS OF MANY ARE UNKNOWN

By Jacqueline McGhie
20/06/2010

Cops admit the whereabouts of many of the pervs - including paedophiles and rapists - are "unknown".

Yet all of them have been convicted of sex crimes here.

And last night the shocking figures were BLASTED by campaigning mum Margaret Ann Cummings, 33.

Speaking almost six years after her eight-year-old son Mark was murdered by evil Stuart Leggate, 34, she asked: "Why should 30 sex offenders, who committed crimes in Scotland be free to go where they please? They are dangerous and manipulative men.

"It is hard enough to track the monsters who live here, never mind when they have scattered abroad."

News of the sickos' exodus comes after it emerged last week that a killer paedophile was in Portugal in 2007 when three-year-old tot Madeleine McCann was snatched.

Twisted Charles O'Neil, 47, has refused to meet detectives working for Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry McCann.


And here's another Scots beast on the run after refusing to meet with official detectives who were working on his daughter's case. The 'twisted' McCanns refused to answer police questions or take part in a police reconstruction choosing, instead, to get out of dodge Portugal.

-----
Related: The Gaspar's Statements

“One night, when all the adults, that is, from those couples I have mentioned above, were all sitting around on a patio outside the house where we were all staying. We had been eating and drinking ‘Berbers’.

I was sitting between Gerry and Dave and I think both were talking about Madeleine. I can’t remember the conversation in its entirety, but they seemed to be discussing a particular scenario. I remember Dave saying to Gerry something about ‘she’, meaning Madeleine, ‘would do this’.

“While he mentioned the word ‘this’, Dave was doing the action of sucking one of his fingers, pushing it in and out of his mouth, while with his other hand he was doing a circle around his nipple, with a circular movement around his clothes. This was done in a provocative way. There seemed to be an explicit insinuation about what he was saying and doing. I remember being shocked by that. I always felt it was something very weird and that it was not something anyone should say or do. I looked at Gerry, and also at Dave, to gauge their reactions.

“I looked around as if saying: “Did someone else hear that, or was it just me?”.

read full statements here: http://thegaspersstatement.blogspot.com/

'Look for her here' Missing-person hunter weighs in on Maddie sightings worldwide

THERE’S one place in the Maddie case the cops need to reexamine, according to an expert on missing people.

Michael Havis / Published 29th April 2017


Since Madeleine McCann vanished from Portugal in 2007, sightings of her have been reported all over the world.


Daily Star Online asked Frank Ahearn, who tracks missing people for a living, to examine some of the major sightings.


He’s so good at sniffing out clues that he also gets paid to help those who want to disappear do so without leaving a trail.



And his verdict is that the only place that matters is the Praia Da Luz resort, where Maddie had slept in her room that night.

He told Daily Star Online: "When you’re looking for someone too much information is a problem... You have to go back to scratch.

"I would ignore everything. We don’t know what’s truth anymore and we don’t know what’s fiction. I would just go back to the day, the scene.

"The problem with sightings is typically they’re never accurate. They almost help propel the story that she could be in Belgium or Spain."


Mr Ahearn also noted that more distant sightings entailed a more elaborate plan, including fake identities and travel documents.



He continued: "The thing I ask first is ‘does it become very elaborate? Has she been abducted and is travelling the world?



"Do I think that whoever abducted Maddie had a passport ready and documents to take her out of the country?


"You’ve have to remember, kids keep screaming and crying no matter how much you tell them to shut up.




"I wouldn’t think so far out. I would concentrate on first looking at it from a solely domestic point of view."



And though Mr Ahearn usually deals with adult disappearances, he knows that people can show up even after years.



"I just worked a case actually two weeks ago where this guy walked out on his family several years ago," he told Daily Star Online.


"They didn’t know if he was alive or dead... I located him working in a supermarket. He was a practicing professional who just had a nervous breakdown.


"Absolutely she might show up, it happens all the time. I mean there are several cases in the United States so I think you only have to have hope.



"Nobody really knows what happened. I think you just have to have hope that there’s that possibility, because that is a realistic possibility."


Mr Ahearn, who wrote the bestselling book How To Disappear about his work, spoke ahead of the 10th anniversary of the disappearance.


It comes after police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann revealed they were working on a "critical" lead.
...................

Is this trash the last straw or the straw that broke the camel's back?  They really pulled out all the stops for the 2017 tenth anniversary finale didn't they.

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Madeleine McCann: Timeline

Take a look at the timeline of events and the story background to Leicestershire toddler Madeleine McCann's disappearance on 03 May 2007. Listen to the interviews...

Four-year-old Madeleine McCann from Rothley in Leicestershire disappeared from an apartment in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve on Thursday 03 May 2007.
She is believed to have been taken from her bed while her parents were eating at a nearby restaurant. They regularly checked on her and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie.
At the very end of May, Madeleine's parents visited the Pope and received his blessing.
Since the initial weeks of speculation, little in the way of hard and fast fact has emerged.
What follows is a month by month account of the main events from June to the present.

BBC News wrote:"Kate and Gerry McCann have spoken movingly of the night their daughter Madeleine vanished, a year after the three-year-old disappeared. "

Timeline of Events:

June 2007

Gerry and Kate McCann make an appeal on Crimewatch for help to find their daughter.
0n 03 June - It is four weeks since Madeleine McCann went missing. Ben Jackson looks back over BBC Radio Leicester's coverage of the Leicestershire toddler's disappearance...

• Listen: Madeleine McCann - One Month On >
  

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Hostile questioning from a journalist provokes the McCanns to deny involvement in Madeleine's abduction.
On 13 June - It is announced that the tributes and toys left at the Rothley war memorial will be cleared away. The ribbon-strewn scene in the village is by now a familiar image in television news bulletins.
On the same day many competing in the Rothley Road Race donate the money they raise to the Madeleine Appeal. BBC Leicester's Ben Jackson spoke to Madeleine's Great Aunt, Janet Kennedy...

• Listen: Interview with Madeleine's Great Aunt >
  

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Pupils at Madeleine's playschool make a film to raise awareness of child abduction.
On 22 June - It's the 50th day since the disappearance, This is marked in 50 cities.

July 2007 

A woman who claimed to be collecting money for Madeleine but instead used it for drugs is jailed for three months.
Author J. K. Rowling asks bookshops worldwide to display posters showing missing Madeleine.
The Prime Minister is assured that everything is being done to find Madeleine.
The tributes and ribbons placed around the war memorial in Rothley are all removed.

August 2007

The police in Portugal announce that they have found nothing in the house of Robert Murat, an official suspect.
Tests are carried out on suspected traces of blood found in the McCann apartment.
On 10 August - Madeleine has been missing 100 days.
The McCanns announce they are to sue a Portuguese newspaper which claimed they killed their daughter. They say, "We are deeply hurt by the allegations."

September 2007

Kate McCann is officially declared a suspect.
Family and friends rally round Kate. The grandmother of Madeleine declares this development 'absurd'.
On 09 September - Kate and Gerry McCann return to their home in Rothley amidst huge media interest. They say they are determined to clear their names.
The villagers of Rothley again declare their support for the McCanns.
The McCanns say that the money raised to help find Madeleine won't be used to clear their names.
On 19 September - Portuguese prosecutors say there is no new evidence to justify the questioning of the McCanns.



Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate

October 2007

The police chief investigating Madeleine's disappearance is taken off the case.
On 21 October - Gerry McCann says he welcomes the announcement that the friends, who were on holiday with them in Portugal, are to be interviewed again. 
BBC Leicester's Jack Izzard has recently been in Portugal covering the story. He has more about the re-interviewing process...

• Listen: Family Friends re-interviewed >
  

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Writing in his internet blog, Gerry says he wants them to be eliminated from the enquiry as soon as possible.
He adds that he and his wife will continue to hope that one of the lines of investigation leads to Madeleine being found safe and well.

On 24 October - Kate and Gerry McCann  indicate that they may take legal action over some media reports about the disappearance of the daughter.
The couple give their first broadcast interview since being declared suspects in the case. 
They tell Spanish television that some of the coverage had been ludicrous and hurtful.

On 25 October - The parents of Madeleine McCann have released an artist's impression of the man they believe abducted their daughter. The sketch depicts a man of southern European or Mediterranean appearance walking with a child in his arms. 
It is drawn by an FBI-trained forensic artist using details from a friend of the McCanns, but the face is blank because the witness wasn't certain about some details.

The fighting fund set up to help find Madeleine McCann was used by her parents to make two mortgage payments, their spokesman says. Clarence Mitchell says: "The fund has always had the ability to assist the family financially if necessary."
He says Kate and Gerry McCann stopped using the fund in September when they were made formal suspects in the case.


Aerial view of the McCann's apartment complex

November 2007

On 01 November - Gerry McCann goes back to work at  Glenfield hospital, Leicester.
Listen to BBC Leicester's Julie Mayer's report from the hospital and to Gerry McCann's statement to the press...

• Listen: Julie Mayer at Glenfield hospital >
  
• Listen: Gerry McCann returns to work >
  

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On 03 November - Six months since four-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared. The following  evening  families in  Rothley are invited to attend a special church vigil.
Rothley's four churches come together to pray for Madeleine and other abducted, trafficked or exploited children. Kate and Gerry McCann spent almost an hour at the service in the church of St Mary and St John near their home.
In the six months since the disappearance the village of Rothley has found itself in the media glare - at times that's made life quite difficult for those who live and work there.
Sam Spillane runs her business from the heart of the village. She spoke to BBC Leicester's Ben Jackson about how she and her neighbours have learned to deal with that intrusion.
Percy Hartshorn chairs Rothley Parish Council - he explains how the village is managing to weather the storm and is hopeful for a positive end to what's been a challenging time...

• Listen: Interview with Sam Spillane >
  
• Listen: Interview with Percy Hartshorn >
  

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On 29 November - Forensic experts from the UK and Portugal meet at Leicestershire Police headquarters to discuss DNA samples collected during the inquiry.


A beacon of hope

December 2007

On December 22 - Mr and Mrs McCann send a public message to Madeleine: "Our only Christmas wish is for you to be back with us again."

January 2008

Early in the month there is much speculation that a film about Madeleine is going to be made. Gerry McCann plays down  the story.
On 20 January - The McCanns release police sketches, based on a statement given by a British holidaymaker, of a man they believe may have abducted Madeleine.

February 2008

On 23 February - Portuguese justice minister Alberto Costa says the police investigation into the young girl's disappearance is nearing its end.

March 2008

On 19 March - Mr and Mrs McCann accept £550,000 libel damages and front-page apologies from Express Newspapers.

April 2008

On 07 April - Portuguese police arrive in Britain to observe as the friends of Kate and Gerry McCann are interviewed by local police about the night Madeleine went missing.
On 08 April - Gerry and Kate McCann are asked to return to Portugal to take part in a large-scale re-enactment of the hours surrounding Madeleine's disappearance.
On 11 April - Madeleine's parents responded angrily to publication of leaked transcripts of interviews with Portuguese police last year.

• McCanns Angry Over Leak >
  
• Listen: McCann Spokesman Interview >
  

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On 14 April - Portuguese police investigating Madeleine's disappearance deny leaking details of statements made by her parents to officers.
On 30 April - Kate and Gerry McCann speak movingly, in an ITV1 documentary, of the night their daughter Madeleine vanished, a year after the three-year-old disappeared.
To find out more about the latest developments, click the link below...

• Latest news on Madeleine >
  
  

Missing Madeleine McCann from Rothley

Background on the Story

Madeleine's mother, Kate, discovered that her daughter was missing at approximately 21:30 on Thursday 03 May.
Listen to an interview with Valerie Armstrong, the landlady of a pub in Rothley, who co-ordinated the silent vigil for Madeleine:

• Listen: Interview with Rothley Pub Landlady >
  

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Listen to an interview with Kerry Needham, whose son was abducted 16 years ago at the age of 21 months, and has never been found:

• Listen: Interview with a Mother - Son Never Found >
  

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BBC Leicester's Kay Wright looks back at the first seven days of the search for Madeleine and child psychologist, Clode Knight speaks about the effects of Madeleine's abduction:

• Listen: Madeline McCann - Seven days on >
  
• Listen: Interview with a Child Psychologist >
  

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Portuguese law prevents the police from revealing details about an investigation while it's ongoing, so Kate and Madeleine's father, Gerry, made an emotional appeal outside their holiday apartment for Madeleine's return.
Kate said that they were very grateful for the support they'd received from the townspeople in Praia da Luz:
"Gerry and I would just like to express our sincere gratitude and thanks to everybody, but particularly to the local community here, who have offered so much support.
"We couldn't have asked for more, so I just want to say thank you, and please continue to pray for Madeleine – she's lovely."


Ribbons for Madeleine in Rothley

The reaction at home

The reaction in Leicestershire was heartfelt, as family and friends of the McCanns expressed their concern.
Local people have left messages, yellow ribbons, candles, flowers, toys and pictures at the war memorial in the centre of Rothley as gestures of support for the McCanns.
Kate's father dismissed the criticism levelled at his daughter and her husband for leaving their children alone:
"You couldn't meet a more considerate, caring set of parents. I'm proud of my daughter and I'm proud of her choice of husband. They really care for their kids and they would never do anything to jeopardize them."
Public acts of sympathy and remembrance were held across the county, including a prayer vigil outside Glenfield General Hospital, where Gerry works as a cardiologist. A colleague said: "Their anguish must be great and we're all hoping for good news soon."
Emotion also ran deep in the McCanns' home village of Rothley. Neighbours, friends and well-wishers came together on Tuesday 08 May to hold a silent vigil by the war memorial, and yellow ribbons were tied around the railings.
Valerie Armstrong, the landlady of the Royal Oak pub in Rothley and a friend of the family, said the entire village is sending the family its support:
"The whole of the green was full and I didn't dare turn around because it was very emotional. It just shows that this is what people wanted to show the family – that the village are behind them and they really do care."

"Everything possible is being done"

But alongside the compassion, friends and family of the McCanns have been voicing criticism of the Portuguese authorities. The British Ambassador for Portugal, John Buck, stepped in to defuse the tension:
"I have been in touch closely over the last few days with cabinet ministers in Portugal, with the Prime Minister’s office, and with Portuguese police authorities. They all assure me that everything possible is being done to ensure the safe return of Madeleine."

Madeleine's Fund

On 16 May 2007, nearly two weeks after Madeleine's disappearance, Madeleine's family launched the Madeleine fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned appeal.
The money donated is being used to help find Madeleine McCann, support her family and bring her abductors to justice.
Contributions can be made to Madeleine's fund by post, with cheques payable to 'Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned', and should be posted to:
'Madeleine's Fund' c/o The International Family Law Group 26 Southampton Street Covent Garden WC2E 7RS
Internet donations can also be made into the following account, and will be processed free of charge:
'Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned' Sort Code 60 40 05 Account Number 32130058
If you would like to download a 'Bring Madeleine Home' poster or if you would like to add your message of support for the McCanns, click on the links below:

• Messages for the McCanns >
  
• Download:Madeleine poster >
  
  

last updated: 30/04/2008 at 17:36
created: 10/05/2007

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2007/05/10/madeleine_mccann_round_up_feature.shtml