Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

momac wrote:"There's no evidence that Madeleine is dead"... in the case of a genuine abduction would be a really stupid thing to say! 

Imagine a kidnapper who, after 12 years or whatever time span, would send a postcard to say "sorry, but Madeleine is dead, and here is the proof!"

Or even, 'if you are the abductor. please get in touch and tell us ?

Another repeat example of the truth according to the British press..

Madeleine McCann's former nanny breaks silence to describe night three-year-old went missing

• Rozina Sabur  
  

18 April 2017 • 8:08am

A child minder who had looked after Madeleine McCann has broken her silence about the night the three-year-old went missing 10 years ago.

The former nanny said the image of Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate, desperately trying to find their missing daughter still haunts her.

Speaking for the first time about the child's abduction, she recalled Mrs McCann crying and saying “they’ve taken her”.

The witness also claimed the Praia da Luz resort in which the McCanns were staying was considered so unsafe for nannies at the time that staff were handed rape alarms and warned against going out alone.


Describing the resort as radically different to other resorts owned by the Mark Warner travel firm, she added that a girl had been attacked in the area a year before Madeleine's disappearance.
 
Mark Warner, a global travel firm, quit Praia da Luz in 2015.

The nanny, who did not wish to be named but looked after Madeleine on a number of occasions, also criticised Portuguese police for their handling of the case, suggesting crucial opportunities to collect evidence were missed.

Describing the night the three-year-old was snatched, she told of how she attempted to comfort Mrs McCann, who was in a "catatonic state", while Mr McCann searched under cars in the area. 

“That’s the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can’t forget that," she told the Daily Mirror.

“We were told to start looking in bins in case her body was in there. It was at that point we realised this was serious.”

The child minder said she and other staff at the Ocean Club resorted to searching through bins into the early hours of the morning in the hope of finding Madeleine.

She said: “It’s probably very naive, but the best case scenario of a very horrible situation, is that she was procured and taken for a rich person who didn’t have children.

“I can’t go anywhere else in my head.”

The nanny also claimed it took local police 90 minutes to arrive - by which time the crime scene, the apartment from which Madeleine had vanished, had been contaminated and potentially vital evidence lost.

She added she was astonished that Madeleine's parents were ever considered suspects.

“I know I didn’t step into that apartment but pretty much everybody else did. So, evidence gone, nothing. There was nobody there to say, ‘We need to lock this off now’," she added.

The former nanny said that when she was questioned by Metropolitan Police investigating the case, she discovered her five-page statement to Portuguese police had not been passed on to them in full, with key information missed out. 

Madeleine was mostly cared for by Catriona Baker, the nanny allocated to her, but other childminders would occasionally watch the toddler. The woman said she was a favourite among the carers, and remembered her "shy, very sweet" temperament.

The abduction occurred in May 2007 when the three-year-old was sleeping in the family's apartment with her siblings, twins Amelie and Sean.

At the time, her parents were eating dinner with friends at a restaurant around 40 yards away, something the former nanny described as completely normal in the resort. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/17/madeleine-mccanns-former-nanny-breaks-silence-describe-night/
...................
Forsooth Mr Telegraph, forsooth .

Mmmmm ....

Probably the Telegraph wrote that twaddle a nanny would have
given her name for extra kudos with the McCanns

Is that a 'photo of the 'nannies'? Is nannying their second job, then?

Verdi wrote:Another repeat example of the truth according to the British press..

Madeleine McCann's former nanny breaks silence to describe night three-year-old went missing

• Rozina Sabur  
  

18 April 2017 • 8:08am

A child minder who had looked after Madeleine McCann has broken her silence about the night the three-year-old went missing 10 years ago.

The former nanny said the image of Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate, desperately trying to find their missing daughter still haunts her.

Speaking for the first time about the child's abduction, she recalled Mrs McCann crying and saying “they’ve taken her”.

The witness also claimed the Praia da Luz resort in which the McCanns were staying was considered so unsafe for nannies at the time that staff were handed rape alarms and warned against going out alone.


Describing the resort as radically different to other resorts owned by the Mark Warner travel firm, she added that a girl had been attacked in the area a year before Madeleine's disappearance.
 
Mark Warner, a global travel firm, quit Praia da Luz in 2015.

The nanny, who did not wish to be named but looked after Madeleine on a number of occasions, also criticised Portuguese police for their handling of the case, suggesting crucial opportunities to collect evidence were missed.

Describing the night the three-year-old was snatched, she told of how she attempted to comfort Mrs McCann, who was in a "catatonic state", while Mr McCann searched under cars in the area. 

“That’s the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can’t forget that," she told the Daily Mirror.

“We were told to start looking in bins in case her body was in there. It was at that point we realised this was serious.”

The child minder said she and other staff at the Ocean Club resorted to searching through bins into the early hours of the morning in the hope of finding Madeleine.

She said: “It’s probably very naive, but the best case scenario of a very horrible situation, is that she was procured and taken for a rich person who didn’t have children.

“I can’t go anywhere else in my head.”

The nanny also claimed it took local police 90 minutes to arrive - by which time the crime scene, the apartment from which Madeleine had vanished, had been contaminated and potentially vital evidence lost.

She added she was astonished that Madeleine's parents were ever considered suspects.

“I know I didn’t step into that apartment but pretty much everybody else did. So, evidence gone, nothing. There was nobody there to say, ‘We need to lock this off now’," she added.

The former nanny said that when she was questioned by Metropolitan Police investigating the case, she discovered her five-page statement to Portuguese police had not been passed on to them in full, with key information missed out. 

Madeleine was mostly cared for by Catriona Baker, the nanny allocated to her, but other childminders would occasionally watch the toddler. The woman said she was a favourite among the carers, and remembered her "shy, very sweet" temperament.

The abduction occurred in May 2007 when the three-year-old was sleeping in the family's apartment with her siblings, twins Amelie and Sean.

At the time, her parents were eating dinner with friends at a restaurant around 40 yards away, something the former nanny described as completely normal in the resort. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/17/madeleine-mccanns-former-nanny-breaks-silence-describe-night/
...................
Forsooth Mr Telegraph, forsooth .

Mmmmm ....

Where were they hiding the " rape alarms " then ?

Madeleine's mother turns to the church for comfort and strength


Kate McCann is blessed by Father Haynes Hubbard during a special service in Praia da Luz yesterday

By Richard Edwards and Fiona Govan in Praia da Luz
12:01AM BST 11 May 2007

[For those who still believe the Telegraph published Madeleine McCann's disappearance at midnight on 3rd/4th May 2007 - please note time]

For seven days she has prayed for the ordeal to end. Yesterday Kate McCann, the mother of missing Madeleine, sought solace in church again.

Her Roman Catholic faith has given her strength, but the pain she is suffering in the face of the unknown is now visible in each step she takes.

In the absence of her husband, Gerry, Mrs McCann held on to an old school friend as she entered the local church she has visited regularly since her daughter went missing. Looking pale and drawn, she slipped into the front row. She was holding Madeleine's favourite toy, from which she has been inseparable since the ordeal began.

Many of the 200-strong congregation wept as they sang hymns. Mrs McCann fought to hold in her emotions as the vicar led prayers.Father Haynes Hubbard said: "We give to you little Madeleine, and ask your protection on her, we ask your grace to be upon her."

A tall Easter candle was placed at the front of the church as a symbol of light. Father Hubbard invited the congregation to come forward and touch it as they prayed for Madeleine's safe return.

Mrs McCann was the first to come forward. She stood silently touching it, her head bowed, and offered a short prayer. She left quietly during the final hymn.

The specially arranged prayer and communion was attended by around 200 people - hotel staff, tourists and parishioners of both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

The strong ex-pat community in the Algarve has become protective of Mrs McCann, and praised her bravery. Denise Ryans, who has lived in the Algarve for 12 years, said: "I am so pleased that Madeleine's mother felt strong enough to come to the service. I can't imagine what she is feeling.

"The fact that she was able to be here meant a lot. I was sitting behind her and could feel the emotion from her.

"The service was wonderful. It was a great comfort. We hope for the best. All we can do is pray."

In Britain the mother of a boy who was held captive nearly two months before being found safe and well said yesterday that she was praying for Madeleine.

Sally Jones spent 56 days desperately waiting for news of her four-year-old son, Simon, who had been held in a hostel only two miles from her home in Hemel Hempstead, Herts. Simon's kidnapper, Peter May, was jailed for 10 years last June.

Mrs Jones said: "You just go numb after a while. I had two other boys to look after, so that helped occupy my mind.

"My message to Madeleine's parents is 'You have got to hope until there is no hope.' "


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551268/Madeleines-mother-turns-to-the-church-for-comfort-and-strength.html

Madeleine dad saves man's life, then thief strikes

David Brown

June 21 2007 12:00 AM

THE father of Madeleine McCann helped to save the life of a fellow passenger who had collapsed on his flight to London - then had his wallet stolen shortly after landing.

Gerry McCann, a consultant cardiologist, was on an early-morning flight from Faro in Portugal when the crew appealed for anyone with medical training to help a man who had become ill.

Mr McCann (39), of Rothley, Leicestershire, England, helped to stabilise the passenger before he was taken to hospital after landing in England.

Following his arrival in London, he had his wallet stolen after taking money from a cash machine near the Foreign Office in Whitehall.

Irreplaceable

The wallet also contained irreplaceable photographs of Madeleine (4) who was taken from Praia da Luz in the Algarve 48 days ago.

He was beginning a 24-hour trip to Britain.

Although Mr McCann and his wife Kate, a locum GP, have flown many times before, it is the first time that either of them has had to go to someone's aid in the air as a doctor.

Mr McCann recalled the drama in his blog on the 'Find Madeleine' website: "Helped a passenger on the flight who collapsed. He was ill enough to require a full assessment on arrival and went off to hospital in an ambulance."

He added: "Unfortunately, shortly after arriving in London I had my wallet stolen which meant I was running late."

Mr McCann said that he managed to get to all his meetings, which involved interviewing candidates for the role of campaign manager, designed to keep Madeleine's profile high.

But he said it was finally time for the attention to be turned away from him and his wife, in order to allow them to look after their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie.

Protecting

"The role for Kate and I in the campaign will not be nearly be so public," he said in his blog.

Tomorrow, however, the McCanns will go before the cameras again as they mark 50 days since Madeleine disappeared with the simultaneous release of 50 green and yellow balloons in around 50 countries.

Meanwhile, Portuguese detectives are investigating claims from a holidaymaker that a girl resembling Madeleine was seen three weeks ago in the back of a horse-drawn cart close to where she was abducted.

Andre van Wyk (66), a retired pilot, said a woman in the cart quickly covered the sleeping child's face with a shawl.

He had been so suspicious, he said, that he trailed the cart to a gypsy camp near the town of Portimao, about ten miles from where Madeleine disappeared. (The Times, London)

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/madeleine-dad-saves-mans-life-then-thief-strikes-26298846.html

McCanns hope that someone wanted a daughter


Gerry and Kate McCann with their twins in Praia Da Luz yesterday

By Richard Edwards and Fiona Govan in Praia da Luz and Sally Peck

12:01AM BST 01 Jun 2007

The parents of Madeleine McCann said they were clinging on to the hope that the four-year-old is safe and being looked after by someone who wanted a daughter of their own.

Speaking today from Madrid, where they have flown to highlight the plight of their missing daughter, Kate and Gerry McCann said they believed that she was still alive because they have no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Mr McCann said: "We also pray that the person who has her gives her up voluntarily and drops her at a church or a safe place". It is now 29 days since Madeleine was taken from her bed in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

As the McCanns prepared to launch their European search, the police investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine looked increasingly desperate last night as detectives revealed they were following tip-offs from clairvoyants.

Intensive searches and a highly scrutinised police inquiry have failed to secure a breakthrough in the search for the girl four weeks after she was abducted.

Police faced further ridicule last night as it was revealed they were trawling through hundreds of reports from British and Portuguese psychics claiming to know the whereabouts of Madeleine. One alleged vision had led them to search in Seville in Spain.

The Judicial Police, who are leading the inquiry, said they had two dossiers, 3ins thick, of apparent visions of the little girl, and are following them up on the basis that one could be from the abductor.

Police spokesman Olegario Sousa said: "We can't put these messages in the bin. We must check them all in case it might be from the kidnapper."

Mr Sousa said some descriptions were as vague as dreams about a man in a house with trees and a road. But he said that others include precise locations or co-ordinates, which they will follow up.

"Just a few days ago we got one address near Lagos but it didn't amount to anything," he said. He added that it was only one line of investigation.

In another surprising move, Portuguese police last week instructed their counterparts in Britain to raid an address in south London in the belief that Madeleine may have been inside.

Debbie Seepersad's property in south Norwood was searched but nothing was found.

She said she had never been to Portugal and had no connections to Madeleine. She said: "I really thought it was a wind-up."

Criticism has mounted against the police investigation, which local media say has "stalled".

Mark Williams-Thomas, a former detective who worked on the Sarah Payne murder inquiry and other paedophile investigations, said: "You have to say that they made serious errors. They did not do the basics. A major window of opportunity was lost."

After accusations of initial tardiness, Portuguese police have thrown all their resources into finding Madeleine. Up to 1,100 officers were working on the case at one stage.

Robert Murat remains a formal suspect and others are still being investigated. His friend Sergey Malinka has been assisting police but is not a suspect.

Mr Sousa said: "We are not sitting here with our arms crossed doing nothing."

Mr and Mrs McCann are expected to meet police chiefs again in the next few days for an update on the case.

Asked whether he was privy to any information from police which gave him extra hope, Mr McCann said: "We may have little bits of extra information. There are points we have. The investigation is as good as it is ever going to get. It has been four weeks now and it has evolved. We are hopeful.

"When Madeleine went missing it started off with us thinking in terms of minutes until we found her. Then minutes became hours, days and now weeks."

Mr McCann said although Madeleine's abduction was a parent's worst nightmare, they had found comfort from their two other children, two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, who are being looked after by relatives in Portugal while the McCanns make their trips around Europe.

Early next week the pair will continue their mission to find Madeleine with a trip to Berlin and Amsterdam.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1553321/McCanns-hope-that-someone-wanted-a-daughter.html

When the spotlight fades ....

By Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt - 31st May 2007



Can't help thinking how the McCanns are turning - being turned? - into celebrities.

Meeting the Pope, offers of help from billionaires and pop stars, and ordinary people scrambling to kiss and touch them.

It's all getting the publicity they want and need to keep Madeleine's image in newspapers and on TV, but where will it end and how will they cope with the let-down after being swamped with so much attention?

They hope it will end in the return of Madeleine. But what if it doesn't? How long can they maintain their efforts to keep the media spotlight on the search for their daughter?

Our own crew are leaving Praia da Luz, along with other TV teams, though newspaper reporters will stay a bit longer. Soon the McCanns will walk out of their apartment and no-one will be there to take their photograph or film their stroll through the resort. And they will feel so deflated.

The publicity is being generated in the hope that all who are aware of the family's plight will look for Madeleine and report any potential sighting. But it's not easy.

On my last night in Praia da Luz I sat in a restaurant and saw two English girls who looked like Madeleine. Because they were playing happily as part of a family group I thought little of it and certainly didn't inquire more or report it. Nor did anyone else in the restaurant. What if I had? How quickly would the police have responded?

I remember, a few years ago, leaving a press conference in Sussex after police had appealed for help in finding missing Sarah Payne's blue dress.

A mile down the road I spotted some blue material caught in a hedgerow. I called the police, stationed my camera crew close by and waited for what could have been a great scoop. After several hours we gave up and I still don't know if the police ever responded to my call.

The publicity and £2.5 million reward must be prompting thousand of calls like that to the Portuguese police. They've told us about only one of them - and that was after pressure from the McCann family.

Remember to call police on 0800 0961233 if you have any information about Madeleine.

If you have holiday snaps taken at the Ocean Club resort in the two weeks up to May 3rd, the day she disappeared, you should upload them to

[Acknowledgement pamalam, gerrymccannsblogs]

I can't understand how the McCanns could have meetings with the
Police to see how the"case"was progressing when the police knew
100% what happened,unless they are as thick as a whale sandwich.
But of course they have been warned to stick to the "abduction"fable
or face the consequences or they might be missing a spine.

CCTV of Madeleine McCann 'snatcher' was deleted before officers could get to it

By the time Portuguese detectives spoke to the owners of the CCTV at the hotel Estrela da Luz, the film had been wiped
By
Tom Pettifor

• 00:00, 19 OCT 2013
  
• Updated13:04, 19 OCT 2013
  

The new prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was probably caught on CCTV - but the film was wiped.
A man seen carrying a child around the time Madeleine vanished would have walked directly through a section of road that was covered by a camera.

But by the time Portuguese detectives spoke to the owners of the CCTV at the hotel Estrela da Luz, the film had been wiped.

The spot is a few hundred yards from the apartment where Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and is on the route that the suspect would have taken before being spotted by Irishman Martin Smith.

Goncalo Amaral, the controversial Portuguese detective who led the original investigation, said he is convinced the suspect was captured on the camera.

Mr Amaral said: “I believe that the person carrying a child in his arms was captured on film from that very camera.

“I asked my officers to gather all the CCTV footage in Luz but, by the time they got to this hotel, the film from this camera had been wiped over.

"It was a mistake and I will always regret it. I do feel Madeleine was let down.”

Recorded CCTV footage is only retained for a limited time period normally ranging between 48 hours and 30 days.

It is unclear how long it took Amaral’s team to get to the hotel after Madeleine went missing.


Madeleine McCann:  Chief reporter Andy Lines retraces the route of the prime suspect



The route of the potential abductor begins at apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, from where the three-year-old disappeared on May 3, 2007.

The man would have crossed a road leading to a poorly lit route alongside waste ground.

After a few steps he would have passed the CCTV camera belonging to the hotel.

Walking alongside the waste ground, the suspect would have entered a narrow street called Rua da Escola Primaria where he was spotted by Mr Smith, a retired business executive.

The man with the child continued down the hill and would have come to a crossroads. Opposite the junction was an empty villa with a large garden with a door giving access from the street.

Mr Amaral said his team spent a lot of time examining the villa for traces of Madeleine or her abductor but none was found.

He said three years ago that any new investigation should fully consider the statement of Mr Smith. Speaking in November 2010 Mr Amaral said: “I hope this is seriously examined because it is an important aspect of the case.”

Scotland Yard detectives released an image of the suspect this week as part of their new probe into the case.

A team of British officers are expected to return to Portugal next week to continue the hunt.

They are working with six Portuguese detectives as they use the data to work out who was in the village at the time Madeleine vanished.

The new Portuguese team have been working in Praia da Luz since August as they build up the most detailed picture ever created of the movements of individuals in the town around the time she vanished.

Though great emphasis has been placed on the new suspect and the 10pm sighting detectives continue to analyse phone records.

Scotland Yard officers are analysing data from phones belonging to people in the village at the time - 41 people of interest have been identified.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cctv-madeleine-mccann-snatcher-deleted-2467839
.....................

Oh look, October 2013 - it coincides with the launch of the Operation Grange illicit 're-investigation'

The intelligent #makesyerfinkdunnit tabloid strikes again.

Well here's something to think about - maybe, just maybe, there wasn't any CCTV footage to wipe.  Maybe, just maybe, there wasn't any stranger walking the streets of Luz, carrying an inert child, around 22:00h on the night of Thursday 3rd May 2007.  A simpler, more logical explanation I feel.  This stranger sighting is all too convenient for my liking, if indeed there is any substance to the alleged sighting then I feel confident in saying it wasn't Gerry McCann or any one connected thereto, carrying the body of Madeleine McCann or a substitute child, around the streets of Luz.  It's too ridiculous and convenient to contemplate - why not use a hold-all, or even a blanket?  Far less conspicuous!

Chasing shadows I think is the expression.

But then, we've been this way before.

My advice to the intelligent tabloid - forget amateur detectiving, sorry investigative journalising, and stick to what your good at .... salacious gossip mongering.

If I go out now, this minute, and pass a stranger walking in a north westerly direction - can I figure out where the stranger is going, what route the stranger will take after passing by?

The answer is short and to the point - no!  If you will indulge me by permitting a little poetic licence - that's an emphatic no!

Master of media circus for Madeleine McCann

Clarence Mitchell is not backward about coming forward for Gerry and Kate McCann.

7:22PM BST 24 Apr 2008

The first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will be marked next week with a two-hour television documentary which is the highlight of a carefully stage-managed publicity offensive.

The fly-on-the wall documentary on ITV1 of Gerry and Kate McCann has been organised by Clarence Mitchell, their official spokesman. The Portuguese press first referred to him as the "man in the shadows" when he took the job full-time in Praia da Luz in September.

The newspapers were reporting the (as usual) private views of the Portuguese police that Mitchell, 47, had been sent in by Gordon Brown, no less – when he was Chancellor – to spy on the investigation, which had been portrayed in Britain as amateur and cack-handed.

But the Portuguese media were wrong on both counts. Mitchell would have had at best only a nodding acquaintance with junior ministers, let alone Mr Brown. As director of media monitoring at the Central Office of Information, he was a back room boy but has never been in the shadows of the police operation.

The former BBC television reporter has loved being centre stage before the cameras in an investigation that has transfixed the world's media. "He is on the TV much more than he ever was when he worked for the BBC," said one former colleague.

Related Articles

• Gerry McCann: Portuguese police have given up
  24 Apr 2008
  

So much so that photographers regularly have to shout at Mitchell to get out of the way when they are taking pictures of the McCanns. He remains at his fixed point by their shoulder even during photo-shoots, bucking the trend of media minders who avoid being photographed at all costs.

Mitchell has become such a familiar figure in his open-necked pink shirts that he is recognised in the street and is stopped so often on the forecourts of petrol stations that he now jokes it is because he has forgotten to pay his bill.

After almost 30 years as a journalist, he knows what makes a story and has been extraordinarily successful in maintaining a strong interest in Madeleine.

When interest has faltered he has invariably constructed a story or recruited a big name – even the American First Lady, Laura Bush, is on-side – to a campaign driven by parents who accepted early on that the media was a necessary partner.

Nevertheless, the documentary next Wednesday has provoked controversy because ITV1 has scheduled it against the BBC's The Apprentice as part of its ratings war.

The move has led to the accusation that Mitchell has allowed the parents to be exploited by a commercial broadcaster. The fact that Mentorn, the production company making the programme, has given £10,000 to the Find Madeleine fund has not diminished the fuss: the money will be more than recouped from syndication.

ITV1, with the help of Mitchell, has kept other media organisations from the McCanns during the five weeks of the access deal with Mentorn. The company has secured unseen footage of Mrs McCann, 40, her husband, 39, and their three-year-old twins behind the door of their home in Rothley, Leics.

It includes Mrs McCann breaking down in tears as she recalls the night Madeleine went missing. But Mitchell will be undeterred by the barbs, believing the two-hour documentary the best way to ensure that the search for Madeleine goes global again. This is what he is paid to do.

He always wanted to be a journalist and after O-levels at Friern Barnet School, Finchley, where he was head boy, he joined the Barnet & Potters Bar Times and then a BBC training scheme.

In a varied career he covered the Soham murders and, for two years from 2003, the Iraq war.

He was also on the royal beat when he was known – not very imaginatively – as "Clarence House". But it was as a presenter on various BBC news programmes that he hoped to make his career after years on the road. His spell doing hourly bulletins on News 24 is best remembered for him sleeping through a 3am slot, which had to be filled by a somewhat dishevelled producer. He became close to the McCanns after being sent twice by the Foreign Office to look after them when there were 40 camera crews outside their Portuguese apartment.

As a father of three children, aged two to 11, he has gone through the same agonies as many other parents who feared it could have happened to them. His £70,000 salary, equivalent to what he earned in the Civil Service, is being paid by the double-glazing magnate Brian Kennedy, who has bankrolled much of the McCann campaign.

Surrendering his Civil Service pension will be compensated by the future benefits of his role in helping to make Madeleine's the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history. Offers are coming in for book, broadcast, and lecture circuit opportunities when he returns to "ordinary life" – and even Mohamed Fayed is rumoured to be interested in hiring him.

Mitchell divides his time between his home in Bath, London, and Rothley and speaks to the McCanns every day. They are grateful to him for raising the profile of the search across Europe and North Africa, through visits to Morocco, Italy, Spain and Germany. But the revelation that they were flying in a private jet was a bear trap that Mitchell should have spotted, and the couple flew home from a trip to Portugal on easyJet.

Mitchell was, as usual, only a few feet away from the couple when they met the Pope in St Peter's Square. He was so overcome he reached out to grasp the papal hand and was rewarded with a blessing and a set of rosary beads from one of the priests in the Pontiff's retinue.

While calm in public, he has often blown up behind the scenes at reporters and is occasionally guilty of overdoing briefings.
In the last few weeks his public approach has changed, bluntly blaming the Portugese police for leaking statements from Mr and Mrs McCann that revealed Madeleine was left crying the night before she vanished.

Mitchell moved from the shadows to being branded a "manipulative liar" by the police and the row ensured once more that the McCanns returned to front pages across Europe. It was a job well done by the man at the centre of the story in his own right.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1902515/Master-of-media-circus-for-Madeleine-McCann.html
....................

What happened to Madeleine McCann? A timeline of the events

Aug 23, 2019


Government pledges funding to keep the investigation open to 2020

Madeleine McCann: new funding keeps search alive

27 March 2018

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have been granted new funding nearly 11 years after she vanished, the Home Office has confirmed.

The search, codenamed Operation Grange, began in 2007 after the disappearance of McCann from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal. She was three years old at the time.

Funding for the search has been agreed every six months since McCann’s disappearance, with £154,000 granted from October last year until the end of March, bringing the total so far to £11m, Sky News reports.

An application for further funding issued by the Metropolitan Police to keep the investigation open has now been approved by the Government.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Government remains committed to the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

“We have briefed the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] that its application for Special Grant funding for Operation Grange will be granted.”

Investigators said in April last year that a “critical line of inquiry” was still being pursued, the BBC reports, although the number of UK officers investigating the case was cut from 29 to four in 2015.

Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, have also hired a series of private detectives to take on the search after Portuguese police closed their investigation 15 months after she went missing.

22 August 2017

Scotland Yard to request money for Madeleine McCann case

Scotland Yard will be asking for more money to continue its £11m government-funded investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal a decade ago, Sky News reports.

The funding for "Operation Grange", which re-opened in 2011 at the request of then-prime minister David Cameron, expires at the end of September.

According to Sky News, detectives want to resolve one final investigative lead. A source told the news site: "We will be asking for more money because we need to complete the work we are doing. It is complicated and not as straightforward as we had hoped, but it is worth doing."

The Home Office, which hasn't yet received a request for further funding, has spent £11m financing the investigation.
This has led some to question whether to grant more money, reports The Mirror.

However, given the "media interest and political drive" to resolve the case, the government may be reluctant to refuse a funding request, former detective Peter Kirkham told Sky News.

Madeleine McCann: The most common theories ten years on

3 May
 
Ten years after Madeleine McCann vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and police appear no closer to solving the mystery of her whereabouts.

An £11m investigation by British forces, together with a Portuguese police operation and several private investigators, has so far failed to offer any definitive evidence about what happened to the three-year-old.

However, a multitude of theories have been circulated by private detectives, former police officers and thousands of amateur online sleuths.

Here are a few of the most popular theories about what happened.

Burglary gone wrong

One leading idea is that Madeleine woke to find an intruder in the property, where she was sleeping with her younger siblings. Proponents of the theory say the would-be burglar panicked and took the toddler with him rather than risk detection or identification.

However, says Sky News, the annals of crime overwhelmingly suggest "such a spontaneous act is likely to lead to mistakes, a trail of evidence and detection" and this clearly was not the case.

Nevertheless, Scotland Yard is reportedly still pursuing a botched burglary as a line of inquiry, although Portuguese police have dismissed it.

Human trafficking
Private detectives in 2007 claimed they had uncovered evidence that human trafficking "spotters" could have been operating in Praia da Luz at the time of the abduction.

Their theory is that Madeleine may have been "hidden and handed over to a child trafficker two days after she went missing and taken to Morocco", the Daily Mirror reports. From there, she could have been smuggled to Mauritania, a hub for the trade in trafficked children.

Many people believe abduction by a skilled human trafficking gang is the "most logical explanation" for how Madeleine was able to vanish without a trace, says Sky News.

Abduction by a paedophile

It has been suggested that Madeleine was targeted by a paedophile, a theory bolstered by the news that a ten-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in Praia da Luz two years before the toddler vanished, as well as reports of other children being assaulted by intruders in holiday homes elsewhere in the Algarve.

However, exhaustive investigation of known paedophiles and sex offenders in the area - including a convicted British child molester living on a nearby campsite - uncovered no evidence connecting anyone to Madeleine's disappearance.

Madeleine McCann: 'Critical lead could provide an answer'

26 April

Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann say they have a critical lead left to pursue which "could provide an answer", a senior Scotland Yard official has said.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said: "I know we have a significant line of inquiry which is worth pursuing and because it's worth pursuing it could provide an answer," he said. "But until we've gone through it, I won't know whether we are going to get there or not."

While Rowley said going into detail on specific theories or suspects could "spoil" the operation, the BBC reports, []http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39706194] he made it clear there was no "definitive evidence" indicating what happened on the night of 3 May 2007 or whether Madeleine was still alive.

"However she left that apartment, she's been abducted," he said. "We've got some thoughts on what we think the most likely explanations might be and we are pursuing those."

He also defended the Home Office's decision to award more funding to extend the investigation for another six months.
The British police investigation has so far cost more than £11m, although the operation has been scaled down from its peak of 30 full-time detectives to just four.

Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal as her parents Kate and Gerry McCann ate with friends in a nearby restaurant.

Next month marks the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, something the McCanns said was "a horrible marker of time, stolen time", Sky News reports.

Writing on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign page on Facebook, Kate McCann said: "When Madeleine first disappeared I couldn't even begin to consider anything in terms of years. And now here we are, Madeleine, our Madeleine - ten years.

"It's likely to be stressful and painful and more so given 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."

Madeleine McCann 'sold to rich family', says former policeman

24 April


Madeleine McCann may have been kidnapped by slave traders and sold to a rich family in North Africa or the Middle East, a former Scotland Yard detective has suggested.


Almost ten years ago this week, Madeleine McCann, from Leicestershire, went missing from a holiday apartment complex in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal, while her parents Kate and Gerry dined in a nearby restaurant.


Though few leads have ever come to fruition, it has now been hypothesised that the three-year-old could have been smuggled by ferry to North Africa for sale to a wealthy family.


Mauritania in north-west Africa is home to numerous gangs that have been known to sell youngsters as slaves to rich families in the Middle East, reports the Daily Record.

Former Metropolitan Police detective Colin Sutton told the Daily Mirror: "The Mauritania line is certainly a possibility and needs to be looked at.

"If someone wanted to get a three-year-old child into Africa it’s the obvious route. The infrastructure and contacts for people smuggling are clearly there."


Sutton's theory comes after it was revealed a girl described as "identical" to McCann was spotted "on a key trafficking route in Morocco shortly after she vanished", writes The London Evening Standard.

According to reports, the girl "looked sad" and asked the man she was with: "Can we see mummy soon?"


It is not known if police investigating McCann's disappearance are looking into the possibility of her being trafficked to Mauritania.


However, private detectives hired by Kate and Gerry McCann say there are "strong reasons" to believe she was originally taken to Morocco, which is in close proximity to Mauritania.


https://www.theweek.co.uk/madeleine-mccann/53972/what-happened-to-madeleine-mccann-timeline-of-events/page/0/2

Sutton's initial theory suggested something happened in the apartment.He then decided on a question and answer shows around 
the country with the armchair detective,when that failed his theory
changed to abduction to North Africa.Was he warned off I wonder.

Blackpied wrote:Sutton's initial theory suggested something happened in the apartment.He then decided on a question and answer shows around 
the country with the armchair detective,when that failed his theory
changed to abduction to North Africa.Was he warned off I wonder.

Nah, a sofa queen I reckon.

He doesn't have to publicly speak about the case, he was never officially involved, yet he never misses an opportunity for an interview.

The Alan 'armchair detective' Vinnicombe Roadshow is a disgrace.  How dare they, or anyone else for that matter, capitalize on the name of a missing three year old child.

'Proof' McCanns did not sedate Madeleine


Kate McCann is kept awake by thoughts of Madeleine returning home, according to her mother 

By Caroline Gammell
2:48PM BST 19 Oct 2007

Lawyers for Kate and Gerry McCann have gathered scientific evidence proving that the couple did not sedate their children as they fight to clear their names over the disappearance of their eldest daughter.

• Full coverage: The search for Madeleine McCann
  
• Madeleine's mother 'in hysterics every day'
  
• Brown to talk to premier about Madeleine hunt
  
  

It has been repeatedly alleged in Portugal that the couple, who are formal suspects or arguidos in the case, gave the four-year-old an accidental overdose of drugs and then panicked and hid her body.

The couple, both 39, has always dismissed these claims as “utterly ludicrous” and insisted they never gave any of their three children - including two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie - any such medication.

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Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “Kate and Gerry have never used sedatives on their children and any suggestion to the contrary is both offensive and defamatory.

“The lawyers working on their behalf are constantly assessing all the aspects of the case and will take action as they deem appropriate.”

It is understood the couple’s legal team hired forensic specialists to examine hair samples from the twins, who were in the same room as Madeleine in the Ocean Club apartment in Praia da Luz when she disappeared an May 3, and no trace of sedative was found.

A source close to the legal team said: “It would be logical for tests to be carried out on the twins to show that they have never been given sedatives.

“It would be right to say those tests show no evidence of sedatives in their systems. It backs up Kate and Gerry’s claims that they have never sedated the children and explains why they are so certain they can prove that the allegation is just another smear.”

Life is slowly returning to normal for the McCanns, with the twins back at nursery and the media attention dying down.
Mrs McCann does not intend to return to work but Mr McCann is expected to go back to his cardiology position at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester before Christmas.

A friend of the couple said Mr McCann would have probably already returned to work had the couple not been made arguidos on September 7.

They will remain suspects for eight months, unless Portuguese police request a three month extension and if no charges have been brought, they can apply for the status to be dropped.

As the couple fight to clear their name, prime minister Gordon Brown spoke to his Portuguese counterpart Jose Socrates about Madeleine during an EU summit in Lisbon.

Mr Brown has followed the case closely and was in direct contact with Mr McCann via mobile phone when he was still Chancellor.

Mr Brown’s official spokesman said: “They both agreed what matters was there should be the closest possible co-operation between the Portuguese and British police.”

The Portuguese authorities came under fire last night in a documentary in which a team of UK criminal investigators claimed local police missed opportunities to find forensic evidence in the hours after Madeleine disappeared.

Professor Dave Barclay, a forensic analyst, told a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary the evidence might have cleared her parents of involvement on day one.

He said police should have been “more aggressive” in protecting the family’s holiday apartment from being contaminated. “It’s clear that the forensic examination on the first day wasn’t what we would have expected,” he said.

“There were opportunities missed. And one of those opportunities did a great disservice to the McCanns.”

Chris Stevens, a former detective superintendent, said after an examination of the scene that a potential abductor could have been in and out of the apartment in “less than a minute”.

The team also identified another potential hole in the investigation.

The large industrial bins around the Ocean Club complex provided a possible hiding place for a body.

They were emptied as normal between midnight and 4am on the night Madeleine disappeared despite the search still going on, the programme said.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1566664/Proof-McCanns-did-not-sedate-Madeleine.html

British grandmother buys apartment Madeleine McCann vanished from in Praia da Luz for half the asking price


An external view of The Ocean Club' appartments in Praia da Luz in Portugal where Madeleine McCann went missing Credit: Jane Mingay

   Rozina Sabur

24 February 2017 • 2:01am

A British grandmother has bought the apartment in Portugal where Madeleine McCann vanished for half the asking price.

Kathleen Macguire-Cotton, who is in her sixties, is believed to have bought the apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve for just £113,000.

Identical properties in the Ocean Complex have been on sale for £255,000. [how much   ?]

Mrs Macguire-Cotton revealed she is often offered money by passersby to see inside the flat, but has always declined requests out of respect.


Gerry McCann who has returned to Praia da Luz in 2009, to advise private detectives filming a reconstruction of her disappearance Credit: PA

The apartment's former British owner, Ruth McCann [no relation - apparently], had spent years trying to sell the two-bedroom flat unsuccessfully.

Some tour guides are known to run trips related to the toddler's disappearance around Praia da Luz, taking in the flat and the restaurant her parents were eating at on the fateful night when the three-year=old went missing.

She told The Sun: “I’ve been offered money by the whole world but I’m not interested.

“I don’t think that’s very fair to the McCann family or the people of Praia da Luz, upsetting everybody – it’s terrible.

“It happened a long time ago and I don’t have any opinions on it.”

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing from the Portuguese resort in May 2007 while her parents Jerry and Kate went for a meal nearby with friends.

Police believe the toddler - who would now be 13 - was kidnapped after a bungled break-in.

The widow, from Southport, Merseyside said she stays in the property herself after buying it a number of years ago.

The grandmother told friends she plans to spend most of the year in the resort as part of her retirement plans.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/24/british-grandmother-buys-apartment-madeleine-mccann-vanished/

[Acknowledgement:  pamalam of gerrymccannsblogs]
...................

Again these people need a gentle reminder - the official police force in charge of the investigation, the PJ (not the UK) concluded very early on, there was no evidence of a break-in and/or stranger abduction.

Madeleine McCann complained to mother Kate about being left crying alone


Watch: Kate and Gerry's anger at leaked interview 


By Caroline Gammell in Brussels
7:40PM BST 10 Apr 2008

Madeleine McCann complained to her mother after she was left crying and alone on the night before she disappeared, leaked police documents have disclosed.

• Daniel Hannan: The McCanns come to Brussels
  
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• In full: The Madeleine McCann investigation
  

The little girl, then aged three, spoke to Kate McCann at breakfast the following morning and said: "Mummy, why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?"

The question prompted Mrs McCann and her husband Gerry to discuss keeping a closer on eye on their children. However, just a few hours after that conversation, Madeleine vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve.

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Friends said they now believe Madeleine’s comment could even be a clue that an intruder was in the flat on the night before her disappearance and that they briefly disturbed her before fleeing.

The detailed revelations about Kate and her husband Gerry McCann’s last day with Madeleine emerged during the couple’s trip to Brussels on Thursday where they called for the establishment of a missing child alert system.

However, Mr and Mrs McCann were furious that their witness statements – the subject of Portuguese secrecy laws – were released on the same day that they tried to promote child welfare and safety.

Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said they were angry and disappointed at the leaks, saying: "The only reason this has come out is because of Kate and Gerry’s utter honesty in their original statements.

"It is very curious that this is being released now, having been sitting in the police files for 11 months. The timing of this is frankly suspicious."

Mr Mitchell demanded an internal police inquiry in Portugal into how the leak occurred: "We would be very interested to know what the Portuguese justice minister would say about how this has emerged from the police files on the day that it has, in the way that it has.

"Kate and Gerry have been nothing but honest and open and they have been the victims of leaks and smears."

A friend of the couple went further, describing the leak as a "blatantly cynical attempt to smear them".

"The minute that you talk about Madeleine crying is the minutes that the vultures will move in and this is why this has been leaked."

He said the McCanns were conducting half hourly checks on Madeleine, so they were surprised to learn that she had been crying.

"It wasn’t really a complaint or a scolding from Madeleine, it was a comment in the morning."

Mr and Mrs McCann, who are suspects in their daughter’s disappearance but have not been accused of any wrong-doing, have never discussed the events of the day of her disappearance - May 3 last year - because of secrecy laws.

But in extracts read out on Spanish broadcaster Telecinco’s late morning programme El Programa de Ana Rosa, it emerged that Mrs McCann had told police about a conversation she had with Madeleine on the morning she disappeared.

The little girl, then aged three, spoke to her mother because she had left her and twins Sean and Amelie alone in the night.

Mrs McCann’s statement said: "While we were having breakfast, Madeleine said: 'Mummy, why didn’t you come when we were crying last night?’.

"Gerry and I spoke for a couple of minutes and agreed to keep a closer watch over the children."

After Madeleine’s disappearance, Mr and Mrs McCann were criticised for leaving their children while their dined at a tapas restaurant nearby and have spoken of their guilt for leaving them alone.

In his witness statement, Mr McCann told police that workmen had gone into their holiday apartment two days before Madeleine vanished to fix a broken window shutter in the main bedroom.

• Madeleine McCann police due to arrive in UK
  

He told police he had checked on Madeleine and the twins at around 9pm on May 3. "She was breathing softly and I thought how beautiful she looked. I thought it was quite hot and I didn’t need to cover her up."

He went on: "Kate came running to the bar and said Madeleine’s not there, someone has taken her."

"I thought it couldn’t be and ran towards the apartment along the same route as always. I looked everywhere.

"I returned to the children room I tried to think what could have happened. To my surprise I realised I could lift up the window shutters without effort and almost without making noise."

The disclosures came as the McCanns announced they would not go back to Portugal to mark the anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Because they do not believe they will be cleared of their arguido status before May 3, they said they will not return to Praia da Luz for the anniversary.


Portuguese detectives want the McCanns to go to the Algarve for a reconstruction but the couple’s lawyers are concerned about being summoned back to Portugal.

The McCanns are reluctant to go until the "cloud of suspicion" surrounding them is lifted.

Mr McCann, 39, said: "We do not know how long we are going to be arguidos.

"The reconstruction is still under discussion. We are not quite sure what form it is going to take, whether it will be a Crimewatch style programme with actors.

"We support anything that would jog people’s memories, but we will certainly not go back on May 3."

Mr and Mrs McCann went to Belgium to garner support for the missing child alert system.

Addressing MEPs at the European Parliament, Mrs McCann, 40, said she believed such a system might have helped find their daughter.

"I believe the chances of recovering Madeleine would have been higher, it would have improved our chances.

"I am unable to convey to you just how totally devastating Madeleine’s abduction was, it has been totally awful."

Mrs McCann held a photograph of Madeleine as she made her address to the European parliament and kept her daughter’s favourite toy Cuddle Cat in her handbag

"If anyone wanted to inflict the maximum pain on us, they certainly achieved that," she said. "But that pales into insignificance when you think of what Madeleine has been through – the fear, absolute fear that she has had to endure.

"We implore you to support our declaration. Please do not wait for another child and family to suffer as we have."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/1584584/Madeleine-McCann-complained-to-mother-Kate-about-being-left-crying-alone.html

Anguished parents struggle in sea of despair

May 15, 2007 — 10.00am

HOLLOW-CHEEKED and red-eyed, Kate McCann grips her husband's hand tightly as she faces the television cameras. In her other hand she holds Cuddle Cat, her missing daughter Madeleine's favourite toy. "We are remaining positive. We still believe Madeleine will return to us," she says, her fingernails digging ever deeper into the pink, furry cat.

Her face tells a different story. Mrs McCann, a 38-year-old GP, is a woman tormented: a mother whose anguish knows no depths.

It has been 12 days since four-year-old Madeleine was snatched while she slept, tucked between her twin siblings, at her parents' holiday apartment in Portugal.

A lacklustre police investigation has seemingly made little progress in finding her, making the plight of her parents, forced to live out their anguish in public, all the worse.

Since her daughter's kidnap on the night of May 3, Mrs McCann has grown ever more gaunt, her frail frame stooped from her burden of grief. She appears on the verge of collapse.

Throughout the vigil that she and her husband, Gerry, a cardiologist, have endured, she has carried Cuddle Cat constantly. Pinning it to her handbag, twisting it through trembling fingers.

"Kate will be able to smell Madeleine on it," says Susan Healy, her mother. "That is why she cannot put it down."

Tragically for Mrs McCann, there is little else from which she can draw solace. Or hope.

Two streets away, behind the gleaming whitewashed apartment in Praia da Luz, where the McCanns were on a week-long holiday with Madeleine and their two-year-old twins, Amelie and Sean, two silver vans sit parked. Inside, locked in separate steel cages, four Alsatian sniffer dogs growl and bark in the midday heat. There is no sign of their green-uniformed handlers, officers from Portugal's Algarve Search and Rescue Dog team. They are down on the seafront, shopping for T-shirts.

Were it not for their uniforms they, too, might be on vacation. Instead, they are part of a 180-strong police search for the McCanns' daughter. But their shambolic, haphazard modus operandi symbolises the inept and bumbling investigation that represents the Portuguese authorities' efforts to find the toddler.

The police are wildly out of their depth, claiming that the rigidity of Portuguese law prevents them from disclosing any information. Olegario Sousa, their chief inspector, speaks English, but he rarely ventures more than one well-rehearsed speech. To every question he responds: "That is an aspect of the investigation we cannot talk about. It is the law, you know."

The police refuse to confirm reports of suspects, but neither will they deny them. Thus, this emotional and highly charged search for a missing child has become punctuated with endless red herrings and speculation.

Their ineptitude is, perhaps, inevitable: Praia da Luz is not a place one would expect a child kidnap. The village may be in Portugal, six kilometres from Lagos on the Algarve's south-western coast, but it could just as easily be south-east England in the 1950s.

The retired English middle classes have migrated here to re-create an image of a Britain that no longer exists, with its narrow cobbled streets, jammed with whitewashed apartments and quaint tea shops and boutiques. One rarely sees the Portuguese, especially not young people.

The gentle pace and child-friendly reputation of Praia da Luz convinced the McCanns that it was the ideal spot for a holiday.

It was five days into their break, at 10pm on May 3, that the nightmare began and this ordinary family was pitched into a maelstrom. From happy poolside holidaymakers, they have become the central characters in a bewildering, heartbreaking story of danger and despair.

Much has been made of the fact that the McCanns were only metres from their children and could see their apartment from the dinner table of the resort's tapas restaurant. But that is just not so. The McCanns' flat was outside the complex and, crucially, outside its security doors. Only the top of their accommodation could be glimpsed from the restaurant.

To check on the children, they had to leave the complex by the security doors, turn left up a main road, climb the back stairs of their end-of-row flat, go in through the rear french windows, which they had left unlocked, and walk to the front of the apartment where their children slept. That room overlooks a car park and another main road.

Their decision to leave the children alone, one that has astonished the Portuguese community, has been criticised. It is one, too, that Madeleine's devastated parents will be regretting with all their hearts. For Kate McCann's family, many of whom flew out to Portugal after the abduction, that criticism has been hard to bear.

"I have sat at that table, I know how diligent Kate and Gerry were about checking the children," Mrs Healy said. "They knew immediately that Madeleine had been taken, that she hadn't just wandered off. But it was difficult to get that across to the Portuguese police initially."

The McCanns raised the alarm when they found their daughter missing, but, while police responded quickly, they were not convinced she had been kidnapped. They neglected to protect the crime scene, allowing access to cleaners and failing to fingerprint the McCanns, so that their prints could be eliminated, until the following Monday.

As the family waited fearfully for news, they faced the agonising reality of trying to explain to their toddler twins why their big sister was no longer there.

"That was terrible for them," says John McCann, Mr McCann's elder brother, who has also travelled to Portugal to help search for his niece.

"Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain? All we know is that Madeleine needs her family. She loves us, we love her. It is time for her to come home."

That hope is becoming ever harder to sustain.

While the Portuguese police tried, initially, to play down the sickening prospect that an organised pedophile ring may have taken her, or that she has become another victim of the child-trafficking trade - stolen to order for a childless couple - with every passing day, those fears become more real.

Telegraph, London

EU marking Missing Children's Day

John McCann said the family would not stop until Madeleine was found



Parents of children who have disappeared, including those of Madeleine McCann, 4, are marking the EU's Missing Children's Day.

John McCann, Madeleine's uncle, on a visit to UK charity Missing People, urged families in a similar position to remain hopeful.

The key was to realise that there was a channel of support, said Mr McCann.

The charity said that since Madeleine's abduction on 3 May there had been 1,200 reports of missing young people.

Yellow ribbons

The aim of the day, instigated by the European Union, is to support parents like the McCanns.

In the UK, Missing People, previously known as the National Missing Persons Helpline, chose the day to relaunch under its new name and logo.

It also announced what it said was the first UK direct mailing appeal to help find missing children.

And the charity launched an official yellow Missing People ribbon to symbolise support for all missing people.

People have been urged to wear yellow ribbons to mark their support for the McCanns since Madeleine was snatched from their holiday apartment in Praia Da Luz.


Madeleine's picture was projected on to Marble Arch in central London

John McCann visited the charity's offices in London to highlight its work and to offer support to other families whose children had disappeared.

He said: "I'm sure that you all can relate to the horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach and the complete turmoil that hits us.

"The initial waves of sickness and mental upset was completely overwhelming. None of us was able to think clearly."

He added: "For all families that are coping with a disappearance, your pain will be like ours and some of them will have carried it for longer than we have.

"What I want to do is show that you can remain hopeful. The key part is realising that there is a channel of support and that is where the charity Missing People comes in."

Mr McCann said the family was in it for the long haul and would not stop until Madeleine was found.

Direct mail campaign for missing Carmel
Missing People is appealing for help finding Carmel Fenech, 16

Forget-Me-Not flowers



He joined Paul Tuohy, chief executive of Missing People, as he re-launched the charity.

"We are re-launching at a peculiarly ironic time - when the level of interest in missing people has perhaps never been higher, when 'missing' as a social issue is on the lips of politicians, radio and TV presenters, newspaper editors, and men, women and young people the length and breadth of the country."

Mr Tuohy also announced a direct mailing appeal for a missing child, which will be delivered to half a million homes on Friday.

It carries an appeal for a girl named Carmel Fenech who was 16 when she disappeared from Crawley, West Sussex, on May 23, 1998.

According to Home Office estimates, 210,000 people are reported missing each year in the UK, around two-thirds of whom are under the age of 18.

The EU Justice Commissioner marked the day with a plea not to forget the McCanns' plight.

Franco Frattini said: "The public support shown throughout Europe to the parents of Madeleine McCann has illustrated European citizens' solidarity with the families of missing children and the importance they attach to ensuring a safe and secure environment for our children."

All EU staff in Brussels were urged to wear forget-me-not (myosotis) flowers in support of the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children, the organisers of the event.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6691503.stm

210,000 missing every year.
Carmel Fenech went missing in 1998
So in the intervening years over 4.2 million people have just Vanished - into thin air.

The entire population of Birmingham PLUS Manchester - GONE
How can there be a housing crisis ?

Why don't these people EVER tell the truth.
[Oh, sorry. They are Charities and rely on government money]

Nobody would believe that figure, surely.

Imagine you are out shopping or in the park, you're distracted for a moment, you look back and your child has disappeared - you panic. After a short while, which seems like days your child is still missing, what do you do - you call the police.

Imagine you go home and her/him indoors isn't there.  No text message, no hand written note - no body!  After a number of hours her/him still isn't where he/she should be - indoors.  What do you do - you call the police.

Within hours the missing person returns.

Common daily occurrences across the nation, all recorded by the police and therefore feature in the nationwide missing people statistics.

The victim knee-jerk reaction is unlikely to be .... oh little Joe has disappeared, let's call a missing persons charity.

There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics - Benjamin Disraeli

Madeleine McCann: Why Kate McCann questioned if Maddie had been drugged by kidnapper

MADELEINE MCCANN’S mother Kate believes there was a “noticeable moment” on the day her daughter went missing that could prove she had been drugged by her kidnapper.

By Callum Hoare
PUBLISHED: 18:30, Tue, May 14, 2019

Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family apartment inside the Ocean Beach resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, discovered she had vanished at roughly 9:30pm – during a routine check on their children while they ate dinner nearby. What followed was arguably one of the most heavily-documented missing-person case in history, with investigators still no closer to knowing what happened 12 years on.

However, her parents have always supported the idea that Madeleine was snatched by a local criminal.

This idea was popularised after it was claimed several other apartments in the holiday complex had been robbed in the weeks leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance.

Kate explained during her 2011 book why this idea passed her mind.

She wrote in 2011: “Had Madeleine been specifically targeted, either for herself or because someone knew that Apartment 5A would be a breeze to raid?


[It fell so safe... Kate McCann]
[No different from dining in the back garden, really ... Gerry McCann]

“Not only did its corner position allow for easy access and escape, but, unlike many other residences, it had no protective wrought-iron bars at the windows and no security light.”

During the same chapter, Kate went on to identify a moment on the afternoon of her daughter’s disappearance that stands out and could prove this theory.

She adds: “Could Madeleine’s tiredness on that last Thursday afternoon have been caused by some kind of tranquilliser administered earlier in the day, or even the night before?

“It had been noticeable, but then we’d been approaching the end of our break and the children had been extremely active all week.


[Industrial scale child abuse]

“It might have been, as we thought at the time, the holiday catching up with her.

“Inevitable, though, since we cannot yet know for sure, a little nugget of doubt remains.”

In March, controversial Netflix series “The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann” was released in a bid to learn more about the 12-year case.

However, Kate and Gerry do not see how it will help bring their daughter home.

A statement on behalf of the couple argues that the show could actually hinder police investigations.

It reads: "We did not see – and still do not see – how this programme will help the search for Madeleine and, particularly given there is an active police investigation, it could potentially hinder it.

"Consequently, our views and preferences are not reflected in the programme.

"We will not be making any further statements or giving interviews regarding this programme."

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1126944/madeleine-mccann-netflix-documentary-tranquiliser-drug-kate-kidnapper-spt
....................

There is a reason for everything said by team McCann, starting 3rd May 2007 and continuing to this very day.

It was repeatedly reported they played no part in the production of the Netflix film.  This statement alone indicates, at least to me, that they were very much involved in the production - just look at the cast!  Even John McCann played a bit part ?

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2491p225-prosecution-exhibit-1-madeleine-what-s-in-the-book#407759

I've said that previously Verdi they were running the show along 
with Clarrie no doubt about it,well said Verdi.

So sick am I of being referred back to the Netflix show, at last I've ventured within to see what all the fuss is about.

I didn't get past the first twenty minutes - so mind numbingly boring was it.  It's slow and so far from the truth - nauseating.

During those first minutes, Summers and Swann feature prominently - what do they know other than what they've been told by team McCann.  They are a couple of authors slash journalists - or so they claim, their contribution is worthless.

Then we have Ocean Club guest Jayne Jensen, with nonsense tales of Kate McCann howling into the night with a sound never heard before other than when her own mother died.  She doesn't specify who was doing the howling on that specific occasion.

Along comes Ocean Club holidaymaker Neil Berry (bar buddies I understand) with ripping yarns about the relationship formed between his daughter of four and half years and Madeleine - as thick as thieves he said, following the heroic act of Madeleine jumping in the sea to save her bosom buddies sunhat.

Moving on .... discovery of the open bedroom shutter and window and billowing curtain - yes, after all these years it's still being plugged .

Along with a few atmospheric shots of the Ocean Club to give a haunting sense of occasion and a dramatic narration - I think that's about it so far.

I will continue in bite size pieces as and when I have the stomach so to do.

The Flash! interview

Kate McCann: My struggle to control 'very difficult' Madeleine Daily Mail 17th September 2007

Kate McCann has revealed that she struggled to control Madeleine McCann after the birth of her and Gerry's twins, it was revealed today.

Missing Madeleine would run around 'screaming...shouting for my attention', the mother-of-three said.

In an interview given to a Portuguese magazine before she was named as a suspect in the case of the four-year-old's disappearance, Kate also said the first six months of Madeleine's life were "very difficult" and that the girl had suffered from colic.

The revelations come as police said they were trawling through Kate's medical records amid suspicions in Portugal that she may have had a history of depression.

The detailed analysis of her medical notes could provide them with significant evidence against the GP, who is a suspect in the case of Madeleine's disappearance.

Speaking about Madeleine's upbringing, Kate, a 39-year-old GP, told Portugal's Flash! magazine: "She cried practically for 18 hours a day. I had to permanently carry her around."

This period explained "the strong bond between mother and daughter", she said.

Although the arrival of the twins Sean and Amelie shook up Madeleine's life, she accepted them very well, said Kate.

"She managed to deal perfectly with this new reality, although she herself at the time was still a baby.

"The worst thing is that she started to demand lots of attention, especially when I was breast-feeding them.

"She would run up and down screaming in the background, shouting for my attention."

Mrs McCann also insisted that she and her husband were "truly responsible parents" and had committed no crime.

Speaking of the night Madeleine disappeared, she said: "I was sure immediately that she didn't walk out of that room. I never doubted that she had been taken by someone.

"I went through a phase of guilt for not knowing what happened to her. I blamed myself for thinking that the place was safe.

"But the certainty that we are truly responsible parents has helped me carry on.

"I know that what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances."

Asked about whether she and her husband were responsible for their daughter's disappearance, she said: "It cannot be considered a crime. Someone committed one, but not us."

Portuguese newspapers continued to report today that Mrs McCann will be re-interviewed in the UK this week by British police on behalf of the Algarve authorities.

But a spokeswoman for the McCanns said the couple had to date received no request for new interrogation.

The judge in the case, Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, rejected prosecutors' request to have the McCanns brought back to Portugal for further questioning, the Correio da Manha said.

He insisted that the fresh interviews should be carried out by British police in the UK, according to the paper.

The re-interviewing will only take place when further DNA testing in Birmingham is completed, either tomorrow or Wednesday.

A letter of appeal will be sent to Britain, setting out all the questions Portuguese detectives want to ask the couple, along with the evidence supporting their hypothesis, the Correio da Manha reported.

A source told the paper there was only a "very low" probability that Portuguese officers would be allowed to sit in on the interviews.

A McCann family spokeswoman said today: "We have been in touch with the lawyers to try and get a steer on what is in the Portuguese papers.

"They assure us we have had no request to date for any further questioning, either from the Portuguese police or in the UK."

She could not say whether the McCanns' legal team was expecting the couple to be re-interviewed.

Since Kate and Gerry McCann were named as official suspects last week, there have been suggestions in Portugal that Madeleine was given drugs on the night of her disappearance.

The accusations have been strenuously denied by the couple but have not been ruled out by police. Although the order to seize medical files came from the Portuguese authorities, the background searches are being carried out by Leicestershire police.

A copy of Mrs McCann's diary has also been seized by police, who are now waiting for permission from the judge to seize and dismantle the McCanns' hire car so they can search for "traces of skin".

It has been reported that DNA evidence with a match to Madeleine was found in the Renault Scenic 25 days after their daughter vanished.

Yesterday it emerged the McCanns are trying to knock down potential evidence retrieved after two British sniffer dogs, capable of detecting blood and human remains, were used in the investigation in August.

One of the dogs picked up a "scent of deathî on items ranging from Mrs McCann's clothes to Madeleine's favourite soft toy Cuddle Cat.

Leaked reports from the investigation have suggested that Madeleine's parents could have accidentally killed her and then disposed of her body using the car. Although they do not know the full details of the Portuguese prosecutors' case against them, the McCanns are concerned that it may rest on the dog's reaction.

The couple's legal team has now consulted the lawyers of an American man accused of murdering his estranged wife in a case where "cadaver dog" evidence was central. They want to highlight the judge's dismissal of such evidence in the high-profile Eugene Zapata murder trial in Madison, Wisconsin.

Mr Zapata's estranged wife, flight instructor Jeanette Zapata, was 37 when she vanished in October 1976 after seeing her three children off to school.

Her body has never been found. Detectives suspected Mr Zapata of involvement in her disappearance but did not charge him because of a lack of evidence.

Police decided to conduct new searches using cadaver dogs and Mr Zapata, 68, was charged with firstdegree murder last year after the dogs indicated that they had scented human remains in an underfloor crawl space at the former family home and other properties linked to him.

But the judge ruled that the dogs' ability to detect remains was too unreliable, noting that no remains had actually been found.

[Acknowledgement pamalam of gerrymccannsblogs]

This Telegraph report is a rather revealing bag of pick and mix - or should that be liquorice allsorts..

Madeleine McCann's parents face UK interview


Gerry and Kate McCann will lay out their defence to the Prime Minister

By Caroline Gammell in Praia da Luz

1:30PM BST 17 Sep 2007

Kate and Gerry McCann face being interviewed by British detectives this week after a Portuguese judge rejected a bid to ask them to return to the Algarve, it has emerged.

   McCanns look to US sniffer dog case
   New allegations against McCanns
   In full: The Madeleine McCann case

The development came as Mr McCann prepared to make a direct approach to Prime Minister Gordon Brown to protest the couple’s innocence after they were made formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Mr McCann will lay out the police case against them and go into detail about how they could not have killed the four-year-old.

Much of the alleged evidence against them rests on the "smell of death" – said to be the girl’s corpse – allegedly found by sniffer dogs on Mrs McCann’s clothes, the family’s apartment and a car hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.

The couple, from Rothley in Leicestershire, were named arguidos, or formal suspects, 10 days ago and flew back to the UK last weekend.

Although they pledged to return to Portugal if needed, investigating Judge Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias has ruled that such a move would not be necessary, according to Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha.

Turning down a request from Portuguese police, he decided the couple could stay in the UK and a list of questions should be sent to the British authorities.

Mr and Mrs McCann, 39, used their right as arguidos to remain silent when asked more than 40 questions about their daughter’s disappearance on May 3.

The couple’s spokesman said they had not been notified of any request for further interview. But the couple know they remain at the centre of the Portuguese police investigation.

Meanwhile, in a new interview, Mrs McCann revealed how the first six months of Madeleine’s life were "very difficult" as she struggled to cope with her bouts of the child’s colic.

She said in an interview with Portguese magazine Flash that although Madeleine accepted the arrival of twins Sean and Amelie, she grew fiercely jealous of the attention they received.

Detectives are understood to be keen to re-interview some of the McCanns’ friends who were with them on the night Madeleine went missing.

The McCanns insist they are innocent and are determined to do all they can to prove this - including going to the top of the political food chain.

Mr McCann wants to re-establish contact with Mr Brown, who he spoke to by mobile phone when Madeleine first disappeared.

Parallels were drawn between the two Scottish men, who have both lost daughters - in Mr Brown’s case through illness after she was born prematurely, and the then Chancellor pledged to "do all he could to help".

A source close to the McCanns said: "Gerry is anxious that their view of how strongly they feel their defence is - should it come to that – should be conveyed to the highest level.

"Lines of communication from Gerry and Kate’s side will go out to No 10 and Downing Street is being kept informed of all developments in the case.

"But this is not an adversarial process. It does not and should not damage relations with the Portuguese."

Mr McCann will not meet Mr Brown face to face but it expected to lay out his defence via email or over the phone.

He has also been in close contact with Foreign Secretary David Milliband and spoken to him twice on the phone.

A family friend said: "The McCanns are wholly innocent and know that they can explain every point that the police may wish to put to them.

"There are wholly innocent explanations to things the police may have found and they are confident they can defend themselves."

The McCann’s case has been buoyed by eminent forensic expert Allan Jamieson, who said scientists would not be able to tell if Madeleine had been drugged just from samples of hair and dried blood supposedly found in the hire car.

Speculation reached fever pitch after bodily fluids allegedly belonging to the four-year-old were found in the boot of the family’s hired Renault Scenic.

A report in a French newspaper claimed Madeleine had died from an overdose of sleeping tablets, with toxicology results showing she had consumed a "significant" number of pills.

But Mr Jamieson, director of the Forensic Institute in Edinburgh, said it would not be possible to detect a one-off dose of sedative in a hair sample because it would not have been in the body long enough.

He told ITV1’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald it would be impossible to tell the concentration of a drug from dried blood spots found in the car.

In the revealing new interview with Flash, Kate McCann told how the first six months of Madeleine's life were "very difficult" as she struggled to cope with her baby’s demands.

In order to soothe her daughter’s acute colic, the part-time GP was forced to carry the child in her arms for hours on end, sparking a "strong bond" between them.

"The only thing I’ve ever be certain of in life is I’ve wanted to be a mum."

"The first six months of Madeleine’s life were very difficult because she had lots of colic and cried practically for 18 hours day. I had to permanently carry her around."

Still a toddler at 20 months, Madeleine’s life changed with the arrival of her younger brother and sister.

Mrs McCann said: "She accepted the twins arrival very well. She managed to deal perfectly with this new reality although she herself at the time was still a baby."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1563385/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-face-UK-interview.html