Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Questions have been asked in the past, whether or not it was the Smith family who were involved with drawing-up the e-fits (plural), shown during the 2013 Crimewatch Madeleine McCann Special.

Although I'm very cynical about press reports, this was published in October 2013, just days after the Crimewatch programme was televised..


Is this the moment of Madeleine McCann's kidnapping?

THE man who has emerged as key to the Madeleine McCann inquiry assumed a man he saw carrying a blonde girl the night she disappeared was a father with his child.

By [url=https://www.express.co.uk/search?s=James murray&b=1]James Murray[/url]
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Oct 20, 2013

Today, for the first time, the Sunday Express publishes extracts from the witness statement retired Irish businessman Martin Smith gave to detectives in Portugal.

As the hunt for the kidnappers moves shortly to Ireland for a new Scotland Yard appeal, we reveal how this crucial piece of the jigsaw was nearly lost because Mr Smith thought it was not important.

He owns an apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast, and was staying there with a large family group on May 3, 2007, when Madeleine was taken from an apartment at the Ocean Club.

First they went to the Dolphin restaurant and then to Kelly’s bar, near the beach.

Mr Smith’s statement, written out by a Portuguese detective, says: “After leaving the bar he (Mr Smith) travelled in the opposite direction and reached a set of stairs which gave access to Rua 25 de Abril (25th of April Street), parallel to Rua 1 de Maio (1st of May street).

“As he reached this artery, he crossed an individual holding a child. He is not aware where this person was headed. He assumed it was a father and daughter and thought nothing more of it.

“When he passed this individual, it must have been around 22.00. He did not know at the time that a child had disappeared. He only became aware of the disappearance...the next morning.

“Regarding the individual, he states that he was Caucasian, 175-180cm in height. He appeared to be 35/40 years old. He had a normal complexion, a bit on the thin side.

“His hair was short, brown in colour. He states that the child was female, about four years of age. The child has blonde...without being very light. Her skin was very white, typical of a Brit. She was asleep.

“She was wearing light-coloured pyjamas. The individual did not appear to be a tourist. He cannot explain this further. It was simply his perception.

“He states that the individual carried the child in his arms. Having already seen various photographs of Madeleine...he states that she may have been the child he saw. He cannot state this as fact but is convinced that it could have been Madeleine.”

Mr Smith’s wife Mary said: “We saw a man carrying a blonde child. It was just such a normal thing to see in a holiday resort – we didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

In 2008 Mr Smith worked on e-fit images, which were released on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme last week. Detectives from Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange have had over 2,400 calls and emails since the programme last Monday.

Last week German television station ZDF staged a reconstruction of the events of the night of May 3, 2007, when Maddie disappeared from her room.

A special edition of the crime programme Aktenzeichen XY - Ungeloest which is translated as "File XY - Unsolved", aired on Wednesday.

The footage - shown above - received hundreds of phone calls from members of the public.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/437948/Is-this-the-moment-of-Madeleine-McCann-s-kidnapping
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The German crime programme reconstruction footage can be seen if you open the Express link ^^^.  Curious!

The footage is bullshit because the McLiars only ever did their own reconstruction so they could tell us their bullshit version of events. Maybe she died earlier in the week or maybe the timeline shambles was just that the alarm was raised earlier at 9.30. Some bar staff have stated people were calling Madeleine at 9.40 which would give GM aka Smithman time to dispose of sorry hide the body whilst being spotted by the Smiths at the time they were proved to have left the bar. There are many things that can be explained away in this case and some that can't so why doesn't somebody cut the bullshit out and concentrate on whats clearly true, or false and take it from there.It's about time the McCanns and their dodgy mates gave us some answers, after all tax payers are paying to keep this lot out of jail.

Never mind the facts, this is showbusiness

"Big Brother and the McCann case are treated by the media in roughly the same fashion"

Peter Wilby

Mon 17 Sep 2007 07.44 BST   First published on Mon 17 Sep 2007 07.44 BST  

In the Guardian last week, Jonathan Freedland observed that to conceive of Kate and Gerry McCann as killers of their missing daughter, Madeleine, was "to experience cognitive dissonance". Which was not a bad description of the condition of the British press after the McCanns were questioned again by the Portuguese police.

"God knows where it is all going to end," declared Jan Moir in the Daily Telegraph. "I frankly haven't got a clue what to think," confessed Boris Johnson in the same paper. "Dear God, who knows what we can believe?" wailed the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell. Even the belief that the Daily Express is a hopeless newspaper that couldn't tell you the time of day - one of the few certainties in a turbulent world - took a knock. Just when everyone else was getting bored of the McCann case, the Express started splashing stories across its front page every day, usually topped with the single word "Madeleine" in caps. When the latest news broke last week, it looked, for once, ahead of the game.

You wouldn't know it, but almost nothing new has been said officially about the case, either by the Portuguese police or by the forensic science service in Britain. The facts are: the McCanns were questioned last week, a file has gone to the prosecutor, the British have analysed evidence from the site of the disappearance and sent some results to Portugal. Nearly everything else - the hair in the car, the investigations in the local church, the demands for Cuddle Cat, the diary contents and so on - is speculation, based on unnamed sources. Even the precise meaning of "arguido/a" is unclear. Most of the speculation comes from the Portuguese press and British journalists are in the happy position of being able to repeat such reports while denouncing them as wicked Latin inventions. "Gerry may not be the father," was one Express headline.

Beneath, the story began: "The smear campaign in Portugal against the McCanns continued yesterday . . ."

The reporters who have followed the case - mostly without giving any hint that we should doubt Madeleine was abducted by a passing stranger - now fear they will look fools. All their carefully crafted pieces about the parents' anguish, stoicism and dedication to finding their daughter will seem pretty silly if the McCanns prove responsible. "The consequences would be harmful almost beyond measure," warned the Mail's David Jones. "Such an incredible outcome would forever destroy the inherent faith we place in outwardly decent, caring parents ... and with it our very trust in the goodness of human nature.

It would make cynics of us all." Cynics? Even in Fleet Street? Heaven forfend. They certainly don't include Jones's colleague, Allison Pearson. Closely scrutinising Kate McCann from her sofa in front of the telly, Pearson remained confident of the woman's innocence. "Notice the checked trousers that fitted her four months ago flapping on her emaciated frame. Watch her head lean with infinite tenderness into her baby daughter's face."

Nevertheless, some reporters discovered that they had "niggling suspicions" all along. If you wondered why they hadn't mentioned them before, it was because, as Jones put it, "such a terrible notion" was "almost unspeakable, even within . . . my own four walls". He had found Gerry McCann's weblog "strangely breezy and matter-of-fact". The Sunday Telegraph's Olga Craig, who had interviewed the McCanns earlier in the summer, now reported that Kate had become "very edgy" and "stood up and walked off" when questioned about their failure to use a baby-sitter or lock the apartment. She came across as "detached, a little cold". Only after "lengthy gentle coaxing" would she talk of her emotions.

The Mail on Sunday's Chris Leake had found something fishy in the behaviour of friends who were dining with the McCanns on the night Madeleine disappeared. One informed the police she saw someone carrying a child near the McCanns' apartment, but she "refused to talk publicly". Another agreed to a press interview but "changed her mind". Back in England, a colleague of Kate McCann's became "hostile towards approaches from this newspaper".

Refusing to talk about your emotions - or talk at all - to a journalist would strike many people as normal behaviour. In any case, Portuguese law takes very seriously the dangers of prejudicial reporting. The McCanns and their friends were warned from the start that, beyond the bare, factual details, they should not disclose publicly information that might be relevant in court, and, officially at least, the police are under the same inhibitions. All this is airily dismissed in the British press as "secrecy".

But a child's disappearance, like politics, royalty, marriage and death, is now part of the showbusiness industry. The boundaries between real life and fictional drama are increasingly blurred.

Coronation Street, the Blair-Brown struggle (now sadly closed after a long run), Big Brother and the McCann case are treated by the media in roughly the same fashion. Emotions become public property. Grief must be expressed according to agreed conventions.

As Dominic Lawson pointed out in an excellent column in the Independent, Kate McCann is expected to cry (but not, he might have added, to wail or beat her chest as Middle Eastern mothers do) and, if she fails to do so publicly, the newspapers will say she cried in private even if they couldn't possibly know.

Unless, of course, she's found guilty. In which case, the lack of tears will be evidence of a cold-hearted monster.

Red-top reticence


When I read last week that the Press Complaints Commission had censured FHM magazine for printing a photograph of a topless 14-year-old girl, I looked to the press for coverage and comment. Surely, I thought, newspapers that are so determined to root out "evil" paedophiles and to denounce "pervs" who view child pornography would have something to say.

True, the magazine insisted she looked older than 14 and it has promised not to do it again - but I've a feeling I've heard those excuses somewhere before.

Yet only the Guardian carried more than a paragraph and several papers ignored the story. There was not a word, for example, in the Sun, whose editor, Rebekah Wade, has always been such a sturdy opponent of paedophilia.

That wouldn't be - would it? - because the red-tops fear they might themselves be caught out one day.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/sep/17/mondaymediasection
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I left the last bit in 'Red Top Reticence' for good measure.

This is a very strange report by the Telegraph..

'We want Maddy to be found... yesterday'

By Richard Edwards in Rome

12:45PM BST 30 May 2007

It is four weeks since Kate and Gerry McCann last saw their daughter Madeleine. Twenty-eight days of moving between despair and hope - and they still do not know whether they are at the end of their ordeal or still just at the beginning.

The couple’s physical journey took them yesterday to Rome to meet the Pope, and they will move onwards to Madrid, Berlin and Amsterdam. But it is scars from their emotional journey that are ever-present.

Mrs McCann summed it up in six devastatingly simple words: “I miss life as it was.”

“We’re still in the middle of a race but we do not know how long it is going to be,” Mr McCann added: “I do not know how we will have changed. But it is fair to say we will never be the same again.”

The hardest part, they admit, is the unknown. “Every day is one day too long without Madeleine,” said Mr McCann.

"We have got to get a resolution.

“It is hugely difficult. The first 48 hours was akin to having a bereavement. It was as though Madeleine had died. It was anguish, despair, guilt, helplessness all falling into one.

“But it is different to a death, where you grieve and try to move on. Madeleine is not dead. We have been thrown into an ongoing trauma, an ongoing crisis of the unknown.

“There are different emotions at different times and we are helping each other through this. We complement each other well, we remain strong.”

He added: "We have focused into how we can do positive things, to campaign. We are totally preoccupied as how to get Madeleine back.”

With the visit to see the Pope, the global campaign has reached, in Mr McCann’s terms, stratospheric levels.

They flew to Rome in the private jet of Sir Philip Green, one of Britain’s richest men, who had offered it for free to help their cause. Prime Minister in waiting Gordon Brown is in mobile phone contact. They are lining up Government ministers to visit across Europe. David Beckham and world footballers have appealed for help in finding their daughter and they have received chat shows requests from Oprah Winfrey an Larry King in the US.

Wherever they go they are treated like royalty, followed by pilgrims, well-wishers and TV cameras. But the attention does not sit easily with them, especially Mrs McCann. The couple are desperate for Madeleine’s plight to be known worldwide but they are wary of going too far, of being seen as a celebrity couple courting the publicity.

“It is all about Madeleine,” said Mr McCann. Mrs McCann, in particular, struggles to hold in her emotions in front of TV cameras. She wants to remain private, but she also wants to do the best for Madeleine by appearing in public.

“I do not like talking about this publicly but you’ve got to put your own feelings aside,” she said.

“If we can be strong, strong for Madeleine, that will help get her back.”

On Tuesday morning Mr and Mrs McCann had to go shopping for a suit. They had to look smart for the Pope. He and his wife spent hours trying to find something appropriate in Algarve resorts dominated by T-shirts and shorts.

When they did, the hems on the trousers were too long and a tailor had to make adjustments. Ordinarily it could have been a welcome distraction, but they found it strange to be fussing over such minor details.

“It was the last thing we needed really,” said Mrs McCann.

It re-emphasised the truth: they are a very normal couple thrown into something extraordinary.

Mr McCann admitted that Saturday was his lowest day since the early days - the first time that both he and his wife have had a “bad one” together.

He said: “You have lows. It’s one of the things people do not realize. When negatives come in and affect you, you lose some control, you’ve not got that outlet of emotion. But you know that it’s detrimental to what you’re trying to do today. So you try to lock out the negative.”

Mrs McCann admits she is more fragile. She said: “It’s fair to say I find it harder to lock away the emotions.

They continue to plan, throwing themselves into it; but every moment they hope their plans are scrapped because they receive some genuine news … the news they are waiting for, that Madeleine has been found.

Mr McCann said: “We want Madeleine to be found … yesterday.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1553068/We-want-Maddy-to-be-found...-yesterday.html

On Tuesday morning Mr and Mrs McCann had to go shopping for a suit. They had to look smart for the Pope. He and his wife spent hours trying to find something appropriate in Algarve resorts dominated by T-shirts and shorts.

When they did, the hems on the trousers were too long and a tailor had to make adjustments. Ordinarily it could have been a welcome distraction, but they found it strange to be fussing over such minor details.

The Telegraph

The rest of the Pope's audience didn't see the need for special dress - why the McCanns? A good marketing ploy by any chance?

I think she had the checked pants on when she stepped off the plane in the U.K sandancer,could be wrong but I thought,has she still got them.

She was hardly going to leave one of the main items of evidence behind

Although I think sandancer meant she didn't wear them to Rome.

No apology needed my friend.

The McCanns' Trial by Media

By Thomas K. Grose/London Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007

There's been no shortage of surprises in the ongoing saga of Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who disappeared from her family's vacation apartment in Portugal more than four months ago — the biggest shock occurring earlier this month when Portuguese police officially named her parents as suspects. Still, it was somewhat stunning when a YouGov poll published in the Sunday Times of London this week found that only 20% of Britons think Gerry and Kate McCann are completely innocent.


London papers, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007

That indicates a huge disconnect between the public and Britain's many and multifaceted newspapers, which are usually adept at playing to their readers' biases. The press here — from populist tabloids to serious-minded dailies — has largely been unswerving in its support of the McCanns. "Madeleine: Her Mother is Innocent," shouted Wednesday's Daily Express. "Torture," declared Sunday's The People over a picture of Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother. And Chris Roycroft-Davis, a media consultant and Express commentator, thinks that's how it should be. "The media have been very, very sympathetic toward the McCanns, quite rightly so," he said on a Sunday morning BBC Radio 2 program.

Other analysts think the pro-McCann tilt is a mistake. "The press have treated the parents almost too nicely," says Adrian Monck, head of London's City University's Department of Journalism, and that could backfire if any portion of the Portuguese police's suspicions that the McCanns might know more than they are saying proves correct. Adds Charlie Beckett, a media and communications expert at the London School of Economics: "The media have almost been campaigning on behalf of the McCanns instead of adopting a more balanced position. Now they're finding it much harder to change tack."

In the wake of the police actions, however, some are trying. The Daily Mail's David Jones wrote that while he hopes the police are wrong, "a terrible nagging doubt has refused to leave me." It may be "unpalatable," he adds, but "we can no longer take their innocence as an absolute, cast-iron certainty." Olga Craig in the Sunday Telegraph recently described Kate McCann, pointedly, as cold and distant. Some publications are hedging their bets with a two-track approach: supporting the McCanns, but also printing stories that tend to bolster the police line of inquiry. London's Evening Standard recently quoted sources as saying critics of the DNA evidence — which early reports said implicated the McCanns — didn't know what they were talking about, that investigators had "full confidence" in test results. Yet, on the next page, the paper ran a two-page spread headlined, "Despite the accusations, facts are on their side."

Most commentators, however, remain resolutely supportive of the couple, including Jones's Daily Mail colleague, Allison Pearson. "I refuse to believe they are guilty unless overwhelming evidence is uncovered," she wrote. Of course, she's basically saying they're innocent until proven guilty — hardly a radical thought, since it's the bedrock of Western jurisprudence. Roycroft-Davis, however, has apparently solved the case. He said on Radio 2: "These people are completely innocent. There's no evidence that I've read that shows that they've got any part whatsoever in Madeleine's disappearance."

Ah yes, evidence. How much is there and how strong is it? That remains known only to Portuguese legal officials, suppressed for now by Portuguese law. When a Portuguese prosecutor declared Wednesday that there is currently no plan to interrogate the McCanns again, British papers claimed the police probe of the couple was "crumbling" or in "meltdown." But by saying more evidence was needed, he was mainly reiterating what police plainly said last week: They don't have enough evidence yet to charge the McCanns.

So most of the debate over evidence is based largely on leaks of varying degrees of reliability. Says Beckett: "In a vacuum of facts, it's usually best to hold back." But given the fierce rivalry that defines the British media, holding back isn't an option. So they've been awash with leaks, rumors and anonymous quotes. Much of the info actually originates with the Portuguese press. Able to cite Portuguese news outlets as their sources, U.K. papers have repeated even the most outlandish of claims. One report, since debunked, said police thought Madeleine had been weighted down and dropped at sea from a British-registered yacht.

Some critics think the story has been overplayed from the start. "It's not intrinsically important," says Peter Kellner, journalist and YouGov president. "It's a horrible thing for the family, for a small group of people. But everyday, thousands of people around the world have to cope with horrible events." Still, Monck believes that British editors have seized upon the story because they identify with the McCanns: They, too, are middle-class professionals, many of whom have children and have taken similar vacations.

The McCanns, of course, initially helped whip up public interest in the disappearance. After Madeleine first went missing, they launched a massive media campaign that was endorsed by celebrities — billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson this week started a McCann defense fund with around $200,000 of seed money — and they even got a meeting with the Pope. The YouGov poll indicated that some of the anti-McCann sentiment in the U.K. is a negative response to their self-generated publicity.

The poll's overwhelming results did, however, surprise Kellner, given the press's ongoing support for the McCanns. Nevertheless, he notes, "Even if you are reporting it in a sympathetic way, you are still saying they are suspects, and news of them being suspects swamps the sympathetic coverage." British readers may disagree with the tone of the coverage, or they may think the story is overplayed, but until the case is resolved in some fashion, the McCann media circus is here to stay.

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1663733,00.html
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How delightful to know someone else is in-tune with the way the UK media operate. Anything they write, that's anything, should be taken with a Siberian salt mine.

Meanwhile, from a vantage view point..

The media resented the McCanns muscling in on their private terrain

Matthew Parris - 12 September 2007





My former sketchwriting colleague, Simon Hoggart, has a maxim he would cite when any of us parliamentary sketchwriters were tempted to showcase a genuinely and intentionally funny MP. Humorous journalists, Simon would warn, had no business giving a platform to would-be jokers in the world of politics. Humour was our trade not theirs. We should never laugh with them: only at them. In our sketchwriters’ guild it should be a union rule not to encourage competition from unpaid amateurs. ‘We make the jokes around here.’

In an altogether darker and sadder way, I wonder whether, in their relationship with the news media, this is the mistake Kate and Gerry McCann have made. As with humour, so perhaps with pathos. The couple have seemed (though for the most understandable of motives) to be trying to orchestrate the pathos. But we do the pathos around here.

For I have sensed almost from the start of this whole, sick business an undercurrent of resentment towards these parents on the part of a British media which has not quite warmed to the thing we feed on. It is our job to exploit, to use, victims among the general public. We do not, however, quite like to be used by them. This could explain a certain relish (laced of course with generous protestations of sympathy) in the press and broadcasters’ treatment of the woes that now beset the couple as they face accusations from the Portuguese police.

Without believing in any of the latest accusations, there will still be some among whom there persists a curious feeling that the couple had it coming. The truth is that for some time the world of professional journalism has found the couple just a little bit irritating. The reason is that they have appeared to have been marketing their own tragedy. And it is we who market tragedy around here.

The irritation is well-hidden, of course, and would be universally and emphatically denied. But behind the pictures of Mrs McCann holding that almost inevitable pink cuddle-cat — pictures the press corps have actively encouraged and been happy enough to frame and project on to front pages everywhere — I have often enough heard from colleagues a sotto-voce cluck of disapproval: how come that cat’s always in shot?

Journalists who well know how to insinuate a soft toy into a story about a tragic couple get unnerved when the tragic couple steal a march on them and do so themselves — or seem to. Journalists and camera people delighted to catch an impromptu and tender moment as a grieving mother carries and cuddles her sleeping toddler feel almost cheated when these pictures are handed to them on a plate. When the McCanns publish their own blog on the web, a print media with appetite enough for the leaked email or private letter is unsure whether or how to republish.

Journalists well-versed in the techniques of creating ‘news pegs’ to give a flagging story ‘new legs’ become faintly disapproving when the individuals they are covering appear to have taken that process into their own hands and to be news-pegging and new-legging with some aplomb. Journalists skilled in ferreting out relatives, friends, friends of relatives and relatives of friends in order to introduce new voices into a narrative are somewhat taken aback when the victims at the centre of their story give the impression of doing the job for them — and all but handing out contact details for ‘today’s family friend’. When what might have been a private visit to the Pope was made very public (to the satisfaction, no doubt, of a media-savvy Vatican too) there were plenty to wonder, in private, who was using whom.

Thus (I believe) Kate and Gerry McCann have proved too helpful for their own good; too knowingly aware of where the media are coming from and what they want; and too artful and resourceful in providing it. The McCanns have proved unwisely media-wise.

It is easy to see why they did it. First, because they could: their careers and education equipped them to handle the news media on their own terms, and told them (as all media courses for non-journalist professionals now teach) how to keep ‘control’ of the story, and ‘manage’ its ‘development’. It seems, too, that at the outset they were offered advice by one or more friends in the media, and took it.

Second, they did it because they were persuaded, or persuaded themselves, that their overriding concern must be to place and keep the story of their daughter’s disappearance at the centre of world attention, putting as wide a public as possible on the alert for any trace of her, making her face recognisable worldwide, and — in short — enlisting half of humanity in her search. It’s a perfectly defensible strategy, though an alternative approach (to cool rather than inflame a story) can be defended too, and the media’s unquestioning assumption that all publicity was self-evidently to the good could be seen as self-serving.

Self-serving or not, it chimed with the strategy Madeleine’s parents had chosen; not much else was happening in the world; and the whole thing went stratospheric. The faint sense of disgust that many in the media (and perhaps among the public too) now feel is not unmixed with self-loathing. And the fact that Mr and Mrs McCann have almost seemed to be egging us on gives us someone else to blame.

We should not blame them. But we should see in their latest and perhaps last miseries a lesson. So slick has the modern media become at manufacturing and nurturing a story, so wise has so much of the public become in the media’s ways, and so uncomfortable are we all beginning to feel about the process, that any sensible individual caught up in sensational news of any sort would be ill advised to be too smart about it. The world knows how to recognise news management, and it leaves a nasty taste. What fragile self-esteem we journalists have as journalists is best flattered by leaving us to pull the strings on the puppets in our play. We don’t like it when the puppets pull back, and I don’t think our readers do either.

So if the media spotlight should fall upon you, innocent bystander, and you should wish to manage the news to your best advantage, here’s a tip. Don’t try to manage it at all. Or if you must, don’t let it show.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2007/09/the-media-resented-the-mccanns-muscling-in-on-their-private-terrain/

What a clever article. The grieving parents didn't see it, or are too narcissistic to take note of it.

Well, you know how they turn a blind eye to all the nasties said of them .... they like to keep their noses clean

It implies they're innocent. As Peter Hyatt says, 'they overwhelmingly talk you out of it every time'. No informed person with half a brain cell can possibly think them innocent.

I 've read the article a couple of times, and I can't see that it expresses an opinion either way, as to guilt or innocence. It doesn't pay them any compliment either, so what am I missing? I knew they were guilty when I heard the first report of Madeleine's 'disappearance'. The 'abduction' theory was too stupid to consider plausible.

It all happened in September 2007 didin't it?

Must be something to do with that dreaded word .... arguido !

McCanns deny reports that Gerry is not Madeleine's father


The front page of 24 Horas



By Aislinn Simpson in Praia da Luz
4:50PM BST 10 Oct 2007

The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have issued a furious rebuttal to an "offensive" report claiming Portuguese police believe Gerry is not her father.

Kate and Gerry were "horrified and devastated" by the latest "absolutely untrue" slurs in the Portuguese press claiming Madeleine's DNA was different to that of her twin siblings – all three of whom were conceived by In-Vitro Fertilisation – because she has a different father.

The tabloid 24 Horas claimed British police visited a sperm bank the couple used and tracked down the four-year-old's natural father to rule him out of any involvement in her abduction.

But family spokesman Clarence Mitchell described the reports as "unwarranted, unsubstantiated and totally inaccurate".

He said that the couple planned to sue 24 Horas over the allegations about Madeleine's paternity as soon as their official suspect status was lifted.

"We have up to a year to sue and we will do. Gerry and Kate want to concentrate on the case involving Madeleine and don't want to do anything that may compromise that while they are official suspects," he said.

"But they plan to sue 24 hours and any other media outlets that print these claims as soon as the official suspect status is lifted."

He added: "For the record, Gerry McCann is the biological father of his daughter Madeleine. A report in the 24 Horas newspaper suggesting otherwise is nothing short of lies.

"It is indeed absolutely untrue. It is offensive to suggest that Gerry is not her natural father."

Gerry McCann's mother Eileen said the 24 Horas claims were "utterly ridiculous".

"Madeleine is my natural granddaughter," she said.

"She looks like Kate and she looks like me too. Her eyes and nose are the same as mine."

A friend of the couple's said they had reacted to the unexpected attack with "complete horror and total distress".

He said: "How could a sperm donor have been eliminated when there isn't one? Gerry is the father.

"He damn well knew, because of the IVF process, that he was 100 per cent the father.

"To say it caused huge distress is an understatement."

Portuguese police apparently believe Madeleine's paternity is "very significant", because, according to a Portuguese police source quoted by the newspaper: "It explains why Madeleine's DNA profile is so different from her twin siblings DNA profiles."

This would mean that samples of hair and bodily fluids taken from the McCann's Renault Scenic, which they hired 25 days after their daughter went missing on May 3, and in their rented apartment in Praia da Luz, can only be Madeleine's, the newspaper claimed.

Yesterday, 24 Horas co-editor, Luis Fontes, said he stood by the story, which he claimed was confirmed by both Portuguese and British pathology sources as well as Leicestershire and Portuguese police.

"It's absolutely – our sources are rock solid," he said. "If they think they can sue us, bring it on."

A spokesman for the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham, where scientists are still testing samples sent to them from Portugal, insisted the story had not come from them.

"As with any ongoing case, it is not possible to comment on matters that could jeopardise the investigation," she said.

"Our inquiries are ongoing."

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said that they had refused to comment when contacted by 24 Horas on Wednesday.

"Leicestershire Police will not comment on any aspect of this investigation," she said. "That is a matter for the Portuguese Police as it is their investigation."

Nor would Policia Judiciaria comment further: "At this moment in time, we cannot and will not deny that news."

A source close to the family said they have been told forensic results are back on Monday. Portuguese police are hoping they will prove Madeleine's body was in the hire car.

Speaking after a meeting with the new head of the investigation, Paulo Rebelo, PJ director Alipio Ribeiro said Kate and Gerry could only be ruled out as suspects when the FSS results were back.

He said: "All lines of investigation are open and will continue to be open until we have more clarity on this case.

"The investigation will continue to proceed along the lines it's proceeded on until now."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1565936/McCanns-deny-reports-that-Gerry-is-not-Madeleines-father.html

Got to love how the media at first romanced the McCann's then later turned on them like a beast lol

'Allo Allo Allo - what we got 'ere then..

Move along, officer tells Sky’s man at Scotland Yard

HE’S almost as familiar a sight outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters as the famous revolving Scotland Yard sign.

By John Twomey

PUBLISHED: 00:00, Fri, Apr 26, 2013



In rain or shine, Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt has brought his viewers breaking news of terrorism, murders and police ­scandals.

But yesterday the reporter became the story when a Yard ­security officer asked him to move on from the London landmark where he has ­regularly broadcast for the past two decades.

“You can’t ’ang around ’ere,” the over-zealous uniformed security officer told the veteran crime man.

Brunt, who has been on first name terms with commissioners and Yard top brass, protested: “But that’s my job!”

Not wishing to create a scene, the newsman – nicknamed Brunt of The Yard – retired a short distance before reporting his unwelcome brush with the law on Twitter.

He tweeted: “Just been told by an unfriendly police officer I’m not allowed to hang around Scotland Yard. This could be awkward long-term.”



Brunt, 57, who joined Sky News in 1989, later denied he was upset because the officer didn’t immediately recognise him.

He was not reporting at the time and did not have a camera crew with him. Brunt later told a friend he had been sitting on a concrete block when the officer approached him.

Yard sources said later the minor confrontation would have no impact on the cordial relationship between Brunt and the Met.

One senior officer remarked: ­“Martin is always welcome to stand outside.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/394827/Move-along-officer-tells-Sky-s-man-at-Scotland-Yard
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Loitering with intent ?   Maybe he was looking for the broom cupboard office of Sloperation Grunge.

Brunt should be locked up after the door stepping incident with Brenda he's a vile disgusting of a man.

I'm not worried if G is Madeleine's father or not I want to know why Madeleine went missing and why the McCanns have constantly told ridiculous lies as have their friends,they know what happened 
to Madeleine and where she was dumped.They will be payed back (I
fervently believe that)sooner or later,sooner I hope.

Lady Meyer in pursuit of abducted children like Madeleine McCann

Frustrated at not being able to offer more assistance to the parents of Madeleine McCann, Lady Meyer has set her sights on co-ordinating the search for abducted children.

Mandrake by Richard Eden

12:04AM BST 18 May 2008

The wife of our former ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, tells me that she is trying to persuade Boris Johnson to establish a headquarters for such searches.

“There are hundreds of charities in London who offer services to missing or abducted children,” she said at the launch of Rachel Johnson’s novel Shire Hell. “I’m proposing one centre of excellence which amalgamates all the charities and would be much more efficient in helping people.”

Catherine Meyer speaks from experience: she set up the charity Parents and Children Together after her former husband denied her access to her two sons.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/1976774/Lady-Meyer-in-pursuit-of-abducted-children-like-Madeleine-McCann.html

Nicki Swift is a celebrity based website and YouTube channel that focuses on many Hollywood famous people. Most videos focus on just one celebrity and a short story revolving around them. However, these videos can be short segments from other sources.

The untold truth of the Madeleine McCann disappearance

It's been over 10 years since British three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from the vacation home where was she was staying with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and two-year-old twin siblings in the resort town of Praia da Luz, Portugal. According to reports, Kate and Gerry tucked Madeleine and her siblings safely into bed on the evening of May 3rd, 2007, and then went out to dine with seven fellow vacationers to a tapas restaurant close by. Upon returning home at about 10PM, and despite regular checks on the children, they discovered that their daughter Madeleine had vanished without a trace.

The ensuing search for toddler Madeleine swept media worldwide and became one of the biggest news stories of the decade. McCann's parents became a regular news presence and the subjects of intense public scrutiny, and accusations of police incompetence flew left and right. With a 2019 Netflix documentary reigniting public interest in the case, let's go back and review what has come to light in the years since little Madeleine's tragic disappearance.

There have been numerous unidentified 'people of interest'

In the years since Madeleine seemingly vanished into thin air, a number of witnesses came forward to describe people of interest who, to this day, have yet to be identified. In October 2007, Scotland Yard released sketches of a man who witnesses claimed to have seen uncomfortably carrying a young girl close to the McCann's vacation apartment around the time that the McCanns were out to dinner. (It was later announced in 2013 he was unlikely to be connected with the case.) Then in 2009, the police revealed drawings of a man, described as "very ugly," who had been seen "acting suspiciously" in the days leading up to the disappearance.

In August 2009, a woman with an Australian accent became the focus of attention; she was described as a "Victoria Beckham lookalike. Likewise, she has never been located. The same can be said of unidentified "woman in purple," who was announced as a person of interest as recently as May 2017. In November 2018, a source told the Daily Mail that Scotland Yard had recently informed the McCanns of "two specific and active leads" and that they were "they were confident and hopeful they could get a result."

The case was a media sensation

Madeleine McCann's disappearance generated what can only be deemed a media frenzy. As Vanity Fair detailed in an extensive 2008 article, tabloids worldwide picked up the case and covered it in exhaustive detail. A columnist for The Guardian even went so far as to compare the story to "the Second World War." The public likewise scrambled for any available information, with a source telling Vanity Fair that "Panorama, a BBC newsmagazine show, bought the same five-month-old footage of the McCanns (shot by a family friend) as ABC's 48 Hours and repackaged it" and "viewership rose by 2 million, to 5.3 million."

The McCanns appeared on television multiple times to tell their story and pleaded for information that would lead to their daughter's return. As Vanity Fair reported, these media efforts on the McCann's behalf absolutely furthered public interest, with the "Find Madeleine Web site visited by more than 80 million people in three months after the disappearance."

The McCanns also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, having been the subject of a bidding war between Winfrey and Barbara Walters for their first public statements. Interest in the couple and the case continues, as of this writing, with the aforementioned possible Netflix documentary as perhaps the biggest sign, as well as other media outlets, which are also still eager to interview the McCanns.

The McCanns didn't participate in the Netflix doc

As of this writing, Netflix hasn't released any official materials regarding an alleged Madeleine McCann documentary. But according to the Daily Mail, the streaming service planned either a "one off, two parter or as originally intended an eight part series" to air in advance of the 12th anniversary of the toddler's disappearance. An alleged source "close to the filmmakers" said they would have "welcomed the opportunity" to collaborate with the McCanns, who denied any involvement with the production on their official website. Similarly, close friends of the McCanns, including the infamous "Tapas Seven," who dined with them on the night of Madeleine's disappearance, also expressed that they "want nothing to do with it."

In what they said will be their only comment on the matter, the McCann's said in a statement, "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, could potentially hinder it. Consequently, our views and preferences are not reflected in the programme."

Regardless, the anonymous source remained upbeat about the project, telling the Daily Mail, "We have interesting new interviews with people close to the inquiry and we believe we can give justice to this unbelievably tragic story."

The investigation was controversial from the beginning

Accusations of mismanagement and incompetence have flown since the search for Madeleine began. From the start of the investigation, Portuguese police came under intense international scrutiny; according to Vanity Fair, they were dubbed "the Keystone Cops" and "Butt Heads" by reporters. As Vanity Fair reported in 2008, the leader of the investigation had been "accused of covering up a beating by his subordinates of a Portuguese woman who was ultimately convicted of killing her own child."

Additionally, per Vanity Fair, there were no dogs trained in tracking missing people available in the small vacation town of Praia da Luz, so "local residents actually used household pets under the guidance of police with drug-sniffing dogs." The Telegraph also reported in 2007 that the police had failed to gather crucial DNA evidence from blankets, sheets and pillows from Madeleine's bed. And as recently as 2017, sources were still coming forward to criticize what they saw as failings on the part of the Portuguese police.

The McCanns themselves were suspects

Shortly after Madeleine's disappearance, rumors started to swirl that Kate and Gerry were involved in their toddler's disappearance; specifically, that she had been accidentally killed and that the two were attempting to cover it up, a charge that the couple have always vehemently denied. According to Vanity Fair in 2008, the Portuguese police told the McCanns in September 2007 that they were "arguidos" or "formal suspects" in Madeleine's disappearance, though no charges have ever been filed and the status was revoked in July 2008.

Portuguese ex-police officer Goncarlo Amaral has been extremely public about his theory that the McCanns themselves accidentally killed their young daughter, and that British intelligence agency MI5 assisted them in covering up the accidental death. Amaral, who was one of the original investigators of Madeleine's disappearance, even released a book in 2008 accusing the McCanns of faking their daughter's abduction to hide their involvement in her demise. In 2015, the McCanns sued Amaral for libel and won, though the decision was later overturned.

As of November 2018, the McCanns were back in court, "battling [Amaral] at the European Court of Human Rights," according to the Daily Mail. At stake is a fund set up for the continued search for Madeleine, which is said to be in the range of £750,000 due to donations and proceeds from the sale of the McCanns own book. Should the McCanns get ordered to pay Amaral compensation and court costs, the fund could reportedly be depleted.

Additional conspiracy theories abound

In addition to the controversial rumors about the McCann's own involvement in the disappearance, numerous conspiracy theories have proliferated in the years since Madeleine went missing.

These various theories include: that Madeleine was taken by a human-trafficking ring; that she was abducted after wandering out of the apartment to look for her parents; that she was kidnapped as part of a botched burlgary; and that she was the victim of a targeted kidnapping by a family wanting a child.

David Edgar, a former Detective Investigator, who was hired privately by the McCanns to investigate Madeleine's disappearance, told The Sun in October 2018 that the case will likely be solved when the culprit gives "a deathbed confession." He also theorized, "There is every possibility that Madeleine is still alive and could be being hidden somewhere and having no idea that she is at the centre of a worldwide hunt for her."

Despite ongoing speculation, however, none of these theories has ever been proven conclusively.

There have been multiple sightings

In October 2016, The Sun announced that there have been a staggering 8,685 sightings of Madeleine McCann across 101 countries since her 2007 disappearance. Many of the sightings were totally unsubstantiated, or were later ruled out by police.

As early as September 2007, CNN reported that a young girl resembling Madeleine was spotted in Morocco by a Spanish couple who vacationed there several months after her disappearance. And the Morocco connections don't stop there. According to an April 2017 report by Express, an unidentified English man, and a woman "who now lives in Spain" said they saw Madeleine in Marrakesh on the same day in May 2007, just days after she went missing. Additionally, Express reported, "There were also other sightings in Zaio, a town in north Morocco, later that month and on June 15."

As recently as 2016, an unidentified young woman in Rome was also linked to the case (though she was later identified as a Swedish student who had been missing).

Celebrities got involved to help...

As media attention exploded, a number of high-profile people lent their time and reputations to helping the McCanns locate their daughter. Some notable names included David Beckham, who filmed an appeal for help, Portuguese soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, and bestselling author of the Harry Potter series J.K. Rowling, who donated money to help locate Madeleine and reportedly advised Kate McCann while she was writing her 2011 book Madeleine: Our Daughter's Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her.

Pope Benedict briefly met with the McCanns in 2007 to bless a photo of their daughter, and Virgin Airlines magnate Sir Richard Branson contributed greatly to a multimillion dollar reward fund. During a 2007 appearance on Today (via The Telegraph), Branson also revealed that he secured "the top Portuguese and British lawyer" to help the McCanns fight what he viewed as a misinformation campaign by the Portuguese police.

"Imagine your child gets stolen from you, you go through all the hell that comes with that," Branson told the morning show, adding, "Then when the Portuguese police cannot find the person who has stolen it they (sources) start placing stories in the press, each one of which is shown to be unfounded a week or two later but by then they have spread around the world."

... and to cast blame on the McCanns

However, some celebrities haven't been so kind to the McCanns.

In May 2016, Sharon Osbourne made some ungenerous remarks about the McCanns on her show The Talk (via Express), specifically noting that she felt it was "insane" that they had left their children sleeping while they went to dinner close by. A close friend of the McCanns responded to Osbourne's off-the-cuff comments, telling Irish Mirror, "Kate and Gerry have never forgiven themselves and this should not have been aired in a random way, as it ­apparently was. It's based on ignorance of the true facts. While she's entitled to her view she should keep it to herself."

Later in May, controversial British tabloid celebrity Katie Price endorsed Osbourne's hurtful remarks during an interview on Loose Women (via the Daily Mail), saying, "It doesn't matter who you are, you don't leave your children... I'm on Sharon's side. If you are on holiday, your kids sleep in buggies, why in your right mind would you leave your kids in a room? I don't care if it is a safe place or if you can see them or not."

The case created tension between the U.K. and Portugal

Relations between the Portuguese police, who were the initial investigators on the case, and the British police became incredibly tense over the years.

Portuguese police accused the U.K.'s forces of acting like "a colonial power" in their country. Pedro do Carma, deputy director of the Policia Judiciaria and a leading detective on the case, expressed his outrage in May 2017 to the BBC's Panaroma series that four local men in Portugal had been made suspects by the British police without any proof. For their part, members of the British police force (and much of the media) felt that the Portuguese police had done an insufficient investigation.

Meanwhile, the McCanns had a testy relationship with both Portuguese and British detectives, with claims that the Portuguese Police treated them inhumanely and that they were "left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators." In 2008, Vanity Fair reported that the McCanns were horrified to learn that "without [their] knowledge or consent, the [Portuguese] police had photocopied Kate's diary, examined her borrowed Bible, and removed Gerry's laptop."

The McCanns also worked with private investigators and reportedly refused to share information with British detectives.

One prime suspect died in 2009

In November 2013, the The Mirror reported that a prime suspect in the case had died in 2009. Euclides Monteiro had been an employee at a resort near where the McCanns were staying in Praia da Luz, until he was fired in 2006. The outlet suggested that Monteiro may have kidnapped Madeleine as an act of revenge.

Monteiro's friends and family were shocked at the allegation. His wife told The Mirror that the accusation was "disgusting," and that her late spouse "would never be capable of committing such a crime." A friend described him as a petty thief who was unfortunately "a slave" to his heroin addicting, but insisted he was no kidnapper.

The McCanns even had their doubts. "We are aware of reports in the Portuguese press," they said through a representative. "They are pure speculation and the McCanns are not going to give a running commentary on every new report."

The investigation is ongoing

The search for Madeleine, who would be 15 years old, as of this writing, carries on, with the McCanns continuing their efforts through Facebook and the official "Find Madeleine" website.

Additionally, CNN reported in May 2017 that "London's Metropolitan Police still has a dedicated team of four detectives working the case, in conjunction with their Portuguese police counterparts." Scotland Yard's efforts, deemed "Operation Grange," have been ongoing for six years, and according to CNN, "around $15.7 million has already been spent on the search for Madeleine. In March, the UK's Home Office approved $103,000 to fund the inquiry through September 2017." However, to date, no one has been charged.

And despite the many years that have gone by, Kate and Gerry McCann continue to hold onto hope that their daughter will be found and returned. During an interview to mark the anniversary of the disappearance, Kate McCann explained, "I do all the [birthday] present buying. I think about what age she is and buy something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate. A lot of thought goes into it."

Read More: https://www.nickiswift.com/68459/untold-truth-madeleine-mccann-disappearance/?utm_campaign=clip

Professor Gerald McCann, know affectionately across the great divide as Gerry. McCann the man - of many faces and every one the same..

Gerry: Chances of finding Madeleine are slim



By Lucy Cockcroft

12:01AM GMT 10 Jan 2008  

The father of missing Madeleine McCann has admitted the chances of ever seeing his daughter again are "slim", the closest he has come to conceding the fact she may never be found.

Gerry McCann opened his heart in an interview with American society magazine Vanity Fair and told of the guilt he and wife Kate have felt since the disappearance of Madeleine.

The little girl, then three-years-old, went missing on 3 May in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while her parents were with friends at a tapas restaurant.

They had left their three children asleep in a nearby holiday apartment.

Speaking to interviewer Judy Bachrach, Mr McCann said: “Of course we feel guilty about not having been there, and that is just something we have to deal with for the rest of our lives. We live this 24 hours a day.

“I wish I hadn’t gone to the tapas bar. I wish I’d stayed in the apartment that night. I wish I’d stayed in the room when I checked on her five minutes longer.”

Mr McCann’s sister Philomena told the magazine that he had called her on the night Madeleine vanished and said: “It’s all my fault, because Kate and I went out to dinner.”

The 39-year-old consultant cardiologist and his wife, also 39, have been made official suspects, or arguidos, in the case by Portuguese police and are under strict instruction not to talk of the details around the disappearance.

Mr McCann said: “I can’t talk to you about the details of what happened. I live under threat from the Portuguese - if I do talk - of two years’ imprisonment.

“It’s very difficult to describe this situation. One month, three months, five months, five and a half months.

"And I know now that, probably, the chances of getting Madeleine back are slim.

“You know, it’s difficult. Very difficult. You might never see her again. But still you have the hope. Still.”

Mr McCann, who gave the interview alone in October near his home in Rothley, Leicestershire, while Kate was at church, described how his GP wife fell to pieces privately in the days following the disappearance.

He said: “Grief washes over you - it’s like a big wave, mostly I was able to beat it back.

“We can’t cry our eyes out every day, because that’s not helping. So after three days I picked myself up - quicker than Kate could.”

But in public she was told to maintain her composure for the sake of Madeleine.

Justine McGuinness, a former spokesman for the McCann’s, said: “That was one of the things they were told right from the beginning.

“Don’t show any emotion, because whoever took the child could get off on that, and take it out on the child.

"Or the abductor might find tears stimulating in some way. Appalling when you’re being told not to show any emotion in public and your daughter is abducted.”

When the case first took over media headlines last summer the McCanns attracted high-profile support from the Pope, David Beckham and Richard Branson among others.

Gordon Brown has even called the family to offer them his backing.

But Vanity Fair claims they now feel deserted by the Prime Minister.

In the interview, Clarence Mitchell, the McCann’s spokesman, said: “...it is true that we have requested a meeting with the prime minister to show him the strength of our case, to explain Kate and Gerry’s innocence - and yet all we’ve been offered is a medium-level-consular meeting, which we rejected.”

The interviewer also spoke to the couple’s friends and family as well as to the other suspect in the case, Robert Murat.

The British ex-pat, who lives in Praia da Luz, said: “All I can say is that I am innocent. There is no way I was at the resort that night. Full stop. I was in my mother’s kitchen until 1am.

"Yes, we are a kitchen kind of family. “I spent the night at the house.”

Jon Corner, another friend interviewed by Vanity Fair, said Mrs McCann told him she was tortured by the idea she might have glimpsed the abductor.

He said: “She told me 'I wish I could roll back time and go back to the day before Madeleine was abducted. I would slow down time. I’d think: Where are you? Who are you? Who is secretly watching my family?

"Because someone was watching my family very, very carefully. And taking notes’.”

Mr McCann was not paid by Vanity Fair, but instead requested donations to the Find Madeleine fund in return for cooperation with future projects.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575151/Gerry-Chances-of-finding-Madeleine-are-slim.html
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[For those who still believe The Telegraph reported Madeleine McCann's disappearance at midnight on 3rd/4th May 2007, please not time of this report]

Gerry McCann opened his heart ....

Well, what more can you expect from a consultant cardiologist

Mr McCann described how his GP wife fell to pieces privately in the days following the disappearance.

The Grauniad..

Who's who in Team McCann

This week, Kate and Gerry McCann hired a new spokesman - and their campaign to clear their names and find their daughter Madeleine has taken a more positive turn. Aida Edemariam profiles the people helping behind the scenes

Aida Edemariam

Thu 20 Sep 2007

Clarence Mitchell, 46

Mitchell is on his second tour of McCann support as their official spokesperson. Two weeks after Madeleine disappeared he was sent by the Foreign Office to provide "consular support in exceptional circumstances". He spent weeks with the family, organising their trips across Europe, and, according to Gerry McCann, the couple's visit to Rome to meet the Pope. In June, he returned to his job as director of the Central Office of Information's Media Monitoring Unit, but quit this week in order to devote himself to the McCann cause full time. Before he became a civil servant, Mitchell was a BBC journalist who reported from Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq - and on the royal family, a role which coincided with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
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Richard Branson, 57

The Virgin entrepreneur - worth, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, an estimated £3.1bn - has apparently been following the McCanns' story with great interest from the beginning. He has been in regular contact with them and had already provided a £100,000 reward for information leading to Madeleine's return before he heard that the McCanns might have to sell their home to pay for their legal defence. (They feared a public backlash if they dipped into the Find Madeleine Fund, which has so far received more than £1m.) Determined that the McCanns should receive a fair hearing, he began a second fund by donating £100,000.

Michael Caplan QC, 54

One of two British lawyers the McCanns have hired to defend them against suggestions that they might have had a hand in their daughter's disappearance. A part-time judge in the crown court and a chairman of the police disciplinary appeal tribunal, Caplan has a reputation in the profession for unflashy reliability and tenacity; in Chambers UK 2007, A Client's Guide to the Legal Profession, he is described as "the weapon of choice for battleship cases". He certainly has experience in dealing with cases in which there is huge media interest, having successfully defended Pinochet against extradition to Spain when he was arrested in the UK in 1998. He also defended the captain of the dredger Bowbelle, whose collision with the Marchioness on the Thames in 1989 resulted in the deaths of 51 people.

Angus McBride, 42

McBride is, like Caplan, a partner in the legal firm Kingsley Napley. He is particularly experienced in defending the reputations of celebrities, or accidental celebrities, such as the McCanns. He represented the actor Chris Langham, who has just been jailed for downloading child porn, and defended various professional footballers, including John Terry, charged with and acquitted of affray in 2002, and two Premiership players accused of rape in 2003. He is currently acting in Sir John Stevens's inquiry into past collusion between soldiers, police officers and paramilitary gunmen in Northern Ireland.

Carlos Pinto de Abreu, 40

De Abreu, a Lisbon lawyer, has offered his services to the McCanns for free, and began his job by filing a libel suit against a Portuguese tabloid, Tal & Qual, which claimed that police believed the McCanns administered their daughter a fatal drug overdose. He has also applied to the district attorney for a change in the couple's formal status, from "witness" to "assistant" in the investigation. This would mean they would be allowed to know more about it. A specialist in human rights, De Abreu is the president of the human rights committee for the Portuguese bar association.

John McCann, 48

One of seven directors of the Find Madeleine Fund, Gerry McCann's brother has taken indefinite leave of absence from his job as a medical rep for the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in order to administrate the £1m fund from his Glasgow sitting room. Worried that focus on allegations about her parents has overshadowed the search for the four-year-old, he has just announced a new campaign of billboards, television commercials and advertisements in newspapers across Portugal and Spain. Retired teacher Brian Kennedy, Kate McCann's uncle, is a fellow director.

Esther McVey, 39

McVey has been friends with Kate McCann since they went to school together and is a board member and spokesperson for the Find Madeleine Fund. A former television personality - she appeared on GMTV and in programmes such as 5's Company, The Heaven and Earth Show, Shopping City and Channel 4's Nothing But The Truth with Ann Widdecombe - McVey now runs a PR firm in Liverpool, and hopes to become a Tory MP at the next general election. A former girlfriend of shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey, she narrowly failed to win Wirral West in 2005, losing by about 1,000 votes to Labour's Stephen Hesford.

Philomena McCann, 43

A high school teacher from Glasgow, Gerry McCann's sister often speaks to the press on the family's behalf. She is popular among reporters for her fierceness and colourful Glaswegian vocabulary, but occasionally strays off-message - such as when she told Sky that Portuguese police (of whom she is not fond) had offered Kate a two-year sentence in return for admitting accidental manslaughter. Gerry was still being interviewed by police, and Philomena had got the story somewhat garbled (they did not offer a plea bargain, but were exploring the possibility of accidental death). But, as reported in this paper, British journalists treated her statement as tacit permission to start reporting allegations against the McCanns.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/sep/20/marketingandpr.crime

Kate McCann: 'I still buy a Christmas present for Madeleine 11 years after she went missing'

Kate McCann

22 December 2017 • 5:17pm

The last Christmas I ever spent with my daughter, Madeleine, is a very vivid memory for me. She was three-years-old then and at nursery had just started to learn some Christmas carols. She also loved doing the accompaniment to Dean Martin’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I can still hear her singing it now. For her present that year we had bought Madeleine (and her younger brother and sister) a kitchen station which we wrapped with a bow and left for her to find when she came downstairs.

I remember seeing her face when she walked in. She was beside herself. She was so excited and got straight to work preparing us all a meal. That was a lovely moment. I have bought a Christmas present for Madeleine every year since then but that toy cooker was the last one I ever saw her open.

In May 2007 she went missing from our rented family holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal and has never been seen since. This Christmas will be the 11th my husband and I have spent without our daughter. For families like ours who have to live with the agony of a missing child – or indeed any relative – Christmas can be a hugely painful time.

The festive period is a time to be together as a family and for most people is such a happy occasion. That almost expected joy makes it even more difficult for those that are suffering. You learn over time that you simply have to make the best of it and lean upon the support that is out there – wherever it comes from.

The first Christmas we had after Madeleine went missing I couldn’t do anything. I felt so numb that I couldn’t buy presents or cards or even put up the Christmas tree. It all felt so wrong. In the end somebody else had to do all that and we went and stayed with family elsewhere. Each year I’ve made a bit more effort and we’ve dealt with it as best we can. After all, our other two children who are now 12-years-old deserve a Christmas as well. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. Everything is tinged with pain.

That absence is tangible for all our family, the emotion still palpable. It’s impossible to shake off that heaviness ever-present on your chest. But you just have to try. Before Madeleine’s disappearance I had never heard of the charity, Missing People, which The Daily Telegraph is backing in its Christmas Appeal. My husband Gerry and I stayed in Portugal for months after she had gone, continuing to search in vain.

It was only when we got back that we were properly put in touch by a relative. The work the charity does for families like ours is vital and I am proud to be an ambassador championing their work. Hundreds of thousands of people go missing every year. This is something that affects so many families and it can destroy them.

The charity is there every hour of every day. Without them people would be totally lost. The Missing People charity team are simply very normal, genuine, caring people that you could come and have a cup of tea with. I’m sure that’s part of the secret to the charity’s success. We often talk about our missing persons ‘community’, or ‘family’ and every Christmas get together for our annual carol service at St Martin-in-the-fields united in our emotion and hope.

We are all cushioned and supported by the presence of each other. Unless you have experienced what families like ours have it is impossible to describe the anguish of missing a loved one. I know without the support of so many we would not have made it this far. We have found that support in many places. A candle still burns for our daughter in the village and Madeleine and all missing children still get mentioned in prayers at our local church – and in many others I’m sure.

With so many things in the world to pray for just now, we are very grateful for this. At times the pain of losing our daughter has been almost too much to comprehend. You don’t know how strong you are until you have no option. Gerry and I are united in our aim of finding Madeleine and our love of our children and making life as good as possible for them.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t times when things are emotional, testing or strained. But we’ve got through it so far. In spite of how hard the festive season has been for our family over the years our younger children are still really excited about Christmas and that’s lovely to see. I have to remind myself to be cheerful and get into the Christmas spirit with them. I suppose I have learnt over the years that it’s important to have enjoyment yourself too and, more than that, it is OK to try.

You don’t have to feel guilty. And if there’s one thing I love, it’s real quality time spent with my children; cuddling up on the couch under a throw and watching a DVD together. We do a Christmas stocking for them and also one for Madeleine. The presents I buy for her usually have to jump out at me. She would be a teenager now so I always try and pick something that would be suitable and enjoyable for her no matter what age she is when she gets to open them.

In my head I guess I just want everything for be right for her when she comes back home. The loft is filled with the presents I have bought for Madeleine and her wardrobe, too. Like many families of missing children we have kept her bedroom exactly the same as it was when she disappeared. The irony is I’m sure she wouldn’t want it like that anymore because it’s bright pink.

And in any case if Madeleine was to walk through that door the most important thing is she is with us, not what her bedroom is like or anything else for that matter. But for whatever reason I just can’t bring myself to change it. The police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance is still active, thankfully, and while it can be incredibly slow and frustrating we continue in hope. That is all we can do. While people gather with their families this weekend and enjoy meals and swap presents together – I would urge them to remember the missing. We must never forget them.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/parenting/kate-mccann-still-buy-christmas-present-madeleine-11-years-went/

All about herself, of course.