Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Was it a joint operation?

It certainly was!

A joint operation that went up in a puff of smoke costing over 12 million quid and counting.

Happy New Year everyone!  

Happy New Year to all.

Did they make a hash of it?

Happy New Year from me as well.

The big yellow water pistol he's carrying is to put the ciggy out  just in case they can't find a giant ash tray.

'Finding Madeleine McCann is almost impossible,' says top cop as he blasts decision to give extra money to search

Colin Sutton has claimed the young girl could be buried in one of 600 wells near Praia da Luz in Portugal

By
Charlotte Neal

• 09:00, 3 APR 2018
  

A top cop has blasted the extra £100,000 funding for the Madeleine McCann search operation - he thinks finding her is "almost impossible".

Colin Sutton, who turned down the chance to lead the inquiry into Maddie's disappearance, told a documentary her corpse could be buried in one of 600 ancient wells in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

Madeleine went missing from an apartment there aged three in 2007, and Mr Sutton says police stand little chance of finding her now.

Forensic scientist Professor David Barclay also claimed the area is "the easiest place to hide a body" he had ever visited.

Mr Sutton said investigators searching for the young girl face a "thankless task".

"It's almost impossible without specific intelligence that would allow you to focus on a specific area," he claimed, adding the only hope of finding her is if someone who knew what happened told police.

"It would be very easy to secrete something there and be very confident it wouldn't be found," he added.

The new information emerged in an Australian documentary on Channel 7 this weekend.

Madeleine vanished from the holiday apartment on May 3 2007 while her parents Kate and Gerry McCann were out for a meal at a nearby tapas restaurant.

They've never given up hope that she could be found alive - she'd now be aged nearly 15.

In February the Daily Mirror revealed the Kate and Gerry McCann have raised £728,508 through a 'Find Maddie Fund' which could be used to fund private investigators.

The cash in the Find Maddie Fund - made up mainly of public donations and profits from Kate’s bestseller book - has grown over the past financial year, according to the latest accounts.

If Operation Grange, launched in May 2011, is shelved the McCanns have vowed to continue the search themselves.

Family spokesperson Clarence Mitchell said: “The Met Police will put in a further request for funds if they feel work still needs to be done.

“Money in the Madeleine Fund gives Kate and Gerry the option to pick up their own inquiries again, if they choose, with private investigators.”

Just days ago, the Home Office approved a further £100,000 could be added to the £11million already spent on the investigation.

Government funding for Operation Grange has been agreed every six months, with £154,000 being granted from October last year until the end of March.

It is believed that the latest round of funding will be as much as £150,000 and a Home Office spokesman said: “The Government remains committed to the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

“We have briefed the Metropolitan Police Service that its application for special grant funding for Operation Grange will be granted.”

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann were “incredibly grateful” to the Home Office for granting the money request.

He said: “They are very encouraged that the Met Police still believe there is work left to be done and they are incredibly grateful to the Home Office for providing an extra budget for the investigation.”

Last year, detectives said a "critical line of inquiry" was being pursued.

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed never to give up hope of finding their daughter.


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/finding-madeleine-mccann-almost-impossible-12294387

If the Find Madeleine Fund has such an amount of money and her parents vowed to find their daughter, they also must be aware that an abductor killed and buried her in the area, not only the parish of Luz, but also in the parish of Aljezur.

600 or more ancient wells, other possible spots. 

If they don’t want to use money from the fund to create a new search after almost 13 years possible, then they have something to hide.

Maybe a good reason for those who donated money to urge the parents to do what they vowed. 

This unsolved crime can be solved. The impossible doesn’t exist.

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

https://www.smh.com.au/world/anguished-parents-struggle-in-sea-of-despair-20070515-gdq519.html?page=3

I don't buy newspapers anymore and never will,I don't understand
how the disgusting McCanns and others can tell a newspaper what
to print,my head starts spinning when I read the obvious lies in the
"story"above,damn them.

" Hollow cheeked and red eyed , gaunt , on the verge of collapse " 

Maybe that was all from her run the previous day ? Sand got in her eyes ?

The one where she martyrs herself -" Madeleine had suffered , so must I " 

They must all be avid readers of Barbara Cartland and Mills and Boon ! 

   

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

Says Susan Healy - her mother! Has she forgotten how many times cuddlecat went through the wash for whatever reason?

Kate washed the Cuddle Cat five days after Madeleine went missing saying it was smeared with sand and sun cream.

Gerry's sister Philomena said it was cleaned again two months ago because it was filthy after being carried around.

Police sources questioned Kate's decision to wash the toy so soon after Madeleine's standby to receive fresh samples. Kate washed the Cuddle Cat five days after Madeleine disappeared, saying it was smeared with sand and sun cream.

Philomena said it was cleaned again two months ago because it was filthy after being carried around.

Police sources questioned Kate's decision to wash the toy so soon. A former Scotland Yard detective said: "It's the last thing I'd expect a mother who is devastated at losing her child to do."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-want-mccanns-diary-and-laptop-505602
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You can't/shouldn't cling on to one media report because it suits your mindset. It's all nonsense!

Tom Towers of the Daily Tablet, is regurgitating the mystic Fia Johansson story - again!

Madeleine McCann’s ‘new family don’t know her true identity or history’, psychic claims

Psychic Fia Johansson – who has reportedly worked with US law enforcement agencies on missing person cases – believes Maddie is alive and well
ByTom TowersNews Reporter

08:26, 11 JAN 2020

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/madeleine-mccanns-new-family-dont-21257400

Parrp!!! Someone fetch the bilge pump.

This 'new family' must live several galaxies away.

As this case has come this far maybe as a last ditch effort, all the world's "best" psychics should come in and do a reading. There is very little anyone can do otherwise. We can only seem to hope something comes to light. So cold now.The Americans appear to have much success with psychics if one is to believe the cases on YouTube.
My biggest struggle with this case is that they are medical staff who know all about DNA,evidence and sterile fields- Never, ever contaminate a crime scene. They knew she was taken so why did they do this? It beggars belief.

Does this startling theory reveal what REALLY happened to Madeleine McCann?

INVESTIGATIVE journalist Mark Williams-Thomas has revealed an intriguing new theory on what he believes really happened to Madeleine McCann

By Kayleigh Giles

PUBLISHED: 05:21, Wed, Feb 22, 2017

Speaking on This Morning today, the reporter - who visited the Praia da Luz, Algarve, resort three days after Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007 - raised concerns about the still unsolved case.

"It’s such a well trodden story by so many and such a difficult story to tell now because there so many legal implications," he told co-hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.

"On the morning of Madeleine’s disappearance, we do know she went to [her parents] Gerry and Kate and said, 'Where were you last night?""

He continued: "Because we know the twins did wake up on days prior to her disappearance. And I think as a result of that, Madeleine was clearly aware they were in the tapas bar that was in the resort.

    I believe Madeleine McCann woke up in the middle of the night.

   Mark Williams-Thomas

"Now the interesting element is that in order to get to the tapas bar you had to actually come out of the premises and walk on a public road to go back in again.

"And that raises concerns I have in regards to Madeleine. I believe she woke up in the middle of the night, she went looking for Gerry and Kate and she left the apartment and went out."

The journalist went on to claim: "The patio door at the back was insecure," and added that the family’s room didn’t have air conditioning despite the heat.

Phillip then told Mark: "Legally we have to leave it there."

Madeleine, who would now have been 13-years-old, vanished from an apartment in Praia da Luz at the age of three.

Her parents Gerry and Kate are believed to have been out eating at a nearby restaurant at the time of her disappearance.

So far the inquiry, which has explored dozens of theories about what happened to Madeleine, has cost more than £12 million.

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/770257/Madeleine-McCann-This-Morning-Mark-Williams-Thomas-ITV
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Showbiz sums it up nicely - not an element of truth anywhere to be seen.

People like Mark Williams-Thomas and Colin Sutton are a liability, they do more harm than good with their constant interference.  How is it possible the McCanns could ever be tried by a court of law without the process being halted by shouts of unfair trial?

They had that worked out the moment they alerted the media about the 'abduction' of their three year old daughter on the night of 3rd/4th May 2007 and they've been working hard to secure their freedom ever since.

There is an age old saying .... 'it's not what you know but who you know'  Job done!

He was on the Jeremy Vine show yesterday saying the same thing. Pity no one asked him about the jemmied window blinds.

I wonder what significance the air conditioning remark has, if any that he mentioned on This Morning.

The interview is so incredibly crass, last night I tried to locate the video just to be sure he hadn't been misquoted - so often the case with tabloid reports I'm given to understand.

But to be getting on with, until confirmation is at hand, one or three quotes to dissect..

'the reporter - who visited the Praia da Luz, Algarve, resort three days after Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007'

[Reporter? He's not a reporter - he's an ex- police officer - or as the UK said of Snr Amaral, a disgraced cop!]

'It’s such a well trodden story by so many and such a difficult story to tell now because there so many legal implications

[What legal implications? The fact that the McCanns and their team threaten to sue anyone who dares speak out about the lies and deception?]

'we do know she went to [her parents] Gerry and Kate and said, 'Where were you last night?

[We don't know anything of the kind. We only know what the McCanns and their adherents have told us]

"Because we know the twins did wake up on days prior to her disappearance. And I think as a result of that, Madeleine was clearly aware they were in the tapas bar that was in the resort.

[Why would Madeleine be clearly aware her parents were at the Tapas Bar? Because the twins did wake up on days prior to her disappearance, or because she was a three year old child blessed with the wisdom of an elder?]

"The patio door at the back was insecure," and added that the family’s room didn’t have air conditioning despite the heat.

[It wasn't hot, it was cold. The patio door was insecure because the parents McCann said so. Air conditioning ]

The bloke's lost the plot, if he ever had any grasp on it in the first place. Why do they even bother to give him studio space?

Ditto Verdi.

Kayleigh Giles is a freelance T V and showbiz reporter. She was reporting on Mark Williams Thomas who was on This Morning with Phil & Holly.

He said he was in Portugal within 3 days, he said it was very very warm there. There was no air conditioning in the apartment and the back door was insecure.

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/770257/Madeleine-McCann-This-Morning-Mark-Williams-Thomas-ITV

According to the Express report he also said ....

'I believe she woke up in the middle of the night, she went looking for Gerry and Kate and she left the apartment and went out."

So, a three year old child woke in the night, realised her parents weren't around so found the patio door in the dark, opened it (for it was closed but unlocked - apparently), left by the steep stone steps with safety (?) gate and then wandered into the dark en-route for the Tapas Bar because she knew her parents would be there.



She was then abducted/kidnapped/stolen by a stranger who just happened to be in the vicinity at the same time as the great escape - not a trace, never to be seen or heard of to this very day?

I look forward to the book when it's published.

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

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

By Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

7:05AM BST 10 Sep 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Awkward!

His lawyer made contact with the McCanns and they met Kennedy in London. “Within 15 seconds of listening to Kate,” he said, “I made a decision, using all the emotional intelligence one builds up over many years. I was 100 per cent convinced of their total innocence. I told them that, one, we would find a top Portuguese lawyer to defend them, and get them off as arguidos [the McCanns had been designated “named suspects” by the Portuguese authorities days before they returned to England]. Two, we’d do everything in our power to influence the public’s perspective and views. And, three, we’d support them in setting up some private investigators … The Portuguese police had stopped investigating. It was urgent to get some other guys on to it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Looking For Madeleine’ by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan (Headline, £18.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £16.99 + £1.95 p&p (0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/11077525/Madeleine-McCann-I-listened-for-15-seconds-and-knew-they-were-innocent.html
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Well, shiver me timbers  ! Shame on you Messrs Telegarph

I seriously don't know whether to  or .

Summers and Swan equals money,money,money,lies,lies,lies and
collusion with their beloved McCanns.

Well, of course you can always rely on the Snaily Wail to surpass all others when it comes down to publishing sheer unadulterated cobblers .  

A report from way back in September 2007, just over a week after the arguidos fled the land of Portugal to seek refuge back at good old Blighty.  Having formerly vowed and declared they would never leave Portugal without the little girl - Mudlin ..

Revealed: Mystery benefactor funding Madeleine's parents is a millionaire double-glazing magnate

By IAN GALLAGHER and DANIEL BOFFEY

Last updated at 12:25 23 September 2007

The mystery benefactor behind Kate and Gerry McCann's fight back is a double-glazing magnate with a £250million fortune.

Brian Kennedy, who made his money from Everest windows, has pledged to meet all the growing costs of 'Team McCann', the nickname given to the array of legal and media advisers supporting the family.

A senior source close to Mr and Mrs McCann said Mr Kennedy, 47, decided to act after being moved by the plight of the missing girl's parents when they were made formal suspects in her disappearance.

Mr Kennedy is believed to have had no previous contact with the McCanns.

He made his offer shortly after it was made clear the McCanns would not be drawing on the £1million donated to the Find Madeleine Fund to pay for legal fees and media advice.

The couple had feared they would be forced to sell their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, as they struggled to rebut the leaks and allegations coming from the Portuguese authorities.

However, with Mr Kennedy's help, the McCanns have in recent weeks been able to take on former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell and lawyers Kingsley Napley to fight their case. One of Britain's leading lawyers, Michael Caplan, QC, has also been employed.

Last week the couple's Portuguese legal team was strengthened with their lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu being joined by one of the country's brightest legal brains, Rogerio Alves.

Ed Smethurst, the in-house lawyer and legal director of Mr Kennedy's plastics firm, Latium, will also be on hand to assist the family. Despite not having a background in criminal law, it is understood his legal acumen and contacts could be of value.

In addition, funds will be made available for the continued efforts by the McCanns to find Madeleine. A leading international security firm founded by former SAS soldiers has been taken on to 'do the work that the Portuguese have failed to do'.

In a move that underlines the couple's despair at the Portuguese police's handling of the inquiry, they have turned to Control Risks Group, which began 30 years ago by helping kidnap victims in Latin America. Using CRG is costing tens of thousands of pounds a week.

The McCanns' benefactor – who shares his name with Kate's uncle, but to whom he is not related – is the son of an Edinburgh window cleaner, who was brought up a Jehovah's Witness.


Wots that 'orrible smell?  Scroll down for more..

He is one of Britain's richest businessmen. In 2003 he sold double-glazing firm Everest for £63million, three years after buying it for £47million.

Mr Kennedy's business empire includes about 20 firms spanning plastics, conservatory-roof manufacturer Ultraframe, glass processing, kitchens and other home improvement retailing. They have a combined annual turnover of £500million. He also owns Sale Sharks rugby club.

Reportedly described by friends as a rough diamond, the father of five plays rugby and regards himself as 'one of the lads'. He lives in the village of Swettenham, in Congleton, Cheshire, with his wife Christine. The average house price in the area is close to £1million.

The McCanns are believed to earn about £120,000 a year as doctors, but have not worked since May when Madeleine vanished. They were widely assumed to be dependent on a £100,000 donation made by Sir Richard Branson.

But Sir Richard was just one of several high-profile millionaires who have given them financial support. Others have included Harry Potter author

J.K. Rowling and entrepreneurs Sir Tom Hunter, Sir Philip Green and easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

Most, however, have refused to get involved in their legal costs because of the 'sensitivities' of the investigation.

Last night Mr Kennedy said that he had been happy to step in.

He said: 'In light of the quite literally incredible accusations against Gerry and Kate McCann, which are clearly exacerbating their emotional torture, I felt compelled to offer, along with other like-minded businessmen, financial support and the full logistical support of the Latium team.

'That support is principally our in-house lawyer Ed Smethurst and Clarence Mitchell. This will relieve the McCanns of the daily pressure of co-ordinating the legal teams that will expedite the clearing of Gerry and Kate's names, allowing all parties to refocus on finding Madeleine.'

It is believed that Mr Mitchell, who resigned from the Cabinet Office's media monitoring team to take up the McCanns' cause, will work for Mr Kennedy once his job with Madeleine's parents comes to an end.

Mr Mitchell's predecessor, Justine McGuinness, quit her position eight days ago to launch her bid to become a Liberal Democrat MP.

She has been accused by some in the Find Madeleine Trust of filing 'high' expenses and it is believed that she did not have a great relationship with the McCanns. However, accusations that she was fired by the McCanns have been denied by sources close to the family.

Meanwhile, the McCanns have asked search and rescue experts CRG to launch an investigation independent of the Portuguese police. Madeleine's parents believe detectives have failed to follow up dozens of crucial leads and have told friends that the advice and logistical support from CRG is worth the huge overheads.

The security group has a small team in Portugal. However, a key strand of the group's investigation has been to follow up on an early sighting of Madeleine in Morocco, made just five days after she disappeared from her parents' apartment in Praia da Luz.

Norwegian holidaymaker Mari Pollard, 45, reported seeing a 'lost-looking' toddler asking a man in a petrol station in Marrakesh: 'Can I see Mummy soon?'

The McCanns have now learned of an earlier sighting at a hotel next door to that garage by a man from Yorkshire who was on holiday.

A source said that the Portuguese police had failed to quiz the witness, who did report his sighting to Leicestershire police.

Control Risks, which has been working with the McCanns for several weeks, is believed to be focusing on this sighting, which came a day before Ms Pollard spotted a girl similar to Madeleine.

The man's identity is not yet known by the McCann team but they are said to be keen to get in touch with him.

Other leads are also being pursued by the group, which has been advising the McCanns on the veracity of all the tip-offs that have come their way since Madeleine disappeared.

The McCanns are in constant contact with senior representatives of the company, according to a source close to the family. They turned to CRG after the Portuguese police began to move their attentions away from the search for Madeleine.

CRG, based in London and with high-profile connections to the Foreign Office, is held in high regard worldwide and has more than 600 employees, many of them former Special Forces members.

CRG declined to comment, saying: 'All our dealings with clients are highly confidential.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483363/Revealed-Mystery-benefactor-funding-Madeleines-parents-millionaire-double-glazing-magnate.html
....................

This report alone is  riddled with meaty morsels to gnaw at until only the bare bone is left for the garbage .... the devil at work   .

Bon Appétit!

All smoke and mirrors, multi millionaires lining up to throw money at the Mccanns, not to mention our government, has achieved zilch, nada.

Surely to goodness this fiasco has run it's course. Time to change tack and look elsewhere.

If as much money was spent on looking at the facts, properly and objectively, maybe we would have an end story by now.

It just looks like a money making (for the Mccann's anyway) scheme, and a tax relief scheme for the millionaires.

Where is Madeleine in all this ?

UNITED Are Madeleine McCann’s parents Kate and Gerry still married 12 years after she went missing?

The couple had been wed for nine years when their daughter vanished in May 2007

Dan Hall

3 May 2019, 21:33Updated: 3 May 2019, 22:14

MADELEINE McCann's parents have never stopped searching for their little girl ever since she went missing 12 years ago in Portugal.



But are Kate and Gerry McCann still together after the ordeal? Here's what we know.



Who are Kate and Gerry McCann?



Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry are both practising Catholics who met in Glasgow in 1993.



The couple got married in 1998 before having their first child, Madeleine, in 2003.

They also have twin children, a boy and a girl, who were born in 2005 and live in Rothley, Leicestershire.

Kate and Gerry had been married for nine years when Madeleine disappeared on the night of May 3, 2007.



Are they still together?



Shortly after Madeleine vanished, Kate said their marriage nearly broke down as she withdrew into herself.



She stopped reading, playing music or even having sex with her husband Gerry.



And the couple were gripped by the fear that a paedophile may have taken their daughter.



Writing about that period in her autobiography, Kate said: "Tortured as I was by these images, it's not surprising that even the thought of sex repulsed me.

"I worried about Gerry and me. I worried that if I didn't get our sex life on track our whole relationship would break down."



Kate went on to credit Gerry's understanding and the couple's resilience for the endurance of their marriage.



They remain together to this day, despite the stresses of intense media scrutiny on their lives.



Why did they become the centre of scrutiny?



When three-year-old Maddie vanished from the family's Pria da Luz holiday apartment on the Algarve, Gerry and Kate were dining with friends in a nearby restaurant.



Within 24 hours of their child's disappearance, they held a press conference to make the first in a string of public appeals to help find Madeleine.



In the intervening years, the couple have constantly kept the search alive for their daughter.



Over the course of the investigation, they have both been considered "persons of interest".



A Netflix documentary released in March 2019 called The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann is drawing the couple back into public attention, despite their refusal to be involved in or with the film.



What is the latest?



Operation Grange -the Scotland Yard investigation into Madeleine's disappearance - is still continuing.



It began in 2011 and so far it has cost nearly £12million with the continued funding coming from Special Grant funding, which is available to forces that face exceptional costs.

Operation Grange is run from a Met Police branch station in Putney, South West London and is staffed by five officers.



Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick confirmed on May 3, 2019, that the force had applied for more money from the Home Office to continue its Operation Grange search for Maddie.

Dick said: "We have active lines of inquiries and I think the public would expect us to see those through.

"A very small team continues to work on this case with Portuguese colleagues and we have put in an application to the Home Office for further funding."



Gerry and Kate thanked supporters for "continuing to have hope" ahead of the 12th anniversary of their daughter’s disappearance on May 3.



However, Kate and Gerry have said that the latest images to emerge of Maddie's age progression are bogus.



A revamped Facebook page, run on behalf of Kate and Gerry, has posted a new message stating: "Thank you for continuing to have hope and helping us in the search for Madeleine."



The couple will remember Maddie, who vanished as a three-year-old during a family holiday in Portugal in May 2007, during a poignant outdoor prayer service in their home village .



On May 3, 2019, it emerged that Portuguese police were hunting a sex fiend who speaks English and wears a surgical mask in relation to Maddie's suspected kidnapping.



In one of his previous cases, he broke into a British family's home and loomed over a seven-year-old girl who woke up and asked "Is that you Daddy?" and he replied "Yes" in a foreign accent, author Anthony Summers said in the Netflix doc.



Detectives have discovered a creep carried out nearly 30 attacks within a 40-mile radius of the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished from 12 years ago today.

He crept into Algarve properties rented by families and many victims were British.

And a judicial source is reported to have confirmed the unnamed man was definitely in Portugal at the time the three-year-old suddenly disappeared.

And the insider also alleged he was KNOWN to local cops and had previously been investigated on suspicion of involvement in paedophile cases.



A chilling reconstruction features in the final episode of Netflix's recently released eight-part documentary The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann.



https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8653012/madeleine-mccann-parents-kate-gerry-still-together/

The epilogue ....

Former BBC man to speak for McCanns

James Sturcke

Tue 18 Sep 2007

Profile: Clarence Mitchell

The parents of Madeleine McCann today stepped up their campaign to maintain their innocence with the appointment of a media expert to act as their spokesman.

Clarence Mitchell, speaking outside Gerry and Kate McCann's home in Rothley, Leicestershire, confirmed he had resigned from a senior post in the civil service to handle the intense international press interest in the case of Madeleine, who vanished while on holiday with her family in Portugal.

Mr Mitchell, a former BBC reporter, spent a month with the family as the representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, during the summer.

Speaking with the couple at his side, Mr Mitchell said he had spent up to 14 hours a day with the couple and had never seen anything to suggest they had had anything to do with the four-year-old's disappearance.

"All I saw was a loving family that has been plunged into a dreadful situation - two parents trying to cope amidst their loss. To suggest that they somehow harmed Madeleine accidentally or otherwise is as ludicrous as it is nonsensical. Indeed, it would be laughable if it was not so serious," he said.

Mr Mitchell said he was "proud" to be able to help the McCanns deal with the pressure of the media interest.

The McCanns have been named by Portuguese detectives as official suspects.

Mr Mitchell said his job in the Cabinet Office as head of the media monitoring unit was "untenable" from the moment he accepted an invitation from the family, supported by their legal team and financial backers, to represent them.

"More importantly, I have [resigned] because I feel so strongly that they are innocent victims of a heinous crime that I am prepared to forego my career in government service to assist them."

He said the McCanns were happy to continue cooperating with the Portuguese authorities and that attention must return to finding Madeleine, who disappeared on May 3 from the family's holiday home in the Algarve resort of Praia de Luz while the parents dined nearby.

"The focus must now move away from the rampant, unfounded and inaccurate speculation of recent days, to return to the child at the very centre of this: Madeleine," he said.

Mr Mitchell said the family would like to appeal to the media to stop taking photographs of, or filming, the McCanns' younger children, two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

Mr Mitchell was reported to have been earning around £70,000 in his post at the Central Office of Information.

Later he told Sky News that his new job was being paid for by a "generous financial backer who wishes to remain anonymous". He was not receiving money from Mr or Mrs McCann or the Find Madeleine appeal.

As for accusations about DNA evidence against the McCanns, Mr Mitchell said that there "were wholly innocent explanations and Gerry and Kate will be able to explain everything if it gets to that stage. To suggest they harmed Madeleine is just plain daft."

During his time with the McCanns in the summer, Mr Mitchell spent most of the day with the family accompanying them on trips around the Algarve and to a number of countries to publicise the case.

Earlier, the Correio da Manha newspaper reported that Judge Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias had rejected a police request to have the McCanns brought back to Portugal for further questioning.

Instead Mrs McCann could be re-interviewed this week by British police acting on behalf of Portuguese authorities.

A UK police source said it would be "unusual" for British officers to carry out interviews on behalf of a foreign police force but stressed that "anything is possible" in a major inquiry. It is more common for officers from other countries to visit Britain to question witnesses or suspects in person with the assistance of the local force.

Sir Richard Branson has donated £100,000 towards the couple's legal costs, stating he "trusted them implicitly" and wanted them to have a fair trial if they were brought before a Portuguese court.

The Virgin boss confirmed that he had been in talks with other wealthy people to encourage them to contribute to a legal fund, and said at least one other anonymous donor had already been signed up.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/18/ukcrime.marketingandpr

McCanns evidence 'doesn't add up'

A team of British crime specialists who have scrutinised the Madeleine McCann case claim there are inconsistencies in her parents' version of events.

ByStewart Maclean

   00:00, 18 OCT 2007

A team of British crime specialists who have scrutinised the Madeleine McCann case claim there are inconsistencies in her parents' version of events.

The retired experts believe there is a question mark over Kate's response when she discovered the four-year-old was missing.

Forensic scientist Professor David Barclay, part of the four-man team who reviewed the case for Channel Four's Dispatches show, said: "We examined all of the available evidence and the conclusion we came to was that there appeared to be some significant inconsistencies.

"One thing we looked for was any sign of 'staging', the term we use for the actions of someone who has committed a crime and wants to 'stage it' to appear someone else has done it.

"The first words apparently spoken by Kate McCann when she discovered Madeleine had vanished were significant. She is supposed to have said 'They've taken her, they've taken her' - which seems a strange choice of phrase.

"I don't think that would have been my first reaction if my child had gone missing."

Prof Barclay also questioned the McCanns' claims that an abductor got into their Praia da Luz holiday flat through the back shutters.

He said: "We checked the scene of the crime and it struck us immediately how unlikely it would be for anyone to try and access the apartment through the back windows. The shutters there were firmly shut and couldn't be opened and the car park behind the flat was overlooked.

"We're not saying it was impossible to have gained entry that way, but with all of our collected years of experience to us it seemed highly unlikely and a very implausible scenario.

"It could be that claim is consistent with staging, but without full knowledge of all of the facts in the case it would be impossible to say for sure."

Prof Barclay visited the crime scene along with ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson, the man who caught Soham killer Ian Huntley and psychological profiler David Canter.

The will seen on tonight's show visiting key sites and seeing footage of the police in action.

Prof Barclay, 62, added: "There has been a tendency to criticise the Portuguese police but on the whole they did a pretty good job.

"However, they made two big mistakes. Firstly, they did not seal of the crime scene anywhere nearly quick enough. Secondly, in my opinion they were not aggressive enough with the McCanns in the first stage of the investigation.

"It is actually for the parents' benefit in cases like this that the police tackle them robustly and demand a comprehensive account of their movements during the relevant timeframe."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mccanns-evidence-doesnt-add-up-514328

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13407p850-video-of-the-day#413588

Madeleine's parents spooked

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 01 October 2007

The parents of Madeleine McCann are considering taking advice from psychics in their search for their missing daughter, a friend confirmed today.

"They are desperate for help and even some family members are suggesting it as a possible route"

McCann family friend

The parents of Madeleine McCann are considering taking advice from psychics in their search for their missing daughter, a friend confirmed today.

Scottish relatives of Gerry and Kate McCann are understood to have been reading up on mystics and have been in contact with at least one.

They are now said to be urging to couple to take their advice.

The McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have had more than 1,000 approaches from people claiming to be mediums offering help and advice in finding Madeleine since her disappearance in Portugal in May.

While any information judged to be relevant or credible has been passed on to police the McCanns have had no direct contact with psychics.

But it is understood relatives in Scotland have been pressing the couple to meet a psychic since their return to the UK last month.

The couple, both devout catholics, are understood not to have ruled it out although nothing has been agreed.

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

The family's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "I understand that one or two in Scotland have been in touch with family members to discuss helping them but as far as I'm aware Kate and Gerry have not directly asked for that assistance and I understand none has been agreed."

He added: "They are all treated with courtesy, if there is a specific piece of information that can be looked at such as a car registration or a name then that is checked out, the police do not dismiss these things entirely."

Portuguese police said early in the investigation that they had to consider tip-offs from people claiming to be psychics because of the possibility the abductor could be using a mystic as a vehicle to communicate with them.

The couple have since been declared "arguidos" - or official suspects - in the case and as such are banned from giving interviews under Portugal's strict judicial secrecy laws.

The couple are said to be "frustrated" at the gag especially in light of daily leaks to Portuguese papers, apparently from police sources, highlighting new theories about Madeleine's disappearance.

But is now understood discussions are actively under way about the possibility of the couple giving interviews to Portuguese and Spanish press next week to tie in with the launch of a new publicity drive.

Cash from the £1m-plus fighting fund is set to be spent on a new publicity drive targeting the Iberian peninsula and Morocco, particularly remote parts.

Last week hopes were raised after a Spanish tourist took a photograph of a blonde girl resembling Madeleine being carried on a Moroccan farmer's back in a remote part of the country.

Although the girl was traced and shown not to be Madeleine, the family continue to believe she could alive and being kept in a remote area.

Posters have already been designed for a bill-board campaign targeting specific local areas in Spain, Portugal and Morocco next week.

Talks are also under way with supermarket chains to have Madeleine's image displayed in shopping trolleys in the targeted areas.

But the McCanns hope they could also make a direct appeal for help to the people of Spain and Portugal in a television interview as long as they do not talk about the specifics of the police case.

They have asked their lawyers to examine the judicial secrecy laws to see if it will be possible.

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

https://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/madeleines%2bparents%2bspooked/865847.html

Who Are Brian And Patrick Kennedy, And How Are They Involved In The Madeleine McCann Case?

Brian Kennedy, a wealthy Scottish businessman, bankrolled several private investigations to help find the missing 3-year-old girl. How did he and his son Patrick become involved in the case?

By Eric Shorey

Months after their daughter Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance in Portugal, Kate and Gerry McCann were reeling. Not only had Portuguese authorities turned up nothing in the search for their 3-year-old girl, but they themselves had been identified as suspects in the case, a development that propelled the tabloid media in Portugal and the U.K. into a whirlwind of speculation.

Into that bleak setting stepped Brian Kennedy, a wealthy Scottish businessman who offered the McCanns financial support to not only provide them legal protection, but also jumpstart an investigation that, with police in Portugal primarily focused on the couple, had been growing stagnant.

Gerry and Kate had taken Madeleine and their 2-year-old twins to the vacation town of Praia De Luz. They were there with other friends and their respective children. On the night of May 3, the adults went to dinner at a restaurant a short walk from their rented apartments, with one of them getting up to check on the children every 20 or 30 minutes. Partway through the meal, Kate returned to the apartment — but Madeleine was gone. Thus kicked off an investigation that still continues more than a decade later.

It would only be a couple of months before some in the media began questioning whether Kate or Gerry were themselves involved. Eventually, Portuguese authorities began to share their own suspicions with the press, adding fuel to the fire.

Kennedy was one of many keeping tabs on the case and didn't like how the McCanns had become focal point.

"I was following the story like everyone else. I saw that the media and the world had turned against these people. I was thinking, 'No way. I will absolutely lose all faith in human nature if these parents are involved,'" Kennedy said on the new Netflix docu-series "The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann." "We were in the fortunate position in which we had the resources to be able to reach out and help them."

Patrick Kennedy, Brian's son, further explained he and his father's motivation for aiding the McCanns.

"If you can do something to help, you bloody better try and help. That's something that my dad is all about."

Brian got into contact with the McCann family's lawyers, believing Kate and Gerry to be totally innocent from the start.

"Kate started to tell the story and after 12 seconds, just reading the emotions, everything told me 100 percent that this woman was absolutely genuine and she was a victim," Brian said of first meeting with the couple.

Brian helped fund public relations management to navigate a challenging media landscape and also met with the McCann's lawyer to establish the best legal approach for the family. And he also put money toward expensive private investigations. In fact, both Brian and Patrick themselves traveled to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to track down a young blond girl who resembled Madeleine and who was photographed traveling with a local family. (Upon their arrival, Brian noted blond children were fairly common in the Atlas Mountains and the girl in question was, in fact, with her own family).

Meanwhile, Brian would go on to hire a Spanish private investigation firm named Método 3 to aggressively pursue leads, both on the ground and in the seedy corners of the dark web. Patrick and the private investigator working the case, Julian Peribañez, would re-trace the early steps of the investigation by interviewing the first suspects, Robert Murat and Sergey Malinka. Their aggressive tactics involved following the two for days and bugging their cars. Malinka has since spoken about the fear he experienced during this time.

"I don't feel sorry for anybody at that time. Irrelevant. What was very relevant was the little girl that was missing. The little girl that had been abducted. That's the person that I felt sorry for. Nobody else," Patrick said in the documentary.

The Kennedys fired Método 3 after its director, Francisco Marco, made statements to the media that they'd discovered who kidnapped Madeleine when they were nowhere close to a breakthrough.

Brian Kennedy then hired the Washington D.C.-based Oakley International to carry on with the investigation, but that firm's owner, Kevin Halligen, would soon be the subject of fraud allegations. Ultimately, none of the privately funded investigations led to the discovery of either Madeleine or anyone involved in her abduction.

Brian would go on to pursue other charitable efforts, including the establishment of his own trust, through which donations have been made to organizations like Space4Autism, according to the Macclesfield Express, a UK-based news organization. He also began investing in films including the 2014 historical film "The Homesman," according to Variety. He would contribute funds and act as a co-producer on "The Great Gilly Hopkins," a 2015 comedy-drama, according to Screen Daily.

https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/who-are-brian-and-patrick-kennedy-and-how-are-they-involved-in-the-madeleine-mccann