Media Mayhem - MCCANN MEDIA NONSENSE OF THE DAY

Profile – Susan Hubbard

Missing Madeleine Vanished on holiday

By NANCY DURHAM (CBC News, Canada): May 2, 2008

One year ago, Kate and Gerry McCann’s holiday on Portugal’s Algarve coast turned into a nightmare. On the second-last night of their vacation, the McCanns, from Leicestershire, England, put their three children to bed: Madeleine, nearly four, and two-year-old twins Sean and Emilie. Then they walked 50 metres to dine at a tapas bar, which is part of the Ocean Club complex in Praia de Luz where they were staying with friends. The couples took turns checking on each other’s children every 30 minutes or so. At around 10 p.m., Kate McCann discovered Madeleine missing from her bed.

In the year since the 3-year-old girl disappeared on May 3, 2007, a Canadian couple has been playing a crucial role of support in the lives of Kate and Gerry McCann.

The Hubbards – Haynes, an Anglican priest who was about to take up a new post as senior chaplain for the Algarve Anglican Church, and Susan, a midwife – arrived in Praia de Luz three days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The town was in chaos as police combed the area looking for the missing British girl, reporters jostled for interviews and helicopters circled in the sky. This was no longer the peaceful tourist town the couple remembered from a previous visit when Haynes temporarily filled the role of Anglican chaplain in the former fishing village. Now he was arriving to take on the job full time.
God brought us here

The Hubbards appear to have had enough of reporters. Yet they agree to open their door to another inquisitive stranger for one reason only: because there’s a chance that giving another interview just might help find the little girl they’ve never met.

The Hubbards now believe Madeleine’s disappearance is the reason they were “called” to Portugal. Susan remembers the moment it hit her.

“It wasn’t until months later, when I saw really why God had brought us here, that I was awestruck that he confirmed we were to be here before we even set foot in our town of Praia de Luz,” she says. “For me, he confirmed it on the plane … the fact that there was a child missing here gave us our first mission before we even set foot in the place.”
Hold on to your baby

Their arrival was unnerving. When their plane landed in Lisbon, Susan was warned.

“This old woman grabbed me, and I was holding on to our five-month-old son, Caspian, and she grabbed my arm and spoke to me in Portuguese: ‘Hold on to your baby; there’s been an English child taken.'”

At first, Susan double-locked the doors and windows to keep their three children safe. Caspian has an older sister, Gabriela, 9, and brother, Sebastian, now 10. Soon, the family relaxed, and Haynes, too, saw this was the place they were meant to be.

“It was pretty clear that He was using us, of the same age [as the McCanns] and with small children and Susan speaking Portuguese … and being able to relate to them in a tiny way, to lead them in prayer and just to walk with them,” he said.

Haynes Hubbard loves travel, so when it was time to move on from his Dunnville, Ont., parish, he and Susan saw the job opening in Praia de Luz as an opportunity. Haynes says he felt a little guilty “in terms of my ministry, wanting to travel,” but a friend encouraged him to see it as a gift, pointing out that he could be useful abroad.

Rural Ontario roots

It’s hard to imagine a couple better suited to extend the hand of friendship to Kate and Gerry McCann, who are also devout Christians. Although the McCanns are Roman Catholic, in this seaside town, the lines between Catholic and Protestant are blurred. Both faiths share the pretty, white and mustard yellow-trimmed church, Our Lady of Light, which sits just above the shimmering beach in the town centre.

The McCanns were soon attending Haynes Hubbard’s weekly services, and Susan Hubbard reached out to Kate McCann. In keeping with her rural Ontario upbringing, she made her approach in that very Canadian way of offering food.

“It’s something my mother would always do, being a part of the church community in Canada,” Susan said.

More gifts of food followed, and notes, and soon a warm friendship between Susan Hubbard and Kate McCann began.

Susan wants it known that their friendship is not one-sided. She describes how throughout the McCanns’ own desperate ordeal, Kate inquired about the Hubbards’ children.

“That’s how she is,” Susan said. “In the middle of her grief, she still is such a caring, loving friend.”

In fact, Susan says, it was the McCanns who helped the Hubbards settle in to their new parish. Susan has visited the McCanns since their return to England last September, and the two women keep in close touch through text messages and e-mail.

‘Pray for me’

The Hubbards have faithfully stood by the McCanns throughout their ordeal, and they continue to do so. They hold weekly vigils for Madeleine in Our Lady of Light. A photograph of the little girl’s smiling face is on the wall by the altar. Beside it, the words “pray for me” are written.

Sightings of Madeleine have been reported across Europe and as far away as Australia, each one turning out to be a disappointment. At summer’s end last year, and with no clue to Madeleine’s disappearance, the Portuguese police named her parents as suspects, which in Portugal allows police to question witnesses more thoroughly.

No charges have been laid against the McCanns, but British tabloid newspapers turned on the couple, printing dozens of false stories filled with rumour and innuendo suggesting they were responsible for their daughter’s disappearance. The McCanns sued, and in March, the Express newspaper group paid more than $1 million in damages to the couple and printed front-page apologies. The McCanns are using the funds to support their campaign to find Madeleine as well as to launch a program in Europe similar to the North American Amber Alert system used to find missing children.

The Hubbards, like the McCanns, believe Madeleine may well be alive, and they pray for her safe return. The Hubbards’ faith in God is unwavering, though Susan Hubbard wonders “why our prayers haven’t been answered.”

“I don’t understand that,” she says. “I’ve seen the letters come into their home and their hands. How could so many people be praying for the exact same thing and it not happen? It’s hard.”

http://madeleinemccann.org/blog/2008/05/02/profile-susan-hubbard/

worriedmum wrote:
She's not a thinker , is she?

Understatement of the Year.

The Daily Star - a surprising departure from the norm..

Is this REALLY the man who took Maddie? There's a BIG problem with this sighting

IT’S the Maddie sighting that’s supposed to hold the key to the case, but what do we really know about the mysterious man in this notorious e-fit?

By Michael Havis

   00:00, 13 SEP 2017Updated11:06, 13 SEP 2017

Within an hour of Madeleine McCann disappearing in 2007, a child matching her description was seen in the arms of an unknown man.

He was heading towards the coast just 500 yards from where Maddie vanished in the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz.

So intriguing was the sighting that likenesses of the man were pulled together and later broadcast on Crimewatch.



Yet while the world thinks of the man as a key piece of the puzzle, some say the sighting is a dead end.

Daily Star Online visited Praia da Luz and recreated the sighting 10 years after Maddie vanished.

At the same time of night and with similar lighting, we discovered how hard it was to get a good look at a face.

The street, Rua da Escola Primaria, is lit dimly lit by just a few street lamps, a sign from a nearby clinic and moonlight.

Photos of a model, which were taken at the scene and brightened afterwards to better simulate the view, show a face shrouded in shadow.

It’s also worth noting that e-fits are usually produced by an operator under the direction of a witness, in accordance with strict police guidelines.

The e-fits created from this sighting were assembled in 2008, several months after Madeleine disappeared, when witnesses were likelier to misremember.

On the other hand, if they were made without the direction of witnesses – but rather from their statements – the operator is likelier to have influenced the end result.

Given these factors, some have concluded that the man – who was spotted and described by the Smith family from Ireland – is just an innocent bystander.

One local man with knowledge of the case said that, whether the man is innocent or not, "the e-fits almost certainly look nothing like him"

He told Daily Star Online: "I happen to believe he is Portuguese and innocent, but that’s not how he's depicted in Portuguese media.

"They showed the e-fits, but called him Scotland Yard’s chief suspect. They did not include that he might be totally innocent."

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/madeleine-mccann-news-missing-found-17008062

Cuddle Cat What was Madeleine McCann’s Cuddle Cat? How important was it to the police investigation and how long did Kate carry it around for?

Maddie's mum held the toy at press conferences for months after her abduction

Paul Harper

3 May 2019, 8:10Updated: 3 May 2019, 9:49

THE sight of her daughter's favourite toy being moved led to a devastating realisation for Madeleine McCann's mother Kate.

Here we look at the significance of Cuddle Cat and how her mum kept the toy by her side for months following Maddie's abduction.


Kate McCann with missing daughter Madeleine McCann's Cuddle CatCredit: PA

What was Cuddle Cat and why was it important to the investigation?

Mum Kate McCann said she knew Maddie had been abducted when she found her daughter's favourite toy in the room 12 years ago.

She knew Madeleine would never be without the fluffy toy when tired.

The pink toy was her favourite and was in her bed on the night her parents Kate and Gerry left three-year-old Maddie and her two-year-old twin siblings - Amelie and Sean - in their apartment while they dined at a restaurant with friends about 55 metres away.

Kate later recalled how she knew a "crime had been committed" when it appeared "Cuddle Cat" had been taken from her daughter's arms.

A police source told the Sunday Mirror: "When Kate tucked Madeleine up in bed earlier in the evening she had the toy tightly in her arms as she did every night.

"So Kate was terrified when she spotted it had been left in a place too high for her to reach."

Cops did not find any sign of DNA or fingerprints on the toy which had been found on a ledge.

While cops initially believed Maddie could have wandered off and been killed, former Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton believes the tot would surely have taken her beloved toy "Cuddle Cat" if she had walked out of the apartment.

He said: "Incidents of children wandering off are much more common than a targeted or non-targeted abduction.

"However Cuddle Cat is a compelling fly in the ointment with this theory."

How long did Kate carry the toy?

An emotional Kate was always seen clutching her daughter's beloved toy at press conferences for months.

She said: "It was special to Madeleine, she took it to bed every night. If she was upset or tired she had Cuddle Cat.

"It was special to her so it is special to me."

She carried it around so much that her other daughter Amelie would often make references to the toy.

Kate said: "Amelie will point at Cuddle Cat and say 'Madeleine, her Cuddle Cat, looking after it'.

"She's probably heard me saying that."

A controversial TV drama about the fake kidnap of Shannon Matthews faced criticism for being "insensitive" when it featured mother Karen Matthews clutching a toy before cameras, mimicking Kate.

Irish journalist Brenda Woods, one of the first reporters to meet the McCanns after Maddie vanished, recalled that Kate said "pray for us" while "holding her hands in mine, and holding Cuddle Cat alongside".

Potential sightings of the three-year old followed up by British cops total 8,685 across 101 countries and territories, a Freedom of Information request by The Sun showed in October.

In January 2019, Maddie's parents were boosted by the news that 13-year-old American schoolgirl Jayme Closs had been found three months after her kidnap.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3435619/madeleine-mccann-cuddle-cat-important-portugal-investigation/

Kate McCann said efit that looks like German suspect was ‘very important’ to finding missing Madeleine

Emma Costello
16th May 2019

Kate McCann said an efit that links daughter Madeliene’s abduction to a German serial killer could finally crack the case of her disappearance.

In her book Madeleine, the mother spoke about how important it was to find four people based on sightings of men in the days leading up to her daughter’s abduction in May 2007.

Kate said in the 2011 book: ‘We believe that identifying these individuals could bring us much closer to finding Madeleine.’

One of the efits, numbered four, appears to resemble convicted triple-murderer Martin Ney, 48.

He is believed to be one of the two key ‘persons of interest‘ officers are now focusing on and are is said to be quizzed behind bars.

Investigations are being linked to Ney, who is serving life in prison for abducting and killing three children in 2012.


An efit of a suspect, numbered ‘four’, looks similar to that of convicted triple-murderer Martin Ney.

The number four efit is based on a man spotted from a veranda of a first floor apartment in the same block as the McCanns.

The man was spotted on the same day Madeleine disappeared, on May 3, 2007.

He was seen slinking through a gate by the access path between 4pm to 5pm.

Kate discovered her daughter missing shortly before 10pm.

Recalling the incident in her book, she wrote: ‘His behaviour struck the witness as suspicious.’

She continued: ‘He appeared to be trying to close the gate quietly, using both hands, and very slowly and deliberately checking in both directions before walking to the end of the pathway and on to Rua Dr Gentil Martins.’

The gate he walked through is understood to be to apartment 5B, next to the McCann’s 5A, where Kate and Gerry’s friends Matt and Rachael Oldfield and their young daughter Grace were staying.

The couple and their toddler had been on the beach that afternoon with the holiday group from 3pm to 6pm.

Ney was reportedly known to haunt the Algarve and travelled throughout Portugal in the 1990s.

He is said to have told others in chatroom messages he had dressed in camouflage to jump out of bushes, ‘in children’s playgrounds if a beautiful boy goes past’.

Ney was jailed for killing Stefan Jahr, 13, in 1992, Dennis Rostel, eight, in 1995, and Dennis Klein, nine, in 2001.

Family spokesperson Clarence Mitchell said of potential new kidnapper Ney: ‘It might be him and he fits the profile, he is a known predatory paedophile and he’s a foreigner.

‘He wore camouflage gear, carried knives and jumped out of bushes to pounce on victims.’

He told MailOnline: ‘It is quite possible and plausible police are looking at him again but it could be someone else. There is a degree of credibility it is Ney but we cannot speculate.

‘Ney has been previously interviewed by detectives over Madeleine’s abduction, and denied it. He is in a German jail now.’

https://extra.ie/2019/05/06/news/world-news/kate-mccann-madeleine-suspect

BBC - Saturday, 8 September 2007, 01:26 GMT 02:26 UK

Is Operation Grange still pursuing the 'abduction' theory, as published in their original remit back in 2011? Well, according to this news report back in 2012 - the answer is yes! - and that's an emphatic yes!.

Madeleine McCann could be living with abductor, says Scotland Yard

This article is more than 8 years old

Yard releases image of how Madeleine may look five years on and asks Portuguese police to reopen inquiry

Scotland Yard detectives released a picture of what Madeleine McCann may look like today as they said they had uncovered new information to suggest she could be alive and living with her abductor.

The senior officer leading an investigative review into the disappearance of Madeleine five years ago is calling on Portuguese police to reopen their inquiry into the case.

Releasing an age-enhanced image of Madeleine – as she nears her ninth birthday on 12 May – Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, of Scotland Yard's homicide and serious crime command, said: "We genuinely believe there's a possibility that she is alive. I want to make a direct appeal. If you know where Madeleine McCann is or if you have any direct information or evidence about what happened to her, then please make contact."

Redwood and his 37-strong team have identified 195 missed investigative opportunities in the 40,000 pieces of evidence they have examined from the Portuguese inquiry, the family's home force in Leicestershire, and the information gleaned by a team of private detectives hired by the McCann family since Madeleine went missing, aged three, from the resort of Praia de Luz on 3 May 2007.

"We are in a unique position seeking to draw together the three key strands of information about her disappearance," said Redwood.

He unequivocally dismissed the conspiracy theory – promoted by the original Portuguese lead detective Goncalo Amaral – that Madeleine's parents had anything to do with her disappearance.

He said detectives believe Madeleine was abducted in "a criminal act by a stranger".

Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, worked closely with the Met to produce the new image of their daughter.

"Kate says she can see Madeleine's brother and sister Sean and Amelie in it as well as something of herself," said the family's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell. She and Gerry feel very positive and they hope it leads to the breakthrough they have been waiting for."

Redwood's team is sifting page by page through 100,000 documents within the 40,000 pieces of evidence, and are a quarter of the way through the exercise. They are working closely with a team of Portuguese detectives and liaising with law enforcement agencies across Europe and the world when necessary.

They are developing what they believe is "genuinely new information" in the hunt for the child. It is understood, though, that this is not based on any new possible sightings. The team is also pursuing the line of inquiry that after five years Madeleine might be dead.

It is understood that key areas being investigated by Scotland Yard – which the Portuguese police failed to pursue – include analysis of a huge amount of mobile phone cell site evidence that was gathered but never analysed. That evidence could help to trace any suspects who were around the resort.

They are also attempting for the first time to contact all the holidaymakers who were staying around the area of the Mark Warner Ocean club complex between 28 April and 3 May 2007, when Madeleine disappeared from her room while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas bar.

Officers are also focusing on any men in the area with criminal convictions that might indicate they are a danger to children, and investigating the backgrounds of resort staff, including examining whether any had suffered the loss of a child.

Commander Simon Foy, Scotland Yard's head of homicide command, said they would not stop until they discovered what had happened to Madeleine. The review inquiry – which has cost £2m to date – began after the McCanns appealed last year to David Cameron for Scotland Yard to investigate the case.

There are examples of children who have been abducted only to be found alive years later: Jaycee Lee Dugard was found alive 18 years after being snatched at the age of 11 from a bus stop in California; the Austrian schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch was found in 2006, eight years after being abducted aged 10; and Shawn Hornbeck, who disappeared aged 12 in 2002, was found four years later.

The decision on whether to reopen the inquiry in Portugal is in the hands of the country's attorney general. He has said he will only reopen the investigation if "new, serious and relevant evidence emerges". He was not available for comment.

Redwood said the police review team in Portugal were keen for this to happen. "[They] want to reopen the case … They are a new group of investigators and they are completely engaged and totally committed."

Jim Gamble, former head of the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit, said the hunt for Madeleine had now been reignited. "The person who's done it knows they have done it," said Gamble. "They will be paranoid, and it is likely that someone close to them will see that paranoia, or that as the pressure builds someone close to them who knows they have done it, and who is no longer a friend, might come forward.

"One thing is sure: the person who did this will be watching and listening."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/madeleine-mccann-yard-case
....................

What ever became of Andy Redwood since retirement I wonder. Re-training dogs perhaps?

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett 'admits he saw Madeleine McCann twice' before she disappeared

By Sam Greenhill for the Daily Mail

Updated: 01:27, 6 June 2009

Paedophile Raymond Hewlett has allegedly said he saw Madeleine McCann twice before she vanished.

The Briton, 62, has previously insisted he was miles from Praia da Luz in the Portuguese Algarve when the three-year-old went missing in May 2007.

But yesterday he reportedly implied he had been close enough to see Maddie's distinctive flaw in her right eye.

Kate and Gerry McCann's spokesman yesterday said it was now 'imperative' cancer-stricken Hewlett is interviewed before he dies.

But he has told private detectives employed by the couple he will only reveal where he was the night Maddie vanished if they pay him thousands of pounds. The request has been refused.

The former soldier has been discharged after throat cancer surgery in the German city of Aachen a month ago.

His lawyer there confirmed he has 'a matter of weeks to live'.

Yesterday Bild newspaper, Germany's biggest, reported that Hewlett admitted seeing Madeleine twice and described the mark in her right eye.

The report is understood to be based on 'police sources' in Germany.

But a McCann family friend added: 'It is impossible to know whether to believe anything Hewlett says.'

Friends of the McCanns say they are deeply suspicious of his motives after it was revealed that Hewlett has been trying to cash in on the tragedy by demanding money for answers.

A source close to the couple, who is refusing to pay up, said: 'He is playing a very dangerous game.

'He may think he is about to land the jackpot but if he is putting it about that he saw Madeleine, he might find some big policemen banging on his door instead.'

Until the truth of the alleged claims can be ascertained, the investigators are more anxious than ever to interview Hewlett.

The former soldier had throat cancer surgery in a hospital in the German city of Aachen a month ago.

However, he has now been discharged and his lawyer in Aachen confirmed that he has 'only a matter of weeks to live'.

Whether he knows anything concrete about what happened to Madeleine remains a mystery.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCann's spokesman, said: 'In the light of the Bild piece, this makes it even more imperative that Mr Hewlett gives any credible information that he may have about Madeleine to the investigators as a matter of priority.

'We hope that he and his representatives will see sense and facilitate this interview in the near future.'

A family friend added: 'It is impossible to know whether to believe anything Hewlett says. First he denies being in Praia da Luz, now he says he saw Madeleine.

'He has a long history of evading the law and lying about his activities.'

Earlier this week Hewlett was interviewed by West Yorkshire police who travelled to Germany to question him about child attacks dating back to 1975.

But they are not investigating Madeleine's disappearance so it is unlikely they asked him about her.

Hewlett's German wife Marianna Schmuker has removed his name from the nameplate outside their apartment in Aachen, and it is understood he has not gone back there. She hung up the phone when asked about him.

Two ex-policemen, former detective inspector Dave Edgar and former detective sergeant Arthur Cowley, are now in charge of the Madeleine hunt.

They were hired by the McCanns after Spanish agency Metodo 3 failed to find any trace of their daughter.

Last week, the British detectives flew to Aachen in Germany to try to speak to Hewlett in hospital, but he rebuffed them.

Although he later changed his mind, they had already returned home empty-handed by then.

Hewlett, who has been imprisoned three times in the UK for sex offences, is one of 38 paedophiles known to have been - or still be - in the Algarve when Madeleine vanished.

The McCanns' detectives are building profiles on each of them and are understood to regard four or five of them as being particularly significant.

They are also examining possible links with seven other sex attacks on tourist children in which a paedophile has broken into a holiday apartment on the Algarve, over the past four years.

Two of these attacks happened since Madeleine went missing.

The investigators are convinced the answer to the Madeleine riddle lies close to where she disappeared.

Hewlett was said to be an hour's drive up the coast in May 2007, living on a campsite with his wife and six children in a blue Dodge truck, which detectives would still like to trace.

He later moved the family to a camp ground in Morocco.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191094/Paedophile-Raymond-Hewlett-admits-I-saw-Madeleine-McCann-twice-disappeared.html
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Déjà vu?

Same meat different gravy. Hewlett is dead so let's find another suspects to fill his boots.

Ludicrous ain't it Meester 'source close to the family' Mitchell.

Really sir, you should have been a landscape gardener, so many plants have you nurtured.

‘It’s ludicrous to suggest the McCanns hid Madeleine’s body’ say Waterford investigators

By Jenny Friel - 06/04/2019

It was a question Kate McCann had undoubtedly been asked hundreds of times before — how long would she keep looking for her daughter Madeleine? ‘I’ll look for her forever,’ she resolutely told the TV presenter interviewing her. ‘Forever.’

With that, the segment was over, ending yet another glimpse into the heartbreaking reality of the McCanns’ lives since their three-year-old daughter went missing in mysterious circumstances in early May 2007.

It was just one of many interviews Kate and Gerry McCann have done in the intervening years. But this particular television appearance in 2012 was to have a profound effect on the lives of another family who live in the rural depths of Co Waterford.

‘Madeleine had been missing for about five years at this point,’ explains Robbyn Swan. ‘And we were watching the television with our youngest child, Lara. Whenever anything about Madeleine McCann was mentioned, her ears would prick up because her own middle name is Madeleine.

‘When it was over, Lara, who was about 12-years-old at the time, looked over at me and said: “Mummy, if I were missing, how long would you look for me?” So of course I said: “I’d look for you forever, darling.”

‘She was silent for a moment or two and then she looked back at me and asked: “How long is forever?” And it really hit me, both as a parent and as a journalist — how long is forever? This endless purgatory that this family are in.’

Married to award-winning author and former BBC producer and journalist, Anthony Summers, Robbyn had already co-written or helped research a number of successful books on historical figures and momentous world events, such as the 9/11 attacks.

Struck by their own young daughter’s response to the McCann television interview, the couple decided to tackle one of Europe’s most famous missing child cases.

‘We started looking at it and what the issues were that still needed exploring,’ explains Robbyn. ‘What evidence and facts were there? We starting reading the police files and came to the conclusion that there was probably some aspect of it that we could usefully cover.’


Madeleine McCann’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann spoke to Robbyn Swan and Anthony Summers before they wrote their book Looking for Madeleine. Pic: Reuters/Darren Staples

After more than two years of research and interviews with about 50 different people, their book, Looking For Madeleine, was released in 2014. But it is their contribution to the recent Netflix documentary, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, that has really thrust them into the middle of what is one of the most heavily reported stories in the last couple of decades.

Throughout the eight hour-long episodes, the couple regularly feature sitting side-by-side, offering up information they learned while compiling their own book, which has just been re-released.

Reaction to the documentary has been mixed. Some reviewers have slated it for failing to unearth anything new, labelling it an opportunistic retelling and stretching of the entire sorry story over eight hours.

Others, however, have pointed out that the Madeleine McCann case will always attract huge attention and that the Netflix show has opened it up to a new generation who were too young to follow it when it broke and, perhaps most pertinently, to a global audience, who might otherwise have remained clueless as to who Madeleine McCann is.

‘This case remains virtually uncommented on in the United States,’ says Robbyn, who is American. ‘I’m often asked, “Who is Madeleine McCann?” And I have to say it’s our JonBenet Ramsey (a six-year-old American child beauty queen who was murdered in 1996 at her family’s home in Colorado).

‘And they are similar kinds of stories in some ways, parents who were blamed for doing something wrong with their child. In the McCanns’ case they are vilified for leaving the children alone while they ate dinner with friends. In the Ramsey case, it was her parents allowing her to participate in beauty pageants.


Waterford couple Robbyn Swan and Anthony Summers took part in the Netflix documentary the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann which was released this year. Pic: File

‘The great arbiters of great parenting in the world want to continue to make those things a talking point.’

Indeed, as the documentary makers were no doubt aware, the Madeleine McCann case is always certain to stir up a huge reaction whenever it is mentioned.

On holidays with her family at an upmarket resort on the Algarve in Portugal, the fair-haired little girl disappeared from the bedroom she was sharing with her younger twin siblings. The children were sleeping in the apartment as their parents ate dinner with friends at a tapas bar a short distance away.

The adults were taking it in turns to check on all of their children throughout the meal. At around 10pm Kate McCann discovered that Madeleine was missing. No trace of her has ever been found and in the following weeks and months, numerous theories as to what might have happened to her were dissected and discussed by all those following the horrendous story.

Nobody involved in the case escaped scrutiny, including Madeleine’s own parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

The couple are conspicuously absent from the Netflix show although several weeks ago a statement was released on their findmadeleine.com website. ‘We are aware that Netflix are planning to screen a documentary in March 2019 about Madeleine’s disappearance,’ it read. ‘The production company told us that they were making the documentary and asked us to participate. 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.’

Anthony Summers is not surprised the McCanns did not take part in the documentary and says they were careful to inform the couple in 2012 of their own intentions to write a book.

‘I don’t think we’d have embarked on our book if we hadn’t gone to see them,’ he says. ‘We got the ferry over and drove to their house, we spent most of our time with Kate, who was welcoming and as helpful as she could be.

‘We said we wanted to do a book and if they had said: “Don’t do it.” I think we probably wouldn’t have. But it was fine to go ahead so long as we checked with Scotland Yard and did nothing that would in any way damage or interfere with the police investigation.

‘Of course our next stop was to go to Scotland Yard where we met with the man leading the investigation. And we kept contact with them, they were very careful and diplomatic throughout our dealings with them. They didn’t hand out any information to us, but we did manage to avoid a lot of bum steers.’

While they never received any direct feedback about their book from the McCanns, a source in Scotland Yard was able to tell them ‘we had been fair’.

The couple, who first met in the early 90s when Anthony hired Robbyn as a researcher for a book he was writing about J Edgar Hoover and now have three children together, are keen to point out that they were contributors on the Netflix show.

‘It’s not our documentary,’ explains Anthony. ‘They asked us for an interview (for which they were paid) and by the sounds of it, they had done a great deal of research and would be evenhanded about it all. We thought about it, said yes. A large team of them came to our home last April or May, where we did two days of 12 hours of questions.

‘It was pretty gruelling, but it was clear they’d done their homework. And I think that’s reflected over the span of the eight episodes, it a very fair account of the whole saga.’

They saw it for the first time when it was released on the streaming service. And while they say it’s a very thorough account of the case, there was nothing in it that surprised them hugely.

‘I don’t think we learned anything, but there were a couple of really good moments,’ says Anthony. ‘I think it was very important they got the former police dog handler whose work was responsible for raising so many red herrings, through no fault of his own (the dogs were trained in alerting investigators to the scent of cadavers or blood. They barked when sniffing a car the McCanns hired several weeks after their daughter went missing, and also at the apartment from which Madeleine disappeared).

‘He talked about what the dogs can do, and while being very proud of their work, he acknowledged that their barks are not evidence. It’s something he had been saying from the beginning, any barks must be followed up by locating physical evidence.

‘Yet all these people were virtually saying that the McCanns were implicated in their daughter’s disappearance. The suggestion was there had been a fatal accident, the parents then hid her body in the boot of a car they had rented several weeks after she went missing.

‘I mean, what are we actually saying? That they hid her body for that long under the glare of the media spotlight? It’s ludicrous.’

The level of public vitriol against the McCanns, however, has been a huge part of this story. It’s a hostility that has once again been stirred up by the documentary, possibly one of the reasons the family were so against the project. Robbyn believes the rancour towards them was, in part, caused by their careful reaction to Madeleine’s disappearance.

‘The photos of Kate McCann taken straight after her daughter went missing are absolutely gut wrenching,’ he says. ‘She was clearly destroyed. But the advice from the kidnap negotiator and all of the experts brought in to help was: “You feed into an abductor’s warped psyche if you allow them to see your vulnerability or pain, so try to hold yourself together.”

‘So I think she did pull herself together. Also Kate by nature is a fastidious, well-turned out woman, and people decided she was cold because of this. There was also a terrible backlash because of their alleged negligence, leaving the children and doing this monitoring system they had arranged between themselves and their friends.’

There was also an Irish aspect to the this story. The Smith family from Co Louth were holidaying at their apartment in 2007 in a development near the one where the McCann family were staying. Returning home from dinner the night Madeleine went missing, at about 10pm, they passed a man who was carrying a small, sleeping fair-haired girl in his arms. Three of the family gave statements to the Portuguese police, describing the man as white, possibly in his mid-30s, with an average build, short brown hair and being between 5’ 9” and 5’ 11” tall.

It’s been reported extensively that Martin Smith would later claim that he thought the man looked like Gerry McCann. He has since said he no longer believes this.

‘We didn’t get the chance to talk to the Smiths,’ says Robbyn. ‘At the time they weren’t giving interviews and I’m not sure they have done any in the intervening years.

‘But the testimony of the other members of the McCann holiday group, and the waiter who served them, put Gerry McCann at the table in the Tapas bar, after returning from his check on the children at 9.20pm. Gerry was certainly with the holiday group in the restaurant at 10pm when Kate discovered that Madeleine was missing.’

Both Scotland Yard and the Portuguese police said they do not consider the McCanns to be suspects in their daughter’s disappearance. After all their research and immersing themselves in the facts of the case for so long, what do they believe happened to Madeleine?

‘I believe there are three possibilities,’ Anthony says. ‘One: she may have wandered out of the apartment that night and something may have happened to her, an opportunist abduction or she may have had a terrible accident. At that time the sewerage and water systems in the area were being dug up and replaced. The streets were riddled with trenches, did she fall into one of those? It remains a possibility, sane people have thought that.

‘Possibility two is that it was a burglary, and there had been many break-ins reported in the area, that went wrong.

‘Or number three: a planned abduction. There are credible witnesses who reported seeing strange men loitering around the development, and charity workers calling to apartments saying they were collecting for a children’s orphanage.

‘We checked all the records, there had never been an orphanage in that area. Put all those things together and it’s sensible to think there may have been a planned abduction.’

The biggest question of all, however, is will Madeleine McCann ever be found?

‘We always fall back on what the experts say,’ says Robbyn. ‘And there is very little research done on this highly specific area — young children going missing in a foreign country. The available statistics are from the United States and it’s for the total number of children who have gone missing. In 40pc of cases they are dead, 56pc return alive and a terrible, small percentage never have any resolution.

‘So that means more than half do come home. Obviously the length of time she’s been missing works against that. However, there are children we know of who are found 20 years after the fact.

‘Ernie Allen, the former CEO of the US National Centre of Missing and Exploited Children, says nobody has the right to take away a family’s hope. In the absence of any evidence in this case and the absence of any evidence that she came to any harm in that apartment, or at all, one has to allow that hope to stand.

‘And every day there are new advances in forensics and DNA research, which may make it possible to give us a resolution in this case.’

While the Portuguese police have ‘shelved’ their inquiry, there is still a team (albeit small) at Scotland Yard who are investigating the case. According to Anthony, they have asked for extra funding to keep them going for another year at least.

‘There is good information they are looking for a female suspect, linked to the case,’ he says. ‘The reports say in an Eastern European country and they are working with a foreign police force. If they’re asking to continue for a year, it would suggest the Yard seem to think they are following a positive lead.’

Hopefully one day, in the not too distant future, the McCanns will finally be released from this ‘endless purgatory…’

https://extra.ie/2019/04/06/news/world-news/robbyn-swan-anthony-summers-madeleine-mccann
....................

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Madeleine McCann’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann spoke to Robbyn Swan and Anthony Summers before they wrote their book Looking for Madeleine.

You bet they did - and it's reflected in every word emanating from Summers and Swan - the McCann version of the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth !

Police chief claims lead Madeleine McCann suspect is German paedophile

2019-11-30



Ex-Portuguese police chief claims leading Madeleine McCann suspect is a mystery German paedophile in prison and NOT child killer Martin Ney

Goncalo Amaral also made false slur against the missing youngster’s dad Gerry

Amaral said ‘what I know is that the suspect is not him, it’s another man’

He claimed last year MI5 spies had helped to cover up Madeleine’s death



Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral (pictured) has claimed for the first time a German paedophile probed over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance is not Martin Ney

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral has claimed for the first time a German paedophile probed over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance is not Martin Ney.

And he has revealed new details about why the new ‘suspect’ is being investigated – and made a fresh, false slur against the missing youngster’s dad Gerry – in an interview with a Spanish TV station.

The ex-cop sparked speculation Hamburg-born child strangler Ney was the prime suspect after telling an Australian podcast earlier this year investigators were focusing on a German paedophile in prison.

He failed to identify Ney by name at the time, describing the suspect only as someone who had been ruled out of the investigation into the missing British youngster in 2008 but later jailed in his home country.

Now Amaral, the original lead investigator in the case, has fuelled new speculation about his identity by telling a Spanish TV programme: ‘A paedophile who is German and serving life for killing children has been spoken about.

‘What I know is that the suspect is not him, it’s another man. He’s also in prison in Germany. He’s also a paedophile.

https://hotlifestylenews.com/world-news/police-chief-claims-lead-madeleine-mccann-suspect-is-german-paedophile/

BBC News
Last Updated: Wednesday, 6 June 2007, 12:22 GMT 13:22 UK

'This time it feels very different': Kate and Gerry McCann have had their hopes raised so many times but their close adviser CLARENCE MITCHELL believes the latest development in Germany could be significant

By Clarence Mitchell For The Daily Mail

Published: 22:00, 5 June 2020 | Updated: 11:59, 6 June 2020

For Kate and Gerry McCann there have been many heart-stopping moments since their three-year-old daughter Madeleine went missing from their holiday apartment in Portugal 13 years ago.

Countless times their hopes have been raised over the years, but nothing has brought them any closer to solving the mystery of their daughter’s disappearance – or ending their pain.

Ever since that terrible night of May 3, 2007, it’s been a rollercoaster of alleged sightings around the world and tip-offs, most of which, while well-meaning, have not been accurate.

We’ve had a plane with engines running, ready to recover a child who turned out not to be Madeleine and hundreds, if not thousands, of psychics telling us where she is. None of it has come to anything.

The situation goes quiet for a long time, then comes back with the force of a train.

With the manic events of the past 36 hours, you could say we have been here before – but this time something feels very different.

This is the first time I can recall the police, not just in one country but three, targeting a specific, identifiable individual: a 43-year-old German itinerant who was living in Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished.

For the first time detectives are asking very specific, detailed questions about one person’s activities, his vehicles and his phones.

Let’s bear in mind he may still be ruled out, but we have never had that degree of focus before which makes it feel more significant.

Kate and Gerry have known for some time about this new lead. They knew it would cause something of a storm, which it has. They were told by the police not to tell anyone. They didn’t, not even their wider family, so the appeal would have maximum impact.

The Germans are treating this as a murder investigation, but have made it quite clear they don’t have any evidence to prove the worst has happened.

The British police are keeping an open mind and are still treating it a missing person investigation, as are the Portuguese.

Kate and Gerry have never given up hope, even with the latest developments, that Madeleine might still be found alive.

Only when they are presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary will they accept that the worst has happened.

Sometimes Kate asks me ‘am I wrong to keep hoping?’, and I tell her: ‘No, you are not.’ There was a child recovered in China last month after being missing for 33 years. It happens.

I still believe it’s possible, but with this suspect’s criminal convictions, including sex offences, there is always that terrible thought in the back of your mind.

Unfortunately, Kate and Gerry have known the risk of Madeleine being the victim of this type of crime from day one, but they are resilient enough to understand that without going to pieces.

That gives them strength, so whenever a gruesome headline appears they are expecting it.

Like everyone they have good and bad days, Kate particularly, but they are fully aware and realistic about the awful possibility of what might have happened.

They just want to know the truth and whoever was responsible to be held to account and face justice.

They need to know what happened to their daughter because they need peace.

I first met the McCanns two weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance. I was working as a civil servant for the Cabinet Office; having been a BBC journalist for 20 years, I was seconded by the Foreign Office to help them deal with the media.

I first met Gerry when he came back to Britain to get some of Madeleine’s belongings to help with DNA profiling. I was introduced to him at a police station in Leicestershire and we went back to Portugal together. I met Kate the next day.

It was a surreal time. It was so long ago now but in many ways still feels like yesterday.

Of course there was a professional detachment, but as a father to three young children I could feel a certain degree of sympathy and understanding for them.

Sending out videos and pictures, I felt I almost knew Madeleine as well, and yet she was a girl I had never met.

Because I’d had assurances from the authorities that they were innocent parties in a rare case of stranger abduction – and I could see they were from everything they said and did, and how they reacted to everything – I thought there was also a moral case here to help a family in obvious crisis.

Such was the scale of the story, it was a cycle of madness that snowballed along and negative stories gained traction very quickly. In 2007 social media was only just kicking off.

Public opinion hardened the moment it was reported Gerry and Kate had been dining with friends in a tapas restaurant when Madeleine was abducted from her bed a few metres away, while her twin siblings Sean and Amelie slept.

Instantly, there was judgment that they were somehow neglectful and had let their daughter down, but the reality of the situation is that their checking system – with adults going to see the sleeping children every 20 or 30 minutes – was better than anything that could have been offered by the holiday centre.

I could see they had done their best under the circumstances, made a judgment. They fully accept that due to a billion-to-one chance they’d got it wrong. That’s something they are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives. They have always said that.

The fact is they did not think it any more dangerous than having dinner in the garden while their children slept in the house. The restaurant was far closer to the apartment than aerial photos in the media suggested, and they had a clear line of sight to the French windows.

But I could see in private moments the real pain, upset, anger, hurt and distress which people weren’t seeing outside.

All they were seeing of Kate and Gerry was when they made an occasional statement – and then they were accused of being cold and aloof.

That was because they were told not to show, if possible, any overt emotions, because (I am sad to say) some offenders who commit these sorts of crimes can get a perverse kind of kick out of seeing the distress they have caused the parents of the children they have taken. Because they both Kate and Gerry were doctors, they took that very seriously.

I got to know them as friends and knew they were innocent of any involvement. I could see the way they had been traduced and the pain that caused them, quite apart from the loss of Madeleine. I felt very sorry for them.

So it was a calculated risk when I quit my civil service job to work for the McCanns. Madeleine could have been found the very next day and I would have been out of work – but I also wanted to do it on a personal level, to act as a fire shield for them.

I could see they needed help and I was proud to be able to give it. I have continued to work for them ever since, lately pro bono.

Despite all they’ve been through they are two very strong characters. It’s often said that something like this can tear a couple apart, but in this case it has brought Kate and Gerry together more strongly, partly for Madeleine’s sake but also to focus on their twins Sean and Amelie, who were very young at the time.

Kate threw herself into looking after the twins and eventually stopped her medical work to look after them full-time, though she does do a little bit of voluntary work with people with dementia. She is also an ambassador for the charity Missing People.

Gerry is very practical. He threw himself into his job as a cardiologist and he is the breadwinner.

When I first started working with them I never imagined that Madeleine’s disappearance would remain unsolved after 13 years. Obviously you hope it will be solved in one day, and we always said ‘all it takes is one phone call’.

They very much welcome this new appeal for information around this individual. It would be fantastic news and a right and happy result if Madeleine were still found alive, but, whatever the outcome of this latest development, essentially Kate and Gerry just want to know the truth about what happened to their daughter.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8393499/Kate-Gerry-McCanns-close-adviser-Clarence-Mitchell-believes-latest-development-key.html

The charity for missing people must be stark raving mad to use K M
as an ambassador for their charity,donations must have plunged
dramatically using a person who,in my opinion,was wholly
responsible for the disappearance of HER daughter with the help of
her hideous husband.

They fly in the face of reason, same as the many other support groups who have been promoting brand McCann over the years.

The duo were summoned to attend interviews where they were given arguido status on Friday 7th September 2007.

Sunday 9th September 2007 they arrived back in England - that's effectively less than two days from one event to the other.  There was after talk of them already having prepared to leave Portugual before the arguido interviews, whether or not you believe that is a matter of personal choice - I don't believe for one second!

The reporter on scene at the time said the Portuguese judiciary must then decide whether or not the McCanns could leave Portugal.  This was late Friday. the following day Saturday and the McCanns returned home with their two remaining children on the Sunday.  The Portuguese legal system is reportedly very slow (so is the UK) but here, if you believe what you read, a decision was made for them to leave Portugal in a matter of hours - at the weekend?

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13407p850-video-of-the-day#413132

48 hours? They were gone in less than 48 hours.

If this be true, then it could only have been through government, or other senior official, intervention.

You've lost your precious three year old daughter, your life is on-hold indefinitely - would you run away because you are considered to be a suspect, or would your stand your ground (your innocence) for the sake of your lost child?  Would you cooperate with the police, the Portuguese police investigating the case of your missing child, without reservations?  In short, would you risk your own life for your child or would you abandon your child by running away to safety?

Screams guilt to any right minded person.  

Be gone whimpering tales of the Portuguese (that Amaral man) police botching 'your search', whimpering tales of working more effectively on home soil where you can concentrate on 'your search' without impediment.

Come clean .... there was never 'a search' by anyone but the Portuguese police.  The same police force that you Mr and Mrs McCann, moved heaven and earth to destroy.

#makesyerfonkdunnit

Parents release last known photo of Madeleine


The last known photograph of Madeleine McCann

By Richard Edwards and Fiona Govan in Praia da Luz

12:01AM BST 24 May 2007

The family of missing Madeleine McCann today released the last known photograph of their daughter before her abduction in the Algarve three weeks ago.

Smiling and dangling her feet into a swimming pool, Madeleine, four, is shown enjoying her holiday just hours before she was snatched from her bed.

The picture was taken by Madeleine's mother Kate, 38, on her own camera.

Madeleine is pictured wearing a pink smock top, white shorts and a sun hat as she cools her feet in the swimming pool. The picture was taken at 2.29pm on May 3.

Less than eight hours later, before 10pm that night, Madeleine disappeared. She had been sleeping in the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, next to the twins, when she was taken away.

Detectives investigating her disappearance yesterday re-interviewed two people as witnesses in the case.

The two were believed to be Michaela Walczuch, a German woman who is the lover of Robert Murat, and her estranged Portuguese husband Luis Antonio, who works as a pool cleaner.

Mr Murat is a British ex-pat who has been identified by police as a formal suspect in the case.A senior police source described yesterday's questioning, which lasted several hours, as "normal and routine". The pair were first questioned 10 days ago as a result of their connection to Mr Murat.

Mr Murat, who has not been charged or even formally arrested but remains the police's main line of inquiry, lives with his mother in a villa less than 100 yards from the Algarve holiday apartment where Madeleine was snatched three weeks ago.

He strenuously denies any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance and is said to be in a state of "near collapse" over the allegations. Police have said that they will continue to investigate those with links to Mr Murat.

They have already searched premises belonging to a Russian computer expert who reportedly had telephone conversations with Mr Murat in the hours immediately following Madeleine's disappearance.

The latest development came amid local media reports that forensic tests on evidence taken from the McCanns' apartment and Mr Murat's home had yielded no clues.

The head of the Forensic Medicine Institute of Portugal told the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha that tests on the samples had so far proved inconclusive.

"It is not like on the television show CSI," said Duarte Nuno Vieira, who explained that the investigation would take time.

"The analyses are ongoing," he added. "They're far from over, and we'll only be able to draw conclusions once they're completed."

Detailed DNA analysis on hair, fibres and sweat samples are not expected until at least Saturday, it was reported, at which point police may be in a position to arrest Mr Murat or drop the case against him completely.

The police search for Madeleine was strongly criticised yesterday as a leading expert said the Portuguese investigation had been plagued with "serious errors".

Mark Williams-Thomas, a former officer with Surrey police who worked on the case of Sarah Payne, the seven-year-old murdered by paedophile Roy Whiting, said detectives had failed to seal off the apartment when the four-year-old vanished and had not carried out proper forensic searches.

He said the investigation had hit "a brick wall" as a result and called for British detectives to carry out a full review of the case to ensure that everything was being done to find Madeleine.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552519/Parents-release-last-known-photo-of-Madeleine.html

Kate McCann wrote: I was dismayed. This was a glaring green light to a child-taker – and yet no mention is made of it in the files until December 2007. December 2007! Seven months after Madeleine’s abduction! I could only conclude that its relevance had not been appreciated by the police.

No but your story was widely known very early in the day wasn't it Ms Healy, so say the Waily Snail..

Kate and Gerry 'left Madeleine alone for three hours for four nights in a row'

By VANESSA ALLEN

Last updated at 16:01 23 October 2007

Kate and Gerry McCann's strict holiday routine and fondness for the same restaurant made their three children easy prey for a potential abductor, a key eyewitness has revealed.

The couple and their friends all left their children in their apartments at exactly the same time for the last four nights of their holiday, according to the new witness.

Their children were left alone for up to three hours a night while the nine-strong group enjoyed their meals - typically washed down with eight to ten bottles of wine a night.

The waiter, who has asked not to be identified, said the nightly routine was "set in stone", making it easy for a potential abductor to "choose the right moment to take the child".

He said the group made a "special arrangement" to book the same table at 8pm every night so they could sit outside, 50 metres from where their children lay sleeping.

He told how the arrangement was widely known about by workers at the restaurant, who thought it was strange that other holiday-makers had to queue for reservations at the popular tapas bar.

But he said he only realised after Madeleine's disappearance that the routine could have made all eight of the group's children vulnerable to a potential abductor.

He then added "The apartments are all quite close to the pool, but there are trees in between so you can't see them from the restaurant.

"Even though they were checking their children every 20 minutes or so there was still a lot of time they were left alone when someone could have gone in and taken them.

"When you think back now, because the routine was so set in stone every night, if somebody had been watching the group they would definitely have been able to work out what was going on and choose the right moment to take the child."

His eyewitness account of the group's behaviour is the first time anyone from inside the tapas bar has spoken publicly about the events of May 3.

He has been interviewed by police for a total of four hours during two interviews about that night, and other evenings when the so-called 'Tapas Nine' dined at the restaurant.

And his wife has also been quizzed about the first two nights of the group's holiday, when she worked at the Ocean Club's other restaurant, the Millennium.

He said: "Right from the start it was obvious the police were taking the situation very seriously and believed Madeleine had been abducted. I told them what I knew and said I wondered why they hadn't paid a babysitter.

"Once I realised what had happened it struck me that the arrangement had been pretty strange.

"They were obviously wealthy people, why didn't they just put all the children to bed in one apartment and pay the 15 euros per hour for a shared babysitter?"

The McCanns have admitted they left their children alone for the last few nights of their holiday in Praia da Luz, but have not spoken in detail about their arrangements.

The couple said they did not want to use a babysitter because they did not want to disrupt their children's normal routines, or to leave them with a stranger.

And they have spoken of their bitter regret that they chose to leave Madeleine and their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie alone.

The staff member, told of the dramatic moments after Mrs McCann found that Madeleine was missing.

He said the McCanns dined with their friends, David and Fiona Payne, Mrs Payne's mother Dianne Webster, Matthew and Rachael Oldfield and Russell O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner as usual, and drank their normal eight to ten bottles of wine.

He also said: "The night of May 3 had been just a normal night. Then it all became madness.

"We were beginning to wind down at the restaurant and I had been clearing some tables. I went into the kitchen for a few minutes and when I came out I saw that the McCanns' table was totally empty except for the older woman. I think she was a mother of one of the friends. She looked scared.

"Then I heard all the shouting and screaming coming from the apartments, and my colleague told me a child had gone missing.

"After that it was chaos. People were running around the resort shouting for Madeleine, and we all started to help looking for her. I've never seen anything like it."

He said the only time he remembered Mrs McCann going to check on the children was when she raised the alarm, and said it was usually only the men of the group who had carried out the checks.

His testimony contradicts some aspects of what the McCanns have said about the night.

They said the whole group took it in turns to check on the children, and told how they only had four bottles of wine, although another two bottles were brought to their table and remained unopened because of what had happened.

He said the group got unlimited free wine with their dinner as part of their holiday package, but said they were 'very sensible' about their drinking.

"It's been reported that they had 14 bottles of wine a night but I was serving them and I know it was usually between eight and ten," he said.

He said the group ate at the resort's other restaurant on the first two nights of their holiday, a buffet restaurant called Millennium, and took all their children with them.

But they complained that the meal was too late for the youngsters and asked the Mark Warner manager to have the biggest table at the tapas bar, so they could leave their children in their nearby apartments while they ate.

The staff member's wife, who served the group at the Millennium, said the fractious children started crying towards the end of first two nights.

She said: "The children were generally very well-behaved, and I definitely remember Madeleine. She was like a little angel, very quiet and good as gold. Just a lovely little blonde girl.

"The second time they came in the McCanns were looking for the baby high chairs for their twins and Madeleine went over to the corner of the restaurant and started trying to drag them over.

"She obviously remembered where they were kept and wanted to help her parents, it was quite sweet really.

"Other than that she was just like any other little girl. She played with her food a little bit but didn't cause any trouble apart from that."

The latest eyewitness detail about the night of Madeleine's disappearance came as a team of Portuguese detectives prepared to fly to England to reinterview some of the Tapas Nine.

Portuguese police and an official from the public prosecutor's office want to sit in while British detectives interrogate the group of friends.

The head of the Portuguese police force Alipio Ribeiro said formal letters asking British authorities to agree to such a deal would be sent 'within days', but the Policia Judiciaria refused to reveal when the team would travel to Britain.

Friends of the McCanns said police in Portugal had not contacted the couple to say if they would be questioned again.

A family friend said: "Kate and Gerry have not been told anything about Portuguese police. It may well be that they will not be told in advance. As far as I'm aware their legal team have not been informed either."

The couple's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said they welcomed anything which would help the investigation.

He said: "Anything that helps to eliminate Kate and Gerry from the inquiry is good.

"We view this as a positive development. Kate and Gerry and their friends have always said they will do anything to find Madeleine or at least find out what has happened to her.

"So obviously they will cooperate fully with any further questioning the PJ might want to carry out."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-489143/Kate-Gerry-left-Madeleine-hours-nights-row.html

Original Source: CLOSER MAG: 03 MAY 2011

By Tracey Kandohla

Kate McCann: 'The pain is always there - but I'm stronger than a year ago'

It's four years since Madeleine McCann tragically disappeared from her room while on holiday in Portugal. Now her mother, Kate, has written a book in a further desperate bid to find her beloved daughter

FOR THE LAST FIVE months Kate McCann has been holed up in her study, painstakingly chronicling the last few agonising years of her life. She's wept as she's written about her beloved daughter Madeleine's disappearance in Portugal four years ago.

Kate's written a book, simply entitled Madeleine, in the hope it will help her and her heart surgeon husband Gerry, 42, find their daughter. They are praying that it might trigger more leads in the case, or at least make them the million they urgently need to fund the search. It will be published on 12 May - the same day they should have been celebrating Madeleine's eighth birthday.

It wasn't something Kate or Gerry undertook lightly. Kate admits: "It wasn't an easy decision to take I had to consider the impact on the lives of our three children. But with the depletion of Madeleine's Fund, it's a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands."

And indeed, it seems the harrowing task has taken a lot out of Kate, now 42. A family friend tells Closer: "She'd put weight on a year ago but it's dropped off again. Reliving her nightmare has taken its toll and she's painfully thin."

Kate stuck to a rigid routine while writing, running every morning near her home in Rothley, Leics, after taking the twins, Sean and Amelie, now six, to catch the school bus.

She then went to her study, poring over diaries she kept in the days directly after Maddie's disappearance, only stopping to pickup the twins at 3.30pm.

A neighbour says: "Kate's eyes light up when she sees the twins climb off the bus. They stroll along like any normal family."

But sadly this family has been in turmoil since 3 May 2007. As they holidayed with friends in Portugal, Maddie had poignantly told her mother as she went to bed that evening: "Mummy, I've had the best day ever."

That night the McCanns made the fateful decision to leave their children in the holiday apartment while they sat 100 yards away having a meal with friends. They met at 8.40pm and checked the children regularly. But when Kate went to check at 10pm Madeleine had gone, though the twins were still asleep.

There haven't been any confirmed sightings of Madeleine since, but there are plenty of theories about what might have happened to her, from being taken by a paedophile ring or by someone who couldn't have children, to Kate and Gerry becoming official suspects in September 2007. They were cleared a year later, but it fuelled suspicion about the couple and even led to internet groups being formed, throwing the couple's statements into doubt.

But Kate and Gerry have never wavered from their belief that Madeleine is alive and well.

Kate still sits in Maddie's pretty pink bedroom, where she allows the twins to play, and has returned twice in the last year to Praia da Luz to be near to where she last saw Maddie.

She revealed: "I still sit in Madeleine's room everyday. It's a comforting feeling. We haven't changed anything."

But Kate reveals she has let go of some "horrible, negative" anger recently, saying: "The wounds are less raw but the pain doesn't go away. But I am definitely a lot stronger than I was a year ago."

Kate quit her job as a GP to be a full-time mum to the twins, and says they've noticed her working on the book.

Kate reveals: "Amelie asked: 'Why do you work, Mummy?' I tell her: 'Well, I've got to find Madeleine.' And Sean says: 'But when that's over and she's home, what will you do?' And I think: 'Bring it on!'"

And Kate is determined that the twins lead an ordinary life.

A friend reveals: "At one time Kate didn't even go out, but as the twins get older she leads as normal a life as possible."

Kate takes them to the nearby Soar Valley Leisure Centre, but even there they see reminders of Maddie - a petition remains in the foyer, backing Kate and Gerry's plea to the government to conduct an independent review of the case. Cars feature Maddie stickers, and green and yellow ribbons symbolising hope are tied to aerials and the gates of the McCanns' home.

A friend says: "Writing about her daughter has been very painful, and there have been many tears. It's the book Kate never wanted to write, but the family are desperate to keep the search going. Kate has carried on for Madeleine's sake."

Kate says of the book: "Every penny we raise will be spent on our search for Madeleine. Nothing is more important than finding our little girl."

Madeleine's gran, Eileen McCann, 70, tells Closer: "We are still hoping and praying. You do hear of lost children being found."

Gerry's mum Eileen and his sister Tricia will visit the family for the anniversary of Maddie's disappearance.

Eileen says: "Sean and Amelie are happy children and love seeing us. As awful and upsetting as it's been, we've grown stronger as a family."

This week the family will pray for Maddie at the Sacred Heart Church near their home.

Father Keith Tomlinson says: "We will be saying special prayers for Madeleine."

By Tracey Kandohla

? Kate and Gerry urge anyone with information about their daughter to contact www.flndmadeleine.com

by Kristina Beanland | Posted on28 03 2019
The first journalist at the scene reveals Maddie's parents' 'devastation'

Reporter Jon Clarke, 50, who lives near Malaga with his wife and two children, had been living in Spain for five years when he was sent to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance.

He says, “I hadn’t been to Praia da Luz for over eight years when Netflix asked me to take part in The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann documentary. It was eerie going back.

“The documentary has been accused of exploiting the McCanns’ ordeal for entertainment, but I hope it will encourage people who might know something to come forward. It’s also raised awareness of child traffickers, and I hope there’s now a more concentrated effort to stop these sick people.”

Recalling the phone call he received from a British newspaper the morning after Maddie’s disappearance, he says, “I remember thinking that, by the time I got there, she’d have turned up.

https://closeronline.co.uk/real-life/news/madeleine-mccann-reporter-kate-gerry/

Madeleine McCann’s parents’ new agony

As a prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case is announced, Closer speaks to Jon Clarke who has followed the story since the three-year-old went missing...

by Kristina Beanland | Posted on11 06 2020

The biggest breakthrough in the 13-year search for Madeleine McCann came last week, when German authorities said they had almost enough evidence to charge a convicted paedophile with her murder.

At the time of going to press, the suspect was a 43-year-old German man, who has a long history of sex crimes against women and children, and is currently in jail for the torture and rape of a 72-year-old woman.

Police are also reopening the investigation into a missing five-year-old girl, dubbed “the German Maddie”, who was snatched from woodland in Germany while on holiday with her family in 2017 – at a location less than 50 miles from where the suspect lived at the time.

But while Maddie’s parents, Kate and Gerry, have always held on to the belief that their daughter, who would now be 17, is still alive, German officials have stressed that this is a murder inquiry.

In a statement uploaded to the Find Madeleine website, Kate and Gerry said, “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice.

“We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive, but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know, as we need to find peace.”

Journalist Jon Clarke was one of the first on the scene in Praia da Luz, Portugal, when Maddie went missing from a holiday resort in May 2007, while her parents ate in a nearby restaurant. He has been reporting on the case ever since.

He believes that – while the news of Maddie’s apparent death will be heartbreaking – Kate and Gerry may finally find closure.

Jon, who is currently back working on the case in Praia da Luz, told Closer, “Since 2007, there have been a few leads about Maddie’s whereabouts, but they’ve amounted to nothing. This time, it seems different. There’s strong evidence linking this man to the crime, and there’s a feeling that we might finally get some answers.

“I remember the anguish on Kate and Gerry’s faces when I first met them the day after Maddie went missing. It would be devastating for them to find out that Maddie has died, but they deserve to know what happened to her, no matter how awful.”

And Jon, who lives in Malaga, Spain, with his wife and two children, says that some locals in the area have long been suspicious of the German man.

He says, “Everyone in the area knew about the elderly woman who had been raped. I remember speaking to some people who said that there must have been a link between the two crimes, because Praia da Luz has been considered such a safe area.

"They felt that two awful incidents that happened so close to each other must be related. But because the victims were so different – an elderly woman and a young child – it must have been discounted.”

Jon recalls the call he received from a British newspaper on the morning of 4 May 2007, asking him to report on a missing child.

He says, “I remember thinking that by the time I got there, she’d have turned up. Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived later that morning. But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.”

A few hours after arriving, Jon met Kate and Gerry. He says, “They were polite, and even thanked me for reporting on the case. They were clearly devastated. The press conference outside their apartment later that day only confirmed my feelings. I think almost every person there shed a tear. As a journalist, you try not to get too emotional about a story, but my own daughter had just turned two, so it was hard not to get upset.

“In the days that followed, it was clear this was a story like no other – hundreds of journalists descended on the town and Maddie’s face was everywhere. Everyone was looking for her – I must have walked the length of the beach ten times, combing through the wasteland and looking in abandoned houses.”

Jon stayed in Portugal for two weeks while the case unfolded – until it became clear that Maddie was no longer in Praia da Luz. He says he has since returned countless times to report on the story, and even appeared in a Netflix documentary that aired last year about her disappearance.

Now, Jon is back in Portugal.

He says, “The atmosphere is tense here and the locals are in shock. A lot of theories have been floated over the years, but the idea that Maddie could have been taken by a paedophile is the one that no one wanted to be true. And it’s tough on the people here, knowing that the place they call home is famous for something so awful. They want answers too, so that their town can start to move on.”

While reporting on the case last week, Jon was asked by a newspaper to visit one of the homes of the German suspect, to see if the people living there knew about its previous owner.

He says, “The house is in the middle of nowhere, four or five miles outside of Praia da Luz. It would have been so easy for a dangerous man like him to lay low, and not cause too much of a stir. Expats rarely ask questions of each other anyway – it’s almost an unwritten rule not to dig because there’s lots of reasons, sometimes private, why someone would want to relocate to another country. So he’d have blended in without too much trouble.”

Now Jon hopes the next time he returns to Praia da Luz will be under different circumstances.

He says, “When I think about what Kate and Gerry have lived with for all these years, it breaks my heart. My daughter is a similar age to Madeleine, and every time I come down here, I feel so lucky that something like this didn’t happen to my family.

“The man the police are investigating was a nasty piece of work with a string of horrific convictions. It’s time justice was done for Madeleine.”

https://closeronline.co.uk/real-life/news/madeleine-mccann-german-suspect-jon-clarke/

Hang on a minute - I think I missed this one..

Still waiting... still hoping: From heartbreaking rituals for Maddie, to their twins' triumphs, BETH HALE examines how life has moved on for the McCanns

The McCann family marked the 13th anniversary since Madeleine disappeared
Today, the twins are 15 and attend a Catholic secondary school in Loughborough
Kate McCann is a charity ambassador and also works helping dementia sufferers
Gerry McCann is a professor at the University of Leicester and a cardiologist

By Beth Hale for the Daily Mail

Published: 22:38, 3 June 2020 | Updated: 22:39, 3 June 2020

Thirteen years is a long time in the life of a family; so much can change.

And in many respects that simple fact is no different for Kate and Gerry McCann, for whom family life was torn apart when their daughter Madeleine disappeared.

Back then, their youngest children, twins Sean and Amelie, were just two.

Today, the twins are 15, bright, athletic, ever-growing teenagers who attend a Catholic secondary school in Loughborough, not far from the family home in Rothley, in Leicestershire, the same school where for all these years a place has been held for Maddie.


It has been 13 years since Madeleine disappeared from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Algarve, on 3 May 2007. Pictured, Kate and Gerry McCann present their book at a hotel in Hamburg, Germany in September 2011

Kate McCann, once a GP, never returned to her work as a locum, but is now a prominent ambassador for the charity Missing People and has taken her medical training into a different area of medicine, helping dementia sufferers.

The Mail has learned this involves monitoring patients with memory loss, taking them to and from vital appointments with experts to assess their wellbeing and 'simply being there for them'.

A friend says: 'It's a different area to her general practice and it gives her some normality and focus. It takes up more of her time now but as the twins get older they are becoming more independent.

'She chose not to return to being a doctor because she didn't want patients judging her, feeling sorry for her or discussing Madeleine.'

Gerry's career continues to thrive. A renowned consultant cardiologist, he is now Professor Gerry McCann at the University of Leicester.

He has been awarded £1.95 million funding for research into heart disease and is now leading a team of experts in the use of MRI scanners to study early signs of heart failure in patients with type 2 diabetes.

His hours can be long, and he has to travel for work. But the couple, whose marriage has weathered unimaginable strain, enjoy simple pleasures, like watching charity cricket matches in Rothley, or drinking in the garden of a cafe.

And yet, the fifth, missing member of this tight-knit family remains very much a part of their lives.


The fifth, missing member of this tight-knit family remains very much a part of their lives, as Kate still selects presents for her Maddie's birthdays and Christmas and her bedroom remains untouched. Gerry and Kate McCann are pictured with twins Sean and Amelie in May 2007

Maddie's pink-hued bedroom remains untouched, her dolls and teddy bears still sit in a line, Kate still faithfully selects presents for her missing daughter each birthday and Christmas, trying to ensure each gift is chosen to reflect the age Maddie would be.

Every day Kate, 52, spends time in her daughter's room with its glowing stars on the ceiling. Opening and closing the curtains was, she once said, a ritual.

Those precious moments in what is as much a sanctuary as a bedroom doubtless help to maintain her faith that her daughter may yet be found.

Gerry will be 52 tomorrow; he would doubtless have been thinking about Maddie anyway, wondering what she looks like now, what she is doing.

But how much more she will surely be in his thoughts with yesterday's startling news from Germany?

The heartbreaking chasm between what family life was and what it is now was something the McCanns spoke about three years ago when, to mark the tenth anniversary of Maddie's disappearance, they were interviewed for the BBC by Fiona Bruce.

'I think before Madeleine was taken, we felt we had managed to achieve our little perfect nuclear family of five,' said Gerry.

'And we had that for a short period and I suppose, almost the same way as if your child becomes ill or seriously ill, or has died, like many other families have suffered... then your vision is altered and you have to adapt.


Kate McCann, once a GP, is now a prominent ambassador for the charity Missing People and has taken her medical training to help dementia sufferers. She is pictured talking outside the civil court in Lisbon in September 2013

'And, unfortunately for us, a new normality is a family of four. But we have adapted and that's important. The last five years in particular have allowed us to really properly devote time to looking after the twins and ourselves and, of course, carrying on with our work.

'At some point, you've got to realise that time is not frozen and I think both of us realise that we owed it to the twins to make sure that their life is as fulfilling as they deserve, and we have certainly tried our best to achieve that.'

Sean looks just like his dad, and Amelie, with her long, blonde hair and striking features a little more like her mum.

Unsurprisingly, Kate and Gerry are protective of the twins, conscious that while they still have a role in the public eye, their twins' privacy and right to enjoy an unfettered childhood is something entirely different.

The McCanns, both keen runners, have instilled their passion for sport in their twins, who have apparently both turned into promising athletes, enjoying cross-country running.

All four McCanns are often seen out and about in the village, where a candle still burns around the clock for Madeleine and shops continue to display posters pleading: 'Don't give up on me.'

This year has been particularly strange for the family, with so many key dates unfolding during lockdown.

First there was Mother's Day, a poignant 13th without Madeleine. It's an occasion when, typically, the devout Catholic mother attends Mass at her local church to pray for Maddie and other missing children.

This year the service was cancelled because of the coronavirus.

Then came the anniversary of the youngster's disappearance.

Posting on their Find Madeleine Facebook site on May 2, they wrote: 'It is now 13 years since we were last with Madeleine.

'Her 17th birthday is to follow in the next couple of weeks — the latter tangibly, painfully, bringing it home to us what we have missed and continue to miss as a family.

'We have been fortunate to spend more time together as a family since lockdown began, an enforced block to a usually frenetic life, a silver lining to this dark cloud. It has made us think about Madeleine even more, as she would have shared this period of special closeness with us, too.'

Both Kate and Gerry have spoken of the mental impact their loss has had.

And Maddie's birthday, on May 12, is a day Kate finds particularly tough. 'I do all the present buying,' she once said: 'I think about what age she is and buy something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate so there's a lot of thought goes into it.'

There are public messages, too, in the hope Maddie will see them.

This year, alongside a cherished last photo of her as a three-year-old, beaming in her Everton football shirt, they wrote: 'We love you and we're waiting for you and we're never going to give up.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8385767/Heartbreaking-rituals-Maddie-BETH-HALE-examines-life-moved-McCanns.html

The Mail has learned this involves monitoring patients with memory loss

Well, if nothing else she's well qualified in that direction.

CASH FOR ANSWERS Madeleine McCann’s parents offered £430k to Maddie suspect if he ‘told them everything’, new Netflix documentary claims

Spanish investigators Metodo 3 were hired by the family after three-year-old Maddie vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in May 2007

Tracey KandohlaCorey Charlton

20 Mar 2019, 11:30Updated: 20 Mar 2019, 16:36

KATE and Gerry McCann's private detectives offered to pay a man £430,000 to "tell all after he was quizzed by cops over Maddie's disappearance", it has emerged.

Russian Sergey Malinka reveals for the first time in an explosive new Netflix documentary about the cash incentive up for grabs, which he rejected because he knew nothing about her kidnap.

The documentary lays bare for the first time the network of private surveillance undertaken on behalf of the McCanns as Portuguese police bungled their investigation.

Spanish investigators Metodo 3 were hired by Kate and Gerry after three-year-old Maddie vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in May 2007.

Details of the bizarre offer are unveiled in episode six of the eight-part series by the American global streaming giant.

Top detective Julian Peribanez speaks about his work with the Barcelona investigative team paid by the McCanns from the public Find Maddie Fund which stars including footballer David Beckham and Harry Potter author JK Rowling made donations to.

They had been recommended to Maddie’s parents by multi-millionaire businessman BrianKennedy.

Mr Peribanez states: "I started with 100,000 (euros) and I went to half a million, something like that.

"Malinka said don’t offer me money because I don’t know anything and I can’t give you anything."
'THEY WOULDN'T CONDONE ANYTHING ILLEGAL'

A source close to the McCanns told The Sun Online: "Private investigators push the boundaries at times.

"They had one sole motive and that was to do their utmost to find out what happened to Madeleine, as long as they operated within the law."

The pal said that the McCanns would not "condone anything that is illegal".

Tycoon Mr Kennedy was a major benefactor of the campaign and even got involved in his own secret searches to help find the abducted youngster.

M3 were eager to come on board to find out who had snatched the child from her bed while her parents were dining with pals in a nearby tapas restaurant.

The team went to Portugal at the time when Brit expat Robert Murat was wrongly being viewed as a suspect by Portuguese police.

Sergey Malinka was interviewed by officers as business pal Mr Murat had allegedly tried to call him on his mobile on the night Maddie went missing.

Mr Murat - who was found to have no involvement in Maddie’s disappearance - told the Netflix programme that despite phone records showing he had dialled the number he had no recollection of the call and it could have been "a pocket dial".

Under Portuguese law it is understood to be illegal to conduct private investigations in the country.

HUNTING FOR MADDIE

Mr Peribanez and Patrick Kennedy followed Mr Malinka as he drove around Luz.

Mr Kennedy's son Patrick told the programme: "We weren’t allowed to do that. We needed the permission of the police to do that but you know, but quite frankly I didn’t care and neither did M3. We just wanted to get on with it."

Mr Peribanez adds: "Patrick was a young kid at the time. We spent hours doing stake outs, surveillance. He was a quick learner."

Mr Malinka confirmed he was followed, telling the documentary: "My first experience of private surveillance was when I saw some cars in my rear view mirrors. I made a list of the number plates."

Patrick says: "We were trying to find out where he was going because it looked like he was trying to get somewhere in a rush."

He has no regret for his actions, saying: "I didn’t feel sorry for anybody. The little girl who had been abducted - that is the person I felt sorry for. Nobody else."

Mr Peribanez said at one point his boss "told me to call him and offer him money to talk about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann".

Confirming the approach was made, Mr Malinka reveals: "In this sort of situation there are two types of people - one with power and one without. I didn’t have the power or the money."

Mr Peribanez continues: "I started with 100,000 (euros) and I went to half a million, something like that. Malinka said don’t offer me money because I don’t know anything and I can’t give you anything."

SUSPECT'S CAR FIREBOMBED

While Mr Malinka was wrongly dragged into the botched police inquiry someone firebombed his car when it was parked by his flat in Luz, and the Portuguese word FALA, which means talk, was sprayed on the pavement.

There is no suggestion in the documentary M3 had anything to do with that crime but Mr Malinka recalls the incident, saying: "This is the only time when it broke me, really hurt me. One missed phone call pretty much ruined ten years of my life."

Mr Peribanez also admits: "We put some trackers on Murat’s car and they found them. Sometimes you have to do things that are on the verge, on the border, no. Private investigations in Portugal are illegal. As a private investigator you are not to follow the book of rules.

"It gives you more freedom to investigate than being a cop."

After extensive surveillance, the investigators found nothing to link Mr Murat or Mr Malinka to Maddie’s disappearance and Mr Peribanez tells the programme: "They had nothing to do with it."

Heart doctor Gerry, 50, and former GP Kate, 51, of Rothley, Leics refused to take part in the Netflix series "The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann”.

The pair believe it could hamper the nearly 12 year search to find their daughter, as well as fuel conspiracy theories regarding her disappearance.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8677264/madeleine-mccann-offered-suspect-500k-netflix-documentary/