Kandohla: Kate McCann closes down online shop raising funds for the search to find Madeleine amid claims donations 'have dwindled to virtually zero'

by **Jill Havern** 22.09.18 15:32

EXCLUSIVE: Kate McCann closes down online shop raising funds for the search to find her missing daughter Madeleine amid claims donations 'have dwindled to virtually zero'

Kandohla: Kate McCann closes down online shop raising funds for the search to find Madeleine amid claims donations 'have dwindled to virtually zero' 4471270-0-image-a-23_1537617181993

The online shop which sells travel packs, T shirts, posters and car stickers bearing her daughter's face with slogans 'Please don't give up on me' and 'Still missing, still missed' has been closed down by Kate McCann (pictured). Kate posted on the site how she has unfortunately had to shut the shop, which fund raises to continue the search for Madeleine (inset), because of her 'many commitments and pressures', therefore she is unable to complete orders at the moment. She continued by thanking donors for their continued support amid claims donations for the effort 'have dwindled to virtually zero'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6196197/Shock-Kate-McCann-closes-online-fundraising-shop.html

by **Ladyinred** 22.09.18 16:09

But, Tracey, they're not searching, are they? The fraudulent fund is to pay for the ir legal bills.

Honestly, reading this rubbish over the past few days has made me so angry. They must be desperate.

Poor Madeleine.

by Guest 22.09.18 16:11

November 2017

by **sharonl** 22.09.18 19:54

How can you thank doners for their continued support and say that donations have dwindled to zero, in the same sentence?

So no one is donating to the fund any more? What does that tell you Kate?

Where are all these supporters that were mentioned in the press this week? Don't they exist?

Where are you're millionaire friends?

What about the proceeds from the book, TV & Radio interviews?

What about the deal you did with the press?

And finally, £11million of taxpayers money spent on operation Grange - don't you think that you have had enough already?

by **Jill Havern** 23.09.18 12:12

Saturday, 22 September 2018

Five Feet High and Rising

How high's the water, momma?

Five feet high and rising

How high's the water poppa?

Five feet high and rising

Johnny Cash, Sun records

It was with deep sorrow that we heard that the Madeleine Online Shop is no more. It was also a surprise since Kate McCann had written that the store was not despatching goods only because “I am unable at this time to attend to website orders.” Sweet as this vision is of little Kate in her brown overalls licking sticky tape and humping packages into mailbags, it wasn't the whole story, was it?

“She wanted to let people down gently,” ~~Mr Pal~~, [you can't say that anymore. Ed.] ~~a friend~~, [nope.Ed.] a ~~source close to the investigation~~ [no, no, no! Ed.] a spokesman-for-the-McCanns-not-discussing-the-investigation-with-hair-the-colour-of-a-baboon’s-pink-arse [sure.Ed], might have said as he told the Sun of the closure. “The news was bound to be painful for millions of people so Kate felt that she had no choice but to tell them a bit at a time so they could get used to the idea."

Our sister publication, the Financial & Marketing Bureau, takes up the story:

A Nation Mourns

Brand Identity

The news has been met with shock and dismay by thousands up and down Britain - and nowhere more than in Leicestershire. “That’s it,” said homeless and dripping Tony Parsons 77, throwing open his Morrison’s doorway home and inviting us to share his soiled duvet, “they’ll never be nothing like it again. Never. I'm gutted like a sardine.” His grizzled and somewhat toothless friend Carla Spade, career chambermaid at Rothley's Premier Inn but now fallen on very hard times, expressed her grief more forthrightly. "If you ask me, it's a f*****g disgrace and they shouldn't of [sic] f******g done it, the f*****g f*****s."

Why exactly do you think so?

"Because we slept in the doorway of that f******g warehouse for years and now we've been moved on to this pi**hole f*****g dump." Clearly there'd been a misunderstanding, so we threw Carla some cider and deodorant money and slipped away.

Beth – not her real name – a normally chirpy pigskin bleacher at Rothley’s extensive "Melton Mowbray-style" Pork Products factory, wept quietly as she told us how her childhood, like that of all her friends, was spent swapping images of the latest fashion lines on the site. “I just can’t believe it, ” she said, staring at the rain-soaked railings of the nearby village memorial and the squished papier-mache remains of a once pristine Have You Seen Her poster dribbling towards the gutter.

Was that hers? we asked. She nodded. “I had eleven, like. There was talk that Maddie had signed some of them but I never saw those."

Inconsolable Loss

Pedro de Silva, who runs a scented candles, fancy lingerie and souvenir stall by the bus station, was covering his stock in black plastic bags as the rain increased to a melancholy, relentless hammering from granite grey skies. He was distraught, almost beyond expression. “People like me…people like us, I no have the words but we need that little girl, we need those things of her. No, no I cannot speak.”

Later, sheltering under an awning, I encounter Beth again. She is, once more, in tears. “They’re making me redundant,” she sobs. Who are? “The Porkies factory,” she cries, “we’re on a one-day week which they said was down to Brexit and now they’ve just told us” – she breaks off to blow her nose into a Maddie Loves You handkerchief – “twenty minutes ago they told us that nobody’s buying their Porkies anymore so we're closing this week.”

There are stories that behind the scenes desperate efforts had been made to keep the Online Store open during its last months. Darcy du Cann, a tall, languid, hipster-bearded marketing expert from Shoreditch Solutions, claims he was considering offering a recovery plan but realised the task was hopeless on his first day.

“I knew at once,” he said over a Fatty Latte in Rothley’s Michelin-starred Exhaust ‘n’ Tyre Pit, the village’s social centre, “I can’t tell you how but I knew. The atmosphere was like that,” and he motioned at the memorial, now gushing rain water from every gargoyle, “hopeless. Once the belief is gone everything else follows.” The rat-a-tat-tat of a wheel-nut driver announced that the new tyre was now on his Ferrari. He gave me a wink. “One tip,” he added as we left, “never, ever, invest in failure.”

Prospects

What does the future now hold? The McCanns’ celebrated financial nous and a particularly smart way with copyright means that any independent attempt to fill the gap in the highly valuable souvenir market is likely to fail, despite Mr de Silva’s hopes of stocking Sweet Tot brand snow-globes and Maddie Sticker Books (with ready to tear pages) from Vietnam. Besides, as Darcy pointed out before roaring off into the distance, “…look, these things have a finite marketing life and now it’s gone. Selling a cute blonde kid’s dead easy but how’s anyone going to sell a Maddie Tee-shirt when nobody knows what she looks like? She might be six feet tall and fat already. To be honest, nobody wants to invest in the McCann brand anymore. Ask around: once it was nectar, now it’s poison."

Later, as your correspondent headed safely southwards, wipers thudding, twenty miles back the local radio station was headlining its latest weather report, No way out from Rothley, folks. Somehow I found myself thinking again of those last few words from Darcy du Cann.

Well it's five feet high and ri - sing. Rothley brook overflows.

Blacksmith Bureau.

by Columbo 25.09.18 18:23

Jill Havern wrote:
She continued by thanking donors for their continued support amid claims donations for the effort 'have dwindled to virtually zero'.

I would have thought that very few people have contributed to the fund over the past few years. Not just because of disbelief of the McCanns, but also loss of general interest in the story and fate of Madeleine, and even among sympathisers, a lack of hope after all this time.

It follows that the majority of what remains in the fund was probably actually collected in the early surge of donations, when sympathy was at its highest. So, this large sum has just been sitting there for years what? A rainy day? Notwithstanding, Op Boll... er Grange, why weren't they spending this money looking for their daughter? Of course, when they did spend it on investigators that didn't go so well...

My questions are naturally rhetorical. But, I do think, if anyone ever does get convicted of anything in relation to this case - in the UK at least - it'll be more likely be an offence related to the fund than anything else.

by Liz Eagles 25.09.18 21:41

A source close to the media has confirmed Operation Gringo continues working very hard behind the scenes.

by Guest 25.09.18 21:49

Columbo wrote:My questions are naturally rhetorical. But, I do think, if anyone ever does get convicted of anything in relation to this case - in the UK at least - it'll be more likely be an offence related to the fund than anything else.

Firstly they need to acknowledge the compelling evidence of the specialist dogs and the simple fact that following eleven + years, there is no sight nor sound of Madeleine McCann.

By rights, the McCanns could have Madeleine declared and registered as legally dead.

As they say .... 'in your dreams' !!!

by **Jill Havern** 26.09.18 5:13

Verdi wrote:
Columbo wrote:My questions are naturally rhetorical. But, I do think, if anyone ever does get convicted of anything in relation to this case - in the UK at least - it'll be more likely be an offence related to the fund than anything else.

Firstly they need to acknowledge the compelling evidence of the specialist dogs and the simple fact that following eleven + years, there is no sight nor sound of Madeleine McCann.

By rights, the McCanns could have Madeleine declared and registered as legally dead.

As they say .... 'in your dreams' !!!

I wouldn't do it - not if my child had really been abducted, that is. I would always want to have hope.
And the McCanns have got to keep their fairy story alive...which is why they don't do it either.

by Tony Cadogan 26.09.18 11:35

Verdi wrote:
Columbo wrote:My questions are naturally rhetorical. But, I do think, if anyone ever does get convicted of anything in relation to this case - in the UK at least - it'll be more likely be an offence related to the fund than anything else.

Firstly they need to acknowledge the compelling evidence of the specialist dogs and the simple fact that following eleven + years, there is no sight nor sound of Madeleine McCann.

By rights, the McCanns could have Madeleine declared and registered as legally dead.

As they say .... 'in your dreams' !!!

Apologies if OT

Suppose devil’s advocate would demand, so as to put you on the spot, you produce “the compelling evidence of the specialist dogs”. Mau I ask you to share what evidence you would produce?

by **Jill Havern** 28.09.18 10:01

Perhaps they shut the shop because selling T shirts with a picture of a dead child on them is not in particularly good taste.

by Ruffian 28.09.18 12:01

Jill Havern wrote:Perhaps they shut the shop because selling T shirts with a picture of a dead child on them is not in particularly good taste.

Nasty

Maybe they closed the shop because they found her

by **Jill Havern** 28.09.18 12:03

Ruffian wrote:
Jill Havern wrote:Perhaps they shut the shop because selling T shirts with a picture of a dead child on them is not in particularly good taste.
Nasty

Maybe they closed the shop because they found her

Yeah, that would be it. roll

If so, why haven't they told the world - or, at least, told Operation Grange so they didn't need to ask the Home Office for more money?

by **sharonl** 28.09.18 20:34

Ruffian wrote:
Jill Havern wrote:Perhaps they shut the shop because selling T shirts with a picture of a dead child on them is not in particularly good taste.
Nasty

Maybe they closed the shop because they found her

No one is donating any more, maybe they have closed the online shop because no-one is daft enough to order from there anymore. Besides, after 11 years, people are fed up with this case.

Can you imagine going on your holiday displaying a find Madeleine sign on whatever it is they were selling, there is bound to be a reaction from some.

Kandohla: Kate McCann closes down online shop raising funds for the search to find Madeleine amid claims donations 'have dwindled to virtually zero'