Madeleine McCann: Media Commentary

The press must keep a healthy distance from the police – for its own good

Peter Preston

Sun 16 Sep 2012 00.06 BST

If Hillsborough proves anything, it's that the media is far too quick to swallow whatever the police are spoon-feeding them.

Lord Justice Taylor's Hillsborough inquiry (mostly) relied on what the police told him. When Kelvin MacKenzie's Sun lashed the Liverpool fans, he (completely) relied on police say-so too – and now offers "profuse apologies".

When the Press Complaints Commission pushed aside Guardian evidence on phone-hacking, it did so because the police said there was nothing new here. When the press raised brutal questions about the McCanns, they echoed Portugal's police. And Christopher Jefferies, the teacher falsely pursued for the murder of Joanna Yeates? Another duff police tip, averred the (then) editor of the Daily Mirror.

There's a simple moral here, for journalists and judges alike.: base no sweeping assertions, no headlines, no resounding conclusions, on what the police hint, suggest, appear to conclude or sometimes testify. Wait for a court verdict based on proper rules of evidence.

Dame Elizabeth Filkin's conclusion post-hacking – that police should henceforth keep a prudent, formal distance from media contacts – may still be sensible enough. But not to keep the police safe – more the other way round.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/sep/16/hillsborough-police-media-contacts

Locals say Madeleine McCann case is 'tragic but part of the past' in Praia da Luz

Wim Bosman, who owns a restaurant in the town, says the case has "become a thing that nobody talks about".

News
ByMartin FrickerNews Reporter

04:30, 3 MAY 2022Updated08:43, 3 MAY 2022

Genial South African Wim Bosman has just one rule in his Praia da Luz restaurant: “No talking about politics, religion… or Madeleine McCann”.

It is 15 years since the youngster vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in the resort while they dined in a nearby tapas bar.

Yet, to this day, that night brings back painful memories for those who call “Luz” home.

“It’s become the thing that nobody talks about,” says Wim, who opened Bosman’s restaurant a decade before Madeleine vanished just before turning four.

“What happened to her is tragic and I cannot imagine what her parents have gone through but it’s part of the past here now.

“If someone does mention it, it inevitably turns into an argument because people’s opinions differ so wildly.

“Some blame the parents and say they should never have left her alone, others are full of sympathy for them.

“Then people have their theories about what happened to her but the truth is I don’t think we will ever know.”


Wim Bosman, the owner of Bosmans Dolphin Restaurant in the holiday resort of Praia da Luz (Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)

The sun-kissed resort has changed little in the past 15 years.

Although visitors were initially replaced by journalists covering the story, the tourists have returned and locals believe it no longer carries the stigma of being “the place where Maddie vanished”.

Wim adds: “Aside from a few months, I firmly believe visitors and families were not put off from coming here. The resort was hit by the financial crisis and Covid just as much as it was by bad publicity to do with the Maddie case.”

Luz does feel like a place that has moved on.

The apartment on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva where Madeleine vanished is once again being rented out to holidaymakers and the home of a previous suspect, searched at the time, has been bulldozed in favour of new flats.

But locals recently found their home town back in the news when Christian Brueckner was named an “arguido” –formal suspect – in the case.

The German paedophile spent years renting a farmhouse before Madeleine’s disappearance. Despite moving out a year before she vanished, the house has become a macabre tourist attraction.

It is now owned by a British man who told the Mirror he is “sick and tired” of people stopping to “gawp” at it. He adds: “It’s really frustrating because the whole place has been renovated since he lived here.

“Nobody in the resort wants to talk about Madeleine or the guy they think took her, it’s just not spoken about.

“He was living in a camper van when she went missing, not here. This property has nothing to do with it.” Outside Paroquia de Senhora da Luz church two women stand chatting.

One of them, Benedita Fernandes, 72, is a rarity – a local willing to talk about Madeleine’s disappearance.

“People do not like reminding of it but I disagree,” she says.

“She was a little girl and we must never forget her. I don’t blame her parents. It is cruel to do so. Someone evil came to this place that night. It is they who are to blame.

“I pray for Madeleine all the time and also for her family. I truly hope we will find out what happened to her.”

Kate, 54, and Gerry, 53, will mark the day in a low-key manner.

As German investigators remain convinced Brueckner is responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance – which his lawyer strongly denies – Scotland Yard’s hunt for her abductor, named Operation Grange, is expected to be shelved later this year.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/locals-say-madeleine-mccann-case-26853525
....................

Well it was commentary until Fricker stuck his beak in .

Madeleine McCann: the key questions Timesonline

David Brown and Steve Bird examine the puzzles and mysteries at the heart of the four month investigation

September 21, 2007

Why are the "Tapas 9" key to solving the Madeleine mystery?

Kate and Gerry McCann were dining with seven British friends at a tapas restaurant in the Ocean Club resort when Madeleine was reported missing. The friends are crucial witnesses but have said very little publicly. Police sources have claimed there are inconsistencies in their statements to officers. The friends are Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, Russell O’Brien and his partner Jane Tanner and David and Fiona Payne and her mother Dianne Webster.

Did any of them see anyone taking Madeleine?

Jane Tanner told police that she saw a man walking away from the McCanns' apartment at 9.15pm. Sources close to the couple have previously said that the man had a child wrapped in the blanket and was walking in a southerly direction. However, the London Evening Standard reported yesterday that Ms Tanner had seen man carrying a girl dressed in Madeleine's distinctive pink-and-white pyjamas walking eastwards, towards the house of the official suspect Robert Murat, 33.

Do police believe this was a man abducting Madeleine?
Detectives refused to publicise the sighting for three weeks. Another witness, Jeremy Wilkins, is reported to have told police that he was in the area talking to Mr McCann and did not see the mystery man.

Did anyone else in the Tapas 9 notice anything strange?

Matthew Oldfield said he had checked on the McCanns’ apartment at 9.30pm. A source close to the McCanns had said he did not look into the bedroom where Madeleine was sleeping with the two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie. But the Evening Standard report claimed he saw the twins but did not have a view of Madeleine’s bed.

Was there anything strange about the room after Madeleine disappeared?

Mrs McCann was sure Madeleine had been abducted because the bedroom window was open and the security shutter was forced open, a source close to the family has insisted. Tests on the shutter showed no sign of forced entry. However, another friend claimed yesterday that the shutter had been left open.

When will the Portuguese courts decide what to do in the Madeleine case?

Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, a criminal instructional judge in Portimão, has decided that there is no need for the McCanns to be reinterviewed at this point, hence the prosecutor’s statement last night. The threat of them having to return to the Algarve in the near future has been lifted. The judge must complete his rulings by today on a variety of issues. It is believed that he has already authorised the use of Mrs McCann’s diaries as evidence.

Could the couple still be charged soon?

Unlikely. LuÍs Armando Bilro Verão, the lead public prosecutor, must now decide if there is sufficient evidence to bring charges against them, if he needs to request the PolÍcia Judiciária to carry out further investigations or if the case against them should be dropped.

Why is it all taking so long?

Portuguese detectives are still waiting for the results of tests on samples being carried out by the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham. They are also believed to want to carry out further searches in the Algarve and possibly at the McCanns’ home.

So how long will the McCanns have to wait?

The couple can remain as arguidos, or official suspects, for eight months before the Portuguese police have to apply for a four-month extension. After this time they automatically cease to be suspects, but there is no requirement for the prosecutor to clear them formally.

Robert Murat, a British self-employed property consultant on the Algarve and the only other official suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, has been an arguido for four months.

Why has there been so much confusion?

Portugal’s strict laws of judicial secrecy mean that nobody involved in a criminal investigation is allowed to reveal any of the evidence in the case. However, Portuguese police sources are regularly quoted giving incriminating details about the McCanns’ role in their daughter’s disappearance. Friends of the couple have increasingly been attempting to challenge these reports with their own interpretation of events. Both sides are actually breaking the law and could face up to two years in jail.

Who is who in Team McCann

Clarence Mitchell

Former BBC journalist appointed on Monday as Kate and Gerry McCann’s official spokesman. Represented them in May and June after being sent to Praia da Luz by the Foreign and Commonwealth Offic

Michael Caplan, QC

One of few solicitors to be appointed QC, expert in extradition and international criminal law. Prevented extradition to Spain of former Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet

Angus McBride

Leading criminal solicitor with expertise in dealing with media and protecting reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation

Carlos Pinto de Abreu

One of Portugal’s best-known lawyers with reputation for taking on controversial cases. Lodged McCanns’ libel action against Portuguese newspaper which said they were police suspects

Esther McVey

Former GMTV presenter and Conservative parliamentary candidate, trustee and spokeswoman for Madeleine Fund. Has known Mrs McCann since they did their A levels together

Father Haynes Hubbard

Anglican priest at church of Nossa Senhora da Luz (Our Lady of the Light) in Praia da Luz and his wife, Susan, have become close friends and confidants of McCanns

Calum MacRae

18-year-old internet expert runs Find Madeleine website which has attracted more than 400,000 unique users and helped to raise more than £1 million in donations for campaign

Philomena McCann

Mr McCann’s sister, a headteacher, has been key family member to publicise hunt for Madeleine and to defend her parents

Trish and Sandy Cameron

Mr McCann’s sister and brother-in-law have been frequent visitors to the couple in Praia da Luz and Rothley. About 30 other relatives and friends also visited them in Praia da Luz

Why are the McCann’s early television interviews being scrutinised?

Commentators have seized on the lack of emotion shown by Kate and Gerry McCann during a series of televised statements and interviews in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance. It is claimed that this was an unnatural response and indicated that the couple were hiding something. In fact, criminal profilers had advised them to display no overt emotion in case Madeleine’s abductor “got off" on the sight of her parents in obvious distress. Off camera, they were deeply distressed and received help from counsellors.

How can the police establish Mrs McCann’s state of mind?

Prosecutors are reported to want access to Mrs McCann’s medical records to see if there is any history of illness such as depression which could explain why she would kill Madeleine. They are also said to want British police to carry out investigations into the couple’s relationship and personal history.

Could Mrs McCann’s handwriting be used as evidence?

A judge has authorised police to seize Mrs McCann’s diary and detectives want a graphologist to study the handwriting, it was reported yesterday. Alberto Vaz da Silva, a criminal psychologist and a handwriting expert, told the newspaper 24 Horas: “It would be possible to discover the temper and the character of the person in question. You can see if someone is lying or hiding something.” However, handwriting evidence is usually used only for forensic science purposes, not to determine a person’s emotional state.

Why could Mrs McCann’s newspaper interview lead to jail?

Mrs McCann could be prosecuted under Portugal’s laws of judicial secrecy for telling the Sunday Mirror that police had seized her bible. She said: “One of the pieces of evidence is that a page from a passage in Samuel about having to tell a man his child is dead is crumpled - so I must have been reading it.” The 24 Horas newspaper said that the public prosecutor could accuse Mrs McCann of breaking the secrecy law, which carries a maximum two years' jail sentence. Varradas Leitao, a member of the Superior Council of the Ministerial Publico, said: “A witness or an arguida, the law is the same for everybody. You cannot divulge procedural acts.”

What are the police doing to find Madeleine or her body?

Portuguese police are reported to be preparing for a new series of searches using sniffer dogs and infra-red equipment in an area between Praia da Luz and the village of Burgau, about two miles to the west. It has also been suggested that they will search the church in Praia da Luz and the town of Arao, where a big operation was carried out after an anonymous tip-off to a Dutch newspaper.

Who is advising Kate and Gerry McCann?

British lawyers Michael Caplan, QC, an expert in international law, and Angus McBride, a solicitor who specialises in protecting the reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation. They have also hired a Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, who filed the libel action against a newspaper which said the police suspected them of involvement in their daughter’s death.

How can the couple win the battle of public opinion?

Clarence Mitchell, 46, has been appointed as their official spokesman. He resigned yesterday as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring Unit and had previously been seconded to the Foreign Office to help the McCanns in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance.

What can Mr Mitchell do to help the McCanns?

His job at the Cabinet Office has given him contacts among senior members of the Government and Civil Service. He also has extensive contacts with journalists in both Britain and Portugal and more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter.

Are the McCanns paying for his services?

No. He has been employed by one of their wealthy backers and will continue to work for that person after the Madeleine case is over.

What action will the police take this week?

Portuguese detectives are due to arrive in Leicester to work with a British police team investigating Madeleine’s disappearance. It has been reported that Kate McCann could be interviewed again this week. A Portuguese judge must decide by Thursday whether to approve requests by Portuguese police to secure more evidence.

Who’s advising British police on the case?

Tony Connell, a member of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special casework unit, has been advising the “Gold Group” of senior detectives at Leicestershire Police, which is investigating the Madeleine case. Mr Connell led the review which led to the conviction of Damilola Taylor’s killers.

Could the McCanns be prosecuted in Britain?

It is possible to prosecute a British citizen for a murder or manslaughter abroad under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. This was last done in 2005 when Christopher Newman was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of murdering Georgina Eager in Dublin.

Can the public support Kate and Gerry McCann’s legal battle?

A fighting fund to help to pay their legal costs is expected to be announced within the next few days. A source close to the family told The Times: “It will be getting set up and formalised as a proper fund. It has to be meticulously thought through.”

Why is the McCanns’ hire car pivotal to the investigation?

Portuguese police claim they have found traces of Madeleine’s hair and bodily fluid in the boot of the Renault Scenic, indicating that it was used to transport Madeleine’s body after her death. Scientists have said that it should be possible to establish whether the hair came from a dead or living person.

Does this mean the scientific results hold the key to the case?

Not necessarily. Kate and Gerry McCann used the Budget rental car to move apartments, taking with them all their children’s toys and clothing, which would have contained large amounts of genetic material. It was also used by friends, relatives and people who worked on the campaign to find their daughter.

Where is the car now?

When the McCanns left Britain they drove the car to the airport. They have since said they will hold on to the vehicle to get their own independent scientific examinations done.

Under what circumstances was the car searched?

Police seized the car last month and took it to an underground car park opposite their offices in Portimão. Police sources say this is an unusual place to carry out such a delicate search.

Is there any other explanation about how the material could have got there?

If the DNA samples did come from Madeleine’s corpse it would seem an amazing coincidence that the McCanns hired a car used by their daughter’s abductor and killer. However, friends of the McCanns claim that the couple are being framed. It has also been suggested that the samples may have been labelled incorrectly.

Why do Portuguese police want to read Kate McCann’s personal diaries?

Detectives want to check for inconsistencies with the information previously given to police and for clues about the personal relationship between Mrs McCann, her husband and other members of the party who went with them to Portugal. Mrs McCann was seen regularly writing several pages a day in the diaries.

What evidence could be held on Gerry McCann’s laptop computer?

Mr McCann sent and received dozens of e-mails almost every day from friends and people involved in the campaign to find his daughter. It may be possible to retrieve those e-mails, which detectives hope could provide information about the events surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance and the couple’s connections with other people.

Why does a Portuguese judge need to authorise the seizure?

Portuguese police must get an authorisation from a judge to request items which are abroad or to retain items taken without the owner’s permission. Mr and Mrs McCann are believed to have taken most of the objects home to Britain. There are also reports in Portugal that police seized a copy of Mrs McCann’s diaries before the couple left the country to ensure they could not be destroyed. A judge must be asked to authorise a seizure without the owner’s consent within 24 hours.

Why didn’t the Portuguese police seize these items in Praia da Luz?

It may be that the items left Portugal some time ago when Mr or Mrs McCann made previous trips to Britain, or a friend may have taken them. The couple left the Algarve on Sunday morning at very short notice. They notified the Portuguese authorities but perhaps police did not have the opportunity to ask a judge to authorise the seizure of items without the couple’s consent.

Has the judge been asked to authorise any other seizures?

Portuguese papers reported yesterday that officers wanted to obtain Madeleine’s favourite soft toy, which Mrs McCann took home. It is also claimed that police seized the Renault hired by the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The car contained samples of the girl’s hair and “bodily fluids”.

What else has the judge been asked to do?

It has been reported that detectives want to search the church in Praia da Luz where the couple regularly prayed after Madeleine disappeared. They would only require an order from the judge if the priest or bishop in charge refused to authorise the search. It has also been suggested that police want to search a cemetery beside the church and to excavate roads where sewers were being replaced at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Who is revealing details about scientific evidence?

By law Portuguese police are prevented from revealing details of investigations. However, some officers have been secretly briefing Portuguese journalists.

What scientific evidence have police collected?

In a briefings on Monday night detectives said that they found traces of “bodily fluids” in the car which had probably come from Madeleine with a large amount of Madeleine’s hair in the boot of the car.

Why are the “bodily fluids” significant?

When pathologists refer to bodily fluids they usually mean the putrefying substance created during the decomposition of a body tissue and blood. This “fluid” is evidence that a corpse has been present, but DNA samples are required to identify the body. It is unclear what “fluids” have been found. It might be traces of urine, dried blood or vomit, which would not conclusively prove Madeleine had died.

Does a large quantity of hair prove that Madeleine’s body was in the car?

No. The hair must show evidence that it came from a decomposing body. Other hair could be “transmitted” from items of Madeleine’s clothing and belongings.

Is anyone else confirming these reports?

Sources in Britain who are assisting the Portuguese investigation have agreed that there is “significant” scientific evidence linking Mr and Mrs McCann to their daughter’s death. However, Portuguese officers took the highly unusual step of publicly denying a report which was allegedly based on sources in Britain.

Does the scientific evidence prove that Madeleine was killed?

Because the samples have degraded over time the scientists can never be 100 per cent certain that they came from Madeleine.

What happened in the four hours before Madeleine was reported missing?

Kate and Gerry McCann claim that while they dined at a restaurant with friends regular checks were made on Madeleine and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, at their nearby holiday apartment. Mr McCann told police he saw his daughter asleep at about 9pm. A friend, Matthew Oldfield, entered the apartment at about 9.30pm but did not look in the bedroom Madeleine and the twins were sharing.

It is not known if anyone apart from Mr and Mrs McCann saw Madeleine alive between 6pm and 10pm, when she was reported missing by her mother. The timing is crucial but would be only circumstantial evidence in any prosecution. Although a small child could be killed quickly it would take time to hide a body so that it was not discovered in the biggest search in Portuguese history.

Why did Kate McCann cry out “They’ve taken her?” when she discovered Madeleine missing?

Portuguese police are reported to find it suspicious that Mrs McCann immediately believed that more than one person had taken her daughter. This could suggest that she knew who had taken Madeleine, perhaps people who thought they were helping Mrs McCann by removing her daughter’s body.

Alternatively, it could be an off-the-cuff remark by an hysterical mother or perhaps was misheard or misunderstood in the confusion of the night.

What were the movements of the McCann’s friends on the night Madeleine disappeared?

The McCann family had stayed at the Ocean Club resort with three other British couples and their five children, and a single woman. Russell O’Brien, a doctor from Exeter, left the restaurant for half an hour to look after his own daughter, returning shortly before Madeleine was reported missing.

His wife, Jane Tanner, was the only witness to report a man carrying away child from the McCann’s apartments. There is confusion about when members of the party arrived at the tapas restaurant and left to check on their own sleeping children.

How much alcohol did the McCanns and their friends drink on the evening Madeleine disappeared?

Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends are reported to have told detectives they shared four bottles of wine, with another two barely touched before Madeleine was discovered missing.

However, it is claimed detectives have recovered a bill showing they downed eight bottles of red wine and six white during the afternoon and evening.

Why was Madeleine’s bedroom window and shutter open?

Kate and Gerry McCann told police that the window shutter in Madeleine’s bedroom, which could not been seen from the restaurant, had been forced open.

Police tests showed the heavy metal shutter had not been forced up from the outside, so must have been pulled open from inside the room. Assuming that the abductor entered through the apartment’s unlocked patio windows, why would he or she not leave by the same way or the use the front door?

Or was the window opened to make it appear as if an intruder had used it to enter the bedroom?

Why did Madeleine’s sister and brother sleep through her “abduction”?

Sean and Amelie were heavy sleepers who were not disturbed by their sister’s abduction, claim their parents. However, they also slept through their mother’s hysterical response to Madeleine’s disappearance and the presence of dozens of people who joined the search before being carried out by a female police officer. Kate and Gerry McCann have strenuously denied sedating their daughter.

Why were the McCanns allowed to leave Portugal if they are suspects?

The Portuguese authorities allowed the McCanns to return to the UK after they agreed to reside only at their home in Rothley and to return for further questioning if necessary.

Portuguese law states that after someone is declared a suspect, police have eight months to conclude the investigation into that individual. If they require further time officers can apply to the courts for a four-month extension.

If the McCanns refused to comply with a request to return to the Algarve for interview, Portuguese police could issue a European Arrest Warrant under which extradition can be carried out within six weeks.

Why has it taken so long to find the evidence that could implicate Kate and Gerry McCann?

The material was only collected at the end of July and early August in a review of the investigation carried out by Portuguese detectives with the help of British police and two sniffer dogs. Many of the samples are very small, containing just a few cells, while others are of poor quality because of damage by cleaning or simply the passing of time.

A full report of the findings will not be ready for weeks, but many results have already been passed to the Portuguese authorities.

What evidence were police looking for?

Detectives are searching for any evidence that proves Madeleine is dead or contradicts the accounts of Mr and Mrs McCann and other witnesses.

What is the most important forensic evidence?

It appears the Forensic Science Service believes it has discovered compelling new evidence, possibly from more than one source. Portuguese detectives told Mrs McCann repeatedly that they found traces of Madeleine’s blood in a Renault Scenic hired three weeks after she disappeared, suggesting that the missing girl’s parents used the vehicle to carry her body. It is possible to tell if the blood came from a living person or from a corpse, and even the time of death. However, some reports suggest that the quality of the blood sample was too poor to confirm the origin while others have denied any blood was found in the vehicle and claim it was other “bodily fluids”. Unless a body had been placed in a freezer, it would have badly decomposed during the warm weather; leaving a mass of traces invisible to the human eye.

Does any trace of Madeleine in the hire car prove she was killed?

No. Mr and Mrs McCann hired the car to buy new clothes in the town of Portimão a day before they flew to Rome to see Pope Benedict XVI. They then used it regularly for family outings and to collect friends and relatives from Faro airport. They continued using the car until shortly before flying home yesterday. Kate and Gerry and their two-year-old twins would have often carried in the car items used by Madeleine. These items could easily certainly carry Madeleine’s hair and minute traces of skin, dried blood, saliva and vomit. The same could be said of the holiday apartments used by the McCanns and their friends in the Ocean Club resort. However, if the blood came from Madeleine’s corpse the only other highly unlikely explanation would be that a previous hirer had moved the body.

One report suggested yesterday that Madeleine’s DNA had been found on the floor of the McCanns holiday apartment, but because of degredation it was based on an incomplete picture, with only 15 of the 20 genetic markers usually used for such analysis.

What is the DNA evidence that has supposedly been found by the Portuguese investigators?

Newspapers in Portugal have been reporting that “biological fluids” with an 80 per cent match to Madeleine’s DNA have been found underneath upholstery in the boot of the McCanns’ rented Renault Scenic. Some media reports claimed that another DNA sample with a 100 per cent match to that of Madeleine’s profile had been found in the car.

What would this tell us?

Perhaps nothing. If it was sourced from something such as a hair follicle or skin cells then that could have been one of Madeleine’s hairs that had stuck to the clothes of a family member or her “cuddle cat” toy that her mother carries. If it was from Madeleine’s blood or corpse, that could be more significant. The most important issue is the size of the sample found. If there was a substantial amount of material it is unlikely to be from accidental contamination and would indicate that Madeleine had been in the car.

Can investigators establish if the DNA sample comes from someone who was alive or dead?

Unlikely, according to British experts. A DNA profile does not change just because someone dies. You can tell if DNA has degraded but that can happen if, for example, it had been exposed to sunshine.

Does an 80 per cent match with biological fluids indicate that Madeleine was definitely in the car?

No. The sample will have been tested against a definite sample of Madeleine’s. A 80 per cent match indicates that profilers could find only 16 of the 20 markers usually used for such analysis and suggests that the biological traces are tiny and degraded. Additionally, the twins Sean and Amelie could share a high percentage of DNA characteristics as most siblings do.

What complicates the matter further is that all three of the McCanns’ children were born through IVF and it is unknown whether the couple’s sperm and eggs were used for conception.

What about the discoveries of the “cadaver” sniffer dog?

Mr and Mrs McCann were shown a police video of a sniffer dog used to find corpses “going crazy” when it approached the hire car. Reports also claim that is discovered the scent on the vehicle’s key fob. Mrs McCann is reported to have explained that in her work as locum GP she came into contact with six corpses in the weeks leading up to Algarve holiday.

This seems a high number for a locum GP working just a couple of days a week but would be easy to check against surgery records.

The crucial difficulty with the sniffer dog “evidence” is that it cannot distinguish between corpses. This type of dog is trained to find bodies, not identify where dead bodies have been. Crucially, they can become excited by other scents.

Any evidence of Madeleine’s death on Cuddle Cat?

The cadaver dog is alleged to have become excited when shown Madeleine’s favourite soft pink toy, called Cuddle Cat. The cat had become poignant symbol of a mother’s loss as Kate McCann carried it with her at all time from the night of Madeleine’s disappearance.

She washed it four days after the police tests, claiming it had become dirty. The toy was potentially crucial evidence and should have been seized by police very early in the investigation.

What evidence can be found in Mrs McCann’s Bible?

Mrs McCann, a devout Roman Catholic, claims that police told her that a crumpled page in her Bible was evidence that she was involved in the death of her daughter. The page contained a passage from Samuel II, chapter 12, verses 15-19, which recalls how man’s child is stricken with illness after he “scorns” the Lord.

The man fasts for seven days, refusing to get up off the ground, to try to gain redemption — but eventually his child dies. Mrs McCann claims that detectives told her that damage to the page proved she had been reading it.

Why are the McCanns suspects in their daughter’s killing?

Portuguese police refuse to say why the couple have been made official suspects. Under Portuguese law police can not question someone as if they had committed a crime unless they are a “suspect”. It could simply be that police wanted to ask the couple about the evidence they had collected, and that the seriousness of the process has been misunderstood and exaggerated by cultural and language differences. The McCanns believed that they were about to be charged with Madeleine’s death, but it does not appear police disclosed any crucial evidence to them.

All parties have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

[Acknowledgement pamalam of gerrymccannsblog]

Madeleine: one fact, many lies, endless grief

Timesonline

It's now 124 days since Madeleine McCann disappeared. Our correspondent charts a story that became global, lurid and often invented – and hears how the McCanns learnt to think positively after imagining the darkest scenarios and suffering uncontrollable grief

Penny Wark
September 4, 2007

This is the story that has preoccupied at least two nations and elicited sympathy around the world. It is now 124 days old and has been told thousands of times in millions of words. Yet the story has only one fact: on the evening of May 3, a three-year-old child, Madeleine McCann, disappeared from the bedroom where she slept. We may think we know more than that, but we don't, and no matter how often the story is repeated and the sole fact is spun, all we are reading is speculation. Or slurs and lies. There have been plenty of those, too, because when the media run out of facts and speculation, their more unscrupulous exponents resort to invention.

It's not pretty. A story that was always tragic and has yet to have any kind of resolution, let alone a happy ending, is being treated with the abandon more normally meted out to soap opera characters or to those who elect to engage with the manufactured world of reality TV. The difference is that Madeleine is neither fictional nor a wannabe star, and neither are her parents, Gerry and Kate, who, you will note, don’t need a surname any more. We know them that well, or we think we do. Note, too, that referring to them as Gerry and Kate breaks the convention of referring to them as Kate and Gerry: when feeding the masses a tale of heartbreak the distraught mother is a more emotive presence than an anguished father.

There is no doubt that Madeleine's disappearance – and what has happened since – raises important questions about how we can best protect our children from those who wish them harm, about the obligations of the media, and about our responses to the pain of people we don't know. During the past three weeks I've examined these questions in Praia da Luz, the sunny whitewashed family idyll on the Algarve where I met the McCanns, and elsewhere.

As everyone is acutely aware, the reason we know so little about Madeleine's disappearance is because she was abducted in Portugal, where the segredo de justiça law prevents the police from putting information about a criminal investigation in the public domain. Had Madeleine disappeared in Britain or the US, this would not have happened. Given that the Portuguese police admit that after four months they still have no idea where she is, or whether she is alive or dead, the first question has to be whether the lack of information is merely frustrating, and especially so for her parents, or whether it has impeded her safe recovery.

Neil Thompson has 30 years of police experience, latterly as a detective superintendent in charge of operations for the UK's National Crime Squad. Now the director of security at red24, a private security company, he does not support the Portuguese tactic. "If a child is abducted for sexual exploitation or murder, no information is unhelpful," he says bleakly. "In the UK you would release information to the media and the public that could help the situation, and keep back anything that might compromise the investigation, or frighten the perpetrator into harming the child. It's a balancing act. Your priority is to get the victim back alive, arresting the perpetrator is lower down the scale. A no-information rule means that you're working in the dark.

"The first two to three hours are vital. The first officer at the scene secures it and calls in detectives. A good officer has a nose for these things, and you have a process that tells you when a child has not wandered off. You set up road blocks, you check ports, you check intelligence – has anyone tried to snatch a child in the area? Can anyone describe a car? All that is fed into an incident room and analysed and the senior information officer decides what to release to the public. In the UK police can get a newsflash out straight away to TV and radio so you've got thousands of eyes and ears right at the beginning and you tell the public what you want them to look for. If you do that 24 or 48 hours later it loses impact."

We don't know exactly when Madeline was reported missing, and I am told that none of the published timelines relating to May 3 are accurate. I have also learned that the Portuguese response system is slow and unwieldy. The McCanns' call to the police was received in Portimão, a 30-minute drive away, and the practice is for a local officer to attend the scene to assess whether a crime has been committed and whether to call for help. Police officers drove to apartment 5A at the Ocean Club where the McCanns were staying, then referred the case to the Policia Judiciaria in Portimão. Thus vital time was lost immediately after Madeleine's disappearance – when it was imperative that the investigation should become active.

"You're only as good as your expertise," Thompson says. "If you're in a country that hasn't got a lot of serious crime and the training hasn't gone into major investigations, you make mistakes and lose evidence." Abductions are rare but not random, he adds. "Most child abductions are planned; it's not a burglar who finds a child and takes it. Paedophiles go to places where there are children, such as Disney World. Whatever this abductor's motive, he has been in the vicinity, he knows that there are children in this complex and that when people are on holiday they’re relaxed, and don't think about risk. He will know the area and will have planned what he is going to do with the child. If he's going to keep the child in a secure room, he will have been careful not to alert shopkeepers by buying food he wouldn't normally buy. If a child is going to be sold for exploitation, in this case the unprecedented scale of the publicity has given the abductor a problem because he has an item that is readily identifiable all over the world and can’t be passed on."

Those who specialise in tracing missing children acknowledge that publicity can unnerve a perpetrator, but insist that it is key and does save lives. "We know the public helps us to find missing children and it’s up to law enforcement officers on each case to make the call as to what they tell the public," says Nancy McBride, the national safety director at the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has recovered 110,276 (just over 86 per cent) of the 127,737 children reported missing to it since 1984. "There's always a risk, but it's worth it. We never give up, we never close a case until we know what's happened to a child."

In seeking publicity, the McCanns had the clear objective of finding their daughter. What they did not envisage was that interest would spread, as Gerry puts it, like a forest fire, and that 150 journalists would suddenly descend on Praia da Luz, excited by the prospect of a story of a pretty child with attractive parents who are also middle class and intelligent – and far away from the stereotypical image of an inadequate single mother who might carelessly mislay a child and who certainly couldn't afford to visit this aspirational resort. Add to that the parents' status as doctors, people who save lives, yet who leave their children, Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings, without adult supervision in an apartment while they eat at a tapas bar a 52-second walk away, and the chattering classes are simultaneously full of sympathy and hooked.

When you first see apartment 5A you are struck by its exposed location. On the ground floor of a five-storey block, it is on a street corner and, like most of the Ocean Club apartments, not part of the gated section that houses the tapas bar and crèche. It would be easy to observe from different viewpoints, and perhaps to notice that this family had a regular pattern of behaviour in the evening, putting their children to bed, slipping across to the tapas bar and checking on them regularly.

But these are observations made with the benefit of bitter hindsight. Before Madeleine became a household name, no one thought like that on holiday, especially in an English-speaking resort so sedate that it doesn't even have facilities for teenagers. In late April the weather is pleasant, the beach is a five-minute walk away and you're there to relax and have fun. "It's a quiet, safe resort," says Gerry when we meet in a borrowed flat. "The distance from the apartment to the restaurant was 50 yards. We dined in the open-air bit and you can actually see the veranda of the apartment. It's difficult because if you are [at home] cutting grass in the back with the mower, and that takes me about half an hour, and the children are upstairs in a bedroom, you'd never bat an eyelid. That's similar to how we felt. We've been unfortunately proved wrong, out of the blue. It's shattered everything."

"Everyone I know who had been to Portugal with their children said it was very family friendly, and it did feel like that," says Kate. "If I'd had to think for one second about it, it wouldn't have happened. I never even had to think like that, to make the decision. It felt so safe that I didn't even have to – I mean, I don't think we took a risk. If I put the children in the car the chances of having an accident would be greater than somebody coming in, breaking into your apartment and lifting a child out of her bed. But you never think, I shouldn't put the children in the car."

This is the first time that the McCanns have confirmed that the apartment was broken into. This information does not compromise Madeleine's safety, and rules out one of the numerous red herring theories that the police have explored, that Madeleine wandered away on her own. There is no logic in withholding it from the public.

"I have no doubt in my mind that she was taken by somebody from the room," says Kate. "We don't know if it was one person, two, or if it was a group of people, but I know she was taken."

"There's still hope because we don't know who's taken her, we don't know where they've taken her and we certainly don't know where she is," says Gerry. "The first time I spoke to Ernie Allen, the chief executive of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the States, he said what I wanted to hear, and they've got enough experience of getting children back after long periods of time still to remain hopeful, and their own experience is that the younger the child, the less likelihood of serious harm. Don't get me wrong, we're not blinkered. The scenario that everyone thinks about is that a paedophile took her to abuse her and if that is the situation then statistically the chances are they would kill her. But we don't know that and that's the difficulty we're dealing with. There are a range of scenarios and we want every single avenue explored because they're all pretty rare. That doesn't mean they should be represented in front page headlines as if all of them are likely, because they're not."

Does the Portuguese insistence that no information can be given about the investigation have any advantages? "For us, not having any information is very difficult," Kate replies. "For us as parents it's beneficial having information. We know that from our own jobs – the main complaint from patients' families is lack of communication and not being informed. It's detrimental."

Of course the McCanns' bid for information from the public, unsupported by details of the abduction, had already been hamstrung by the investigation's slow start. There was also a language barrier. They now have phone access to a police officer who speaks English, but contact is variable, they say. You sense that they are often in situations where they would like to be forthright, but are obliged to keep their thoughts to themselves. "It is frustrating," says Kate. "The whole situation makes you angry, that's part of the whole grief that something like this has happened to Madeleine and to us. They're all normal emotions and sometimes you do just want to explode."

The McCanns sit on a sofa, Kate bone-thin – although I am told that she is very fit – extremely shy and modest, Gerry composed and easier to read. At the beginning of our interview Kate holds Madeleine's pink toy cat in one hand and clutches her husband's with the other. Kate's face looks so tense and agonised that you might think that she was about to be tortured, and she seems to shrink into herself.

But as the hour passes she relaxes, takes her hand out of her husband's and even laughs at some of the absurdities of their situation, recalling a day on the beach when she was on the phone to a friend and suddenly found herself being covered in kisses by a group of Portuguese matrons. Were this couple not wrapped up in this extraordinary event they would be unremarkable, the husband an assured man who likes to be in control, the wife a family-orientated mother who enjoys her job and still has friends from when she was 4.

Both are from working-class backgrounds: Gerry is the youngest of five children of an Irish matriarch and her joiner husband who brought up their family in Dumbarton, near Glasgow; Kate the only child of a Liverpool joiner and a civil servant. They met as junior doctors in Glasgow 12 years ago, got together as they travelled in New Zealand and she trained as an anaesthetist before retraining as a GP because, as two hospital doctors, they rarely saw each other.

In the immediate aftermath of Madeleine's disappearance the McCanns found solace in their Catholic faith and were grateful for the warmth and care that greeted them at the Nossa Senhora da Luz church, a tiny, beautiful and peaceful sanctuary that forms a focal point for the community. "I felt cosseted," Gerry says. "We felt so fragile and vulnerable. People kept saying 'you'll get her back'. It was what we needed to hear because we just had the blackest and darkest thoughts in the first 24, 36 hours, as if Madeleine had died. It was almost uncontrollable grief.

"The psychologist who came out to help us [Alan Pike from the Centre for Crisis Psychology in Skipton] was very good at turning our thought processes away from speculation. OK, there's probabilities, but you don't know that and he was very good at challenging the negatives. He was very much, 'You will feel better after each thing that you take control of, even simple things'. We were surrounded by the Ambassador, the consul, PR crisis management, police, and he was saying 'The decisions are yours'."

"All these people we were meeting had to be there, and I felt so out of control and I found it quite scary," says Kate. "I felt as if I'd been pushed into another world. Alan was saying, 'There are little things you can take control of'."

"For example," says Gerry, "if you are asked 'Do you want a cup of tea?,' instead of saying 'Mmm', make a positive decision. Decide what you want. That combination of the Church, the community and the psychology helped very quickly. We agreed to interact because we thought it would probably help the search and it would be easier than hiding. Stay in the dark and you're an enigma. There wasn't anything to hide and in the first few weeks we were shown a lot of respect."

The launch of the Find Madeleine campaign brought them more respect for their organisational skills. Friends and family rallied, a strategy was worked out, the media were fed pictures and quotes, and big businesses, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Beckham and numerous unknown individuals responded with support and donations. This money – the fund now stands at more than £1 million – enabled them to appoint a campaign manager and to publicise Madeleine's disappearance by visiting other countries. With the possible exception of their blessing by the Pope at the Vatican, which was the brainwave of a tabloid newspaper and seemed to contradict the McCanns' status as ordinary people, they were beyond reproach as campaigners, particularly as they began to engage with agencies that have expertise in recovering missing children. The story rolled along nicely, filling more front pages than any other event since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, though not because the McCanns were managing the media, but because there was increasing evidence that Madeleine sells papers.

Then things started to go wrong. By the end of the second week of August, when the McCanns marked the 100th day since Madeleine's disappearance by launching a YouTube initiative to help to find missing children, the Portuguese media had suggested that the McCanns could have killed their daughter, and the British press was not shy about repeating and even revelling in the "monstrous slurs". Coincidentally that was the week I first visited Praia da Luz: there were nine television satellite trucks, each with a noisy generator, on the road outside apartment 5A, and the Portuguese crews were threatening to move outside the McCanns' rented villa and had to be pacified with an interview. The Ocean Club asked the McCanns to stop bringing the twins to the kids' club because other guests had complained about the media presence, and a couple of chain-smoking security men appeared outside reception. Praia da Luz, once a sardine-fishing community, now a manufactured resort with a reputation for guaranteeing uneventful and sunny family holidays, was becoming ugly.

The solicitor of Robert Murat, the only person to have been named by police as a suspect in the Madeleine investigation, didn't help matters when he announced that business in Praia da Luz was suffering and that people there wanted "those bloody McCanns to go home". However strong a news line this was, it wasn't entirely true. Some shopkeepers continued to display posters appealing for information about Madeleine, others spoke tactfully about their sympathy for the McCanns. "It's not that we want the McCanns to go home, it's just that we want the bad feeling to go away," said one café owner, who declined to be named. "Last year you had to book three weeks ahead to get in here in the evening, now you don't need to book. Praia da Luz has become the place where you lose your children. It's terribly sad, and it's terrible for the McCanns."

Something else was happening, too, that wasn't entirely edifying. At the church a steady stream of Portuguese worshippers and tourists approached the shrine to Madeleine to the left of the altar, and many were devout and respectful. Others nipped in to take a quick picture of the shrine and left without a bow of the head; after all, it's not every year that you go on holiday and find yourself in the presence of a moment so big that it is being recorded by television cameras.

Outside Robert Murat's home, which could not be seen from the road because of a deep and dense hedge, a Portuguese tourist checked with me that she had the right house, then stuffed herself into the hedge to get a proper look. (She was obviously not the first to do so, as sections of the hedge are now dying.) A hundred yards away sight-seers posed for photographs alongside the television crews positioned with 5A in the background.

On a seat overlooking the beach, Martin Payne, a well-meaning hairdresser from Stratford-upon-Avon, displayed an intriguing mixture of sympathy and fascination. He had just spotted Gerry in his Renault Scenic (which was more than I had at this stage; the McCanns are impossible to get near unless their campaign manager vets and approves you) and was happy to volunteer every known fact about the McCanns, and to speculate, in detail, on what might have happened to Madeleine.

"You've been reading too many books, Martin," said his wife. "I feel the same way that I felt when Princes Diana was killed," Martin said. "Such a loss to a lovely family. We want to have a conclusion to this."

When I suggest to the McCanns that some of the interest in them borders on the prurient, they seem to be unaware of it. At church they register the crowd outside as kindly support, and don't notice those on the fringes who are there just to spot them. In other contexts their unsought fame appals them. "We feel totally exposed, as though we have been stripped bare," says Kate.

They tend not to pick up the more sickly nuances within the press, because they don't read it; instead the campaign team (which consists of the full-time lobbyist the McCanns hired after the fund was set up, plus two other part-timers who ensure seven-day-a-week cover to field the innumerable media inquiries) shows them what they need to see, including translations of Portuguese coverage. And as they demonstrated last week with the announcement that they are to take legal action against the Portuguese newspaper Tal e Qual, for its allegation that they killed Madeleine with an overdose of sedatives, they will no longer tolerate lurid claims that defame them.

"We had no illusions that we could control the media," says Gerry. "The way that information has got out has been handled incredibly badly, without a doubt. It's almost as though some people are thinking out loud. It's all very well to have a potential scenario but that shouldn't necessarily be written up as if there is evidence to support it. I think this has been handled very irresponsibly by a number of people. We don't believe there is any evidence to support any of the deluded headlines, and the police have made that clear."

"There are times when you just want to shout out 'That's wrong', because I think we've been done injustice in a lot of ways," says Kate.

"There's a blacker picture painted than what is true," says Gerry, "whether it is how much we were drinking, which was a gross exaggeration, or how often we were checking. We know what we did and we are very responsible. It's bad enough for us to have to deal with the fact that someone saw an opportunity – to then have elements sneering at your behaviour and making it look much worse than it was. It's difficult because a lot of untruths, half truths and blatant lies have been published. It was published that we had 14 bottles of wine."

"In an hour between us," interjects Kate. "I'd have been impressed with that in my student days. Not only that, they qualify it by saying eight bottles of red and six of white, as though it gives it more credibility. You just want to scream."

Where do the Portuguese media get their information? Brendan de Beer, the editor of the English language Portugal News, is the only journalist to have spoken at length to Chief Inspector Olegário Sousa, the spokesman for the PolÍcia Judiciária on the Madeleine investigation. Sousa, who has 20 years' service and has previously focused on crimes relating to works of art, armed robberies and car-jacking, suggested that some information is being inadvertently leaked by officers at informal lunches with friends. De Beer is more specific and suggests that some of the more incongruous claims are no more than gossip.

Some of the police detectives involved in the case have spoken off the record, he says, and journalists have contacts within the police just as they do in Britain. "I've spoken to a couple of them [police officers], but never to an extent where they told me a syringe had been found in the room or there was blood on the keys of the hire car. That kind of information seems to come from police constables. You get someone who tells something to their wife, they tell their hairdresser, who tells a journalist.

"I think that there's a lot of invention. A journalist might say to a detective, 'Do you think Madeleine fell and died and Kate and Gerry got rid of the body?' Off the record the detective might say 'It's possible', and they write a story based on 'sources close to the investigation.' I'd be very surprised if there was any bribery, though a constable does earn only about €600 or €700 a month, so it could happen. The suggestion that the police were closing in on the McCanns . . . I've been disappointed by some of the reporting."

Not that British reporting has been irreproachable. The slurs have been widely dissected, a suspect has been invented by one needy tabloid, and when I rang Paolo Marcilemo, the editor of the Correio da Manhã, which has a reputation for scurrilous reporting, he said that he was no longer giving interviews because the British press has misquoted him.

For the McCanns there is no respite, though they are slowly becoming accustomed to their grief. "They're not gone, the feelings," Gerry says. "When we enjoyed ourselves with the kids we had guilt – how could we enjoy ourselves when Madeleine was missing? But it's so important for the kids that it's unbridled love and attention for them. I'm definitely much better at doing that now, almost carefree for a lot of the time. Not 100 per cent."

They will return to their home in Rothley, in the East Midlands, they confirm, and the timing will depend on the police investigation, which is currently in a state of hiatus as the PolÍcia Judiciária waits for the results of British tests on samples taken from the apartment.

Gerry has been home twice, he says, and has been inside the house. "I was pretty anxious about it, but it's now a comfort. We'll go back when we've done as much as we possibly can for Madeleine. We're at a point where staying here is not necessarily adding anything to the campaign to find her."

He has also discussed returning to work with his line manager; he elected to take unpaid leave rather than compassionate leave shortly after Madeleine's disappearance. As a cardiologist who deals with very sick patients he doesn't want to return immediately to a full-time schedule of patient care, but plans to focus initially on MRI scans, administration and academic work. "When you're seeing 12 or 15 patients a day you have to be focused on them and can't be thinking about what you want to do for missing children in Europe. When I'm occupied and applied it helps, and work eventually will take some of that focus. The fund enables us to make decisions for us and for Madeleine, and not for financial necessity. It's not paying for any of our accommodation here, but it has covered a lot of expenses for us, and trips, and it helps to provide support for people to come out to help us, flights and things."

As a part-time GP, Kate's job is patient-centred, and she has yet to decide whether she will return to it. What they are certain of is that they will continue to campaign for systems to be established to help to recover missing children. Portugal, like Spain and many other European countries, does not have a sex offenders' register, and as for the UK, although a Child Rescue alert system was launched here last year, relying primarily on speedy contact with the media, it has yet to be tested. Neither does Britain have any reliable statistics on missing children, and this means that the scale of the problem is unknown.

Fortunately, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a system that works, and can be copied. It is based in Virginia, employs 300 people and its success relies on instant media alerts and distribution of fliers, and a high level of training for the professionals involved. Its agenda has always been to make its methods operate globally, and now it has Gerry and Kate McCann on its side. Their determination to be involved in this task is the first sign that something positive, tangible and enduring could come from what has so far been the bewildering and tragic story of Madeleine McCann.

[Acknowledgement: Nigel Moore ]

How couple helped to build 'brand McCann' into global phenomenon

Timesonline

Skilful media handlers recruited celebrities and world leaders to a campaign driven by parents' acceptance of the press as partners

Dominic Kennedy and David Brown
September 8, 2007

The naming of Kate McCann as a suspect in the disappearance of her daughter is all the more shocking since she has become a symbol of mothers of missing children everywhere.

World leaders and celebrities, from the Vatican, the White House and Downing Street downwards have all been recruited to the "find Madeleine" campaign.

The global missing-persons movement has adopted as its most powerful emblem the mystery of the pretty blonde child who disappeared into the night.

As the McCanns have toured Europe and beyond, relentlessly urging the public to find their little girl, families' fears that their own children may be abducted have worsened.

Nobody could guess, when the news broke on May 3 that a British child had gone missing, that the riddle would eclipse any crime story of the internet age. What became "brand Madeleine" arose from a combination of brilliant media-handling skills and, for the first time, interactive websites telling editors how much the public craved such a story.

If the Portuguese police were sluggish about starting to search for the missing girl, nobody could accuse British spin-doctors and reporters of being slow off the mark in their hunt for headlines.

The McCanns dominated the news quickly. As doctors and young parents living a quiet provincial life, they had no experience of dealing with the media.

Fortunately, the Mark Warner organisation that runs the holiday camp where Madeleine disappeared was represented by one of the best PRs in the business.

Alex Woolfall is crisis management head at Bell Pottinger, the public relations outfit headed by the original sultan of spin, Lord Bell. Mr Woolfall's main clients have included that other global brand Coca-Cola.

For the first fortnight after Madeleine disappeared, he was on the spot in Praia da Luz, acting as gobetween for the family and the growing pack of journalists.

"We were aware from the outset that there was a huge amount of media interest and they were very keen to see the media as a partner," he said in an interview.

"They find themselves having to ask themselves 'What can we possibly do that means we will be able to sleep tonight, knowing that we have done everything today that we could have done?'."

In an unprecedented move, the Government took over news-handling on behalf of the McCanns. Sheree Dodd, a former Daily Mirror journalist and long-serving senior spokeswoman for the Government, was dispatched to Portugal. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that she was being deployed as "press officer responsible to act as media liaison officer for the McCann family".

After a couple of weeks, she was replaced by an even more prominent political figure. Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC News presenter now working as a senior government spin-doctor, became the voice of the McCanns. He was described formally as providing "consular support in exceptional circumstances". His costs came to just over £6,000, and Ms Dodd's are likely to be similar.

A Foreign Office source said: "This has been a completely new situation. We had to do something."

Mr Mitchell was regarded by journalists as an impressive and helpful figure who was sensitive to the needs of the locals as well as the British.

At first, reports suggested that the McCanns would be reluctant to leave Portugal without getting Madeleine back. But they were persuaded to undertake a foreign tour featuring an audience with the Pope, Mr Mitchell sitting close by.

A clever brand image was created. Madeleine has an unusual iris in her right eye that would make her unmistakable even if she were disguised.

Wristbands were issued with the words "Look for Madeleine". The letters "oo" were designed to resemble the distinctive shape of the girl's eyes.

Madeleine's case was seized upon by organisations promoting the search for missing people.But adverse reaction began when a cinema advertisement was screened before the latest Shrek film. Parents complained that their children were being frightened.

To date, the Find Madeleine campaign, which has a much-visited website that seemed to be struggling under the weight of demand yesterday, has raised more than £1 million. Mr McCann posts a regular blog. Its last entry, from Wednesday, is quite ominous and suggests that the media may have been tipped off about looming developments.

"We were surprised to find increased media presence in Praia da Luz again today," he wrote. "All the excitement seems to be over the results of the recent forensic tests."

Justine McGuinness, a public relations expert, has been recruited, with the help of a headhunter, to become the McCanns' private spokeswoman in Praia da Luz.

The media feeding frenzy is driven in part by the popularity of Madeleine McCann stories on news websites. For many of the past 128 days, her name has been the most-searched item.

It's not surprising, then, that the Daily Express has put Madeleine's picture on its front page almost every day. Its previous favourite cover girl was that other British blonde who came to grief mysteriously in foreign parts: Diana, Princess of Wales.

[Acknowledgement:  pamalam at gerrymccannsblog]

The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann: How a 3-Year-Old Vanished and May Never Be Found

By Steven John

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared during a family holiday in Portugal. More than 15 years later, police may have their first significant break in the case.

Any parent’s worst nightmare is something horrible happening to their child. For Gerry and Kate McCann, the nightmare began in 2007, with the disappearance of their 3-year-old daughter, Madeleine McCann. It has continued for more than 15 years, with no sign of ending.

There remains hope that her abductor will one day be identified and apprehended. However, it’s unlikely that Madeleine, who would now be 19 years old, will be found alive.

We’ll return to May 3, 2007, and uncover what’s known about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. But first, let’s try address another, less-tangible question: Why do cases of missing children grip the attention of the public?

From the Lindbergh baby to Etan Patz to JonBenét Ramsey, missing children hold our attention because they bring out both the best and the worst in us. Our hearts go out to the family, whom we wish we could help. But the lurid details of the case can be fascinating; we’re able to treat a missing child as a topic of interest because the child isn’t our own.

In some cases, there’s a safe return, such as the 18-year kidnapping and imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard. But in too many other instances, the child is never seen alive again.

In late April 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, England, and their three children (3-year-old Madeleine, and 2-year-old twins) traveled on holiday to Praia da Luz, Portugal. They stayed in a rental property at the Ocean Club.

Visiting the region with friends, the adults established a rotating system of checking on the sleeping children while they enjoyed dinner, a mere hundred yards away from the apartment. The meal on May 3, 2007, was to be the last the group sheared on vacation. And, as we now know, it was the last the McCann family would enjoy before the unthinkable tragedy.

That hard, sad fact aside, the details of the case soon grow murky. We know that, around 9:05 p.m., Gerry McCann found Madeleine and her siblings sleeping safely in their room. However, by the time of the next check-in, about 10 p.m., Madeleine (or Maddie, as she was often called) was gone. Only her blanket and stuffed animal remained.

Maddie’s absence was discovered by her mother, Kate McCann, who reportedly wailed so loudly that she was heard by diners at the restaurant. The police were summoned, beginning a search that, to varying degrees, continues to this day.

The property and surrounding areas were searched that night, and into the next day, by police, Madeleine McCann’s parents, their friends, and hotel staff and guests. No actionable evidence was found.

Over the next few days, the search was expanded to include border police, airport staff, and hundreds of volunteers. It had become painfully clear that Madeleine had been kidnapped, and not simply wandered off. Portuguese authorities announced May 12, 2007, that they assumed Maddie was still alive. However, they had no evidence to help locate the girl, or a suspect.

Maddie’s parents described themselves as utterly beset by grief and despair. It was in these days that the disappearance of, and search, for Madeleine McCann captured the world’s attention. The case spread through traditional media, like newspapers and TV broadcasts, but was fueled by then-fledgling social media platforms Facebook and Twitter.

Evidence, and a Possible Suspect, Emerge

In late May 2007, police in Portugal released a description of a suspicious man spotted near the resort on the evening of Maddie’s disappearance. He was described as possibly carrying a child.

Unfortunately, police also had to admit that potential forensic evidence from the scene of the kidnapping might have been damaged or destroyed due to improper procedures.

Then, in mid-September 2007, police found a perfect DNA match for Madeleine McCann in the trunk of a rented car, although they couldn’t tie the vehicle to a positively identified person.

The McCanns were questioned as possible suspects that same month, but they were freely allowed to return to England. In November, Gerry McCann released a statement suggesting their family had been stalked by a predator for days before the kidnapping. In January 2008, the family released a composite sketch of the man they thought responsible for Maddie’s abduction.

It wasn’t until July 2008 that Portuguese authorities officially lifted the “arguido,” or “suspect” status of Maddie McCann’s parents.

Years Go By, and Madeleine McCann Remains Missing

There were no breaks in the Madeleine McCann case for years. In 2009, police released a digitally enhanced photo that showed how Maddie may look at age 6. That same year, the McCann publicly expressed outrage that the search for their daughter had concluded in Portugal.

In 2011, the McCanns signed a deal for a tell-all book about the disappearance of their daughter, titled simply Madeleine. More digitally enhanced images were released the following year, showing Maddie aged up to 9 years old.

Then, in summer 2013, Scotland Yard announced new evidence in the Maddie McCann case. By the fall, detectives revealed they had identified as many as 41 possible suspects. There was a renewed sense that justice might come for Maddie’s kidnapper and, most likely, killer. Portuguese authorities reopened their own case, and began working with Scotland Yard.

However, a number of years then passed without any actionable updates. Police searched for new evidence, and interviewed and cleared a number of suspects, but didn’t come up with anything substantial.

Finally, a Break in the Maddie McCann’s Disappearance?

Well after it seemed there was no hope for justice in the case Madeleine McCann, a break came. It was in June 2020 that German police revealed a prime suspect: a 43-year-old man identified as Christian B., who was in prison there. Few other details were released.

As of 2022, Portuguese authorities also identified the German inmate, now known by his full name, Christian Brückner, as a likely suspect. However, he remains in German custody, and has not yet faced official charges in the kidnapping of Maddie McCann. Brückner is imprisoned on a rape conviction following a crime that took place in the same region of Portugal where Maddie McCann was last seen.

https://www.goalcast.com/madeleine-mccann-disappearance/

He's an idiot.

" his novels can be found on his website " 

He's just added another to the list !

A novel virus, just like COVID-19 is/was

Only one answer to this conundrum .... a vaccination - but where to stick it!

What Kate and Gerry McCann's life looks like, almost 15 years after Madeleine's disappearance.

Polly Taylor
Editor, News and Features
April 23, 2022



At around 8.30pm on May 3, 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann left their three sleeping children in their holiday apartment in the quiet Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz and headed out for dinner.

They thought that Madeleine, three, and 18-month-old twins, Sean and Amelie, would be safe just 83 metres from where they were dining at a tapas restaurant with the group of friends they were holidaying with.

Throughout the evening, the adults took it in turns to check on the kids.

At 10pm, it was Kate McCann’s turn.

When she arrived at apartment 5A, she knew immediately something was wrong.

Madeleine was gone.

What happened next is well documented. The story of the blonde toddler’s unexplained disappearance became a global news story.

This May, will mark 15 years since the wide-eyed toddler's disappearance, and on May 12, it would've been her 19th birthday.

This week, Kate and Gerry McCann welcomed news that a German man has been formally made a suspect over their three-year-old's disappearance.

It is the first time Portuguese prosecutors have identified an official suspect in the case since Madeleine's parents were named suspects in 2007. They were later cleared.

Posting on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page, Kate and Gerry wrote: "We welcome the news that the Portuguese authorities have declared a German man an 'arguido' in relation to the disappearance of our beloved daughter Madeleine.

"This reflects progress in the investigation, being conducted by the Portuguese, German and British authorities.

"It is important to note the 'arguido' has not yet been charged with any specific crime related to Madeleine's disappearance.

"Even though the possibility may be slim, we have not given up hope that Madeleine is still alive and we will be reunited with her."

Read more: Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007. Now police have a formal suspect.

On May 12, 2021, Madeleine would have been 18 years old. Her parents marked the occasion with an emotional message.

"Every May is tough – a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen," Kate and Gerry McCann wrote on their Facebook page. "This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said."

The parents went on, saying the pandemic had been difficult but added that they were thankful "the investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued".
entertainment

"We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again. As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what. We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts."

They concluded: "We still receive so many positive words and good wishes despite the years that have gone by. It all helps and for that we are truly grateful – thank you."

In another post for Madeleine's 18th birthday, the parents wrote, "We love you and we're waiting for you".



In 2020, the McCanns farewelled the year saying it was one they "don’t want to remember but will find it hard to forget".

"There’s no doubt that 2020 has been tough for most people, and often distressing, with so much loss, worry and isolation," the couple wrote on the Facebook page. "Despite losing a parent each, we are aware we have been more fortunate than many, with our family unit at home and jobs to go to."

They added that the pandemic had forced the investigation into their daughter's vanishing to "slow down".

"It hasn’t stopped however and the hope, energy and determination to find her and uncover the truth remain steadfast. Let’s hope 2021 is a brighter, more positive one," they concluded their post.



The story of Madeleine McCann has indeed been subject to high media interest ever since her mysterious vanishing.

In 2019, a Netflix documentary, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, recounted the chain of events in detail, and offered several theories as to what may have happened to Madeleine.

Kate and Gerry McCann refused to take part in the program, stating that it could impede the ongoing police investigation.

In a statement on their website, they said: "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."

Watch The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann trailer below. Post continues after video.
Video by Netflix

Who are Madeleine McCann's parents?

Kate McCann (neé Healey) was born in 1968 in Huyton, near Liverpool. She graduated in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. Gerry McCann, born the same year as Kate, was also a medical scholar, in Glasgow. After working in obstetrics and gynaecology, Kate became a GP. Gerry worked in sports medicine before moving into cardiology.

They married in 1998 and had Madeleine in 2003 after IVF treatment. Twins Sean and Amelie followed two years later. The family moved to Rothey in Leicestershire, when Gerry got a job as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in 2005.

Did the McCanns split up after Madeleine McCann went missing?

While the McCann's never actually split up, Kate has spoken about how close their relationship came to breaking point.

In her book, Madeleine, Kate talks about how she withdrew into herself after Madeleine's disappearance, ceasing to read, play music, or even have sex with husband Gerry.

She said that the fears a paedophile had taken Maddie very much played into that.

"Tortured as I was by these images, it's not surprising that even the thought of sex repulsed me," Kate wrote.

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

She also recalled how supportive Gerry was during the darkest days of their lives. "He would put his arm round me, reassuring me and telling me that he loved me," she wrote.

Kate McCann, 54, and Gerry McCann, 55, remain together and continue to fight for information about Madeleine's disappearance.

In 2014, Kate told the BBC that she has returned to Praia da Luz on several occasions.

"I do go back for personal reasons," she said. "It’s obviously the last place we were with Madeleine and I still walk those streets and I guess try to look for answers. It helps me, most of the time."

After Madeleine vanished, Kate quit her job as a GP to work for children's charities. Gerry McCann is now a professor of cardiology and prides himself on having "established a national and growing international reputation as an expert in Cardiac MRI (magnetic reasoning imaging)" – or scanning, as reported by The Sun.

The McCann's have used AUD $308,000 made from sales of Kate's book about their daughter to continue the search for the little girl.

Their twins, Amelie and Sean, are now 17.

This article was updated with new information on April 23, 2022

https://www.mamamia.com.au/kate-and-gerry-mccann-now/

Madeleine McCann: Investigation was flawed from the start, says senior detective who was there

Published: June 5, 2020 2.58pm BST



News that a 43-year-old German man is now the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case appears – at last – to be a significant development.

The information from the German authorities and the Metropolitan Police Service indicates that in May 2007 this man was living and frequenting Praia da Luz, Portugal, and possibly committing burglaries at holiday complexes to fund his itinerant lifestyle. It also appears that as a teenager he was convicted of sexual offences against children in Germany and was therefore a known convicted sex offender in 2007.

This raises several questions: was he known to the Portuguese investigation team at the time? If so, when did his name enter their system and what did they do to implicate or eliminate him from their enquiry? When was his name passed on to the UK investigation team? These are questions at the forefront of my mind as I think back to my time in Portugal.

Madeleine McCann had been missing for several days when I arrived in Praia da Luz in May 2007. I had been sent to Portugal as part of the UK’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) response to Madeleine’s disappearance. I was a detective superintendent and senior investigating officer (SIO) with knowledge about predatory child sexual abusers and non-familial child abduction.

After being briefed at the British Consulate regarding Madeleine’s disappearance, I met with Gerry and Kate McCann at their holiday apartment and we discussed the Portuguese police investigation strategy and possible scenarios that could have led to their daughter’s disappearance. Understandably, the McCanns were

trying to come to terms with the situation they found themselves in.

During our discussion, Gerry asked me directly if I thought his daughter was still alive, and I pointed out that if she had been abducted – statistically – she would by now be dead. The majority of children who are murdered after being abducted by someone unknown to them are dead within three to six hours. It was a difficult conversation, but I was struck by how focused the McCanns remained throughout.

The following day I went to the police station in Praia da Luz and spoke with several of the lead Portuguese investigators. They were all very polite but it was clear from their attitude and response that they didn’t welcome what they considered to be UK interference in a Portuguese crime. At that time, they were also receiving advice from Leicestershire Police (the McCanns’ home police force) supported by the then UK National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA).

From the outset I was struck by the lack of urgency surrounding the investigation and it was difficult to establish any detailed information around what direction the investigation was taking. Over the next few days, whenever I suggested certain courses of action that they might wish to consider, the Portuguese police either dismissed it out of hand or I was informed that it had already been done without result.

Flawed investigation

As the days went by, I became more and more frustrated and I relayed this back to CEOP in my telephone conversations and daily written reports. After ten exasperating days avoiding the growing media presence, trying to get and impart information and having meetings cancelled at the last minute because investigators were too busy, it was still unclear to me whether many of the key investigative tasks had been adequately completed.

For example, I had serious misgivings about the quality of the search strategy, the recording of full-time and casual staff at the holiday complex, identification of all known suspected and convicted sex offenders living or frequenting the area, and other significant or relevant crimes in the local area.

My professional opinion was that the Portuguese investigative approach to Madeleine’s disappearance was flawed and not fit for purpose when set against what we would have been done in a similar investigation in the UK. This was reflected time and time again in my verbal and written reports and the “fiasco” was regularly reported on in the press.

Disappointingly, as the investigation progressed there was also a certain amount of inter-agency rivalry between the UK agencies involved, which resulted in a fraught working relationship.
‘Golden hours’ wasted

In the years since Madeleine’s disappearance, I have also raised my concerns as to whether agencies across Europe are still any better prepared for these types of investigations. When an investigation team doesn’t gather information or act in a timely and systematic fashion, the investigation gets away from them and this dramatically reduces the chances of the crime being solved.

My experience then, and even more so now having studied the behaviour of non-familial child abductors and murderers in-depth as a criminologist, is that the first 24 to 48 hours of a child abduction investigation – often referred to as the “golden hours” – are critical to its successful outcome. It requires strong, dynamic leadership supported by clear defensible decision making.

This must be backed up by systems and structures designed to collect and evaluate information quickly. At the same time, information must be retained in a manner so that it can be revisited at appropriate times as the investigation moves forward and alternative lines of enquiry are considered.

Non-familial child abduction attracts vast amounts of media attention. High-profile cases often attract national media coverage and cases where the child is murdered become, what is called in criminology, “mega-homicides”. These cases can attract worldwide attention and generate vast amounts of information.

The potential for this information to overwhelm even the best-prepared investigation agency during the early hours or days of an inquiry is considerable. For this reason, there is a need for a systematic approach to core policing functions to deal with the complexity. And it is vital to have a thorough, well documented investigation strategy.

These investigations also require highly skilled and experienced investigators who have the ability to make defensible decisions based upon reliable information and create investigative strategy and policy that can stand the test of hindsight. A failure to do so can have serious consequences.

Three years after Madeleine’s disappearance, in 2010, I conducted and wrote CEOP’s internal review of the Portuguese investigation, which was subsequently passed to the Home Office. The review contained observations and recommendations that, after repeated requests from the McCanns, led to the Met being tasked to establish their own investigation, Operation Grange.

The information timeline, when fully known, may offer clarity and explanations to many of the questions that have been swirling around this case since 2007. But these explanations may also raise more uncomfortable questions about the effectiveness of the initial police inquiry and the competence of the people who led it. I only hope this new information leads to some form of closure for the McCanns.

https://theconversation.com/madeleine-mccann-investigation-was-flawed-from-the-start-says-senior-detective-who-was-there-140132

Analysis
Verdict on the McCanns' treatment: little short of a national disgrace

Dan Sabbagh
Wed 23 Nov 2011 20.49 GMT

Evidence from Gerry and Kate McCann to the Leveson inquiry has given experts much to consider about regulation of the press


Gerry and Kate McCann leave the Leveson inquiry. Their evidence gave the Lord Justice plenty to contemplate. Photograph: Reuters

It took Kate and Gerry McCann to transform the Leveson inquiry, which in its first three days had struggled to reach a serious tone. Hugh Grant did offer a compelling account of a life lived at the centre of media attention, but he is still a highly paid film star with the kind of colourful love life newspapers and the public find hard to resist. Other witnesses fell flat, notably Steve Coogan, who spent too much of his evidence complaining about how interviewers had artfully prised personal information out of him, which is hardly something that needs to be regulated. Not every interviewee, after all, is supposed to like the resulting piece.

But what happened to the McCanns at the hands of the tabloid press in the 18 months or so after their daughter's disappearence was – as their lawyer, David Sherborne, said – little short of a national disgrace. The inquiry heard an account of repeated violations of truth and privacy by every major tabloid, built up over two measured hours of testimony from Gerry McCann, punctuated by Kate's more emotional contributions. While the couple acknowledged help and support from the press when they received it, their criticisms amounted to a plea for reform that will be very difficult for Lord Justice Leveson to dismiss.

It was Richard Desmond's newspapers, the Express and Star titles, that paid out £550,000 in libel damages after a string of defamatory articles. Their apology was on the front page – "unprecedented", as both papers could not help trumpeting – but as Gerry McCann observed, despite all the mistakes, nobody had resigned. "I've seen no journalist or editor brought to account, be it the Express or any other group ... repeat offenders should lose their privilege of practising," he said.

He might have said the same about the News of the World, which printed a copy of Kate McCann's personal diary. Her husband pleaded for the judge to find out how the diary – taken as evidence in Portugal where Madeleine went missing – ended up in the hands of the paper in a version translated from Portuguese and back into English again. Leveson noted that he had the legal powers to find out what happened – and in an instant, statutory regulation of the press had arrived.

Kate McCann described the actions of the paparazzi. They would wait every day for her to get in the car with her two other children, and on some occasions "they'd bang on the window" to get the expressions they wanted. The picture was enough, she observed, to attach "fragile, furious or whatever they wanted to put in the headline" – carrying on despite the fact that the Press Complaints Commission code of practice says quite clearly that "journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit". So, when, later, Gerry McCann demanded a change in the rules when it comes to the taking of the photographs in public places, his call for reform packed a real punch.

"You should not be able to publish photographs of private individuals going about their private business without their explicit consent," he argued. To bring in such a rule really would require the introduction of a privacy law, and while few in the press would welcome that, after hearing both the McCanns speak it would take a brave onlooker to conclude that they did not have something of a point. And as a result of their contribution, Lord Justice Leveson has plenty to contemplate.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/23/leveson-verdict-gerry-kate-mccann
....................

You reap what you sow. You Mr & Mrs McCann and you alone paraded yourselves before the media with show pieces, interviews and photo-shoots - don't complain when you get the attention you crave.

There is no such thing as bad publicity, you are in the public eye thus able to make it work whichever way you desire and you did - didn't you!

'We knew the abductor could do something to her eye, but it was a good marketing ploy'
Gerry McCann

Dave asked whether we should get the media involved to increase awareness and recruit more help.
Kate McCann

Paparazzi hiding in the bushes or a staged photo-shoot?

 

They didn't need bad press from newspapers - they damned themselves from their own mouths, and then from the bewk.

When it suits eh Gerry, remember this.

"You should not be able to publish photographs of private individuals going about their private business without their explicit consent," he argued. 




What about Brenda Leyland, what about her rights.


And this


but as Gerry McCann observed, despite all the mistakes, nobody had resigned. "I've seen no journalist or editor brought to account, be it the Express or any other group ...



Spitefull spoiled creep.

" Journalists must not engage in intimidation , harassment or persistent pursuit " 

Have you read that Martin Brunt ?

He's horrendous, isn't he. He has no conscience at all - perfect for a 'journalist'.

What Kate and Gerry McCann have experienced over the past 13 years is every parent's worst nightmare - and it all began on the evening of May 3rd, 2007.

The British couple were on a family holiday in Portugal, along with a group of friends and their children, when their three-year-old daughter Madeleine disappeared.

Earlier that evening, the couple dined with friends at their hotel's tapas restaurant, while Madeleine and her younger twin siblings Sean and Amelie, both two, slept soundly in their hotel room just 55 metres away from the restaurant. It was agreed that one parent would check on the children throughout the evening, to ensure all was well.

Madeleine's father Gerry carried out the first check, at 9:05pm. But at 10pm, when Kate McCann went to check on her young children, Madeleine was gone.

She was missing from her bed, while her younger siblings slept soundly beside her.

Very quickly, the McCann parents became prime suspects in their daughter's disappearance.
And despite their tireless efforts over the past 13 years to find Madeleine, the couple still can't shake the constant rumours that they somehow played a hand in the tragedy.

Now the case is back in the spotlight as British and German authorities are investigating a new suspect, a 43-year-old German man called Christina Bruckner, who has previously been convicted of child sex abuse.

He is currently serving a "long" prison sentence "for an unrelated matter", German authorities said in June 2020, and the suspect is now being investigation for the "possible murder" of Maddie McCann.

Maddie's disappearance also faced renewed interest last year following the release of the Netflix documentary, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

But the McCann family refused to be involved in the project, citing the ongoing police investigation into their daughter's disappearance.

"We are aware that Netflix are planning to screen a documentary in March 2019 about Madeleine's disappearance," Kate and Gerry McCann wrote in a statement at the time.

"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," the statement read.

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

So why have the McCann's been unable to shake the accusations against them?

We explore every single theory linking the parents to Madeleine's disappearance, so you can decide for yourself.

Early suspicions

During one of their first press conferences following Madeleine's disappearance, Kate and Gerry McCann were asked by a German radio reporter if the "finger of suspicion" was being pointed at them.

"How do you feel about the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the finger at you, saying the way you behave is not the way people would normally behave when their child is abducted and they seem to imply that you might have something to do with it?" the journalist asked.
Both parents immediately denied the accusations.

Kate McCann replied: "To be honest I don't actually think that is the case. I think there is a very small minority of people that are criticising us.

"The facts are we were dining very close to the children and we were checking on them very, very regularly. You know we are very responsible parents and we love our children so much. I think it is very few people that are actually criticising us."

Gerry McCann said he had "never" heard anyone considering them suspects.

"There is absolutely no way Kate and I are involved with this abduction," he said.

The "Pact of Silence"

The mysterious "Pact Of Silence" is one of the many theories addressed in the new Netflix documentary.

It was actually the original headline on a controversial article by Portuguese journalists Margarida Davim and Felícia Cabri, which suggested the McCanns and their friends had agreed to not talk about what really happened on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.

The McCanns holidayed with seven friends and their five children in Portugal, and they dined together almost every night at their resort's tapas restaurant, which led to the media labelling the group, "The Tapas Seven".

Felícia told the documentary makers that she found it odd that local police had not properly investigated the McCanns, because "we know that in most cases, the culprit is someone who is close to the child."

One of the odd inconsistencies she found was in Gerry McCann's claim that the table at the restaurant had a direct "line of sight to the apartment," which is why they chose to dine there.

"From the position I was in, it was completely impossible to see the apartment or the room where they had left the children to sleep," Felícia responded. "As an investigative journalist, I have to ask, why? Why would you lie about such a simple thing?"

They also heard that the "Tapas Seven" gathered to work out their timeline and then revised it.

"The word that we ended up using in the title – pact – came from David Payne [one of the McCann's friends] when he said that they had agreed with Gerry not to talk about what happened ... there seems to be an alliance between everyone to protect someone," Felicia said.

Despite the rumours, both the McCanns and the "Tapas Seven" have always denied any such pact existed.

"We wish to state that there is categorically no 'pact of silence' or indeed anything secretive between us - just the desire to assist the search for Madeleine," the group said in a joint statement at the time, in 2007.

Charity money used to pay their mortgage

In May 2007, the McCanns set up Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned, a charity designed to accept financial donations to assist with the mounting legal cost associated with the case.

Millions of pounds were donated by high profile Britons and celebrities, including J.K Rowling, Richard Branson and Simon Cowell.

But in October 2007, the McCanns were criticised for using some of the fund to make two mortgage payments.

They defended their decision at the time, with the family's spokesman Clarence Mitchell issuing the following statement: "The fund has always had the ability to assist the family financially if necessary."

But as soon as the couple were formally name suspects in the case, they no longer used the fund for personal expenses.

"When they were made arguido [suspects], it stopped, which was a mutual decision on the part of the fund and the McCanns," Madeleine's uncle John McCann said at the time.

"They were happy to accept that their changed status meant they were no longer entitled to that assistance."

McCanns officially named as "arguidos", or "suspects"

Portugese police discovered two DNA samples in the McCanns' hire car - one of which was a "100 per cent match" to Madeleine - were reportedly the type that had come directly from her body, not from clothes she had worn.

On September 7, 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann were officially named as "arguidos", or "official suspects" in their daughter's disappearance and were both interrogated by local police. Gerry responded to some questions, but Kate refused to answer any of the 48 questions she was asked over an intense 11 hour interrogation period.

By now, police were alleging that the couple had faked Maddie's abduction and had hidden her body.

But new revelations uncovered in the Netflix documentary reveal the DNA samples were actually fairly common and Portugese detectives had manipulated the DNA results to get the answer they wanted.

A Portuguese TV reporter Sandra Felgueiras said she was told by her police sources there was a match of "80 per cent minimum" between the DNA samples found insider the car and on Madeleine, but months later final forensic reports confirmed there was no viable evidence linking Madeleine's DNA to the holiday apartment or car.

"Ultimately when you read through the detail of the DNA you see the absolute red herring it was, but it was a dangerous red herring because I think investigators in Portugal thought this was a smoking gun," Jim Gamble, a former top child protection officer, told the documentary producers.

A court cleared them of any involvement in Madeleine's death

In July 2008, the McCanns were formally cleared as suspects by a Portugese court and no longer named as "arguidos" in the case.
Portugal's attorney general said there was insufficient evidence to continue the police case.

Kate and Gerry said they were relieved by the court's ruling, but still had no reason to celebrate.

"It is hard to describe how utterly despairing it was to be named arguidos and subsequently portrayed in the media as suspects in our own daughter's abduction," she said outside court.

"It has been equally devastating to witness the detrimental effect this status has had on the search for Madeleine."

The couple's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the couple should never have been charged in the first place.

"There is a degree of relief but no air of celebration whatsoever," Mr Mitchell said.

"They should never have been arguidos [formal suspects]. The fact that they have emerged from this without being charged proves that."

They've always denied any guilty accusations

Kate and Gerry McCann have always denied any involvement in Madeleine's death, and they've vowed to "never give up" hope of finding their daughter.
Kate often visits Praia da Luz, the Portugese resort town where her daughter disappeared.

"I do go back for personal reasons," she told the BBC. "It's obviously the last place we were with Madeleine and I still walk those streets and I guess try and look for answers. It helps me, most of the time."

She says losing her child is the most horrendous experience no parent should have to go through.

"As a parent of an abducted child, I can tell you that it is the most painful and agonising experience you could ever imagine," she wrote on the couple's website.

"My thoughts of the fear, confusion and loss of love and security that my precious daughter has had to endure are unbearable - crippling.

"And yet I am not the victim, Madeleine is. No child should ever have to experience something so terrible."

https://www.nowtolove.com.au/parenting/family/madeleine-mccann-parents-guilty-54748

Interesting to note how the majority of press and media reports over the years use other press and media sources for their reports and articles.

I suggest it might be more helpful if they source the original PJ investigation and subsequent informed critique rather than further propagating falsity.

It's no wonder people are confused.

Verdi wrote:Interesting to note how the majority of press and media reports over the years use other press and media sources for their reports and articles.

I suggest it might be more helpful if they source the original PJ investigation and subsequent informed critique rather than further propagating falsity.
It's no wonder people are confused.

And if the original report is a pure invention, as many in the Olive Press seem to have been, that lie gets repeated so often in so many journals, that it becomes a part of the mythology.

The original statement "Abducted by a predatory Paedophile from the front bedroom of apartment 5A in PdL, between 9:25 and 9:32 pm on Thursday 3rd May 2007". is the classic.

Everyone - except us - STARTS with that and tries to make everything else fit round it.
The fact that there is not a scrap, scintilla, jot or iota or evidence for that statement does not seem to bother people who have "read it in the papers".

It leads us to ask a very different question

WHAT HAPPENED to Madeleine McCann ?

Yes, a perfectly crafted media campaign that commenced on the night of Thursday 3rd May/Friday 4th May 2007. With the two words 'abducted' and 'paedophile' ever at the fore - to this day!

Despite the fact the Portuguese investigators asked them not to contact the press as it would compromise the investigation.

"Certainly we thought it was possible that [the publicity] could possibly hurt her or her abductor might do something to her eye . . . But in terms of marketing, it was a good ploy."

Gerry McCann

Gerry McCann uses the words 'marketing' and 'campaign' with reference to the loss of his precious daughter Madeleine.

Is that normal?

Another version of the truth..

Madeleine McCann: Icons of the decade

Esther Addley
Tue 22 Dec 2009 00.05 GMT

It's the unsettling mix of the incredibly intimate and the coolly tactical that has made the mystery of Madeleine McCann the biggest and most extraordinary child abduction story in history.

In November, 30 months after their daughter vanished from their holiday apartment, Kate and Gerry McCann released two images of how Madeleine might look now. Her face is a little longer, her jaw stronger; she has grown out of her toddler's button nose. In one, she is shown with long blond hair, in the other with darker hair and a deep suntan. But in both images she retains the distinctive black flash in her right eye where the pupil bleeds into the iris, and which they hope can be used to identify her, if they ever do succeed in finding her.

Madeleine's distinctive eye has been central to the search for her since the earliest days. The couple released posters in English and Portuguese in which the letter "o" had been modified to have the same distinctive flash. "Look into my eyes," read the images: "Olha para os meus olhos." There were rumours that the Bryan Adams song "(Everything I Do) I Do it For You", which begins with those words, would be re-released in support of the campaign.

Late in 2007, Gerry McCann gave an interview to an American magazine and talked about the decision to publicise the eye defect. "Certainly we thought it was possible that [the publicity] could possibly hurt her or her abductor might do something to her eye . . . But in terms of marketing, it was a good ploy."

It is this unsettling mix – of the incredibly intimate and the coolly tactical – that has made the mystery of Madeleine McCann arguably the biggest and most extraordinary child abduction story in history. HL Mencken, the great American essayist and reporter, called the 1932 disappearance of the baby son of aviator Charles Lindbergh "the biggest story since the Resurrection", but neither the Lindbergh baby kidnap and murder, nor Christ's rising from the dead, took place in the internet age.

Just a few weeks after she vanished in May 2007, a sizeable chunk of the globe knew the name Madeleine McCann. The rather homespun website set up by her parents had 80m visits in the first three months after her disappearance. Millions of pounds were offered in reward for information. The biggest celebrities in the world – David Beckham, JK Rowling, the Pope, Oprah Winfrey – publicly expressed support or interest in this anonymous middle-class couple from the Midlands.

Reporters and camera crews from around the world descended on the small Algarve town of Praia da Luz, to feed an audience desperate for updates. At one point, almost two-thirds of global traffic on Google News consisted of searches for information about Madeleine. Most remarkable of all is that despite the many thousands of articles, the millions of words, written about Madeleine McCann, there remains more than two and a half years later just one solitary fact that we know for sure. In the early hours of 3 May 2007, she vanished without trace from her parents' holiday apartment.

Madeleine was not the first helpless child to come to harm, nor, tragically, will she be the last. So why did this child, this story, become the one that convulsed the world rather than any other? In part, it may be because the McCann case speaks to a profound noughties unease about the rules and roles of parenthood. Would you leave your three children asleep in a strange apartment while you dined and drank with friends in a restaurant some distance away? Have you? Would you heed the advice not to weep in public if your child was taken? How composed is too composed?

Kate and Gerry McCann, so profoundly conventional in many ways, awkwardly resisted conforming to the behaviour that an increasingly engaged and judgmental public demanded, most notably a stubborn refusal to acknowledge any parental culpability on their part and a determinedly dry-eyed public face, albeit on the advice of professionals, that sat uneasily with the sentimental grammar of tabloid reporting and the public mood.

In the case of Sarah Payne, snatched and killed in July 2000, or of Milly Dowler, who vanished in March 2002, or of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who died five months later, the threat was external and unforeseen. Baby P, who died three months after Madeleine vanished, was murdered in circumstances of unambiguous evil. Terribly unjust as it may be, Madeleine's parents' dreadful victimhood was complicated, in the mind of the public, by their parenting decisions. It set in play the circumstances that allowed their critics, for a time at least, to judge them more harshly than whoever snatched her.

But the story of Madeleine is also a story about the media, how news events are set in motion, and how the plates are kept spinning, and how sometimes they fly off uncontrollably in all directions. A beautiful toddler gone missing will always be catnip to newspaper editors, but Kate and Gerry McCann also chose to make themselves active characters in the story, and though their motives were laudable, their relentless drive for publicity unsettled many. Had Madeleine been snatched in Britain, the McCanns would have been assigned a police family liaison officer and the full, slammed-door stonewalling of a police press office. In Portugal, their advisers were PRs. In October 2007 Clarence Mitchell, by then working as the couple's full-time media adviser, addressed students at Coventry University about the case. The title of his talk? "Missing Madeleine McCann: The perfect PR campaign".

There is another reason, of course, why Madeleine has become so iconic, and that is the terrible, ongoing mystery. "Madeleine is a very happy little girl with an outgoing personality," reads a heartbreaking note on her parents' website. "Like most girls her age, she likes dolls and dresses (and anything pink and sparkly)." What on earth became of this vibrant three-year-old, frozen in time? Will we ever know? Is it possible, as with Jaycee Lee Dugard or Natascha Kampusch or Elizabeth Fritzl, that one day a woman who was once named Madeleine will emerge, blinking, into the media spotlight?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/22/madeleine-mccann-icons-of-the-decade

Expresso article
 
Maria Barbosa
02 February 2008
 
Extract:
 
To 'Expresso', Clarence Mitchell revealed additionally that the extensive feature devoted to the Maddie case in the February issue of 'Vanity Fair' didn't please the McCanns. Although they're used to denying the news that is published daily in the Portuguese and British press, this instance "goes further".
 
In Mitchell's words, the incorrections start right at the beginning of the article, where it's announced "the first interview with Gerry McCann since he and his wife, Kate, were declared arguidos". And the conversation between the 'Vanity Fair' journalist, Judy Bachrach, and Gerry — that took place at the end of September — "should not have been transcribed. We agreed previously that it would be all off the record and the reporter agreed. We were caught by surprise".

The magazine tells additionally (taking recourse to the statements of Esther Adley, from 'The Guardian') that Gerry, after the decision to return to the UK, on September 9, and already under the arguido status, contacted Sky News previously warning them to reserve a seat on the EasyJet flight. Mitchell, that was not the couple's spokesman at the time, denies everything and only regrets that the reporter didn't confront Gerry with such "accusations".

[Acknowledgement:  pamalam of gerrymccannsblog.com]

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t15043-unanswered-prayers-vanity-fair#384713

The Vanity Fair article is such an eyeopener , between the lines it could be thought to be supportive of the McCann faction but in truth, it exposes them for what they are and how they orchestrated probably one of the biggest scandals ever to have hit the headlines.

Even if you've read it before, it's worth another look.

Snipped..

“Yes, yes, I know,” Gerry says bitterly. “Kate killed her in a frenzy, Madeleine was sedated by us, she fell down the stairs—in which case you would have thought they’d have found her body. I’ve heard all that! There have been a huge number of theories in the media. But what I want to know is—who told them all that?”

In fact, much of what is aired or printed about the vanished girl and her parents is mendacious, mistaken, or just plain conflicting: according to the press, to various detectives, and to top Portuguese authorities, the child is alternatively alive in Morocco (or maybe Portugal or Bosnia) or dead, killed one moment by kidnappers and in other instances by family. In all these hypotheses the supporting facts are invented, from the reason for Kate’s lack of public emotion to the first acts of the Portuguese police (dubbed “the Keystone Cops” and “Butt Heads” by reporters). Thus, the media has managed to rob the McCanns of their daughter a second time. And to complicate matters, it was Gerry McCann himself who, two days after Madeleine’s disappearance, ignited the media conflagration that is now consuming the couple.

It is Gerry who is behind what he tells me is “the marketing … a high public awareness” of Madeleine. At his side while we talk is Clarence Mitchell, a voluble former government media analyst and BBC reporter, handpicked by Gerry to be the latest in a line of spokesmen. On October 17, Mitchell spoke at Coventry University. His topic: “Missing Madeleine McCann: The Perfect PR Campaign.” Except that it has been anything but perfect

.

Perhaps it was a ploy, telling the McCann's no to cry? In reality, they shouldn't have been able to withhold crying, no matter what they were told. the fact that they obeyed is rather telling, imo. They had no emotion about Madeleine.

Mumma mia here you go again

Christmas repeat :

What Kate and Gerry McCann's life looks like, almost 15 years after Madeleine's disappearance.

Polly Taylor
Editor, News and Features
April 23, 2022

At around 8.30pm on May 3, 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann left their three sleeping children in their holiday apartment in the quiet Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz and headed out for dinner.

They thought that Madeleine, three, and 18-month-old twins, Sean and Amelie, would be safe just 83 metres from where they were dining at a tapas restaurant with the group of friends they were holidaying with.

Throughout the evening, the adults took it in turns to check on the kids.

At 10pm, it was Kate McCann’s turn.

When she arrived at apartment 5A, she knew immediately something was wrong.

Madeleine was gone.

What happened next is well documented. The story of the blonde toddler’s unexplained disappearance became a global news story.

This May, will mark 15 years since the wide-eyed toddler's disappearance, and on May 12, it would've been her 19th birthday.

This week, Kate and Gerry McCann welcomed news that a German man has been formally made a suspect over their three-year-old's disappearance.

It is the first time Portuguese prosecutors have identified an official suspect in the case since Madeleine's parents were named suspects in 2007. They were later cleared.

Posting on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page, Kate and Gerry wrote: "We welcome the news that the Portuguese authorities have declared a German man an 'arguido' in relation to the disappearance of our beloved daughter Madeleine.



"This reflects progress in the investigation, being conducted by the Portuguese, German and British authorities.

"It is important to note the 'arguido' has not yet been charged with any specific crime related to Madeleine's disappearance.

"Even though the possibility may be slim, we have not given up hope that Madeleine is still alive and we will be reunited with her."

Read more: Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007. Now police have a formal suspect.

On May 12, 2021, Madeleine would have been 18 years old. Her parents marked the occasion with an emotional message. 

"Every May is tough – a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen," Kate and Gerry McCann wrote on their Facebook page. "This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said."

The parents went on, saying the pandemic had been difficult but added that they were thankful "the investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued".

"We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again. As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what. We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts."

They concluded: "We still receive so many positive words and good wishes despite the years that have gone by. It all helps and for that we are truly grateful – thank you."

In another post for Madeleine's 18th birthday, the parents wrote, "We love you and we're waiting for you".

May 2021

Every May is tough – a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen. This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said.

The Covid pandemic has made this year even more difficult for many reasons but thankfully the investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued. We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again. As we have said repeatedly, we need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what. We are very grateful to the police for their continued efforts.

We still receive so many positive words and good wishes despite the years that have gone by. It all helps and for that we are truly grateful – thank
you.

~Kate and Gerry

In 2020, the McCanns farewelled the year saying it was one they "don’t want to remember but will find it hard to forget".

"There’s no doubt that 2020 has been tough for most people, and often distressing, with so much loss, worry and isolation," the couple wrote on the Facebook page. "Despite losing a parent each, we are aware we have been more fortunate than many, with our family unit at home and jobs to go to."

They added that the pandemic had forced the investigation into their daughter's vanishing to "slow down".


"It hasn’t stopped however and the hope, energy and determination to find her and uncover the truth remain steadfast. Let’s hope 2021 is a brighter, more positive one," they concluded their post. 

Goodbye 2020

What a year! One we don’t want to remember but will find it hard to forget.

There’s no doubt that 2020 has been tough for most people, and often distressing, with so much loss, worry and isolation. Despite losing a parent each, we are aware we have been more fortunate than many, with our family unit at home and jobs to go to. Understandably, the investigation to find Madeleine has been forced to slow down as a result of the pandemic. It hasn’t stopped however and the hope, energy and determination to find her and uncover the truth remain steadfast.

We are very grateful for the continued support, especially throughout this ‘rubbish’ year and for all the Christmas wishes too. Thank you.

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has suffered this year. Let’s hope 2021 is a brighter, more positive one.

With our best wishes for exactly that.

Kate & Gerry

The story of Madeleine McCann has indeed been subject to high media interest ever since her mysterious vanishing.

Kate and Gerry McCann refused to take part in the program, stating that it could impede the ongoing police investigation.

In a statement on their website, they said: "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."

Who are Madeleine McCann's parents? 

Kate McCann (neé Healey) was born in 1968 in Huyton, near Liverpool. She graduated in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. Gerry McCann, born the same year as Kate, was also a medical scholar, in Glasgow. After working in obstetrics and gynaecology, Kate became a GP. Gerry worked in sports medicine before moving into cardiology.

The couple, described by friends as "inseparable," met while working as junior doctors at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow.

They married in 1998 and had Madeleine in 2003 after IVF treatment. Twins Sean and Amelie followed two years later. The family moved to Rothey in Leicestershire, when Gerry got a job as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in 2005.

Did the McCanns split up after Madeleine McCann went missing? 

While the McCann's never actually split up, Kate has spoken about how close their relationship came to breaking point. 

In her book, Madeleine, Kate talks about how she withdrew into herself after Madeleine's disappearance, ceasing to read, play music, or even have sex with husband Gerry.

She said that the fears a paedophile had taken Maddie very much played into that.

"Tortured as I was by these images, it's not surprising that even the thought of sex repulsed me," Kate wrote. 

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

She also recalled how supportive Gerry was during the darkest days of their lives. "He would put his arm round me, reassuring me and telling me that he loved me," she wrote.

Kate McCann, 54, and Gerry McCann, 55, remain together and continue to fight for information about Madeleine's disappearance.

In 2014, Kate told the BBC that she has returned to Praia da Luz on several occasions.

"I do go back for personal reasons," she said. "It’s obviously the last place we were with Madeleine and I still walk those streets and I guess try to look for answers. It helps me, most of the time."

After Madeleine vanished, Kate quit her job as a GP to work for children's charities. Gerry McCann is now a professor of cardiology and prides himself on having "established a national and growing international reputation as an expert in Cardiac MRI (magnetic reasoning imaging)" – or scanning, as reported by The Sun.

The McCann's have used AUD $308,000 made from sales of Kate's book about their daughter to continue the search for the little girl.

Their twins, Amelie and Sean, are now 17.

This article was updated with new information on April 23, 2022.

https://www.mamamia.com.au/kate-and-gerry-mccann-now/

Key players in the McCann case

The protagonists in the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Angela Balakrishnan
Thu 10 Apr 2008 11.25 BST

Clarence Mitchell

The former BBC journalist was appointed early on in the investigation to be the McCann's official spokesman. He represented them in the immediate aftermath of the incident after being sent to Praia da Luz by the Foreign Office. He has spent considerable time with the family, organising their trips across Europe, and, according to Gerry McCann, the couple's visit to Rome to meet the Pope. As a BBC reporter, he covered the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq as well as the royal family – a role which coincided with the death of Princess Diana.

Michael Caplan QC

Caplan is one of the two lawyers the McCanns have hired to defend them against suggestions that they might have been involved in their daughter's disappearance. A part-time judge in the crown court and a chairman of the police disciplinary appeal tribunal, he has a reputation in the profession for reliability and tenacity. In Chambers UK 2007, A Client's Guide to the Legal Profession, he is described as "the weapon of choice for battleship cases". This is not the first time Caplan has dealt with big media interest cases. An expert in extradition and international criminal law, he prevented the extradition to Spain of former Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet when he was arrested in the UK in 1998. He also defended the captain of the dredger Bowbelle, whose collision with the Marchioness on the Thames in 1989 resulted in the deaths of 51 people.

Angus McBride

The other lawyer hired by the McCanns, McBride, like Caplan, is a partner in the legal firm Kingsley Napley. He is a leading criminal solicitor with expertise in dealing with the media and protecting reputations of accidental celebrities such as the McCanns. McBride has represented actor Chris Langham, who was jailed for downloading child porn, and defended various professional footballers, including John Terry and two other Premier League players accused of rape in 2003.

Carlos Pinto de Abreu

Abreu is one of Portugal's best-known lawyers with a reputation for taking on controversial cases. He lodged the McCann's libel action against Portuguese newspaper Tal & Qual, which said they were police suspects after it was believed they administered their daughter a fatal drug overdose. The Lisbon lawyer has offered his services to the McCanns for free. He also applied to the district attorney for a change in the couple's formal status from "witnesses" to "assistant" in the investigation, thus allowing them to know more about it. He is the president of the human rights committee for the Portuguese bar association.

Philomena McCann

Gerry's sister, a high school teacher from Scotland, often speaks to the press on the family's behalf. She has become well known for her fiery personality and colourful Glaswegian vocabulary, but occasionally strays off-message. She told Sky News that Portuguese police –who she has been critical of – had offered Kate a two-year sentence in return for admitting accidental manslaughter. Gerry McCann was still being interviewed by police, and Philomena had got the story somewhat garbled (they did not offer a plea bargain, but were exploring the possibility of accidental death).

Jill Renwick

Renwick, who has known the couple since they all worked together at a Glasgow hospital more than a decade ago, played an integral role in alerting the media of Madeleine's disappearance early on. Renwick spoke to Kate at 7am on the morning after Madeleine vanished. She described the anguish of the missing girl's mother as she pleaded for help, saying that they had been abandoned by searchers after scouring the resort all night. Renwick mobilised the McCann's wider circle of friends. This led to phone calls to GMTV, the CID, defence secretary Des Browne and Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark. She also stopped John Brown, brother of the prime minister, who lived on the same street as her and asked him to bring it to the PM's attention.

Calum MacRae

The 18-year-old internet expert runs the Find Madeleine website which has attracted more than 400,000 unique users and helped to raise more than £1m in donations for the campaign.

Esther McVey

The former GMTV presenter and Conservative parliamentary candidate has known Kate McCann since they did their A-Levels together. She is a trustee and spokeswoman for the Madeleine Fund.

Father Haynes Hubbard

The Anglican priest at the church of Nossa Senhore da Luz, in Praia da Luz, and his wife, Susan, have become close friends of the McCanns.

Dr Matthew Oldfield and his wife, Rachael

Have known the McCanns since Matthew Oldfield and Gerry McCann worked together in Leicester. They have a two-year-old daughter. Matthew was the last to check on the children (but did not actually see Madeleine), about 30 minutes before the alarm was raised at 10pm. The hospital consultant, along with his wife, also claimed he saw the prime suspect, Robert Murat. Rachael was the one who told Jane Tanner that Madeleine had disappeared.

Dr Russell O'Brien and his partner, Jane Tanner

The couple live in Exeter. Russell works at the Peninsula Medical School at the University of Plymouth. They have two children. The older one – a girl - is the same age as Madeleine and was ill on the night of the disappearance Russell was away from the restaurant for about half an hour while he attended to her. He said Murat was outside the McCann's apartment that night. Jane provided the most crucial evidence to the investigation when she said that at about 9.15pm – 45 minutes before Kate McCann raised the alarm, she went to check on her children, and she saw a man carrying a little sleeping girl walking away from the vicinity of the McCann's apartment. At the time, she thought nothing of it. The girl was wearing pink and white pyjamas, like Madeleine was wearing. Tanner has since said she believes the child was the four-year-old daughter of the McCanns.

Dr David Payne and his wife, Dr Fiona Payne

David Payne is 41 and is a Fellow in Cardiovascular Science at Leicester University. Fiona is 34 and also a doctor. David was the last non-family member to positively see Madeleine alive in Praia de Luz at 6.30pm that evening, when he went to check on her and Kate while Gerry McCann played tennis. Fiona Payne also told police she saw Murat. The couple are the only ones reported to have used a baby monitor that night.

Dianne Webster

The mother of Fiona Payne.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/apr/10/madeleinemccann.ukcrime

How did 18 year old Callum MacRae enter the picture? Given his age, could he have been one of Uncle Phil's lucky pupils?

CaKeLoveR wrote:How did 18 year old Callum MacRae enter the picture? Given his age, could he have been one of Uncle Phil's lucky pupils?

Rumour has it he was a student plucked by Philomena McCann - fit for the job.

Philomena McCann was a key figure in the early days, campaigning for baby brother Gerald and Miss Fit, his wife. - she has long since disappeared off the scene as so many other key players have. Makes you wonder why doesn't it? The only players that have kept the flying are the prime suspects you know who.

Can't remember the detail off the top of my head but suffice to say, the website was/is hardly revolutionary in terms of entrepreneurship It's bog basic in every respect, then and now. I think Mister Callum set it up in the shed at the bottom of the garden - where the fairy's hang out. According to the fund accounts early in the day, he was paid for his services - probably a lot more than his worth (30,000 something thousand quid ?). But hey, team McCann did like to keep it the family didn't they.

https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-25-how-much-of-this-is-fraud.html

Chapter 25: How much of this is Fraud, and how much totally innocent?

How much of this is Fraud, and how much totally innocent?

Website.
In the accounts for 2008 the figure for setting up the website is given as £ 37,071 (Thirty seven THOUSAND).

A website, even of the complexity it now has, seven main pages, some with supplementary pages, and a Shop page, would cost a professional website master less than £ 2,000 (TWO thousand) to set up and to run for a year.
Note that the Professional fees for creating the “Fund”, which we assume refers to solicitors, Bates Wells Braithwaite, a top of the range firm, based in central London, amounts only to £ 36,070.

‘Accountants’ (Haysmacintyre ?) is shown separately, as £ 7,050

So we are asked to believe that a teenaged school leaver, in Ullapool, charged more than one and quarter times the average wage for Scotland, (£ 28,296 in 2008) [2] to produce a relatively simple web site, available off-the-peg.
Cost of a Large-Sized Website

Website costs increase considerably as you move up in scale. With multiple sections, 40 to 50 pages and lots of functionality, large websites are ideal for big companies or established online brands. [3]

The website was created by Calum MacRea, a police officer’s son, then aged 18. [4]

An article in the Scottish ‘Sunday Herald’, reported that he had been designing websites “since he was 10”. He had allegedly been approached by Gerry’s sister, the egregious Philomena, previously his teacher, within four days of Madeleine’s being reported missing.

So what are the possibilities ?

1. Callum MacRae invoiced the “Fund” for £ 37,071. The accountants signed it off and he was paid this amount. If so, this is potentially fraudulent.

2. Callum McRae was paid no such amount, but it has been entered as “creative accounting”, and the actual cash has gone elsewhere. If so, then two further possibilities arise.

a. Haysmacintyre did not know and did not notice

b. Haysmacintyre DID know, but let it pass anyway

The first option suggests incompetence, the second - fraud.

3. Is there another option ? Is there a sensible explanation ? If so, I confess I cannot see what it might be.