Re: ***LIVE*** Discussion and comments thread BBC Panorama tonight 25th April 7.30pm

[PeterMac]

Good morning Tony,
My scribbled contemporaneous note has the conversation going something like this
"Bring Closure - establish what happened"
"Do you mean 'solving it' ?"
"Solving it ? - Yes of course."

It is an odd "social workers' English" expres​sion(Sorry, I know you are qualified, but you know what I mean - come to terms with their loss, seek closure, has issues, confronting his behaviour, special needs, challenged, )(which is the most cruel of all IMHO - you were set a visual challenge and you failed. You still cannot see. ), and all those other phrases that no one else uses.
(Incidentally does anyone know of anyone ever being described as "Having a zest for life" other than a dead child ? It is one of those stock vicar's phrases, totally meaingless but apparently thought to give transient comfort. Children are never normal. Always the most beautiful, most intelligent, most witty (at 3), caring and so on.)

And modern Police have moved into that sort of P.C. Humpty Dumpty gibberish. Listen to a cop talking about how they are going to solve a crime and you will have to endure hours of references to liaison and working with other agencies, before you find they are just going to go and kick a door in.

But I think he noticeably relaxed once he had managed to get out the words "solve it". I shall look again the the YouTube video, but I think his shoulders dropped and he exhaled
At heart I think he is a good old time DCI, who has been thrust into a post which he relishes, but does not really like the prospect of the TV interviews. He just wants to solve it.
As we all do.
If Madeleine is findable she must be found.
If not, the person or persons responsible for whatever happened must be brought to justice.

[uppatoffee]

Sadly I think the only closure there can be in this case is if they find a body. I just cannot see any other possibility.

I am surprised at SY creating the new picture though. They are almost giving people carte blanche to go up to any girl who looks like this picture. There have been so many of these 'sighting's' already. They must be incredibly stressful for the parents of these girls, seeing people take photos and try and grab them claiming they are Madeleine. Not very responsible behaviour to be encouraging more of the same.

The chance of this photo actually looking like Maddie is also incredibly slim if she is alive.

[PeterMac]

I agree, it seems a strange thing to do but if we follow it logically -
Redwood has to be seen to be searching for a living Madeleine, if there is a slight hope, however unlikely that might be, that she could still be alive. And in the absence of a body, or a confession, that will always be the case. The evidence of the dogs alerting to human cadaverine in those various places is compelling, but probably not legally conclusive without DNA or other forensic backup.
So he has no choice but to conduct at least the first part of the enquiry in that direction, which in turn means that he has to produce an updated image.
In that regard he is dealing with the Press, not conducting a police operation.
What the other two DIs and their teams are doing, however, is an entirely different matter.

[Tony Bennett]

I am surprised at SY creating the new picture though. They are almost giving people carte blanche to go up to any girl who looks like this picture. There have been so many of these 'sighting's' already. They must be incredibly stressful for the parents of these girls, seeing people take photos and try and grab them claiming they are Madeleine. Not very responsible behaviour to be encouraging more of the same.

REPLY: Let's hope that this time there are not too many incidents like this one, where 'Maddie was seen alive on Canadian TV':

Maddie seen 'alive' on TV

Daily Star

By Jerry Lawton
5th March 2010

VIEWERS wept when footage of a girl who looks just like Madeleine McCann singing in a school choir flashed up during a TV news bulletin.

Canadian broadcasters were stunned when distressed callers phoned in claiming they had accidentally filmed the youngster the world had been searching for.

A blonde girl was shown singing during CBC's Newsworld programme the day after the second anniversary of Maddie's disappearance.

She looked just like an image FBI artists had produced of how the missing child would look, aged six.

TV bosses cut the clip from later bulletins on 4 May, 2009, after shocked viewers called police.

Detectives seized the footage and filed it among 2,000 pages of evidence, which have been archived since the case was shelved by Portugual's law chiefs in July 2008.

The DVD, gathering dust on a police HQ shelf, was unveiled this week after the Daily Star made an application to the state prosecutor. Police did not trace the girl, one of thousands of schoolkids taking part in Canada's nationwide synchronised singathon. Immediately after the event was broadcast a woman from Toronto, convinced it was Maddie, phoned in "very upset and crying".

Madeleine, who disappeared from a Portuguese holiday apartment on May 3, 2007 – days short of her fourth birthday – would have been nearly six. Her doctor parents Kate and Gerry, both 41, had just released a new image (pictured above) showing how she would have looked. It is one of hundreds of ignored leads since police gave up.

Another was a Norwegian holidaymaker claiming he saw Madeleine begging for help at the Landzeit Hotel in St Valentin, Austria, three months after her disappearance.

The man and his wife were dining when a young girl on the arm of a man walked past their table and said: "Help me!"

Police checked the hotel's database but had no joy.


There was also the case of an Englishman seen with a blonde girl at a petrol garage, just after the McCanns released the 'Madeleine at six' image; the police arrested him and took him into custody for several hours, whilst they carried out checks which eventually established that the girl was his own daughter, not Madeleine McCann

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The chance of this photo actually looking like Maddie is also incredibly slim if she is alive.

REPLY: And if she was alive and did look remotely like the picture, what would the person holding her do? - change her appearance as much as possible.

However, it is the case that a £3.5 million enquiry has seen it fit to commission a 'forensic artist' to publicise this picture on every TV and every newspaper in the land (hardly one person in the country could have missed it), presumably in the realistic hope that one of the 45-million-plus adults living in the U.K. may possibly see her during the coming days, weeks and months. (I presume that since, if Madeleine McCann was abducted, the U.K. would be one of the least likely countries for her to be found in, that Redwood has formulated and enacted plans for her image to be shown in all other countries, possibly by travelling to TV studios around the world to promote this image, produced by an 'expert in human identificatioin - and art').

What Redwood didn't tell us was which of the 18 male and 2 female 'suspects', 'persons of interest' and 'people we wish to eliminate from our enquiries' shown to us by the McCann Team are the ones we should still be looking for. Maybe this will come, however, after another year or more of the careful, forensic, 'pulling-together-the-three-strands' investigative review in conjunction with his 'more than monthly' trips to Portugal that Redwood spoke about so eloquently and movingly in his 'Daybreak' broadcast

[Tony Bennett]

This morning by e-mail I have received this brief analysis from someone who obviously subscribes to the 'PeterMac' line on Redwood:

QUOTE

I saw your transcript of the Redwood interview on GMTV - I also saw that interview and it reinforced my opinion that Redwood does not believe what he is saying. Each time he was asked why he thought Madeleine was alive and what evidence he had, he evaded giving a direct answer!

UNQUOTE

[aiyoyo]

PM wrote

But I think he noticeably relaxed once he had managed to get out the words "solve it". I shall look again the the YouTube video, but I think his shoulders dropped and he exhaled

I thought so too!

At heart I think he is a good old time DCI, who has been thrust into a post which he relishes, but does not really like the prospect of the TV interviews. He just wants to solve it.

Unless you know otherwise, I think he did it on his own accord. No one can force him to do interviews if he does not want to!
Why did he discuss the case when the review is still ongoing and a long way from completion is a mystery.
Maybe you can tell us he saw the need to do it at this early stage, as I find it hard to see valid reasons behind his action, a unilateral action which can sour the Yard relationship hence collaboration with the PJ because he's putting the PJ in a very difficult situation.

Would you be able go second guess why he did what he did, and was his action taken with PJ knowledge and agreement?

If Madeleine is findable she must be found.
If not, the person or persons responsible for whatever happened must be brought to justice.

It's very true that.
But, unless there is concrete and reliable evidence specifically about her whereabout, it is going to be silly to follow up 195 hoping to hit the jackpot when no one knows what she looks like now, let alone hoping that 195 reported in based on a 3-year old image is going to be Maddie. I ask this before, and will ask again : where do you draw a line when to stop following leads as the Police are inevitably going to get more sightings so long as the Public are told "the Yard are convinced she was abducted by a stranger"?

I havent a clue about AR's strategy, if this is a strategy.
If it is done to lull them into a false sense of security as people alleged or wanted to believe, for fear of incurring the wrath of mr. so and so, since they're such awesome pair with mighty connection, armed with a media controlling expert, and a bull dog, and hence very litiguous etc etc..I think that does not make sense.

Why should law enforcers have to resort to anything just to avoid mr so and so becoming hysterical just in case .....? Just in case of what.........for goodness sake?
By law enforcers, I mean the Yard, and not some foreign sardine munching swarthy plods you can whip up a xenophobic hysteria because of people's general distrust of foreigners. This is the country's police, Scotland Yard, supposedly the best in the land, we are talking about, allocated to their case when they begged the PM to review their case, so how can they object to any of the findings even if the findings are not up their street?

If it is a question of avoiding sub judice then more so the Yard should not comment. Even on necessary basis they should just keep to the bare minimum instead of what AR did. What he did tantamount to playing game imo, if it is only his style of playing the blinder, it is nonetheless still a game.

[/i]

[Pershing36]

Maybe I am being premature but I am being swayed towards the conclusion that this will remained unsolved.


However I am seeing a big shift in attitudes towards TM. I read various forums, most nothing to do with this case. However threads have appeared regarding the recent newspaper articles and the TV documentary. What has surprised me is how angry people are becoming about this case of a missing child appearing to be treated above all the other cases of missing children. Posters who do not know much about the case are now asking questions why this is.

Watching Sky news the other night a journalist who was asked to comment on the case was cut short because he was commenting on the amount of money being spent on the SY review when other cases on missing children appear to be ignored. Watching Daybreak another journalist said in so many words, we will have to get to a point shortly when we have to accept she is gone and may never be found. Lorraine quickly got her oar in to try and boost support for them.

I am wondering if the publicity which initially got them so much sympathy may well turn against them as people become more bitter about the money and resources being solely spent on them.

If as I fear the SY review produces nothing I have a feeling the tide will turn against TM and resentment will set in very quickly.

[Tony Bennett]

Watching Sky news the other night a journalist who was asked to comment on the case was cut short because he was commenting on the amount of money being spent on the SY review when other cases on missing children appear to be ignored. Watching Daybreak another journalist said in so many words, we will have to get to a point shortly when we have to accept she is gone and may never be found.

Is that, in fact, what Redwood means by 'closure'? In say a year from now, will he announce to us all: "Look, the SY Review Team has analysed, for the first time ever, all three investigative strands, carefully, forensically, exhaustively, leaving no stone unturned, and following up 195 investigative opportunities. The evidence shows that a stranger had the opportunity to snatch Madeleine, but after so much bungling by the Portuguese police, the prospects of ever tracing that stranger have now become so remote that in my professional judgment, bearing in mind as I've said many times before that me and my team of 37 officers are all very experienced investigators, we really need now to close down all our investigations and investigative reviews, learn the lessons from this failed (Portuguese) investigation, and move on. Commander Simon Foy and the Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, have read my team's final report and fully endorse our conclusions and main recommendation".

[Spaniel]

As candyfloss said yesterday AR should have made a statement like this.




"I too would have expected him to be impartial. He only need state he was following certain lines of enquiry, and was looking at all possibilites, and was hopeful they could solve the case. He could have said they had promising leads and was not at liberty to say what they were etc., etc. That would have been enough. "

Then not another word should he of uttered. The statement would have been totally neutral which of course it should be, considering they still have another 75% to complete it. Surely Met senior officers attend courses on how to handle the media?

[rainbow-fairy]

Maybe I am being premature but I am being swayed towards the conclusion that this will remained unsolved.


However I am seeing a big shift in attitudes towards TM. I read various forums, most nothing to do with this case. However threads have appeared regarding the recent newspaper articles and the TV documentary. What has surprised me is how angry people are becoming about this case of a missing child appearing to be treated above all the other cases of missing children. Posters who do not know much about the case are now asking questions why this is.

Watching Sky news the other night a journalist who was asked to comment on the case was cut short because he was commenting on the amount of money being spent on the SY review when other cases on missing children appear to be ignored. Watching Daybreak another journalist said in so many words, we will have to get to a point shortly when we have to accept she is gone and may never be found. Lorraine quickly got her oar in to try and boost support for them.

I am wondering if the publicity which initially got them so much sympathy may well turn against them as people become more bitter about the money and resources being solely spent on them.

If as I fear the SY review produces nothing I have a feeling the tide will turn against TM and resentment will set in very quickly.

Pershing36, I agree - but I agree more strongly. I think things could get very, very nasty indeed.
Those over at jatyk call us 'forkers' - well if it ever looks like TM have evaded justice I think it'd more be firebombs!
The British Public, in general, are a forgiving (and totally apathetic bunch) who will let MP's off expenses fiddles etc.
But this case is about an innocent child. The slightest hint-of a cover-up, I dread to think...

[Pershing36]

Pershing36, I agree - but I agree more strongly. I think things could get very, very nasty indeed.
Those over at jatyk call us 'forkers' - well if it ever looks like TM have evaded justice I think it'd more be firebombs!
The British Public, in general, are a forgiving (and totally apathetic bunch) who will let MP's off expenses fiddles etc.
But this case is about an innocent child. The slightest hint-of a cover-up, I dread to think...

Jatyk2 are clearly just deranged. I had a brief look on their site and it seems many of them feel that any Brit caught committing a crime in Portugal is innocent and being framed by the Police.

What's this 'Forkers' all about? Sounds very childish. All they seem to do is shadow this forum.

[friedtomatoes]

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=GB#/watch?v=Vwx3zDb7u3U

The recent Panorama documentary on youtube.

Did anyone see that comment left by a poster called elsucati? The police should send divers to Baragem da Bravura, the body is there!! and they didn't go deep enough at the time. If this was true surely the PJ will have been informed, so it must be a stupid prank? Anyone know where this is?

[Guest]

Madeleine McCann: hope and persistence rewarded

Kate and Gerry McCann have always stressed they have never seen any evidence that their daughter is dead

Esther Addley

guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 April 2012 12.47 BST

For five long and dreadful years, at every opportunity possible, Kate and Gerry McCann have stressed one fact: they have never seen any evidence that their daughter Madeleine is dead, and so they hope fiercely and assume she still lives.

They voiced this belief again and again after the three-year-old vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve in May 2007. They insisted on it as Portuguese police suspicion fell on them – unjustifiably, the country's attorney general later found – and as parts of the British media libelously insinuated that the couple were involved in the child's disappearance.

They clung to their belief in the summer of 2008 when Portuguese investigators, lacking ideas and weary of criticism of a manhunt that had been bodged from the start, abandoned the search, leaving the two doctors to hunt alone for their daughter.

Horribly slandered but undeterred the couple gathered what resources they could and hired private detectives.

"We'll never give up on finding her, how could we?" Kate said last year. "What parent would give up on their child?"

On Wednesday that dogged persistence was rewarded when a team from the Metropolitan police, who have been reviewing the initial investigation after an intervention last year by the prime minister, agreed with the McCanns.

Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said he "genuinely" believed Madeleine could still be alive.

Crucially for the couple, this assertion is based on more than simply an absence of information to the contrary. Though Redwood would not be drawn, the Met position is based on new leads uncovered after a trawl through overlooked evidence, data that had not been analysed, and disregarded clues that the swamped Portuguese investigation was not considering.

This is not a new, hopeful, sighting of a pretty blonde child in Spain, Morocco or Australia; there have been dozens of those and all came to nothing.

Redwood called this "genuine new information". It could prove to be the smallest of leads, and Portuguese officers have yet to agree to the Met request for the case to be re-opened. But it is something.

If the announcement has offered an important vindication for the couple, it also represents an opportunity for British policing to redeem itself with regard to this situation.

The early decision by Leicestershire police – the "home force" of the McCanns, who live in Rothley – to stand back in favour of Portuguese investigators was perhaps understandable given international protocols. But by the late summer of 2007 Leicestershire was closely involved in the investigation, lending specialist sniffer dogs and forensics experts to the hunt.

It was, the attorney general found, largely due to a catastrophic misinterpretation of the evidence collected by these officers that the Portuguese team came to suspect the McCanns in the disappearance. A blinkered investigation, prejudicial police leaks and a rash of misjudged headlines followed.

Last month, Matt Baggott, at the time chief constable of Leicestershire, admitted to the Leveson inquiry that he had known the Portuguese officers, then heavily briefing reporters that the McCanns were guilty, were wrong on crucial DNA evidence.

He could have corrected reporters' errors, even behind the scenes, he admitted, but had judged it better not to.

The damage done to the hunt for Madeleine by the tarnishing of the McCanns might never be known.

The couple did not attend the police briefingon Wednesday .

After four bruising years, during which they received almost no police guidance and were forced to rely on PR experts for help in negotiating both the enormous media interest and the investigation, they were last year assigned a Met police family liaison officer. This officer keeps them up to date with developments, out of the public eye.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/27/madeleine-mccann-hope?CMP=twt_gu

[Spaniel]

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=GB#/watch?v=Vwx3zDb7u3U

The recent Panorama documentary on youtube.

Did anyone see that comment left by a poster called elsucati? The police should send divers to Baragem da Bravura, the body is there!! and they didn't go deep enough at the time. If this was true surely the PJ will have been informed, so it must be a stupid prank? Anyone know where this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZgZrV-FwU

[Spaniel]

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• ByMartin Fricker Daily Mirror
  
• 28 Apr 2012 02:00
  

Maddy case must be reopened: Cop who led the botched Portuguese hunt calls on authorities to act



Goncarlo Amaral is being sued by the McCanns but even so sided with the couple after Portuguese authorities refused to reopen the case




Inquiry call: Former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral
AP

The bungling cop who led the botched Madeleine McCann investigation last night backed calls for the case to be reopened.

Goncarlo Amaral is being sued by Kate and Gerry McCann after he claimed they were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.

But yesterday the detective sided with the couple – 24 hours after Portuguese authorities refused to reopen the case.

“We were always against the closing of the case,” he said. “It should be reopened.”

He also called for a Crimewatch-style reconstruction of the night the youngster vanished from a Portugal holiday resort in May 2007.

“We need a reconstruction,” said Amaral, who was taken off the case six months after Madeleine vanished.

“This is a fundamental police act which will serve to remove contradictions, inconsistencies and lies.”

Missing: Madeleine disappeared five years ago
PA


Scotland Yard chiefs called on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the five-year-old investigation earlier this week after a British review of 40,000 pieces of information in the case found 195 new leads.

But Kate and Gerry’s hopes of a breakthrough were dashed when senior police chief Pedro do Carmo and Attorney General Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro ruled out a new probe.

The McCanns’ call for the reopening of the case was echoed by former Scotland Yard murder squad detective Peter Kirkham yesterday who said it was “shameful” the investigation had been shelved.

“It’s not right we should put to bed a murder inquiry or a missing child inquiry. It’s shameful to do that,” he insisted.

“This is not like the vast majority of missing persons inquiries where a teenager or older person has gone missing under their own steam.

“Madeleine did not go missing under her own steam. The bottom line is the case is not solved. We have a British child who’s missing abroad.

“If it has not been resolved we should be continuing to look into it. That should be done on all unsolved cases.”

[Spaniel]

mountain of ­unimaginable pain By Tony Parsons daily mirror



Enduring love and belief: Kate and Gerry McCann
PA

FOR what seemed like the longest time, my daughter studied the computer-generated image of how Madeleine McCann might look today.

Madeleine would be nine years old – exactly the same age as our girl.

“Some people still think that Madeleine is alive, right?” said my daughter.

Right.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of Scotland Yard says that his team of detectives has sifted through 40,000 pieces of ­information and have 195 leads that they plan to pursue.

“We genuinely believe there is a possibility that Madeleine is alive,” says DCI Redwood.

And that belief is shared by Kate and Gerry McCann. They still believe that their lost daughter is alive.

Without absolute proof to the contrary, how could any parent ever believe anything else?

Seeing the picture of how Madeleine might look today – that simple, poignant image of a smiling, pretty little girl with not a care in the world – brought home again the suffering of the McCanns, a mountain of ­unimaginable pain that we were in danger of forgetting.

Kate and Gerry McCann have endured so much over the last five years.

The incompetence of the Portuguese police, the ­malicious whispers about their parental care and the ­humiliation – and maddening waste of time – of being made suspects in their daughter’s abduction.

But all these hurts and ­indignities are nothing, nothing at all, compared to the cruellest blow of all – the loss of the daughter they loved, and search for still.

A child grows up in those precious five years. When Madeleine went missing, my daughter was, like her, a little girl.

Now, at nine, you can see the first stirrings of real, grown-up maturity. They grow so fast. The time goes so quickly.

To have lost my daughter when she was Madeleine’s age, to be robbed of watching her grow up, to live with the fact that I would never see her again – I would rather be dead.

But Madeleine is not lost for ever. Not yet.

What must keep Kate and Gerry McCann sane is the hope that Madeleine survives and may yet be restored to her family.

The McCanns deserve our support, sympathy and respect.

They are the embodiment of parental love – the unconditional, undying love that refuses to let go.

[Lady-Heather]

mountain of ­unimaginable pain By Tony Parsons daily mirror



Enduring love and belief: Kate and Gerry McCann
PA

FOR what seemed like the longest time, my daughter studied the computer-generated image of how Madeleine McCann might look today.

Madeleine would be nine years old – exactly the same age as our girl.

“Some people still think that Madeleine is alive, right?” said my daughter.

Right.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of Scotland Yard says that his team of detectives has sifted through 40,000 pieces of ­information and have 195 leads that they plan to pursue.

“We genuinely believe there is a possibility that Madeleine is alive,” says DCI Redwood.

And that belief is shared by Kate and Gerry McCann. They still believe that their lost daughter is alive.

Without absolute proof to the contrary, how could any parent ever believe anything else?

Seeing the picture of how Madeleine might look today – that simple, poignant image of a smiling, pretty little girl with not a care in the world – brought home again the suffering of the McCanns, a mountain of ­unimaginable pain that we were in danger of forgetting.

Kate and Gerry McCann have endured so much over the last five years.

The incompetence of the Portuguese police, the ­malicious whispers about their parental care and the ­humiliation – and maddening waste of time – of being made suspects in their daughter’s abduction.

But all these hurts and ­indignities are nothing, nothing at all, compared to the cruellest blow of all – the loss of the daughter they loved, and search for still.

A child grows up in those precious five years. When Madeleine went missing, my daughter was, like her, a little girl.

Now, at nine, you can see the first stirrings of real, grown-up maturity. They grow so fast. The time goes so quickly.

To have lost my daughter when she was Madeleine’s age, to be robbed of watching her grow up, to live with the fact that I would never see her again – I would rather be dead.

But Madeleine is not lost for ever. Not yet.

What must keep Kate and Gerry McCann sane is the hope that Madeleine survives and may yet be restored to her family.

The McCanns deserve our support, sympathy and respect.

They are the embodiment of parental love – the unconditional, undying love that refuses to let go.

An excellent story. Entirelly misguided, and borders on libellous, but who cares about that? It's excellent copy, sells newspapers, attracts readers. Money to be made by all.

[friedtomatoes]

Thanks Spaniel for the link.

[ShuBob]

Of all the articles I've seen in recent days relating to this case, I find the Daily Mirror article posted above by Spaniel the move interesting. I'm not sure if the Mirror did it on purpose but can you imagine the McCanns' reaction to members of the public reading that Goncalo Amaral- the man they've been persecuting for years and are suing for libel- AGREES WITH THEM that the case should be reopened?

[Woofer]

OMG - really can`t stomach seeing any more pics of the `regal` pair.

I see the media is preparing itself for their forthcoming broadcast to the nation - my preparation will be to quickly change channels. Sorry, just can`t stand any more of their bile producing propaganda.

[Smokeandmirrors]

Madeleine McCann: hope and persistence rewarded

Kate and Gerry McCann have always stressed they have never seen any evidence that their daughter is dead

They saw the video footage of Eddie and Keela, except this was the one and only time both dogs got it wrong in exactly the same places. Curious.

Esther Addley

guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 April 2012 12.47 BST

For five long and dreadful years, at every opportunity possible, Kate and Gerry McCann have stressed one fact: they have never seen any evidence that their daughter Madeleine is dead, and so they hope fiercely and assume she still lives.

They voiced this belief again and again after the three-year-old vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve in May 2007. Theyinsisted on it as Portuguese police suspicion fell on them – unjustifiably, the country's attorney general later found – and as parts of the British media libelously insinuated that the couple were involved in the child's disappearance.

Unfortunately, persistent insistence cannot alter facts. Now if there was strong evidence of an abduction in the public domain, perhaps this insistence may be more acceptable.

They clung to their belief in the summer of 2008 when Portuguese investigators, lacking ideas and weary of criticism of a manhunt that had been bodged from the start, abandoned the search, leaving the two doctors to hunt alone for their daughter.

Horribly slandered but undeterred the couple gathered what resources they could and hired private detectives.

Plenty of slander has come from team Mccann from the outset, directed at a variety of individuals. Also, 2 out of the 3 private detective agencies now are convicted fraudsters. Bad luck eh?

"We'll never give up on finding her, how could we?" Kate said last year. "What parent would give up on their child?"

On Wednesday that dogged persistence was rewarded when a team from the Metropolitan police, who have been reviewing the initial investigation after an intervention last year by the prime minister, agreed with the McCanns.

Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said he "genuinely" believed Madeleine could still be alive.

Crucially for the couple, this assertion is based on more than simply an absence of information to the contrary. Though Redwood would not be drawn, the Met position is based on new leads uncovered after a trawl through overlooked evidence, data that had not been analysed, and disregarded clues that the swamped Portuguese investigation was not considering.

As 75% has not yet been analysed by the SY team, this seems premature and speculative at best, misleading at worst.

This is not a new, hopeful, sighting of a pretty blonde child in Spain, Morocco or Australia; there have been dozens of those and all came to nothing.

Redwood called this "genuine new information". It could prove to be the smallest of leads, and Portuguese officers have yet to agree to the Met request for the case to be re-opened. But it is something.

If the announcement has offered an important vindication for the couple, it also represents an opportunity for British policing to redeem itself with regard to this situation.

The early decision by Leicestershire police – the "home force" of the McCanns, who live in Rothley – to stand back in favour of Portuguese investigators was perhaps understandable given international protocols. But by the late summer of 2007 Leicestershire was closely involved in the investigation, lending specialist sniffer dogs and forensics experts to the hunt.

Whose discoveries were rejected most emphatically, so that was a waste of time and money, wasn't it?

It was, the attorney general found, largely due to a catastrophic misinterpretation of the evidence collected by these officers that the Portuguese team came to suspect the McCanns in the disappearance. A blinkered investigation, prejudicial police leaks and a rash of misjudged headlines followed.

Or scarily close to the truth, hence the need to try and discredit it.

Last month, Matt Baggott, at the time chief constable of Leicestershire, admitted to the Leveson inquiry that he had known the Portuguese officers, then heavily briefing reporters that the McCanns were guilty, were wrong on crucial DNA evidence.

He could have corrected reporters' errors, even behind the scenes, he admitted, but had judged it better not to.

The damage done to the hunt for Madeleine by the tarnishing of the McCanns might never be known.


The same might be said for them not being robustly investigated and compelled to participate in a reconstruction

The couple did not attend the police briefingon Wednesday .

They don't appear at court cases of their instigation either. Far more important things to do y'know, like TV appearances in Greenland

After four bruising years, during which they received almost no police guidance and were forced to rely on PR experts for help in negotiating both the enormous media interest and the investigation, they were last year assigned a Met police family liaison officer. This officer keeps them up to date with developments, out of the public eye.

Bullsh!t plain and simple. They themselves have foisted themselves onto TV round the world and fun runs etc. No one forced them at gunpoint.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/27/madeleine-mccann-hope?CMP=tw

[Guest]

After four bruising years, during which they received almost no police guidance and were forced to rely on PR experts for help in negotiating both the enormous media interest and the investigation, they were last year assigned a Met police family liaison officer. This officer keeps them up to date with developments, out of the public eye.

Weren't they assigned a Police Liason Officer right at the start when Madeleine disappeared, but dispensed with them?

[PeterMac]

Weren't they assigned a Police Liason Officer right at the start when Madeleine disappeared, but dispensed with them?

Sharon Matthews was arrested by her Family Liaison Officer !

[Guest]

Weren't they assigned a Police Liason Officer right at the start when Madeleine disappeared, but dispensed with them?

Sharon Matthews was arrested by her Family Liaison Officer !

Really, I never knew that.

Can you look in the book PeterMac, I know you an find things quickly with your search thingy, and see if that is in the book about the original Liaison Officer please.

[Spaniel]

Thanks Spaniel for the link.

You're welcome.
Portuguese police yesterday visited a reservoir known as the Barragem da Bravura, or Wilderness Reservoir, 15 miles from Praia da Luz.

The new head of the investigation, Paulo Rebelo, is said to feel the 2.5mile wide reservoir was not examined properly in May, when up to 300 officers searched for Madeleine. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488007/We-DONT-believe-Madeleine-dead-Gerry-McCann-insists.html