McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

by Guest 08.05.12 8:31

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Site sells holiday to resort just 25 miles from where she went missing
Meanwhile, three new clues emerge over potential sighting in Spain

By Leon Watson

PUBLISHED: 02:52, 8 May 2012 | UPDATED: 03:27, 8 May 2012

A treasured image of missing Madeleine McCann has been used to advertise trips to Portugal.

The picture was the last taken of the three-year-old before she disappeared from her parents' apartment in Praia da Luz five years ago.

But today the emerged the poignant snap is being shown on a website boasting: '£20 off: Great discount on holiday bookings.'

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-00B4454B000004B0-599_468x535

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-00B4454B000004B0-599_468x535

Madeleine McCann on the day she went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. This was the image reportedly used on a website selling holidays

The site sells breaks in a self-catering family apartment in Albufeira, Algarve, just 25 miles from the resort where Madeleine vanished five years ago.

The photo, on discount website VoucherDigg, was snapped hours before the youngster disappeared from the apartment.

Madeleine's parents Kate, 44, and Gerry, 43, have been desperately searching for her since May 2007.

More...

Last night the couple's spokesman Clarence Mitchell branded its use 'appallingly insensitive'.

Top London law firm Carter-Ruck has been called in to demand the removal of the picture with 'immediate effect'.

Mr Mitchell told the Daily Star: 'This is an appalling use of Madeleine's picture and whether it is a result of hacking or a mistake it must be removed immediately.

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-12F9EA10000005DC-222_468x425

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-12F9EA10000005DC-222_468x425

Treasured image: Madeline McCann's picture being used on holiday discount site VoucherDigg

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-12F9EA04000005DC-369_468x419

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal Article-0-12F9EA04000005DC-369_468x419

The last picture of Madeleine before she was snatched is used with the caption: '£20 off - great discount on holiday bookings over £400...'

'Kate and Gerry are fully aware of this and are horrified. We understand it has been on the website for 24 hours.'

Underneath her picture are the words 'best value''. When users click on it they are taken to a page featuring the same image and deals from lowcostholidays.com.

The advert also urges holidaymakers: 'Hurry up for time is limited. Take the ones you loved and enjoy your life.''

VoucherDigg has not commented.

Meanwhile, The Sun reported today that three new clues have emerged over a potential sighting of the child in Spain.

A blonde girl fitting Madeleine's description was seen at a campsite on the Costa del Sol three days after she was snatched a few hours drive away in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007.

A witness said the groggy-looking child seemed alienated from the German family she was staying with in a caravan.

Now British police have been told the family paid extra for bringing one child more than expected when they arrived at the site on May 6.

And questions over the number plates on their car have raised fears they could have been fakes used to dodge detection.

Holidaymaker Karen Sisson, 49, who saw the child at the Cabopino campsite, near Fuengirola, said she got no response from cops when she raised the alarm at the time.

Karen, of Gibraltar, told The Sun that the girl wore a pink T-shirt, shorts and a beige hat and seemed 'out of it'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2141087/McCanns-left-horrified-site-uses-precious-picture-missing-Madeleine-sell-discount-holidays-Portugal.html#ixzz1uGFOmdhm

by Guest 08.05.12 9:23

Feel free to leave a comment :)

Im at work and are not alowed to comment on things at work.. We can use FB at work as long as we dont show the world we do so ! :)

Most people in my country swallow the story hook and line sad1

So will feel pleased to see some other comments, all that are there know is : how horrible, poor abducted child etc..

https://www.facebook.com/tv2nyhetene

by Guest 08.05.12 9:28

Oh what the hell, rules are there to be broken right? I just had to leave a comment for all the scared to travel to Portugal people :D

by Ashwarya 08.05.12 12:49

Evil hater bloggers have their uses, then, even if it's only drawing TM's attention to things like this so Clarrie can parade their anguish in public.

by tiny 08.05.12 14:38

Of course the mccanns are horrified,they are the ONLY ONES that can exploit Madeleine,as they have shown us all in the last 5 yrs.

by aiyoyo 08.05.12 15:09

tiny wrote:Of course the mccanns are horrified,they are the ONLY ONES that can exploit Madeleine,as they have shown us all in the last 5 yrs.

Oh, but you see, only the mccanns have the exclusive for exploiting Madeleine!

by Blimunda 08.05.12 15:21

How dared they?! roll

It's in bad taste however it smells like publicity to both sides...?
Why don't they sue ? It's their favourite sport.... after running of course.

by anil39200 08.05.12 15:44

But not too horrified to be out running and being photographed laughing, smiling and running in Liverpool eh? BTW, with all these interviews, chat shows, runs, litigation, etc, blah blah, JUST WHO LOOKS AFTER THE OTHER KIDS?

by **Nina** 08.05.12 15:50

anil39200 wrote:But not too horrified to be out running and being photographed laughing, smiling and running in Liverpool eh? BTW, with all these interviews, chat shows, runs, litigation, etc, blah blah, JUST WHO LOOKS AFTER THE OTHER KIDS?

Exactly anil39200, but according to the parents the twins are very supportive of their 'search'.

by **tigger** 08.05.12 17:17

I tried the wayback machine - it came up with this - checked both crawls ( and no I don't really know what they mean by crawl) high5

http://voucherdigg.co.uk has been crawled 2 times going all the way back to September 18, 2010.
A crawl can be a duplicate of the last one. It happens about 25% of the time across 420,000,000 websites.

The two dates were September 18 2010 and May 15 2011.
VoucherDigg.co.uk was started up in 2010.

by anil39200 08.05.12 17:44

Nina wrote:
anil39200 wrote:But not too horrified to be out running and being photographed laughing, smiling and running in Liverpool eh? BTW, with all these interviews, chat shows, runs, litigation, etc, blah blah, JUST WHO LOOKS AFTER THE OTHER KIDS?

Exactly anil39200, but according to the parents the twins are very supportive of their 'search'.

Yes mins, was there not some quote about one of them getting a sword or something to chop off 5he bad man's head, or similar. What kind of deranged, vile Mind puts ideas like that into the heads of lids? Or is it more bs spin? Out of the mouth of babes comes the crap that parents feed them in conversation!

by friedtomatoes 08.05.12 17:48

This is bad taste and don't know what to think. It was probably a mistake. No need to bring in big gun lawyers. Can't think of a day in the last couple weeks when this story was not in the news. It really is over saturation and overkill. What with women coming forward to the papers FIVE years later to say they saw the most famous missing girl in the world on a camping site or playing on a beach a few days after she disappeared. It is all so incredible and unbelievable, and frankly in Gerry Mccanns own words, getting really boring now.

by anil39200 08.05.12 17:54

Mind you, the cash registers of certain people will be kerchinging, from leicestershire to London as presumably the trademark image may have been used improperly. I am just guessing here but it is wrong to use any child's image without permission, but this one particularly in my opinion.

by friedtomatoes 08.05.12 18:03

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1660494

According to DS forums web address registered to student halls.

Anil, sadly Madeleines demise has led her and her memory to be used as a cash cow. And we all know who started it.

by sami 08.05.12 18:17

There is something called dignity.

The McCanns would be well advised to go and get some.

The publication of that photograph on that site is, without question, terrible.

If it was an error, very unlikely imo, but if it was, well so be it. Things happen, we all make "mistakes" don't we Kate and Gerry.

If it was not an error, well there are no words to describe it.

Neither are there words to describe how I feel about the McCanns and their spokesperson splashing this story across the media before the removal of same from the site in question. Why encourage millions of people to go and have a look ? If it were removed and they then felt the need to tell the world about their disgust, fair enough. To do so while it is still accessible, well, why do that ?

Yet again an attempt to portray Kate Healy and Gerry McCann as the injured party.

Just when I thought nothing they could do would surprise me. I have to hand it to them, they have with this one.

by friedtomatoes 08.05.12 18:25

Sami

Anything that makes them look like victims is ok as it puts the attention away from them.

Scott Peterson and others lied about their faked abductions.

Google Youtube and why killers speak out

I am not convinced they killed their daughter but the pattern of behaviour is similar when you are hiding something. And they are definitely IMO hiding something.

by tuom 08.05.12 18:28

sami wrote:There is something called dignity.

The McCanns would be well advised to go and get some.

The publication of that photograph on that site is, without question, terrible.

If it was an error, very unlikely imo, but if it was, well so be it. Things happen, we all make "mistakes" don't we Kate and Gerry.

If it was not an error, well there are no words to describe it.

Neither are there words to describe how I feel about the McCanns and their spokesperson splashing this story across the media before the removal of same from the site in question. Why encourage millions of people to go and have a look ? If it were removed and they then felt the need to tell the world about their disgust, fair enough. To do so while it is still accessible, well, why do that ?

Yet again an attempt to portray Kate Healy and Gerry McCann as the injured party.

Just when I thought nothing they could do would surprise me. I have to hand it to them, they have with this one.

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal 636506

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal 677999948

by sami 08.05.12 19:01

friedtomatoes wrote:Sami

Anything that makes them look like victims is ok as it puts the attention away from them.

Scott Peterson and others lied about their faked abductions.

Google Youtube and why killers speak out

I am not convinced they killed their daughter but the pattern of behaviour is similar when you are hiding something. And they are definitely IMO hiding something.

Hello Friedtomatoes

Yes they lie, they do so frequently. I am immune to that at this stage, I expect it.

It is the fact that they see the need to capitalise on every single little thing, to gain sympathy for themselves, regardless of the cost to Madeleine and others, that makes me see red.

They have no regard for human life, their sole intention is to destroy people, all the while seeking sympathy for themselves.

They are so outraged at the publication of that image of Madeleine that they go and publish it themselves, just so anybody who might not have seen it, will get a chance to do so. Why - so Carter Ruck can state in their libel suit it was seen by millions. Had they not published it, well it would be just us internet nutters who knew about it. I bet many people who logged on to that site to book a holiday did not actually notice the photo, until now that is. I don't think they can sink much lower McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal 181747

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal 181747

by friedtomatoes 08.05.12 19:06

sami you are right they have no regard for others at all. They are psychopathic narcissists. And their spokesman is a nasty piece of evil work.

by Shibboleth 08.05.12 19:36

The hypocrisy and dual standards are amazing.

Did the McCann not make hundreds of posters with the image of Mari Luz Cortes on them. They used them throughout Portugal and Spain, although the father of Mari Luz said no. Clarence Mitchell said he could not see the problem, that the family of Mari Luz should be grateful. Clearly their wishes regarding their missing child were of no importance to the McCann.

Now that another person has used the image of Maddie in the same way, it is vile, the McCann are horrified, no doubt they will not be too horrified to go to a court and sue for money. The option that was not available to the Cortes family, a poor gipsy family without expensive legal representation.

Dual standards and hypocrisy. Amazing.

by friedtomatoes 08.05.12 19:55

Shibboleth wrote:The hypocrisy and dual standards are amazing.

Did the McCann not make hundreds of posters with the image of Mari Luz Cortes on them. They used them throughout Portugal and Spain, although the father of Mari Luz said no. Clarence Mitchell said he could not see the problem, that the family of Mari Luz should be grateful. Clearly their wishes regarding their missing child were of no importance to the McCann.

Now that another person has used the image of Maddie in the same way, it is vile, the McCann are horrified, no doubt they will not be too horrified to go to a court and sue for money. The option that was not available to the Cortes family, a poor gipsy family without expensive legal representation.
g
Dual standards and hypocrisy. Amazing.

The disgusting mccanns and their plastic lying mouth mitchell slagged off the parents of that missing girl. Shame on them. The mccanns are routing for the child butchers the ciprianos, shame on them. And the only reason is cos they want to slag off Mr Amaral. I hope it ALL comes back to bite their sorry little arses. And it will for sure. The sooner the better too.
big grin

by jay2001 08.05.12 20:32

There's twittering that the site was hacked and that the pic was posted by someone in uni halls in Norwich/East Anglia. (No names but a certain muratfan lives there!) As Clarrie and cruck now seem to be involved someone will be sued and investigated I hope and find out who has committed this 'crime',

IMO if the pic was put there by someone from voucherdigg it was in bad taste, but not in the same league as the crime in this case.

by friedtomatoes 09.05.12 20:06

voucherdigg is no more
which more or less proves it was a mccann construct

by aiyoyo 10.05.12 4:00

sami wrote:There is something called dignity.

The McCanns would be well advised to go and get some.

The publication of that photograph on that site is, without question, terrible.

If it was an error, very unlikely imo, but if it was, well so be it. Things happen, we all make "mistakes" don't we Kate and Gerry.

If it was not an error, well there are no words to describe it.

Neither are there words to describe how I feel about the McCanns and their spokesperson splashing this story across the media before the removal of same from the site in question. Why encourage millions of people to go and have a look ? If it were removed and they then felt the need to tell the world about their disgust, fair enough. To do so while it is still accessible, well, why do that ?

Yet again an attempt to portray Kate Healy and Gerry McCann as the injured party.

Just when I thought nothing they could do would surprise me. I have to hand it to them, they have with this one.

For all we know the mccanns were behind it? Who has heard of Voucherdigg? The name itself sounds tacky.

I mean how did the mccanns learn of this? By monitoring internet themselves or using Isabel Hudson courtesy of CR?
If the former , shouldn't they spend their time looking for Maddie instead?
If the latter, surely if CR were monitoring fora or webshites for them surely, they would have issued the website with a warning letter by now? Look what they did to PB via Amazon?

What's stopping them asking the website to take it down, or face further action?
Why did they feel the need to wheel out CM to splash this over the papers?
I think this is agenda-loaded . I don't trust the mccanns - when it comes to cashing in on Maddie, they know no limit.
Didn't CM say they were v low on Fund and urgently need to top it up? For a doctor, GM seems to be ingenuous with marketing skills.
So, who knows what transpired there?

Let's face it - why would Voucherdigg, which I understand is intermediary for travel agencies, where if they sell vouchers for travel agencies they get paid commission, want to use the MOST high profile missing Child to sell holiday? Are they suicidal?
It's madness - it's like an advert that says "take a child on holiday, and lose the child, and you can become instant millionaire by setting up a Fund!

by Willo 10.05.12 12:36

Voucherdigg apologises and closes down. I wonder when they started and who registered the company. Their website has completely gone. Another bizarre McCann episode.

We were sorry!

Our editing team made the mistake, that Madeleine McCann’s image was
linked to the discount holidays to Portugal. We are sorry for the
serious wrongdoing that occurred. We unreservedly apologise for the
hurt suffered by Mr. and Mrs. McCann.

We regret our not acting faster to sort things out because of our
editing team and management overseas not being concerned about the
British social news and not realizing the wrongdoing. We realise that
this explanation and simply apologising are not enough, because the
hurt and damage are irretrievable. In the coming days, we shut down
voucherdigg.co.uk to show our sincere apology.

We deeply apologies to Mr. and Mrs. McCann.
We deeply apologies to the society.
We also apologies to the lowcostholidays for the negative brand
affect, who has nothing to do with this issue.

Vourcherdigg.co.uk team

by jd 10.05.12 13:00

To quote pennylane:

The mccanns have released pictures of maddie in eyemakeup and posing provocatively, when they allegedly believe she may be held by a paedophile. That is what I call a 'horrifying' and 'shocking' use of her image by her own parents, and far more distressing than this recent 'mistake.'

by aiyoyo 10.05.12 13:00

Job done, got paid, told to disappear for good. End of story.

I dont put it past the mccanns to use that kind of tactic to draw attention to their plight!

When CR wrote to Amazon to ban Pat Brown's profiling booklet, they didnt wheel their plastic mouth out to get the press to print that.
They didnt draw attention to themselves in the Pat Brown instance, so why did they denounce Voucher digg in the tabloid so publicly instead of using CR on the quiet like they did to PB? How many members of the public would have seen the Voucherdigg website, if not because forum brought it to their attention presumably?

People see the contrast yet?

by friedtomatoes 10.05.12 22:06

publicising voucherdigg just showed a pic publicising pat browns silencing would have lead people to her e book elsewhere

themccanns and their team are becoming more transparent by the day unlike their fund accounts
big grin

by **PeterMac** 10.05.12 22:25

tigger wrote:I tried the wayback machine - it came up with this - checked both crawls ( and no I don't really know what they mean by crawl)

http://voucherdigg.co.uk has been crawled 2 times going all the way back to September 18, 2010.
A crawl can be a duplicate of the last one. It happens about 25% of the time across 420,000,000 websites.

The two dates were September 18 2010 and May 15 2011.
VoucherDigg.co.uk was started up in 2010.

whois gave the following result

Domain name:
voucherdigg.co.uk

Registrant:
Voucher Digg Group

Registrant type:
Unknown

Registrant's address:
CB32F University Village
Norwich
England
NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom

Registrar:
GoDaddy.com, LLP. [Tag = GODADDY]

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 30-Jun-2010
Expiry date: 30-Jun-2012
Last updated: 27-Apr-2012

Registration status:
Registered until expiry date.

Name servers:
ns11.domaincontrol.com
ns12.domaincontrol.com

WHOIS lookup made at 22:23:06 10-May-2012

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

Re: McCanns left 'horrified' after site uses precious last picture of missing Madeleine to sell discount holidays to Portugal

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