40 questions and answers about how Alan & Cindy Thompson and Peter Verran helped the McCann Team to generate stories trying to connect paedophile Raymond Hewlett with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

by **sharonl** 27.11.12 19:35

Questions and answers about Raymond Hewlett – and Alan & Cindy Thompson and Peter Verran

[Questions 1-20]

By The Madeleine McCann Research Group (MMRG), 27 November 2012

Was (as some newspapers have claimed) Hewlett ‘close to the spot’ where Madeleine McCann visited?

No, that’s media hype, but he was living in a Dodge truck – a sort of camper van - and moving between three places on the Algarve coast at this time, as he admitted.

Where was he, exactly?

Moving between these three camp/caravan sites: Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and Tavira. All were within 60 miles of Praia da Luz.

What was he doing there?

As far as we know from him, selling cars and car parts, and living with his young wife and six children.

Did the Portuguese Police follow up the Raymond Hewlett lead?

Yes, they interviewed him twice.

Did they take any forensic evidence from him?

Yes, they took a DNA swab, wit6h his co-operation.

When did Hewlett leave southern Portugal for Morocco?

He states that this was on 10 June, 38 days after Madeleine was reported missing. This is his account:

“A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts. I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I'd been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there. I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco, on a campsite, for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts”. There is a commercial ferry which runs from Faro to Morocco.

Could Hewlett have been in Praia da Luz the day Madeleine was reported missing?

The Portuguese police had established that his bank card had been used in Lisbon (3 hours away from Praia da Luz) at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Has Hewlett ever commented about Madeleine’s disappearance?

In the lead-up to an article published on 14 June 2009, Hewlett gave an interview to a Sunday Mirror journalist saying that he maintained his innocence regarding the McCann case. He said he had never seen Madeleine in real life and offered to take a lie detector test or any other test. He said he had only seen Madeleine on ‘missing’ posters and once on a TV in a bar. He also said: "It's obvious why they're interested in me. But they can all think what they like. I didn't kill the McCann girl. It's the truth and it's never going to change. There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring them into this? I've done nothing wrong. I would say to the McCanns that I know what it's like to lose a child [his son - MMRG] because it's happened to me recently. I've been through hell and now I've got another hell which I don't deserve. I know for a fact that I didn't do anything wrong, but if people aren't listening, what can you do? I didn't kill the McCann girl”.

Daily Mirror journalist Simon Wright claimed: ‘There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Hewlett’. Is there?

The only thing we can think of is that he was living within 60 miles of Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s reported disappearance. Hardly a ‘mountain’, maybe not even a mole-hill - but then this is our tabloid press.

Where did the story about Hewlett talking about gypsies first appear?

In the same Mirror article, it was stated that a couple called Alan and Cindy Thompson had explained how they had met Hewlett, his wife and six children, who were in a converted Dodge truck, travelling from campsite to campsite in the Algarve and southern Spain. The Thompsons claimed that Hewlett told him [Alan Thompson] that ‘some gipsy tourists offered to buy my daughter just before Madeleine went missing’. This claim cannot of course be verified. They also recalled Hewlett mentioning a ‘business’ trip to Morocco, where there were ‘several alleged sightings of the little girl in the months after her disappearance’.

On 10 April 2010, Neil Syson in The Sun reported on the death of Raymond Hewlett. He referred to Hewlett as: “A paedophile who was a prime suspect in the hunt for Madeleine McCann…” Was Hewlett ever ‘a prime suspect’?

No. The Portuguese Police ruled him out. There is no suggestion that we are aware of that Leicestershire Police thought he was a prime suspect. We are not sure if the McCann Team ever actually said he was ‘a prime suspect’. But, again, this is Britain’s tabloid press.

In the Daily Express recently, journalist James Murray wrote: “Officers are said to be investigating the whereabouts of Hewlett in Portugal in May 2007. Ex-soldier Hewlett bears a striking resemblance to a man seen acting suspiciously around the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz before the kidnap…” Who was this man acting suspiciously?

Hewlett was compared to a sketch done by Melissa Little (at the request of the person who ran the McCann Team’s private investigation, Brian Kennedy) of a character who became known as ‘George Harrison man’, or ‘monsterman’, said to have been seen acting suspiciously in Praia da Luz a few days before Madeleine McCann was reported missing. One witness, shown photographs of Hewlett, said the person she saw was nothing like Hewlett. And of course Hewlett bears no resemblance whatsoever to the man Jane Tanner claimed to have seen, nor to the man seen by the Smith family carrying a child. (Strangely, though, the McCann Team claimed that the sketch done by Melissa Little of ‘monsterman’ bore a striking resemblance to the sketch the very same Melissa Little did for the McCann Team of the man Jane Tanner said she saw. Funny, that)

In the same article, Syson wrote: “And he told a pal he knew gypsies who sold children to perverts”. Who was this ‘pal’?

It appears to have been Peter Verran.

Why do you say it was Peter Verran?

Because this is what the normally reliable Press Association wrote about him in an article dated 23 May 2009:

“A convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it was reported today. The McCanns' investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance. A former soldier who met Hewlett at a campsite in Morocco in May 2007 told the Sunday Mirror he admitted parking a van close to the McCann's complex on several occasions. Peter Verran, 46, said: ‘He brought Madeleine up straight away. He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her. He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, 'Madeleine's not in Morocco’. I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia da Luz really well. He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying. He said he’d been there many times and had often parked his van close to the apartment. He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating when Maddie disappeared. He had a lot of detail about the layout. He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing. He said they were lying’.”

What else do we know about Peter Verran?

We are then given some particulars about Peter Verran. He was an ex-Scots Guard, and previously lived in Telford, Shropshire, and Blackpool. Hewlett, too, was a Scots Guard for nine months, and he also lived in Blackpool and Shropshire for a while. Indeed Hewlett’s wife and his children, including of course Wayne Hewlett, now live in Shropshire. In other articles, we learn that Verran was in the British Army for six years before going on to work with people with learning disabilities. Another article said he now had an antiques business in Fowey, Cornwall. He was said to be in Morocco ‘on honeymoon’.

Peter Verran, who at the time had been on a campsite at Chefchaouen, Morocco, was also quoted as saying that Hewlett was ‘obsessed with the Madeleine McCann case. He claimed that he met Hewlett at ‘the toilet block’ on the campsite at Chefchaouen.

The article says that Hewlett is ‘being investigated’. By whom?

The article says by the McCann Team’s investigators, but it was also stated in other reports that West Yorkshire detectives wanted to question him about an historic crime committed in 1975 (see below).

If Hewlett didn’t travel to Morooco until 10 June, how could Verran have seen him in Morocco in May?

Maybe Verran got the date wrong. Or Hewlett did.

Verran is quoted by one newsapper as saying: “[Hewlett] said it was common knowledge among locals that Praia da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then sell children”. Is there any evidence to support that claim?

As far as we are aware, that claim is totally without foundation. No-one has been able to trace any credible media reports of gypsies, Romanian or others, stealing very young children to order, whether in Portugal or elsewhere.

Did Hewlett ‘admit to seeing Madeleine McCann twice’, as claimed in recent press articles?

Yes, if you believe Antonella Lazzeri, Sun journalist. This is what she wrote in 2011. As you read her report, look carefully at where the source for this story is said to be:

QUOTE

Headline: I saw Maddie twice, admits paedo suspect

PICTURE of Raymond Hewlett: ‘I wandered around resort several times'

by ANTONELLA LAZZERI Last Updated: 12th January 2011

CHILD-SEX fiend Raymond Hewlett has sensationally admitted he TWICE saw Madeleine McCann before she vanished.

Hewlett, 64, claimed he was at the holiday resort where Maddie was kidnapped - and got so close to her that he could see the distinctive flaw in her right eye.

Two senior officers from West Yorkshire Police travelled to Germany, where Hewlett is in hospital being treated for throat cancer.

A source close to the investigation said Hewlett told the cops he had been to the Ocean Club and seen Maddie. The source added: “He said he had seen her at least two times and had wandered around the complex several times. He said he had been so close to Maddie he was able to see the distinctive mark in her right eye. He didn’t say why he had previously denied ever being in Praia da Luz. It’s obviously a disturbing development.”

Last night Clarence Mitchell, official spokesman for Maddie’s parents Gerry and Kate, said it was vital Hewlett now spoke to private investigators employed by the family to find Maddie.

He said: “If Mr Hewlett has any credible information about Madeleine it is absolutely imperative that he should speak to the investigators as a priority.

Mr Hewlett and his representatives must do the right thing and allow the private investigators to do their work.”

Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, West Yorks, refused to see the McCanns’ investigators when they flew to Germany two weeks ago. He now says he will talk to them - if he is paid. But Mr Mitchell said: “No payment will be made for any such interview.”

Hewlett has also employed a lawyer to try to sell his story to newspapers for thousands of pounds.

The source said: “There are fears he’s trying to cash in on Maddie, and it may be that he has made these claims to get more money. Whatever his motives, he needs to be seen by the investigators because he may have vital information.”

Hewlett emerged as a suspect in Maddie’s abduction after it was revealed he was living at a campsite nearby in May 2007. British tourists who spoke to him said he was ‘obsessed’ with the case.

Police wanting to quiz Hewlett over the 1975 assault had been unable to trace him as he travelled around Europe and Morocco after being released from prison. His lawyer in Germany says he only has weeks to live.

Hewlett has now provided cops with a DNA sample which will be compared to evidence from 1975.

Any information he provided about Maddie, from Rothley, Leics, will be passed to the Leicestershire Police task force.

Officially, the West Yorkshire officers questioned Hewlett only about the 1975 attack.

A spokesman said: “Our understanding is that no questioning of Raymond Hewlett about Madeleine McCann was undertaken by our officers as that has nothing to do with our case.”

Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/madeleine/2466650/I-saw-Maddie-twice-admits-paedo-suspect-Raymond-Hewlett.html#ixzz2DPgg8LFT

UNQUOTE

The article by Antonella Lazzeri quotes ‘a source close to the investigation’ as claiming that: “Hewlett told the cops he had been to the Ocean Club and seen Maddie…He said he had seen her at least two times and had wandered around the complex several times. He said he had been so close to Maddie he was able to see the distinctive mark in her right eye. He didn’t say why he had previously denied ever being in Praia da Luz...” But the West Yorkshire Police, who had travelled to Germany, and had interviewed Hewlett, issued a robust denial: “Our understanding is that no questioning of Raymond Hewlett about Madeleine McCann was undertaken by our officers as that has nothing to do with our case”. So who was right?

The force which actually interviewed Hewlett, West Yorkshire, denied that Hewlett had been asked about the Madeleine McCann case. Against that, we have the word of a person described as ‘a source close to the investigation’.

====CONT. PART 2====

by **sharonl** 27.11.12 19:40

====CONT...====

Questions 21 - 40

The article by Antonella Lazzeri quotes ‘a source close to the investigation’ as claiming that: “Hewlett told the cops he had been to the Ocean Club and seen Maddie…He said he had seen her at least two times and had wandered around the complex several times. He said he had been so close to Maddie he was able to see the distinctive mark in her right eye. He didn’t say why he had previously denied ever being in Praia da Luz...” But the West Yorkshire Police, who had travelled to Germany, and had interviewed Hewlett, issued a robust denial: “Our understanding is that no questioning of Raymond Hewlett about Madeleine McCann was undertaken by our officers as that has nothing to do with our case”. So who was right?

The force which actually interviewed Hewlett, West Yorkshire, denied that Hewlett had been asked about the Madeleine McCann case. Against that, we have the word of a person described as ‘a source close to the investigation’.

Well, who is that ‘source close to the investigation’?

Although the article doesn’t make it absolutely clear, it can really only refer to the Madeleine McCann investigation. The only current Madeleine McCann investigation was that being carried out by the McCann Team investigators. A ‘source close to the investigation’ may usually be understood to refer to the McCanns’ chief public relations officer, Clarence Mitchell.

So, as to whether Hewlett was in Praia da Luz the week Madeleine was reported missing, and was close enough to her to see her ‘distinctive mark in her right eye’, we basically have the word of the official spokesman from West Yorkshire Police - against the word of Clarence Mitchell?

That’s right!

So why did The Sun run this headline: “I saw Maddie twice, admits paedo suspect”?

We can think of at least two reasons.

A story in the Daily Mirror quoted Peter Verran as saying: “I asked [Hewlett] why he'd left and come to Morocco. He told me he'd had to leave Portugal in a hurry. He said he'd packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area. That was just after Maddie was taken”. Is there any corroboration of this claim?

None whatsoever.

How well did Verran get to know Hewlett?

Another Mirror articles tells us the following about Verran being on honeymoon and dining with the Hewletts:

“Me and Nisrine would eat meals with Hewlett's family…the kids were a bit weird. They were very withdrawn and couldn't speak properly. They never went to school and spent all day playing in the mud”.

So, from this, we can deduce that, at least for a while, there was on ongoing relationship between Mr and Mrs Verran and Mr and Mrs Hewlett and their family, where they were happy to eat together while the Hewletts’ ‘very withdrawn’ children ‘played all day in the mud’. Indeed, Verran is quoted later as referring to ‘the three months they were all together’. This would be the period June through August (see below), though the Sunday Mirror on 21 June told us that the Verrans “shared a Moroccan campsite with Hewlett between June and November 2007” (six months - a long time for a honeymoon). In all the articles about Verran and Hewlett, we can’t find one which gives a date when Verran first encountered Hewlett in Morocco. It is reasonable to assume that it was after 10 June, assuming that Hewlett was right when he said he travelled to Morocco from Portugal on that date.

Did the Verrans keep in touch with the Hewletts after their time together in Morocco?

Apparently so, becauase the Mirror also tells us that the Verrans returned to Britain in November 2007 and ‘had occasional texts or phone calls from Hewlett’ after Hewlett told them he was ‘back in Tavira’. Verran then adds that, in June 2008, he rang the Hewletts, only to be informed that Hewlett had throat cancer. Then, at some future date, Verran continues: “He called to ask for money and I sent him £50. I couldn't bear the thought of his kids starving. I even offered to pay for him to come back to the U.K. I didn't get a reply and we lost touch”. Sending Hewlett £50 seems inconsistent with a claim Verran hd made earlier that ‘Hewlett was never short of money’.

Verran then added how shocked he was to learn about Hewlett’s past as a serial molester of teenage and younger girls: “Suddenly this week he was in the newspapers linked to Maddie's disappearance. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was such a massive shock. It makes my blood run cold. We haven't been able to sleep much since the news broke. I just thought he was an odd drifter. I pray he hasn't had anything to do with it”.

Who first brought Hewlett to media attention?

It seems that Alan and Cindy Thompson played a role in this. In May 2009, they gave an account of conversations they say they had with Raymond Hewlett. The McCann Team themselves claim that it was the Thompsons who told them about Hewlett. The Thompsons appear to have told the McCann Team that Hewlett was now in a hospital in Aachen.

How did the Thompsons know where Hewlett was?

That’s a still unanswered question. In October 2010, an article on The Madelene Foundation website ( www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk) said this: “According to a later Mirror article, the Thompsons not only raised the alarm after realising that Hewlett and his family had been staying at a campsite an hour from Praia da Luz, but also “helped to trace him to the hospital in Germany where he is being treated for throat cancer”. What caused them to want to trace Hewlett is uncertain. Just how were they able to do so, without apparnetly being in touch with Hewlett either directly or indirectly, is another unanswered quesation. It is possible that they had kept in touch with Hewlett since meeting him in 2007.

Did the British police ever interview the Thompsons?

According to a later report in the Daily Mirror: “Officers from Leicestershire Police have said they want to speak to two British holidaymakers who tracked down Hewlett”. Other newspapers claimed that British detectives were ‘on their way’ to interview Hewlett. One report stated: “Detectives from West Yorkshire are currently waiting for permission from the German authorities to question Hewlett…”

Then on, 24 May 2009, came a report by Ryan Parry and Stephen Moyes. in the Daily Mirror, that the Thompsons had been interviewed by Leicestershire Police:

“The couple who raised the alarm about paedophile Ray Hewlett told yesterday how detectives who interviewed them asked: ‘Do you still have his mobile number?’ Alan and Cindy Thompson were questioned for three hours at the weekend by officers from Leicestershire Police's Madeleine McCann task force [the article said that the interview had been carried out at Limehouse Police Station, east London]. Cindy, who handed over the foreign number, said yesterday: ‘The detective who interviewed me asked for Ray's number. He didn't say what they'll do with it, I just hope it helps in some way’.”

The report went on: “Officers hope to use the number to access ’phone company records dating back to May 3, 2007, the day Madeleine vanished from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. The records will show which mobile ’phone masts Hewlett's ’phone connected to on specific dates. The information may help officers track Hewlett’s movements the night Madeleine went missing and over the following days”.

The article continued: “Alan said the detective who spoke to him was keen for information about the dilapidated Dodge truck Hewlett was driving at the time Madeleine vanished and which he later took to Morocco. Alan added: ‘The officer asked what sort of truck it was and where I thought it was now. I told him it was a very distinctive blue Dodge truck with English plates, maybe beginning with a D or a G. I also told them that friends in Portugal told me that the truck is in Alvor, a town near Albufeira in the Algarve’.”

One might assume therefore that Scotland Yard’s expensive Madeleine McCann Review Team would have read these news reports a long time ago and would have contacted their police contacts at Limehouse Police Station to get the statements of Alan and Cindy Thompson and any useful information they had to supply. Maybe (who knows?) the Thompsons are already one of the Met’s much-trumpeted ‘195 new lines of enquiry’.

What else do we know about Alan and Cindy Thompson?

In 1999, when Alan Thompson was aged 46 ( he is now aged 59) and Cindy was 37, they claim that whilst on a holiday in Pakistan, they ‘accidentally’ discovered Osama bin Laben’s hideout. Osama bin Laden’s hideout for many years turned out in fact to be a compound at Abottabad in Pakistan, where he was killed by U.S. forces in 2011. No-one now thinks that the Thompsons were telling the truth about finding Osama bin Laden’s lair.

This article was on the ‘Prison Planet’ website:

]http://www.prisonplanet.com/020304stagedcapture.html

QUOTE

In the spring of 1999, a British couple called Alan and Cindy Thompson were driving through Pakistan, in the very area that they're now talking about as being bin Laden's location. After driving for 11 hours on dirt roads they came to a checkpoint and were detained by armed Pakistani guards.

The next day the Dawn newspaper, one of the biggest newspapers in Pakistan, reported that this couple had found the secret lair of Osama bin Laden.

More interesting is that they reported that this location had been visited by US consulate officers, British, Australian, and Swiss ambassadors, and that it was guarded by a team of US commandoes.

After the couple were picked up by the British embassy they were invited to a garden party where all the British ambassadors and aid workers were bragging that they were stationed in the same area as bin Laden's secret hideout.

After the couple got back home to England they saw a newspaper article calling for the capture of bin Laden. This was a few months before Clinton signed an executive order mandating bin Laden to be killed on sight.

The couple immediately contacted Scotland Yard in London; they contacted the FBI and the Pentagon and in every case got nothing. No response, no request for an interview. Nothing.

Let us recap. We have British ambassadors visiting Osama bin Laden, whose location is guarded by elite US commandoes, and when the couple that witnessed all this try to report it, they are blackballed.

UNQUOTE

The conicidence of having information about both the molst wanted man in the world and the most famous missing child in the world is amazing. What is the statistical likelihood?

One in a very very big number.

Did the Thompsons know Hewlett?

According to a Mirror article dated 22 May 2009 : “Alan, 56, and Cindy, 47, struck up a friendship with Hewlett and German wife Mariana, 33, after first meeting them in Portugal three years ago”. Therefore the Thompsons must have known Hewlett since 2006, a year before Madeleine was reported missing.

So they were ‘friends’ with a serial criminal and paedophile. A recent Nottingham Post article claims the couple live in Nottingham. If they were living in Nottingham in 2009, it is hard to know why they had to travel down to Limehouse Police Staion, London, in order to make a statement about Hewlett.

What else have the Thompsons said about Hewlett?

In other reports, the Thompsons claimed that Hewlett said he had been to Morocco to sell something, but refused to elaborate further than admitting it had been ‘a good business trip and he made a profit’. The couple claimed to have contacted him in 2009 to ask about Madeleine's disappearance and, according to the Thompsons, he is said to have replied sarcastically: “Yes, so? That makes me guilty then? In Morocco, everything's worth something. You can get 23 euros for an old bike”. Of course, the Thompsons’ claim cannot be verified. Given that the Thompsons were friends with Hewlett as far back as 2006, it seems very unlikely that they suddenly began to ask him about Madeleine in 2009, two years after she was reported missing.

How did the connection between Raymond Hewlett and the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann suddenly make front-page headlines in the British press?

The evidence appears to suggest that it was all carefully arranged and orchestrated by the McCanns’ chief public relations spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.

Why, then, did the McCann Team not quietly try to arrange with the German Police to interview Hewlett, instead of plastering the story all over the British press?

Ask us another.

The Huffington Post (US news medium) said yesterday that Hewlett ‘boasted on his deathbed’ that he knew what had happened to Madeleine McCann. What is the evidence for that statement?

The evidence is said to be the contents of a letter said to have been brought from Germany to Wayne Hewlett (his long-estranged son) in Telford by a ‘mystery man’. Wayne said he burnt the letter because it upset him but then spoke to The Sun and the McCann Team about his experience. The evidence, such as it is, was contained in an article in The Sun dated 1 September 2010. According to Wayne Hewlett, the letter told him that his father had been drinking one evening with a gypsy gang leader who had told him that his gang had abducted Madeleine and taken her to a wealthy north African family.

If that is all the Huffington Post had to go on, why did they state as a fact that that Hewlett had ‘boasted on his deathbed’ that he knew what happened to Madeleine McCann?

It’s just a little illustration of what a brilliant campaign the McCann Team have run. A quality journal in the U.S. can simply recycle this utter rubbish, based on an unattributed source in the McCann Tream, which was flatly contradicted by the British police, and not only get away with repeating this ridiculous story about Hewlett looking into Madeleine’s coloboma eye but actually embellishing it as well.

James Murray wrote in an article earlier this month in the Daily Express: “One theory was that Hewlett, 64, who had convictions for sex offences against young girls, snatched Madeleine to sell her to gypsies who were apparently trafficking children to Morocco”. What evidence is there to support that theory?

The various unsubstantiated claims of Peter Verran, the Thomspons, the mystery man from Germany, and Wayne Hewlett.

James Murray also wrote: “Hewlett, who died last year, refused to be interviewed by the McCanns’ private investigator”. Is that correct?

Yes, but according to Antonella Lazzeri in The Sun, (see above), he was interviewed by West Yorkshire Police about a crime committed in 1975.

In a recent Daily Mail article, it was claimed that Hewlett “boasted to them [the Thompsons - MMRG] of making a 'good business trip' with his family to Morocco to make a sale, but would not elaborate on the nature of his trip”. Is that correct?

No, that’s not correct either. He has given details about his trip to Morocco, as we saw above, namely this account: “A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts. I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I'd been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there. I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco, on a campsite, for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts”. It might not be true, but the Daily Mail was wrong to suggest he’d never given any details about his trip.

]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237700/Madeleine-McCann-news-Did-paedophile-Raymond-Hewlett-secret-disappearance-grave.html#ixzz2DRD1m0gK

What have Scotland Yard said about the various newspaper reports saying that Alan and Cindy Thompson are ‘about to be interviewed?

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “We are not prepared to discuss any particular lines of inquiry.”

Is there a common thread to all these various stories about Hewlett, about Peter Verran, about the Thompsons, and about Wayne Hewlett’s burnt letter etc.?

Yes.

What is it?

If you look behind the headlines and the articles, the ‘meat’ for each article seems to have come from information supplied by or with the help of the McCann Team. All the sources – Peter Verran, the Thompsons, Wayne Hewlett – appear to have gone to the McCann Team originally, and then the British media have been given a story by their chief public relations spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, on a plate, not bothered to challenge it nor even to challenge it, but simply recycled it to produce newspaper headlines.

Why would the McCann Team simply be interested in producing sensational headlines?

They say that all their activity, including the promotion of media stories, is pat and parcel of a genuine search for their missing daughter - and that every newspaper headline that they help to produce gets them ever nearer to their stated goal of finding Madeleine and what happened to her.

Madeleine McCann Research Group 27 November 2012

by **tigger** 16.02.13 7:51

Worth going through this topic again after the latest publicity stunts.

Apart from the odd meteor, at the moment there's not much going on to bury bad news (see Joanne Morais 'No more fake sightings!').
Faute de mieux, they have to make it up themselves. Hewlett is back as suspect nr. 1. He ticks all the boxes, looks creepy, known paedophile and dead.
The dead don't talk. Facts do.