Madeleine McCann: Robert Murat Seen, The News As A Novel And Indecision
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY MIRROR: “Sisters saw Murat at McCann flat”
“Sisters Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire say they are 100 per cent sure they saw Robert Murat nearby minutes after Madeleine McCann vanished”
After… They were in Praia da Luz on holiday. Was Murat alone?
Says a source: “Jayne remembers seeing him outside the entrance, smoking cigarettes, between 10.30pm and 11pm. So every time they see him claiming he was not there on the night, they find it ridiculous”
And a first: “The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell also refused to comment”. Can a spokesman make no comment?
DAILY MAIL: “Madeleine: Now two British sisters question Robert Murat’s alibi for the night she disappeared”
“Annie Wiltshire and Jayne Jensen told police they saw Mr Murat near the Ocean Club apartment complex at about 10.30pm on May 3, about 30 minutes after Mrs McCann, 39, raised the alarm that her daughter was missing.
“Mrs Jensen, 54, recognised him when they saw him again the next day, when he was working as a translator for police investigating the disappearance. The sisters said his behaviour was ‘strange’ and described how he changed his clothes at least once during the day of May 4, but then insisted to them that he had been wearing the same outfit all day”
Eight people claim to have seen Murat on the night Madeleine disappeared – “The two British sisters, Mark Warner nanny Charlotte Pennington, two tourists who contacted Metodo 3 independently and three of the McCanns’ friends, Fiona Payne, Rachael Oldfield and Russell O’Brien”
DAILY EXPRESS: “SISTERS TELL POLICE: WE SAW MURAT NEAR THE APARTMENT”
A source close to Metodo 3, the private detective firm hired by the McCanns and contacted by the sisters says: “On May 3 in the afternoon they saw two men on a ground floor balcony. It was the first time they had ever seen anyone there. They thought it was strange because they had always thought the apartment was empty
“The next day they went and told a policeman about these men they had seen. An officer walked back with them to the apartment to check it. As they did so, Murat appeared and acted as an interpreter for them. He was dressed in a navy blue T-shirt and jeans, he was very sweaty, and his comment was, ‘I must go and shower and change, I’ve been in these clothes all day.’
“They felt that was strange as he had been in a striped shirt and trousers earlier”
Sweaty. In Portugal. In the summer…
THE SUN: “MURAT’S MADDY ALIBI BLOWN”
“TWO British sisters have revealed they saw oddball Robert Murat lurking by the Portuguese holiday apartment from which Madeleine McCann vanished”
Oddball… Lurking…
Jayne Jensen’s son Joe says: “They feel their evidence is very circumstantial but realise it could be crucial when taken into the wider picture. They saw Robert Murat on the night Madeleine disappeared and they want to help. They decided to report what they saw. It’s not a question of having a go at Murat”
Circumstantial. Not to the Sun…
DAILY TELEGRPAH: “Robert Murat ‘seen near Madeleine McCann’s flat’”
“They also claimed they saw two blond, tanned men acting suspiciously near the McCanns’ holiday home on the afternoon before Madeleine went missing”
Robert Murat has dark hair
“The women, both thought to be in their 40s from Aylesford in Kent, were on a two-week holiday in the Algarve at the same time as the McCanns and became friends through tennis”
The Express, Mirror and Mail report on “Annie Wiltshire, 58, and Jayne Jensen, 54”
Says Clarence Mitchell, now willing to talk: “These women have given a statement and we are very grateful to them for the information. We continue to appeal for any witnesses who have not yet come forward to do so”
THE GUARDIAN: “Bad Science”
“The papers went even wilder over the South African ex-cop with his magic quantum box: it could locate anyone – including Madeleine McCann – anywhere in the world using its secret “matter-orientation system”
“The year of indecision – It was a year dominated by a toddler. Opinions on her disappearance swung back and forth. And that was the theme of 2007, as politicians and military leaders, royals and voters – and lastly Canoe Man – all had a change of heart”
We cried for the McCanns. We booed the McCanns. “Outside the Portuguese police station, crowds booed and jeered as the McCanns emerged, their blank faces bleached with disbelief. And suddenly everything – even Maddy’s Cuddle Cat, bathetic emblem of their grief – was recast in suspicion.” We were unsure about the McCanns
“In this one respect, the story of the McCanns was perfectly emblematic of this year, so precisely did its narrative mirror the shape of the many other events it overshadowed. It was a story about people changing their minds. And in 2007, people changed their minds about an awful lot of things”
A NEW BOOK: “In what looks set to be one of spring’s most interesting novels, Gordon Burn is rushing the very recent past into print. From his award-winning debut novel Alma Cogan to his Fred West biography Happy Like Murderers, Burn has long blended fact and fiction, and in Born Yesterday: The News as a Novel (Faber, April) he finds his natural subject: the news as entertainment. Twenty-four-hour rolling news, the blogosphere and digital interactivity feed our culture of speculation and spin. Burn takes a few highly charged weeks in 2007 – the summer of floods, terror attacks, the Blair/Brown changeover and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann – to investigate media manipulation and the boundaries between fact and fiction”
Months Of Indecision – Madeleine McCann Day By Day
Posted: 29th, December 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (598) | TrackBack | Permalink
