Madeleine McCann: Missing Hours, Found Again And A PR Disaster
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN front page: “MADDIE DAD AGONY. Fiend hid from Gerry. He was already in room he tells cops.”
A source close to the family says: “When Gerry went to check on Madeleine at 9.05pm he realised the bedroom door was open. Gerry is firmly of the view the abductor was already in the apartment.”
It’s another theory.
“When he went in he saw Madeleine was asleep but the bedroom door was slightly open. He thought, ‘That’s odd’ because he had left it firmly closed. But all the children were asleep. So he just went in and closed the door again and came out about 9.10pm.”
Good to hear Gerry McCann joining in the mood of speculation?
“Gerry is convinced the man must have been hiding, and once Gerry went through the patio doors the only way out was through the window. The front door was locked so the kidnapper took Madeleine and climbed out the window.”
DAILY MIRROR front page: “HOW SHE WAS TAKEN. The McCanns’ story.”
“Stolen to order after being spied on for days
Abductor hid in flat as Gerry looked in on kids
He got in through patio doors and out by window”
Gerry is a “heart specialist”.
Says a source: “When Gerry leaves, the man realises he has only a few minutes. He thinks the only way to get out without being seen is through the window.”
And: “Initially he thought Madeleine might have got up and gone to the toilet, or to get a drink or something.”
So what has changed? Why a new theory now, with a new spokesman on hand and the McCanns named as suspects?
DAILY STAR front page: “SEVEN HOURS TO KLILL MADDIE. Police probe her ‘lost’ final afternoon”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: THE MISSING SEVEN HOURS.”
Police sources reveal that “despite exhaustive inquiries they cannot confirm the whereabouts of part-time GP Kate, 39, and her daughter after 1.29pm on May 3”. A source said Kate’s movements were “unaccounted for until she sat down to have dinner with friends at a tapas restaurant within their holiday complex at around 8.40pm”.
The last photograph of Madeleine was said to have been taken by Kate at 2.29pm on May 3.
DAILY MAIL: “McCanns: What we really did in the missing six hours.”
“Madeleine had high tea at 5.30pm with staff at the Kids Club. She was picked up shortly before 6pm by Kate and Gerry.”
The friend insisted: “Kate was never alone with Madeleine that afternoon. There were always other witnesses present. These details were all given to detectives during police interviews, so they know what Kate and Gerry said happened that day.”
So no missing hours, then?
THE TIMES front page: “MADELEINE McCANN: Matthew Parris laments a PR disaster.
“The fatal flaw of David Cameron and Kate and Gerry McCann” – Our correspondent looks at the baleful influence of the marketing men.
“Look what they’ve done to Kate and Gerry McCann. Here were two people deserving of the most intense public sympathy. On a superficial level they got it – by the media bucketload. Yet did you not sense from an early stage an undertone of irritation at the couple? I’ve sensed it everywhere I go: not a sign of doubt about their innocence, which most of us take for granted, but a feeling, nevertheless, that they in some way invited trouble – though we banish the thought as brutal and wrong.
“Which it is. So why the ungenerosity? I believe it is because Kate and Gerry McCann have allowed an impression to arise that they and their advisers are marketing their own tragedy. Where we would have expected to see parents distracted and disorganised by grief, we have seen a professionally run campaign to find out what the media want, and give it to them.
“This has been done for a most defensible reason: to enlist the entire European public as amateur detectives in the search for Madeleine. But now her parents have ended up looking like film stars in a Hollywood weepy.”
“Put up or shut up, Madeleine McCann police told” – Friend of McCanns counters claims of ‘lost’ six hours before girl vanished
DAILY TELEGRPAH: “Madeleine McCann: Gerry certain he was in bedroom with kidnapper”
THE GUARDIAN: “From prime suspects to hounded victims – how parents turned the media tide”
Posted: 22nd, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,536) | TrackBack | Permalink
