Madeleine McCann Category
News digests and reviews of the missing child in the news. Madeleine McCann vanished on Thursday, 3 May 2007 from a rented holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Madeleine, on holiday with her twin siblings and parents Kate and Gerry McCann,became the biggest news story of the past decade. We’ve followed it closely ever since the story broke.
Truth, Lies, Madeleine McCann & Wathing The Parents
“TRUTH, lies, Madeleine and us.”
This is the front-page trail for the Times’ “exclusive” interview with Kate and Gerry McCann.
The cover of the paper’s Times2 supplement is given over to pictures of Madeleine McCann and her parents.
“Madeleine: one fact, many lies, endless grief,” comes the headline.
“It is now 124 days since Madeleine McCann disappeared. PENNY WARK charts a story that became global, lurid and often invented – and hears how the McCanns learnt to think positively after imagining the darkest scenarios and suffering uncontrollable grief,” says the Times.
And we are watching the parents. The paper’s one fact is that Madeleine McCann is missing. The other fact is that all the coverage in the media, the voyeurism as the McCanns toured the world, met the Pope and children in cinemas got scared has failed to find the missing child. All we have is public spectacle and the invitation to share the parents’ grief.
The Times’ writer says the reason we know so little about Madeleine’s disappearance is that she was abducted in Portugal, “where the segredo de justica law prevents the police from putting information about a criminal investigation in the public domain.”
A Neil Thompson, a former top copper who now runs a private security firm tells us: “A no-information rule means that you’re working in the dark.”
But the police have information, or are at least trying to get it. The media does not. It is they who are working in the dark, although there is nothing to stop them mounting a private investigation.
Thompson goes on: “Most child abductions are planned; it’s not a burglar who finds a child and takes it. Paedophiles go to places like Disney World.”
Good to see that among all the speculation and sensation, the Times’ reporter, who has been in Praia da Luz three weeks, is getting somewhere. Has Gerry McCann been to Euro Disney? Should he now go?
That question is not put to Mr McCann. He prefers to tell us that the flat in Praia da Luz where Madeleine was last seen is 50 yards from the restaurant where he and his wife were dining.
“It’s difficult because if you are [at home] cutting grass in the back with the mower, and that takes about half an hour, and the children are upstairs in a bedroom, you’d never bat an eyelid,” says Garry McCann. “That’s similar to how we felt.”
Kate McCann says: “If I put the children in the car the chances of having an accident would be greater than somebody coming in, braking into your apartment and lifting a child out of her bed.”
These are more facts. So too are the facts that Gerry and Kate and from “working-class backgrounds”. Kate is the only child of a Liverpool joiner and a civil servant.
A sightseer tells the Times: “I feel the same way that I felt when Princess Diana was killed.” The Times says the story has filled more front pages that any other event since the death of the Princess of Hearts.
That might well be the case. Readers learn that there is “increasing evidence that Madeleine sells newspaper”.
The Express has taken to featuring both the Princess and Madeleine on its front page, a bid to treble circulation.
And Madeleine McCann is on the Times’ front page. And we area watching her parents…
Posted: 4th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (205)
Madeleine McCann: It Could Be Today
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS front page: MADELEINE: Mum’s secret prayer: ‘Today could be the day she comes home’ (Plus pages 6 and 7, with logo: THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 123).
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER brings the news that the McCanns’ “struggle to keep their spirits up by constantly reassuring each other: ‘Today could be the day Madeleine comes home.’”
The so-called “secret prayer” was revealed in the course of a long statement by Kate McCann, presumably in the course of a not-very-secret press conference.
The paper reports that the McCanns have been “persuaded to move back to their £600,000 home”.
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 6: McCanns call for Euro register of offenders.
The Telegraph reports that the McCanns were shocked to find that parts of Europe were safe havens for sex offenders.
DAILY MAIL page 25: Maddie mother’s 4 months of agony
The paper says Kate McCann has told how her world ‘fell apart’ and could scarcely believe so long had passed since she last heard her daughter’s giggle.
DAILY MIRROR page 27: KATE TELLS OF AGONY: ‘It’s four months since we’ve heard her laugh, seen her smile, cuddled her.. Each day we say, today could be the day Madeleine comes home.. we have to keep hoping’
The paper says that in Rothley, Leicestershire, “locals re-created a chain of hope using yellow and green ribbons”. This was first done by church-goers in Praia da Luz.
THE STAR page 22: PALS FEAR MADDIE DAD CRACKING UP
The paper brings us the story of Gerry “storming” out of a TV interview last week.
THE SUN page 19: Maddie words of comfort
The paper says that the couple repeat a mantra in Portuguese, that was given them by the priest who spoke at the first Sunday Mass after Madeleine’s disappearance. Translated, it means “hope, strength, courage”.
THE INDEPENDENT, THE TIMES and THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 3rd, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (260)
Madeleine McCann On Your Doormat And In The Loire Valley
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS front page: MADELEINE: Parents are to sue over claims they gave her fatal overdose. (Plus page 7, with logo: THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 120).
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER brings the news that the McCanns’ legal action is against the Portuguese publication Tal & Qual. (The Express, of course, has dutifully repeated all the allegations and smears that have emanated from the Portuguese press, for the delectation and disgust of Maddywatchers back home.) Spokeswoman Justine McGuinness says the McCanns “are not going to be a doormat any more”.
Meanwhile, the paper says the hunt has switched to a campsite in the Loire valley after sightings by holidaymakers.
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 2: Madeleine parents to sue newspaper
The Telegraph reports that the McCanns say they are suing to clear their name, not for the money.
THE TIMES page 5: Candle of hope for Madeleine
The paper says that Madeleine’s classmates “said a poignant prayer” yesterday, on what should have been her first day at school.
DAILY MAIL page 6: McCanns to sue over ‘killers’ slur
The paper says the McCanns believe it is time to stand firm against the allegations.
DAILY MIRROR page 11: Maddy school’s prayers
The paper says the McCanns spent a quiet day with their twins in Praia da Luz.
THE STAR page 22: SCHOOL’S SAD WAIT FOR MISSING MADDIES: Chair and locker are saved for her
The empty chair, locker and coat peg are once again invoked. Bishop Ellis headteacher Gail Neill says: “We are deeply saddened that we cannot yet welcome Madeleine McCann.”
THE SUN page 12: MADDIE SCHOOL PRAYER TRIBUTE
The paper also reports on the candle that is being kept burning at the school.
THE INDEPENDENT and THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 31st, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (459)
Madeleine McCann: Shooting A Plea
Maddywatch – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS, front page: ‘SYRINGE FOUND IN MADELEINE’S APARTMENT’: Parents’ anger at new claims they drugged her. (Plus pages 4 and 5, with logo: THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 119”).
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER brings new Maddy gossip – the “dramatic” claim in the Portuguese press that the McCanns might have been sedating their children to help them sleep, and accidentally given Madeleine an overdose.
DAILY TELEGRAPH, page 14: School peg waiting but Maddy misses her very first day
The paper publishes its version of a story run in other papers yesterday, when the headteacher said that a place had been kept for Madeleine.
THE TIMES, page 23: Father’s plea to Madeleine abductor
The paper records that Gerry McCann issued an appeal to Madeleine’s abductor, saying: “It is not too late to do the right thing.”
DAILY MAIL, page 41: Save your soul and give us back our Madeleine, pleads father
The paper says the appeal “was being seen as a last-ditch attempt by Mr McCann and his wife Kate to get their daughter back before making the painful decision to return home to Rothley, Leicestershire, after almost four months in the Algarve.”
DAILY MIRROR, page34: It’s NOT too late: MADELEINE DAD IN LAST-DITCH APPEAL
“Sometimes people do things for reasons even they cannot understand, “ says Mr McCann “An act of madness, an accident or sudden impulse can lead to consequences that people may never have imagined or intended. Faced with such a situation we believe any human soul will ultimately suffer torment and feelings of guilt and fear. If you have done something you regret, if you are in a situation you never intended, it is not too late to do the right thing.”
THE STAR, page 17: SYRINGE THAT ‘KNOCKED OUT MADDIE’ FOUND: Family fury at new claims
The paper quotes McCann spokeswoman Justine McGuinness saying that the parents hae already denied using sedatives on their children.
THE SUN, page 33: IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO DO THE RIGHT THING: Gerry’s plea to Maddy kidnapperThe paper reports Mr McCann’s “heart-rending plea”. And provides a lin to the Sun’s Maddie poster (“in five languages”).
THE INDEPENDENT, page 8: McCann’s plea to abductor
The paper reports briefly on Mr McCann’s “extraordinary plea”.
THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 30th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (411)
Madeleine McCann: Cracking Stuff And Empty Desks
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS, front page: “MADELEINE: FATHER STORMS OUT OF TV INTERVIEW: He erupts in fury at ‘blood on the wall’ question”. Plus pages 8 and 9, with logo (“THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 118”).
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER tells how Gerry McCann “finally buckled under pressure” and left his “shaken” wife to face a Spanish TV interviewer. The paper thinks the incident is “certain to heighten speculation that the enormous pressure of the hunt for Madeleine is beginning to take its toll” – not that the Express is contributing to any speculation, of course.
DAILY TELEGRAPH, page 9: “Madeleine’s father storms out of interview”
The paper says that after a few minutes, Gerry return to the Spanish prime-time programme. Mrs McCann held Madeleine’s toy Cuddle Cat. She told the presenter that he “had not stepped out of line”. (The Express version claims that Kate “Blamed the outburst on the line of questioning”.
THE TIMES, page 23: “Madeleine’s father walks out of TV interview”
The paper says that tension started to build after the interviewer asked: “You were the last people to see Madeleine alive, is that correct?” Mr McCann replied that they would not divulge anything about the investigation that might help the perpretrator cover his tracks.
DAILY MAIL, page 11: “McCann storms off”
The paper claims that Mr McCann “finally cracked”. Then he “ranted and waved his arms around before marching off”.
DAILY MIRROR, page15: “MADDY FATHER CRACKS ON TV”
“Madeleine McCann’s dad rips off his mic and storms out of a TV broadcast after an interviewer quizzes him over details about his daughter’s disappearance.” Wife Kate “looked on in disbelief at the fiery outburst”. The McCann’s spokeswoman Justine McGuinness “rubbished” reports that their marriage was on the rocks, saying: “They are very happy.”
THE STAR, page 11: “MADDIE’S DAD LOSES HIS RAG”
Gerry “stormed out” according to the Star’s version of events.
THE SUN, page 22: “WE’LL KEEP A DESK EMPTY FOR MADDIE: School pledge on her first day”
The paper also informs us that a coat peg and locker have been set aside at the Bishop Ellis Catholic primary school in Thurmaston. Headteacher Gail Neill said that a candle burns for Madeleine too.
THE INDEPENDENT and THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 29th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (349)
MADDYWATCH: Madeleine McCann’s Family House
Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS: Front page, plus pages 4 and 5, with logo (“THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 117”). “MADELEINE: NEW SETBACK OVER CRUCIAL DNA EVIDENCE” announces THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER.
It reports that a “devastating blow” has been struck – which turns out to be the news that the DNA tests will not be ready for weeks. The tests are being carried out at the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, so there is no opportunity to blame the Portuguese authorities on this occasion. The paper has to content itself with the comment that the tests are being delayed by “the nature of the evidence”.
The paper notes that as the McCanns try to come to terms with losing Madeleine “they continually face new accusations”.
It then lists these “vicious smears” and describes each one in detail: “Kate’s guilt”, “Drugging their children”, “Wife-swapping holidays”, “Excessive drinking”, “Children left to cry”, “Killed in the apartment”, “A body in the hire car”, “Emergency call delay”, “Intercepted phone calls and emails”, “Friends under suspicion”, “Forged birth certificate”.
For reasons best known to itself, the paper prints a picture of the McCanns’ home, with a caption noting that it is worth £600,000.
THE STAR: Most of page 9. “DIVIDED IN GRIEF: Pals fear Maddie parents’ rift. “Friends” are apparently “concerned about GP Kate’s crestfallen body language”.
Portuguese newspapers are accusing the police of driving a wedge between the couple to test their individual accounts of what happened on the fateful night. They also claim that a rift has developed over the media campaign.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Small box, page 2. “Expert warns McCanns of long wait for DNA results” The paper reports on the delays, and says that the McCanns have been advised not to return to Britain until the results are known.
OTHER PAPERS: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 28th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (386)
MADDYWATCH: A Day Of Madeleine McCann
MADDYWATCH
Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS: Front page, plus pages 4 and 5, with logo (“THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE: Day 116”).
The paper reports that “the campaign of slurs against Kate and Gerry McCann continued last night after it was claimed the scent of a corpse had been detected on their car keys.”
The allegations, from a Portuguese paper were “the latest in a long line of lurid and hurtful stories hinting that the couple were somehow to blame for their daughter’s disappearance”.
The Express also announces (in a prominent headline): “Madeleine’s father loses faith in police”. Close reading of the article reveals this to be the paper’s own interpretation of Gerry McCann’s comments to the press that “obviously there is no sign of a breakthrough” and that “the only way I’ll be happy is when Madeleine is found”.
THE SUN: Small column on page 9 (“Maddie father in cop rap”). The paper infers that Mr McCann “hinted that he had lost faith in the police investigation”.
THE DAILY MIRROR: A third of page 11. “MADDY: IT’S OVER” – headline confusingly placed above a picture of Kylie “showing off her new look”. The paper confidently states that Mr McCann has lost faith in the police and “plans to wind down the media campaign”
DAILY STAR: Two-thirds of page 19. “We just can’t take much more of this” reads the headline, referring to the smear stories about the car keys. The story also refers to Mr McCann’s appearance at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, at which he said of the media coverage: “I don’t think it’s necessary in terms of bombarding people on a daily basis with Madeleine’s image.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH: One twentieth of page 6: “Father’s frustration over Maddy inquiry”. Notable only for the use of the tabloid-style “Maddy” in the headline – a name the McCanns have never used. Quotes Mr McCann as wanting to “get to the bottom of things”.
THE INDEPENDENT: One third of page 12 (media section): “Madeleine’s father in attack on media pack”. The paper says that Mr McCann told the Edinburgh audience that the levels of sensationalism in some of the news reporting had been unbelievable. He also TV for “saturation coverage with nothing to report.” The paper says that “some of TV’s news executives shifted uncomfortably in their seats”. Whether through embarrassment or physical discomfort after a long lunch is not explained.
THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today.
Posted: 27th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (131)
Recycling Madeleine McCann In The Express
THE Express stands for recycling. And thanks to limited writing and Madeleine McCann’s continuing disappearance, the paper’s readers have felt no interruption to their routine.
This is journalism with a conscience.
This is the Express’s front-page “MADELEINE”. And today that word tops the news: “MUM’S FURY AT ‘YOU KILLED HER’ SLUR.”
Mum is Kate McCann, known to thousands of Express readers as “anguished” Kate McCann. And she is furious that a TV reporter has had the temerity to suggest that she might have had a hand in her daughter’s disappearance.
She is “horrified and deeply upset” that Sandra Felgueiras, “one of Portugal’s top presenters, a kind of swarthier and blonder Anthea Turner, “intimated” that Kate and her husband Gerry could have killed their child.
The Express says the McCanns are seeking a tape of Felguerias’s broadcast. Given that you can get most things on YouTube, this search should be simple.
Although the McCanns may be disappointed with what they find, or pleased. “As Felgueiras says: “I never said that and I never insinuated anything like that.”
She interviewed the McCanns two weeks back and asked them if those blood samples found in their holiday apartment could have come from Madeleine. Had she had an accident that made her bleed? She says the McCanns did not answer the question.
“If anything, I was far more moderate than other broadcasters and reminded viewers that’s this was just speculation.”
So much for Portuguese TV news. We’ll stick with the Express…
Posted: 24th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (95)
Reliving Madeleine McCann’s Missing Moments
“’WE’VE LET MADELEINE DOWN.’”
The Express is watching the McCanns. And it transcribes the “agonising moment” when Kate McCann realised her daughter had gone. “We’ve let her down, we’ve let her down,” she sobs. “
What light this sheds on the case is unclear. But the Express realises that no detail, however trivial, invasive and voyeuristic should be overlooked.
And it duly delivers the “extraordinary details” as told by a neighbour of the McCanns in Praia da Luz. This is “mum’s amazing outburst”.
Pamela Fenn, 81, lives in the flat above where the McCanns were staying. She says two night before Madeleine went missing she heard a toddler crying “Daddy, daddy” constantly between 10:30 and 11:45pm.
The crying is said to have stopped when the parents retuned to the apartment.
And on the night Madeleine went missing, Mrs Fenn also says she heard crying from below.
The sound of children crying… What can it mean?
Does the Mirror know? While the Express watches the parents, the Mirror is watching the detectives.
And it senses news. A development. The Mirror’s front page goes: “MADELEINE COPS: ‘She died by accident in the flat.’”
A source says the Portuguese police think Madeleine is dead and that it happened in the flat.
“COPS: WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE,” says another headline. And readers learn that the three detectives leading the search for Madeleine “insist they have evidence to show she died in her parents’ flat”.
Given Portugal’s secrecy laws, it seems odd that a meeting between the top three detectives should be accidentally leaked to the press.
It was only yesterday we heard the police spokesman say that all lines of enquiry remain open. We were told that the police have no firm evidence and if they did they would make an arrest.
Ad now they have “evidence”, although of what, remains to be deduced…
Posted: 23rd, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (473)
Brian Reade Sees Madeleine McCann In Cornwall
A LITTLE Madeleine McCann opportunism in the Mirror. Brain Reade uses the missing child to illustrate the impoverished state of Cornwall’s fire service.
Says he: “In bars across the land, the police involved in the Madeleine McCann case have been kicked senseless over their delayed reaction to her disappearance and the lack of manpower thrown at the case in the crucial initial stages. Which is fair enough.”
Yes, let’s give the foreign police a good kicking. Not that we need telling.
Reade goes on: “But what is our outrage over the disappearance (presumed dead) of two British citizens, along with the corpse of another, in an English holiday resort on Saturday night?
Reade speaks of the fire at Cornwall’s Penhallow Hotel, which has left three people missing and “dozens, of others, including children, mentally scarred”.
Says he: “Due to enforced changes, fire cover in Newquay is provided by ‘retrained’ part-timers.”
None of the fire personnel are believed to be Portuguese, although some may have been to the Algarve…
Posted: 23rd, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (10)
What’s Your Line On Madeleine McCann?
“MADELEINE. NOW POLICE TELL PARENTS: DON’T LEAVE PORTUGAL.”
Or, as the Mirror’s front-page headline puts it: “DON’T GO HOME.”
Both papers feature the familiar picture of Madeleine McCann’s face. The Mirror talks of “hopes” of a “swift breakthrough in the case”.
The Express is, as ever, less circumspect, and says “a major breakthrough was imminent”. And, as yesterday, the investigation is at “crucial stage”.
So the McCanns won’t go home?
Here’s a “police source” to tell Express readers: “There is nothing to stop the McCanns going home. They are not suspects but we have told them it is not good timing because the investigation has changed. It is active now to assume that Madeleine is dead.”
So they can go home. The police have not told the McCanns to remain in Portugal. The Mirror’s source says “there could be developments”.
For starters, we now know “There is more than one person involved’.” Says police spokesman Olegario Sousa: “It’s natural than in a crime of this nature more than one person is involved.” But he can’t be certain. He adds: “If it was committed by one person, it would be difficult to resolve the case because only he or she knows what they did.”
Good to know that this case, now in its fourth month, is not as hard to crack as it could be. Says Sousa: “We don’t have a final view of what happened.”
So it could be one person. Or two. Or none. But there is a breakthrough imminent. “Do you think if we had the name we’d be waiting to arrest them?” asks Sousa.
The Express listens to this and manages to deduce from it, “police gave a rare official assurance that the investigation was nearing completion”.
Says Sousa: “The things that could happen depend on the decision of the group investigating the case.”
And: “We have already said that all lines are still open.”
And Madeleine McCann is missing…
Posted: 22nd, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (367)
Madeleine McCann’s Decisive Moments
“MADELEINE: ALL POLICE LEAVE IS CANCELLED.”
Last week the Express told us that the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann had reached a “critical” stage. Today the paper enters the “decisive phase”.
We now know a critical stage lasts for one month. How long the decisive phase endures depends on how soon Portuguese police receive the forensic report on a “critical clue”.
This could also take a month. But the Express says this tiny scrap of evidence “has allowed detectives to build up a remarkably clear picture of what happened to Madeleine in the hours after she was taken”.
The paper does not say what this evidence is, only that police have refused to discuss it.
So the Express mentions the specks of blood found on the wall of the McCanns’ apartment, the ones identified as not being from Madeleine.
The Express says police have refused to say where this vital clue was discovered, but the Express narrows it down to either the apartment at the Ocean Club resort or one of 10 vehicles rigorously examined earlier this month.
Or it might be from one of the coastal areas around Praia da Luz searched by police. The Express hears that Madeleine might have been killed and thrown into the sea, or as the “credible” evidence once told us, her body “BURIED UNDER ROCKS” (the Mirror).
But whodunnit? The Express says “a possible suspect” is under surveillance in Britain. Is this person more possible or less possible than the last possible ‘suspect’ James Gorrod? And isn’t Robert Murat in Portugal?
We are not told. All we know is that after 110 days, the net is closing. This is, says the Express, the “final phase”.
And it might go on for months…
Posted: 21st, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (363)
Madeleine McCann Is Sjanneke Hofstede And Ribeiro Is Columbo
THIS is the face of the girl they thought was Madeleine McCann, or Maddie, as the Mail’s front page rebrands the missing girl.
By way of a compare and contrast, the Express has its quotidian picture of Madeleine McCann on the front page. (Although it is expected to shift on the tenth anniversary of the Bouquet Revolution when Diana died, Elton sang and Britain’s top lip became soaked in tears and emotion.)
It is clear in an instant that Madeleine looks a bit like the Mail’s girl. But this new girl has a mole on her face, her eyes are dark brown and not marked by a dropping iris, her hair is blonder and her lips fuller.
And her name is not Madeleine McCann. Her name is Sjanneke Hofstede. She was the girl spotted by the child therapist who told the police and then posed for pictures in the Express. She was 100% sure Sjanneke was Madeleine.
The therapist wishes she’d have done more. Had only this expert walked over and seized the child she would have been the saviour. She would have been the child therapist who not only talked but did. She would have been the recipient of a massive reward. The therapist would have been wrestled to the ground by Sjanneke’s father, with whom she was having lunch, while his girlfriend, also present, dialled the authorities.
The Express makes no mention of this development. Doubtless it is still awaiting the results of DNA tests on the straw Sjanneke used to drink a strawberry milkshake before publishing the news. It will not jump to conclusions.
The Express focuses on the investigation. The Mail does hear “Portugal’s top policeman” Alipio Ribeiro answer critics that he has not deployed enough manpower to find the missing child. Says he: “I have always said that Poirot acted alone and was effective. This is not about numbers. Currently, it is not even about resources.”
We have always said that Poirot was Belgian, too overweight and a work of fiction. But we concede that if Ribeiro is to model himself on any crime fighter, better Poitot than, say, Spiderman or PC Plum from Balamory. Or Cracker.
But there is something of Lieutenant Columbo about Ribeiro’s investigation. He is waiting or the assumed kidnapper to slip up. He has a sense of who the criminal is, and then hounds them, all the time gathering evidence.
“Just one more thing…” says the Express. “MADELEINE – British suspect to be arrested in hours say police.”
Why let the papers know this unless the police want their man to make his move?
And this suspect is British. A Briton has been monitored for several weeks. Minds turn to Robert Murat, who, like Columbo, has a bad eye.
But before the denouement, the Express gathers all around. We are back to Poirot as it revisits the evidence and recaps the story so far. And then it revels all.
But not yet. Soon. Stay tuned…
Posted: 20th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (205)
Madeleine McCann: We’ve Told The Twins Madeleine Is Missing’
THE Mirror leads with: “Kate and Gerry McCann have told their two-year-old twins for the first time that big sister Madeleine has vanished.
“Taking little Sean and Amelie aside, Kate gently broke the news: ‘Madeleine has gone missing. Mummy and daddy are looking for her.'”
The Mirror has, however, stopped looking. Having pointed the finger at “creepy” Robert Murat, the paper’s writers are content with looking at the parents.
Such is the way of investigative reporting…
Posted: 18th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (200)
Madeleine McCann: Idle Talk Wastes Police Time
“MADELEINE.” The Express begins in traditional fashion. “WE ARE JUST HOURS FROM THE SOLUTION.”
That “we” is not the Express, which has been leading with no news of Madeleine McCann for weeks. The paper’s front-page headline refers to the Portuguese police.
Yes, the same bundling foreign cops who give the Mail its headline: “We were too busy to tell the McCanns we think Maddie’s dead, say police.”
Alipio Ribeiro, director of the Policia Judiciaria, says his officers have “no idea” what happened to Madeleine McCann. But they are working on the “strong hypothesis” that she could be dead.
One other hypothesis, equally strong, is that she could not be alive. But the police have not swayed either way. And as Ribeiro says of Kate and Gerry McCann: “They are being informed into what happens but this is a very dynamic investigation with many hypotheses and more can still arise. We cannot explain everything to them that we investigate.”
In short, Ribeiro is a professional policeman who will not engage in speculation, least of at a press conference. He does not tell the McCanns their daughter might be dead or that she might be alive or that she might be sat in a Belgian café quaffing strawberry milkshake.
As for being on the verge of cracking the case, as the Express suggests, Ribeiro says: “In the next hours one of the keys of the case will become clear.”
Ribeiro deals in facts. As the Express hears him say: “There has been a lot of speculation, and if I denied everything erroneous that had been published I would have no time for anything else.”
Back To The Parents
But the Express can fill in the gaps and confirm that accusations made against are, in the words of Madeleine McCann’s grandmother Eileen McCann, “ridiculous” and “obscene”.
The McCanns are not under investigation but we are, nonetheless, invited to watch them. They are on the Mirror’s front page. “YOU GIVE US HOPE,” says the headline. Kate and Gerry McCann are sat among a sea of cards and letters, some of the 20,000 messages of support they have received.
Inside, there is a picture of the parents smiling. Says the Mirror: “Every morning Kate and Gerry McCann wake up with hope that maybe this time the new day will release them from their ordeal. Every night they go to sleep with their hopes shattered yet again. Another day with no news of their vanished daughter Madeleine.”
Emotive stuff. But we at least do get news…of the parents. But now news of Madeleine. Not yet…
Posted: 17th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (67)
The Police Know Who Killed Madeleine McCann – Maybe
“MADELEINE: Police: We know who killed her.”
Sadly, the Express has been relying on press releases and Gerry McCann’s blog for its investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and has no idea who killed the child.
But the police know. This is the “dramatic new development”. This is what has been “sensationally alleged”. These are the “claims”.
The Express has been reading Diario de Noticias, a Portuguese newspaper. It says: “The investigators have their hands in ‘a lot of information’ and even know who is behind the death of Madeleine.”
It goes on: “The key to the mystery resides in the friends of the parents who ate dinner together that night.”
Good to see that when it comes to finger pointing and conspiracy, the Portuguese press are every bit as able as their British counterparts.
So much for the reports in Portugal. What of the police’s latest press briefing?
The Mail’s listening in. Chief inspector Olegario Sousa says new official suspects, known as arguidos, “may” soon be named.
“Depending on the result of [DNA tests] there could be a change in the procedural position of those involved or their could arise other people who until now are not known.”
It’s as if Donald Rumsfeld never went away.
The Mail’s front page offers: “MADDIE ‘DIED THE NIGHT SHE VANISHED’.” Although it might not be true. So if you see her in a Belgian bar, Malta or Morocco, tell the police.
And tell the parents, who remain the focus of the Mirror’s front-page report on Madeleine McCann. There is the “MADELEINE PARENTS’ BOMBSHELL – WE COULD BE COMING HOME WITHOUT HER.”
Says Kate McCann: “We know we will be going back and I guess one day we will wake up and it will be right.”
This seems less of bombshell than a pained and calm reaction to the awful truth that her daughter is missing and there has been no trace of her.
And no trace of her in the family’s holiday apartment. As the Times says on its front page: “EXCLUSIVE: DNA blood is not Madeleine’s.” (You can read the same story in the Sun.)
Inside the paper: “DNA test boosts parents’ hope that Madeleine is still alive.”
This is the blood on the wall of the room where Madeleine slept, the blood that had sections of the British press aghast and appalled at those bungling Portuguese police who had not spotted it sooner, the blood that had the press speculating on her dying in the room. That blood is not hers.
The minute spots of blood discovered by British sniffer dogs are of a man from the “northeast European subgroup”. And this is a result that is “72 per cent accurate”.
But there are to be more tests. More accuracy. And more drama…
Posted: 16th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (103)
Madeleine McCann’s Parents Have Had Enough
MADELEINE McCann is on the Express’s front page. “MADELEINE,” says the headline, “We want to be the first to know what’s happened to her, say distraught parents.”
Well, they had best not rely on the Express, which has yet to shed any light on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, although it has cast shadows – yesterday we read of ‘suspect’ James Jerrod.
A source “close” to Kate and Gerry McCann tells the Express: “They have had enough of all this speculation and rumour.”
The Express says Madeleine might be dead. She might have been killed in the family apartment. It might have been murder. Or an accident…
Posted: 15th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (150)
James Gorrod Is Today’s Madeleine McCann ‘Suspect’
THERE is no little skill in making something look easy. We speak, of course, of the Express’s editor who leads with the quotidian headline “MADELEINE”.
Easy enough to do, you say. But the Sun often can only manage “Maddy”, the Mirror “Maddie”.
And the editor still has to think of a reason for the headline being there at the expense of other news stories, like “Ziggy’s secret sex pics” (Star), “heroin addict Amy in rehab” (Mirror) and “True hero” (Sun), the story of father-of-three Garry Newlove, beaten to death on his doorstep by a gang of yobs.
As the Express’s TV advert says, the paper’s readers stand for good manners, traditional values and do not stand in the way of progress.
Madeleine on the cover smacks of tradition. Good manners, indeed, in allowing lawyer James Gorrod to defend himself. This is progress.
Today’s speculation
Gorrod rented a blue Opel Corsa in Portugal five says before Madeleine McCann went missing. He returned the car on May 6. Staff at the rental centre were shocked to see that the car was fitted with a child seat. They believed Gorrod was travelling alone.
They called the police.
Says Gorrod: “A British police officer directly liaising with the Portuguese investigation team recently contacted me to eliminate the vehicle I hired with my wife and two-year-son in Praia da Luz at the same time Madeleine McCann disappeared. The vehicle has been identified and I have been told by the British police officer that he has no plans to interview me or my family, and he does not expect me or my family to have any further involvement in the investigation. We are, of course, deeply saddened by Madeleine’s disappearance and hope for her safe return.”
That’s that, then. But the Express wants us to know that it has been “discovered” that Mr Gorrod has “close links” with friends who were on holiday with Kate and Gerry McCann.
“British lawyer quizzed by Madeleine police on the ‘Exeter connection’,” says the Express.
The Gorrods live in Exeter, Devon, close to Dr Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner, witnesses in the investigation who have pointed the finger at Robert Murat. The Gorrods are believed to have been staying in the same resort as their friends and the McCanns.
The Express reminds us that Robert Murat was in Exeter 10 days before Madeleine vanished.
And… And nothing. That’s it. The paper invites readers to draw their own conclusions.
And start again tomorrow…
Posted: 14th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (71)
Finding Medeleine McCann In A Woman’s Own Grief
THIS is “KATE McCANN’S AGONY.” This is Kate McCann telling Mirror readers via the front page: “I’d rather know if Madeleine was dead than live in limbo.”
“This is worst kind of limbo,” says Kate McCann. “In our hearts we’d both rather know – even if that means we face the terrible truth that Madeleine might be dead. I simply don’t know.”
More watching the parents. We can empathise with their suffering. But can we ever understand?
“Until you’re in that situation you can’t even begin to imagine what it is that gets you out of bed. You just have to go on. And it doesn’t take the guilt away,” says Mrs McCann.
She’s talking not to the Mirror but to Women’s Own magazine. And the tone has shifted. This is not so much about finding Madeleine McCann as about understanding the missing girl’s mother.
Such a story keeps the child in the news, the initial aim of the McCanns’ media campaign. But it also invites us to feel for the parents. This is an appeal not to find Madeleine but not to judge the parents.
But the search for Madeleine goes on. And the papers have narrowed the search down:
“MADELEINE: SHE IS ALIVE,” says the Express on its front page.
“SHE MAY BE DEAD,” says the Sun’s lead headline.
At least readers don’t have to speculate over the state of Kate McCann…
Posted: 13th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (39)
100 Days Of Madeleine McCann: Looking At Nothing
“KEEP looking for Maddie,” says the Sun.
It’s been 100 days since Madeleine McCann disappeared. And we’ve been looking. We’ve been looking at Robert Murat. We’ve been looking at the parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. We’ve been looking in Morocco, Malta, Germany, Belgium and Spain. We’ve seen balloons in Argentina and Gerry in the White House. We’ve seen the Pope and a butterfly in the Vatican.
The media has told us where to look. They have directed the search, swarming around the McCanns, competing to show how much they care.
This was the single thread story all parents can relate to. Every parent’s worst nightmare, fed by the tabloid press. Paedo panic. Dungeons. Child trafficking. Parents holding children’s hands that bit tighter as they warn off paedos.
And the news went to the very top. David Beckham was on the telly in Spain. JK Rowling was offering a reward. The English rugby union team wore Madeleine T-shirts. Hell’s Angels handed out posters. And in a mawkish display of overt caring and empathy, MPs wore yellow ribbons in the House. Gordon Brown vowed to help. The BBC broadcast live from Praia da Luz.
This Year’s Wristband
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has become this year’s Make Poverty History campaign. And then we bought the Madeleine McCann yellow bracelet.
We waited for the Maddy Catty, the official version of the toy Kate McCann holds, all proceeds going to expanding Sex Offenders Register. There isn’t a Register in Portugal. If only there were…
The Mirror wrapped a yellow ribbon to its masthead. “Click her for the slideshow,” says the Sun’s website today. The McCanns holiday snaps are now a horror show broadcast in a voracious media frenzy. The Mirror’s woman on the scene noted Murat’s “creepy” behaviour. But what is more creepy than this?
EastEnders changed it story line. So too Coronation Street. Entertainment should not impinge on reality. Such was the coverage; producers were concerned their viewers may confuse the livid pain in Portugal with a script, a work of fiction.
Looking To Speculate
And the public spectacle has been fuelled by speculation. Today the Mirror leads with: “SHOW US THE PROOF – Madeleine parents tell cops: Where is the evidence she is dead?”
Madeleine’s parents are Kate and Gerry McCann. We know them. They are the tabloid press’s Everyparent, the symbol of what could be us but for the grace of god.
“Madeleine,” says the Express, as ever, “New British suspect hunted by police” and “Riddle of ‘lost’ hour.”
And the Telegraph follows: “Parents tell of the 100 wasted days in the search for Madeleine.”
The broadsheet take on that travel and publicity is sobering. It counts for nought. Madeleine has not been found. And finding their daughter was all the McCanns wanted.
No End
The result has not been the happy ending we hoped for. Nothing has happened. There has been no meaningful debate on paedophilia, the crime the tabloids spoke of.
But the papers can’t look away. So we look at the parents. We look at the suspect. Fingers are pointed. Hands are wrung.
And we see the McCanns’ pain. And we read their blog and see interviews on the TV and in the press and magazines.
And we learn nothing new about the missing child. We just watch, voyeurs at a public display of heartache and pain…
Posted: 11th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (25)
Madeleine McCann: 100 Days Of Voyeurism And Entertainment
THE case against Robert Murat is making slow progress, or no progress. An unblinking Madeleine McCann continues to stare at readers from the front page of the tabloids, scaring parents and children via leaflets in banks and cinema adverts.
But now there is a new bad man. He is Francisco Pagarete. He is the lawyer acting for suspect number one Robert Murat.
“Lawyers sick outburst,” says the Mirror’s front page. “These bloody McCanns should just go away and leave this town,” says he. “They’re giving it a bad name.”
The Express also leads with the lawyer’s words, albeit abridged to “Why don’t these bloody McCanns go home”. The words hang beneath the word “MADELEINE”, the Express’s bold statement playing at the bold facts.
And there is more from Pagarete. “As a Portuguese person I think it is strange that somebody would leave their kids. Then, after the first thing happened, they left their twins and went to see the Pope. It was like the McCanns on tour.”
The McCanns did meet the Pope. Or, as Mick Hume points out in the Times, “as a BBC headline put it, in a Lloyd-George-knew-my-father moment, ‘Pope meets Madeleine’s parents’.”
That was the private moment played out before millions. The McCanns were doing their bit, getting spiritual succour. But why were we all invited to watch? Were the media outlets going out of their way to help one family or just giving the public what they wanted: grief.
But there was no news. There is no news. All is a public spectacle. And now the lawyer for the only suspect is the bad man who says bad things.
“You would never leave them alone like that in a foreign country and go to have a drink. It is not a normal thing,” says he.
Many may well be appalled. Others will agree with Pagarete. But these words and their reporting add nothing to the case, shed no light on the girl’s disappearance.
In any case, the McCanns aren’t leaving. “I won’t be driven out by bullies,” says Kate McCann on the Mail’s front page. This is the “Kate McCann interview”.
Says she: “Sticks and stones… we will never go through anything worse than being parted from Madeleine. We will not be leaving or be forced out. I am not prepared to be bullied into something that I don’t want to.”
So she won’t go. And tomorrow when it will be 100 days since Madeleine disappeared, the McCanns will be in Praia da Luz. And so too will be the TV cameras and the newspaper reporters.
They will want a story. And they will get balloons, doves and to review an investigation that has turned into voyeurism and entertainment…
Posted: 10th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (239)
Getting Close To Madeleine McCann’s Parents
MADELEINE McCann is not on the Mirror’s front page. We are not looking for her today. We are looking at her mother Kate McCann.
“I AM COPING WITH THE GUILT,” says the headline. “Maddy mum pain as new DNA clues probed.”
Kate McCann is on the Mirror’s front page. Readers see her face. She is not talking to the world but to Mirror readers. That at least is the impression. The Mirror and the Express are locked in a fight to see which of them can be the official Madeleine McCann paper.
“MADEDLEINE,” says the Express’s front-page headline. “Police intercept parents’ phone calls and spy on their emails.”
Newspapers in Portugal says the local police have been watching the parents. We all have.
Dairio de Noticias says: “The police want to question the McCanns and their friends so that they can clarify the contradiction in their statements. They will put the telephone calls and emails which were intercepted to them.”
In the Mirror we see the “pain”. We are intruding into the mother’s grief, but then this is the story every parent can relate to. And there is a story to sell.
“I know the situation we were in that night. I have said all along that I didn’t think we were taking a risk,” says Kate McCann.
She is reliving the night of Madeleine’s disappearance. She is doing so on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. But the Mirror is up close. This is their story.
Does Kate feel guilty about leaving her children alone while she dined with friends? “I have actually come to terms with that a little bit,” says Kate McCann. And: “I do feel desperately sorry that I wasn’t with Madeleine when she was taken.”
But what of the whispering campaign against she and her husband? The McCanns’ friend Rachel Oldfield, who was with them in Portugal, is unimpressed. “It is very hurtful and all rather ludicrous,” says she.
She goes on: “Whether a journalist has had a bit of information and made the rest up, or the police are feeding some truth or untruths, I don’t know. I read a timetable of what was supposed to have happened in one paper and the timings are totally wrong.”
But the story is all. This is about keeping Madeleine McCann in the news, ensuring the disappearance of one child is the lead news story, above Iraq, floods and other missing persons.
What matter facts?
Posted: 9th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (28)
Madeleine McCann’s Plates And Cups
REMEMBER that sighting of Madeleine McCann in Belgium?
The Express has a photograph of the waiter who served “Madeleine” and her two adult associates at the De Pauze restaurant.
He carries a tray on which is sat a book and a bottle of pink Fisti milkshake.
Katleen Sampermans is the “child therapist” who saw the trio “flee” the eatery in a black Volvo. The car’s number plate contained the letters VUV, she noted.
But police cannot find the black Volvo. Says Detective Eddy Houben: “They would have some forward if they were an innocent couple. They could not have missed the publicity. We are taking this very seriously indeed.”
“Fake plates clue to Belgian duo,” says the Sun. The assumption is that because the police can’t locate the vehicle, the car’s number plates must have been falsified.
Some speculation there. But maybe Katleen Sampermans, who saw “Madeleine” got it wrong or made it up? Or perhaps she is so keen to help she looked and she saw what she wanted to see.
DNA tests on the straw Madeleine is said to have drunk from “failed to rule out she was spotted there”. The tests revealed the person who had drunk from the straw was a man…
Posted: 9th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (12)
‘They’ Say The Parents Killed Madeleine McCann
“WE DIDN’T KILL OUR MADELEINE.”
The Express is, of course, appalled at the suggestion that Gerry and Kate McCann did murder their daughter Madeleine. But the paper feels duty bound to report the denial on its front page.
Such is the passion evoked by the story of Madeleine McCann that the headline could read “WE DIDN’T KILL YOUR MADELEINE”, the McCanns’ appeal for understanding and compassion to the readers at large.
A source close to the couple tells the paper: “Kate and Gerry are well aware what these reports [Madeleine might have died in the apartment] are inferring – that they or one of their close friends killed Madeleine either deliberately or by accident.
“Gerry is completely livid about it all. It is completely hurtful and untrue.”
“Maddy parents’ fury at murder slurs,” say the Mail’s cover page. “YOU ARE NOT SUSPECTS,” says the Mirror’s front-page headline.
Police spokesman Olegario Sousa tells us: “The family are not suspects. This is the official position.”
But we don’t know. Facts on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann don’t stack up to much. The news of blood on the McCanns’ walls is open to much interpretation.
The Mirror considers the evidence. It says Madeleine may have died in the family holiday apartment. “Killers are often those closest to home, they say,” writes Julie McCaffrey, who repeats what “they say” for we readers to dismiss. “This shows the McCanns in a new light, they snipe. No smoke without fire…”
The writer goes on to warn: “But jumping to the wrong conclusions is dangerous, not least incredibly hurtful.” Indeed. Tell that to Robert Murat who one Mirror hack found so “creepy” she had to tell the police about him, rightly, and then tell her readers, wrongly.
In any case Madeleine McCann is not dead. As Gerry McCann assures us: “Kate and I strongly believe that Madeleine is alive and that she was taken from the apartment but obviously what we don’t know is what happened to her afterwards, who has taken and what was their motive.”
Which means the Express can feature stories about Madeleine in a Belgian restaurant. For three days running readers have been invited to wonder if it was Madeleine sat in a Flemish eatery with two adults. Today readers learn that the results of a DNA test on a glass will prove if it was the missing child.
And if it wasn’t Madeleine, what then? Are we back to watching the parents and seeing the media they are using to find their daughter turn against them?
Posted: 8th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (114)
Madeleine McCann: A Tabloid Play For Today
SPECULATION blurred with fact on the front pages. A conversation on Madeleine McCann.
Express: “MADELEINE BLOOD CLUE”
Mirror: “IS IT HER BLOOD?”
A crowd forms.
Express: “Girl injured as she was snatched from flat”
Sun: “BLOOD IN MADDIE FLAT”
(Gasps!)
Express: “Kidnapper tried to wipe away the vital evidence”
An old crone approaches.
Mail: “BLOOD ON THE WALL IN MADDY BEDROOM”
Express: “Traces of Madeleine McCann’s blood have been found in the holiday apartment where she was last seen”
Good on the Express for slicing through so much speculation with fact, albeit fact that is uncorroborated by anything approaching proof.
The Mirror, which has now dispensed with the yellow ribbon attached to its masthead, says the traces of blood are being analysed. It is not yet known if they are from Madeleine McCann.
Britain v Portugal
And then there is the British angle. Blood is found after three months of looking for Madeleine McCann. It is found not by Portuguese police but by the British.
“British police have found traces of blood,” begins the Mail’s take on developments in Portugal. “The traces – found by British sniffer dogs – could be of the missing four-year-old or her kidnapper,” says the Sun. The Sun’s headline reads: “BRIT SNIFFER DOG FIND.”
There’s an element of patriotism in the Madeleine McCann story and with it a slight on the Portuguese police who failed to spot the blood. “10 ASTONISHING POLICE BLUNDERS,” says the Mirror.
If this blood responds with a person on the UK’s sex offenders’ register, the Sun will go into a nationalistic spasm. It will call for the register to be in place in all European countries, and for paedo-paranoia to be spread.
The British will have forged the way ahead on matters of child abduction.
Whose Blood Is It Anyway?
But we must not speculate. That is the job of the papers. Here’s the Sun to tell us of three “theories”. Portuguese police officers tuning in would do well to make notes:
1. The blood could be “Maddie’s, indicating she was injured before or during her abduction”
2. It could be the “kidnapper’s, especially if the child put up a struggle”
3. “Or it could belong to others who have stayed in the apartment – there were hundreds before the McCanns and several tourists have slept there since”
Point ‘3’ seems of interest. Might it be that the Portuguese police did not overlook this glaring evidence picked up by British dogs because the blood is not all that old, that it was not there at the time of Madeleine McCann’s vanishing?
And we would like to add to the Sun’s list and wonder if the blood belongs to any other member of the McCann family, a police officer or a mosquito smashed against the wall?
The yellow curtain falls…
Posted: 7th, August 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (66)
