Madeleine McCann: Gerry On The Telly And It Could Be U
“MADELEINE: It’s not too late says mum.”
The front page of the Express contains a “Dramatic Plea”.
But it’s not dramatic so much as it is desperate. “It’s not too late, please give her back,” says Kate McCann.
As ever the Express tells readers that Mrs McCann is a GP. Gerry McCann, we learn is a “consultant cardiologist”.
Says she: “Every day is hard. Every day is very difficult… The important thing is getting Madeleine back and we hope that what we are doing increases the chance of that.”
What’s The Story?
Indeed, that is the important thing. It is the only thing. But the press want more.
Says Gerry McCann: “We have a mix of very positive days, when we have done big things and achieved things or big events with the campaign, but we are aware these things are secondary.”
He’s right. Of course he is. But the press have been pointing fingers at the police, gawping at “creepy” men, listening to anyone with a paedophile story, looking for bodies and signs. They have not been on the trail of Madeleine. They follow the McCanns around, first Spain, then Germany, then the UK, the Vatican and Morocco. They are watching the parents. The parents are the story. And we are invited to look on like voyeurs.
We can wear braclets. Find Madeleine is this year’s Make Poverty History campaign.
Infotainment
The Sun says Gerry McCann is to appear at the Edinburgh TV Festival. No, not because he’s given us hours of great telly. Although he is taking the slot once occupied by Simon Cowell and Michael Barrymore. Gerry will be “quizzed” by Newsnight presenter Kirsty Walk on the media campaign to find Madeleine McCann.
Peter Barron, organiser of the event, rated the Find Madeleine campaign a “new and moving phenomenon”. What was that about good telly?
But it’s scaring the children. The Star says an appeal to find Madeleine is being screened before cinema showings of U-rated Shrek The Third.
Children with faces full of popcorn and crisps hear that Madeleine was “snatched” from her bed. “Madeleine’s parents are devastated, but they haven’t given up hope.”
A mum says it’s “unfair” to show this to children. “It makes them fear that they too could be abducted.”
It spreads the fear. It creates anxiety. And it shows no sign whatsoever of finding Madeleine nor the person or persons who might have taken her…
Posted: 4th, July 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (669) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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July 20th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Hi Rosita, the ‘today’ reports are all over the net today; here’s one:
“Portuguese police have met with missing Madeleine McCann’s parents to discuss new leads they are pursuing ‘actively’.
More interviews with prime suspect Robert Murat are expected in the next few days as new evidence is looked at.
Due to strict secrecy laws Portuguese police impose on inquiries the McGanns were not able to reveal what they had been told after a two hour meeting with chief investigator Guilhermino Encarnacao.” (This Is London).
So does this mean the PJ are discussing the progress of the investigation with the McCanns? It does sound like it, although I also now reckon they are being made to stay in Portugal for the most part, with strict instructions to make only flying visits away. I can see why they’d hate to return to their home without Madeleine, but it’s highly unusual for a family to stay abroad so long after a kidnap, away from family and friends, even if they do keep stating they’re not prepared to return home without her. These people are presumably down-to-earth, rational doctors and know full well that their voluntary presence in Portugal after all this time isn’t going to make a jot of a difference to the investigation after this length of time. If they returned to England, attempted to pick up the pieces of their life as anyone else would, they could easily fly straight out to Portugal or anywhere else if Madeleine were suddenly found.
I’m thinking more and more that they’re actually under suspicion and are being kept their by order of the PJ. Does anybody know how the PJ operate under these circumstances? Can they hold people in the vicinity even without openly giving them ’suspect’ status?
July 20th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I really don’t agree that the Mccanns are not suffering with this case.They are really suffering, Kate looks devastated, she lost a great ammount of weight, they miss their little girl.
But I also believe they know more than they are telling. We miss a piece of the puzzel, or several pieces.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
hi,beam me up Scotty, not one hour and 40 but one hour and 20 minutes.
I agree with you.
The worst for the police was the bunch of people inside of their apartment(more than 20), searching for the girl and distroying or nearly distroying all the DNA.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Aren’t there some significant differences from the Susan Smith case?
“She was regarded as a perfect mother”; the McCanns are not regarded as perfect parents.
She acted emotionally and every one responded with sympathy, which is not the case with the McCanns.
She had a great story that cast her as an unimpeachable victim; the McCanns’ version of events casts them as irresponsible parents who are partly to blame for what happened.
Occasionally I wonder if the mixed job the McCanns are doing of enlisting public sympathy actually speaks to their innocence rather than their guilt.
July 20th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I have read that the child was missing for and hour and 40 mins before the police were called because the parents and their party were looking for her. That’s a bit odd isn’t it? searching implies that the parents think the child’s wandered off. But the mother had rushed into the tapas bar crying” they’ve taken Maddy” So why did everyone jump up and go rushing off looking for her. If you think shes been kidnapped you call the police if you think your child has wandered off you search for her. Also note she ran INTO the tapas bar, so the party were sitting inside, unless they could see through walls how could they have been keeping the apartment in sight. Time is really discrediting the parents story isn’t it? This is so like the Susan Smith story in the USA. She was regarded as a perfect mother, devoted to her 2 sons. the country was totally behind her when she said her car was stolen at a traffic light with the children in it. She was on the television begging the kidnapped to return her sons and not hurt them. Money flooding in for rewards, private appeals by celebrities, and funds set up. Then the car was found in a lake with the boys inside, who did it she did.
July 20th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Hi,Cathy, my answer to your text above is published on the site anorak, about Murat.I don’t know how to manage to get one text on both sites.
July 20th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Has anyone read anywhere exactly what time the McCanns reported their daughter missing to the Police? I know that everyone in the restaurant would have known what time Ms McCann appeared shouting “they have taken her” - but how long after were the police called and did the Mc.clan rush off to find the man with the bundled child who was seen - apparently less than 1/2 an hour before, because they said that they checked every half hour, didnt they? - by one of the late arrival in the McCann party - who had said when she arrived at the bar that she had noticed someone carrying a child. NOW - would you particularly take note of someone carrying a child late evening in a holiday complex. It could well have been a common sight when “responsible” parents are collecting their sleepy kids from the creche - whooops - sorry - the McCanns wouldnt know how that works would they? They chose to ignore the facility and leave their brood to fend for themselves. So - late arrival friend of McCann gets to the bar - says “just seen something funny - man rushing with child in blanket” - rest of party - do they immediately rush off to check their kids? Apparently not. What time did the “late arrival” get to the bar? Did Ms McCann go straight away to check and find Madeleine missing? Did she and Gerry man think - Wow - our kids are alone - we left the door open - if someone is racing off at a pace they could have one of our kids? Not one bit of it. The following morning there was no mention on the news of a suspect with a child in a blanket - was there? If all of this had been mentioned the night before the first thing the police would have asked for is the man to come forward to eliminate him had he genuinely been carrying his sleepy kid from one part of the complex to another. This is not something which would be kept quiet for days - it was a bit of crucial evidence - the only thing it appears that anyone had to go on - it was not mentioned in the initial report that the girl was missing.
July 20th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Getting back to what I wrote before, Gerry wrote on Madeleine site, that they are talking to the police every week.
I don’t believe that the police have that much to tell the Mccanns and I even believe they don’t tell anything at all.
I start to believe that the Mccanns are obliged to show up at the police station every week, which could be also the reason why they stay(stayed) so short in England, why they did not take a couple of weeks off, staying with family and friends.
I’m not saying they are the guilty ones.I’m saying they probably are on the list of suspects.
July 20th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I think you are right Lisa, while we blag the neglect of the parents here, if there are charges to be laid, the PJ will do it in due course.
It just saddens us all that the McCannes set up a Private Limited Company when they could have been searching for their missing child.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am
hi anna,
they may well have done but unfortunately the press would not be allowed to publish this info because it could cause problems with a court case if there is one. i am starting to think “just trust the police” i don’t think they would take any notice of new people coming forward and saying they saw murat unless with good reason. he may be innocent and new evidence could be pointing at someone else - just hope in all of this, madeleine is found safe and well.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Anna, where did you see these “today reports”? Do you believe the police are discussing evidences with the Mccanns or anyone else?
They could be questioning them, not discussing the issue.
To discuss gives the idea they are asking for their opinion or listening to it and considering them colleagues.
Police don’t do that, nowhere in the world.
July 20th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Rosita, what you say makes a lot of sense.
Well, things are getting quite confusing now - today’s reports say the police have some detailed new evidence they’ve discussed with the McCanns, including sightings of Murat that night by Portuguese locals as well as other holiday-makers at the complex.
Can anybody post links to reports of locals who knew Murat saying they would have seen him if he was there?
Could the McCanns be bribing Portuguese locals and other holiday-makers to say Murat was there when he wasn’t?
Perhaps the PJ should be bringing together Portuguese locals who knew him and say he wasn’t there with the locals who say they saw him (did they know him or not, I wonder?) and get them to argue it out.
I don’t think testimonies from people who didn’t know him but say he was there carry much weight - Murat’s picture has been all over the papers for months and it would be just too easy for the mind to morph a memory of someone of roughly Murat’s build into a picture of Murat.
In the case of Peter Hain, falsely accused of a bank robbery in the 70’s, several witnesses claimed after the event that the man they’d seen running away from the bank was definitely Hain, but then Hain’s image was already familiar to them from newspaper reports. In the end it turned out not to be Hain but someone with a similar build, and after months of hell all charges against Hain were dropped. The real culprit was never caught.
So if they can’t produce anyone who knew Murat previously and says they definitely saw him there that night, this could be one big stitch-up.
And anyway, if Murat keeps denying any involvement and the only evidence they have that his alibi was false is a few people who swear blind they saw him - but only after seeing countless images of him in the papers…. what about Madeleine? If Murat is charged but no evidence other than the above comes to light - no forensic evidence of Madeleine, no confession that he took her, nothing else linking him to Madeleine - then charging him could turn out to be a travesty of justice.
Quite honestly from what I’ve read of Murat’s statements over the last few weeks, his utterances are beginning to sound more and more like those of a man being framed, unless he’s an extremely good actor. After all, it quickly turned out that Huntley had been previously accused of rape and sexual assault. If Murat was a seriously dodgy character wouldn’t somebody from his past have spoken to the press by now?
July 20th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Anna(UK), it is possible that the law does not allow the parents to leave Portugal. They are the last ones who saw Madeleine before she disappeared.I wrote this before on this site.It is also possible that they are not allowed to search physically for Madeleine in Portugal, they could distroy clues on purpose.I’m not saying they are the guilties ones.I’m saying this could be the JP decision after the police experienced her disappereance that night.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Apparently it was during the search they say they saw Robert Murat. One of the McCann party says he remembers talking to him and another said he appeared to be peeking into the apartment. Although according to the SOL article recently residents who know him and who were in that area at the time and assisted with the search said that he wasn’t there and they would have recognised him had he been. Where these other ‘local’ witnesses who say he was there have come from I don’t know.
July 20th, 2007 at 12:52 am
To be fair, the member of the group who says she saw the man carrying the child wrapped in a blanket was Jane Tanner, who was the last to arrive at the tapas bar (very late). Her report is contradicted by someone else, a man, nothing to do with the McCanns, who says he saw Jane Tanner at that time but not the man with the child.
Jane Tanner apparently did report her sighting to the police much earlier on, but this was kept quiet for reasons only known to the PJ.
What I don’t quite understand is: when are all these witnesses (McCann friends and now 2 others) supposed to have seen Murat hanging around? Before they went to supper? Afterwards, when they were all searching? When?
July 20th, 2007 at 12:12 am
I have tried to believe the Mccanns version of events, in this situation everyone wants to feel support for the parents, but COME ON. That night we are franticaly looking for an ‘abducted’ child and then mysteriously some weeks later one of the clan ‘remembers’ someone close to the scene carrying a child but did not see any connection at the time !!!!
DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…….
July 20th, 2007 at 12:02 am
If the McCann friends are now “remembering” seeing a man carrying a child in a blanket - why are they suddenly suspicious? Why were they not more suspicious when they actually saw it. How did they know that - as the reports are saying - that it was at the time Madeleine was taken. Nobody seems to know the exact time she was taken. I thought that they were all eating together with the McCanns - but now it seems that they were wandering around and watched someone carting off a child in a blanket - did they then go back to the restaurant and say “Hey you lot - you better check your kids - we just saw something very suspicious - someone carrying a child in a blanket near your appartment Gerry” Not likely - a couple of months later they all club together and “remember” that the child carrier looked like Murat - why didnt they mention the child carrying man the same night - why wait until Murat is suggested as a suspect by journalists?
July 19th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I wonder if the McCanns’ extended stay in Portugal isn’t because they can’t bear to return to the UK without her, but because the PJ are insisting they stay until the investigation is over?
July 19th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Rosita..I am not defending anyone. If someone has been watching the Mccanns without being watched watching them if you know what I mean then he is perfectly located to be that one. It just seems sometimes we are trying to hang a man on any tiny bit of ‘evidence’ we can find
July 19th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
For what it’s worth I veer between thinking Murat had something to do with it, and thinking the man is being framed for something he had nothing to do with whatsoever.
Yes it’s true he could have got his words mixed up and said ‘I have a daughter called Madeleine’ when what he meant was: ‘I have a daughter who looks just like Madeleine’. He also could have pretended he knew the McCanns etc etc because he’s a bit of a fantasist and liked being the centre of attention, particularly in a head-lining drama.
On the other hand, why did he get defensive when journalists wanted his picture (before anyone suspected him of anything)? Surely if he liked all the attention and drama, he would have enjoyed getting his picture in the papers too? After all, at that point no one was suspecting him of anything so what did he have to worry about?
Also, the phone call(s) to/from Malinka - what was that about?
On the other hand, why on earth don’t the PJ just give everyone a lie-detector test? The McCann friends, the two new Portuguese people who say they saw him, Jenny Murat and Robert Murat?
Lie detectors can be unreliable, but of these seven people, some are lying and some are telling the truth.
Bring on the lie detector!
July 19th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I WONDER???????, I understood that there have been publications in Portugal and UK as well, about Murat’s “madeleine”daughter. He is bilingual, and could he be so unclear in both languages to the point that all journalists, Portugueses an British, understood everything wrong?
If Murat would have explained or translated something of Theology or Linguistics, I believe it could go wrong, but not something easier like “my daughter’s name”, “same name”, Madeleine too”. I begin to feel sorry for him, a glass eye, bad diction in two languages, the only suspect…How often I’ve not read about this story: “it stinks, it’s fishy”…
Could it be Murat’s feet?
July 19th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Ive thought the same thing as ‘i wonder’ when i first heard what happened. But now someone has actually come out and said it, and i dont think I’m the only person who has had the same idea. But I’ll go one further, what if both parents are involved in the cover up? They both seem so keen to turn the search from Portugal. As for where is she well the sea is very big isn’t it? Now of course we will hear from the pro- parents about how they would because they love her so much, etc, etc. But any policeman will tell you that the close family is often the one that comets teh crime.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I wonder .. at this stage anything could be a reasonable hypothesis, because we are all just guessing.
In my view the most telling statement of all of this is the mother’s
“They’ve taken her” who did she mean?
July 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am
A load of hypothetical mumbo jumbo of course….This could not really be what happened could it………….
July 19th, 2007 at 11:43 am
You must make a decision soon the wife is becoming hysterical……
What to do….What to do……
Talk about stuck between a rock and a hard place !!!!
Take control now……….!!!!!!!!
July 19th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Your head is spinning and it feels like your heart is going to burst out of your chest…But you must do something….You are panicking and a thousand different thoughts are running through your head……
What to do…. what to do…… what to do…
Tic…Tic…Tic ….. Come on make a decision………..
July 19th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Imagine for a moment…..
You are a respectable married couple, both doctors and having been out enjoying youself and leaving three small children under 4 alone and you return to find the following scene.
The eldest child, only 3 has had a fatal accident and because of your medical knowledge and because no one has checked on the kids for well over an hour you know it is almost certain she has been dead for quite some time.
You know it is too late for an ambulance and if you phone the police the truth of your neglect of parental duty will come out. You have already lost one daughter if the truth comes out you are likely to lose your remaining kids, your jobs, your ‘respectability’ and probably your liberty, in short everything.
The clock is ticking what are you going to do ?
Tic Tic Tic….Come on make a decision……..
July 19th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I think the press has no one to crucify except this Murat character. They are looking for a face to fit the crime, and he is being tried by media because they can’t get their hands on the Mc Cannes.
The Mc Cannes party also tell different tales that’s why 3 of them were brought back from Britain.
I agree the PJ must be deadly tired.
July 19th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Far too much is being made of this report of him so called saying he daughter was called Maddie. I study Spanish and though reasonably fluent I know how easy thing can get lost in translation. I understand Mr Murat is fluent in Portugese but this is not the same as it being you native tongue and it would be quite easy for something like ‘ I have a daughter the same as Maddie’ to come out as ‘I have a daughter Maddie’ or something similar.
July 18th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Anna(UK), have you thought of the possibility that Murat could be a mythomaniac, someone who makes up stories, who needs attention and who wants to be right in the middle of an important story?If it is true that he told the jornalists about his daughter “Madeleine”and the fact he “knows” the Mccanns, he desperately needs to share all the attention the Mccanns are getting.
He is possibly a pathological lier. The world is full of this kind of people.
I think the police in Algarve must be deadly tired by now.