Madeleine McCann: Kate And Gerry’s Blood, Threat And Tears
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN front page: “KATE’S AGONY – CONFESS & YOU’RE OUT IN A YEAR.”
“Deal of blood, threat and tears.” Kate McCann is being interviewed by police. This is a “highly-charged confrontation, Portuguese officers citing forensic evidence told the GP she would receive a jail sentence of between two and three years if she signed a confession.”
Kate McCann is “horrified”. Says she: “How dare you?”
A source tells the paper: “The police were trying to get Kate to say she had amnesia or was in shock or had a breakdown. They said if she signed the confession she’d serve a year and that her husband would not be charged and could go home. It was effectively emotional blackmail.”
“SHOCKED” Gerry McCann has been named as a formal suspect.
THE SUN SAYS: “But the allegations made yesterday against Madeleine’s distraught mother Kate are astonishing and, in places, farcical. A suspicious page of the Bible left open? A call to a priest on the day of Maddie’s disappearance? Not exactly a smoking gun.”
Do all crimes involve a smoking gun?
The Sun concludes: “The Sun desperately wants justice for Maddie. But the greatest pity is that she is the one person who seems to have been forgotten in this mess of incompetence.”
And the Press continue to watch the parents.
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: DEATH ON MUM’S BIBLE.”
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER writes of “THE DAY THE JEERING STARTED”.
“Just two days ago Kate McCann, 39, was regarded almost universally as a victim who had suffered unimaginable agony. Families everywhere shared her heartbreak at losing her beautiful daughter. But it was clear yesterday, as the GP arrived to be formally named as a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance, that much of that sympathy has now gone.”
The crowd outside the police station – 400-strong – goes into a “frenzy” when Kate McCann arrives. “There were whistles, then jeers and boos before some in the crowd began to shout insults. ‘Whore… daughter of a whore,’ some yelled in Portuguese.”
The Express translates.
A local man says: “They will find this more and more because in Portugal harming a child is the worst thing…The Portuguese people took them to their hearts and now we feel cheated. It will not be nice in Portugal for them now.”
Kate is “cool and collected”.
DAILY MAIL front page: “THE ACCUSED. Portuguese police’s staggering grilling of Madeleine mother.
• Why was her blood in your car?
• Did you drug her that night?
• Confess and get just two years.”
DAILY STAR front page: “YOU KILLED MADDIE.”
DAILY MIRROR front page: “MADELEINE SENSATION. We have found her blood in the boot of your hire car.. DID YOU KILL HER BY ACCIDENT?” This is “what police asked Kate McCann during 16-hour grilling”.
THE GUARDIAN front page: “Mother, victim…suspect: police target Kate McCann.”
THE TELEGRAPH: “Kate and Gerry McCann named as suspects,” says the headline.
“Mr McCann stared straight ahead as his suspect status was announced and refused to answer questions from awaiting journalists. A crowd which had been attending a concert in the town square earlier listened to the announcement and several people gasped audibly.”
In “Villagers back Madeleine McCann’s parents”, the paper journeys to Rothey, Leicestershire, the McCanns’ home town. Michelle Canilleri, who lives in Rothley, shares with the world: “I can’t believe it. This is such a shock. They have got the wrong people. No way in the world would either Kate or Gerry harm any of their children.”
THE INDEPENDENT front page: “FROM ANGUISHED PARENT, TO GRIEVING MOTHER, TO SUSPECT.”
“Shortly before 11am, Mrs McCann’s spokeswoman, Justine McGuinness, revealed that the 39-year-old GP was being made an arguida – official suspect – in the case. And then she uttered the six short words which will be inconceivable to some who have followed this case and a confirmation of long-held suspicions to others. ‘Kate fears she will be charged,’ Ms McGuinness said.”
THE TIMES front page: A picture of the McCanns meeting the Pope.
Madeleine McCann The Public Spectacle
Posted: 8th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,454) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
September 9th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Yes Paola (1052). I’m pretty sure with a case like this, with so much public interest, the Home Secretary would have been briefed on the findings of the Forensic Science Laboratory.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Come to think of it, the money in the missing children fund would be put to much better use if it was used for a “Fight Parental Negligence!? fund. Maddie would get the last say, and that is how it should be.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
This was just published. I’m not sure of the reliability of the source.
“According to a confidential report, the District Attorney of Portimao in Portugal is preparing a legal brief, which will result in charges being filed against Kate McCann and her husband. It is anticipated that she will be charged with manslaughter and accused of hiding the body of her daughter Madeleine (aged 4, inset). Gerry McCann will be charged as an accessory.”
http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=21385
September 9th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
1038 Fizz
It is reported that Gerry has admitted administering sedatives, but claims it was only Calpol. Like practically every other piece of “evidence” her, I cannot give you an authoritive reference. Our only sources, ultimately, seem to be:
1) the family’s reports of what the McCanns themselves have been told but cannot themselves speak of ie taken by us from their numerous tv interviews.
2) leaks from the Portuguese police, who similarly are prevented from spaeking officially. It seems they have leaked that they are leaking on purpose :0
3) various undocumented evidence from third parties like the neighbour, the waiters etc, presumably dug out by the media.
Which of these categories Gerry’s “sedative admission” comes in, I do not know.
Change of subject:
My God, will they never shut up. Sky news says they will shortly carry a (new?) interview in which the McCanns explain why they decided to return to UK.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
re language - the early press language was definitely softly-softly, I remember the McCanns were dining ‘only yards away’….then it turned out to be 100 yards plus, and there was a wall/hedge in the way.
Loads of other examples.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Angry: And I don’t want to be caught in ‘gratuitous grief…’
September 9th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
1014 Blunger
Sorry to disagree but there are a lot of Police forces who use psychics and mediums very, very successfully in missing persons cases and in murder cases and so on. In fact my friend of whom I have already spoken, has been used several times to great effect by the local Police and thus helped to bring swift conclusions to some very complicated cases, so please….don’t knock it !!!
September 9th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
1039
London - The British government is “satisfied” with the way the Portuguese police have handled the investigations into the disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine McCann, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Sunday. It was “clear that the Portuguese police had the objective of solving this crime,” Smith said in a television interview in what was the first official comment by a government minister in the four months since Madeleine disappeared.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were Sunday on their way back from Portugal, where they have been named suspects in the case.
“This is a difficult situation, it’s an ongoing investigation but I’m confident that we share the objective of finding Madeleine and that’s the most important thing,” Smith told the BBC.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
‘1044 Martin Says:
McCann sources are now suggesting that aliens may have been involved in the abduction. After all, nearly 4 million Americans claim to have been abducted by aliens.’
Now THAT would make for a fascinating twist to this already kaleidoscopic ride.
I suggest acquiring the unique talents of David Ike ‘The Great Sage & Onion’ to ‘help’ the PJ authorities investigate the case from an Extraterrestrial Reptilian viewpoint, as there are allegedly rather a lot of them about in human guise …
September 9th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Not Diana the badly treated wife please! I’ve lasted through a lot of stuff on here but I can’t deal with St Diana!! No No No!!
September 9th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Diana the Patron saint of badly treated wives?
Not around these parts.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Obergoober (1003):
“I predict The McCann’s will appear on the next Celebrity BigBrother”
No other housemate would dare go to sleep for fear of waking up outside the BB house!
September 9th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
About language. When combined with powerful images, certain words can evoke great emotion and have a power all their own. Example. Mr. McCann is feeling some heat from the press so he refers everyone back to the powerful image of his daughter via the usage of the word lovely. Ah, it gets cooler and the press disappears. For him, it has become a survival tactic. The same phenomenon kept Camilla from attending the memorial for Diana. But what Mr. McCann and a lot of the press don’t get is that for many people, Madeleine is the poster child for parental negligence, a growing problem world-wide. It is my theory that her image will represent, for all time, neglected children, just as Diana’s represents a badly treated wife.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Gecko, I’m sorry did you mean to say this or is it a typo?
“these people deserve no less than our full compasssion whatever happened…”
For their (self confessed) neglect of their children, I personally don’t feel I owe them any compassion (but, as I’ve taken up enough space explaining this before, this is all I’ll say on that subject).
If the McCanns have had a more direct hand in their daughter’s death then they certainly don’t deserve compassion. I suppose I could ‘forgive them their sins’, although I don’t think it’s my forgiveness they need, or even pitty them but not give them my full compassion.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Blunger: You have read me completely wrongly, I’m not sure which part of my opinions I don’t espouse.
I have consistently tried to raise the level of this board above gossip and innuendo rudeness etc. When I question the bigger picture you all run away and hide and say that I’m a ‘troll’.
Once again (does anyone read my posts) I am an old woman with ptsd from 20 yrs child protection.
‘Trolling’ is not top of my list of things to do before I am 60.
I, like everyone else here, am interested in this case but from a different angle.
It’s just as appropriate and honest as everyone else’s reason.
What you all say, is as meaningfull for me as the in and outs of the case. What’s up with that?
September 9th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Many geckos are reptoids:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptoid
McCann sources are now suggesting that aliens may have been involved in the abduction. After all, nearly 4 million Americans claim to have been abducted by aliens.
It would explain a lot of the apparent factual inconsistencies in the McCann’s scenarios, and planting of misleading evidence &c. There are probably reptoids in the PJ (as, apparently, Diana claimed that most of the Royal Family are reptoids, some of whom she noticed ’shape-shifting’, though It’s not clear what she was on at the time).
Why have the serious media sources failed to examine this angle. Let’s set up a fund…
September 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I have just finished rubbing My Mystic Ball and the future is now revealed to me !
I predict The McCann’s will appear on the next Celebrity BigBrother, where together with a bargain basement jamboree of other wannabe Z-grade celeb’s, their story will be ‘analysed’ by celebrity pyschologists, drooled over by Davina McCall, all to the accompaniment of gasps and cheers from an adoring crowd.
Truth is always stranger than fiction ;-P
September 9th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Blunger, I’ve been away for a few hours and only just read your post (978) but, even though things have moved on, I wanted to comment.
“So do many of you agree ? There is a culture in our country (UK) supportive of leaving children of threeyears out of earshot for periods of half an hour or more ?”
For what it’s worth, I don’t agree. Of course I also recognise that many parents may leave a young child unsupervised (i.e in the house alone) for a few minutes. I think the NSPCC offers pretty sound advice that the risk is a combination of many things, including age, time alone and location. It’s also worth pointing out that perceived risks and expected care change over time. When I was in a pram, it was common for mothers to leave their children in the pram outside a shop while they were inside.
“If I am wrong, then I am forced to conclude something pretty horrid to explain why I have not seen it. Could this be (oh no) a CLASS thing ?”
Possibly but I would suggest it’s not necessarilly a ‘working class’ thing. Perhaps it’s more common in certain ‘middle class’ circles, such as those inhabited by doctors and journalists. I know, again from my childhood, that my friends with ‘middle class’ parents were more likely to be left alone (aged 8,9,10,11) while they went to play tennis or socialising. My ‘working class’ parents always aranged for me to be looked after by a family member or took me with them (and it SO annoyed me at the time!).
“If this is so then it has to stop. Which makes it all the more imperative that the McCann’s are made a very visible example of…”
I totally agree with that.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I suspected a sedative was involved from the first week.
Seemed to be the only explanation as to how a parent would be so confident that their children would not wake up that they could leave them alone.
My kids wake up occasionally, not often, but when they do the first thing they do is look for us.
I assume the McCanns must have thought of this, and either rationalised it by thinking that their kids may get upset, but ‘hey, what harm can they come to?’, or they knew they were unlikely to wake up because they had been sedated.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Gecko - looking at the full spectrum of your posts, I am afraid I reluctantly have to conclude that you are a “forum troll”. That is a person who posts opinions which they do not in fact espouse, for the purpose of increasing controversy and dissent.
Just my personal opinion, of course. Nothing more.
An opinion expressed because others puzzled by your position might just possibly find it helpful or explanatory.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I wonder if they are returning just to hand the children over to family and sort out his personal affairs.
I imagine that the British Police are working with the Portugal police closely on this case …so the family and the McCanns slagging of their work and calling them incompetent and suggesting they planted evidence will not go down to well with our police force.
Now the celebrity Freemasons are no longer backing them that means Gordon Brown will also back off…so I would not be suprised if they keep the appointment to sign on at the Portugal police station…something an arguido has to do every 5 days.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Why do some people think that sedatives are involved? Is it just speculation because they are doctors! or has something been found to raise suspicion.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I’m assuming that their other kids have been put into care and if not why not? They are suspected child-killers after all. Even if they’re innocent of the actual murder/manslaughter/whatever they’re still terrible, neglectful parents.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
The UK TV media are STILL presenting/phrasing everything from the McCanns point of view. What they may be feeling. What they may be thinking. What their family is saying.
When will the switch of viewpoint occur ?
This is fascinating to watch.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Angry: Easier than what? Predatory behaviour is everywhere, and I am being protective of society from the comfort of my own home.
I said before, which the charming Christoph disagreed with… these people deserve no less than our full compasssion whatever happened…
Collectively they have lost way more than a child, an end of their own innocence and ‘lost child’ perhaps?
September 9th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Wonder if the McCrim’s will appear on the Jonathon Ross show for some more vomit-inducing BS.
Is it just me or has Britain gone soft in the head as a nation ? Does anyone actually believe the McCrim’s are sweet as pie & completely innocent after these new events ?
September 9th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
K9 1025. What you have described is a pretty good PR person at work! That’s what they do. Spin.
However, I feel that Gerry should have shut his family up long ago. They certainly did the couple no favours. IMO this was Philomena’s celebrity moment and she has savoured and milked every moment to the complete detriment of her brother.
Strange woman who I feel was behind the whole fund/publicity thing that then got completely out of control because no-one could contain her. (IMO!!)
September 9th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
The McCanns have said that they will confess but only if they can have the reward money. Also Kate wants her own ‘What Not To Wear’ style TV show. Her philosophy is that no matter how bad life gets there is no excuse for not accessorising.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
1029 - Its easier to read books, and more educational.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Miguel
If you are here, can I apologise to you as a representative of your country for all the defaming of your police and your legal system. I am afraid chauvinism is still rampant in certain quarters in the UK, including our gutter newspapers.
It does look possible that right at the beginning the police may have not followed the most modern practice in protecting forensic evidence - but I believe they have admitted a certain lack of experience. And they have since shown admirable maturity in making use of other people’s expertise, and seem now to be doing everything possible.
In my opinion portuguese law should be implemented without fear or favour, and no account should be taken of any excuses about child neglect being in the English culture. I deny it, and would like to see the McCanns prosecuted in Portugal on those grounds alone, even before any case for hiding the body can be prepared. Treated just as a Portuguese parent would be.
I am appalled that the McCann family appear to be bypassing the restrictions on revealing details of the investigation to the media. By the simple expedient of passing information through other family members (presumably safe in the UK). This puts the police ( unable to respond with the true facts) at a huge media disadvantage. Laying them open to the chauvinistic abuse we all see.
I would like to see some way the UK courts could back up the Portuguese legal system by silencing the family, so that the investigation can proceed calmly toward determining the truth, whatever it may be, without a steady flow of biased misinformation from the McCanns muddying the water.
Be assured that some of us here have respect for, and confidence in, your authorities and their legal procedures.
I apologise too for our awful cynical hysterical media.
If it turns out that the entire “Find Maddy” campaign was a gigantic fraud and betrayal of everyone who cared and helped, then I apologise again that my country could produce two such monsters, and inflict them upon your innocent country and its good name, significant as it is for tourist income. I suggest the traders of the local area should sue the perpetrators for every penny they have.