Madeleine McCann: Suspects Kate And Gerry And The Flight Of Fancy
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN front page: “EXCLUSIVE – ‘We’re being set up. I’ve had enough. Let’s go home.’” This is the “ANGER OF MADDIE DAD.”
Gerry and Kate McCann, “the doctors”, are back in their home town of Rothley, Leicestershire.
Pages 4, 5, 6 & 7: A statement from Gerry McCann in which he thanks one and all for the support and adds: “But we would like to ask for our privacy to be respected now that we have returned home.”
But their private grief is public spectacle. Can they be left alone with their daughter still missing and their campaign to find her in progress?
“YOU’LL LOSE THE TWINS.” Portuguese police are said to have told Kate McCann she should confess or face losing her two children.
“FACT OR FIT-UP?” The Sun considers the claims and gives each an “EXPLANATION.”
THE SUN SAYS: “McCanns’ hell”. The McCann’s “torment gets more horrendous by the day.” Where is the “kidnapper who might still have the four-year-old child in his clutches?”
THE TIMES front page: “McCanns fly home to fights their case.”
Mr McCann says the police’s focus on them is “deeply disturbing”.
Portuguese newspapers claim the McCanns failed to answer 40 questions put to them during interviews last week. “They apparently feared that they could wrongly implicate themselves if he [sic] did so.”
Pages 6 & 7: “Puzzles and mysteries at the very heart of the investigation.”
The paper tries to answer some of these questions. It tells us: “Although a small child could be killed quickly it would take time to hide the body so that it was not discovered in the biggest search in Portuguese history.”
The paper’s David Brown does not reveal how he researched this. He just knows.
The window to the McCanns apartment might have been opened from the inside. Brown of the Wapping Yard concludes: “Or was the window opened to make it appear as if an intruder had used it to enter the bedroom?”
Hmmm. What say you Mr Brown?
DAILY MAIL front page: “Police are determined to charge McCanns with killing Madeleine. HOME…FOR HOW LONG?”
Mr McCann is said to have told a friends: “We are being completely stitched up by the Portuguese police. We are completely f*****. We should have seen this coming weeks ago and gone back to Britain.”
Pages 2 and 3: “Madeleine’s parents consult Pinochet’s lawyer.” The McCanns have consulted with Michael Caplan QC, the British lawyer who represented Chilean dictator General Pinochet, who stood accused to torture and human rights abuses. Interesting?
Pages 4 & 5: “Questions the police must answer.”
The paper wonders if Robert Murat was named as a suspect in the hope his presence might “lead the couple into committing an incriminating indiscretion?” Or not.
In attempting to answer the key questions, the Mail produces more questions.
And the evidence..? The paper’s Michael Hanson wonders just how “foolproof” forensic tests are. You can’t argue with the science. Or can you?
DAILY MIRROR front page: “Kate weeps in Maddy’s room.”
The paper’s “EXCLUSIVE” is that Kate McCann sat alone in Madeleine’s “pink-painted room” and “sobbed in despair”.
How does it know this?
A friend says: “They are not running and will clear their names.”
Pages 4 & 5: Four pictures of the McCanns: arriving at Faro airport; boarding a flight,;on the plane getting ready for take off; and walking to their family home in Rothley.
Pages 6 & 7: “40 questions they both ‘refused’ to answer’.” And: “Officers say her replies left a lot to be desired, ‘it was claimed.’”
“McCANNS FACE KILLING CHARGE.”
“WHY COPS THINK SHE WAS NOT ABDUCTED.”
Page 9: Brian Reade has a daughter the same age as Madeleine McCann. Brian, who writes for the Mirror, has found it “impossible to imagine the depth of pain and guilt”. Without a body, says Brian, “They may never be able to prove their total and complete innocence.”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE ‘WE CAN PROVE PARENTS DID IT.’ Portuguese police make dramatic new claim over evidence.”
Pages 2, 3 4, 5: The paper’s Martin Evans is on flight EZY 6552. He sees the McCanns travel home. He experiences “first hand…Kate’s pain and anguish on that most difficult of journeys”.
The seatbelts sign goes off. A note is passed to Kate. It is from another passenger. Kate reads the “simple message” of support. “A female passenger kneels by Kate and gives her a “tight hug.”
Kate sobs, “tears dripping slowly down her cheeks”.
Page 6: “Questions for the McCanns.” The Express has a go at solving the mystery. It says “Case could hang over us for ever say parents”.
DAILY STAR front page: “Maddie’s parents surprise flight.” Flight?
Pages 6 & 7: “We’re not running away.”
Page 7: More from Martin Evans, who sees the McCanns’ “pained expressions”.
Pages 8 & 9: “Furious donors want cash back as pressure mounts on friends to reveal all. DAD: I’LL USE £1M MADDIE FUND TO CLEAR OUR NAMES.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH front page: “Year-long wait for McCanns to clear name.”
Says Kate McCann: “Portuguese law prohibits us from commenting on the police investigation. Despite their being so much we wish to say we are unable to do so except to say this: we have played no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine.”
Page 4: “Couple facing a ‘life sentence of grief’.”
THE GUARDIAN front page: “Exhausted and under suspicion, Madeleine’s family come home.”
Pages 2, 4 & 5: “Rothley villagers relieved to see family return.”
“Thank goodness. They’re back where they belong and it’s the best place they could possibly be,” says one young mother.
The Rev Mark Chandler adds: “My every sense tells me that Rothley is just pleased and relieved to have them back.”
THE INDEPENDENT front page: “130 days since they left for a family holiday, the McCanns return to Britain without Madeleine. This is “THE HOMECOMING”.
Pages 2 & 3: “A shattered family returns to Britain without Madeleine”. “Portugal’s media clamour for conviction”.
Says one mother holidaying in Praia da Luz: “You don’t want to believe the worst but when you read headlines like these [in Portuguese media], obviously one conclusion seems more likely than another.”
Says the Diario de Noticia: “PJ wait for final examinations to arrest Madeleine’s parents.”
Madeleine McCann: private grief as public spectacle
Posted: 10th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,280) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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September 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
256 How old was she?
September 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
pete and you know that Madeleine is dead how?????
September 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
me 220.
I’ve said often enough that my views are not because of the parents. I care not about them. I care about the truth.
It’s the timeline and the dynamics of that night that just don’t fit.
6.30 family + madeleine on CCTV. beach cafe staff confirm them there.
back to apartment… kids to bed. over to Tapas bar for 8,30 at latest (some reports say
It would take a raving psychopath to be able to eat dinner, drink wine, take part in the quiz night, hide the body in around an hour and a half and then at 10 pretend to look and shout that she’s gone.
Superhuman that would be. As I’ve said, IF it was thought that she died and was removed on the night before, thereby giving them 24 hours to put a plan together I could be convinced. But she was seen at 6.30 on CCTV.
The McCanns, their friends, they are all human and I can’t see someone being able to cover themselves that quickly.
IMO of course!!!
September 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
i used to date KM at uni
September 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
the nanny is from canada, she left the holiday early for reasons not made availabe
September 10th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I’d read a while ago there was a nanny, but recently read that K looked after the kids herself, with some help from a local woman.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
m.e your posting of 74 is infantile! How do you know what ‘illusions’ anyone was/is under? what a load of bull! These people were questioned, answers were given or not as the case may be we dont know anything else. This crap is so stupid it infuriates me that it is still be bandied about.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
god point, the mother never welcomed her home after her traumatic ordeal
September 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
not forgetting the road block which they where supposed to be stopping cars right at the start
they just sat at the side of the road doing nothing
September 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Noseycow, where did you read this? If they did have a nanny why have the media not tracked her down , after all they seem to have had a word with everyone else the Vicar, the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker. Anything for a story. What better story, with nothing to report, than to interview the one person who had access to the family home other than ofcourse the uncles, great uncles,grandparents, aunty. Not even a story of “Nanny McPhee approached but said “no comment”!
September 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Regarding the criticism of the PJ.
Surely the McCanns are more incompetent at parenting than the PJ are at policing.
If they hadn’t left/killed her, none of this would have happened.
I could never understand how Philharmonic had the nerve to criticise the Police without passing comment on her brother and sister-in-laws actions.
Taking the “she would have been found by now if they were more competent” line isn’t really looking at the whole picture.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
238,noseycow, How come nobody’s heard from her?
September 10th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
i would absolutly love there to be made some evidence to suggest murat, his girlfriend and her husband (the cosy three) swing with the mccanns and their party, and it was all arranged on a web site built by malinka.
things would be so tidy then
wheres malinka these days anyway, since he was a fairly important player in the original suspicion of murat
September 10th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
and another thing Andy, the PJ were too frigging lazy to do a full area search on every building and apartment in the area. This has still not been done to date. If one remembers this is how Huntley was flushed out.
They should have by now at least - 4 months on - carried out a FULL forensic investigation of the entire area. THEY HAVENT! To do this they would have to go cap in hand to all villa/apartmet owners etc and ask to carry out a full extensive forensic search. The PJ are notorious for not asking but telling people to do things. This scenario wouldnt suit their egos!
So please spare me the poor PJ crap!
September 10th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
oh and cj….
answer my post 74
lets see how objective you can be…..
September 10th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
LOL bull .. don’t know why she wasn’t on hols with them - may be she would cramp their style????
However Kates mum was on hols with them …why she not look after kids?
Why she not welcome them back home???
September 10th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
if they are guilty I hope they swing (oh, they already do) ;-0
September 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
noesyheffer,lol, you don’t know why she has a child of her own?
September 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
228, m.e. Thinking about the possibility of a fake abduction that went wrong goes off on a very sinister tack - this has already been suggested.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
(226) bulldump
Oh my god.. they already do
September 10th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
cj 230
We’ll leave the dick head comments to such as you…..
So pray tell how your ‘objective’ views do not cover the distinct possibility at this stage that the parents may be guilty?………
September 10th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Yes they do have a full time live out nanny - who was not on holiday with them. Do not know why but she does have a young child of her own
September 10th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Andy, Any bunch of so-called cops should not EVER assume anything of the sort in the first 14 hours to justify them not preserving a crime scene and closing boarders. The PJ are indefensible in this.
The only injustice that I am concerned about is the injustice that was done to this child. The PJ are a joke!
September 10th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Hi,
I posted this on the other forum, but will repost here for your comment.
# Eva Says:
September 10th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I’ve been following this forum for a few days and have a few questions that have been bothering me.
1) If Maddie was indeed found dead by Kate at approximately 10pm, and then Kate returned to the tapas bar claiming the child had been abducted, when could she have informed Gerry of their daughter’s death? She couldn’t have told him on the way back to the apartment - apparently, there were at least 6 other people with them (all of the Tapas9 except Mrs Webster), possibly bar staff too (?), and presumably all would have been running. If O’Brien and Tanner were somehow involved (by providing a sedative), when would they all have found the time to confer on a course of action to cover their tracks? There just doesn’t seem to be enough time for them to do so. Plus, they must have been plastered if they’d consumed 14 bottles of wine in 1 1/2 hours (8.30-10pm) - that’s about a bottle and a half each. Indeed, how could Kate have cleverly hidden the body in such a state?
2) How long was Kate gone? 10, 15 minutes? Is this how long it would take to go to the apartment, discover the child was missing, search the apartment, look in the immediate vicinity - perhaps calling out the child’s name, too - and then return to the bar? Was she gone longer than the above scenario would allow? Has there been a re-enactment of Kate’s movements that night?
3) If Portuguese sniffer dogs detected the child’s scent at a nearby supermarket car park, is this car park in the same direction in which the child-carrying stranger was headed when Tanner says she saw him?
4) Cuddle Cat. Let’s assume that Kate discovers the child dead and decides to claim there has been an abduction. OK, how to make this believable? Open the window shutters. But Cuddle Cat worries me. How devious and on the ball would you have to be to come up with that? That is, putting the toy on the ledge in order to support your abduction claim. Would you have thought of that? I wouldn’t have, and certainly not after having consumed a fair bit wine (if Kate did indeed drink a lot that night).
Again, there wouldn’t have been time, and there wouldn’t have been clarity of thought on Kate’s part if she’d just found her child dead.
5) If the child had died earlier - before the McCanns went to dinner - wouldn’t they have behaved differently at dinner? Have any of the friends made statements concerning that? Did they drink less? Pick at their food? Look pre-occupied? Did they laugh? Did they initiate conversation?
Eva
September 10th, 2007 at 11:59 am
moriarty 217, i would love to tell you but i can’t
September 10th, 2007 at 11:59 am
bulldump who is BRAIN adams LOL
the mccanns are innocent, Robert Murats mother is guilty the dogs will find her in portugal, Maddie that is, she is alive and well, I read all this on BRAINS dreams,
yep Im back wheres Teddy Boy??
September 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
227, matty, It’s been four months and no interview with “the nanny” yet. Does she even exist?
September 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I might be a horrible person - i don’t think so … but I am fascinated by this story and the way the press and public are reacting. I don’t know who’s guilty - but do have my opinions.
I want to know what has happened to that gorgeous little girl.. so I do search the internet / watch the news to try and glean any new information.
Does that make me a monster? or a nosey old cow….am not sure
Did the Mccanns invite media coverage? yes
Did the focus it entirely on Madeleine? No - Gerry has been blogging since very early on about his life at the present.
How much have the Mccanns personnaly been paid for all their interveiws? Lots - because people like me want to read them.
So I’m sorry if some want the media interest to die down - but I DON’T
September 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
cj. 194
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1283359,00.html?f=vg
Looks like you are wrong about the PJ calling off searches and why are you so Xenophobic about the PJ anyway? Why is it that in nearly all cases in which British citizens commit, or are alleged to have commited, crimes abroad there is a belief amongst a large portion of the British population that foreign Police Forces are incapable of investigating and solving them?
What makes people believe that the British Police are so infallible?
Oh and as for the PJ not closing borders and not sealing off the apartment have you thought that perhaps, from the beginning, the PJ suspected foul play by the McCanns and therefore the above steps were not neccessary?
Nobody knows what the PJ may or may not believe or what evidence they do or do not have but to dismiss them as “Keystone Cops” is a great injustice.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
220 m.e. - No dick head! its an objective view! and one that carrys weight!
Do you think that the keystone cops would have let the Mcanns go so easily if there was any shred of credibility to what they cooked up?? I for one think its a load of crap. They all but bought the fucking tickets for them!!! anything to get them out of the country so they can sit back on their arses and do sweet FA!
And the tourism ministers and local business people can get back to coining it in.