Madeleine McCann: Call Off The Dogs, Kate McCann’s Tears And Fatima
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE TIMES page 9: “McCanns send to US for help against evidence of sniffer dogs.”
Gerry and Kate McCann have consulted lawyers working on behalf of Eugene Zapata in Madison, Wisconsin.
In October 1976, Zapata’s wife, Jeanette, went missing. Her body has never been found. Last year sniffer dogs were brought in and Zapata was charged with her murder. The case went before Judge Patrick Fielder who said the evidence – dogs had picked up the scent of a corpse in Zapata’s basement – was inadmissible. He said the dogs were unreliable.
The dogs have yet to make a comment.
DAILY MIRROR front page: “MADDY JUDGE: LET ME TELL ALL.”
Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias wants to “speak freely” about the case.
Pages 6 and 7: “Mum’s tears at 11am Mass.” Once again the Mirror is all eyes for Kate McCann’s eyes. She is crying.
In church, Father Keith Tomlinson narrates the parable of the Prodigal Son. An eight-year-old child called Molly Earp reads “Jesus please continue to love and protect us, until she is found.”
And then Jesus can have a rest and the police can resume normal duties…
Pages 8 and 9: “On the beach Gerry gave Maddy loads of hugs and kisses, he was a perfect dad..The next time I saw him was about midnight..I saw a man alone, desperate. He was crying and screaming her name over and over and over again.” Words from a “WAITER AT MADDIE’S LAST MEAL” before she vanished.
THE SUN front page: “Maddie ‘gag’ lift.” Friends of Kate and Gerry McCann are hopeful of being allowed to speak out and defend themselves. A judge has asked for a lifting of Portugal’s secrecy laws.
Pages 6 and 7: “AGONY TO COME.” The Sun produces a picture of Kate and Gerry McCann’s wedding day. They are holding Kate’s goddaughter Ellie. There is also a new picture of Madeleine McCann “looking angelic”. Have you seen her? Or are you watching the parents?
THE EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE. POLICE TO SEARCH SHRINE FOR BODY.” The McCanns went to Fatima. The McCanns car clocked up 1,709 miles in the fives weeks after their daughter went missing.
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER Pages 2 and 3: “Hand in hand, McCanns go to family church.” The “devoutly Catholic couple” are leaving for church from their “£600,000 home”. Kate McCann is carrying Cuddle Cat.
Pages 4 and 5: “1,000 letters each day in support of the McCanns. Between 500 and 1,000 letters a day arrive at the McCanns’ home. “There are some crank letters,” says a spokesman for the family, “but that’s inevitable.”
None of these letters are believed to point to the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann.
Alex Cayles, a former neighbour of the McCanns, says “I never heard Kate or Gerry raise their voices to their children or anyone else.” Can the same be said of any parents of three very young children?
DAILY MAIL front page: a picture of Kate McCann smiling.
“MADELEINE:
• Doubt cast on sniffer dogs
• Police frontman quits investigation
• Branson funds the McCanns’ defence
• Witness’s vital new evidence”
Pages 10 and 11:2 “Maddie: Is the case crumbling?”
Chief inspector Olegario Sousa has resigned “in disgust” at the way in which fellow Portuguese officers have been briefing the media behind his back.
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE MUM ON MURDER RAP. Now cops claim to have found ‘a motive’.”
The Star says police have read Kate McCann’s diary and “claim it reveals she had a motive to kill”.
Pages 4 and 5: “DID KATE HAVE A MOTIVE?”
Well, we haven’t read the diary, but…
“The idea that Portuguese detectives are looking at my daughter’s most personal thoughts and taking them out of context is terrible,” says Kate McCann’s father Brian Healy.
Pages 6 and 7: “HUNT AT HOLY SHRINE.” Is Madeleine McCann’s body buried at Fatima, one of the Catholic Church’s holiest sites? The Star says the couple went there three weeks after their daughter went missing.
We wonder. Is she? Or is she buried in Germany, America, London or Morocco, places also visited by the McCanns?
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “New allegations against McCanns - As the McCanns begin a new campaign to clear their names, further allegations emerged over the weekend.”
Oh?
“The hire car: The Renault Scenic hired by the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine went missing. New claims centre on its high mileage. Between May 27 and July 3, it was driven 1,700 miles, with police looking into the possibility that it may have been used to dispose of a body…There were also reports that detectives were waiting for permission from a judge to seize and dismantle the car to search for ‘traces of skin’.”
THE GUARDIAN: No Maddy news today.
Madeleine McCann The Public Spectacle
Posted: 17th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,074) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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September 17th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Well, Trev McDonald just introduced 30 mins of what we already know, culminating in John McCann saying how impressive Gerry was relaunching the search. Shame he didn’t keep it going in the first place. Only thing that wasn’t very pro McCann was they did let a cadaver dog do a test, and he passed with flying colours. Other than that TAME
September 17th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Why is ITV putting on this programme before the investigating judge has made an opinion on the evidence?
September 17th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
712 Wanderer… “A BMW means you are holier than thou in the eyes of the law (unless they want to give you a ticket) and a prime snare for the (un)holier than thou ladies. Based on that one fact, you’re pretty much set where the shallow end of the gene of the pool is concerned. Be sure to swim about though, you could be upgraded to a Rolls-Royce and end up in the wishing well of life! How delightful!”
Cheers for the “head’s up” friend,… (have I met you somewhere before?)
I’m going to get me a bicycle! and spend the money on “leaving no stone unturned” shares
(Floated on stock market this Morning).. I suggest you ALL do the same
Life just doesn’t seem the same anymore.
723 impressed: “Wanderer…they have a good lawyer - the best take my word for it…and for the record….no forums are not outside the law…..”
You may be, or may not be correct……
Allegedly (magic libel antidote)
September 17th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
742 ~blunger … libel does not equal censorship…..free speech is good … free thinking is good…..anorak is 1st class….but if you are a uk resident and you breach the uk libel laws then you can be prosecuted [remember the mccanns have close family friends with very very deep pockets]….
September 17th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
740 - nothimg new yet, except a programme that is superficially balanced leaves you feeling they didn’t do it.
Very carefully made messaging.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I thought at first that if there was an abduction by an unknown party that it would probably have happened between 8.30 and 9.00 when the McCanns were inially reported to be at the tapas bar.
Taking McCann at his word he checked on the children at 9.00ish. According to whichever source you read he saw or did not see madeleine. His statements do not state that the window in the bedroom was open at that time -if the window was open he would have been alarmed-I hope.
At 9.30 Oldfield checked. He makes no mention that the patio door is left ‘hanging open’ as per Kate McCann when she went to the apartment at 10pm. But he does state that there appeared to be more light in the room than he would have expected.
10pm Kate McCann checks - patio door hanging open - shutter blind up and window open.
This points to the abduction having took place between 9.10 and 9.30 if McCann had checked the bedroom at 9pm. McCann was only a few metres from the apartment entrance for most of this time talking to Wilkins. Tanner’s sightings of the man and child are, again take your pick, 9.15 or 9.30.
There also seems to confusion where exactly Tanner saw the abductor and child. It would absurd for an abductor to go back walking down the road nearest to the Tapas bar - would the abductor not have a car nearby?
September 17th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Yes Simon, I agree that the CCTV film supposedly says this and eyewitnesses have supposedly testified to the fact as well …. however, every little thing we’re hearing in the media at the moment needs to be taken with a pinch of salt! For a country with “secrecy laws” there’s certainly been a good amount of leakage (intended or otherwise) to the press, what do we perceive to be correct and what can we perceive to be incorrect reporting? I would say very little at the moment in both directions.
Until that timeline is DEFINITELY established and confirmed by a genuine spokesperson from the PJ, we have to weigh up every single little thing that is being reported …. is it true reporting of facts that were leaked, or did they hear it from a buddy of a buddy who heard it from a “reliable source”? I don’t believe that anywhere can you actually find visuals of the supposed CCTV coverage of Madeleine being alive at 6.30. (If you’d like to correct my assumption here … please feel free to do so).
And Stevo (agree with you here) regarding the babysitting services in the evening/creche facilities during the day … I would much rather have my children around me during the day to have some great holiday fun, and then rely on the babysitting services in the evening to ensure that they get a comfortable, safe night’s rest.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
To all of you old enough to remember the Yorkshire Ripper case, I distinctly remember how the fake audio tape of the Geordie guy led detectives on a wild goose chase for years.
Team McCann’s actions and media campaigning is doing the exact same thing.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
740 ~ I’m watching it….they are doing a fullscale hatchet job on the pj investigation go to http://www.itv.com you may be able to watch it on line
September 17th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Re censorship
Personally I don’t object in principle to legal restraints upon speculation discussion of active criminal investigations and cases.
But only if these restraints replied equally to all media including tv and newspapers etc, and to the police, prosecution and defence.
I can see that it may become difficult to assemble an impartial jury if too much of this occurs.
But I have two problems with it.
Firstly, I am very concerned about preserving free speech as free as possible, and do not trust that such laws would not be abused to hide governmental misbehaviour and persecution of those who disagree. Almost anyone could be silenced on any topic by engineering a suitable legal case to provide an umbrella.
Secondly, I don’t think it could work. The internet gives the world population a new global conversation easily located and relocated from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Until/unless we have a world law, silencing discussion is simply impossible because there will always be some way of locating it where it is not illegal. And that ignores the problems of detection even where it is illegal.
In my opinion, there is only one way to avoid the “biasing the jury” problem in the longer term. Abandon juries. The few governments still stuck with them would probably love this excuse and this opportunity.
I’d like to say that juries are more intelligent, and that they are not easily biased, but my experience as a juror tells me different. In fact, I think the whole jury system is pretty flawed. The trouble is that when a government gets less trustworthy, the jury system may be one of the last things we have to protect us from trumped, or no charges. From being disappeared, tortured and falsely acused. Far fetched ? Couldn’t happen ? Think Guantanamo. All that can save the many that are innocent is getting them to a jury.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Julie (718) Not sure about Portuguese timetables, but 14.30 would be spot on lunchtime in Spain. Anything closing for lunchtime might close from 14.00-16.00, for example. Shops close from 13.30/14.00 to 17.00/17.30. But this is Spain, not Portugal and I don’t know exactly what they do there.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
736 - impressed
My mum just phoned me from the UK to say Trevor McD was doing a show on the McCann’s. I’d be interested to know if anything new comes out of that programme. Are you watching it?
September 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
731 - Stig
Thanks for the link. Again though and here’s my problem with the parents…that article said that Kate sobbed through the interview.
I’ve even read that Kate sobbed in TV interviews but when I’ve looked at the same interviews myself, I don’t see Kate sobbing at all.
If the Sun interviewed Kate and she sobbed then you’ve only got a Sun reporter’s word on it. Sorry Stig, but I don’t think that is good enough.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the ONLY real emotion ever seen on a TV video clip was when Gerry made his speech as he set foot on the tarmac at East Midlands Airport when they all arrived back after being declared suspects. That was the only time I’ve heard that uncontrollable quiver in his voice.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
734 - Wanderer…i sympathise with your beliefs…but watching this itv programme…i’m telling you clarence mitchell is working miracles…. he’s done the press…now the tv…. the net will be next in the spotlight….
September 17th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
732 - they were incredibly negligent. The story that they didn’t want to use the free creche facility in the evening when they used it during the day makes no sense at all.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
for those of you watching ITV - 8pm….. team mccann has some powerfull friends and are fighting back full throttle…..
September 17th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Thanks for the tip off on the ITV programme.
I started to watch it and got an interesting insight into the superb skills of the sniffer dog.
But then their reporter started to talk / shout at me as though I were an idiot incapable of formulating any thoughts about the case myself.
So I had to switch it off.
Tabloid TV ain’t so easy to digest as tabloid newspapers.
I did gauge, however, that this is a pro-McCann exercise.
How many who are suspects in a manslaughter case could hope for such slanting from a major UK broadcaster? Or even such coverage?
September 17th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
(723) Impressed:
I know nothing written is outside of the law. But, blogs take on a more pontificating stance, while comments on here generally flow off of the news stories and their stated “facts”. It would be interesting if it did go to court (not for the poor sap they’re taking to court, obviously), because I’d like to see if the McCanns are now considered fully-fledged “public figures”.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
718 - The photo could probably have been taken on a different day, but she was definitely alive at 6.30. CCTV film and eye witnesses have confirmed this.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
718 - Julie
The timeline is crucial. The photo info can be doctored very easily so can’t be relied on to say that it was taken at 14:30hrs.
Also, isn’t it strange how the parents are keen to use a creche during the day but can leave the kids alone and vulnerable at night by refusing the babysitting service. If you were conscienscous to use a service in the daytime why not use one at night?
Gerry says leaving the kids was no different to having a barbecue in the back garden while the kids slept in their house. I beg to differ…usually you’d lock your front door and the backdoor would lead to the garden while kids were upstairs. His comparison is as ludicrous as the number of times he uses that very word.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
711 Stevo
I forgot this one:
http://tinyurl.com/2cs8yj
Probably it won’t do any good, just more ammunition for the cynics to shred with their pointless remarks that they would have behaved differently with their saintly perfection etc.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Boa Noite and evenin’ all………. see the PJ haven’t dropped the case..YET!! but it’s only a matter of time now. The pressure is incresing even greater on poor old Portugal to drop the matter post haste! What with top trumpet Clarence Mitchell at the helm, (SERIOUS Foreign Office gofer), to make sure they toe the line, other than the snippets that the Portuguese may want to release in line with the new laws on secrecy, we’re never going to get the evidence before a Judge. We may as well DONATE HERE: http://briansdreams.com/onlocation/ where that last bastion of human kindeness is willing to travel to Portugal and give us the answers to ALL our questions!!!.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
So it’s settled then… the PJ are a bunch of incompetent idiots. Whatever made them believe for 2 seconds that they could investigate a case like this without a ginormous PR budget and a small army of professional spin doctors? Apparently they had some stupid foreign ideas about “gathering evidence” and “building a case.” HA! Amateurs! Where are their pictures of their family weddings and cute kids, each more photogenic than the last? Well? WHERE ARE THEY?
Unbelievable.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
725: Stevo
Yes – that’s exactly what I was thinking. That he visits the site and modifies his profile only 16 days after his child went missing.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Stevo 711
Both parents are doctors, socialised into a profession which has traditionally prided itself on its’ objectivity, with any display of personal emotions frowned upon. Clinical, detached observation of events, and a deeply entrenched reluctance to display ‘usual’ emotions, are perhaps not surprising in this case.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
722 - some anti-depressants kick in within days…Venlafaxine for instance. Anything is possible but I’ve said for ages she looks like she’s on some kind of anti-depressant and that in itself is not strange. Considering what’s happened to them, I’d expect her to be on such medication.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
717 - Pixie
The removal of that comment about babysitting makes no sense does it? I mean, it’s hardly a comment you’d have a problem with. Most parents make such remarks at certain times. Why he’d edit it out is an odd thing to do.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
689 - I’d like to hear from the Protestants too. They worship with the same Jesus as the Catholics. Yet, they don’t discuss their relationship with God or Jesus much, if at all, on this forum.
Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of hearing from the Catholics. Including myself!!
I’m curious what the “Protesters” think about it “what would Jesus do”.
699 - If she’s truly preggers, I think Kate will claim it’s the immaculate conception or that she’s implanted the frozen embryos and she’s going to have another Madeleine. So eventually everyone will just go away and forget all about this little “episode” in their lives. Sad thing is that she’s probably right. In 10 years from now, no one will remember this with the same level of horror that is taking place today. We will have become numb and immune to these “incidents”. The world is getting more crazy - not less.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
711 Stevo
I think a lot of people are forgetting that the McCanns showed plenty of appropriate emotion in the early days:
http://images.newsquest.co.uk/image.php?id=507656&type=full
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_03/McCannCriesDM_468×567.jpg
I can provide more if you like. Theres one of Gerry where it looks as if he has been weeping
September 17th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
721 ~ Wanderer…they have a good lawyer - the best take my word for it…and for the record….no forums are not outside the law…..