Madeleine McCann: Clarence Mitchell Speaks, Make Madeleine History And Breastfeeding
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY MAIL pages 10 and 11: “Madeleine cried for 18 hours a day. Kate tells of the special bond forged in the painful days of early childhood.”
Kate McCann is speaking with Portuguese magazine Flash!. This interview took place before Kate McCann was named as a suspect in Madeline’s disappearance. Kate says the first six months with Madeleine were “very difficult”. Madeleine had colic. “I had to carry her around permanently,” says Kate.
What does it mean, this interview that has “emerged”? That what you tell magazines can be taken out of context and used in evidence against you, or something else?
THE TIMES page 9: “McCanns go straight to the top in search for powerful backers.”
Gordon Brown is being kept abreast of the investigation on Kate and Gerry McCann, possibly by reading the British press and watching the news bulletins.
(Is any MP still wearing a yellow ribbon?)
The McCanns have a new spokesman. He’s called Clarence Mitchell. He resigned as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring unit to take this new post.
Mr Mitchell once offered: “There’s a whole level of debate taking place online which simply didn’t exist before and departments feel they need to be fully engaged in that.”
Look out for Kate’s blog.
DAILY MIRROR front page: “THE TIDE TURNS.”
“McCanns WON’T be ordered back to Portugal says Judge”
“Gordon Brown briefed on the case”
“New spokesman will declare Gerry and Kate innocent today”
Clarence Mitchell says: “They have nothing whatever to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.” And as the McCann’s new spokesman he should know.
Pages 4 and 5: “RAY OF HOPE.”
Madeleine has not been found but Kate and Gerry McCann will not have to fly back to Portugal for more questioning.
On the downside sales of the “Look for Madeleine” wristband are not going well in Portugal. In “LOCALS REJECTS ‘FIND HER’ BRACELETS,” this year’s Make Poverty History band is being turned down at a car boot sales in Praia da Luz.
Says one ex-pat: “It’s as if they want to forget something so horrible happened.” Or buy something less with their money?
Says another: “We can’t understand how they can carry on jogging after losing Madeleine. Gerry went to a hairdressers a few weeks after she disappeared and continued tennis lessons. The Portuguese feel they should b hysterical.” But not the British, who understand reserve…
THE SUN front page: “MADDIE COPS SLAPPED DOWN. KATE BACKED BY JUDGE. Mum won’t be hauled back to Portugal.”
Judge Pedro Anjos Frias rejected Portuguese police calls for the McCanns to return. “He is thought to have ruled the case to flimsy to justify the move.” Or, to put it another way, he has not received sufficient evidence to be convinced of the need for a trial.
Pages 4 and 5: “COPS CASE COLLAPSING.”
And: “McCanns tell Brown: We have solid defence.” Gordon Brown’s reaction to this news is not known.
THE INDEPENDENT page 32: Thomas Sutcliffe says the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been “yoked by journalists to another kind of story – the primal faction of fairytale”. Here “the beautiful child is swallowed by something that has emerged from the dark”.
It is, is it not, every child’s worst nightmare.
Page 4: “Kate McCann ‘will not be reinterviewed in Portugal’.”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE POLICE CASE FALLS APART.”
“Judge refuses to recall the McCanns”
“Impossible to detect sedatives in hair”
“But slurs against the parents continue”
Slurs?
Pages 8 and 9: “My struggles to control Madeleine – BY KATE MCCANN.”
As told to Flash! magazine. The twins arrive. “The worst thing is that she started to demand lots of attention, especially when I was breastfeeding them.”
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE ALL SEVEN McCANN PALS IN FRAME.” The seven dwarves, to continue Mr Sutcliffe’s analogy?
“Cops set to name them as suspects.”
Pages 6 and 7: “BRIT PALS ALL SUSPECTS.”
The Tapas 9 are in the frame. This will put the lid – the tapas – on the case. Right?
“Maddie cops jet to UK as group face grilling” – Portuguese police are “planning” to come to the UK to continue the investigation. British police will conduct interviews.
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 8: “McCanns to be interviewed by British police.”
Kate and Gerry are also keen to reach Gordon Brown. A source tell the paper: “The McCanns do not expect help or influence to be exerted on their behalf but want to get messages to the very top that they are innocent.”
Does Brown read the Telegraph?
THE GUARDIAN page 35: “Never mind the high street: Branson sells his Virgin Megastores.”
No mention of Madeleine McCann, granted, but this news one day after Branson pledged to help the parents clear their names looks like interesting timing?
Posted: 18th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,047) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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September 18th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
732 - Judge Dread wrote
‘The blood and hair have already been ruled out by the police as inconclusive evidence of anything. Forget them.
Nobody collected evidence as a result of the dog searches. - Forget them.
What does that leave?’
I guess more theories from the righteous on this forum.
Just goes to prove that the PJ were putting 2 and 2 together and making 5. Don’t get me wrong they’ve got to look at every avenue but with the slur thats been coming from the Portuguese press via leaks from the PJ I think they’ve dug a pit for themselves and are unable to get out.
Infact the next thing were going to hear is more resignations from the cranked PJ. LOL
September 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
499 Stevo
“But, if you cared to study psychology then you’d find that human responses and emotions play a HUGE part in reading what’s going on with someone’s life. It’s absurd that you can’t understand that”
I did two years of Psych. at Uni. - do you mean study, as in the general experiences of life? If so, don’t you think it a bit presumptuous of you to insinuate that I have no experience of life and people or that I am naive as to human behaviour?
I do not think you can judge people on their external appearances and utterances in times of extreme stress. Extreme stress changes people - their behaviour is not normal for them, it is invalid to infer what their normal behaviour is and it is a gargantuan mistake to think their behaviour under stress IS their normal behaviour. Substitute the word ‘personality’ for ‘behaviour’ in what I just said, and the same applies
There is no definable set of human behaviours that exhibit guilt, remorse, grief or any human emotion you care to name. Individuals vary hugely in their outward expressions of emotion. You can’t look at someone and apply your own standards for emotional expression and presume to judge the sincerity or otherwise of their true feelings and emotions.
Some years ago, my mother and I visited my brother in a hospice. We chatted with him and put on a brave face, he mentioned he thought he had been feeling a bit better the last few days and that maybe he could leave soon. To, us he was visibly and significantly worse.
We walked past people in the corridors, looking perfectly normal and left. The route back to the car took us through an enclosed garden area that was not overlooked by windows and there was no-one else there. My mother paused and turned to me and said ‘he’s never coming home from there is he?” I had been thinking exactly the same thoughts, verbatim, it was beyond spooky. We both broke down and wept something chronic. No one saw us - we kept our grief private.
That grief had been inside us the moment we had stepped out of the door to his room. If you had passed us in the corridor you would have seen no tears or outward sign of what we were feeling inside.
So I disagree with you about ascertaining what is going on in peoples lives, and judging them as individuals, by outward displays of emotion in PUBLIC. Particularly in such stressful circumstances. And that goes triple when your input about them is nothing but a few a few scant photos in newspapers/online, 10 minutes of TV footage and a few thousand written words, many written with huge helpings of bias.
Is it 150 DAYS that this has played out for? Something like that. Our collective ‘experience’ of K and G amounts to what fraction of that time? And yet people have the impudence to judge them on that, under these abnormal conditions.
How could we really know something about them? Well, by knowing them personally in normal times would be a start, in real time, face to face - wouldn’t it? So how is it that there are several recent examples of people who have known them for real - personally, in normal times, face to face - who have expressed very positive opinions about them, yet those opinions are dismissed and ignored like water off a ducks back?
Are you telling me those people are as defective at judging people as you obviously think I am?
There was the bloke from New Zealand who said he had studied and played rugby with Gerry while they were in New Zealand and said “He was a really nice bloke.” But every G and K hater on here would say ‘how the fuck would he know, he only knew him in real life, we know the real Gerry because we’ve, seen the TV and read stuff’ What about the couple who knew them personally and said Kate was a great mother? How could they be SO wrong about that - haven’t they been reading the truth about them expressed in the opinions here?
More misguided fools. http://tinyurl.com/2lolxq
Why am I obnoxious? Because I will knowingly rub peoples noses in their own bullshit when I think they deserve it.
Why would I choose to be so obnoxious and ruin the spirit, camaraderie and light-hearted fun that people are trying to have here on the ‘burn the witches of Salem’ show? Because I don’t get my kicks from kicking people in the head or groin when they are down, and then spitting on them.
I am a moral individual, not a pack animal, joining in for the kill.
This is not a soap, it’s not TV, it’s the real thing. Kate and Gerry are real people - Given the things people are saying about them here it seems very clear to me that there are a good few people here who don’t get that. How do I know that? Because they would not have the guts to stand in a room With the Real Gerry the Real Kate and their kids and family and look them in the eye while someone stood off to the side of the room and read out loud each and every word and opinion they have written here about them.
‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’
I say that as an atheist. I am not a fan of religion but the wisdom of those words is unassailable and universal in it’s truth.
I don’t care if you think me obnoxious, opinionated, intolerant and a complete wanker. You can read back to me anything I write or express, in real life, to my face.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
735: Not EVERY case in Europe is handled this way
September 18th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
and this:Gordon Brown has been updated on the investigation into Kate and Gerry McCann by the couple’s advisers, who told him that Portuguese detectives had no proof that they killed their daughter.
The Prime Minister, who has been an influential supporter of the couple, has previously persuaded the Portuguese authorities to release details of their investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from an Algarve holiday apartment 138 days ago.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Just read this in an article:
How can the couple win the battle of public opinion? Clarence Mitchell, 46, has been appointed as their official spokesman. He resigned yesterday as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring Unit and had previously been seconded to the Foreign Office to help the McCanns in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance.
What can Mr Mitchell do to help the McCanns? His job at the Cabinet Office has given him contacts among senior members of the Government and Civil Service. He also has extensive contacts with journalists in both Britain and Portugal and more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter.
Are the McCanns paying for his services? No. He has been employed by one of their wealthy backers and will continue to work for that person after the Madeleine case is over.
I really really don’t get your system in Europe.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Whatever happens in this case, I truly hope that her parents will one day admit that it was due to their selfish actions that their little girl will probably never come home again.
Wether or not they had a direct hand in her disappearance, their initial actions created the situation.
Reward for selfish actions and the loss of a beautiful little girl : over 1 million Pds Stg - this will never, ever make up for the joy that Madeleine could have brought them in years to come.
And I for one, sincerely pray that Kate is NOT pregnant again .. by however means!
I cannot and will not ever be able to find it in my heart to have even the tiniest bit of pity for those people …. they can never in their entire lifetimes be able to accept what they did. A beautiful child is GONE … probably forever … and all the loving parents can think of is protecting their own images. In my eyes they have no image, they destroyed Madeleine’s life, and will one day pay for what happened to her.
As they say in my language : “DIE WIEL DRAAI”
September 18th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Judge Dread…. that is exactly what bothers me. Everyone is so busy deciding who did or didn’t do what that Madeleine the child is almost forgotten.
Alive she should be found of course, but even dead she deserves to be found. I think the police should be concentrating solely on that.
If they find her alive then we’ll soon find out what happened, if they find her body then they have some evidence to find out who did it, or how it happened.
.
They keep leaking this stuff about where they’re going to dig but they don’t actually do it and then don’t let anyone else do anything.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
727 - Are you blind to facts K-9.
The blood and hair have already been ruled out by the police as inconclusive evidence of anything. Forget them.
Nobody collected evidence as a result of the dog searches. - Forget them.
What does that leave?
Erm - nothing, apart from the fact that Madeleine is still missing.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Just a reminder:
There is no jury in the Portuguese legal system. There is a judge (or, sometimes, two or three).
September 18th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
724: What I find interesting is that (possibly for the first time) most of the comments in connection with the article are rather negative.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
(726) Mary an unbiased jury will be hard to find, but not impossible. People do actively avoid such overblown news stories and sometimes avoid the news altogether.
The media seems to be blaming the public for the biased opinions, even though the media has kept the story and its unlikely “facts” in the press for four months. Paired with the fact that the media has been biased as well (very pro-McCann and not entirely fair to Robert Murat), I don’t see how the public should get all the blame. Someone, on another website (the Times website), posted that the drug dealer is thought to be more guilty than the drug addict. I think that can be applied here, sure the public fuels what the press reports somewhat, but the press usually are the ones that start these great stories. The McCanns have also been fuelling the amazing amount of coverage (which is somewhat understandable).
I don’t think this should turn into a slinging match between the public and the media/McCanns, there is a little girl missing still, whose body, alive or dead, still hasn’t been found. Sadly, it seems we’ve moved on from the question of her justice, and now are entwined in an issue of the McCanns or the public’s.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Re: Mrs. McCann pregnant? I mentioned this possibility on yesterday’s thread after having seen a picture of her in the Daily Express wearing what looked like a rather hideous floral maternity smock but when I thought about it later it could be just the latest fashion. As I’m not a fashion junkie, I’m not sure. However, the value to the McCanndos is immense if she is actually pregnant, or even if it is a pillow stuffed up her shirt. For starters no nasty Portuguese police can ask her questions she doesn’t want to answer otherwise she might have a miscarriage. The crowd following the tumbril would be swept away with ersatz emotion - Diana eat your heart out. We would be submerged under a sea of cuddly toys, silver balloons and mis-spelt scrawls ostensibly from kids saying “We luv u Kate”. Instead of 1,000 letters, cards and hampers of food arriving at the McCanndo house the Royal Mail would have to devote all its resources to deliveries to them and the royal couple would have to royally begin donating food hampers to Africa. I wonder if Clarence Mitchell has thought of that? A good crowd puller. Gordon would like it. So yes, a Kate pregnancy would be a good stunt. Expect to see it announced.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
For all the “Disappearance” timelines, I feel it’s time for an “Inaptitude” timeline:
0. (Madeleine is not in the appartment)
1. Portuguese police investigates.
BOO! The portuguese police is inapt, incompetent, daft, corrupt and bumbling. BOO!
2. British investigators are sent to Portugal.
YAY! Hurrah for the magnificent British investigators!
3. British dogs are sent to Portugal.
It was about time! FINALLY somebody with the knowhow to get the job done!
4. British dogs smell evidence and British investigators collect evidence.
5. Evidence found and collected by the British is sent to a Birmingham Lab.
Phew! Good thing they sent it to the most advanced Lab in the world, instead of giving it to some Portuguese Clouseaus playing with chemistry lab sets!
6. Birmingham results suggest the McCanns are involved.
7. The Portuguese results must be wrong and the Portuguese evidence must have been planted.
(Wait a minute, wasn’t it a case of a British lab analyzing evidence found and collected by British investigators?).
The Portuguese police is, therefore, inapt, incompetent, daft, corrupt, bumbling AND evil.
So we’re back to Point #1 where we all happily started, and where we feel most comfortable since, as we all know, foreigners are icky and have beady little eyes.
As concerns the “planted” evidence, I love the intrinsic logic of it all:
* McCann Fact #1: Madeleine is alive.
* Madeleine’s Blood/fluid trace is found in spot X.
* McCann Fact #2: Madeleine’s trace must have been planted by police.
* To plant Madeleine’s trace, the police must have Madeleine’s body. Therefore, Madeleine is dead.
I think it’s about time the McCanns decided whether she is alive, or whether the police have planted the evidence taken from her dead body, but they can’t keep insisting on both facts at the same time.
(Unless they believe that the police have a live Madeleine hidden somewhere, just for the kick of it. And given their previous PR shtick, I can actually see them claiming that.)
September 18th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Karen - I back tracked and read your post 556 - saying that Kate said “she was lovely” I heard it as “She’s lovely” Just shows how things can be interpreted so differently.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
When Huntley and Carr were arrested on suspicion of the Soham murders the bodies were still undiscovered(found very soon after)-the evidence against them only came out at the trial.After months of claim and counter claim an unbiased jury will be hard to find.
The media have already decided that they are innocent and they appear to have friends in high places.
On the subject of body fluids, nature takes its course in a predictable way. Fluids from a decomposing corpse would be different in chemical structure to
blood/urine/salivia traces.
There is a place in Texas where the decomposition process has been studied extensively in the interests of forensic science.
If there is evidence of that nature it could not be dismissed as “ludicrous” that the girl has died and been disposed of by means unknown.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
(724) Isn’t that backtracking a bit?
“Mitchell still has the key phone numbers and e-mail addresses of people in power and will continue to use them.”
“The McCanns do not expect help or influence to be exerted on their behalf but want to get messages to the very top that they are innocent.”
Yet, they hired someone that has stated he will continue to use his influence among his powerful contacts. I can’t blame them as it is a smart decision, but the meek comment that they don’t expect help or influence to be used on their behalf, just doesn’t work when paired with the sentence one line above it.
(723-724) I know, shut up about petitions! It is interesting to note that the McCann’s aren’t guilty petition had people signing it but stating that they didn’t believe the McCanns are innocent. I thought that was silly as their signature would just be counted towards the total and the comments wouldn’t be published. Well today, the petition has taken away the comment function altogether, just counting whomever signed it (whether they disagreed or not). Now people are just using the “name” section to make their disapproving comments, but those too will be edited no doubt. Hmm.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Sorry if someone has posted this link before…
Kate and Gerry McCann go straight to Gordon Brown in search for more powerful backers
A McCann family source said: “Mitchell still has the key phone numbers and e-mail addresses of people in power and will continue to use them. He has attended top-level briefings at No 10 every weekday for the past two years. The McCanns do not expect help or influence to be exerted on their behalf but want to get messages to the very top that they are innocent. No details relating to the facts supporting their defence have been passed on but that may change.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2477770.ece
September 18th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Two petitions…I’m slowing losing my mind on here.
Anyway, some of the comments paired with the signatures can be interesting.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
(719)
I agree, Karen. Although it isn’t us that need new developments, the case really does, for the justice of Madeleine. So far, all I’m hearing is public bashing and McCann praising from the press and the McCann group, and the reverse from the forums (naturally there are some dissenters in both groups, but I was speaking of the majority).
I’ll go ahead and re-link to petitions:
This one is from the McCanns-
“This petition is set up to help support Gerry and Kate McCann as they battle to clear their names, in the media, at home and in Portugal. It will be used to convince the government that we believe in their innocence and to sway them to pressurise the Portuguese police to continue to look for Madeleine McCann.”
The person who started the petition’s message:
“This petition is being launched by Phil McCann, Gerry McCann’s sister who wholeheartedly believes in the innocence of Kate and Gerry McCann and is desperate to have the search for her missing niece Madeleine McCann resume.”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/L00kforMadeleineMcCann/
(2,407 signatures)
The other one (not for the McCanns):
“Do you believe Gerry and Kate McCann are Guilty of neglect, and possibly more serious Criminal acts? This Petition is is direct response to the McCann’s which is being used in an attempt to sway Justice, and to spread and encourage misinformation.
The purpose of this petition is to show the Government, and any other observer that there is clear opposition to the “Team McCann”®™ Version of events, and that we in no way support Criminals.
If possible, Please leave a Visible Name and comment, however small. This makes our Petition far more credible. Your views are all respected.
Please try not be foul or abusive, remember… We respect people, the Law, and Justice!
Please tell anyone you may think would take an interest in this issue. Let’s all support the true meaning of “leaving no stone unturned” instead of the dubious ®™ version.”
(90 signatures)
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/GuiltyOrNot/index.html
September 18th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
(720)
Judge Dread, I was thinking of that yesterday. There are a few ways they could easily tap into the fund for years to come (if no body is found or no one is charged with a crime). That doesn’t make them guilty, but it bothers me a bit, as the fund states that the money could be used to help other missing children, but naturally, that is a conditional statement. Which means, as I said, if no body is found or no one is charged with the crime, unless the McCanns want to donate, they simply don’t have to and can even claim they can’t.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
A thought just occured to me. They can move the business opperation to their house and rent out space for it. That way they get their mortgage paid by the fund.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
718. I think we’re all slowing down. We need new developments - and not just another self-serving McCann press conference.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
(717)
Correction (I’m always making the odd mistake though, the forum moves quite fast at times):
“to clear the fact that her journal spoke of the stresses of having the children, not contempt for the children.”
September 18th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
(715)
I imagine, key word is imagine as I have no idea what is going on in anyone’s mind (I’m not Miss Cleo sadly-You know dat?), that in his eyes that comment was meant to clear the fact that her journal spoke of the stresses of having the children. Also, to imply that they adored their children so much that they couldn’t wait to have more.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
#706 If the authorities in this case have compiled satellite images of the McCann’s, then they know exactly where they drove the car with the DNA. And the police are saying they do not think they will ever find the body? A strong statement.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Several days ago Kate McCann’s father was saying that the couple wanted more children…was he giving out some hints?
September 18th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Well, as she said each child is special. One doesn’t replace another. NO.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
(707)
Actually, it was claimed Mitchell is keeping all the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of his powerful contacts. I do believe it was implied that he would use the contacts if he wanted (which is smart, fair enough).
September 18th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
#704 I meant what is the point or the goal? So much is unclear.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
OK whats good for one is good for another.
Ian Brady, Myra Hindley, Ian Huntleigh, Norman Bates, Richard Hillman,
They did`nt do it either, we know this cos they told us so. The cops made that up too.
So cmon all you rich and famous pratts, Richard Branson (superpratt), Gordon Brown (1st class plonker) and any other complete idiots wearing rose coloured specs, clear their names. Oh i forgot Horold Shipman, he must be first, was`nt he a doctor too.
Can we have a fund set up for some beauty treatment for aunty phil (scary Mary). no, ok no good wasting money.