Madeleine McCann: Missing Hours, Found Again And A PR Disaster
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN front page: “MADDIE DAD AGONY. Fiend hid from Gerry. He was already in room he tells cops.”
A source close to the family says: “When Gerry went to check on Madeleine at 9.05pm he realised the bedroom door was open. Gerry is firmly of the view the abductor was already in the apartment.”
It’s another theory.
“When he went in he saw Madeleine was asleep but the bedroom door was slightly open. He thought, ‘That’s odd’ because he had left it firmly closed. But all the children were asleep. So he just went in and closed the door again and came out about 9.10pm.”
Good to hear Gerry McCann joining in the mood of speculation?
“Gerry is convinced the man must have been hiding, and once Gerry went through the patio doors the only way out was through the window. The front door was locked so the kidnapper took Madeleine and climbed out the window.”
DAILY MIRROR front page: “HOW SHE WAS TAKEN. The McCanns’ story.”
“Stolen to order after being spied on for days
Abductor hid in flat as Gerry looked in on kids
He got in through patio doors and out by window”
Gerry is a “heart specialist”.
Says a source: “When Gerry leaves, the man realises he has only a few minutes. He thinks the only way to get out without being seen is through the window.”
And: “Initially he thought Madeleine might have got up and gone to the toilet, or to get a drink or something.”
So what has changed? Why a new theory now, with a new spokesman on hand and the McCanns named as suspects?
DAILY STAR front page: “SEVEN HOURS TO KLILL MADDIE. Police probe her ‘lost’ final afternoon”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: THE MISSING SEVEN HOURS.”
Police sources reveal that “despite exhaustive inquiries they cannot confirm the whereabouts of part-time GP Kate, 39, and her daughter after 1.29pm on May 3”. A source said Kate’s movements were “unaccounted for until she sat down to have dinner with friends at a tapas restaurant within their holiday complex at around 8.40pm”.
The last photograph of Madeleine was said to have been taken by Kate at 2.29pm on May 3.
DAILY MAIL: “McCanns: What we really did in the missing six hours.”
“Madeleine had high tea at 5.30pm with staff at the Kids Club. She was picked up shortly before 6pm by Kate and Gerry.”
The friend insisted: “Kate was never alone with Madeleine that afternoon. There were always other witnesses present. These details were all given to detectives during police interviews, so they know what Kate and Gerry said happened that day.”
So no missing hours, then?
THE TIMES front page: “MADELEINE McCANN: Matthew Parris laments a PR disaster.
“The fatal flaw of David Cameron and Kate and Gerry McCann” - Our correspondent looks at the baleful influence of the marketing men.
“Look what they’ve done to Kate and Gerry McCann. Here were two people deserving of the most intense public sympathy. On a superficial level they got it – by the media bucketload. Yet did you not sense from an early stage an undertone of irritation at the couple? I’ve sensed it everywhere I go: not a sign of doubt about their innocence, which most of us take for granted, but a feeling, nevertheless, that they in some way invited trouble – though we banish the thought as brutal and wrong.
“Which it is. So why the ungenerosity? I believe it is because Kate and Gerry McCann have allowed an impression to arise that they and their advisers are marketing their own tragedy. Where we would have expected to see parents distracted and disorganised by grief, we have seen a professionally run campaign to find out what the media want, and give it to them.
“This has been done for a most defensible reason: to enlist the entire European public as amateur detectives in the search for Madeleine. But now her parents have ended up looking like film stars in a Hollywood weepy.”
“Put up or shut up, Madeleine McCann police told” - Friend of McCanns counters claims of ‘lost’ six hours before girl vanished
DAILY TELEGRPAH: “Madeleine McCann: Gerry certain he was in bedroom with kidnapper”
THE GUARDIAN: “From prime suspects to hounded victims - how parents turned the media tide”
Posted: 22nd, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,536) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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September 23rd, 2007 at 3:20 pm
1130 Andy
Well Andy in the particular instance of the baby left asleep and locked up in a nursery, I can totally comprehend that the family would cry abduction. This is a baby just turned one, couldn’t have wandered off from the nursery and although the grandmother was supposed to pick up the baby, a member of staff told her that the child’s mother had taken her about half an hour earlier and even signed the roster. I believe under the circumstances anyone, even the most casual parent would jump tp that conclusion.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
1136 puzzled
remember Trev in Shoestring. they filmed it in Bristol…
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
1136 puzzled
mmmmmmmmmm Amanda Burton
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
1118 tilly
I read somewhere that one couple in tapas 9 used a sitter - can’t remember the link and the story has probably changed 5 times today anyway. the impression I have got is that they generally do it and feel it’s OK to do it. You can betcha they’re not doing it now in Blighty. Private Eye will have a cameraman ready and waiting.
As to WHY they do it. They are arrogant, pompous doctors with connections who think laws and good parenting are for someone else and so they will get away with it.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Maybe this is what happened.
Kate and Gerry cannot have kids.
Kate turns to O’Brien for comfort and one thing led to another.
Kate become pregnant.
She and O’Brien vow not to tell Gerry or Jane Tanner but then a twist occurs. Madeleine is born with coloboma and genetic tests are carried out looking for genetic diseases. Big shocker for Gerry when it turns out he is not the father.(noticed the twins look like him but Madeleine doesn’t]
A big row occurs but Kate, Gerry,O’Brien and Jane Tanner cannot afford the risks socially and carreerwise when this comes out.
They stay together and find a way to live with it.
An IVF procedure is done and Kate and Gerry have their own kids.
But then a cloud darkens their horizon again.
Madeleine turns out to be a very difficult child which Kate cannot handle.
So she comes sobbing to O’Brien again and he knows a solution: sedating madeleine on a regular basis.
Kate is slowly going mental from having such a dark secret in het family, a handicapped child plus twins and Gerry not helping her.
She becomes obsessed with religion and stumbles upon a passage in the Bible where a father sacrifises his son.
She thinks about this moreand more especialy when sedating Madeleine.
Then they plan their doomed holiday.Gerry is now thinking divorce but that wouldn’t look good while planning his political carreer. Neither does is look good to put Madeleine in an institutio.{was Madeleine due to go to any school after their return?}
They start their so-called family holiday in which they store their kids in the creche every day and leave them EVERY night unattended.
In fact the only night they”checked” their kids was the night Maddie vanished.
In my opinion this could suggest premeditated murder.
In the missing hours Kate kills madeleine and O’Brien is manipulated into cleaning things up after Kate and Gerry.
Then at 10 their circus begins.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
1133 - I know what you mean about a public outcry in terms of other people looking for appeals. But I think you will find that they will be simply ‘put on a register’ and the public will be reminded that they have already ’suffered enough’. The way the UK government is handling this case is disgraceful and I think they will not change their tune now.
Absolutely love the Trevor Eve stuff. Pity Amanda Burton got knocked off her show, they could collaborate.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I have been looking for the link to the map which showed the layout of the club and where the tapas 9 all stayed but cannot find one. I wanted to see if a person leaving by the window and walking towards Murats could have been seen by Tanner doing the journey from her room to the tapas bar (or vice versa).
Instead I came accross an article from Guardian Unlimited May 24 which says that there was a sighting of a man carrying an object or an object that could be taken to be a child. Thats very different from a child in pink pyjamas.
It is interesting to read things that were published at the time because what was reported then appears to have been changed and I think maybe it would have been more accurate at the time.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
What if we are looking at this all wrong? We are all saying, “I can’t believe that these doctors would leave their 2 & 3 year olds alone on Holiday in a foreign country!” Well maybe we shouldn’t believe it. Think about it. They are smarter than that. Even if they were not, surely someone in their group would have spoken up and said you can’t do that! I don’t buy it! Why would ANYONE choose to leave them unattended when babysitting was available?
Maybe they left them alone all week to set up the “abduction theory”. Maybe she did have a condition such as CHARGE syndrome and Mum couldn’t cope with it.
I would be interested to know if anyone else in the group left their kids alone. I would also be interested to know what they do back home when they go out? Do they get a sitter? If yes, then why would you go to a foreign country and not? Did they get a sitter when they vacationed in Greece? What if everything was set up weeks/months in advance?
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
1125 puzzled
I dunno about neglect but I read something about “putting in Danger” or “at risk”. In view of what happened I reckon they were both of these. I reckon the public outcry will be huge if two posh doctors get away with it. And as PR rules in McCannLand they will be worried about that. A murder conviction or two will pre-emp this problem anyway
Good point about the DNA. I reckon the junta are worried about DNA more than we think…
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I am waiting for Gerry’s memory to come flooding back now.
‘I remember this odd muffled sound - like someone whispering into a mobile phone. Think they said ‘hang on a minute Pedro, some little geezer has just come in, I’ll have to wait until he’s gone before I take the little girl’. A source close to a spokesman for the McCanns will then continue…Gerry remembers a short pause as the voice said ‘Uh? Wots that Pedro - don’t go through the front? Go through the back and then leg it down to Murats place’. The close friend of the McCann’s postman said that this is why Kate McCann said ‘They’ve taken her’ - because there were two accomplices.
Asked why Gerry can only now remember this, a source close to the McCanns next door neighbour’s spokeman said ‘we cannot possibly comment on that, we have been asked not to talk about any aspect of this case by the PJ’.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
1120 - The McCanns altered their own status from witness to suspect in order to claim the right to silence. Remember those 40 questions.
Do you have a source for that?
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Has anyone read this story?
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1017194_baby_locked_in_nursery?rss=yes?rss=yes
Note how the parents and relatives keep saying “abducted”. Is that going to be the new buzzword every time a child goes missing?
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
1118 brandon
Yer tiz
http://www.feck.net/splange/
Oops wrong one - feck
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
1117 puzzled
And “fragrant” is all about that extremely upstanding professional couple Mr and Mrs Archer, of course. Any similarities purely coincidental - it’s just a mental image…
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
I wonder which tappas9 will remember a gypsy caravan following them on their holiday
” i saw it parked outside the flat at 8.40 , 9.10 and 9.40 but K didnt see anything at 10 but she remembers a gold earing on the patio and a fleural piece of material on the shutter but thought nothing of it at the time!”
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
1117 sincere apologies puzzled
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery an’ all dat. I didn’t even realise I had nicked your monicker! My names tend to conjure up a visual in my mind or rather the other way round. Gerrykins is all about katkins (Cuddles??). Katiepoo is all about Winnie the Pooh (Cuddles???). McCannClan is about McAlpine - heavy construction juggernaut which is very difficult to steer and impossible to stop.
The Cuddle Cat fixation is because I know (no URLs just as a gut feeling) it is central to everything - to the events themselves and to solving the crime. Trevor Eve would sort it out.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
1121 - Ade. I had always thought that it was an offence to leave kids under 14 unattended in the UK. Then a poster here said that the law was not that clear-cut and that it depended on whether or not they were at risk etc.
For this reason I think our Teflon Two will get off
By the way - one reason all the male Tapas are now claiming to have visited the apartment on the fateful night is so they can account for why their DNA was found when the new tests come back.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm
1124
next sunday i think
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Does anyone have any more information on the Sky News programme being shown tonight? Will it be available for download? Is anyone going to record it and make it available?
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
1119 - Thanks Moderation.
It could turn out to be a very important piece of information. Something always felt wrong about that. Different footpaths explains the only statements made that I was having trouble with.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Judge Dread - 1061. Very funny. Missed it earlier because I was busy getting my make-up on for my first photoshoot.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
1115 puzzled
I know what you are saying but this is sticky. If they let them off the neglect thingie it may cause a problem in the law. It may even prompt people to appeal in current or recent similar cases of neglect. It could also be a problem for guidelines documents, training.
This all in Gordie’s stated government policy of renewing “the family” better social responsibility etc. It’s a tricky one to spin. Cameron may even be able to use it against Gordie in the election.
Are McCannClan worth the risk?
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Can we stop all this nonsense about the McCanns having to defend themselves cos the police made them suspects and imposed silence on them.
The McCanns altered their own status from witness to suspect in order to claim the right to silence. Remember those 40 questions.
BTW under our new laws they may have to answer to British police. Maybe a reason for their not being recalled to Portugal.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
did anyone find the priest link yet?
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Simon 1067 Yes, they were on different fottpaths. Diagrams in the papers today…..
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
1113 - Ade. I love your funny names, though I am a bit peeved that you very subtly absorbed MY Gerrypops into YOUR repertoire. We need to be able to smile too! And if you put yourself in the limelight like the fragrant two did…..
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
1111 verity
telling the truth - verity. I like that!
and I agree - it makes life so much easier!
Do you think telling the truth has anything to do with G&K’s current predicament
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
1112 - Simon. Thank you for restoring some of my faith! Would take a bet though that they will never be charged for neglect - either in the UK or Portugal.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
1110 Carmen
I’m a non smoker ;-( Do you do the mezzo?
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
1108 simon
What debate?
Yep my agenda is to get ‘em exposed and locked up. Silly names: all part of the ammunition.