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 22nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
according to the scotsman they kept a very low profile that day!
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
422
You are obviously in my age bracket
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
i dunno i’m not very green fingered only plant i have is a plastic on from ikea
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
we must inform the authorities quick
all video footage from that date must be observed
did they go to the supermarket and the beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Papers say only 20% think mccanns totally innocent. If they keep talking, they will lose whatever support they do have.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
415 blunger
I would imagine the door at the back (not the patio door) is a deadlocking one. Cannot be opened from the outside or inside without the key re-inserted.
However, going by normal custom and practice for the McCs there should be adoubt about whether or not the deadlock was used.
Warners have stated that the locks were sophisticated.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
they would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for us meddling anoraks lol
i’m thinking of changing career and going in detective work,
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
398
Megz fancy becoming my rosemary to my thyme?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
one only asks: how many children of parents with the economic, social and politician status of the McCann are abducted for pedófilos ends?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
If I worked at customs, I would have checked all their baggage and strip search them.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
my god we,ve cracked it
suitcase spades 6 may under everyones noses
we must inform john gaunt asap
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:29 pm
can imagine customs ‘anything to declare sir?’
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Me thinks these McCanns better shut their mouths now. They are starting to sound absolutely ridiculous. I can’t believe their lawyers haven’t told them to shut up and to make sure their friends shut up. If I was a cop in Portugal, I would be getting more and more suspicious. For the mccans to tell the cops to hurry up and find evidence to charge them or declare they are no longer suspects is pretty bold. Don’t they realize they can stay suspects for 8 more months? Shut up McCanns!
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Gerry’s latest reported speculation:
Intruder got in through unlocked rear patio doors. Was fearful of exitting the same way. Could not open front door, so raised the blind and carried M over the windowsill out of the front window.
My reactions
1. A front door which cannot be opened by an adult from the inside is very surprising. I have never met one. Wouldn’t it be illegal as very serious fire hazard ?
2. I cannot think of anything more suspicious for a passerby than a man taking a small child out of a window. I would think that almost any risky exit would be less dangerous than this. Or was it well screened from the road by vegetation ? Any pics of the front ?
I’m not convinced, and the very late release of this realisation to the media doesn’t help.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
394 judge….you say there is no evidence-where the hell have you been, the pj obviously think there is some evidence and we all know what they think happened. And if you think about it thats the most likely scenario.
398 megz…i wouldnt be supprised if gerry took the body back to the uk on first visit. He might have even buried her in his garden…stranger things have happened
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
add to that they kept going to the same tapas bar they went to when their daughter disappeared how can these two live with themselves
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
405
I read the article, it also states that McCann’s sister quoted Kate ran and screamed “They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her!
Now an “unnamed source” says that was incorrect?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Sorry, not “If she got hurt herself, what then ? Take your pick”
but “If she got OUT herself, what then ? Take your pick”
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
The story of the internal door ajar confirms that Maddy potentially had the run of the apartment, and therefore, most importantly, access to the external unlocked patio door.
Which opens several possibilities.
1. She opened the patio door and exitted. If it slides, this is unlikely due to the force required, and usually the catches are difficult for children. How easy for any journalist to check. Ah well. Nevermind - it’s unlikely.
2. Dr Oldfield (or perhaps an earlier “checker”, or Gerry) under the influence of alcohol, and possibly distracted at the moment of exit by passerby conversation, left the patio door just sufficiently open for M to squeeze out.
3. A passerby heard, then saw, M sobbing alone up against the inside of the patio door. Found it open, opened it. Consoled her, and finally took her away, with either benevolent or malevolent intentions.
If she got hurt herself, what then ? Take your pick.
Fell to death on stairs, covered up by parents fearful of punishment (maybe due to some unknown exacerbating factor?).
Or falls victim to an impulse abduction when wandering, or perhaps even trying to get back into the wrong apartment (are they all the same visually ?).
But my main point is - we now know from Gerry that this little child had access to the inside of the unlocked external door. Opens up possibilities.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I would prefer they left their kids alone than with auntie phil.
What if she was hungry or sat on one of them?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
361 Timesonline article is VERY interesting
What happened to ‘the so important Cuddle Cat’ - it seems to have changed into a blanket!!!
“She recalled that the twins were still asleep in their two cots and there was the small, bright pink wool blanket that Madeleine likes to hold when she sleeps. ”
Gerry taking a suitcase to the beach with the twins is also intriguing - unless of course it just contained dirty nappies.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:15 pm
387.
“However, a spokeswoman for the McCann family has said they were not focusing on the sightings until more information was available from an official source.
“Their whole attitude from day one has been that they know there are going to be lots of bits of information, but if they expended energy on every single one of them what would they be like by now?” she explained.
Last Friday, Madeleine’s family led supporters across 50 countries in marking the 50th day since her disappearance. They released 50 yellow balloons from the beach resort where their daughter went missing, and 49 other countries including England, Ireland, Argentina, the United States, Singapore and Australia marked the day in the same way.”
–
Of course. It’s far better to release balloons all over the bloody world or fly off to see the Pope or to Washington for a photo opp’ than to “expended energy on every single one of them (the alleged sightings)”.
(Phone rings) Mr McCann. “Hello?”
Caller. “I think I have seen your daughter with a strange man in Malta.”
Mr McCann. “Please hold.”, (sounds of looking through appointment book). “Hello? Yes, I’m sorry but we are fully booked up for the foreseeable future and don’t have the time to expend on sightings of our daughter.”
Caller. “I’m sorry?!”
Mr McCann. “You know how it is. People to see, places to go. I mean if we followed up every sighting of our lovely daughter we’d have no time to appear in front of the cameras to ask for people to keep an eye out for her.”
Caller. “..erm!”
Mr McCann. “Anyway, must go, these balloons don’t blow themselves up you know.”
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:15 pm
395 The Real Stig says: “I posted a little scenario in the previous thread showing how an abduction can take place without leaving a trace”.
REPLY: So you did, The Real Stig - and I replied in detail soon afterwards, line by line, exposing how daft - sorry, unlikely - your suggestions were.
Question: why did Gerry McCann - but not the Portuguese police - latch on so enthusiastically (not to say *desperately*) to Jane Tanner’s highly dubious ’sighting’? - publicising it for all it was worth?
Well, I’ll tell you. Because it helped to develop and maintain the preposterous abduction theory (hoax) for much longer than it should have been maintained
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1752277.ece
the suitcase and bucket and spade thing is in the times report, he went there alone to get it apparently
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
396 - I said a couple of weeks ago Mulder and Scully were currently looking for work. The McMorons should hire them.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
398 megz
Where did you hear that report?
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
my point exactly
why waste money
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Just entering the forum this morning
Just a thought: If Maddie was a very difficult child whose energy sapped the life out of Kate, but Gerry states he saw a door open and assumed Maddie got a drink or went to the bathroom, I find it absolutely amazing that a small child alone in a dark room in a foreign country is so mature to quietly get up, go pee then go right back to bed all by her self. If my kids at 3 could do that, I would have had 10 more. By the way, I have a daughter and twin boys that are a year apart as well. I remember being actually more paranoid about their safety at the ages of 3, 2 and 2. They were a huge handful.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
395 the stig
ok mate whatever, and i suppose you donated to the buy gerry a new house fund….whoops i mean the find madeleine fund!!!
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:06 pm
387 brandon….did you forget mate, the parents aint likely to put much credence to any sightings, not if they know shes dead.