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
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 am
OK…to all video doubters…
Look at this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7026495023842754032&q=madeleine+mccann&total=1497&start=220&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=8
In this Youtube clip, we see the video of Madeleine falling over when boarding the plane. This is where (we are told by Team McCann) that Madeleine’s blood could perhaps have come from. Ok…I’m not stupid but someone show me how her falling up those steps made any blood. This is why we are subjected to so much spin. Firstly, she’s wearing trousers. Secondly, she fell over with the force of a feather!
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
809 momo
Or hiding behind Cuddle Cat
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
Brandon Flowers - those suit case links are classic classic classic. All I could think was
a) Times journo was Laying a Clue as to their own thoughts on the real situation
b) he dunnit
c) we shouldn’t have mentioned it here in this forum because Team McCann Crap PR Ltd will now be given the headstart and come up with a plausible new theory such as Doctors Always Carry a Case, He Was Going Shopping M’lord, Case Closed etc
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
Ade 804 OMG, I think Gerry just choked … you weren’t meant to spot that!
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
If you were part of Team mcCann - say aunt Phil - , but deep inside didn’t know really what to believe, wouldn’t you start to wonder if the parents were involved?
Wouldn’t you just “die to know”? Or just the opposite?
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:06 am
795 unalunera
Yes, farfetched, but it is a nicely thought out theory. When are you writing the book?
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:04 am
804 ade
Must have been a stick figure
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:04 am
361
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1752277.ece
does anyone think the may 6th suitcase and spades is relevant?
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 am
805 - Real Stig
I was talking about video - not a static photo. I’ve never said Gerry looked miserable every moment of every day either. Don’t take me out of context.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 am
802.
It was just brought about by post 747. I wondered if I could find any more information about Dr Oldfield’s medical negligence case.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 am
794 stevo
“He hardly looks like a bloke on a happy family holiday.”
He does here:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22426211-2,00.html
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Changing the subject. Looking at the floor plan which I posted above:
http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/news/2007/09/21/fall-madeleine/imagemap/imagemap,geo=2533040.html
How could the phantom intruder hide behind the bedroom door that opens outwards?
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:59 pm
There’s also too many videos with pictures of Madeleine that you’d expect to be private. I mean - they haven’t been released in the press for example. How could that be? Is it that many McCann friends and family have made them?
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Andy 790 - 792
What is your point with that article?
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:57 pm
continuing from 792.
Dr Oldfield has an interest in Diabetic Nephropathy and Endocrinology.
Wikipedia says that; Diabetic nephropathy (nephropatia diabetica), also known as Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome and intercapillary glomerulonephritis, is a progressive kidney disease.
And that; the clinical specialty of endocrinology focuses primarily on the endocrine organs, meaning the organs whose primary function is hormone secretion. These organs include the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, testes, and pancreas.
So I’m wondering if the woman who died during the IVF procedure suffered from diabetes and a missed diagnosis and complications lead to her death.
Of course this is all speculation. I’m sure the results of any negligence charge will be released in due course.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:57 pm
795 - lunalunera
The longer this crazy case goes on, I wouldn’t be surprised if Madeleine is alive and well and being cared for by her “new” parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if the McCanns are not behind this either.
The facts support this. Selling your child would be illegal. Giving it away would be unethical. So, give your child away but concoct the abduction story.
Perhaps this whole thing has backfired on them by growing too fast and too big. They could have though that all the tangible things - the website, the LTD company etc. would have frittered away into obscurity but instead it has grown like a cancer with the amount of attention.
Their demeanour looks like they know she’s alive and well and could explain the missing video where Kate says “Madeleine knows we love her…”
I’m amazed that the video has disappeared and it used to be so widely available.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
791 Stevo - Yes. I agree with that 100 percent. On the one hand we have our own knowledge of human nature (including body language) and our observations of a lot of VT on the news and YouTube. On the other hand we have BS anecdotes planted here which claim something completely different. Difficult to choose which to go with…….
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
794 stevo
yep gerrykins is not a happy holiday bunny. methinks they do not get on very well and I can’t see them sticking together somehow - whatever the outcome. She’d probably be OK if she wasn’t stuck with him. And we are seeing the good, happy-family videos!
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm
778 julie - thanks for pointing to the earlier post by vera, it is indeed interesting reading.
Here’s some more, from our very own anorak:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/twitterings/176297.html
Note the presence of one C. Mitchell prior to his being appointed official spin doctor.
—-
Irony? That’s like goldy, or bronzey, except made of iron!
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Just looking through videos looking for the interviews. I’m surprised a lot of musicians and recording companies aren’t suing for royalties. The sheer number of videos with copyrighted music overlaid over photos is staggering.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 pm
I’ve wondered on a couple of posts today if the reason they are so cool is that they know their child is not dead. I wondered if Cuddle Cat up on a shelf is a message to the mccans from the people who took their child, perhaps carrying Cuddle Cat around always showing is a message from Kate to them.
Having a birthday party,cake and all for a child just gone missing would be too much for most parents, but what if you do it so the child can watch it on TV or the internet because you know the people who took her are not out to harm her, they’re really after something you’ve got or something you know. You know about them but you didn’t think they’d come after the kids. They are highly organised and highly professional. That’s why “they’ve taken her” and she wasn’t taken due to neglect but to “other circumstances” “Madeleine knows we love her” What this people have on you and your mates is so huge that even if they take your child you’re bound to cover it up because if what you’ve been doing becomes public knowledge, you are all finished.
Extremely far fetched, I’m more inclined towards the overdose theory, but I keep trying to explain to myself the lack of pain.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 pm
As for the video of Gerry saying f-off to the friend using the camcorder, I think Gerry looks as miserable as sin - regardless of whether he said that or not. What do others think? He hardly looks like a bloke on a happy family holiday.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:49 pm
On balance, I still think it most likely that the McCanns’s hid the body. I can see a number of scenarios which might explain such a course of action, but I find it hard to determine which is the most likely.
I know that other apparently loving parents have done things far worse than this in the past, and acted deceitfully in making false television appeals which would wring your heart. So I know that this sort of thing is perfectly possible, though admittedly astonishing.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:48 pm
continuing from 790.
The link to the story about the death is here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article605202.ece
and I highlighted KIDNEY in my previous because of the link in my next post.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
786 - WTF
It’s difficult doing this day in day out and I guess Kate finds it a chore to act like she did in the first few months. Very bizarre how she’s less inclined to doll herself up. Makes me think the first few months were very much an act and less natural.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
It would appear Dr Matthew Oldfield also works for a private hospital on an ad hoc basis.
http://www.newvictoria.co.uk/specialities/endocrinology.html
His specialities are: Diabetes/ Endocrinology /General Medicine but try as I might I cannot find a result for medical negligence in leicester involving him.
It could however be linked to a case in which a woman died during an IVF procedure to harvest eggs. It is believed the death was caused by internal bleding and KIDNEY (see my next post for link) problems.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:46 pm
762 Stig
You are right about those first days. I could hardly bear to look. I felt as though, by having cameras there, the news people were invading the most appalling grief I’d ever seen. I remember Kate going into the church one day and having to be held up by a friend. She looked as if she would die of grief to me. I felt guilty even watching. A (male) friend said to me the other eveing that although Kate looked terribly thin now and had clearly aged, she looked a bit more together than in those dreadful early days, I have said before that a (female) colleague of mine says she looks, even now, a “frozen statue of grief”.
It’s dangerous to generalise. They said that at first they could only think one thing and that was that their daughter was dead. Then they had some highly qualified trauma consultant who went out to Portugal to help them. He apparently opened up to them the possibility of Madeleine still being alive. After that they say they became much more positive and put all their efforts into the campaign to find their missing child. It’s possible that they convinced themselves she was still alive. It may have been the only way, psychologically, that they could cope. Possibly, coming home without Madeleine would have changed that. I don’t know. That could be why Kate McCann wanted to stay in Portugal. She felt it easier, perhaps, to see it as an ongoing investigation which could result in Madeleine coming back and felt emotionally closer there to Madeleine. Maybe it is much harder now.
By the way, there were reports from reporters that she wept on the plane. A friend commented that she wept in Madeleine’s room when she got home. Some of the people who interviewed the McCanns have been immensley touched by their grief, especially Kate’s.
I just think it is POSSIBLE to misjudge the calm appearance in interviews. Emma is right. That poor woman who now seems to have committed suicide herself, seemed almost cheerful, certainly very calm, well made-up, nice hair-do etc. when being interviewed earlier about her missing daughter. Obviously nobody knew what she was really going through.
With regard to the Woman’s Hour interview. I think that if she’d been lying, Kate McCann would have said all sorts of things she must know the public “expect”, but she didn’t. She isn’t stupid. Sorry, but you don’t get to be a doctor, anaesthetist etc. if you’re that stupid! She must know what people would be expecting to see and hear. Nothing easier than to say all those things on air. She didn’t. So maybe, just maybe she wasn’t lying.
Obviously I don’t know. But it’s possible isn’t it?
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
783 - Stevo - noworries. Got your meaning loud and clear. Type fast. That’s fine.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
This one is interesting…video of Madeleine.
Was this made by a relation? Looks to be loads of images and stuff not seen before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TR7iRIfgb0
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:43 pm
779 - Stevo. Bizarre isn’t it? I mean their tactic would work if none of us had eyes or memories and the internet had broken down aswell but honestly its risible given that we have all seen the items we are discussing. Ludicrous to quote our Ger.