Madeleine McCann: Ben Needham Is Missing, Operation Predator And Maddie’s Cops
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “McCanns warn: We’ll sue over claims we drugged our children”
Page 7: “Madeleine parents: We have never sedated our children” – The “slurs” are “outrageous” and “hurtful”.
The theory that they sedated all of their children is a “wild theory”. It appears in Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas, a source for “some of the more outlandish reporting”. The Express reproduces the outlandish reporting for its readers to digest and marvel at
“Grim hunt for images as child-porn ring is smashed” – Operation Predator is a clamp down on child porn in Portugal. A friend of the McCanns says: “This shows the scale of the problem in Portugal and appears to show that the Portuguese police seem to be looking in the right direction. It may provide vital leads”
But the raids were not directly connected with the Madeleine case. Operation Predator was six months in the planning
THE SUN front page: “Maddie: cop raid on pervs”
Page 7: “McCANNS’ DELIGHT AT PAEDO SWOOP” – Kate and Gerry McCann are “encouraged” that 300 Portuguese police “smashed” a 80-strong paedophile ring
“’FIND OUR KIDS TV’” – Kate and Gerry have backed a TV channel that features the 150,000 UK children that go missing each year. Pictures of missing children will be shown at GP surgeries, shopping malls and hospitals
Page 37: “MISSING BEN AGONY – We were too working class to get help like Maddie’s family” – The mother of Ben Needham, who disappeared 16 years ago on the Greek island of Kos – sees haves and have nots
“I was 19,” says Kerry Grist. “Just an ordinary girl from a council estate and people thought, ‘She will just go away in a few months, have another child and forget about it…I don’t think people thought Ben was important enough.” Or the media didn’t…
Kate McCann is a doctor. Gerry McCann is a heart specialist. Both Madeleine and Ben are blonde
DAILY MAIL page 5: “Huge porn swoop offers hope of a Maddie clue”
“Could Ben still be alive?” – Ben Needham disappeared from near his grandparents’ farm house
Says Mrs Grist, Ben’s mum: “Madeleine’s parents are middle class people with important jobs and seemed to have had a publicity machine behind them straight away”
DAILY MIRROR page 15: “WHY STAY IF SHE HAD SOMETHING TO HIDE?”
A pal of Kate McCann says: “She could not tear herself away [from Portugal]. What mother could leave the place where her daughter vanished? …If she had something to hide why would she hang around in Praia da Luz waiting for the police to come knocking on the door?”
We don’t know. Why?
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE POLICE ARREST 80 PAEDOS”
Madeleine McCann does not have her own police force – not yet. But the police working on one case are Portuguese, like the police in her case. It’s an “EXCLUSIVE”
Page 7: “MADDIE COPS RAID PAEDOS” – The Star sees Gerry McCann leaving his home in a car. “STRAIN” reads the caption
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 17: “Madeleine police turn spotlight back on paedophiles”
“Missing children TV hopes to jog patients’ memories” – Ben Needham is missing. Xiao Xiao is missing. Lee Thomas Wedge is missing. Leanna Petrenko is missing. Abigaile Sommerville is missing. Andrew Paul Gosden is missing
THE INDEPENDENT page 24: “Mother in plea to missing son” – Ben Needham is missing
THE TIMES page 11: “Madeleine police return to kidnap theory”
German and Dutch police are believed to have been asked to trace and interview guests staying at the Ocean Club when Madeleine went missing
THE GUARDIAN: No Madeleine news today
Posted: 11th, October 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,683) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
October 11th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Maybe the McCanns never actually went on holiday to Portugal, have any of you thought of that?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Ok quick question for the fence-sitters and those sceptical of McCann involvment.
If the Portuguese prosecutor requested that the McCanns return to Portugal to answer further questions and the McCanns refused (on whatever grounds) and then appearred to have the backing of the UK government in their refusal, would it alter your opinion?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
605 - Ramón
You wrote:
“Even though I wasn’t crazy about the northern cities in England - everyplace else I felt extremely safe - even in London. I do not often feel safe in the US. Maybe it’s just me.”
___________________________________
I think the larger cities are very safe. Certainly New York has an incredibly safe feel about it. No wonder - Mayor Guiliani cleaned it up. As for London feeling quite safe, no wonder - it has more police on the street than any other UK city. The reason why there’s more crime in other UK cities is because over the years, more police sit in patrol cars catching motorist soft-target “criminals” and the real crime still takes place where you should have policemen pounding the beat.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
brandonflours- if the friends were involved it would be possible would it not for the daugher of Russ OBrien to be seen in public assuming the identity of Mads.
After all they were the same age and looked similar. She was the one who was sick on May 3rd.
It would also answer the question of why the twins were seen having an ice cream at a cafe without Mads earlier on May 3rd.
However - easily proven wrong if both girls were at the childcare facility!
October 11th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Is it possible to enjoy just ‘normal sex’?
October 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
There are no ruined lives in our prisons. We have knife sharpening classes, how to burglar safely and not get caught, plus Murder 101, including the best places to stash a body that will stay missing forever - our success rates are quite high, as most criminals never get caught again and hence our recidivism rate is extremely low.
We also offer counseling class on how to get over being a “rapist” and especially successful is - “How to enjoy normal sex.”
October 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I agree with you Jolie but if you follow the money trail of the US government you’ll find it flows to several places unabated: military and penal system, oil company subsidies and to the government of course.
Strange that neither dems or the gop can accumulate enough funding for education, affordable housing, socialised healthcare or the arts.
We’re moving back home to Spain within 2 years. I will personally be very happy to leave here.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
614 - Jolie
This is relevant to the McCann story because ultimately, all behaviour stems from how we are raised by our parents. Considering how important parenting is, there are no schools that routinely or as a matter of law teach parenting skills. Instead, a parent is expected to “know” how to do it. This to me is where it all goes wrong and why we’re finding more diagnoses of things like ADHD. There’s two camps with the ADHD debate and I am firmly in the camp that says that ADHD is an excuse for bad parenting. This is an awesome book on parenting:
http://tinyurl.com/2gnjh4
October 11th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
LOL….I didn’t notice there was an Inspector Clouseau in here!
I guess someone else has noticed the similarity then….duh!
I’m slow today!
October 11th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Surprise surprise, more ludicrous theories and speculation.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
batman do you think it could have happened on the night of may 2 instead?
October 11th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
608 - Ramón
Personally I don’t much believe in rehabilitation. There’s not a lot of proof of it working. I think there’s always going to be a percentage of the population out there that will commit crimes and so the problem is one of how to deal with it when it happens. I’d rather have more criminals in jail than pathetic solutions such as tagging, ASBOs, or community service. And, I do believe in corporal and capital punishment. I believe they are more effective than rehabilitation programs with social workers yielding a clipboard and a flip-chart easel.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
What do you guys think about the suggestion that 7 kids were in the room?
They would all have been sedated presumably - which one was not present and why? Was it the one that had a bad reaction to the sedation and vomited..maybe left in own room that night and the only one to be checked on???
October 11th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Ramon
I saw an interview with Koeppel recently on The Daily Show and they showed clips from his Discovery show on California prisons. I’ll keep my eye out for a rebroadcast of it.
Thanks for the reminder.
I’d rather see tax monies being spent on building people up and helping them out of a bad way of living instead of discarding them and ruining their futures.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Nice post Carmen. I never could understand why some say it would be “impossible” for them to act as they did and have been or there wasn’t enough time to plan everything correctly. Doctors are supposed to be cool, calm and collected and if are fast on their feet. Bodies, flesh, blood, death etc….aren’t a big deal for them I would not think. Even if they are not surgeons or work in the city morgue.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
They are quick to say they will return to Portugal - as empty a promise as the one about taking a lie detector test?
October 11th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
603 - DeeDeeDee
Look at the arch and design of the apartment. Everything is concrete or stone. There are chairs and a table on the patio. The arch facing the steps is exposed but the roadside one has a guard/screen. Kids - especially toddlers, love to climb on walls and walk along them. The main light would have been from the poolside. If Madeleine walked out onto the patio and climbed on that wall, I daresay it would be a fatal fall onto the steps. Blood - yes, but not necessarily pints of it. There’s a lot of bushes on the corner and a small gateway. It’s feasible in the darkness of that street that people could walk by and not notice a small body slumped by the bottom of those steps…
Taking it further. If a parent came back and saw her like that, the first reaction is not going to be to run back to the Tapas bar screaming at the top of your voice “she’s fallen…” I’d say the first thing would be just that - first aid. That would produce blood in the apartment. Perhaps after a fall like that there was still a pulse but massive trauma. The parent could go back to the bar after the first aid and say “we’ve got a problem…Madeleine has fallen and banged her head…” Again, nothing to make people rush and drop everything because you don’t want attention for leaving the kids alone…
October 11th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
We have fair wages for prison inmates in Portugal and I am pleased to report the U.S. should follow our example. All drug dealers, rapists, thieves and the likes, receive the going rate for their labor and then we tax the wages and the remaining income is used to reimburse the cost of their prison living expenses that, I am happy to report, runs us substantially more than the measly $250,000 per year the U.S. spends……..
October 11th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
In case my last post didn’t get shown - I was noticing the similarity between Inspector Cluseou and Paulo Rebelo!
And he is also quite cute…lol
October 11th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
http://news.google.co.uk/news/url?sa=t&ct=uk/3-0&fp=470ef4285285a268&ei=5UUOR_7iM4WkoAPM1oDUCQ&url=http%3A//portugalresident.com/portugalresident/showstory.asp%3FID%3D21981&cid=1121487537
October 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Right Stevo. My point was that there is a better way to rehabilitate a society than to build jails. But if UK is permitting criminals to roam freely that’s not the right answer either.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Re: the royal couple returning to Portugal.
Watching a little clip of our Comical genius (from yesterday I think) saying - and I am paraphrasing - that the McCanns would have no objection whatsoever to returning to Portugal is required.
Wonder if he will still be saying that if/when they are asked to return.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Andy
Thank you for providing that document. It appears that, unless there were political interference, if the PJ wished to have the McCanns tried in Portugal, they would be allowed to do so.
I could envision the McCanns doing whatever they could to avoid just that, including trying to get a medical excuse for Kate based on an inability to travel due to fragile health or to plead for humanitarian reasons to stay in England to be closer to their family members, including Sean and Amelie. It would not be the first time they would contradict an earlier statement of theirs (”We will not leave Portugal without Madeleine.”) I would hope that they would not be successful in their attempts.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Even though I wasn’t crazy about the northern cities in England - everyplace else I felt extremely safe - even in London. I do not often feel safe in the US. Maybe it’s just me.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
http://portugalresident.com/portugalresident/showstory.asp?ID=21981
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://cache.eb.com/eb/image%3Fid%3D66059%26rendTypeId%3D4&imgrefurl=http://www.britannica.com/eb/art/print%3Fid%3D56546%26articleTypeId%3D1&h=300&w=384&sz=22&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=YT0upEuLbehq-M:&tbnh=96&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpeter%2Bsellers%2BInspector%2BClouseau%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
Can’t help but notice the resemblence between Paulo Rebelo and Inspector Clueso!
Nothing against the guy - I think he’s quite cute…lol
October 11th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
601 - Ramón
Jails don’t deter crime but crime is a way of life and it has to be dealt with. What I’ve been saying is that the UK doesn’t deal with it. Law abiding citizens in the UK have to deal with those scumbags everyday. That’s one main thing I do not miss about the UK.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Stevo Surely if she fell that far it would kill her and leave quite a bit of blood. If it was dark then it’s highly likely that any passerby would notice her. AND if it did happen on May 2 that would give them plenty of time to clean up.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
56 - Carmen
Excellent point. Here’s us all thinking of rational and average people but these guys and the other Tapas Crew were doctors and able to detach themselves from blood and gore.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I agree with you Jolie. The US is crazy about jails because they increase revenue and are a legal way to make certain types of people “disappear”. Ted Koeppel has been doing an expose on what US jails are like on Discovery Channel and it’s one of the best journo pieces we’ve ever watched.
Jails do not deter crime. Healthy family, good education, opportunity to work in a safe environment and make a living wage and healthy self-esteem are essential to creating a secure and healthy society.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Reports of my stoicism are greatly exaggerated. I have emotions but only when harvesting kidneys. We have a policy, only the Pink Panther is permitted to cry, if we allowed silly emotional outbursts, all pedophile and murder hunting would cease….
next question.