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 8:27 pm
Stevo says: Kate and the kids went to the room and Gerry played tennis in the early evening. Madeleine went out on the patio and climbed on the railing. She fell onto the steps below which caused significant trauma. As Kate wasn’t there to prevent it (she could have been changing nappies etc. and feeling under pressure/rushed off her feet), she administered first aid in a frantic situation after carrying Madeleine back to the apartment. This explains blood traces on the steps and in the room”
NO WAY!!!! There’s no reason for a cover up if this happened. I totally disagree - there was something much bigger like sedatives involved. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Kate have reported it. Uh, uh…..
I am surprised that you’d think this was all just a simple accident - no one would go to these lengths if an accident occured. Think about it. Do you know how many Parents accidently run their kids over - killing them - accidently with their SUV’s today?? There’s even a term for it in the Auto Insurance world - can’t recall what it is right now - but it’s purely accidental and assuming the parents were not drinking - there’s never any charges pressed - it’s an accident. A tragic/tragedy and an accident.
So with a fall off the balcony down the steps - if she was not sedated - then why the hell would the McCanns and their friends go to this length to cover it all up?? They would have decided early on that not covering it up would be a lot less of a problem then covering it would be - if it were only an accidental fall.
Your theory makes NO SENSE!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
864 - krissie
The problem all along has been the question of what is the “bombshell” that would be bad enough to want to cover it up. I’ve only read bizarre and often offensive theories to do with drugs or sexual abuse.
I think it’s quite possible that post-accident euthanasia occurred. It fits the whole scene and does explain the emotions and cover up. It’s also a more viable thing to have occurred. To date, I haven’t actually read a consolidated and clear theory. This to me seems to match the evidence…
October 11th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Stevo, doctors are not trained to euthanize young people, even at the end-of-life, without exhausting all other options. Doctors seek to preserve life in general all the time, especially younger people, older people, with family exceptions may be considered a bit differently by some, but I don’t believe that any doctor or any person would euthanize their own child with a more “quick event” like this.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Stevo, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think it’s the way doctors think. Doctors know that miracles can and do happen after bad injuries. They know that even the most horrible and painful injury can turn around and the kid can be fine. Kids are resilient. Medical science is amazing, and more incredible every day. Doctors know this. Your theory is totally not working for me here. If Madeleine had fallen and had been badly injured, I can’t see any reason on god’s green earth why they wouldn’t have immediately sought emergency care. IF Kate and Gerry accidentally killed their daughter, it only makes sense that it was an overdose and they didn’t know she was ill/injured until it was too late.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Go back to 3rd May, then forward to 13th May. Which priest, Soothsayer? 13th May. John McCann, the grinning man, turns all eyes to Spain. Private mass. Above suspicion. Car not silver. I live in the ukele place.
P.S. Bennett is getting close.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
615 supergirl Says:
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? Edit…..
+++++++++++++++
Ludicrous Theory No. £1,091,108.67 (Now that is a luditosh coincidence)
7 kids in one room sounds like a FANTASTIC party! Hell, I get my boy and just ONE of his friends in the same room and it’s like the party of the year on E numbers! Trying to get the two of them to sleep is er, an interesting challenge… 7 of them in one room at bedtime, just sounds implausible really. Certainly leaving them unattended sound implausible.
But if you are going to persist with the idea that 7 of them where in the room at bedtime, then yes, some form of sedation may help. (Hell, my Mother is forever recommending a drop of brandy in their bedtime milk! And no, we never have.) The missing child? That would be Madeleine because sadly she had already passed from this life.
Why put the 7 of them in the same room? Because assuming Madeleine was already dead, they needed to fabricate the “we checked the children every 30 minutes” scenario, for which all of the adults needed to be in the same place at the same time. Putting all the children in one room was a safety thing! i.e. Despite what we have been asked to believe, they didn’t all always leave their children unattended for long periods. However, for the abduction scenario to be credible they needed to create the impression that this indeed is exactly what they did.
In these ludicrous scenario, it may explain why O’Brien was missing for so long as it was he who moved all the children back to their correct/another room. As others have suggested elsewhere, O’Brien’s return to the Tapas bar was Kate’s signal to go and discover the abduction.
Have to say, it all sounds ludicrous, incredibly far fetched, complex and therefore comes with a high risk of failure or indeed of being rumbled… That said, it’s still better than alien abduction!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Blue jeans and a black Tee. Havent shaved for a week.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Batman, I’ve believed all along that it’s unlikely any of the friends knew what happened, with the possible exception of O’Brien. this is assuming Kate and Gerry know what happened. I am not sure they do.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Imagine this…
You’re a doctor and you’re faced with a decision where you have control in your own hands…your daughter is suffering badly and you know you can’t get her to a hospital in time. You see euthanasia as a viable way out of seeing the suffering…
October 11th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
MIke, I’m wearing off-white Carrhart pants, an old Lands End blue sweater, and I haven’t washed my hair in three days. You??
October 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Stevo, it’s a nice story but that’s all it is. A story. And frankly, it still doesn’t AT ALL explain the coverup, especially the level of coverup. The girl falls and dies– there’s no NEGLECT here, but only an accident. Whereas, even with the story they are telling the world, there is obvious neglect. They were much better off, in the eyes of the law and the world, with an accident leading to death, than they are with neglect leading to abduction. I still maintain that IF the McCanns are covering up Madeleine’s death at their own hands, the ONLY thing that makes sense is an overdose. There’s no particular reason to believe police really found blood on the stairs. It’s just one more false and misleading news story.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Are you sure you’re really cool and calm??
coolandcalm Says:
October 11th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Abuse? click date link above, then copy the URL/web address from your browser & email it here
832 Chantilly Lace……
there’s been some crap on here…. majority laughable and straight from the pages of Captain Fantastic magazine but the most ridiculous is the categoric statement that Columbo wasn’t married.
Of course he was.
He always talked about his wife in almost every episode……….
TALKED about does not mean she REALLY existed. Lots of crazy people have imaginary friends and Columbo, as charismatic as he may be, was crazy - and talked to himself often.
This is categorically NOT the craziest thing posted on this forum. If you think so, then you haven’t been around for too long. I can guarantee that.
Don’t recall your name before either…
Columbo was allegedly married -but not everyone believed it. Sorry! I was one of those people. And if you think this is the most ridiculous thing on here, then you need to get out more often. I spell Shantilly with an S by the way….not with a C
October 11th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Columbo wasn’t a bullshitter, so if he said he was married he was married! Jack Frost on the other hand was a total lying bastard and you couldn’t believe a word he said, George Cross or not!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Batman
I cannot believe none of them are involved. No matter how good friends they all are, I can’t believe ALL of them kept quiet, just because ‘Kate and Gerry are nice people and we like them’.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I hope I’m wrong and Madeleine is alive and well but I think that she was probably humanely put to sleep and that is the bombshell they had to cover up. In other words, it was an ethical dilemma.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Thelma, here’s one example of the kind of thing I was talking about… It starts with like 15 pages of comments on May 5, with all the theories we’re discussing here basically laid out on the table in the first 48 hours:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/discussions/posts/list/MISSING_Madeleine-12374.page
October 11th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
In tellyland they don’t have to be seen to exist.
What about the infamous ”er indoors’ of Arthur Daley?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
840 Dave
I use VOR and ILS and that’s pretty accurate but only to a couple of degrees. I know differential GPS is extremely accurate to within feet but one problem with triangulation is the relative angles of the towers to the phone. That’s why I think you can get awesome accuracy or piss poor accuracy.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hi Krissie. What you wearing today?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
THelma, let me go look
October 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I’m revising my theory. From the available evidence and assuming 90% of the testimony/timeline etc. is true, I think this may have happened:
Kate and the kids went to the room and Gerry played tennis in the early evening. Madeleine went out on the patio and climbed on the railing. She fell onto the steps below which caused significant trauma. As Kate wasn’t there to prevent it (she could have been changing nappies etc. and feeling under pressure/rushed off her feet), she administered first aid in a frantic situation after carrying Madeleine back to the apartment. This explains blood traces on the steps and in the room.
Cleaning her up and putting her to bed, Madeleine may have just been concussed or maybe comatose. The time for all this was in that hour after leaving the restaurant where they were all seen.
Gerry comes back and by this time, Madeleine has probably deteriorated. Both feel responsible and possibly they administered some kind of drug during this period. Maybe even enough sedative to actually put her out of agony. Perhaps she was suffering so bad that they felt it was the humane thing to do. Perhaps this is the bombshell…the guilt/religion/confession etc.
I don’t believe all the others knew….
?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
She’s a figment of his and your imagination. Check it out!
Mrs Columbo Revealed!
The miracle of Mrs Columbo is that although she is never seen or heard, she makes her presence felt throughout “Columbo”. Without ever showing her face, she remains a major character in the show, capturing our imagination and affection. Her success is a testament to the power of good writing in “Columbo”.
Editor’s Note: We have never seen Mrs Columbo — all we know about her is what we can gather from her husband’s remarks over the past 30 years. The picture that thus evolves is a vivacious woman of endless energy and wide-ranging interests, who keeps her husband going and is never far from his mind.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Mike, how did you make it home to your computer so fast?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Could it be the other way around? Could it be that Kate is not Maddie’s natural mother? She was perhaps only a surrogate.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Krissie said
“I was reading around the Internet and found a few other forums where people are talking about Madeleine… What really amused me is that on May 5, just two days after Maddie went missing, people on these forums were holding the EXACT same conversations with the EXACT same theories, the EXACT same rebuttals. We’re really very boring. We’ve been having the same argument for five months without having cracked the case (with the obvious exception of Harry Hindsight, who knwos what happened”
Hi krissie can you please provide a link?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
832 Chantilly Lace……
there’s been some crap on here…. majority laughable and straight from the pages of Captain Fantastic magazine but the most ridiculous is the categoric statement that Columbo wasn’t married.
Of course he was.
He always talked about his wife in almost every episode……….
October 11th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
One question has been bothering me today. Why are none of the other Tapas9 being hauled in for such formal questioning as KM and GM. And why would they assist in the cover-up.
Is it not possible that the other Tapas9 were actually not involved? Maybe GM borrowed O’Bs car himself at some time between afternoon and evening. The friends may have suspicions about the abduction story, but maybe they just cannot believe that their friends would have make up such a story.
Just a niggling feeling. Ask yourself if a good friend of yours asked you to aid and abet such a thing as a hoax abduction after accidental death - could you? You MIGHT in the short term due to shock or whatever, but after a day or so could you live with that terrible knowledge?
Things have indeed become very quiet in McCann news/spinland.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Stevo thats interesting,when we where looking for people that HMG would like to have a chat with,we used triangulation,as the GPS was pants in built up areas,we must have been very lucky lots of times,our boffins calcs where to within feet of where our soon to be invited guest’s phone was. I only ask because I wonder how much the phone records and the masts can tell the police,where these calls where made from and so forth,well thats not strictly true I know how much they can tell the police,just wonder if any of it will be of any use.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Has Gerry in his blog denied the ‘7 kids in the room’ story? If not, then why not? Here is my logic:
1. If he knows it to be true, he dare not deny it. To deny it and have it proven otherwise would undermine his entire testimony.
2. If he knows it to be untrue, he would deny it. Why would he not? An easy ‘goal’ to score against the PJ.
3. If he knows it to be true, he could admit it. As with point 1, the public would ask why he tried to conceal it. And why also the Tapas 9 concealed it also. Therefore he would not admit it.
Conclusion: On this very simple fact - his entire credibility hangs. To not deny implies guilt. So far, we have no denial - simply an irrelevent statement about it being hard to get 7 kids to sleep…
October 11th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Well said will.