Madeleine McCann: The Tapas 7 Speak, Blonde Children In Morocco And Hashish
MADDY WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE SUN front page: “McCANN FRIENDS HIT BACK – FURY OF TAPAS 7. Pals: there is NO pact”
Say the McCanns dining party: “The police told us not to discuss our statement. We’ve always tried to honour this. We wish to state there is categorically no so-called pact of silence – or indeed anything secretive between us. Just the desire to assist the search. It is frustrating that the facts we have done as we were asked is till being looked upon as suspicious”
“COPS IN WINDOW PROBE” – Paolo Rebelo is looking at the window of the McCanns’ holiday apartment. “is this how evil Maddie snatcher struck?”
Four pictures:
1. “Rebelo pushes window
2. Net curtains rustle in breeze as the window swings open
3. Detective leans in
4. Team confer about possible escape route”
“Fund paid mortgage” – Some of the £1million Madeleine McCann “fighting fun”
DAILY MIRROR front page: “NOW THEY BELIVE US – Police finally accept Madeleine was snatched”
Portuguese police are looking at possibilities
Says a friend of the McCanns: “At last, after all these months, Kate and Gerry’s story is being believed. They are very encouraged by the re-enactment of Madeleine’s abduction and the police now accept their version of events”
A policeman climbs through a window. He passes out a “large bundle”
“MADDY ‘SPOTTED 10 TIMES IN MOROCCO’” – Says private detective Francisco Marco: “Several unconnected people have told us of the same girl with the same woman. She has shorter hair than Madeleine. But everything else matches”. Like her name?
“MORTGAGE FUND FURY” – Says Clarence Mitchell: “The fund exists to help them when living costs became difficult”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE – McCANNS USE FUNDS TO PAY MORTGAGE” – Two mortgage payments on their “£600,000” home
The Express leads with picture of Gerry McCann playing golf. Inset is a picture of Gerry McCann on a bicycle
“We’ve found a kidnapped blonde girl, but it’s not her” – A blonde girl in Morocco. She can speak English. She must have been kidnapped. Right?
Says Francisco Marco: “Blonde children are a valuable commodity in North Africa. They can be sold for huge sums and give prestige to families who buy them”
DAILY MAIL front page: “MADDIE FUND PAYS McCANNS’ MORTGAGE” – Mortgage repayments on their “£500,000” home. (How long before the Express and Mail start a heated debate on the value of the McCanns home and how that value has been affected by the story?)
Page 4: “Is she in the mountains? Investigators scour Morocco in the search for Madeleine”
Says the Mail: “In an extraordinary coincidence the detectives are reported to have already found an English-speaking blonde girl of about Madeleine’s age living with a local family”
How many more blonde children are in Morocco? And can we find them all?
DAILY STAR front page: “Maddie ‘alive in drug den’”
Page 7: “MADDIE’S IN MOROCCAN MOUNTAINS – Ten sightings with rich Arab”
Says Francisco Marco PI of the woman with the blonde child found in the Rif mountains: “My feeling is this woman is some sort of carer who is working on behalf of other people”
Says an “insider”: “It’s a very secretive country and the Rif mountains enjoy official protection because of the importance of the hashish production”
“McCanns in the clear – Portuguese police now believe Madeline was kidnapped”
THE TIMES page 13: “Police return to holiday apartment in attempt to solve Madeleine mystery”
Paulo Rebelo is inside the apartment. He walks to the beach. He passes Sergey Malinka’s home. He is on a road leading to the N125 main road
In Morocco, a 60-year-old woman is seen with a blonde child
“Funds for search used to pay mortgage on McCanns’ house” – The McCanns’ home is worth “460,000”
THE TELEGRAPH front page: “Police re-enact Madeleine night”
Page 17: Paulo Rebelo is at the Ocean Club. Says a source “close to the couple”: “Blonde children are a very valuable commodity in places like north Africa”
Paulo Rebelo is looking
THE GUARDIAN and THE INDEPENDENT: No Madeleine news
Posted: 30th, October 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,424) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
October 31st, 2007 at 1:20 am
I agree with Anniet - and this is not a bad day for the Mccann sceptics at all - it is a day when the new Portuguese chief is going back to basics and investigating every possibility thoroughly from the beginning - a direct question to Mccann supporters would their Daughter have gone missing if they hadn’t left her? that to me is the number one fundamental question which they can’t answer to anyone’s standards - tell me I’m wrong
October 31st, 2007 at 1:16 am
what was that crap, posted by jcb,at least we got something new THEY only gave kids CAPOL,WELL THATS NEW
October 31st, 2007 at 1:15 am
Time for bed ! good night all. Go easy on each other and take care.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:14 am
1025 Stevo
“What happened to all those stories about burglaries taking place in the complex just before May? That seems to have fallen on deaf ears.”
Who knows?
http://tinyurl.com/38caog
Bianchigirl:
I said the event had taken place before the McCanns went to the resort, the mans shirt was blue an white check?, the nanny was probably just stepping outside the door for a smoke.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:13 am
And WHERE, I ask, WHERE!
Has Cuddle Cat gone?
Abducted?
October 31st, 2007 at 1:11 am
1248 brandon flowers…
The wallet reappeared like magic when the fragrant one beckoned…
If only little girls behaved the same as wallets.
I’ll get me coat…
October 31st, 2007 at 1:09 am
442
Chloe Spain Says:
October 30th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
(434) Tinsel
It also occurs to me that O’Brien could perhaps be indebted to GM for something that occurred in the past.
***************
Isn’t Mr. McCscam ‘helping’ O’Brien over some disciplinary action that’s been/being taken over O’Brien? I’m sure I read that somewhere.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:07 am
1250 jcb
Well thats done it for me. They are obviously innocent.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:06 am
1250 jcb…
Yeah, it’s terrible how even the supposedly respectable British press just repeat spin stories, isn’t it?
Lazy sods.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:04 am
fooking hell the real stig are you beeing paid for all this research. thats some post. let me guess you’re keeping an electronic scrap book. either that or you have spent all day trawling the internet for those links.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:03 am
Thea, firstly I don’t regard your guess that Kriss is Krissie sufficient excuse for such an attack. Secondly it is not rude to request clarification of an issue . Have your parents never instructed you on the rudeness of name calling and use of vulgar metaphors?Thirdly if you believe that Gerry has the role of controlling what people say how do you explain some embarassing remarks made recently by both mothers. It is my belief that it is seldom easy to control what friends or indeed family might say.
Anyway here is one reference to that “crack team”. Like you, my knowledge is limited to what I read. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2810_maddie.shtml
Please now give references to support these two claim:
1.” the unkinid remarks the McCanns have made through their PR and close family and friends. I don’t know if the word “moron” was expressly used but the overall tone of much of the McCann spin as to their opinion of PJ is that they (PJ) are lazy morons and UK police are brilliant and hard working.
2 If you cannot properely interpret these sentiments then you are either a liar are not very intelligent with all due respect.
3.They will not cooperate with PJ since being made suspects.
Hope you’re feeling better
October 31st, 2007 at 1:02 am
1241,have you as a church going person,just making that bit up cause i dont know,SORRY,ever held a christening,baptism,funneral,baptism,prayer service in any other place of worship than the one you follow
October 31st, 2007 at 1:01 am
1246
Tinsel Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 12:57 am
a really interesting tidbit on the mirror forum …
http://forums.mirror.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=24330
————————————————
Tony Bennet pipped us to the post lol 2 pages ago
October 31st, 2007 at 1:01 am
Please take the time to read this article from the Sunday Times. Perhaps you will then be not quite so venomous, and you will think before you write any further stupid comments.
The Sunday Times
September 9, 2007
Victims of the Rumour Mill?
After a dramatic twist, are the Portuguese police close to solving the most extraordinary disappearance of recent years?
David James Smith, Steven Swinford and Richard Woods
As Gerry McCann emerged from Porti-mao police station at midnight on Friday, he stared unblinkingly into the distance while his lawyer read out a statement. The consultant cardiologist, said the lawyer, had just joined his wife as a prime suspect in the death of his daughter, Madeleine, who went missing four months ago.
Beneath his unflinching exterior, Gerry was in a state of turmoil and fury. “We are being absolutely stitched up by the Portuguese police,” he had told a friend after his wife Kate had earlier been named a suspect after hours of interrogation. “We are completely f*****, we should have seen this coming weeks ago and gone back to Britain.”
Barely six days earlier the McCanns had been preparing to do just that: to end their vigil in Portugal and return home to Rothley in Leicestershire. They had informed the police who had reacted calmly enough.
Detectives had warned their lawyer that the McCanns might be made arguidos - suspects - in the investigation, but had emphasised that it would be a purely “technical” move. The status would give the McCanns greater rights in interviews.
The couple were going to need them. Kate was the first to be summoned and on Thursday was questioned for 11 hours. Drained and exhausted she left the police station at 12.55am, only to be back for a further five hours of questioning on Friday, before which she was named an arguida (the feminine form).
The archaic procedures made her grilling all the more arduous. Instead of taping the interviews, an officer took hand-written notes in Portuguese of Kate’s comments, which were then translated back into English at regular intervals for her approval.
The police have said nothing publicly about the evidence they are reported to have. But according to friends of the McCanns who spoke to them after their interviews, the police told Kate they had found “bodily fluids” in a Renault Scenic car hired by the McCanns.
The police implied the forensic traces had come from Madeleine - yet the McCanns had only hired the car 25 days after their daughter disappeared. The implication was clear: Madeleine had died and the McCanns had later used the car to dispose of her body.
The police added that a sniffer dog brought in from South Yorkshire police to help with the inquiry had detected the “scent of a corpse”. During questioning they repeatedly played footage of sniffer dogs becoming animated around the Renault Scenic. They are also said to have found Madeleine’s DNA on items of clothing bought by Kate after her daughter’s disappearance.
The police declared that the elements were enough to make them believe that Madeleine was dead and to make Kate a suspect. They even offered her a deal: if she confessed to killing her daughter accidentally, she would receive a “lenient sentence” of just “two to three years”.
After all the weeks of grief and pressure, it might have been too much for some to bear. Kate, although worried sick, stayed strong. “How dare you,” she told the police. “How dare you use blackmail to get me to confess to something I didn’t do.” Gerry returned distressed and tired. His sister Philomena McCann, who spoke to him after his interrogation, said: “He’s adamant that he’s done nothing wrong. Every question he was asked, he answered. Gerry didn’t seem particularly worried. He’s more concerned that the investigation seems to have moved away from finding Madeleine alive.”
She added: “Kate and Gerry have not been charged. They are free to leave Portugal, which is what I would want them to do - because I am sick of seeing them persecuted in this shameful manner.”
This weekend their fate hangs in the balance. A source at Britain’s Forensic Science Service said that the whole edifice of suspicion against the McCanns may rest on sand. Forensic samples, he cautioned, may have been too small or too contaminated to prove anything.
A senior British police source said he was astonished by the decision to accuse Kate of killing her daughter just on the basis of the forensic tests. “It sounds over the top. What we do is to get an independent review of the forensic evidence and bring someone in from the outside. You independently review what is going on and you certainly don’t make an arrest off the top of one specific piece of evidence,” he said.
On the other hand, a Portuguese newspaper yesterday claimed that Kate is accused of homicide, negligence and “preventing the corpse from being found”. Reports also claimed that police sources said Kate is mentally unstable, displayed “aggression” and has been using her right to remain silent.
The Portuguese authorities are considering whether to suspend the McCanns’ passports - and the police may yet lay charges.
To appreciate the McCanns’ extraordinary predicament, you have to go back to the night in question, Thursday, May 3, and in particular the three hours between when Madeleine was last seen by a nonfamily member and when she was reported missing. What happened in this period is regarded by police as the key to solving the mystery.
AFTER a series of interviews in Praia da Luz in recent weeks, The Sunday Times has established new details of what happened that night and how the police inquiry took its dramatic twist this weekend.
The McCanns had travelled to the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz with a group of friends, predominantly doctors like them. Altogether, four families, comprising nine adults and eight children, set out.
At the Ocean Club all four families had apartments in Waterside Gardens Block 5, which overlooked one of two pool and restaurant areas on the resort. It was not a gated site and Gerry’s and Kate’s ground floor apartment, 5a, was on a street corner. The group occupied two of the neighbouring apartments, 5b and 5d, and another on the floor above.
On the first night, Saturday, April 28, the adults and children all ate together at the Ocean Club’s other location, some 10 minutes away, the Millennium Restaurant and Terrace. But the next night, and for all the nights thereafter, all four families settled the children in their apartments and then walked down to the nearby Tapas restaurant with its open air tables offering a clear line of sight to the apartments, about 50 metres away.
You could see the rear of the apartments where french windows opened out of the lounge and kitchen area. In the McCanns’ apartment there was a master bedroom next to the lounge, a bathroom and, furthest away from the Tapas restaurant, at the front, next to the front door, the second bedroom where the three children were put to sleep every night.
Each evening the group followed a pattern of giving the children tea together and then playing with them for an hour before putting them to bed. The children, worn out, were soon asleep.
For the adults, the evenings were fun, although not excessive, despite some of the more excitable reporting. The Portuguese magazine Sol, for example, claimed 14 bottles of wine were consumed on the night of May 3 - adding the supposedly persuasive details of eight bottles of red and six of white. In fact, according to Gerry, the group had drunk only four bottles; another two stood barely touched on the table.
Each set of parents took responsibility for checking on their own children, so there was fairly constant traffic up and down from the table, the parents often crossing paths. Gerry and Kate took turns to check every half hour.
On the evening of May 3, the last moment when Madeleine was definitely seen alive by anybody other than the McCanns was at about 7pm as the group put their children to bed.
As the adults dined, Gerry went to check on Madeleine and the twins Sean and Amelie at just after 9pm, perhaps at 9.05pm. He says all the children were safely asleep.
As he was returning to the table he encountered Jeremy Wilkins, an English fellow holidaymaker whom Gerry had befriended at the resort’s tennis courts. They chatted for a few minutes in the street outside the McCanns’ apartment.
One of the party, Russell O’Brien, was away from the table for much of the evening, caring for his sick child. At about 9.15pm Jane Tanner, his girlfriend, went to their apartment to see how things were. As she did so she passed, right on the street corner by the McCanns’ apartment, a man carrying a child wrapped in a blanket.
The man was crossing the road, walking away from the apartment complex. At the time Tanner thought nothing of it; it seemed a perfectly normal spectacle in a family resort.
At 9.30pm Kate was due to check on her children, but another of the party, believed to be Matt Oldfield, was getting up from the table to make his own check. Oldfield said he would look in on the McCanns’ children, according to a source close to the McCanns.
When Oldfield reached the corner apartment he entered through the closed but unlocked french windows and checked on the sleeping children. Afterwards, with the terrible agony of hindsight, he could clearly recall seeing the twins lying there, but could not say for sure that he had seen Madeleine. But that was afterwards. The evening went on.
O’Brien rejoined the table shortly before 10pm. Not long afterwards Kate got up to make the next check on her three children. The walk must have taken her less than a minute. Madeleine was not in her bed.
Left behind was Cuddle Cat, Madeleine’s comfort toy. She was never separated from it, especially at night.
According to Kate, the bedroom window was open and the shutter up, yet they had been closed and down when Gerry checked at 9pm. Kate searched the apartment and the area immediately outside.
She ran down the hill and into the restaurant, where Gerry recalls her shouting or screaming either “Madeleine has gone. Somebody has taken her” or “Madeleine has gone. Someone has taken her”. Other reports suggest she shouted, “They’ve taken her.”
Gerry thought “that can’t be right, that can’t be right”. He went running up to the apartment with Kate and checked everywhere she had already looked, and made a quick run around the apartment block.
They decided straight away to call the police but had no idea what the emergency numbers were and, anyway, could not speak Portuguese.
They asked one of their friends in the group to go down to the main reception, which is manned 24 hours, and call the police. The call was made at 10.14pm or 10.15pm, according to the McCanns.
Two officers from the GNR local police arrived at 11.10pm, nearly an hour after the call. They could not speak English and a member of the Ocean Club staff had to translate.
The immediate assumption was that Madeleine must have wandered off, but Gerry and Kate were adamant that this could not have happened. Besides there were, apparently, obvious signs that an intruder had been there. What they were, however, is not clear. Apart from the open window and shutter, neither the McCanns nor the police have confirmed any other evidence of a break-in.
At midnight the local police called the Policia Judiciaria, the PJ, who investigate serious crimes. The PJ arrived at 1am, according to the McCanns. There was substantial searching involving tourists and locals for some hours. Kate remained in the apartment hoping for news, while Gerry went out and looked.
By 3.30am the police had packed it in for the night. The searching was pretty much over. Gerry and Kate were frustrated and desperate. Gerry went out at about 4am with David Payne, another of their group, hoping to find something.
Later, at about 6am, the McCanns went out alone and walked around the scrubland on the outskirts of the village, holding hands and calling Madeleine’s name. There was nobody else around and they felt utterly alone.
FROM the beginning the McCanns felt that they must keep faith with the Portuguese detectives who were investigating their daughter’s disappearance. Others around them were ready to criticise but, in public at least, the McCanns expressed their support.
They were also advised not to betray any emotion when making public appeals for help, which accounts for the even face which Gerry has presented to the media. Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, told them that if the abductor was watching he or she might take pleasure in the McCanns’ distress.
Behind the scenes, however, tensions festered on both sides. It was not always easy for the McCanns or their friends to maintain the veneer of confidence in the police. One forensics officer spent a long time in the McCanns’ apartment collecting exhibits, but wore the same gloves the whole time. The gloves should have been replaced regularly to avoid cross-contamination.
The Portuguese police were unused to the intense media interest and the McCanns’ highly successful and in some ways controversial strategy of keeping Madeleine’s story and image in the public eye in the hope that someone would recognise her. The PJ, steeped in a culture of secrecy dating back to Portugal’s dictatorship, which ended in 1974, resented the media attention and having to give a press conference.
There were further complications, too. The McCanns knew, as few others did, that the PJ had adopted a local expat called Robert Murat, who spoke English and Portuguese, as an official translator.
Murat lived in a villa with his mother just across the road from the Ocean Club and only a few hundred yards from the McCanns’ apartment - in the very direction that Tanner had seen a man with a child wrapped in a blanket. Yet he was given a position of trust by the police: when Murat told the police that some members of the press already suspected him, the PJ told him not to worry. He should keep away from the press, the PJ said, and help them as a translator.
He began informally translating for the PJ on Monday, May 7, and on the Wednesday signed an agreement as an official interpreter. He translated the interview of the McCanns’ holiday companion Rachel Oldfield, among others.
On the night of Saturday, May 12, he left the PJ offices in Portimao and realised that he was being followed by an unmarked police car as he drove home. On Sunday he tried in vain to find out from the PJ why they had changed their minds about him. He has still never been told why he became a suspect but the next day, at 7am, the police raided his house and took him off for questioning.
How could he be trusted one day and suspected the next? It made little sense, least of all to Murat. Police investigations into his movements and associates produced little of interest. Excavations at his mother’s villa turned up no sign of a body. The police investigation appeared to be going nowhere.
From the beginning the McCanns had been warned by the PJ that they could not speak about the details of the investigation or the circumstances of Madeleine’s disappearance. The “secrecy of justice” laws prevented anybody involved, including all police officers and witnesses, from talking about it to the press or anyone else. Both Gerry and Kate were meticulous in observing this rule.
The McCanns lived - and continue to live - on hope. They knew their daughter could have been abused and killed but, in the absence of certainty, they could have hope. When a German journalist asked in June whether they had had anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, it seemed an insulting aberration. The McCanns maintained their composure.
For many weeks even the identities of the McCanns’ holiday companions remained secret - nobody except the police knew who they were. Suddenly the friends began receiving telephone calls in England from a Portuguese journalist. It was a woman from Sol magazine who knew the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the friends. It appeared that she could have obtained that information only from the police. Had the PJ, whose competence was being questioned by the British media, been stung into some sort of riposte?
Those first invasive telephone calls were the opening round of the campaign of speculation and suspicion that seems to have culminated in the extraordinary events of the last few days. Sol ran a series of articles that cast doubt on the behaviour and probity of the McCanns and their friends.
The articles were a mixture of straight facts from the police files and random inaccuracies, such as the 14 bottles of wine. Where Sol led, the rest of the Portuguese media followed - except they did not seem to be so well connected to the police and their information was even wilder.
The internet became rife with rumour and gossip. The holiday group were “swingers”, apparently, and had lied and contradicted themselves in their statements to the police. The McCanns had accidentally killed Madeleine and conspired with one or more of their friends to dispose of her body.
The most powerful rumour was that they had used their medical knowledge to sedate their children – presumably so they could go “swinging”.
There was no evidence to support any of the claims. The McCanns insisted they had given their children nothing more potent than Calpol, which is a painkiller and has no sedative effect. It is also paracetamol based so an overdose would take days to have an effect, with the child likely first to show signs of jaundice.
The febrile atmosphere persisted. In mid-August the Portuguese papers, apparently following a line from Sol, began to point suspicion at O’Brien, the friend who had been absent from the dinner for most of that evening.
In some cases the Portuguese stories became the next day’s British stories and the Portuguese journalists, seeing this apparent corroboration of their own work, would then report the stories again with an additional layer of speculation. In this way O’Brien went from innocent holidaymaker to prime suspect facing imminent arrest in less than a week.
He had driven Madeleine’s body to the coast to be disposed of, went the terrible fantasy. One morning the media descended on his Exeter home in the belief that he was about to be arrested. Not only was he not about to be arrested, the whole thing was an invention– based, it appears, on leaks to Sol from the PJ.
Was it possible, in some bizarre circle of fate, that the PJ had started to believe the exaggerations of the local press and decided that Gerry and Kate were not so innocent after all? In early August a Portuguese newspaper reported that sniffer dogs brought in by British police had found traces of blood on a wall in the McCanns’ apartment. It claimed that detectives believed that Madeleine had been killed accidentally. The blood traces are now thought to be those of a man, not of Madeleine (although the police have issued no confirmation either way).
After weeks of the McCanns’ publicity drive there was a drought of hard evidence and a flood of speculation about every suspected new twist.
The lawyer for Murat upped the ante by criticising the McCanns’ “strange” behaviour in leaving Madeleine alone. Then the police acknowledged for the first time that she could be dead.
The ugly mood culminated in a Portuguese newspaper claiming outright that the McCanns had killed their daughter with an overdose of a sedative. Stunned, the McCanns, who had already decided to start winding down their media campaign, said they would sue for libel.
Last week the results of forensic tests conducted in Britain were passed to the Portuguese police. Newspapers reported that Madeleine’s “blood” had been found in the McCanns’ hire car - rented 25 days after Madeleine had vanished. But it is not clear whether it was blood or some other substance, how much was found, where it was found - or indeed how it was found.
The car has remained in Portugal - bizarrely, it was returned to the McCanns after it was examined and they are still using it - and the tests were done in England.
Could Gerry or Kate, or both of them, have killed their daughter and later disposed of her remains using the car? The scenario has to be considered - if only because there have been previous cases of apparently grief-stricken parents turning out to be killers.
A forensic psychologist suggests it is unlikely that the McCanns could have kept up their united front for four months in the face of such attention if they were guilty.
“It is very difficult for two people to lie over a death, however that death occurred, whether it was accidental or deliberate,” said Mike Berry, senior lecturer in forensic psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University. “I cannot see two parents lying and lying consistently.”
A friend of the McCanns makes a more practical point: “Where would they have hidden the body for three weeks in front of the world’s press?”
In the meantime it is day 129, Madeleine is still missing and, as her parents keep reminding anyone who will listen, there is someone out there who knows.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:01 am
1232
Thea Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 12:40 am
LOL Judith C,
Please say it isn’t so! July 15th is that Bastille Day? I was reading through the past few days’ messages. Have you sent me an private email message? When I checked I didn’t see anything but I only got online today for first time in 2 days. I think your heading a “For Madeleine” petition and maybe even creating a blog about this case is a great idea.
I need to run an errand for drugs (unfortunately I am not a doctor) and will be back online late tonight or tomorrow morning. I will check for a message again when I get back. have a nice night”
******************************
Dear Thea, I haven’t sent you an e-mail message as I too have been dragged away from this fantastically time-consuming but fatally fascinating forum for the last few days (oh, what a lot of alliteration!)Anyway, I don’t have your e-mail address, you have mine! So maybe you can e-mail me. And, July 14th is Bastille day; July 15th is St. Swithin’s day. It it rains on that day it’s supposed to rain for 40 days and nights. It’s strange but I have so many times read in books, articles and seen in films mention of July 15th as being a significant day, usually for something awful.
Again I’ll take the opportunity of asking is there anyone out there who is an internet –geek? —is that the right word?….it sounds a bit ofensive…who can help to create a website for a petition?
——————————–
Mods and Admin
Thea ,Judith asked me to email you with her email address , which i did round about Friday last (approx) check in your junk/bulk, but I can resend if needs be. There isn’t a pm system here, as its an open site. But there are changes afoot
October 31st, 2007 at 12:57 am
63
He got his abducted wallet back ok
very quickly
October 31st, 2007 at 12:57 am
1243 brandon flowers…
how true
October 31st, 2007 at 12:57 am
a really interesting tidbit on the mirror forum …
http://forums.mirror.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=24330
October 31st, 2007 at 12:56 am
998 brianthesnail
“come on then stiggy mate name some of these so called eyewitnesses.”
———————-
Lori Campbell
Emily Seromenho
Charlotte Pennington
Richard Edwards
Father Hubbard
Natalie Walker ?
Anonymous
Richard Edwards and Fiona Govan
Steven Morris
Unattributed
sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/2007/08/05/i-m-sorry-madeleine-98487-19573670/
Lori Campbell In Praia Da Luz, Portugal Lori.Campbell@Sundaymirror.Co.Uk 05/08/2007
Heartbroken mum Kate McCann quietly sobs as she speaks for the first time of her guilt about leaving little daughter Madeleine alone the night she was snatched.
In an emotional interview, in which she repeatedly breaks down in tears, Kate…
dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=483715&in_page_id=1770
she described Mrs McCann in the aftermath as “a broken woman” who was shuddering and unable to move.
Charlotte Pennington
The vital witness: Nanny Charlotte Pennington
“We are trained to comfort people in this type of situation but she was just inconsolable,” she said.
“I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing - she was just so distraught. She was screaming out and tears were running down her face.
While Gerry McCann leapt into action and began frantically searching the resort, she said his wife remained outside the apartment, shuddering with tears and unable to move.
But she remained so hysterical that she could hardly communicate.
“We get missing children all the time, and I have seen plenty of hysterical
Their immediate grief laid bare,mothers. But none of them were like Kate.”
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/31/wmaddy31.xml
As the ceremony drew to a close, a priest and a cardinal approached them to offer their prayers. Mrs McCann was briefly overcome on both occasions, dabbing her eyes to dry the tears.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6983007.stm
She broke down publicly at a church service to mark a calendar month after Madeleine’s disappearance, bursting into tears after a young Portuguese girl kissed her during the service.
dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_headline=mother-s-day-tears-for-maddy–&method=full&objectid=19057371&siteid=66633-name_page.html
It’s a local Mother’s Day tradition for kids to give their mums flowers in church to thank them for their love.
But someone else’s daughter had to present Kate’s bouquet.
And as the congregation prayed forMadeleine’s return, the 38-year-old mum’s anguish overcame her.
Tears flowed down her face and she clung toMadeleine’s favourite toy, a pink stuffed kitten.
When it was time for the children to present flowers to their mothers, Father Pacheco asked 14-year-old altar girl Emily Seromenho to hand a bunch of five roses to Kate.
The tormented mum accepted the bouquet and thanked Emily.
Then, in keeping with local custom, she walked to the front of the church and laid the roses at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Emily, whose mum is British, said after the Mass: “The priest asked me to give the lady the flowers.
“I felt that she was very, very sad. She was crying a lot and I felt sad as well.
“I told her it was part of the service for her to give the flowers to Mary.
spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,506356,00.html
Father Hubbard believes that the suspicion against the parents is unfounded. “I got to know a man, Gerry, and his wife, Kate, who long to have their daughter back. We wept together and begged God for his help.”
24dash.com/news/7/27756/index.htm
An eye-witness to events on the night Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal today rubbished suggestions her mother’s reaction to the discovery was suspicious.
The anonymous witness, who was present in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, said it was impossible Kate and Gerry McCann could have been ‘faking’ their grief after finding the four-year-old missing that night.
The witness added that Mrs McCann and her husband Gerry’s had been so visibly horrified that it was impossible they could have been acting.
guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2074361,00.html Steven Morris in Praia da Luz, Portugal, Tuesday May 8, 2007
Mr McCann, 38, a cardiac surgeon, leaned his head into his wife’s neck, tears in his eyes.
dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=455225&in_page_id=1770
Mrs McCann cried quietly as Father Seddon talked of the “incredible affection felt by millions around the world for Madeleine”.
mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/05/21/a-minute-for-madeleine-89520-19141515/ Vanessa Allen And Martin Fricker In Portugal 21/05/2007
Sitting in the main body of the congregation, brave Kate smiled and brushed away a tear as babies Lucas Baptizado and Beatriz Silva were baptised.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:56 am
A few reflections on the press coverage of this surreal case today…
The McCanns are losing. They tried doggedly to manipulate the press coverage with the Metodo 3 stories of evil Moroccan kidnappers and even blonde girl-children from decent English-speaking families found in Morocco…
But they were completely, and utterly, defeated by the media today by the surge (as in Iraq surge) of stories about them paying their mortgage with the fund monies collected from the public. Regardless of the fact that it is legal and not contrary to the stated purpose of the fund, they are being crucified for this. They are losing the media battle.
This is what it is now coming down to… their spin doctors vs. the media forces that they first courted, and then attacked. They are either stupid or arrogant.
In my more charitable moments I can invoke Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
In my less charitable moments, I consider them cynically malicious.
Whatever. I don’t know what the truth is, but I certainly don’t believe a word that comes out of their mouths.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:56 am
“We are the angry mob
We read the papers everyday day
We like who we like
We hate who we hate
But we’re also easily swayed !”
Kaiser chiefs new song
reminded me of anorak
October 31st, 2007 at 12:56 am
1241
clarkeson
Lol
October 31st, 2007 at 12:53 am
did you ,or should i say have you read the waiter report who said that geery went back after they left resort for free booze,staff had been told not to charge them…jogging,new found religion..already changed………….1,000,000 in bank mortgage repayments,free jet,and still went back for free beer,and wine,now i have heard this thing about scots being mean but takes the biscuit
October 31st, 2007 at 12:52 am
How many have emailed to M, Moore ?
October 31st, 2007 at 12:52 am
1009
Diego889 Says:
October 30th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
“McCanns in the clear – Portuguese police now believe Madeline was kidnapped”
I just knew PJ were a bunch of idiots from day 1…Amaral has made everyone believe that Kate and Gerry are guilty by twisting DNA results and making up stories..ALL a bunch of lies….I hope you people have wiser things to invest your time, rather than continuing to speculate on something that is completely made up…”
*********************
Do you believe the lies you read in the British papers?
October 31st, 2007 at 12:50 am
Maria, I’m not annoyed and am glad you are back even though I hadn’t realised you were missing. I imagine you have happy dreams with bluebirds singing and you’re a sweet damsel who is rescued by a handsome knight? This knight is Presbytterian and he resembles a young Ronald Reagan?
Have a nice night.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:50 am
932
Tony Bennett Says:
October 30th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
On a generally gloomy day for McCann-sceptics, I offer this contribution from another Madeleine McCann Forum today. If it’s already been posted on Anorak, I apologise, I’m out most of the day at the moment:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
interesting and hopefull?
October 31st, 2007 at 12:49 am
Goodnite
Tony Bennet I agree with your line of thinking last night I had to go bed was very tired have to get up early for work and reading everyones comments can be very time consuming -
Judith C
I emailed Michael Mooor a few days ago, no reply yet. I did panic after I sent it though in case I was the only one and I’d fallen for a wind up, this case is making me slightly para, for all I know he might turn out to be be pro McCann.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:48 am
Oh dear, the Daily Mail is now demanding
” Are we trying to kill the McCanns?”
Well, no.
Allison Pearson goes on to suggest
“Or here’s a thought: how about leaving the McCanns in peace to salvage what remains of their lives, and to begin the slow and painful process of grieving properly for the daughter they have lost?”
I think I would be a little bit more sympathetic if the Mail hadn’t been publishing vast numbers of articles on the case. It does seem odd that the desire for solitude only came about after the PR battle started slipping away.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:45 am
1220 Thea
And I’m not surprised that you can’t accept, without getting annoyed, my response to being told I belong in the 17th century!
Short and unflowery enough? LOL
Take care.
Sleep calls. Glad to be back. Good night.