Madeleine McCann, Shannon Matthews And Missing Child Protocol
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
Shannon Matthews is missing. Is the media treating her case the same way as it views Madeleine McCann? And, in light of missing Madeleine, is there now a protocol for what occurs when a child goes missing?
DAILY MIRROR: “LOST TO US ALL”
Sue Carroll: Most of us won’t have an instant recollection who Shannon Matthews is. After thinking twice, of course we all know she is the nine-year-old missing from her home in Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire.
But what a terrible indictment of the media that, when a child has disappeared in Britain for over a week, her name doesn’t spring to our lips, we don’t know her school, favourite toy or what she was wearing when last seen.
Shannon is as precious to her family as Madeleine McCann, missing for 300 days, is to hers. But where are the front-page pictures, campaigns, the furore? Would this be different if she was the daughter of two middle-class, mediasavvy parents? Not a working-class child from up North.
THE SUN: “Marchers wants Shannon home”
THE family of Shannon Matthews led a poignant candlelit vigil for the missing nine-year-old last night – as police admitted hopes of finding her alive looked “bleak”.
Anguished mum Karen and stepdad Craig joined 300 neighbours on a march through streets near their home.
Children carried a banner showing the youngster’s face and a hotline to ring with information.
A hotline. Like Madeleine. A vigil. There is picture of Shannon on her birthday.
Balloons bearing pleas for Shannon’s safe return were released during last night’s vigil.
THIS IS LONDON: “Police search house of missing Shannon’s uncle as detectives treat case ‘as seriously as a murder’”
A dozen police officers conducted a fingertip search of the house belonging to the uncle of missing nine-year-old Shannon Matthews today.
Officers from West Yorkshire Police filed into the property in Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor which adjoins the home of the schoolgirl who disappeared last week.
The house belongs to Neil Hyett, Shannon Matthews’ uncle, and his wife, Amanda.
Detective Superintendent Brennan, who is heading up the search, says:
“I’m convinced that if Shannon had run away that night of her own volition, in a den or hideaway of some sort, we would have found her by now - over a week on from when the investigation opened.
“It is very rare in searches of this kind that a girl of Shannon’s age should be missing for this long without any clues pointing to her whereabouts.
“It is extremely concerning and we are now looking at this on a scale as serious as a murder investigation.
“It can now be said that the tone of our enquiry has changed to a bleaker outlook.
“The shift in emphasis is that we are now looking for individuals who may have been seen on the day of her disappearance, acting suspiciously, or unknown to the local community.
“We are also appealing for anyone who may have friends or family that may have been behaving strangely since Shannon went missing, to come forward.
“At this stage, any shred of information, however insignificant it seems, may help.
“We have a grave concern that she may have fallen into the wrong hands but no arrests have been made at this point, and I must stress at this point that we are not ruling out any possibilities as to what might have happened to her.”
DAILY MAIL: “Now police say missing Shannon, 9, could have been abducted”
A week after Shannon Matthews was last seen walking away from school in Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire, it also emerged that another girl called Shannon escaped an abduction attempt 10 miles away earlier the same day.
Shannon Selby, 12, was walking to school alone in Wakefield when a man pulled up and ordered her to “get in this car now”.
She ran away as the man parked and made to chase her on foot.
She reached home safely and her mother rang the police.
An efit of the attacker was released yesterday.
Allison Pearson: “Poor Shannon was already a lost child”
When Madeleine McCann went missing, her parents soon came under attack for leaving their daughter alone in a holiday apartment just a couple of hundred yards from where they were having dinner.
At the time, critics claimed that if the middle-class McCanns had lived on a council estate, they would have been in trouble with the police for neglect. So where is the outcry over the disappearance of Shannon Matthews?
Only nine years old, Shannon was reported missing by her mum, Karen, at 7pm last Tuesday when she had still not walked the mile home. She was last seen leaving school at 3.10pm.
Four hours is an eternity for a little girl to be out on a dark winter’s evening. And Shannon was afraid of the dark. Why did no one walk with her or care where she was?
Karen, who has seven children by five fathers, admitted that she had found a note scrawled on her daughter’s bedroom wall saying that she wanted to go and live with her biological dad in Huddersfield.
Shannon’s friends say she told them she didn’t want to go home. But Karen insists Shannon was fine and enjoys a good relationship with her current boyfriend, 22-yearold Craig.
“Only on Monday, they were having tickling fights and telly cuddles. She views him as her dad.” Oh really? In that case, why was Shannon so desperate to be reunited with her real father? No one can doubt Karen’s anguish.
The poor woman can hardly speak, except to sob to the cameras: “Shannon, come home, please come home.” But allowing a passing parade of boyfriends to play tickling games with your vulnerable small girl is, at best, naïve
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Shannon ‘may be in the wrong hands’”
Reports that an alleged abduction attempt of another girl on the same day that Shannon disappeared a week ago were being looked into by police.
According to reports, a man in a gold Ford Mondeo tried to coax a 12-year-old into his car at about 9am in Wakefield, about six miles away.
The girl ran away from him.
THE TIMES: “Abducted, abused… survived”
Lisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon were abducted and raped nine years ago, aged 10. They found strength in each other to survive the four-day ordeal and, remarkably, to rebuild their lives
Alan Hopkinson was found by police with the girls huddled together in his front room. He pleaded guilty to the crime and was given nine life sentences.
And that, for the public at least, is where stories like this usually end. Children don’t often survive adbuction by men such as Hopkinson, a truth that weighs heavily on the mind as we await news of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews, missing now for more than a week. If they do survive, we rarely hear from them again.
Hope:
They say that in some ways what happened has had a positive effect on their lives. Both seem vaguely surprised that anyone would want to interview them about it because it is “not that amazing” but, in a climate in which missing girls such as Madeleine McCann dominate the news, they want to urge people never to give up searching because “children can come back”.
Posted: 27th, February 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (1,154) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
February 27th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Ade
Its scary !
Did you see the interveiw given by a women named Pauline on Sky today?
Made me cry!
February 27th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
http://www.findmadeleine.com/missingchildren/
I have only just realised Kate wrote this.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
245
brandon flours
it appears that there has been a high level cover-up in jersey according to the sacked senator Stuart Syvret
i wonder if there’s any connection with those trying to protect the mcconns
not that there’s a shred of evidence to suggest this of course
but there’s something smelly and rotten about the mcconn cover-up
and it ain’t rotting meat
we should be told
February 27th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
241
Gandolf
Thank you.
I think we forget we are human Gandolf even if we are behind a screen and “allowed” to say what we want.
Now the truth is we all have a “passion” for this case because “it” feels wrong and it is necessary to be strong all together because one way or the other what we all want is the truth for the child.Abduction/death by accident.
For Madeleine and any other poor little mites.The one abused the ones killed by wars and neglect and a full range of horrors
February 27th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
245
brandon flours Says:
Did you enjoy the eddie and keela saga ( not for the poor kids I mean) but because they have been shown to be ever so accurate?
yep it’s brilliant the doggies never lie
lord eddie for pm i say
the only way the comical one can spin that one is with someone’s finger up his arse
this is great sport
i love to see them squirm
February 27th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
i’ve decided to add a bit of variety to the storyline
fed up of faceless shaven/unshaven men/taxis in morocco/spain/cafes in france/barmy blokes in dorset…
ted’s mate down the pub drives a big yellow and green (maddy come home colours gedditt???@££) john deere tractor with a cab big enough for several people.
taxis get stuck in the lower field ‘cos we have problems with the drainage.
i predict the next sighting will be of a swarthy bloke in a john deere.
we’ll buy him a couple of pints out of the loot
great sport
February 27th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
246
Salomon
I am another one who really appreciates your posts!
February 27th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
231 Abraham
The point I made before about the taxi driver is related to what you mention.
If they left Lagos and were en route to Spain (eg Huelva - Sevilla), they would go pass Monte Gordo and only 4 miles later VR Santo Antonio.
What the Taxi driver is describing is bringing them back from VR Santo Antonio to Monte Gordo (ie in the direction of LAgos and opposite direction from Spain).
THat’s why the whole story is bizarre. That and also the fact that Murat is mentioned, that it looks impossible by the McCanns or any accounts for Madeleine to be in VR Santo Antonio at 20.10.
I don’t want to sound too sceptical, but people in VR Santo Antonio are right next to the spanish border. They communicate and relate well with the Spanish. I wonder if the taxi driver had an informative lunch with a certain detective agency from Spain that made him suddenly think that the PJ did not look into his statement…
February 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Hi Ade
Did you enjoy the eddie and keela saga ( not for the poor kids I mean) but because they have been shown to be ever so accurate?
February 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
234
Gandolf
Dont you think the PJ hasnt checked?Like they did for any other sightings?because they have Gandolf!
Find this kink below posted by Ian yesterday.It is related to an other sighting/suspect
http://www.truthformadeleine.com/pics/PJstatement25May.jpg
February 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Karen
I’d better not read it then!
February 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
238 jo
thanks for that
nice ones salomon
i wonder how much the taxi driver got paid
more than the fare i bet
great sport
i’ll tell ted to wait till tomorrow to have his “sighting”
if the cheque doesn’t bounce of course
i hear the slush fund is down to the last half million
February 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Jo, thank you for that, you have restored my faith in the milk of human kindness.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
236
Gandolf
I personally do NOT think you are a bad person at all and you probably are a very concerned father like all of us here.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
must be about time for a new “sighting”
ted’s keeping a eye on the lower field for blonde girls with an eye defect
i’ll let you know what’s in the press release when the slush fund cheque arrives
excellent fun
February 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Ade
Read
Salomon 138 & 124
February 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am
See you Karen. Not another plumber I hope!
February 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am
jo, yes I do have children, does that make me a bad person.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hello everyone and goodbye - I have to do stuff today, even though I still have flu.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Why the mention of Robert Murat again, is some one trying to frame him, or is he involved.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sick and tired of being ignored, António Castela never tires of repeating this episode, which he reported to PJ at the time, stressing its conviction that he drove in his taxi the English child who disappeared in the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz . He says that Maddie was accompanied by a woman who appeared to be her mother and three men, one of which he thought to resemble Robert Murat, this man being the one who was seated nexto to him. The woman travelled in the back seat, between the two men, and one of these two man was holding Maddie, who was wearing pink pyjamas, on his lap.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Gandolf
Just out of the blue and you do not have to answer:do you have children?
Just being curious thats all
February 27th, 2008 at 11:52 am
mornin’ all
been away a bit - have they been hanged yet?
great fun
i see the mcconns are still trying to discredit lord eddie and keela.
waste of time
the jersey experience proved these dogs are class
sadly their right royal holy fragrances and their hangers-on are not class
great sport
February 27th, 2008 at 11:52 am
This taxi driver story has just sent a shiver down my spine. Wasn’t there a post on here 3 or 4 months ago about the route from Lagos to Vila Real de Santo to Seville? On the same thread I can remember another poster, Lou de Crosse, then launched a scathing attack telling the original poster to f**** off and that they didn’t know anything - a real attempt to shut the poster up. Can anyone find this or did I imagine it?
February 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Gandy
February 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
220
Marie Nicholas
Glad to hear some things work!
Paedo used to “work” alone but with internet it as become a very wary different “game”.
They are atrocious revolting people
I always thought when my children were younger if anything of the sort would happen to them and the “person” would be caught -preferably I woud catch him-
I would make him eat his balls….. and slowly finish him off.
Paedos perfectly know what they are doing
This is as radical I can possibly be
February 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Julie, my unbridled apology is at your feet along with my thanks, I am sorry that I misunderstood your thrust. I really don’t want to beat the shit out of any one, it irks me, when people make such nonsensical innuendos.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:44 am
222 Marie Nicholas
I don’t know. In Spain, they must be strapped into a children’s seat until they measure 1.50 m. This may not be applicable to taxis but a normal sized car has only 5 seats - the driver and 4 more.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Steve T
The PJ would have followed the track if it could lead them anywhere, obviously. If they dismissed it, they know why, I am sure.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I’m still fuming about Allison Pearson.
World’s worst hack.
We have been discussing Shannon’s family situation and her being allowed to walk home alone.
Still Allison wrote about Kate howling like a wounded animal on T.V. - I guess reality isn’t her strong point.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I see no-one has offered a reward for information about Shannon yet.