Madeleine McCann: The First Robert Murat, McCanns’ Neglect Charge And Old Portugal
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
SUNDAY PEOPLE: “MCCANNS FACE NEW CHARGE
EXCLUSIVE SCANDAL OF PLAN TO CHARGE MADDIE MUM ‘KEYSTONE COP’ FURY”
A shock new plan to charge Kate McCann over daughter Maddie’s kidnap was last night condemned as “spiteful and shameful”. British legal experts branded bungling Portuguese detectives “Keystone Cops” for considering neglect charges.
But are these comedy cops the only ones who think the McCanns erred?
One lawyer said: “After an inquiry costing millions and unprecedented international help, these Keystone Cops still haven’t got a clue what happened to Madeleine. The investigation was a mess from Day One.”
Says McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “We haven’t heard through official channels if they are considering this charge. But you’d have to ask yourself, ‘Why now?’”
Or why not now?
MAIL ON SUNDAY: “Madeleine special investigation: The damning case against the Portuguese police - and how Kate and Gerry are coping one year on”
At the holiday home where Madeleine was last seen:
The apartment gate was padlocked, but in the little paved front yard, a purple hibiscus and some dusty geraniums were coming into bloom. The Algarve spring is finally coming.”
Such are the facts in this special investigation.
“It’s a new season,” said a British woman who works in a local restaurant. “It’s tragic they haven’t found Maddie. But the time has come to move on.”
Moving on:
Of course, moving on is one thing Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, cannot do. They remain arguidos, official suspects, - as does Robert Murat, a British expat living in Praia da Luz who has strenuously protested his innocence - still supposedly being investigated on the grounds that they may have caused her death or disappearance.
“Intellectually, they have grasped what has happened,” said Gerry’s elder brother, John. “Emotionally, they have learnt, to an extent, to cope: one’s psychology adapts. But they haven’t really come to terms with it. There are times when they can seem cheerful, but then the devastation bursts through. Madeleine’s disappearance is a cataclysm that is horrendous for them, and horrendous for all of us close to them.”
“It’s an intense, full-on existence for both of them,” said the McCanns’ spokesman, Clarence Mitchell. “Gerry is back at work [as a cardiologist] full-time, but when he gets home the campaign to find Madeleine is like having a second job.”
And what of Portugal, Britain’s oldest ally?
“You have to remember: until 1974 Portugal was a dictatorship,” said a veteran Algarve journalist, who asked not to be named. “That was the climate in which the PJ was created. Their methods were pretty rough.”
Rough?
Brutal treatment of suspects was routine. One expatriate British woman told me how a friend of her mother had been arrested in the late Eighties on suspicion of breaking and entering a house - only to be savagely beaten in custody.
“She was bruised all over her body. Of course, the police said they hadn’t done anything, and were never called to account,” the woman said.
Rough. Very rough:
“This is Heartbeat country,” another expat said.
Heartbeat, Why do you miss when my baby kisses me? Greengrass - take him to the ‘pit’
“People talk to the police, and so often they think they know who’s guilty, but can’t prove it. So they make an arrest and turn up the pressure in the hope of getting a confession.”
Portugal. A place of rare dangers:
Thirty miles east of Praia da Luz lies the resort of Albufeira, where a collection of clifftop villas known as Val Novio was once a thriving development, favoured by British expats. Now largely abandoned, it was there, on November 19, 1990, that Rachel Charles, aged nine, went missing.
Neil McKay, a Bafta-winning TV scriptwriter who has specialised in factual dramas about crime, was on holiday nearby with his father at the time. “We were sitting in a bar having a beer one evening,” he recalled.
“This English guy came in, saying a little girl had disappeared two days earlier but the police were refusing to mount a proper search. He said her family wanted every British tourist or expat to meet on the beach at seven next morning to try to find her.
“So we went. There must have been more than 200 of us. Tragically, it didn’t take long to find her body, hidden among some pines.”
Those Portuguese police:
Len Port, now an Algarve publisher who covered the case for The Portugal News, said: “The police search was highly inefficient, as, frankly, was everything else about the case. The way the police handled it was desperately amateurish - and ultimately, a travesty of justice.”
Just as they would later do with the McCanns, the PJ soon hit on a suspect who knew the victim and her family. But according to Port, who attended his trial, it had “no real evidence. It was an unjust trial”.
Robert Murat:
The defendant was Michael Cook, a British expat businessman who had taken part in the search, and in 1992 he was convicted and sentenced to 19 years. Having protested his innocence, he was released in 2002. Last week, he told of his ordeal for the first time.
“This has ruined my life,” he said. “I still carry the scars from the six times I was stabbed in prison; as for the times I had the s*** kicked out of me, I long ago lost count.”
Posted: 20th, April 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,270) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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April 21st, 2008 at 3:25 am
Would you all please shut up, be civilized?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:24 am
1024
You accused me of having a boyfriend!
That is an insult if I have ever heard one.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:23 am
Shell we get some sleep?
Correio da Manhã is saying nothing about the McCanns unless it will change still this night.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:22 am
I insulted nobody.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:21 am
1020
Is this necessary?
—
Hard to say.
He has insulted more than me.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:20 am
Once again M&A, award yourself a medal of the bin lid sized variety
April 21st, 2008 at 3:19 am
I don’t wear a slip, but I’ll bet you do!
April 21st, 2008 at 3:18 am
What is happening here between Saul and the rest?
Is this necessary?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:17 am
1018
veritablequandary Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 3:14 am
works for me, creep
—–
Oh dear, your slip is showing.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:14 am
works for me, creep
April 21st, 2008 at 3:13 am
1013
veritablequandary Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 3:02 am
Saul, go suck yourself and leave the rest of us to constructive discourse.
————-
Very illuminating
April 21st, 2008 at 3:11 am
It was a very pleasant evening tonight, I leave myself at the mercy of the moderators.
They can decide who has stepped over the mark.
It’s not my fault you have no boyfriend.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:07 am
1014
I have no boyfriend.
How about you?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:05 am
Maybe you can take yourself and your boyfriend elsewhere.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:02 am
Saul, go suck yourself and leave the rest of us to constructive discourse.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:59 am
Saul
1003
Then I suggest you go back to the other forums you came from.
————————————————————————————————-
Whaat!?
I have been reading Anorak for nine months and posting here since late 2007.
I have said many times that I only frequent Anorak and only refer to other ‘boards when someone here has posted a link. I joined another forum about 5pm today only because I thought it would enable me to search and, thus far, it hasn’t because I am still awaiting the e-mail activation! I have never ever posted to another MM forum.
I do not have time, generally, for other fora because I also moderate two other messageboards which are absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:59 am
1008
Denzylle Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 2:53 am
Saul, for the last hour, you have been lobbing in critical comments in a random manner without addressing any individual, as if you were a moderator. (Except that the moderators don’t do that. If they have issues, they address them directly).
What’s your problem with the discussion this late evening? At least it’s on topic and serious, which is more than I can say for a lot of what I skip thru’ each day.
—-
I’m not sure what lobbing means, however today was very pleasant until it was infiltrated by people who were not wanted.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:57 am
Sorry, D, I wasn’t calling you an A-hole, but rather Saul.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:54 am
go for it, asshole
April 21st, 2008 at 2:53 am
Saul, for the last hour, you have been lobbing in critical comments in a random manner without addressing any individual, as if you were a moderator. (Except that the moderators don’t do that. If they have issues, they address them directly).
What’s your problem with the discussion this late evening? At least it’s on topic and serious, which is more than I can say for a lot of what I skip thru’ each day.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:52 am
1005
veritablequandary Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 2:49 am
Saul, go back under the rock you crawled out from.
Or go back under the rock from which you crawled.
—–
That means I will have to displace you.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:51 am
1004 Saul Says:
My agenda is to let people make their own minds up.
-
right, as long as they agree with you.
bullshit!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:49 am
Saul, go back under the rock you crawled out from.
Or go back under the rock from which you crawled.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:48 am
1001
veritablequandary Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 2:42 am
No, the burden of proof is on you since you accused me of having an agenda.
What is yours, btw?
—-
My agenda is to let people make their own minds up.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:46 am
1000
Denzylle Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 2:42 am
Saul
My agenda - speaking only for myself - is that I enjoy exploring, alone or with others, some of the interesting things that emerge, often from other fora.
I also am quite open about the fact that I find my academic training of identifying primary or secondary sources fails me often in relation to this case because, as someone just said, how can you trust the tabloids above what is, at the moment, just gossip and specualtion (and which might end up in the tabloids in a day or two!) but which might equally be found to have an accurate basis. Our problem, all of us, is that there is so very little accurate factual information in the public arena and it might be months or years before there is more, if ever.
——–
Then I suggest you go back to the other forums you came from.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:46 am
1000
Denzylle, well said.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:42 am
No, the burden of proof is on you since you accused me of having an agenda.
What is yours, btw?
April 21st, 2008 at 2:42 am
Saul
My agenda - speaking only for myself - is that I enjoy exploring, alone or with others, some of the interesting things that emerge, often from other fora.
I also am quite open about the fact that I find my academic training of identifying primary or secondary sources fails me often in relation to this case because, as someone just said, how can you trust the tabloids above what is, at the moment, just gossip and specualtion (and which might end up in the tabloids in a day or two!) but which might equally be found to have an accurate basis. Our problem, all of us, is that there is so very little accurate factual information in the public arena and it might be months or years before there is more, if ever.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:40 am
I wouldn’t presume to say, perhaps you can tell me?
April 21st, 2008 at 2:37 am
997
And what might my agenda be?