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
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April 21st, 2008 at 9:53 am
Logic Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
1139 The watcher
What do you mean when you say that Archer enjoyed the love of the public and special treatment because he is rich? The man was sent to jail for perjury for quite a long time - rightly so, but I hardly call that being let off. It is not really relevant that he sleeps/slept with prostitutes - many men do that and are not jailed for it. Do you think Karen Matthews should be “let off” because she is poor and stupid???? I will ask what I’ve asked many times before - do poor people’s children NOT deserve the protection of the law?
Yes all children should be protected by law
archer was given special treatment as a prisoner - trips to the theater etc
and no Karen Mathews should be held responsible for her actions and right now is in prison for her actions while the McCanns are free .
Why ??????
April 21st, 2008 at 9:53 am
1175…Just_me
I don’t think it will be shelved.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
Matt - It always will be until its solved….it may get shelved but never closed
April 21st, 2008 at 9:50 am
The Portuguese/British Police Investigation into the “disappearance” of
Madeleine McCann, and other related matters, is still ongoing.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:46 am
1170
May
As Clarence says, they will have a perfectly innocent explanation for anything, whatever that might be.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:46 am
Under Portuguese law, the maximum penalty is 10 years in prison if the victim is a dependant and dies as a result of being abandoned. Lawyer Jose Olimpio, aged 42, said: “The fact the McCanns were made arguidos means that there are justified suspicions against them of committing a crime.”
The prosecutor realised very early on that if he granted Amaral a warrant, it would have to encompass all of the parties to the monitoring agreement. Perhaps he was advised from above, that it would be a political faux-pas to execute such an act.
Madeleine seems to slip further and further out of this scenario, as each day passes.
It is frankly amazing the number of apologists that are here on behalf of the PJ, if the PJ have evidence to incriminate any one, use it now let them start arresting people, the longer this charade goes on the more people will realise that they the PJ, have got rocking horse shit.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:45 am
Salomon
What it tells us really is that charges will be pressed, and that they rest on negligence, and what ensued. That charges will be pressed is a news in itself, though not necessarily reliable.
Have you noticed how the “pros” always want to treat the two facts (”negligence” and “disppearance” which they call “abduction”) apart, as if they were’nt connected? So maybe it is what enfuriates them? If it is Clarrie’s spin, it doesn’t serve them much.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:44 am
1154
Just_me Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
************
I know you’re right just_me. However, so far the explanations concocted are so ludicrous as to undermine their credibility, i.e. Kate in contact with six cadavers in one week; rotting meat and used nappies in the back of the car; a nose bleed to explain blood under the tiles and elsewhere, resulting in a purge of the apartment, including washing the curtains. Of course, these could be wholy innocent explanations!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Bloody marvelous today !!!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
1139 The watcher
What do you mean when you say that Archer enjoyed the love of the public and special treatment because he is rich? The man was sent to jail for perjury for quite a long time - rightly so, but I hardly call that being let off. It is not really relevant that he sleeps/slept with prostitutes - many men do that and are not jailed for it. Do you think Karen Matthews should be “let off” because she is poor and stupid???? I will ask what I’ve asked many times before - do poor people’s children NOT deserve the protection of the law?
April 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
the watcher - thats the million dollar question!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
1159
Ferdinand Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
1153 jo:
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. The article is rubbish, as you, Salomon and I tend to agree. I have pointed out one reason why it is rubbish.
******
It was so unlike you,Ferdinand! Thank for “correcting”
April 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
i will point out again
Karen Mathews is in prison for neglect
she is poor
Kate and Gerry McCann are free
Why?
April 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
Clarence Mitchell is mentally retarded…….pmsl love it!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:41 am
brandon - coming right up lol
April 21st, 2008 at 9:41 am
Esplendor de la Forma (translation)
Monday April 21, 2008
The beginning of the end
A good job and a good salary
Clarence Mitchell has a good job with a good salary, working as spokesman for a couple of suspects by the disappearance of a little girl, almost a year ago. Find Madeleine McCann, alive or dead, it would be the end of their work.
A friend of mine, also a journalist, believes that Clarence Mitchell is a slag and a garbage bag because it has no ethical boundaries in their attacks against Portugal and the Portuguese. I do not agree with him.
Of course, I am not suggesting that Mr Clarence Mitchell has a personal interest in maintaining the idea that the girl was abducted, McCann are innocent, the police Portuguese is a bunch of drunks and Portuguese journalists are “stupid sardines” (As said another British journalist recently in Brussels). No. Not.
Another friend of mine believes that Clarence Mitchell is mentally retarded because it requested a police force foreign - FBI, Scotland Yard or Europol - to take measures in the territory of a sovereign country, like Portugal, where he called for conducting “an extensive — Research by foreign players due to manipulation by the Portuguese “of the case.”
Well, I have to accept it. Only a mentally retarded person can propose something like that.It is common to find garbage bags, scoundrels and people with mental retardation among journalists of the British tabloids. But one can also find some of these specimens among former journalists from the BBC.
Just read what an idiot, David Rose, wrote
“A case of conviction against the Portuguese police” - a story which I consider as the third most blatant manipulation of information, since May 3, 2007, and I think it will be agree with me.
Speaking of the classification of the worst British journalists in the case of Madeleine, the first place belongs to Hodgson, a real scum bag who wrote false, and secondly to imbecile Sky News, Martin Brunt.
This is not the beginning of the “silly season,” that period of time where there is no news for newspapers, politicians are all on vacation and editors must be “creative” to get a good holder. This is the beginning of another season of insults against all the Portuguese, when it turns one year of the disappearance Madeleine.
You know the British media that there are limits to this kind of campaign? What can produce unwanted results?
April 21st, 2008 at 9:40 am
Just_me
Can I have my double, extra strong, milky, energiser now please ?
Then I’ll have my coffee!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Ferdinand 1144
Good point. Even with evidence that Madeleine died in the apartment (forensics) would be very difficult to pin point the exact time of death and that death was a result of negligence (ie parents not being there).
The main point remains - homicide and abandonment charges are not compatible (ie it’s one or the other) and they may actually not have strong evidence of either.
The other possibility would be to agree to the parents version of “abduction” and then charge them for abandonment that resulted in serious harm of the child or even death (if we then are to assume that the forensics would place madeleine’s death in the apartment).
However, if they have evidence that an abduction did not take place this would also be impossible to pursue.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
1153 jo:
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. The article is rubbish, as you, Salomon and I tend to agree. I have pointed out one reason why it is rubbish.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Just _Me
True. (It seems 24 Horas is Portuguese after all).
It is obvious that whatever the charges, negligence is the basis, and is difficult to dispute. That harm was the consequence is also a certainty. What harm can be discussed.
So, the news is not completely incredible. Why in July? is another question.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
the watcher - guilty!! if they all had their stories straight, and were innocent, they would have no problem going back, and the reconstruction would be easy (apart from kates so called emotional heartache) If M had really been abducted they would be doing anything possible, and put their feelings and emotions aside for the sake of their daughter.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:37 am
well said jo
April 21st, 2008 at 9:36 am
The McCann publicity machine has said all along that they want to help in any way they can.
BUT
When asked to return to luz to re enact the moments of Maddy’s disappearance they refuse.
What does that tell us ?
April 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
May - keeping the story alive is a good thing, but, I do sometimes worry that there are McCann camp spies on such forums as this. The more we discuss issues that point to their guilt, the more they can come up with stories to explain it away. ‘wholly innocent explanations’ as Clarrie would say.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:33 am
1144
Ferdinand Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:26 am
1128 Salomon ES Says:
” From the article it sounds like the PJ are only pursuing the theory that Madeleine was left alone in the apartment. Eventually that she died accidentally in the apartment and eventually there was a cover-up. ”
From all what we know, how could it be proven that an accident occured while the children were left alone?
Accidents like falling from the stairs or from the sofa can happen while the parents are nearby. Remember that a parent has only two eyes and two hands, but has to watch and to protect three children (in this case).
So as long as the police doesn’t know how an accident happened, and when in happened, there is little proof for negligent behavier.
**********
A child has GONE,disappeared and is probably DEAD and there is NO proof for negligent behaviour????????
Youre taking the piss or what? are you in a bad monday mood? had a row with your wife? too much tax to pay out?
The PJ knows that more than an accident has happened and they are being VERY cautious about the whole case
SHAME Amaral has been removed from the case really….they would already be rotting like they DESERVE
April 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Marie Nicholas - I ask because you asked why the 24Horas would relay spin, and IMO the same reason as any press would relay spin…..it sells!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
1100
brandon flours Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:47 am
* Published Date: 21 April 200*
***********
Totally understand the sentiment that the Madeleine story should be “put to bed” due to compassion fatigue.
However, have often wondered if this is the hope of Clarrie et al? Does he want the all cosuming interest to die down so the case is treated as inexplicable, and his oft repeated expressions about the anguish of the parents remain in the public psyche to the point that there is no body of opinion sufficiently strong to continue to demand justice for Madeleine?
I am grateful to the Anorak posters who keep the story alive when there is no news by contributing humour, banter, videos - anything which keeps the stalwart band of Madeleine supporters coming back, keeping in touch and alighting on the smallest clue as to what may have happened, who may be involved, and uncovering the devious actions of those people with influence who mysteriously deny any incriminating evidence against neglectful parents.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Just_Me
In Gazeta Digital yesterday, I read a letter by Paulo Reis who sounded really furious at Clarrie and at some of the British press.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:30 am
Marie Nicholas - 1133
Don’t know why 24 Horas would relay the spin. ie the “motive”. But they are not a terribly credible paper.
Marie Nicholas 1140
The negligence charges in portugal (for abandonment) are minimum 3 years and then you have two “aggravations”: in case the abandonment results in serious harm or death of the child, and secondly if you are the parents or appointed guardians of the child. So it could go up to 10 years but very unlikely.
The type of involuntary homicide that we could be talking about as leading to madeleine’s death could entail more serious charges than negligence.
Just me 1141
Yes exactly my point - whichever way we look at it negligence / abandonment are incompatible with involuntary homicide charges.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:29 am
Accidents like falling from the stairs or from the sofa can happen while the parents are nearby. Remember that a parent has only two eyes and two hands, but has to watch and to protect three children (in this case).
So as long as the police doesn’t know how an accident happened, and when in happened, there is little proof for negligent behavier.
If the parents are not there
if they leave very small children alone
THAT IS NEGLECT
there are no excuses.