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 2:00 am
Who is this Gerarghty and what is his role in this case?
Is there a publication about him and did he talk about a fridge?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:58 am
957 Maravilha
Unfortunately much of the British Press is just interested in sensationalism, not the
truth. Because CM has been responsible for day to day announcements the Reporters
have not had much to report, and since the Express Group have been sued they are more cautious.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:56 am
Den, I’ll try my luck at refinding.
I searched by Coldwater, upon suggestion on an Anorak poster.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:54 am
Val,
I found ref to this on 3A. Does your aunt post there?
This idea is making me a bit sick.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:53 am
VQ
You can mention 3As, just not link there or reproduce the posts.
I went looking and didn’t find it.
Can you tell us more about the metal?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:51 am
953 Denzylle
I mentioned this morning , my “Aunt” had a dream that the PJ have supposedly found traces of metal, in the car and the bag and in the bodily fluids which might have come from a fridge. that”s all she could say.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:51 am
Annie
956
If you were on hols and obviously eating out every day - would it bother you so much if the fridge went belly up - enough to spend your holiday time getting rid of the old fridge. I would have just left it, and got on with my holiday…….
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Especially when the owner of the property and fridge would be responsible for the cost and trouble of repairing or replacing it, rather than the persons renting the property.
But then if all the meat stored in it was rotting and you had to keep making trips to the dump with rotting meat, maybe you would just take the fridge as well …
April 21st, 2008 at 1:50 am
Did you note the reference to metal on the site not to be mentioned?
Could this connect to fridge or freezer.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:48 am
There was a picture, I think, of Gerry carrying a sports bag.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:46 am
Maravilha
952
Fridge in the car? People would have seen him buying it somewhere or carrying it out of a home. Too complicated.
Maybe the blue bag would be the answer, if it ever existed.
———————————————————————————————————–
Perhaps the only time the fridge was transported in the car was when it was empty on its way to the dump.
As for what was stored in it, if anything of significance was, then perhaps this item was transported in the blue bag, stored in the fridge / freezer inside the villa, then transported again in the blue bag. Or in something else? When was the blue bag reported missing?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:46 am
Val, no paper in Portugal is talking about charging the McCanns.
Not at all.
I remember a short interview of a Portuguese detective on a paper, months ago. “90% of the publications about the McCanns case were not true”.
That is the problem, Val. But I notice that the Portuguese media is much more responsible than the British one.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:45 am
If you were on hols and obviously eating out every day - would it bother you so much if the fridge went belly up - enough to spend your holiday time getting rid of the old fridge. I would have just left it, and got on with my holiday…….
April 21st, 2008 at 1:43 am
939 Denzylle
Is there any significance in the fact that Soothsayer uses no punctuation at all and Hotwater uses enough for both of them, albeit all the wrong bits and all in the wrong places?
–
Only that they were two of my failures, as much as I detest that word.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:42 am
No I am witnessing a 24 hour pressure test.
I can read this B****it all night.
It is a shame that certain posters, who are very genuine are exposed to infantile behaviour by people who have apparently nothing better to do with their time.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:42 am
Val
Why do you assume the fridge was dumped before they left the first villa on 2 July?
For example (just an example), the McCs did not go to Huelva until 3 August. If they disposed of whatever had been in the fridge on that trip, they would have got rid of the fridge after that, so it could well have been from the second villa.
If it were from the first villa, why would Geraghty have commented? And even if it were from his villa, why would he contradict GM’s reason for disposing of it? That is why I think it’s important, and why I asked for a link to Geraghty’s alleged statement.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:41 am
Val, I’m not Portuguese but I speak, write and read it well.
Yes, of course, I intend to tell here what I find out in Portuguese media.
Fridge in the car? People would have seen him buying it somewhere or carrying it out of a home. Too complicated.
Maybe the blue bag would be the answer, if it ever existed.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:37 am
948 Saul
Do you have to be in work early?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:36 am
I don’t believe the McCanns would involve too many people in this case,
Too dangerous.
The more people that know, the more risks for them.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:35 am
946 Maravilha
If the Fridge wasn”t too big it could fit in a car.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:35 am
It’s okay for students. They can spend the next day in bed.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:33 am
944 Maravilha
The Mail published an article saying the McCanns may be charged, apparently it”s
now disappeared, as have the threads on Madeleine in the Sky discussions. One of
two reasons, either they are afraid of being sued or something is imminent. Are you
Portugese? if so you must watch the programme and keep us informed.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:29 am
Where was the fridge before the 28th?
I can not believe Gerry would push a fridge through the streets of Praia da Luz.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:26 am
M and A
——————–
Soothsayer
903
mods has my blessing to answer your curiosity as to whom you purport I may be.it will not add to your knowledge only your confusion.
————————————————————————————————————
So, Mods, I ain’t purporting nothing, but as you ‘has’ his / her blessing to quench my raging curiousity (oh, pardon my yawning!), who is s/he?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:25 am
Every time the McCanns burp, we all get suspicious on this forum.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:24 am
933 Denzylle
That”s why I asked for dates. If the McCanns didn”t move into his villa until 2nd July,
the assumption that the body fluids were found in the car 25 days after the car was
first rented by the Tapas 9 would put the date around May 28th, so it couldn”t have been Geraghty. Obviously if the McCanns did indeed replace a fridge it would have been in the other Villa.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:22 am
Objection your honour, leading the witness.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:22 am
The McCanns have now a huge opportunity to clean their names, going to Portugal, showing the world they are innocent.
They have got a lawyer in every corner of Algarve and of the UK.
No problem.
Please show you are innocent.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:21 am
Yes, could have been that Maddie wanted a better look. To blow out candles she probably would have been on a chair sitting down. Could be just a photo, but like jo, I am suspicious, and biased, and for a reason.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:19 am
Is there any significance in the fact that Soothsayer uses no punctuation at all and Hotwater uses enough for both of them, albeit all the wrong bits and all in the wrong places?
April 21st, 2008 at 1:17 am
M&A,
I expect it relieves the boredom.