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Anorak News | Madeleine McCann: A Look At The Brand McCann Accounts

Madeleine McCann: A Look At The Brand McCann Accounts

by | 29th, January 2009

MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann

It’s time to look at those end-of-year Our Maddy Fund accounts and McCann Incorporated:

The Sun: “Maddie’s donors in £2m bid”

WELL-wishers donated almost £2million to the fund to find Madeleine McCann in the ten months after she vanished, it has emerged.

They gave almost £260-an-hour after Madeleine went missing aged three in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3 2007, accounts lodged with Companies House show.

Can a price be put on a child? No ransom note. No advertising on the official website – at just £3 per 1,000 clicks, the fund would have swollen. And what of those unofficial toys? No Maddy Catty for all children? The diary is worth loadsa money? The ribbons? Any royalties from Ben Affleck? Torn? Any commission from the sale of the holiday villa? The newspaper specials?

At least ther were the tops. Let’s hear it for the T-shirts!

Money. Watch out for crooks. Right, Eamonn?

The figures, published for the first time, show parents Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, spent £761,668 on the search in those ten months.

Of that, £26,000 bought merchandise, £250,000 went on private detectives and £123,573 paid for campaign management. Legal fees cost £111,522 and £81,904 paid for posters and newspaper and TV ads.

Detectives profited (home by Christmas). Lawyers profited. Newspapers profited. TV profited. The McCanns lost a daughter.

A further £7,363 was spent on hotels, travel and subsistence, including their trips to Morocco and the US.

The travel industry profited. Our Maddie tours, anyone? Mr Gerard?

Daily Mail: “Where the £2m you gave to find Madeleine McCann has gone”

Malta? Morocco?

Accounts lodged with Companies House show the fund received £1.4million in bank donations, another £391,000 over the internet and £64,000 from the sale of T-shirts and wristbands.

In total, it received £1.85million in its first ten months and earned £33,424 in interest. It spent £815,113 on the search for Madeleine in that time.

Interest… Whjere can you get rates like that? Anything else?

Support for her parents – Kate and Gerry – was rocked when Portuguese police named them as suspects, and when it emerged they had used public donations to pay two £2,000 instalments on their mortgage.

The bank profited.

Says Clarence Mitchell (funded by a benefactor):

“People will be able to see that every penny of the money they so generously donated has been spent properly in the hunt to find Madeleine.”

And what good has all the money done?



Posted: 29th, January 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Reviews Comments (72) | TrackBack | Permalink