Madeleine McCann: A Celebrity Banquet, Kate McCann Stars And Amaral Rebuttal
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann: sniffer dogs, defaince, gagging and a celebrity dinner and lament:
Madeleine McCann: The Story In Pictures
BACK when Our Maddie was the cause celebre and the great and good were queuing up to donate to the reward fund and wear the T-shirt, a dinner would have been the event not to be missed event. Which jobbing celeb would dare to turn an invite down?
Madeleine McCann: When Will It End?
But now, who would go? The Express delivers:
MCCANNS’ STAR-FILLED PARTY TO BOOST FUND
And we learn:
DEFIANT Kate and Gerry McCann will mark the 1,000th day since their daughter disappeared with a celebrity packed £150-a-head fundraising dinner and auction at a top London venue.
Can anyone stand to eat? Does the food stick on the way down?
Tycoon Sir Richard Branson and their businessman backer Brian Kennedy will join stars at Kensington Roof Gardens in west London on January 27.
Any bands or cabaret?
Radio Five’s Nicky Campbell and children’s author JK Rowling have also been invited.
And they’re coming, right? Hey, it’s for Our Maddie. Do they dare refuse?
Says Kate, 41: “We will raise money for Madeleine’s Fund and the ongoing search for her. If our circumstances remain unchanged, this day will sadly mark 1,000 days since Madeleine was taken from us.”
Given the media’s rebranding of Madeleine McCann as Our Maddie, the “us” is you as well.
Money will be raised through ticket sales and a charity auction. Half the profits, expected to exceed £100,000, will go to Madeleine’s Fund, which currently stands at about £400,000, with the other half split between two other charities.
So, it’s not all for Our Maddie. Some of the cash goes to charities the McCanns support. Is this a sign that they realise that raisinf money for the search for their daughter is not enough to attract the big wallets – more is needed; a bigger cause? As we said years ago, Our Maddie is the benchmark for missing children, and the McCanns have become the spokespeople for them all.
Madeleine McCann: The Benchmark For Missing Children
Kate explained: “Madeleine’s Fund is not depleted but we are aware, given the uncertainty of our situation, that we need to plan ahead to continue the search to find her.”
But is they win their libel case against Goncalo Amaral, the fund will be swelled. Will a dinner be needed? Or if they lose, will celebrities be put off supporting the cause?
Kate said: “Fifty per cent of the profits from the event will be split between two charities, Missing People and Missing Children Europe. These two charities are among many others who work incredibly hard despite limited funding to help missing and exploited children.”
Good that good causes will benefit. Children go missing and if the “celebrity” parents can raise awareness for them, all to be supported.
Meanwhile, until Madeleine McCann is found, the media can gawp at Kate McCann. Says the Sunday Mirror:
Kate McCann defiant on Maddie allegations
Well, yes. Her defiance is part of the reason why Goncalo Amaral is in court facing a libel charge.
Madeleine McCann: The Dangers Of PR And Libel
The People delivers an “OUR MADDY” headline:
“OUR MADDY WAS TAKEN”
Kate McCann yesterday insisted missing daughter Madeleine was kidnapped and didn’t just wander off. She said: “Abduction is the only possible theory because we weren’t involved in her disappearance and we know she didn’t go off by herself.”
Theory.
Madeleine McCann Tests The Imagination Of Harry Potter Fans
In the Irish Indy, Eilis O’Hanlon, echoes our thoughts on how libel trial can bits back:
Which version one chooses to believe is a matter of personal taste. When it comes to outlandish conspiracy theories, there really is one for everyone in the internet’s global audience of nutters, giving ever greater credence to the old line about a lie getting round the world before the truth gets out of bed. But if you’re on the receiving end of it, like the McCanns and their friends, you certainly don’t expect the police to add fuel to the fire.
The Other View On The McCann Court Case: When Libel Trials Go Wrong
He then indulges in a little bit of the troll-like mutterings he criticises:
Unfortunately, this is what they have done from the start. These are people who issue solicitors’ letters the way other couples send out wedding invitations. There’s even a website now devoted to people who claim to have been “Gagged By (The) McCanns”, with the tagline: “Has Team McCann tried to silence you?” Free speech isn’t so free when you’re working on a shoestring and your opponents have multi-million pound funds at their disposal.
The McCanns insist they act this way only because they don’t want a sense of defeatism about Madeleine’s fate to dilute the continuing effort to find their daughter. That’s understandable, though Kate McCann’s claim last week that the proceedings have “shown again there is no evidence that Madeleine came to any harm” are bewildering, to say the least. Sniffer dogs who had been trained to detect the presence of cadavers and blood both reacted strongly in the couple’s holiday apartment. Something bad happened there, even if there is not a scrap of credible physical evidence that it had anything to do with them. It seems like another example of a couple who have never exactly come across as warm or likeable in the public imagination doing themselves no favours, especially when so many questions remain to be answered about that awful night and the following weeks.
More signs of subjectivity when facts are required. But on this, he scores a hit:
They can’t have it both ways, demanding that interest in the disappearance of Madeleine remains high while also continually asserting their right to control the tenor and nature of that interest.
Goncalo Amaral’s claims need to be rebutted, not censored. That’s the real tragedy.
We’d argue that they can be ignored. Meanwhile, Madeleine McCann is missing – still missing. There are no suspects. There is no proof of a crime.
Pictures Of All The Madeleine McCann Suspects
Posted: 17th, January 2010 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (83) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
January 24th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Hi Cheryl
Oh yes, I realise it’s a retainer and it may be the case that he gets it from the Fund. I’m just not certain that it doesn’t come from Kennedy as the original salary did. I only say that because sometimes people have assumed payments were from the Fund when actually they were from Kennedy. (I’m going from reading what Gerry has said in a couple of interviews.)
But, yes, it may be right. Things might have changed. It wouldn’t particularly bother me personally, because they might really him again at some point, but I think if people give money to the Fund itself, most would want to know that it goes to the actual investigation. That’s why I wonder if the retainer does actually come directly from the Fund. Wouldn’t the Mcs prefer it still to come from Kennedy? Why wouldn’t it since he was willing to pay the whole salary at one time?
But obviously I have no idea really. I just don’t automatically accept what’s in a paper. They make mistakes apart from anything else.
Nice to chat again with you!
January 24th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Maria, I’m not certain Grande Finale isn’t correct. Read the verbage very carefully: “These days Mitchell gets 40 per cent of his former salary as a retainer from the Find Madeleine Fund.” A retainer is different from a salary. Then it does say ’40 percent of his former salary’ … Thus, do the words ‘former salary’ mean just that he is no longer being paid a salary by whoever was paying him. I haven’t noticed him in the news all that much lately on behalf of the McCanns. So, they may have given him an upfront retainer to work from when they need him.
January 24th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Grande Finale
That might be true but I don’t know if the paper is correct or is just assuming that the retainer comes from the fund itself rather than from Kennedy. Mitchell’s actual words are not quoted. Certainly he was originally paid by a “wealthy benefactor” and they made sure everyone knew he wasn’t being paid out of the fund. People sometimes confuse this issue and think, for example, that lawyers’ fees are paid from the fund whereas they are actually paid separately, at least from what they say.
Here’s a report, admittedly a lot earlier, which does seem to report what CM was saying.
——————————————————————————————————————–
Former BBC man to speak for McCanns Guardian
Profile: Clarence Mitchell
James Sturcke
Tuesday 18 September 2007 16.06 BST
Later he told Sky News that his new job was being paid for by a “generous financial backer who wishes to remain anonymous”. He was not receiving money from Mr or Mrs McCann or the Find Madeleine appeal.
http://mccannfiles.com/id255.html
January 24th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Hi Cheryl!
Well they’re going through now anyway so it was just a blip. I think it must have been something wrong at my end because I tried posting on another thread where C and C had just posted successfully but mine didn’t work.
What usually happens is that a post appears immediately you’ve posted but shortly afterwards it’s only visible on the RSS feed until the moderators have checked it. The time for that obviously varies. My posts haven’t got through all day, though.
Either it was a a blip in the system or I’ve been forgiven!
Either way, thank you Anorak!
January 24th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Maria, have you checked your ‘name’ when you first post your comments? I have one assigned to me for any thread I comment on: Cheryl says: “Comment Awaiting Moderation.” Only you the poster can see that. That holds up any posting from being seen until read by moderator.
January 24th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Interesting that my posts aren’t going through! Other people’s are.
January 24th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Is this a glitch?
If I’ve been banned, why not say so openly on the site?
January 24th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Testing
As Garth said, posts don’t seem to be going through.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:23 am
As early as the first of march 2009 Clarence WAS receiving a large amount from the “find madeleine fund”
Sunday, 1 March 2009
“These days Mitchell gets 40 per cent of his former salary as a retainer from the Find Madeleine Fund”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/clarence-mitchell-i-am-a-decent-human-being-if-i-can-help-them-i-will-1634738.html
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:50 am
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/213154-mccanns-welcome-eu-alert-backing
Here’s the link. It’s the last part of a longer article.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:23 am
Sorry scotfree! I hadn’t seen your post suggesting leaving it because the posts don’t appear straightaway.
Good idea though…let’s leave it! Good night!
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:21 am
Last one, scotfree! Bed calls.
This is from Day 345 of Gerry’s blog. It does at least show that Missing Children Europe were involved in drawing up the guidance on introducing such a system. They’d been campaigning for this development for years and the Mcs’ support at least gave a big boost to it. By the way, of course some countries preferred their own systems, or were jealously guarding them, rather than wanting to go in with a Europe-wide system, but at least the Mcs’ support did move things on.
“An EU wide AMBER type system has widespread support. The EU commission presented draft guidance (written in conjunction with Missing Children Europe) on the introduction of such a system. In Lisbon in October last year the proposal got the informal support of the 27 member states home office/justice ministers.”
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:09 am
An entry from Gerry’s blog. They did get the required number of signatures. On reading this, I think it might have been a spokeswoman from PACT who thanked them on TV, not Missing People; I can’t remember with certainty.
Gerry’s Blog From Day 412: 18/06/2008 (Madeleine’s Dad)
Day 412: Kate and I had a flying visit to Strasbourg yesterday to the European Parliament. The visit was organised by one of the written declaration sponsors, Edward McMillan-Scott who is a Vice-President of the parliament.
It was hectic schedule but well worth effort. We met with the other sponsors, many MEP’s who have signed the declaration and many who did not realise that there was a declaration on the introduction of an EU wide Amber alert. As we stated when we launched the declaration in Brussels last month- the alert is not our idea. It already has the support of the European commission and they and other groups such as Missing Children Europe, PACT and Missing People have done a huge amount of work previously. Our hope is that getting the declaration formally adopted by the parliament will speed up the implementation of alerts throughout the EU member staets and facilitate cross-border cooperation. Many of the MEP’s who have not signed said they will and a lot of those who have already signed said they will lobby their National and fellow group MEP’s to sign.
Today we heard that 283 have now signed the declaration compared to 211 on Monday. We are hopeful that the additional 110 signatures required will be achieved by the next sitting of parliament on the 7-10th July. It would be a great shame if the declaration failed because of a combination of ignorance and apathy.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:03 am
Maria fine lets agree on the main points, leave the arguments to others!
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:03 am
This is still not quite what you’re looking for but it does show that the Mcs’ support was perceived as being helpful. It’s from the ~Metro!!
Conservative MEP and European Parliament Vice-President Edward McMillan-Scott, who helped organise the McCanns’ visit to Brussels and another to Strasbourg last month to keep up support, formally presented the resolution to EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot.
He said: “I am very pleased that a majority of MEPs have backed this important initiative, started by Kate and Gerry McCann out of their personal tragedy. Now it has real impetus across the EU. Four hundred children have been saved in the USA in five years by this system.”
Two years ago – before Madeleine disappeared – a similar initiative in the European Parliament failed to attract sufficient support to be taken up by ministers. But the publicity surrounding the case means the current French EU presidency is now likely to give the issue a big push in the next few months.
Moderator – supply a link please
January 21st, 2010 at 11:50 pm
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+IM-PRESS+20080901IPR35741+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
Scotfree
I probably won’t be able to do what you ask because I don’t keep archives. I’ve just found this, which isn’t quite what you’re looking for.
I know that the Director (I think that was his title) of Missing People walked into the European Parliament WITH the Mcs, and sat with them, when they spoke about the proposed change to European law. I also remember clearly that a spokeswoman for Missing Children Europe thanked the Mcs on TV after the occasion recorded in the link above and said how valuable their support had been. I probably won’t be able to find it now, though, so you may choose not to believe it. (But it’s true!)
There was a fair bit in the media about it at the time but I simply don’t keep archives. I might look a bit more but you know how pages and info dies tend often to disappear from the net.
January 21st, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Maria, I think that I was admitting that I could be wrong. However this does seem to be a discredited system, the 160 000 phone system, as very few members of the group wish to participate. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/01/madeleine-mccann-missing-child-hotline-oprah-winfrey in the Guardian point out that only 10 out of 30 countries are interested in participating in this exercise. I will however take exception as to your assertion that the McCanns were asked for their help by this NGO – unless you can supply evidence to the contrary – they were perceived as bludgeoning their way with the help of a very small minority of MSP’s to gain public acclaim.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:35 pm
61 Rockhopper says:
January 21st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Pandora’s Box has been opened even wider I’d reckon!
January 21st, 2010 at 9:28 pm
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/139995-mccanns-amber-alert-couldve-saved-maddie
scotfree
The Mcs were asked two years ago to lend their support to these organisations to promote and publicise the campaign to introduce an Amber Alert-type system across Europe. They did so, as this article from April 2008 shows.
January 21st, 2010 at 8:51 pm
A little further digging! This,Missing Children Europe, is an orgaisation that the McCann’s have been on the perifery of for some considerable time, related to the emergency phone number across Europe for reporting issues with Children. So not an hastily added ‘make us look good’ addition to the list.
January 21st, 2010 at 8:10 pm
It would appear that Missing People is a british charity it is also a partner of Missing Children Europe which is a loose (?) collection of charities working in this field around Europe. It is an umbrella NGO organisation whose aims are – “Missing Children Europe is the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children, which represents 23 NGOs active in the prevention and protection of children from disappearance and sexual exploitation.”
Are the McCanns trying to get legitimisation for their ‘fund’ by becoming an “Associate Member is subject to following conditions: an associate member must:
be a non-governmental organisation, a private foundation recognized as being for the benefit of the public, or a natural person, active in the field of either or both the disappearance or sexual abuse and/or exploitation of minors;
subscribe to the missions and purposes of the Federation;
in the case of organisations or foundations: have its registered office in Europe.
Looking at its funding 50K from this little shindig is a drop in the ocean.
http://www.missingchildreneurope.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=48
January 21st, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Rockhopper
Spot on. This is from their website. They are an umbrella organisation.
“Missing Children Europe is the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children. As an umbrella organisation, it represents 23 Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) active in 16 Member States of the European Union. Each of these organisations is active in cases of missing and/or sexually exploited children at grassroots level, including prevention and support for victims.”
There’s a lot more about their history and make-up on the site.
January 21st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Anorak.
Have you seen the latest post on the Joana Morais site?
January 21st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Here is a link that gives the information on the Missing Children Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Children_Europe#Some_key_figures
January 21st, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Missing People: A registered charity.
Missing Children Europe: From what I can see this is an organization that accepts donations, I haven’t managed to find anything that confirms it is a registered charity.
January 21st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Cheryl 54. Can we just accept as fact that the two charities mentioned had indeed been contacted before the press release for their permission to use their names? Remember the way that the McCanns took over the investigation of the little Spanish (?) girl with out consulting her parents and the unholy row that came after the publication of posters with the two girl’s pictures!
January 21st, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Hello C and C!!
Nice to see you and your comment! All the very best for 2010.
Rockhopper
First of all, do we really know even who is going? No idea how far along the the line the plans are. Date? Is it happening? If it does go ahead, I would be surprised if the two charities hadn’t been consulted. Don’t forget that they were the ones (at least one of them, if not both) who asked the Mcs to support them over the matter of the European parliament adopting a system like America’s Amber Alert. They sought, and were grateful for, the Mcs’ support, which they gave unstintingly; it did move the vote on a lot. The two charities have also supported the Mcs, as parents of a missing child. I’d guess there’s a lot of communication between them. I’d be surprised if they weren’t grateful for financial support now as well as the moral support and publicity for their Amber Alert campaign which the Mcs have already given. I could be wrong, of course.
Cheryl
(Haven’t had an invitation…….does one need one??……in any case, I haven’t got a thing to wear!)
The Mcs have made it clear from the start that the Fund is not a registered charity. Even as they applied for charitable status, GMc said he knew they wouldn’t get it because it was set up to help to find ONE child only. Quite reasonably, a registered charity has to have a wider brief. On the official site, you’ll see that it is a not-for-profit fund, set up properly, according to the legal requirements for such funds. You can look up the terms of such funds on the net.
Garth
Hi! Think it just takes a while for the moderators to check the messages for libel etc. before they appear on this page. Happy 2010!
Moderator – Garth has posted one post, it didn’t need moderating
January 21st, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I imagine the £150 will be for the cost of the meal and the venue, surely the funds for all the fundraisers will come from the items donated to be auctioned.
We used to do this in much humbler surroundings fundraising for various dog charities, and the auction provided the funds
January 21st, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I think Euro Weekly News is a wonderful publication
January 21st, 2010 at 4:32 pm
No, I’ll admit I just presumed they would be involved. You do have a point, they may not be actively involved but I definitely think they would have been consulted about the plans of donating some of the Funds raised to them. Professional and common courtesy they would have told them of their Plans before using their names in public or in any type of press release. Yet, Rockhopper I still think they’ll have representation there. The invitees coming are aware their donation of 150 pounds is being split with the two others and common courtesy dictates representatives from those two be there to also thank the people. Unless, of course, rudeness is no big deal in the UK.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:34 pm
echo echo