Bolivian Police And Maddie McCann Introduce The Worst Photo-Fits Ever
HAVE you seen that police photo-fit of the wanted man? Do you recognise that face? If you do you are either a mystic, the wanted man or else guesing. In light of the Bolivian police’s fine work in capturing them, and their joinign in the hunt for Our Maddie, we introduce the World’s Worst Police Photo-fits:
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The e-fit of a man, as drawn from memory by British born DVD shop owner Simon Russell after being shown it by police last Saturday, in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. http://www.anorak.co.uk/madeleine-mccann/2009/05/pictures-of-all-the-madeleine-mccann-suspects/
Posted: 25th, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Kevin Halligen Becomes The ‘Maddie Faudster’
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: KEVIN Halligen has been arrested. But his arrest has nothing to do with Halligen’s company Oakley International, which was paid £300,000 from campaign donations to find Madeleine McCann.
Halligan has been arrested over a separate alleged fraud. Police were called in light of a discrepancy over his bill at the Old Bank Hotel in Oxford.
Thames Valley Police said in a statement: “We arrested a 48-year-old man at the Old Bank Hotel in Oxford. It was a discrepancy over his hotel bill.”
Halligen is wanted in the United States, accused of using a client’s funds – a law firm - for his own benefit. It is alleged he bought a mansion in Virginia with the firm’s money.
It is claimed he had said the money was to help secure the release of two business executives from the Dutch company Trafigura, who were arrested in the Ivory Coast.
But it’s his relationship with Our Maddie that occupies the mind of the press:
A spokesman for the McCann family said: “Our association with Halligen and Oakley International ended well over a year ago. Given that an arrest has been made it would be inappropriate for us to comment.”
The Sun (front page): “MADDIE FRAUDSTER NICKED”
Halligen is the “Madeleine fraudster” even though he is accused of committing no fraud against the missing child nor her team.
Sky News says: “Madeleine ‘Conman’ Charged With Fraud”. Meanwhile, back in the Sun:
A DODGY “detective” on the run accused of swindling the Madeleine McCann fund out of £300,000 was nicked last night - thanks to The Sun. Kevin Halligen, 50, was led from his bolthole in handcuffs after our investigators staked out a luxury Oxford hotel then tipped off cops. The fugitive whined to police: “How did you find me?”
Well, Sky News mentions a discrepancy in the bill - a bill that ran into thousands of pounds, allegedly, the Sun prefers to foster the idea that police and hacks are scouting the country for the ‘Maddie fraudster’.
Our team tipped off police that he and his lover were about to flee after we staked out their bolthole.
But what that bit about the bill? Oh:
Last night cops who found him and his girlfriend with their bags packed were holding him over his unpaid bill at the plush Old Bank hotel in Oxford.
So they didn’t arrest Halligen over the Sun’s tip off, nor did police arrest him because of any link to Our Maddie. The arrested him over an unpaid bill. What other facts?
He won a £500,000 contract as the McCanns, both 41-year-old doctors from Rothley, Leics, prayed for clues. Much of the cash is said to have gone on luxury hotels, chauffeured limos and first-class flights as he lived the high life.
It is alleged. But the name of Our Maddie, once evoked is hard to shift:
The Times gives us:
A 48-year-old man wanted by the FBI who allegedly defrauded people across the world, including the Madeleine McCann fund, was arrested last night at a hotel in Oxford.
Whereas in the Telegraph we get:
The security consultant whose company was paid £300,000 from publicly donated funds to help find Madeleine McCann has been charged with a separate £1.3m fraud.
Or to put the news another way: Man who once worked on Madeleine McCann case arrested over unpaid hotel bill.
Posted: 25th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann And The Wanted ‘James Bond’ Spy
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: The “secret agent con man”, Oakley International and detectives seek detectives…
For three summers, the hunt has been on for the media’s Our Maddie. She has yet to be found. What happend to her has yet to be established. All we know is that she missing.
The detectives have failed.
The Guardian: “FBI searches for detective who worked on Madeleine McCann case”
He’s gone missing? Is foul play suspected? What say the detectives who aren’t missing?
A British security consultant who was paid £300,000 to assist efforts by Kate and Gerry McCann to find their daughter Madeleine is being sought by the FBI over an alleged £1.3m fraud.
A £500,000 contract given to Kevin Halligen’s private detective agency, Oakley International, to help with the search for the missing child was terminated last year after a major benefactor of the McCanns expressed concerns about the quality of the firm’s work.
Posted: 22nd, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (4) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Fiona MacKeown’s Benefits Fraud Linked To Daughter Scarlett’s Rape And Murder
FIONA MacKeown has been charged with benefit fraud. When Fiona MacKeown’s daughter Scarlett Keeling was raped and murdered in Goa, the voracious media examined the mother.
The Mail’s writers queued up to suggest that Keating’s lifestyle was in some way complicit in her daughter’s death:
“Sorry, but I blame Scarlett’s mother,” said Allison Pearson on the Mail’s front page.
Keith Waterhouse gave us:
A family of eight, living entirely on benefit allowances, managed to get as far as Goa for an extended holiday, where one of their number was murdered.
In his – oh, the irony – eponymous column, the Sun’s Jon Gaunt whined:
“Let’s not beat about the bush, Fiona MacKeown is an irresponsible mother… Fiona is typical of the kind of mother who wants everything and sees her kids as an inconvenience that can be palmed off at any excuse – she’s a clear example of the ME, ME, ME generation.”
Fiona MacKeown was not dumb and feckless. She was self-aware:
“I have nine children which makes you strong and there has been a lot to do. When I have nothing to do but think - it’s very hard. She really fought for her life and I think about that all the time.”
How does she feel about all the criticism of her for leaving Scarlett?
“I’m not surprised, really. Look at what’s been said about Madeleine McCann’s mother, and she is the picture of elegance.”
Posted: 19th, November 2009 | In: Media Comments (8) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann Is Every Parent’s Bogeyman
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Michael White’s poppy pornography and Our Spanish Maddie keeps Shannon Kyle in work.
FIRST up, the Guardian’s Michael White tells us about how the “pornography of grief has devalued poignancy of the poppy” and how Madeleine McCann is implicated in it:
The Victorians made a lot of fuss over death too. Just look at those tombstones: exotic, even erotic, in old cemeteries. But at least it was the deaths of their own loved ones they were mourning. Death was everywhere all the time before the development of modern antibiotics.
Now death sits in rest homes, impatiently waiting for life to finish swirling round the plug hole.
We, who have so little experience of it by comparison, have forgotten how to handle the great unknown in a largely godless age. Hence the macabre fuss over Princess Di, over missing Madeleine McCann and over poor, abused Jade Goody too.
Jade Goody gets two adjectives; Our Maddie gets none.
After White, the Guardian gives space to Shannon Kyle to deliver yet another of those Odes To Parenting, in which Our Maddie is the parent’s bogeyman:
Posted: 13th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Can Madeleine McCann Win Britain’s Got Talent?
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: CAN Madeleine McCann win Britain’s Got Talent?
In “My talent will help hunt for Madeleine McCann”, the Chester Chronicle shines a light on piano player Brian Davies, who “hopes to win Britain’s Got Talent with a score he is dedicating to missing Madeleine McCann.”
Remember that if you don’t vote for Mr Davies then you’re not voting for Our Maddie. And that would make you an utter ****. Vote Paul Davies and keep Maddie’s name in your minds and so bring her closer to home.
Piano player Brian Davies, 59, of Old Chester Road, Helsby, who says he has never had a music lesson in his life, has written an instrumental piece – entitled Forget Me Not – which he hopes will help raise awareness of the Find Madeleine campaign.
Posted: 12th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (5) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Prudent Kate And Gerry McCann Still Have Two Kids Left
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: In a piece entitled “Madeleine McCann’s Siblings, Sky News’ Colin Brazier delivers an article which blends fact with fiction to produce something opportunistic, hideous that should offer Kate And Gerry McCann no little comfort:
Just over two years ago the release of the film Gone Baby Gone was allegedly postponed because of parallels with the case of Madeleine McCann.
Not alleged. This is what we learnt from Affleck on October 12, 2007:
“Disney UK made the decision to postpone the movie but I absolutely support it and I’m pleased by what I think is erring on the side of good taste. There’s no rush. It’s obviously a sensitive time and if there are any similarities we can wait to distribute the movie in the UK. I was only vaguely aware of the Madeleine case because it wasn’t a big thing here in the United States. Maybe I’m out of it because I don’t read many newspapers, but I didn’t really know much about it until somebody said, ‘Hey, there may be some similarities’.”
Anyone traumatised by Afflecks’s performance in car accident movie Changing Lanes, who is a devout Christian and found Dogma offensive or who fears impending Armageddon can applaud Ben’s actions.
The Times told us:
However, in the wake of the Madeleine McCann case, this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 1998 novel was withdrawn from this year’s Times/bfi London Film Festival because of its sensitive subject matter, and may never be released in the UK”
The film was released. Child abuse was delivered as a form of entertainment. And Affleck told us:
Affleck: What has happened to Madeleine McCann is terrible and it was the right decision to wait until now before bringing out the film, as we didn’t want to upset the family.
Affleck: “I worked with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children [which is involved in the search for Madeleine McCann] and I found out about the extent of child abuse internationally. It is horrifying.
Affleck: “Sometimes, abuse is as simple as leaving your kids in front of the TV all day and thinking that it is sufficient parenting.”
Back to Brazier and “Madeleine McCann’s siblings”:
It was felt the movie, which tells the fictional story of the abduction of a four-year-old girl, was too close to real life. Although written before Madeleine McCann’s abduction [sic], Gone Baby Gone contained some inadvertent but nonetheless [sic] extraordinarily coincidental material. The plot focuses on a 4-year-old played by an actress - actually called Madeleine - who shows an uncanny resemblance to the real Madeleine McCann. I watched the film six months ago and was quite staggered by how accidentally art had imitated life.
You mean to say that stories can be based on real life events, and fears? Brazier then introduces readers to more works of fiction:
Child abduction has been dealt with by artists before. In his 1987 novel The Child In Time, Ian McEwan writes about the disappearance of a three year old. The scene where the father loses sight of his daughter in a supermarket, while momentarily distracted, never to see her again, is brilliantly wrought.
How does it end, Colin?
Both stories have different endings. In the film the child is found alive and well. In the book the child is never found and the mystery is never solved. But the book does offer one answer.
And in Maddie’s story? What happens?
Mercifully, such abductions are as rare now as they were fifty years ago (it’s only our paranoia which has increased). But the phenomenon of couples destroyed by the loss of an only-child may be on the rise.
Anyone following his argument. Child abduction in books is rare. But many one-child couples break up. Are these parents in the real world or in books? Is there a difference? Is it all just a form of entertainment?
Think of some recent high-profile cases.
Thinking:
Tragic parents like Neil and Kazumi Puttick. In June, they leapt to their deaths from Beachy Head, clutching the body of their five-year-old son Sam. He had died of meningitis the week before and his parents were crippled with grief. Or parents like 40-year-old Joanna Coombs. Last year, her body was found on the same tracks where her daughter - and only child - had died two months before.
These are real parents whose tragedies are placed in the context of works of fiction. And what do they have to do with Madeleine McCann or her siblings, the twin or which there are, er, two?
It stands to reason that when parents put all their eggs in one all-too-fragile basket, the loss of that child may prove insupportable. Previous generations understood that a larger family provided a shield against the loss of a singleton. In the words of Churchill’s famous, if callous, dictum: “One for mother, one for father, one for increase and one for accidents“.
Anyone else feeling sick? Lucky the McCanns had a couple of children left over, then. Good news. How prudent of them to bring three children into the world. It might well be what has kept them going, and alive. You want more from Brazier? Here goes:
When tragedy strikes a multi-child family, parents are more likely to carry on for those who remain, no matter how grief-stricken they are.
How much more likely? More likely than the McCanns or less likely than the cast of Schindler’s List?
Some social scientists already fret about how the rise of the only child is changing society. One talks about the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ effect. The fictional Private Ryan was the only one of four brothers to survive the battle for Normandy in 1944. Would a modern parent be so sanguine about an only-child fighting for his or her country?
Answers in the form of a work of fiction.
That’s a choice few will have to make. But many will make much more quotidian decisions about danger. It is one reason why so many modern children are not permitted to take risks of almost any description.
Fact and fiction. Can you spot the difference?
Posted: 11th, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Tea Does Not Give You Cancer, Probably
THE Daily Express loves a cup of tea. It loves tea so much that it loves writing about the stuff. In every bag, an article is brewed. Today, readers are told:
“We’re mugs to throw away £100m of tea”
The call is for smaller cups. MacGuffin looks at how tea has become the story the Express uses to plug those gaps between Madeleine McCann insights:
On Saturday, the Express front page was a typically inept, news-free zone and even included the word ‘TAT’ spelt out down the left hand side. How very appropriate. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 10th, November 2009 | In: Media Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
X Factor: Danyl Johnson ‘Touches’ Olly Murs and Lucie Jones’ Sex Life
X FACTOR: It’s Ex-week in the tabloids, as the X Factor singers’ former loves tells all, featuring the exes of Joe McElderry, Cheryl Cole and Lucie Jones, plus Dannii Minogue’s womb and Danyl Johnsons on Olly Murs skin, literally…
Olly Murs and Danyl Johnson are getting close, allegedly:
Daily Mirror: “Essex boy OLLY MURS is complaining about gay Danyl’s over-friendly “‘touchyfeeliness’ in the house.”
Is Olly’s Essex-ness relevant to his views on “gay” Danyl? Who is Olly complaining to? Anyone smell homophobia? Lots to investigate. Is Jan Moir free to help? In any case, Olly is spoken for:
The Star: “OLLY NICE PROBLEM”
Busty glamour girl Chantelle Houghton says she fancies the pants off the cheeky chappy.
Posted: 8th, November 2009 | In: Celebrities Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: 29 Muslim Countries Refuse To Join Hunt For Our Maddie
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Scotland Yard investigates, 19 countries - how many are Muslim, Daily Star readers? - refuse to hunt for Our Maddie and Gerry McCann tells the twins all he knows.
Sunday Express (front page): “YARD ASKED TO REOPEN MADDIE CASE”
By whom?
“Calls for Scotland Yard to step in after police in Portugal fail to take the latest appeal for information seriously”
Calls by whom?
The Express features not a picture of the Our Maddie its readers know but the one mocked up by the fine people at Ceops. The piece is written by James Murray, who goes under the new title “Investigations Editor”. As for the news:
Kate and Gerry McCann want the Yard’s renowned kidnap team to assess an avalanche of new information after last week’s emotional internet appeal, which generated five million hits from around the world.
This does not seem unfair. A British national has gone missing. But what information should the police spend their resources looking at? James Murray investigates:
Portuguese ¬police, the Sunday Express can reveal, have failed to set up a new phone line for callers to ring with information.
So no police station have a phone? Has the National Emergency Number – 112 – been decommissioned by those bungling Portuguese coppers?
Last night there was fury over the dismissive response. Interpol and Europol are among 163 ¬forces worldwide that have committed to help with the appeal.
Fury. Always the fury. But can it be that 163 police forces have committed to help find Madeleine McCann? And if police in South African, Canada, Chile, Japan and Romania are looking then why not the Portuguese? There are 192 coutries in the UN. This means that 29 countries are not helping find Our Maddie. Which is shocking.
No news on what those 163 police forces are doing to look, but Murray is more concerned with what the Portuguese are not doing:
Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria is still in charge of the Madeleine case because that is where she disappeared over two years ago. It would say only that if credible information comes in by fax, letter or email, it would be passed to senior officers if it was deemed “significant”.
So the front-page headline that they will not investigate is wrong. They will. What the Portuguese will not do is investigate every phone call and emails. This entire front-page screamer seems to be based on one man’s opinion.
Last night former Scotland Yard chief Dai Davies said it was time to let the Yard take over. The former royal protection head said: “Madeleine is a British subject and she deserves the best, which the Yard can provide. It is time to put any daft police protocols to one side and get on with the job of finding her. It is a solvable case.
“It is astonishing and disgraceful that the Portuguese have not assigned a specific team to scrutinise leads which could provide a breakthrough in the world’s biggest child abduction case.
“It is frankly outrageous that the parents of this poor child should be hiring private detectives to conduct an investigation which should have been taken on by the Yard in the first place.”
Dai Davis…? Oh, him. He’s the top copper who in a retired and media-friendly capacity jetted to Paia Da Luz in 2007, and with skiful investigative prowess came up with just four theories as to what happened to Our Maddie. Mirror readers learnt:
MY FOUR THEORIES
1. Maddie was snatched by an opportunist paedophile.
2. A planned abduction, plotted in UK, in which she was “snatched to order” by a paedophile gang.
3. Someone holding a grudge against the McCanns.
4. Snatched by local childless couple.
In 2008, he opined:
“The Portuguese investigation has quite simply not solved the crime and it is now looking increasingly likely that it will be shelved. I would suggest that this is the time to call on the Yard to take the lead and to get them to form a team of detectives to work on the case”
In other Maddie non-news news:
Mail on Sunday: “McCanns use psychologist to help tell twins about Madeleine
Mrs McCann, 41, said experts have said the youngsters will ask about Madeleine’s disappearance when they are ready. “We’ll be led by them,” she said. “We’ve had advice from a child psychologist and they’ve said Sean and Amelie will lead the way. If they ask a question, we’ll answer them honestly. I’m not going to rush them, but if they ask something then I’ll answer them.”
Mr McCann, 41, a heart specialist, added: “We will answer their questions openly and honestly. What they ask, we’ll tell them. We’ll tell them what happened and what information we know.”
So what happened and what is known? Well , kids, an innocent child went missing. And the media went nuts.
Madeleine McCann: no suspects. No sign of the child. Just a media narrative…
* 192-163 equals whatever reader Martyn P tells us.
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Posted: 8th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: The Fund Is Investigated, In Pictures
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: The Fund is investigated.
The Sun: “Anti-McCann group facing fraud probe”
FRAUD cops are probing the bank account of a campaign group which says Maddie McCann is dead - and aims to blame her parents.
Who are they, then?
Controversial lawyer Tony Bennett helped set up the Madeleine Foundation, but its account is now frozen.
Posted: 7th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Katie Price’s Burning Sensation X Factor Presents The Week In Pictures
WHAT a week that was, folks. We saw Gary Glitter’s Halloween costume, a man was beaten to death on the telly for our entertainment, The Cheeky Girls encouraged thoughts of them mating with X Factor’s Jedward and creating a new breed of horror, Madonna sanitized Africa, police arrested West Ham, Stephen Fry fans pretending to be actors, had a strop on Twitter, X Factor agonist Danyl Johnson was beaten by Hitler, giving us another reason to hate Danyl with a Y, Marlon King was branded a typical footballer, you got to cover your cat’s anus with a glitter ball, Muslims laughed at Muslims, Ollie Murs reminded us of them, Iggy Pop, Muhammad reminded us of corduroy bodysuits, starred in a film as John Travolta, we blamed the Muslims for Madeleine McCann, Al Gore became a God, Daily Mail readers came out in favour of Sharia LawNazis and , we learnt that a virus can wear bovver boots, was burnt as a bitch, Katie PriceSusan Boyle was our transsexual Jesus, Lindsay Lohan died, almost, Ringo Starr became something funny in the water, we saw the Carrie Prejean sex tape, Katie and Peter got back together, we enjoyed blood porn, Sharon Osbourne presented her hairy arsehole, Jedward reviewed their novelty record collection, Elizabeth LambertBeyonce made us watch women’s football- and it was good, showed us her knickers and Nidal Malik Hasan became a victim as he murdered 13 people.
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Posted: 7th, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Media Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Hasan Nidal Triggers A War On Islam
HASAN Nidal, the Fort Hood mass murderer, dominates the news and the newswires. You can read our round-up here.
Is Nidal Hasan a jihadi or a nutter, or both? The press is uncertain, each writer going with their own prejudices. Sky News says as a psychiatrist Nidal would have heard lots of harrowing stories from returning soldiers and may have been sent mad. He’s the victim?
A man who murders 12 people is only one thing: a mass murderer.
While religion and politics merge into a bloody mess, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, is to hold a news conference tonight at its Capitol Hill headquarters in reaction to the attack at Fort Hood.
At the news conference, American Muslim leaders will reiterate their condemnation of the shootings and urge calm as the nation reacts to today’s tragic events.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, the Sun delivers this front-page news: “HE WAS THE DADDY – Pregnant Muslim bride salutes her dead hero husband”.
Inside: “Our son will never know his dad but he will know his legacy.”
The Sun gets it right. While no news organisation focusing on any of the 12 murdered US soldiers, with all eyes on their murderer and speculation as to his motives, the Sun looks at a victim. Death in the news is delivered in numbers but it only when we see one life taken that readers can relate to it:
THE wife of massacred soldier Darren Chant yesterday revealed he was due to be a father again. Muslim Nausheen, 30, is six months pregnant.
Chant and four other soldiers was murdered by 26-year-old Gulbuddin – a Afghan police officer who was shot in the leg but remains at large.
But how relevant is Mrs Chant’s religion?
The widow, who is a non-practising Muslim, said: “Our unborn son will never meet his father. But he will know him through his legacy.”
But to the Sun she is “Muslim”. It’s front-page news. But there is no war on Islam. That is what the enemy wants you to believe. There is a war on the Taliban in Afghanistan. There is a war on Al Qaeda in Iraq. Is either group a friend to Islam, or typical of Muslims? Only a fool or bigot would answer “yes”.
Mrs chant’s private grief is in the public sphere. But should religion have any factor in the story? The biggest outrage is hidden later in the article:
His mum Elizabeth, 59, told how he would bark at Prince Harry on parade: “Get your legs up, Windsor!” She tearfully accused the PM of betraying Our Boys, raging: “My son said Afghanistan was a living hell. They need more of everything, more equipment, more troops, more rifles and more clothes and boots which fit properly.“
We send our solders – white, black, Asian, Christian, Jew or Muslim - to fight ill equipped for battle. That is the outrage.
Madeleine McCann: Let’s Blame The Muslims
Posted: 6th, November 2009 | In: Media Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Shannon Matthews Returns As Aunt Is Jailed
NO sooner has Our Maddie risen to prominence once more than Shannon Matthews is sought and found. Amanda Hyett is at Leeds Crown Court. She is a neighbour of abducted schoolgirl Shannon Matthews. She now neighbour of Karen Matthews, having been jailed for illegally claiming £35,885 in income support and housing benefit.
Hyett is also niece to Michael Donovan, in whose home Shannon was located. Hyett is also the sister of Karen Matthews’ ex-lover, Craig Meehan.
Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan are each into an eight year sentence in for kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
Shannon Matthews has yet to come of age and write a book or appear in a one-and-one with Jeremy Kyle.
spotter: June
Posted: 5th, November 2009 | In: Media Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Found In 160 Countries
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: A successful campaign.
Daily Mirror: “Madeleine clip success”
She’s been found?
Up to 100,000 people an hour have watched A Minute For Madeleine, it was revealed yesterday.
They come to help? Or do they come to stare?
Posted: 5th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Sean And Amelie Get Speaking Parts, In Pictures
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Up until know we have heard nothing from the McCanns’ twins, Sean and Amelie. But today we get:
McCann Twins: We will fight man who took our sister Maddie
What man? What kidnap? The Daily Record says a “beast” took her. If the kids are going to be crime fighters they need to understand the facts. And the facts are two: Madeleine McCann in missing. There are no suspects.
The media gets to work staring at the kids who we watched go to school, who now have speaking parts in the media circus:
Mirror: “‘The twins both know the person who took Madeleine has done something very bad.. they just want her back home’”
Madeleine McCann’s four-year-old twin siblings are now slowly grasping the horror of her abduction, their parents revealed yesterday.
Posted: 4th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (9) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Let’s Blame The Muslims
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: The McCanns has aked the police to create an image of Our Maddie as she might look now. There is also a video. The media gets to work:
Sky News: “Pictures Of Madeleine McCann, Aged Six”
Police have released new age-enhanced pictures of Madeleine McCann. This is how Madeleine McCann would look now, aged six. We’ve seen similar artist’s impressions before.
There’s a video of the missing child in seven languages, on the website of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. One picture shows her with a deep suntan she might have developed if she is living in southern Europe or North Africa.
Says Ceop’s head Jim Gamble:
“The person we are looking to reach is likely to be a partner, family member, friend or colleague of the person or people who were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance. If you haven’t divulged your secret because of love, loyalty or fear, be assured that it is never too late to reveal the information to your local police…
“If you are a parent or carer, a student or member of the public who is a social networker, blogger or emailer, or if you run any type of online environment, big or small, please look at the film today, link to it, share it with your friends and post it in the online communities you occupy.”
That’s Ceop. Never heard of it? You have now.
Those front pages:
Posted: 3rd, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (51) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Kate McCann To Appear On BBC And ITV Interviews
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Madeleine McCann is on the cover of the Sunday Express. Says the headline:
McCanns launch TV blitz to find Maddie
If only the Express group and owners had TV channels they could use to help. Of, course, they do:
We interrupt this edition of Teen A*** Sla*s on the Fantasy Channel to bring news of the appeal to find Our Maddie.
We must all do what we can to help. The Sunday Express tells us:
KATE McCANN will take part in a round of heart-rending TV interviews this week appealing for anyone who has knowledge of her daughter Madeleine’s kidnapping to come forward.
Posted: 1st, November 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann Comments (24) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: A Con, A Call To Imagine The Worst And A Joke
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: A fresh appeal to imagine the worst, more jokes, a con and Our Maddie will now entertain you…
The Sun: “’Imagine if she was your child’”
She’s not? But if she were…
THE parents of missing Madeleine McCann have posted a poignant internet appeal for information - urging readers: “Imagine if she was your child.”
Isn’t that what columnists and mums and dads have been doing for over two years, looking at Our Maddie and whispering, “There for the grace of God…’? Isn’t it every parent’s worst nightmare? Hasn’t Anorak spent three summers chronicling sighting and repeats of Our Maddie?
Appearing beside two pictures of the vanished girl, the wording reads: “Imagine if she was your child, imagine the pain and grief, imagine if someone like you never came forward.”
Imagine if Our Maddie was not the media’s only story on missing children. Imagine if there were others who weren’t blonde of blue eyed who never made it to the front page and made Prime Minister’s weep. Imagine if Our Maddie was not a story that sold papers.
Another appeal says: “A little girl stolen, a family torn apart, but saying nothing is the worst crime of all.” Yet another says: “If you stay quiet you are as guilty as those who took her.”
The McCanns’ words are aimed at any abductors. But in the media they become something more, an appeal to every reader to do something or be complicit in a child’s suffering. But what can you do? You can look. Look. Look. No not look at the parents. Look for Our Maddie.
Posted: 31st, October 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (5) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Snatched For £100,000 By Kidnappers Not Interested In £1.5 Million Reward
IN “MAIL-ORDER MADDIE ‘WAS SNATCHED BY CRIME LORD‘”, the Daily Star adds another theory to the many that have passed for reporting on the disappearance of an innocent child.
MADDIE McCann was a “mail-order kid” snatched by a scarfaced North African crime lord, according to explosive new claims revealed today.
This one has many of the elements of an Our Maddie story: foreigners; darkies, North Africa, kidnap and a “claim” supported by not a shred of evidence.
Police are now hunting an Algerian mafia boss who allegedly bragged to British associates in Portugal just weeks after the child’s disappearance.
And we know this now because…?
He told them he had snatched Madeleine in a £100,000 “steal-to- order” kidnap plot. And the Daily Star Sunday can reveal that police are set to quiz two jailed British gangsters believed to have heard his shock claims.
This is getting bigger and bigger. What facts? As June say in the Forums:
She was snatched for £100k allegedly? weren’t the rewards on offer multmillion at the time? strange they didn’t speak out then….
Posted: 25th, October 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (16) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
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