MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann 

NEWS OF THE WORLD (front page): “MADDIE”

More?

“WORLD EXCLUSIVE: FIRST PICTURES INSIDE FLAT”

“Maddie’s bedroom”; “front door” – the flat from Madeleine McCann supposedly went missing is for hire, and the NOTW has been to look it over.

Has the NOTW turned into a holiday brochure, got into the timeshare game?

Now the rest of the flat has been redecorated and is ready to welcome more holidaying families to Portugal.

Can the flat be rented by the minute, and because of its history does it come with a surcharge? For now, the paper wants to show readers “How fiend could have kept out of sight”.

Our detailed survey of the flat reveals a host of places Maddie’s abductor could have hidden when it’s most likely he was almost caught in the act by dad Gerry as he checked on her and twins, Sean and Amelie, at 9.05pm on May 3 last year…

Details. You have noted the door and the bedroom. Now look at the inside of a “WARDROBE”.

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ANORAK’S’ Tabloid Bingo: With Lorraine Kelly…

The Aim of The Game: To combine the names McCann, Fritzl, Matthews, McGuckin and McKeown in one column. Can the Sun’s Lorraine do it? Eyes down…

WHY do many parents leave their common sense behind as soon as they step on the plane and go off on holiday?

A promising start from Kelly, who has set a scene which should enable her to use all five names, possibly in a single paragraph.

Parents who would not leave their children in the front garden to play on their own happily dump them in the hotel room or villa while they go for a meal. The poor McCanns will never forgive themselves for their tragic error of judgment which led to the disappearance of Maddie.

Tick!

What about the Irish bank chief and his wife who had their children taken into protective custody when on holiday in the Algarve?

You mean the mortgage advisor, Lorraine?

Eamon McGuckin was said to be so drunk that he collapsed and fell through a sofa, while his wife Antoinette threw up in their hotel reception area.

Tick!

Damn those flimsy Portuguese sofas.

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews

DAILY MIRROR: “McCANNS ‘IN CLEAR’”

Kate and Gerry McCann will be formally cleared as suspects in daughter Madeleine’s disappearance by August, their lawyer said yesterday.

Fact. Now the Portuguese police can find Madeleine? And the McCanns can return to Portugal.

Rogerio Alves said detectives in Portugal had finally admitted they have no evidence against the couple and were preparing to lift their arguido status. But he also warned the move could signal the end of the year-long hunt for the four-year-old.

But the Portuguese police are useless, right? And the McCanns have Metodo 3?

But McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “We don’t want the case to remain unsolved.”

DAILY MAIL: “McCanns’ status as suspects in Madeleine’s disappearance ‘will be lifted by August’”

This August. Fact.

Says Rogerio Alves: “I believe that by August the police will close the case and lift arguido status. I believe it is a very strong possibility.”

Believe. Possibility. Fact.

ROUNDTOWNNEWS (Spain): “Mass of Balloons for Madeleine”

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

GLASGOW DAILY RECORD: “BBC apologies over McCanns over Madeleine anniversary film blunder”

THE BBC have apologised to the McCann family for scheduling a film about a runaway girl called Madeleine on the anniversary of their daughter’s disappearance…

But bungling Beeb chiefs scheduled the 1998 children’s film Madeleine for the weekend of the first anniversary of the youngster’s disappearance.

Can you separate fact from fiction? Call 0800 HELPMEIMMAD and our team of trained TV watchers will talk you through the plot.

The movie, starring Nigel Hawthorne, is about an orphan who runs away and manages to foil a kidnap plot. The blunder was only spotted at the last minute and the BBC hastily replaced the film with the 2005 Lindsay Lohan movie Herbie Fully Loaded.

You know, the one about the car with the big secret.

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “BBC apologises to Madeleine McCann’s parents”

Says a source close to the McCanns:

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, with special guests the McGuckins.

British media massed in Portugal for the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are filling in the blanks by watching the telly. Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin flicker into life. Now read on…

THE GUARDIAN: “Holiday couple insist they were not drunk”

Friends in their village in County Derry, Northern Ireland, said the McGuckins had been the victims of “media paranoia” generated by the first anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

You can never be too careful. There could have been three more Maddies.

Their children - aged one, two and six - were temporarily taken from them last weekend by the Portuguese authorities. The McGuckins said they were saddened and traumatised by the furore.

Portugal – bring the kids and get away from the kids.

DAILY MIRROR: Watching the parents. And what do we know about them?

“The couple live in a £450,000 house in Maghera, Northern Ireland.” Such are the facts.

DAILY MAIL: “’We were ill, not drunk’, claim Portugal holiday couple who had children seized”

Last night, a statement released by the McGuckins failed to state how much or what had been drunk, only that it was not “an excessive amount”.

Semantics. Well, Mr McGuckin is a “former bank manager”.

The incident has caused outrage in Portugal, where the year-long investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has already raised questions over standards of British parenting.

Let’s bomb Portugal, or at least give our young offenders a free holiday there.

BELFAST TELEGRAPH: “Did Derry duo pay for McCanns’ mistake?”

Lindy McDowell plays tabloid bingo and wonders…

And here we come to the crux of the matter. Two words — Madeleine McCann.

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BRITONS planning trips to the new Portugal should go equipped with a loud hailer, a private detective and nothing too shiny. If on a driving holiday, ensure the boot can be opened from within.

Listen to the tale told by Eamon and Antionette McGuckin, who found their three children in the care of the Portuguese – and what irony there, readers – after they were attacked by a “Rohypnol gang”.

One would imagine that given the paralysing powers of the so-called date rape drug, the Rohypnol Gang are not much cop at ganging, preferring to lie down and wait their victim to trip over them. It would help if the victims were drunk.

But this gang is armed with the drug and slipping it into the “small jug” of sangria the McGuckins were quaffing, sipping, even. (Although the Mirror’s Sue Carroll sees the “dog tired, hot and thirsty” couple taking beer – mucky foreign beer.)

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

SUE CARROLL (Mirror): The McGuckins are “ashamed”.

“What they should not be are convenient scapegoats for the Portuguese police who, a year on, have failed to turn up even a sliver of evidence on the fate of Madeleine McCann”

McCann. McGuckin. It’s Tabloid Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!

DAILY MAIL: “Big Brother? Hardly. The CCTV cameras don’t work - and actually make crime even worse”

Says Ross Clark: “The revelation that only three per cent of London street robberies are solved by CCTV cameras comes as no surprise to me.”

It is a similar story with that other great arm of the surveillance society: the national DNA database. So far, there has been muted public protest at the database, on which there is now the DNA of 4.5 million Britons recorded. But the public’s view of the database is based on the assumption that it is helping to catch criminals. Yesterday, however, the Home Office admitted that for every 800 samples added to the database, it helps solve just one crime.

For example?

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

DAILY MIRROR: “Portugal booze parents’ court fear”

It’s Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin.

Bank manager Eamon, 35, passed out in the hotel reception while Antoinette, 36, vomited before falling unconscious.

A source close to the family said last night: “They are very ashamed. They want to go to court. They want to say to the judge that the children are safe with them.”

Significant:

Vilamoura is 45 miles from Praia da Luz, where four-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing while her parents were out with friends a year ago.

DAILY MAIL: “Shamed: The middle class parents who got so drunk on holiday their three children were taken into care”

Middle-class drinkers. Who knew of such a thing?

Mr McGuckin used to be manager of the Magherafelt branch of the Ulster Bank, a spokesman said. He left 18 months ago and is understood to now work for a mortgage company. His wife is a full-time mother.

British parents:

The incident has caused outrage in Portugal, where the year-long investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has already raised questions over standards of British parenting.

BELFAST NEWSLETTER: “Couple ‘will face NI social services’”

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

DAILY MIRROR: “DRUNK HOLIDAY BRITS’ CHILDREN TAKEN INTO CARE”

A British couple on holiday in Portugal got so drunk their three children were taken into care. Hotel staff called the authorities when the pair seemed unable to look after the two boys, aged six and one, and a girl of two.

Bit judgemental?

Sources said the parents came back in a “drunken stupor” from a “euro-apint” bar in Vilamoura.

But what has it to do with Madeleine McCann?

The town is a 45-minute drive from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann vanished a year ago.

DAILY EXPRESS: “DRUNKEN HOLIDAY BRITONS HAVE CHILDREN PUT IN CARE”

The alleged incident took place on Friday evening at the Mourabel Apartments in the resort of Vilamoura, 40 miles away from where Madeleine McCann disappeared last May.

THE HERALD: “British children taken into custody in Portugal as parents too drunk”

Hotel staff in Vilamoura, in the Algarve, called police after Eamon McGuckin, 34, and his wife Antoinette, 32, collapsed while on holiday on Friday night. The couple, believed to be from Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, were taken to a health centre in nearby Loule while their children, one-year-old Adam, two-year-old Amy and Aaron, six, were taken to the Refugio Aboim Ascensao children’s home in Faro.

Allegedly, of course. It’s shocking. And worse:

The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family’s Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby.

DAILY MAIL: “Three British children taken into care after parents ‘drank themselves into a stupor’ on Algarve holiday”

The manager of the Mourabel hotel in Vilamoura, where the family were staying, said: “Fortunately the children were safe - otherwise it might have been not one Maddie, but three Maddies.”

THE SCOTSMAN: “Family in care after parents collapse drunk”

The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family’s Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby. Referring to the McCann case, Dr Villas-Boas said: “The press were not around – they were very fortunate in that there was very heavy news from Great Britain that day.”

THE SUN: “McCanns in legal boost”

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: THE COLUMNISTS:

ROD LIDDLE (Times): “Madeleine, the incidental onlooker”

Come on, be honest. When Kate McCann appears before you on your television screen, do you sink your head low and remember poor Madeleine, somehow spirited out of that Praia da Luz apartment, or are you overwhelmed with a sense of irritation, annoyance and ennui?

Or like me, is it a little bit of both, callous pig that I am?…

The weird thing is the way the story has taken on a life of its own, with Madeleine as a terribly absent onlooker, almost incidental to the whole charade.

ANDREW ANTHONY (The Observer): “For a variety of reasons, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann seems to hold an enduring, not to say unhealthy, hold on the nation’s imagination. The first and most obvious is that it exemplifies every parent’s deepest fear.

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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCannTHE OBSERVER (front page): “One year on, Kate McCann’s please: ‘Please stay with us. Pray like mad.’”

DAILY MIRROR (front page): “MADDIE: KATE’S PLEA: ‘KEEP WITH US..KEEP PRAYING’”

MAIL ON SUNDAY: “Kate McCann’s pulpit plea: stay with us and pray like mad”

The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “It’s an intensely private and very difficult day for them.”

SUNDAY PEOPLE: “’PUBLIC KEEP US STRONG’ - MISSING FOR A YEAR: BRITAIN, PORTUGAL AND WORLD UNITED IN HOPE”

The world unites.

“LIGHT HER WAY HOME - MISSING FOR A YEAR: BRITAIN, PORTUGAL AND WORLD UNITED IN HOPE ‘You are a light that shines in the darkest times. Guide all who search for Madeleine’ - By Rachael Bletchley In Praia Da Luz”

The sunrise over Praia da Luz was as beautiful as ever yesterday. A warm, orange glow spread up from the horizon then burst into the dazzling rays that give the resort its name - Beach of Light.

A rosy-fingered dawn…

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