Breaking Media, Politicians & Celebrities Since 1995

MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.

THE SUN front page: “MADDIE DAD TELLS PALS OF TORMENT. We’re frightened and we have been backed into a corner, this is inhumane.”

Gerry McCann accuses the Portuguese police of subjecting them to “inhuman treatment”. There is no word of Robert Murat, the other named suspect.

Pages 4 and 5: “The Sun hears Gerry’s words. And just for the record features some of the awful “SMEARS”.

• “A mum struggling to cope?
• Traces of sedative in hair?
• A hyperactive daughter?
• Ordered back to Portugal?”

At least the Sun’s Fergus Shanahan is on Kate’s side. “Kate MaCann’s guilty of nothing more than sticking to her story,” says the headline above his column.

The case reminds him of a witch hunt. Kate McCann is on the ducking stool. Will she come up alive and guilty or dead and innocent?

And who is to blame for the McCanns’ suffering? Paedos? Tabloid sensation and speculation dressed up as news? No, it’s the foreigners. The Portuguese police who “change their tune every five minutes”. Some news to we who hardly hear a word from the meninos no azul.

DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE WAS ‘KILLED BY SLEEPING PILLS’.”
This is the “sensational new claim”.

Only yesterday the Mirror was telling us that the McCanns don’t take sleeping pills.

Pages 4 and 5: “New evidence that Madeleine was ‘killed by pills overdose’” – the prosecutor’s report says fluids found in the back of the McCanns’ hire car “prove that the little girl had ingested medicines, without doubt sleeping pills, in large quantities.” The dossier says it as this that “caused an overdose” and so accidental death.

Oh?

“This is not a theory but a fact contained in hard evidence,” says a “senior Portuguese police source”.

So that’s that, then…

Pages 5 and 7: “DNA expert will help McCanns” – Sir Alec Jeffries says samples of DNA cannot prove innocence or guilt. He says only a full match of Madeleine’s DNA would prove she was in the car. And the match, as the Express notes elsewhere, might be 88 per cent.

DAILY MIRROR front page: “KATE & GERRY..their story.” The front-page “EXCLUSIVE” shows Gerry in a rugby kit and Catholic Kate in her Holy Communion white.

The pictures appear above the headline: “MADDY ‘PILLS OVERDOSE’, shock claim that she died from sleeping tablets.”

Pages 4 and 5: “POLICE IN HUNT FOR BLOOD AT FLAT No 2” – Sniffer dogs have detected blood “close to the flat” from where Madeleine McCann went missing, it has been claimed.

Pages 6 and 7: “Kate and Gerry were talking about a new baby but now they just want Madeleine back. They are very close..children are the most important things in their lives,” says Kate’s father Brian.

Gerry was once the captain of Napir City Rovers in New Zealand. Teammate David Anstis says: “He was a really nice bloke.”

Reader may recalls how Robert Murat, who has no PR, was a loon who liked to jump on bouncy castles. And he had a dodgy eye.

The paper says that Gerry was Scotland’s under-19 1500 metres champion and Scottish Universities’ 800 metres champion.

He must be innocent.

Kate was top of her class at school. She keeps fit with trips to the gym and taking the children swimming. Gerry would play golf.

Case closed.

Says Valeria Armstrong, landlady of the Royal Oak in Rothley: “They are gentle caring people.”

DAILY MAIL front page: “As social workers are called to McCann home, an extraordinary new claim… “MADDIE KILLED BY SLEEPING TABLETS’”

Kate’s diary reveals “struggle with Madeleine”. There are “four pages of “reports and analysis”.

Pages 6 and 7: The Cuddly Cat, the Maddy Catty, is to be seized.

Portugal’s ambassador to the UK hopes relations between the two countries have not been damaged. Says Antonio Carlos: “We are doing out utmost to solve the problem together with the support of the British police.”

No Portuguese suspect has been named.

Page 8: “THE NEW QUESTIONS FOR KATE.” The Mail has 14 questions it would like Kate McCann to answer. Is she would just jot her responses down and send them to the Mail’s office, it would be appreciated.

The Mail does not ask if she killed her daughter. Instead she is invited to respond to:

• “Do you ever lose your temper with your children?
• Did Madeleine cut herself in the apartment?
• Could Madeleine have bled on something which was later put in the car?
• Could medications have been placed in Madeleine’s reach?
• Did you feel your husband was not pulling his weight with the child care?”

Anorak empathises with the case and has taken the liberty of answering the questions on Kate McCann’s behalf. Say we: Yes, Who doesn’t; Maybe; Possibly; Perhaps; Tell me about it.

Page 9: “Our first thought was that she’d been taken by a paedophile,” says Kate McCann Paris Match magazine. Her words could have been spoken by any number of tabloid editors.

“Of course we feel guilty at being at the restaurant when she disappeared,” say Kate McCann. “That will always be so, but the person who broke in and took Madeleine is the most guilty.”

INDEPENDENT page 8: The Indy hears the words of Sir Alec Jeffries, the words he delivered to BBC’s Newsnight two days ago. The Indy is on the case.

THE TIMES front page: “McCann twins ‘safety talks’.”

Pages 6: “Social workers visit McCanns to see if the twins are at risk.” Is Kate McCann overfeeding them? We hope not.

Page 7: “Get the cat to forensics, armchair sleuths demand.” The web is alive with theories. And the cat must be interrogated. Get the Maddy Catty!

Page 21: Ben Mcintryre says “There is a Miss Marple inside all of us”. The McCanns “bring out our sleuthing instinct.”

And we though it was just idle gossip and speculation.

DAILY TELEGRAPH page 13: As reported on Anorak, the McCanns are looking for a “media handler”. Brand McCann needs a steady hand.

THE GUARDIAN: “McCanns in talks with leading PR adviser” – Look out for Kate McCann in Hello!, Hell’s Kitchen and l’m A Celebrity..Get Me Out Of Here!

The story so far…

Posted: 14th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0