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

DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE – 3 MINUTES TO DUMP HER BODY. Amazing new theory of crime specialists”

The police? Sort of… Former police inspector Francisco Moita Flores is the star of a Portuguese TV show about the case. It’s not just the British that can turn the case into a form of entertainment

(Says The Guardian: “Channel 4’s Searching for Madeleine: A Dispatches Special about the police hunt for Madeleine McCann got 3.1 million viewers at 14% over the 9pm hour. At the same time Channel Five’s The Hotel Inspector got 1.5 million viewers, a share of 7%, making it the network’s best performing show of the day)

Says Flores: “There are so many contradictory theories, but she was taken, dead or alive, according to the dogs, down to the church.” Oh?

“This would have to have been done by car. There is a piece of land behind the church and behind that is the sea. A car could take you from the apartment to the sea in 30 seconds, whichever route was used. Let’s say something went wrong, we have about 40 seconds. If you add two minutes to dispose of the body by sea – that’s little more than two and a half minutes at the most. It would take just another 30 seconds to return to the resort”

This is based on hard speculation and raw opinion

Mr Flores adds of the ‘Tapas 9’: “That is more than enough time for any member of the group that left the table during that meal to be considered a suspect. Many of the group, according to what we’re told, was absent from that table – every one of them for more than three minutes”

And then a flash of genius: “The little girl was removed and taken elsewhere – whether alive by an abductor or dead after an accident.

Another “crimebuster”, Professor Paulo Sargento, of Lusofana University in Lisbon, says: “I am convinced that whatever happened happened within the McCanns and their group of friends. The reconstruction shows how unlikely it is that any other explanation could be possible”

But not impossible

DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE: 3 MINUTES TO HIDE BODY”

DAILY MIRROR: “8 minutes to snatch Madeleine - EXCLUSIVE: 3D MODEL TIME CLUES”

Prof Sargento, of Lusofana University, Lisbon, says: “We have used the precise timings to recreate on screen what happened that night. From 8pm when the group sat down for dinner, seven people got up and walked around 14 times. That means on average there was somebody with a view of the McCanns’ apartment every eight minutes during that period”

And:

“Meanwhile, the McCanns yesterday said they could prove they have never sedated their children,” says the Mirror. “A source said toxicology tests on hair from two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie showed they had never been given sedatives, demolishing police claims all three children were drugged when Madeleine vanished. A friend of the couple said: ‘It backs up Kate and Gerry’s claims’”

Was Madeleine sedated?

THE SUN: “Maddie’s final gift for gran”

A picture of a plate – “the poignant last gift from Madeleine McCann to her gran – given just days before she vanished”

“The heartshaped plate bears Maddie’s little handprints and the touching message, ‘I love you Grandma and Grandad, From Madeleine 2007’”

“Maddie’s devastated gran Susan Healy showed off the plate yesterday and said: ‘This is so special I feel like locking it in a safe. I couldn’t bear anything to happen to it – the handprints are the closest thing we have to a physical reminder of her’”

What of the missing girl’s hair?

DAILY MAIL: “Why Portugal is a haven for paedophiles - the disturbing backcloth to the Madeleine case”

“A Ferrari engine makes a deep, distinctive sound. When the children at Portugal’s most famous orphanage heard the sports car roaring down the driveway, fear swept through the dormitories. The noise could mean only one thing: the man known as The Doctor was coming to call”

No, not Gerry McCann, nor Kate McCann. They had a Renault Scenic.

“Yet this medical practitioner had no intention of adhering to the ancient Hippocratic Oath”

There follows a lengthy story of alleged organised sexual abuse at Casa Pia (House of the Pious), a 17th century Lisbon orphanage where more than 4,000 children are cared for each year behind “high stone walls” – “the doctor would summon selected boys and girls from their beds for examinations one night each week”

The children are taken to “some of the leading members of Lisbon society - ranging from Portuguese government ministers and high-ranking diplomats, to famous television stars and members of the judiciary”. It is “likened to an earthquake waiting to shake Portugal to its foundations”

Says the Mail: “But what relevance does this have to the disappearance 170 days ago of four-year-old Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz, about 280km from Lisbon?”

Good question…

“And what does it mean for Kate and Gerry McCann, who have not only had to cope with losing their child, but have also been subjects of a vicious campaign in the Portuguese press to smear them?”

Another good question…

“It is crucial for two reasons; first because it proves what international crime agencies have long suspected: that Portugal has become a magnet for predatory paedophiles from around the world, using the country’s lax laws and preying on the high numbers of poor, abandoned children.

“And second, because Paulo Rebelo, an urbane, methodical detective who led the Casa Pia paedophile inquiry, was last night finishing his first week as the new chief of the investigation into the disappearance of the British child”

That’s a link?

Says the Mail: “Of course, the Casa Pia case may have no direct link to the disappearance of Madeleine, but the culture in which such a serious child abuse network was allowed to operate is the same culture that pervades the whole of Portugal. Was it this attitude that led to the bungled initial investigation in the McCann case?”

The Mail has no idea. But get a load of those alleged paedos…

THE TIMES: “‘Tests show Madeleine McCann’s brother and sister were not drugged’”

The police tests are in. No. These are tests the McCanns carried out themselves. On Madeleine? No. On the twins Sean and Amelie.

A source close to the couple says: “Any legal team worth their salt would have these kinds of tests done. No evidence of sedatives were found in the twins’ systems”

The twins are not missing

DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE GUARDIAN and THE INDEPENDENT: No Madeleine news today

Posted: 20th, October 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0