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

THE SUN page 21: “COPS HAD DEADLINE TO PUT McCANNS IN FRAME – Bid to beat new laws”

“Portuguese police rushed to name the McCanns as suspects to avoid new laws on evidence, it was claimed yesterday. Cops had to put Kate and Gerry in the frame over the disappearance of daughter Maddie, four, before a stricter penal code was bought in, their lawyer suggested. Had they waited just EIGHT days longer they would have had to produce strong evidence against the 39-year-olds”

Had Madeleine disappeared eight days later… What does everyone in the chorus think of that?

The Sun: “It is possible the McCanns would have avoided months of vicious slurs against them”

McCanns’ lawyer Carlos Pinto de Abreu: “If this inquiry was launched now, maybe they would not have been made arguidos”

A source “close to the McCanns”: “This was a deliberate smear campaign”

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “Being made arguidos caused them immense anguish. To think they may have been saved by a law introduced days later makes a mockery of the case”

Chorus: Such are the facts…

DAILY MIRROR page 9: “McCann cops in suspect ‘smear’”

The McCanns were named official suspects on September 7. The new laws, calling for “firm evidence” before someone is named an arguido, came into force on September 15. A McCanns’ “source” calls it a “deliberate smear campaign”

DAILY EXPRESS page 11: “MADELEINE: DETECTIVES PROBE FATHER’S PHONE CALL TO FRIEND”

Police are looking at Gerry McCann’s phone calls and those of the Sangria 7, Tapas 9, Tapas Nine etc.

“They are said to be investigating a conversation between heart consultant Gerry, 39, and his friend Doctor Russell O’Brien, 36, one of the so-called Tapas Nine. It is claimed Gerry insisted he was within four kilometres of Praia da Luz when the pair had the conversation which took place on June 10, 38 days after Madeleine disappeared. But technicians claim to have discovered data which revealed Gerry made the call at a location 28 kilometres from the resort”

“McCann fury are conspiracy book” – Anorak calculates there have been 100 headlines talking of the McCanns’ “fury” since their daughter went missing

Today there is fury that Portuguese journalist Manuel Catriano has written The Guilt Of The McCanns, a book. It begins: “This story did not begin in the Ocean Club, but in London where the official truth was conspired and established: an English girl was kidnapped in the Algarve”

The McCanns live in Leicestershire – not London. Senor Catriano should go back and check his research

THE STAR front page: “MADDIE: SHOCK NEW MOBILE CLUE – Phone trace leads to bloodied barn”

“A breakthrough” and “shocking mobile phone evidence”

“Detectives have been studying records of conversations between parents Kate and Gerry, both 39, and their holiday dinner pals – the so-called Tapas Seven” – Or Tapas Nine…

“And forensic experts are now said to be examining a blood-stained towel found close to a disused barn at a remote location some distance from Praia da Luz. Last night sources close to the investigation said the analysis had led to a ‘big development’”

The towel police found a few days ago..?

DAILY MAIL page 49: “Police ‘made’ the McCanns suspects to beat law changes”

Says Senor de Abreu: “After September 15, a new procedural penal code was introduced making it necessary for there to be evidence against the citizen to make him an arguido”

Clarence Williams says: “If it is true that changes to the law would have meant that they would not have been made arguidos that’s all the reason for their status to be dropped now”

THE GUARDIAN comments pages: “Front-page thrillers - The hyper-reality of fiction techniques has transformed the way we consume the news”

Writes Mark Lawson:

“The news has become a kind of super-fiction, in which one unlikely and inexplicable yarn after another - The Portugal Child, The Perugia Murder, The Deadly Teddy Bear, The Secret Donor, The Panamanian Canoeist - play out across newspaper pages.

“The suggestion that journalism has become more like fiction is a pretty ancient insult but, in the past, was used to accuse reporters of fabrication. Now, though, something deeper and weirder frequently occurs in which, even when facts are accurately reported, they seem, in the proper sense of the word, fabulous. Whereas most news stories follow a grimly recognisable narrative - the sex murder, the drive-by shooting, the inflated expenses claim - recent real-life plots are dense, messy and seemingly insoluble in a way that usually requires the manipulations of a novelist”

Page 7: “Teddy jokes to the fore at comedy awards”

To the back-slapping British comedy awards. Whooo! Yeah!

Jonathan Ross “also made references to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, saying the awards this year had been vetted with the same forensic attention as a ‘Portuguese police investigation’, and actor Chris Langham’s conviction for downloading child porn”
And the award for more laboured joke goes to…

DAILY TELEGRAPH page 17: Have you heard the one about Jonathan Ross, the joke writers and Madeleine McCann?

THE SCOTSMAN: Vicky Hamilton has been buried. She was allegedly murdered by Pete Tobin.

Kate and Gerry McCann wrote to Vicky Brown’s father, saying: ‘We have great empathy with your family and our thoughts are with you at this difficult time. We obviously understand the torment of having a child go missing, like Vicky did all those years ago, and our deepest sympathy goes out to you”

Says Mrs Brown said: “I am just so touched by this message from Mr and Mrs McCann.

To take the time to support my family when their own daughter is still missing says a lot about how caring they obviously are”

THE TIMES and THE INDEPENDENT: No Madeleine news today

All the sensation

Posted: 7th, December 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0