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

DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: IT WAS HER BLOOD IN PARENTS’ HIRE CAR”

“New results sent to Portugal in the last few days show the blood samples could only belong to Madeleine, it was claimed” – claimed…

Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha reports: “The definitive result of the tests leave no doubts for the Policia Judiciaria. The blood found in the McCanns’ car is that of Madeleine as well as those samples detected in the flat”

No doubt? So says a newspaper report that provides the basis to THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER’S lead story

Says McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “These reports are very distressing for Kate and Gerry, they are depressed that again wild rumour and speculation is being presented as fact. We wish Portuguese police would just get on with their investigation, come over to England and carry out the interviews with Kate and Gerry and their friends. All those interviews will prove, yet again, that Kate and Gerry have nothing to hide.

“As for the supposed DNA testing, we cannot comment on yet more unsubstantiated rampant speculation in the Portuguese press. It is ridiculous to suggest that Madeleine’s blood was in the hire car because she was never in it. It was hired more than 20 days after she went missing, which means it was impossible for her to have ever been in it”

A friend of the McCanns says: “They were in no way involved in her disappearance, reports like this just add to their anguish. We would also point out that low copy DNA is under review by police forces in this country following the outcome of the Omagh bombing trial”

But it is a sign of police progress, right?

THE SUN front page: “Maddie blood ‘in hire car’”

“The tormented parents of Madeleine McCann reacted in fury last night to new claims that DNA evidence backs the theory they killed her”

KATE AGONY OVER ‘WILD’ DNA CLAIM – Blood specks behind sofa and in car ‘are Maddie’s”. The scent of death?

A ‘wild’ claim repeated in the Sun…

“Now it is being claimed new and ‘definitive’ results from Britain support the police theory that Maddie was killed in the apartment and her body moved in a car hired 25 days AFTER she vanished” – Claimed by Portuguese newspaper Correio Da Manha, from where the Sun gets its news

The Forensic Laboratory in Birmingham says: “Tests are still being carried out. No final report has been submitted to the Portuguese authorities”

DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE – Blood in car is hers OFFICIAL”

“BLOOD IN CAR IS MADDIE’S OFFICIAL – ‘No doubts’ after test on Renault”

“The findings appear to support the police theory that Madeleine was accidentally killed in the apartment and her parents disposed of her body to mask their negligence”

Only…

“But they come from low-copy DNA analysis – a controversial technique based on just a few human cells which was recently branded unreliable by UK police. Last month, Omagh bomb suspect Sean Hoey walked free after a judge decided this type of testing was not at a sufficiently scientific level to be considered evidence. The Association of Chief Police Officers then announced it was suspending use of the technique in criminal inquiries. And the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales is reviewing a number of cases in which it was involved. That means the results in Madeleine’s case could probably never be used in court”

DAILY MAIL: “Did Maddie witnesses mistake this friend of the McCanns for Murat”

As Anorak reprotered yesterday, David Payne, one of the so-called Tapas 7,9 etc., looks not a lot unlike Robert Murat

Mr Murat’s lawyer Francisco Pagarete says: “Robert has always said the witnesses were mistaken. He was not there that night”

“MR MURAT’S girlfriend Michaela Walczuch was yesterday forced to deny claims she had been named as a police suspect in the case. The Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas claimed the mother-of-one, 34, had been made an ‘arguido’, or formal suspect, alongside Mr Murat and the McCanns. Lawyer Mr Pagarete insisted he had been misquoted by the tabloid when discussing her. Police refused to confirm or deny the report”

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Murat’s girlfriend ‘is Madeleine McCann suspect’”

“The Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas reported that Michaela Walczuch, 32, was made an arguida after a witness claimed to have seen her with a small girl two days after four-year-old Madeleine went missing last May”

He is an arguido. She is an aguida

“A spokesman for the Portuguese police said yesterday that she had ‘no information’ about Miss Walczuch being made an official suspect”

Or not…

“ARE spin doctors taking over the world? - The rise and rise of the profession is not confined to politics: even the McCann family, campaigning to find their daughter Madeleine, sought the help of a former BBC journalist, Clarence Mitchell, to manage their publicity”

DAILY MIRROR: “ NEW LEAD ON MADDY”

British tourist Gail Cooper says she saw a “mystery man hanging around Madeleine McCann’s holiday flat just days before she vanished”. Like Paul Gordon did

Ms Cooper say: “He was horrible looking man , really creepy, unkempt and dirty. He definitely wasn’t Portuguese. He scared me”

Is there more than one creepy man in Praia da Luz? Another oddball?

Says Cooper: “I’m sure this man had something to do with Madeleine’s disappearance”

THE SCOTSMAN: “New claims on blood in McCann’s hire car

“Blood traces found in the hire car used by Kate and Gerry McCann were from their missing daughter Madeleine, according to a Portuguese newspaper”

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Please don’t make this into another Maddy’”
Amy Fitzpatrick is missing. She is Irish. Her mother lives in Spain. Amy is 15. she went missing as she walked home on New Year’s Day from a friend’s house where she was babysitting in Calahonda near Mijas in southern Spain

“Outside Amy’s home, a gated development called Riviera Del Sol, just outside Fuengirola, children played in the shrubland, oblivious to the fact a teenager had vanished nearby without a trace. Some poked through shrubbery, others rode their bikes. It was a very different scene to that when Madeleine McCann disappeared last summer in Portugal, when locals and ex-pats joined the search to try and find the missing girl. But the family does not want a repeat of the publicity which has surrounded her case. ‘Please don’t turn this into a circus,’ a family spokesman said last night. ‘Don’t make it another Maddy. Let the police do their job’”

There is only one Madeleine McCann – Her story so far

Posted: 8th, January 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0