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

DAILY MIRROR front page: “MADELEINE: THE BIG INTERVIEW”

“Our regret”

“GERRY: I wish we have never gone to the tapas bar”
“KATE: I wish I’d seen the stranger watching us”

“READ THEIR HEARTBREAKING WORDS INSIDE”

Voyeurs, campaigners, police and handwringers come see the pain, the suffering the agony. Prepare to be heartbroken!

“Riddled with guilt, the distraught” Gerry will tell all to the Mirror. Well, not to the Mirror, rather to Vanity Fair magazine. Journalist Judy Bachrach spoke with Gerry in October near the family home in Rothley, Leicestershire

And the interview is not with Gerry and Kate. Only Gerry McCann was interviewed, says the Mail. Kate McCann’s words come via friends and family

Pages 4 and 5: “I WISH”.

It reads very much like a prayer, or a camping speech by Barack Obama. Says Gerry McCann:

“I wish I hadn’t gone to the tapas bar.
“I wish I’d have stayed in the apartment that night
“I wish I’d stayed in the room when I checked on her five minutes longer”

A wish…

Says Gerry McCann: “”At the time we did it, it was not irresponsible. Of course we feel guilty about not having been there and that is just something we have to deal with for the rest of our lives. You are not asking anything we don’t think about on a daily basis. We live this 24 hours a day”

Gerry says his world went “all black, with maybe tiny points of light” in the days after Madeleine vanished. “We can’t cry our eyes out every day because that’s not helping. So after three days I picked myself up…quicker than Kate could. Grief washes over you. It’s like a big wave, mostly I was able to beat it back”

And the Madeleine ‘Look into my eyes’ campaign? Says Gerry: “We thought it was possible this could hurt her. Her abductor might do something to her eye. But in marketing terms it was a good ploy”

THE SUN: “Life’s bleak but I cling to hope”

Says Gerry McCann: “People can support you in your darkest hours and in our case the darkest hour was of course when Madeleine went missing. Now it is just bleak”

In next month’s Vanity Fair: “The interview with Gerry came as it emerged GORDON BROWN has snubbed the McCanns’ request for a meeting; furious Kate EXPLODED when cops first told her she was a suspect; and family spokesman Clarence Mitchell has given a university SPEECH on the topic Missing Maddie McCann — the perfect PR campaign

“A pal of the McCanns said Kate, 39, believes the family were STALKED by Maddie’s kidnapper in the days before she went missing”. WOW

COUPLE hit back on film. Says Clarence Mitchell, the spokesperson: “It is not us being greedy. It is us being needy“

DAILY MAIL: “It’s all my fault, admits Maddie’s father”

Well, not quite. Gerry McCann is making no confession. He maintains that the fault lies with a kidnapper. Says the Mail: “Gerry McCann is tortured by guilt that Madeleine’s disappearance is his fault”

Will he tell all? Mr McCann tells Vanity Fair’s Judy Bachrach: “I can’t talk to you about the details of what happened. I live under threat from the Portuguese - if I do talk - of two years’ imprisonment”

“THIRD POLICE SUSPECT BREAKS HIS SILENCE” – Says Robert Murat to Vanity Fair: “All I can say is that I am innocent”

DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE - MOTHER IS SHUNNED BY PRIEST”

Page 9: “KATE’S SCREAMS AS POLICE TOLD HER: YOU’RE A SUSPECT – KATE McCann screamed when told by police that she was a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, it emerged yesterday. Opening the door of her rented villa to a Portuguese officer the family had come to know, Kate, 39, shouted: ‘Do you honestly believe that I would murder my own child?’”

Gerry McCann is a “39-year-old cardiologist”. Facts!

On the speculation: “Gerry says bitterly: ‘Yes, yes, I know. Kate killed her in a frenzy, Madeleine was sedated by us, she fell down the stairs – in which case you would have thought they’d have found her body. I’ve heard all of that. There are a huge number of theories in the media. But what I want to know is, who told them all that?’”

DAILY STAR: “Anguished and painfully thin, his wife Kate was too upset to answer even a single question during the interview with glossy US magazine Vanity Fair. Gerry revealed in the 7,500-word magazine article he had to be coaxed by a counsellor into talking publicly about his daughter in the days after she disappeared”

DAILY RECORD: “Maddie’s Dad: Slim Chance Of Getting Her Back”

“Distraught Gerry McCann has admitted the chances of him seeing his missing daughter Madeleine again are ‘slim’”

VANITY FAIR: “Unanswered Prayers”

“After three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared on a family vacation in Portugal, her parents pursued a high-stakes strategy: media saturation. It succeeded beyond their wildest imaginings—winning the aid of everyone from J. K. Rowling to the Pope—and failed miserably. Getting the first in-depth interview with Gerry McCann since he and his wife, Kate, were declared suspects, the author re-traces their footsteps to their daughter’s empty bed”

And then a policeman appeared. His name Ricardo. “Because for months they used to have regular weekly meetings with the Portuguese police, and then they stopped,” recalls Gerry’s older sister Trish Cameron

“Do you have something to tell us?” Ricardo asked.

“No,” Kate replied. “Do you have something to tell us?”

“He nodded. “Yes. You are being made arguidos”…

Eight months of talking - read it all…

Posted: 10th, January 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0