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

DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: BRITISH ODD-JOB MAN QUIZZED”

A new suspect?

“An anonymous email sent to Portuguese detectives claimed that Daniel Groom was spotted lurking in an alley close to the McCanns’ apartment on the night Madeleine vanished”

The paper says he looks not too unlike the man seen walking from the holiday complex holding a child. You know, that man with no face…

Says Mr Groom: “I think I am being framed. I am the victim of a smear campaign by someone with a grudge against me… During the week two detectives had arrived in town and begun asking friends about my whereabouts. I rang them after they left a message with a friend. I met them in a car park in Praia da Luz… They were two detectives from the Lisbon area, a good cop and a bad cop. One guy was quite small and smoked a cigar. The other guy was really fat, wore girly sunglasses and kept looking around him all the time”

A good cop? We know all about the bad cops (see the Sun). But this good cop..?

They showed him the email. It went:

“Is it a coincidence that this man started working as a gardener in the area and a child went missing?

“Maybe he walked through the car park at the front of the McCanns’ apartment and a little way down the dark alley between the two buildings where he could see and probably hear that the McCanns were there.

“After that maybe he listened at the window of the McCanns’ apartment for any sign that someone such as a babysitter was there. No television…nothing.

“Did this man initially see the McCanns and Madeleine whilst working on an empty apartment/villa and note that the children were left alone? Did he then come back to watch the McCanns when it was dark and not during daylight hours?”

This is front-page news…

Says Groom: “After a few minutes they said they thought it was all b******t. They said if they needed to talk to me again they would, but they thought they were barking up the wrong tree”

A gardening joke to end. Mr Groom may survive his ordeal

“KEEP LOOKING FOR HER, BEGS GRANDAD” – Says Brian Healey: “There has been so much that has been said and written, much of it untrue and hurtful, but so often it seems to me as if the only really important person in all this has been forgotten – and that’s Madeleine”

Indeed. ‘Nuff said…

“Some people don’t seem to want to know about the real Kate”

As we say, ‘nuff said…

THE SUN: “’Paedo dumped Maddie in lake’”

“MADELEINE McCann was raped and killed within 48 hours of being snatched then thrown in a reservoir, a Portuguese lawyer claimed yesterday. Human rights solicitor Marcos Aragao Correia said underworld sources tipped him off on May 6, three days after the tot vanished in Praia da Luz”

May 6?

Correia says he told the police. He then told Metodo 3, the McCanns’ private detectives. Correia says Madeleine’s body was in a reservoir with a small beach and showers for campers, late identified as the Barragem do Arade reservoir

Remerb when X marked the spot - “Vermoedelijke Vindplaats”

“KATE dad: Back off my daughter” – Says Brian Healy: “Some people don’t seem to want to know about the real Kate. She is such a warm and caring person, as well as being intelligent. But you can’t win because people say, ‘He would say that, he’s her father’”
Why would we care? A child is missing, why is it important we like Kate McCann?

“READERS in fury at ’sick stunt’”

“SUN readers bombarded our MySun discussion forums yesterday to vent their disgust following our revelations that an agency is ready to hire out a Maddie lookalike”

“LOOKALIKE mum: Let us help” – “The tearful mum of a tiny lookalike who hopes to play Madeleine McCann in a film insisted last night: ‘We only want to help’. American Kris Pfister, whose three-year-old Kelsey Lynn Kudla bears a stunning resemblance to the missing tot, added: “I feel for Maddie’s family — I am on their team”

Well, no, you’re not. But you are in the papers. Fame beckons? Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be…

Quote of the week: “Since people started telling her she looked like Maddie, Kelsey’s been following the news. She cries when she hears she’s still missing. When we read there may be a documentary or film on the hunt, she said, ‘Mummy, I could play Madeleine. I look just like her’”

Here’s Kels-seeeey. (Come, on, Kelsey, you’re on… Smile!)

“People say that I look like Maddie. She lost her mummy and daddy. I want to help bring her home”

DAILY STAR: “MADDIE WAS ‘SNATCHED AND MURDERED’”

“Madeleine McCann was abducted, raped, murdered and thrown in a reservoir, a lawyer claimed last night”

It’s Marcos Correia again. Who told him? He will not say. But the paper notes: “He spent three weeks at the reservoir with investigators from the McCanns’ Metodo 3 agency. Last night he called on the police to search it extensively”

They have done. You can read about it here

Are these underworld figures known to Antonio Toscano?

DAILY MAIL: “Madeleine was ‘raped, murdered - and then dumped in reservoir’”

“Underworld criminals contacted a human rights lawyer on May 6, three days after the girl vanished, with details of her alleged abduction and murder, he said. But when Marcos Aragao Correia tried to tell police, he was ignored, he added”

Or not. The reservoir was searched

“PORTUGUESE police ‘want to keep Madeleine file secret for another three months’”

Says Clarence Mitchell the couple’s spokesman: “We are disappointed, but not surprised given that the police are still investigating.

“We had expected this request, however our lawyers will be examining it and once again we would urge the police to come over and interview who they want to.

“DEATH threats for woman hiring out Madeleine lookalikes” - Shona Juliet-Adams, owner of Juliet Adams Modelling and Talent Casting Agency, says: “”I have had threatening phone calls and death threats. I am not speaking to anybody until I have spoken to the police about my security - I received death threats”

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “McCanns suffer ‘almost inhumane’ police delay”

Kate and Gerry McCann could remain official suspects in their daughter’s disappearance for “several more months”

Clarence Mitchell says: “This is extremely disappointing. We will continue to co-operate with the Portuguese police, of course. However, the delay in resolving the case and eliminating Gerry and Kate is now becoming almost inhumane”

“BAD taste jokes need time to be funny” - An interactive humour survey at the Science Museum’s Dana centre in central London. Only seven per cent of the audience felt that a joke about Bhutto’s death was funny or amusing and only 31 per cent felt humour involving the McCanns was appropriate”

A Joke: “Dr Harold Shipman’s last meal was a curry. He said he enjoyed it but he could have murdered a nan”

There’ a better joke here

FOX NEWS (USA): “Report: Agency Worker Receives Death Threats Over Madeleine McCann Look-Alikes”

“Shona Juliet-Adams, 41, whose agency offers the look-alikes for about $1,174 an hour, said she has been receiving ‘threatening phone calls and death threats’”

Posted: 12th, January 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0