Madeleine McCann: Have You Seen Pumpkin Maddie?

MADELEINE  McCann: a look at reporting on the media’s favourite missing child.

The Daily Mail has news:

How is that the “most poignant image this Halloween”?

The photograph was released on Friday to mark Halloween, and appears beside three others of Maddie, including the well-known one of her clutching three tennis balls under her chin. A source close to the McCanns said: ‘The photo which hasn’t been seen before has been put out as part of the campaign and is authorised by Kate and Gerry.’

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, November 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: James Nesbitt Is Missing The Plot And 100 Hairs

Just as the Daily Express gets its weather news from looking at a crystal ball, the ‘World’s Greatest Newspaper’ conjures front-page news of Madeleine McCann from the ether.

The headline tells readers:

Madeleine McCann: 100 strands of untested human hair provide new hope in DNA hunt

100.

Gerard Couzens reports:

Nearly 100 strands of hair tested during the original Madeleine McCann investigation were never DNA-matched, it emerged today. Portuguese forensic experts analysed 444 hair strands they believed could hold the key to the youngster’s May 3 2007 disappearance.

They found 432 were human and 12 non-human. They were unable to DNA-match 98 of them and only obtained partial results from 19 of them, Portuguese daily Correio da Manha reported.

Anorak

Posted: 30th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment (1)

Madeleine McCann: Roderick Macdonald, Brighton Victims And A Ghost Child

MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s look at the missing child in the news.

The Daily Star leads with the story:

MADDIE: BRIT PAEDO ARRESTED – Perv was in Algarve in 2007

 

So. Can this pervert be linked to the missing child in anything other than a headline? And that story of a “ghost child” by the missing Madeleine is in questionable taste, no?

LINE 1:

Maddie McCann police arrest British paedophile who was on Algarve at time of disappearance

Line 2:

A CONVICTED paedophile thought to have been in Portugal when Madeleine McCann vanished has been arrested in Malta.

Anorak

Posted: 15th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Ines Sequeira, Belief And Unnamed Sources

MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s regular looks at the missing child in the media.

The Mirror: “New Madeleine McCann prosecutor has vowed to solve case – bringing fresh hope to her parents”

High-flying investigator Ines Sequeira has taken on the case and British detectives believe her appointment will shake up the investigation

Taken over the Met’s Operation Grange?

A new prosecutor has been put in charge of the Madeleine McCann case – and has vowed to solve it. High-flying investigator Ines Sequeira said she was “utterly determined” to crack the case, bringing fresh hope to Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry.

Encouraging news. Who is she? And why now?

British detectives believe the appointment will shake up the probe and Scotland Yard officers will fly out next week to discuss a shortlist of seven prime suspects with their Portuguese counterparts.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Brenda Leyland: The McCanns, A Scarecrow And God

BRENDA Leyland continues to make news. Today’s round-up of the woman branded the “Madeleine McCann troll”:

New India Express – yep, it’s an international story:

…No one in the neat village of Burton Overy, Leics, suspected that Mrs Leyland had a cruel bone in her body, let alone the sort of mindset to pursue a vitriolic campaign again the grieving parents of the missing child, Madeleine McCann.

A likeable, churchgoing woman of no obviously strong views, she seemed more interested in gardening, photography and quizzes than any solitary obsession with tweeting. She also had a passionate, innocuous leading role in the village’s annual scarecrow competition.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: An Unwitting Bystander At Brenda Leyland’s Funeral

MADELEINE McCann: a look at the missing child in the news media, with Brenda Leyland:

In the Times, Carole Midgley is talking about trolls:

Who could look at the photo of Brenda Leyland with her handsome son, his arm curled protectively around her shoulders, and feel anything but desperately sad? We don’t yet know how or why Ms Leyland died in that room in the Marriott hotel, Leicestershire, but we know a man has lost his mother and we know how history will remember her: as the so-called “troll” accused of tweeting thousands of hate-filled messages about the grieving parents of Madeleine McCann…

Anorak

Posted: 7th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (5)

Brenda Leyland: Cliff Richard, Free Speech And Martin Brunt’s Wife

BRENDA Leyland continues to make news. The woman monstered by the media, outed by twitter hunters who allegedly tweeted thousands of often abusive and potentially libellous messages about the parents of missing Madeleine McCann, is dead. This is an at-a-glance round-up of today’s news on her:

Bryony Gordon, The Telegraph:

It’s never OK to troll anyone – even a troll – Cyberspace is medieval – we no sooner take in an event than put the people at the heart of it in the stocks, be they the McCanns, Brenda Leyland or Sky News…

On so many levels, the story of Brenda Leyland, the church-going Twitter troll who said some ungodly things about the McCann family, makes my heart ache… I can’t stand the idea of this lonely woman with her pathetic double life under the pseudonym of “Sweepyface”; one minute attending church, the next rushing home to spill on to the internet noxious bile about a couple with a missing child. But nor can I bear that she was treated in some quarters as if she herself had abducted Madeleine McCann, and not just acted like a deluded moron with broadband and access to some of the web’s crazier conspiracy theories.

Anorak

Posted: 7th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Brenda Leyland: 4000 Madeleine McCann Tweets And One About Her Own Suspicious Death

WHAT is the media is saying about Brenda Leyland, the woman “unmasked” as a “troll” by anonymous troll hunters, door-stepped by Sky News and called a “bitch” in the Daily Mirror. Brenda Leyland is now dead. She had 172 followers on Twitter. Her account is closed.

The Times:

The woman who took her own life after being accused of directing online abuse at Madeleine McCann’s parents had sent more than 4,000 tweets about the couple over the past year. Police formally identified the dead woman today as Brenda Leyland, 63, who was confronted last week by a Sky News TV crew over her apparent “trolling” of the couple… she had used the Twitter handle @sweepyface to attack the McCanns.

… she had used the hashtag #McCann no fewer than 4,220 times since November last year, accusing them of neglect and questioning their version of the events leading up to the disappearance of their daughter in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007. Reprising many of the accusations used by McCann “haters”, she also regularly accused the couple of using money collected for the Find Madeleine fund for their own personal enrichment. One tweet last week read: “#mccann ” If it stinks like a rotten fish it is a rotten fish ” all connected seem to prosper ??”

Anorak

Posted: 6th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (2)

Brenda Leyland: She Might Have Been A Tabloid Columnist

THE death of Brenda Leyland is now a matter of education. The BBC consults an expert:

Dr Arthur Cassidy, a psychologist who specialises in social media, said Mrs Leyland appeared to have a middle class upbringing which was unusual in trolling.

Not if you work for the Daily Mail, it isn’t. But go on:

He said: “In this particular case, her whole repertoire of trolling is slightly different from those of well-seasoned trolls because of her uniqueness and the way she has done this. It would signify to me that she has been quite a novice at this.”

Anorak

Posted: 6th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment (1)

Madeleine McCann: Brenda Leyland Was Driven To Her Death By An Intolerant Mob

BRENDA Leyland appears on the front page of  the Daily Mirror. The self-billed “intelligent tabloid” begins the woman’s obituary by calling her the “McCANN TROLL”.

A woman who was charged with no cime, who had no criminal record, is dead. Her alleged offence was to have posted messages online that said nasty things about the parents of Madeleine McCann. You’ll recall that many newspapers did worse, libelling the McCanns. But not one newspaper led with a photograph of the writer who penned the criminal words nor editor who approved them. They were never called “TROLLS”.  They were not doorstepped by a TV news reporter.

Can you name any of the journalists, nay ‘trolls’, who monstered Chris Jeffries?

The Sunday Mirror’s Lori Cambell alerted police to Robert Murat’s behaviour, she saw as “creepy”. She told the police. But why did she tell the world? Mr Murat, the poor sod wrongly linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, was monstered and libelled. But was Campbell or her editor doorstepped on the TV news, as Brenada Leyland was?

Only the powerless get the full monstering.

Anorak

Posted: 6th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (5)

Madeleine McCann ‘Troll’ Brenda Leyland Is Dead

SAD news. The woman monstered by the media and on twitter, Brenda Leyland, is dead.

Leyland, who led the news cycle as a Madeleine McCann “troll” had allegedly posted online unpleasant comments about the missing child’s innocent parents.

Anorak

Posted: 5th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment (1)

Madeleine McCann: Brenda Leyland Is Monstered By Trolls

BY now you’ve have heard of Brenda Leyland. She’s an alleged ‘troll’ – someone who says things online. Lots of people say nasty things online, but the police don’t go after them all. Not all make it to the TV news or the front pages. Just some.

What she, allegedly, tweeted about the McCanns is unpleasant. But what are people saying about her?

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (14)

Madeleine McCann: Trolling The Leveson Inquiry

Gerry McCann, with his wife Kate, gives a statement to the press in the Algarve village of Praia Da Luz, where their daughter, three-year-old Madeleine McCann, went missing on Thursday evening. Saturday, May 5, 2007.

MADLEIENE McCann: A look at reporting on the missing child in the media.

One day after news that sources had compiled a dossier of people who have allegedly abused Kate and Gerry McCann online, the missing girl’s parents are in the news.

The Daily Star leads with the so-called “trolls”.

The Times focuses on one:

A churchgoing mother of two children has been uncovered as one of the internet “trolls” who bombarded the family of Madeleine McCann with vile abuse.

Brenda Leyland, 63, who lives in a picturesque village in Leicestershire, 15 miles from where Kate and Gerry McCann live with their two children, posted dozens of offensive messages about them.
Mrs Leyland, who attended Goldsmiths college at London University, was part of a group of hate-fuelled critics of the McCanns who believe – despite no evidence – that the McCanns had some involvement in the disappearance of their daughter in Portugal in 2007.

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Blonde Child Spotted With Swarthy Adults In La Herradura

MADELEINE McCann is back in the news.

The Sun reports:

Ex-soldier ‘saw Maddie with Spanish family’

Is his former job relevant?

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Nothing Changes: The Madeleine McCann Story Has Always Been Hijacked By Media Trolls

MADELEINE McCann is back in the news. Sky News is with “TROLLS” who have abused the missing child’s parents online. There is not a shred of proof Kate and Gerry McCann were involved in their daughter’s vanishing. But people say nasty things online.

Some ‘trolls’ used to say them in the Press. The McCanns were libeled. They won damages.

The media was unable to stick to the most basic facts. This was single thread story being spun. A child had gone missing. That was the only fact.

Today, Sky introduces us to a woman who tweetes by the name “Sleepy Face”. Cameras are outside her home. The voiceover alleges she says vile things “from the heart of this peaceful village”, as if location matters. Sleepyface, a presentable middle-aged woman, tells Sky she hopes she has broken no laws.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, October 2014 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Blame The Algarve For Your Latest Holiday Read

THE Telegraph has been serialising Looking For Madeleine by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan. The book is available to order from Telegraph Books at £16.99 + £1.95 p&p.

In the abscne of any facts whatsover to augment the one irrefutable truth – the innocent child is missing – thr story rumbles on and on.

One Telegraph extract is entitled:

Madeleine: if only the McCanns had known about the Algarve

Anorak

Posted: 13th, September 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Four ‘New Suspects’ And Nothing Else

MADELEINE McCann’s face peers out from the cover of today’s Daily Express. The news is, as ever, lacking in any fact other than one: she’s missing.

But the Express has news that “police want to quiz more suspects”.

What suspects?

Anorak

Posted: 28th, August 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Daily Express Says ‘Police Have No Idea What Happened To Her’

MADELEINE McCann: a round-up on August’s reporting on the missing child.

Evening Standard, August 18:

There are many things it’s fine to reference at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Jimmy Savile, Cliff Richard, missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, rape, abortion, Madeleine McCann (yes, still), Michael Jackson (yes, still), the free sugar-free limoncello at Nancy Dell’Olio’s show (yes, really)… Just whatever you do, please don’t mention the Scottish independence referendum.

Once upon a time, an ‘Our Maddie’ joke was tabloid fodder.

Daily Express, August 15:

Met chief vows no let-up in search for Madeleine…

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: “The investigation is still ongoing and we will not be reducing the team.”

He praised Portuguese authorities for allowing Yard detectives to take part in the summer search.

“A reasonable amount of progress has been made,” he added.

Anorak

Posted: 18th, August 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Sergey Malinka And Robert Murat Relive The Horror

Robert Murat (right) makes a statement to the media outside the High Court, central London. He today accepted “very substantial” libel damages from several news outlets over allegations that he was involved in the abduction of Madeleine McCann.
Picture date: Thursday July 17, 2008.

MADELEINE McCann: It’s the seventh summer of the missing child in the news media. This is today’s news:

Two newspapers leads with ‘Our Maddie’.

The Sun tslk of the “1st ARRESTS”.

MET detectives flew into Portugal last night as cops there are to make the first new arrests over Madeleine McCann’s abduction. They are expected to sit in on the interrogation of at least ‘three prime suspects’ in the next few days.

Officers are also planning to sit in on the quizzing of another five “people of interest” and what one source described as a “vital informant”.

No-one has been arrested. They are helping police with their enquiries.

The Mirror:

Police investigating the mystery disappearance of Madeleine McCann have began questioning “formal suspects”. Scotland Yard detectives flew into the Algarve and were allowed to sit in on the interviews. Two “persons of interest” – or arguidos in Portuguese law – had been quizzed by local detectives.

The Metropolitan police officers were not allowed to ask questions, although sources close to the investigation say UK officers have over 250 questions for one of the men.

Two more people remained at Faro police station waiting to be interviewed by the Policia Judiciaria.

One of them is said to be suffering from severe schizophrenia and his interview may be postponed as he has not yet been assigned a lawyer.

It is not clear when the fourth individual will be interviewed.

Anorak

Posted: 1st, July 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann – Sunday Express: ‘I Killed Maddie, You’re Next’

MADELEINE McCANN:  The Sunday Express front page leads with the sensational headline: “I killed Maddie, you’re next.”

The story is that British woman Clara Corrigan claims that the man who stabbed her in Portugal screamed: “I killed Madeline McCann and I’m going to kill you.”

Anorak

Posted: 14th, June 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Bowe Bergdahl, JFK And 15 Minutes Away

Madeleine McCann: Anorak’s look at the missing child in the news media.

Stefano Hatfield, Indy: “Reward MH370”: We need to have faith in those who govern”

…I’ve never lost anyone truly close to me in mysterious circumstances, so I cannot know how that must feel. I cannot know therefore how bewildered the desperate families of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 must be to set up a crowd-sourced whistle-blower fund, “Reward MH370”, in the hopeful belief that someone, somewhere must know what happened to the jet that went missing two months’ ago with 239 people on board.

And…

Nor, can I know the overwhelming terror, guilt, worry and helplessness that Gerry and Kate McCann must endure daily as they continue to search for answers regarding the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine, seven years ago.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, June 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: 3 Suspects, All Parents Are Good And Killing Summer In Praia de Luz

MADELEINE McCann: Anorak look at the missing child in the news. In today’s newspapers.

The missing child is not on any of the front pages.

The Mirror: “Madeleine McCann search: Family of missing Ben Needham say ‘thoughts and prayers’ are with the McCanns”

Ben was just 21-months-old when he disappeared from the Greek island of Kos in 1991. A review into his disappearance was held in 2012, with some of the experts from that operation now being used in the renewed search for Madeleine.

23 years on, no trace of Ben has yet been found.

The police never looked that hard for him.

His family told Sky News: “Our thoughts are with the McCanns in this search for Madeleine. We ourselves know that this sort of investigation will be a very difficult time for the family. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

BBC: “Madeleine McCann: Police due to conclude scrubland search”

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment

Madeleine McCann: Bones, April Jones And A Pit

MADELEINE McCann: A look at the missing child in the news.

The child renamed ‘Our Maddie, by the media is back on the front pages.

Has anything been found on the dig in Praia da Luz?

Daily Star:  “Search for Maddie: Bones from hole taken for test”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment