Posts Tagged ‘Madeleine McCann’
Madeleine McCann Watch: German PR Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has 7 more years to nail Christian Brueckner
On the day Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, became the first person in the UK to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, news breaks of Madeleine McCann. As the pandemic begins to end, media press f9 on the keyboard and inject a dose of the innocent child they recreated as ‘Our Maddie’.
And it’s not news at all. It’s on the BBC news website – the second top story. But the story is only that German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters thinks Christian Brueckner kidnapped and murdered the child. Of this he is “very confident”.
Brueckner is in a German prison serving time for drug smuggling and rape. The 43 year old criminal was identified as a suspect in June. And six months on prosecutors do not have enough evidence to charge him.
So Wolters is reduced to guffing out PR and what sounds like a shakedown:
“If you knew the evidence we had you would come to the same conclusion as I do but I can’t give you details because we don’t want the accused to know what we have on him – these are tactical considerations.”
As he looks for evidence that leads to proof and a safe conviction, we turn away from grandstanding Hans to hear from Met Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, who says Operation Grange is a missing person inquiry as there is no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.
But Wolters has time to burnish his media profile. Last month the suspect lost an appeal against a further seven-year sentence for rape. So we can expect more of Hans and what he believes for some time to come.
“I can’t promise, I can’t guarantee that we have enough to bring a charge, ” says Hans Wolters, “but I’m very confident because what we have so far doesn’t allow any other conclusion at all.”
Better to keep an open mind, a tad of circumspection, especially when you’ve yet to get any hard evidence and are dealing with circumstantial evidence and an open case. But the TV camera tolls and Hans Wolters is ready for his close up…
Posted: 8th, December 2020 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News | Comment
Madeleine McCann: £12million spent and no confession
By now you might have supposed the prosecution and defence would be deep into preparations for a trial. But months after being named as the chief suspect in the vanishing of Madeleine McCann, Christian Brueckner remains stubbornly innocent. Just as he was when we were introduced to ‘Christian B’, the depraved criminal remains housed in a Kiel jail cell. We know where he is, who he is and that he’s a convicted paedophile and rapist. What we don’t know is if he had anything to do with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in May 2007. German prosecutors “believe” he might have murdered her.
The Star picks up the news that “Madeleine McCann cops hired a prison inmate to gather information on the prime suspect”. German tabloid Bild reports: “Madeleine McCann cops hired a prison inmate to gather information on the prime suspect.” You know the routine: stick an informant into the cell with the suspect and wait for the confession. The Star says we don’t know what Brueckner told the grass, if anything, nor if the grass cooked up a story to make himself look good and secure any deal he’d made with the judiciary.
In other news, British police investing the disappearance of Madeleine McCann with Operation Grange have been given an extra £350,000, says the Mirror. It takes the total invested in looking for the missing girl to more than £12 million. The new cash will keep the Operation going til the end of March 2021.
And then?
Posted: 7th, October 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Christian Brueckner for hire, puppies and imaginary babysitting
Last week Sky News presented an exclusive news feature on Madeleine McCann and the man German police suspect of kidnapping and murdering her, the convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner, oddly dubbed ‘Christian B’ in an internet-denying spot of Teutonic legalise. The report revealed nothing. Martin Brunt reviewed the hunches and theories, but could not shake that we only know one thing for certain: child vanished. Today the Sun has more developments. The suspect’s lawyer has “admitted” something. Oh, yes, you think. Has he broken client-brief confidentiality and given us the word on the depraved criminal? No.
The lawyer of prime Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B has admitted he would not trust his client around his kids. Friedrich Fuelscher “insisted that if he had a daughter he would not let the convicted paedophile look after her”.
Before we demand he adopt a girl and test the theory, we wonder what other jobs Fuelscher could admit his client is unsuited to. I’d go for the obvious (kindergarten teacher, toilet attendant and paediatric nurse) and then consider the more exotic (UN Special Envoy to Thailand). The jury is out on whether Brueckner would make a decent BBC presenter of family TV shows in which he makes children’s wishes come true. There’s been a vacancy at the Beeb ever since Jimmy Savile gibbered his last and was subsequently ruled to have been the biggest paedophile who ever lived.
The Sun’s story is based on what the daughter-less lawyer told the Mirror. “I’d let him look after my dogs but I wouldn’t let him look after my children or my daughter – if I had them,” says Fuelscher. “He could be my dogsitter, yes, but because of his record I would not let him look after my own daughter.”
As to the value of giving a convicted paedophile a puppy, well, Charlie has something to say about that:
Posted: 16th, September 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Old news for sale and who Brueckner did not kill
Madeleine McCann: a look at repotting on the missing child. In the stead of any news on the hunt for the missing child, the Daily Express gawps at the parents. News is that Gerry McCann had an ‘image fixed indelibly’ in his memory from less than an hour before his daughter disappeared”. This was “revealed during a book written by the parents on the missing toddler”. First up, dear Daily Express: get a sub-editor. Yesterday’s garbled news form Reach plc titles (the Express, Star and Mirror) was riddled with typos and literals.
The scoop is that Kate McCann wrote something in her book, Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her. That book was published in 2011. The Express has taken 9 years to tell its readers what was “revealed in it”.
Here’s the extract – “the heartbreaking account of Gerry’s final memory of seeing his daughter”:
“Madeleine was lying there on her left-hand side, her legs under the covers, in exactly the same position as we’d left her. For Gerry, this became one of those images I described earlier, pictures that fix themselves indelibly, almost photographically, in the memory. He paused for a couple of seconds to look at Madeleine and thought to himself, she’s so beautiful. After pulling the bedroom door to, restoring it to its original angle, he went to the bathroom before leaving the apartment.”
As the Express reads old books to ‘reveal’ nothing new, the Mirror looks at Christian Bruckner, the convicted German peadophile and rapist accused of kidnapping and murdering Madeleine McCann, a claim he denies. The headline is a sort of anti-news:
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner ruled out of raping and murdering girl, 11
Any facts?
Claudia Ruf was kidnapped from Grevenbroich, Germany, in 1996, while walking her neighbour’s dog – before her partly burned body was found dumped around 40 miles away
So..?
A police spokesman told German newspaper Bild: “After comparing the information obtained, it can be said that Christian B was not in Grevenbroich at the time in the case of Claudia Ruf. In addition, a DNA comparison is said to have been negative.”
Are we now at the point where every unsolved case of child abduction and murder is to cross-checked with Christian Brueckner’s life? Good to look but why now – why not check him before? It all looks a b it ike PR, as if the police having pointe the finger at the revolting Brueckner are desperate to keep his name in the frame. This might be in hope that someone who knows something comes forward. But right now the is only circumstantial evidence linking Brueckner to the worlds most famous missing child. And in light of any evidence saying he committed a crime against her, we should presume he did not.
Posted: 5th, August 2020 | In: Books, Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Dieter Fehlinger, a woman and the missing 10%
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.
News is that German police have solved the case. Well, they’ve reportedly solved 90% of the mystery as to what happened to Madeleine McCann in 2007. The story of Madeleine McCann has but one thread: child vanishes. A fishing expedition followed her disappearance in 2007, something akin to that scene in the movie Jaws when a flotilla of hapless amateurs and cock-sure professionals head out in search of the big catch. They chuck bait into the waters and pull on a hundred lines. German police on a boat. They can feel something on the other end of their line. Is it a red herring or the murderous predator? They’re reeling it in. We can see 90% of the line. The rest remains hidden.
The Sun and Mail bring news of the nagging 10% hidden from view. German sleuths need evidence to charge Christian Brueckner, the convicted paedophile they suspect kidnapped and murdered Madeleine McCann. He says he’s innocent. German police allege he is not. They need evidence. Is it there, hooked on the end of their line?
Might be worth a look at the source for this story. The Sun explains the story:
The dad of an alleged accomplice says police are close to charging him over her abduction. The father, whose daughter was linked to Christian B during burglaries in Portugal, said: “I was with the police for an hour last month. They said they had 90 per cent solved the case and seemed very confident.”
He added: “They seemed to be very convinced that Christian B was their man.”
No direct word from German police. Although on July 14, the Sun delivered the headline: “MADDIE BETRAYAL Madeleine McCann’s parents’ heartache as German cops prepare to drop investigation.”
The ‘dad’ is Dieter Fehlinger – father of Brueckner’s alleged former lover Nicole Fehlinger. The source for the Mail’s story is the Sun. And that’s it. The fishing continues.
Posted: 21st, July 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News | Comment
Madeleine McCann: unnamed sources and news without end
For a few weeks this year Madeleine McCann was high on the news agenda. Amid stories of thousands killed by Covid-19, desperate calls for help from Hong Kong and global protests against the killing for a black man by American police, we read that progress had been made in the hunt of the world’s most recognisable missing person. German prosecutors went on the record. They remain convinced they have their man, the convicted paedophile they believe kidnapped and murdered Madeleine McCann. Weeks on since the story broke, Christian Brueckner, the suspect, remains innocent of all claims. No smoking gun has been found. No evidence. No body. This morning the Sunday Mirror leads with a story about the Madeleine McCann investigation. What’s new? Nothing.
The media story is about the child’s parents, as it has been since 2007. The “exclusive” front-page news is that Gerry and Kate McCann face “fresh agony” as police searched three wells in Portugal, close to where the suspect in the case lived. We know of their pain through “a family source” who tells of the McCanns’ “prolonged agony” and how they retain “a glimmer of hope” their daughter is alive 13 years after she disappeared. They “cling to hope she’s alive”.
Plus ca change. This is no-news journalism, a scoop that makes Sunday newspaper readers hanker for the days of kiss ‘n’ tell and stories with an end.
The “family source” tells us: “It is a period of prolonged agony. They have still absolutely no idea what evidence police have to suggest Madeleine is dead. They are not being told what police believe happened to her. We feel desperately sorry for them as they’ve endured so much pain and angst for 13 years.”
You can unpack that if you must. The Mirror thinks ‘Our Maddie’ continues to sell papers. The story’s framing tells us nothing. We can wonder why the source is unnamed?; why feelings are the lead news story?; and if making the parents the central plank of the “exclusive” serves no useful purpose other than to give people who continue to eye the innocent McCanns with suspicion something to gossip about and wonder if PR is ever news?
We read:
Clarence Mitchell, a former publicist for Madeleine’s parents, both 52, said: “Kate and Gerry want answers more than anyone. But while the Metropolitan Police are still treating Madeleine’s disappearance as a missing person, rather than a murder inquiry, it gives them a glimmer of hope that she could still be alive. They continue to hope until there is incontrovertible evidence which proves she is dead. They are being kept informed every step of the way.”
And there it is. The hunt for evidence continues. There is no evidence Madeleine McCann is dead. There is no evidence any crime befell her. The Germans say they have “concrete evidence” she was murdered. But the only fact they can prove is that in May 2007 an innocent child vanished. The legalities are that everyone is innocent of any possible crime under proven otherwise.
Posted: 12th, July 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Christian Bruckner will never be ‘free’, Wolters is missing evidence and Maddie link to Rochdale pub
Madeleine McCann: an at-a-glance look at news of the missing child.
Christian Brueckner could be out of prison next week, says the NY Post. The convicted peadophile and rapist suspected to murdering the missing child has applied for parole having served two-thirds of a sentence for drugs.
In the Sun we hear from an unnamed source “close to the German investigation”. “If the superior court decides to free him then it will severely impact the case,” says someone. “He could vanish and then we will not be able to put him on trial. We are fighting for him to be kept in court.”
How likely is it that if he is released from prison the man suspected of killing the child who has obsessed media for over a decade will vanish and not be closely watched by a million reporters, police, members of the public and bounty hunters keen to get their hands on the scoop and the reward money? And there’s the matter of his conviction for rape.
Christian Brueckner was pinched in 2018 on a warrant issued for a drugs offence in 2011.
But he was subsequently put on trial and convicted of raping a 72-year-old American woman at her villa in Praia da Luz in 2005. He was sentenced to seven years in December. But because he is appealing against the rape conviction, under German law the sentence is yet to be imposed.
So he will walk “free”? No. He won’t.
The Mirror looks at the child’s parents, as ever it has done. “Madeleine McCann parents face more pain as police say suspect could escape justice.” This headline pivots on your concept of justice. The teaser nails its:
“German authorities are convinced paedophile Christian Brueckner killer Maddie but prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters sais the investigation ‘could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence'”
In the dash to scream “no news” first, the Mirror makes two typos in one line. But worse than that is the interpretation of what justice is and if you can achieve it without evidence. German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters tells German newspaper Braunschweig Zeitung: “You have to be realistic that the investigation may not lead to a charge for the murder of Madeleine. It could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence. But we are still convinced of the guilt of the accused and hope for further promising investigative approaches.”
May. Could. If. Missing evidence. The German prosecutors case looks watertight, in the same way a sieve makes a good lifeboat.
The Metro chips in with: “Madeleine McCann suspect might not be charged despite ‘concrete evidence’ of murder.” When “concrete evidence” is couched in inverted commas it’s not all that concrete. Says Wolters: “I am currently unable to predict the outcome of our investigation but we are still convinced of the guilt of the accused and hope for further promising investigative approaches.” But is there to convince a judge and jury?
Is the suspect about to walk free, then? Wolters explains: “Of course, it is always good to know where a suspect is to be able to access them if necessary. And, of course, detention always offers a certain guarantee that the detainee will not commit any further crimes.”
And on it goes. But wait. The Manchester Evening News has news!
“Lawyer who represented Madeleine McCann parents wants to turn village pub into nursery.” In Rochdale.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 27th, June 2020 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Wolters might be wrong, the missing letter and wafer-thin concrete
On June 15 the Sun told readers that Madeleine’s McCann’s parents were due to receive a letter from German prosectors. The letter would tell Gerry and Kate McCann how their daughter died, allegedly at the hands of convicted rapist and paedophile Christian Brueckner, currently serving time in a German prison. By way of a clue, the Mail added that police in Portugal were getting ready to search wells around the Algarve resort where the child vanished in 2007.
One day on and with the murder suspect is not talking, the Sun told readers that the McCanns had been sent the “saddest letter”.
The “concrete evidence” of Madeleine McCann’s death was not revealed in the missive. But the letter had been sent, That much was certain. “Prosecutors in Germany have written to Kate and Gerry McCann to tell them Madeleine is dead,” said the Sun. They have “concrete evidence” suspect Christian B killed her but cannot yet reveal details.”
And then the fact was undone by a “BOMBSHELL”, of which there have been many. This one is that the McCanns have yet to receive the letter.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has already proven to be less than certain, having informed us that he assumed Madeleine McCann was dead adding later that she might not be. Maybe the letter was sent to the family’s reps, the police or has been delayed in the post. The McCanns note on their website:
“The widely reported news that we have received a letter from the German authorities that states there is evidence or proof that Madeleine is dead is FALSE. Like many unsubstantiated stories in the media, this has caused unnecessary anxiety to friends and family and once again disrupted our lives.”
Says Wolters, as quoted in the Express:
“We have re-established contact with the McCann family in writing. We, of course, really consider the fact that it is going to be very hard for the family when we tell them that we assume Madeline is dead. But we can’t say why she is dead. It is more important that we are is successful and we are able to get the culprit as opposed to just putting our cards on the table and tell them why we think she might be.”
“Might be.” She might be dead. He might be a murderer. Or to put it another way, she might not be dead. He might not be a murderer.
Wolters is quoted more on the Sun:
“It would be easier for them [the McCanns] if I could tell them what we know but I can’t. All I can say is there is no forensic evidence but there is other evidence which indicates she is dead. I don’t want to go into any details about the letter, when it was written or how it was sent. All I will confirm is that it has been written.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 16th, June 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: German police catch suspected murderer but think victim could be alive
Christian Brueckner has yet to be arrested or charged with the alleged murder of Madeleine McCann. there is no news. So the media returns to its default poistion: watching the parents. The Sunday Mirror leads with news that Kate and Gerry McCann have called on the German prosecutor who assumes their daughter is dead to provide evidence.
Last week. Hans Christian Wolters, a spokesman for the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, told Sky News:
“The hard evidence we don’t have, we don’t have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann’s body. We expect that she is dead, but we don’t have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann. At the moment, we also don’t have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed. That’s why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine.”
Seems fair to ask him what he’s seen, no, especially if you’re the parents of the missing child and are desperate for news. Surely Wolters is not just speculating, riffing in the public arena in the hope that someone takes the line and points the finger? “German Prosecutors Dash Hopes of Finding Madeleine McCann alive,” says the New York Times. Can we see the evidence, please?
Hold on a mo. Wolters is talking to the Mirror:
“Because there is no forensic evidence there may be a little bit of hope (that she is alive). We don’t want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be theoretically possible. I know it’s important for the British people when I say she is dead, but I did not know it was so important.”
There is no forensic evidence so it’s theoretical she is alive. It’s also theoretical that she is dead. The theories can go on and on infinitum until we see evidence. And at the moment the theory is that convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner murdered the innocent child. And German cops are so certain he did it they’ve not charged him anything in relation to the case. Will they?
Says Wolters:
“I think the Portuguese officials still think that Maddie’s parents are responsible for her disappearance. From our perspective, the suspect is in jail in Germany right now. And this is not the case for Maddie’s parents. We think that the parents don’t have anything to do with it. We are convinced that our 43-year-old suspect is the murderer of Maddie McCann.”
Wolters is convinced the German police have identified the suspected murderer. Although the victim might be alive. Clear?
The Times says the rapist and child abuser is “receiving counselling in prison while he is held in isolation to prevent other inmates attacking him”. If he’s in isolations, how… Never mind. Here comes the depraved criminal’s lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, to tell RTL TV how his client is coping:
“How should a person who is isolated in a correctional facility and who is accused by half the world’s population of the worst crimes?”
Confessing would be useful. But he’s not done so.
Posted: 14th, June 2020 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: police get more cash for another 6 months of looking
Madeleine McCann news watch – a look at reporting on the missing child. There is “new hope” in the “Maddie hunt” says the Daily Express. Is hope born of new clues? (Any clues?) New evidence? (Any evidence?) No. It’s just that police have been given an extra £154,000 to keep investigating what happened to the child who vanished on a family holiday in May 2007. This, says the paper, is a “massive boost”.
But is it, really? It keeps the investigation going, yes, but unless we know on what it will be spent and if any investment will answer to the question ‘What happened?’ it’s pretty meaningless. What value £154,000 when the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange has cost over £11million? It’s less a massive boost than a top-up deal.
The story continues on page 9. We see a the familiar photo of Madeleine McCann in her Everton kit. And we see a picture of her parents, Gerry and Kate McCann. We hear Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, say his clients are “extremely thankful to the Home Office and Scotland Yard for continued funding”. The McCanns are “encouraged that there remains work to be done that requires the extra budget,” he says. What work that is, we’re not told. Perhaps wrapping up a large police operation caries its own costs?
The story is all about the money because the changing number is the only new fact. The single thread story remains just that: child vanishes.
The Star carries the same story on its page 4, sticking to that bald fact and summing up the entire case in a caption that says “Missing: Madeleine”.
But the Mirror thinks the news of “MADDIE COPS” being “GIVEN ONE LAST CHANCE” worthy of its front page. The paper reasons that if police “fail” to find “fresh leads” the probe “could be axed”. On page 5, readers learn that £154,000 is enough for fur police to work full time on the case for 6 months.
Unless they find out what happened sooner, of course…
Posted: 29th, September 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: police seek more money
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child in the news.
Daily Express (Page 11): “Madeleine police seek funds”
To which the reply must be: don’t they always?
The story goes that Operation Grange, the Met Police’s investigation into the child’s vanishing, is running low on funds. The Express says Madeline McCann’ parents, Kate and Gerry, “are said to be encouraged” – by whom is not said – “that “there remains work to be done that requires extra funding”. Surley there always be will extra work needed until we know for certain what happened to her?
Daily Mirror (Page 4): “Madeleine hunt police ask to ‘pursue final line of inquiry'”
The McCanns have “fresh hope” their daughter will be found. Clarence Mitchell, the parents’ spokesman, says “Kate and Gerry are extremely thankful to the Met Police for requesting extra funds”. The Mirror says that without more cash, Operation Grange could be “shelved” in three weeks.
The Sun (Page 4): “MADDIE POLICE PLEAE FOR CASH”
The sum police are seeking from the Home Office has not been disclosed. The Sun speculates that this “could mean they are closing in on the kidnapper”. It could. Or it could not. The Sun reminds readers that the hunt has “cost taxpayers £11.2m”.
Posted: 8th, September 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: the GCSEs, the Catholic academy and a vicar
The summer’s been light on Madeleine McCann news. What with there being no news to report (there’s not been any every since she vanished – Ed) and August being renamed ‘Diana’, the media’s largely ignored ‘Our Maddie’. But now the news arrives that the school Madeleine McCann would have attended to study for her GCSEs has kept her place open.
Madeleine would /could have been a pupil at Catholic academy De Lisle College in Loughborough, Leicestershire. And if she wasn’t missing she’d be with other 14-year-old girls getting ready to begin her GCSEs.
This we know because the Rev. Rob Gladstone, the family’s “local vicar” (not a Catholic), has told the Sun: “She would be going into Year 10 and they welcome her return. There is no evidence Madeleine has died. We encourage Kate and Gerry in faith, hope, strength, perseverance and courage.”
Lest we find this story less than illuminating, a “friend of the McCann family” adds: “It is both touching and fitting that the ‘big’ school where she would have gone holds a desk for her.”
In other news: Madeleine McCann is missing. There are no suspects.
Posted: 26th, August 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann found in a listicle, the child as big as the pyramids and free holiday posters
Madeleine McCann: very few words on the missing child haver featured in the national press of late. Big stories – murderous terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, and the horror that engulfed lives at London’s Grenfell Tower – have kept journalists and editors busy. No need to press f9 on the keyboard and fill the pages with no news of Madeleine McCann.
But let’s see what has featured in the past few weeks.
The Sun: “‘KEEP THE SEARCH ALIVE’ – Holidaymakers urged to print off and pack Maddie McCann posters when they go abroad in new bid to track down missing youngster”
Passports. Money. Tickets. Poster of missing child…The Sun tells us:
The posters have been printed in 17 different languages including Romanian, Filipino and Arabic
And English, right? Not just foreigners being reminded about the missing child. But anyone holidaying in Bucharest, St John’s Wood or Iraq can tell the locals to watch out.
None of the posters contain information on any reward.
Posters have featured a reward:
Of course, maybe the posters will help. You never know.
The Sun then hears from people it calls “website fans”, people who read the Find Maddie Campaign website. Fans is an odd word. Can you be a fan of finding missing child?
Sharon Wood vows: “Every trip I make posters go up in Lanzarote and I keep my Find Madeleine tag on my case.” Sarah Green adds: “I’m in Crete and my eyes are peeled all the time for her.”
Madeleine McCann went missing in Portugal ten years ago.
The Star wonders if she left Portugal. “Is THIS where Maddie was hidden? Hundreds of wells were NEVER searched,” says the paper. “A WELL just 15 minutes from the apartment where Maddie disappeared is one of hundreds in the area reportedly never checked by investigators,” the paper reports.
The report runs the full gamut of Madeleine McCann reporting. We begin with the former detective’s opinion:
Ex-detective Roy Ramm said the well, which it’s claimed was used to hide swag by local crooks, was an obvious place to look for clues
Then we get the anonymous source:
The Brit, who asked not to be named, said: “This was brought up by an ex-cop who said that local criminals used it all the time. I don’t know whether that well has been investigated or not but if you pick wells on disused farms in the area of Luz there are lots of them.”
They don’t know about one well, and they don’t know about the other wells, either.
“It could be that one, it could be another one, it could be none of them. For it to matter, somebody needs to have information that Madeleine was in that well.”
And after speculation about place we get speculation about people:
Our source also said that – if a well was used to hide Maddie – her tormentor must have been someone with local knowledge who knew where to go.
After the “ifs”, “coulds” and “maybes”, the Mirror shoves Madeleine McCann into a listicle . “Agony of 7 most famous unsolved cases in the UK – including Madeleine McCann, Jill Dando and Suzy Lamplugh,” comes the headline. Yeah, “famous”.
“The shooting of TV presenter Jill Dando alongside the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh and Maddie McCann are among the infamous unsolved cases that may remain a mystery forever,” the paper continues.
Readers can play along. The “seven” cases to solve are: Jill Dando (shot dead); Jack the Ripper (presumed dead); a dead child’s torso in the River Thames; Ben Needham; Madeleine McCann; and Suzi Lamplugh. Yes, that’s six. The seventh famous mystery will have to wait.
If you want more lazy journalism, South Africa’s East Coast Radio has a question: “What would you ask the universe to explain? If you could have one answer to any mystery of the universe, what would it be?”
“We live in a mysterious world and in mysterious times,” we’re told. “Do you ever stop to think about world events that just don’t have answers and wish you knew what had happened?”
The writer has a few wonders to get you started:
Things like the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that just literally disappeared off the face of the earth?
Bits of the plane were found on earth.
Princess Diana’s death, maybe? There’s been speculation and controversy around that story for two decades.
Had she worn a seatbelt, would she have survived a car crash whilst on holiday in Paris? Discuss.
Madeleine McCann – the young girl who disappeared while on holiday with her parents Gerry and Kate in Portugal?
Unlike the plane and Diana, no sign of the missing child has been found. And lest you think one missing child is a personal horror for her and her loved ones and not one of life’s great mysteries, the radio station tells just how big the story is.
What about the Bermuda Triangle, the pyramids, Stonehenge in England?
And above all else – and let’s toss in the meaning of life, God and why EastEnders is till on the telly – the writer has one burning question:
Mine would be: Where is Madelaine McCann [sic] and what really happened?
Maybe technology can help?
The Telegraph and Argus reports: “University of Bradford team develops digital face-ageing that could help in search for missing children like Madeleine McCann.”
As a test case, the researchers chose to work on the case of Ben Needham, who disappeared on the Greek island of Kos on July 24, 1991, when he was only 21 months old. Since then, several images have been produced by investigators showing how Ben might look at ages 11-14 years, 17-20 years, and 20-22 years. The team used its method to progress the image of Ben to the ages of 6, 14 and 22 years. The resulting images show very different results, which the researchers believe more closely resemble what Ben might look like today.
The images of Ben Needham provided by police above, and those generated by the new algorithm below
Such are the facts.
Posted: 2nd, July 2017 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Mallorca mum has nasty experience with would-be child snatcher
Madeleine McCann: a look at the missing child in the news. With the media full of huge and often terrible stories, Madeleine McCann has been largely absent from the tabloids’ pages. But she pops up in the Daily Star.
On page 11, readers are told: “BRIT MUM: I STOPPED ‘MADDIE’ KIDNAPPER.” To Mallorca, where mum Blaise Deacon says a “mystery blonde” woman “put her arms around” 23-month-old daughter Darcie and “said he was taking her”. Blaise “grabbed her child” and “refused to let go”.
At which point you wonder where Madeleine McCann comes into this? She went missing in Portugal. Are we to think that anyone who took her in what some theorise to have been been a well-executed crime, is now simply grabbing kids in broad daylight on a Spanish island?
The paper says this “Madeleine McCann-style kidnapper ran to a waiting car and fled”. Only, this person was not a Madeleine McCann-style anything. Moreover, Spanish police have CCTV footage of the incident, which cops investigating what happened to Madeleine McCann do not.
Blaise says the police were “excellent “. She says: “From what we understand they have a match of the suspect and are now looking for her.”
Meanwhile, Madeleine McCann is missing. The police have nothing. But the tabloids have another sensation.
Posted: 15th, June 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, News | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Yorkshire Ripper IS a bastard and ‘Maddie’ not found in Africa
Today in Tautological Tabloid news we read that Peter Sutcliffe has engaged in a “SICK RIPPER RANT”. Sutcliffe is perhaps better known as the Yorkshire Ripper, a man who in 1981 was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others. But what’s “sick” about the mass murderer is what he said about Madeleine McCann.
The story begins:
The Yorkshire Ripper sparked outrage with a sickening slur claiming Madeleine McCann’s parents were involved in her disappearance.
Hanging’s too good for him!
For any reader who gives a shit what the murdering bastard thinks about EastEnders, the price of fossil fuels, Theresa May’s haircut or the disappearance of an innocent child ten years ago, the Sun relays Sutcliffe’s opinions, as shared with a “source” at Frankland Prison:
Sutcliffe – serving life for murdering 13 women – said: “It makes you sick really, keeping it in the limelight. They’ve got a cheek anyway because they made it all up. They were involved. There’s no other explanation. They’ll do anything to try and make money out of a situation.”
What Sutcliffe thinks abut the Sun keeping him in the limelight will doubtless form the substance of another scoop. As for what happened to Madeleine McCann, Sutcliffe’s reported opinions appear based on prejudices, hunches, a murderous hated of women and very possibly psychotic delusions rather than any evidence-based appraisal. The parents are innocent.
To recap: Everyone is innocent. There are no suspects. Indeed, the police have yet to prove what crime if any befell the child. All we know is that a child vanished.
The Sun then adds:
A source said: “He was spouting off to anyone who would listen after Gerry and Kate did the television interview to mark the 10 year anniversary. It was callous and heartless to hear him go on about how the parents were to blame.”
Peter Sutcliffe Sensation! Yorkshire Ripper is ‘callous and heartless’. Says one mum in tonight’s special edition: “He seemed so nice.” Read all about it!
The unnamed source continues:
“It’s awful to hear criticism of them given what they have been through, especially from someone like him.”
Of course, had the killers’ views not been aired in the national Press, the McCanns might well not have heard them.
In other news…
Daily Mail: “Tycoon who flew by £1.5million private jet to Africa to find Madeleine McCann was left ‘shattered’ when tip-off about a lookalike blonde girl proved wrong”
It’s a great shame he didn’t find her. (Is £1.5m expensive for a jet?)
It was revealed last month by the missing youngster’s family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, that a plane was put on standby after the English-speaking blonde girl was located in Morocco. But, millionaire Brian Kennedy 50, and his son, Patrick, 32, went one step further by actually taking off and flying across the Mediterranean in a bid to identify her.
Patrick tells the Sun: “They were shattered. You can’t even imagine how they must have felt… We realised very quickly it was not Madeleine.”
Clarence Mitchell adds in the Telegraph:
“All the information coming back to us suggested heavily that it could be Madeleine, so much so that an aircraft was put on stand-by, with its engines running, waiting to fly to pick her up. Kate and Gerry sat tight. They had learned by that stage to be sceptical, not to give in to natural hope only for it to be dashed. They preferred to wait until the Moroccan authorities had checked it out. And when they did, it became clear she was not Madeleine.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 11th, May 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: most of the British Press ignores the 10th anniversary
Ten year ago today Madeleine McCann was reported missing. Today the media marks the unhappy truth that a decade of reporting, fund-raising, investigating and watching has added not a single new fact to the original report: child vanishes. This is a round-up of the anniversary’s reporting. It’s a the usual mixture of speculation, name-calling and gawping.
Daily Mirror (front page): “As the McCanns mark 10 agonising years without their Maddie, how can Portuguese police keep being so vile”
Are feelings of paramount importance when investigating what happened to an innocent child? The Mirror’s front page promises more on pages 13 and 17.
Page 13: We see Madeleine McCann holding tennis balls. She is “THE LOST GIRL”. The headline tells us: “Portuguese cops: Brits’ search for Maddie is a waste of £11m.”
Is that an opinion exclusive to former Portuguese police officer Carlos Anjos, who says the the theory that the child was taken dying a burglary is “absurd”? He states: “Not even a wallet disappeared, no TV disappeared, nothing else disappeared. A child disappeared.”
Is that “vile”? Isn’t it just a statement of fact? Reading on we are told that Kate and Gerry McCann will attend a prayer service in Rothley, Leicestershire. We get to read a “leaked” 2010 Home Office report, which says: “The McCanns acknowledge a distinct lack of trust between all parties.”
We read of “more bile” from another former Portuguese policeman, this time it’s Goncalo Amaral, who appeared on the telly to tell viewers that the child could have been cremated. He says: “Three figures went into the church. They had a box. It is possible the child’s remains were in the box and cremated a well.” Can he prove his theory? Clearly not. But we get to hear Amaral’s opinion, and we are told how to read it. It is “vile”. It is full of “bile”. It is a “snub”. It’s speculation. There’s been a lot of that.
Page 17: “Fresh hell adds to Maddie pain.”
Alison Phillips uses her column to record “another agonising anniversary for the McCann family”. She spots the “slug-like” Amaral. She says the chances that the parents will be reunited with Madeleine are “less likely than ever”. Having told of the parents’ hurt and suffering, Phillips says: “Yet as the family mark 10 agonising years without Maddie today, how can some Portuguese cops be so cruel?” Amaral has been “airing his ludicrous claims about her disappearance.” He’s been on “local” TV in Portugal.
On May 10 2007, the Mirror produced “6 THEORIES” of its own. They were: “PAEDOPHILE GANG”, the “LONE PAEDOPHILE”, the “JEALOUS MOTHER”, Madeleine wandering off and “DROWNED”, the “OPPORTUNIST PAEDOPHILE”, the “CHILDLESS COUPLE”.
They never did get to the burglar theory.
Phillips returns to Amaral’s appearance on the TV, where he was “again pointing the finger at Maddie’s parents”, making “ludicrous claims about her disappearance”. Phillips wonders: “Why the Portuguese broadcasters give him airtime is a total mystery”. For those of you missed the show, the Mirror helpfully transcribes parts of it. Why a British newspaper gives him front-page coverage is a total mystery. Phillips says Anjos and Amaral could do “everyone a favour…by keeping their opinions strictly to themselves.” Even if it does give a columnist one less thing to write about.
She then notes – get his – “…these men know every smear or suggestion will be lapped up and repeated by sickos and saddos on social media.” There are some nasty sods on twitter and Facebook. Perish the thought that the mainstream media would stoop do low as to point the finger and whisper.
Daily Star (front page): “MADDIE: Parents Kept Info From Cops.”
The story begins:
“Madeleine McCann’s parents withheld information from police that had been gathered by private investigators hunting for her, says a Home Office report. The couple believed their treatment by Portuguese police was ‘inhumane’.”
Page 9: “Maddie’s parents did not trust them”
Jerry Lawton writes that the parents “did not truth detectives handling the case after they were declared suspects… Though the couple’s ‘arguido’ status was lifted in 2008 and the case archived as unsolved, the McCanns withheld details unearthed by their private eyes from both them and their local Leicestershire force , the report states.”
Daily Express: nothing. Not a single word is published on the child who has featured on the paper’s cover many times.
Telegraph (page 23): Allison Pearson says it is “miracle” of faith and fortitude that the McCanns are still together. She then embarks on a ‘Maddie & Me’ story:
My own children were small when she was taken and, for a while, my son was obsessed with her. I had to answer endless questions. “No, they didn’t find her yet, sweetheart. Yes, it’s very sad. No, a bad man will not take you. Because Mummy and Daddy will keep you safe, that’s why.”
In the past decade, how many parents have mentally run the “Madeleine safety test” before daring to leave their children even for a moment? It’s no consolation to the McCanns, but that may be her lasting legacy.
The Sun (page 6): “MADDIE BRUSH’S RERURN”
“A hairbrush belonging to Madeleine McCann has been returned to her parents on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.”
Are the two moments linked, the brush’s return and the anniversary? Surely this isn’t some kind of macabre tribute?
The brush was in the possession of Danie Krugel, a private investigator. It was “handed” to the ex-cop after he offered to help the search for the the child. The McCanns spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, says: “Gerry did give a hairbrush to Mr Krugel at the time to assist in his work. He eventually returned to South Africa and the hairbrush slipped their minds. But they were delighted to get one of Madeleine’s possessions back.”
The paper goes on to refer to Amaral and his “vile suggestion Madeleine’s body had been frozen before being cremated”. Mitchell says the claim is “deeply offensive”.
Daily Mail (Page 31): “McCanns fell out with Portuguese and UK police”
Madeleine McCann’s parents fell out with both the Portuguese and British police investigating her disappearance, a leaked report revealed today. Gerry and Kate McCann’s relationship with detectives became so poor that they refused to share information dug up by their own private investigators.
A Home Office report ordered by then Labour minister Alan Johnson before the 2010 election shows that the couple’s ‘turbulent relationship’ with police led to a breakdown in trust.
It says that the McCann’s felt badly treated by the Portuguese authorities who closed the investigation into Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance.
But when the Met Police came in they then fell out with police in Praia de Luz – and later the McCanns too, the report says.
The Mail says its report is rooted in a Sky News scoop. Over on Sky, alongside a story on – yep – 6 theories on what happened to Madeleine McCann, we read:
The revelations are contained in a report ordered by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson who wanted to know if it was worth getting Scotland Yard involved after Portuguese officers closed their first investigation. The report said: “It is clear that from the beginning the McCanns felt there was a lack of clarity and communication on the part of the Portuguese police. Despite the involvement of British consular staff, they were, by their own accounts, left for long periods without any updates or communication with the investigators. They state they were taken to the police station on more than one occasion and then left for hours waiting to speak to someone who never materialised.
“They describe this situation as inhumane, with no real consideration for their emotional and physical wellbeing.”
The report, written by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, also said too many UK law enforcement agencies had rushed to help and caused chaos, and that frequent criticism of the Portuguese investigation led to accusations the UK was acting like “a colonial power”.
The report said: “Clearly, the McCanns have had a turbulent relationship with both Portuguese and UK law enforcement. They now openly acknowledge that there is a distinct lack of trust between all parties.”…
The report said: “It is clear that the McCanns and the private investigators working on their behalf have gathered a large amount of information during the course of their enquiries. This information does not appear to have been shared fully with the Leicestershire constabulary or the Portuguese authorities.
“It is imperative that they are encouraged and persuaded to share this information.”
What happened to Madeleine McCann? She vanished. And that’s the sum of the facts.
Posted: 3rd, May 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Madeleine McCann: the 10th anniversary brings a routine ‘revelation’
So many words have been written on Madeleine McCann in the 10 years since she vanished from a holiday flat in Portugal – and not one word of it has led to readers knowing what happened to her. All we have is a reporting milestone. And the tabloids are going big on the child who became ‘Our Maddie’.
The Sun gives readers the “definitive case files”. They turn out to be just four pages long, half as long as the preview to Anthony Joshua’s heavyweight boxing match. And they could have been written months ago because in reading them we learn nothing new.
The Express, which has featured the blonde child on its front page many times in a a slot once reserved for blonde Princess Diana, says there is a ‘Prime Suspect’. And the big news is that this person of interest is a woman. Not a man. A woman. It’s an “exclusive” because this might be the first time the paper has couched the story in binary terms.
The Mail opts to play safe and look at the parents. Kate McCann is “brave”. She wears a “brave smile”. She and her husband have been talking to the TV media. Readers gawp. And readers learn nothing new.
The Mirror says Kate McCann “reveals” that she still buys birthday gifts for her missing daughter. It’s sad stuff. But even this fact is not much of a revelation.
The Sun, April 26: “DECADE OF HEARTACHE Madeleine McCann’s parents Kate and Gerry have a pile of unopened presents for their missing daughter in the hope she will return.”
Daily Mail, December 2016: “Kate McCann lays presents in Madeleine’s bedroom as she faces her 10th Christmas without her daughter.”
Daily Express, May 2014: “Kate and Gerry will remember their missing daughter with gifts and a cake as British police press on with plans to dig around the holiday resort where she vanished seven years ago.”
Daily Star, May 2013: “Kate and husband Gerry, 46, yesterday laid presents in their abducted daughter’s bedroom to mark her birthday at their home in Rothley, Leics. ”
The news has become routine. The story remains unfinished.
Posted: 30th, April 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
Ex-copper Number 3429 shares this thought on Madeleine McCann and Facebook’s chances of finding her
The Sun has some Madeleine McCann tenth anniversary news. Across two pages, the paper asks “Could Facebook find Madeleine?” It hasn’t found her so far, and the site’s been up and running for a few years now. But it could. Could is the new buzzword in media and police reporting on the investigation. Based on the premise that anything could happen, we’d say ‘yes’, Facebook could find Madeleine McCann. We hope it does.
And while we’re on it, you can get odds on all sort of things that could happen. You could win the lottery – the odds are around 1 in 13,983,816. You just need to buy a ticket and take the plunge. So “retired detective” Mick Neville is the latest to buy his ticket for the ‘Our Maddie’ charabanc for retired coppers – destination: media – and delved into Facebook. He now “believes the site’s cutting edge face recognition software could be the key to finding here”. The detective reckons that if Madeleine McCann is using Facebook to chat to mates and spread fake news about Hillary Clinton, she stands a better chance to being found than if she not on the web. Moreover, if her kidnappers or new parents are posting photos of her.
“If she is still alive – and there is no proof she is not,” says Neville, “then by using a combined tactic of technology and people with advanced facial recognition skills you could potentially find where Madeleine is today.” Yeah. Ten years of thinking went into that. And you can’t knock it for insight, precision and usefulness.
As the Met Police read the Sun and utter a collective ‘DANG!’ – and the press all race to copy the Sun’s story (see above) – we read if a DNA test that “could offer hope to investigators”. Called DNA17, the test “can produce a profile of a suspect from samples once deemed too small to analyse properly”. A “source close to” Kate McCann says the technology “seems to offer them real hope… If the test could be used to help solve the case it seems only sensible that UK and Portuguese police consider having he crime scene samples retested.”
Sounds right. But how new is the test? It’s new – but not breaking-news new. The CPS tells us:
DNA-17 is the term that has been adopted to describe the next generation of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) profiling methodologies to be utilised by the National DNA Database (NDNAD).
Currently, samples are profiled using the SGMPlus methodology, but from 24 July 2014, samples will be profiled using a DNA-17 profiling methodology.
News from July 2014 is news in April 2017.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 27th, April 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: the Met’s 10th anniversary PR exercise ‘COULD’ be news
Madeleine McCann: 10th anniversary news round-up.
The Daily Mail (front page): “MADDIE POLICE CHASING ‘CRITICAL LEAD'”.
That Madeleine McCann remains front-page news 10 years after her vanishing – and after ten years of no evidence of what happened to her emerging – is remarkable. As for the news, we learn that police are “chasing a critical leader”. How critical? Well, it “could crack the Madeleine McCann case”. So only potentially critical, then.
What of the “mysterious new clues”, then, that “could explain why the three-year-old vanished in May 2007″?
We hear from Mark Rowley, a Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, who tells us that the “latest lead” is “worth pursuing”. He says: “It could provide an answer, but until we’ve gone though it I won’t know whether we are going to get there or not.”
That’s three “coulds” on the front page alone. So much for the “critical lead”. Rowley says – without irony – “I’m not going to discuss…because it is very much a live investigation”.
The Mirror makes “COULD” part of its front-page lead. It could just as easily says ‘Could Not”.
Millions of pounds invested in the search for answers and still none are forthcoming. Ten years of looking and the Met are in full PR mode. They “don’t want to spoil it by putting titbits of information our publicly,” says Rowley as he chucks a tasty morsel to the Press. Indeed, this isn’t a hunt for alleged VIP sex criminals. There will be no televised raids and no airport arrests. So can Rowley tell us anything? “We don’ have evidence telling us if Madeleine is alive or dead.” says Rowley, “but as a team we are realistic about what we might be dealing with.”
As the Met gets realistic about theories, the Mail moves on to look at the parents. Over pages 4 and 15, we get “10 YEARS OF PAIN”.
Pages 14-15: “Maddie’s bedroom is piled high with a decade of unopened gifts. Kate’s given up work to care or their twins – while Gerry’s now a world-renowned heart doctor. As police reveal a ‘significant’ new line of inquiry… 10 YEARS OF HOPE AND HEARTBREAK”.
What a parent looking after their own children has to do with the case is moot, moreover the husband’s job. But this story always was laced with a middle-class thread. The blonde child. The medical professional parents. The upmarket holiday camp destination. It all overshadows the fact that police only might have a significant new line of enquiry. We don’t know. They don’t know. All we know is that Kate McCann is a “fitness fanatic” who “finds finds comfort in daily work-outs at he gym”; Gerry McCann “was recently praised for saving the life of former footballer Alan Birchenall after he suffered a heart attack and ‘died’ for seven minutes”; and “they have coped in different ways with the tragedy”.
Daily Express (front page): “VITAL NEWS CLUES IN MADDY HUNT.”
No. They could be critical clues. They might not be of any value at all. The Express notes that Operation Grange, the police investigation, has cost £11m.
Page 5: “Yard reveals ‘critical lines of inquiry’ in Maddy case.” It did. And it didn’t. The Met mentioned the leads and then said they were secret.
The paper does have some news, though. We learn that in 2013, “officers identified four people as possible suspects but they have now been ruled out.”
The Telegraph prefers to lead with a question: “Madeleine McCann: Are the police any closer to knowing the truth?” As Betteridge’s law of headlines states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
This is Mark Rowley’s statement in full – delivered to deadline. The Met calls it “AC Mark Rowley reflects on the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.” It reads like mixture of school report and therapeutic journey:
As an investigation team we are only too aware of the significance of dates and anniversaries. Whatever the inquiry, we want to get answers for everyone involved.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is no different in that respect but of course the circumstances and the huge public interest, make this a unique case for us as police officers to deal with. In a missing child inquiry every day is agony and an anniversary brings this into sharp focus. Our thoughts are with Madeleine’s family at this time – as it is with any family in a missing person’s inquiry – and that drives our commitment to do everything we can for her.
On 3rd May 2017, it will be 10 years since Madeleine vanished from her apartment in Praia Da Luz, a small town on the Algarve. In the immediate hours following her disappearance, an extensive search commenced involving the local police, community and tourists. This led to an investigation that has involved police services across Europe and beyond, experts in many fields, the world’s media and the public, which continues to this day. The image of Madeleine remains instantly recognisable in many countries across the world.
The Met’s dedicated team of four detectives, continues to work closely on the outstanding enquiries along with colleagues of the Portuguese Policia Judiciária. Our relationship with the Policia Judiciária is good. We continue to work together and this is helping us to move forward the investigation.
We don’t have evidence telling us if Madeleine is alive or dead. It is a missing person’s inquiry but as a team we are realistic about what we might be dealing with – especially as months turn to years.
Now is a time we can reflect on an investigation which captured an unprecedented amount of media coverage and interest. The enormity of scale and the complexity of such a case brings along its own challenges, not least learning to work with colleagues who operate under a very different legal system. The inquiry has been, and continues to be helped and supported by many organisations and individuals. We acknowledge the difference these contributions have made to the investigation and would like it known that we appreciate all the support we have and continue to receive.
Since the Met was instructed by the Home Office to review the case in 2011, we have reviewed all the material gathered from multiple sources since 2007. This amounted to over 40,000 documents out of which thousands of enquiries were generated. We continue to receive information on a daily basis, all of which is assessed and actioned for enquiries to be conducted.
We have appealed on four BBC Crimewatch programmes since April 2012. This included an age progression image which resulted in hundreds of calls about alleged sightings of Madeleine; an appeal for the identity of possibly relevant individuals through description or Efit; and information sought relating to suspicious behaviour or offences of burglary. These programmes collectively produced a fantastic response from the public. The thousands of calls and information enabled detectives to progress a number of enquiries. This was in addition to over 3,000 holiday photographs from the public in response to an earlier appeal.
The team has looked at in excess of 600 individuals who were identified as being potentially significant to the disappearance. In 2013 the team identified four individuals they declared to be suspects in the case. This led to interviews at a police station in Faro facilitated by the local Policia Judiciária and the search of a large area of wasteland which is close to Madeleine’s apartment in Praia Da Luz. The enquiries did not find any evidence to further implicate the individuals in the disappearance and so they are no longer subject of further investigation.
We will not comment on other parts of our investigation – it does not help the teams investigating to give a commentary on those aspects. I am pleased to say that our relationship with the Portuguese investigators is better than ever and this is paying dividends in the progress all of us are making.
We are often asked about funding and you can see that we are now a much smaller team. We know we have the funding to look at the focused enquiry we are pursuing.
Of course we always want information and we can’t rule out making new appeals if that is required. However, right now, new appeals or prompts to the public are not in the interest of what we are trying to achieve.
He says publicly.
As detectives, we will always be extremely disappointed when we are unable to provide an explanation of what happened. However the work carried out by Portuguese and Met officers in reviewing material and reopening the investigation has been successful in taking a number of lines of interest to their conclusion. That work has provided important answers.
Answers? But there was only ever one question: what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Right now we are committed to taking the current inquiry as far as we possibly can and we are confident that will happen. Ultimately this, and the previous work, gives all of us the very best chance of getting the answers – although we must, of course, remember that no investigation can guarantee to provide a definitive conclusion.
However the Met, jointly with colleagues from the Policia Judiciária continue the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann with focus and determination.
No progress, then. The Met is looking back – just as it always has done.
Posted: 26th, April 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: blaming gypsies is the cheapest solution
Madeleine McCann: as we approach the tenth anniversary of her vanishing the news is coming thick and fast in the British Press.
The Mirror (front page): “MADDIE ‘WAS SNATCHED BY RICH FAMILY’.”
Not poor gypsies, then? Not a paedophile – well, not a poor one. And she didn’t wander off. Madeleine McCann was stolen. The Mirror has more:
Missing Madeleine McCann ‘was snatched AFTER leaving apartment to look for parents’
She walked out the door and someone passing buy stole her. Maybe. Because what looks like fact to the Google news bots and headline readers is one man’s opinion. This is the “shocking new abduction theory”.
The man with the theory is Danny Collins.
The three-year-old could not have been taken from the Portuguese flat as the window shutters could only be opened from the inside, journalist Danny Collins has claimed.
The writer, who covered the case at the time, is convinced she left apartment 5a in Praia da Luz looking for her parents before being kidnapped and possibly sold to gypsies.
The gypsies did it?! If you’re going to guess who stole a child walking about a busy holiday complex searching for their parents dining in the area it’s always easy to Press f9 and blame the gypsies. No-one has yet claimed the Jews took her and used her blood to make Matzos and a ritual drink, but give it time.
With no evidence linking gypsies to the child’s vanishing, the story seems happy to point the finger at a group with long history of persecution. That’s revolting.
Says Collins, who has written a book on the case:
“I came across no clear indication that a planned abduction took place that night. Madeleine awoke and took the opportunity offered by the open patio doors to leave the apartment.”
He’s done lots of research and spoken with lots of people. He’s not found the child. But:
From his findings Collins believes “the most logical conclusion” was that she was snatched by a passing “itinerant” looking for some quick cash.
But Madeleine’s parents still insist the tot would not have wandered out, saying she would have had to open a patio door and two gates, one with a child safety lock, and close them afterwards.
The Mirror’s front-page screamer is sourced in the Sun. Over there we read:
But nearly ten years on, veteran investigative journalist Danny Collins believes he may have uncovered the truth behind the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann.
May. The Mirror’s front-page fact is looking sketchy. But gypsies continue to take a battering. Below a picture of the child in an Everton FC shirt, the Sun writers: “The shocking new theory claims Madeleine McCann could have been stolen by gypsies.”
Disgusting stuff.
Collins is quoted:
The McCanns overlooked the simplest of truths that would later be seized on by the Portuguese investigators and see them considered prime suspects.
“The metal shutters were impossible to lever upwards more than 1-2cm. Nor did the shutters or the sills on which they rested in the closed position show any marks of an attempt at forced entry.”
But what of the gypsies getting treated as suspects?
During his investigations, Collins was told by Iberian travellers that if Madeleine had been found on the street it was likely she would have been taken and a plan hatched to extract a ransom or reward.
But then, given the immediate high-profile nature of the case, they might have sold her to Romany gypsies.
Collins thinks this is the “most logical conclusion”.
As we grab the torches and mach on those Romany gypsies, other news sources have more on ‘Our Maddie’. What about the money?
The Independent: “Madeleine McCann may have been kidnapped by slave traders and sold, claims ex-Scotland Yard detective.”
May. There it is again, that word that can also mean ‘may not’. And who buys and sells children?
Gangs who operate in Mauritania, West Africa, reportedly sell children to rich Middle Eastern families
White slavers!
Leicester Mercury: “Madeleine McCann: New information in the hunt for missing Rothley youngster.”
Information or speculation?
An employee of the holiday resort where Madeleine McCann went missing 10 years ago could hold the key to solving the mystery of the missing toddler, it has been claimed.
Yep. It’s speculation.
In a ‘world exclusive’ Australian documentary aired today, former Scotland Yard police officer Colin Sutton told reporter Rahni Sadler: “There is an employee, somebody who worked within the Ocean Villa complex who has some information or some knowledge that may be of assistance.”
One man’s opinion is a world exclusive. So is this. So is that last breath you took, and the next one. It’s all unique and exclusive. And it’s all utterly useless in finding out what happened to Madeleine McCann.
Meanwhile, Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, told the makers of the programme, called Sunday Night, that they would not rest until they had found their daughter.
Kate said: “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, and it’s touched everybody, I think.”
She added: “I don’t believe we would ever reach a point where we think, ‘Oh, we’ve done everything now’. Whilst the situation remains as it is, Madeleine is out there and she needs us to find her.”
Stay tuned:
While there is no evidence that Madeleine is not alive, the programme looked at theories about why, if she had been killed, her body had not been found.
Is there evidence of gypsies? Can an entire race sue?
Mr Sutton told Sunday Night that despite Portuguese authorities conducting their largest ever police search, it was possible Madeleine’s remains could still be hidden in the Praia da Luz area.
He said it was “just large enough and difficult enough terrain to search” that police officers could “search for years and still not be satisfied you’d actually done it properly”.
Thanks. Very helpful.
Publisher of The Portugal News Paul Luckman said he believed there are up to 600 wells scattered throughout Praia da Luz, and that Madeleine’s remains could be in one of them.
He believes there are 600 wells that could contain a body of a child who could be alive. Got it?
He said: “[In] five, 10 years time, somebody suddenly decides to clear the well and they will bring it back into operation… they would clean it out and bones would be found.”
And on and on and on it goes.
Daily Star (front page): “MADDIE: MI5 HID HER BODY.”
In a bombshell documentary aired today on Australian TV, Goncalo Amaral suggested MI5 helped to hide Maddie’s body.
It’s duelling ex-cops on the telly.
The detective made the shocking claims on Aussie show Sunday Night which had said it would be revealing a major new lead in the disappearance case.
Amaral said MI5 “for sure had an involvement” in what happened to Maddie.
Proof? Evidence?
“I’m saying for sure [MI5] have an involvement in the situation”
Proof? Evidence?
On the same TV show, in response dad Gerry McCann said: “The less said about Goncalo Amaral the better.”
This might be the least edifying episode yet.
SMG: “Madeleine McCann’s parents deny killing or being negligent of their daughter on Sunday Night.”
Gerry McCann spoke to the show. He is quoted:
“The ludicrous thing is that Madeleine died in the apartment by an accident and we hid her body,” Mr McCann told Sunday Night. “Well, when did she have the accident and die? ‘Cause the only time she was left unattended was when we were at dinner, so if she died then, how could we have disposed of or hidden her body? You know, when there was an immediate search?
“It’s just nonsense! And if she died when we were in the apartment, or fell, why would we cover that up?”
Do not try to answer those questions. Libel is pricey.
When asked by Sunday Night reporter Rahni Sadler “Did you kill your daughter?”, Mr McCann replied: “No. No. Never.
“And you know, there’s nothing with any logic that could, you know… You would have to start with why? How? When? Who? And there’s just simply, you know, no answer to any of these things – there’s nothing to suggest anything. So no – that’s an emphatic ‘no’.”
He asks the questions. But, again, do not try to answer them here. It’d be speculation. Stick to blaming gypsies, who haven’t sued anyone for defamation (yet).
The Sun: “‘THEY ANNIHILATED ME’ Madeleine McCann crime expert who told doc her parents Gerry and Kate may have hidden body plans to sue show for twisting her comments.”
You see.
A CRIME expert who told an explosive Madeline McCann documentary her parents could have hidden their daughter’s body plans to SUE the Aussie TV channel which ran the show.
US criminal profiler Pat Brown featured on Channel 7’s Sunday Night show claiming Gerry and Kate McCann could have put Maddie’s body in a bag, hid at the beach and moved it weeks later.
But the expert – who told the show there was a possibility Madeleine had been killed as the result of an accident, neglect or abuse – now plans to sue the network for defamation.
Pat claims in her original hour-long Skype interview with journalist Rahni Sadler that she made it clear this was only a theory based on her view of the evidence available.
Some theories are cheap. Other theories can be expensive. Says Pat:
“I never stated the McCanns were guilty of anything other than neglecting their children, and I will stand by that. I never said the McCanns are guilty of covering up the death of their child or moving their child’s body. The show purposefully set out to destroy my reputation. The only reason I was featured was to annihilate me by making me look foolish.”
To recap: aliens took her. Probably. But not the ones with expensive lawyers. The other ones.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 24th, April 2017 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
Madeleine McCann: seeking the man by The Dolphin
Madeleine McCann appears on two national newspapers front pages today. You can read more about the Mirror’s news on a top cop’s theories here.
So much for the opinion. What we who have followed this story from the outset crave are facts.
The Express has actual news on the actual investigation into what happened to the missing child. The paper leads with the “phone box clue” to “Missing Maddie”.
James Murray says:
DETECTIVES are investigating phone calls made from a telephone box in Praia da Luz in a bid to trace a man acting suspiciously shortly before Madeleine McCann disappeared.
Indeed. It is odd. Who uses a phone box these days?
The story goes that Adrian and Lizelle Marais, a married couple working at an eatery called The Dolphin close to the phone box, spotted a “strange” man who “looked similar to a photofit of a suspect”. Their restaurant is around 700 metres from the Ocean Club, where Madeleine McCann was staying.
So which suspect are we looking at? We’ve seen a few in the media. The paper notes:
That led Portugal’s public prosecutor to order all phone records for the call box to be checked in an effort to find the man, who has never been traced.
Adding:
The prosecutor made the order on the grounds that the man may have abducted or murdered the lost three-year-old.
And so the jump is made. From being man at phone box at a busy summer holiday report, he is now someone who “may” have murdered a child.
We then get to which “suspect” the story relates to.
The call box is 50 yards from the spot where a man carrying a child similar to Madeleine was seen by Irishman Martin Smith and his family, who had been dining at the Dolphin at around 9pm on the night she disappeared.
Mr Smith’s account formed part of a Crimewatch reenactment.
Policia Judiciaria files on the case outline what Lizelle told officers the day after Madeleine vanished. The report states: “The person used the public telephone for long periods of time, always more than 10 minutes. To her, the person did not appear to be either a tourist or a resident. One time she had passed close to him and had felt ‘strange’ but did not know why.”
Mysterious stuff. But not new. Just old and in light of no developments in the case over ten years, still worthy of a look. And, as the Star proves with its interpretation of the Express‘ story, anything can be vital in the mystery of ‘Our Maddie’. Says the Star: “Madeleine McCann: Phone box may be key to finding Maddie.” Or not.
Posted: 23rd, April 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: five theories, three ex-coppers and 10 years of nothing
Madeleine McCann: A look at reporting on the missing child. It remains frenzied, speculative, lurid and light on news.
Daily Mail: “Did Madeleine McCann wander off and have an accident? Was she stolen to order? Or was it a burglary gone wrong? Detective lays out theories about her disappearance.”
In short: did any crime befall Madeleine McCann? The detective isn’t sure if one did. But, then, he’s isn’t a professional detective. He’s a “former Scotland Yard detective” who “believes he has come up with the five most plausible theories to explain the disappearance of Madeleine McCann”.
Only five. This is progress. On May 10 2007, the Daily Mirror produced SIX theories. They were: the “PAEDOPHILE GANG”, the “LONE PAEDOPHILE”, the “JEALOUS MOTHER”, Madeleine wandering off and “DROWNED”, the “OPPORTUNIST PAEDOPHILE”, the “CHILDLESS COUPLE”.
Colin Sutton is the “detective” with the five-fingered theory. He first told it to the Mirror, which is the source for the Mail’s story.
Daily Mirror: “Was Madeleine McCann stolen to order, taken by lone paedo or did she just wander off? The scenarios that could explain her disappearance.”
Sutton’s Five Theories that could be useful are:
1 The McCanns or the Tapas Seven
The McCanns have been libelled. Take care. Speculation hurst lives. Says Sutton:
I can understand why the Portuguese police asked questions about the McCanns and the Tapas Seven. As uncomfortable as it is, the first place I would have started looking is their group. Without any other information to go on, the most likely scenario when a three-year-old girl disappears into thin air is that someone close to her knows what happened.
However, the police do appear to have decided quite quickly that was the only line of investigation they were going to take.
By concentrating just on that scenario they may have missed tips or other lines that meant going down a completely different investigation route.
After that he adds a further four theories:
2 Targeted kidnap by a trafficking gang
This is the most likely scenario once those closely linked to Madeleine have been ruled out.
Concluding;
Given all the facts we know, it’s the most likely and credible scenario.
But why did they take her?
A trafficking ring is more likely than a lone paedophile or paedophile ring. Yes there are paedophiles, yes she is a little blonde girl. But I think six and seven-year-old girls are much more at risk from paedophiles or child abuse rings.
Paedophiles target blonde girls more than, says, brunette or black girls? We know that the media prefers blonde victims.
Looking at the trafficking angle, unless the order was specifically for a young blonde girl, why her and not one of the twins?
Dunno. Got a theory?
Babies have less memories than a three-year-old. If Madeleine is alive she will probably remember she had another mother and father and used to live in another house.
Probably. Or not. The theories contain more theories.
If you were stealing on spec you would have taken one of the twins. Not both, just one. So it goes back to a specific order for a young blonde girl.
Has a young blonde girl died and their parents want to replace her? Or is there another reason for stealing to order? When you pick it all apart it’s the most likely scenario.
He picks, but he comes up with no answers, just more questions. The scab grows back over the wound:
3 She wandered off and had a fatal accident
He says Madeleine McCann left Cuddle Cat, her toy, behind. He says the fact of the toy remaining in the holiday flat makes this theory unlikely.
4 Opportunist abducted her
This is less likely than other scenarios. The chances of a predatory paedophile just happening across Madeleine and being able to abduct her without being detected are just so remote.
Sarah Payne, right, who was eight (when she was killed by Roy Whiting in 2000), and five-year-old April Jones (who was killed by Mark Bridger in Wales in 2012) are probably the only cases that match something like that.
Yeah, Probably.
5 Killed as part of a burglary gone wrong
This is extremely unlikely. If you have got a burglar who has gone into the apartment for material theft, the chances are once they find there are kids in there they will run a mile.
The Mirror concludes this flight of fancy by telling readers: “Anyone with information about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance should call the Find Madeleine investigation line on: 0845 8384699 or email: investigation@findmadeleine.com.”
Exactly. If you know anything, tell the police. If you know nothing, tell the readers.
The Sun: “MADDIE SUSPECTS – Convicted British paedo, heroin-addicted burglar and bogus charity collectors among main suspects in Madeleine McCann disappearance, says top cop.”
The top cop is Sutton As as for the smack head being a child snatcher, well, he told the Mirror: “Junkies don’t take three-year-old girls.” The convicted British paedo is Raymond Hewlett. He’s dead.
Having conjured suspects from the ether, the Sun adds in a second story: “WAS MADDIE KIDNAPPED TO ORDER? Top Brit ex-cop says Madeleine McCann could have been snatched by traffickers to replace grieving parents’ own dead child.”
As Sutton of the newsroom guesses – is that big reward still on offer? – and the newspaper lap up his thoughts, the Mirror turns to another ex-cop for more theories.
Sunday Mirror: “Ex-top cop breaks Madeleine McCann silence to say where he thinks she was taken.”
Madeleine McCann was snatched and taken to a warren of caves nearby that have never been searched, a Portuguese investigator has suggested.
The theory comes from ex cop Paulo Pereira Cristovao – who became the boss of Portugal’s missing children agency in the same year the three-year-old disappeared.
He says: “I think this case has lots of mistakes – from many persons, from many situations, from the police and maybe from the government. At the end of the day we all forgot one person: Madeleine McCann.”
No. We don’t. There has been ten years of reporting on the case. The innocent child has not been forgotten – she has, though, be turned into the benchmark for all missing children and used to sell papers. And, like all ex-ops with opinions, Cristovao didn’t take long to add a “maybe” to what he thinks.
We’re not told why Cristovao is talking now, only that he has imagined what he’d have done if he had kidnapped a child in Praia da Luz. He thinks Madeleine McCann is dead:
“I put myself in the role of someone who knew nothing about the streets or the region. Where would I put the body of a girl? I stood at the apartment door – to the right is the town of Portimao. There are lots of people there, lots of buildings. If I had kidnapped her that’s not the way I’d want to go. I would want to go left, and find the first side road. I put my car on that road, and I went straight to Burgau. It’s a nearby beach, with a lot of rocks with caves.
“It’s a good place to put somebody. As far as I know the police never went there, because you would need divers.”
As far as he knows. Good idea to check, no? Aren’t facts useful when you’re investigating and theorising?
“In a case where you hear theories like aliens and gypsies kidnapping Madeleine, I think this is as good as all the others.”
Alien abduction is notoriously hard to verify. Police divers looking in a lake less so.
“We’ve heard theories so stupid over these 10 years,” he adds without irony.” When we don’t understand something, we complicate it. I think sometimes – always – the best solution is the simple solution.”
Clydebank Post: “Madeleine McCann breakthrough: Aussie TV show claims to have solved mystery of tot’s disappearance.”
Pull up an armchair. You too, detectives.
Channel 7’s Sunday Night show has released a teaser clip of this weekend’s programme in which it promises to be a “landmark television event”.
The video claims the show has a new line of inquiry which could bring investigators closer to solving the mystery of the youngster’s disappearance.
Trailing a theory about what happened to Madeleine McCann is grim. A post on the channel’s Facebook says:
“The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has continued to captivate the world for nearly ten years. Maddie was only three years old when she vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal. The police search that followed became the largest in Portugal’s history – but no trace of the missing toddler was ever found. Now, new developments in the case could finally reveal the truth about what happened to little Maddie.”
Could. Or could not. Stay tuned. We’re right back after these ads.
Daily Star: “Madeleine McCann: Missing Maddie now 13 and looks like THIS.”
She’s alive! The Star knows it. In the paper’s rush to dash out an “exclusive” artist’s rendering of what the child might look like, it produces this (below). The person on the left looks a lot like Kate McCann.
Daily Record: “Cop in Madeleine McCann case remains utterly unrepentant after damning book blaming Kate and Gerry.”
The hatchet job on Goncalo Amaral begins:
Despite becoming a shadow of his former self, Goncalo Amaral still has no sympathy for the parents of the missing youngster.
F*** the policeman:
On the side of the run-down apartment building, the grafitti reads “Foda a policia”. You don’t need to be fluent in Portuguese to figure out the expletive-laden translation.
This crime-ridden Lisbon estate is home to the ex-detective once tasked with solving Madeleine McCann ‘s disappearance.
In the early days, he was alleged to work just four-and-a-half-hours a day. Sporting a large beer belly, he regularly enjoyed three-hour lunches.
Amaral, 57, split from second wife Sofia in 2012, blaming the pressures of the case. He moved back to the tough Lisbon suburb of Olivais, where he grew up. His expensive suits and fedora are gone.
So too has the beer belly and chauffeur-driven Mercedes, replaced by a battered Citroen Picasso.
His slimming is a negative?
But the arrogance remains – as the Mirror discovered when we confronted Amaral last week. Amaral also refused to apologise for the mistakes that hampered the early days of the probe. Instead, he threatened to have our reporter and photographer arrested.
But it was his cruel refusal to offer any sympathy to Kate and Gerry that was the most damning.
Is the purpose of the Mirror’s barrage of ‘Our Maddie’ articles aimed at securing an exclusive with the McCanns?
Daily Mirror: “Madeleine McCann’s parents Kate and Gerry met as junior doctors and had perfect life until their daughter vanished.”
That’s pretty much the entire story, which shows no sign of reaching an end.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 23rd, April 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: horror in Cyprus and trolling the McCanns in the Sun
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.
We begin this round-up with news in the Sun that the missing child’s parents are posting on their official Facebook page. In “BEATING THE BULLIES” we read that Kate and Gerry McCann have re-opened their Find Maddie Facebook account amid a “huge outpouring of love and support” after “taking a ‘break’ from trolls”.
You might well wonder how that is news. But social media functions as something nasty for old media to look down on, like a school gates mum gathering her PTA pals around to snipe at the gauche new arrival. “As the page administrator switched it back on,” we’re told “she vowed to ‘continue to turn the page off if we receive hateful posts’.”
But you can’t turn off the Sun’s comments section. Beneath the paper’s story “MADDIE PROBE SLAMMED – Good Morning Britain viewers in meltdown over ‘ridiculous’ £11million bill for the Madeleine McCann investigation as top cop declares it a waste of money”, the Sun’s bleeding hearts offer lots of opinion. These are the comments in order of appearance on the Sun’s story:
The “TOP COMMENTS” are:
One site’s ‘Bullies” and “trolls” are another’s commenters and readers.
Having made not an inch of progress in finding out what happened to Madeleine McCann, the voracious Press see if they can have any better luck with a new ‘Maddie’.
“My daughter could have been the next Maddie McCann,” says the Mail’s headline. “Mother staying at five-star Cyprus hotel woke to find maid trying to snatch her one-year-old.”
The maid did it!
Siobhan Prescott, 25, “claims she woke to find her one-year-old daughter Harper crying as a dark-haired woman in her 40s attempted to pick her up out of her cot at the five star King Evelthon Beach and Hotel Resort in Chloraca Bay, Cyprus.”
As parents cancel their family summer holiday and eyes “dark-haired” women (in Greece!) with suspicion, the Mail tells us what happened next:
The horrified mother claims she was powerless to react because she was sleeping naked, so screamed out for her partner Simon Smith who was on the balcony of their room.
Who knew British holidaymakers were so demure?
Anyhow, Simon came running.
He confronted the sheepish woman, who was dressed in a maid’s outfit, and demanded to know what she was doing.
The woman said something in another language, before bursting into tears and trying to flee the room – but stopped to make a phone call from the room phone.
Eh? She made a phone call before legging it? So there are finger prints, a number to track and you got a good look at the would-be abductor. Right now the only thing Madeleine McCann-like about his story is that readers to examine someone else’s parenting skills.
“I was napping when a maid snuck into the room and tried to snatch my baby,” says Siobhan. “The only reason I woke up was because Harper screamed out, otherwise she could have been the next Maddie McCann.”
Well, yes, aside from the fact that this time both parents were in and the child never did go missing. What the incident could have been is the subject of the thrilling headline, but what actually was it?
“We were furious and we made our way down to the reception and demanded the hotel manager immediately,” says Siobhan. “I was absolutely hysterical, but the hotel management just said she was cleaning the room and picked up my baby to check she was alright. But it was rubbish. That woman had no cleaning products on her and it was the afternoon so our room had already been cleaned. I was naked in the bed, what kind of person walks into a room when a woman is lying naked on the bed? She let herself in with the aim to try and steal our baby.”
“TOT SNATCH HORROR,” thunders the Sun. “Brit mum reveals terrifying moment maid tried to snatch her toddler from cot on holiday and says ‘she could have been the next Madeleine McCann’”.
A TERRIFIED mum said she feared her daughter could have been the “next Madeline McCann” after she woke to find a hotel maid looming over her cot.
Siobhan Prescott, 25, claims the worker was attempting to pick up one-year-old Harper, who was screaming hysterically.
The baby was crying. The woman picked her up. The Sun writes:
The family were on a dream holiday to Cyprus between February 22 and March 1 when the horror unfolded.
It was weird and unsettling, no doubt. But a “horror”?
They claim they were later told by the hotel that the same maid had been sacked two years previously following an “incident” but was on her first day back in work.
So the woman “dressed as a maid” was a maid, which is why she was dressed as one. Is that right?
Siobhan said: “I am lucky to have woken up, but if I hadn’t God knows what would have happened. Harper could have easily been snatched and we would be in the exact same situation as Kate and Gerry McCann.”
What, hated by Sun readers?
Posted: 22nd, March 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
Madeleine McCann: a manhunt, a lifeline and a missing man
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.
Daily Mirror (front page): ”Maddie Cops Hunt Worker At Resort.’ The now ‘ex-employee has ‘vanished’. Like the missing child, he just disappeared?
In the very first paragraph we get not facts but news that ‘cops believe’ the missing worker has ‘clues about her disappearance’. The Portuguese man worked at the Ocean Club resort at the time Madeleine McCann ‘was snatched in 2007’.
The next headline adds: ‘Madeleine McCann cops hunt worker at resort as they fear he “kept secrets” from local police.’ So the missing man spoke with police, then. ‘He gave a statement at the time but detectives fear he may have kept secrets.’ The man spoke with police two days after the child vanished.
Believe. Fear. May. It’s the Maddie Mantra.
As ever with this story of the missing child, facts give way to feeling. Unable to add anything of substance, the Mirror repeats itself: ‘British officers trying to find the youngster fear he may have kept secrets from local detectives that could have led to a breakthrough in the case.’ Why do British police believe the wanted man may not have told local police everything? A Portuguese police ‘source’ tells readers: “British officers are convinced he knows more than he was previously saying and are very keen to question him.”
They don’t believe it. They know it. they are convinced. Is that why the ‘Maddie cops’ are ‘hunting’ him? They are not looking for him to help with their enquiries. They are hunting him, as you might hunt for a man who doesn’t want to be caught. The word is more loaded than Gorge bush at a frat house party. But hold on. The unnamed source tells us that the hunted man might not have anything to do with the missing child. “They are not suggesting he stole Maddie,” says the ‘source, “but he may know people who could have been involved after a burglary went wrong. The investigation in Britain seems to be grinding to a halt and they want to rule him out of the case if not rule him in. Then detectives know they have done everything in their power to try to solve the case.”
So much for the manhunt.
As for the facts, the Mirror soon revisits the old news: “Her doctor parents Kate and Gerry McCann , of Rothley, Leics, have always believed their daughter is still alive.” As ever, the paper mentions the parents’ jobs.
Daily Express (front page): ‘Parents’ joy at lifeline in hunt for Madeleine’
Another hunt, but this time it’s the search for the missing child. The Express hones in on Madeleine McCann’s parents. The child peers out from the paper’s cover, as she has done scores of times over the past decade.
And we learn nothing new. All we know is the child went missing. The rest is speculation.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 13th, March 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Madeleine McCann: just £85,000 left to find ‘Our Maddie’
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child. The Metropolitan Police continue to search for Madeleine McCann, the child who became the media’s ‘Our Maddie’.
Sunday Express (front page): ‘Madeleine Bombshell – Police net closes in one just one man who is key to the mystery’.
The police have been given more funding to find our what happened to Madeleine McCann in 2007. The Express‘s lead story and the extra cash are linked, as Caroline Wheeler explains:
DETECTIVES investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have identified a person they want to question and have been given an extra £85,000 to follow up the crucial lead.
That doesn’t sound like very much money. The BBC says it’s enough ‘to extend the search for a further six months’ – a search that has to date cost anything from £11.1m to £13m, depending on what publication you read.
Is it a sign the cops are closing in on their quarry? Or it a sign that funds are being reduced considerably – that the investigation is being wound down? The Express says there’s a ‘specific person of interest they need to question’:
The lead is seen as solid enough to persuade the Home Office to grant the extra money which will extend the search until September.
It’s not much money, though, is it, especially to follow up a ‘solid lead’.
All we’re told is that the mystery man was possibly in Portugal when Madeleine McCann went missing. If you think that’s all a bit blurry, it isn’t cleared up one line on when we’re told:
International intelligence agencies have been working together to find the “person of interest” who detectives believe may hold the key to solving the case.
And with that we’ve progressed not an inch. What detectives ‘believe may’ could be the Maddie Mantra. And very quickly what looked like fact becomes editorialised wishful thinking:
Had the information not been deemed a “solid live lead” then the £13million police investigation would have been wound up.
The mystery man is called a ‘crucial lead’. What was once shrouded in ‘believe’ and ‘may’ is now ‘crucial’.
A Home Office spokesman delivers the official line:
“Following an application from the Metropolitan Police for special grant funding the Home Office has confirmed £85,000 in operational costs for Operation Grange for the period April 1 until September 2017.
“As with all applications the resources required are reviewed regularly and careful consideration is given before any new funding is allocated.”
Cue an anonymous ‘insider’ to tell us: “There is just one person who detectives want to speak to who was near to the area where Madeleine disappeared almost 10 years ago. An international search has been underway to find them.”
Them or him? How near were they?
Policing Minister Brandon Lewis, who rubber-stamped the cash, steps in:
“I am pleased to be able to support the British police who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Madeleine McCann and give some kind of closure and justice to her family.”
When one newspaper leads the rest follow.
The Sun: ‘NEW MADDIE SUSPECT Cops given extra £85k to probe new key suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance a decade ago.’
Detectives have identified an individual they believe was near the coastal resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal when the tot went missing in 2007
That police only ‘believe’ the person was in Portugal soon becomes a fact that they were:
The person was near the area where Madeleine went missing from in the coastal resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal in May 2007.
Is this person who was there and maybe wasn’t there a suspect, then?
The person could be a Portuguese suspect.
For that insight we can look to now fewer than three journalists, the story is ‘By Ryan Sabey, Political Correspondent, Tracey Kandohla and Brittany Vonow’.
Over on LBC this morning, Andrew Castle has been fielding calls about whether or not the cash is value for money. After an hour of chatter, in which Castle says ‘as a parent, “you would expect your government to support you”, it turns out that no-one who calls in can be certain of anything other than that the child is missing.
And so it is that on a slow news day you can still press’f9’ on the keyboard and call up an ‘Our Maddie’ story and field all those nasty, doltish, unhelpful, anonymous and to-deadline opinions.
Posted: 12th, March 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
