Was Paxman correct, McCanns "collaborated with them when it was convenient"?

[faithlilly]

Sorry, was there a Panorama about Jane Tanner?  I must have missed that.  There was a Panorama in which  she contributed her first hand account of the sighting, but I don't recall it being all about her and her feelings - has she been in the habit of telling all to the media since 2007?  I don't think so. 

As for the Met, I'm not talking about them protecting the McCanns per se, just not encouraging the online hysteria about the amount being spent on Op Grange.  It's hardly in the interests of the investigation or Madeleine or her parents to have so much negative chippy sanctimonious online harping on about it, hence why this time, unlike other times, there was a reluctance to divulge the amount being spent.  In any case who knows what threats the McCanns may have recently faced as a result of previous media appearances, perhaps the Met really do have their best interests at heart and have advised them that a lower profile is in the interests not only of the investigation but their own and their family's safety.

And then there was Madeleine Was Here, where she was particularly distraught at having seen Tannerman and of doing nothing. Remember that ? You’d have thought her relief would have been palpable after that and at least worthy of at least one comment.

Tell me VS why do you think the ‘pal’ aka Mitchell chose to reveal ‘OG’s request’ ? Wouldn’t it have been less public to simply post an anniversary message on the official website? Why draw attention, and harping, to it ?

As to threats against the McCanns you are basing that suggestion on what ? We saw with the marathon debacle that the least sniff of a threat to the McCanns and it’s all over the tabloids. If there had been threats why do you think it didn’t reach the tabloids this time ?

[Venturi Swirl]

And then there was Madeleine Was Here, where she was particularly distraught at having seen Tannerman and of doing nothing. Remember that ? You’d have thought her relief would have been palpable after that and at least worthy of at least one comment.

Tell me VS why do you think the ‘pal’ aka Mitchell chose to reveal ‘OG’s request’ ? Wouldn’t it have been less public to simply post an anniversary message on the official website? Why draw attention, and harping, to it ?

As to threats against the McCanns you are basing that suggestion on what ? We saw with the marathon debacle that the least sniff of a threat to the McCanns and it’s all over the tabloids. If there had been threats why do you think it didn’t reach the tabloids this time ?

I still don't understand why you think JT needs to express any relief she might feel to the Great British Public via the media - it just seems an odd thing to expect and I see no reason why she would or should.  Her profile is not the same as the McCanns, it's not her child that's missing, there is nothing to tell really. 

As for the rest of your post you're inviting further speculation from me so that you can then shoot it down in flames.  I've given my views, you don't accept them, fine.  I don't accept your suspicions either. 

[G-Unit]

I disagree John,   Gerry is right when he said what parent wouldn't want to involve themselves with the media in order to get their child in the news in order to find her.    It is when they print made up stories in order to sell their papers that causes the problem.

There's no way of knowing how many false or mistaken stories were given to the police as a direct result of the huge publicity engendered by Team McCann. That hindered the investigation rather than helping it imo.

[Mr Gray]

There's no way of knowing how many false or mistaken stories were given to the police as a direct result of the huge publicity engendered by Team McCann. That hindered the investigation rather than helping it imo.

What hindered the investigation is that it is clear from the files and statements made that the initial investigators did not understand the important evidence... Imo

[Mr Gray]

There's no way of knowing how many false or mistaken stories were given to the police as a direct result of the huge publicity engendered by Team McCann. That hindered the investigation rather than helping it imo.

It's leads from the public that help solve cases... That's why the uk police appeal for information.... It's a fact of life that much of the response will be of no use but that's how police forces work

[faithlilly]

It's leads from the public that help solve cases... That's why the uk police appeal for information.... It's a fact of life that much of the response will be of no use but that's how police forces work

Imagine one of the public passed on information about a suspect to the U.K. police. The U.K. police, using their experience, thought the information unimportant. The member of the public then had efits commissioned and went on TV to promote them. Would that be helping or hindering the ongoing investigation?

[faithlilly]

I still don't understand why you think JT needs to express any relief she might feel to the Great British Public via the media - it just seems an odd thing to expect and I see no reason why she would or should.  Her profile is not the same as the McCanns, it's not her child that's missing, there is nothing to tell really. 

As for the rest of your post you're inviting further speculation from me so that you can then shoot it down in flames.  I've given my views, you don't accept them, fine.  I don't accept your suspicions either.

If Tanner publicly expressed upset that she may have let Madeleine’s abductor slip through the net why would it be so odd for her express her relief when it was revealed that she didn’t ?

As to your second paragraph please do not speculate if you’d prefer not to be asked to provide a concrete foundation for that speculation.

[Brietta]

Imagine one of the public passed on information about a suspect to the U.K. police. The U.K. police, using their experience, thought the information unimportant. The member of the public then had efits commissioned and went on TV to promote them. Would that be helping or hindering the ongoing investigation?

Without having to 'imagine' anything at all I cannot recall any case of any missing child where the parents of the child were expected to deal with the media without the support and collaboration of the police .

Part of the police job apparently is to take control of the media and to determine what comes in and what goes out from an investigation.
You appear to accept that Kate and Gerry should have suffered from the police failure to do that but don't question the inability of the police to control the situation.

In my opinion Kate and Gerry McCann should not have initially been abandoned and placed in the situation of having to collaborate with the media ... which at the time must have been the most daunting task imaginable for them ... that was part of what the police should have been doing on theirs and Madeleine's behalf.

[faithlilly]

Without having to 'imagine' anything at all I cannot recall any case of any missing child where the parents of the child were expected to deal with the media without the support and collaboration of the police .

Part of the police job apparently is to take control of the media and to determine what comes in and what goes out from an investigation.
You appear to accept that Kate and Gerry should have suffered from the police failure to do that but don't question the inability of the police to control the situation.

In my opinion Kate and Gerry McCann should not have initially been abandoned and placed in the situation of having to collaborate with the media ... which at the time must have been the most daunting task imaginable for them ... that was part of what the police should have been doing on theirs and Madeleine's behalf.

And I cannot remember a time when the main players in a criminal case had so much professional PR support around them. The McCanns had a whole team of lawyers and PR representatives by the time they made most of their decisions re the press so please cease from portraying them as unsupported innocents set adrift to battle the vicious press alone.

[Angelo222]

Paxman is a journalist perhaps naughtier that most and with a fearsome reputation to maintain.  I do not believe that anyone going into an interview with him would expect an easy ride and in my experience few get one.

I do not believe I have ever witnessed Paxman conducting a more sympathetic interview with anyone else than he did with Gerry McCann.
If as I believe it must have been by the questions asked the Leveson Inquiry was in full swing at the time, so one could have expected that Paxman might have gone in there with all guns blazing.  Instead he conducted, in my opinion, an interview which was sensitive to the feelings of the parent of a missing child.  I think the interview was constructed to be conducted in a way appropriate to reflect the tone of the Leveson testimony that Kate and Gerry had given about their treatment at the hands of the press.

Gerry smiled for a brief few seconds as he listened to a question.  So what?

It was much more than a smile. It was the reaction of a man who likes to be in control but on this occasion was faced with the unexpected.  The body language was very clear, Gerry McCann was extremely uncomfortable about the observation made by Paxman but instead of running off like he has done with other interviewers he chose to stand his ground this time.  Bet Paxman wasn't afforded another interview?

Every public event involving the McCanns is carefully stage managed and strategized to achieve maximum effect.

[Angelo222]

It might have backfired in the end but this is what I heard Gerry say: "We have very clear objectives of what we wanted, and any parents would take the opportunity of trying to get information into the investigation that might help find their daughter. And that's what our clear objectives were".

In other words he admitted interfering with the investigation but then we know exactly what that amounted to and who the target was.

He met his match in the Portuguese Supreme Court though   

[Brietta]

And I cannot remember a time when the main players in a criminal case had so much professional PR support around them. The McCanns had a whole team of lawyers and PR representatives by the time they made most of their decisions re the press so please cease from portraying them as unsupported innocents set adrift to battle the vicious press alone.

Initially and for some time thereafter Madeleine and the McCann family did not have the support of the police in dealing with the media.

At the Leveson Inquiry it was further revealed that their reputation was not even considered important enough to be protected from falsehood by the chief constable of their home police force.

Leveson inquiry: ex-police chief defends not preventing false McCann DNA reports
Matthew Baggott says it was correct 'not to put the record straight' over false reports about Madeleine McCann case
Lisa O'Carroll  @lisaocarroll
Wed 28 Mar 2012

The UK police were right not to "put the record straight" over false reports claiming Gerry and Kate McCann were implicated in their daughter's disappearance, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

Matthew Baggott, the former chief constable of Leicestershire police, told the inquiry on Wednesday he could not have released information about DNA tests conducted in the UK to counter leaks by the Portuguese police that falsely claimed they showed the McCanns had hidden Madeleine in the boot of a hire car in Portugal.

Baggott said there were both legal and professional reasons for this. Portuguese secrecy laws made it "utterly wrong to have somehow, in an off-the-record way, have breached what was a very clear legal requirement upon the Portuguese themselves", he told Lord Justice Leveson.

He also said the Leicestershire force's priority was to maintain a positive relationship with the Portuguese police, with a view to "eventually ... resolving what happened to that poor child".

Last November the Leveson inquiry heard how the Daily Express reported there was DNA evidence that could show the little girl's body had been stored in the spare tyre well of a hire car.

It turned out the analysis conducted in the UK was "inconclusive" and there was no foundation for making that allegation. Express Newspapers paid £550,000 damages to the McCann's in 2008 for inaccurate reporting by the Daily Express and the publisher's three other titles.

Leveson asked Baggot about evidence submitted by a Daily Star crime reporter two weeks ago that the Leicestershire police "knew perfectly well that the results didn't demonstrate that", and could have given off-the-record briefings to British journalists not to report a DNA link.

"Even with the benefit of hindsight, sir, I'm still convinced we did the right thing and I think integrity and confidence, particularly with the Portuguese, featured very highly in our decision-making at that time," said Baggott.

He added: "So the relationship of trust and confidence would have been undermined if we had gone off the record in some way or tried to put the record straight, contrary to the way in which the Portuguese law was configured and their own leadership of that."

When they appeared before Leveson late last year, Gerry and Kate McCann told how they were left distraught by false claims in the UK press that they were responsible for their daughter's disappearance or her death.

Leveson later accused the Daily Express of writing "complete piffle" and "tittle tattle" about Madeleine McCann.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/28/leveson-madeleine-mccann-dna-police


So to suggest that Kate and Gerry McCann did not require all the professional help they could muster against a media which was being fed disinformation about them and British police disinclined to put the record straight on that is in my opinion disingenuous.

In my opinion they needed all the help they could get ... and in my opinion given sight of the video you linked ... it is my opinion that as a journalist himself Paxman sympathised with that when the tone of his interview with Gerry  is taken into consideration.
Kate and Gerry McCann had to do a crash course of learning how to cope with the media with their main aim to keep Madeleine out there; I don't think for a minute looking forward they envisaged they would be doing it eleven years down the line; but looking back on it I think they did well.
I think Paxman shares that opinion if the conduct of his interview with Gerry is any indication.

[Angelo222]

Putting trust in the investigating team in place would be a big mistake imo

That's what innocent people traditionally do.  It is generally recognised that people with something to hide will be the least likely to fully cooperate with police including making excuses for their actions.

[Brietta]

It was much more than a smile. It was the reaction of a man who likes to be in control but on this occasion was faced with the unexpected.  The body language was very clear, Gerry McCann was extremely uncomfortable about the observation made by Paxman but instead of running off like he has done with other interviewers he chose to stand his ground this time.  Bet Paxman wasn't afforded another interview?

Every public event involving the McCanns is carefully stage managed and strategized to achieve maximum effect.

I don't see the interview like that at all Angelo. I think it reflected fairly the experience Madeleine's parents had with the press in the aftermath of Madeleine's disappearance which wasn't all bad and wasn't all good.

But the one thing it did do was to keep her name in the news which in my opinion led to the investigation into her disappearance being reopened both here and in Portugal.

[Angelo222]

There's no way of knowing how many false or mistaken stories were given to the police as a direct result of the huge publicity engendered by Team McCann. That hindered the investigation rather than helping it imo.

Very true, their so-called professional agents alienated witnesses instead of engendering their cooperation.  The fiasco in Morocco being a classic.