Disappeared and Abducted Children and Young Adults => Madeleine McCann (3) disappeared from her parent's holiday apartment at Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3 May 2007. No trace of her has ever been found. => Topic started by: John on April 30, 2017, 06:02:50 PM
Title: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on April 30, 2017, 06:02:50 PM
Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
This thread is intended to document the various media articles which have been published in the lead up to the tenth anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Contributors should also place a copy of their post in the News thread.
This thread is reserved for media articles only.
DO NOT POST COMMENTS ON THIS THREAD
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 01, 2017, 02:24:41 AM
48 questions Madeleine McCann's mother refused to answer reemerge as father slams 'fake news'
Gerry McCann hits out at hurt that speculation and conspiracy theories have caused family
A list of police questions which Madeleine McCann’s mother Kate refused to answer three months after her daughter disappeared has re-emerged in the media as the 10 year anniversary of her disappearance approaches.
In an interview with Fiona Bruce, Madeleine’s father, Gerry McCann, hit out at “fake news” and the hurt that speculation and conspiracy theories have caused to the family.
But the list of 48 questions Mrs McCann refused to answer has made headlines again a decade after the four-year-old vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have identified a female suspect who they believe could be the key to solving the case, reports suggest.
Investigators are said to have searched all over Europe for the woman, who was seen close to the apartment in Praia de Luz, Portugal from which Madeleine was taken. Sources say officers will soon be in a position to question the suspect.
“Detectives have scoured Europe looking for this woman who is thought to hold the key to solving the entire case,” a source told the Sunday Express.
“After months of tireless police work they will soon be in a position to move in and finally get some answers after a decade of dead ends. It is a hugely significant line of inquiry that officers hope could lead to an arrest.”
It was revealed earlier in the year that Metropolitan Police officers working on the case, codenamed Operation Grange, had identified a new person who they wanted to question and had been given an extra £85,000 by the Home Office to pursue the lead. The investigation, which to date has cost £11m, had been due to be closed but will now continue until at least September.
Madeleine, then three years old, disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve on 3 May 2007. Her mother, Kate, discovered her missing when she went to check on her during a meal with friends and found the window open and her oldest daughter gone.
The disappearance sparked one of the biggest missing person investigations of all time, with teams in both the UK and Portugal assessing hundreds of potential lines of inquiry and persons of interest.
The latest development comes as Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, vowed to do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to find out what happened to their daughter.
During an interview with BBC presenter Fiona Bruce to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, Ms McCann said:‘‘We’ve come a long way and there is progress and there are some very credible lines of inquiry that the police are working on.
“Whilst there’s no evidence to give us any negative news, hope is still there.”
Mr McCann added: ‘‘They’ve managed to pull so much together and sift through so much information, so now we do seem to be on just several lines of inquiry rather than tens/hundreds.”
"We just have to go with the process and follow it through - whatever it takes for as long as it takes. There is still hope that we can find Madeleine."
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 02, 2017, 10:33:12 AM
McCanns 'fell out' with police over search for Madeleine A Home Office report details the "turbulent relationship" between the McCanns and Portuguese and British law enforcement. 06:38, UK, Tuesday 02 May 2017
By Martin Brunt, Crime Correspondent
The parents of Madeleine McCann claimed they were treated badly by Portuguese police from the start of the investigation into her disappearance, according to a secret Home Office report.
They eventually fell out with UK authorities too and later did not share with police information gathered by their own private investigators.
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."
Even before the end of the first Portuguese investigation, Kate and Gerry McCann used money collected by their Madeleine Fund to hire private investigators. They continued to use them for the three years before Scotland Yard got involved.
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."
The report led to Scotland Yard launching a review and later its own investigation in 2011.
It recommended the setting up of a UK national centre for missing children to better coordinate the response when British children go missing abroad. That has never happened.
Mr Johnson supported the report's recommendation, but was voted out of office in the 2010 General Election.
He said: "Nothing's happened in the ensuing 10 years that suggests that if it happened again it would be an any better, more coordinated response." http://news.sky.com/story/mccanns-fell-out-with-police-over-search-for-madeleine-10859915
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Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 02, 2017, 03:20:11 PM
My ten years of looking for Madeleine: how the McCann case has dominated my life
Martin Brunt, sky news crime correspondent 2 MAY 2017 • 11:14AM
I know so much about the story of Madeleine McCann, the heartbreakingly little girl who vanished into thin air.
In the ten years since she disappeared I’ve spoken to her parents, their friends, the heads of Scotland Yard and the Portuguese police, private investigators, Government ministers and diplomats, witnesses and suspects, the family’s supporters and their trolls.
I’ve been back to Praia da Luz 20 times or more and have struck up friendships. They don’t like why I’m there. I don’t think there’s a word for the look on their faces In the resort where she went missing I’ve chatted for many hours with residents, expats, taxi drivers, waiters and bar owners. A lot of bar owners.
But what do I really know? What do I know about the only thing that matters, what happened to three-year-old Madeleine after her parents left her and her two-year-old twin siblings Sean and Amelie sleeping in their rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on a breezy, late Spring night 10 years ago on Wednesday?
The answer, of course, is nothing. There are theories galore and wild speculation, but for all the time and money spent by police, journalists and armchair detectives, nobody has unearthed the slightest proof to explain her fate. For crime reporters, as an unsolved case it stands alone.
There have been two Portuguese police investigations and Scotland Yard has spent more than £11 million since it began its own inquiry in 2011. In six years the British detectives identified 600 ‘potentially significant’ individuals, all of whom have been ruled out. They have one significant line of enquiry which may or may not provide an answer.
And that’s why I’m sitting here in an editing room, more baffled and fascinated by the story than I was 10 years ago, putting the final touches to a TV documentary that hopes to shed some light, at least on what’s happened since.
‘Madeleine.’ That’s all I have to say to colleagues, friends or family who ask me what I’m working on. I don’t even have to say her surname for them to understand what’s keeping me busy. By her first name, she is so well known as the little girl at the heart of an enduring mystery.
I’ve been back to Praia da Luz 20 times or more and have struck up friendships with several people. They greet me warmly enough, but they don’t like why I’m there. I don’t think there’s a word for the look on their faces, a mixture of smile and scowl.
In the absence of facts there’s a vacuum filled by speculation and opinion, more often than not tinged with a lack of sympathy for her parents. That is especially true in Portugal, where I’ve seldom met anyone who cannot get over the hurdle of Kate and Gerry McCann leaving their three asleep while they dined with friends across the holiday complex. Kate McCann has described tomorrow’s anniversary as ‘a horrible marker of time, stolen time’.
Nobody can beat up the parents for leaving the children more than the couple do themselves. Long ago they acknowledged they made a mistake, one they have to wake up to each morning.
Yet, the level of hostility the McCann family continues to attract, mainly on on social media, is dreadful - heaping more misery on their blighted lives. A recent posting on a Facebook page which is devoted to the theory that Madeleine’s body is buried in Praia da Luz carried an apparent photograph of her brother Sean, attributing to him a ‘comment’ in which he criticises his parents.
One of those behind the posting told me he had contacted Sean’s school in a bizarre attempt to enlist its help in a campaign to retrieve Madeleine’s body. I knew Scotland Yard was aware of the activity, but they appeared to have done nothing about it. I was told it was something they did not want to discuss with me.
Two months ago someone posted an apparent photograph of the family having lunch in a restaurant. While they were still eating, the picture was put on Twitter, followed by a map and directions to the restaurant along with many vile comments such as ‘Are the kids with them or are they also home alone?’ And ‘Shame they didn’t choke.’ One poster suggested spitting in their food, another wanted to pour beer over them.
As far as I know, none of the McCanns has ever been physically attacked, but I’ve learned as well as anyone the human impact social media activity can have.
Three years ago Leicestershire police were sent a dossier of the online anti-McCann hostility, which included death threats. After six months they decided to take no action against anyone.
I confronted one of the McCann critics, Brenda Leyland, a woman who had Tweeted many nasty comments. She invited me into her home for a chat, though she didn’t want to be interviewed formally. Four days later she took her own life.
In an interview for our documentary the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he couldn’t understand why police refused to investigate the McCann trolls.
The former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP), Jim Gamble, described the thousands of online attacks as “a legacy of bile” that would always be there on the Internet to confront Madeleine’s younger twin brother and sister.
We reveal in the documentary details of a secret report Mr Johnson commissioned from CEOP in 2009 to explore the possibility of Scotland Yard getting involved. It led to the Metropolitan Police reviewing the case in 2011 and then launching their own full investigation two years later.
The document exposes the early failures of the first Portuguese investigation and the chaos added by many British agencies competing to help. They included the Association of Chief Police Officers, the National Policing Improvement Agency, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service and others. It led to the Portuguese authorities accusing Britain of acting like “a colonial power.”
In turn, says the leaked report, it lead to growing distrust between the McCanns and both Portuguese and UK police. So much so, that when the McCanns later hired a series of private investigators, the couple refused to share the information that was gathered with either force.
We’ve also spoken to former detective Colin Sutton, who was in the running to head the Scotland Yard investigation before he retired. He says that a senior officer rang and warned him that if he took on the case he would not be able to do everything he wished. He interpreted that as a ban on any formal interview with the McCanns.
Mr Sutton says that if Scotland Yard really did intend to “re-analyse and re-assess everything, accept nothing”, as Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood told BBC Crimewatch in 2013, it should have interviewed the McCanns under caution at the start, if only to rule them out. Mr Sutton says that from the beginning they did accept something, the abduction theory.
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it didn’t formally interview the McCanns because it was satisfied the couple had been ruled out by the initial Portuguese investigation.
Without that interview, says Mr Sutton, the Scotland Yard inquiry was flawed from the start and so the McCanns have still not had the “proper” investigation Alan Johnson promised them.
The growing distrust between the McCanns and police was so bad that when the McCanns later hired private investigators, they refused to share the information gathered The 10th anniversary has been an excuse for me to contact my fellow hacks who spent many weeks in Praia da Luz in the summer of 2007 to see if they have learned anything more than me.
So far, despite recent headlines about breakthroughs and new leads, they haven’t. Over the years we have all tried very hard to beat each other to exclusives, sometimes going to extraordinary lengths. I remember turning up one January to discover that three of my rivals had spent Christmas in Praia da Luz and shared a lonely festive lunch in the dimly-lit Fortaleza restaurant with the sound of freezing waves crashing on the rocks below.
It was a reminder that Madeleine’s disappearance has played such a big part in our lives and, as long as it remained a mystery, we couldn’t let it go.
There’s talk of a reporters’ reunion, but that would hardly be appropriate. Now, Madeleine’s safe return, wouldn’t that be a cause for celebration for us all? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/ten-years-looking-madeleine-mccann-case-has-dominated-life/
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 02, 2017, 08:38:16 PM
What happened to Madeleine McCann? Six key theories.
(http://i.imgur.com/eG38XPQ.gif?1)
By Martin Evans 2 MAY 2017
Ten years ago, three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal sparking one of the largest missing persons hunts in history.
The case sparked an unprecedented level of media interest but a decade later there have still been no definitive breakthroughs and her fate remains unknown.
Although rumours, conspiracies and speculation still run rife, there are a handful of more likely theories behind her disappearance.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 02, 2017, 08:58:22 PM
Original post by G-Unit
The woman in purple? Mrs Murat never told the police about this woman, according to the files. She did tell the story to a newspaper some years ago. Are OG getting their leads from newspaper articles now?
'Woman in purple' is prime suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance after witness saw her outside apartment
The witness says she saw the woman looking up at the apartments, “watching intently” and a police insider said they were ready to “move in” and arrest the mystery women
(http://i.imgur.com/Bf313qt.jpg?1)
BYTRACEY KANDOHLA 08:58, 2 MAY 2017
A mystery “woman in purple” is the prime suspect British police are thought to be searching for over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Jenny Murat, 79, has told how she saw the woman outside the apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, which Maddie vanished from in 2007.
Jenny, whose son Robert was the first “arguido” – official suspect – but was formally cleared of suspicion in 2008, said: “I saw the woman standing on the corner of the street.”
The woman was looking up at the apartments, “watching intently” .
Jenny said: “She caught my eye as she was dressed in purple-plum clothes.
“It struck me as strange. It’s so usual for anyone, particularly a woman, to be standing alone on the street in our resort, just watching a building.”
The next morning she heard that Maddie had gone missing and told police about the woman. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-purple-prime-suspect-madeleine-10336719
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 02, 2017, 09:08:30 PM
How Madeleine McCann's parents refused to share information from their own private investigators after falling out with Portuguese and British police.
(http://i.imgur.com/vXOx0hK.jpg?1)
Kate and Gerry McCann still hope to find her ten years after her disappearance
Leaked report reveals how McCanns' relationship with police hit rock bottom
Document said: The McCanns have had a turbulent relationship with both Portuguese and UK law enforcement. There is a lack of trust between all parties.'
Goncalo Amaral claims she was hidden in British woman's coffin and cremated
By Martin Robinson, Uk Chief Reporter For Mailonline PUBLISHED: 2 May 201
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.
Mr Johnson wanted to find out if the Met should intervene further in the case so the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre investigated.
It was commissioned in late 2009, completed by March 2010 and published in May 2010, MailOnline understands. In May 2011 the Home Office launched the Scotland Yard review of the case. The Met's investigation has cost £11million so far.
The report, seen by Sky News' Martin Brunt, 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 also reveals tensions between the Portuguese and British police, with the Met accused of acting 'like a colonial power'.
The report says: '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 police in Britain and Portugal say they are working together to find Madeleine, who vanished on May 3 2007.
Yesterday it emerged the former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral has claimed Madeleine's body was cremated in a TV interview that will add to her parents' anguish.
The detective, one of the leading investigators early in the case, made the wild statement hours after her parents vowed to take him back to court over other claims.
Amaral made his latest statement on a TV documentary to be aired on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance from the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 02, 2017, 11:57:36 PM
Portuguese prayers for Madeleine McCann every day since 2007 disappearance A special service for missing people will be held in Praia da Luz on Wednesday.
Villagers in Praia da Luz have prayed for Madeleine McCann every Sunday since her disappearance 10 years ago, it has emerged.
Madeleine was aged three when she vanished from a holiday apartment in the Algarve village at about 9pm on May 3 in 2007.
A special church service will be held at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz for all missing people, including Madeleine, at 9pm on Wednesday.
Villagers in Praia da Luz have prayed for Madeleine McCann every Sunday since her disappearance 10 years ago, it has emerged.
Madeleine was aged three when she vanished from a holiday apartment in the Algarve village at about 9pm on May 3 in 2007.
A special church service will be held at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz for all missing people, including Madeleine, at 9pm on Wednesday.
It is understood Father Haynes Hubbard, of Canada, the priest at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, will be present at the service.
“There has been some sort of a service every year and it is always at about the same time that she went missing,” a member of the church said. “There are also prayers for Madeleine every Sunday. They take place every Sunday during the intercession. People have always asked that that continue and all the priests have been happy to do so.”
Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed to do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to find her. Last week, British detectives working on the case revealed they are now pursuing a “significant” line of inquiry.
Local residents described how the disappearance of Madeleine, from apartment 5A on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, is now part of the village’s history.
They recounted the minutes after the alarm was raised that the child was missing from the room where she was sleeping as her parents ate supper nearby.
Writer David S Jones, 72, said staff from the then-Mark Warner Ocean Club complex were at his restaurant, the Mirage, when news broke.
“Many of the workers for Mark Warner were gap-year students and were here,” Mr Jones, the creator of Fireman Sam, said. “We closed the bar and everybody went out looking, it was about 10.30pm. We spent days looking for her.”
A local businessman, who did not wish to be named, remembered seeing dozens of people comb the village for Madeleine.
“It is something we will have to live with and we may never know what happened,” he said. “People here never forget – when you walk or drive around, you see reminders of what happened. I remember watching people searching the beach with torches from about 10.30pm. People were searching for days.”
Freddie Nicholas, 21, moved close to Praia da Luz with his family in 2005 and heard helicopters looking for her.
“It will take the people of Luz a very long time to move on from this, it is part of their history now,” the journalism student said. “It has shocked Portugal to the core. The attention Luz got was crazy considering it is a sleepy beach resort in the Algarve.” http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/portuguese-prayers-for-madeleine-mccann-every-day-since-2007-disappearance-11364177392442
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:04:33 AM
Maddie has not taken tourists away but persists in memory
REUTERS / HUGO CORREIA
A resident of Luz Beach recalls that, at an early stage, the inhabitants were looked on by tourists.
The disappearance of Britain's Madeleine McCann in 2007 did not alienate tourists from the quiet village of Praia da Luz, but a decade later the case is still alive in the memory of those who live there and visit the area.
Even on a cloudy day and rain falling, dozens of tourists stroll along the small boardwalk that accompanies Praia da Luz, where there is nothing to refer to one of the most media police cases in Portugal, which still remains ten years later I live in the memories of those who cross there.
For the second time on vacation, Briton Irene Duffield believes that no one will forget the little Madeleine McCann, who disappeared on May 3, 2007 from an apartment on Luz Beach, whose name will linger in the collective memory of the English, as in everything The world, for a long time.
The tourist, who lives in the county of Essex in the United Kingdom, believes that it was a "one-off" case in a "safe" country, to which the British are very fond of, so the disappearance of the girl, Does not prevent people from returning there.
"With luck, she will still be around and may appear alive," believes Irene Duffield, criticizing, however, the actions of the Portuguese police who initially led the investigation wrongly, for not acting "as fast as it should."
Her husband, Bruce, also believes that Maddie's disappearance is no reason to keep people from going to that part of the Algarve, since "it could happen anywhere," although this particular case was "widespread in England ".
Frenchman Yann Allo is for the third time in Praia da Luz and considers that "there are similar cases that happen everywhere", even in his country, that affect people at an early stage, but which later fall into oblivion.
"In the early days, I think it had some impact on the tourism in Praia da Luz, because certain people with small children may have been afraid, but over time the image will fade and there is not a bad image for Praia da Luz "He says.
Having just arrived for a holiday season of a month and a half, the tourist says that in France has already "turned the page" and not talk so much about the Maddie case, despite having touched the country, especially in your case, for being The region of Brittany.
Mayor of Lagos at the time of the incident, Júlio Barroso confesses that he will never forget the atmosphere of commotion and union that has generated between the population and the tourists of Praia da Luz.
"It aroused in people a great heartache and a sense of solidarity and mutual help," he recalls, recalling the first moments when the entire population joined in a mass search for "the smallest clue."
For the former mayor, if at first there was a break in the demand for accommodation in the tourist resort where Maddie disappeared, now Luz Ocean Club, "this was exceeded with relative ease" because it was perceived that it was an isolated case.
"If this initially raised any doubts about security in Portugal and the Algarve, it is more than demonstrated that people do not attribute any responsibility to the lack of security mechanisms, police and even prevention," he stressed.
However, the case remains an alert "to raise levels of protection," because even in the "quietest place in the world", where more than 50% of the inhabitants are foreigners, it can happen.
Created in the Praia da Luz area, Catarina Rêgo recalls how ten years ago there was no mention of anything else and how there was the "tendency to keep the children", which she does not see happening nowadays.
"Initially people might think a little bit about the subject, nowadays I do not notice any repercussions in tourism or a concern in families with children," he notes.
Considering that this is a case that will last in everyone's memory, Catherine confesses that the population still feels "a pain" regarding the case, because it has never been clarified what actually happened.
Jerónimo Veiga, who has lived in Praia da Luz for several years, confesses that it is hard for him to exchange views on the case and recalls how, at an early stage, the inhabitants were looked on by tourists.
"At the beginning of this situation the 'Portuguese' of Praia da Luz was very frowned upon," he recalls, noting that he still has at home a pejorative newspaper published in the British Press that revolted him.
Even today, he says, there may be some Britons who look at the inhabitants of Praia da Luz differently, but life continues in the small village by the sea, where it has never been repeated similarly.
APRIL 30, 2017 09:00 AM Lusa http://www.dn.pt/sociedade/interior/maddie10-anos-caso-nao-afastou-turistas-mas-persiste-na-memoria-da-praia-da-luz-6256298.html
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Alfie on May 03, 2017, 12:09:01 AM
A decade on, crucial questions in Maddie case remain unanswered The world reeled at the McCanns' tragic story but we still seem no nearer to the truth
Still missing: Madeleine McCann, who disappeared 10 years ago this week Photo: Family Handout/PA Wire3 Still missing: Madeleine McCann, who disappeared 10 years ago this week Photo: Family Handout/PA Wire John McGee April 30 2017 6:05 PM
One of the first things people instinctively do when a toddler goes missing in a holiday resort is check all the nearby swimming pools. Every year, several hundred kids around the world accidentally drown in swimming pools when they wander off from their parents. This was possibly one of the first thoughts that preyed on the minds of Kate and Gerry McCann and the rapidly assembled search party that frantically went running through the streets and laneways of Praia da Luz in Portugal 10 years ago, on May 3, 2007.
Within minutes of discovering that the three-year old was missing from the ground-floor holiday apartment in the Mark Warner-owned Ocean Club resort pool, areas in neighbouring holiday complexes were checked and laneways were searched in the vain hope that she might have wandered out of the apartment of her own accord.
Somewhat oblivious to what was unfolding on the streets below us, my wife and I and our daughter, who was only a few months older than Madeleine, went to bed in the Estrela da Luz apartment complex a couple of hundred yards from where Madeleine disappeared.
Having just returned from dinner in a nearby South African restaurant called The Dolphin, we could hear some commotion four floors below us on the street.
It eventually moved on to another street and, thinking nothing of it, we headed for our wine-induced and, in hindsight, selfish slumber.
The following morning our world would never be the same. But it would pale into complete and utter insignificance when compared with the torment and anguish of the McCann family.
A little English girl has gone missing overnight, we were told by one of the women working on the reception of the apartment complex. Hastily printed photos of a pretty, young blonde child had been left at hotel and apartment reception desks throughout the picturesque seaside village.
This was the same Madeleine McCann we had seen tagging along with her mother as she pushed her twins in a double buggy up the hill. This was happening to the same family we had passed on several occasions days before as we walked down towards the supermarket. This was the same Gerry McCann we had seen playing tennis several days earlier.
The initial search the night before was called off around 4am, but as people woke up to the early morning news, fresh search parties were immediately formed to scour the neighbouring hillsides and countryside while road-blocks were put in place by the local police.
Later, a helicopter hovered over nearby fields and mountainous terrain, scouring every inch. A team of microlight gliders from a local club also joined the frantic search, sweeping in from the sea to focus on areas that were difficult to access by foot.
Within 24 hours, the relatively quiet Hugo Beatty's bar and restaurant on the ground floor of the Estrela da Luz complex was transformed into a bustling press centre for the many journalists and camera crews who were dispatched to cover a story which had spread like wildfire on TV networks and in newspapers back in the UK.
In fairness, nothing had prepared the local police or indeed the regional police for anything like this. Not surprisingly, their initial unwillingness to share any information - possibly because they were quite literally clueless - was confused with ineptitude, a charge which stuck to them for much of the subsequent investigations.
Explaining to our four-year-old daughter what was happening was difficult. Instinctively, parents want to protect children from all the horrific things that go on in this world. Sometimes saying nothing is the best option. However, after we were asked to produce her passport at a police checkpoint just outside the village, officers examined her closely, looked at her passport several times to see if she resembled Madeleine in any way, we had to tell her the police were looking for a little girl who had gone missing and that her mummy and daddy wanted her back.
To reassure her, we told her that they would soon find her, and her parents would be happy again. We all wanted to believe that.
Day-time searches gave way to night-time vigils at the picture postcard church of Igreja de Santa Maria in the village. As Kate and Gerry McCann filed into the small church, the despair and anguish etched deep into their faces, onlookers lit candles and those who believed in a God who would have allowed this to happen, simply prayed. Others just wept.
Criminal investigators say the first few hours after an abduction are the most crucial. But as the days slipped by without any sightings or remains being found, a sense of foreboding had already gripped the village and many people already feared the worst.
At no stage of the initial investigation, however, did local police attempt to interview us or indeed anyone in our apartment complex, despite its proximity to the Ocean Club resort.
In our case, certain things we had witnessed over the previous week and indeed on the night of Madeleine's disappearance might have been of use to them had they bothered. But they didn't.
The suspicious looking characters hanging around Hugo Beatty's bar two nights earlier - one of whom resembled the identikit photo issued by the Metropolitan Police years later; the pick-up-style truck that sped past us as we walked back to the apartment from The Dolphin that fateful night; the elderly bearded man videoing children at a nearby theme park three days before.
At the time, their possible significance meant nothing to us but they might have been of some help. It was only when we arrived back in Dublin five days later we felt compelled to volunteer statements to the gardai who then passed them on to Interpol, by then already on the case. Presumably Interpol then passed them on to the Portuguese police.
In addition, the many photos we had taken during the two-week holiday that might have provided clues or identified "people of interest" in and around Praia da Luz and Lagos were uploaded to a website which was set up to help the police with their investigation.
We never heard anything back from the Portuguese police who, in July 2008, officially closed the case.
Every so often our daughter would ask if they ever did find that little girl. The answer was always the same.
But it was a case that was never going to go away. With teams of private detectives, public relations professionals and assorted high profile benefactors like businessman Sir Philip Green and author JK Rowling, the Find Madeleine campaign never gave up hope, and a concerted and slick effort was made to keep it in the headlines, something which irked the Portuguese police considerably.
This relentless campaigning eventually paid off when, in May 2011, Operation Grange was launched by the Metropolitan Police in London, following a request from the then home secretary, Theresa May, with the support of the prime minister, David Cameron.
Assisted by the Portuguese authorities and a team of 29 detectives, Operation Grange initially collated and sifted through more than 40,000 documents from Portuguese, UK and other European law enforcement agencies, as well as various private investigators who had worked on the case over the past four years.
When all of this was complete, a full investigation was launched in July 2012, five years after Madeleine disappeared.
This time around, the investigation appeared to be a bit more professional, structured and detailed.
The Portuguese investigation started on the back foot. Apart from the fact that they had missed that window of opportunity in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine's disappearance, accusations of leads not being followed up and sightings not being investigated were compounded by personal changes at the top of the team spearheading the investigation. To many, particularly in the media, they were behaving more like the Keystone Cops than well-trained and professional police officers engaged in a manhunt.
Of particular interest to the Metropolitan Police was the speeding pick-up truck which flew past us on the way home from The Dolphin restaurant and the three suspicious looking men who we had spotted in Hugo Beatty's bar.
It later emerged that two waiters working in the restaurant also noticed a man acting suspiciously in a phone box across the road earlier in the evening. And one of the subsequent identikit photos published by the Metropolitan Police of two men they wanted to talk to, resembled one of the men we had spotted in Hugo Beatty's bar.
After carrying out a "cell-dump" of all mobile phone activity in the Praia da Luz area in the lead up to Madeleine's disappearance and the days after, the Metropolitan Police were also able to identify all the telephone numbers we dialled as well as the numbers that had dialled us during that period. As is the norm in such cases, details of all calls made and received were submitted as part of our statements.
The use of cell-dumps has helped police gain convictions in several high-profile murder cases in the past. Ian Huntley's conviction for the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in 2002 was based partly on crucial mobile phone evidence. Nowadays, cell-dumps are almost as useful to the police as fingerprints or DNA.
It was later reported by several newspapers in the UK that the cell-dump turned up a large number of telephone calls and texts in and around the Ocean Club between a group of men around the time of Madeleine's disappearance. Nothing ever came of it.
In total, Operation Grange took 1,338 witness statements, collected 1,027 exhibits and pursued 560 lines of inquiry.
In addition, more than 30 requests for help to other countries were made while 60 people of interest were investigated.
A total of 650 sex offenders, many of them paedophiles, were also considered while reports of 8,685 different sightings of Madeleine around the world were investigated. These included Morocco, New Zealand, Malta, Belgium, France, Spain and Sweden.
Costing more than £11m (€13m), Operation Grange may have been thorough and wide-reaching but so far it has yielded no results. Over the last 12 months, it has been wound down and currently a team of just four detectives is working on the case and pursuing, what former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe recently said was "one final lead".
As the last throw of the dice for the McCanns, it might be too much to expect this final lead to yield anything meaningful.
Ten years have passed and despite possible sightings, several key witness statements, a substantial amount of leads, the absence of any physical evidence, leads one to the almost inevitable conclusion that this case may never be solved. Over the last 10 years, numerous theories about what happened that night have emerged.
The one that gained immediate credibility among the assembled media on the ground at the time was that she had been abducted by a paedophile ring and immediately shipped out of the country that night, possibly on a yacht from nearby Lagos.
A number of sex offenders, including several convicted paedophiles of different nationalities, had been living in the Algarve and parts of the lesser known areas of western Spain at the time.
Several years before Madeleine's disappearance, a number of sexual assaults on young girls had taken place in and around the Praia da Luz area but nobody was ever caught. Other iterations of this theory put it that she was possibly abducted by somebody with close knowledge of the Ocean Club and sold on to a group of gypsies that specialised in child-trafficking and selling children to wealthy families overseas.
Several people, including Jane Tanner, one of the so-called Tapas Seven who dined with the McCann family, claim they saw a man carrying a girl in pyjamas that night.
An Irish family, from Louth, also recall seeing a barefoot child fitting Madeleine's description being carried by a man in the town at 10pm, not long after it was first noted that she had gone missing.
Meanwhile, a taxi driver by the name of Antonio Castela, says he picked up four adults and a girl resembling Madeleine the night after her disappearance and drove them to a hotel near Faro, where they got into a blue Jeep. Castela claimed he contacted the police at the time but was never questioned.
In the 10 years that have elapsed since Madeleine's disappearance, however, only three official suspects were named. The first of these named by Portuguese police was the British-born local property consultant Robert Murat who lived locally. Murat was the subject of a witch-hunt by several newspapers and was later cleared of suspicion but not before several UK newspapers had libelled him.
He later picked up around £600,000 (€710,000) in damages while smaller settlements were awarded to some of his friends who were also mentioned in various reports.
Then in September 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann were also named as suspects, and the police formally put forward a case that Madeleine died in an accident and that they had concealed her body and faked an abduction. This was the most controversial of all the theories and one which the former head of the investigation Goncalo Amaral later reiterated in a book he wrote about the case.
The McCanns later successfully sued Amaral for libel and he was ordered to pay €600,000 in libel damages. Amaral's appeal against that decision succeeded in 2016 but the McCanns then appealed that decision to Portugal's Supreme Court which ruled against them in February 2017. A subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court by the McCanns was also rejected in March of this year. Amaral has now indicated to the Portuguese press that he intends to sue the McCanns.
As we near Wednesday's tenth anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, it remains to be seen what approach, if any, the McCanns will take in the future. While they have reaffirmed their commitment to finding their daughter and have always proclaimed their innocence, their financial war-chest may be able to sustain their campaign for another few years. But it would also appear that they are running out of options. Unless fresh evidence is uncovered or new leads identified, the Portuguese police may never re-open the case. As far as the Metropolitan Police are concerned, they have done their best and everything that was asked of them.
Meanwhile, back in Praia da Luz it's business as usual. Locals are no longer willing to talk about anything to do with the Madeleine McCann saga. They have moved on.
Popular opinion, meanwhile, appears to be divided into two camps. In one camp sit those who believe that Kate and Gerry McCann were, in some way, complicit in their daughter's disappearance.
Over the last 10 years, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and websites have been used as platforms to spew all kinds of venomous and malicious accusations and theories, dreamt up by cranks, trolls and armchair detectives, all of which point the finger at the McCanns.
But here's the thing: however malicious or rancorous these opinions are, they are just that - opinions. And if the people in this camp have any evidence, then they know what they must do.
In the other camp, however, sit those who believe no parent could harm, either accidentally or intentionally, a helpless three-year old then try to cover their tracks. Many within this camp, including the McCanns, their extended families, friends and supporters, believe that there's still hope and Madeleine could well be alive and living in some far-flung corner of the world and being reared by another family. Most parents would like to believe this and it's not that difficult to understand why hope should always try to triumph over despair.
But sadly, there are some of us who believe that this story does not have a happy ending and she is dead, possibly as a result of a heinous and unspeakable crime, and her remains may never be found.
But like all unsolved mysteries, we may never know.
Sunday Independent
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:13:41 AM
PJ did not suffer political pressures during Maddie case investigation
PJ did not suffer political pressures during Maddie case investigation
PUB
Maddie McCann disappeared 10 years ago from the apartment where she was in Praia da Luz, Algarve
The deputy director of the Judiciary Police said that the PJ never suffered political pressure during the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007 and that criticism of the police did not affect the work.
"The Judicial Police did not feel any political pressure from the British authorities and even less from the Portuguese authorities to act in this or that way. This pressure did not exist at all," Pedro do Carmo said in an interview with the Lusa news agency. Disappearance of the English child Madeleine McCann in the Algarve.
During the process, the PJ followed several lines of investigation, and the parents of the child came to constitute defendants, which deserved criticism, especially of the English media, but Pedro do Carmo understands that they had "no consequence or impact on the investigation ".
"For the Judiciary Police, it is important, as long as it is possible to clarify the case, to continue their work," acknowledging that Maddie's disappearance was a case "unique in the history of the PJ and of the country," he said.
"Because it is a missing child and eventually we can face a crime that has not been clarified yet, we have every interest in knowing what happened, because that is how we can learn the lessons for future situations," he said.
In this case, he added, "we have not yet come to that point which makes it a unique case, and this justifies the commitment and persistence of the PJ. This is what mobilizes us and keeps us determined and immune to any pressure. Political or media. "
Although the police are aware that, as time goes by, it becomes more difficult to reach answers or results, continues to investigate the case, through a team of the Porto board of directors, with Pedro do Carmo saying that "still There is reason to hope. "
The disappearance of Maddie continues to be investigated by the PJ and the Metropolitan Police, and in the words of the Deputy Director of Police, "a close relationship of cooperation, but with separation between the teams and degree of independence."
The fact that the mystery remained ten years ago leads Pedro do Carmo to admit that this case is "a stone in the shoe of the PJ" and that it is still premature to make an analysis of how the whole process of investigation has run.
On May 3, 2007, three-year-old Maddie disappeared from the bedroom where she slept together with the two younger brothers in a holiday apartment in the Algarve.
At the outset of the investigation, the PJ came to constitute as defendant Robert Murat, a Briton who lived near the Ocean Club and who had participated in the searches and was an interpreter of GNR and PJ.
In September Maddie's parents, both doctors, are questioned in the PJ of Portimão and constituted defendants.
On July 21, 2008, the Public Prosecutor's Office decided to close the investigation and remove the accused from the McCanns and Robert Murat, stating that the case could be reopened if "new evidence" arose.
The investigation was reopened and the terms of the Portimão section of the Department of Criminal Investigation and Action (DIAP) of Faro are reopened and, as the owner of the criminal action, the Public Prosecutor's Office directs and monitors all steps, Lusa told the Attorney General's Office. Republic.
Maddie Mccann
APRIL 29, 2017 09:00 Lusa http://www.dn.pt/portugal/interior/maddie10-anos-pj-nao-sofreu-pressoes-politicas---diretor-adjunto-6254284.html
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:22:24 AM
Maddie case: What makes sense is the kidnapping thesis, says Rogério Alves
McCann's lawyer says the thesis that he is guilty of his daughter's disappearance is "completely unfounded"
Lawyer Rogério Alves, the representative of Madeleine McCann's parents, said today that the couple's responsibility for the disappearance of their daughter in the Algarve is an idea "unfounded and absurd" and what makes sense is the "kidnapping thesis".
In an interview with Lusa agency, a decade after the disappearance of the English child at the Ocean Club, Lagos, Algarve, Rogério Alves pointed out that the thesis of "parental responsibility has only weak points" and is "totally absurd".
"It does not make sense at all, everyone can talk about what they understand and admit that it was Superman, who was a UFO or something. Anything, "he countered.
Rogério Alves said that he took up the defense of the McCann couple at a time when there was "enormous media pressure" on the investigation and a "diabolization of the couple" in public opinion, thanks to the idea then spread that parents would be to blame for the disappearance.
After talking with the McCann couple and reading the lawsuit, Rogério Alves says what makes sense is "the thesis of the abduction."
"Not having discovered any signs of homicide, suicide, trampling, drowning or any other that could also be plausible ... the thesis of kidnapping is the one that makes sense," he emphasized.
He recalled that, at the beginning of the investigation, the people were supportive and wanted to help the McCanns, but the time went by and with the media pressure and lack of results there was a "turning point in which the idea completely unfounded" Of which the parents are guilty of the disappearance. There followed a "diabolization in industrial doses" of the couple.
Mediation had "an abrasive effect because there was a kind of national doctrine in which people had to think their parents were guilty," he explained.
The former law clerk confessed that he agreed to defend the MacCann couple after talking to their parents, feeling that there were two "human beings in deep suffering" and that they had to deal with "potential prosecution" because they were accused.
After 10 years on a case that the investigation did not solve, Rogério Alves understands that "one of the most damaging things, that most harmed, bewildered and disturbed the progress of the case was the permanent creation of tensions between the two police" (Portuguese and English) .
"Not only between the two police, but almost between the two States," Rogério Alves said, noting that at one point, "inside fantasies that seemed to have no limits", the McCanns were already becoming friends with "very Powerful, "capable of influencing the English state, the European Union and the Vatican.
"It was a completely disproportionate confabulation and one of its ingredients was a sort of awkwardness between the two policemen, and there was also animosity. It seemed that we were back in time for the Ultimatum, not to mention the World Cup. 1966, "he said, about the rivalry then fabricated between the two police.
Confronted with the tensions provoked by the process, which led to the dismissal of PJ inspector Gonçalo Amaral (who defended the thesis of the involvement of his parents), Rogério Alves agreed that the case also contributed to the departure of the then national director of PJ Alípio Ribeiro.
"I have this notion," he said, recalling that when Alípio Ribeiro publicly declared that it had been "a precipitation or an error" to constitute the children's parents, a "true national outrage" was generated against the director of the PJ.
The lawyer said he "completely ignored" any kind of political pressure from the British government over investigators, although he acknowledged that the "notoriety" and "mediation" of the case were a constant strain on the police.
APRIL 29, 2017 09:00 Lusa http://www.dn.pt/portugal/interior/maddie10-anos-o-que-tem-sentido-e-a-tese-de-rapto-diz-rogerio-alves-6254279.html
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:30:58 AM
Former PGR: Filing for lack of evidence was remarkable
"The big hurdle" to solve Maddie's case was the fact that "there are no clues," says Pinto Monteiro
Former Attorney General Pinto Monteiro highlighted the day of the child's disappearance and the filing of the case due to a lack of "reliable evidence" to validate hitherto investigated clues.
The most striking events may have been the day on which Madeleine's disappearance was known and the day the suit had to be filed because there was no reliable evidence to point to any of the clues hitherto investigated, "said Fernando Pinto Monteiro , In a written interview with the Lusa agency about the 10-year anniversary of Madeleine McCann, then three years old, in Praia da Luz, Algarve.
In the opinion of the former PGR, "the great obstacle" to solve the case was the fact that "there are no clues that would lead to the discovery of what happened to Madeleine, even though the steps that were then appropriate and necessary were carried out."
He argued, however, that "it is always possible to continue the investigation," noting that in his filing order (July 21, 2008) he stated that "investigation would be reopened if new, credible and relevant facts arose."
"It is true that in this type of crime the early hours and even the first days are often decisive, but it is also true that complex cases have been solved over the years. It is essential that new elements emerge that clarify what There it was not known, "he said.
Although ten years later it is still unknown what happened to Maddie McCann, on May 03, 2007, Pinto Monteiro understands that this is not a "stone in the shoe" of Portuguese judicial authorities.
"Thousands of children and adolescents are disappearing every year around the world, and many of these disappearances are due to criminal activity and many of them are never solved." If each case created 'stones in the shoe', judicial authorities And police would be full of 'boulders', he argued.
Pinto Monteiro, who led the Public Prosecution Service from 2006 to 2012, acknowledged that the 'Maddie case' was the most mediatic of all cases that occurred during his tenure as Attorney General.
"And that's because it had an almost planetary dimension," he added.
The "excessive mediatism", in his opinion, "always undermines the investigations and sometimes creates among the citizens misconceptions and not conforming to reality".
Regarding the involvement of the British Government in the case and the presence of British police in the Algarve, Pinto Monteiro assured that "no diplomatic pressure was given to the Attorney General during the investigation" and that "collaboration and cooperation between Criminal police ".
The British girl disappeared while sleeping, along with the twin brothers (younger), in the room of a holiday apartment.
The PJ came to constitute as defendant the British Robert Murat, who lived near the Ocean Club and who had participated in the searches and was interpreter of GNR and PJ.
In early August 2007, after many adventures, the British police, with the help of dog pisteiros, went into action at the scene of the disappearance, looking for blood and odors from the girl's corpse.
In September of that year, Maddie's parents, both doctors, were questioned in the PJ of Portimão and constituted defendants.
On July 21, 2008, the Public Prosecutor's Office decided to close the investigation and remove the accused from the McCanns, stating that the case could be reopened if "new evidence" arose.
Currently, the PJ is still investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the deputy director of the Judiciary Police has admitted that it is "a unique case in the history of the PJ and the country."
"The case is still open" and the investigation was handed over to a team from PJ do Porto, Pedro do Carmo said in an interview with Lusa.
Pinto Monteiro also considers it important "that there is hope for someday that the case will be solved for those to whom disappearance is most concerned."
"As a father and a magistrate I would be very happy that this happened," he confessed.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 03, 2017, 12:44:16 AM
Madeleine McCann questioning shocked suspect.
(http://i.imgur.com/LxCgaIM.png?1)
By Richard Bilton Reporter, BBC Panorama
2 May 2017
One of the suspects questioned by British police about Madeleine McCann's disappearance has said he was shocked to be asked about how she went missing.
Paulo Ribeiro was one of four local suspects who denied any involvement when questioned by British detectives.
"I thought it was incredible," he said.
The men were questioned in connection with Scotland Yard's theory that the three-year-old was taken in a burglary that went wrong but were never charged with any offence.
It is 10 years to the day since Madeleine disappeared from the McCanns' holiday apartment at the Ocean Club complex in the Portuguese resort of Praia Da Luz.
The British investigation into the case was started in 2011 at the request of the then Prime Minister David Cameron. It has cost more than £11m.
The four men, who were questioned in 2014, were made official suspects and are still living in Praia Da Luz.
Mr Ribeiro said: "I knew of nothing when the police arrived at my door with a piece of paper that had a drawing on it, saying it bore a likeness to me and that someone had said I was involved and that I looked like the person who had kidnapped Maddie.
"I don't know who that person was."
He said he was at home on the night that Madeleine disappeared and that he was not involved in any burglaries.
The Portuguese police clearly believe the men know nothing about what happened. Media captionPaulo Ribeiro, who is no longer a suspect, spoke to the BBC's Richard Bilton
Pedro do Carma, deputy director of the Policia Judiciaria, told Panorama he had never considered them to be suspects.
"I can only say that we questioned those people on request of the Metropolitan Police and only based on the request of the Metropolitan Police.
"We never questioned those people. We never saw or looked at those people as suspects of the crime."
Last week, Scotland Yard announced there was no evidence to implicate the four men and the case against them had been closed.
The Met say they are pursuing new lines of inquiry and that they have not ruled out the burglary theory.
But many in Portugal are sceptical about the Met's involvement.
Carlos Anjos, the former head of the Policia Judiciaria officers' union, has told Panorama that the British investigation has been a waste of money.
"This burglary theory is absurd. Not even a wallet disappeared, no television disappeared, nothing else disappeared. A child disappeared."
The BBC Panorama programme - Madeleine McCann: Ten Years On - is on BBC1 at 9pm Wednesday and available on iPlayer afterwards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39779256
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:50:17 AM
Pedro do Carmo: "Maddie's parents are not suspects. Score"
02.05.2017 at 18.00
In an interview with Expresso, the deputy director of the Judiciary Police, Pedro do Carmo, argues that no police in the world could guarantee results different from those obtained so far in Portugal in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. "We had never had and never had a similar case"
t is a mystery with ten years that still divides the public opinion and intrigues the Portuguese and English authorities that investigate the case. What happened to Madeleine Beth McCann, a 4-year-old English girl who disappeared from the Ocean Club apartment on Luz beach (Lagos) on the night of May 3, 2007 - does this Wednesday 10 years ago? The Judiciary Police (PJ) has some suspicions and a certainty: it was not the parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, who did harm to the child born in Leicester.
In September 2007, the McCanns were indicted by the Portuguese courts but the following year the suit was closed for lack of evidence. It was reopened by the PJ in 2013 and continues to be investigated simultaneously with Scotland Yard. To this day, however, despite hundreds of clues and sightings of Maddie, no one was charged or convicted and the girl, who would have been 14 years old, was never found.
Until the process was archived in 2008, there were three lines of investigation by the Judiciary Police on the case. Hypothesis 1: the parents accidentally killed their daughter and then concealed the body. Hypothesis 2: Maddie was abducted by a group linked to the trafficking of minors and sold for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Hypothesis 3: The child was killed following an abduction that went wrong.
Did the reopening of the case in 2013 open up more investigative lines than the three that were followed at that time?
I cannot speak about the investigation. What I can say is that the PJ remains convinced that there are elements that can still be worked and that can lead to some results. If it is not possible to achieve this result, at least we want to get some answers to the many questions that the case generates. Ultimately, to get to a point where the PJ concludes that there is nothing more that can be done to answer those questions.
Did Scotland Yard's entry into action in the case back in 2011 delivered results?
Since they've also decided to open an investigation, the contacts between the PJ and Metropolitan Police have been regular. There has been a constant exchange of information, which has been positive. This exchange of information remains. It can even be said that the relationship between the two police forces is of great proximity and great collaboration.
The reconstruction of the night of May 3, 2007, as the PJ investigators initially intended, with the presence of the McCanns and their English friends at the scene (that never happened due to the group's lack of willingness to return to Praia da Luz) would it have been essential to better understand what happened to the English girl?
I do not want to talk about what happened up to 2008. This has been sufficiently debated at its appropriate place.
Any idea how many people were heard in total in this case?
No. But certainly several hundred people.
Ten years on after the events at Praia da Luz, why do you think the case is still so much debated?
First because there was a deliberate and legitimate effort on the part of the child's parents in keeping the issue on the agenda of the media. But there are also other elements, such as the circumstances of the disappearance. Ten years later we still do not know what happened, which makes it possible to say, at least in relation to Portugal, that this is a unique case. We had never had one, and we did not have a similar case again. There were other cases of disappearances of children where it was not possible to bring the perpetrators to justice. But in those cases we either caught someone or it was possible for the police to understand what had happened. In this case we are not yet in a position to say what is behind the disappearance. This makes it a unique case. And maybe an extremely rare case worldwide.
Do you hope to know the truth about what happened on the night of May 3, 2007 in Praia da Luz?
Of course that's what motivates us. It is that hope that keeps us working on the investigation.
As you said in a recent interview, the Maddie case is a thorn on the side of the Judiciary Police?
Although I have used this expression into the conversation, it is not the term 'thorn on the side'. It is in the DNA of the Judiciary Police to solve all the crimes that as a duty to investigate. Whenever this does not happen it is something that will not leave us, and can not leave us, satisfied. We are very demanding with our work. In this case, we are not satisfied and remain committed to resolve the case.
Is the PJ still learning from this case ten years on?
We like to learn from every case and we also want to learn from this one. But only after we know what has happened will we be able to draw conclusions from it: understand what we have done well and less well. And we have not yet reached that point. We want to learn lessons from it in its due time.
The English media again insinuates that Portugal continues to be a country that cannot solve a case of this dimension. But the British police have not done better. Can the English public opinion change since Scotland Yard has not been successful, either?
We are not insensitive to others' opinions but our responsibility and commitment is with our fellow citizens. The Portuguese have every reason to be proud and trust their Judiciary Police, which proves on a daily basis its capacity, effectiveness and competence. Difficult cases exist in all countries. The results sometimes take time to arrive and this is also true for all countries. Our expectation is that there is a capacity for everyone to understand that this is so. No police anywhere in the world could guarantee different results.
So would a case like this one have the same results today anywhere else in the world?
would not say it would have the same results. I would say is that in a case like this one there would be no guarantee of having different results anywhere else in the world. No police in any part of the world could guarantee different results, up to this moment, from those the Judiciary has achieved.
Would the PJ have done something different today in this investigation?
That is a conclusion that we can only reach after the moment we know what has happened or have reached a point where it is not possible to do anything more to clarify the case. And we have not yet reached that point.
Do you think it was a mistake to have the McCann couple constituted as arguidos in September 2007?
Obviously, I will not answer that question. But what I can say, just as I did back in 2011 and 2013, is that Maddie's parents are not suspects. That statement remains: the parents are not suspects. Period.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 03, 2017, 07:05:04 AM
Detective refused to head up Madeleine McCann probe because 'Scotland Yard would order him to prove Kate and Gerry were innocent and ignore other leads' Colin Sutton said he was warned by senior friend in the Met about case in 2010 Friend said he would be told 'who to talk to and what to investigate', he claimed 'Narrow focus' would be to prove Kate, Gerry and Tapas Nine innocent, he said Spoke on Sky Documentary based on leaked Home Office report that revealed 'turbulent relationship' between McCanns and police in London and Portugal By James Dunn For Mailonline PUBLISHED: 00:03, 3 May 2017 | UPDATED: 01:01, 3 May 2017
A detective tipped to head up the Madeleine McCann probe was warned he would be ordered to prove she was abducted and ignore other leads.
Colin Sutton said a high-ranking friend in the Met called him and warned him not to lead the case when Scotland Yard announced it would get involved in 2010.
The source warned that he would be tasked with proving her parents Kate and Gerry were innocent and ignoring any alternatives to the abduction theory, he claims.
Speaking to Martin Brunt on Sky News, he said: 'I did receive a call from a very senior met police officer who knew me and said it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to head investigation on the basis that I wouldn’t be happy conducting an investigation being told where I could go and where I couldn’t go, the things I could investigate and the things I couldn’t.
Asked to clarify what he meant, he added: 'The Scotland Yard investigation was going to be very narrowly focused and that focus would be away from any suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of the McCanns or the tapas friends.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4467832/Met-interested-proving-McCann-parents-innocent.html#ixzz4fzcZhQFn Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 09:18:00 AM
The investigation was delivered to a team from PJ do Porto. On May 3, ten years after the disappearance of the British child from Praia da Luz
The Judicial Police continues to investigate Madeleine McCann's disappearance in 2007 in the Algarve, admitting that it is "a unique case in the history of the PJ and the country."
"The case is still open, yes" and the investigation was handed over to a team from PJ do Porto, revealed the deputy director of the Judiciary Police, Pedro do Carmo, in an interview with the Lusa agency, about the ten years of the disappearance of the British child , Then three years old, from the tourist resort Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, Lagos.
For PJ number two, the contours of Maddie's disappearance are "a unique case in the history of the country and the PJ."
"We had never had a similar case nor did we have it," said Pedro do Carmo, admitting that the police "have every interest in knowing what has happened, because that is how the lessons can be drawn for future situations."
Asked if the long time elapsed is the enemy of the investigation, the official admitted that "PJ is aware that, as time passes, it will become more difficult to reach answers or results."
"Anyway we have this hope and we have reason to have this hope," he said.
The work of the PJ "continued and continues at this moment", there being "the hope of finding answers to the case, and achieving results" until it is time to say "there is nothing more to do."
Pedro do Carmo acknowledged that the Maddie case is a rock in the shoe of the PJ and considered that it is still premature to make an analysis on how the whole process of investigation happened.
"We do not know yet what happened, what is the reason for Madeleine's disappearance, which means that we are not yet in a position to say what was done poorly, done well or should have been done," he said.
The critical assessment of the case can only be made when the investigation is closed, "either because we have found the answers we wanted or because we have reached the point where there is nothing else to do," he said.
The British girl disappeared on May 3, 2007, when she slept, together with the twin brothers (younger), in the room of a holiday apartment in the Algarve.
At the outset of the investigation, the PJ even conspired as a defendant, a British man who lived near the Ocean Club - Robert Murat - who had participated in the searches and was an interpreter of GNR and PJ.
At the beginning of August 2007, after many incidents that would have dispersed the investigators' attention, British police, with the help of dogs, came into action at the scene of the disappearance, looking for blood and odors from the corpse of the girl.
In September, Maddie's parents, both doctors, were questioned in the PJ of Portimão and constituted defendants.
On July 21, 2008, the Public Prosecutor's Office decided to close the investigation and remove the accused from the McCanns and Robert Murat, stating that the case could be reopened if "new evidence" arose.
Ten years later, the investigation is still ongoing in Portugal and England, although the new clues that have emerged have proven fruitless.
Disappearance
APRIL 23, 2017 11:22 Lusa http://www.dn.pt/sociedade/interior/caso-de-maddie-continua-em-aberto-diz-diretor-adjunto-da-pj-6238882.html
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 09:25:48 AM
Pedro do Carmo: "The only case of the PJ in which there are no answers"
he deputy national director of the Judiciary Police explains why he considers the Maddie case "the stone in the shoe of the PJ", distinguishing it from other media disappearances in national territory. The crime investigation was reopened in 2011 and runs in Portugal, in parallel with the English investigation, and the two police have "shared information". At this time, there are still no new tracks
She recently considered, in an interview with Lusa, that the Maddie case was the "stone in the shoe of the PJ". But it is not the only disappearance left unresolved in the country, right?
No, but there is a difference. It is a unique case because ten years after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann the Judiciary Police still do not know what happened. In other cases of the disappearance of minors, such as that of Rui Pedro [disappeared on March 4, 1998, Afonso Dias having been sentenced to an effective sentence of three years' imprisonment, which began to be enforced in March 2015], for example, PJ was able to find out what happened and bring those responsible for the disappearance to justice. In more recent cases, that was the case with the baby in Madeira, who was missing for three days, and with the two-year-old from Ourém (Leiria) who reappeared after having moved away a few kilometers from his grandparents' house. There were some cases of missing minors in which it was not possible to bring those responsible to justice but it was ascertained what happened. In addition,
The investigation was reopened in 2013 in the Portimão section of the DIAP of Faro but it is a team of the board of PJ of Porto that is investigating. Because?
We asked for a team from the Porto Judicial Police because it was experienced in investigations of disappearances and because it could bring a new look from those who had never had contact with the original investigation and was geographically far from where the facts occurred. We wanted researchers with a detached, unconditional view.
Why was it important to reopen the investigation, which was closed?
We felt that with the time elapsed and the immense amount of material collected by the original investigation team, it was important to look again at the clues and ascertain whether there was any information that had escaped us or whether in the light of the new facts there would be something old that gained importance .
And is there any time frame for completing this inquiry?
We do not have a definite deadline because we do not know what happened. If we were sure that we were facing a particular crime we would have a deadline to respect. But so we can not compromise with time limits for the inquiry. The deadline is to get results. At least until we get some answers or get to a point where we assume that it is no longer possible to do more. I can not go into that detail because I would be revealing details of the investigation.
But what is the status of this inquiry? Are there new facts or hope to come to realize what has happened?
There is still work to be done. We have not gotten to the point of having the answers to the questions we have asked but we have not yet come to the point of concluding that nothing else is possible.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police investigation is under way in England. Have the two police officers shared information?
Yes, the English have their own investigation but there is a regular exchange of information and frequent contacts between the two police. The relationship is currently of frank cooperation and quite positive. There is a regular exchange of information between the Judiciary Police and the Metropolitan Police, regarding new facts or diligences.
The Tapas Bar no longer exists as such, most Ocean Club staff were not there in 2007 and the resort operator has also changed. Residents do not want to talk about the Maddie case
In the church of Praia da Luz, in Lagos, the masses are in Portuguese and English. They were like this in May of 2007 when Madeleine McCann disappeared and they continue like this today, ten years passed. This is perhaps the only reality that has not changed around the Ocean Club, the resort where the 3-year-old had a vacation with his twin brothers and parents Kate and Gerry McCann.
Maddie stayed in the room with the brothers on the evening of May 3 - ten years ago today - and the parents had dinner with a group of friends. At 10:00 p.m., Kate went to the apartment and realized that her eldest daughter was not there. Given the alert, the search for the child began, during these years several theses appeared - the family speaks in abduction and the investigation of the Judicial Police pointed to the death and disappearance of the corpse -, the involvement of the English police, but to date no results About what happened to Maddie. Matter, moreover, that the population refuses to touch.
In those ten years, almost everything has changed in the village. The Tapas Bar (where Maddie's parents and friends dined) no longer exists as such, most of the staff at the Ocean Club are not from that time and the operator that worked at the resort is another. Apartment 5A, this, it's still there. It was bought, by 2014, by an English sexagenarian, Kathleen Cotton, in a quasi-secret operation at a sale price. The two-bedroom ground floor apartment was sold for 300,000 euros for many years, but it was sold for less than half that price, in the amount of 130,000 euros, since there was no buyer who Was interested in a "cursed place", but also came to say and write. Today, the owner does not complain, but it is also rare to open the door ...
"In the two to three years since Maddie's disappearance, there has been a sharp fall. However, it is also worth remembering that this period coincided with the severe economic crisis that devastated the country and where unemployment has grown visibly," recalls Vítor Mata , The president of the Parish Council of Praia da Luz since 2013. "At that time, everything was calmer, the population's discomfort disappeared gradually and everything has been improving, so that we can even speak of normality today. The people, is a forgotten subject and they do not even want to talk, especially now, with tourism rising and occupancy rates to be around one hundred percent, "says the mayor.
Vítor Mata emphasizes that the inhabitants of Praia da Luz flee from the chambers, microphones and blocks and hide themselves in an elucidative "how much farther, better" in relation to the case that was news all over the world. To compound this state of saturation, the latest news pieces further aggravated the relationship of the media with the locals, as they tell us in a tobacconist near the Ocean Club, about a "work of an English newspaper", which was to unearth the figure Of Maddie's mistress and "to publish a trick of lies, even more with this mistress always in the anonymity, without giving the face".
Forget the past
The economic crisis of a few years ago left a mark on hospitality and the Ocean Club, for example, went from 300 employees to about fifty. Those who are from that time - very few, say the DN - say they are not. In the shops nearby there is the Batista supermarket, but the common sentiment persists, including through the testimony of a British merchant: "We want to continue our lives and our business and forget the bad image linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann."
The holiday resort, however, has overcome this stigma and goes from strength to strength, now through the image of operator Thomas Cook. This English giant, which owns a number of tour operators, plus airlines based in four countries and a reservation site called Hotels4u, took the place of Mark Warner, the operator that operated in 2010 and did not withstand the scandal, very much. Although he insists on the idea that it was an "irrefutable business". The Ocean Club, and this is pure reality, is again with very high occupancy rates. Oh, and it's also true, detectives and police inspectors are likewise non grata people in Praia da Luz. http://www.dn.pt/sociedade/interior/na-praia-da-luz-so-as-missas-nao-mudaram-desde-2007-7023433.html?utm_source=Push&utm_medium=Web
Maddie Case
03 MAY 2017 08:10 Hélio Nascimento
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 09:50:53 AM
Mystery phone call reporting burglary could hold key to solving Madeleine McCann case
Police are thought to have been diverted because of the burglary, robbing investigators of resources in the vital minutes after the British girl vanished
BYALAN SELBYPATRICK LION 10:47, 23 APR 2017UPDATED11:35, 2 MAY 2017
Policemen searching for Madeleine McCann leave a Portuguese beach resort in Lagos on May 11, 2007, after her disappearance on May 3 (Photo: Reuters)
A phone call reporting a burglary 16 minutes after Madeleine McCann went missing is believed to be a possible key piece of evidence in solving the case, it has been reported.
The theory is said to centre on the burglar alarm being triggered to distract police resources from the abduction - robbing authorities of an hour dealing with the report.
In the minutes after she was abducted a decade a go, local police in Portugal were reportedly diverted to the burglary about 10 miles from the Praia da Luz resort where the McCann family were holidaying.
The phone call to the Lagos police station, said to be from a Lisbon-based alarm systems company, was discovered in a new analysis of police phone records, The Sun reports.
The newspaper reports one of the few police cars available responded to the reported break-in in Odiaxere, northeast of Praia da Luz.
The revelations come as a Portuguese investigator told The Mirror he believed the child was snatched and taken to a warren of caves nearby that have never been searched.
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.
Today he takes the unusual step of criticising his fellow officers, saying human error is to blame for the failure to find Madeleine.
Speaking a decade after Maddie vanished, Mr Cristovao told the Sunday Mirror: “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.”
Mr Cristovao believes somebody is still keeping details of that night – May 3, 2007 – concealed from investigators.
That was when Madeleine went missing from the Ocean Club complex at the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, where she was on holiday with parents Kate and Gerry and their friends.
Mr Cristovao says: “Someone close to those people, or someone from the group, still has not said all that he or she knows about this.
“That’s my feeling – and I know there are many who think just like me. I think not everybody in that group has told the truth to the police. Why? I don’t know.”
Mr Cristovao’s theory is that Madeleine could well have been taken to caves in the tiny beach town of Burgau, three miles along the coast.
He formulated the idea after putting himself in the shoes of a kidnapper on his first visit to the Ocean Club flat where Madeleine went missing.
Ahead of the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, the former officer said: “That’s the most important thing for me. And that’s what I did, the first time I visited Praia da Luz.
“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.
“In a case where you hear theories like aliens and gypsies kidnapping Madeleine, I think this is as good as all the others. We’ve heard theories so stupid over these 10 years. When we don’t understand something, we complicate it.
“I think sometimes – always – the best solution is the simple solution.”
Mr Cristovao left the police to head up Portugal’s Association for Missing Children the year Maddie vanished. He later wrote a book about the case.
Now, discussing her disappearance for the first time in nearly a decade, he has laid out the errors he thinks set the investigation on the road to failure.
Instead of old-fashioned legwork, he believes there was too much focus on outlandish theories and behavioural profiles in the first hours and days.
Ten years ago, Mr Cristovao claimed the McCanns had been neglectful to leave their children alone as they dined nearby.
But he insists he does not believe Kate and Gerry, from Rothley, Leics, are behind her death.
He said: “The most important thing was starting an investigation on Madeleine – where is she? – instead of starting an investigation because the mother looks like this, or the father looks like that, or the mother won’t cry, or the father won’t cry.
“For me, that’s bulls**t, because everybody has their own way. I have my own little girl, and if she goes missing for 10 seconds I feel like my world has fallen apart. Everybody reacts differently.”
Mr Cristovao says this was the biggest failing of all – from the first on the scene, to the judicial police, to the British investigators who later joined the hunt. This was even though the case went on to become reportedly the most expensive in Portuguese history.
He said: “When Madeleine disappeared, we had 12 other missing children – three or four in the Madeira islands, the rest on the mainland.
“The money we spent on Madeleine was a million times more than all the others put together.
“I don’t know if it was pressure from government or the media, but it was the most expensive investigation in the history of Portugal – by far.
“That’s one of the lessons too, not always putting big numbers and lots of policemen. Sometimes you don’t need 400 officers, you need only three or four to focus on the results.”
In the UK police have spent more than £11million on the investigation.
Mr Cristovao also believes the waters were made murkier by the scale of the operation internationally – as agencies competed for control.
He said: “Half the world was investigating because everyone wanted the reward. Everybody wanted to be recognised for solving the case.
“Madeleine was big business for many, many people.”
Ex-Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton said yesterday Madeleine was most likely kidnapped by traffickers. He said: “It’s more likely than a paedophile ring. Six and seven-year-olds are much more at risk from paedophiles.
Kate and Gerry McCann met as junior doctors (Photo: Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
Kate and Gerry McCann had been married for nine years and had three children when their eldest daughter vanished in May 2007.
The couple met while working as junior doctors at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow in the early 1990s.
When Kate went to New Zealand to work in 1996 Gerry ditched his plans for a sabbatical in the US and followed her.
They worked in different cities but he made a 500-mile round trip on his days off to be with her.
The couple, described by friends as “inseparable”, married in 1998 in Kate’s home city of Liverpool.
They moved to Leicestershire in 2000 when Gerry landed a job as a cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital.
Kate became a GP and worked as a part-time locum at Latham House Medical Practice in Melton Mowbray, Leics.
The couple tried unsuccessfully for a baby for five years before Kate fell pregnant with Madeleine following IVF treatment.
Their eldest daughter was born on May 12, 2003, in Leicester.
The family moved to Amsterdam the following year so Gerry could carry out research at the VU Medical Centre.
It was while living in Holland that Kate discovered she was expecting twins following IVF treatment.
Sean and Amelie, now aged 12, were born in Leicester 20 months after their older sister.
Kate quit her GP role after Madeleine’s disappearance and devoted her life to work for missing children’s charities.
Gerry remains a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital and is also Professor of Cardiac Imaging at the University of Leicester.
The couple are keen runners and devout Catholics, attending weekly services at their local church in Rothley, Leics.
Anyone with information about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance should call the Find Madeleine investigation line on: 0845 8384699 or email: investigation@findmadeleine.com
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 10:17:03 AM
Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
This thread is intended to document the various media articles which have been published in the lead up to the tenth anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Contributors should also place a copy of their post in the News thread.
This thread is reserved for media articles only.
DO NOT POST COMMENTS ON THIS THREAD http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8172.msg402042#msg402042
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: carlymichelle on May 03, 2017, 12:12:39 PM
How the discrediting of former top cop helps shut down damning Madeleine McCann theories Mark Saunokonoko By Mark Saunokonoko
Crusading hero to many and vindictive villain to others, the figure of Goncalo Amaral is almost as much a part of the Madeleine McCann story as her parents, Kate and Gerry.
Amaral was the original supervising detective in the Maddie McCann case, an unsolved mystery which has captivated the world since Portuguese police were called at 10.41pm on May 3, 2007.
That first phone call, made some 41 minutes after Kate McCann claimed to have discovered Maddie was missing, sparked a 15-month police investigation that came under the most extraordinary media and political pressures.
Five months into the investigation, and following the naming of Kate and Gerry as suspects in the disappearance of their four-year-old daughter, Amaral found himself removed from the case.
Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared in Portugal ten years ago, during an interview with the BBC's Fiona Bruce at Prestwold Hall on April 28, 2017. Source: AFP
However, Amaral sensationally reappeared just days after the Portuguese police investigation was eventually shelved in July 2008, with an explosive book that was hugely damaging to the McCanns.
His 22-chapter account, titled Truth of the Lie, concluded Maddie had probably died in some kind of accident inside holiday apartment 5A, that an abduction was staged and her tiny body had been disposed of by Kate and Gerry.
The McCanns launched an expensive and protracted legal battle, using money from the millions of dollars donated to the Find Madeleine Fund, to have Amaral's personal account of the investigation banned.
Initially the McCanns succeeded, before a 2016 court tossed that decision out and ruled that the injunction had violated Amaral's freedom of expression.
Throughout the investigation, and continuing to the present day, Amaral, now aged 57, has been continuously and methodically mauled by the British tabloids and to a lesser extent various UK broadsheets.
Amaral's supporters believe the ongoing assassination of his character and policing methods helps shape the perception that his theories must be wild and fanciful.
A man named Clarence Mitchell, a former British government media mastermind, has been the key strategist in the McCann's meticulous public relations campaign for each of the 10 years since Maddie vanished.
Over the past week, as the milestone tenth anniversary of Madeleine's approached, maneuverings to discredit Amaral were once again evident in the pages of the powerful and wide-reaching UK red tops.
Two high profile stories which ran this week in The Sun and The Mirror both painted Amaral as, there's no other way to say it, a kind of crackpot.
The first attributed quotes to Amaral about Maddie being secretly placed inside a coffin with a dead body which was later cremated; the second pushed Amaral's supposed belief that British spy agency MI5 had helped hide Maddie's body.
Amaral, in both instances, was selectively edited and his comments were twisted out of context.
The former cop has previously spoken about the cremated coffin and related police information about three figures seen entering a church in Praia da Luz carrying a bag. Madeleine Beth McCann: still missing since May 3, 2007. Source: AFP
Madeleine Beth McCann: still missing since May 3, 2007. Source: AFP
In a 2016 interview on CMTV, he confirmed the McCanns were given keys to the local church, close to where the family was staying. Inside there was a coffin of an adult woman that was later incinerated.
During the TV appearance Amaral explained that all possible angles of a missing persons case should be explored by detectives.
"No one is saying that the parents did that [put Madeleine's body in the coffin]," he said.
The startling claim that spooks from MI5 helped hide Madeleine's body is another disturbing manipulation of the truth.
The facts are in the days following Maddie's disappearance the UK government made the remarkably unusual step of becoming closely involved in another sovereign nation's police investigation.
British police were sent to Portugal to assist, while the British ambassador to Portugal and other officials also arrived in Praia Da Luz within 48 hours of Madeleine being reported missing. Goncalo Amaral with his book, Truth of the Lie. Source: AFP
Goncalo Amaral with his book, Truth of the Lie. Source: AFP
A former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and ex Foreign Office civil servant, Craig Murray, publicly questioned "the exceptional treatment from British authorities" for the McCanns.
"British diplomatic staff were under direct instruction to support the McCanns far beyond the usual and to put pressure on the Portuguese authorities over the case," Murray wrote in an April, 2016 blog post.
"I have direct information that more than one of those diplomatic staff found the McCanns less than convincing and their stories inconsistent.
"Embassy staff were perturbed to be ordered that British authorities were to be present at every contact between the McCanns and Portuguese police."
There were criticisms that the Policia Judiciaria were leaking rumours and unsubstantiated facts of the case to Portuguese journalists, while starving the hungry British press corp.
Ian Woods, a Sky News reporter on the ground in Praia Da Luz, explained how that dynamic divided the British and Portuguese journalists, creating an 'us' and 'them' agenda.
"For the first few weeks or months the British media were largely pro-McCann and the Portuguese media seemed largely anti-McCann," Woods wrote in a 2009 study examining media coverage of the case.
As the days ticked over into weeks, and with no sign of Maddie's return, the British press began to attack the way the investigation was handled.
On reflection, Amaral has admitted the Portuguese investigation, inevitably, made mistakes.
One of his biggest regrets, he said, was not immediately putting surveillance traces on Kate and Gerry's phones.
Amaral also lamented the failure of police to immediately obtain the clothes Maddie had worn at the resort crèche on the day she disappeared.
The McCanns have not ruled out trying to again ban The Truth of the Lie by taking the legal fight with Amaral all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.
Meanwhile, rumours have circulated that Amaral is planning a second book.
Ten years on, Madeleine Beth McCann remains missing.
Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/05/03/14/02/how-discrediting-former-top-cop-helps-shut-down-damning-madeleine-mccann-theories#xcWeOU4DlImqr42L.99
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:51:44 PM
As the McCanns mark 10 agonising years without Madeleine, how can Portuguese police keep being so vile? Kate and gerry have had to rebuild their family as they suffer the agony of not knowing where their oldest child is, but now one ex-cop is airing yet more ludicrous claims
BYALISON PHILLIPS 22:01, 2 MAY 2017UPDATED09:32, 3 MAY 2017
Another agonising anniversary for the McCann family. Another opportunity for slug-like Portuguese ex-cop Goncalo Amaral to crawl out of his hole and slither around in their pain.
Out of all the horrific days Kate and Gerry McCann have had to endure in the decade since their daughter went missing, this must surely be one of the toughest.
Despite their determination in an interview this weekend that they will one day be reunited with Maddie , it seems less likely than ever.
This 10th anniversary will serve as a reminder not only of how much time has passed since they last held their daughter in their arms, but also of how they’ve rebuilt family life around the chasm of missing Maddie.
Something they must have never, ever wanted to do. But which they had to for the sake of their now 12-year-old twins.
Having lost one child, they had to do everything possible to safeguard the lives of those who remained.
Yet as the family mark 10 agonising years without Maddie today, how can some Portuguese cops still be so cruel?
While they mourn and remember, Amaral – whose blundering officers fouled up so much of the search – has been airing his latest ludicrous claims about the disappearance.
And in so doing, caused new upset and anxiety for Maddie’s siblings.
He was on Portuguese television again pointing the finger at Maddie’s parents – the twins’ parents – and claiming she may have been hidden in a Praia de Luz church before being cremated .
Why the Portuguese broadcasters give him air time is a total mystery. Presumably it suits some to pump out such lies to deflect from their police failings.
Meanwhile another former Portuguese cop, Carlos Anjos, who probably knows less about the details of the case than my cat, has laid into the £11million Scotland Yard investigation as a ‘waste of money’.
Mr Anjos, a former inspector, is entitled to his opinion. Except that he is the former head of the Portuguese police union so his chief concern isn’t Maddie - it’s defending his officers’ botched investigation.
He and Amaral could do everyone a favour on this anniversary by keeping their opinions strictly to themselves.
Because these men know every smear or suggestion they make will be lapped up and repeated by the sickos and saddos of social media whose conspiracy theories have continued relentlessly over the past decade.
With children now old enough to Google their sister’s disappearance, it must be an endless battle for Kate and Gerry to keep them safe from the slurs that are constantly lobbed at their family on social media.
As Kate said this weekend: “We’ve tried to educate them a little bit as well.
“Because why would somebody write that? Why would somebody add to someone’s upset?”
A question it is impossible for right-minded people to answer.
For whatever Amaral and his band of [ censored word ]s may think about Gerry and Kate, surely anyone would have compassion for two children who have grown up against a backdrop of sadness and who have lost not just their sister but also so much of the joy of normal family life.
Amaral claims his family was also damaged by the investigation and he lost his marriage and son because of it. Rubbish.
I imagine he lost his marriage and son because they were able to see exactly what kind of a man he is.
A man who, incompetent at trying to find one missing little girl, appears intent on inflicting pain on her surviving brother and sister.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 03, 2017, 12:56:55 PM
Church prayers for Madeleine McCann ten years on Wed 03 May 2017 By Eno Adeogun A special church service will be held for missing people this evening in the Portuguese village where Madeleine McCann disappeared ten years ago.
Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared whilst on holiday with her Catholic parents in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.
The service will take place at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz at 9pm, which is the same time that Madeleine vanished.
It will be led by Father Haynes Hubbard, of Canada, the former priest of the church at the time of Maddie's disappearance. He has over the years become a close family friend to her parents Kate and Gerry.
A public gathering is also expected to take place in her home village in Rothley, Leicestershire, to mark today's anniversary.
In previous years, the anniversary has been remembered by members of the McCann family and villagers near their local war memorial.
Paul Luckman, a Christian and the publisher of the Portugal News told Premier interest in the case there is nowhere near the level of the UK.
"There are no ribbons, there are no posters, there's nothing. The reality is that everyone really has moved on. That's hard but that's the reality.
Luckman said it's "unlikely" many locals would attend tonight's service.
Madeleine's parents have vowed to do "whatever it takes for as long as it takes" to find their daughter, who would now be nearly 14.
Speaking ahead of the anniversary, the couple described it as a "horrible marker of time, stolen time".
Mrs McCann said: "I think we'll get by as we have any other year really, we'll be surrounded by family and friends, you know, obviously we'll be there remembering Madeleine, as we always have."
Last month, Scotland Yard said its officers are still pursuing "critical" leads to trace Madeleine, with officers receiving information on a daily basis.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 03, 2017, 03:48:06 PM
WHO WERE THEY? Mystery couple ‘seen clambering over wall and fence directly behind apartment where Madeleine McCann was sleeping on night she vanished’ Brit police probed key witnesses about the information By Charles Yates and Sam Christie 3rd May 2017, 2:02 pm Updated: 3rd May 2017, 3:24 pm
A MYSTERY couple were seen clambering over a wall and fence directly behind the apartment where Madeleine McCann was sleeping just moments before she went missing, it has been claimed.
The news was revealed by British police to key witnesses as they questioned them in 2015 over Maddie’s disappearance.
Paul and Susan Moyes had an apartment above the McCanns and were out on their balcony when Maddie is thought to have gone missing
British holidaymakers Paul and Susan Moyes told the Sun Online how officers asked them about a mystery man and woman while questioning them about what they remembered from the night Maddie went missing on May 3, 2007.
Paul, 68, said officers asked them about the potentially explosive information two years ago – after swabbing both he and his wife for their DNA.
The retired accountant said: “The Met police came here about two years ago and both times they came into our house.
“The first time they interviewed us in separate rooms and took our DNA and that visit lasted more than an hour.
“The second visit was about three months later and lasted more than an hour and that was to pursue a lead and to make sure we were convinced on our timeline.
“The lead was that a couple had climbed over the fence and the back garden wall and they asked if that was us. It wasn’t.”
The couple said they had no idea who the mystery couple were but the information was “a few times removed” and had been spoken about in restaurants in the area.
The news comes after the Sun Online revealed how police are currently looking for a mysterious woman in purple seen by one witness hanging outside the apartment in the hours before Maddie went missing.
Paul and Susan, who still have the same apartment in the complex, also revealed to The Sun that despite having a prime view of both the tapas bar where Kate and Gerry McCann were with friends and the apartment where Maddie and her siblings were sleeping, they were never questioned by Goncalo Amaral – the cop who who lead the initial hunt for the three-year-old.
The now retired detective was removed as head of the investigation after criticising British detectives.
In July 2008, Amaral released a book called “The Truth of the Lie” which claims the McCanns faked the abduction.
Paul said: "It was not long afterwards (Maddie went missing) that the Portuguese police came into the apartment with a sniffer dog. They went round the apartment and we were not asked too many questions.
"They asked to see our passports and my thoughts at the time was that this was purely for elimination purposes."
The couple still regularly holiday in Praia du Luz, though they are currently selling their 200,000-plus Euros apartment.
The pair purchased a villa in the resort in 2014.
Mr Moyes described Praia du Luz as idyllic and safe and his wife added: “It is paradise.” https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3429641/mystery-couple-seen-clambering-over-wall-and-fence-directly-behind-apartment-where-madeleine-mccann-was-sleeping-on-night-she-vanished/
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 03, 2017, 10:50:30 PM
'THE F***ING B******S HAVE TAKEN HER' Kate McCann’s tormented screams on night Madeleine went missing revealed by witnesses who told how Gerry sobbed on pals shoulder and frantic friends launched search Key witnesses reveal desperate moments after Maddie vanished
By Charles Yates and Sam Christie 3rd May 2017, 5:33 pm Updated: 3rd May 2017, 10:10 pm
KATE McCann screamed: “the f***ing b******s have taken her” in the frantic moments after daughter Madeleine went missing, a key witness has revealed.
The distraught mother was heard screaming out in anguish as husband Gerry sobbed on a friend’s shoulder while a frantic search for their missing three-year-old daughter took place.
Key witnesses told how they saw Kate McCann screaming in anguish after Maddie went missing Brit couple Paul and Susan Moyes’ apartment was one floor directly above where the McCanns were staying
Brit couple Paul and Susan Moyes’ apartment was one floor directly above where the McCanns were staying Apartment 5a, pictured today, was where Maddie was sleeping on the night she disappeared
Speaking to the Sun Online a decade after the chilling crime which gripped the world, holidaymakers Paul and Susan Moyes, who had an apartment just two floors directly above where the McCanns were staying, recounted how the couple were in hysterics.
Paul, 68, said: “The McCanns were in bits, he was crying on the shoulder of a friend.
“She was screaming ‘the f***ing b******s have taken her’. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3428088/kate-mccann-scream-night-madeleine-went-missing/
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 04, 2017, 06:51:02 AM
As the McCanns mark 10 agonising years without Madeleine, how can Portuguese police keep being so vile?
Kate and gerry have had to rebuild their family as they suffer the agony of not knowing where their oldest child is, but now one ex-cop is airing yet more ludicrous claims
Alison Phillips BYALISON PHILLIPS 22:01, 2 MAY 2017UPDATED09:32, 3 MAY 2017
Another agonising anniversary for the McCann family. Another opportunity for slug-like Portuguese ex-cop Goncalo Amaral to crawl out of his hole and slither around in their pain.
Out of all the horrific days Kate and Gerry McCann have had to endure in the decade since their daughter went missing, this must surely be one of the toughest.
Despite their determination in an interview this weekend that they will one day be reunited with Maddie , it seems less likely than ever.
This 10th anniversary will serve as a reminder not only of how much time has passed since they last held their daughter in their arms, but also of how they’ve rebuilt family life around the chasm of missing Maddie.
Something they must have never, ever wanted to do. But which they had to for the sake of their now 12-year-old twins.
Having lost one child, they had to do everything possible to safeguard the lives of those who remained.
Yet as the family mark 10 agonising years without Maddie today, how can some Portuguese cops still be so cruel?
Missing Madeleine McCann's parents 'fell out with police so badly they refused to share info from own investigation'
While they mourn and remember, Amaral – whose blundering officers fouled up so much of the search – has been airing his latest ludicrous claims about the disappearance.
And in so doing, caused new upset and anxiety for Maddie’s siblings.
He was on Portuguese television again pointing the finger at Maddie’s parents – the twins’ parents – and claiming she may have been hidden in a Praia de Luz church before being cremated .
Why the Portuguese broadcasters give him air time is a total mystery. Presumably it suits some to pump out such lies to deflect from their police failings.
Meanwhile another former Portuguese cop, Carlos Anjos, who probably knows less about the details of the case than my cat, has laid into the £11million Scotland Yard investigation as a ‘waste of money’.
Mr Anjos, a former inspector, is entitled to his opinion. Except that he is the former head of the Portuguese police union so his chief concern isn’t Maddie - it’s defending his officers’ botched investigation.
He and Amaral could do everyone a favour on this anniversary by keeping their opinions strictly to themselves.
Because these men know every smear or suggestion they make will be lapped up and repeated by the sickos and saddos of social media whose conspiracy theories have continued relentlessly over the past decade.
With children now old enough to Google their sister’s disappearance, it must be an endless battle for Kate and Gerry to keep them safe from the slurs that are constantly lobbed at their family on social media.
As Kate said this weekend: “We’ve tried to educate them a little bit as well.
“Because why would somebody write that? Why would somebody add to someone’s upset?”
A question it is impossible for right-minded people to answer.
For whatever Amaral and his band of [ censored word ]s may think about Gerry and Kate, surely anyone would have compassion for two children who have grown up against a backdrop of sadness and who have lost not just their sister but also so much of the joy of normal family life.
Amaral claims his family was also damaged by the investigation and he lost his marriage and son because of it. Rubbish.
I imagine he lost his marriage and son because they were able to see exactly what kind of a man he is.
A man who, incompetent at trying to find one missing little girl, appears intent on inflicting pain on her surviving brother and sister. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mccanns-mark-10-agonising-years-10343580
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 04, 2017, 08:56:59 AM
PRAIA DA LUZ (PORTUGAL) (AFP) - Ten years after the mysterious disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann, a service was held in her memory Wednesday evening at the church in the seaside resort of Praia da Luz in southern Portugal, marked by the absence of her parents.
On May 3, 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday, "Maddie" disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve village as her parents dined with friends at a nearby restaurant, sparking one of the biggest searches of its kind in recent years.
Despite a wide range of suspects and theories about what happened, no one has ever been convicted over her disappearance.
"It's a very sad story, a very sad case and we all hope that we turn up on that. Our thoughts are with the family and with Madeleine," said English tourist Tracy, 42, who came to attend the service.
Another British tourist, Roney, 48, said: "It's important to keep Madeleine's name alive and to pay respect to a little girl who never came home."
Both had previously gone to a cliff overlooking the sea to release pink balloons to mark the anniversary.
About 50 Anglicans and Catholics attended the service in the little whitewashed church where Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry McCann used to gather after their daughter vanished.
The ceremony was led by Canadian Anglican pastor Haynes Hubbard, who had officiated at the church at the time of the girl's disappearance.
An English father, James, 43, accompanied by his little daughter, paused in front of a photo of Maddie surrounded by flowers at the entrance of the church.
"I just explained to my daughter that it was a little girl who got lost about 10 years ago. I just wanted to show her the photo to explain what happened," he said.
The McCanns, who did not attend the service in Portugal, on Sunday told the BBC they still hope to find their daughter alive.
"My hope for Madeleine being out there is no less than it was almost 10 years ago," said her mother.
The McCanns attended a service Wednesday with about 200 people in the small town of Rothley, in central England where they live.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 04, 2017, 01:40:57 PM
Madeleine McCann's mum writes moving letter to the people of Praia da Luz "There will never be too many times to say thank you..."
BYALEXANDER BRITTONCLAIRE HAYHURST 11:55, 4 MAY 2017
The family of Madeleine McCann have said they “miss her every second” as they reflect on 10 years of “stolen time” without her.
Kate McCann wrote a letter to the people of Praia da Luz on May 3, exactly a decade after she vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve village.
Members of the congregation at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz wept as the letter from Mrs McCann was read at a special service.
The service, attended by about 40 people including those who helped search for the little girl in 2007, took place at 9pm - about the time that she disappeared.
Mrs McCann wrote: “To our dear friends.
“Ten years without Madeleine. If I’d let that thought even enter my head back in May 2007, I wouldn’t have lasted another day.
“And now, a decade on... it is still inconceivable. How can it be?
“Our little girl who brought us the gift of parenthood. Ten years on. We miss her every second.
“Despite the evil and hurt that has come our way, we have been very fortunate, having witnessed and experienced goodness and kindness in great abundance during this long and difficult period of ‘stolen’ time.
“We are especially grateful to our friends and supporters in Luz for being strong enough and brave enough to keep Madeleine and our family in your prayers and in your hearts.
“Your love and compassion has given us fortitude over the years and sustained our hope in immeasurable amounts.
“There will never be too many times to thank you... and so ‘thank you’ for everything... but above all, for not giving up on Madeleine.
“With our love and our very best wishes, Kate, Gerry, Madeleine, Sean and Amelie - and all our family.”
The letter was read at the 40-minute-long service - spoken in both English and Portuguese - by Susan Hubbard, a close friend of Mrs McCann.
Mrs Hubbard’s husband, Father Haynes Hubbard, was the priest at the church at about the time that Madeleine went missing.
Appeal posters and T-shirts were placed near the altar of the medieval church, along with candles that were lit throughout the service.
A minute’s silence was held for Madeleine and for all missing children at the start of the service, which is held at the church each year.
Father Hubbard told the congregation: “You might remember the first week after Madeleine was taken.
“We gathered here in this church and we lit this candle. We said that the light that this candle offers will not be put out.
“Then we went home and we remembered Madeleine in our prayers. And here we are. Ten years later. Remembering Madeleine in our prayers.
“Madeleine and all children who are in need of our prayers are held up in hope.
“We hold Madeleine in our hearts and all children who are lost. We pray for them.”
ellow ribbons, to signify hope, were placed around the village at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
At sunset, 10 balloons to mark the 10th anniversary were released on the beach at Praia da Luz.
A pink balloon was also tied to the gate of apartment 5A of the Ocean Club resort, where Madeleine vanished while her parents ate supper nearby. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/madeleine-mccanns-mum-writes-moving-12984693
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: John on May 04, 2017, 02:17:28 PM
What happened to Madeleine McCann? Five possible scenarios explained.
With interest in the case showing no signs of abating, the chances are that unless Madeleine is found, the theories will keep proliferating.
In the ten years since Madeleine McCann went missing from an apartment in the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, there have been a near-infinite number of theories as to what happened to her.
Having started reviewing the case in 2011, Scotland Yard are still investigating.
With interest in the case showing no signs of abating, the chances are that unless Madeleine is found, the theories will keep proliferating.
For now, though, the most commonly discussed scenarios seem to be:
The parents were involved
On September 7 2007, four months after Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate and Gerry McCann were made “arguidos”, formal suspects in the case.
The theory seems to have been that the two doctors killed their daughter by accident, possibly by giving her too much sedative in the hope that she would sleep while they went out to dine with friends at a tapas restaurant 50 yards away.
The McCanns are then supposed to have hidden the body, faked Madeleine’s abduction, and then, weeks later, with the search for the three-year-old in full cry, put the corpse in the boot of a hire car and hid it in some super-secret location.
The Portugese police appear to have been bolstered in the belief that this – or something like it – could be possible by the reactions of two sniffer dogs brought to the Algarve by British officers in July 2007.
The two dogs, one trained to detect human blood, the other the smell of dead bodies, were taken to numerous locations, but only gave alerts inside the McCanns’ holiday apartment. The cadaver dog later gave another alert signal while inside the Renault Scenic hire car that the McCanns had rented 24 days after their daughter went missing.
Analysis of hair and other fibres taken from the hire car and apartment were analysed by the UK’s Forensic Science Service. Four days after the FSS analysis was complete, the McCanns were made arguidos, with Portugese officials citing DNA evidence as one of the grounds for suspicion.
It later transpired, however, that neither the sniffer dog or DNA evidence were as watertight as some observers assumed.
Sniffer dog evidence has been the subject of research questioning its reliability, and in one US court case, a judge agreed with analysis of three cadaver dogs’ performances which found they were wrong 78 per cent, 71 per cent and 62 per cent of the time.
The DNA evidence, meanwhile, came with a major ‘health warning’ from the FSS.
An email from John Lowe, of the FSS team, stated that only 15 out of a set of 19 components of Madeleine’s DNA profile had been found in the hire car.
Mr Lowe cautioned: “The individual components in Madeleine's profile are not unique to her; it is the specific combination of 19 components that makes her profile unique above all others. Elements of Madeleine's profile are also present within the profiles of many of the scientists here in Birmingham, myself included.
“It's important to stress that 50 per cent of Madeleine's profile will be shared with each parent. It is not possible, in a mixture of more than two people, to determine or evaluate which specific DNA components pair with each other. ... Therefore, we cannot answer the question: Is the match genuine, or is it a chance match."
Kate and Gerry McCann had their formal arguido status removed in July 2008. They have always maintained their innocence. They have dismissed as “ludicrous” theories about how they might have used the hire car to dispose of the body in a location that Algarve locals didn’t know about.
They are also continuing their legal action against Goncalo Amaral, the former lead Portugese investigator in the case, who in 2008 wrote a book claiming they had faked their daughter’s abduction after her accidental death.
Burglary gone wrong
According to this theory, thieves broke into the apartment, then killed or abducted Madeleine when she woke up and saw what they were doing.
It is understood that the Scotland Yard review team has not yet ruled out such a scenario – even though you might expect it to involve thieves acting in panic, making hurried mistakes and leaving a trail of obvious clues in their wake.
At one time, though, the Met detectives had identified four Praia da Luz locals who seemed as if they might have fitted the bill. Their backgrounds, mobile phone contact and locations around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance all seemed to fit the pattern of men involved in a burglary that had gone wrong.
The men were questioned in 2014 – but Scotland Yard has now announced there was no evidence to implicate any of them and abandoned the case against all four.
Paulo Ribeiro, one of the men, has also told BBC Panorama how amazed he had been when approached by British detectives.
"I thought it was incredible," he said. "I knew of nothing when the police arrived at my door with a piece of paper that had a drawing on it, saying it bore a likeness to me and that someone had said I was involved and that I looked like the person who had kidnapped Maddie.”
He and the other three men, were also backed by Pedro do Carmo, deputy director of the Policia Judiciaria, who told Panorama he had never considered them to be suspects.
He said: "I can only say that we questioned those people on request of the Metropolitan Police and only based on the request of the Metropolitan Police.
"We never questioned those people. We never saw or looked at those people as suspects of the crime."
And, despite British detectives still considering the idea of a burglary gone wrong to be plausible, Carlos Anjos, the former head of the Policia Judiciaria officers' union, told Panorama: "This burglary theory is absurd. Not even a wallet disappeared, no television disappeared, nothing else disappeared. A child disappeared."
Abducted or killed by a local paedophile
In 2009 there were reports that some of those investigating Madeleine’s disappearance believed the Algarve had been “awash with paedophiles” when she went missing.
One source was quoted as saying: “There are 38 known sex offenders in the Algarve. The area is a magnet for paedophiles. There have been seven sexual assaults involving the children of tourists in the Algarve in the last four years.
“They all have the same modus operandi as Madeleine's disappearance - that is, a break-in at a holiday apartment and children molested.
“Five happened before Madeleine's abduction, and two afterwards. One took place a month before she vanished.”
Could a local serial paedophile have escalated his activities to the point where instead of leaving a molested foreign child in situ, they progressed to abduction or killing?
family:
"He was a private man, not the type to suddenly befriend a couple who had intense media attention. It really jarred with me, left me feeling very uneasy. Nobody else would have thought Freud capable of abuse and rape but he did it to me.”
Some investigators, however, have cautioned against the whole idea of the involvement of a local paedophile. They point out that only very rarely do predatory paedophiles take the risk of sneaking or breaking into a building to get at a child.
Abducted by slave traders or paedophile child traffickers
There have been numerous variations of this theory, placing Madeleine in locations from Belgium to Africa.
In 2008, for example, it was reported that police were examining claims that Madeleine was taken on the orders of a Belgium-based paedophile ring that had placed an order for a “young girl”.
The highly organised gang, it was said, may even have taken a photograph of Madeleine beforehand so the Belgian paedophiles could confirm she fitted their requirements and give the go-ahead for the abduction.
Other theories have suggested Madeleine could have been taken to Lagos marina, five miles from Praia da Luz, and put on a boat bound for Morocco.
There have been reports of girls fitting Madeleine’s description being seen in Morocco around the time of her disappearance, and in the first few weeks of the hunt for their daughter, the McCanns did visit the north African country to appeal for information.
Morocco also fits into theories that Madeleine was sold into slavery: it is on the trafficking route to the Saharan desert country of Mauritania.
Mauritania was the last country in the world to abolish slavery, outlawing the practice only in 1981. There are rumours that significant numbers of people remain in slavery in the country to this day, and that gangs operating out of Mauritania sell children to rich Middle Eastern families.
Colin Sutton, an ex-Scotland Yard detective, told the Mirror last month: “The Mauritania line is certainly a possibility and needs to be looked at.
“If someone wanted to get a three-year-old child into Africa it’s the obvious route. The infrastructure and contacts for people smuggling are clearly there.”
Madeleine woke up, wandered from the apartment, and was involved in an accident
If Madeleine had woken up and gone to see her parents at the tapas restaurant, it has been claimed, there were a number of potentially fatal accidents that could have befallen her.
If she lost her way in the dark and took a wrong turn, a walk of less than 200 yards would have taken her to some roadworks.
It has been reported that workers repairing drains had dug a 6ft-deep, 4ft-wide trench. Had she fallen in, causing her to die or be knocked unconscious? And had she then not been noticed when the trench was filled in the next morning?
This theory has been disputed by the engineer and the foreman in charge of the works, who have both insisted the trench was checked by them and the police.
Other accident theories have posited a drink driver who runs over Madeleine, panics, and hides the body. A local might know hiding places where a body could lie undiscovered for ten years: the surrounding countryside is sparsely populated with plenty of scrubland and many old, long-abandoned wells.
Such scenarios, though, would require unusual behaviour from a little girl going in search of her parents.
Kate McCann has pointed out that Madeleine, coming up to her fourth birthday, would have had to have been able to open the curtains, slide open the patio door and then shut both of them behind her. Then she would have had to open and shut the garden gate leading to the road.
During her holiday, she had got to know the way that took her to the pool complex where her parents were eating. So why would this little girl have continued down the dark, lonely path leading to the roadworks, instead of turning towards the reassuring lights and noise coming from where she knew she could find her mum and dad?
Kate and Gerry McCann give an interview to the BBC to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine McCann. Photograph: Getty Images
This is a story about missing children, and what happens to those who are left behind. Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a story told so many times it has taken on the form of a litany: Praia da Luz, the tapas restaurant, the open window. Madeleine vanished, but she is ever-present in the public consciousness, whereas thousands of missing children are just that – wholly missing.
There has been much hand-wringing in the media over this disparity: was it because Kate and Gerry McCann are white and photogenic? Or because Madeleine was blond and cute? Or because she vanished in a country where journalists also take their cute kids on holiday? To which the answers are yes, obviously, but this is to miss the point; the argument should be not that the McCanns deserve less attention, but that other missing children should get more. In an interview last weekend, Kate McCann said she felt “guilty” and “embarrassed” about the £11m spent on the search for her daughter. The only people who should be embarrassed are those who sneer that there should be some kind of cap on the amount of sympathy, or a time limit placed on a parent’s hope. In recent weeks, the tabloids have been eagerly publishing spurious decades-old sightings of Madeleine, seen crying for her mother in the company of “suspicious men”. It is hard to see what any of this is supposed to achieve, beyond torturing the McCanns.
The common take on the McCann coverage is that middle-class newspaper readers related to them and so cared more about the story than, say, that of Ben Needham, the British toddler who vanished in Kos in 1991. And yet in both cases the parents were instantly vilified: Kerry Needham for being working class, Gerry and Kate McCann for being too self-possessed and attractive. The parents of missing children are often demonised by a public that need to reassure themselves that this could never happen to them. Those parents were feckless, foolish, bad – not like us, the good parents. If anything, the relatability of the McCanns made them even more terrifying, and thus more necessary to condemn.
When Nick Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur died in 2015, after falling off a cliff while on LSD, parts of the media were so keen to blame his father they became self-parodic. Much was made of the singer’s previous drug habit, as though no other parent on the planet had ever taken drugs, while the Times tutted that Cave had “an obsession with death” and watched “super-violent” films with his children. (The paper later removed the article from its website.)
In an extraordinary interview in American GQ, Cave recently said: “I don’t want to give too much oxygen to the matter of responsibility because it raises a point that only someone who knows nothing about parenting, drug-taking or bereavement would suggest.” Even so, he added: “You can find yourself indulging in all sorts of irrational and self-destructive thoughts – self-pity, self-blame – because they form a direct connection to the small but present part of you that just wants to die.”
I have written a lot about missing or dead children: Etan Patz, the six-year-old who vanished in New York in 1979, and whose face haunted American parents in the 80s; JonBenét Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty contestant found dead in her home in 1996; Noah Pozner, the youngest victim of the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings. All very different stories, all connected by a vilification of the parents by a public so terrified of anything like that happening to them. A police officer once described it to me like this: “You know that moment when you lose sight of your child in a shopping mall? Imagine that feeling lasting for 30 years.” But there is no need for anyone to pull an Andrea “as a mother” Leadsom here; anyone can feel that fear, as if your arm has been ripped off your body and your heart pulled out after it.
The cynical take on Madeleine McCann is that she is gone for good: why are we still talking about this? “Her parents need to accept their share of the blame and let her go,” one notoriously bilious columnist wrote. There is a condescension towards parents of missing children and their magical thinking, their desperate hope that the family will one day be reunited. But it’s their critics who are engaging in the worst kind of magical thinking, believing that if they turn bereaved parents into the demonised Other, they will protect their own children. All they are doing, really, is revealing that they know the terrible truth: that this could happen to any of us, and we would never stop looking.
This shows the 9pm service on 3 May 2017 at Nossa Senhora da Luz. Maddie McCann preacher speaks 10 years after comforting parents following disappearance THE preacher who comforted the parents of Madeleine McCann has spoken out about the case near the scene of her disappearance. By Michael Havis, in Praia da Luz / Published 4th May 2017 Chrissy Teigen teases performance on Lip Syn
Father Haynes Hubbard became Anglican Father at Nessa Senhora da Luz church just days after Maddie vanished from her bed.
He recalls how the church, which serves the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, where the McCanns stayed, was engulfed.
"There were four or five rows of photographers taking pictures of Kate, Gerry and the church," he told Daily Star Online.
"It sounded like applause as Kate and Gerry left church, but it wasn't applause, it was cameras flashing.
"And then it got really nasty, really personal and really unpleasant. It was tough times."
Tough as times were, however, Father Hubbard says it was worth it to keep Maddie in the spotlight.
"I think Kate and Gerry have paid a tremendous price. I know they did for the first two or three years," he said.
"But they were prepared to pay that because it suggested that people might still be looking for their daughter."
And he believes the price will be worth it in the end, hoping that the McCanns could one day be reunited with Madeleine.
"I'm going to continue hoping. That's what that service was about, saying we are hoping that she will show up," he told Daily Star Online.
"Nobody's given an answer, or a reason why that might not happen. We will keep hoping until that definitive answer is there, until there's no reason to hope anymore."
Father Hubbard made his remarks after a moving ceremony in Praia da Luz where a special message from Madeleine's mother, Kate, was read out.
It said: "10 years without Madeleine — If that thought had even entered my head back in May 2007, I wouldn't have lasted another day.
"And now, a decade on, it's still inconceivable. How can it be our little girl — who brought us the gift of parenthood?"
It comes as Daily Star Online revealed sick Maddie merchandise is available online.
Kate also said the family continue to miss Madeleine "every second" and paid tribute to their supporters in Praia da Luz.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 06, 2017, 06:23:34 PM
ON THE MADDIE TRAIL: Brit behind McCann tour tells all – what REALLY happened that night? IT'S a town desperate to forget the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, but for one Brit in Praia da Luz it's just a case to be cracked.
By Michael Havis / Published 6th May 2017
That man, who asked not to be named, is the one behind the infamous Maddie tours in the Portuguese town where she vanished.
Daily Star Online met the person behind the headlines and joined him for a tour of a place largely unchanged since 2007.
But first things first — this is not a business; our guide doesn't charge a penny and only does one-on-one tours.
(http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/1/photos/776000/620x/madeleine-mccann-tour-praia-da-luz-maddie-portugal-missing-611674.jpg) MYSTERY TOWN: Daily Star Online was shown round Praia da Luz by a 'Maddie' tour guide
And he's got no time for daft theories about Maddie's fate; if he thinks a suggestion is rubbish, he'll tell you.
The first major stop we call at is a hill dug up by British police as part of Operation Grange in 2014.
It seems a discrete place to hide a body, but our guide is clear — this town-centre scrubland is busier than it looks.
"This is a main road, that's a minor road, and you've got businesses round here," he said. "It looks like it's quiet, but it's not.
"The problem with Operation Grange is they never really visited this on foot, apart from the dig. They never involved local knowledge at all."
From there, it's just a short walk to the Rua de Escola Primera — location of the most notorious Maddie sighting.
Here, at approximately 10pm — the time her parents discovered she had gone, a man was spotted with a child in his arms.
(http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/1/photos/793000/madeleine-mccann-tour-praia-da-luz-maddie-portugal-missing-930793.jpg) UNIDENTIFIED: The man sighted with a child that night, inset, walked down this street
A digital likeness of that man was released on Crimewatch in 2013 and identifying him soon became instrumental to the police's efforts.
Our guide says: "I think he was just an innocent Portuguese man taking his child home and that his house was probably somewhere around here."
Just 500 yards away is the final stop on the tour, the infamous apartment 5A Maddie vanished from and the surrounding Ocean Club resort.
What happened here that fateful night, nobody knows for sure, but our guide – a retired Brit living in the town – has a theory.
"I can't prove it happened this way, but there was a lot to suggest it was a pre-planned abduction," the man said.
Whatever the case, he seems to believe that showing those interested in the case round the town can help solve the mystery http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/611674/madeleine-mccann-tour-praia-da-luz-maddie-portugal-missing
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Alfie on May 08, 2017, 07:08:13 PM
Ah. Rumour has it that she's been there. Is it as bad as that?
LOL, no I think this youtube video is just some random footage put together for news outlets to take clips from for their own news programmes. It's just a bit "meh" really, not very illuminating and not a press article about Madeleine's disappearance. Expect the last few posts to be deleted shortly....
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Eleanor on May 08, 2017, 07:26:19 PM
LOL, no I think this youtube video is just some random footage put together for news outlets to take clips from for their own news programmes. It's just a bit "meh" really, not very illuminating and not a press article about Madeleine's disappearance. Expect the last few posts to be deleted shortly....
Whoops. Must get on to that. After I've had my tea.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: ShiningInLuz on May 08, 2017, 08:17:50 PM
Be careful of that which you delete.
There several snippets of high quality information in there.
8((()*/
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Eleanor on May 08, 2017, 08:21:09 PM
There several snippets of high quality information in there.
8((()*/
You know me. I never delete anything. Just kidding.
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: Brietta on May 10, 2017, 01:29:28 AM
Missing Madeleine McCann: Inter-force ‘trust, co-operation and understanding’ issues still exist
09 May 2017 (http://www.policeprofessional.com/files/news-image-29219.png) Dr Graham Hill: 'Not much further ahead today'
European police forces should create a specialist hub to manage future investigations into child abductions that cross international boundaries to avoid “mistakes” that blighted the Madeleine McCann case being repeated, a leading criminologist argues.
Ten years on from the disappearance of the Leicestershire toddler, the lessons of the failed investigation have not been learned, says a senior British officer who worked on the case in Portugal.
Ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Graham Hill claims the same “lack of trust, co-operation and understanding” continues to exist today between forces either side of The Channel.
Talks on a co-ordinated approach to abduction cases were held after Madeleine went missing but they became stymied in territorial issues and European Union bureaucracy, said Dr Hill, founder and first head of Behaviour Analysis at the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation Online Protection centre (CEOP).
Suggesting “we’re not that much further forward,” Dr Hill added: “Now is a good time to say enough is enough; what are we going to learn from this, or are we not going to learn anything?
“Are we going to walk away and say we’ve spent umpteen million in taxpayers’ money and not learnt anything?”
The hunt for Madeleine began on May 3, 2007 when the three-year-old went missing while on a family holiday at Praia da Luz on the Algarve.
She was asleep in an apartment with her twin siblings when it is believed that she was abducted while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dined with friends in the same holiday complex.
The couple, now aged 49 and 48, say they will do "whatever it takes, for as long as it takes" to find their missing daughter as they applauded the Metropolitan Police Service for the “real progress” made over the last five years. "There is still hope that we can find Madeleine," Mrs McCann added.
Theorising by “armchair experts” about what might have happened to Madeleine had drowned out debate about how to respond to a similar incident in future, Dr Hill added.
As head of behavioural analysis at CEOP in 2007, he was sent to the Algarve to assist the Portuguese investigation.
He told The Times: “I don’t think they really wanted us there. The lead detectives saw our presence as an insult. It became clear we were just being told little bits of information but we were kept away from what was really happening.” http://www.policeprofessional.com/news.aspx?id=29219
Title: Re: Press articles to mark the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
Post by: G-Unit on May 13, 2017, 07:39:44 AM
'Madeleine McCann and the media' by Len Port
Created: 26 April 2017
The most reported and discussed missing person case ever recorded is still not only a highly contentious mystery, but also a personal tragedy that has been turned into a public farce by elements of the media.
In the entirely predictable press frenzy surrounding the imminent 10th anniversary of the disappearance, much of the coverage, particularly in the British tabloids, has been absurd. But it should not be dismissed lightly.
Unable to come up with “news” on the case, the tabloids have been rehashing the same old speculation and guesswork.
“Could Madeleine McCann have been snatched by a lone paedo or simply wandered off?....”
“Abducted by slave traders and sold to a rich family, says ex-Met detective..”
“New hope after decade-long search....”
“Experts say Madeleine McCann’s body is almost impossible to find ”.
And then there was the much-touted Australian TV show that promised “a major breakthrough in the case”.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror took a slightly different tack with a story headlined, “What REALLY happened the night Madeleine McCann disappeared as nanny breaks her 10-year silence”.
The story did not explain what “really” happened, nor did it name the nanny or why she had remained silent for so long.
It quoted her as considering the McCanns to be “the picture perfect family” and repeated the usual British criticism of the Portuguese police.
More surprisingly, she claimed that the resort from which Madeleine vanished was considered so unsafe that nannies were given rape alarms (whistles) and advised, “don’t go anywhere by yourself, ever”.
There was nothing to suggest the Mirror had tried to question or check this or any of the nanny’s other assertions, but, in Praia da Luz, they were viewed with derision. It was seen as yet another attempt to brand Praia da Luz as a den of iniquity, which it is not and never has been.
The official police files on the case contain nothing about rape whistles or alarms. None of the signed statements by child-care workers mentioned anything about suspicious goings-on or Luz being “unsafe”.
The manager of the Ocean Club where the McCanns were staying said in a police statement in 2007 that he had “no knowledge of any untoward situation involving Ocean Club users or in the village itself, other than some damage and minor thefts”.
The Mirror story was also a reminder that real journalism has to a large extent been replaced by ‘churnalism’, which disregards traditional standards of original news gathering based on impartiality and fact-checking for accuracy and honesty.
The nanny’s story was quickly recycled virtually verbatim on the Internet by other tabloids. Even the broadsheet Daily Telegraph fell into line as did news services in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Trial by the media has had a huge influence on public perceptions about guilt or innocence in this case. Most of the mainstream media reports state as if it were a fact that Madeleine was “abducted”. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn’t. There is no certainty either about the other main theory, that her parents covered up an accidental death in the apartment.
Until solid evidence is found and the culprits are brought to justice, the public fascination with this case will continue to fuel and be fuelled by the media’s determination to churn out stories whose accuracy and agenda may sometimes be open to doubt.
The current avalanche of stories inevitably evokes the previous admission by Lord Bell, founder and former chairman of the Bell Pottinger public relations group, to columnist and author Owen Jones, that “the McCanns paid me £50,000 in fees to keep them on the front page of every single newspaper for a year, which we did”.
Nevertheless, “Maddie” helps circulation figures and makes money. Money, along with misinformation, has always played far too big a part in this case which, let’s remember, is about the tragic loss of a child. https://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/11540-madeleine-mccann-and-the-media-by-len-port