From today’s Times. Seems the residents of PdL have learned to develop some compassion in the last 16 years
Praia da Luz has ‘moved on’ from Madeleine McCann disappearance
May 04 2023, 6.00pm
Like the golden beach that is swept of debris twice a day by the Atlantic, the resort’s walls and notice boards have been cleansed of posters appealing for information about Madeleine McCann and the yellow ribbons promoting the search for the missing British girl.
Christian Wolters, a prosecutor in the German investigation into Christian Brueckner, said to “not expect anything spectacular” as a result of the reservoir searches.
The open anger against the McCann family for associating the resort with child abduction is softening to pity as its tourism industry booms. Teretinha Oliveriea, 51, who runs a jewellers in the heart of Praia da Luz, put her head in her hands in exasperation and groaned when “Madeleine” was mentioned. “We are trying to forget, not talking about her again,” she said. “I have a daughter of the same age as Madeleine, she will be 20 in August, so it was a period that was very sad. I saw everything that happened, the hundreds of journalists, the [McCann] family, the police. We don’t want that again. I don’t know what happened, this is a safe place. We are very sorry for her parents but we have moved on.”
At the Ocean Club where the McCanns were staying in May 2007 the only memorial is a metal grill over the window of the bedroom from where Madeleine was abducted. The bougainvillea is again in full bloom as it was the night she disappeared days before her fourth birthday.
Madeleine was three when she went missing in 2007
Madeleine was three when she went missing in 2007
PA
The club’s tennis courts where Madeleine played have become padel courts for the squash-tennis hybrid sport, signifying changes in the town’s population.
In 2007 about 80 per cent of the expats were British. Their numbers have waned, partly because of Brexit reducing the amount of time they can live in Portugal, but also because of increasing numbers from Germany, France, the Netherlands and Scandinavia lured by generous tax breaks.
Annettee Stupp, 47, originally from Essen in western Germany, sells jewellery from a little stall on the promenade. She lives a “van life” moving around in the Algarve in a camper van. “I don’t know about Madeleine,” she said. “No one has told me. It seems like a very safe area.”
Many of the new residents and visitors have no knowledge of the abduction or the prime suspect, Brueckner, 45. The German convicted sex-offender was a “van lifer” who also lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Praia da Luz when Madeleine disappeared.
The posters from the search campaign that covered notice boards back in 2008 are gone
The posters from the search campaign that covered notice boards back in 2008 are gone
CHRIS RADBURN/PA
A few yards from Stupp’s stall is the doorway to the dingy late-night bar known as Carlos’s. It became the headquarters for the hundreds of writers, international television correspondents, camera crews, producers and photographers from across the world. They gathered there each evening to discuss theories about the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance having returned reports of sightings of the missing girl and possible suspects across Portugal, Spain and into north Africa. Carlos’s transformation into a smart restaurant called Boaty’s with a roof terrace overlooking the beach is a symbol of the economic transformation for the resort.
The fall in tourism numbers following Madeleine’s disappearance was followed by the international financial crisis which devastated the Portuguese economy and then the disastrous impact of Covid-19 restrictions. There was intense antagonism towards the McCanns for their perceived neglect in preventing their daughter’s abduction. As property prices boom, hotel reservations fill up and the bars and restaurants prepare for a busy summer, the mood is more compassionate.
Three days after Madeleine disappeared, her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, both now 54, of Rothley, Leicestershire, left their holiday apartment to attend a Mother’s Day service at the resort’s 16th-century church. The building became a sanctuary for the couple, particularly Kate who regularly attended services.
Chris Wells, the church warden, said: “We certainly keep Madeleine and her parents in our prayers. But we don’t want to be the church that is associated with Madeleine McCann. Very few of the congregation were here at the time. The village was very badly hit by events and there was a very anti-McCann feeling. Now the German is a suspect, I think most people accept that the parents were not involved.”
Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann
Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann
PAUL ROGERS FOR THE TIMES
Andy Syers, 66, a retired teacher from Wetherby, West Yorkshire, lives in Praia da Luz for parts of the year. Three of her grandchildren are visiting this week, with the eldest arriving during the school half term next week.
“We have been coming here for 27 years. It’s an idyllic place, and safe,” she said. “Sometimes we talk about [Madeleine], just the puzzle and the terrible tragedy. Everyone feels for the parents because it is the worst thing to have happened to your children.”
