Will the reconstruction end the distasteful slurs about the McCanns?

So could this TV reconstruction end the distasteful slurs about Kate and Gerry?

By Sue Reed


Within a small courtroom at Lisbon’s white Palace of Justice, an emotionally charged drama is playing out to a packed public gallery.

It concerns an extraordinary and highly contentious allegation in a book by a Portuguese detective that Madeleine McCann was killed in an accident, and that her parents covered up her death.

Unsurprisingly, Madeleine’s parents protest that this is a cruel, damaging and false accusation. They are suing the policeman, Goncalo Amaral, and claiming almost £1million from him or defamation.



The couple say that his book, The Truth Of The Lie, has poisoned public opinion against them and hampered their search for their beloved daughter by wickedly making people believe – wrongly – that she is dead.

It is the latest chapter in the enduringly sad mystery of what happened to Madeleine. The libel case will culminate in an explosive hearing next month when the main protagonists, Gerry and Kate McCann and Mr Amaral – who led the Portuguese police hunt – each hope to have their say in the witness box.

By then we hope to know much more about the events of May 3, 2007, the night of Madeleine’s disappearance on the Algarve.

Last week, Scotland Yard, which is running a new multi-million-pound inquiry into the case, hinted it is about to make a dramatic breakthrough in its investigation and today’s release of e-fits of one suspect will generate worldwide headlines.



These are significant steps in the police inquiry, launched in July and being run from the second floor of Belgravia police station in London, where detectives are studying more than 39,000 documents as well as photographs and files connected to the case.
Witness statements, numerous ‘sightings’ of Madeleine from across the world and Portuguese police files are all being re-examined. Detectives have identified 41 possible suspects, including 15 Britons.

And, in what will undoubtedly be a herculean task – considering the data protection laws – the Yard is attempting, by analysing mobile phone records, to identify everyone who was near the McCanns’ holiday apartment between April 28 and the night Madeleine disappeared.



The new investigation is the fruit of a hugely slick international campaign to make sure people don’t forget about Madeleine. It has cost vast amounts of money, much of it public donations to the McCann family in a not-for-profit company called Leaving No Stone Unturned Limited. This was set up 12 days after she went missing, to ‘find Madeleine, support her family and bring her abductors to justice’.



Case: Policeman Goncalo Amaral poses with his book entitled 'Maddie:The Truth about the Lie', which the McCann's say is cruel and damaging

Annual accounts show the fund’s income to March 31, 2012 had reached £3,742,385, including royalties paid for Kate’s book, Madeleine, and a donation from a newspaper group in lieu of damages.

The campaign, led by the McCann family, has seen a visit to the Pope, promises of support from the then PM Gordon Brown, the involvement of David Cameron, an appearance by Kate and Gerry on the Oprah Winfrey show and posters of Madeleine being distributed to British bookshops as they opened at midnight for the sale of a new Harry Potter book.

More than 50million people visited the McCanns’ Find Madeleine website in the first 48 hours it was launched – and many millions more have done so since. Nothing quite like this has been seen before and probably never will again.

Throughout the entire sad affair there have been claims and counter-claims about what happened on that night in May at the Mark Warner resort in Praia da Luz.

It was just before 10pm that Kate McCann left the dinner she was having with her husband and seven English friends at a tapas restaurant and walked the 50 yards back to their apartment to check on her three sleeping children. She slipped in through the patio windows, which the couple had kept unlocked so as to make the checks easier. The twins, two-year-old Sean and Amelie, were soundly asleep – but their sister’s bed was empty. In deep distress, and calling Madeleine’s name out loud, Kate ran back to her friends to tell them through tears: ‘They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her.’

The police were called and – initially – said that they were concentrating on the ‘missing hour’. Officers thought she had been kidnapped by a stranger between when Gerry had last checked on her at 9.05pm and her mother’s awful discovery less than an hour later.



But within weeks the police story changed dramatically. It has emerged at the Lisbon libel case, and linked hearings, that both Portuguese detectives and British police who were helping the investigation suddenly suspected that Madeleine had died at the apartment and that her death had been covered up by her parents.

More disturbingly, evidence given at the hearings by some of Portugal’s most senior policemen peddles that deeply wounding view even today.

For example, Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida has said: ‘The conclusion… was that the McCann couple simulated the abduction to hide the fact that they had not taken care of their children.

‘There was a tragic accident in the apartment that night and they neglected the care of their children. It was the conclusion of both the Portuguese and British police. We have always spoken of a tragic accidental death. There was no murder. The McCanns did not kill her, but concealed the body.’

He added that the controversial book by his police colleague was a ‘true history of facts’, closely based on the actual Portuguese police files: thousands of pages, recordings and film, including the statements of the so-called Tapas Seven, other witnesses at Praia da Luz and forensic evidence.

Mr de Almeida claims that suspicions about the McCanns appeared to be confirmed when sniffer dogs, brought from Britain, found traces of blood and the ‘smell of death’ in the McCanns’ holiday apartment. In evidence at the libel trial last week, Luis Neves, head of the Portuguese organised crime and kidnapping unit, went further. He said it was the British police who ‘first developed the theory’ that Madeleine had died at the apartment.

I have discovered that this has been confirmed in diplomatic correspondence sent by the US ambassador to Portugal, Al Hoffman, to the US government about a meeting with his British counterpart, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, four months after Madeleine’s disappearance and just after the McCanns were temporarily made suspects by the Portuguese.



Hoffman said in the cable, marked confidential: ‘Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents, and he stressed that authorities from both countries were working co-operatively.’

Of course, the claims have been trenchantly dismissed by the McCanns.

Through their trusted spokesman Clarence Mitchell, the couple say the diplomatic cable is ‘historical’ stuff which no longer has any bearing on their worldwide search for Madeleine.

Meanwhile, the Yard investigation is based on the belief that Madeleine was abducted and is still alive.

Yet, to the exasperation and dismay of the McCanns, Goncalo Amaral stubbornly sticks to his outlandish thesis. His book suggests – without, the McCanns argue, a shred of justification – that Madeleine woke up while her parents were having supper, having been stirred either by her father checking her at 9.05pm or, minutes later, talking to another holidaymaker in the street outside the bedroom window.

At the sound of her father’s voice, Madeleine got out of bed, and in a dreadful accident, fell behind the sofa in the living room of the apartment and was killed.
Amaral says: ‘I think someone discovered the body, concealed it, cleaned everything up, and moved the sofa.’

At the Lisbon hearing, police colleagues have given collaborating evidence. One, retired officer Francisco Moita Flores, criticised the Scotland Yard investigation for assuming Madeleine had been kidnapped.

No doubt Portuguese detectives such as him, who support Amaral’s theory, would question why the Yard and Crimewatch are putting such extensive resources into the hunt for Madeleine, six and a half years after she vanished.

In turn, Gerry and Kate’s supporters feel anger towards those they accuse of holding discredited and profoundly distasteful theories.

Even if Gerry and Kate win their libel case, they will feel it is only a staging post in their efforts to find their daughter.

One can only hope that Scotland Yard’s efforts will finally produce a breakthrough in this most troubling of cases.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2458369/So-breakthrough-end-slurs-Kate-Gerry.html#ixzz2heVotFjZ
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Pity the Mail hadn't used a more recent photo of Mr Sweaty...



   

http://news.sky.com/story/1154336/madeleine-mccann-appeal-falls-flat-in-portugal

Madeleine McCann: Appeal Falls Flat In Portugal
Images of the new suspect are not headline news and the reconstruction is not airing prominently on Portuguese television.

By Robert Nisbet, Europe Correspondent in Praia da Luz
The new Madeleine McCann appeal may have triggered headlines around the world but in Portugal the response has been muted.

While the e-fit images of the man detectives believe is "vital" to their enquiry can be found on the inside of national and regional newspapers, this is no longer front page news.

Paul Luckman, editor of the largest English language newspaper, The Portugal News, says the continued level of interest outside the country is "astounding".

"I don't think anyone can understand after six years how police based in England can find out what happened here. It doesn't really hang together," he said.

Mr Luckman says at that time it was assumed the girl had woken and gone in search of her parents, who were dining at a nearby tapas restaurant.

He said child psychologists have determined young children on their own invariably walk downhill, so most of the effort was focused on the roads leading from the apartment towards the beach.

There was criticism that officers failed to consider an abduction and therefore did not seal the apartment to keep any possible evidence from being tainted.

Graham Roberts, who is retired and has lived here for 18 years, said people cannot understand why the details of the investigation and the case are still being "raked over".

"They are saying, 'why is it just this one case?' There are loads of other cases around the world, why has this one got such an ongoing high profile?"

One man who lives near the apartment but didn't want to be named said it was "crazy" that the reconstruction is not airing prominently on Portuguese television.

"Surely the people who might be able to help identify these suspects are not holiday makers but the locals who live here day in, day out?" he said.

The case has certainly left some Portuguese police bitter about the perception of the force, as well as what they regard as outside interference.

One person described the original lead investigator Gonçalo Amaral as a "broken man". He is now being sued for libel by the McCanns over two books he wrote afterwards.

========

Diddums. Perhaps he should have tried less drinking and more thinking at the very start, instead of waking up on May 4th and deciding the McCanns DONE IT?

Oh, and there aren't 'loads of cases' around the world; cases like these are thankfully rare. Though an unusually high proportion of them have occurred in Portugal.

One person described the original lead investigator Gonçalo Amaral as a "broken man". He is now being sued for libel by the McCanns over two books he wrote afterwards.


What goes around comes around Gonc. It's also known as Karma and believe me, you have only just got a little taste of it.

His unprofessional incompetent investigation together with his attitude, may give him a clue.

What he is experiencing is a small amount of what he has put the McCanns through.

He'll be worse tomorrow after Crimewatch airs and it becomes clear what a giant f*ck-up he made.

Wonder if he already knows that mistake? Look at the thing.

That photo in the article is totally gross. He looks fat and snouty and his earring looks ridiculous. Yuk.

They certainly have not ended today.  In fact, there are many with their hopes set high, just for a change.

Re: Sunday Express - ACCEPTED VERSION OF EVENTS IS WRONG and DAILYSTAR - WHAT YOU KNOW IS NOT THE TRUTH

 ShuBob Today at 2:52 pm


paddinton wrote:
ShuBob wrote:
paddinton wrote:

ShuBob wrote:
Ok let me give my thoughts on what's happening with this somewhat bizarre media blitz to promote Crimewatch. I think the Met about to make arrests. My suspicion is that the McCanns will be amongst those to be arrested.

That certainly looks like the way this is headed!  Bit odd if it is 'live on Crimewatch' though!'

I think it'll be in the coming days/weeks. Certainly not today IMO but who knows?

My guess is that it may well have all been planned (fairly meticulously) for some time.

I doubt SY would start showing their hand much before arrests are to be made as,(IMO) there could potentially be risks - to the suspects themselves.

That's what I think too. Perhaps, the McCanns have even been warned about the possibility just as being made arguidos was no surprise to them as they'd been informed before they visited the police station.

Oh boy.  Will they be disappointed.  AGAIN.  They must live their lives on a roller coaster of emotions.