In the wake of yet more murky money being disgracefully wasted on the murky matter of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann, Matthew Steeples reminds that over £14 million has been spent over 16 years to find NOWT, NADA, NOTHING
Thousands of people go missing every year and thousands of them are never found. It is truly tragic and though the relatives and friends of such people I speak to remain, forever, completely understandably, heartbroken, they never give up. It is tragic and terrible and those such as Martin Allen’s brother, Kevin, and Ben Needham’s mother, Kerry, are to be saluted for continually keeping the stories of the missing alive.
As I have said again and again and will no doubt have to keep saying again and again however, there is one ‘missing person’ case that gets treated very differently to that of all others; that of Madeleine McCann – a child who ‘disappeared’ after her middle class doctor parents shockingly left her and her twin siblings completely unattended whilst they lived-it-up at a tapas bar in Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3rd May 2007.
In the sixteen years since, Gerry and Kate McCann have garnered at least £14 million ($17 million, €15.9 million or درهم62.5 million) in public resources – which has mostly been spent by the Metropolitan Police – and sit on a fund of money donated by the kind-hearted public that still amounts to £970,767 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.3 million) in cash and assets. Latest accounts show just £3,498 ($4,254, €3,962 or درهم15,624) in income from sales of the bargain basement bag-of-bilge book Madeleine in the previous year. Talk about paltry, but equally, in the context of what has been achieved, talk about pathetic and a pointless waste of the public’s donations.
Now, with news this morning in the MailOnline this morning that Madeleine’s Fund has paid out £6,995 ($8,506, €7,922 or درهم31,242) in murky money towards legal costs relating to the McCanns failed libel action against the Portuguese detective Gonçalo Amaral, isn’t it jolly well time that this ridiculous charade seeking a child who’ll likely never be found was just finally brought to a close? This wasteful misallocation of resources must end and it must end now.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – The eternally angry Gerald McCann (left) and his ‘missing’ daughter, Madeleine. Isn’t it time other missing people got the help of the Metropolitan Police and others? Is it fair, that such a disproportionate allocation of resources goes to the search for Mr and Mrs McCann’s ‘missing’ for sixteen years child?
Missing Madeleine – Questions STILL without Answers in A Truly Murky Case
Many questions about what happened on the evening of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remain. Some that have been highlighted by the press and discussed online include:
- Why did Kate McCann refuse to answer 48 questions put to her by the Portuguese police?
- Why were certain records of phone calls on the evening of the disappearance “whoosh-clunked” from the memories of the phones of Mr and Mrs McCann and the ‘Tapas 7’?
- Why were relevant mobile phone records never handed over to the authorities in spite of them potentially being useful to the search?
- Why did the couple not use the babysitting service on offer in the holiday resort on the evening of 3rd May 2007 when they went out on the razzle dazzle with friends?
- Why was the door to the apartment – which opened directly onto a public highway – left unlocked with three children aged under three years old alone inside?
- Why did a British sniffer dog sense the smell of a corpse in a cupboard in the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared?
- Why did a sniffer dog also supposedly sense the smell of a corpse in a vehicle hired by the couple a month after the disappearance of their daughter?
- Why did the McCanns repeatedly try to discredit the work of the sniffer dogs and their handlers?
- Why did Mr and Mrs McCann go jogging and play tennis in the days after their daughter’s disappearance?
- Was it acceptable for Mr and Mrs McCann’s mortgage to be paid by the fund established to search for their missing daughter?
- Why have the McCanns attempted to ‘gag’ anyone who disputes their version of events – most especially Gonçalo Amaral?
- Why given over £14 million has been spent on this search to date has nobody come forward with any sighting of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann given the rewards on offer?
