Their daughter Madeleine disappeared on the evening 3rd May 2007 from a holiday apartment whilst they sat enjoying tapas with a bunch of friends. Some believe the poor child was kidnapped. Others have alternative theories. A public fund to find “Maddie” raised hundreds of thousands of pounds but Mrs McCann’s book, Madeleine, contains so many references to trips on private jets and meeting famous people that it makes one question whether the search for the child or fame has become the focus.
Two stories to keep beside you
Meddling with McCann
Latest Madeleine McCann stories leave more questions than answers As Gerry and Kate McCann sue a former Portuguese police officer over his book about the 2007 disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine, the Daily Express have revealed that a barrister has evidence that the child is still alive. As has become the norm with this […]
The Money of McCann
Gerry and Kate McCann rake in £773,600 of private money in spite of admitting there is “nothing much to report” 14 years into the fast approaching £13 million public funded investigation into the dubious ‘disappearance’ of their daughter Madeleine.
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55 comments
Having met this pair at the 2010 PACT reception at Ralph Lauren in Fulham Road, where I unwisely supported that so-called “cause,” I can’t say I liked the McCanns. It doesn’t make them guilty of anything but there is just something not quite right about this entire case. I hope poor Maddie is OK, wherever she is or may be resting.
Nicely put but you are wrong about guilt. They are only guilty of having left the child by itself. It is not their fault she was stolen and I am still of the belief that she’s alive and will be found.
I’ve met them too and I completely agree with what you say.
It’s all very strange indeed.
Hello my name is Mitchell
Can I. Remind you to return Madeleine McCann to her bed in portegul apporment at the mccanns please if you don’t I will come over there and make you is that clear
Hello my name is Mitchell and Beth Hendley
Can I. Remind you to return Madeleine McCann to her bed in portegul apporment at the mccanns please if you don’t I will come over there and make you is that clear
Madeleine McCann fund raised £2 million in first 10 months
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/4382006/Madeleine-McCann-fund-raised-2-million-in-first-10-months.html
“Accounts registered at Companies House show that between May 2007 and March 2008, £1.4 million was received in bank donations, £390,000 was given via the internet and the sales of t-shirts and wristbands raised £64,000”
That’s a good effort and I hope it is being put to good use in the attempt to find Madeleine.
No – it was used to pay the mortgage
If they hadn’t left the child by itself then none of this would have occurred. There was a babysitting service and a creche and if they really couldn’t afford that (which I don’t believe), one of them should have stayed in the apartment and cared for the little ones. They are IRRESPONSIBLE PARENTS and a DISGRACE.
Come off it. It isn’t their fault someone stole their child. They didn’t ask for that to happen.
When you leave your house to dine with friends etc., you also leave the doors unlocked do you?
I am sure your answer is NO.
So, IF they did leave their doors unlocked, and it is a big IF, did they ask for it to happen?
come on can you leave the mccann and return Madeleine McCann to her mum and dad and go away be for you go to prison or jail
You all jump on the anti McCann bandwagon. They made a mistake in leaving the children but that doesn’t mean Madeleine’s plight is down to them. Blame whoever took her. The poor girl is still missing and their distress continues. Support them rather than attack.
Mistake?
I beg to differ, a mistake is a minor occurance. I don’t consider leaving three small children night after night a mistake!
IMO it was pre-meditated at the very least, especially when Madeleine supposedly asked her parents why they had not come when she and Sean were crying the night before. If this was the case what sort of parents would leave their children again? Not responsible parents that is for sure.
Please excuse me but why exactly makes you so sure about the facts that you will openly fight the corner of this couple? Are you privy to information the rest of the world are not? I personally do think that this is a strange case, although I do think that my personal view is a product of the exposure this case has been afforded. Ironically, this exposure which is all meant to be in aid of helping this couple has potentially set certain members of the public against them because, maybe through no fault of their own, they give the impression of being bad actors (probably just nerves). But just as I find it difficult to believe members of the public would post comments against the McCanns I also find it hard to reconcile the thoughts of somebody who would champion their cause if a/ they weren’t friends with them prior to Madeleine going missing, or b/ they didn’t have some hard facts to substantiate their point of view. I mean, why bother? It isn’t going to get you or the McCanns anyway, is it?
You are right John Willett. The McCanns are fishy.
For a very detailed analysis of the Find Madeleine Fund (a private limited company) by a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants (Enid O’Dowd) see:
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id405.html
Ms O’Dowd’s conclusions:
“After reviewing the background to the setting up of the Fund and its published accounts, and getting such information from independent sources as was available, as a chartered accountant who has also worked both in a paid and voluntary capacity for charities and for ‘not for profit’ organisations, I am unable to understand why in the context of a missing child –
• the Fund (limited company) was set up only days after Madeleine vanished
• the accounts, apart from 2008, are so uninformative
• what has happened to the advance for the book Madeleine which does not appear to have been put into the Fund as people expected
• whether the Fund ever had any paid staff and in particular whether there ever was a Fund Administrator as the official Madeleine website states
• the reluctance to provide meaningful financial information
• the need for so many professional advisors, mainly lawyers and whether their fees were paid fully or in part from the Fund
why the issue of charity status has apparently not been revisited given the obvious benefits to the search for Madeleine.
People everywhere have been touched by the story of this missing child. Many have sent in money they could perhaps ill afford. These people deserve to be treated with respect; and that means publishing detailed and up-to-date information as to what the money has been spent on.”
I suggest a reading of the @Rogatory interviews’ conducted by Leicester Police in conjunction with the Policia Judicaria. Fascinating reading.
A child could read them and work out that a great many lies have been told. The ‘Tapas 7’ should hang their heads in shame. Poor Madeleine. Betrayed by every adult around her. This tragic saga will go down in history, mark my words.
On a point of reference, no evidence of an abduction has ever been displayed or found.
The Mccanns claimed at the beginning that the apartment was locked, then changed their stories.
The 2 events are mutually exclusive.
The true fact that they spent several nights in a row at a Tapas Bar, eating but primarily drinking has been overlooked far too often.
They were selfish, irresponsible parents, who put their own socializing in front of their true responsibility.
THEIR CHILDREN.
I have just read these awful comments. How can you people sleep at night? Mr & Mrs McCann are campaigning to find their child like anyone else would. They just want their daughter back. Wouldn’t you go to every length possible? Wouldn’t you raise funds, keep talking to the press and keep on getting people to look out for her? She’s out there somewhere and one day the lovely McCanns will get her back.
do you know the McCanns personally? are they lovely? can you sleep easily at night thinking you’re championing the cause of the good. well good for you.
Gina Prill.
Have you never seen the sky interview where Mrs. Mccann admitted they never physically searched for their own child.
Now tell me, what kind of parents does that make them ?
Actually it was a BBC interview with Jane Hill – listen here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWCVSjIJk8
“First 48 hours were incredibly difficult – we were almost non-functioning, I’d say….”
So where was the adrenaline?? Why didn’t her ‘flight or fight’ hormone kick in??
Thanks Elementary force. I stand corrected.
its easy to be rational until ur in a irrational sitation. im sure there were heaps of people telling them a search would be no good an to keep calm.
I hardly think that refusing to cooperate with the police, who are trying to find out what happened to your child, constitutes “doing everything possible”. The McCanns interfered with the investigation from the get-go. How they are still running around loose is a mystery.
How can you leave your child that very same night, when at Breakfast she informs you “where were you last night when S*** and I were crying”
Why would you set up a fund when your child could have quite easly been found that same day.
Why would you speak of setting a anniversary concert of your missing child when she could have been found that day or the next.
Why would you not answer 40+ questions when interviewed by the very same Police Officers who are trying to find YOUR missing child, the one you left night after night.
Why do you need a multi millon pound fund, and a on-line shop selling goods relating to your missing child.
Why would you sue the one person who truly wanted to find Madeleine, innocent people would’t NEED to do this would they.
I for one do not hate the McCanns, for one week I actually believed them, until they started the fund, listening to their ever changing events of that night and watching their terrible body language changed that for me, from that day forward I have never once to this day thought they McCanns innocent because they are not.
Whatever happened to Madeleine? the people responseable are the McCanns….she was their responsibilty, their child and it was up to them to lookafter her, in a foreign Country in a foreign apartment, who may I say couldn’t manage to go out and physically look for her the very night she supposedly disappeared, says it all for me.
One day very soon we will all find out the truth I have no doubt about that.
Correction *responsible*
I think they are innocent.
Innocent of what? Anyone who thinks that cannot be conversant with the scale of their lies from the outset. Please take the time to enlighten yourself here: http://www.mccannfiles.com/id31.html then you can engage fully with this debate. Thank you. 🙂
Innocent of what Julia ?
Neglect ?
Would you have repeatedly left your children, night after night, eating, and drinking til the after midnight , in an apartment, all by themselves, and over 5 minuted walking distance away, and latterly they said in an unlocked apartment ????
Ok, so Kate, Gerry and other Tapas members are ‘legally innocent’. So is the thug with a hammer standing over the body he’s just battered until convicted by 12 good men!
I do think this charade is coming to an endgame. PLEASE, people, ANYONE who believes this pair PLEASE read the T9 statements, the LP ‘Rogatories’.
And as you read, remember these are intelligent people. David Payne’s is very interesting – “umm, errr, you know, errr, ummm, I think, erm, eh, uhrm”
Oh and whose statement was it (David or Fiona’s) which stated emphatically that Gerry McCann “did not have a tennis bag large enough to hide… Er put a racquet in”. That is subliminal leakage and forensic linguistics at its best.
And I sleep just fine thank you, so do my two beautiful boys.
Even my 12 year old has worked out they are guilty as sin!
I have a few issues.
1. They courted the press massively. This happens most often in cases where a guilty party is trying to hide something.
2. The police dogs found evidence.
3. The witness statements regarding the forced shutters are highly questionable.
4. Having listened to hours of stuff the McCanns have said I conclude they are hiding something.
5. No trace, no leads, nothing at all to go on.
I am open minded and all I care about is the truth. In my opinion the McCanns are hiding something big. I have worked with some people who have done some horrific things and the body language/tone of voice the McCanns suggest they are hiding something dark. This is only opinion based on experience but I have been right many more times than I’ve been wrong on these issues. The truth will probably never come out. I hope I am wrong and that Maddie is found safe and well.
Their child has been stolen, they’re tortured, they’re persecuted, they’re doing everything they can to find her, they did nothing wrong – it was like they were eating in their back garden, it’s the fault of whomever took her, you’re sick/heartless/deserve to die for thinking they have something to do with it, they’re amazing parents, the Portuguese police were incompetent, they didn’t deserve any of this – the list is endless.
I’ve heard it all before. All of which is ‘standard text’ propaganda put out there by the McCann’s and their team, same as ‘abduction’. For it to have been an abduction, there would need to be some evidence – there is absolutely none at all. Abduction is not proven. This is a disappearance, nothing more. Why people are still maintaining Madeleine was snatched I don’t know, it’s doing her a disservice and quite possibly pushing the whole search down the wrong route. People who don’t know anything about the intricacies of this case are just quoting verbatim from The Sun (amongst others) headlines etc.
Granted, they may not look the ‘type’ who could harm their own child, but who does look the ‘type’ who will, out of interest? The reality is that it’s far more usual that children are harmed by their parents than paedophile rings (not sure where that came from either, same as the jemmied shutters).
The McCann’s are guilty, at least of neglecting their children. The bar they were in was a 3-4 minute walk. Nobody except them and/or the guilty party knows the truth about the doors and windows being locked because there are so many thousands of discrepancies in their statements and those of all their friends.
I’ve been watching this http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=3306139 if you start watching at 5 minutes in, you’ll see Amy Fitzpatrick’s mum and stepfather talking about Amy’s disappearance (note they haven’t called it an abduction or anything other than what it actually is). They also talk about what they do to try finding her – and it’s a million miles away from the McCann’s story. They haven’t set up a company to manage the donations, the money from their book goes into the search fund (where did Kate McCann’s book advance get paid into, it wasn’t in their company accounts aka Madeleine’s Fund?) The Fitzpatricks haven’t tried to shut anyone up or sued anyone, they don’t use the most feared solicitors in the UK and they don’t hire a full time PR spokesman. They are a million miles away from the McCann’s and completely believable with it. Amy’s mum has been hospitalised twice in the last year alone, extreme exhaustion from all the searching they themselves do.
If you are a die-hard McCann supporter, do let me know the similarities between these two cases because I genuinely can’t find any. I would love to be proven wrong so please go for it!
“The Fitzpatricks haven’t tried to shut anyone up or sued anyone, they don’t use the most feared solicitors in the UK and they don’t hire a full time PR spokesman. They are a million miles away from the McCann’s”
And where has it got them exactly? Barely anyone in the world has the faintest idea who ‘the Fitzpatricks’ are or would know anything about their missing child. The McCanns have sought maximum publicity because they want as much human attention paid to find their daughter as possible which is entirely understandable.
So we have £6000 a day at the disposal of Scotland Yard on the search for a missing child. This is tax payer’s money and we , as tax payers, are supposed to be O.K. with the Yard combing through the visions and dreams of psychics now? There are numerous indications that the poor infant never left that apartment alive. What are we to make of this?
£6000 a day!!! That could be helping living children. How many apprenticeships? How many school renovation projects? How many nurses? How many teachers? I despair.
If the Tapas 9 aren’t interviewed under caution soon I will NEVER trust The Met EVER AGAIN.
Read the Rogatory interviews and weep.
Anyone defending the Mccanns needs to be aware that leaving toddlers alone is neglect, – neglect is defined
as a form of child abuse as any Child protection agency will verify. therefore those defending the Mccanns for what they did and making excuses are actually defending and making excuses for child abuse!.
Many are of the opinion that there is a lot more than neglect going on here, for those continually defending the Mccanns google Gaspar Statements, google Yvonne Martin, read the PJ files instead of making benile comments in defence of the Mccanns when you havent even bothered to do the most basic research. There are plenty of websites out there which highlight all the numerous discrepancies in the statements, interviews, book etc.,
A good place to start is ‘The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann’ (jillhavern.forumotion.net)
And analysis of the McCanns own words is by Dr Martin Roberts on mccannfiles.com.
When my wife and I holidayed abroad, our children never left our sight, day and night. No excuses for leaving children alone, none whatsoever.
K
Gina Prill says:
June 2, 2012 at 7:02 pm
I have just read these awful comments. How can you people sleep at night? Mr & Mrs McCann are campaigning to find their child like anyone else would. They just want their daughter back. Wouldn’t you go to every length possible? Wouldn’t you raise funds, keep talking to the press and keep on getting people to look out for her? She’s out there somewhere and one day the lovely McCanns will get her back.
I say this – have you actually read the case files? Or The Sun-sanitized version???
Do you REALLY BELIEVE that releasing a photo that was over a year out of date, when Kate so poignantly described taking ‘the last photo’ (which, ODDLY only appeared 21 days later after Gerry’s return to UK)
If not believing a crock of s**te makes me horrible, so be it.
I almost feel sorry for you, so sucked in by the PR machine. Sad.
They did not use all the fund to pay off their mortgage – that’s just a lie. They made two mortgage payments from it when they were stuck in Portugal back in the summer of 2007.
And yes, before someone starts getting on their high horse and shrieking ‘read the files’ – I did. I was specially impressed by the bit at the end where the Portuguese Attorney general found their was absolutely no case against either them or Murat. A conclusion also apparently arrived at by Scotland Yard.
I take it, kryton, that if you’ve read the infamous ‘archiving despatch’ which ‘clears’ the McCanns (it does no such thing) you will also have been struck by;
1)What the ‘crime’ is logged as
2)The fact that from the first moment Kate, Gerry and the other ‘Tapas’ deliberately caused confusion, lied, (blatantly), did all these strike you too???
The only prints on that window are Kate’s.
Mark my words, if they didn’t physically harm/move Madeleine, they know EXACTLY who did.
As an aside, I do not believe the children were left alone. If you read the statements as you claim you have, don’t you find it odd that the apartment was locked in the daytime, presumably to safeguard passports, valuables etc, but not at NIGHT? Please, tell me WHY that would happen…
Indeed, something along the lines of “Nothing of value was taken” ~ says it all really. Poor, poor Maddie.
kryton says:
June 4, 2012 at 7:50 pm
“A conclusion also apparently arrived at by Scotland Yard.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that…I’m sure Scotland Yard can see what a lot of us can…they just need to make sure everything is in place before they give the McCann’s that early morning call…
Obviously SY are leaving no stone unturned………
http://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t20477p15-hideho-videos-submitted-to-operation-grange#395698
“Article 69 of the Portuguese Constitution states:
1. “Children have the right to be protected by the community and the State for their full development, particularly against all forms of abandonment, discrimination and oppression and against the abuse of authority in the family or other institutions.
The Penal Code revised in September 2007 (Law no. 59/2007) says in article 152:
“Whoever repeatedly, or not, inflicts physical or psychological ill-treatment, including corporal punishment, deprivation of liberty and sexual offences, is punished with 1 to 5 years of imprisonment”.
An important idea introduced by law 147/99 is the concept of danger, defined in the 3rd article. Therefore, the child is in danger, when the child is in harsh condition in terms of security, health, training, education and development. The children or youth are in danger, when:
a) They are abandoned or left to fend for themselves.
b) They are physically and/or psychologically and/or sexually abused.”
Which I think just about covers it. Not surprising that they legged it back to the UK and retained the county’s best extradition lawyers.
(Very interesting that the comments have not been “whooshed’ by you know who.)
Peter Mac,
Very interesting have you sent this comment to Andy Redwood at Scotland Yard to remind him of this.
Well done. Can you send information on Sir Christopher and Lady Meyer to him too?
Just out of interest, the accusation of neglect, is that fabricated to detract from something more serious? Ie the McCann’s hold up their hands to neglect all the way through. They imposed the ‘abduction’ verdict on us, why not the ‘neglect’ one, too?
What if one or both of them were there at the time *whatever* happened to Madeleine but just said they weren’t to absolve as much responsibility as possible? It’s abundantly clear they’re determined to not be seen to play any part (except on the lesser charge of neglect) by the fact they hired within days the most expensive and feared celebrity child-sex-offender lawyers in the country. Surely being guilty of neglect is far more preferable to being found guilty of accidental death/manslaughter/murder/whatever ense you can think of that may have happened to Madeleine.
Just putting it out there for discussion.
Meh, i TOTALLY agree. IMO ‘neglect’ was a cover. EVERY NIGHT ‘at dinner’ and adult was missing from meal, either ‘sick’ or attending to a sick child. Isn’t that odd? you dont get bugs one by one, you all go down like skittles. No, something faaar more sinister went on. Just IMHO (which is allowed, C-R – even Clarence Mitchell said ‘its a complete mystery’)
Oh dear! You just used the word ‘Mystery’. The doctors won’t like that. They recently said as much. How dare we question their version of events? Mind you..Gerald himself said at Leveson that ‘he has no problem with people purporting (sic) theories’. *guffaws*.
Google Gasper Statement. Google Eddie and Keela mccann.Make your own mind up I have.
Ian, I have. My mind was pretty sure from day one. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck – its a duck. People are being had, big time!
I fear it is their fault, if they had not left the child the child would not have been taken. What is it that people do not get about this?
The scent of a cadaver in the McCann’s holiday apartment, in the hire car,
Dogs don’t lie. this cover up continues with the help of the Murdock press and UK government. Murdock has them all in his pocket.