GNR OFFICER BRIBED?McCANNS SEEK TO FRAME DYING HEWLETT/WHOOPS NOW THEY ARE ON TO A MURDERER:-)))PJ HAD INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CHARGE MCCANNS

KATE I JUST HAD TO GIVE THEM OUR MORTGAGE MONEY OR WE GET LOCKED UP..please forgive me hun x

Maddie case: GNR suspected of receiving 120 thousand eurosHe was one of the first agents to arrive in Praia da Luz. PJ is already investigating the handover of “live” moneyOne of the Guarda Nacional Republicana agents who was first to arrive at the resort in Praia da Luz and at the McCann couple’s apartment is suspected of having received over 120 thousand euros of “live” money, a short time after Maddie’s disappearance. This GNR officer is essential to the entire investigation, given the fact that he was among the first to arrive at the location where the little girl disappeared, and also one of the first people to get into contact with the parents.TVI has established that the case of the sudden 120 thousand euros in the GNR officer’s hands is being investigated by the Polícia Judiciária (PJ).On the night that Maddie McCann disappeared, the first authorities to arrive on location were the GNR officers. It was their task to search the apartment, to perform the initial searches, to speak with the McCann couple, and to direct the searches on the beach and in the village, namely the open areas where sewer and piping works were under way, only tens of metres away from the resort that the British family had booked for their holidays.Gerry’s suspicious walkAccording to depositions that were made within the process, the GNR agents even witnessed a walk by Gerry McCann, late in the night, near the church in Praia da Luz. All fundamental moments to understand what happened to the missing child.TVI knows that one of the first agents that took care of the event is being targeted by an inquiry. The issue is an amount of over 120 thousand euros that were received in cash, on two bank accounts under his name, one of which at Caixa Geral de Depósitos. The most serious coincidence is that the money started being deposited, on those accounts, only a short time after the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann.This amount is much higher than that of a GNR officer’s salary and was deposited on “live” money, according to investigation sources, in parts of over 10 thousand euros.Officer denies depositsThe investigation into these deposits is being carried out by DCICCEF [Central Directory for the Investigation of Corruption and Economical and Financial Crime], which tries to understand the reasons for these payments. Even if their illegality is proved, a connection to the Maddie case may not exist, despite the strong temporal coincidence and the high amount of money.Contacted by TVI, the officer denied the existence of said deposits, having offered the possibility that his name was unduly used to open those accounts. Police sources in the area manifested their strangeness concerning the possibility that this officer, whom they consider of honest reputation, could be involved in illegal actions.source: IOL Diário, 19.06.2009Last edited by astro on Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Portuguese police 'don't have enough evidence to charge Madeleine's parents' Last updated at 22:52pm on 14.09.07
Add your view

• Police admit there's 'nothing concrete' for prosecution
• 'Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives'
• Kate's diary says 'she struggled with hyperactive children'
• Holiday friends to be interrogated by detectives again
Portuguese police do not have enough evidence yet to charge Kate and Gerry McCann over the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.
Senior sources admitted there was "nothing concrete" to bring a prosecution.
A source at the Policia Judiciara said today: "There are lots of indications but without more elements it is impossible to determine what has happened in the almost four hours vital to the case from 6pm [on 3 May, when Madeleine vanished].
Scroll down for more ...
Kate (with Madeleine's toy Cuddle Cat) and Gerry McCann were today driven for talks with their lawyer at a secret location
"Even if we confirm the blood and other remains taken from the car or the apartment correspond 100 per cent to the girl's DNA that does not prove anything.
"These elements would only just about confirm that the girl was in the apartment, which is obvious, and in the car.
"In either of these two cases that would not prove homicide, just that the body of the girl had been transported in the car.
We don't know if Maddy is dead and if she is how it happened. We have nothing concrete."
Scroll down for more ...
Hire car: A senior source has said even if 'evidence' found in the car corresponds to Madeleine's DNA 'that does not prove anything'
Police in Portugal are still awaiting vital test results from the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham on blood stains found at another apartment.
The Mail's sister paper, the Evening Standard, has been told the apartment being scrutinised is next door to the one from which Madeleine disappeared, (THE APT OF RACHEL AND MAT OLDFIELD) and police believe it may hold the key to where her body could have been stored in the hours afterwards.
Today's development came after reports that Madeleine died from an overdose of sedatives.
Police are working on the theory that she was repeatedly drugged by her parents, the Evening Standard reveals.
Murat denies joining the search for Madeleine on May 3, when she went missing
Detectives in the Algarve have asked British forensic experts to look for evidence that the toddler was given pills on the night of her disappearance and on earlier occasions.
The aim is to show that an alleged overdose that police appear to believe killed Madeleine was not a "one-off" accident or caused by the child mistakenly taking the drugs.
Instead, police want to show that use of drugs on the four-year-old was part of a pattern of behaviour that would have ended with her death.
Today's revelation follows the claim by a French newspaper that forensic results show Madeleine died after taking a "large quantity" of sleeping pills.
It would also explain why detectives this week applied to seize Kate McCann's diary, which is understood to describe how she struggled to cope with her "hyperactive" children.
Alleged extracts from the diary, published in two Portuguese newspapers, say the 39-year-old GP found it difficult to control Madeleine and her twin siblings, and the effort sapped her strength and emotions.
The McCanns have always denied sedating Madeleine and have described such claims as "ludicrous".
Police have asked scientists who have been testing samples from the McCanns' Renault Scenic hire car, rented 25 days after she went missing, to check for traces of drugs.
The samples allegedly include Madeleine's bodily fluids and hair, and the test can be done by examining strands of hair which absorb drug traces.
As they grow, the hairs create a "timeline" of consumption that can date back weeks or months.
Sources close to the investigation expressed caution about the claim that forensic tests "proved" Madeleine died from an overdose.
Preliminary tests carried out at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham, sent to Portugal last week, are understood to give "indications" that Madeleine had ingested drugs.
Further results have been sent to Portugal this week.
Today the McCanns were driven from their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, for talks with their lawyer at a secret location.
They left in a silver BMW driven by solicitor Angus McBride.(ONE OF THE SEVEN HUNDREND POUNDS AN HOUR LONDON LAWYERS WHO IT WOULD SEEM THEY CAN NO LONGER AFFORD, ED SMETHURST IS INSTEAD QUOTED AS THEIR SOLICITOR BUT HE WORKS FOR BRIAN KENNEDY AS A COMMERCIAL/COMPANY LAWYER AND HAS NO EXPERIENCE IN CRIMINAL/FAMILY LAW ETC OR LIBEL FOR THAT MATTER) Mrs McCann's parents Brian and Susan Healy followed in another car. (I WONDER WHY!!)
Immediately afterwards Gerry's sister Trish Cameron drove the couple's two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie away.
Earlier it emerged that close friends of the McCanns will be interrogated by detectives in coming days.
Senior police sources say officers want to question further at least some of the seven friends who were holidaying with the McCanns when Madeleine vanished from the family's apartment on 3 May.
It is thought Russell O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner are among those who will be quizzed.


Questions will be asked on alleged confusion over timings as the party sat down for dinner at a tapas bar, yards from where Madeleine was sleeping in the Mark Warner complex in Praia da Luz.
Ms Tanner has already told police she saw a man carry a child from the apartment wrapped in a blanket. (she no longer mentions this blanket which the police found still in the flat)
Mr O'Brien said he left the dining table at one point to look after his young daughter, who was ill.
The friends could be asked to return to Portugal early next week.
Police are also looking at either travelling to Britain, or using British officers to carry out the interviews.
However, it is understood nothing has emerged in recent days to shift the focus of the inquiry from Madeleine's parents.
There is growing anger among those close to the McCanns. They claim police have bungled, are making Madeleine's parents "scapegoats", and are determined to find the couple guilty at all costs of killing Madeleine.
Today they accused detectives of failing to investigate fully the only other formal suspect in the case, Robert Murat.
Close friends of the McCanns remain convinced Mr Murat is still the most likely suspect, although he denies any involvement and the police investigation into him appears to have drawn a blank.
(yes, yes and now they are convinced it is the dying Mr Hewlett after they have done their extensive paedo search of any in Portugal at the time to hang the blame on_
Robert Murat was named as an arguido - an official suspect - early in the investigation
Like the McCanns, Mr Murat has been named an arguido - a formal suspect. Sources close to the couple insist he lied about his whereabouts on 3 May.
Mr O'Brien, Fiona Payne and Rachael Oldfield - all friends of the McCanns - and a Portuguese local have testified they saw Mr Murat helping the search for Madeleine on 3 May.
Mr Murat, who was born in Britain but grew up in Portugal, lives with his mother in a villa in Praia da Luz near the McCanns' apartment.
He is said to have introduced himself to the three friends on the night of the search, saying: "I'm Robert. Can I help?"
But he has denied this and insisted he spent the evening with his mother and girlfriend.
"I cannot believe Murat is no longer being investigated," said a source close to the McCanns.
"He is lying about being there on the night. They cannot understand why it hasn't been followed up why Murat lied. Kate and Gerry are being scapegoated."
Mr Murat, 33, insists he is the victim of a smear campaign.
He acted as a translator in the early days of the inquiry until suspicions about his behaviour began to grow.
No forensic evidence has linked him to the girl's disappearance.
Friends of the McCanns also cast doubt on the ability of Portuguese officers to carry out proper forensics work.
Today, a source suggested to the Standard that labels for findings from Mr Murat's vehicles may have got confused with labels from the McCanns' car. "They could easily have got the labels mixed up," said the source. (such a ridiculous allegation by "sources close to the McCanns just fairly beggars belief and does indicate they know they are guilty IMO, otherwise they would not make such an outrageous claim to try and frame Murat)




Smirking, scheming Gerry McCann, the only major suspect, along with his wife, the Police have ever been interested in for the disappearance of the daughter they chose to repeatedly neglect and leave to cry, no matter what she said.

Just like they did with Robert Murat and many others, but this time it would seem they intend the mud to stick as the latest McCann Patsy is close to death. Good move Gerry? I hardly think so. It would seem this man was investigated and eliminated from supsicion by Portuguese detectives, unlike you!

I think Gerry becomes increasingly desperate to try and shake off the horror of what he did to his own little girl.

xx
Maddie suspect Raymond Hewlett admits he doesn't have an alibi for night she disappeared


EXCLUSIVE from Simon Wright in Aachen, Germany 14/06/2009
Convicted paedophile talks for the first time about Maddie investigation, but says he did not kill her.

Broken, frail, with only weeks to live, Raymond Hewlett is the man the McCanns fear could take the secrets of their daughter’s disappearance to the grave.
The convicted child rapist – who has been catapulted into the frame over the hunt for Madeleine – sits hunched up in a squalid German flat, gasping for breath as he finally breaks his silence.
“It’s obvious why they’re interested in me,” croaks Hewlett, 64. “But they can all think what they like. I didn’t kill the McCann girl. It’s the truth and it’s never going to change.”
The man jailed three times for sex attacks on girls today speaks out for the first time in a bid to clear his name amid the mountain of circumstantial evidence against him.
Hewlett, who has been in hiding ever since he was named in connection with the case, admits he was in the Algarve at the time Madeleine was snatched and, as our pictures show, that he looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked face seen lurking around the apartment.
And five weeks after she disappeared, he left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long “business trip”.
There, he told Peter Verran, a tourist he had befriended, that he’d become obsessed with the case and he admitted being outside the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz “many times” and parking his van close to the complex.
What’s more he is refusing to give an alibi for the night Madeleine, three, vanished.
“I have an alibi but why should I share it?” he says, struggling for air with each syllable.
“There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring them into this? I’ve done nothing wrong. Why should I have to prove it?
“My life’s been made a misery for something I know nothing about and a crime I’ve not committed.
“I’d take a lie-detector test. I’ll take any test you like. The only time I’ve seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I’ve never seen her in real life. Yes I’ve been to Praia da Luz, but not since 2002.”
But those claims contradict what former Scots Guard Mr Verran, 46, says Hewlett told him – that he was in and around Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.
The McCanns’ private detectives first became aware of father-of-six Hewlett in February this year when his name was given to them during local door-to-door inquiries.
His distinctive live-in Dodge truck, large family and bizarre nomad lifestyle singled him out.
Further checks into his past revealed his previous convictions in Britain, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl he lured into his car and then drugged with paint stripper, an attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl he snatched from a fair and threatened with a fake gun and the abduction of a 14-year-old newspaper delivery girl.
The McCanns’ investigators began searching for him, keen to eliminate him from inquiries.
Portuguese detectives told UK officers they were unaware of his existence until the McCann team uncovered his name.
But bizarrely, Hewlett tells the Sunday Mirror he was visited twice by Portuguese police over the Maddie case and gave detectives a DNA swab and fingerprints, although he was never arrested or quizzed.
The McCanns’ investigators are unsure whether to believe him or the detectives in Portugal. Hewlett says that Portuguese police, acting on unknown information, swooped on his truck while he was had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain in August 2008.
He also says that local police helping in the search for Maddie visited him, wife Mariana and their children in the summer of 2007.
He says: “They checked that all the children living with us were ours. Our youngest girl looks a bit like her. But they saw everything was OK and they left.
“The police came again in August last year and told Mariana it was about the McCann girl. They asked for me and Mariana told them I was in hospital. They came to see me and asked permission to take DNA and fingerprints. I was very sick and barely able to speak to them. They asked where we parked in the Algarve in the first half of 2007.
“I told them, ‘You know where we’ve been because you know us round there.’
“I knew why they were asking, because I’d seen the TV and newspapers. By then, that McCann kid’s photo was in every shop and supermarket you went in to. I’ve got previous convictions for child-sex crimes so my heart sank. I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’
"I was miles from the UK but it didn’t make any difference. I’d tried hard to build a new life. But the reality for me is that my past convictions will never go away.
"I have to put up with it because it’s always going to be this way. I gave them their DNA and fingerprints. I knew they were just doing their job but I was angry. I had enough to cope with. I had cancer and no money.”
At the time Madeleine vanished, Hewlett and his family were moving between three towns in the Algarve – Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and Tavira – all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. They scraped money together by picking up unwanted jumble and old car parts, then selling it on.
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Hewlett, originally from Todmorden, West Yorks, and Mariana first arrived in Portugal from her native Germany in the summer of 2002. They had been together five years after meeting in Italy. He was a mechanic on a tourist boat and Mariana worked as a cleaner for the boat’s owners on the Mediterranean island of Elba.
They embarked on a tour of Europe in the converted Dodge truck. He had installed beds for their children, a sink, cooker and shower.
At that point the couple had four children – David, 10, who died when he fell from their moving truck in December last year, Michael, nine, Anya, eight, and Jobe, seven, who were all born in Germany. Yanina, six, and Paul, three, were born during their travels across the Algarve, and the youngest Daniel, now six-and-a-half months, was born in Spain.
“We’d stop in various places and decide whether to hang around there,” he says. “It would depend on the weather and how easy it was to make money. I used to busk on the street, playing guitar. I can’t really play but people would give me money anyway.”
Hewlett says he was 60 miles away – in Vila Real de Santo Antonio – when Maddie was taken. Crucially, he says he cannot specifically remember being there that day.
“May 3 was a Thursday and I was always in Vila Real Santo Antonio on Thursdays,” he says. “My routine never altered. That’s 100km from Praia da Luz.
“If you asked people there if we were there on that day, I don’t know what they’d say. Maybe they can’t remember. If you ask them if we were normally there, they’d say yes. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were living the way we were, I wouldn’t be able to say so clearly that that was where I was.
“It’s only because of the way we live that I can say it. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to prove anything.
“Our truck was our only vehicle. I didn’t have another vehicle to go anywhere in. It’s a high-profile vehicle. Once you see it, you never forget it. It was like that purposefully because I wanted people to see us. I didn’t want to be hiding.”
But he claims that a female friend who shot a home video of him and his family on May 5 – two days after Maddie vanished – could vouch for his whereabouts on May 3.
The 30-minute video – seen by the Sunday Mirror – shows Hewlett, Mariana and their seven children laughing at the camera and playing games with each other at a market they regularly attended in the Portuguese town of Fuzeta every Sunday, less than 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
His youngest daughter Yanina bears a striking resemblance to missing Maddie.
He says: “The friend who made the video would remember where I was two days earlier. She could tell anyone where I was. But I haven’t asked her and I don’t intend to.
“Why should I ask her? I don’t think I should involve anybody. Why should I keep dragging people in to this. I don’t like being in it, so why should I keep putting people’s names forward so that they get bothered with it too?
“I could ask her, but if she says no, then sorry, the answer is no. Then people will just have to carry on speculating.”
A month later, on June 10, Hewlett left Portugal and took his family to Morocco.
He said: “A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts.
“I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I’d been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there.
“I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco for two months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts.”
His voice so weak it is at times barely audible, today Hewlett is holed up in his cramped, sparce apartment, with Mariana, 33, and six young children.
The family arrived there six weeks ago as his health deteriorated, and Mariana is able to get state benefits.
Hewlett was last month tracked down by the McCanns’ detectives to a hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. The detectives had hoped to put a series of questions to him but he refused to see them and they were forced to return to the UK empty-handed.
This week, they travelled there for a second time but he was deemed too ill to undergo intensive questioning.
Today as he wastes away on the fourth floor of a tower block, Hewlett is close to death. Doctors discharged him from hospital, telling him there is nothing more they can do for him, and his weight has plummeted to just 45kg. Instead of expressing sympathy for Kate and Gerry McCann, he insists people should feel sorry for him.
“I would say to the McCanns that I know what it’s like to lose a child because it’s happened to me recently,” he says.
“I’ve been through hell and now I’ve got another hell which I don’t deserve. I know for a fact that I didn’t do anything wrong, but if people aren’t listening, what can you do?”
Shaking with pain, he repeats: “I didn’t kill the McCann girl.”
simon.wright@sundaymirror.co.uk

Nursery Worker sexually assaults tots

Vanessa George, arrested at her home address

Presumably this vile woman actually perpetrated the assaults on tots in her care so that images could be offered for sale. There are no words I can think of to express my revulsion at her conduct, other than my heart goes out to all the parents who trusted this evil woman with their tiny tots and I hope she gets a very lengthy sentence for seemingly being at the top of the "chain of supply". It is noticeable the male charged is in connection with distribution of the images, not actually perpetuating these terrible assaults.

The trauma to the parents who may not even know if their child has been assaulted and are having to fill in questionnaires about any distinguishing features is just unimaginable. And what of the little children themselves, what a truly wicked and disgusting woman. She is going to get one hell of a tough ride in custody!

------

From The TimesJune 11, 2009

Little Ted's nursery worker Vanessa George charged with child abuse
(SWNS.com)
Vanessa George
Simon de Bruxelles
Alpha Mummy: every parent's fear

Dozens of parents are waiting to discover whether their children were among those allegedly assaulted by a nursery worker charged with sexual abuse of those in her care.

Vanessa George, a mother of two, will appear in court today charged with seven offences, including two of sexual assault by penetration and two of sexual assault by touching. She was also charged with making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

Mrs George, 39, was arrested on Monday night after indecent images of children taken at Little Ted’s Day Nursery in Plymouth, were found on a computer disc seized by police from a suspected paedophile in Manchester.

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Police said yesterday that the photographs included pictures of children’s torsos taken on a camera phone at the nursery, where Mrs George is believed to have worked for the past two years.

So far, none of the children has been identified, and the officer leading the investigation said that some of them might never be. Parents of the 64 children, aged between 2 and 5, have been asked to complete a questionnaire and list any features that could help to identify individual children from the images.

Computers and other equipment seized during raids on the nursery, in the grounds of Laira Primary School, and on Mrs George’s home are being examined by experts from Devon and Cornwall police.

Chief Superintendent Jim Webster, the police commander for Plymouth, said: “It is a disturbing situation. As we go through the painstaking task of identifying who may be concerned, we are focusing on communication with the families we believe are involved.”

Russ Middleton, the head of Plymouth CID, said: “At this time we have been unable to identify any images of individual children and it is right to say some images may never be identified.” The number of photographs being examined by the computer experts could eventually run into thousands, Mr Middleton said, though he could not say how many had been taken in the nursery.

He added: “We have specially trained officers looking at the images. We have a large number taken from laptops and PCs but the starting point was from a camera phone. Some of these images were clearly taken inside the nursery but it is impossible to say where others were taken.”

Mr Middleton would not disclose in what capacity Mrs George was employed at the nursery or whether she had undergone a criminal records check.

Plymouth City Council said: “As a private day care nursery provider, the unit’s management would have a duty to ensure all staff had the appropriate CRB [Criminal Records Bureau] checks carried out.”

Paul O’Sullivan, the director of Health Services for Children and Families, said that a support line had been opened to provide advice to concerned parents.

Mrs George’s arrest followed that of Colin Blanchard, who appeared at Trafford Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged with possessing and distributing indecent images.

Officers searched a caravan that Mrs George owns at Harlyn Bay near Padstow, Cornwall, in addition to the family home in the Efford area of Plymouth. Police said that her husband, Andrew, and two teenage children had been taken into “protective care”.

Police will be speaking to the nursery’s 15 other members of staff but say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the investigation.



BBC report
Woman charged with sexual assault

Vanessa George was arrested at her home
A nursery worker has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and three counts relating to the distribution of indecent images of children.
Vanessa George, 39, of Plymouth, Devon, was arrested at her home in the Efford area of the city on Monday night.
Police said they believed some images found may have been taken inside the Little Ted's nursery where she worked.
Ms George is in police custody and due to appear before Plymouth Magistrates' Court on Thursday, officers said.
As well as the sexual assault charges, Ms George faces one count each of making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.
Little Ted's nursery, in Laira, remains closed.
Russ Middleton, head of CID at Devon and Cornwall Police, describes the investigation
About 40 police officers are working on the case, including internet crime investigators. Children's care specialists are also involved in the operation, police said.
At a police press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Ch Supt Jim Webster of Devon and Cornwall Police said officers realised it was a "very sensitive issue" and a "significant and distressing situation".
Police said work was under way to identify the children in the images, some of which were found on a camera phone, but added it was possible that not all of them would be traced because some pictures were only of torsos.
However, Det Ch Supt Russ Middleton, head of Devon and Cornwall CID, told the conference: "It is safe to say we believe some of the images were taken in the nursery, but others... it is impossible to say where that may be."

The nursery remains closed
Police added that they were to carry out investigations on computer equipment that had been seized, and that a caravan near Harlyn Bay, near Padstow in Cornwall, had been searched as well.
Plymouth City Council and the NHS in Plymouth said that support would be provided for the children and families who used the nursery.
The council's director of Children's Services, Bronwyn Lacey, said about 95 families were being contacted.
She said: "Our plan is that today every family that we know about will have had either a phone call or a visit by a social worker and a police family liaison officer."
Police said they were continuing to speak to staff and parents of children who used the nursery.
About 100 people attended a meeting on Tuesday evening held by police and local council child care staff for parents whose children attended the nursery.
Bronwyn Lacey, director of Children's Services, says they have contacted families
Ch Supt Webster said: "Last night's meeting was well attended by those people associated with the nursery and we took the opportunity to allay their fears where possible and also further the police investigation into the allegations.
"We will continue to liaise with local groups and people associated with the nursery and are committed with our partners to update concerned and interested parties at the earliest opportunity."
Police gave no indication as to when the nursery, which caters for about 60 children, would reopen.
Ms George was arrested after Devon and Cornwall Police were contacted by officers in Manchester after a 38-year-old man from near Rochdale was charged in connection with the investigation.
The man, from Littleborough, appeared at Trafford Magistrates' Court on Tuesday charged with possessing and distributing indecent images.

Tunisia will never be quite the same again:-)))

luke gets a few more tips off the professional photographer













luke helps give a very professional performance of Riverdance!











Mom repeatedly nicked all the best toy boys
my yacht that my ex employers bought for me, which was nice x
Luke and I are encouraged to become the entertainment!

ICE COLD MCCANNS - MORE ADVERSE MEDIA

Why it's hard to warm to ice-cold McCanns

MY SHOCK OVER KATE'S ADMISSION

McCann

STILL SEARCHING: Kate and Gerry McCann

DID any of you see the McCanns on Oprah on Thursday night?

Two years on and isn't it amazing how we're still all glued to watching Gerry and Kate discuss the disappearance of their young daughter Maddie?

While I couldn't even begin to imagine their anguish, I couldn't help but be shocked at the size of their palatial home in Wales.

After all, these were a couple who left their three young children alone in a small apartment, while they went off to enjoy themselves for the evening at a bar down the road.

Surely a family of their obvious wealth could have afforded a nanny to help them out, or at the very least a babysitter for each of the evenings they went out and left the kids?

Chance

I've said it before, but what would have happened if they weren't both influential doctors? What if they were just working-class people who scraped up enough money for the holiday, couldn't afford a babysitter and just took a chance?

The McCanns have always seemed to me to be a little cold in their dealings with the world's media in their quest to find their daughter.

So I couldn't believe my ears when Oprah asked how they now treated their twins. "Are you afraid to let them out of your sight?" asked Oprah. I assumed, like everyone else, Kate would say, "Of course!"

MISSING: Maddie

MISSING: Maddie

But instead, Kate looked a bit distant for a moment before coming back with, "Eh, well... we have to let them live their lives. And we have to let them grow."

I nearly fell off the seat! Anyone who I've discussed the situation with before would agree that you'd have the other kids tied to you at all times.

Nightmare

Hopefully for the sake of Maddie's younger brother and sister, the mystery of her disappearance will be solved sooner rather than
later.

Like in the case of Philip Cairns, whose remains Gardai were once again searching for this week in Dublin, I'm hoping for both families' sakes that these latest developments might put an end to their nightmares. No family deserves to continue with not knowing where their child may be.

WHAT 12 YEAR OLD WITNESS REALLY SAW/THE TIMES CONDEMN MADELEINE WAS HERE CH 4 "DOCUMENTARY"

compliments of Joana Morais, the truth about the twelve year old witness and what she really saw as opposed to the rubbish on "Madeleine was here" Did Kate prepare this comedy e-fit loosely basing it on Gerry, if so, good subliminal message Kate, now get to the point! I wonder how much Kate is paying her very own little keystone cops? Funny it took Kate nearly a year to find this in the PJ files, it took Joana Morais just a few hours, I think and she even got the real e-fit!

Deposition of 12-year-old girl according to case files

Deposition of T. M. S., aged 12, a resident in Luz, on the 9th of May 2007, 4 p.m.
Page 800-804, volume III of process 201/07.0GALGS

"Comes to the process as a witness. Understands the Portuguese Language, as she has been living in Portugal since the age of two months (approximately eleven years ago). Still, an interpreter is present [name withheld].

Her parents are separated, she initially resided in Monchique, and now in Praia da Luz, since 2005, at the address that is stated above, with her Mother.

She also mentions that she lived in the apartment where the missing child was staying, that belonged to her Grandmother, who is already deceased. That she didn’t actually reside there, but spent extensive and repeated periods of time there, with her Grandmother and her Mother. The apartment was bought in 1994 and sold in 2002 and therefore she knows it perfectly, both from the inside and from the outside.

She wishes to clarify. On the 30th of April, Monday, at around 8 a.m. and when she was walking to the bus stop for the school bus that leaves at 8.15, a path that she walks every day when there is school, she noticed the presence of a male individual, at the back of Madeleine’s house, on a little pathway to the apartments that exists there, looking in an ostensive manner at the house’s balcony. This happened when she was walking down the street, on the left side, which was right in front of the balcony, and the distance between them was the width of the road. That when she was walking down she decided to look at the pathway, because as she lived there, she likes to watch the house and the neighbouring garden. She walked with her mother, that she is certain she didn’t see the man, and she was walking two dogs on a leash, which forced them to cross the road, a bit further down. At that moment she saw the man more closely, as they crossed the road, and then lost visual angle when they finished crossing.

Says that the man didn’t see the deponent, because he was staring at the balcony.

She presumes that nobody was on Madeleine’s house’s balcony, but she cannot state it beyond doubt.

After crossing, she caught the bus and went to school and her mother went on the beach to walk the dogs.

When she returned from school, at around 5.30/5.40 p.m., after leaving the bus, she walked a different path, because the bus has a stop on the street where she lives, and therefore she doesn’t need to walk down to the ‘Ocean Club’. She didn’t see the man again at that time, nor did she see him again until the 2nd of May, Wednesday, after the bank holiday.

That on that day she didn’t go to school because she was sick with an infection in her right ear. Still, and feeling somewhat better, at around noon she left on her own, as her mother was at work, with the dogs, and went to the ‘Alisuper’ supermarket which is located on a perpendicular to Rua Direita, where she bought chocolates for €3,63. Then she walked to the pharmacy, which is located below the ‘Baptista’ supermarket, on a lateral perspective, where she bought a box of tampons for her ears, to prevent water from getting in, and spent €4,55. Then she went to ‘Baptista’ supermarket to buy cereal bread, because they don’t sell it at ‘Alisuper’. She left the dogs tied at the back entrance of ‘Baptista’ and went in to buy the bread. She paid, left ‘Baptista’, collected the dogs, and walked across the supermarket’s hall to the main entrance, approximately four/five metres, which exits to the street where she had seen the man. She started walking up the street on the left side going up, and saw the man, this time in front of the ‘Ocean Club’s’ reception, once more looking at Madeleine’s house in an ostensive manner, where he stood he could observe, she thinks, the house’s two side windows and part of the balcony. She thinks that he could also be looking at the other residences that are located in the same direction.

That as she was walking up she walked right in front of the man, and observed him directly, an action that he did not retaliate, because he never looked at the deponent. The distance that she observed him from was the width of the road.

After walking by the individual, she walked towards her house, through the road to the right, and never looked back to the man, or turned around to observe him better.

After that day she never saw him again.

As she said before, she left home at 12 p.m. and returned at 12.35 p.m., which means she crossed with the man at around 12.25/12.28 (the rest of the walk takes about seven minutes).

On the next day, Thursday (03.05.2007) she walked the same path as on the 30th, at the same time, but didn’t see the man, and never saw him again, as she said before.


Concerning the individual, she describes him as being: Caucasian race, light skin, so he wasn’t Portuguese, but could be British, according to her criteria. Approximately 180 cm tall, thin complexion, 30/35 years of age. Short hair, like shaved with 1 cm of length and fair, but she isn’t sure if it was blonde because the sun was reflecting, and made perception more difficult. She didn’t see the eyes because he wore dark glasses of black colour, with a structure of mass, a thick frame. He had a large forehead. Nose of normal size, a bit pointy and sharp. Large ears, close against the head. Mouth with thin lips, she didn’t see his teeth. Chin pointing up, which stood out on a face that she describes as sharp. No beard, no moustache, a clean shave. No other special signs, apart from some small pimples on the face as a result of shaving. He looked ugly, even ‘disgusting’.

The first time that she saw him he was wearing a sports style jacket of thin black leather, with a zipper and several pockets also with similar zippers, in silver. She saw no label or inscription. The jacket was open, therefore she saw a white t-shirt, with a dark blue label near the waist, which she cannot identify very well.

Trousers, she thinks, of blue jeans, worn out. Sports shoes (trainers) in black and grey, with a wave, maybe ‘Nike’ in a colour that she can’t remember.

The second time, he wore the same jacket, this time zipped up, because the day was colder than the first one, windy. She didn’t notice the rest of the clothing. She says that on that day he had a pen with a string attached to one of his pockets.

The first time, he was leaning against the wall against his hands, and the second time, he had his hands in his pockets.

She never saw him with any photo camera, or any mobile phone, although the second time, he might have a device in his pocket, which she detected by the shape.

When asked, she says that she saw no vehicle near the man, only a few vehicles, but near the ‘Baptista’.

When asked she says that she saw Madeleine once, on a day that she cannot indicate, on the balcony where the man was staring at, the first time. She even waved at her because it was a small child, in a caring gesture.

A map of the area is added, where A is the spot of the first sighting and B the spot for the second one. The ‘Baptista’ supermarket and Madeleine’s apartment.

She said that she can recognise the man both personally and photographically, and create a photofit.

Therefore I interrupt the present deposition and show the deponent photographs of individuals with similar characteristics.

I resume the deposition where it is consigned that the diligence resulted negatively, according to a report that is annexed.

She didn’t say anything further. The deposition is read and approved, ratified and signed together with the interpreter that assisted.

The present deposition is written and signed."

+/-

+/-

------------
What an excellent and honest critique on the drip feed from Team McCann of just what they want us to know and nothing else. Channel 4 were hardly Cutting Edge here!

They also exemplify the clear marital rift between Kate and Gerry with Clarence their spokesman refusing to comment!

Let us hope the British Press are going to continue to wake up and look at the reality!

xx


From The Times
May 8, 2009
Cutting Edge: Madeleine Was Here; Tim Teeman
Cutting Edge: Madeleine Was Here (Channel 4)
There is a very macabre dance around Madeleine McCann, as we mark the second anniversary of her disappearance. There are no law enforcement agencies on the case. Instead, alongside Kate, Madeleine’s mother, two retired detectives are poring over recently released Portuguese police files. Last night’s Cutting Edge was called Madeleine Was Here and — to keep yesterday’s pre-transmission front pages furnished — revealed a suspect from deep within the files; a man who was, according to witnesses, watching the McCann’s Praia da Luz apartment.
Gerry returned to the apartment block and some reconstructions were filmed. Last week, the McCanns appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show with a computer-generated image of how their daughter would appear now.
To keep the chances of finding her alive, the McCanns have to keep the story alive, and Cutting Edge observed the McCanns at home: a picture of determinedly amiable domestic life emerged. But the family is uncomfortably beached between a desire for privacy and a desire for as much publicity as possible to find Madeleine.
This presents a problem for them, and for documentary-makers and journalists. The dripfeed of information (like the new suspect) and access to the McCanns is controlled by the family and their press representative Clarence Mitchell. The journalism of the Cutting Edge documentary was thus skewed to whatever the McCann’s agenda was. It was hard to see what material Cutting Edge had uncovered itself: it seemed to just record whatever the McCanns wanted us to see.
Oprah quite reasonably asked them how their marriage had survived the last two awful years. The documentary, despite its access and illusion of family intimacy, didn’t dare ask such things. When I asked Mitchell and the documentary-maker the same question at a screening on Wednesday, I received a curt dismissal: that wasn’t the intention of Madeleine Was Here, apparently.
But that doesn’t mean my question, or indeed any question is invalid just because it doesn’t fit with the McCann/Mitchell agenda, especially when TV cameras have been invited into their home to show how jolly nice everything is under the circumstances.
Kate and Gerry McCann may well feel their privacy has been invaded, but then they want the media to do their bidding on their terms. It’s a mess — a very unhappy, tragic one. The McCanns need the media and the media needs the McCanns, but it’s a scrappy, compromising relationship for both sides. Let’s hope it yields the desired result.
ER (More4)

RAPE MONSTER CONVICTED /DAILY MAIL MAN WAS HORRIBLY RIGHT ABOUT GERRY AND KATE MCCANN

What an incredibly brave and intelligent little girl to get this sickening animal locked up for life, but how on earth did we think it was justice to subject her, aged 4 to cross examination? That is frankly appalling, has this child not suffered enough. It really just adds to the trauma and horror at her treatment that she has faced this again to secure a second conviction for this animal.

But read the article, is there a warning to all of us in there about continuing to comment on the McCann case, David Payne etc?

Baby P monster raped girl of two: Stepfather faces life in jail after tiny victim makes legal history in court ordeal

By Vanessa Allen
Last updated at 2:23 AM on 02nd May 2009

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The man responsible for the death of Baby P was yesterday convicted of the rape of a two-year-old girl.

The sadistic 32-year-old was found guilty after the girl became, at the age of four, the youngest rape victim in legal history to give evidence.

She endured 45 minutes of cross examination by two defence barristers after her filmed police statement had been played to the Old Bailey.

Police and children's charities reacted with fury last night over the fact she was subjected to such an intimidating court ordeal.

Baby P's stepfather was found guilty of raping a two-year-old child today

The girl was attacked by Baby P's stepfather while she was supposedly being monitored by Haringey Council. This is the same London borough which also failed Baby P and an earlier victim of abuse, Victoria Climbie.

The stepfather - convicted last year of causing or allowing Baby P's death - is now facing a possible life sentence for rape and will be placed on the Sex Offenders' Register.

Psychiatrists have warned he will always be a danger to children, and police are investigating concerns that he abused two other girls. An independent investigation has begun into how he was able to target the girl, seemingly under the nose of the local authority.

His dramatic conviction meant a ban on reporting the trial was lifted. It came as:

• Baby P can be named for the first time as Peter, at the request of his real father,
  
• A report into his death said it could have been prevented,
  
• Haringey issued a grovelling apology over its failures to protect the children,
  
• The Attorney General investigated an internet 'name and shame' campaign which risked derailing the trial and led to the defendants being given false names.

Sharon Shoesmith: Sacked in December over the Baby P scandal

Baby Peter's mother had faced a charge of cruelty in relation to the rape, but was found not guilty by the jury of eight men and four women.

The girl had told the Old Bailey that the 28-year-old woman walked in during the sex attack, but made no attempt to stop it or to rescue the helpless child.

The victim claimed the mother had only turned to her boyfriend and wagged her finger at him, telling him: 'Don't do that... Don't do it.'

The couple, who inflicted months of agonising torture on Baby Peter, will now face sentencing later this month along with their former lodger Jason Owen, 36, of Bromley, Kent, for causing or allowing his death.

Legal experts have warned that Peter's mother will face a relatively low sentence and could even be freed as early as next year. His stepfather will be sentenced for the girl's rape at the same hearing.

Detectives believe the convicted child rapist may have sexually abused the two-year-old girl at least three times in 2007, before his arrest over Peter's death in August 2007.

But he was only charged with a single count of rape, because lawyers feared it would be too difficult for his young victim to try to give evidence about several different occasions.

More...

• She called it the 'evil room' - the video suite where a little girl was grilled for 45 minutes by lawyers

Her harrowing account was at the centre of the trial, and without her key evidence the prosecution could not have gone ahead. The rape victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was placed on Haringey's child protection register in December 2006 over fears she was at risk of neglect.

The social workers in contact with her family had no idea she had been targeted by the same pain-obsessed brute who tortured Baby Peter.

She was later taken into foster care, and told her foster mother that Peter's stepfather had sexually abused her.

Sacked: Clive Preece, Maria Ward and Gillie Christou. Celia Hitchen (not pictured) was also dismissed

Police and social services were called but when detectives asked the girl, then aged three, if the man had touched her she shook her head, and the investigation was dropped - potentially wasting a vital chance to investigate.

Two months later the child made the accusation again and re-enacted the alleged rape to child psychiatrists, using a doll and a teddy bear to show what had happened.

Haringey Council last night made a grovelling apology for its failures over both children, and admitted: 'We have accepted that things went badly wrong with our child protection in 2007.'

Peter suffered more than 50 injuries including eight broken ribs and a snapped spine, despite being seen 60 times by social workers, police and health officials in the last eight months of his life.

Jurors in the rape trial were not told of the defendants' previous convictions over his death, because lawyers feared that public revulsion over that crime was so great that they would not receive a fair trial.

They were not even told the couple's true names. Instead they were tried using false names, a step normally reserved for gangland 'supergrasses' whose lives are considered at risk.

Tributes laid in the garden of remembrance in memory of Baby P at the Islington Crematorium, East Finchley, London.

Court orders still prevent newspapers or broadcasters from revealing their identities. The couple have both received death threats.

Lawyers have asked the Attorney General to investigate a 'name and shame' campaign which led to their names and photographs appearing on hundreds of websites, including the social networking site Facebook, alongside calls for them to face vigilante-style 'justice'.

Local MP Lynne Featherstone called for Haringey to face a public inquiry over its failures to protect children.

Haringey said an independent investigation was under way, and admitted it had made 'failures of judgment, professional practice, management and supervision'.

There have been widespread dismissals at the council since the Baby Peter abuse scandal emerged, including the borough's former head of children's services Sharon Shoesmith, who is fighting her dismissal at an employment tribunal. Earlier this week four more officials were sacked.

The new report was the second serious case review, ordered by the Government after the first one was criticised for being too soft on Haringey.

The second review found his death 'could and should have been prevented' and said social workers, lawyers, police and doctors who dealt with him were 'lacking in urgency and lacking in thoroughness'.

What happened to this man's integrity, his original article was refreshingly honest, this one is fashionably sickening.

David Jones had his suspicions about the McCanns but two years on, he confesses he was horribly wrong

By David Jones
Last updated at 10:50 PM on 01st May 2009

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Loss: Kate and Gerry McCann in the days after Madeleine's disappearance

Tuning the car radio into a late-night BBC phone-in programme during a long motorway drive, a heated debate caught my attention.

'What sort of parents would leave their three-year-old daughter alone in an apartment and go off for dinner?' one angry caller would demand to know.

Then someone else would counter: 'They did nothing wrong. This could have happened to anyone.'

As I listened, it slowly became evident that the girl in question had vanished a few hours earlier from a holiday resort in Portugal, and that she seemed to have been abducted from her bed as she slept.

By the following day, the first heart-melting photographs of 'Missing Madeleine McCann' had been published in the newspapers, etching this grimly compelling story into the national consciousness.

And soon afterwards, I was dispatched to the Algarve to report the hunt for the snatched-away cherub.

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, yet this saga has since taken so many twists and turns, and invoked such prurient fascination, that it might have happened only yesterday.

Two years and millions of words later, the questions show no sign of abating. 'What do you think happened to her? Could she still be alive? Where is she now?' I am invariably asked, if ever I mention that I spent many weeks investigating the Madeleine McCann mystery.

Like every other reporter who has striven to solve this perplexing case, not to mention all those expensive private investigators and the inept Portuguese police, I am no nearer to knowing the answers today than I was on that May afternoon when I first arrived in Praia da Luz.

But over recent months, having sifted again through my notebooks, scoured the internet, revisited old contacts and observed Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, campaigning relentlessly and indefatigably for their daughter's return, I have come to one definite conclusion.

It is that whatever became of the slumbering Madeleine on that dreadful Thursday night, her parents played no part in her disappearance.

In early September, 2007, during perhaps the most sensational week of the inquiry, Kate McCann was declared an arguida (an official suspect) by the Portuguese judiciary.

During her ensuing interrogation, she was treated in a manner which bordered on brutality - remorselessly bullied and hectored in a marathon grilling that would have tested anyone's inner resources to their limits, let alone that of a grief-stricken mother.

At that time, amid mounting speculation about the McCanns' possible culpability, I wrote an article that caused something of a stir and, I am told, exacerbated Kate and Gerry's anguish.

(It also angered my wife, who, with a mother's instincts, has steadfastly believed the McCanns from the outset.)

In that piece, which was based on the facts in my possession - aligned to gut feeling - I voiced the suspicions of many colleagues and a surprisingly large proportion of the watching public, by admitting that I had nagging doubts about the couple's innocence.

It was an honestly held opinion, but now, on the second anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, I have to confess that I was horribly wrong.

One of two new posters which show Madeleine McCann as she was aged three, and how she might look now, aged six.

Why, though, did I think back then that they might be in some way culpable, and why, two years after their daughter vanished, have I so radically changed my views?

As the spring of 2007 progressed, opinions about Kate and Gerry McCann polarised in an extraordinary way, and they found themselves the subject of intense scrutiny.

It was fuelled by their decision to launch an international media campaign, the likes of which had never been seen before, in the hope that it would keep Madeleine in the news and hasten her return.

They hired a succession of PR experts and private investigators, set up an internet site that kept people up to speed with every facet of the case via Gerry McCann's strangely breezy web diary, jetted around the world to appear on TV and even secured an audience with the Pope.

All this frenetic activity was paid for by a fund whose coffers were swelled by tycoons such as Sir Philip Green and Sir Richard Branson; and it made many people deeply uneasy.

Ironically, discussion of their campaign techniques also distracted the world from the very objective the McCanns and their supporters were trying to promote: namely, finding their missing little girl.

Observing from close quarters, I was among those who found it all rather unedifying. During those early months I was perturbed by the McCanns' demeanour.

More...

• Madeleine at six? Two years on, the startling image that could rekindle McCanns' hope
• Don’t you dare tell me Maddie is dead
• Grown-up face her mother doesn't recognise: The technology behind Madeleine McCann's computer-generated image

Clinging for comfort to Madeleine's favourite soft toy, Cuddle Cat, Kate appeared unreachably distant.

Her husband, by contrast, seemed positively chipper, and there were days when the Leicestershire cardiologist almost appeared to relish his highprofile, globetrotting new role.

With hindsight this was a ridiculous and unjustifiable rush to judgment. For how can any of us know what constitutes 'appropriate' behaviour for parents robbed of a child so swiftly and left in limbo, unable to escape the darkest fears of their imagination?

As their spokesman Clarence Mitchell remarked to me this week, after it was suggested that Kate again appeared close to the edge on returning from an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in America, the couple would have been damned in some quarters however they had reacted.

He was right, but I was not alone among those who allowed their personal observations of the McCanns to colour their opinions about the case.

Gerry and Kate McCann talk with Oprah Winfrey about the ongoing search for daughter Madeleine who went missing two years ago this Sunday

And the more I examined the story, as they and their team presented it (in the absence of any information from the legally constrained Portuguese police), the more sceptical I became.

There were all manner of reasons why the suggestion that some fiend had simply carried off Madeleine into the night just didn't seem to add up.

For one thing, Praia da Luz is not some bustling, mainstream Mediterranean resort where a stranger could easily slip in undetected.

It is little more than a village, serviced by one main access road. In early May, it is particularly quiet (the more so now that many holidaymakers refuse to venture there).

Furthermore, the apartment the McCanns had rented was on the ground floor, on the corner of a well-lit street and passageway.

Although the McCanns and their friends - the so called Tapas Seven - were dining in a restaurant obscured by a 6ft wall, they were less than 100 yards away.

Examining this scene time and again, measuring out precise distances and times, it seemed inconceivable that anyone would have the audacity, let alone the wherewithal, to break into the flat and snatch a three-year old girl sleeping beside her younger twin siblings without being caught.

The alternative theories seemed equally outlandish. Some ventured that Madeleine had woken up bewildered in a strange country and wandered off to look for Mummy and Daddy, only to fall down the freshly dug roadworks by the apartment, which were filled in a few days later.

Or had she been snatched by paedophiles and smuggled out of Portugal, perhaps across the Spanish border an hour's drive away, or on a waiting boat - a possibility that gained credence after witnesses said they had seen a girl resembling Madeleine with a man near the harbour?

As this last scenario gathered momentum, I went to Morocco, following one of many supposedly reliable eye-witness sightings of the little blonde girl with a distinctive 'flash' in her right eye.

The trail led to a remote village high in the Atlas mountains, where Madeleine was believed to be held captive in some farmhouse - but, like so many other such claims in Belgium, Holland, Spain and, most recently Malta, it came to nothing.

In the meantime, the spotlight had fallen on Robert Murat, an entrepreneur of mixed British and Portuguese extraction whose mother lived just a few hundred yards from the McCann apartment.

In the estimation of one over imaginative reporter, he appeared to have acted strangely while working as an interpreter for Portuguese police investigating the disappearance.

Such was the police's desperation to solve a case that threw their deficiencies into stark relief that, without any discernible foundation, Murat was also made an official suspect.

Every aspect of his personal life was minutely examined, and when it was found that he had made a late-night phone call to a Russian computer nerd with whom he was friendly on the night Madeleine was taken, this was taken to be highly significant.

Murat was then the subject of all manner of lurid smear stories. Yet when I tracked him down at his sister's country guesthouse and became one of the few reporters to interview him at length, I did not recognise the man in these articles.

As he spoke lovingly about his own infant daughter, and described how it felt to be falsely accused of the most terrible crime imaginable, I became convinced of his innocence - and wrote as much.

Yet, at that stage, I still couldn't be so sure about the McCanns, and when Kate was arrested I came out and said so.

I asked Clarence Mitchell this week how they had reacted. 'Kate and Gerry didn't like the piece, but at the end of the day you have the legitimate right to question anything as a journalist.

Hope: One of the posters being released by the Find Madeleine Campaign

'Given the flavour of what came out in the Portuguese media at that time it was understandable; regrettable but understandable.

'But when you meet them, and get to know them, you realise quite quickly that they aren't making this up. And when Madeleine is recovered, a lot of people will regret what they wrote.'

Sadly, I am not at all sure that she ever will be found.

Flawed as the Portuguese police case against the McCanns clearly was, it is not so much the hard evidence that now convinces me that I was wrong, but our old friend gut instinct, which in my case has completely changed after following the case from a distance for many months.

I have come to admire the McCanns for their cussed determination and refusal to alter course, despite all the criticism.

When I spoke to Madeleine's two grandmothers this week, that admiration was cemented. 'The whole family are physically exhausted. Kate, in particular, is very tired after coming home from America,' her mother, Susan Healy, told me from her Liverpool home.

'She has had a hectic couple of weeks and really needs to recharge her batteries, but I don't think she has thought about stopping. Not for a minute. I don't think either of them can stop - that's the awful thing.

'They are just stuck in a situation where they don't have a lot of control. The only control they have is to remind people that Madeleine is still missing. That is why they do it.

'You have to understand that everything Kate does - everything - is done because she wants her daughter back. That's the only question they ever ask themselves: will this help us find Madeleine? Nothing else is of any importance.

'If Kate ever gets to the end of the line - I mean, if they got to the stage where they thought there was nothing more they could do - then that would be very difficult. But it would appear that they haven't reached that stage.

'Madeleine is their daughter and they've simply got to carry on. I don't know whether they would call it optimism or not, but they have to keep hoping. If they shrugged their shoulders and said "OK, she's not alive any more," they would be letting her down, wouldn't they?'

In Glasgow, Mr McCann's mother, Eileen, told me much the same thing. 'There's nothing to say that Madeleine isn't alive, so why would they think otherwise?' she said. 'We never even discuss any other possibility.'

You can only applaud such spirit. But if, against all the conceivable odds, Madeleine really has survived, what has become of her?

This week, in a TV reconstruction of her abduction, the latest private detectives to be hired by the McCanns - two experienced former CID men from the North of England, whose no-nonsense approach contrasts sharply with that of their expensive and unproductive predecessors - may uncover fresh clues.

After sifting through reams of previously unexamined Portuguese judicial documents and reinterviewing key witnesses, there is talk of a new 'mystery man' apparently seen loitering near the apartment on that fateful Thursday night.

The programme will not solve the most enduring and troubling missing person inquiry of modern times, of course. Nor will it silence the whispers from those who still harbour lingering doubts about Mr and Mrs McCann.

Nevertheless, we can be sure that they will continue to carry their cross with stoicism.