I found this on the web to do with the case of Madeleine McCann and it's just a bit odd....

[littlemissbossy]

This is just for anyone who's interested in the case - please no arguing and no FGS comments - although you've got to admit that this is a bit odd.
Remember the picture of Gerry McCann playing with the children in a playground on their holiday and there was a bald guy with sunglasses in the background? the picture quickly disappeared presumably because they can't divulge any information about the case. Well, the same guy is also pictured a few days later with Robert Murat bp1.blogger.com/_mXbRBcSh0gs/RrSuZMNvt9I/AAAAAAAAAvw/6pppYaufzR8/s1600-h/01_FOTO_ARTIGO.jpg

the original photo of the man in the playground was released by the mccann's when they appealed for photographs, can't see that they'd doctor the pic TBH

Hmmmmm that is a bit odd. But if he were up to no good then surely he wouldn't have let himself be photographed

Oh dear god not this again.

I don?t think there?s anything wrong with discussing this case. I don?t even think there?s necessarily anything wrong with speculating about it. After all, when you deliberately seak out that level of media coverage, it is inevitable that people will discuss, and will speculate, about what happened. When you open yourself up to the media you can?t just have good, the bad will come too, as the Mccanns have found out in the past few weeks.

But all this googling for information and contacting the police is counterproductive imo. The police are trying to solve this case, and people sending in their findings from google can only hamper their investigations, as manpower needs to be devoted to opening these emails/potentially following up leads which they have probably already been given hundreds of thousands of times, thus wasting valuable time which could have been spent following up actual leads/examining actual evidence.

I do not find it suspicious in the slightest that a man who might be a friend of Robert Murat?s might have been seen near the holiday complex where the Mccanns were staying. After all, Murat?s villa is only about 100 yards from the complex, thus if this is a friend of his, it?s not beyond the relms of possibility that he might have been in the area, perhaps visiting his friend? At the time this picture was taken?

And if those of you doing amature detecting had read other media sources, you will also have seen that it is estimated that Robert Murat will be cleared of any involvement in this case in the very near future. Only he will never really be cleared will he? Because his name has been plastered all over the internet, and because of that there will for ever be those who believe he is guilty, and for his 4 year old daughter, that will probably mean for ever being branded the daughter of a paedophile. Just bear that in mind before you start trying to implicate people in things which you really know nothing about.

Innocent until proven guilty and all that. And let's face it Robert Murat hasn't been found guilty of, or even been charged with a crime yet has he, so who are we to start publishing details about him or his associates on the internet?

I agree with Wannabe. Discussing a news story is one thing but wasting police time is something else.

that picutre with gerry and his 3 children is just so lovely

I think it was the Portugese police that implicated Robert Murat not Mumsnet...

actually no that's not the case.

The portuguese searched his villa yes. the portuguese made him a suspect, although there is still some confusion as to whether he was given this status by the police or whether he requested that he be given this status to enable him to have legal representation etc...

But it was the media that published his name while the police were still searching his house. It was sky news that interviewed that journalist who claimed that he seemed suspicious before he'd even been named a suspect. And in fact even when the police said that they had a suspect, they did not name him, not once.

And it was the media that tracked down his ex-wife and child, and it is because of the media coverage that they had to go into hiding.

And on mumsnet there were many, many posts which suggested what this man might have done with madeleine/what kind of person he must be, and when on one thread I suggested that he was innocent until proven guilty I was shot down and asked why I was "siding with this pervert".

so yes, mn certainly has a part to play in villifying Robert Murat. along with many other sites no doubt.

The media might have started it, but public discussion has certainly carried it on.

you could understand him being in the 2nd photo if he was a policeman, but it would be a bit of a coinsidence for a policeman to be in the photo of gerry mcann and the kids before maddy went missing.

agree though it is a lovely picture of them together

interesting artacle here about Robert Murat

and how he is a victim of this as well..

I read that piece Wannabe.
I remember at the time being shocked by the coverage. His poor ex wife and child with blankets over their heads. Fleet St at its finest!