Madeleine McCann

[morningpaper]

Instead of starting lots of new posts about Madeleine, could I politely request that anyone who wants to post on the subject please post on this one thread? (N.B. Duplicate threads may be flamed hysterically.)

Please note that this thread is not to criticise Madeleine's parents or family, as this is not in the spirit of Mumsnet.

Please can I take the liberty to quote from this article:

"This is the real life of Kate and Gerry McCann, and it must now have become a place of agony beyond all understanding. Pity them, if you have any compassion at all, and demonstrate the minimum of grace: the ability to desist from judgment."

i am sorry but i just cannot believe the mcanns had anything to do with this.

Program tongiht on ITV- The McCann's Questions & evidence if anyone is interested.

Just started ITV1

Well if you remember Murat was put in the frame by a tabloid journalist who went on tv telling all and sundry she thought he was too close to the investigation.

If you cast your mind back to the two girls who went missing and it turned out to be the caretaker with the knowledge of his girlfriend, that lead was found by a journalist in another part of the country. So some journalists now think they are also detectives...........

there's an online peitition at iPetitions, set up by Phil McCann, called Kate and Gerry McCann are innocent if anyone is interested and would like to sign

Why would you like to sign that? You don't KNOW they are innocent. You'd like to believe they are, but you don't actually KNOW!

It asks for a donatiom, in amwrican dollars how would we know its legitimate?

american, even

you don't have to give a donation, you can ignore that bit.

It was stated in the Mirror today that Phil McCann wants people to sign it to show their support

haven't treplied to this threads before.

the itv progamme last night. there was a little girl went missing a couple of months before 7 miles away. mother was arrested and her family says the police beat a confession out of her. they showed photos of her after being beaten it was unbelievable. same police chief involved . weird.

I think that petition just makes everything worse. It seems to be attracting mainly saccharine comments from those who 'know' that the parents are innocent, and on the other hand a whole raft of abusive comments.

It's one thing re-iterating that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and ensuring they have the right legal representation etc and things are done in the proper manner. It's another thing asking people to sign that someone is innocent.

I can only see this petition inflaming things even further and providing more tabloid fodder.

I think he has been suspended from the case now, and I think that girl went missing 3-4 years ago, not a few months before.

Anyone seen Clarence Mitchell's statement regarding his new position as spokesperson to the McCanns? I agree 100% with what he said - I do not believe the McCanns were involved at all - but why the hell would someone give up a highly responsible and highly paid job with the government to be the spokesperson to two people whos child has gone missing??

i think the other little girl went missing in 2004. Still one hell of a coincidence imo, especially as no body has ever been found.

I understand people assuming these children are dead but there are many other possiblities.

There was a case where two girls (un related and abducted some time apart) were found years in later in a cellar. Not a nice scenario I know but perhaps better than the world assuming your child is dead. I don't know tbh

The thing is, what can a petition like that possibly achieve. What are the police to do, if in the worst case scenario all the evidence points to the McCanns, they won't ignore that just because 50,000 people who don't know the McCanns have signed a petition?

I think it is just one more strange thing in this whole circus.

i think the petition can help. It just keeps the case in the public eye all over the world. Some people will read the stuff about the McCanns, assume they are guilty and assume Madeleine is dead.

Anyone can see how desperate this family are to get their little girl back. The petitions, the interviews, the poster campaign all of it are the actions of a devoted and desperate family. I know I would do absolutly anything to keep my child in the public eye.

If I could afford it, I would pay for the McCann's legal fees. Whatever people's opinions may be (mine being they are completely innocent), EVERYONE is innocent until proven guilty. I also wondered if Kate may have been and MN or similar, so, whilst respecting everybody's right to an opinion, wish people would not judge - as in, if somebody feels they are not innocent, so blatantly say they are not, and clarify it is there complete OPINION. Sorry for stating the obvious, but arguements between MNs on this subject is unbelievaby silly, when this is about a darling 4 yr old girl, not a bunch of mothers.

Innocent of what exactly? Had not heard they had actually been accused of a crime yet? Even if they are a petition is completely meaningless as none of the signatories will be privey to the evidence of the case. Presumably it will not go to trial unless there is deemed to be suffienct evidence to secure a conviction, so why all the hysteria now? And who is the petition deisnged to sway? To lean on the British government to make those nasty Protugese men go away????? Hardly going to affect any Portugese judicial process, and it would be utterly shaming if it did - trial by plebiscite based on'gut-feeling' then the lunatics will truly have taken over the asylum.

they already have...

I imagine it is more to show support to them than anything else, after all a petition cannot prove guilt or innocence. I guess it's just that people want to counteract the negative speculation by saying 'we believe you'.

the Evening Standard are suggesting that the whole case against the McCanns is going to be thrown out anyway before it even goes any further. All the DNA evidence can apparently be accounted for. The McCanns transported Madeleine's sandals in the car boot when they moved apartment, hence her 'body fluid' (sweat?) being in the boot.

I just wish people would give these poor souls a break and get on with LOOKING FOR MADELEINE, whom it seems there is no credible evidence showing otherwise, is alive, as far as her parents are concerned.

I find the family?s constant need to be in the media utterly bizarre. They say they want normality for the twins, yet they constantly invite the press in, that?s not going to give the twins normality is it? And why do they need a spokesperson when they have Philomena? She seems to have been on virtually every news channel, every radio station, quoted in every trashy tabloid, and now she?s started a petition, what does she hope to achieve with that? Other than to give people a platform to air their opinions, not all of which are pro Mccann.

And the Mccanns haven?t actually been charged with a crime yet so why the need to tell us they?re innocent when they might not even be charged let alone tried or convicted?

I also find Gerry Mccann?s blog very odd, and the fact that he has misspelled Madeleine?s name on it on a number of occasions leads me to believe that someone else is writing it.

Imo the recent publicity drive is more about taking the spotlight off what the media are printing about the family. To date the publicity has achieved nothing. For the past 4 months people have been distributing posters, the family have appeared on various television shows around the world, the Find Madeleine campaign has had worldwide publicity and yet there have been no confirmed sightings of Madeleine. In fact the only witness that claimed she saw anything just so happened to be one of the family friends, and she didn?t come forward for three weeks .

Whether this couple had anything to do with their daughter?s disappearance or not, we may never know, but if not, there has to come a time when they must resume normal life and accept the fact that Madeleine will probably never come home, for the sake of their remaining two children if nothing else.