PLEASE COPY THIS LEAFLET OR PASS
IT TO OTHERS WHEN YOU’VE READ IT. THANK
YOU
This is our fourth leaflet in this series. The three previous ones featured
facts about the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann that the British
media have not been telling you about. This leaflet is
different.
While the British mainstream media have for years denied the British public
the facts that might help us to better understand what happened to Madeleine,
they have, at the same time, shamelessly produced many ridiculous,
unbelievable stories about what might have happened to Madeleine, mainly to
sell more newspapers and make more money. Some of these stories
were even generated by the McCanns’ chief publicist, Clarence Mitchell, former
Head of Tony Blair’s Media Monitoring
Unit. He once boasted that his job was ‘to control what comes out in the
media’. Many stories featured in this leaflet could have harmed Madeleine, if
she really had been abducted, was still alive and being held by an abductor.
Suppose even one of these ‘sightings’ and ‘claims’ was true? What would be the
effect on any abductor? What would he be likely to do? Many of the stories
could have put Madeleine, if still alive, at great risk, by causing an abductor
to take steps to evade the police.
Our first leaflet examined the main facts of the case. You can watch a
video of this leaflet on YouTube, in 4 parts, at
this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnXtYSeXSiw Our second looked at the main members of the
‘McCann Team’, examining their activities, focusing on the controversial
individuals (some of them criminals) and detective agencies they used - for what
they said was their search for Madeleine. Our third leaflet discussed Operation
Grange, the 6-year-long Metropolitan Police review and investigation into
Madeleine’s reported disappearance. We have numbered our points from No. 151
onwards, this being a continuation of our first three leaflets.
British
media stories about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
We present below a selection of some of the most bizarre claimed
‘sightings’ and stories about Madeleine’s disappearance printed in the British
media, some more ridiculous and unbelievable than others. A very useful website
on the internet which gives further details about many of these stories is:
In 2017, the Sun published a list of 8,685 different ‘sightings’ of
Madeleine. The initial claim by the
McCanns was that Madeleine had been abducted by a paedophile or a group of
paedophiles. A bewildering variety of ‘sightings’, theories and claims about
what really happened to Madeleine followed. We add comments on some of the
stories, which we list in the approximate chronological order on which they
were first published:
151. Madeleine seen in a taxi by Mr Cardosa on the day she was reported
missing (3 May 2007) COMMENT: The taxi-driver claimed he had had a young
blond-haired girl in his taxi, with two adults. But his story unravelled when
he got muddled about which day this happened. He was dismissed as an attention-seeker.
152. Robert Murat’s girlfriend Michaela Walczuk handed Madeleine over to
someone near the Spanish border (May 2007) COMMENT: This curious story
emerged months after Madeleine had been reported missing. Moreover, when it did
emerge, it was via the controversial, corrupt Spanish detective agency used by
the McCanns, Metodo 3. On 13 November 2007, the man who ran the McCanns’
investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, businessman Brian Kennedy, met
with the Portuguese Police, bringing with him two Metodo 3 detectives (one of
them, Antonio Giminez Raso, was arrested three months later and spent four
years in prison on serious drugs and corruption charges). At the November 2007
meetings, the Metodo 3 detectives said they had been contacted by a truck
driver who saw a blonde woman handing over ‘a package wrapped in a blanket’ to
a man on a camp site near the border with Spain. The Portuguese Police followed
this up, but it was another false lead.
153. Maddie in a Dutch shop owned by Anna Stam (6 May 2007): COMMENT: This sighting was not made public for a
full 15 months. It finally surfaced in the British media on 7 & 8 August
2008, after Anna Stam had flown to London to meet the McCann Team and help to
draw up an artist’s sketch of the couple she said she’d seen with a young girl in her party shop in Amsterdam on Sunday 6 May
2007, three days after Madeleine had been reported missing. Ms Stam claimed the
girl had spoken to her and said: “My name is Maddie. She is not my Mummy. They
took me from my holiday”. Ms Stam did not report her sighting for a month.
Dutch police interviewed her, drew up computer e-fits, and sent them to the
Portuguese police on 18 June. The Portuguese police declined to follow up the
information, besieged as they were by the intense work of their initial
investigation and the presence of hundreds of international media journalists
in Praia da Luz. Ms Stam said: “I didn't
like the man, he didn't look like a nice person…most people smile when they
come in to buy things…he didn't smile back at me when I smiled at him. He had
no sparkle in his eyes. He seemed angry”. She added: “The woman seemed stressed
and uncomfortable. The man spoke in Portuguese. I know because I have Brazilian
friends. The woman spoke in French while the little girl spoke English. It
didn't seem like a real family”. The story was revived in August 2008 when the
McCanns became aware that the Portuguese police had not travelled to Holland to follow up Ms
Stam’s claims. The McCanns’ PR spokesman
Clarence Mitchell told the Mirror: “Anna did the right thing in
contacting the Dutch police. But I find it shocking that the Portuguese police
weren't even in touch, either with her or with us. I'm grateful to the Mirror
for bringing her to us. Her evidence could be very significant. Our
investigators will interview her in the next few days”.
154. Madeleine seen near a petrol station in Marrakesh, Morocco, asking to
see ‘My Mummy’(9 May 2007) COMMENT: A
witness was sure she saw Madeleine with a man near a Marrekesh petrol station,
next to the Hotel Ibis, on May 9, 2007. She
said the girl ‘looked very distressed’ and said: “Can we go see Mummy
now?’ The Daily Star revived this
story as recently as 17 April 2017, as the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s
disappearance neared:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/606677/madeleine-mccann-sightings-maddie-2017-morocco
155. Madeleine seen asleep on a Belgian train (May 14, 2007) COMMENT: A British man claimed he saw a child
asleep on a train from Brussels to Antwerp and thought she
looked drugged. The girl was with a balding, 6ft white man in his forties, who
got off the train at Mechelen carrying her.
156. Sightings in Geneva, Switzerland (16 May 2007) COMMENT: A man reported seeing Madeleine in Geneva
on 16 May. In June, there were two separate sightings of a girl seen at Geneva Airport
with a blonde woman in her 50s. Fifty police officers were called to search the
entire terminal building, while all the pilots were asked to search their planes for the child:
http://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20070623/281621005920288
157. Police looking for a red van with false number plates near Lisbon (17 May 2007) COMMENT: This story was
reported by SKY News.
158. GCHQ hunt for Madeleine after they intercept messages in Arabic
referring to "the little blonde girl" (29 May 2007) COMMENT: Yes, even GCHQ in Cheltenham were involved in
the search for Madeleine, in a story covered by Fox News on 29 May: “Brits
Follow Cell Phone Signals in Hunt for Madeleine".
159. Three sightings in Belgium, two in Tongeren (May and June 2007): COMMENT: There were
three more reported sightings in Belgium. The first was in May 2007
in Liège. Then, on 27 June, Jessica Beem said she had seen Madeleine in her
flower-shop in Tongeren. A third claimed sighting, also in Tongeren, occurred
on 28 July on a café terrace, where children’s therapist Katleen Sampermans
said Madeleine was with a ‘strange-looking’ Dutch man and an Englishwoman. An
artist’s sketch of the Dutchman was compiled. However, the girl turned out to
be the 4-year-old daughter of a Belgian man. The Portuguese newspaper Correia
da Manha in August 2008 reported that Interpol had received reports from
107 people that they had seen Madeleine. See here:
160. Two sightings in Zaio, Morocco
(late May/early June 2007) COMMENT: A Spanish tourist said she saw a girl
resembling Madeleine as she drove through the town of Zaio
in northern Morocco
at the end of May. Later, another Spanish tourist, Isabel Gonzalez, said she
saw a girl fitting Madeleine’s description being ‘dragged across a street’,
also in Zaio, by a North African woman on 15 June.
161. Madeleine seen in Hong Kong (14 June 14 2007) COMMENT: A woman claimed
that she had spotted Madeleine in a Hong Kong shopping centre. The ‘sighting’ was ruled out
after police studied CCTV footage
162. 28 sightings in Malta
(17 to 29 June 2007) COMMENT: There was a
spate of alleged sightings of Madeleine in Malta, see e.g. here
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/11-sightings-of-madeleine-in-malta-but-police-investigations-draw-a-blank-7237853.html She was seen several times with a man, once
with a woman. Another claimed to have seen her boarding a bus in the capital,
Valetta. Elsewhere a Maltese man used his mobile ’phone to take a photo of a
child he believed to be Madeleine at a parish festival in Zejtun on 17 June. A
man from north Wales said he saw a girl
in the north-eastern town of Sliema wearing a jet black wig who was being told:
"Get up, little girl”, by an Arab-looking man. Nothing came of any of
these sightings: yet more police time wasted.
163. Madeleine seen in Dubrovnik, Croatia
(19 June 2007) COMMENT: She was allegedly seen in Dubrovnik,
Croatia, laying
on the floor ‘kicking and screaming’ and yelling: “I’m never going to see them
again”.
164. Antonia Toscano, a Spanish journalist and professed ‘expert in Satanic
cults’, said he knew Madeleine had been abducted by a French paedophile - on
orders from wealthy organisers of a European child sex ring (27 June 2007) COMMENT: A false claim by a man with a vivid
imagination (see also No. 200).
165. Madeleine seen twice in Bosnia (8 July and 10 November 2007) COMMENT: A British tourist believed he had
seen Madeleine at the Roman Catholic shrine of Medjugorje. He said the little
blonde girl he saw with a couple was ‘agitated and sobbing’. Police traced the
girl, who was a local. In November, an Irishman visiting the same shrine
contacted McCann detectives Metodo 3 to tell them he heard a little girl cry ‘I
want my Daddy’ as she was driven away (10 November 2007). This story was apparently backed up by a shop
assistant. The Irishman had seen the car’s number plate, details of which were
reported by the media before the police had chance to find the owner.
166. Two women reported seeing a child who looked like Madeleine with a man
at a petrol station near Cartagena, Spain (21 August 2007) COMMENT: This alleged
sighting was thoroughly investigated by both the Spanish National Police and
Civil Guard, using up hundreds of valuable police man-hours: Press
Association, 23 August 2007, ‘Madeleine Spain sighting' probed’; also in
the Guardian, 26 August 2007.
167. Madeleine was being carried on a peasant’s back in Morocco at
Zinat near Tangier. The girl was actually Bushra Binhisa, the daughter of the
woman who was carrying her (seen on 31 August, reported 20 September 2007) COMMENT: This case
received huge publicity in the British press, including the broadsheets, in
September 2007. A European-looking girl of about Madeleine’s age was
photographed as a Moroccan peasant woman carried her on her back. The girl’s
face didn’t look like Madeleine at all, yet the British press ran banner
headlines: ‘IS THIS MADELEINE?’ It turned out that this photo had first been
seen by the McCanns, who passed it to the press. They must have known that it
was not their daughter. Yet they let millions of British newspaper readers
think that this might be Madeleine. Police and even journalists were sent out
to Morocco
and soon found the peasant family. The parents were shocked and distressed to
have been accused of abducting Madeleine.
168. Naoula Mahli claimed to have seen Madeleine in Fnideq, Morocco. Later,
Lord Leveson was told at the Leveson enquiry into press standards that the Daily
Express paid her £500 for her story (November 2007) COMMENT: This alleged
sighting by Naoual Malhi occurred (she says) on 21 August 2007, but was not
reported to the Spanish police until 6 days afterwards. Mrs Malhi claimed she
was told by police that over 100 people had reported seeing Madeleine McCann in
the same mountain area. She then reported her claims to Metodo 3 at the end of
October. Naoual Malhi is a Moroccan doctor who lives in a British expatriate
community near Malaga, Spain. She is divorced and at the
time had a 4-year-old child. The blonde girl identified in the city of Fnideq as Madeleine
McCann turned out to be a Moroccan child living with her parents, according to
the director of the Moroccan Judicial Police. Naoula Mahli wove a superficially
believable story about having discovered where Madeleine was being held. But
her story didn’t stand up. Did she make it all up just to get £500 from the Daily
Express?
169. Dunedin, New
Zealand: Madeleine was seen in a supermarket in New Zealand with a man (5 December 2007) COMMENT: CCTV footage
from New Zealand
showed a girl like Madeleine being led into a supermarket by a portly man in
shorts. The man’s behaviour aroused the suspicions of a female security guard
in the Dunedin shop on South
Island. She approached the girl who said her name was ‘Hailey’.
But the security guard remained
convinced the girl was Madeleine and reported the matter to police. The
CCTV footage of the man and girl was repeatedly shown on New Zealand TV, and in
Britain.
Interpol in Wellington
was also called in to investigate. Of course, it was not Madeleine McCann but a
young girl out shopping with her father.
170. A man who looked like Beatle George Harrison may have abducted
Madeleine (January 2008) COMMENT: This was a major
front-page story on Sunday 30 January 2008 in the now-defunct News of the
World. It was heavily prepared in advance by the McCann Team with the
active help of Leicestershire Police. The entire story was woven by the McCann
Team around a real individual who was often seen around Praia da Luz. One
strange feature of the case concerned McCann friend Jane Tanner’s involvement
in the story. She was the friend of the McCanns who claimed she had seen a man
carrying a young blond child near the McCanns’ apartment at 9.15pm on the night
she was reported missing. In all her descriptions of this man, she admitted
that she never saw any part of his face. Brian Kennedy, head of the McCanns’ private
investigation, had used a lady by the name of Melissa Little (said to be an
F.B.I.-trained forensic artist) to draw a sketch of the man Jane Tanner said
she had seen in May. In the sketch, released in October 2007, the man’s face
was not seen. Later, in January 2008, Jane Tanner was shown the sketch of the
man drawn to look like Beatle George Harrison. It was of his face, and he had a moustache. Despite never having seen the
face of the man she said she had seen on 3 May, she now said she was ‘60 to 80%
sure’ that ‘George Harrison man’ was the same man she’d seen in May! It emerged
later that Jane Tanner had done an identification parade on 13 May 2007, when
she said she was ‘adamant’ that Robert Murat was the man she had seen on 3 May.
But the subsequent sketch she approved in October 2007 looked nothing like him.
Hardly surprisingly, the Portuguese Police dismissed everything Jane Tanner
said as wholly unreliable.
171. Madeleine seen at a service station on the A9 motorway near
Montpellier, France (21 February 2008) COMMENT: The claim that Madeleine
had been seen in a service station on the A9 motorway in France was taken so
seriously by the British press that even broadsheets devoted long articles to
the alleged ‘sighting’. Even the Daily Telegraph’s respected Chief
Reporter, Gordon Rayner, wrote an extensive piece on the subject, solemnly
reported as follows: “Madeleine’s parents were facing further heartache today
when it emerged that CCTV footage of a little girl playing in the south of France
is ‘almost certainly not her’. Hopes of finding the missing four-year-old were
raised when a Dutch student said she spotted the child at a service station
close to the city of Montpellier
last Friday. Melissa Firing, 18, said the child was with a ‘tall, swarthy’ man
who bundled her away in a car. French detectives spent ‘hours’ examining the
footage at the nation’s Criminal Research Institute in Rosny-sur-Bois,
near Paris. Police even tracked down the owner of
the car in which the little girl was driven away, after the number plate
appeared on the video footage. A ‘source close to the McCanns’ said: “The owner
has provided a plausible explanation of what he was doing with a young child in
a motorway service station”. French police at the time said they were also
investigating allegations that young children, including babies, were being
‘sold’ at impromptu auctions in car parks along the Mediterranean coast.
172. A Portuguese couple with Madeleine in tow knocked at the door of a
retired civil servant in Dorset (25 February
2008) COMMENT: Reported in the Daily
Telegraph, 24 February 2008. This is believed to be the first
reported sighting of Madeleine in Britain. It occurred in Dorset, where civil servant Alan Cameron had retired. He
told police that Madeleine was with a Portuguese couple who came to the door. Yet
another false claim.
173. Madeleine seen on a plane to Brazil, one of six ‘sightings’ in that
country (14 May 2008) COMMENT: A traveller
claimed to have seen Madeleine travelling on a plane to Brazil.
Interpol’s chief Jorge Pontes said: “This sighting is still under investigation
so we cannot reveal details. We have a witness insisting they saw the child on
a flight to Sao Paulo”.
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ PR spokesman, said: “The couple’s privately
hired detective agency, Metodo 3, are looking into the latest claim”. There had
been five other ‘sightings’ in Brazil,
one in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian police chief Marilia Moreira Marques said that a man called Mark
claimed to have seen Madeleine at a book fair in Cinelandia Square, Rio de
Janeiro, on 11 May 2007. The sighting had been reported to a foreign embassy in
the capital, and was referred to Interpol, who were said to hold a ‘40-page
dossier’ on Madeleine. On 7 June, a man
said he spotted Madeleine in an Ipanema cafe sitting with a man. He said she
looked ‘sad’ and was not speaking to her male companion. See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/1954397/Madeleine-McCann-spotted-on-plane-to-Brazil.html
174. Madeleine spotted on a Venezuelan island (18 May 2008) COMMENT: A British businessman and yacht
skipper, Trevor Francis, said he saw Madeleine in the company of two or three
women on the island of Margarita in Venezuela. He claimed this happened
several weeks previously, but says he didn’t approach her because he was ‘too
fearful of causing a spectacle’: “I wanted to grab her and shout out her name
and see what reaction I would get," he told the News of the World.
Mr Francis claimed he noticed an identical eye blemish to that of
Madeleine.
175. Croatian national footballer’s two-year-old son mistaken for Madeleine
(18 August 2008) COMMENT: Two British tourists spotted a woman
leading what they thought was a young girl with long blonde hair along a beach
on the Croatian holiday island of Krk. They both immediately thought it was
Madeleine McCann. They secretly took photographs of the child. The British
woman seized a chance to grab the child’s arm, intending to take her to the
police. Only then did she realise that the child was not Madeleine as it was a
boy. The boy’s mother turned out to be well-known Croatian model Nives Drpic,
while the father was a footballer for the Croatian national team and for Dinamo
Zagreb. They were described as the ‘Posh & Becks’ of Croatia. See:
http://www.gossiprocks.com/forum/news/79834-british-couple-tried-rescue-madeleine-mccann-lookalike-little-croatian-boy.html and
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046405/British-couple-tried-rescue-Maddy-lookalike--Croatian-football-star-model-wife.html
176. Madeleine seen in Algeria
with a suspicious-looking family (September 2008) COMMENT: A man said he had seen
a Madeleine look-alike blonde girl, with a British accent, with an Algerian
family who were ‘acting suspiciously’.
177. Maddie seen in the company of a big, fat gypsy woman (September
2008) COMMENT: A British woman, Mrs Jean Godwin, aged 56,
from Widnes, Cheshire, was sure she had spotted Madeleine McCann in the company
of two fat women at Carvoeiro, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz, and rang the
McCanns’ ‘investigation hotline’. Mrs Godwin described a ‘gaunt, very thin,
malnourished’ young blonde girl wearing a black, shiny wig being dragged by
‘gipsy women’. One of the women, she said, was an ‘obese’ size 30, in her
mid-to-late 40s, with ‘dirty and unkempt’ red hair. She added: “The girl’s eyes
were wide open and my attention was drawn to the large irises. I am 100% sure
it was Madeleine”. This sighting, said
the McCann Team’s investigators, matched an earlier account of a fat,
red-haired woman, now known to be Yvone Albino, a cleaner, who had been seen by
another British tourist, Jeni Weinberger, from Salisbury, Wilshire, acting
suspiciously outside the McCanns’ apartment on 3 May 2007, the day Madeleine
McCann was reported missing. The
McCanns’ investigators traced her - she
has two grown up sons but no young children - and followed her to a small,
run-down farmhouse on an orange grove, near Silves, not far from Praia da Luz.
They then began a surveillance operation at the farmhouse, fearing that Madeleine
was being held prisoner there. In the following months, Yvone Albino paid
several visits to the property, a holiday home owned by a teacher and his
partner, whom the investigators deemed to be ‘suspicious’. Their concerns were
raised when they discovered a white Citroen Berlingo with a child’s doll on the
back seat and a child’s drawing among rubbish bags - even though the couple did
not have young children. Mrs Albino, who has two grown-up sons but no young
children, used to visit teacher Jorge Martins and his partner Maria Silveira
(traced through their car), at their run-down farmhouse in an orange grove.
Portuguese police confronted Mrs Albino, who said she knew nothing about either
sighting and denied any contact with young children. Officers found the house
deserted. The woman with Mrs Albino in Carvoeiro was never identified. Mr
Martins and Miss Silveira have never been accused of any crime by police. He
told police the doll was given to him by his students several years earlier.
Nothing came of all this effort, but it made it look as though the McCann Team
were doing a real investigation. See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/7364631/McCanns-detective-searching-for-girl-in-a-wig-seen-with-two-gipsies.html
178. Madeleine spotted in Majorca by
British tourist (28 September 2008): COMMENT: Two British
holidaymakers were convinced that they saw Madeleine on a beach at Cala
d'Or, Majorca. She was reportedly ‘in the
company of two women’, but they also added: “We saw the girl was on her own
under a parasol on the beach with a colouring book, which struck us as
odd…later in the week we saw the girl again and the woman was trying to drag
them down to the beach, although it was dark, which she again found odd”.
Spanish police combed dozens of hotels and holiday apartments to try to locate
the girl. One police spokesman said: “We are aware of the numerous previous
sightings all over the world that have turned out to be false and it could well
be that the couple have made an honest mistake”. See here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/3086959/Police-investigate-claimed-Madeleine-McCann-sighting-in-Majorca.html …and in the Daily Mail
179. Madeleine seen with a Portuguese child trafficker in the United States (9 October 2008) COMMENT: On
October 9, 2008 it was reported that Madeleine was living with a Portuguese man
in the U.S.
He allegedly was a child trafficker, smuggling children from his homeland, Mexico and Greece.
180. Madeleine asked for a chocolate ice-cream from an ice-cream seller
whilst with a French family in Brussels
(October 2008) COMMENT: A North African-looking
woman with a young girl in tow was picked up on CCTV footage by a security
guard at a branch of the Belgian bank KBC. Later, an ice cream vendor, Antonio
Migliardi, came forward, describing the woman as being ‘very severe’ with the
child, adding: “She held her hand firmly and kept pulling her closer. When I
gave the ice cream to the child she stood frozen. The lady took it in her
place. Normally a happy child always takes the ice. This was not a normal
situation”. The security guard said: “I
will bet everything I own that the child I saw was Madeleine McCann”. Clarence
Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, commented: “We take this information
seriously”. See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2544450/Madeleine-McCann-seen-again-in-Brussels.html
181. Maddie seen in a Spanish restaurant in Maryland, U.S.A. (May 2009)
COMMENT: An unnamed woman spoke to the Sun newspaper in June 2013,
saying she thought she saw Madeleine in a Spanish restaurant in Montgomery
County, Maryland, accompanied by a blonde woman and two men, one of whom was
‘scruffy-looking with a foreign accent’. She added: “I’ve never felt so
strongly about something”. She said that Operation Grange was now following up
the alleged ‘sighting’.
182. Madeleine was abducted by British paedophile Raymond Hewlett (2009 and
2010) COMMENT: This was a long-running
story in 2009 and 2010. Raymond Hewlett was a convicted British paedophile who
had been travelling around Europe in 2007,
when Madeleine was reported missing. Another traveller, Peter Verran, had met
with Raymond Hewlett in June 2007 in Morocco. The two men discussed Madeleine
McCann, and Hewlett admitted that he had been staying about 30 miles away from
Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine went missing. He also said he knew of the
apartment block where the McCann family had been staying in May 2007. Hewlett
denied he had been in Praia da Luz that week and there was no evidence that he
was. Yet the McCann Team kept the story of Hewlett being a suspect going for
months. They made repeated attempts to interview him, having located him at a
hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was being treated
in hospital (see also below).
183. Madeleine was taken on a yacht to Australia by an Australian woman
who looked like Victoria Beckham and wanted ‘a new daughter’ (6 August 2009) This was another major
news story promoted by the McCanns. Their PR spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, held
a news conference where he paraded a sketch of what the woman looked like. He
said she looked like Victoria Beckham (‘Posh Spice’). The whole story was said
to have come from a British man, said variously to have been a ‘businessman’ or
‘banker’. The McCanns didn’t give the man’s name, so his story couldn’t be
checked. It was claimed that the man told the McCann Team that on Sunday 6 May
2007, he had been drinking all evening in some of the numerous bars around Barcelona docks. He said
that at 2am that night, a young woman with an Australian accent came up to him
and asked: ‘Have you got my new daughter?’ He said ‘No’, and the young woman
went away. Despite Madeleine’s disappearance being front-page news around the
world at the time, he had delayed reporting this incident for over two years,
claiming he had ‘agonised’ all that time over whether or not to report it. It
was claimed that Madeleine may have been taken by boat from Praia da Luz to
Barcelona (a journey of hundreds of miles), and that the woman with an
Australian accent had arranged to ‘buy’ her at Barcelona docks three days later
and board a large yacht bound for Australia which was leaving the next day.
Amazingly, the British press once again fell for this most unlikely story. It
made the top story on TV and mainstream
British newspaper bulletins. It caused an extensive police search for the woman
in Australia.
A month after this story, the Mail on Sunday exposed the fact that the
McCanns’ detectives who had researched this story had neglected to contact any
of relevant Barcelona
agencies, such as the police and the port authority, and had failed to do the
most basic of checks with owners of pubs around the port. On 9 August, a Sydney Morning Herald article:
‘Madness in the search for Maddie’, reported that, following the McCanns’dramatic press conference,
the search for Madeleine ‘swept across at least four Australian states’, with
‘a string of sightings’ by people who said they had seen a woman looking like
‘Posh Spice’ A 53-year-old Australian woman, Judith Aron, was ‘forced to deny’
that she had abducted Madeleine. She had a fair-haired five-year-old daughter.
It was thought that a neighbour had reported her because she ‘spoke Spanish’.
Also, an elderly Sydney woman went into Burwood police station claiming that a
friend she had met in Spain, and travelled with in Portugal, was the woman in
the identikit picture. She was later identified as Nelida Martinez and was soon
ruled out. The McCanns said they had received over 600 e-mails after issuing
the ‘Posh Spice lookalike’ appeal, mostly from Australia. See:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/madness-in-search-for-maddie-20090808-edj3.html
...and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/5981579/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-to-trace-Victoria-Beckham-lookalike.html
184. Madeleine seen with man at petrol station in Devon - arrested (4
September 2009) COMMENT: A fire protection officer, Jon Hazlehurst was questioned over Madeleine McCann after
being spotted in a petrol station with his step-daughter, Lauren, aged eight
(Madeleine would have been six at that time). The man was traced by police,
visited by police, driven to Kingsbridge police station and taken into custody.
The witness had noted down Mr Hazelhurst's car registration plate and contacted
the police. Mr Hazlehurst said: “I was surprised more than anything. I thought
it was…a prank, before I realised that they were quite serious. The police were
very polite and I understood that they had to follow up the lead, even if it
didn't come to anything”. See:
185. Madeleine is alive but being kept in an underground lair within a few
miles of Praia da Luz (September 2009)
COMMENT: In 2009, the world heard the extraordinary story of Natasha
Kampusch, from Austria - the young girl kept captive for years by a paedophile,
until she escaped from his clutches at the age of 18. A similar story of a
paedophile keeping his victims locked up involved Fritzl from Germany. Later,
Jaycee Lee Dugard, who had been abducted by a paedophile from a bus stop in the
U.S.
at the age of 11, was found alive and rescued at the age of 29. When these
stories began to receive publicity, the McCann Team quickly capitalised on
them. Their lead detective at the time, Dave Edgar, exploited these news
stories in the Belfast Telegraph and the Independent, stating
that his new theory was that Madeleine was likewise being held in an
‘underground lair’ within a few miles of Praia da Luz. This was purely for the
press - in order to maintain public perception that Madeleine had really been
abducted. Whilst professing that they believed that Madeleine could be hidden
near Praia da Luz, the McCann Team made no effort whatsoever to initiate any
official or unofficial search for such a lair.
186. Madeleine seen in a Swedish photograph (10 October 2009) COMMENT: This story was
first brought to the British public by Antonella Lazzeri of the Sun,
which has produced many of the most absurd stories about alleged Madeleine ‘sightings’. A girl was
photographed in Sweden,
with claims that ‘after computer-matching’, she could be Madeleine. She was
seen at a car show, and was said to have an ‘identical jawline’ and ‘eyes the
same colour as Madeleine’. The photo appeared on a website, after which Swedish
police were ‘inundated’ with calls from the public, some of them saying they
had seen Madeleine at the car show, where she was heard to speak in English.
‘Face-mapping technology’ used by British police was said to have identified
the girl as a possible match. Madeleine’s parents Kate asked for ‘an urgent
investigation’. The McCanns’ official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said:
"Kate and Gerry are liaising with the relevant authorities”. This
excellent website carries this Swedish story:
187. Madeleine was seen on TV at a school concert in Canada (5 March 2010) COMMENT: The continued
appearance of Madeleine McCann’s appealing photograph in newspapers around the
world led to an extraordinary incident in Canada. Distressed viewers
inundated a Canadian TV station with calls after a blonde girl looking identical
to Madeleine was shown singing with a school choir on a news show. The Canadian
police had to contact the school and carry out checks to make sure the girl was
not Madeleine. See:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/124974/MADDIE-SEEN-ALIVE-ON-TV
188. Madeleine was seen in Dubai (20 January
2011) COMMENT: Madeleine was reported to have been
in a Dubai
shopping centre. By this time, she would have been nearly eight years old. The
sighting was by ‘an unnamed 35-year-old businessman’. The man with Madeleine
was said to be ‘very skinny’ with a moustache and a ‘scary appearance’ – and
some commented that he looked very similar to a previous artist’s sketch of a
possible suspect [see sighting No. 170, above]. He was accompanied by two
women, one of whom was black and wore a veil and the other who was ‘also very
thin’, according to the Sun. See
also:
http://metro.co.uk/2011/01/20/madeleine-mccann-seen-in-dubai-630478
189. Madeleine was abducted by vicious paedophiles who took her to the
United States, according to a
basketball-playing Angolan amateur sleuth whose front teeth were knocked out by
the paedophiles (18 February 2011) COMMENT: The Sun headed
this story: ‘Madeleine McCann is in America - and I know who took her’. This
story, once again strongly promoted by the McCann Team, was based on the
outrageous and completely unbelievable claims of Marcelinho Italiano, a 6’ 4”,
an Angolan-born ‘amateur detective’. He claimed that in the course of his
sleuthing in Portugal,
he had contacted a group of vicious paedophiles. This brutal group - who, he
said, had knocked out two of his teeth in the course of his sleuthing - had
supposedly spirited Madeleine away to the U.S., where they were holding her.
Italiano claimed he had to flee Portugal
and had gone to ground in Spain in fear
for his life. However, when the story broke, a search on the internet soon
located him. His name came up as a regular member of a team playing in a
Spanish basketball league. Once again, nothing came of this story, which appeared
to have been manufactured by the Sun with the help of ex-pat Olive
Press editor, Jon Clarke.
190. Madeleine was seen in India
(29 June 2011): COMMENT: The alleged sighting of Madeleine was made by a
British woman on holiday in Jammu & Kashmir, in the northern Indian
Himalayas. She raised concerns with other tourists, one of whom, an American,
was so sure the girl was Madeleine that he tried to snatch her from the couple
she was with. The parents, a French woman and her Belgian husband, were spoken
to by the police who insisted they produced their passports. A spokesman for
Leh police told the Chandigarh Tribune: “It all depends now on the evidence
like DNA for which we need help from Madeleine's parents and the British
police”. The McCanns’ PR spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said: “We remain
grateful for people's vigilance around the world. Madeleine is still out there
and the search for her very much continues”. This was another Sun story,
also reported in the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019698/Madeleine-McCann-Hopes-dashed-sighting-India.html#ixzz4mXTqmWYV
191. A drunk gypsy told British paedophile Raymond Hewlett that he
organised Madeleine’s abduction; Hewlett then wrote a letter on his death-bed
to his long-estranged son Wayne, who promptly burnt the letter and then told
the Sun all about it (1 September 2011)
COMMENT:
Many rate this as the most preposterous story of them all. Raymond Hewlett (see
sighting No. 182 above) died in December 2010. He had been estranged from his
son Wayne for more than 20 years, because his son had turned against him after
learning of his sexual abuse of young children. The story Wayne told to the McCann Team and to the Sun
was a strange one. He claimed that a ‘mystery man’ had travelled from Germany with a
letter his father had written to him on his death-bed. In this letter, Wayne said, his father
explained how he had got to know the leader of a criminal gypsy gang. One
evening, they had both had a lot to drink, and the gypsy gang leader had
confessed that he and his gang had abducted Madeleine and handed her to a
wealthy North African family for money. In the letter, he identified the gypsy
gang leader by name. Wayne
said he had been upset by the letter and burnt it. However, having burnt it, he
apparently then approached either the McCann Team, or the Sun directly,
with his story. He could not now remember the name of the gang leader. Despite
the obvious unsoundness of the story and the fact that Wayne could not remember even the name of the
alleged gypsy gang leader, the Sun put this ridiculous story on their
front page - and reported that the British police were taking his information
seriously. Nothing ever came of it.
192. Madeleine was abducted to Brazil
(31 August 2012) COMMENT: Pictures appeared in several newspapers of a young white girl who
looked vaguely like Madeleine, in a crowd of people leaving a plane in Brazil. Who
developed this story is not clear. But an alert Madeleine McCann researcher,
known on the internet as ‘Reggie Dunlop,’ matched the photo of the crowd
leaving the plane with a photograph of people seen leaving a plane in Ibiza, several years previously. The photo had been
‘reversed’ (left-to-right) in the newspaper pictures. Whoever developed this
story for the press was engaged in a very deliberate deception of the press and
the public.
193. Madeleine was seen in a car leaving a campsite with a Swiss family (9
May 2012) COMMENT: See:
194. Rose Johnson saw Madeleine playing on Penoncillo beach, Spain (3 May
2012) COMMENT: This was yet one more absurd story
reported by the ever-dutiful Jon Clarke, Olive Press Editor. He reported
in May 2012 that an ex-pat pensioner, Rose Johnson, believed she had seen
‘eight-year-old Maddie’ playing outside Merendero restaurant on Penoncillo
beach, between Nerja and Torrox, the previous summer (2011). She had said: “We
were quite taken aback…this Maddie look-a-like walked off the beach and joined
a table of what we would describe as a party of Spanish people or similar. They
were completely different to her. The whole family was dark skinned, whereas
she had fair hair and pale skin and obviously was northern European. It was
very, very strange. She was about eight and seemed really airy-fairy, in a
world of her own”. Clarke also claimed that Portuguese police, just a fortnight
previously, had asked their Spanish counterparts to investigate other sightings
in Nerja, and that Rose Johnson had only spoken after reading an Olive Press
article. A lady called Karen commented in the Olive Press article,
claiming she had seen Madeleine on 6 May 2007 (three days after she was
reported missing) “with a family in Cabopino Campsite, near Marbellam who had a
dark blue people carrier. Clarke responded: “Hi Karen, we would love to talk to
you about this…we have now had at least half a dozen very good ‘sightings’ of
Maddie on the Costa del Sol…I really hope somebody can produce the killer fact!
Give our newsdesk a call”. See:
195. Madeleine spotted in Queenstown,
New Zealand on
New Year’s Eve, 2012 COMMENT: A girl was spotted in Queenstown on New
Year’s Eve by a retailer. A police investigation began, which discovered that
the girl had once previously been identified as Madeleine McCann. See:
197. Madeleine may have been snatched by six people seen in a white van
(2014) COMMENT:
This was a story possibly leaked by Scotland Yard’s investigation into the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann - Operation Grange. It was claimed that
Scotland Yard detectives were trying to trace six people, thought to be
British, who had used a white van in Praia da Luz at the time the McCanns were
in Praia da Luz. There was nothing about it in the Portuguese Police files, and
no more has been heard about this since. But, again, it made for a good
headline.
198. Skeltal remains of a fair-haired young girl, found in a suitcase in
Australia, ‘could be Madeleine’ (26 July, 2015)
COMMENT:
A suitcase containing the skeletal remains of a fair-haired young girl was
discovered near a motorway in Wynarka, near Adelaide. Pathologists said she would have
died in 2007. There was speculation that the body was Madeleine’s after a
police spokesman said that the remains did not match descriptions of any
missing children in Australia.
But after forensic examination, the DNA did not match Madeleine’s,
199. Former Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton says that ‘Madeleine was
stolen to order for a wealthy North African family who wanted a white child’
(April 2017) COMMENT: This story appeared just
two weeks before the 10th anniversary of Madeleine being reported missing, as
the British media geared up for another frenzy of anniversary articles.
According to the Press Association, former Met Police Detective Chief
Inspector Colin Sutton, who had been to Praia da Luz several times for various
newspapers, the most likely hypothesis for what happened to Madeleine McCann
was that she had been “stolen to order by slave traders or people traffickers
and smuggled into Africa for a rich family who wanted a white child”. A Daily
Mirror article claimed that “Gangs are thought to sell children to rich
Middle Eastern families while operating out of Mauritania,
West Africa”.
200. False claims made by ‘psychics’ and mediums It is estimated that thousands of assorted
mediums, psychics, dream interpreters and others, who claimed knowledge of what
happened to Madeleine, contacted the police or the McCanns with their ideas,
impressions and theories. Mostly these were vague, e.g. “I see a white cottage
on a hillside” or “I see a boat on the sea”.
Tens of thousands of valuable police hours were wasted investigating this
nonsense. These mediums and mystics just
relied on their vague impressions and
ideas, because no two of them were ever the same. .
If you’ve found this leaflet of interest, please pass it on to those you
know >>> thank you
Published by ‘The Madeleine
McCann Research Group’, 14 July 2017.
Further reading/watching:
Watch the Portuguese detective’s documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxGhlYTNisw
Watch Richard Hall’s five Madeleine McCann films >>
1. True Story of Madeleine McCann ----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIjPcvmVzUo
2. The Phantoms -------------------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL0-ePd3FCU
3. When Madeleine Died? -------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70oo2-Sj7to949
4. McCanns’ Embedded Confessions -----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slziMpXYjJo&t=59s
5. Madeleine: Why The Cover-Up? -------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQgmtrOeDLM
