A REVIEW OF ‘LOOKING FOR MADELEINE’, BY ANTHONY SUMMERS AND ROBBYN SWAN

by Amy Wright – 5 September 2014

 

 

The purpose of this article is to give people advance warning of a heavily promoted book on the Madeleine McCann case, which will almost certainly be a ‘whitewash’ and fail to address the key issues in that case.

 

 

 

This Sunday (7 September), this important book about Madeleine McCann will be serialised in Rupert Murdoch’s Sun on Sunday. It’s called ‘Looking for Madeleine’, and is written by U.S. authors Anthony Summers (a former BBC journalist who worked on Panorama for a time) and his wife, Robbyn Swan. It will be released on Thursday 11 September. Its publishers, called ‘Headline’, make one of the most extravagant claims ever made for a book. They say that the book will be ‘the most definitive account possible’ of the Madeleine McCann case.  

 

 

AUTHORS

 

  

The authors are perhaps best known for their previous book, ‘The Eleventh Hour’, which was supposedly an investigation into the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. Widely praised by establishment journalists, it has however been condemned as a ‘whitewash’ by the many people who have researched the 9/11 atrocity and found that the official version of events that day had many big holes in it.  

  

  

Summers & Swan have chosen to publish their book on the 13th anniversary of 9/11. Below is the publisher’s description of the book, in 13 sentences:

 

1. The 2007 disappearance of a three-year-old Madeleine McCann from her bed in Portugal proved an instant, worldwide sensation.
2. There's been nothing like it since America's Lindbergh kidnapping eighty years ago.
3. Award-winning authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan have produced the first independent, objective account of the case.
4. They have examined the released Portuguese files, conducted in-depth interviews and original research to answer the questions: What can we really know about this most emotive of cases? What can we learn from it?
5. The Portuguese police probe ran into a dead end.
6. Parents Gerry and Kate McCann, however, have never given up the search for Madeleine.
7. They blitzed the media, hired private detectives, kept the case in the public eye.
8. Speculation that the McCanns played a role in their daughter's fate, the authors demonstrate, is unfounded.
9. Scotland Yard's 'investigative review', ordered by the Prime Minister and begun in 2011, identified some 200 potential leads.
10. The Yard's suspects have included a mystery paedophile who preyed on other British children.
11. The Detective Chief Inspector heading the probe has said the little girl may still be alive.
12. The McCann family's private tragedy has touched millions around the world and aroused sometimes dark controversy.
13.  Looking for Madeleine is the most definitive account possible.

  

‘UNFOUNDED’

 

   

At point 8, the publisher’s say that ‘speculation that the McCanns played a role in their daughter’s fate’ is unfounded’. If Summers and Swan are right about that, the following must be true:

• that the two cadaver sniffer dogs brought to Portugal by top international dog handler Martin Grime, and who detected the past presence of a corpse, and of blood and body fluids, in 11 locations associated with the McCanns (in their holiday apartment, in their hired car, and on some of their clothes) made a total 16 false alerts, despite having been 100% successful on all their previous outings
• that there is a reasonable explanation for the literally dozens of major contradictions and changes of story in the accounts given to the Portuguese Police by the McCanns and their friends
• that an entire team of Portuguese detectives who made the McCanns formal suspects on 7 September 2007 and explained their reasons in a powerful interim report three days later were all wrong to suspect them.

 

    

Let’s just put it this way; Summers and Swan have a formidable task if they think they can successfully explain all the evidence which suggests that the McCanns were involved in their daughter’s disappearance, and have covered up what really happened to her. And there's lots more evidence against them, summarised concisely in the interim Portuguese Police report by Tavares de Almeida

 

   

 

RICHARD HALL FILM

 

    

Point 1 says that Madeleine was ‘snatched from her bed’. That claim has yet to be proved. And just a month ago, a brand new 4½-hour film made by Richard Hall, titled: ‘Buried by Mainstream Media: The True Story of Madeleine McCann. It’s available free on his website, or on YouTube, and shows very clearly that this claim by the McCanns cannot be substantiated. There is no evidence whatsoever that Madeleine McCann was abducted apart from the word of the McCanns themselves. Here are the links if you want to watch it:

 

 

 

(on website) http://www.madeleinedocumentary.com
 

 

 

 

(on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIjPcvmVzUo

 

  

   

LINDBERGH

 

   

Summers and Swan’s publishers say there’s been nothing like the Madeleine McCann case since ‘the Lindbergh kidnapping’ 80 years ago. This was the case of the 20-month old son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, whom Lindbergh claimed was ‘kidnapped’. But most authors who have examined the case in detail concluded that the poor toddler, found months later having been beaten to death and buried, was not abducted, but was probably killed by their famous father or friends of his. It is a most unfortunate comparison for Summers and Swan to make. Perhaps they were unwise to do so.

 

 

 

DODGY DETECTIVES

 

   

The publishers give credit to the McCanns for ‘blitzing the media’ and ‘hiring private detectives’. ‘Blitzing the media’ is not necessarily a sign of innocence. Many a parent guilty of faking an abduction to cover the death of their child have sought to drown out questions by a media blitz.

 

     

As for the ‘private detectives’ hired by the McCanns, again Richard Hall’s 3rd video exposes these private detectives for what they were - many of them outrights crooks, fraudsters and con-men none of whom had any experience in finding missing children. Unbelievably, no fewer than FOUR of the investigators used by the McCanns have been imprisoned in the last six years for various crimes - Francisco Marco, Antonio Giminez Raso, Julian Peribanez and Kevin Halligen. All the appalling details are in Richard Hall’s film. It’s most unlikely that Summers and Swan will tell you much about them, however.

 

    

THE SCOTLAND YARD SHOW

  

 

The publishers refer to Scotland Yard having followed up 200 ‘leads’. That sounds impressive. Indeed, DCI Andy Redwood, the man in charge of Operation Grange, has deluged us with a blizzard of statistics over the past three years: 60 suspects in view, 550 known sex offenders being traced, tens of thousands of pages of documents and mobile ’phone records read and analysed, dozens of visits to Portugal, and many more. We can expect to read much about all this in Summers and Swan’s book. But where has it got us? Is it all just for show?

 

    

The publishers dismiss the Portuguese Police’s investigation as ‘reaching a dead end’. If you read the book of the original investigation co-ordinator, Dr Goncalo Amaral, you’ll be able to see how the valuable work done by his team was effectively snuffed out by lack of co-operation and gross interference in his investigation by the British government and its security services, by the removal of Dr Amaral from the investigation, and by high-level consultations between the British and Portuguese governments. Little or none of this is likely to feature in Summers and Swans’ book.

 

     

JIM GAMBLE

   

So what will be in the book? We have been provided with a clue by a ten-minute news item on SkyNews this week. It featured an interview with former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Service, Jim Gamble, who has worked very closely with the McCanns over the past 7 years, and the two authors. They all said the same thing, namely that the reason no progress had been made in the British side of the investigation was because various agencies were ‘too eager to help’, ‘lacked co-ordination’ and ‘were confusing the Portuguese’.

 

    

RUPERT MURDOCH

  

 

The serialisation this Sunday is in Rupert Murdoch’s Sun on Sunday. The news clip this week featuring Jim Gamble was shown on Murdoch’s SkyNews. The very reason we have a Scotland Yard investigative review is because Murdoch’s Chief Executive Officer of his News International group, Rebekah Brooks, threatened the British Prime Minister, as she admitted at the Leveson Enquiry two years ago. The McCanns’ public relations adviser for the past seven years, Clarence Mitchell, went to work for Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law, Matthew Freud, at Freud International, after he ceased working full-time for the McCanns. And when Cameron needed a Communications Team to help him become Prime Minister, he appointed ex-Murdoch man Andy Coulson, former editor of Murdoch’s News of the World, and Clarence Mitchell as his No. 2. It is almost as if the whole Madeleine McCann story was created by Murdoch. He has certainly profited more than anyone else on earth from the story. But how much of this will be covered by establishment authors Summers & Swan?

 

    

WATCH THE FREE FILM: DON’T BUY THE BOOK

 

    

Please do not buy this book which is likely to be a cover-up of the real truths about this case rather than, as the authors boast, ‘the most definitive account possible’. Instead, please resolve, if you haven’t already done so, to watch all of Richard Hall’s video, which we have no hesitation in saying is by far ‘the most definitive account yet’ of what really happened to Madeleine McCann.