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The Portuguese press and the people of Praia da Luz have turned against Kate
and Gerry McCann, and the couple are becoming increasingly critical of the
local police. The hunt for a missing child has turned into a bitter war. Olga
Craig reports from the front line
The persistent rapping on the door of the Portuguese villa that is now home for
Kate and Gerry McCann in Praia da Luz was becoming more urgent and much, much
louder.
Inside, Kate, who was nervously preparing to be interviewed by a British
reporter and television crew, was growing more and more upset.
Outside, she knew from bitter experience, was a squabbling scrum of Portuguese
press, angrily demanding to be let in.
For the distraught and increasingly frail mother, who today faces the 101st day
since her four-year-old daughter, Madeleine, disappeared, it must surely have
been one of the lowest moments in what had already been an unbearable week.
In the days before, the Portuguese newspapers had printed a series of
scurrilous stories about the couple. With each day, the articles became more
and more lurid: all a mangled fabrication of untruths and innuendoes.
That morning they had hinted heavily that the Portuguese police investigating
Madeleine's abduction on May 3 had, for some time, stopped treating the case as
one of likely kidnap.
Traces of blood and hairs - only discovered that week when British police were
finally allowed to carry out forensic examinations in the apartment, three
months after first offering to do so - now led them to believe that the little
girl may have been the victim of an accident, or that she had been murdered in
the apartment.
Now the local press were demanding that Kate explain why she and husband, both
doctors, had left Madeleine and her two-year-old twin brother and sister, Sean
and Amelie, alone while they dined at a tapas bar, five minutes' walk away, on
the night she vanished.
When Justine McGuinness, who co-ordinates the couple's publicity, went out to
try to calm the situation, she was met with hostile questions. Infuriated by
her answers, Paolo Marcilemo, the editor of Correio da Manha, which has printed
the most provocative stories, said later: "We don't like to be patronised.
She basically told us if we were very good little boys and girls we might get
an interview at some stage."
One of his colleagues was more blunt. "They want all the sympathy, but
they tell us local reporters nothing. They left their kids alone. Why won't
they explain exactly what happened that night?
Who did the checks and exactly when did they do them? Everyone knows they think
our police are inept, even if they don't say so in public. And the McCanns
never speak to us. We have nothing to lose by hassling them. "
There is no denying that the McCanns' relationship with the Portuguese press
and police has become increasingly strained. Last week's confrontation was just
one more example of how the couple, who were swamped with sympathy by the
townspeople of Praia da Luz in the early months of the hunt for their daughter,
are now under attack from that same community.
Only the day before, Martyn Smith, a local barrister, condemned the couple in a
letter to the Algarve's
English language newspaper, the Portugal News.
"The DPP should consider if there is a case to answer," he thundered,
alluding to the fact that the couple had left their children alone.
He questioned, too, the McCanns' decision to remain in Portugal three
months after Madeleine's disappearance. "Why do they go to other European
countries but not to the UK?"
he asked. "It may be fear of prosecution."
The all-too-sad truth is that the wealth of goodwill that once buoyed the
McCanns is turning against them. It is an open secret in Praia da Luz that,
while in public they never criticise the Portuguese police investigation, in
private the couple have their doubts about the manner in which Guilhermino
Encarnação is heading the inquiry.
His blunders have been well documented and the McCanns prefer to deal with Luis
Neves, the third detective involved in the case. Even Encarnação's own officers
joke that he "prefers long lunches to working".
The harsh fact is that the public's compassion is fickle. "People here are
finding it all a little tiresome,'' says Sheena Rawcliffe, the managing
director of The Resident, the town's English language weekly magazine.
"Of course our hearts go out to them. But people are asking the blunt
question: why did they leave the children alone? Why remain here? The McCanns
need closure, but so, too, do the people of Luz. A backlash has begun and I
believe it could get ugly before long."
Local business people continue to pay lip service to recognising the trauma
suffered by the McCanns, but they point out that the sustained media eye on the
resort is harming them. Hotels, restaurants and bars say takings are down and
blame it on the negative image the town has.
"The feeling is that they have outstayed their welcome,'' one said.
"Everyone here has contributed to the find Madeleine fund but it bothers
us that it is not a charity. And that is because it is solely aimed at one
child. Only when her case is resolved would the money go towards other missing
children."
The McCanns, of course, see things differently. "I am not sure I will ever
be able to return to our Rothley home," Kate admits. "I feel to leave
Luz would be to abandon Madeleine. I can never, ever do that. "
She insists she will not be bullied into leaving. But she must also be aware
that the expatriate community has also become increasingly angry about the
vilification of Robert Murat, the only suspect in the case.
They don't blame the McCanns for the police's persistent interest in him - they
again searched his house and cars and dug up his garden last week - but most
believe he is innocent.
Yesterday, as the McCanns made that now so familiar walk to the Lady of the
Light church in Praia da Luz (which has become a macabre tourist attraction)
for a service to mark "one hundred days of hope", the nearby beaches
were packed with holiday-makers. Few even knew of the service.
"How can I put this kindly?" asked Sidney Houston, who is holidaying
in the resort with his wife, Alison, and four young children. "Don't get
me wrong, if one of my brood vanished I would never get over it. But we save
for our holidays. I didn't come here to be surrounded by doom and gloom.
"That isn't the McCanns' fault. God knows the burden they are under. But I
can't make it my family's burden, too.
Maybe the harsh truth is that we don't want to be constantly reminded of the
horrors of the modern world. We don't want to be reminded there are paedophiles
out there. You just try to keep your family safe. What you don't do is leave
them alone.
"The McCanns are attracting criticism because they refuse to divulge the
exact details and timings of what happened on the night Madeleine disappeared.
They are doing so because, under Portuguese law, such information would be
prejudicial to the inquiry.
But hasn't the time now come for them to flout the law and clarify these
details - in the hope that it somehow might help the investigation.
Who is going to prosecute them for breaking a privacy law when their child's
welfare is at stake?"
While Mr Houston's view may be harsh it is, in Praia da Luz, commonly held. The
McCanns, understandably and to their credit, continue to cling to the hope that
one day soon they will return to Rothley with all three of their children.
That one night soon they will put Madeleine to bed in her own bedroom, painted
in her own choice of shocking pink.
Their refusal to believe that she may be dead is borne of a deep religious
conviction and their belief that mankind is humane.
It may be the people of Praia da Luz who sadly might convince them otherwise. |
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