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Kate and Gerry McCann 'created information monster' that hindered search for Madeleine McCann

HOMEPAGE NEWS REPORTS INDEX NEWS NOVEMBER 2007
Original Source: TIMES: 06 NOVEMBER 2007
From Times Online November 6, 2007 David Brown 
Journalised
A senior Portuguese police officer has condemned the parents of Madeleine McCann for creating a “monster of information” that has failed to help in finding their daughter.

Carlos Anjos, president of the Association of Criminal Investigation Staff, said that detectives had advised Kate and Gerry McCann against their media campaign. They had also warned the couple against drawing attention to Madeleine's distinctive right eye, saying that it could have put her life in greater danger.

The disappearance of Madeleine shortly before her fourth birthday has become one of Europe's most-reported stories after the McCanns made a series of international visits to promote the search for their daughter.

Mr Anjos said that that to “keep pushing stories into the papers — they have clearly not helped solve the case”.

“Quite honestly I don't know if that is good or bad for an investigation,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Inside Stories programme today. “We were against this from the start. And importantly, we were against the release of Madeleine McCann's photo all over the world.

“We thought the photos that were released should not show the distinct mark Maddie had in her left eye. From our experience in criminal investigations this was a kidnap, which was what we believed from the start, the revealing of such a distinct feature would put that person's life in danger.”

Mr Anjos said that Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were partly to blame for the hurtful and damaging news stories that they have complained about. The couple have been made official suspects in Madeleine's disappearance from the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz on May 3,

Mr Anjos said: “There is no criminal investigation which can feed a news frenzy for six months, so what we have seen are both English and Portuguese journalists behaving in a scandalous and unprofessional way.

“Writing terrible stories in the papers, some of which have clearly affected the McCanns. . . . now we have to say that the McCanns are partly to blame for this. Because it was something they created.

“It was the McCanns who first gave the story to the press. It was them, together with their press advisers — whose instructions I assume they were following — who gave all those press conferences. It is our opinion that the McCanns created a monster of information about the ‘Maddie case' which they then lost control of.”

His comments followed claims by two Portuguese policemen who arrive at the Ocean Club on May 3 that senior officers were to blame for serious errors in the initial stages of the investigation. The officers from the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) admitted that a “circus” of people trampled through Madeleine's bedroom on the night she went missing.

One officers said: “It was chaos. The world and his dog were in that room just to look under a bed. It was crazy allowing so many people to trample through. There was nothing we could do. The damage had already been done.”

British police experts have said that vital evidence could have been destroyed or contaminated because of the failure to seal off the ground-floor flat and the surrounding area.

One of the GNR officers said: “It's not brain surgery and probably, in this case, could have saved a lot of speculation, heartache and unnecessary investigation time and money. The world's eyes are on us and we mucked up big and there's nothing they can do to change things — it's too late.”

The officers claimed that Mr and Mrs McCann and their seven British friends had been difficult to deal with because they had been drinking.

“They were upset, panicking, wide-eyed, the usual, but there was something else. They were scared — not the usual scared, they were jumpy, nervous. It wasn't normal. None of it was normal,” said on officer.

“They'd all been drinking. They weren't falling over but it was hard to deal with them.”

The McCann family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell — himself a target of some of Mr Anjos's remarks — rejected as “utter nonsense” claims that the campaign had hindered the investigation. “We have done our absolute best to make people aware that Madeleine is out there,” he said “possibly still alive, and we still need their help.

“Everything Kate and Gerry did from the minute she went missing, they have not regretted, nor have I, nor have any of the family.”

He criticised some news reports for misleading the public by repeating “myths” about the case and the hunt for Madeleine, who disapeared shortly before her fourth birthday.

“The coverage in certain directions has been most unhelpful.” he said, “ and we feel very disappointed by certain aspects of this which keep getting repeated and repeated and repeated until the wider public — who have no real inside information on this for very good reasons, because we can't put it out there — they believe these headlines."

Inside Stories: The positive and negatives of the media machine can be heard on Radio 4 at 9.30pm tonight or at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/newspapers.shtml

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