Madeleine McCann's parents seek phone hacking probe role


Madeleine McCann's parents seek phone hacking probe role
6 September 2011
BBC

Phone-hacking scandal

The parents of missing Madeleine McCann want to participate in the judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal, a preliminary hearing has been told.

They are among alleged victims who want to be "core participants" in the first part of the Leveson Inquiry.

Core participant status means a person is deemed to be specially interested in the subject and may apply for public funding for legal representation.

The inquiry's first stage will examine relations between the press and public.

The investigation is one of a number of inquiries looking at the way the media operates in the UK.

The Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into press standards.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron has asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to conduct a review of the media's relationship with Whitehall.

The prime minister has also asked former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Elizabeth Filkin to oversee a review of the media's relationship with the Metropolitan Police.

Tuesday's preliminary hearing was held to consider applications for core participant status.

'Notorious' cases

Lord Justice Leveson will decide who will get core participant status in the next few days and notify applicants in writing.

Barrister David Sherborne told the hearing that he represented a number of alleged victims of general media malpractice who wanted to be core participants, including Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter went missing aged three on holiday in Portugal in 2007, Mr Mosley and Chris Jefferies, the former landlord of alleged murder victim Jo Yeates.

Mr Sherborne said those seeking to take part in the inquiry had been involved in "notorious" cases.

Alleged victims of phone hacking who have applied for core participant status include politicians Chris Bryant, Tessa Jowell, Denis McShane, Lord Prescott and former police officer Brian Paddick.

News International, Guardian News and Media Group, Express Newspapers and the Metropolitan Police are among other applicants who are not in the category of alleged victims.

Associated Newspapers - publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday - are also expected to apply in writing in the next few days.

Improper conduct probe

Lord Justice Leveson said the inquiry would examine the relationship between the press and the public, the press and the police and the press and politicians.

Outlining the planned format for the probe, he said he would initially look into the "culture, practice and ethics" of the press.

The judge said the second stage of the inquiry would consider the extent of any improper conduct.

He said he would hold a series of preliminary hearings before a main hearing.

Lord Justice Leveson said he wanted evidence from experts and members of the public.

The judge said he expected the inquiry to last for several months and aimed to produce a report within a year.
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Maddie TV hope


Maddie TV hope
New evidence to be shown in reconstruction
5 April 2009
The News of the World
Neville Thurlbeck


A telly reconstruction of the hours leading up to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will contain vital evidence about new suspects.

A Channel 4 documentary will feature witness statements never released by Portuguese police. .

They have been scrutinised by programme-makers and will be broadcast to mark the second anniversary of Maddie's disappearance as part of a renewed bid to find the tot. Her parents Kate and Gerry are collaborating with the Channel 4 team.

Maddie was three when she went missing on May 3, 2007, in the resort of Praia da Luz. Gerry has returned there with two of the "Tapas Nine"—Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield. They were dining with the McCanns the night Madeleine vanished and are also helping with the programme.

But Kate has remained at the couple's home in Rothley, Leics. She felt unable to cope with returning to Portugal.

A lookalike actress will play her in the reconstruction, while the daughter of one of the pals will take on the role of Maddie.

The McCann's spokesman Clarence Mitchell said:

"There are pieces of witness testimony which have not been released.

These include the suspicious behaviour of several individuals in the area where Madeleine disappeared both before and after she went missing.

"We hope that it will jog someone's memory. This documentary will give a whole new sense to what happened on that night."

The programme will be shown on May 7.
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Is this him?


Is this him?
Exclusive
27 January 2008
The News of the World

Chris Tate & Neville Thurlbeck

Astonishing lookalike found in hunt for missing Maddie

A mystery loner who admits he bears an uncanny resemblance to an artist's drawing of a "creepy" suspect in the Maddie McCann kidnap hunt said last night:

"It's not me in the picture."

But last night when eyewitness Gail Coop (spelling in context-s/b "Cooper"), who helped create the sketches, saw the scruffy man's photo she gasped:


"Oh my God, that's so like him.

"He's the spitting image of the man I saw three times at the resort where Madeleine vanished.

"It's deeply shocking to see my drawing come to life. His cold, emotionless eyes sent a chill right through me."

The 50-year-old granny added:

"I thought there'd be no doubt in my mind if I saw him again."

But when we tracked down the mystery man in our photo, Joaquim Agostinho, 42, who lives a 90-minute drive from the resort, said:

"I did not kill Madeleine and I've never been to Praia da Luz.

"I cannot even drive. I accept that the drawing looks like me. All my friends have been laughing about it during the week saying how much it looks like me."

Astonishingly, despite the amazing resemblance, he revealed that police haven't bothered to question him.

Impossible

He said:

"No, the police haven't spoken to me. But people have been following me and taking pictures of me today and I didn't know what it was all about.

"As I say, I don't drive a car so I couldn't possibly have done what people think.

I did own a motorbike once but I lost it couple of years ago."

Agostinho lives alone in a small flat in Altura, 87 miles east of Praia, where Madeleine was kidnapped on May 3 last year. He added:

"I have no money. I earn a little bit by delivering newspapers to people and for that they pay me with a drink of beer."

As our snap of Agostinho shows, he has a droopy moustache, long, dark hair and prominent teeth, just like the man in the sketch.

Heathcare worker Gail helped an FBI-trained illustrator make a detailed image of the suspicious man she saw in the resort where she was staying-close to the McCanns' holiday apartment and at the time Maddie disappeared.

After the drawings sped around the globe, we photographed a man described as a "weird loner" in his home town, just an hour and a half's drive from Praia da Luz before talking to him.

Yesterday we found Aghostinho touring around the bars of his home town. Unkempt and unshaven in a brown leather jacket and camouflage trousers, the six-footer drank a lunchtime coffee in one bar before moving on to a succession of others.

Later, laughing nervously and looking bewildered in front of Portuguese TV cameras, he held a press conference outside his favourite bar, the Snack Bar Aliha at 5pm.

Our investigations in the small seaside town revealed the man, in his mid fifties, is a college dropout and one-time fisherman who now drifts aimlessly around its narrow streets.

One local told the News of the World:

"He is single and lives alone somewhere in the warren of little streets near the church.

Problems

"At one time he was a very bright student, but had emotional problems and dropped out of education.

"Now he just wanders from bar to bar. Most people know him, he's not known as being any trouble."

The town is a popular tourist spot with Brits and Germans, just 20 minutes across an open border to the Spanish town of Heulva, where five-year-old girl Mari Luz Cortes vanished two weeks ago while on her way to buy crisps from a shop.

Although there is no evidence that Aghostinho has any connection with either disappearance, Gail urged Portuguese cops to question him.

Detectives have claimed pig farmer Joaquim Jose Marques, who wears his hair in dreadlocks, is the subject of her drawing and that he has already been eliminated from their search.

But last night Gail insisted:

"I know with all my heart that Marques definitely was NOT the guy I saw three times in Praia de Luz.

"That man was not the guy in my drawing. But this new man is so much like him.
"I'm amazed the man in the photo is so similar to him. I'm sure the one with the dreadlocks is NOT him. This new man must be interviewed, if only because they need to rule him out of inquiries-and he might even be a vital new witness."

Gail saw the suspect she described three times wandering around the resort. He called at the villa where her grandchildren were playing in a pool, visible from the road, claiming he was collecting for an orphanage.

She said:

"He didn't do anything, but I felt intimidated by his manner.

"I didn't give him any money and he went off on foot, but he must have had a vehicle somewhere."

Meanwhile, there was a bizarre new "sighting" of Madeleine reported last night-in Chile, South America.

An air-conditioning technician in Santiago told police he saw two adults with a young child at a museum in Vicuna five days ago.

He told officers:

"I saw a child with a pair of adults, one of whom closely resembles the police portrait of the possible kidnapper recently released by private detectives hired by the McCanns."


 
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Three cop theories


Three cop theories
9 September 2007
The News of the World
Neville Thurlbeck


Detectives are focusing on three improbable windows of opportunity for the McCanns to have disposed of Maddie's body. In all cases, she would have had to be carried away on foot as there was no hire car until May 27. Cops are working on the ludicrous theory that the body was hidden on May 3 and retrieved and moved later by car.

THEORY 1: GERRY ACTING ALONE

Dad Gerry would have had little more than 15 minutes between 9.05pm when he left the dinner table to check on his children and 9.25pm when he returned saying that all was well.

In that time he would only have been able to carry Maddie's body a few hundred yards, then seek out a suitable hiding place, conceal the body and calmly return to friends.

The corpse would have had to remain unnoticed by hordes of police, sniffer dogs and tourists for more than three weeks-just a short walk from the apartment.

THEORY 2: KATE ACTING ALONE MUM

Kate left the dinner table at around 10pm to check on the children. Less than five minutes later, she returned screaming, "They've taken her, they've taken her".

The five-minute gap would have allowed Kate no time at all to conceal her daughter's body. Police were suspicious that she instantly jumped to the conclusion Maddie had been snatched and hadn't simply woken and walked off looking for her parents.

Kate's explanation is simple. Maddie's favourite toy, "Cuddle Cat" was nestled in her daughter's arms when she was put to bed. At 10pm 'Cuddle Cat' was placed on a shelf at adult height and Maddie was gone.

THEORY 3: WORKING TOGETHER

Gerry and Kate insist that between 6pm and the time they turned up for dinner some time between 8.30pm and 9pm-they put Maddie and two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie to bed before walking 75yds to the tapas restaurant.

Detectives suspect this may have been when Maddie met her death, possibly by an accidental overdose of sedatives to help her sleep, allowing her parents to enjoy a night out. And before meeting with their friends, the couple then hid her body.

But this would mean the McCanns carrying the body through the streets.

With no car and public transport out of the question, they would have been seen by dozens of people.

Crucially, no witness has come forward, despite it being the most widely publicised missing child case in Portuguese history.
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