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| | From:  tin-lizzy (Original Message) | Sent: 3/2/2008 3:56 AM |
Team McCann: The couple's key staff Last Updated: 2:10pm BST 20/09/2007 | Gerry and Kate McCann have gathered a tight team around them to help find their missing daughter and clear their own names. Some are old friends or family; others are seasoned media and legal professionals Full coverage: The Madeleine McCann investigation Clarence Mitchell The new spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann quit his job as a civil servant because he felt "so strongly" that the couple were innocent and he wanted to help them. A former BBC reporter, he spent weeks as the family's representative soon after Madeleine disappeared, forging a close relationship with the media and the parents. He had been drafted in to help by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from his job in the Cabinet Office. A 46-year-old father of two, he quit as the Government's head of media monitoring to take up his role with the McCanns. During his 20 years as a journalist Mr Mitchell covered several wars including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. Michael Caplan QC and Angus McBride Two of the country's most high-profile solicitors, both work for City law firm Kingsley Napley. Mr Caplan specialises in international criminal law and has particular experience of extradition procedures, representing General Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, in his attempt to avoid extradition from Britain to Spain on torture charges. Mr McBride has represented several celebrities, including the England football captain John Terry, when he was alleged to have been involved in a pub brawl, and Chris Langham, the comedy actor who was convicted last month on child pornography charges. The company's website describes him as a specialist in "dealing with the media". Carlos Pinto de Abreu One of Portugal's top lawyers, he accompanied the McCanns during their marathon interviews with Spanish police. He was a prime mover behind legislation that has just come into force in Portugal giving the public more access to police documents during investigations. Officers investigating Madeleine's disappearance had been accused of using previous secrecy laws to conceal their slow progress. Philomena McCann Gerry McCann's sister has become the unofficial family spokeswoman, and the fiercest public critic of the Portuguese police. Despite living in Scotland the teacher is in regular contact with the couple, and was one of the first to reveal details of Kate's gruelling interview with officers after she was named a formal suspect. John McCann Gerry McCann's brother is one of six directors of the £1 million Madeleine Fund, set up to pay for the search for the missing girl. He has shown himself prepared to tour television studios to speak out in defence of the couple. He has taken an indefinite leave of absence from his job with drugs firm AstraZeneca. Esther McVey A former GMTV presenter and a friend of Kate since their school days, she is the public face of the Madeleine Fund. Currently running a PR firm, she stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Wirral in 2005, losing by just 1,000 votes. | |
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Police identify Madeleine suspect By Nick Britten Page 1 of 3 Last Updated: 12:45am BST 07/05/2007
| Video: Parents appeal for return of 'beautiful daughter' When every parent's nightmare becomes a frightening reality I felt my family was as safe as it could be Portuguese police have identified a suspect over the kidnapping of British toddler Madeleine McCann, who was snatched from a holiday appartment on Thursday night. At a press conference today, Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the judicial police in the Faro region, said he has an artist's impression of the suspect and remains hopeful that the little girl is still alive. However, he refused to disclose any more information for fear of endangering Madeleine's life. Gerald and Kate McCann, who were dining just 200 yards away when the kidnapping occurred, yesterday appeared before the media to make a desperate appeal for their daughter's safe return. Mr McCann’s voice cracked with emotion as he said: “Words cannot describe the desperation and despair we are feeling as parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine. “We request that anyone who has any information relating to her disappearance, however trivial, come forward and help us get her back safely. “Please, if you are holding Madeleine, let her come home to her mummy and daddy, her brother and sister.�? Mr McCann and his wife, clutching a pink teddy bear, then asked for their privacy to be respected before returning inside. On the night of Madeleine's disappearance Mrs McCann, 39, a GP, made regular half-hourly checks on her children in their room. But when she returned to the ground floor apartment at 10pm, the door was open, the window had been forced and Madeleine was gone. The other children, two-year-old twins Amelie and Shaun, were still asleep in their cots. Mrs McCann broke down screaming. An immediate search was launched, but the abductor is believed to have escaped through the complex’s main entrance. Last night the family were still hoping that Madeleine, who like her siblings was conceived through IVF, would be found safe and well. But they began to fear the worst. Trish Cameron, Mr McCann’s sister, said she received a telephone call from her 39-year-old brother, a consultant cardiologist, who was "hysterical and crying his eyes out". She said: "They had put the kids to bed at 7pm and checked on them every half an hour as they had dinner nearby with the rest of the party. Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, hanging open. "Kate came screaming back to the group crying, 'They've taken her, they've taken her'. Gerry was crying and roaring like a bull. "Obviously someone has been watching them, watching the children, seeing where they stayed and seeing they were left alone. It just doesn't bear thinking about. | Page 2 of 3 | "They can't have children naturally so, being IVF babies, they were extra special." She added: "Gerry and Kate are excellent parents and very protective of their children. In hindsight, yes, they wish they hadn't left them alone, but it's hard when you're on holiday. "The complex was quite open and it looked like anyone could wander in or out." She said Madeleine had blonde hair and blue eyes, with a distinguishing feature of her right pupil "running down into the iris of her eye". The toddler was wearing white pyjamas when she went missing. Madeleine's great uncle today described how much the little girl, a keen fan of Dr Who, was looking forward to her holiday. "Madeleine is a lovely little girl, an intelligent, bright child," he added Jon Corner, a close friend of Mrs McCann and godparent of the twins, said she telephoned him in the middle of the night distraught. He said: "She just blurted out that Madeleine had been abducted. She told me, 'They have broken the shutter on the window and taken my little girl.' "They had left the apartment locked while they were having their meal, but when they went back the last time they saw the damage. "First they saw one of the window shutters had been forced, and then they saw the door was open and the bed was empty - and Madeleine was gone. "Obviously Kate was incredibly upset when she phoned. I have spoken to her since, and she is still completely devastated - as we all are for them. The McCanns, from Rothley, Leics, travelled out last Saturday with a group of friends, all of whom have young children, for a week-long stay at the Mark Warner Ocean Summer Club in Praia da Luz, on the Algarve, renting a two-bedroom apartment with private patio. The couple, who are Roman Catholics and regular churchgoers, were enjoying dinner at a nearby tapas restaurant with the four other couples. The adults regularly checked on the children. Around 70 staff and holidaymakers joined the search around the complex and on the nearby beach. John Hill, the complex manager, said: "It was a very emotional and very frantic night and everyone did a fantastic job of getting involved and trying to search the area. | Page 3 of 3
| "As you can imagine, Madeleine's parents are distraught and not doing very well at all." He said the company offered baby sitting services but "for whatever reason, they were not being used". He added the locks on the apartment doors were "quite sophisticated." Members of the McCann family have flown out to Portugal to help with the search. Mr and Mrs McCann met when they were medical students in Scotland and became close while travelling in New Zealand. They were married nine years ago in Mrs McCann's home town of Liverpool. They lived in Glasgow for a while and as Mr McCann's career took off they moved to Queniborough, Leics, in 2000, when he began working at the Glenfield hospital in Leicester, a leading heart specialist centre. Mr McCann, one of five siblings, was placed on secondment to Holland for two years, where the twins were conceived. They returned to the Midlands in 2004 and moved into their current five-bedroom detached home last summer. Mrs McCann works one and a half days a week at a surgery in Melton Mowbray, Leics, and spends the rest of the time looking after the children. Tracey Horsfield, 32, a neighbour, said: "They are delightful people, a normal, very caring family. They are extremely protective of the children and would never let them be alone. "They idolised them and this is the last thing you would have thought would have happened to them." The couple would have paid around £1,500 for their week-long stay in an area popular with British holidaymakers. Ocean Club, near Lagos, boasts that visitors will enjoy "privacy in numerous villa-style accommodations dotted throughout an independently-working village". The company's brochures also claim the atmosphere is so relaxed and exclusive that "you're as likely to pass a local as another tourist". | |
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