Sheree Dodds appointment demonstrates the faith Mr.T.Blair put in her judgment above that even of his career civil servants who traditionally had inherited her role as Goverment spokesperson in The Goverment Information Service.Her appointment was covered here in the subsequent meeting of the Select Committee on Public Administration;
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493. I am very sorry to have interrupted Peter with his factual point about whether there has been any politicisation of the Government Information Service, but I just wanted to get to the facts. There are now, are there not, several journalists who used to work for The Mirror who have gone into jobs which were held by civil servants, either line civil servants or members of the Government Information Service. For example, Sheree Dodds has replaced, has she not, a line civil servant? Alastair Campbell has replaced, have you not, a line civil servant? So there has been a politicisation of the Civil Service in that respect.
(Mr Granatt) Most of the appointments you have talked about, apart from the one appointment of The Mirror journalist at the FCO, have been through assessment centres which we have run supervised by the Civil Service Commission. They have been fully fair and open competitions under the First Civil Service Commissioner's rules.


494. Are you suggesting that Alastair Campbell would not have been appointed had it not been for the fact that he had already been working for Tony Blair and if there had been a full and open competition he would have come top in the end? I am sure he is a very capable chap. We have seen that today.
(Mr Granatt) Alastair is a special adviser.


495. So Sheree Dodd was appointed on a completely open competition?
(Mr Granatt) Yes.
(Mr Campbell) This maybe shows that I do not have my ear as close to the ground as I used to. The first I knew that Sheree Dodd had been appointed was when she came up to me in the Press Gallery canteen and said, "Have you heard my news?" I was not even aware that she had applied.

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Here we can see that it was so sensitive that even Campbell didn't know she had even applied for the post and he was as shocked as anyone else.Tony really wanted this appointment it was very important to him,he had decided she was the woman for that post above all else it was a very personnal directive.


After Madeleines 'abduction' Sheree was sent for as the prime ministers woman on the spot.She reported directly to Mr.Blair as her opinion counted in these things it was plainly more highy considered than that the opinions of The Ambassador or his minions at the Foreign Office,if they had they been of consequence to Mr.Blair then he would not have sent for her.
Her disguise was that of 'Media Liason Officer' for the Mccanns not interestingly enough on behalf of HMG.

Here's her reported arrival in The Mail;

"Prime Minister Tony Blair sent special envoy Sheree Dodd to act as a "media liaison officer" for the pair soon after Madeleine vanished."

She has been described as 'on secondement' from the Foreign Office and 'Special Envoy' of Mr.Blair,however her official position is described makes no difference, she's obviously needed there to act as an intermediary with Mr.Blair.To report the situation as she sees it and to advise the Mccanns of what HMG will or will not do for them and how.

Once she arrived she had her doubts,she didn't like the way the couple interacted with the Police.They would not answer questions they were not as available to the authorities as much as you might have expected for a couple who had just lost their child.She found their actions suspicous and that worried her.
She could not report this.
These were, after all, just her impressions, feelings, observations and gut instinct that told her that something wasn't right about this pair, nothing to do with why she was sent there at all.She could only report in her official capacity and carry out her functions she was required the rest would have to wait.

Sheree did her job and life returned to normal,but something still bugged her,those two people in Portugal and their sorry tale of their missing daughter.Now and then she thought about it,the papers and resulting media tumult ensured she could not forget about that meeting and the things she had seen.
What could she do to voice her concerns?
It wasn't a political matter she had no further involvemnt and there wasn't a hope in hell that she'd have any desire to besmearsch Mr.Blair and his government,a man and a government to which she owed so much.

Now there is the matter of the letter from Belgium.Here's a UK paper link on the breaking of the story;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

Read it and try to put Sheree Dodds completely out of your mind as you read it.