Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of 3 May 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal, sparking what one newspaper called "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history." Madeleine was on holiday from the UK with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, her younger twin siblings, and a group of family friends and their children. She and the twins had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment, while the McCanns and friends dined in a restaurant 50 metres (160 ft) away. The parents checked on the children throughout the evening, until Madeleine's mother discovered she was missing at 22:00. At first the Portuguese police seemed to accept that it was an abduction, but after misinterpreting a British DNA analysis came to believe that Madeleine had died in the apartment, which placed a cloud of suspicion over her parents. The McCanns were declared arguidos (suspects) in September 2007, but were cleared in July 2008 when Portugal's attorney-general closed the case. The parents continued the investigation using private detectives until Scotland Yard opened its own inquiry, Operation Grange, in 2011. In 2013 Scotland Yard released e-fit images of men they wanted to trace, including one of a man seen carrying a child toward the beach that night. Shortly after this the Portuguese police reopened their inquiry. Both investigations are ongoing. The disappearance attracted sustained international interest, and saturation coverage in the UK reminiscent of the death of Diana in 1997. The McCanns were subjected to intense scrutiny and false allegations of involvement in their daughter's death, particularly in the tabloid press and on Twitter. They received damages and front-page apologies in 2008 from the Express Group, and in 2011 testified before the Leveson Inquiry into British press misconduct, lending support to those arguing for tighter press regulation. People- Madeleine McCann: Madeleine was born in Leicester and lived with her family in Rothley, also in Leicestershire. Not long after her disappearance in 2007, she was made a ward of court in England at the request of her parents, giving the court statutory powers to act on her behalf while they sought access via the courts to witness statements that had been shared, under strict confidentiality agreements, between the Portuguese and Leicestershire police. Interpol described Madeleine as having straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes, a small brown spot on her left calf, and a distinctive dark strip on the iris of her right eye. In 2009 the McCanns released age-progressed images of how she may have looked at age six, and in 2012 Scotland Yard commissioned and released one of her at age nine. Kate and Gerry McCann: Madeleine's parents are both physicians and practising Roman Catholics. Kate Marie McCann, née Healy (born 1968, Huyton, near Liverpool) attended All Saints School in Anfield, then Notre Dame High School, Everton Valley, graduating in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. She moved briefly into obstetrics and gynaecology, then anaesthesiology, and finally general practice. Gerald Patrick McCann (born 1968 in Glasgow) attended Holyrood Secondary School. He obtained a BSc in physiology/sports science from the University of Glasgow in 1989, qualifying in medicine in 1992. In 2002 he obtained his MD, a research degree, also from Glasgow, and since 2005 has been a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester. The McCanns met in 1993 in Glasgow and were married in 1998. Madeleine was born in 2003 and the twins, a boy and girl, two years later. Tapas Seven: The McCanns were on holiday with seven friends and eight children in all, including the McCanns' three. The nine adults dined together most evenings at 20:30 in the resort's tapas restaurant, as a result of which the media dubbed the friends the Tapas Seven. The group consisted of marketing manager Jane Tanner and her partner, physician Russell O'Brien, who were there with their two children; physician Matthew Oldfield and his wife, recruitment consultant Rachael Oldfield, along with their daughter; and physicians Fiona and David Payne, their two children, and Fiona Payne's mother, Dianne Webster. Jane Tanner became an important witness, when she reported seeing a man carry a young girl away from the resort 50 minutes before Madeleine was reported missing. 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz: The McCanns arrived on Saturday, 28 April 2007, for their seven-night spring break in Praia da Luz, a village with a population of 1,000, known as a "little Britain" because of the concentration of British holidaymakers or homeowners. They had booked through the British holiday company Mark Warner Ltd, and were placed in 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, an apartment owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool, one of several privately owned properties rented by the company. 5A was a two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in the fifth block of a group of apartments known as Waterside Village, which lay on the perimeter of part of Mark Warner's Ocean Club resort (the resort's facilities were scattered throughout the village). Matthew and Rachel Oldfield were next door in 5B, Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien in 5D, and the Paynes and Dianne Webster on the first floor. Located on the corner of Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva and Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins, 5A was accessible to the public from at least two sides. Sliding glass patio doors in the living room at the back overlooked the Ocean Club's ostensibly private pool, tennis courts, tapas restaurant and bar. The patio doors could be accessed via the (public) Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins, where a small gate and set of steps led up to 5A's balcony and living room. 5A's front door was on the opposite side of the block from the Ocean Club, on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva. The McCanns' three children slept in a bedroom next to the front door, which the McCanns kept locked. The bedroom had one waist-high window with curtains and a metal exterior shutter, the latter controlled by a cord inside the window; the McCanns kept the curtains and shutter closed throughout the holiday. The window overlooked a narrow walkway and residents' car park, which was separated by a low wall from the street. Madeleine slept in a single bed next to the bedroom door, on the opposite side of the room from the window, while the twins were in travel cots in the middle of the room. There was another, empty, single bed underneath the window. Thursday, 3 May 2007- Tapas restaurant: Thursday, 3 May, was the penultimate day of the family's holiday. Over breakfast Madeleine asked: "Why didn't you come when [her brother] and I cried last night?" After the disappearance, her parents wondered whether this meant someone had entered, or tried to enter, the children's bedroom. Her mother also noticed a large brown stain on Madeleine's Eeyore pyjama top. The children spent the morning in the resort's Kids' Club, then the family lunched at their apartment before heading to the pool. Madeleine's mother took the last known photograph of Madeleine by the pool that afternoon, sitting next to her father and two-year-old sister. The children returned to Kids' Club, and at 18:00 their mother took them back to 5A, while their father went for a tennis lesson. The McCanns put the children to bed around 19:00. Madeleine was left asleep in her short-sleeved, pink-and-white Marks and Spencer's Eeyore pyjamas, next to her pink comfort blanket and pink soft toy, Cuddle Cat. At 20:30 the parents left 5A to dine with their friends in the Ocean Club's open-air tapas restaurant, 50 metres (160 ft) as the crow flies on the other side of the pool, a walk of 30–45 seconds, according to Madeleine's mother. The staff had left a note in a message book at the swimming-pool reception area, asking that the same table, which overlooked the apartments, be block-booked for 20:30 for the McCanns and friends. The message said the group's children were asleep in the apartments. Madeleine's mother believes the abductor may have seen the note. The McCanns and their friends left the restaurant roughly every half hour to check on their children. 5A's patio doors could only be locked from the inside, so to allow them to enter that way, the McCanns had left the patio curtains drawn and the doors closed but unlocked. They had also closed the child-safety gate at the top of the patio stairs and the gate at the bottom leading to the street. Madeleine's father carried out the first check on 5A at around 21:05. The children were asleep and all was well, except that he recalled having left the children's bedroom door slightly ajar, and now it stood almost wide open; he pulled it nearly closed again before returning to the restaurant. This was the last time either of the McCanns saw Madeleine. Tanner sighting: The sighting by Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, of a man carrying a child that night became an important part of the early investigation. She had left the restaurant just after 21:00 to check on her own daughter, passing Madeleine's father on Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins on his way back to the restaurant from his 21:05 check. He had stopped to chat to a British holidaymaker, Jes Wilkins, but neither man remembered seeing Tanner. This became an issue that puzzled the Portuguese police, given how narrow the street was, and led them to accuse Tanner of inventing the sighting. At c. 21:10 Tanner noticed a man with a child cross the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva just ahead of her, heading east, away from the Ocean Club. She said he was carrying a barefoot child, who was wearing light-coloured pink pyjamas with a floral pattern and cuffs on the legs. She described the man as white, dark-haired, 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) tall, of southern European or Mediterranean appearance, 35–40 years old, wearing gold or beige trousers and a dark jacket, and said he did not look like a tourist. Tanner told the Portuguese police, but they did not pass the description to the media until 25 May. Madeleine's Fund hired a forensic artist to create an image of the man (right), which was released in October 2007. Although Tanner had not seen the man's face, the sighting became important because it offered investigators a time frame for the abduction, but Scotland Yard came to view it as a red herring. In October 2013 they said that a British holidaymaker had been identified as the man Tanner had seen, and that he had been returning to his apartment after collecting his daughter from the Ocean Club night creche. Scotland Yard took photographs of the man wearing the same or similar clothes to the ones he was wearing on the night, and standing in a pose similar to the one Tanner reported. The pyjamas his daughter had been wearing also matched Tanner's report. Scotland Yard said they were "almost certain" the Tanner sighting was not related to the abduction. Smith sighting: Another sighting of a man carrying a child that night was reported by Martin and Mary Smith, on holiday from Ireland.[41] Scotland Yard concluded in 2013 that the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine's kidnap. The Smiths saw the man at around 22:00 on Rua da Escola Primária, 500 yards (457 m) from the McCanns' apartment, walking toward Rua 25 de Abril and the beach. He was carrying a girl aged 3–4 years; she had blonde hair and pale skin, was wearing light-coloured pyjamas and had bare feet. The man was mid-30s, 5 ft 7 in – 5 ft 9 in (1.75–1.80 m), slim-to-normal build, with short brown hair, wearing cream or beige trousers. He did not look like a tourist, according to the Smiths, and had seemed uncomfortable carrying the child. Reported missing: Madeleine's mother had intended to check on the children at 21:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it when he checked on his own children in the apartment next door. He noticed that the McCanns' children's bedroom door was wide open, but after hearing no noise he left their apartment without looking far enough into the room to see whether Madeleine was in bed. He could not recall whether the bedroom window and its exterior shutter were open at that point. Early on in the investigation the Portuguese police accused Oldfield of involvement because he had volunteered to do the check, suggesting to him that he had handed Madeleine to someone through the bedroom window. Kate made her own check at around 22:00. Scotland Yard said in 2013 that Madeleine was probably taken moments before this. Kate recalled entering the apartment through the patio doors at the back, and noticed that the children's bedroom door was wide open. When she tried to close the door it slammed shut as though there was a draught, which is when she found that the bedroom window and its shutter were open. Madeleine's Cuddle Cat and pink blanket were still on the bed, but Madeleine was gone. After briefly searching the apartment Kate ran back towards the restaurant, screaming that someone had taken Madeleine. At around 22:10 Madeleine's father sent Matthew Oldfield to ask the resort's reception desk to call the police, and at 22:30 the resort activated its missing-child search protocol. Sixty staff and guests searched until 04:30, at first assuming that Madeleine had wandered off. One of them told Channel 4's Dispatches that, from one end of Luz to the other, you could hear people shouting her name. Early response- Police: Two officers from the gendarmerie, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), arrived at the resort at 23:10 from Lagos, five miles (8 km) away. At midnight, after briefly searching, they alerted the criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária;[50] the latter said their officers arrived within 10 minutes of that alert. Two patrol dogs were brought to the resort at 2 am, and four search-and-rescue dogs at 8 am. Police officers had their leave cancelled, and started searching waterways, wells, caves, sewers and ruins. It was widely acknowledged that mistakes were made, perhaps the most serious of which was that the crime scene was not secured. Around 20 people entered apartment 5A before it was closed off, according to Chief Inspector Olegário de Sousa of the Polícia Judiciária. According to Madeleine's mother, an officer placed tape across the doorway of the children's bedroom, but left at 3 am without securing the apartment. The Polícia Judiciária case file, released in 2008, showed that 5A lay empty for a month after the disappearance, then was let out to tourists before being sealed off in August 2007 for more forensic tests. A similar situation arose outside the apartment. A crowd gathered by the front door of 5A, including next to the children's bedroom window through which an abductor may have entered or left, trampling on potentially important evidence. An officer dusted the bedroom window's exterior shutter for fingerprints without wearing gloves or other protective clothing. Madeleine's mother, roadblocks were first put in place at 10 am the next morning. Police did not request motorway surveillance pictures of vehicles leaving Praia da Luz that night, or of the road between Lagos and Vila Real de Santo António on the Spanish border; the company that monitors the road, Euroscut, said they were not approached for information. It took Interpol five days to issue a global missing-person alert. Media: Criminal investigations in Portugal are governed by a secrecy clause in its penal code, which means there are no official press briefings.[22] One journalist wrote that this leads to a culture of "leak, not speak," and a proliferation of gossip that is hard for others to counter without breaking the law. A Polícia Judiciária officer acknowledged in 2010 that they had been suspicious of the McCanns from the start, because the couple turned the inquiry into what the officer called a "media circus." Owen Jones described it as "something approaching mass hysteria." Bell Pottinger, representing Mark Warner Ltd, dealt with the media for the first ten days, then the British government sent in press officers. The first was Sheree Dodd, a former Daily Mirror journalist, then Clarence Mitchell, director of media monitoring for the Central Office of Information. When the government withdrew Mitchell, Justine McGuinness, a non-government PR representative, took over until September 2007, then another PR company, Hanover, was briefly involved. In September Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows stepped forward as a benefactor, and offered to cover Clarence Mitchell's salary (later paid by Madeleine's Fund); Mitchell resigned from his position and started working for the McCanns. Madeleine appeared on the cover of People magazine on 28 May 2007, and on 30 May the McCanns and a group of journalists flew to Rome, in a Learjet belonging to British businessman Sir Philip Green, to meet Pope Benedict XVI. Placing Madeleine on the front page of a British newspaper would sell up to 30,000 extra copies; she was on the front page of several British tabloids every day for almost six months, and became one of Sky News's menu options. The Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã published 384 articles about her between May 2007 and July 2008. By June 2008 over seven million posts and 3,700 videos were returned in a search for her name on YouTube.