Transcription :
This is Madeleine McCann, but the chances are you already knew that as Madeleine is the world's most famous missing child. Madeleine was reported missing from this Portuguese block in May 2007 while on a week's holiday with her family and their friends. Her parents have always maintained that their daughter was abducted. Madeleine has not been found and no one has been held to account for her disappearance. Madeleine was almost four years old. Madeleine's disappearance heralded a type of missing person campaign that had barely been seen before. One in which the parents of the missing child became akin to celebrities. In the 11 years since Madeleine's disappearance Kate and Gerry McCann have made countless media appearances and have gained something of an impressive power over their portrayal in mainstream media, not just in the UK but worldwide, including in America.
I'm Sonya Poulton, a journalist and broadcaster and I followed this case since the beginning. It is unquestionably an intriguing story that is about more than a missing child, as unbearably sad as that event is. This film will look at the role of public relations and image management in the campaign to find Madeleine McCann and I ask why would the parents of a missing child require such promotion and control over the media narrative.
In May the 4th 2007 Britain was waking up to the news of a missing child, little did few realize how much of an impact this disappearance would have.
BBC journalist : A 3 years old British girl has gone missing while on a family holiday in Portugal, it's been confirmed by the Foreign Office..
SkyNews journalist : the child atending a Mark Warner establishment was reported missing around 10:00 last night. She's three years old and her name is Madeleine or Maddy.
Madeleine McCann is the most famous missing child on earth, of that there is no doubt. She was just nine days away from her fourth birthday when she was reported missing during a family and friends holiday in Portugal in 2007. Since then her story has taken on a life of its own, the last such famous child was Lindbergh's baby in the 1930s, a case that shocked the world and the mystery still remains as to what really happened to baby Charles Augustus Lindbergh jr. almost a century on and the shadow still hangs over his parents.
But, in 2018 it's still Madeleine McCann that remains a regular feature across all forms of mainstream media, so many of us know this little girl, her image frozen in our minds. And yet as I have discovered, Madeleine's continued disappearance has been at times secondary to what her mother Kate once described as "the Kate and Jerry show". Despite unprecedented positive promotion on TV radio and in the press. Kate and Gerry McCann have over the last decade become public eight figures, every new announcement about Madeleine McCann is greeted with thousands of online posts, angry at the perceived special treatment that the McCanns enjoy. But is that too harsh a judgment for people who are essentially two human beings who lost their young daughter just over a decade ago ?
I have discussed this case with people from the UK to Portugal and beyond. And many will only say privately what they feel, but I am in no doubt that people worldwide do not accept the official story as it's been presented, despite all attempts to make them do so. It was during a family holiday in Portugal in May 2007 that Madeleine McCann was reported missing. The MCs and their nine holidaying friends six of them doctors was said to have established an evening routine where their young children slept in these apartments while the adults dined at the nearby tapas bar. Kate McCann claimed that it was during one of her times to check her sleeping children that she discovered Madeleine missing. It was just after 10:00 p.m. on May the 3rd 2007 when Kate raised the alarm. And their engagement with the media properly began here. The night after Madeleine had been reported missing and when Kate and Jerry spoke for the first time to the assembled press who had arrived in Portugal primarily from the UK and at highly impressive speed for a missing-person situation.
GMC : Words cannot describe...
It should have been clear from the beginning that this was no ordinary case. For in less than two hours of Madeleine's reported disappearance the first news story had already appeared and with it as I learned with this story the customary intrigue attached to it. The Daily Telegraph, an upmarket British broadsheet reported that Madeleine was missing. How could they possibly have got the story so quickly ? And why did they instinctively feel it was so newsworthy ? Children go missing all the time. What was it that set Madeleine McCann apart from the rest ? Certainly there has been confusion over which member of the holiday party contacted British media first. Variously the McCanns and their friends have sought to distance themselves from accusations of contact in the media, something that is strictly forbidden in Portuguese law and which the Portuguese police told them not to do. This was ignored and, according to a police report, it was Rachel MO who was in the McCanns holiday party who reached out to British media. This issue has always been a problem for the nine adults and confusion as reigned perhaps deliberately so as a consequence. Certainly other accounts place it as Gerry McCann contacting Sky News, just hours after Kate raised the alarm. There were also earlier accusations that media had been contacted before even the Portuguese police were, another charge the group denied.
However the first recorded time of call placed to police was 10:41 p.m, some 40 minutes after Kate first claimed to have discovered a missing Madeleine. According to a police witness statement of a holiday resort employee, there was a great deal of conversation about contact in the media, while she was in the McCanns apartment acting as an interpreter in the hours following case discovery. Whatever the truth, it is unquestionably fact that media attention public relations and reputation management has been a key part of this story since the beginning has integral say as police work and sniffer dogs.
In the initial hours and as media began to arrive in PdL, John Hill the operations manager of the holiday resort immediately contradicted the McCanns abduction allegation is still questionable as to whether it's an abduction he told the assembled press making him possibly the first and last case spokesperson to doubt an abduction had taken place. The Ocean Club, owned by the holiday company Mark Warner, responded swiftly to Madeleine's disappearance and drafted in their media representatives from Bell Pottinger. Arguably, several were already on site. Founded by Sir Tim Bell, a former aide of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Bell Pottinger specialized in public relations reputation management and marketing. It was Alex Woolfall for who was chosen to assist Kate and Gerry McCann with their media interactions and he arrived in PdL the fallout from Madeleine's disappearance was still unfolding. Within the crisis and reputation management industry Alex Woolfall is known as Mr. Crisis.
Alex Woolfall : we are grateful to all of those currently taking part in the search for Madeleine Kate McCann later record how their early encounter with Alex Woolfall four involved him instructing them accounts to question and know their objective when talking with media some people may say the answer was clear to get their daughter back and sooner rather than later but in the world of public relations and reputation management, the simple truth is often an elusive quality. In his new role under the spotlight of this very media hungry case Alex Woolfall decided that the first thing he should do was to personally view the distance between the tapas restaurant and apartment 5A. In other words the distance between where the adults were said to be dining on the night that Madeleine was reported missing and the apartments where the young children was said to be sleeping alone.
Unlike many others, Alex Woolfall had no problems with the claim babysitting arrangements of the McCanns and their friends and he told The Times newspaper in October 2007 "it never struck me that it would be a particularly odd thing to leave your children in that apartment, given that it was so close". Alex Woolfall would soon discover that his lack of understanding in matters of child protection would be completely out of step with public opinion. And the less in the fallout from Madeleine's disappearance, Alex Woolfall would see Kate and Gerry through a number of intense media situations. Like for example during a Portuguese Mother's Day service at the local church in PdL the following Sunday, Gerry McCann used the moment to demonstrate his liking for bold statements of intent and which would become a hallmark of his numerous media appearances. This clip was interesting to amateur and professional psychologists alike.
GMC : From to day service we're going to take from this is strength and courage and hope and we continue to hope for the best possible outcome from this for us and for Madeleine, thank you.
Perhaps this was just early nerves in front of a camera, alas no Jerry and Kate as we will see went on to give many years of unusual press interviews thus making them compelling viewing for many. And Alex Woolfall was with them on May 12 2007 Madeleine's fourth birthday just nine days after Kate reported her missing. Kate and Gerry emerged from the local church and to the astonishment of onlookers lightheartedly smiled at the release balloons at times no amount of crisis management or public relations can erase unfathomable moments in this story. Pat Brown, an American profiler has long been interested in the case and has written a book theorizing about Madeleine's disappearance, she has a number of issues with the behaviors of Kate and Gerry McCann which she found to be a typical of parents of missing children,
Pat Brown : One very interesting distinction about the McCann case is the behavior of Kate and Gerry McCann. And I've worked with a lot of missing children's cases and the parents of these missing children and I can tell you that I have never seen the kind of behavior exhibited by the MCs by any other parents of missing children. Now I want to point out that not every child that goes missing has parents that are the exact same. However, having said that, there are changes which are pretty familiar to all cases regardless of personality. And what Kate and Gerry have, the behavior they exhibit is so out of whack, this is one of the reasons that as a profiler I have a hard time looking away from them as possibly being involved in the disappearance of their child.
Even to the casual onlooker it was clear that Alex Woolfall and Bell Pottinger had something of a job on their hands representing the less than regular parents Kate and Gerry McCann. Mister Woolfall vacated the hot seat after a fortnight working long hours and fending off hundreds of media inquiries a day, he was said to have advised that the McCanns needed to appoint a press officer to cope with the huge interest in their case. In an unprecedented move the British government led by then Prime Minister Tony Blair took over the press handling for the McCanns and dispatched civil servant Sheree Dodd to join the McCanns in PdL. Dodd a former tabloid journalist but latterly a spokesperson for Blair's government came up with the unfortunate team McCann moniker which, according to Kate in her book "Madeleine", led to snide references in media about the McCann media machine. As Madeleine was published in 2011 this comment from Kate is more than a little disingenuous, given the media experts the McCanns have assembled since May 2007. Sheree Dodd was recalled back to the UK and whispers amongst the press pack was that she had been indiscreet in questioning aspects of the government's involvement with the McCanns and she was replaced as it became apparent that this was an international story with legs. The government took a further unusual step of dispatching Clarence Mitchell, the head of its media monitoring unit and a former journalist.
Mitchell met Gerry and accompanied Madeleine's father back to Portugal in May 2007, the same month that Madeleine had been reported missing. It was just three weeks after Madeleine's reported disappearance when Kate and Gerry McCann gave their first official TV interviews. Those early interviews captured Kate and Jerry unguarded and polished before the media professionals really had a chance to work on them. As someone who has appeared on TV hundreds of times I know how we train up after each subsequent TV appearance and the McCanns were no exception to this. However it is those early interviews that give us the greatest insight into what took place. This interview set the cat amongst the pigeons, because it was the first time that it was acknowledged that Kate had failed to look for their missing daughter and had put other matters before a physical search.
Jane Hill : I spoke to a lot of people over the weeks, local people who had given up a lot of time, you've talked about the support that they've given you. I met people who didn't go to work for more than a week because every day they were down on the beach searching the streets. Did you, as a mother Kate, just sometimes think I've got to go and be out there with them I want to go and just physically look as well ?
KMC : I mean I did... I mean we've been working really hard really apart from the first 48 hours as Gerry says were incredibly difficult and we were almost non-functioning, let's say. But after that you I get strength from somewhere we've certainly had loads of support and that's giving us strength and it's being able to make us focus really so we have actually in our own way it might not be physically searching, but we've been working really hard and doing absolutely everything we can really to get Madeleine back.
Kate relayed a different story in her book Madeleine saying that she and Jerry had been out searching in the early hours when few people were about. But there was more within the first two TV interviews that viewers took great exception to, regarding Kate and Gerry McCann. Like for example the McCanns known propensity to distance themselves from any suggestions of negligence. The official narrative maintains that Madeleine and her twin siblings were left in the apartment while Kate and Gerry dined a few minutes walk away. Here's a typical example of the McCanns playing fast and loose with the facts of their case.
GMC : What we did, and we were reassured by the fact that thousands of messages from people who have either done exactly the same or say they would have done the same. And for us it really wasn't very much different to having dinner in your garden and the proximity of the location.
KMC : We've said before it was a little bit I think it's quite similar to honest some of the evening at home eating in your garden and while the children really bad you know it's that close.
But there was more gasping juicing commentary from Gerry McCann he would then go on to make an odd analogy about the emotion experienced of losing his child.
GMC : The analogy that I like to use is a bit like, when we were students and you've got to get overdraft limit and you've gone beyond it and there was just nothing left in the tank..
But if this one interview had not offered up enough bizarre commentary Jerry was not yet finished, he was about to find the silver lining in the disappearance of his young daughter.
GMC : There has been so much good well and humanity out there that it really has restored that one evil act actually has resulted in so much good.
That one evil act being the abduction of his daughter was this almost steely coldness, a clinical approach for the cardiologist that the general public struggled with who people wondered find silver linings when their daughter goes missing and reportedly taken by a pedophile. But it was this admission by Kate and Jerry in those early interviews that sent a red flag to amateurs and professionals alike.
KMC : The first two days we didn't sleep much, we didn't eat much, that was a few days and certainly since then things have picked off and we have been able to be stronger.
GMC : Those first two days were the darkest place..
Pat Brown : Excuse me, two days after your child goes missing and you can sleep through the night ? How is this even... it's impossible, it's absolutely impossible for a parent of a missing child, because what is going through their mind 24 hours a day if my child is crying from me, my child is crying mommy and mommy, daddy daddy come and save me, my child is lying in a cold basement, you know terrified, my child is being raped at this very moment. And so to be able to lie in your bed and go to sleep while those thoughts are racing through your mind, it's ridiculous, it just does not happen. I've never seen a kind of missing child ever say they could sleep and usually they aren't having heavy medication, because that is the only way they can sleep or they fall asleep after massive exhaustion but they certainly don't just go to sleep. The only way you can go to sleep so soon as something has happened to your child is that there's nothing more you can do to help your child, that the image in your mind is that your child is not crying for you, that your child is not in pain at that moment, that your child is not scared, and the only thing that makes any sense is that the child is simply dead, so what can you do ?
"Dead" was something that Kate and Jerry had repeatedly told the world had not happened to Madeleine. She was out there, they assured us in their high-profile media campaigns and despite the whispering voices they had joined government adviser onside and at their disposal and Clarence Mitchell was about to make the difference. With the well-connected media operator in the camp, Kate and Jerry was starting to assemble the team that would see them over the next decade. Mitchell was a big hitter, holding a senior communication role within Tony Blair's government, it wasn't long before Clarence's involvement began to pay off. Over the next few weeks Mitchell was to score big for Team McCann, he organized the trip to see the Pope, another press trip to the holy shrine of Fatima, just to ram home the Catholic background albeit somewhat lapsed of Kate McCann. Cynics couldn't help but notice the apparent quarter religion and in a staunch Catholic country. Mitchell completed his assignment with the McCanns by completing and tour. Some people was shocked. It was as if the McCanns were touring pop stars rather than the parents of a missing child. Madeleine's story and the press attention was according to the opportunistic Mitchell the perfect storm. But it wasn't all plain sailing, not everyone was compliant with the slick media maneuverings of team McCann and, during a press call in Berlin, a German radio reporter dared to say the unspeakable.
Sabine Müller :
KMC : I think that's a very small minority of people criticized you know we are very responsible parents and we love our children so much and I think it's only a very few people that are actually critisizing us.
GMC : I have never heard before that anyone considers are suspects in this and the Portuguese police certainly don't.
Whenever Kate and Jerry have been asked about the criticism towards them, they always respond the same way, they downplay criticism which has become increasingly louder and more vociferous over the years as we shall see. And neither was it the only uncomfortable encounter, this happened in Amsterdam.....
So, despite the McCanns unique ability to recover quickly in the event of their missing child, they returned to Portugal and vowed not to leave until Madeleine was found. Back in the Algarve, Gerry continued writing his blog and which he had begun shortly after Madeleine's disappearance. In terms of writing it was fluff, Gerry mused on such mundane it is has taken the twins to the nursery and what they had for tea many people were starting to feel uncomfortable as Gerry McCann appeared too readily to revel in the media spotlight that came from him being the father of missing Madeleine.
Pat Brown : And one of the third very peculiar things for me was lead the blogging that Gerry did about minor issues. Nobody thinks about those things, again your child is missing, you know you can't have a normal conversation. So these are some of things that were so striking to me as a profiler, I'm not saying this is evidence, that they did anything to their child, but they're certainly striking that they do not behave in the way that a missing a parent of a missing child would.
After weeks of unquestioning coverage the British press to stern, it was becoming apparent to the British government that their man in the Algarve needed to be recalled. Mitchell returned to his post in London and the McCanns had hunted their next spokesperson. Justine McGuinness was chosen by Kate and Gerry McCann because she was a public relations expert with political ambitions, having previously stood and failed to be elected as a member of parliament. And Kate and Gerry as they made clear to Justine wanted to influence political agendas, certainly they didn't hide this. Within months of Madeleine's disappearance both Kate and Gerry were having meetings with politicians from different countries.
KMC : Thousands of children in Europe are victims...
Kate and Gerry would go on to tour the European Parliament ostensibly school for member states to voting increased child alert systems but observers could already see that when the MCs had political ambitions beyond missing children. Justine McGuinness then was perfect, she had a knowledge of how to rule and control the media, she understood politics, her appointment appeared to really win ?? McGuinness must vacate the role 89 days later at a cost of Madeleine's Fund. "51K pounds for 89 days work": This article from a Sunday newspaper is still online. McGuinness sued the publishers because there was a suggestion that she had submitted expenses fraudulently. McGuinness won the case and the newspaper announced they were making a donation to an undisclosed charity of her choice. Many people however particularly those who had sent money to the search for Madeleine were appalled that McGinnis had been paid such an extraordinary sum for less than three months work. Certainly Madeleine has created businesses for many people but before Justine McGuinness left the MC media team let us look at what happened under her splendidly remunerated watch. Justine McGuinness arrived in PdL in June, just weeks after Madeleine was reported missing. McGuinness had the unenviable task of you're only satisfying the insatiable demands of the international media, who first stood for continual updates, but also of balancing the increasing interest especially directed towards Kate and Gerry McCann. According to Justine's own website, Justine enjoys cutting through the world of spin to show how reputations can be made, destroyed or protected. Certainly she had a job on her hands with protecting the McCanns good name. Gerry McCann was clearly loving his new role as a media commentator and just three months after Madeleine's reported disappearance, he was speaking at a media conference in Scotland. Even here Gerry was attempting to control the media narrative by using the platform to tell journalists how they should report stories, and particularly his, he would later develop this and become part of a movement to censor British media. Later the interviewer failed to tackle Gerry's assertion that they had not encouraged the media attention and further as many could uncomfortably see were actually lapping it up.
GMC : I wasn't asking for media, it's the other way... We were adviced..
Certainly Gerry McCann had less of a problem with journalists who complied with the abduction story, but struggled to disguise his displeasure when journalists challenged the narrative. Here is Justine McGuinness caught in a particularly difficult public relations moment.
GMC (arrachant micro) : This is all investigation...
Justine McGuinness' presence was a source of interest to the Portuguese police and in particular detective Gonçalo Amaral who was coordinating the case. Amaral later noted it didn't seem normal to us that a couple whose child had just disappeared engages press attachee to deal with their relations with the media. It is not a question here of minimizing the role of the means of communication and ignoring that a subject like this stirs up a lot of curiosity. But that constant preoccupation with the management of their communication by the parents appeared to us to say the least astonishing. Nonetheless Justine McGuinness was to be a constant feature of Kate and Gerry's life for three months in summer 2007. But she was yet to meet her greatest challenge, that of the McCanns being declared official suspects during her time with them. So it was, that at the beginning of September 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann were questioned by the Portuguese police and made arguidos. Meanwhile JMG was outside the Portuguese police station, busy breaking the law on behalf of her clients. Portuguese law has strict judicial secrecy which prevents details of an active investigation being made public. Justine McGuinness seen here is clearly giving information that she shouldn't to a TV reporter :
McGuinness : ..In some way that she's involved in the death of her daughter which of course is completely ludicrous. -- What is it they have suggested ? That blood has been found in a hire car that they hired 25 days after Madeleine was taken. -- Can you tell us what they actually said to her in the interview last night about that ? I can't tell you their precise words I wasn't in the room.
Justine McGuinness should not have been speaking at all, much less semi apologizing for not being able to reiterate the precise words of the Portuguese police. It was actions like this where the public relations expert was treated like a lawyer rather than a PR that alarmed the Portuguese police. And who is she revealing it to was this man Richard Bilton, a reporter for the BBC and the man responsible for misleading the public during the 10th anniversary documentary of Madeleine's disappearance ? It was Bilton who claimed that witness Martin Smith had changed his mind about claiming to have allegedly seen Gerry McCann carrying Madeleine on the night of her reported disappearance. And so the McCanns were made arguidos and things were about to change despite saying this only four months earlier
KMC : I cannot think about going home without Madeleine and I certainly have no plans at all to go home with Madeleine, without Madeleine.
So they promptly left Portugal and returned to their home in Leicester England. They had been away for four months. They left as a family of five and returned as a family of four. And now the stakes were high as they were being considered as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter. Now they had even more work to do on their public image. The newspaper headlines were intense and damning, Kate and Gerry McCann were openly accused to being responsible for the disappearance of their daughter and this was not a time to work with anyone less than the heaviest of heavy hitters in communication. And so Justine McGuinness, now she was leaving team McCann just a week after they had returned to the UK.
Reputation management giants Hannover got the job.
Clearly the McCanns seemed to have quite a thing for ex-government spin-doctors because Hanover was founded by Charles Lewington, spokesperson for former Prime Minister John Major. Hanover's corporate mission statement was clear. Hanover, it stated, is an independent consulting firm that specializes in advising global brands, businesses and organisations on reputation, communications and public affairs. Quite what any of that had to do with the parents of the missing toddler was open to debate. For the brief contract costing 30,000 pound Hanover won a PR award which they proudly displayed on their website. Some may consider it somewhat tacky to have public relations Awards around campaigns where the child is suspected of having been kidnapped by a pedophile, but in the world of professional image management, their eye would appear no such moral qualms. At this point some may question why the parents of a missing child would require the services of renowned reputation and public affairs companies, but in the years following Madeleine's disappearance, more money was used for this purpose. But there was still one important person yet to return to the MC communication and media fold and return is exactly what Clarence Mitchell did just over a week after Kate and Jerry had been made arguidos.
Clarence Mitchell : I'm simply representing Kate and Gerry as a private individual, one who believes utterly that they are entirely innocent of any involvement in the disappearance let alone the death of their daughter.
Mitchell gave up his job in the UK government as director of media monitoring and stepped into the role of protecting Kate and Gerry McCann as a family spokesperson. The Labour government had forbidden Mitchell to have any further involvement with the McCanns because of their had arguido status, but he had other ideas. The arguido status needed to be turned around. Wealthy British businessman Brian Kennedy had one meeting and swiftly decided that he wanted to get the McCanns off as he put it, and he would back them both legally and by paying the salary of the increasingly present an influential Clarence Mitchell. Clarence Mitchell had a long and impressive media career behind him, he was one of those people who just happened to be first on the scene, including following the murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando in 1998 on her West London doorstep. Mitchell was employed by the BBC at the time, the same as Jill Dando, and her murder has been widely reported as being a consequence of her having knowledge of pedophiles at her own broadcasting corporation, as well as within the establishment. But back to Clarence Mitchell there is no doubt and the well-connected Mitchell prides himself on this, that he turned headlines practically overnight in favor of the McCanns. Even his former BBC colleagues noticed. Writing for the BBC website Lori Margolis said of Clarence Mitchell it was extraordinary how last week his intervention seemed to eliminate within hours any misgiving about the McCanns in the British media. As if further proof of the media's intent to clean up its act following its summer of madness towards the McCanns, a peculiar article appeared just one month after Clarence Mitchell came on board in the trade magazine for the newspaper industry. It featured editors from local radio to the National BBC just to find their coverage of the case. It was an astonishing item almost the media prostrating itself at the altar of the McCanns. By the end of 2007, seven months after Madeleine had been reported missing, her parents had succeeded in turning the spotlight of suspicion off themselves. The media attack dogs were brought to heel, several publications paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages and one newspaper group even took the fairly unprecedented step of issuing a front-page apology. Clarence Mitchell and their libel lawyer Adam Tudor were increasingly valuable assets to team McCann critics felt that the McCanns priorities were wrong. Rosalinda Hutton is far from alone in her criticisms of the McCanns :
RH : The focus should be on finding the child one would imagine and I've never been able to understand all the libel actions. Again this is defensive, it's not proactively looking for the child why is there a need for them to protect their reputations why is there a need for them to force this image of themselves onto the public as perfect parents who have never ever done anything wrong. None of us are like that, it's not human to even expects that, we're not perfect but we've seen a family who are presented as per and that's suspicious in itself.
Roselinda Hutton is far from alone in her criticisms of the McCanns.
Pat Brown : The McCanns, as many have noted, are far more focused on legal issues and their good name than they are about finding their child and doing everything possible to do so.
But are these criticisms fair ? McCann supporters would say that preventing newspapers from claiming Madeleine was dead was the McCanns protecting the search for her. Nonetheless the McCanns legally driven intent to control the media narrative was noted by many. So mainstream media had been tamed through fear of further legal action by the increasingly litigious McCann's, but there was a fly in the ointment. In many respects Madeleine's case is probably the first internet crime story. Twitter was born a year after she was reported missing and the McCann hashtag still contains hundreds of tweets daily, thousands where Madeleine is in the news. These online commentators are often divided up into what has become known as antie's and pros. The McCanns created this idea that there were people who were anti and pro them online and so the tags came to be. However it's my experience that most commentators are not so much antie McCann but pro justice for Madeleine. But it's not just Twitter, Madeleine's story is debated at length all over the internet on other social media sites, on blogs, in forums and on thousands of YouTube videos. A great deal of misinformation has been put into the public domain from both sides of the abduction debate, but many researchers have a genuine thirst for the truth and have spent years poring over the details and commenting on them, meticulously so. Rosalinda Hutton is in no doubt that the Internet has proven to be a double-edged sword for the McCanns.
RH : I think initially the McCanns were able to cause this huge media phenomenon when the case came out through the use of social media, unfortunately it's opened up a huge door and people all over the world were able to study the case. So although we was being told one story we were able to go online and see that there was other things going on that we weren't being told about.
And this disparity in the news handling of Madeleine's story and the multitude of details has created a great deal of animosity between online case researchers and mainstream media journalists. Certainly there's no doubt that mainstream news outlets have had a problem with those who questioned the abduction narrative and have unfairly labeled them as trolls. These people, many of them, dedicated obsessively so to finding out the truth of what happened to Madeleine, they've spent the last decade researching her disappearance, these people according to mainstream hacks are bad and must be targeted for derision. The story of Brenda Leyland is a sad example of their surrender was what had been termed an anti. She lived in Leicester a short drive from the McCanns and she had spent a number of years methodically investigating the case including reading the Portuguese police files. Brenda was an avid Twitter user and she was targeted online by supporters of the McCanns. Her personal details were compiled in these ended up in the hands of Martin Brent a reporter from Sky News who then doorstep Brenda in an encounter captured for his roving camera crew. And they came looking for the woman who lived in that house her name was Brenda Leyland, she was also known as sweepy face and she was being accused quite wrongly of being a troll. And her name had appeared as part of a dossier which had been handed to the Metropolitan Police and it was a dossier of people who questioned the official abduction story of Madeleine McCann. Now B* is a small village by anybody's standards, certainly there's no more than 200 houses here, it's the type of village where everybody keeps themselves to themselves, but conversely everybody knows each other's business oftentimes. And one can only imagine how horrific it would have been to have been Brenda Leyland and to be on the receiving end of a camera crew descending down this street, chasing her, door stepping her in a way that one might a politician who had fraudulently used their expenses or somebody who truly deserves to be doorstepped, because, and it's since been shown, it was arguable why Brenda Leyland had been chosen in the first place. Sky News depicted the door stepping of Brenda Leyland in a damning report called MC trolls and it was aired on repeat rotation on October the 2nd 2014. The report opened with an image of mrs. Leyland and the words this woman uses Twitter to attack the parents of Madeleine McCann on the internet, she's anonymous not anymore. The report featured a former senior policeman and latterly friend of the McCanns, Jim Gamble as well as the authors Summer and Swann who were promoting their just release book which supported the notion that Madeleine havd been abducted. All three contributors had an axe to grind with Brenda Leyland who had openly questioned their roles in publicly promoting the abduction theory and they didn't attempt to hide their glee when Skye put her into the public domain. For Brenda Leyland her virtual life had become alarmingly real and as her image was beamed around the world a media pack descended on a picturesque village, but she had already left. And she arrived here at the Marriott Hotel in Enderby Leicester, just a few miles from her home. As Brenda hid from news crews, Madeleine McCann's father Gerry was interviewed by the BBC. He said people who attacked his family online should be made an example of. By now there was no going back for Brenda Leyland. With the media pursuing her, like a pack of salivating bloodhounds, it was here that Brenda Leyland escaped to, the Marriott Hotel in Leicester. And it was from here that a media storm word around her, as Gerry McCann called for trolls to be made an example of, trolls in this context I should point out being a euphemism for anybody who dared to question the abduction theory story. And Brenda questioned the abduction theory story. A theory I should point out that even the McCanns own spokesman Clarence Mitchell says it's a working hypothesis. And it was from here at the Marriott Hotel in Leicester that Brenda Leyland was found dead. Brenda Leyland had contact me several times on Twitter after I'd publicly questioned elements of the official abduction story. Disturbed by her death and sickened by the public gloating of media professionals and others I made a video defending the woman who had been demonized and only for asking questions about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I was shocked by the response my recording received. It was as if an artery had opened and support flooded in on my social media accounts. Many of the posters echoed the same question that I had already been asking 'why Brenda?' It was a fair question considering the volume of daily online comments about the case. Why had Brenda Leyland been singled out and hounded as the number one mccann troll, even though brenda used an anonymous avatar that she called sweepy face. Her personal information had been gathered together by a team of people working online to promote the abduction theory. According to modern parlance Brenda had been doxed. Now her information including place of work where she lived and marital status was in the hands of anonymous Internet users and for a menacing purpose. I discovered that the woman who had been branded a troll by the media was the victim of an organised internet trolling campaign. Brenda was threatened taunted and bullied by a shadowy group of online users so-called pro McCann's who spent hours every day online defending the belief that Madeleine had been abducted. This group issued insults and abuse to those who question the official story. I sent a letter to Madeleine's Fund to inquire whether Kate and Gerry McCann were aware of these people working on their behalf. No one responded.
Brenda's preliminary inquest took place on a dark and gray December day. I'm a journalist I've been doing this for over two decades and yet times like this it something else takes over you and I have to say all the way to Leicester this morning. We started out from London very early but all the way to Leicester I felt really sick actually. I'm very anxious because I just imagined I mean I've become very personally invested in this, in some respects I am obviously aiming to keep a professional distance but I can't help feel a personal attachment, because this is somebody's life, this is somebody's mother, and I just find the whole thing extraordinarily sad.
The final inquest in March 2015 concluded that Brenda had committed suicide. Oddly a tabloid newspaper already knew what the outcome would be. Brenda Leyland's final inquest presented more questions than answers, the coroner Catherine Mason instructed sergeant Taylor, who was said to have found Brenda Leyland dead in room for 4/9 of the Marriott hotel, not to give too much detail in court. Sergeant Taylor described finding Brenda on her bed next to her iPad, he said when he knocked the iPad, it opened up on a page about self euthanization. Whatever the official reason for Brenda Leyland's death, there are many people online who echo what this woman, a regular poster on the Macan hashtag says.
Fiorifan, March 2015 : Brenda Leyland was killed by the mainstream media for having an opinion.
It feels very raw, it feels very wrong as well. When Jonathan Levy who described himself as a senior manager at Sky News testified at Brenda's inquest, he justified Martin Brunt's door stepping on grounds of public interest and that, to his understanding, this is a report about sort of online harassment. I took the issue with these comments and here's why because I don't believe that that report was in public interest, that was a report that was solely about the harassment so-called alleged of the McCanns, so that was only in the interests of the McCanns and in that report, that infamous report, it featured Summer and Swann, the authors who had written a very pro abduction theory book, that they were publishing and publicized in that report, Jim gamble and a renowned unknown Pro McCann abduction theory supporter and this sort of anonymous lady who was said to be involved in the dossier. And so it was very much about the McCanns that was in the public interest, that was in the interests of the McCanns and those who benefit from the abduction theory so that was already inaccurate.
Several days after Brenda Leyland's death, Sir Bernard Hogan Howe appeared on a London radio station and he described how the dossier had been handed to police by the McCann family. Brenda Leyland frequently tweeted about Clarence Mitchell, indeed many people on the MC hashtag do. Certainly from the anti side, those who questioned the abduction story, Mitchell is an unpopular character. For a man who specialized in communication. Mitchell has frequently proven to be a very poor communicator indeed, in fact Mitchell has been responsible for so many faux pas as it's hard to pick which one to illustrate the point. There was the time he backtracked on there not being a break-in at apartment 5A, thus making a mockery of the original abduction narrative, then he said it was no wonder the holiday friends had such conflicting accounts, seeing as they were an apparently watchless party, turns out that was false too. And here's Mitchell being somewhat irritated with a TV presenter who dared to ask why Kate McCann refused to fully cooperate with the Portuguese police....
CM : We are not going to give a running commentary.
TV guy : ..was the questioning of Kate McCann by detectives. And it's on the record there were 48 questions during her questioning in which she refused to answer, why so many ?
CM : Why so many questions?
TV guy : Why did she refuse to answer ?
CM : Because her lawyer advised her not to answer, she had been made arguido and that gives you rights under Portuguese law not to answer incriminating evidence and nor should any inference be taken from that refusal to answer.
TV guy : I mean some of them seem straightforward as to how she raised alarm, what she first saw, what state of the room was, all that sort of thing surely would have helped answering the question.
CM : Her lawyer advised her not to answer.
And this is a classic Mitchell, here he is insisting that Kate McCann does cry, the TV reporter a feisty presenter from Portugal is no fool and cause it for what it is. How odd a situation must be for a former government spin doctor to have been given a job to convince the world that the mother of a missing child feels emotion and gets sad ?
CM : if you want to talk about reaction, Kate does cry, she cried in a Spanish interview just the other day.
Sandra Felgueiras : but do you think that she cried yesterday to show people that she cries ?
CM : Rubbish utter rubbish it was genuine emotion, she is an emotional woman the same as you same as me as a human being, but she is quite calm, she is British, we are quite a reserved people, we're not as overtly emotional as perhaps Portuguese or Spanish people, it doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means it's different and it certainly doesn't mean that she's guilty of anything.
So yes Clarence Mitchell was unpopular with the online community who made many accusations against him. What was clear however was Clarence Mitchell would show to have formed for dealing with controversial cases. In 2018 he represented the scandal-hit Cambridge analytica who was implicated in serious data mining breaches on social media accounts.
But it was not only the Internet that was challenging the professionally crafted media image and abduction narrative that the McCanns had become known for. The advent of self published in ebooks also proved problematic for controlling the abduction narrative . Pat Brown, an American profiler published on Amazon a book about Madeline's disappearance, within weeks it came to the attention of the McCanns and their proactive libel awyer Adam Tudor from the firm Carter Ruck. PB : I had written my book which is called "The Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann", and I put that out as a self published book on Amazon. An one of the things I made very careful to do when I put the book out was not to say the McCanns were guilty of a crime. Because I personnally do not know if the MCs are guilty of a crime. I do not have proof that the MCs are guilty of a crime. My book simply went through the evidence, I analysed all the evidence I had access to at that time, and I put forth a theory. And, as Gerry McCann would say and has stated publicly, my right, I have a right to purport a theory which is exactly what I did, I said this is my theory based on the evidence of what may have happened. There was no defamation in it, I did not say they were guilty and yet, five weeks after the book was published and was doing quite well, and a matter of fact was actually hosted on Amazon right underneath Kate's book, suddenly the book disappeared and I was a little shocked. There's like well what happened to my book ? And I wrote Amazon and they sent me back a letter that said that they had received a letter from Carter Ruck, who represent the McCanns, saying that my book contains defamation and for that reason they pulled the book off the market.
Kate and Gerry have been meticulous enforcing the media to support their theory of abduction and anyone who diverts from that has been penalized, including the Portuguese police coordinator Gonzalo Amaral, whose book "The truth of the lie" was subject to a seven-year court trial initiated by the McCanns in which Amaral eventually won. And certainly some news stories involving Madeleine and her parents during the summer of 2007 were not only gratuitous and lacked any sensitivity about missing Madeleine, but were also no doubt libelous. Aware of Madeleine pulling power, the potential to add some 30 thousands copies to sales each time she was on the front page, the print media dispatched with any pretense of fair reporting and based news stories on speculation from Portuguese newspapers. But many bore nuts when Kate and Gerry were granted a place giving testimony at the government inquiring Leverson, which looked into press culture and ethics, following revelations of phone tapping.
Over the past decade. Kate McCann in particular has talked about how the media invasion has been something of a sacrifice to them, how it was forced upon them. Observers found these declarations to be disingenuous, given the frequency of the appearances and the clear joy the couple seemed to derive from them. For many the accusations of press intrusion seemed a bit rich seeing, as the McCanns had not only paid for media promotions out of Madeleine's public fund, but they had also brought in the press to photograph their twins. There was a great deal of criticism at the McCanns being given a public forum in which to berate the very media institution that they had so expensively courted. Certainly it was clear that the MCs were intent on censoring the press and Gerry even called for journalists to lose the right to report, if they were reporting unaccurately. Some journalists wondered did the same apply to doctors who lost their children on holiday ? The McCanns and the press had fallen out and it was getting ugly. But it was Gerry's involvement with the media lobby group that concerned many.
Hacked off have used horrendous stories such as the murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler and phone hacking to more mainstream media, which is loathed by people within the organization such as actor Hugh Grant. Hacked off claimed to support victims of bad press, but did nothing to defend Brenda Leyland. Clearly they had a vested interest which would make this tricky. But there was one influential person from their past he was rather more hacked off with Kate and Jerry being given a platform at the Leveson inquiry was about to spill some unsavory beans. So Tim Bell the owner of Bell Pottinger who if we recall was the company to supply Alex Woolfall for the very first spokesperson to Kate and Gerry McCann at the Ocean Club in May 2007. Interestingly Lord Bell in a candid interview appeared irritated by the McCanns involvement of the Leveson inquiry and press standard and he told a journalist "I'm not really interested in what the MCs think, because the MCs paid me 500 000 livres in fees to keep them in the front page of every single newspaper for a year, which we did".
I contact Bell Pottinger to see if Tim Bell wished to expand or deny the comment his assistants said he would not be adding any further to it. Presumably he had said enough. Bell Pottinger went into bankruptcy in 2017 when it evolved that the company was involved in dodgy practices including influencing elections and manipulating internet search results their employees was caught by an undercover reporter describing what Bell Pottinger did as dark arts. There is no doubt that Kate and Gerry McCann social status has been influential in their media outcome. A very media savvy friendly pet pair of parents attractive middle-class parents like stream the media savvy a very high-profile PR machine which is behind this and so it has taken it into the realm of something else entirely.
Certainly there were comparisons made between the missing Shannon Matthews and Madeleine McCann. Shannon a nine-year-old from the north of England disappeared just months after Madeleine. It was later discovered that her mother was involved having been influenced by the McCanns campaign to raise millions of pounds and hoping the public would be equally as generous with her. During the search for Shannon and before it was apparent that her mother was involved the media treatment of karen Matthews could not have been more different to that of the McCanns. I heard colleagues refer to her in derogatory terms opinions that were hidden in the articles but came out fully once it was revealed that Matthews was involved in the plot. Suddenly it was acceptable to write in headlines what had only been said in newsrooms, now Matthews was a scrounging and feckless welfare mother, she was the lowest of the low it was hard not to believe that snobbery was also involved.
The fact was media and public treated Shannon and Madeleine differently too while still apparently missing Shannon did not warrant the type of reward that little Madeleine did. The Sun offered 50 thousand pounds for Shannon, News of the World offered 1 million and a half pounds for Madeleine. Both of these newspapers are from Rupert Murdoch's News international stables but Shannon clearly was considered to be worth less than Madeleine.
The difference in media and public perception of the Matthews and the McCanns was worlds apart. It was a shocking reminder that not everyone is considered equal on earth and certainly not when it comes to one's media image. Months later when the Portuguese police archive Madeleine's case and with it went Kate and Gerry McCann arguido status, it was clear that the McCanns middle-class and professional status had helped them immeasurably in the eyes of the media and the public. There have also been comparisons between the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and an American child Jon Benet Ramsey.
Certainly there are similarities between the parents as the Ramseys like the McCanns were able to control much of the proceedings. The Ramsey's as the McCanns were treated with deference they gave press interviews and did not fully cooperate with police inquiries and yet still no one appeared to press them on answering questions about the finer details surrounding the death of their daughter which they claimed, like the McCanns, was as a consequence of a predator.
KMC : I think that the problem is this predator basically who's been watching us she gives you the shivers entering into the apartment and taking Madeleine out of the bed.
20 years since the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and police and other sources have come forward and revealed that the case was beset with political and judicial interference. The Ramses like the McCanns appeared untouchable despite a recent claim from investigators that JonBenet's brother Burke had killed her. The Ramseys have always denied any involvement. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006.
Unquestionably Madeleine McCann story is one of great public interest. The British public have paid out multi million pounds for an investigation for a crime that didn't even happen in this country. So, as a journalist, I believe it is my duty to address issues that affect the public. Therefore, despite a number of requests to interview the McCanns, both through their spokesperson Clarence Mitchell and when that failed by directly appealing to the McCanns, both in letter and in person, they refused to be interviewed by me. I'm not the type of journalist they're prepared to be interviewed by. I ask too many uncomfortable questions. This however is exactly the type of journalist who has been in team McCain camp, practically from the beginning. Behind me is Tracy Kandola, a tabloid journalist who has extensively covered Madeleine's alleged abduction since the beginning. Kandola who lived near the McCanns in Leicester once boasted to me and a group of people that she regularly lunched with the McCanns spokesman and took exercise classes with Kate McCann. Kandola has been responsible for an abundance of Madeleine abduction articles in British newspapers including the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, The Guardian, The Observer and The Daily Star. In fact, according to journalist at the online site that captures articles published in the UK, Kandola has penned at least 87 articles on the case. In fact Kandola once wrote an article for a tabloid newspaper in which she talked about me investigating the case and making a film about it. Clarence Mitchell, her lunch buddy, was even quoted in the story, not too much bias there then. And here's a perfect example of how far and wide Kandola spreads herself. Three newspaper articles all on the same day, all about the same subject matter, and all with the same spin. One has to ask how fair and balanced the newspaper coverage is in the UK about the McCanns, if the vast majority of it is written by someone who is close to them.
These days, the general public appear to have had their fill of the McCanns, even the announcement in autumn 2018 that Gerry McCann would be contributing to a respected BBC radio show about his mental health struggles, only drew cynical comments. Given that the McCanns had shared so much of their mental anguish during the Portuguese libel trial against Gonzalo Amaral, and despite her witnesses describing the impact of his book on Kate as creating depression, Kate dismissed this notion on the stand as an overused term for those who feel a bit down. Clinically she said she wasn't depressed. There was no mention of any mental health impact on Gerry. Certainly his public persona, that of a cardiologist who had become a professor and had received glowing newspaper headlines for his work showed that Gerry had functioned very well over the past decade. So what about the media's long-term narrative regarding the McCanns which has been primarily of two grieving parents who made a fatal error of leaving children alone. One was abducted and the parents have regretted it ever since how has that managed to endure despite so many questions remaining unanswered and unquestioned.
People online claim that all manner of conspiracies exists around the media coverage of the McCanns, some of it is true but not all of it. While it is clear that the McCanns have become friendly with a number of influential famous people, particularly through Kate's work as an ambassador for missing people, and certainly there has been bias involved in the continuing unquestioning coverage of Kate and Gerry McCann. There are also people my peers who long to speak out about what they have witnessed, but they fear recriminations. For my part I've had a bunch of articles about the case spiked. These were all commissioned by editors but proved to be too critical. I have certainly lost via media workers a consequence of questioning the official narrative of Madeleine's disappearance. I have been warned off from covering this story, I've been told by a producer of my acquaintances that this is the one story you don't cover. I've been warned by colleagues in media that it is career suicide for me to pursue this story, none of these are good enough reasons for me not to.
Colin Sutton is a retired London detective, a TV crime drama about him is due to run on British TV shortly. Sutton was rumoured to be in the running for Operation Grange, the British police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, he was warned off by a colleague. Colin has done a great deal of media work about Madeleine and understands the limitations of wanting to go beyond the abduction story.
That's pretty much your experience as well...
I've met journalists infrequently the last six years since I retired from the police and I talk to them you know people who trust me and who I trust and I've told them this story of the warning that I got about Operation Grange and to a man and woman they just said "we don't go there, thinking of that's not that's not an avenue we wish to explore" and in fact it was only this year when you know I was approached by by Sky and and I said I could bring something to this something new, but I'm not sure if something you want to hear anyone to go with and they at least let me say and that was the first time that the story was out in the public domain that wasn't the ones that we trying over the previous six years.
The control of British media and beyond is very real the memory of the McCanns big libel when still impacting how journalists and editors portray the story for fear of getting it wrong again. I made this film not to cast aspersions on Kate and Gerry McCann but to simply ask questions that my profession should ask. For many, the question still remain why did the McCanns feel the need to control the narrative so strongly that it left little room for any questions about the disappearance of their daughter.
That media narrative that Madeleine was abducted has been guided by the steely grip of Clarence Mitchell. Clarence Mitchell has done very well out of Madeleine McCann. He was not only financially remunerated for many years, but has also had business engagements based on his involvement with the case, one in particular was in Australia. Clarence took spin to a new level. researcher Richard D Hall's dissection of this is well worth a watch. Clarence Mitchell claims to no longer work for the McCanns but how true is that he certainly still a spokesperson for them and in May 2017, on the 10th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, he was given a welcoming seat on a breakfast TV show in the UK to talk about his 10 years with the McCanns. The truth to Clarence Mitchell has always been a moving target.
In 2015 Clarence Mitchell decided to take his political links further and run for public office. I felt that was the time that he absolutely must answer to the tax payer spend of multi million pounds of which he was heavily involved in maintaining the official narrative of Madeleine having been abducted. I caught up with Clarence Mitchell in Brighton England where he was hoping to be elected into public office. Such as his parliamentary contacts Mitchell had been chosen by David Cameron's Conservative Party to be candidate for the area. I felt that Clarence Mitchell who held key government and media roles in the case since the beginning had questions to answer regarding the public funding of an abduction that he himself had referred to in 2011 as an assumption and a working hypothesis. We're here on election night May 7th 2015 and we're on Brighton seafront and we're waiting for Clarence Mitchell, McCann spokesman, because he is a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party for Brighton Pavilion. So waiting to talk to him he's an extremely elusive man haven't been able to catch up with him thus far but we hope to find him tonight. So just a matter of waiting it out really but what's interesting is I put out a public message on Twitter last week, asking anybody if they had one legal question from McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell what would it be and I received all of these questions and I feel that, as he's standing for public office, he has a duty to answer these questions these are citizens of this country and let's see if he's prepared to answer even one of them.
Mr. Mitchell, hello, my name is Sonia Poulton, I wanted to speak with you, can I have a quick word ? you know well no. They want to know why the family of a missing child would require a PR machine why would they require that mr. Mitchell ? Because of people like you. In the decades since Madeleine was reported missing, we've seen two middle-class doctors become media personalities, significant amounts have been spent from Madeleine's fund donated by the public, the maintenance of Kate and Gerry McCann has two upstanding middle-class professionals has required a great deal of preparation, protection and promotion why ? And through all of this their three-year-old who stole the heart of the world is still missing.
