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4 years after Maddie’s disappearance, the mother reveals the traumas she
has experienced. In Portugal, there are those who continue to defend
that the McCanns are lying and the little girl is dead.
“Kate needs to blame others for what happened to her daughter, at the
least, as a result of her gross negligence”, affirms Goncalo Amaral to
FLASH!, the first inspector to be the head of the investigation of the
PJ in the Maddie case, in the Algarve.
Not even after opening her heart in the book Kate McCann wrote,
Madeleine, which is on sale as from today, do Goncalo Amaral and Moita
Flores, ex-inspector and criminologist change their conviction that
unfortunately the little girl is dead – since that fateful night of 3
May 2007 – and the parents know it. 4 years later. Both say that the
parents do not want the case reopened, as they have announced.
For Goncalo Amaral, the thesis of the investigation that he coordinated
“during the first 6 months and the conclusions of the investigation
carried out by the Portuguese and British police, in September 2007,
come to the indications of the accidental death of the child and the
subsequent hiding of the body.” And he continues to defend what he
believes and what he wrote in his book “Maddie, the Truth of the Lie”.
The McCanns are the ones who hide the truth and who never collaborated
with the police”.
His colleague and the criminologist, Francisco Moita Flores defends: “I
have no doubt that the child died”. And he points the finger at the
McCanns who, in Kate’s book, continue to criticise the actions of the
Portuguese police in how the case was carried out: “They should keep
quiet, because if it wasn’t for the entire media show, in Portugal, they
would have been arrested and accused of child abandonment”.
THE STRUGGLE FOR MADDIE
Indifferent to these accusations, and stating that they will do
everything to find their daughter, the McCanns are now presenting Kate’s
book, “Madeleine”, published by ASA of the Leya group. 4 years after her
disappearance, Maddie’s mother still remembers every details of how it
happened.
On the morning of 4 May 2007 Portugal woke to the news that Madeleine
McCann, an English 4 year old, had disappeared in Praia da Luz, in the
Algarve. The news spread all over the planet. In the centre of the
hurricane were her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, both doctors, who
accused an abductor of having abducted their daughter while they were
dining with friends 50(!) metres from the apartment, in the Ocean Club.
They made public appeals, in numerous press conferences and prayed at
Fatima sanctuary. They went to the Vatican, where they spoke to Pope
Benedict XVI. Nothing happened, except for the creation of the Find
Madeleine Fund to which thousands of people contributed in order to help
the desperate couple to find their daughter. At the end of July 2007, a
mediatic turn of events occurred: the PJ started to follow the lead that
the child died in the apartment and that her body was hidden. In less
than a month, the couple changed from parents suffering from the
abduction of their daughter in the case, to suspects in hiding her
death. Kate and Gerry abandoned Portugal on 10 September with their
image stained by suspicion. They returned to Rothley, a small town in
the centre of England, and bit by bit they tried to regain normality in
their lives. In November 2007, Gerry returns to his work at Glenfield
Hospital, although he only began working full time in January 2008. Kate
stays at home taking care of the twins, Sean and Amelie, and working on
the fund created to find their eldest daughter, as is revealed in the
book.
THE DIFFICULT RETURN
In the book – which on the first day sold 40.000 copies and 250.000 in a
week – as well as giving her version of the facts as to what happened on
that night, in the apartment of Praia da Luz, Kate describes the arrival
at home in Rothley, as “comforting”. “I feel very inhibited in public
places”, she reveals in her book, adding that she understands when
people come up to her to wish her well, but others just stare at her or
nudge their friends and whisper: Look there’s Kate McCann, then everyone
stares at me. Some examples: Store employees calling their colleagues
and looking out from the counters. Do they believe what is in the
papers' Kate and Gerry have taken up their familiar habits. Sean and
Amelie have started their swimming lessons, a few months after returning
from Portugal. The couple, fervent Catholics, continue to go to mass on
Sunday at the local church St. Mary and St.John, in Rothley, and visit
frequently the main pub of the town, The Royal Oak Pub, a family place,
where they eat light meals or snacks and hear live music.
SUICIDE AND TRAUMA OF SEX
Kate McCanns admits in her book the depression which lead her to
consider suicide. “I felt the need to throw myself in the ocean and to
swim as fast as possible until I was exhausted and to let the water
swallow me to alleviate the suffering”.
As a result of Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate reveals that she lost her
sexual desire for her husband. Her sexual desire went to zero and how
she would not normally talk about her sex life. However, it is an
important part of most marriages and it would not be correct not to
recognise this. She could not permit any kind of pleasure, even reading
a book or making love to her husband. The fear that Maddie’s fate could
be the worst and that she was in the hands of a paedophile contributed
to her mental block. This has been overcome in the meantime. She was not
going to let herself be beaten by that and not to give in and to accept
it as an unfortunate secondary effect of the tragedy. Gerry and a
psychologist assured her that her sexual desire would return. They now
try to live a normal life and continue the search for Maddie. For this
they have asked David Cameron to reopen the investigation.
KATE AND GERRY ARE NOT SERIOUS
The ex-inspectors of the PJ, Goncalo Amaral and Moita Flores, do not
believe that is the intention of the McCanns. Nor do they believe in any
diligences carried out by the British authorities in Portugal. “This
case is still very “hot” and this couple is so insolent and dishonest
that everything they say sounds like bullsh*t. Everything they is just
for the English PR”, states the writer and mayor of Santarem, Moita
Flores. He rejects the harsh criticism, in the book, of the PJ during
the last months the couple was in Portugal, especially after they were
made “arguidos”. “The criticism of the PJ is nonsense and a gross
manipulation. As long as the PJ had not yet come to the lead that the
child was dead and were concentrated on the abduction lead, as the
couple wanted, they only had praise for the PJ. After the PJ discovered
the blood and cadaver smell, everything started going wrong”, he
sustains. The criminologist will only begin to believe the McCanns when
they accept to carry out a reconstruction in which it is proven that an
abduction had actually taken place. “The day in which they want to
prove, with a reconstruction, their thesis – this macabre staging – that
it was possible that someone could have entered by the door and left
with a child in their arms, by the window, they might stop treating the
Portuguese police as stupid”.
THEY DO NOT WISH FOR THE TRUTH TO BE DISCOVERED
The ex-inspector, Goncalo Amaral, also sustains: “Despite what they want
us to believe, the conclusions of the process, in September 2007, still
remain valid, because they have never been questioned by any evidence to
the contrary. Everything the couple says is folklore and they do not
wish to find the material truth or achieve justice”. Goncalo Amaral,
against whom the couple had a case to stop the publication of the book
“A Verdade da Mentira”, is categoric: “The couple refuses to participate
in any part of the investigation, such as a reconstruction, which would
help to clarify their possible responsibility in the disappearance of
their daughter, and if they are speaking the truth, will serve to clear
them of this responsibility. Furthermore, they have never requested the
formal reopening of the case, shelved in 2008, but did everything to
have the case shelved”.
The ex-coordinator of the investigation says that he suspects that “the
case will not be reopened”. He justifies: “The couple never wanted the
case reopened. They only want to review of the sightings, always on the
basis of the inexistent abduction theory, keeping the case shelved,
fearing the reopening of the case.
If this criminal case was taken off
the shelf and the investigation reopened, I have no doubts that it would
lead to the discovery of the material truth and to achieving justice.
There were many diligences to carry out and some could have a decisive
role in the discovery of Madeleine
McCanns whereabouts”.
In his new
book, he will counter Kate’s accusations.
Moita Flores believes that one day all the truth will be known:
“I have
no doubts that the child died. Who knows, one day a fishing net will
pick up a bag with the child’s bones in it”. |
