Madeleine -- one year on... Will the truth ever come out?
By Gemma O'Doherty
Saturday April 12 2008
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/madeleine--one-year-on-will-the-truth-ever-come-out-1345667.html?service=Print
On a notice board in Dublin's Whitefriar Street church, Madeleine McCann's dimpled face beams out from a poster reminding passers-by to say a prayer for the little girl who vanished from sight almost a year ago.
Some stand and stare, trying to make sense of her baffling disappearance from a Portuguese resort last May. Others bow their heads and bless themselves, praying for a miracle that is long overdue.
One year on, in country chapels and cathedrals around Ireland, candles are lit every day for the English toddler, prayers of the faithful are said in her name, tears are shed in her memory. Clergy say the on-going devotion to this little stranger, who would have turned five next month, is remarkable.
But in Praia da Luz, the sleepy Algarve village where she was taken from her bed on a balmy Thursday night last May, the mood is very different.
The 'missing' posters that once blanketed the town are long gone. Some have been ripped away by local people furious that the cloud of suspicion still lingers over their town almost 12 months on; others pasted over with ads for local festivals in a bid for closure on a case that now vies with 9/11 as the biggest human interest story of the decade.
As the chill of winter lifts and a hint of summer fills the air, hoteliers are gearing up for the first of the season's tourists. At the reception desk in the Ocean Club resort, where the Leicestershire family spent their fateful late spring holiday last year, the mood is upbeat.
Bookings are looking good and there is every hope of a full house during May. But privately, staff admit that the bulk of next month's guests are not coming for the sun. Television companies from as far away as Australia and South America, British paparazzi and Portuguese press are more likely to make up the numbers as the world prepares to mark the first anniversary of her disappearance on May 3, 2007.
The flat at the centre of their focus is Apartment 5-A, where Kate and Gerry McCann tucked their children into bed before going for dinner with seven friends in a tapas bar 50 yards away on the night Madeleine vanished.
Since that night, the two-bedroom apartment has lain empty. A flimsy silver chain still hangs around the back garden gate to keep curious onlookers out.
In their determination to get back to normal, local business people are increasingly convinced that the mystery of Madeleine's disappearance will never be explained and it must once and for all be left in the past.
But in her home town of Rothley, where a flame to the local girl still burns in the village square, there are embers of hope that one day she might return.
At Bishop Ellis Catholic School in the village of Thurmaston, close to the McCann's imposing family home, a tiny chair, desk and coat-peg still lie empty, waiting for their missing owner.
Madeleine was due to start junior infants class here last August. Since then, the staff and pupils at the school have vowed the little girl with the angelic smile would never be forgotten.
This week, in an address to the European Parliament, her parents Kate and Gerry pleaded for the introduction of a EU-wide missing child alert system, similar to the so-called amber-alert procedures that operate in the US.
The couple travelled there recently to observe the system, which allows police officers to commandeer the airwaves and television channels in different states if they believe a child has gone missing.
The McCanns are also in the process of setting up a dedicated hotline across Europe to alert police in the event of child abductions.
The coming weeks are expected to take their toll on the couple, as Madeleine's story returns to the headlines. Although detectives involved in what has become Portugal's largest police probe are no longer actively searching for her, a number of potentially critical developments are likely to coincide with the anniversary.
On May 14, police files on the case are expected to be made public when the period of official secrecy imposed by Portuguese law draws to a close. This would mean that the couple may learn why they were made suspects or so-called arguidos in the case, and files could reveal information about the case that has been concealed up to now.
Last month, the McCanns won libel damages worth £550,000 (€690,000) and forced two British newspapers to publish front-page apologies for publishing more than 100 articles on the disappearance of Madeleine, some of which suggested that her parents were involved in her death.
This week, Portuguese police urged the couple to return to the Algarve to stage a reconstruction of the night she went missing, to be televised around the world a fortnight after the anniversary.
But as long as they remain official suspects in the case, the McCanns say they have no desire to return to the Algarve. There are also suggestions that Kate would find the emotional strain too painful to bear.
With the only other official suspect in the case, British expat Robert Murat, thought to be out of the frame, a team of British investigators have started questioning the so-called Tapas Seven, the group of friends who were with the McCanns on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.
Police have refocused their attention on claims by the couple's family friend Jane Tanner, who told them she saw a man walking away from the McCann's apartment with a child in pink pyjamas at 9.15pm on May 3.
The police have on-going concerns that statements given by the group did not fit initially, but claim that after they had discussed the matter as a unit, there was greater harmony in their accounts. But family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, says this scenario is not at all surprising.
"You had nine people in a bar without watches on, without mobile phones, and absolute panic set in when they realised what had happened. They were running around and then several hours later they were forced to sit down and recount their movements in exact detail and they were at sixes and sevens...
"We would say that, if the police had a perfect time line across nine people, that would be a damn sight more suspicious than the fractured, illogical composite statements they might have got."
As the first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance draws closer, her parents are struggling to return to normality for the sake of their three-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie. Gerry has gone back to work as a cardiologist with the NHS, while Kate, a GP, has decided to stay at home as a full-time mother. She also works closely with the Find Madeleine campaign.
Friends say she still spends hours weeping in Madeleine's pink bedroom, clutching her sweet-smelling clothes, remembering the last words her daughter told her before she went to bed on that chilling night.
"Mummy, I've had the best day ever. I'm having lots and lots of fun."
Today all she is left with are those cherished memories and a lingering hope that grows more distant with the passing of each day.
- Gemma O'Doherty
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