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[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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Settlement of defamation action: this is the report of the settlement of the defamation action concerning the McCann family in respect of publications which have cast aspersions upon their inegrity

On 10 September 2007 David Brown in Praia da Luz in The Times reported “Errors from day one may have compromised inquiry”

He said that exactly 24 hours after their daughter was reported missing, Kate McCann clutched Madeleine’s favourite toy as her husband read a short statement appealing for her safe return. For the police and journalists present it was an electrifying moment. It ensured that the search for this pretty, blonde child of two articulate doctors would be news across the world. It also may have fatally compromised the police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. Although it was natural for the public to feel immense sympathy for Mr and Mrs McCann, from a policing point of view the couple should have immediately been treated as the main suspects. Instead, they were treated as victims of a stranger abduction. The police investigation was to drag on without progress for four months before detectives finally decided last week that they could possibly be responsible for her disappearance.

Madeleine McCann: the key questions

Why do detectives want Kate McCann's diaries and laptop? By their own admission, Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, were the last people to see Madeleine on the evening of May 3. A simple analysis of the couple’s initial police statement and those of the friends with whom they were dining on the night Madeleine disappeared showed that it could have been possible for them to have killed their daughter. In such cases British police would assume they could be guilty until the evidence proved otherwise. But the Portuguese police appeared to have considered it unthinkable. Instead of examining every aspect of the McCanns’ movements, the couple said detectives rarely spoke to them. As a result the key “golden hour” — actually 48 hours — in investigations had been lost. The soft toy that Mrs McCann held that first night and every day since should have been seized as evidence, the couple’s clothes should have been on their way to a forensic laboratory, their every movement during their six days in Portugal should have been scrutinised. None of this happened.

British policing experts described the crime scene around the ground-floor apartment where Madeleine had been sleeping as the worst they had seen. The questioning of potential witnesses was chaotic, with many holidaymakers at the Ocean Club resort returning home without speaking to a detective. Meanwhile, hundreds of journalists gathered just metres from Madeleine’s bedroom, trampling over potentially crucial evidence, while Mr and Mrs McCann made regular visits to the apartment. Five days after Madeleine disappeared the communal bins in Praia da Luz were emptied, without any apparent attempt to search them. The McCanns’ apartment was not properly searched for two days.

For weeks Chief Inspector Olegário Sousa, of the Polícia Judiciária, insisted that the couple and their British friends had never been suspected. Instead, officers picked up a local man, who has dual British-Portuguese nationality, and who had shown a keen interest in Madeleine’s case and worked as a police translator on it. Robert Murat, 33, lived within sight of the McCanns’ apartment. Coincidentally, he had a daughter in Britain who looked like Madeleine. Ten days after Madeleine disappeared he was made an unofficial suspect and the world waited for the evidence to convict him. But there was insufficient evidence against Mr Murat, so with growing political pressure from London and Lisbon to solve the case, the Portuguese police reviewed their investigation with the help of British experts.

Finally, the McCanns came under the spotlight with reports appearing in the Portuguese media last month that they were suspected of killing Madeleine. It has been reported that the police have found some “significant” evidence linking the couple to Madeleine’s death. So Mr and Mrs McCann are finally facing the agonising process of proving that they did not kill their daughter. Perversely, the errors in the early stages of investigation will now make it more difficult for them to prove their innocence by finding the person who abducted their daughter.

Source: 10 September 2007 David Brown The Times “Errors from day one may have compromised inquiry”

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