30 May 2011
FLASH! Portugal
Translation by CAROLINA (Missing Madeleine Forum)
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 Gonçalo 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 Gonçalo 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 Gonçalo 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, innumerable press conferences and prayed at Fátima 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, Gonçalo 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 Santarém, 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.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.
After the PJ discoverd the blood and cadaver smell, everything started going wrong”, he sustains.
“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, Gonçalo 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”.Gonçalo Amaral, against whom the couple had a case to stop the publication of the book “A Verdade da Mentira”, is categorical:
“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.In his new book, he will counter Kate’s accusations.
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”.
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”.
Previous Article
