The McCanns' Abuse of Power: Kate McCann's critics quiet at last

Wednesday

Kate McCann's critics quiet at last

By Fergus Shanahan
Tuesday, May 5, 2009

TWO years on, the tide seems to have turned at last for Kate McCann.

It really does seem to be sinking in to even her most vicious critics that she played no part in Maddie's disappearance.

You only had to watch Kate on America's Oprah Winfrey Show to see how utterly destroyed she is.

At least half the country spent several weeks thinking she was up there with Myra Hindley and Rose West. I got a lot of outraged emails when I stood up for her from the start.

But I bet you this. As the foreign holiday season gets under way (for those who can still afford it), how many parents will nip down to the bar for five minutes leaving their kids asleep in their room, thinking "How can anything happen to them in the middle of a big, well-run place like this?"

Source: The Sun (appears in paper edition only)

One of the withheld statements by Dr Katherina Gaspar

I was seated between Dave and Gerry who I believe were both speaking about Madeleine. I don’t remember the conversation in its entirety, but it seemed they were discussing a possible scenario. I remember Dave telling Gerry something like “she”, referring to Madeleine, “would do this”.. When he mentioned “this”, Dave was sucking on one of his fingers, pushing it inside and outside his mouth, while with the other hand he made a circle around his nipple, in a circulatory movement over his clothes. This was done in a provocative manner and carried an explicit insinuation in relation to what he was saying and doing. I remember that I was shocked at this, and looked at Gerry, and also at Dave, to see their reactions. I looked around as if saying “did anyone else hear this, or was it just me”. There was a nervous silence registered in all the conversations and afterwards, everyone began talking again.

Maddie Case Files

Susan Healy

"Kate phoned me, errm… about an hour after Gerry and asked me to get in touch with, errm… Paul Seddon, who is the priest, Father Seddon, who married her, who baptised Madeleine, errm… and I didn't have his mobile phone so I rang a friend of Kate's and got… got him and he rang Kate right away and I think as soon as this happened, as soon as Kate realised what had happened, it was as if, errm.. she started to ask God right away to give her Madeleine. Errm… because Kate and Gerry were not the most devout family."