Police urge Kate McCann toward confession deal in Maddy’s death

Scotsman | Sep 8, 2007

“[Portuguese detectives] tried to get her to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer – ‘if you say you killed Madeleine by accident and then hid her and disposed of the body, then we can guarantee you a two-year jail sentence or even less’.”

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‘Did you kill Madeleine,’ police ask missing girl’s mother

by FERGUS SHEPPARD

PORTUGUESE police urged Kate McCann to confess to her daughter’s killing in exchange for a lenient jail sentence, her relatives claimed last night.

Mrs McCann’s aunt said police told her niece that if she admitted accidentally killing Madeleine and hiding and disposing of the body, they would give her no more than a two-year jail sentence.

The allegation came during an extraordinary day which saw Mrs McCann accused for the first time by Portuguese police of killing her missing daughter, Madeleine. Mrs McCann’s husband, Gerry, was also being questioned last night, although it was not clear if he would be formally named as a suspect.

Back in the UK, friends and relatives of the beleaguered couple took to the airwaves in their droves to protest the McCanns’ innocence, denouncing the Portuguese authorities as “imbeciles”.

The day began with Mrs McCann undergoing five hours of questioning at the headquarters of the Policia Judiciaria, Portugal’s equivalent of the CID, in Portimao.

She was made an arguida, or female formal suspect, before detectives grilled her on 22 key points about Madeleine’s dis appearance.

A family spokesman said that among the questions put to Mrs McCann, 39, “it was clearly suggested to her that she had accidentally been responsible for Madeleine’s death”.

However, despite Mrs McCann’s fears that she might be charged following the police interview, no such charges were issued last night.

Mrs McCann underwent 11 hours of questioning on Thursday, during the course of which detectives suggested traces of her daughter’s DNA had been found in the family’s hire car.

She is understood to have told them angrily there was “no way” this could be the case because they did not lease the car until 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.

Cardiologist Mr McCann, also 39, arrived at the police station to undergo questioning separately a few minutes before his wife left. He was not initially being treated as a suspect.

Like his wife, Mr McCann faced a barrage of journalists and onlookers when he arrived at the headquarters of the Policia Judiciaria at 3:35pm.

He arrived in a car driven by the couple’s campaign manager and spokeswoman, Justine McGuinness.

Wearing a blue T-shirt and brown trousers, and carrying a maroon backpack, he gave the waiting photographers and TV crews a forced smile as he walked to the entrance.

There were a few whistles from the large crowd of locals and holidaymakers, but the reception was more muted than that given to Mrs McCann. She faced some jeers and whistles from onlookers although one British holidaymaker shouted: “We believe you, Kate.”

Before attending the police station, Mr McCann insisted any suggestion his wife was involved in their daughter’s disappearance was “ludicrous”.

Writing on his blog, on the findmadeleine.com website, Mr McCann said: “Anyone who knows anything about 3 May [the day Madeleine vanished] knows that Kate is completely innocent.”

Mr McCann added that the family would “fight this all the way and we will not stop looking for Madeleine”.

Later, Mrs McCann’s aunt, Philomena McCann, said police had offered her niece a deal.

She said: “[Portuguese detectives] tried to get her to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer – ‘if you say you killed Madeleine by accident and then hid her and disposed of the body, then we can guarantee you a two-year jail sentence or even less’.”

Today marks 128 days since Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz while her parents dined with friends nearby.

Friends and family rallied round the couple.

Susan Healey, Kate McCann’s mother, speaking from her home in Liverpool, described the situation as ludicrous.

Mr McCann’s brother, John McCann, dismissed as “crazy” the suggestion Mrs McCann could have been involved with Madeleine’s death.

The McCanns are said to fear that the Portuguese police might “frame” them over their daughter’s disappearance.

The latest developments have upset the McCanns’ plans to return to their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, with their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, tomorrow.

Has DNA brought breakthrough or just raised more questions than answers?

IT TOOK Portuguese police 127 days to formally make Kate McCann a suspect in her own daughter’s disappearance after a series of apparent DNA breakthroughs in the case.

Their designation of 39-year-old Mrs McCann as an arguida is said to have allowed them to put 22 particular questions to the GP.

What that list consists of is unknown, but the fact Mrs McCann is now a suspect hints at their nature.

The most urgent line of questioning appears to be driven by the initial results from DNA material recovered from the McCanns’ holiday flat, hire car and also the home of Robert Murat, the ex-pat Briton previously named as an official suspect in the inquiry.

The tests, carried out by a forensic service laboratory in Birmingham, are said to have found traces of Madeleine’s DNA in the Renault Scenic hired by the family, and blood in the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

If true, what accounts for Madeleine’s DNA in the Renault, a vehicle hired by the family 25 days after Madeleine disappeared?

The results of those DNA tests, received by Portuguese police earlier this week, are said to have prompted the authorities to look again at other parts of the investigation. Sources inside the Portuguese police are described as speaking of a “very big jigsaw” gradually assembling, some parts provided by the DNA work, others from information gathered locally in Portugal.

The move to assign arguida status to Mrs McCann is also viewed as having had the effect of kick-starting an investigation that, despite the questioning of several people, had made little apparent headway.

Some of the 22 questions are thought to be prompted by what Portuguese detectives consider, in the light of new information, to be possible gaps in the accounts given by the McCanns and their friends about what happened on 3 May, the night Madeleine disappeared.

Until now, police have appeared content with the McCanns’ explanation that there was less than an hour between the last time Mr McCann saw the toddler and the time Mrs McCann discovered she was missing.

Investigators are now said to be looking again at when Madeleine was last seen by someone other than the McCanns. Three couples holidayed with the Leicestershire family, some of whom helped check on the sleeping children by listening outside their rooms. The original account says the McCanns arrived for dinner at 8:40pm when they joined their friends Rachael Oldfield, her husband Matthew, Jane Tanner, Russell O’Brien, David and Fiona Payne and an unidentified woman. Gerry and Kate McCann are said to have arrived at the nearby tapas restaurant later than usual after playing tennis.

Mr McCann says he checked on Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings at 9:05pm and that Matthew Oldfield checked at 9:30pm before Kate McCann discovered Madeleine was missing at 10pm. Mr Oldfield has since admitted that he only listened at the apartment door.

One line of questioning is said to focus on whether the abductor had, in reality, more than an hour to take the four-year-old. Madeleine is known to have gone to a holiday childcare complex in the day, but otherwise little is known about her movements.

Interest is likely to centre on what time she was put to bed. All of these pointers build to the central thrust of the questioning – could an intruder have had more than an hour in which to enter the building and possibly even kill the little girl before removing her body?

The DNA tests are said to spark other lines of inquiry. Have they produced some evidence that might suggest there were other adults in the McCanns’ apartment on the night of the disappearance? Or has that forensic research produced – as has been reported – evidence that on the night, the McCanns were at a location they failed to mention in their original account?

The tests may also have addressed one of the wilder claims circulating around the case, that Mr McCann in some way sedated his daughter before leaving the flat for the evening. Is it conceivable, according to unconfirmed reports, that the scientific evidence has put a question mark over the much-quoted timetable of Madeleine’s disappearance? In addition, have the Birmingham scientists found some suggestion, as one report has claimed, that there were other passengers in the hire car besides the McCanns? If so, why were they there?

Portuguese police say partial results from those tests have now been received but are silent on what they might indicate.

The Portuguese media has not been silent, however. A string of stories appeared throughout August suggesting – generally with quotes provided by unnamed police “officials” – that the McCanns knew more than they were telling about Madeleine’s disappearance.

The parents have been appalled by what they regard as a farrago of newspaper invention and the apparent collusion of some elements of the police in providing detail.