McCann shocked at “blatantly” fictional reports
By Alex Stevenson
Madeleine McCann’s father has described the way the media “blatantly” made up stories about attempts to find his missing daughter.
Gerry McCann gave evidence to the Commons’ culture, media and sport committee on how the press treated him and his wife Kate during their ordeal.
The couple were at the centre of huge press attention as they sought to persuade the abductor of his daughter – who was three when she disappeared in May 2007 – to return her to her family.
Mr McCann harnessed the media’s interest to maximise the chances of his daughter being spotted.
Initially, he told MPs, there was a “general willingness” to help.
But as interest in the story snowballed, Mr McCann claimed, British journalists resorted to seizing on allegations made in the Portuguese press and substantiating them.
Mr McCann described his dismay when “irrelevances, or half-truths, or suggestions, were making front-page news”.
He added: “I never really believed so many of them could be so absolutely blatantly made up.”
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, appeared alongside Mr McCann. He described the “ridiculous situation” where journalists would approach him and say “I have to get a front-page splash on this by the end of the day or my job’s on the line.”
“It was like a one-story newsroom. Regardless of what we would say or do, the story would appear on the front page next day anyway.”
Express Newspapers was eventually forced to pay the McCanns £550,000 over a libel case which ended in March 2008.
