Her disappearance from a holiday apartment on the Portuguese Algarve coast is now an adult lifetime away. And yet little Madeleine – about to turn four when she was snatched – remains one of our nation’s most familiar faces.
They were pictures which dominated the British media for years. Pictures of innocence, each reminding us of how that innocence can be shattered. And a terror for parents forced to face that sometimes the very worst can happen: a child can be lost. No explanation, no motivation, and no end.
In the documentary Madeleine McCann: The Unseen Evidence, created by The Sun and available now on Channel 4, new evidence is presented which German prosecutors hope will enable them to charge chief suspect Christian Brueckner. German police are reportedly reluctant to charge Brueckner without forensic evidence, which they believe is needed to secure a conviction in the country.
The documentary tells how a dog walker near a small town in eastern Germany was alerted to the remains of a dead dog near a derelict box factory, which Bruecker had bought in 2008.
German police also found 75 toddlers’ swim suits, children’s bikes and toys, three working guns, a mask, a suitcase containing pictures of young children and phone numbers.
Many have criticised the media’s fascination with the story, questioning whether the blonde-haired little girl from a respectable middle-class family made her an “ideal victim” when so many other crimes slide from view.
square JON CLARKE I was one of the first reporters on the scene after Madeleine McCann's disappearance
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When she went missing in 2007, I was an assistant editor on the red-top Daily Mirror. Day after day, we featured the twists and turns of the investigation on page one. Were we feeding the public’s prurient interest in a private family tragedy? Possibly. But at first, both the family and police were desperate for public awareness, which might help find Madeleine. Too often, critics of the press fail to appreciate how many families want their missing or dead child to be featured or remembered in the press.
And it wasn’t just the tabloid market – BBC and ITV bulletins led on the story for weeks on end. The entire British news media camped up in Praia da Luz and stayed for months, because the case was driving TV ratings and selling newspapers. And in those early days of the internet it was offering hope of that digital holy grail: engagement.
Questions whirled: Why couldn’t middle-class parents just stick their kids in a buggy with an ice cream when they went out at night? Why did the McCann’s keep going for a run each day despite their missing child? Who even eats tapas?
Why had they employed a PR executive? Were they enjoying the spotlight too much?
When Portuguese police made Madeleine’s parents arguidos – or suspects – the fevered reporting went stratospheric. The police later dropped their suspect status and apologised to Gerry and Kate.
But such allegations sold newspapers. The McCann family tragedy came with a commercial benefit for the news industry, albeit in the short term. I wonder if in the longer term it added to a sense that some British journalism was losing its way.
The next few weeks are essential if police are to build a case against Brueckner strong enough to get to court ahead of his prison release date. If not, he could disappear forever back into an itinerant lifestyle.
Alison Phillips was editor of the Daily Mirror from 2018-24; she won Columnist of the Year at the 2018 National Press Awards.
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