Gerry and Kate McCann’s on-screen composure in the days after their daughter
disappeared was at odds with their turmoil and dread behind the scenes, a
witness says today.
The couple swung between uncontrollable distress and a determination to do
what was needed to help to find Madeleine. They gave no indication that they
thought she had been snatched, let alone by a paedophile. Their early
assumption was that she had wandered off and had an accident or been taken
in by a well-meaning stranger.
Alex Woolfall, a public relations consultant for the holiday resort where the
child disappeared, was with the McCanns regularly for that first fortnight
and is convinced that they are innocent. “That they could be involved and in
any way be guilty - to me they would have to win every Golden Globe and
every Oscar ever awarded,” he told The Times.
Mr Woolfall has provided the first detailed account by an insider of what
happened to the McCanns during the desperate days after Madeleine
disappeared. He is an expert in crisis PR at the communications group Bell
Pottinger and flew to Portugal as part of the Mark Warner holiday company’s
emergency response team on Saturday, May 5. Madeleine vanished on the
evening of May 3.
He met the couple for the first time at their new apartment. “They were
behaving exactly as I thought someone in that situation would be,” Mr
Woolfall said. “They had not slept. They were trying to work out what to do
that might help generate images of her. They were desperately keen to
publicise her face.”
The McCanns had photographs of Madeleine on their digital camera, which Mr
Woolfall began transferring to a laptop computer. “I said to Kate, ‘Let’s
try to identify pictures where her face is visible’. Downloading the images
was a very difficult process for them. It was upsetting.
“They were trying to do two things at once: one, emotionally deal with what
was actually, really happening to them; two, operate in some sort of logical
way to help get her back.”
Mr Woolfall transmitted the photographs to the Press Association in London,
from where they were distributed to the media. The portfolio included the
now famous image of Madeleine wearing a hat on a tennis court.
The McCanns wanted to do more. “They were exhausted and despairing but
thinking, ‘Should we go outside and say something that might get her back?’
They said they wanted to head downstairs and talk to the media. They were
very tired, but that was one thing they were determined to do.”
Mr Woolfall went out to alert journalists and returned to the McCanns. “They
wrote down what they wanted to say and went out and gave a short statement.
After that, they were completely spent. You could tell there was nothing
left.”
Mr Woolfall was surprised by the reaction of British viewers to the couple’s
demeanour. “I was struck at the perception of people who had watched Kate
and Gerry: that they were very controlled and perhaps were not responding in
a way people thought would be more natural. They were not at all controlled.
When I was with them, they were between being completely distraught and
trying to do what they felt was the right thing.” Armchair detectives have
leapt to wild conclusions based on the few alleged details of the case to
have emerged. One bone of contention has been whether Mrs McCann, when
raising the alarm that Madeleine was missing, screamed: “They’ve taken her.”
Some have questioned why a mother would leap to the conclusion that a child
had been abducted.
Mr Woolfall says that he heard no suggestion in the early days that the girl
had been snatched. “Certainly I did not hear any discussion that this could
be a paedophile or an aggravated robbery. All the time I was around it was
whether she could have wandered off and had an accident or somebody had
actually taken her in, perhaps not with ill-intent.
“During the first 48 hours the word being used was ‘missing’ rather than
‘abducted’ or any link with a paedophile or any sort of crime. Towards the
end of the second week I detected a shift towards there being a
consciousness that she had probably been taken rather than wandered off,
just on the assumption that anybody would have found her by now.”
Many theories have emerged from the claim that Madeleine’s twin sister and
brother, aged 2, failed to wake or cry when she vanished. Mr Woolfall said
he had not heard of the twins’ alleged silence until he read about it in a
newspaper in Britain. The claim was attributed to the Portuguese police.
There has even been a suggestion that Mrs McCann carried her daughter’s Cuddle
Cat soft toy because it would look good on TV. “For that to have in any way
validity, it would cancel out the fact that these two people hadn’t got a
clue about PR or the media,” Mr Woolfall said. “To suddenly be that
sophisticated . . . I noticed Kate often had this toy with her. It was
Madeleine’s favourite toy and she would go to bed with it. Kate had it with
her when she went to church. She had it in the apartment.”
A lingering puzzle for many is why the couple left three children in the flat.
“When I first got to Praia da Luz, I asked Mark Warner to put me in the
chair at the tapas restaurant that they had sat in and show me where the
apartment was,” Mr Woolfall said. “It never struck me that it would be a
particularly odd thing to leave your children in that apartment, given that
it was so close.
“It is incredibly sleepy and quiet in Praia da Luz. There is no traffic noise.
One day when he was standing on a balcony, Gerry was saying how they felt
when they first came to the resort. The pool was close, supermarket round
the corner. They felt everything was a stone’s throw.”
The McCanns have sometimes irritated observers with the fervency of their
do-it-yourself campaign. “When I came back there was criticism: why is this
couple out there publicising this, doing interviews, going in front of
cameras, going through photo opportunities? If you look at what would have
happened in the UK, you would have had, probably within hours, a proactive
intervention by British police, who would have said this is the process we
now need to go through.
“Kate and Gerry have been largely left to get on with it, with no support in
the initial stages, or guidance. They realised the media were a huge
potential ally.”
Mr Woolfall recalled how the bewildered couple gradually began to recover
their composure. “In the first week they were not thinking. They actually
did not think. They were in shock.
“In the second week, Gerry behaved very much like a doctor would do. Doctors
are analytical. He started to have much more strategic conversations with me
about what they might do. They became more aware that getting Madeleine’s
photograph widely distributed in Spain and possibly North Africa was
sensible.
“Gerry said to me, ‘We don’t want the awareness that Madeleine has gone
missing to disappear overnight, and that we are a family whose child went
missing on holiday and that is the end of it. We want to try and find her.’
When I left Portugal, the beginnings of the idea of having a campaign were
probably forming.
“They were actually quite hopeful - far more in that frame of mind than
despondent and downbeat. They had gone 360 degrees several times through all
the different emotional states, but they soon got some good control on
things.”
Mr Woolfall left after a fortnight working from 5am to 1am, fending 200 calls
a day from journalists as far away as Norway and South Africa. He warned the
McCanns that they needed a press officer. “Gerry, I think, spoke to the
Consulate and said ‘Can you help us? Because there is a lot of media
interest and we cannot manage.’ As a result of that the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office flew out Sheree Dodd [an experienced government
spokeswoman].”
At first, journalists treated the McCanns with great respect, but there was a
free-for-all when the couple took their first unscheduled walk along the
beach. “Freelance snappers started to get quite close to them and one or two
questions were thrown at them. That was probably the very early stages of
the change,” Mr Woolfall said. “It reached a crescendo when the McCanns
tried to take their kids to the crèche and were bombarded by snappers and
freelancers.”
When the McCanns were made suspects, Mr Woolfall was bemused. “I thought it
was ridiculous. I couldn’t believe it. Completely ludicrous.”
Did you suspect them? “My God, no, absolutely not in any way at any stage. I
walked into that apartment and just saw two people who were frantic that
their daughter had gone missing. Nobody could possibly, if they had anything
to do with that, behave in that way for so long.
“It made me laugh rather than be exasperated. From Day One they could not move
anywhere without 100 flash bulbs going off. The whole idea that they could
have done any of thethings the police were suggesting was farcical.
“You could not pick another couple on the planet that would have had that many
cameras trained on them.”
The McCanns’ helpers
Alex Woolfall
Head of crisis management for the Bell Pottinger Group. Flew to Portugal on
behalf of Mark Warner on May 5.
Sheree Dodd
The former Daily Mirror journalist and long-serving senior government
spokeswoman was deployed as a media liaison officer for the McCann family.
Clarence Mitchell
The former BBC News reporter was sent in by the Cabinet Office in May to
provide “consular support”. He became the McCanns’ full-time spokesman last
month. His £75,000 salary is met by Brian Kennedy, a millionaire.
Justine McGuinness
The Lib Dem activist was the McCanns’ first campaign manager. She is
understood to have been exhausted by the 24-hour demands of the job and
stood down in September.
But the parents were in contact with UK media instantly, told a range of relatives and the police that an intruder forced entry to the apartment via a bedroom window, this claim then repeated across the following days until it was withdrawn. Mr Woolfall is wrong on PR and much else.
David , Leicester, UK
great title! i have always thought their body language and actions were truely geniune-- My heart goes out to them and the their family- I believe the truth will come out once some professional police get involved and relieve the jokes on the case of their lack of duty~
Kelly, TEXAS, USA
I nor anyone submitting comments to this page, know whether Madeliene is alive or dead and whether the McCanns are guilty or innocent. There may be investigators in this case who have indications and evidence that would indicate whether Madeliene has been abducted or died in the apartment. We are all being manipulated by the journalistic coverage this case has been given because we all must be fascinated with the 'whodunnit' element of this story. Essentially no analysis of the parents emotional behavour can lead us to the truth because whatever means Madeliene came to be 'missing' the outcome fis the same for the family and that is that each moment of the day, they are living with her loss. The absence in their lives must be heartbreaking, and all the more so, if they feel somehow responsible. Peope make mistakes, sometimes the consequences are tragic, sometimes we make them worse by trying to salvage our reputations. This is what it means to be human...lets try and be gracious
A Pick, Carlise, Cumbria
funny i really can't foresee this case get to where it is.
matsuri, tokyo, japan
You are trying your very best indeed, but unfortunately (for you) the McCanns won´t go on trial on The Times. It will be on a Portuguese court.
Francisco Costa, Funchal,
The lack of basic human sympathy here is absolutely chilling.
xb, brighton, england
C.C.McAdam of L.A I hardly think that they were behaving in selfish illegal ways ,indeed I wouldn't put it any stronger than a minor error of judgement for which they have paid for a thousand times over.If you really think that their actions make them lousy parents ,well half of the population would be so guilty.What really worries me is your vitriol against these poor people .Don't you think that they have sufferd enough? What is so shamefull about a P.R. campaign?Even if it doesn't bring M adelaine back it speaks indirectly for abducted children everywhere ,raising our awareness and putting us more on our guard.Well said Eileen ,Dublin and Mr Mills ,Prague.
Caroline, Laval, France
Jenny of Knutsford can you please explain which other missing children are far more deserving of publicity and why?
Peter, Surrey,
Great article, well done. The armchair snipers who have convinced themselves that the McCanns are guilty because they've watched the telly a little too much need to do a little soul searching. Even if they've forgotten the tenet "innocent until proven guilty" it's painful to listen to these people castigate a couple who've lost their beloved daughter with no real idea of what they're talking about.
derek, London,
Very well put, Eileen from Dublin, I agree totally.
Mary, Oklahoma City, USA
C.C. McAdam - I totally agree
Keith, London, UK
It could be argued that all the distress and guilt they displayed/were feeling would have been just as understandable, in fact even more expected, if they themselves had played some part in Madeleine's death, albeit by accident. That would make them even more bereft than if she'd simply disappeared.
Judi, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
In common with many, I am bored to death with the McCann case and all the trivia arising from it. There are far more deserving missing children that should be publicised!
Jennie, Knutsford, cheshire,
Well, Mr.Woodfall would say all that and side with the McCanns wouldn't he - he is probably getting paid enough for his loyalty! I look forward to the day when the McCanns are allowed to give their story, and also the stories of their tapas bar friends! We'll then be able to get a clearer picture and, if anyone is distorting the truth, then someone will trap someone else eventually! The question still remains - why did they leave the door and window open and allow people in the apartment directly after Madeliene went missing, if they are the intelligent doctors Mr Woodfall describes in his article?
woo, Alicante, Spain
This gentleman, Dominic Kennedy, says the Maccann's didn't give an indication that Madeleine had been snatched. However, I remember hearing on a radio interview, I think Radio 4, Kate said that within 30 seconds of finding Madeleine gone, she knew she had been abducted.
Maybe I've missed something because I haven't been following this story closely, but they can't both be right.
Anthony, London,
You would be grieved if your child were missing or dead by your own accidental act so the despair shown does not prove anything in my view.
david , apopka, florida, usa
In time, of course, all those connected with the McCanns - and probably the McCanns themselves - will probably sell their stories for large sums and write books and makes lots of money. It would be nice if they all then had the decency to donate any financial gain to childrens charities. It will nbe interestesting to see who does and who continues to milk the misfortune of this poor lost child for financial gain.
Geoffrey, Belfast,
C.C. McAdam has nailed it.
John Claro, Clifdeb, Ireland
Another well meaning fool, no doubt pleased as punch to get his 15 minutes of fame out of this, who will be made to look very silly when this case draws out to a close.
These dispicable parents and their friends are going to open up such a wound in our society that anything that has gone on before will pale into insignificance when the soul searching starts.
Andy, Cheltenham,
This article refers to them winning an Oscar. Actually, I honestly think they should win an Oscar if they are innocent. I have never seen either of them show a gram of emotion. If my child disappeared in this fashion, I know I would not be so masked. The expression on each of their faces has not changed from the same plastic facade it has been since the day this came out.
Sherry, Midwest, U.S.
I am amazed at the amount of vituperation directed at Kate and Gerry McCann. Their daughter is missing, possibly dead, and all these people can do is begrudge them publicity in trying to trace what happened to her.
The theory that Kate killed her and then covered it up, aided and abetted by her husband and friends, is ludricrous beyond belief. It does not bear a moment's scrutiny. It would be difficult to the point of impossibility to kill someone, even accidently, hide the body, keep it hidden and then dispose of it 25 days later, all in the glare of the world's scrutiny and with massive searches going on, all this in a foreign country ......with all that impediments of a foreign language, which makes communication difficult at the best of times never mind trying to dispose of a body.
As for leaving the children sleeping in the apartment while they dined in a nearby restaurant within sight of it, I bet plenty of other people have done the same thing. Hindsight is a great thing
Eileen, Dublin, Ireland
It will simply never cease to amaze me how many people have such strong opinions on this story, on this family, on the parenting skills of McCanns. Based on news articles they made an opinion and they think they know the truth. That is fascinating and sad at the same time. I see grieving parents and feel like I have no right to judge, I am not them, I am not in their situation and based on news only I cannot judge if and where they made mistakes. Plus do you really believe that a mistake of any kind should be 'punished' by loosing a child? Some people should learn to be more humble when facing tragedies of others and simply shut up.
M.Mills, Prague, Czech Rep.
I totally agree C.C. McAdam
Patricia, Campinas, Brasil
Will it be possible to find a jury, anywhere in the world, who will be unaware of this case? Will it be possible to find an individual who does not have an opinion already?
Paul Clelford, Eastleigh, Hampshire
Well said, C.C. McAdam, Los Angeles. You´ve summed it up.
Asta, Hamburg, Germany
Its a ongoing campaign to convince people how innocent Gerry and Kate are.
Not since the end of communism we see such massive campaign in the media.
As far as I am concerned you can publish as many articles praising the Mc Cans as you like.
I do not enjoy to be brainwashed.
Portugal and the portuguese police have been subjected to relentless attacks while the Mc Cans have been raised to sainthood.
You wont suceed as far as I am concerned.
peter42y, lisbon, portugal
Mr.Woodfall mentions the twins alleged silence but does not give a statement as to if he knows for certain if this was true or not - perhaps because he was not there at the time?
Jo, Hull, UK
They may simply be narcissistic personalities grieving because they've been caught behaving in selfish, illegal ways that demonstrate they're lousy parents and unprofessional doctors. They went to med school and know that people who leave children unattended are reported to the police and often lose their children--and they're DOCTORS who've done that. It comes out that they're despicable as parents and doctors, and they want to regain people's admiration.. So they put on a huge PR campaign, and an uncritical, sympathetic press gives them the respect and attention they crave so much that they jog, go to church, abd hug a teddy, so they're in the news as grieving, loving parents. But you know what? The parents of a child who has disappeared do no\t need a PR man and constant press; Have any other parents whose children have disappeared had PR men? No. And the PR isn't working: their daughter isn't back, andI more and more people despise them.. It's time they accepted reality.
C. C. McAdam, Los Angeles, California, USA