We of the Justice for all the McCann family forum have compiled this book for two reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, we wish to draw the public’s attention to the criminal miscarriage of justice perpetrated on Madeleine and her family by those people originally in charge of the investigation into her abduction, in particular the disgraced former Polícia Judiciária chief, Goncalo Amaral. We wish to put pressure on the British and Portuguese Governments to bring about a full and proper public enquiry into the handling of this case, to uncover what went wrong, why it went wrong, and discover if there was any corruption involved.
Secondly we wish to counterbalance another book, ‘What really happened to Madeleine McCann? 60 reasons that suggest she was not abducted’ by Tony Bennett. This book has the potential, if allowed to stand unchallenged, to do the most enormous harm to the ongoing search for Madeleine. Mr Bennett’s contemptible book is, in our opinion, very poorly researched, factually highly inaccurate, uses out of context comments, and in many cases possibly even libellous. By comparison we have gone to great lengths to back up what we say, drawing from the official police files, undisputed quotes and other sources, verifiable wherever possible.
We demand that the questions put forward in our book be put to Mr Amaral, and that he must answer them, and an official, proper and accurate account of his answers be made for the record. Further, if any wrongdoing is suspected, it must be investigated and if found correct, then due process of the law must be applied.
Madeleine and her family deserve nothing less.
Please note the co-authors of this book will not receive one penny from sales. All profits, after deducting costs, will go to the official Find Madeleine fund.
This book has been compiled and co-written by a group of members of the ‘Justice for all the McCann family’ internet chat forum http://justice4mccannfam.5forum.biz/forum.htm. This is an unofficial and wholly independent forum, in no way related or connected to the McCann family, their friends or any official support group. Our forum was set up to show support for the McCann family, and offer aid, in whatever way possible, to help in the search for their daughter, Madeleine, still missing at the time of going to print.
The forum also engages in discussion of the latest developments in the case, is highly critical of the failed investigation to find her, and happily dismembers the fanciful, far fetched, hurtful and in many cases libellous theories and comments from other forums that appear to revel in her disappearance and enjoy adding to her parent’s suffering.
We consider these sites to be the internet equivalent of the street corner or shopping parade, where the local ignorant, poorly educated and undisciplined yobs hang out, intent on causing as much havoc and pain on any one they see as weaker than themselves. We don’t like bullies, and we will continue to stand up to them, for as long as it takes to find Madeleine, and reunite her with her loving family.
I can’t imagine that anyone reading this book would need any reminder of what happened on the night of May 3rd, 2007, in the Portuguese resort town of Praia de Luz. Madeleine McCann, just a few days short of her fourth birthday, vanished from her bed, presumed by most sensible people to have been abducted. Her abduction was remarkable for many reasons, not least of which was the way it dominated the media for almost a year, with scarcely a day going by without the leading British newspapers having a front page headline about some aspect of the case.
But beneath the still unsolved mystery of her disappearance, and the obvious and unyielding attempts of her parents to find her, there began to grow an undercurrent to the whole story. There began to appear a growing unease, suspicion even, about the way the police investigation into Madeleine’s abduction was being handled. The British media began to use words like incompetent, blundered, shambles and mishandled. Indeed, the head of Scotland Yard is on record as saying the whole investigation was ‘botched and bungled’ from day one.
In this book we will cite other cases of missing children, and the Portuguese authorities reaction to, and handling of, these cases, raising serious questions about the competency of the Police forces, and will hopefully show you, the reader, there is enough compelling evidence to demand a public enquiry into the way Madeleine’s abduction was investigated.