MADDY: LET US SPEND £1M
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/17372
THE parents of Madeleine McCann want trustees of a £1million fighting fund to start spending the money fast in a last desperate effort to trace their missing daughter.
As the police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance flounders, tensions are building between Gerry and Kate McCann and the fund trustees, including his brother John, who control the money donated by the public.
The McCanns’ spokeswoman Justine McGuinness said: “The people operating the fund clearly think they have to protect it because they don’t know how long it is going to last.
“But Gerry thinks now is the time to be spending the money because this is the time when it is going to be most effective.”
So far only £70,000 has been spent – on setting up a website, running a press office, producing wristbands, T-shirts and posters and paying legal fees.
The McCanns want more money spent on a new poster campaign, hiring extra staff to boost publicity and perhaps even employing a firm of private investigators.
Some cash could also be used to help cover the cost of keeping the couple and their other two young children in Portugal.
After four fruitless months, the family are beginning to struggle financially and may soon have to return to work in Britain.
Yet they face a bureacratic nightmare if they want to draw money from the fund, which is believed to be earning thousands of pounds in interest every month.
Rather than being allowed easy access to the money, the McCanns are forced to fill out complicated paperwork. The trustees of the fund, which is not a charity, have imposed tight restrictions on how the money can be used.
There is a worry that if more money is not released urgently then the behind-the-scenes row will develop into a bitter dispute, distracting people from the main objective of solving the mystery of four-year-old Made*leine’s disappearance.
The increasingly frustrated Mc*Canns realise that the next few weeks will be vital, as Portuguese police appear to have made no concrete progress with any lines of inquiry.
The fund is under the control of relatives or family friends, including Peter Hubner, 64, a retired consultant; Gerry’s brother John McCann, 48; former GMTV presenter Esther McVey, 39, who runs a Liverpool-based PR firm; Doug Skehan, 54, a clinical director of cardiology at Glenfield Hospital, where Gerry works; Philip Tomlinson, 76, a lawyer and former Leicester*shire coroner; and Brian Kennedy, 68, Madeleine’s great uncle.
Ms McGuinness said: “Gerry and Kate are remarkably patient and know that people are trying to protect their interests, but it is very different when you’re in Portugal from when you’re in the UK. I think it’s difficult for some people who are retired and who perhaps aren’t used to the fast pace of things in Portugal.”
The fund, which was set up two weeks after Madeleine disappeared on the night of May 3, has stated several objectives on its website
www.findmadeleine.com but has al*ready come under pressure to answer questions about how the money is being spent.
Mr McCann’s visit to the Edinburgh International Television Festival yesterday was paid for by the organisers. In recent months similar trips have been donated or subsidised by wealthy benefactors.
Last night the McCanns were yet again the target of cruel speculation in the Portuguese media accusing the couple of “making a fortune” from their ordeal.
One newspaper said Kate and Gerry were getting cash from selling bracelets and hairclips with Made*leine’s name on for £2 each. Although the Look For Madeleine bracelets are priced at £2 on the official website, this only covers the cost of production and postage.
The report in the respected Diarios Noticias newspaper also criticised the McCanns for putting a collection box for the fund in the reception area of the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz. At the TV festival yesterday Gerry hit out at Portuguese reports that he and his wife were involved in the disappearance of their daughter, calling it a “smear” campaign.
He dismissed the stories as “wild speculation”. In an interview with Sky News he said: “Clearly a line has been crossed in many quarters, where there is wild speculation being reported irresponsibly.
“There is speculation and innuendo. There are clearly some absolute and outright smears. I would direct people to the official statements made by the Portuguese police which bear no resemblance to the wild speculation. The police made it very clear.
“First of all we are not suspects, secondly there is no evidence to suggest we are involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.”
In an earlier interview with Kirsty Wark, 39-year-old Gerry appealed for restraint in media coverage. And he vowed that he will never give up the hunt for his daughter’s abductor.
