ANTONELLA LAZZERI and ANDY CRICK - The Madeleine Foundation

Did paedophile Raymond Hewlett really
know what happened to Madeleine McCann
An analysis of another farcical article in ‘The Sun’
about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
by Tony Bennett of The Madeleine Foundation
October 2010
On 1 September 2010, The Sun published yet another sensational article about
the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. It claimed that a British paedophile
who had recently died in Germany - Raymond Hewlett - had written a letter
‘on his deathbed’, shortly before he died, claiming that he knew what really
happened to Madeleine McCann. That was quite some claim. In this article,
we examine that claim in detail.
Raymond Hewlett
The Sun article was one of the most preposterous ever written by a tabloid
newspaper on the reported disappearance of Madeleine McCann, among all
the hundreds of other sensational and speculative articles that have been
written about the case. We will analyse why it is so preposterous. We will first
of all reproduce the article, by-lined by Antonella Lazzeri, not noted for her
accurate reporting, and Andy Crick. Then we’ll analyse the article.
A. The Sun article
The article was headed: “ I ‘know’ who took Maddie”.
The article ran:
QUOTE
By ANTONELLA LAZZERI and ANDY CRICK - Published: 01 Sep 2010
MADELEINE McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett confessed on his deathbed
that he KNEW what happened to the little girl, The Sun can reveal. In a letter
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to his estranged son Wayne, he denied having anything to do with Maddie's
disappearance.
[PICTURE: Gang claim…Hewlett just before he died]
But he said he knew she had been stolen to order by a gipsy gang who kidnap
children for wealthy couples unable to have kids or adopt.
[PICTURE: Vanished…Maddie]
Hewlett, a serial paedophile seen near the spot where Maddie was snatched in
Portugal, said they had a ‘shopping list’ of potential targets - such as a little
girl with blonde hair like Maddie. Private detectives working for Maddie's
parents Kate and Gerry are ‘extremely interested’ in Hewlett's claims. A source
close to their ongoing investigation said: “What he says fits the No1 theory,
which is that she was stolen to order”.
Hewlett died of throat cancer in April, aged 62, after persistently refusing to
meet the McCanns' detectives. He became a suspect because of his appalling
record of rape and abduction of children. And he was living as a nomad in
Portugal with his second family when Maddie vanished from the McCanns'
holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
[PICTURE: Shocked…son Wayne]
Hewlett's letter to builder Wayne, 40, was delivered to the son by a mystery
man - thought to be a solicitor or a private eye - a week after he died. Most of
it was an apology for how his vile crimes had affected his first wife Susan and
Wayne. But then he went on to write about Maddie, who was nearly four when
she went missing.
Wayne, of Telford, Shropshire, said: “It was a bolt from the blue and I shook
when I read it. He stated he didn't want to go to his grave with us thinking he
had done such a horrible thing. He said he had had nothing to do with taking
Maddie but did know who had. He said a very good gipsy friend he knew in
Portugal had got drunk and 'let it out' that he had stolen Maddie to order as
part of a gang.
Wayne Hewlett
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“My dad said this gang had been operating for a long time and had snatched
children before for couples who couldn't have children of their own. Maddie
had been targeted. They took photos of children and sent them to the people
they were acting for. And they said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
“Dad said the man told him it was nothing to do with snatching children for a
paedophile gang or for a sexual reason. He said there were huge sums of
money involved. And he totally believed what this man was saying”.
The account fits with others surrounding the Maddie mystery. Several strange
men were seen taking photos of children around the Ocean Club resort in the
days before she vanished. And The Sun revealed earlier this year that a British
expat thought he had seen Maddie in a white van driven by a gipsy couple the
day after she was lost.
[PICTURE: Hope…parents Kate and Gerry McCann]
Wayne, who had no contact with Hewlett for nearly 20 years, said his father's
letter seemed ‘very genuine’. He added: "I don't know if this is what happened
to Maddie or not, but it does make sense. I can't believe he'd go to those
lengths to make up some elaborate lie when he was so weak and ill”.
Wayne said he considered going to Kate and Gerry with the letter but was
worried it could cause them more heartache if it gave them false hope. He
added: "I actually burned it because it unnerved me so much. To have a letter
from someone you hated for so long was just mind-blowing. I couldn't deal
with it”.
Wayne did not contact The Sun about the message. We learned of its existence
through a friend.
But now he intends to sit down with the Maddie detectives to tell them
everything he knows. The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said last
night: “We are extremely grateful to Wayne for coming forward with this
information and the detective team will be interviewing him as a matter of
priority”.
UNQUOTE
B. Raymond Hewlett - the background
A very useful and full summary of the life of Raymond Hewlett can be found at
this link:
http://raymondhewlett.blogspot.com/p/raymond-hewlett-timeline.html
We would warmly recommend that blog for anyone wishing to research
Raymond Hewlett’s life further.
Early life
Born on 24 January 1945 in Blackpool, Hewlett was one of seven children. He
left school with no qualifications. At the age of 16, at the instigation of his
father, he joined the Scots Guards. After merely nine months, he was
dishonourably discharged for causing disorder, being absent without leave
and stealing a regimental bicycle.
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At the age of 18, he married Susan Ginley. Over the next five years, they had
four children. To one of them, Gina, born in 1966, he later wrote self-pitying
letters while in prison. It was the previous year, 1965, that their son Wayne
was born - the one to whom Hewlett alleged wrote his death-bed letter. But
many years previously, Wayne had said on the record that he hated his father,
whom he described as a ‘monster’. He said that, as a boy, Hewlett had beaten
him ‘savagely’.
During those five years of bringing up four young children, Hewlett was
arrested for a variety of offences, ranging form burglary to possession of
firearms.
Jail sentences for rapes
In 1972, aged 27, when living at Todmorden on the Yorkshire/Lancashire
border, Hewlett was jailed for one year after raping a 12-year-old girl he had
lured into his car and knocked out with paint-stripper. He was sentenced to 18
months - but served only 12 months of that sentence. Upon release he
returned to Todmorden. In 1975, the year Lesley Molseed was murdered (see
below), his address was Dineley Avenue, Todmorden.
In 1978, aged 33, he attempted to rape a 14-year-old girl. During this attempt
Hewlett held a gun to her head. This time he received a four year sentence -
but served only 16 months of that.
He began to live an itinerant lifestyle, which included spells living in
Manchester, Blackpool, Telford (Shropshire), and Forres in Scotland. He
appears also to have been a ‘trawlerman’ for a period.
In 1980, now aged 35, he finally left Susan Ginley for Anita Cox, whom he
married two years later. There were reports that Hewlett frequently and
viciously attacked Anita.
In 1988, Hewlett was jailed for six years, after abducting a 14-year-old
newspaper delivery girl at knifepoint in Northwich, Cheshire. He fled to
Ireland, but was later identified as the attacker by forensic evidence and
brought back to face trial in Britain. Two years into his sentence, he was,
unwisely, granted home leave from Leicestershire's Stoken Prison, but
absconded. He was re-arrested when he arrived back in Britain from Ireland
in 1991.
Hewlett in Ireland
Between 1991 and 1997 he seems to have spent most of his time in Ireland,
though he was spotted in Milan, Italy, in 1995. There, it is said that he linked
up with ‘a network of paedophiles’ that would hide out and have ‘safe houses’
throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic. The existence of these
networks is one of the most dangerous aspects of paedophilia; their existence
promotes their perverted practices and often helps them to evade justice.
His bolt-holes included places in Fermanagh, favoured as it was close to the
Irish border, Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Laois, Westmeath, Donegal, Cavan, Sligo
and Louth. He is said to have visited at least nine counties during his time in
Ireland.
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While he was there, he was involved in a number of incidents, including:
• Living in Enniskillen, Fermanagh, where he caused alarm. Local schools
had to send warning letters home to parents, describing Hewlett as ‘a high
risk offender with every likelihood that he will reoffend’.
• He was also investigated for the attempted rape of a nine-year-old girl in
Co. Fermanagh
• Hewlett was the chief suspect in two other attempted rapes in Co. Down
and Co. Cavan, where he was questioned over the rape of another nineyear-old
girl, after his then wife told the Gardai [Irish Police] that she
suspected her husband was the rapist
• In 1993, he lived in a commune in Co. Donegal, where commune members
eventually asked him to leave after concerns about remarks made by their
children concerning Hewlett
• While living in Co. Louth near the Cooley Mountains in the Dundalk area,
he was suspected of attempting to abduct and sexually assault a young girl
across the border in Co. Down.
He was known to have lived for a period one mile from Tralee in Co. Kerry,
spent a period on a gipsy camp in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal during part of
1998, and was even spotted as late as 2002 living in a small apartment above a
chip shop in Belmore Street, Enniskillen.
Hewlett, the nomad on the continent
Later he married Gabriella, a candle-maker in the Italian mountains. They had
a son, Marco. Gabriella left him, apparently after she learnt from Italian police
about Hewlett’s criminal record.
He also met his fourth wife, a German, Mariana Schmucker, in Italy, possibly
in 1996, when she was just 19 and Hewlett was 51. By this time, Hewlett was a
mechanic on a tourist boat, while Mariana had been the cleaner for the boat's
owners on island of Elba.
For a while he and Mariana went to live in County Donegal, Ireland, where he
had lived previously. By his time, Mariana was pregnant.
Hewlett then migrated to southern Portugal, saying he spent periods in France
and Spain on the way. But he didn’t stay there in Portugal; he also spent long
periods in Germany. A son, David, was born to the couple in 1998. It was to be
the first of seven children the couple were to have over the next ten years.
However, a year earlier (1997), Hewlett had been photographed together with
Schmucker in Forres, Scotland. Police seemed to be aware around this time
that Hewlett was planning to return from Scotland to Italy.
The Hewlett’s next six children were born in Germany, Portugal and Spain,
over the next nine years, as the Hewletts lived what has accurately been
described as a ‘nomadic existence’. Their son David was killed in December
2008. The Spanish police investigated the death, which Hewlett said
happened as a result of him falling out of the van as family drove through
Spain en route to Germany.
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Hewlett seems to have arrived in Portugal, from Germany, in the summer of
2002. By then, his modus vivendi, according to him and others, would be to
stop somewhere and ‘decide whether to hang around’, depending on the
weather and how easy it was to make money. Hewlett would also busk on the
street, playing his guitar.
We will be looking more closely below at the life of Hewlett from around the
time of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance to his death.
Raymond Hewlett in hospital,
Aachen, Germany, 2009
He died of throat cancer in December 2009, and according to a report in the
Lancashire Telegraph in April 2010, ‘was cremated at a pauper’s funeral’ in
Germany. Interestingly, a report in the Daily Express dated 9 December, and
headed: ‘Tell all before you die, Maddie suspect urged’ appeared to give
advance warning of his impending death. By then, even the McCann Team
accepted that Hewlett was not a ‘suspect’, so the headline was incorrect. But it
was a headline which no doubt sold a good few extra copies. Amongst other
things, the Express report, by-lined by ‘Allan Hall in Berlin’, told us:
“[Hewlett], wanted for questioning by detectives working for Madeleine
McCann's parents, is close to death…he can no longer speak because of throat
cancer…Hewlett's lawyer, Detlev Wagner, said: ‘He could not talk to them
even if he wanted to. He is gravely ill. He does not have long for this world’.
Wagner claims that his client was ‘poised to broker an interview with the
detectives’ but broke it off because he found the lawmen ‘too pushy. [The
McCanns’] investigators, who have been trying to quiz Hewlett since May, fear
that Hewlett could take the secret of Madeleine's disappearance with him to
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the grave. The Briton…came to the attention of investigators after an English
couple [the Thompsons of Osama bin Laden fame - see below] came forward
with new information. They alleged he was near to the Praia da Luz holiday
resort in Portugal where Madeleine, then three, vanished in May 2007.
Hewlett looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked
face seen lurking around the apartment where the family stayed in May 2007”.
We will deal with a number of controversial points in this article in Section E
below.
C. Did Raymond Hewlett murder Lesley Molseed
There has been a persistent suspicion, not least by senior police officers, that
Raymond Hewlett killed 11-year-old Lesley Molseed. Yet two other people
have been convicted of her murder, the latest in 2007. What are the facts Is
it reasonable to still suspect Hewlett of this murder
Lesley Molseed's body was found on Rishworth Moor near Ripponden, West
Yorkshire, on 8 October, 1975. It appears she was murdered on 5 October.
Hewlett was 30 years old at the time. She had been stabbed a dozen times with
a knife. Lesley had been abducted three days earlier while running an errand
for her mother near their home in Rochdale, also in Lancashire.
The investigation into her murder was conducted by Detective Chief
Superintendent Max McLean, who in 2001 said that the prime suspect was
Raymond Hewlett, and he was ‘confident’ that he could find him.
Stefan Kiszko wrongly convicted
The first person to have been convicted of Lesley’s murder, however, was
Stefan Kiszko, in one of Britain’s worst-ever miscarriages of justice. He served
16 years in prison for an offence he undoubtedly did not commit. Amongst
other controversies in the case, the Birmingham-based Forensic Science
Service (FSS), which also examined DNA evidence in the Madeleine McCann
case, claimed that they had found Kiszko’s DNA in relation to Lesley Molseed -
but later Kiszko was ruled out because he was sterile and obviously could not
have produced the sperms said to have been his.
Raymond Castree convicted
The second person convicted of Lesley’s murder, on 12 November 2007 - a full
32 years after she was killed - was Raymond Castree, who has always
protested his innocence. His defence barrister, Rodney Jameson Q.C., told
Bradford Crown Court that there was ‘an overwhelming possibility’ that the
man who sexually assaulted Lesley and stabbed her twelve times was
Raymond Hewlett.
Castree was convicted, on a majority 10-2 jury verdict, primarily on DNA
evidence. Castree’s DNA was taken in 2005 after he was arrested on suspicion
of violently assaulting a prostitute in Manchester. He was not charged in
connection with that matter, but was arrested and subsequently convicted of
Lesley’s murder when his DNA was said to match DNA found on Lesley’s
pants. Castree's explanation for this was that the DNA must have been planted
by police on the tape holding the DNA from Lesley’s pants, speculating that he
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might have been framed by two police officers he had crossed swords with
back in 1979. Castree’s conviction was indeed based on the DNA results
provided by the FSS. Lesley Molseed's clothing had been destroyed, but the
FSS claimed to have found Castree's DNA on a piece of tape they said was
‘used to swipe Lesley's clothing’. He and his defence team also alleged possible
cross-contamination. As the BBC reported, ‘Castree’s defence team had tried
to argue it was ‘overwhelmingly probable’ that a convicted paedophile called
Raymond Hewlett was Lesley's murderer’.
The case against Hewlett
The book ‘Innocents’, written by a retired detective and local journalist,
Jonathan Rose, named Hewlett as Lesley’s murderer, providing many details
and witness statements - and establishing a previously unknown link between
Mr Hewlett's family and friends of the Molseed family.
Why was Hewlett for a long time the chief suspect in the Lesley Molseed
murder case There was a great deal of circumstantial evidence, which we
summarise here:
(1) He lived at that time in Todmorden, on the Lancashire/Yorkshire
border, less than 10 miles from where Lesley died.
(2) Crucially, he left for Ireland the day after Lesley Molseed was
murdered. Hewlett and his girlfriend Rosalee Dolan (see also below)
first fled to Burnley, where they stayed with two friends, Michael and
John Goodall, then went to Liverpool and after that fled to Ireland.
(3) On the very day of Lesley's disappearance, Hewlett's turquoise Morris
1000 van was seen parked in the lay-by on the A672 Oldham-Halifax
Road next to the isolated spot where Lesley's body was found*. A
passer-by also noted a tartan blanket, which Hewlett had apparently
stolen in Scotland, wrapped around its windscreen and side windows.
(4) No fewer than 14 witnesses also described a ‘blue’ Morris 1000 van
parked in another a lay-by at Ripponden, near where Lesley’s body was
found, on the day of Lesley's abduction.
(5) One witness, Christopher Coverdale*, saw a man, together with a girl
matching Lesley's description, walking up the hillside next to the layby.
(6) Hewlett arrived back in Todmorden at 5pm on the day Lesley probably
died and told his then teenage girlfriend, Rosalee Dolan (sometimes
misspelled ‘Rosalie’), to provide him with a false alibi.
(7) In 1992, 17 years after Lesley’s murder, Rosalee Dolan made a
statement to police that she had believed, at the time, that she had
been providing an alibi for Hewlett about the ‘theft of a car’ and
admitted that she had lied**.
Two extracts from the book ‘Innocents’
[* NOTE 1: This is an extract from the book ‘Innocents:
“At 1:45 p.m. on the Sunday, Christopher Coverdale, a self-employed
contractor from Rochdale, drove past the scene. As he approached the lay-by
he saw a man and a little girl on the embankment above the lay-by. His
attention was on these people, so that he had not noticed any car. He thought
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it foolhardy to be on the moor in poor weather conditions, especially with a
child. He recalled the child was wearing a blue, hip-length gabardine coat with
the hood up. He believed the child to be a girl, because he could see uncovered
legs. The man was facing towards the road, reaching down the embankment
and pulling the child up by the hand. Coverdale described the man as being a
30 to 35 year-old white male, with light-brown or fair hair cut short and giving
the appearance of being receding.
“He was five feet six to five feet eight, plump and dressed in a mid-brown
jacket with a check pattern, matching trousers and a beige or mustard-yellow
cardigan. This was the first description obtained of a man and a child. Dibb
[name of detective] was anxious to act, and he personally took Coverdale to
the lay-by. It was not the cold which caused Jack Dibb to shiver when, asked
to show the place where the man and child were standing, Coverdale pointed
out a spot within yards of the place where Lesley had been found”.]
[** NOTE 2: We reproduce here some extracts from Chapter 22 of the book
‘Innocents’, concerning evidence given by Rosalie Dolan, Raymond Hewlett’s
one-time girlfriend, to police in 1992, soon after Stefan Kiszko was released
from prison.
“In 1992, Detective Superintendent Trevor Wilkinson began a re-investigation
into Lesley Molseed’s death. Woman Detective Constable Alison Rose was
given the task of going through a box of documents, and came across ‘Action
No. 588 - an interview of Raymond Hewlett by Detective Sergeant David
Paxton. After Kiszko's arrest, of course, Hewlett was no longer under
suspicion. D/Sgt. Paxton’s concerns included the fact that Hewlett had owned
a Morris 1000 van.
“D/Sgt. Paxton had visited Hewlett's address in Todmorden and was told by
Susan Hewlett that her husband had left the area ‘shortly after’ the discovery
of Lesley Molseed's body.
“On 7 November 1975, D/Sgt. Paxton interviewed Hewlett at Burnley Police
Station, where he was being held after being arrested for theft in Scotland.
Hewlett told Paxton about a trip to Scotland he said he made on 20 September
1975 in a car he had stolen from Morecambe, together with his brother-in-law
Martin Ginley and two friends, John and Michael Goodall. They were all
arrested in Lachgilfield in Ayrshire, charged with breaking into caravans and
remanded in Barlinne Prison until 25 September when they were bailed to
attend court on 6 November 1975. Hewlett said he had returned home by
train. Before then, in early September, Hewlett had taken Rosalie Dolan on a
trip to Scotland in the blue van. Earlier (September 1975), Dolan and Hewlett
had run away to Scotland for ten days - touring and sleeping in Hewlett's blue
van. When it became cold, Hewlett had broken into a caravan and stolen a
Scottish tartan which they used to keep warm. They returned to Todmorden
and continued to meet weekly each Sunday.
“Hewlett stated that on 5 October 1975 he was at home with his wife until
2pm, when he went out for a walk in Central Vale Park, Todmorden, with a
girl named Rosalie Dolan (then aged only 15 - a fact from he kept from D/Sgt.
Paxton).
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“Hewlett said he had been with Dolan until 5pm that afternoon and claimed to
remember meeting a man who had owned the model shop on Halifax Road.
He had then gone to the home of a friend, Gerald Shawcross, until 6.30 pm,
when he returned home.
“Paxton found it suspicious that Hewlett could account for his movements on
the Sunday[5 October] in fine detail, but was unable to provide details about
what he had done on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Hewlett's
explanation as to why he had left Todmorden so soon after the Molseed killing
was that he had left for southern Ireland on the following Friday with Rosalie
Dolan and remained there until 24 October, when he returned to his wife.
“Hewlett told Paxton that the Morris 1000 van had been obtained in Scotland
and was a blue, ex-GPO, van. He said he had swapped a Hillman Imp for the
van before Martin Ginley then sold on the van for £10. Hewlett said he was as
unable to say who had the vehicle on 5 October - the day it was seen at the layby.
“Susan Hewlett had limited knowledge of the blue van. She thought her
brother had sold it without Raymond knowing. Rosalie Dolan had confirmed
Hewlett's alibi. Gerald Shawcross confirmed Hewlett visitong to his house, but
did not recall the actual date.
“W/D/C Alison Rose traced Martin Ginley, who stated that he did not
remember Hewlett having a Morris 1000 van and did not recall being present
when Hewlett allegedly exchanged a Hillman Imp for that van.
Rose also interviewed John and Michael Goodall, who said the trip to Scotland
in 1975 had been taken with the intention to rob a post office that Hewlett
knew, but the plot was ended by their arrest for breaking into the caravans.
“The Goodalls [who lived in Burnely] said that Hewlett had arrived at their
house in the early evening of Thursday 9 October 9, the day after Lesley's body
had been found.) He had arrived in a blue Morris 1000 van, similar to a GPO
van, in which all four had driven to a housing estate in Rochdale, where
Hewlett said he wanted to visit his sister-in-law Margaret Ginley (Martin
Ginley's ex-wife) in Rochdale. In the event, it appears he did not do so. The
following day Hewlett and Dolan had left for Ireland in the van.
“Rose then visited Margaret Ginley. She lived on the Kirholt Estate, opposite
the homes of James McGurgon Baillie and William McCondichie, who were
close friends of Danny Molseed. The Molseeds, including Lesley, had been
frequent visitors to the Baillie household. Margaret Ginley told WDC Rose
that Raymond and Susan Hewlett were frequent visitors to her house and
that her daughter Carol frequently visited the Hewlett house in Todmorden.
“Rose interviewed Carol Ginley, who told her that following her weekend visits
to Todmorden, Raymond Hewlett would take her home. Sometimes they
travelled on Hewlett's motorbike but Carol remembered that at least on one
occasion she had gone home in a light blue van similar to a GPO van.
“Hewlett had denied ownership of the blue van when he was interviewed by
Paxton in 1975. He had also denied visiting the Rochdale area in 1975. Rose
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had proved both those assertions to be false; Hewlett still owned the van at
the time of Lesley's murder and he was still visiting Rochdale (Margaret
Ginley) in 1975.
“Rose then established contact with Rosalie Dolan. Dolan had moved to
Australia, but first spoke to WDC Rise by telephone and was then flown back
to the UK at police expense. Dolan said that on 5 October, Hewlett had
arranged to meet her at Todmorden market place at 5 pm. He arrived over two
hours late for their meeting. Dolan said that Hewlett ‘appeared bothered’ and
asked her: ‘Will you cover for me with the police’ He made mention of theft of
motor cars and Dolan agreed to cover for him. Hewlett told her to simply
repeat to the police what they had done on the previous Sunday (28
September) and rehearsed the story with her. He told her that he might have
to go away and asked her to go with him. She agreed to do so.
“On the day that Lesley Molseed's body was found, according to Dolan,
Hewlett asked her (Wednesday 8 October at lunch-time) to run away with him
again. Dolan had taken clothes with her on Thursday and Hewlett met her
from school that day. They spent Thursday the night with the Goodalls in
Burnley and then set off for Liverpool early the next morning. On the way,
Hewlett told her that the police were looking for him, using the cameras on
the side of the motorway, so they drove on ‘A’ and minor roads.
“Dolan said that, although they had little money, Hewlett decided to abandon
the blue Morris van in Liverpool. That night they travelled by ferry to Dublin
and then made their way to Cork, using the name of ‘Dolan’ for their lodgings.
Hewlett then obtained employment picking mushrooms. Rosalie earned
money by cleaning and washing for the man in the flat below them. Hewlett
changed Dolan's birth certificate so it would appear that they were actually
married. Dolan said that during that period Hewlett had been ‘quiet and
withdrawn’. Hewlett and Dolan returned to England after three weeks in
Ireland. The day after their arrival, Hewlett told Dolan that he was going to
store their luggage at the railroad station before going out to find work and for
her to wait for him on a bench. She waited for him, but he did not return. She
spent the night under an upturned boat on the beach before going to the
police to get help to get home.
“Rose showed Dolan the ‘Crimewatch’ reconstruction of the Molseed case,
which had been broadcast some time before their interview. Dolan told the
officer that the van seen at the lay-by on 5 October 1975 was similar to the
vehicle Hewlett had then owned and had abandoned in Liverpool. She also
recalled the damage repair to the front passenger door.
“Rose took Dolan to the A627 murder scene. Dolan recalled having visited
there places but did not recall the circumstances of being there.
“In September 1991, Hewlett, on the run form Stoken Prison, was arrested as
he entered Holyhead, arriving on a ferry from Ireland. He was with a woman
and her three children. The woman's nine-year-old daughter complained that
Hewlett had indecently assaulted her, entering her bedroom at night, fondling
her and masturbating over her. The mother was advised to report the matter
to the Royal Ulster Constabulary as the alleged offences had occurred in their
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jurisdiction. (Note this indicates the molestation had occurred in Northern
Ireland). Hewlett was returned to Stoken Prison”.]
That concludes our edited extracts from Chapter 22 of ‘Innocents’. Hewlett
was re-interviewed by detectives about the Lesley Molseed murder in 1993. He
gave ‘no comment’ answers to all questions put to him. He was never formally
charged with Lesley’s Molseed’s murder as there was ‘insufficient evidence’.
In March 2001, Hewlett was named by Detective Chief Superintendent Max
McLean as the prime suspect in the Lesley’s murder.
Hewlett was described by one judge as ‘extremely dangerous’ and once
featured on a ‘Crimestoppers’ list of ‘Most Wanted Paedophiles’.
D. How did Raymond Hewlett get connected with the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann
In this section we trace how the name of Raymond Hewlett came to be
associated with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Hewlett in Portugal and Morocco
Hewlett had gone to Portugal, probably during 2002, and admitted that he
had been to Praia da Luz that year, but later said he had not been back there
since then. However, in May 2007, when Madeleine disappeared, Hewlett was
living around 35 miles from Praia da Luz. At the time, he was said to have
been moving between three towns - Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and
Tavira - all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. He was apparently surviving by
picking up, and then selling, unwanted jumble and old car parts.
As part of their enquiries into Madeleine’s disappearance, the Portuguese
located Hewlett and his family during the summer of 2007. They visited him
twice, inspecting his van and voluntarily giving the police a DNA swab.
It appears that on 10 June 2007, 38 days after Madeleine disappeared,
Hewlett and his family left Portugal for Morocco. He explained: “A friend gave
me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it down into parts. I knew they were
worth a fortune in Morocco because I'd been there for a couple of months in
2005. You can even get good money for Mercedes nuts and bolts there. I knew
people on the docks at Faro and I got the captain of a ferry to take us over for
free. We stayed in Morocco, on a campsite, for two months and came back in
the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts”. News articles claimed that
there was no public ferry service between Faro and Morocco, but it is clear
that there is commercial traffic from Faro to Morocco.
During early 2008, there were reports of a man with a ‘pock-marked face’ (see
artist’s sketch in next section) having been seen close to the McCanns’
apartment in Praia da Luz. We now know from the Portuguese police files
(though we did not know at the time) that they showed photographs of
Hewlett to the 13-year-old girl who claimed to have seen someone near the
apartment. However, she was very clear that Hewlett was not the man that she
had seen. It was also revealed later that Portuguese police had spoken to
Hewlett’s wife, who had apparently given him an alibi. It later emerged that
12

the Portuguese police had established that his bank card had been used in
Lisbon (3 hours away from Praia da Luz) at the time of Madeleine’s
disappearance.
Hewlett moves to Spain
By August 2008, Hewlett was now in Spain, undergoing treatment for throat
cancer. A report at the time said that ‘Portuguese police, acting on unknown
information’ had swooped on his truck, but it was uncertain whether this was
referring to the police’s earlier interview of Hewlett in 2007. It was apparently
in December 2008 that Hewlett's 10-year-old son (referred to as 8-year-old in
some articles) David was killed, apparently through having fallen out of the
family van while the family was travelling from Spain to Germany. Spanish
Police investigated the death. Hewlett was not, so far as we know, charged
with any offence relating his son’s death.
Hewlett ends up in Germany
By about April or May 2009, Hewlett had reached Aachen in Germany. His
health was deteriorating, and his German-born wife was apparently able to get
state benefits. He was now diagnosed as terminally ill with throat cancer. He
was receiving treatment in a hospital. It is not known how he qualified for the
cost of treatment or whether he was paying privately, or whether someone else
was meeting his hospital bills.
The Thompsons find Osama bin Laden - and Raymond Hewlett
Hewlett was apparently first brought to the attention of the British media by a
British couple, Alan and Cindy Thompson.
Alan and Cindy Thompson, who once
claimed they had ‘found the secret
lair of Osama bin Laden’ in Pakistan
It was in late May 2009 that the Thompsons gave an account of conversations
they say they had had with Hewlett in Portugal. Their accounts sparked a
sudden blaze of publicity about Raymond Hewlett’s name being linked to the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which we shall examine in detail in the
next section.
There is perhaps good reason for being more than a tad sceptical about the
Thompsons’ claims. For ten years previously, in the spring of 1999, as the
media reported: “A British couple called Alan and Cindy Thompson were
driving through Pakistan, in the very area that they're now talking about as
being bin Laden's location. After driving for 11 hours on dirt roads they came
13

to a checkpoint and were detained by armed Pakistani guards. The next day
the Dawn newspaper, one of the biggest newspapers in Pakistan, reported
that this couple had found the secret lair of Osama bin Laden”.
By late May 2009, the McCann Team, along with the general public, had had
access to most of the Portuguese Police files for several months, and would
have seen the references in those files to Hewlett. But according to the
McCann Team it was the Thompsons who led them to Hewlett.
A publicity storm about Hewlett - May 2009
From what we can now see from an examination of all the press reports, the
McCann Team appears to have organised publicity linking Hewlett to
Madeleine’s disappearance before they sent their new private investigation
team, consisting of retired Cheshire Police detectives, Dave Edgar and Arthur
Cowley, to interview Hewlett. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Hewlett declined to
see them, an occasion which led to another strong burst of publicity once
again linking Hewlett’s name to Madeleine. Accompanied by many
photographs of Hewlett, Madeleine, and of Dave Edgar, the McCann Team’s
then senior detective, Edgar returned to the U.K. having failed to interview
Hewlett. A major question mark in all this is why, instead of quietly sending
their private detectives to the hospital in Aachen to talk to Hewlett, the
McCann Team first made sure that there was front-page publicity in the
British press linking Hewlett to Madeleine’s name.
The following month, it was reported that Hewlett had been discharged by
German doctors, who apparently said that they could do nothing for him.
Hewlett, Mariana and their six young children were now said to be living in ‘a
squalid flat’ on the fourth floor of an Aachen tower block. Hewlett claimed at
the time that he had ‘only weeks to live’.
Again amidst much publicity, the McCanns’ private detectives returned to
Aachen for a second time, but this time Hewlett was deemed to be too ill to
undergo intensive questioning.
In the same month (June 2009), it was also reported that West Yorkshire
Police were also investigating his possible involvement with an indecent
assault back in 1975, when he was 30. He was apparently interviewed in early
June in Aachen by two detectives, Detective Chief Superintendent Max
McLean and another officer from West Yorkshire Police.
On 14 June 2009 Hewlett gave an interview to a Sunday Mirror journalist
saying that he maintained his innocence regarding the McCann case. He said
he had never seen Madeleine in real life and offered to take a lie detector test
or any other test. He said he had only seen Madeleine on ‘missing’ posters and
once on a TV in a bar. He also said:
"It's obvious why they're interested in me. But they can all think what they
like. I didn't kill the McCann girl. It's the truth and it's never going to change.
There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring
them into this I've done nothing wrong. I would say to the McCanns that I
know what it's like to lose a child because it's happened to me recently. I've
been through hell and now I've got another hell which I don't deserve. I know
14

for a fact that I didn't do anything wrong, but if people aren't listening, what
can you do I didn't kill the McCann girl”.
Later that year, as we now know from The Sun article, Hewlett was alleged to
have written a letter saying he knew who took Madeleine. There was no
reference to this, however, in what he told reporters at the time. In a typically
hyped piece in the Daily Mirror, journalist Simon Wright claimed: ‘There is a
mountain of circumstantial evidence against Hewlett’.
Hewlett apparently died of cancer in December 2009 (although some reports
said his death was due to ‘natural causes’), but this was not reported in the
British press until April this year (2010). He was cremated in Germany. It was
just one week after Hewlett’s death that a ‘mystery man’ was supposed to have
suddenly appeared at the home of Hewlett’s estranged son Wayne Hewlett -
but this is contradicted by reports from Hewlett’s family in April 2010 that
they were completely unaware that he had died four months earlier.
Indeed, it was The Sun itself which, in first breaking the news of Hewlett’s
death, reported that Hewlett’s family was unaware of his death. Here is the
report, by-lined by Neil Syson:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
‘Maddie perv’ Raymond Hewlett dies with his secrets
10 April 2010 - The Sun, Neil Syson
A PAEDOPHILE who was a prime suspect in the hunt for Madeleine McCann has
died - taking any secrets he had to the grave.
Convicted child rapist Raymond Hewlett, 64, died of throat cancer and was cremated
at a pauper's funeral in Germany four months ago. His ex-wife Susan, 64, and
children in Telford, Shropshire, were unaware of his death.
Two private detectives hired by Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry went to Aachen,
Germany, at least three times in a bid to interview Hewlett. But a source said: "He
always wriggled out of it, saying he was too sick to see them. He was never
eliminated from the inquiry."
Maddie, of Rothley, Leics, was three when she vanished on holiday in Portugal in
May 2007. Ex-soldier Hewlett bore a close resemblance to a straggly-haired man
seen lurking near the McCann apartment.
He was in Portugal when Maddie was snatched and left for Morocco three weeks
later. And he told a pal he knew gipsies who sold children to perverts. Hewlett's
German second wife Mariana, 35, refused to comment.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We are fully justified, in the light of The Sun’s own account five months
previously, to question the truth of Wayne Hewlett claiming via The Sun in
September this year that he knew of his father’s death one week afterwards.
We now go on to examine in close detail the burst of publicity about Hewlett
during May and June 2009.
15

E. May and June 2009: A crescendo of stories connecting
Hewlett to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
The sudden rash of stories about the possible connection of Raymond Hewlett
to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann appears to have begun with a
report in the Daily Mirror in May 2009, just over two years after Madeleine
had been reported missing.
The May Mirror article
The Mirror quoted a couple, Alan and Cindy Thompson, who explained how
they had met Hewlett, his wife and six children, who were in a converted
Dodge truck, travelling from campsite to campsite in the Algarve and southern
Spain. The Thompsons claimed that Hewlett told him that ‘some gipsy tourists
offered to buy my daughter just before Madeleine went missing’. They also
recalled him mentioning a ‘business’ trip to Morocco, where there were
‘several alleged sightings of the little girl in the months after her
disappearance’.
The claim that Hewlett got information about Madeleine from a gipsy has
resurfaced in the latest Sun story. The Mirror story thus put into circulation a
number of the key elements which have sustained this story of a connection
between Hewlett and Madeleine McCann for a year-and-half.
A later Mirror report said: “Officers from Leicestershire Police have said they
want to speak to two British holidaymakers who tracked down Hewlett”.
Other newspapers claimed that British detectives were ‘on their way’ to
interview Hewlett. One report stated: “Detectives from West Yorkshire are
currently waiting for permission from the German authorities to question
Hewlett…”
But Alan and Cindy Thompson didn’t merely meet Hewlett. According to a
later Mirror article, the Thompsons not only raised the alarm after realising
that Hewlett and his family had been staying at a campsite an hour from Praia
da Luz, but also “helped to trace him to the hospital in Germany where he is
being treated for throat cancer”. Just how were they able to do that, without
being in touch with Hewlett either directly or indirectly Or had they perhaps
kept in touch with Hewlett since meeting him in 2007
The Press Association report
This was followed by a full Press Association report dated 23 May 2009, just
over two years after Madeleine had been reported missing.
Unlike a lot of the newspapers and the tabloids especially, the Press
Association is a reliable source of news, whose journalists check their facts
unusually carefully. Thus this sentence: “The McCanns' investigation team
wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can
shed some light on the little girl's disappearance”, could only have come from
a source right at the top of the McCann Team - their official, and chief public
relations officer, Clarence Mitchell. It is possible, in fact, to go further. It is
very clear that this was a deliberately planted story by the McCann Team. The
whole story advanced their agenda. Most of the sequence of the Hewlett press
16

stories that we will now refer to has been helpfully collected on the website:
www.raymondhewlett.blogspot by ‘winnower’.
We will now sketch out the development of the story of the alleged connection
between Hewlett and Madeleine McCann, with the help of quotes from some
of the newspaper articles of that time.
The overall theme of these articles perhaps be conveniently summarised as
follows: “Hewlett is a wicked paedophile whom the Portuguese Police failed to
investigate properly, along with all their other abject failures. Hewlett knows
the layout of the Ocean Club Complex and was in the area of Praia da Luz at
the time. He fled to Morocco suspiciously soon after Madeleine’s
disappearance. There is load sof other circumstantial evidence connecting
Hewlett to Madeleine’s disappearance. Only the McCanns’ private detectives
are following up this important lead”.
The Press Association article began impressively: “A convicted paedophile
who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann's disappearance said he
was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she
went missing, it was reported today”. Being investigated by whom By the
McCann Team, of course. The report continued: “The McCanns' investigation
team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he
can shed some light on the little girl's disappearance”.
Enter Peter Verran
Then we get on to the main source for nearly all the stories connecting Hewlett
to the Madeleine McCann case: Peter Verran. This is how the Press
Association article explained his involvement:
“A former soldier who met Hewlett at a campsite in Morocco in May 2007 told
the Sunday Mirror he admitted parking a van close to the McCann's complex
on several occasions. Peter Verran, 46, said: ‘He brought Madeleine up
straight away. He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her. He was
worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been
spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he
suddenly said, 'Madeleine's not in Morocco'. I asked him what he meant and
he said he knew Praia da Luz really well. He knew the Ocean Club complex
where the McCanns had been staying. He said he’d been there many times and
had often parked his van close to the apartment. He said he knew the layout of
the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had
been eating when Maddie disappeared. He had a lot of detail about the layout.
He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents
seeing. He said they were lying’.”
We are required to believe, then, that Peter Verran was reporting this alleged
conversation with total accuracy. One important point at least was incorrect; it
appears that Hewlett did not travel to Morocco until 10 June, thus Verran
could not have met him in Morocco in May.
Strangely, also, the final two important sentences of what Hewlett said
somehow got buried in the welter of front-page tabloid stories that followed in
the weeks to come. From what we now know of the precise alleged
circumstances of the alleged abduction, perhaps Hewlett was right to say:
17

“There was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing.
They were lying”.
We are then given some particulars about Peter Verran. He was an ex-Scots
Guard, and previously lived in Telford, Shropshire, and Blackpool. In passing,
we might note that Hewlett too was a Scots Guard for nine months, and that
he too lived in Blackpool and Shropshire for a while. Indeed his wife and his
children now live in Shropshire. In other articles, we learn that he was in the
British Army for six years before going on to work with people with learning
disabilities. Another article said he now had an antiques business in Fowey,
Cornwall. He was said to be in Morocco ‘on honeymoon’.
The Press Association reported that West Yorkshire Police Officers would
question Hewlett first, then the McCann Team’s investigators hoped to do so.
Then there was a quote from Clarence Mitchell: “Mr Hewlett has denied any
involvement in Madeleine's abduction. Our investigators hope he will see
sense and co-operate by giving them whatever information needed so they can
eliminate him from the investigation. It's clear the man is ill and it is clear he
has information that our investigators need. It is also clear that our
investigators will be speaking to him in the near future”. Mitchell was quoted
as saying that he hoped the British police would ‘facilitate’ an interview with
Hewlett for the McCann detectives.
Mitchell was 100% wrong in saying that the McCann Team’s investigators ‘will
be speaking to Hewlett in the near future’. They never did, in fact. Mitchell
also claimed that it was ‘clear’ that Hewlett had information that would assist
the McCanns. That, too has not been established. Hewlett and his wife did
however go on to speak to journalists.
The Press Association report continued by quoting a spokesman for West
Yorkshire Police: “We have made contact with the German authorities. We are
just waiting for clearance so we can actually go and speak to him regarding
that incident”.
They added that on Friday 22 May: “The McCanns' private investigators flew
back to the UK from Portugal, where they have been chasing up information
received from the public since a blaze of publicity around the second
anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance. It is understood the leads include
the names of a number of suspects”. It gave the impression of an active
investigation hot on the heels of several ‘suspects’. The press lapped up and
recycled these seemingly promising reports of many new ‘leads’.
Sunday Mirror, 24 May
A story by-lined by Simon Wright in the Sunday Mirror on 24 May developed
the story helpfully for the McCanns. This time the Sunday Mirror article
added these details:
• Hewlett had been outside the McCanns’ apartment ‘many times’ and
knew about the layout of the Ocean Club complex in great detail
• He had parked his van ‘close to the complex on several occasions’
• Peter Verran, who at the time had been on a campsite at Chefchaouen,
Morocco, was now quoted as saying that Hewlett was ‘obsessed with
18

the Madeleine McCann case’; it was said that he had spoken
‘exclusively’ to the Sunday Mirror. He claimed that he met Hewlett at
‘the toilet block’ where Hewlett immediately started talking about
Madeleine and said he also had a three-year-old daughter.
Peter Verran is then quoted as saying: “[Hewlett] said it was common
knowledge among locals that Praia da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in
particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then sell
children”. As far as we are aware, that claim is totally without foundation. Noone
has been able to trace any credible media reports of gipsies stealing very
young children to order.
Next, Simon Wright slants his story to make Hewlett’s actions sound very
suspicious. Verran is quoted as saying: “I asked [Hewlett] why he'd left and
come to Morocco. He told me he'd had to leave Portugal in a hurry. He said
he'd packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area. That
was just after Maddie was taken”. Here we have classic examples of tabloid
journalism. The double claim of ‘leaving in a hurry’…‘half-an-hour’ to pack up,
combined with Hewlett allegedly fleeing to Morocco ‘just after’ Madeleine was
taken, would have created an obvious suspicion in the minds of readers that
Hewlett was directly involved in abducting Madeleine.
A honeymoon for the Verrans: dining together with the Hewletts
As we hear more of Verran’s story, it is clear however that his information
about Hewlett did not come merely from a conversation in the toilet black, as
we heard earlier.
Verran told the Mirror: “Me and Nisrine would eat meals with Hewlett's
family…the kids were a bit weird. They were very withdrawn and couldn't
speak properly. They never went to school and spent all day playing in the
mud”.
We can deduce from this that there was on ongoing relationship between Mr
and Mrs Verran and Mr and Mrs Hewlett and their family, where they were
happy to eat together while the Hewletts’ ‘very withdrawn’ children ‘played all
day in the mud’. Indeed, Verran is quoted later as referring to ‘the three
months they were all together’. This would be the period June through August
(see below), though the Sunday Mirror on 21 June told us that the Verrans
“shared a Moroccan campsite with Hewlett between June and November
2007”. Unfortunately Verran never gave us the date he first encountered
Hewlett in Morocco. It is reasonable to assume that it was after 10 June when
Hewlett said he travelled to Morocco from Portugal.
One would like to know a lot more about what brought these two families
seemingly quite close together. As the Verrans were said to be ‘on
honeymoon’, it was clearly a long honeymoon, maybe lasting until November
if the Sunday Mirror report is correct, and a strange one if they were regularly
dining with the Hewletts.
And it is clear that the relationship continued after they parted company in
August. The Verrans says they returned to Britain in November 2007 and ‘had
occasional texts or phone calls from Hewlett’ after Hewlett told them he was
19

‘back in Tavira’. Verran then adds that, in June 2008, he rang the Hewletts
only to be informed that he had throat cancer. Then, at some future date,
Verran continues: “He called to ask for money and I sent him £50. I couldn't
bear the thought of his kids starving. I even offered to pay for him to come
back to the U.K. I didn't get a reply and we lost touch”. Sending Hewlett £50
seems inconsistent with Verran’s claim (see below) that ‘Hewlett was never
short of money’.
Verran then adds how shocked he was to learn about Hewlett’s past as a serial
molester of teenage and younger girls: “Suddenly this week he was in the
newspapers linked to Maddie's disappearance. I could hardly believe my eyes.
It was such a massive shock. It makes my blood run cold. We haven't been
able to sleep much since the news broke. I just thought he was an odd drifter. I
pray he hasn't had anything to do with it”.
Then we have a classic bit of media spin. Verran is quoted as saying: “He went
on and on about the McCanns and kept telling me all his theories about what
he thought had happened. Looking back, maybe it was a way of making sure
we didn't think he had anything to do with it”.
Once again, the reader could be forgiven to thinking there was something
deeply suspicious about Hewlett theorising about the Madeleine McCann case,
whereas in fact at this time (June 2007) millions across the world were
following and discussing the case eagerly - and many were giving generously
to the McCanns’ fund in the hope that the funds could be used to find
Madeleine. Suspicion of Hewlett in the reader’s mind would be increased by
reading the following quote from Verran: “Most of the time he stayed on the
campsite. He was never short of money…I don't know where he got his money
from. He said he'd made cash from car boot sales”.
Further on in the article we are told: “One day in August 2007, Hewlett
announced he and his family were leaving. He said his wife's visa had run out
and his passport was out of date. They packed up and left quickly”.
The Mirror gave details of his previous criminal record, but added that he was
apparently wanted for questioning by two police forces: “Hewlett is also
wanted for questioning by West Yorkshire Police over a child sex attack in
1975 and by Greater Manchester Police investigating the 1975 abuse of an
eight-year old girl”. It was perhaps all the more remarkable that the
Thompson knew where Hewlett was, but the combined efforts of West
Yorkshire and Greater Manchester police forces had been for years unable to
locate him.
One question arises: Did Peter Verran genuinely come up with all this new
information about Hewlett just because he read a newspaper article that very
week Or had he had some prior contact with the McCann Team
Hewlett to give a DNA sample
The next newspaper to take the ‘Hewlett story’ further was the Daily Star on
25 May. They reported, under the headline: ‘Madeleine suspect in DNA test’,
that the McCanns’ private detectives (former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar
and former Detective Sergeant Arthur Cowley) had by now flown to see
20

Hewlett in Germany in order to get him to take a DNA test, and to ‘hunt for
clues’. A similar story was repeated in the Daily Express.
The one thing that cried out for explanation, but which the newspaper could
not tell us, was how getting hold of Hewlett’s DNA could possibly help the
McCanns’ private investigation. Did they already have a sample of DNA
somehow collected by the Portuguese or Leicestershire Police in connection
with Madeleine’s disappearance Of course not. Did it even occur to the
newspaper to ask why Hewlett’s DNA could help the investigation Once
again, this had all the hallmarks of a Clarence Mitchell-placed newspaper
story. It seems that Mitchell’s mesmeric hold over the British press was so
powerful that they could not raise this obvious question.
The Star article continued: “German authorities want the 64-year-old…to
have a DNA test in the next few days…the McCanns' investigators cannot force
him to co-operate”. Another newspaper was more definite: “German police
also plan to take a DNA swab from Hewlett to check it against traces obtained
during the Madeleine investigation conducted by Portuguese police”. But as
far as we can see, these were all claims supplied to the media by the McCann
Team. We have been unable to trace any quotes on this subject from German
police spokesmen at the time.
Mitchell was of course quoted in the article: “[The McCanns’ private
detectives] hope he will give them whatever information needed so they can
eliminate him from the investigation”.
Not for the first nor the last time, Mitchell was sounding like the Head of
Communications for the Metropolitan Police. In an article in the Daily Mail
the same day, they reported that: ‘Although Hewlett is ‘a person of interest’ to
the McCanns' investigation, their spokesman has stressed he is only ‘one lead
among many’.
Hewlett knew Praia da Luz ‘very well’
The Mail’s headline loaded with innuendo: ‘Monster boasted he knew Maddie
resort ‘very well’.’ Pausing there, it is doubtful of course whether anyone
remotely connected with Madeleine’s disappearance would be likely to boast
of such knowledge. The article included a declaration by Hewlett’s wife that
Hewlett was ‘innocent of anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance’. The
Mail report repeated the claim that ‘Hewlett lived in the Algarve but packed
up and left for Morocco ‘shortly after’ Madeleine disappeared’. They also
quoted Hewlett himself, who apparently the previous week has said: “I've
done nothing wrong - nothing, nothing”. Many other newspapers carried
similar reports that day, including the Daily Telegraph, the Irish
Independent, the Liverpool Echo and the Yorkshire Post.
Hewlett’s mobile ’phone to be checked
The Liverpool Echo had a new angle on the story, however, reporting that:
“The ’phone of a convicted paedophile may be checked to discover where he
was on the day Madeleine McCann disappeared”. There was a different quote
from Mitchell within the article: “It's clear the man is ill and it is clear he has
information that our investigators need”. The Daily Express added: “It is also
21

clear that our investigators will be speaking to him in the near future”.
The McCann Team seemed very sure that Hewlett could yield useful
information.
Leicestershire Police interview the Thompsons on 24 May 2009
It was the Daily Mirror who then broke new ground in the developing story.
An article by Ryan Parry & Stephen Moyes on 24 May claimed that: “The
couple who raised the alarm about paedophile Ray Hewlett told yesterday how
detectives who interviewed them asked: ‘Do you still have his mobile
number’ Alan and Cindy Thompson were questioned for three hours at the
weekend by officers from Leicestershire Police's Madeleine McCann task force
[the article said that the interview had been carried out at Limehouse Police
Station, east London]. Cindy, who handed over the foreign number, said
yesterday: ‘The detective who interviewed me asked for Ray's number. He
didn't say what they'll do with it, I just hope it helps in some way’.
The report went on: “Officers hope to use the number to access ’phone
company records dating back to May 3, 2007, the day Madeleine vanished
from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. The records will show which
mobile ’phone masts Hewlett's ’phone connected to on specific dates. The
information may help officers track Hewlett’s movements the night Madeleine
went missing and over the following days.
“Alan said the detective who spoke to him was keen for information about the
dilapidated Dodge truck Hewlett was driving at the time Madeleine vanished
and which he later took to Morocco. Alan added: ‘The officer asked what sort
of truck it was and where I thought it was now. I told him it was a very
distinctive blue Dodge truck with English plates, maybe beginning with a D or
a G. I also told them that friends in Portugal told me that the truck is in Alvor,
a town near Albufeira in the Algarve”.
For that story to have appeared at all, the Thompsons were clearly in direct
and immediate contact with a Daily Mirror journalist. The story helped to
perpetuate in readers’ minds that Hewlett might well have been in Praia da
Luz on the very day Madeleine was reported missing.
‘Doctors refuse to allow Hewlett to give a DNA test’ - reports on 26
May
‘Docs bar DNA test on Maddie suspect’, ran the headline on the Daily Star on
26 May, in an article by Jerry Lawton. A sub-heading added: ‘Hospital turns
away ex-coppers’, saying that they had been refused entry into the hospital.
What these and other newspapers failed to tell its readers was that, back in
2007, or possibly in 2008, the Portuguese police had already taken a DNA
swab from Hewlett and ruled him out for that and for other reasons from any
involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Quite why the McCanns or any British police force would want Hewlett’s DNA,
though, is a mystery. As the Sunday Tribune very sensibly pointed out in an
article on 21 June: “While Hewlett allowed a blood sample to be drawn for
DNA profiling, this might be yet another crafty ploy. He is undoubtedly well
22

aware that the Portuguese police did not find any DNA evidence from the
missing child against which a suspect’s DNA could be compared”.
The Daily Star made a further misleading claim, namely that ‘[Hewlett’s]
description matches a man with a droopy moustache seen carrying off a little
blonde girl that night’. This was misleading in two separate respects.
First, the artist’s impression of a ‘man with a droopy moustache’ showed a
man probably in his 30s, and with plenty of hair, not 62 as Hewlett was.
Second, the man described as having been seen by the McCanns’ friend Jane
Tanner was said to be aged around 35, had longish black hair, and Tanner
made no mention of a moustache. Leaving aside the major question marks
over Jane Tanner’s changing stories about the man she claimed to have seen,
the Star badly misled its readers by suggesting, in effect, that Jane Tanner
might have seen Hewlett take Madeleine away from the McCanns’ apartment.
The Daily Express the same day had a different ‘take’ on the story. Leading
with the headline: ‘Portugal police ignore 4 new Madeleine leads’, they
claimed that ‘a source close to the [Portuguese] investigation’ had told four
callers ‘in the past week’ who had rung in with potentially useful information:
“She is dead…don’t bother us with new information”. That would have
reinforced public perceptions, generated by false media reporting of the facts,
that the Portuguese investigation was not only bungling and incompetent but
also, in part, deliberately not trying to ‘find Madeleine’.
The Express then quoted ‘a family friend of the McCanns’ - one of the stock
phrases used by the press to refer to their spokesman Clarence Mitchell -
saying: “It's a disgrace frankly. It's beyond frustrating. It is exactly the attitude
that we have been up against for months. They closed the inquiry and were
not prepared to lift a finger. Yet Kate and Gerry's team are still providing the
Portuguese with information”.
The Express added that Hewlett was now considered ‘a vital lead’ by the
McCanns, quoting their senior investigator Dave Edgar as saying: “If he has
nothing to hide he should speak to us. His evidence may be crucial but we
won't know until we have spoken to him. "We want to know where he was
when Madeleine McCann went missing. We want to eliminate him from our
inquiry as quickly as possible. It is a matter of urgency because of his medical
condition. We can't get through the hospital authorities. We have sent a
message to Mr Hewlett that we want to speak to him”.
The Express added this quote from ‘the McCanns’ spokesman’: "Raymond
Hewlett is now well aware that the investigators helping Kate and Gerry
McCann wish to speak to him. Clearly, if he is to be eliminated from their
inquiries, it is incumbent on Mr Hewlett to talk to the investigators”, while the
‘family friend’ was quoted as adding: “You would have to ask yourself why
Hewlett was not prepared to co-operate”.
The Express did reveal, however, that the McCanns’ detectives had spoken to
Mrs Hewlett. Investigator Dave Edgar was quoted as saying: “We spent 10
minutes with Mariana last night. We sent a message through her that we need
to talk to him”.
23

The Sun confronts Hewlett in Aachen - 27 May
The suspicions against Hewlett were mightily stoked by an article in The Sun
on Wednesday 27 May. Two Sun journalists had tried to corner Hewlett and
interview him, in the process capturing the moment the two journalists
challenged him with some questions. The article, complete with dramatic
photograph, blared: ‘CONFRONTED - This is the moment The Sun confronted
paedophile Raymond Hewlett over Madeleine McCann's disappearance”.
The article continued: “We stepped in to grill the convicted child abuser after
he stonewalled private eyes acting for Maddie's parents Gerry and Kate.
British fugitive Hewlett emerged as a suspect after it was revealed he lived
near Praia da Luz when Maddie went missing from the Portuguese resort -
and was said to be obsessed by the case”.
The Sun continued: “We caught up with the foul-mouthed fiend as he sat in a
wheelchair, gawping at passers-by including children, outside a hospital in
Aachen, Germany. He is being treated there for throat cancer”.
A Sun photographer captures Hewlett, sat in his wheelchair,
as a child walks past him at a hospital in Aachen, Germany
The Sun then shares with us the colourful conversation between the two Sun
journalists and Hewlett:
THE SUN: Can you speak to us about Madeleine McCann
HEWLETT: I don't know what you're talking about.
SUN: Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Madeleine
McCann
HEWLETT: NO ANSWER
SUN: Could you tell us where you were when Madeleine McCann
disappeared
HEWLETT: It's got nothing to do with you.
24

SUN: Why don't you eliminate yourself from the inquiry for the sake of the
McCanns
HEWLETT: I don't have to speak to you. F__ off.
SUN: Why haven't you spoken to the detectives
HEWLETT: I will. Just f___ off out of here. I've done nothing wrong.
SUN: Well, you've been on the run for more than 30 years and you're wanted
for questioning by West Yorkshire Police.
HEWLETT: What for I don't believe it.
SUN: A sexual assault on an eight-year-old girl in 1975.
The Sun continues: “At this point Hewlett, who lives in Aachen with partner
Mariana, 33, and their six kids, let fly with another four-letter volley before
leaping from the wheelchair and dashing inside the hospital”.
There is one remarkable thing about this interview. When The Sun tries to talk
to him about Madeleine McCann, he evades their questions, swears at them,
and - despite his ill-health - runs off to the hospital to escape them. Yet, as we
shall see in a moment below, within barely a fortnight, Hewlett has reversed
his decision and agrees to give a long and detailed interview to a Sunday
Mirror journalist.
Just what could have changed Hewlett’s mind so dramatically
Sunday Mirror 31 May
The Sunday Mirror continued the story on 31 May with an article by-lined by
Justin Penrose, headed: ‘Cops probe Maddie pervert’s quick escape from
Portugal’. The claim now was that “British police probing the disappearance
of Madeleine McCann want to know why paedophile Raymond Hewlett left
Portugal so quickly after she vanished”. The article referred to Leicestershire
Police questioning Peter Verran ‘about his three months in Morocco with
Hewlett’. Again Verran was quoted as saying that Hewlett left Portugal ‘shortly
after’ Madeleine vanished. Readers were again not told that ‘shortly after’
meant 38 days after.
Another quote from Verran increased the innuendo against Hewlett. The
Sunday Mirror article continued: “Police also wanted to know how the
convicted paedophile and drifter could afford to flee to North Africa, which
would have cost him around £1,000. They want to find out if he was paid a
large cash sum - and how he got his six children there without passports.
Verran said: ‘If he managed to get six in there, was no reason he couldn't get
seven’.” The article added: “The [Leicestershire] detective took note of
Hewlett's two mobile numbers and email address to track calls and messages
at the time Madeleine was taken”. The article did not make clear, however,
that most mobile telephone companies do not hold mobile records for longer
then two years.
The following day, the Leicester Mercury had a different angle on the story.
They claimed: “Hewlett has said he was prepared to meet with the [McCanns’
detectives]. Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell told the newspaper: Clarence
Mitchell, said: “Hewlett has indicated he is prepared to speak to the private
investigators helping Kate and Gerry. That interview is in the process of being
arranged. It is likely to take place in the next few days”. We will go on later to
25

examine the Sunday Mirror’s report of an interview presumably between one
of its journalists and the Hewletts. There has never been any mention,
however, of Hewlett ever meeting with any of the McCanns’ private
investigators, despite Mitchell’s professed optimism.
The paper went further, claiming: “Detectives [i.e. the McCann private
investigators] have also revealed that four new witnesses have been
uncovered. All are reported to have been living near Praia da Luz at the time
the youngster, from Rothley, disappeared. Mitchell was again quoted: “Our
investigations are continuing to provide a number of leads and a number of
names have been suggested to them as people of potential interest. They are
working through these”. Plainly, the McCann Team wanted the public to focus
on what we might term ‘the Hewlett angle’. The newspapers were buzzing with
new stories. Mitchell added: “The recent flurry of activity has brought strength
to Kate and Gerry”.
Dr Kate McCann and Dr Gerald McCann
The long Sunday Mirror article 14 June 2009: Hewlett interviewed
The Sunday Mirror’s Simon Wright developed the story further on 14 June,
with a headline: ‘But I didn’t kill Maddie’, and a sub-heading: ‘Key suspect
talks for first time’. If there was any doubt that the paper was once again
placing Hewlett at the heart of the mystery of why Madeleine McCann
disappeared, further sub-headings like these left us in no doubt:
‘YES I'm a convicted paedophile
‘YES I lived near Praia da Luz
‘YES I look like police drawing
‘YES I did flee area to Morocco’.
This was a very long article; we’ll pick out the highlights. Here are some
extracts:
“Broken, frail, with only weeks to live, Raymond Hewlett is the man the
McCanns fear could take the secrets of their daughter's disappearance to the
grave…he sits hunched up in a squalid, cramped, sparse German flat, gasping
26

for breath as he finally breaks his silence. He wastes away on the fourth floor
of a tower block, close to death. Doctors discharged him from hospital, telling
him there is nothing more they can do for him, and his weight has plummeted
to just 7 stone. His voice so weak it is at times barely audible.
“He is holed up on the apartment with wife Mariana, 33, and six young
children. The family arrived there six weeks ago as his health deteriorated,
and Mariana is able to get state benefits. ‘It's obvious why they're interested in
me’, croaks Hewlett, 64. ‘But they can all think what they like. I didn't kill the
McCann girl. It's the truth and it's never going to change’. [Hewlett]…speaks
out for the first time in a bid to clear his name amid the mountain of
circumstantial evidence against him.
“In hiding ever since he was named in connection with the case, he admits he
was in the Algarve at the time Madeleine was snatched and, as our pictures
show, he looks strikingly similar to a sketch of a suspect with a pock-marked
face seen lurking around the apartment. Five weeks after she disappeared, he
left Portugal for Morocco for a two-month-long ‘business trip’. He is
REFUSING to give an alibi for the night Madeleine, three, vanished. ‘I have an
alibi but why should I share it’, he says, struggling for air with each syllable’.
“’There is a person who can say where I was that day, but why should I bring
them into this I've done nothing wrong. Why should I have to prove it My
life's been made a misery for something I know nothing about and a crime I've
not committed. I'd take a lie-detector test. The only time I've seen Madeleine
McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on TV in a bar once. But I've
never seen her in real life. Yes I've been to Praia da Luz, but not since 2002’.
“But those claims contradict what former Scots Guard Mr Verran, 46, says
Hewlett told him - that he was in and around Praia da Luz at the time
Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.
“The McCanns' private detectives first became aware of father-of-six Hewlett
in February this year when his name was given to them during local door-todoor
inquiries. His distinctive live-in Dodge truck, large family and bizarre
nomad lifestyle singled him out. The McCanns' investigators began searching
for him, keen to eliminate him from inquiries. Portuguese detectives told U.K.
officers they were unaware of his existence until the McCann team uncovered
his name.
“But bizarrely, Hewlett tells the Sunday Mirror he was visited twice by
Portuguese police over the Maddie case and gave detectives a DNA swab and
fingerprints, although he was never arrested or quizzed. The McCanns'
investigators are unsure whether to believe him or the detectives in Portugal.
Hewlett says that Portuguese police, acting on unknown information, swooped
on his truck while he had throat cancer treatment across the border in Spain
in August 2008. He also says that local police helping in the search for Maddie
visited him, wife Mariana and their children in the summer of 2007.
He says: ‘They checked that all the children living with us were ours. Our
youngest girl looks a bit like her. But they saw everything was O.K. and they
left. The police came again in August last year and told Mariana it was about
the McCann girl. They asked for me and Mariana told them I was in hospital.
27

They came to see me and asked permission to take DNA and fingerprints. I
was very sick and barely able to speak to them. They asked where we parked in
the Algarve in the first half of 2007. I told them, 'You know where we've been
because you know us round there. I knew why they were asking, because I'd
seen the TV and newspapers. By then, that McCann kid's photo was in every
shop and supermarket you went in to. I've got previous convictions for childsex
crimes so my heart sank. I thought, 'Oh no, here we go again’.
I was miles from the UK but it didn't make any difference. I'd tried hard to
build a new life. But the reality for me is that my past convictions will never go
away. I gave them their DNA and fingerprints. I knew they were just doing
their job but I was angry. I had cancer and no money’.
“At the time Madeleine vanished, Hewlett and his family were moving
between three towns in the Algarve - Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Fuzeta and
Tavira - all within 60 miles of Praia da Luz. Hewlett…was a mechanic on a
tourist boat and Mariana worked as a cleaner for the boat's owners on the
Mediterranean island of Elba. They embarked on a tour of Europe in the
converted Dodge truck. He had installed beds for their children, a sink, cooker
and shower. At that point the couple had four children - David, 10, who died
when he fell from their moving truck in December last year, Michael, nine,
Anya, eight, and Jobe, seven, who were all born in Germany. Yanina, six, and
Paul, three, were born during their travels across the Algarve, and the
youngest Daniel, now six-and a-half months, was born in Spain.
“Hewlett says he was 60 miles away - in Vila Real de Santo Antonio - when
Maddie was taken. Crucially, he says he cannot specifically remember being
there that day. Hewlett said: ‘May 3 was a Thursday and I was always in Vila
Real Santo Antonio on Thursdays. My routine never altered. That's 60 miles
from Praia da Luz. If you asked people there if we were there on that day, I
don't know what they'd say. Maybe they can't remember. If you ask them if we
were normally there, they'd say yes. If it wasn't for the fact that we were living
the way we were, I wouldn't be able to say so clearly that that was where I was.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't have to prove anything. Our truck was our
only vehicle. I didn't have another vehicle to go anywhere in. It's a high profile
vehicle. Once you see it, you never forget it. It was like that purposefully
because I wanted people to see us. I didn't want to be hiding’.
“But he claims that a female friend who shot a home video of him and his
family on May 5 - two days after Maddie vanished - could vouch for his
whereabouts on May 3. The 30-min video - seen by the Irish Sunday Mirror -
shows Hewlett, Mariana and their seven children laughing at the camera and
playing games with each other at a market they regularly attended in the
Portuguese town of Fuzeta every Sunday, less than 40 miles from Praia da
Luz.
“His youngest daughter Yanina bears a striking resemblance to missing
Maddie. He says: ‘The friend who made the video would remember where I
was two days earlier. She could tell anyone where I was. But I haven't asked
her and I don't intend to. Why should I ask her Why should I keep dragging
people in to this. I don't like being in it, so why should I keep putting people's
names forward so that they get bothered with it too I could ask her, but if she
says no, then sorry, the answer is no’.
28

“A month later, on June 10, Hewlett left Portugal and took his family to
Morocco. He said: ‘A friend gave me a broken old Mercedes and I stripped it
down into parts. I knew they were worth a fortune in Morocco because I'd
been there for a couple of months in 2005. You can even get good money for
Mercedes nuts and bolts there. I knew people on the docks at Faro and I got
the captain of a ferry to take us over for free. We stayed in Morocco for two
months and came back in the August. I made 300 euros from the car parts’.
Shaking with pain, he repeats: ‘I didn't kill the McCann girl’.
“Hewlett was last month tracked down by the McCanns' detectives to a
hospital in Aachen, Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. They had
hoped to put a series of questions to him but he refused to see them and they
were forced to return to the UK empty-handed. This week, they travelled there
for a second time but he was deemed too ill to undergo intensive questioning”.
The Sunday Mirror then rounded off its article with a list of bullet points,
meant top underline their claim about ‘a mountain of circumstantial evidence’
against Hewlett, under the heading: ‘Why McCanns want to quiz him’. Here is
that list:
Because…
• He's a convicted paedophile who has served U.K. jail sentences for sex
attacks on children
• Lived an hour's drive from Praia Da Luz at the time Maddie vanished
• Bears a striking resemblance to the pock-marked suspect seen acting
suspiciously near the Ocean Club
• He refuses to give a specific alibi
• Gave DNA samples but was never quizzed or eliminated
• Told a friend he knew the Ocean Club complex and visited Praia da Luz
• He fled across sea to Morocco ‘soon after’ Madeleine was taken
‘Droopy moustache’ man
‘Pock-marked face’ man
Then the Sunday Mirror adds a list of further bullet points under this
heading: ‘Why Hewlett claims he's innocent’:
• He says he was 60 miles away from Praia Da Luz on May 3, 2007
29

• He insists he hasn't even been there since 2002
• His only way of driving to Praia Da Luz, his converted Dodge truck, was
home to wife and six children
• He appears on a home video filmed on May 5, 2007 - just two days after
Madeleine vanished - looking totally calm and relaxed
• Insists he has alibi from un-named pal he doesn't want to 'drag into it'
Analysis of the Sunday Mirror article 14 June 2009
This article deserves very close analysis. It claims to be a record of a
conversation that presumably took place a few days before the article was
published. We are not told who Hewlett spoke to, though we are told that
Hewlett gave the Irish Sunday Mirror a copy of the video his female friend
made of the family in a market place in Fuzeta on 5 May 2007, two days after
Madeleine disappeared.
The lead-up to this interview appears to have been as follows. The article tells
us that: ‘The McCanns' private detectives first became aware of father-of-six
Hewlett in February this year when his name was given to them during local
door-to-door inquiries’. We are not told where these alleged ‘house-to-house
inquiries’ took place, but it sounds impressive. The picture painted is of the
McCanns’ private detectives spending hours, days, weeks, going from door to
door in search of clues.
Then the McCann detectives are said to have traced him, in May, to the
hospital in Aachen. Hewlett is then quoted as saying he doesn’t want to speak
to the McCanns’ detectives. Then we are told that the hospital authorities have
refused to allow the McCann detectives into the hospital. We are told that he is
terminally ill, with only a few weeks to live, etc., yet despite all that, the
Mirror journalist is able to visit him at home in his flat. Hewlett has
apparently been discharged from hospital. In that time, he has, despite his
health, consented to a long interview with a journalist. One question arises:
was Hewlett paid by the Mirror for his story If so, how much
Next let us look at the different claims made about the Portuguese police and
Hewlett. According to the article: ‘Portuguese detectives told U.K. officers they
were unaware of his existence until the McCann Team uncovered his name’.
That was of course flatly contradicted by Hewlett and the Portuguese police.
Hewlett’s account is that police visited him twice. First, in ‘the summer of
2007’, when local Portuguese police are said to have visited him and his
family on their campsite. And then, in August 2008, when he was in Spain,
when he is said to have given the police a DNA swab and fingerprints.
The article says that the McCanns' investigators are unsure whether to believe
Hewlett (who said the police had checked up on him twice), or believe the
detectives in Portugal (who said they had no knowledge of Hewlett…‘unaware
of his existence’).
The article makes the claim the Hewlett ‘looks strikingly similar to a sketch of
a suspect with a pock-marked face seen lurking around the apartment’. Now
we have a different artist’s sketch, a man with a ‘pock-marked face’, said to
match Hewlett. Earlier we saw how ‘the man with the moustache’ was
30

supposed to have looked like Hewlett, and was also supposed to have looked
like the man Jane Tanner said she saw. However, this supposed sighting was
of someone seen in the days before the McCanns were in Portugal that year. It
is also a moot point, to say the least, whether there is any resemblance
between the drawing of a ‘pock-marked’ man and Hewlett, let alone the claim
that they looked ‘strikingly similar’.
Then we have confirmation that Hewlett left Portugal for Morocco on 10 June.
That was more than a month and a week after Madeleine McCann was
reported missing - 38 days. That is hardly consistent with the media’s
repeated claims that Hewlett ‘fled to Morocco shortly after Madeleine
disappeared’.
The Sunday Mirror contrasts two claims about where Hewlett was on 3 May,
when Madeleine disappeared. Hewlett says he was in Fuzeta at the time. But
the Sunday Mirror says: “Those claims contradict what Verran says Hewlett
told him - that he was in and around Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine
disappeared”. But according to the statements of Verran that we’ve referred to
in this article, he has not previously been reported as saying that Hewlett was
in Praia da Luz, merely that he was living about an hour’s drive away. The
Sunday Mirror appears to be guilty, therefore, of bending Verran’s claims
about where Hewlett was living at the time, to suit their story. Verran had
never alleged that he was ‘in and around’ Praia da Luz the day Madeleine
disappeared. Only that he was an hour’s drive away. Moreover, the Portuguese
police noted that around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, Hewlett’s
credit card had been used in Lisbon.
Other newspapers develop the Hewlett story after 14 June
The Daily Express continued the story the next day, with the headline:
‘Maddie: I didn’t kill her says paedophile’. The Express story, however,
focussed on yet another angle - namely, whether Hewlett had personally ever
seen Madeleine or not. Hewlett had told the Sunday Mirror reporter: “The
only time I've seen Madeleine McCann is on missing posters. And I saw her on
TV in a bar once. But I've never seen her in real life”.
Now the Daily Express told its readers: “Detectives working for Madeleine's
parents Kate and Gerry McCann yesterday said they were keen to interview
Hewlett. They wanted to clear up suggestions that he had seen Madeleine
twice before she vanished, at the age of three, in May 2007”. This came about
because there were also claims, as set out in a later article by the Independent
on Sunday (see below) and elsewhere, that he had told a German newspaper
that he had once seen Madeleine.
The Independent on Sunday reported: “In an apparent about-turn on
Thursday, Hewlett told a German newspaper: ‘Yes, I saw Maddie’. However,
he later recanted the statement. He allegedly admitted seeing Madeleine
twice, apparently describing to the German paper ‘a distinctive mark in her
right eye’.” As far as we are aware, however, no-one knows which German
newspaper this is supposed to have been. It seems highly unlikely, whatever
the circumstances, that Hewlett would admit to having seen Madeleine twice,
even if he had done so. Possibly, as it was a German magazine that he had
been speaking to, there was a mistranslation somewhere along the line.
31

Did Hewlett over own a white Mercedes van
A few days later, on 19 June, a report by Stephen Moyes in the Mirror raised
yet another new point. Under the heading: ‘Maddy man’s lie - Paedo’s story
falling apart’, it claimed that ‘Maddie suspect’ Hewlett was ‘today
sensationally back in the frame’ after ‘being caught lying’.
The Mirror reported: “The paedophile insisted he drove only a distinctive blue
truck at the time the youngster vanished. But former pal Peter Verran, 46,
says Hewlett, 64, had a white Mercedes van - similar to one seen near the
McCanns' apartment…he said Hewlett told him he had driven from Portugal's
Algarve to Spain in the Mercedes van around the time Madeleine vanished”.
This of course was hearsay evidence. Verran had never seen this white van. It
is important to remember that Verran is the only source for the claim that
Hewlett also had a white van. Moreover, Verran does not appear to have
mentioned this white van in any of his earlier interviews with newspapers. He
appears to suddenly recall a conversation about a white van. The possible
existence of a white van had never been mentioned until a couple of weeks
previously. As a Mirror article said: “Last month it was revealed a witness had
seen a man apparently staking out the McCanns' apartment, standing near a
white van”. Did Verran embellish his account to bring a white van into his
story
A fuller version of the Mirror story said: “Pervert Raymond Hewlett's lies
were unravelling last night…”, and repeated Verran’s claim, adding: “Ex-Scots
Guard Peter Verran, 46, decided to contact the Maddy inquiry team after
being disturbed by Hewlett's claims in our sister paper, the Sunday Mirror.
Mr Verran, who befriended Hewlett on a campsite in Morocco in June 2007,
said: ‘He told me he owned a white Transit-type van before his blue Dodge
truck. He said he'd swapped it for the Dodge in order to leave Portugal and
travel to Morocco. The white van didn't have enough room for the whole
family, so he sold it to a pal who traded on the same market as him in Fuzeta,
about 40 miles from Praia da Luz’.”
One interesting point about Verran’s claim is that he had earlier told the
media that Hewlett had to ‘flee’ Portugal (on 10 June), ‘packing up everything
in just half-an-hour’. How could Hewlett have swapped his white Mercedes
van for a blue Dodge truck within that half-an-hour
Furthermore, we heard earlier, and from many sources, that Hewlett and his
family were living in a camper van, or truck, and moving from place to place in
Portugal and other countries, yet Verran claims: “The white van didn't have
enough room for the whole family”. The obvious question that arises there is:
‘If there wasn’t enough room for the family in the car, where were they all
living’ Verran doesn’t tell us that.
Still a further reason for doubting Verran is that he seems to be more than
willing to play out all these issues in the media. He doesn’t quietly tell
Leicestershire Police about the white van. Instead, he tells the McCanns’
detectives - and the McCann Team then makes very sure they get yet another
front-page headline out of it.
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Indeed, to help the publicity along, the McCann Team came up with a very
strong line for the Mirror, who quoted ‘a source close to the Maddy inquiry
team’ - probably by Mitchell. Or if it was by someone else, Mitchell would
certainly have approved the quote.
The source was quoted as saying: “This new information could be very
significant. Hewlett has repeatedly said that he could not have been at the
scene without someone remembering his distinctive truck. But if he was
driving a Mercedes van at the time, his reasoning is shot to pieces. And it
would raise the question of why he lied about the vehicle in the first place”.
The Mirror added the claim that Hewlett lied about how he got his truck to
Morocco”, pouring scorn on Hewlett’s claim to have travelled on a boat from
Faro to Morocco, saying: “There is NO public ferry service between Faro and
Morocco”. As we mentioned earlier, however, there is commercial sea traffic
from Faro to Morocco and it is very possible that Hewlett put his truck on a
commercial ship which did not normally carry passenger traffic.
For good measure, the Mirror also introduced the ‘gipsy angle’, writing:
“Hewlett told friends he was offered money by ‘gipsy tourists’ to sell his own
three-year-old blonde-haired daughter”.
The Independent on Sunday dutifully carried a similar story on 21 June
headed: ‘Maddie suspect lied to police’.
This informed us, melodramatically: “Police are in a race against time to probe
the lies told by convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett”. It claimed that
Hewlett had ‘lied to police on significant aspects of the case…it emerged that
he had misled police about the make of vehicle he was driving at the time of
her disappearance’.
But their article, in common with similar stories printed by other papers that
day, once again omitted to point out that this claim was based purely on
Verran’s dubious claims. The newspaper also claimed: “It has been established
that he was in the vicinity of Praia de Luz when Maddie vanished”. Again, that
was misleading. All that had been established, and on fact admitted by
Hewlett himself, was that he had been living about an hour’s drive away from
Praia da Luz at the time. Just like the tabloid press, the Independent on
Sunday was stretching the term ‘in the vicinity’, giving readers the impression
that Hewlett was much nearer Praia da Luz than he probably was.
‘No-one can give Hewlett an alibi’
Also on 21 June, the Sunday Mirror once again, in another article by-lined by
Simon Wright, had a new angle on the story, this time sourced by quotes from
Hewlett’s wife, once again raising questions as to whether the Hewletts were
being paid by the media for the flow of stories from them. The Sunday Mirror
headline ran: ‘No-one can give him an alibi’.
Their report told us: “German-born Mariana, 33, wife of Hewlett, confessed
that a female friend Hewlett insisted could vouch for him on the day
Madeleine vanished cannot remember where he was…Hewlett won't name the
woman. Yesterday, the woman - whose identity the Sunday Mirror has
learned - failed to turn up at a market where she normally sells food. Last
33

night, Mariana said: ‘The truth is, she can't remember where Ray was. She
can't give him an alibi. No one can’.”
So, hours before the Sunday Mirror went to press, their journalist was able to
speak to Mrs Hewlett - and into the bargain they had someone in Fuzeta who
could reliably report that the mystery woman who might be able to give
Hewlett an alibi wasn’t at the Saturday market there, as she usually was. It
certainly made for a good story.
On the subject of the ‘white van story’ Mrs Hewlett said the following: “We've
never owned a white van. We had a grey van when we first arrived in Portugal
in 2002. In August 2004, we swapped it for the Dodge and kept that until
March 2008”. Yet according to Verran’s tale, Hewlett only bought the blue
Dodge truck in June 2007.
The Sunday Mirror had more up its sleeve. Amongst other new developments
to the story, we were now told:
• Hewlett befriended two families of Portuguese gipsies in the weeks
leading up to Madeleine's disappearance.
• Police and the McCanns' private detectives cannot establish a link
between the ‘gipsy theory’ and a ‘named suspect’.
• Hewlett told a friend [Verran again] that gipsies who ‘traded in
children’ had offered him ‘good money’ for his own daughter
• A ‘former close pal’ of Hewlett, in the Portuguese town of Tavira -
where his family used to park their truck - revealed how, in April 2007,
Hewlett developed a close friendship with two families of gipsies. The
article quoted U.S.-born artist Leonardo Leopoldo, 79, who has lived in
Tavira (40 miles from Praia da Luz) for 10 years, as saying: ‘No-one spoke
to the gipsies apart from Ray. He was always talking to them. There was
talk in the area that they sold children to paedophiles. By the time,
Madeleine was snatched, he was very friendly with them’.
Let’s examine one snippet from this account. Leonardo Leopoldo refers to how
Hewlett ‘used to park his truck’ in Tavira. That suggests that his ‘truck’ - we
may presume his blue Dodge truck - was a familiar sight in Tavira over a
sustained period. That does not tally at all with Verran’s claim that Hewlett
told him he’d traded in his white van for a Dodge truck in early June when he
‘fled’ to Morocco.
Leonardo, according to the Sunday Mirror, was ‘stunned’ to learn about
Hewlett’s criminal record. He said: “We had grown fond of them. I thought
they were lovely”.
The Sunday Mirror added another matter, but which, on analysis, added
nothing whatsoever. Here it is, for the record:
“We tracked down another close pal of Hewlett's - British expat Jenny Day -
whom the McCanns' private detectives have been keen to interview but unable
to trace. Divorced Jenny, who’s in her fifties, admitted she could not provide
Hewlett with an alibi and told how she had been shattered by revelations of
his criminal past. Speaking at her beach-side apartment in Santa Luzia, 30
miles from Praia da Luz, she said: "I loved Ray, but not now. I met him ten
years ago and thought he was a loving father. To find out that he had
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committed the crimes he had was shattering. I didn't shoot the home video
being talked about and I cannot provide Ray with an alibi for the day
Madeleine went missing”. Perhaps the only thing of interest here is how both
Mr Leopolodo and Ms Day both found serial child-abuser Hewlett both ‘lovely’
and ‘loving’.
On 16 April 2010, the Lancashire Telegraph reported Hewlett’s death. In
doing so, they stated: “Shortly before he died, Hewlett admitted that he was
staying near Praia da Luz, Portugal, when the three-year-old went missing in
May 2007”.
This once again is an attempt to put Hewlett very close to Praia da Luz at this
time, when in fact there is no evidence to contradict his claim that he was then
living around 35 miles away. The Lancashire Telegraph also repeated this
claim: “He looked similar to pictures of a suspect seen near her apartment”.
This was vague, not telling us whether it was the sketch of a man with a
droopy moustache or the sketch of the ‘pock-marked’ man.
In summary, we have seen how the McCann Team successfully developed a
series of stories around Hewlett, with the deliberate aim, it seems, of
permanently linking Hewlett’s name with the disappearance of their daughter
Madeleine, despite there being no hard evidence that he had any connection
whatsoever with her going missing. Stories appear to have been deliberately
stoked up and manufactured by the McCann Team, often to appear on the
front page. The McCanns’ detectives appear never to have interviewed Hewlett
of his wife. Yet both the Hewletts gave interviews to journalists on which
several media articles were based.
The ‘gipsy theory’ revived
The Sunday Mirror on 21 June referred to the ‘stolen by gipsies’ theory and
said: “Theories that Madeleine was snatched by gipsies have surrounded the
case”. That is probably an overstatement, since for a long time the McCanns
were emphasising the probability that a paedophile, not gipsies, had abducted
Madeleine, so much so, in fact, that Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation
and Online Protection Centre, Jim Gamble, invited Dr Gerald McCann to
speak at a CEOP-run conference on the subject of abductions by paedophiles
earlier this year. But to the extent that the ‘stolen-by-gipsies’ claim was
featured in the press, it appears only to have ever been promoted by the
McCann Team. Neither the British nor Portuguese police have given any
credibility to that suggestion.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the sensational claims in The Sun this
September, about a letter said to have been written by the dying Hewlett to his
estranged son Wayne, should have majored, once again, on the ‘stolen-bygipsies’
theme. So far as we are aware, there is not one single reported
instances of missing children having been stolen by gipsies in Portugal.
The idea that Madeleine was stolen by gipsies, on the order of a wealthy family
somewhere, means that the McCann Team can combine the continuing theory
that somehow Hewlett was involved, or knew about what happened, with the
other theory they need to maintain, namely that Madeleine may well be alive -
and, hopefully, reasonably happy.
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F. The Sun article analysed - sentence by sentence
We now reproduce The Sun’s article sentence by sentence and offer
comments.
QUOTE FROM SUN: MADELEINE McCann suspect Raymond Hewlett
confessed on his deathbed that he KNEW what happened to the little girl, The
Sun can reveal. In a letter to his estranged son Wayne, he denied having
anything to do with Maddie's disappearance.
OUR ANALYSIS: We do not know from this article when this letter is said to
have been written. And of course, according to The Sun, it has been burnt, so
absolutely nothing about it can be verified. It must be questionable whether
Hewlett was capable of writing a longish letter if he was terminally ill with
throat cancer and in a wheelchair. Then we have the claim that this letter was
sent to his ‘estranged son’. How credible is it that he would choose to write to
a son from whom he had been estranged for many years Did Hewlett or
anyone else know his address
Further, did his nurses or anyone else at the hospital see him writing this
letter To whom did he give the letter, and did that person know where his son
lived We might also reasonably ask why Hewlett had at no time volunteered
this information previously. If he really ‘knew what had happened’ to
Madeleine, but (allegedly) waited until he was nearly dead to put something in
a letter, what does that say about him Why did he not ask to see the
Portuguese police and tell them what he knew
QUOTE FROM SUN: But he said he knew she had been stolen to order by a
gipsy gang who kidnap children for wealthy couples unable to have kids or
adopt.
OUR ANALYSIS: According to this, Hewlett claims to know the identity of
this ‘gipsy gang’. Did he name any members of the ‘gang’ in his letter Did he
say where they could be located If he did, why did his ‘estranged’ son Wayne
destroy the letter If he didn’t, what use is the letter Further, is there really
any hard evidence that gipsy gangs in Portugal or elsewhere across Europe
‘steal children to order’ (especially children as young as three) for ‘wealthy
couples’ Where can we find information about other such cases There does
not appear to be any.
QUOTE FROM SUN: Hewlett, a serial paedophile seen near the spot where
Maddie was snatched in Portugal, said they had a ‘shopping list’ of potential
targets - such as a little girl with blonde hair like Maddie.
OUR ANALYSIS: Now we have Hewlett’s claim that not only is there a gipsy
gang who steal children to order, but that they also had ‘shopping lists’ of
potential targets, especially it seems ‘blonde young girls’. That would imply
that Hewlett was in touch with the gang leaders of such gipsy groups and
would most certainly be able to provide the police with information about this
gang.
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That Hewlett was ‘a serial paedophile’ is not in doubt, though his interest
appears to have been mainly in teenage girls. But what of the claim that
Hewlett was ‘seen near the spot’ where Madeleine was snatched As we have
seen, we have on record that Hewlett said he had on several occasions visited
Praia da Luz. We know he was living 35 miles away from Praia da Luz at the
time Madeleine was reported missing.
But who says he was ‘seen near the spot’ where Madeleine was allegedly
abducted by someone, as the article claims Nothing has appeared in the press
to suggest that any witness has come forward and said that. The Sun appears
now to have developed the exaggerated claim of several newspapers that
Hewlett was ‘in the vicinity’ of Praia da Luz into a definite claim that Hewlett
was ‘seen near the spot’. The Sun has several million readers. They would
conclude from reading this article that Hewlett really was seen ‘near the spot
where Maddie was snatched’.
QUOTE FROM SUN: Private detectives working for Maddie's parents Kate
and Gerry are ‘extremely interested’ in Hewlett's claims. A source close to
their ongoing investigation said: “What he says fits the No1 theory, which is
that she was stolen to order”.
OUR ANALYSIS: The McCanns’ No. 1 theory has not, in fact, for most of the
past three-and-a-half years, been that she was ‘snatched to order’. On the
contrary, right from the very evening Madeleine was reported missing, the
McCanns have pointed the finger - repeatedly - at ‘predatory paedophiles’. So
much so, in fact, that the Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Centre, Jim Gamble, invited Dr Gerald McCann to be the keynote
speaker at a conference organised by him on abductions by paedophiles, as
recently as January 2010.
The quotation above refers to ‘a source close to the family’. It needs to be said
that hardly any of the thousands of articles about Madeleine McCann,
especially by the Rupert Murdoch papers, The Sun, the News of the World,
The Times, and the Sunday Times is published without the input of the
McCanns’ chief public relations officer, Clarence Mitchell. He is indeed once
again quoted in the article. He will no doubt also be the ‘source close to the
ongoing investigation’ mentioned in the article. Mitchell, in practice, would
not allow others in his circle to brief the press, without his oversight.
Thus whenever we read quotes about Madeleine’s disappearance from ‘a
family pal’, or ‘a source close to the family’, ‘a source close to the McCanns’
legal team’, ‘a spokesman for the McCanns’ and so on, we know, in truth, that
the quote emanates from Mitchell himself.
Finally, we might ask why the McCanns and their detectives are ‘extremely
interested’ in Hewlett’s claims. One would have thought a much more likely
set of reactions might be along these lines: “Why did he keep this secret from
everyone for three years”, or “Why did Wayne burn that letter if it had
information about Madeleine in it”
It might lead one to conclude that the McCanns were ‘extremely interested’ in
the now-burnt letter that was handed to Wayne by a mystery man only
because it suited their agenda. They clearly want the public to believe that not
37

only was Madeleine snatched by gipsies for a wealthy family, but that she
might as a result be alive, well, and quite happy. That has been a theme of
many of the utterances of the McCann Team. Despite the very high probability
that Madeleine is now dead, however that might have come about, The Sun’s
recycling of the claim that she was ‘stolen to order’ for a wealthy family’ keeps
in the public mind the notion that Madeleine is still alive.
SUN QUOTE: Hewlett died of throat cancer in April, aged 62, after
persistently refusing to meet the McCanns' detectives. He became a suspect
because of his appalling record of rape and abduction of children. And he was
living as a nomad in Portugal with his second family when Maddie vanished
from the McCanns' holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
OUR ANALYSIS: The Sun, in saying that Hewlett died in April this year,
contradicted its own account, as we saw above, that Hewlett died ‘in
December 2009’. The very latest that Hewlett could have written this letter,
then, would have been during December 2009, and it is unlikely he could have
written it during his last few days.
One would have to seriously question, therefore, why it then took so long after
Hewlett’s death - a whole nine months - for the story about this letter to have
emerged. The Sun claims ‘he became a suspect because of his appalling record
of rape and abduction…’. In fact, as we saw above, the Portuguese police
records show that they knew about Hewlett and were able to eliminate him
from their enquiries at an early stage.
We might note at this point that the Portuguese Police were very interested in
obtaining details from the British police about ex-pat British sex offenders
living in Portugal - but the British authorities, to their shame, refused to help
them.
The Portuguese police were able to establish that Hewlett had been living in a
camper van with his family on a camp site about 35 miles from Praia da Luz at
the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. Clearly Hewlett, aged 62 at the time
and in poor health, in no way matched the description given by the McCanns’
friend Jane Tanner of the person she said she saw, carrying a child, at 9.15pm
on the evening Madeleine disappeared. She said she had seen a man around
30-35 with long black hair.
It was some time after Madeleine disappeared that Hewlett apparently
developed throat cancer, during 2008. But how he ended up getting expensive
treatment in a private hospital in Germany is one of many questions that has
not been answered.
SUN QUOTE: Hewlett's letter to builder Wayne, 40, was delivered to the son
by a mystery man - thought to be a solicitor or a private eye - a week after he
died.
OUR ANALYSIS: So Wayne says he had no idea of the identity of this
‘mystery man’ The letter was delivered - exactly how Pushed through the
letter-box A knock on the door Or a ’phone call beforehand and then an
arranged visit Was the mystery man personally handed this letter by
Hewlett And did he then take a special trip from Germany to Telford to
deliver it Or was more than one person involved in ‘delivering’ this letter Of
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course, we have none of this detail. We have nothing to help confirm the
authenticity of this account. No wonder then that the public is entitled to be
highly sceptical as to whether it is true or not. If the account is true, then
clearly either the Portuguese Police or Leicestershire Police must interview
Wayne Hewlett and insist that he names the ‘mystery man’ or at least provides
a full description of him.
SUN QUOTE: Most of it was an apology for how his vile crimes had affected
his first wife Susan and Wayne. But then he went on to write about Maddie,
who was nearly four when she went missing. Wayne, of Telford, Shropshire,
said:
“It was a bolt from the blue and I shook when I read it. He stated he didn't
want to go to his grave with us thinking he had done such a horrible thing. He
said he had had nothing to do with taking Maddie but did know who had. He
said a very good gipsy friend he knew in Portugal had got drunk and 'let it out'
that he had stolen Maddie to order as part of a gang.
OUR ANALYSIS: First, we are expected to believe that he had a ‘good gipsy
friend’. Second, that the ‘gipsy friend’ got drunk one night. And, third, that
this gipsy ‘stole’ Madeleine as part of a gipsy gang. Fourth, we are further
expected to believe that Hewlett refused to reveal this information despite the
world-wide hunt for Madeleine. Fifth, and finally, we are asked to believe that
he spoke of a ‘gipsy friend’ of his, in a letter, but that he did not name the
gipsy. Even by the standards of The Sun, that is stretching the credibility of
this whole story way past breaking point.
SUN QUOTE: “My Dad said this gang had been operating for a long time and
had snatched children before for couples who couldn't have children of their
own. Maddie had been targeted. They took photos of children and sent them
to the people they were acting for. And they said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
OUR ANALYSIS: Now we are asked to believe more things. We are expected
to believe that these gipsies took clandestine photos of children, like
Madeleine, and that before they were snatched, these wealthy children-buyers
would say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
And we are further asked to believe that Madeleine was bought in this way. So
far as we are aware, there is no evidence of gipsy gangs stealing significant
numbers of children, or indeed any children, for wealthy families. The quote
from Wayne says: ‘Madeleine was targeted’.
Really Let us pause for a moment to examine what that means. The
implication is that these gipsies first of all took a photograph of Madeleine,
then showed that photograph to a rich person, who then confirmed he wanted
to buy Madeleine, resulting in - finally - the gipsy gang snatching her, using a
mate of Hewlett’s. We need to consider the likelihood that these gipsies pulled
all this off between the Saturday the McCanns arrived in Portugal and the
Thursday the same week.
Clearly they had had no opportunity to acquire photos of Madeleine before
that week. Was Hewlett claiming that all this happened in the space of one
week
39

Besides that, is there any evidence whatsoever of any person - gipsies or
otherwise - taking a photograph of Madeleine that week None that we are
aware of (but see next paragraph).
We also need to consider that this letter, if it really was written, would have
been quite a long one. If Wayne is to be believed, it dealt with a considerable
number of issues. Furthermore, Hewlett gave along interview to a journalist in
June 2009. Why did he not then take the opportunity to name his drunken
gipsy friend
Finally, it appears that Wayne and his mother had been estranged from
Hewlett for many years - 20 years, as The Sun report says (below). Hewlett
now had a new family. Wayne Hewlett, as we saw above, had previously gone
on record to say that his father was a ‘monster’ who beat him savagely and
whom he hated. How likely is it that after all that, Wayne would refer to him
as ‘My Dad’
SUN QUOTE: “Dad said the man told him it was nothing to do with snatching
children for a paedophile gang or for a sexual reason. He said there were huge
sums of money involved. And he totally believed what this man was saying”.
OUR ANALYSIS: So we are expected here to rely on Hewlett’s ‘belief’ in an
alleged tale from a drunken gipsy. That is pretty thin grounds for accepting
this story. The story that Madeleine was not snatched ‘for a paedophile gang
or for a sexual reason’ appears to suit the McCanns’ need for a narrative about
Madeleine’s disappearance that does not involve her being dead or handed
over to paedophiles.
If the drunken gipsy really did know how Madeleine had been snatched, why
should Hewlett believe that she had been snatched for a wealthy family rather
than by or on behalf of a paedophile
Raymond Hewlett pictured talking
to a Daily Mirror journalist
40

SUN QUOTE: The account fits with others surrounding the Maddie mystery.
Several strange men were seen taking photos of children around the Ocean
Club resort in the days before she vanished.
OUR ANALYSIS: This is at best a gross exaggeration. There is no such
reference to ‘several strange men taking photographs’ in the Portuguese police
files that we are aware of. Looking back through news reports, we see that on
10 May 2007 the Independent included the following in its news report on
Madeleine’s disappearance: “There were new leads in the Portuguese
newspapers yesterday, as there have been all week. A man who fled with a
blonde woman after photographing young girls, a few days before Madeleine
vanished, drove a car with British number plates. They might be the same
‘British’ couple caught on CCTV at a petrol station at Lagos, near Praia da Luz,
hours after the abduction”.
There is no source for this report, and the couple ‘caught on CCTV’ were very
soon eliminated from the Portuguese police’s enquiries. The following day, the
Daily Telegraph reported: “It has also emerged that the McCann family had
visited the town of Sagres, west of Praia da Luz, on the same day as a
suspicious man was seen photographing children, especially young blonde
girls, on the beach”.
This appears to be the same report as the Independent’s. Similarly, the
Sunday Times on 13 May reported: “Detectives are also investigating reports
from a witness in Sagres, 16 miles from Praia da Luz, that a man was
photographing children without permission. After he was challenged he left
with a woman in a Renault Clio”.
There was one other reference to a man ‘behaving oddly’. It came from one of
those staying with the McCanns in the holiday complex that week - Jeremy
Wilkins. The final Portuguese police report said: “We have the testimony of
the witness Jeremy Wilkins. He said that he saw an individual with a strange
appearance behaving oddly. This was later confirmed to be a guest who helped
with the search”.
Whilst on the subject of people taking photographs of children, there were
reports in the British and Portuguese press in August this year of a 48-yearold
man bring arrested and charged with photographing children without
parental consent. He was said to have had over 80 photographs on his camera
of boys all aged between eight and 15.
The man, Rhys Jones, claimed that he was taking the pictures as he was
researching children’s clothing. The man, Rhys Jones, was found to have been
working with international clothing retailer Peacocks. He had been taking the
photographs on a Portuguese beach about 50 miles from Praia da Luz. He
admitted his behaviour was ‘absolutely stupid’, claiming he took photographs
of boys in swimwear because he wanted to persuade Peacocks to stock boys’
swimwear. Certain sections of the press immediately linked this story to
Madeleine’s disappearance, with one tabloid heading its report: ‘Maddie
beach perv’. The headline and accompanying report could have influenced
readers to think, once again, that Madeleine had been snatched by a predatory
paedophile.
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SUN QUOTE: And The Sun revealed earlier this year that a British expat
thought he had seen Maddie in a white van driven by a gipsy couple the day
after she was lost.
OUR ANALYSIS: This story has been thoroughly investigated by the
Portuguese police and the white van and the ‘gipsy couple’ have been
accounted for. This story first broke in The Sun (again) and was also written
by Antonella Lazzeri (again).
The Sun article was headed: ‘Maddie in pyjamas the day after she
disappeared’. Here are some extracts from the article:
“A DRAMATIC sighting of missing Madeleine McCann the day after she
vanished is being urgently followed up by [the McCanns’] private
investigators. A man has reported seeing a girl he is now sure was Maddie
lying in the back of a van. She was wearing pyjamas identical to the pair
Maddie had on when she was abducted.
“The vehicle was white - and other witnesses have recalled seeing a white van
near the holiday apartment in Portugal from where she was taken. A child in
pyjamas was also seen being carried by a man at the resort. “New witness
Carlos Moreira, 65, has told investigators the little girl he saw was with a man
and woman who looked like gipsies. When shown a previously-unpublished e-
fit of a suspect, he identified it as being the van's driver.
“A source close to Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry said last night the sighting
was ‘highly significant’ and added: ‘It could be a key breakthrough’.
Portuguese Mr Moreira said he only recently connected his sighting with the
Maddie hunt because it was 160 miles from where she vanished. He was
driving from Carregado, near Lisbon, to Alentejo on May 4 when he stopped at
a snack bar in the Benavente region at 8am.
“He told The Sun: ‘I saw a white van with the back door open. I saw a girl,
lying on a pile of clothes in the back. She was wearing a two-piece pyjama set,
pink and white, or yellow. I saw her back, I could see her hands and feet. She
moved one of her fingers but she was deeply asleep. When the van door was
opened, she did not wake up, as if she was drugged. This girl was blonde and
looked around four. A woman came out of the back of the van. I noted that a
strong and tall man, wearing a suit, was in front of the snack bar. He looked
like a gipsy. He was with the woman from the van, he was younger than her.
He told her off for leaving the van’. Mr Moreira said the experience stuck in
his mind - but he only realised it could be useful when he saw a cop being
asked on TV why roads to the north or to Spain were not blocked after Maddie
vanished”.
So this article in The Sun is the entire basis for the claims of ‘Madeleine being
seen with gipsies in a white van’. The article is by Antonella Lazzeri. The
source, Carlos Moreira, did not speak about his ‘sighting’ for over two years.
When he did so, despite being Portuguese, he chose to speak to The Sun. The
details he gives conveniently advance stories the media, as we have seen, were
shortly to promote regarding Verran’s alleged conversation with Hewlett
about his allegedly selling his white Mercedes van shortly after Madeleine
disappeared.
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These are good reasons for dismissing this story entirely. Carlos Moreira tells
The Sun: She…was deeply asleep. When the van door was opened, she did not
wake up, as if she was drugged”. Why does he say ‘as if she was drugged’ Was
she simply not ‘deeply asleep’, as he has just said
We should add that there was a reference in the final report of the Portuguese
police to a ‘suspect’ having been seen ‘near a white van’ [NOTE: The whole of
both the interim and final reports of the Portuguese police are contained in
our new book on the Madeleine McCann case: ‘The Madeleine McCann Casde
Files, Vol. 1’ ISBN 978-0-9563351-1-1]. This is how the final police report
summarised this matter:
“A witness, Derek Flack, reported the presence of a suspect, who was allegedly
looking at the McCanns’ apartment, near a white truck or van, referred to at
pages 145 and following. It was not possible to identify this person, despite an
artist’s impression having been computer-generated. However, we believe
there are very strong possibilities that they were construction workers -
engaged on a small building project nearby - who were there making small
works, a gardener (see page 973), or possibly a Barrington Norton (page 833),
a regular busker in Praia da Luz”.
SUN QUOTE: Wayne, who had no contact with Hewlett for nearly 20 years,
said his father's letter seemed ‘very genuine’. He added: "I don't know if this is
what happened to Maddie or not, but it does make sense. I can't believe he'd
go to those lengths to make up some elaborate lie when he was so weak and
ill”.
OUR ANALYSIS: Once again, The Sun tries to persuade us to believe this
story using three similar devices: (1) Wayne thought the letter seemed ‘very
genuine’, (2) he says it ‘makes sense’ and (3) he says he ‘can’t believe’ his
father could tell an elaborate lie’. We are invited, then, to share Wayne’s
thoughts and beliefs about this alleged letter. We are also told that Wayne
cannot believe his father could tell an elaborate lie. Paedophiles like Hewlett
are amongst the most devious people who walk this earth. Was he not capable
of telling more than the odd ‘elaborate lie’
SUN QUOTE: Wayne said he considered going to Kate and Gerry with the
letter but was worried it could cause them more heartache if it gave them false
hope. He added: “I actually burned it because it unnerved me so much. To
have a letter from someone you hated for so long was just mind-blowing. I
couldn't deal with it”.
OUR ANALYSIS: Here The Sun journalists contrive to come up with what
they think will be a valid reason for believing why Wayne destroyed this letter,
which would have been so valuable if it really did contain any credible
evidence relating to Madeleine’s disappearance. Wayne, in his quote, says he
‘hated his father so long’.
We return to the point we made above. Would he refer to this hated man as
‘My Dad’ Wayne tells us that he burned the letter because it ‘unnerved’ him
and was ‘mind-blowing’. Yet apparently it did not ‘unnerve’ him sufficiently to
43

stop him talking about it to a friend. Nor did it ‘unnerve’ him so much that he
was unwilling to talk to a Sun journalist about it.
We are further asked to believe that Wayne was so ‘worried about causing
Kate and Gerry more heartache’, that when practically the whole world has
heard time and time from the McCann Team the message that ‘just one scrap
of information’ could ‘unlock the key’ to the whole mystery’, he thought better
of it, for several months. On top of that, he apparently did not even think of
going to the police with this letter that, in his own words, he found so
‘genuine’, ‘believable’ and made such ‘good sense’. Yet he was happy to talk to
The Sun about it after burning it. Here then are still more reasons for
doubting that there is any truth whatsoever in this story.
SUN QUOTE: Wayne did not contact The Sun about the message. We learned
of its existence through a friend. But now he intends to sit down with the
Maddie detectives to tell them everything he knows.
OUR ANALYSIS: Wait a minute. He has destroyed the letter. So what
guarantee is there that, even if the story is true, he can remember what exactly
was in this letter that ‘unnerved’ him’. When did he burn the letter Soon
after receiving it back in December last year Did he tell The Sun that his
father gave him the name of the gipsy in the letter If not, that suggests that
no name was given. So how are the McCanns’ detectives, or the police, or
anyone for that matter, going to be able to find that gipsy Are we expected to
believe that Wayne has not already been in touch with the McCanns’
detectives
Did The Sun itself not inform the McCann Team of this remarkable story
before running the article And what can the ‘McCann detectives’ possibly get
from Wayne His dead father wrote, in a letter he has now destroyed, of a
drunken ‘gipsy’ who stole Madeleine - but it appears he did not even give his
son the gipsy’s name nor how he could be contacted. What can Wayne
possibly tell the McCann detectives that he hasn’t already told The Sun
SUN QUOTE: The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said last night:
“We are extremely grateful to Wayne for coming forward with this
information and the detective team will be interviewing him as a matter of
priority”.
OUR ANALYSIS: The McCanns would no doubt say that they were extremely
grateful to Wayne for giving them at least a faint glimmer of hope that their
daughter could be found alive. Others might view the McCanns’ gratitude for
this story emerging at this time as reflecting the fact that the story suited their
current agenda.
G. A summary
Let us summarise and make a few final observations. First, one very important
point about this whole article needs to be made.
Let us suppose, just for a moment, that all of this tale is actually true, and not
just a product of a perfect match between the McCanns’ current agenda and
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The Sun’s desire to sell a few tens of thousands more copies of their
newspaper on the back of yet another photo of Madeleine.
Let us suppose that this gipsy who got drunk while talking to Hewlett knows
where Madeleine is. Clearly the ‘wealthy couple’ who are alleged to be holding
Madeleine, if this story is true, would be devouring any media stories about
the case. They would no doubt very soon have become aware of The Sun’s
article of 1 November. Doubtless if they were holding Madeleine alive and
were wealthy, they would have a ‘Google Alert’ set up for ‘Madeleine McCann’
and would have got the story within hours of it appearing in the online edition
of The Sun.
So what would their reaction be Would the publication of that story be more
likely to lead to Madeleine being found in their care, or less likely
Also, what about the ‘drunken gipsy’ who realises that The Sun and the
McCanns’ detectives are now onto him Does that make him more or less
likely to be traced Much less likely, of course. He will ‘go to ground’, and try
to ‘disappear’ quietly, now he knows that detectives are after him. Just a
moment’s thought should be sufficient to realise that if Wayne’s story were
true, and Madeleine were still alive, she could be put in much greater danger
as a result of The Sun’s article.
Suppose for one moment that the McCanns really believed this story. Would
they welcome The Sun running with it Of course not. They would beg The
Sun, Wayne, the police and everybody to keep quiet until every ounce of
information had been extracted from Wayne and every effort made, away
from the glare of media publicity, to track down the gipsy group concerned -
and of course the drunken gipsy whom Hewlett described.
To recite these matters and to ask these questions reveals the hollowness of
this entire Sun article. It becomes ever more obvious that this is a story which
benefits The Sun in terms of its sales and benefits the McCanns in terms of
helping their agenda. It does not benefit Madeleine who, if she really were
alive and held by a wealthy family as claimed, would be placed at greater risk
by this article.
Madeleine McCann
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And if that drunken gipsy really was part of a gang that snatched Madeleine,
he would now be making sure he was much better hidden and out of the way
than before.
In our view The Sun has published an article that it knows fine well is untrue.
It has done so partly to increase sales and make its owner a bit more money.
But the article may also reflect the close relationship of The Sun owner Rupert
Murdoch to the McCanns.
It can surely be no coincidence that after working for the McCanns for two
years, the first job that their chief public relations spokesman, Clarence
Mitchell, obtained was working as a public relations adviser for Matthew
Freud at public relations company Freud Communications. Matthew Freud is
married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elizabeth.
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by Tony Bennett, The Madeleine Foundation, 19 October 2010
Copyright statement
The author of this article is Tony Bennett. It is published by The Madeleine
Foundation. The copyright position is as per the Berne Convention.
You may reproduce the entire article or excerpts from it so long as the source
is expressly acknowledged.
Where we ourselves have reproduced material or photographs in this article,
we have acknowledged the source.
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