“Freindly Fire Zone”

American columnist Chris Freind again questions why Gerry and Kate McCann won’t admit that THEY are most responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance

Is it any wonder why the state of journalism is so dismal?  Why its luster as a noble profession has been lost? And why so many citizens no longer have faith in the media to ask tough questions and seek the truth, wherever it may lead?

Sadly, that brand of hard-nosed, “no sacred cows” reporting is now virtually nonexistent.  Instead, it’s all about making nice with interviewees and bowing at the altar of political correctness, where reporters spend more time trying not to offend than actually doing their job.

Case in point: the nauseating interview by CNN’s Piers Morgan of Gerry and Kate (G and K) McCann, parents of Madeleine, the British toddler who went missing from a Portuguese resort four years ago. Maddy, you may recall, was left alone in a ground floor, unlocked apartment along with her twin two-year old siblings while G and K ate and imbibed at the resort restaurant. 

Rather than probe G and K to shed light on the many questions needing clear and concise answers, Morgan merely placated them (“…you’re certainly good parents… no one is questioning that..”), allowing the McCanns to manipulate the discussion to their liking.

So once again, a chance to help Madeleine via a worldwide audience is wasted by the McCanns’ self-serving spin. 

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The McCanns claimed Madeleine was kidnapped, though there is scant evidence to that claim. While those who have followed the drama have various theories as to what really happened to Madeleine, this author has consistently hammered home four core points:

1) There are numerous inconsistencies in the McCanns’ version of what transpired that fateful night. And the only way to get straight answers would be for an interviewer to do his job and ask the right questions.  But for the world to trust the McCanns, and by extension generate renewed vigor in the search for Madeleine, Gerry and Kate need to come clean and address the many inconsistencies.  Example: why did Kate allegedly yell “they’ve taken her” rather than “Madeleine is missing” after discovering her disappearance? And why kidnapping was her first thought, which is totally inconsistent with Gerry’s interview answer to Morgan (detailed below).

The Court of Public Opinion will judge G and K accordingly, but the longer questions go unanswered, the more doubts arise.  (For the record, “Freindly Fire” has repeatedly requested an interview, but to no avail).

2) The McCanns, unequivocally, endangered their children through negligence.  No matter what spin is put on the situation, the fact that three children, with a combined age of seven, were left alone for hours is inexcusable.  Sure, no one is perfect, and there are degrees of mistakes, but that takes the cake.  Some critics argue that focusing on Gerry and Kate’s actions do nothing for finding Madeleine and serve no purpose, but in fact, the opposite is true.  First, by genuinely admitting their grave mistake and taking pains to show the world that children should never be left unattended, they set the right example for parents who may still engage in that practice. 

More important, they would build enormous goodwill with those who simply can’t get past the McCanns’ arrogance, and in doing so, generate a level of trust that they can be believed.  Taking blame for their mistake will win people over, and for obvious reasons, the more people tuned into Madeleine’s situation (without so much anger directed at the parents), the better the chances for additional leads.

3) The British media should do its job by reporting the facts and asking the right questions. Despite Britain’s ridiculously stifling and archaic libel laws, the UK press still has plenty of leeway in which to move this case forward.  They should neither pronounce guilt nor cozy up to the McCanns, but take an objective down-the-middle approach to finding answers to the most pressing questions.

And along those lines, the McCanns would be well served to stop suing or threatening every individual, web group and media entity that states something they don’t like.  By leaving your children alone in a foreign nation --- and not adequately addressing that mistake --- they brought criticism upon themselves.  Deal with it.  Threats to silence critics only make them look guilty.

4) Why have no negligence charges been brought against Gerry and Kate, thus showing the world that willfully walking away from your children is not only wrong, but criminal?  Remember, for a three-year old in an unfamiliar place, parents who are 100 meters away might as well be in a foreign land.

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Unfortunately, the Piers Morgan interview demonstrates that those lessons involving humility and honesty have not been learned by Gerry and Kate.  It’s just more of the same: softball questions, slick answers, and the blame game.  The most telling excerpts:

Piers Morgan (PM): Why didn’t you just pay to have a nanny if you wanted to go out to dinner?

Gerry (GM): We did what we thought was best….If you’re children are asleep upstairs in a bedroom and you’re dining (outside) in the garden, you can’t hear them. And that’s the similar thing to me.

PM: But most people’s homes are secure. (The resort) wasn’t a secure property. People could come in off the street…

GM: It gets back to the safety issue.  We did not perceive an element of threat. Child abduction is so rare.  Why would you have ever thought that someone would have entered the apartment and steal your child? It just didn’t enter our head.

Kate: We’ve been through all these questions, day in and day out….we felt really safe….and there’s no way we would have taken a risk.

GM:  (These questions on our behavior) take the focus away from the abductor, and that becomes quite frustrating for us….Those responsible for taking her are still at large.

A question comes to mind for our well-to-do globetrotting celebrities (both physicians who could have easily afforded a nanny or babysitting service):

Is there a change of seasons on your planet?

Give Gerry credit.  He actually said those things with a straight face.  As far as Piers, he dropped the ball and let them off the hook.  Same old story.

Perhaps he could have followed up just a bit more on the “dining-in-the-backyard is the same as being out at a restaurant,” pointing out that Gerry couldn’t see the room (it was blocked by a six-foot wall) and was barely within earshot of the apartment even if an adult had screamed, let alone a child crying in distress.

Piers, it appears, isn’t ready for prime time.

And the “element of threat?”  Why is it only kidnapping, in hindsight, that Gerry sees as the threat?  I’ve been to resorts in that area of Portugal. Guess what?  The floors are hard as rock, because in many instances, they are.  So the possibility never occurred to the McCanns that an unsupervised Madeleine could playfully jump on the bed --- and fall off?  And if she did, how would checking on the children every half-hour help if she broke an arm --- or skull?

What about little children getting into medicine and overdosing?  Or simply walking out the unlocked door and into a dangerous world --- one very close to the ocean?

And if there had been a fire, would Madeleine, with her whopping three years of life on Earth, be expected to save herself and the twins?

Perhaps most interesting, were the McCanns’ valuables locked in the safe, as some state?  If so, why --- if there was no “element of threat?”  Smart doctors surely would not have left their children alone in an unlocked room if there was even a remote threat of burglary.  Would they?

The risks to the McCann children are obvious to all who possess common sense, and, one would presume, to two well-respected doctors.  But Gerry and Kate once again failed to admit what is apparent to most people: negligence has consequences. So when Gerry expresses frustration that focusing on the McCanns’ behavior takes away from the search for the abductor, he still doesn’t get it.

He and Kate need to admit that by looking in a mirror, they will instantly see who is most “responsible” for Madeleine’s disappearance, since, by definition, she wouldn’t have gone missing or been “kidnapped” had an adult been present.

Then, and only then, will Gerry’s and Kate’s long road back to credibility begin.  And that is the best thing possible for little Madeleine McCann.

Chris Freind, an accredited member of the press, is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative
reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com His extensive collection of columns questioning the McCanns for their negligence can be found in his website’s archives.

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries
and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including
The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick
Morris' recent bestseller "Catastrophe."

Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in
Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national/international television.  He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Gerry and Kate McCann Relish Limelight But Still Won’t Take Responsibility for Daughter’s Disappearance

April was a busy time for the Royal Couple. 

Preparations had been underway for months to deal with all the publicity that was sure to come. Facebook pages were established, marketing pieces created, a book written and carefully scripted interviews arranged, as publicists and advisors worked round-the-clock for the famous British duo. No detail was too small when planning such a momentous event, as the global media once again turned its focus on two of Great Britain’s most…interesting people.

Most amazing, all of this was accomplished despite the distractions caused by the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

May 3 marked the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of then-three year old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from a resort in southern Portugal because her parents chose to leave her --- and her two younger twin siblings --- alone in an unlocked room while they ate and drank the night away with friends.

But when you’re Gerry and Kate McCann, you take a backseat to no one, and certainly no wedding is going to upstage your “anniversary.” And so, in typical McCann fashion, they put on another strong display of offense in the ongoing “search” --- not so much for their missing daughter, but for self-promoting headlines.

Who can blame them? Playing defense is no fun, doesn’t raise money nor generate publicity.  And best of all, blaming everyone but themselves for an eminently preventable tragedy allows the McCanns to ignore reality and skirt the truth about a poor little girl’s horrible fate.

*****

For the folks needing a refresher, you read it right.  The McCanns, both physicians from Rothley, Leicestershire, in England, left their three children --- with a COMBINED age of seven --- alone, night after night, in their ground-floor resort apartment.  Despite ample financial resources, they chose not to bring a nanny, and refused to utilize the resort’s babysitting services.

Instead, they deemed it safer for the children to go it on their own, entrusting Madeleine to get her siblings and herself to safety in the event of a fire --- hence the alleged reason for the unlocked door.  Hey, I’m all for self-reliance, but, she was three!

The story perpetuated by the McCanns is that Madeleine was kidnapped, despite virtually no evidence to support that claim.  But the tragic nature of a girl gone missing gained international attention, and the search was on.  Well, at least by the people who were actually out there looking for Madeleine.

Gerry and Kate took a different approach.  Rather than get bogged down in the grunt work of looking for their daughter in places she might actually be --- assuming for a minute that she was kidnapped --- the parents decided that becoming international globetrotting celebrities was a lot more fun. Putting blood, sweat and tears into finding a missing child is tough, but hanging out with celebs and dignitaries is, well, cool!

So they arranged a private audience with the Pope, traveled to the United States to meet with America’s top leaders, kept web diaries about Gerry’s daily jogs, and threw lavish affairs. Of course, if Madeleine really had been kidnapped, she wouldn’t be in America, at black-tie events or in the Vatican.

If only they had thought to turn the “Find Madeleine” campaign into a money-maker!  Oh wait, they did.  To the tune of millions. And the result?  To this day, many more questions than answers.

Despite being named suspects by the Portuguese police based on evidence that raised eyebrows --- inconsistencies in G and K’s stories; elite dogs, trained to identify death, providing positive responses in Madeleine’s room; reports of Madeleine’s blood found in the trunk of a car the McCanns’ rented 25 days AFTER she disappeared; more blood discovered behind a sofa in the apartment, to name just a few --- the case was eventually suspended without any arrest.  And for that, we can thank the British government that exerted enormous pressure on the Portuguese to exonerate their “upstanding” citizens.

With the complicity of the British media, everyone but the parents was blamed for Madeleine’s disappearance.  The Portuguese detectives bumbled the investigation, the resort’s security was too lax, leads weren’t followed up in a timely fashion. And as numerous publications discovered, anyone who dared question the McCanns’ role were slapped with libel lawsuits by England’s most powerful barristers. And don’t forget the lead Portuguese investigator who was legally banned from giving interviews and publishing his book courtesy of Team McCann (those rulings were subsequently overturned) and was sued for millions in “damages.”

Kate’s book on the affair, (in which she was possibly assisted by world-famous Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling) will be released this week.  In it, she blamed the resort restaurant for making a note in their reservation book that the McCanns wanted a table within sight of the room, since the children would be alone.

"(The reservation) book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too…To my horror, I saw that, no doubt in all innocence, the receptionist had added that we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently."

Nice try, Kate.  But somehow, you forgot to mention the “horror” your daughter must have felt after being abandoned by her parents night after night, left alone in an unfamiliar environment in a foreign nation.  And you also conveniently left out the fact that you couldn’t see the apartment from your table anyway, due to the six foot wall obstructing the view.  Translation: the tapas were more important than your three children, two of whom, interestingly enough, weren’t “kidnapped.”

So we’re supposed to believe that a child kidnapper just happened to be dining at the resort’s restaurant that night, on the off-chance some British couple’s child-care arrangements (or lack thereof) would be recorded in the restaurant’s reservation book.  Which, by the way, is usually kept behind a desk, not in public view. 

Either that, or someone on the kitchen staff, waiting in the wings for one of the McCanns to return from allegedly “checking” on the children. Maybe that’s why the tapas were so late in being served!

Frankly, I’m surprised that Osama bin Laden snatching Madeleine wasn’t in the book as a potential theory.  Or that evil Voldemort from Harry Potter wasn’t somehow responsible.

Which brings us back to Rowling. 

After hundreds of articles stating that Rowling was helping Kate write the book, the family spokesman finally got around to stating that Rowling did not, in fact, have ANY role in the book.

As with most things McCann, the facts here are loose and the truth sketchy.  But as they say, “Any publicity is good publicity!”   And Team McCann rolls on, garnering headlines and raking in the dough.

*****

Perhaps most ironic is Kate’s stated reason for the book:

“My reason…is simple, to give an account of the truth.”

Funny, then, that Kate’s “truth” story would be so closely linked with a writer of fantasy fiction.

Rowling’s help or not, discovering the real story behind the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann will take more than wizards and magic.  Too bad we don’t have one of Harry Potter’s Remembralls, though, which fans will recall is the clear orb containing smoke that turns red when detecting that the user has forgotten something.

In Gerry and Kate McCann’s case, I’m betting the Remembrall would be glowing red-hot, since it seems they have forgotten the only thing that can help Maddie.

The real truth.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative
reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com His extensive collection of columns hammering the McCanns for their negligence can be found in his website’s archives.

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries
and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including
The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick
Morris' recent bestseller "Catastrophe."

Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in
Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national/international television.  He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it