Missing Madeleine Mccann

Madeleine McCann: time to forget?

It is the spiritual sanctuary to which Kate and Gerry McCann return time and time again with each passing year. Usually their visits are in private, occasionally with close relatives. But it is here, in the tiny, white-washed 17th-century church of Our Lady of Light, overlooking the sea in Praia da Luz on the Algarve, where the couple feel closest to Madeleine, their cherished oldest child, who next month will have been missing for four years. Here is where Kate, especially, in the words of parish priest Father Haynes Hubbard, her Portuguese pastor and confidant, “comes back to cling to the hope that their daughter will come home”.

The church has always been where the McCanns and their supporters have gathered, particularly during those dark days following May 3 2007 when Madeleine, then just days short of her fourth birthday, vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in the seaside village. It has been here they have found succour and strength. Here that they still hope one day to return to give thanks and salvation for the safe return of their child, who will turn eight next month.

Yet today, as another agonising anniversary looms for the McCanns, there is, surely, something missing? While the congregation prays daily for Madeleine, the photographs of the little girl, forever frozen in time as the chubby-cheeked, gap-toothed toddler she was when she vanished, are nowhere to be seen. Once, they adorned the walls and pews. “Find Madeleine” posters, replaced when they faded, were pinned near the altar and yellow and green ribbons, symbols of the campaign launched to search for her, adorned the porch. Now there are none.

He is wary; uncomfortable, perhaps. He chooses his words with care. For while he – and many in his congregation – continue to pray in hope rather than in despair, the sad truth is that Madeleine McCann has become an awkward, painful and, perhaps unpalatably, at times taboo topic in Praia da Luz. Tragically, though perhaps understandably, the overwhelming atmosphere here is of a community uncomfortable with its connection to a lost little girl. Some have simply airbrushed her from memory while others, who at the time were highly vocal in the “Find Maddy” campaign, now distance themselves.

McCanns: Madeleine McCann - Trade Mark No. 2456061?

Perhaps one of the most bizarre aspects of the case of missing Madeleine McCann is that, within days of her disappearance, her parents submitted a trade mark application on her behalf. Trade marks are typically used to protect commercial property rights, so that, in this bizarre case, it seems that not only was Madeleine perceived as a missing daughter, but also as a future commercial concern, the rights of which were required, to protect the commercial interests of Team McCann. In a way, it's easy to see why Madeleine's image attracted substantial sums for the interested parties. Personally the thought of a 'trade mark' for a missing child sounds pretty sick to say the least, and brings a certain disgust at the whole question of her loss. But what is your opinion? Is it customary to mark a missing child this way? Was the McCanns' child an exception, whose name needed to be trade marked in the circumstances? Source: ipo.gov.uk Scientific, nautical, surveying, photographic, cinematographic, optical, weighing, measuring, signalling, checking (supervision), life-saving and teaching apparatus and instruments; apparatus and instruments for conducting, switching, transforming, accumulating, regulating or controlling electricity; apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound or images; magnetic data carriers, recording discs; automatic vending machines and mechanisms for coin operated apparatus; cash registers; calculating machines, data processing equipment and computers; fire extinguishing apparatus. Includes computer hardware and firmware; computer software (including software downloadable from the Internet); compact discs; digital music (downloadable from the Internet); telecommunications apparatus; computer games equipment adapted for use with TV receivers; mouse mats; mobile phone accessories; contact lenses, spectacles and sunglasses; clothing for protection against accident, irradiation or fire. Does not include printed computer manuals which are in Class 16, self contained computer games equipment which is in Class 28, various electrical items (e.g. electric screwdrivers are in Class 7 and electric toothbrushes are in Class 21).

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