THE MADELEINE CASE

By Jason Moore WHAT an absolute nightmare the Madeleine McCann case has become. With so many rumours, claims and allegations perhaps the judge who is reviewing the case at the moment should order a media black-out and only comment on the official line of the investigation. This is quite normal practice in Spain especially in a case of this type. But while the police in Portugal have been sticking to their official line and not feeding the frenzy for information from the British media they do appear to have spoken to the Portuguese media who have been printing a series of allegations against the McCann family for sometime. It was only last weekend, when both the McCanns were named suspects in the case, that the British media started to echo some of the claims which were being made in Portugal. Why it took them so long, I don't know but obviously it was an extremely sensitive case. This state of affairs does concern me though because it does appear that some of the allegations made in print in Portugal have now been picked up by the British media. Whatever the outcome of this terrible case the media will once again be in the spotlight. Spanish television aired a documentary on the case on Tuesday night and they were quite critical of the British media. Over the years I, and many of my colleagues, have been wined and dined by Fleet Street's finest because it was state practice for them to check-in with the local newspaper when they were covering a story on its patch.