It's not what you know, it's who, or could it be both?

It's not what you know, it's who...

We all know the McCanns lie, there are examples of their deceit everywhere. One of the first, and possibly most powerful set of lies they told, were the porkies Kate told to her old friend Jill Renwick.

Jill Renwick is a long standing friend of Kate McCanns, both Kate and Gerry worked with Jill at Glasgow hospital in the 90's. Jill was one of the friends Kate phoned during the early hours of the 4th May 2007, and possibly the most influential. It was through Jill that the lie about an "abductor" gaining entry to apartment 5a having smashed the shutters, manifested across the nation within hours of the parents reporting Madeleine missing. This fabricated story was remember, concocted by Kate and Gerry who sat indoors, whilst scores of volunteers searched throughout the night for a missing 3 year old girl they had never met. 

In an article for the Guardian by Esther Addley, on June 2nd 2007, Jill Renwick discusses her conversation with Kate:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/02/ukcrime.comment

"She just said, 'Help me, please help me'. She said, 'We've been searching all night until 4.30am, and then everybody left us'. At that stage there was only one police officer at the door. They didn't know what to do. So I phoned GMTV."

First line, and it's a lie, Kate did NOT physically search, and Gerry managed an hour, but that's by the by. Good old Jill phoned GMTV, surely GMTV would check that the information Jill gave them was correct, precise, and accurate? Not a hope, what they did was to fail Madeleine, whilst at the same time, helping the McCanns plant the abduction seed. Jill provided more lies to 6.1 million UK viewers:

"They were just watching the hotel room and going back every half-hour."

"Poor Kate and Gerry don't know where to turn. She's obviously been taken as she couldn't have gone out on her own and the shutters had been forced open. The shutters had been broken open and they've gone into the room and taken her."

BANG! In one fell swoop we have 6.1 million people being told that A, there was opportunity for an abduction, and B, there had been a forced entry. Total and utter nonsense, we now know, as did the McCanns, that there was NO forced entry, but there it was, out in the public arena. 

Support began to gather pace. Think about it, of those 6.1 million viewers, how many of them went into work that week, spoke to friends and told them; 

"hey did you hear on the news today? An intruder broke into an apartment in Portugal and snatched a little girl" 

The lie grew legs and multiplied, the press reported it as fact, and before the week was out the Mcanns had a nation behind them, in fact they had so much support based upon lies that when the Official Find Madeleine website was set up on the 10th May 2007 it received 75 million hits in the first 48 hours, and all due to one phone call. Pretty impressive stuff eh, but that's the way the media work. Being the first with the stories is more important than being the first with the facts. As we know facts are something that the Official Find Madeleine website is seriously lacking in.

So the McCanns owe their friend Jill a huge debt of thanks, but her influence on this case didn't stop there, far from it.

The high level of support might not be as much of a mystery as people think. Renwick, possibly with perfectly good intentions, and without knowing she was being used as a pawn in the McCann's scheme, rallied more support, in the form of Gordon Brown. Jill lived on the same street as Gordon's brother, John Brown. The following quote could explain just how the future Prime Minister came to be so involved:

"I stopped him in the street the day afterwards and said, 'These are my friends. Do you think you could speak to Gordon about it?' And he said of course."
As we know Gordon Brown took up the post of Prime Minister at the end of June 2007, in September that year his head of media monitoring, Clarence Eden Mitchell, resigned from his reported £75,000 a year cabinet office job to work as PR consultant for the McCanns. A bold move indeed if he truly believed that Madeleine could be found any day. Much has been said about the influence Gordon Brown had upon the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann. Certainly the political intervention in this case was something the like of which had never been seen before. 

In her diary, Kate McCann wrote:

"WEDNESDAY, MAY 23: Gordon Brown (then Chancellor and PM in waiting) called and spoke with Gerry -very kind and giving encouragement.
Feeling a bit emotional afterwards."

On the 27th May 2007, and with the original source being the Guardian, Brendan de Beer wrote:

"Gordon Brown has personally intervened in the search for missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann after her parents became frustrated by the lack of progress in the police investigation.
After a series of telephone conversations with Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann, in recent days, the Chancellor requested assistance from the Foreign Office and the Home Office. He asked that pressure be brought to bear on the Portuguese authorities to allow more information about the inquiry to be made public.

Gerry and his wife, Kate, have been desperate for a description of a man seen carrying what appears to have been a child on 3 May to be made public, but Portuguese police refused for three weeks because of the country's laws, which forbid the details of an investigation being released.
The Observer understands that Brown gave the McCanns an assurance he would do 'anything he can' to help. The British embassy duly applied pressure on the Portuguese authorities to find more flexibility in their secrecy laws. British ambassador John Buck visited the Algarve last Thursday. A day later Portuguese police made a U-turn and issued a detailed description of the man, said to be white, 35 to 40, 5ft 10in and of medium build, with hair longer around the neck, wearing a dark jacket, light beige trousers and dark shoes.

Asked whether Brown had influenced the decision, Clarence Mitchell, a Foreign Office spokesman for the McCann family in the Algarve, said: 'Draw your own conclusions.' He said in a statement: 'I can confirm that telephone conversations have taken place between Gerry McCann and Chancellor Gordon Brown. During them, Mr Brown offered both Gerry and Kate his full support in their efforts to find Madeleine, although details of the conversations will remain private.''

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/press/1may7/GUARDIAN_27_05_07.htm

This efit was of course the man Jane Tanner saw, that sighting eventually amounted to nothing. I find it very strange the McCanns didn't push the Smith sighting with such vigour, but then from all of Tanner's many descriptions, none looked like Gerry.

We're not done, Renwick's sister called a friend she had in CID, and another contact was made, the former Defence Secretary, Des Browne. 

Can you see how this charade snowballed?

Two lies, made by Kate McCann, convinced a nation of their innocence within the space of three media frenzied days, and these bastards had a nerve to sue others! 

So whilst we're all considering theories as to why the McCanns have got away with so much, and the pros bleat like sheep claiming "The McCanns were just an ordinary couple like any other who didn't have friends in high places", let's not forget that they only needed one friend, Jill Renwick. As the old saying goes, it's not what you know, it's who............