SOS Madeleine McCann
2/11/09
By Duarte Levy
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Kate's time has come.
Kate McCann, mother of the little English girl who disappeared in the Algarve two years ago, is the face of the new campaign which the couple launch today jointly with the English police in London and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP)
Now that the twins Sean and Amélie are in full-time education, Maddie's mum is taking on a more active role in the campaign which the couple launched nine days after the disappearance and which is now entering, "a new phase."
The new campaign, with the assistance of Lift Consulting, Portuguese PR specialists, is targeted at our country, where the McCann couple say they believe that someone could still hold information on the subject of what, in fact, happened to the child on the night she disappeared.
The launch of the new campaign kicks off today in the British capital where the press is invited to two briefings - "because of a time difference," as confirmed by Claudia Nogueira of Lift Consulting, the first meeting will only involve English journalists, the second being scheduled for the Portuguese press.
The two ex-police officers hired by the couple, David Edgar and Arthur Cowley, believe that the answer to Maddie's mysterious disappearance lies in a radius of 10 miles around the Ocean Club, from where the child disappeared on May 3rd 2007. With the new campaign they say they expect that someone will come forward who will lead them to the answer.
For the moment, Kate and Gerry McCann will not be returning to the Algarve and will see journalists in England, but they say they are in the process of organising a private trip back to Praia da Luz, probably before the end of the year.
"Imagine if it had been your daughter. Imagine the sadness and suffering. Imagine someone like yourself never coming forward. If you remain silent, you are as guilty as those who have taken her," the couple write on the internet site for the private fund which they created after the alleged abduction.
The campaign, launched almost simultaneously with legal action against the former coordinator of the PJ who investigated the disappearance, Gonçalo Amaral, includes interviews which Kate MCann will give this week to the English and Portuguese press.
