The fund set up to
help find Madeleine McCann raised almost
£2million in the first ten months after she
vanished, it was revealed yesterday.
The wave of
shock and public sympathy that swept Britain
after her suspected abduction led supporters to
donate money at a rate of almost £260 an hour.
Accounts
lodged with Companies House show the fund
received £1.4million in bank donations, another
£391,000 over the internet and £64,000 from the
sale of T-shirts and wristbands.
In total, it
received £1.85million in its first ten months
and earned £33,424 in interest. It spent
£815,113 on the search for Madeleine in that
time.
This included
£26,000 to fund the purchase of merchandise and
£250,000 on the fees for private investigators.
But the
accounts – which have been made public for the
first time – have been published with a warning
that donations had gone on to fall dramatically
and were now ‘significantly lower’ than in the
immediate aftermath of the three-yearold’s
disappearance in Portugal in 2007.
Support for her parents – Kate and Gerry – was rocked when Portuguese police named them as suspects, and when it emerged they had used public donations to pay two £2,000 instalments on their mortgage.
Madeleine vanished from a holiday flat in the
Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007,
while her parents ate dinner at a nearby
restaurant with friends.
The accounts provide a fascinating insight into the surge of support the family received, but also the costs of their worldwide campaign to find their child.
The fund’s biggest expense in the first ten months was £250,000 spent on private investigators hired to try to find her, including the Spanish agency Metodo 3.
Agency boss
Francisco Marco boasted he would find Madeleine
within three months, but his ‘leads’ seemingly
came to nothing and the firm is no longer
involved with the hunt.
The fund spent
£123,573 on campaign management, which is
believed to include the salary of the McCanns’
temporary spokesman Justine McGuinness and the
fees of a PR agency.
A later spokesman, former BBC journalist Clarence Mitchell, had his salary paid by one of the couple’s wealthy benefactors.
It is indeed sad to read the case of Madeleine McCann put in numbers. Throughout these two years the money seems to be most important for the public, not the fate of the girl.
- Brenda, Mexico, 29/1/2009 0:43