# Madeleine's Fund

Madeleine's Fund, Leaving no stone unturned, was officially registered on 15-May-2007. This was the 8th working day after the disappearence while the parents where still in Portugal. Already one day later, →on 16-May-2007, Gerry's sister Philomena was allowed to present the Fund at Westminster to the UK Chancellor.

see official webpage →The McCann's Find Madeleine Campaign and Fund

→About the Fund: “Us” and “we” refers to Leaving No Stone Unturned Limited, a not-for-profit company, aka Madeleine's Fund, which has been established to find Madeleine McCann, support her family and bring her abductors to justice. The Fund is following best practice governance procedures as set out in the Good Governance Code for the Voluntary and Community Sector. The directors of the company are Brian Kennedy, Michael Linnett, Edward Smethurst, Jon Corner, Kate McCann & Gerry McCann. They have appropriate legal, business and charitable experience. An experienced Fund Administrator has been appointed to ensure the highest standards of transparency and accountability. This should enable the Directors to maintain an appropriate governance distance in the day-to-day operations of the Fund.

→Fund Objectives: The full objects of the Fund are: To secure the safe return to her family of Madeleine McCann who was abducted in Praia da Luz, Portugal on Thursday 3rd May 2007; To procure that Madeleine's abduction is thoroughly investigated and that her abductors, as well as those who played or play any part in assisting them, are identified and brought to justice; and To provide support, including financial assistance, to Madeleine's family. If the above objects are fulfilled then the objects of the Foundation shall be to pursue such purposes in similar cases arising in the United Kingdom, Portugal or elsewhere.

See also: Search for Mr. X

See also: Kate's Book

See also 1000 day anniversary →Mirror, Gloria Hunniford and Fiona Phillips join McCanns at fundraiser to mark '1,000 days of agony' since Maddie vanished

The Website still shows →some crude suspects. See also on this special suspects at McCannfiles. The Main Suspect from The Smiths' Sighting (ca. 22:00) was missing until mid July 2015. See also Suspect Number One E-fits Public Reaction. Still but are there the Tanner-Suspect and the →“Victoria-Beckham-Lookalike” and →“Pimple-Man”.

Latest News:

25-Oct-2015: →The Sun ‘£100,000 fraud’ on Maddie fund WHISTLEBLOWER EXCLUSIVE: Search money rip-off claim

THE fund to find Madeleine McCann was ripped off by up to £100,000, whistleblowers claim. Documents alleging the huge fraud have been handed to her parents Kate and Gerry. It is claimed a person connected to the hunt for the three-year-old used public donations to fund his own lifestyle. He is said to have duped the McCanns into thinking the cash was spent looking for their daughter. Two whistleblowers named the man in sworn affidavits which The Sun passed to the couple. They allege false accounting and forgery of travel and hotel receipts. One said: “What made the fraud so disgusting was money came from people who shed tears over her disappearance and wanted to do their little bit.”

The Fund was launched in May 2007 when Madeleine disappeared from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. It has raised more than £2million. Backers include JK Rowling and David Beckham. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Kate or Gerry who thanked The Sun for the evidence. Last night the McCanns’ spokesman said: “Madeleine’s Fund takes extremely seriously any suggestion monies intended for the search have been obtained fraudulently. Kate, Gerry and the other directors of Madeleine’s Fund will co-operate fully with authorities to ensure these claims are fully investigated.”

REMARK: Official suspects Operation Grange E-Fits available since Oct. 2013, where hidden on Madeleine's-Fund-Suspects.html webpage until early July 2015, now included

## Some Critics

See →Wikipedia: “A fund-raising company, known as Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned, was launched in Leicester on 16 May 2007. The Fund is a limited company, not a registered charity, because its objectives are not wide enough to satisfy Charity Commission criteria for UK charities. The objectives include helping the extended family with their expenses and continuing the investigation independently should that prove necessary. Any excess funds would be used to help search for other abducted children. The Fund's website reportedly received 58 million hits and 16,000 messages of support by 18 May, only two days after its launch. Over £1,095,000 had been raised by 30 October 2007.”

See also article →The Guardian (02-June-2007) Neverending story: “…Until the evening of Thursday May 3, Kate and Gerry McCann were an anonymous couple from a small East Midlands town. Today they are at the centre of what has become an international publicity hurricane of quite unprecedented scale. Their daughter's face, screened at the FA Cup final, was seen by an estimated 500 million people;… Gordon Brown, while campaigning to become Labour leader, has worn a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with the McCanns; many of his colleagues did the same, along with David Beckham, countless premiership and SPL football teams and the England cricket team. JK Rowling, Sir Richard Branson, the theatre impresario Bill Kenwright, the philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter and Jacqueline Gold of the Ann Summers sex shop chain, have each pledged hundreds of thousands of pounds for information leading to Madeleine's safe return; one Scottish businessman offered a million. Sir Philip Green loaned his private jet, which took the couple to the Vatican and brought them back in time to tuck Madeleine's twin siblings into bed. BP, Exxon, McDonald's, Carrefour, the French bank Crédit Agricole and the Spanish Banco Santander are displaying her poster around Europe; Vodafone, O2 and the Spanish Telefonica network have sent text messages to their subscribers. In the US, Madeleine's face has appeared on the cover of People magazine, and Oprah Winfrey has invited the family on to her talk show….”

See also Article by Sol, Portugal: →Fund is not charity, 04 August 2007: “The 'Leaving No Stone Unturned' fund can already count on almost one million pounds in donations – approximately one million and four hundred thousand euros – but is not recognised by the Charity Commission, the entity that regulates all beneficient activities in the UK. “In order to be considered a charity, the fund would have to be constituted for the benefit of the public, and not to benefit one individual or a specific case”, a source from the comission explained to Sol. According to the same source, the Charity Commission decided not to accept the request that was made by Madeleine's parents to register the fund, after analysing the purpose of the collection of donations: “The McCanns failed to prove that they are collecting money to help other cases that are similar to Madeleine's”. The information that was collected with the English authorities contradicts the statements made by the McCanns' public relations to Sol, in our edition of July 7. Then, Justine McGuinness assured that the money that is received by Maddie's parents “is subject to very strict rules, that are imposed by British law on any charity fund”. At that time, the spokesperson for Kate and Gerry even explained that the decision to establish a fund was born from the need to “ensure that everything is done in a transparent way”. Confronted with this inconsistency, Justine McGuiness corrects her initial statement: “The fund is not considered a charity, but it aims to comply with the high standards that are demanded by the Charity Commission”. McGuinness does not explain why she did not clarify this from the beginning, but she guarantees that her role in the campaign to find Madeleine is to “be Gerry and Kate's spokesperson, and not the Fund's”. Still, she assures that all donations “are subject to strict British rules that regulate the activities of corporations without lucrative purposes”. According to a source from the Charity Commission, this juridical status means that the money that is collected by the fund “is not exempt of taxes in the United Kingdom”. Justine McGuinness does not comment, and directs any further explanation to the presentation text that can be read on the findmadeleine.com site, where it's written that the fund's managers are committed to guarantee the financial and juridical scrutiny of the fund. Although Sol insisted, it was not possible to reach anyone responsible with 'Leaving No Stone Unturned' – including John McCann, Gerry's brother, and Brian Kennedy, Kate's uncle.”

See also

- →Mirror, (29-Jan-2009, Updated 28-Jan-2012 ), Madeleine McCann: Find out how your donated money was spent: “Well-wishers donated nearly £2 million to the fund to find Madeleine McCann in the 10 months after she went missing, official accounts show. …”
- →Daily Mail, (30-Oct-2007), Row as McCanns use £1million Madeleine fund to pay their mortgage

see also Critics at McCannFiles and other Websites:

1. →The Madeleine Foundation - 163 Questions and 50 Facts
2. →The Official Site
3. →Madeleine's Fund
4. →Official McCann Facebook Updates
5. →Madeleine's Fund Accounts to 31/03/2014
6. →Madeleine's Fund Accounts to 31/03/2013
7. →Madeleine's Fund Accounts to 31/03/2012
8. →Madeleine's Fund Accounts to 31/03/2009
9. →The Fund Comitee, details and pictures
10. →Some more Characters at AbuseOfPower
11. →McCann-Fund-Fraud Info

See also →What happened to the News of the World's 'Find Madeleine Reward Fund'?

## The Website

The Website findmadeleine.com was established 4 days after the disappearence of Maddie. See for some informations →Calum MacRae and The McCann Website; →Millions have contacted the Madeleine McCann appeal website. Who runs it? Three teenagers from Ullapool. It is/was run by Calum MacRae, teenager son of a Police Officer.

“TWO young people hurriedly stuff yellow Look For Madeleine wristbands into envelopes, surrounded by cardboard boxes containing thousands more earmarked for the campaign. Nearby, in the untidy garage store room, Madeleine badges and posters are awaiting delivery to supporters around the world who have donated £2 for the bands that symbolise the search for the missing four-year-old. Policeman's son Calum MacRae, 18, is responsible for the campaign's website and distribution network for Madeleine's campaign from the unlikely location of the Loch Broom garage, on a windswept industrial estate on the outskirts of Ullapool, Wester Ross. Despite Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry, both 39, now being treated by Portuguese police as suspects in her disappearance while on holiday in the Algarve, Calum claims there has been a recent surge in interest in the website and wristbands….

Calum, who has designed websites “since he was 10” is paid out of the global donations to the fund, which won't be contributing to the McCanns' legal costs. He refused to be drawn on how much his team of six are paid, and the Sunday Herald's repeated calls to the fund's spokeswoman, Esther McVey, were not returned. He added: “I can't tell you that, it's not much honestly. We are just covering our costs. You would need to speak to the fund about that.” Calum is convinced of the couple's innocence and says he will continue to run the website even if they are charged and tried in Portugal. He said: “I know from speaking to Gerry on the phone that he is 100% innocent. …”

Calum became involved after Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann, his former schoolteacher in Ullapool, approached him four days after the girl disappeared on May 3. Another worker on the site, Rona Eddington, 18, the daughter of a senior police inspector in Rossshire, said: “We've had people saying in emails we killed her and taken her away' and we hate you.' We don't know if they are genuine, but they are passed to the police, who chase them all up. We've had so many like that and have to filter them. The website is about supporting the family.” Rona's father, chief inspector Paul Eddington, said he had no problems with his daughter's involvement in the website…“I view what my daughter is doing as a parent, rather than a police officer. In the unlikely event that the investigation did involve the website, I would take a pragmatic view and wouldn't seek to get involved,” said Eddington…. ”

In the mean time Calum MacRae and Rona Eddington got married. Rona's father Paul Eddington is Chief Inspector with Northern Constabulary Inverness, Scotland. In his past he was Constable at Metropolitan Police. Calum's father is a Policeman (Cameron MacRae) who is now also a Director of Website enterprise →Infohost with Calum. The company is a father and son arrangement. Calum is a former-student of Gerry McCann sister Philomena McCann.

## From large debtors to the top 100 wealthiest in Leicestershire

When things happened on 3rd May 2007, the family McCann was in large debt. This was around 350.000 Pounds (one year later it was still GBP 323.493 ) on mortgage for their house in Rothley. →Leicestershire Police Force, Date: 16th May 2008: “…She [Kate] lives with her husband and children at Orchard House, 5 The Crescent, Rothley, Leicestershire, LE7 7RW. The house is subject to a mortgage for the amount of GBP 323.493 with the Northern Rock bank…”

Indeed the economic situation of the McCann family was desperate: →Daily Record , Exclusive by Annie Brown, on December 23, 2010: Madeleine McCann’s aunt explains why she has joined charity for missing people….“…For the McCanns, there was a desperate need for funds to pay for legal advice and a worldwide search. Patricia said: “It is so hard to watch Kate and Gerry push themselves constantly. When Madeleine first went missing, family and friends had to step in to help them pay the mortgage. Money is constantly tight but they have to keep going. They will never give up looking and that costs money. Families of the missing still need to pay bills while they search but there is no right to any financial help.” After Madeleine disappeared, Patricia took on the role of babysitter for Kate and Gerry’s twins, Sean and Amelie, now five, while their parents searched. As a result, there is a close bond between Patricia and the children….”

From the directives of the fund it is clear, that the McCann's have legal access to donations from “To provide support, including financial assistance, to Madeleine's family”. From legal construction there is no limit given (in any percentage) how much money may be taken for personal issues. Thus in principle any amount may be extracted legally for personal income. As it is no charity, and never was, it is also not forced to give detailed accounts of the use of special amounts of money. Just an oversight in terms of expenditures and incomes, this is roughly the bulk in- and out of money, is legally needed.

It was admitted by the fund and the McCann family, that indeed the mortgage for the family house in Rothley was paid from donations to the fund. Another income to the McCann's stems from regular libel payouts so e.g. £55,000 in libel damages from the →Sunday Times in 2014 and £550,000 libel damages from Express Newspapers in 2008. They also were donated the Tapas Seven £375,000 in libel damages from Express Newspapers. This is achieved by Top-libel lawyers of Carter Ruck which may also be paid legally from the Fund's donations as it states. They also paid →other prominent PR firms like Bell Pottinger Group and “Hanover” to fit their public appearence.

See e.g. →Express Group Apology: (Magazine Public Eye): “…Although Dirty Des's lawyers offered £250,000 in an attempt to settle quickly, the McCanns declined and insisted on £1m per newspaper - a total of £4m, covering the daily and Sunday versions of the Express and Star. Outside legal experts consulted by Desmond have reported back to him: “You're f*cked.” That should, of course, be “Carter-F*cked” - for Kate and Gerry McCann have indeed turned to Britain's most aggressive libel lawyers in their attempt to stem the flow of nonsense written about them….The Mcs have hired Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners. For those who don't know, this means they are really desperate….”

Last but not least there are large incomes from Kate's Book Madeleine, so 1 millon pound in advance from the publisher and another 550.000 pounds for Uk-tabloid publishing of (parts of) the book. Regular payments from sellings in bookstores around the world add to this amount additionally. The amount is unknown, but with regular paid fees of about 5 pounds per book this must have added up today to some millions though.

In summary until today the Gerry McCann family got up to the 100 most richest families in the Leicestershire Region: Co-director of Madeleine Fund Michael Linnet belongs to the most wealthy people of the Leicestershire region. In the 2013 list we find him and his spouse on place 16. The →The Leicestershire Rich List 2013 starts with 1. VICHAI SRIVADDHANAPRABHA Wealth: £1 billion. The list but stops at the very unusual number 97. PETER HARRIS, Wealth: Lower-tier millionaire (up to £3m). Obviously the McCann's in 2013, with their earnings from their multiple Madeleine-Activities must be under the Top 100 of Leicestershire as one of the “Lower-tier millionaires” by now. Seemingly, one may guess by good reasons, in 2013 No. 98 was Gerry McCann.