Rochdale ObserverSolicitor fighting McCanns’ cornerIan Ogden
September 25, 2007
A ROCHDALE solicitor has become a leading member of a team looking after the legal interests of Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of four-year-old Madeleine who went missing in Portugal just over four months ago.
Edward Smethurst, the legal director of a Wilmslow-based holding company The Latium Group, has been working with a fomer Rochdale resident, Brian Kennedy, the main supporter of the McCann Defence Fund.
Mr Smethurst, of Ashworth Brook Farm, Norden, who has been an active campaigner against the windfarm project on Scout Moor above Norden, said: "My role is to manage and direct the legal defence team in this country and Portugal.
"We have been managing, organising and supporting the legal defence of the McCanns on a pro bono basis.
"I cannot comment on the specific facts of the case because the Portugese judicial process prevents me from doing so."
But he did emphasise that he believes the McCanns are totally innocent.
Mr Smethurst, a former Oulder Hill High School pupil, has been chairman of the Law Society’s commerce and industry group in the North West for 14 years.
A director of Sale Sharks rugby club, he sits on the board of the European Company Lawyers Association and is heavily involved with Cancer Research UK, being a former chairman of the fund-raising board in the North West.
It is four months since Madeleine went missing from the McCann family’s apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
She had been left sleeping with her brother and sister, twins Sean and Amelie, while their parents had a meal with friends in a nearby restaurant.
Various members of the party checked on the children regularly but her mother found Madeleine missing at about 9.30pm.
Since then a huge hunt has been carried out for the tot but to no avail.
Both an ex-pat Briton now living in the resort, Robert Murat, and the McCanns have been named as official suspects by Portuguese police but there have been no signs of any charges being brought.
The McCanns have been at the forefront of the campaign to find their daughter.
As well as launching ‘Madeleine’s Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned’ appeal to help track her and bring her abductors to justice, they have pushed for police to explore every possible avenue and technique in their search.
They have said money given to the Madeleine Fund will not be used to help pay their own legal costs.
