Charity begins at home

How you can add to the reward,  p5 News of the World 13 May 2007.

When News International revealed in a September 2011 email that the News of the World had paid out cash, donated by its readers as a Reward for information leading to the safe return of Madeleine McCann, to the limited company Fund set up by her parents in 2007, it raised a number of questions.

Not least among them was what had happened to the charities who had been promised the money in the event of the reward not being paid out.

(The whereabouts of the child are still, sadly, not known.)

In October 2011, each charity was asked three questions:

Had they been consulted before being named as potential recipients in the event of an unpaid reward?

Had they ever been informed how much money the NOTW had raised?

Were they ever told they would no longer be receiving any money from the unclaimed reward fund?

A spokesperson for NSPCC replied:

We can’t identify any direct work we did with NotW on this. It’s possible they just did it without letting us know.

A spokesperson for Barnardo’s wrote:

We can confirm that we have no record of correspondence with the News of the World regarding the Madeleine McCann fund. For any further queries relating to this matter, please contact News International.

But how willing would News International be to share more information?

(More follows)