User:GrahamHardy/Clarence Mitchell

Clarence Mitchell is a former BBC news reporter, and now official spokesman for the family of Madeleine McCann.

Mitchell began his career as a journalist as a local reporter for the Barnet & Potters Bar Times in South Hertfordshire before leaving to join a BBC training scheme. He later joined the BBC as a regional reporter in Leeds. In the early 1990s he moved to BBC Breakfast News and then as a reporter on the main national BBC TV and radio bulletins. , reporting on the death of Michael Hutchence in 1997 and as royal correspondent in 1999 on the death of Dodi Fayed and Princess Diana. Between 2003 and 2005 he covered stories in the Middle East including the Iraq conflict.

After 20 years as a journalist, in April 2006 he joined the government's Central Office of Information as director of the Media Monitoring Unit and in May 2007 was sent to Portugal on behalf of the UK Foreign Office to provide temporary consular assistance and media handling for Kate and Gerry McCann following the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine McCann who disappeared on 3 May 2007 while on holiday with her family in the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal. On 17 September, he resigned as director of the Central Office of Information's media monitoring unit to become the McCanns' media spokesman. In the 2015 UK General Election, Mitchell stood as the Conservatve Party candidate for the Brighton Pavilion Parliamentary seat in Southern England.

ernal links==
 * Clarence Mitchell profile from the BBC news website
 * Guardian article: A veteran of major stories
 * Guardian article: Former BBC man to speak for the McCanns