Was Branson in the Algarve in April 2007?

The Portuguese ex-pat online newspaper, The Resident, has a series of interesting articles relating to the McCann case. One such article is entitled “Branson Brush Off” and is stated to have been updated on April 26, 2007. We were curious about the article because of the title and a photo of Sir Richard Branson with the caption “Branson mysteriously disappeared”. The article can be found by clicking this (link) but if it gets removed or modified, the picture below is a screen grab taken today.

The article describes a joke which is out of context to the title or the picture of Sir Richard. We emailed Natasha Smith to ask about her article and as soon as we receive a reply we will post it in this site. However, don’t hold your breath.

The Resident have not been very helpful in the past. Recently we contacted Mike Almond at The Resident to ask if he could give us the contact email or phone number for a person who regularly appears in their paper.

Mike Almond’s reply was “As I said, I am sorry I cannot help you.
We are not a directory enquiry service and my response would be the same for anyone.
Thanks.
MIKE ALMOND“