A mother who only cares about defending herself, on British TV 1 May 2008, whilst still a suspect in the Portuguese investigation, telling us about how Maddie "just moved on" from complaining to her parents about being left alone to cry with her twin baby brother and sister. Just heartbreaking and they still have care of those twins..but have assured they would never leave them again..See another excellent analysis, video of the McCanns talking about the crying incident and contrasting what they said in official police statements on 4 May 2007 at:
A Brilliant piece of analysis by Astro on Joana Morais blog:
The Crying Incident
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Last Monday,‘Stevo’ posted an excellent video about the Madeleine case – or rather, about the McCann case, because Madeleine is, after all, only a ‘story’, in the words of Mr Mitchell.The video contains a very impressive passage about a little episode that was reported by Mrs Fenn, the lady that lives in the apartment directly above apartment 5A, in her witness statement to the Polícia Judiciária, on the 20th of August 2007, as follows:“She [Pamela Fenn] thus mentions that on Tuesday, the 1st of May 2007, and while alone at home, at around 10.30 p.m. she heard a child crying, that by the sound of it seemed to her to be coming from a young child and not from a two-year-old or younger baby. Simultaneously with the crying that lasted for about one hour and 15 minutes, and became increasingly more intense and expressive, the child screamed “daddy – daddy”, the deponent has no doubt that the crying came from the lower floor. At around 11.45 p.m., which is to say, one hour and fifteen after it started, she felt the parents arriving, but didn’t see them, nevertheless she heard the balcony door opening, which she noticed because she was quite worried, given the fact that the crying lasted for over an hour and increased steadily. When asked, she said that she didn’t know the reason for the crying, maybe a nightmare, or any other destabilising factor. She adds that as soon as the parents entered the house, the child stopped crying.” in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, pages 2412-2413Now, instead of following diversionary tactics that lead us to faraway places like Australia, fun as it could be, maybe it would be interesting to take another look closer at home. Literally.The witness statements that were given to the PJ by the McCann couple and their friends are widely available on the internet, duly translated by so many people who have offered their time and knowledge and did not receive thousands of pounds from any Fund for their work. As anyone can verify, the ‘crying incident’ is briefly mentioned in Kate and Gerry McCann’s statements:“Between April 28, the day of arrival, and the time at which the disappearance was detected, the deponent [Kate McCann] said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except that on the morning of Thursday, May 3rd, MADELEINE asked the deponent why they hadn’t come into the room when the twins were crying. The interviewee had not gone into the room because she hadn’t heard anything, yet found her daughter’s comment strange, even because it was the first time that she had made it.” Kate McCann's statement on 04.05.2007 in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 59“Between April 28, the day of arrival, and the time at which the disappearance was detected, the deponent [Gerald McCann said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except that on the morning of Thursday, May 3rd, MADELEINE asked the deponent why he had not come into the room when the twins were crying. The interviewee had not gone into the room because he hadn’t heard anything, yet found his daughter’s comment strange, even because it was the first time that she had made it.” Gerry McCann's statement on 04.05.2007 in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 35/36Now maybe you have noticed the same thing that I did: the McCanns told the police the exact same episode, mentioning the exact same details – that the twins had been crying – in a manner so similar that their witness statements read almost identically. We’ll retain this curious detail for later use.Thank goodness we have the McCanns' spokesperson, former Media Monitoring Unit director Clarence Mitchell, that paragon of truth, to assure us that the McCanns were absolutely truthful in these initial statements:“The only reason this has come out is because of Kate and Gerry’s utter honesty in their original statements.” in The Telegraph, on April 10, 2008So truthful, that Mr McCann even reveals what I can only presume to be the truth about his wife’s visit to the apartment:“At around 22H00 it was his wife KATE who came to check on the children. She entered the apartment through the door, using the key, and immediately discovered that the door to her children’s bedroom was completely open, the window also open, the shutters up and the curtains apart. The side door [patio door] that opens into the living room and as mentioned earlier was left unlocked, was closed.” in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 37Now that opens a whole different can of worms, but we’ll leave it for another day, when the Australian-Spanish-Swedish hullabaloo dies down and news are slow again.“It is very curious that this is being released now, having been sitting in the police files for 11 months. The timing of this is frankly suspicious.” Clarence Mitchell, cited in The Telegraph, on April 10, 2008Mr Mitchell is right about one thing, though: The timing was suspicious, especially because at the same time that the news was being broken live on tv by a Spanish journalist on a morning talk show on Telecinco, Fiona Payne was being interviewed by DC Messiah, at the Leicestershire Police Headquarters in Enderby, telling him in considerable detail how Kate McCann had mentioned the crying incident over dinner, on the 3rd of May 2007, at the Tapas Bar.And also at the same time, the McCanns were holding a press conference in Brussels, to push their petition that hijacked an already existing project in the European Parliament for a missing child alert system.The 10th of April, 2008, was a busy day, by any measure.But let’s go back to Mrs Fenn for a moment. She stated that on Tuesday, the 1st of May, two days before Madeleine vanished without a trace, she heard a child – one child – crying in the apartment downstairs, for over an hour. She said that the crying had stopped exactly when the parents entered the apartment.Now I’m the first one to acknowledge that all children are different, and although my own experience tells me that a child that has been crying incessantly for over an hour does not stop crying instantly, as if it had a switch, I’m not going to say that this is impossible. What I do find rather strange, is that the parents never heard the child’s cries as they approached the apartment – while Mrs Fenn upstairs was worried enough about the situation to call a friend for advice -, nor did they notice anything unusual inside the apartment after entering it. Not a sigh, not a whimper, nothing. Or so they say, in their truthful initial statements.Of course, their truthful initial statements mention the episode as having taken place on Wednesday night. Nobody asked them about Tuesday.Fast forward to late November 2007The McCanns are back in England. The Portuguese investigation is stalled, swamped with bureaucratic issues concerning the questioning of the so-called ‘Tapas Seven’, under the rogatory letters that take months to be accepted by the Home Office. A meeting at a hotel in Rothley reunites the couple with their friends, for the first time after the events in Luz. The press reports that the rogatory interviews are “weeks away”.In fact, they would only take place in April, more precisely between the 8th and the 11th of April, 2008. A team from the PJ, led by Paulo Rebelo, then the coordinator of the CID in Portimão, travelled to Leicester to attend the interviews, but returned to the Algarve in the early hours of the 11th of April. They missed the questioning of what would be considered a key witness in any criminal case: David Payne, allegedly the last person, apart from the arguidos, to see Madeleine alive.According to the transcripts of these interviews, it was Rachael Mampilly who first mentioned the crying incident to the British police, during the morning of the 9th of April:“Kate did, when we sat down at the table on the Thursday night, Kate said that erm, Madeleine and Sean had cried, said they’d been crying, erm and you know wondered where she was, or wondered where you know, Mummy and Daddy were, erm I mean this was kind of after Madeleine disappeared, we talked, she mentioned that when we sat at the table on Thursday and then after Madeleine had disappeared, erm McCANN’s said, oh well I wonder whether on the Wednesday, you know somebody had tried to get in perhaps or had got in and they’d seen something, erm you know and I was next door in the apartment but I mean I didn’t hear any, well you know, I didn’t hear anything, I could well have been asleep, erm you could hear quite a lot through the apartments because Grace, she always wakes up early but because she seemed to have diarrhoea every night, she’d wake up sort of six o’clock most mornings and we’d always have to put her in the, in the shower or in the bath first thing, and Gerry and Kate would always hear that and so you know, most of the comments first thing in the morning would be like, oh so Grace was up early again, she’d be invariably screaming her head off, so.” in Rachael Mampilly’s rogatory statement on 09.04.2008This ‘crying incident’ seems to have been a rather significant episode for Kate and Gerry McCann. Significant enough to be mentioned at dinner, apparently for no reason, and to be offered by the couple, separately and almost in the same words, to the PJ in their very first statements.Another curious detail is the fact that Rachael’s husband, Matthew Oldfield, states that Rachael stayed home on the Tuesday night, contradicting his own wife and placing her in the apartment next door to the McCanns’ on the night that Mrs Fenn reported hearing the crying:“Rachael was sort of, erm, became unwell the Tuesday evening, erm, and she stayed in the apartment, yeah.” in Matthew Oldfield’s rogatory statement on 09.04.2008Confused?The next morning, while the McCanns were conveniently concentrating the world media’s attention on their visit to Brussels, and Fiona Payne was repeating the story of the crying incident to DC Ivor Messiah at the Leicestershire Police Headquarters, a well-known Spanish journalist, Nacho Abad, was breaking the news live on ‘El Programa de Ana Rosa’, a morning talk show on Spanish channel Telecinco.“’El Programa de Ana Rosa’ has obtained, in first hand, and for the first time in the world, the exclusive statements from the parents and friends of Madeleine McCann, hours before and after the little girl disappeared. These highly impacting and chilling statements render Kate and Gerry’s innocence in their daughter’s disappearance clear, and point towards the window of the apartment where they were staying, as a key element in the famous disappearance.” in Telecinco website, on 10.04.2008Mr Abad launched a controversy of epic proportions, with consequences that would have been hard to imagine only days earlier.It took the British media only a couple of hours to release an avalanche of articles reporting on the “leak” by the Portuguese police, that allegedly had given Mr Abad copies of the McCanns’ early statements to the PJ, to be deliberately “exposed” exactly on the same day that the couple was visiting the European Parliament, "undermining" their campaign. One of the first articles that appeared online was from the Mirror, and it cited an array of “friends” of the couple, as well as the unavoidable Mr Mitchell:“Kate and Gerry have been utterly honest and utterly open with the police and all of their statements from the moment that Madeleine was taken. The very fact that the comment from Madeleine is now in the public domain is entirely because they themselves told the police about it at the time. It is more than curious that this comment, taken in isolation and out of context, that has been in the police file for some 11 months, should now emerge on the very day that they are in Brussels trying to improve children's welfare and child safety. They would be more than interested to know if the Portuguese justice ministry will now demand an internal review of the police investigation to get to the bottom of how this material emerged in the way it has, on the day it has.” in The Mirror, 10.04.2008On the 11th, Mr Mitchell was in full combat mode, going as far as stating live on Sky News that he knew what the PJ was "up to":“We are not happy and the gloves are off.” in Sky News, 11.04.2008, Video hereIn an unprecedented move, the Polícia Judiciária, which had endured all sorts of humiliating, degrading remarks from the British media without uttering a word to defend its reputation, or that of its officers, released a press note from its National Directory, four days after the scandal broke:“At the end of last week, the Spanish television station Telecinco broadcast a news piece that reported that they had enjoyed exclusive access to alleged statements from the McCann couple to the "investigators" into the disappearance of the underage child, Madeleine. Based on this news piece, the spokesman of this couple, Clarence Mitchell, expressed publicly, to several media, the certainty that the Polícia Judiciária had been responsible for its publication. The Polícia Judiciária clarifies that it is entirely false that the contents of the news piece reproduces matter that is part of the inquiry, which is under judicial secrecy.On the other hand, the Polícia Judiciária cannot fail to lament the baseless intervention of the spokesman, especially at a moment when significant diligences to the investigation were being carried out.” in Polícia Judiciária’s website, 14.04.2008Now, the fact is, the Polícia Judiciária could, potentially, have leaked the information to Mr Abad.There would have been two possibilities:a) To source the information from Kate and Gerry McCann’s initial statements, which mentioned that Madeleine had told them that the twins had been crying, and never cited the actual sentence that had been spoken by the missing child; orb) The officers that attended Rachael Mampilly’s questioning, on the previous afternoon, could have called Mr Abad and instructed him to act accordingly. The timing is feasible. They would, of course, have nothing to offer Mr Abad apart from an oral reproduction of what Rachael had said under questioning.The only problem is, Rachael didn’t say much. The already anecdotal inability of the Tapas Seven to produce a single fluid, coherent sentence, makes it impossible for anyone without previous knowledge of the matter, to make much sense of her mention of the crying incident. Transforming the confusing half sentences that Rachael had said about the matter, into the following, requires more than a bit of imagination:“Crime reporter Nacho Abad, read out in Spanish an excerpt of the statement he said Kate had given Portuguese police. He said: "While we were having breakfast, Maddie said, 'Mummy, why didn't you come when we were crying last night?' "Gerry and I spoke for a couple of minutes and agreed to keep a closer watch over the children.” in The Sun, 10.04.2008I have no doubts in saying that none of the statements that were made public, in the official case files, contains anything that matches the above citation.There is only one possible source for the above mentioned ‘statement’, which seems to be a complete fabrication, based on facts that had only been superficially mentioned the day before, in Leicester, and 11 months earlier, in Portimão.The very same source that, despite feigning for the PJ its availability to take part in the upcoming reconstruction, which was to take place in May, had absolutely no interest in its fulfilment – and didn’t bother to conceal the fact, either:“Portuguese detectives want the McCanns to go to the Algarve for a reconstruction but the couple’s lawyers are concerned about being summoned back to Portugal.” in The Telegraph, on 10.04.2008The friends would ultimately be responsible for the reconstruction flop, as one after another, they informed the PJ that they would not be attending. Nobody can actually state that the McCann couple refused to attend the reconstruction; merely that the re-enactment would have been incomplete without the presence of their friends. And how terribly that is true.So, did Madeleine McCann cry for her daddy on Tuesday night, for over an hour? Did she cry on Wednesday? Did she cry at all?I suppose that, like so many other details in this case, this question will have to remain a matter of personal opinion, rather than fact. Whom we choose to believe has made an enormous difference in the manner how we individually perceive the Maddie case.What I don’t think anyone can refute is the fact that the manner in which this story was broken to the public – once again, involving Spanish ‘resources’ at a time when Método 3 was still employed by the McCanns, thus placing the source of the ‘leak’ conveniently outside the PJ’s jurisdiction – was actually a rather clumsy attempt to turn a negative fact that would, sooner or later, become public anyway, into something that would ‘work’ in favour of the McCanns, painting them as victims of a conniving Polícia Judiciária.After all, the PJ had taken all sorts of ridicule and abuse, lying down, for almost a year.But what it did, was to reinforce my personal belief that Mr Mitchell is capable of anything, including lying, manipulating and scheming against the legitimate police force of a sovereign country, to defend his clients’ image. Because according to the data that is publicly available, that is precisely what he did, in this case.I’m haunted by the sound of a crying child, tonight.
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/08/crying-incident.html#ixzz0Oy8SafnW Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
The Crying Incident
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Last Monday,‘Stevo’ posted an excellent video about the Madeleine case – or rather, about the McCann case, because Madeleine is, after all, only a ‘story’, in the words of Mr Mitchell.The video contains a very impressive passage about a little episode that was reported by Mrs Fenn, the lady that lives in the apartment directly above apartment 5A, in her witness statement to the Polícia Judiciária, on the 20th of August 2007, as follows:“She [Pamela Fenn] thus mentions that on Tuesday, the 1st of May 2007, and while alone at home, at around 10.30 p.m. she heard a child crying, that by the sound of it seemed to her to be coming from a young child and not from a two-year-old or younger baby. Simultaneously with the crying that lasted for about one hour and 15 minutes, and became increasingly more intense and expressive, the child screamed “daddy – daddy”, the deponent has no doubt that the crying came from the lower floor. At around 11.45 p.m., which is to say, one hour and fifteen after it started, she felt the parents arriving, but didn’t see them, nevertheless she heard the balcony door opening, which she noticed because she was quite worried, given the fact that the crying lasted for over an hour and increased steadily. When asked, she said that she didn’t know the reason for the crying, maybe a nightmare, or any other destabilising factor. She adds that as soon as the parents entered the house, the child stopped crying.” in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, pages 2412-2413Now, instead of following diversionary tactics that lead us to faraway places like Australia, fun as it could be, maybe it would be interesting to take another look closer at home. Literally.The witness statements that were given to the PJ by the McCann couple and their friends are widely available on the internet, duly translated by so many people who have offered their time and knowledge and did not receive thousands of pounds from any Fund for their work. As anyone can verify, the ‘crying incident’ is briefly mentioned in Kate and Gerry McCann’s statements:“Between April 28, the day of arrival, and the time at which the disappearance was detected, the deponent [Kate McCann] said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except that on the morning of Thursday, May 3rd, MADELEINE asked the deponent why they hadn’t come into the room when the twins were crying. The interviewee had not gone into the room because she hadn’t heard anything, yet found her daughter’s comment strange, even because it was the first time that she had made it.” Kate McCann's statement on 04.05.2007 in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 59“Between April 28, the day of arrival, and the time at which the disappearance was detected, the deponent [Gerald McCann said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except that on the morning of Thursday, May 3rd, MADELEINE asked the deponent why he had not come into the room when the twins were crying. The interviewee had not gone into the room because he hadn’t heard anything, yet found his daughter’s comment strange, even because it was the first time that she had made it.” Gerry McCann's statement on 04.05.2007 in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 35/36Now maybe you have noticed the same thing that I did: the McCanns told the police the exact same episode, mentioning the exact same details – that the twins had been crying – in a manner so similar that their witness statements read almost identically. We’ll retain this curious detail for later use.Thank goodness we have the McCanns' spokesperson, former Media Monitoring Unit director Clarence Mitchell, that paragon of truth, to assure us that the McCanns were absolutely truthful in these initial statements:“The only reason this has come out is because of Kate and Gerry’s utter honesty in their original statements.” in The Telegraph, on April 10, 2008So truthful, that Mr McCann even reveals what I can only presume to be the truth about his wife’s visit to the apartment:“At around 22H00 it was his wife KATE who came to check on the children. She entered the apartment through the door, using the key, and immediately discovered that the door to her children’s bedroom was completely open, the window also open, the shutters up and the curtains apart. The side door [patio door] that opens into the living room and as mentioned earlier was left unlocked, was closed.” in Process 201/07.0 GALGS, page 37Now that opens a whole different can of worms, but we’ll leave it for another day, when the Australian-Spanish-Swedish hullabaloo dies down and news are slow again.“It is very curious that this is being released now, having been sitting in the police files for 11 months. The timing of this is frankly suspicious.” Clarence Mitchell, cited in The Telegraph, on April 10, 2008Mr Mitchell is right about one thing, though: The timing was suspicious, especially because at the same time that the news was being broken live on tv by a Spanish journalist on a morning talk show on Telecinco, Fiona Payne was being interviewed by DC Messiah, at the Leicestershire Police Headquarters in Enderby, telling him in considerable detail how Kate McCann had mentioned the crying incident over dinner, on the 3rd of May 2007, at the Tapas Bar.And also at the same time, the McCanns were holding a press conference in Brussels, to push their petition that hijacked an already existing project in the European Parliament for a missing child alert system.The 10th of April, 2008, was a busy day, by any measure.But let’s go back to Mrs Fenn for a moment. She stated that on Tuesday, the 1st of May, two days before Madeleine vanished without a trace, she heard a child – one child – crying in the apartment downstairs, for over an hour. She said that the crying had stopped exactly when the parents entered the apartment.Now I’m the first one to acknowledge that all children are different, and although my own experience tells me that a child that has been crying incessantly for over an hour does not stop crying instantly, as if it had a switch, I’m not going to say that this is impossible. What I do find rather strange, is that the parents never heard the child’s cries as they approached the apartment – while Mrs Fenn upstairs was worried enough about the situation to call a friend for advice -, nor did they notice anything unusual inside the apartment after entering it. Not a sigh, not a whimper, nothing. Or so they say, in their truthful initial statements.Of course, their truthful initial statements mention the episode as having taken place on Wednesday night. Nobody asked them about Tuesday.Fast forward to late November 2007The McCanns are back in England. The Portuguese investigation is stalled, swamped with bureaucratic issues concerning the questioning of the so-called ‘Tapas Seven’, under the rogatory letters that take months to be accepted by the Home Office. A meeting at a hotel in Rothley reunites the couple with their friends, for the first time after the events in Luz. The press reports that the rogatory interviews are “weeks away”.In fact, they would only take place in April, more precisely between the 8th and the 11th of April, 2008. A team from the PJ, led by Paulo Rebelo, then the coordinator of the CID in Portimão, travelled to Leicester to attend the interviews, but returned to the Algarve in the early hours of the 11th of April. They missed the questioning of what would be considered a key witness in any criminal case: David Payne, allegedly the last person, apart from the arguidos, to see Madeleine alive.According to the transcripts of these interviews, it was Rachael Mampilly who first mentioned the crying incident to the British police, during the morning of the 9th of April:“Kate did, when we sat down at the table on the Thursday night, Kate said that erm, Madeleine and Sean had cried, said they’d been crying, erm and you know wondered where she was, or wondered where you know, Mummy and Daddy were, erm I mean this was kind of after Madeleine disappeared, we talked, she mentioned that when we sat at the table on Thursday and then after Madeleine had disappeared, erm McCANN’s said, oh well I wonder whether on the Wednesday, you know somebody had tried to get in perhaps or had got in and they’d seen something, erm you know and I was next door in the apartment but I mean I didn’t hear any, well you know, I didn’t hear anything, I could well have been asleep, erm you could hear quite a lot through the apartments because Grace, she always wakes up early but because she seemed to have diarrhoea every night, she’d wake up sort of six o’clock most mornings and we’d always have to put her in the, in the shower or in the bath first thing, and Gerry and Kate would always hear that and so you know, most of the comments first thing in the morning would be like, oh so Grace was up early again, she’d be invariably screaming her head off, so.” in Rachael Mampilly’s rogatory statement on 09.04.2008This ‘crying incident’ seems to have been a rather significant episode for Kate and Gerry McCann. Significant enough to be mentioned at dinner, apparently for no reason, and to be offered by the couple, separately and almost in the same words, to the PJ in their very first statements.Another curious detail is the fact that Rachael’s husband, Matthew Oldfield, states that Rachael stayed home on the Tuesday night, contradicting his own wife and placing her in the apartment next door to the McCanns’ on the night that Mrs Fenn reported hearing the crying:“Rachael was sort of, erm, became unwell the Tuesday evening, erm, and she stayed in the apartment, yeah.” in Matthew Oldfield’s rogatory statement on 09.04.2008Confused?The next morning, while the McCanns were conveniently concentrating the world media’s attention on their visit to Brussels, and Fiona Payne was repeating the story of the crying incident to DC Ivor Messiah at the Leicestershire Police Headquarters, a well-known Spanish journalist, Nacho Abad, was breaking the news live on ‘El Programa de Ana Rosa’, a morning talk show on Spanish channel Telecinco.“’El Programa de Ana Rosa’ has obtained, in first hand, and for the first time in the world, the exclusive statements from the parents and friends of Madeleine McCann, hours before and after the little girl disappeared. These highly impacting and chilling statements render Kate and Gerry’s innocence in their daughter’s disappearance clear, and point towards the window of the apartment where they were staying, as a key element in the famous disappearance.” in Telecinco website, on 10.04.2008Mr Abad launched a controversy of epic proportions, with consequences that would have been hard to imagine only days earlier.It took the British media only a couple of hours to release an avalanche of articles reporting on the “leak” by the Portuguese police, that allegedly had given Mr Abad copies of the McCanns’ early statements to the PJ, to be deliberately “exposed” exactly on the same day that the couple was visiting the European Parliament, "undermining" their campaign. One of the first articles that appeared online was from the Mirror, and it cited an array of “friends” of the couple, as well as the unavoidable Mr Mitchell:“Kate and Gerry have been utterly honest and utterly open with the police and all of their statements from the moment that Madeleine was taken. The very fact that the comment from Madeleine is now in the public domain is entirely because they themselves told the police about it at the time. It is more than curious that this comment, taken in isolation and out of context, that has been in the police file for some 11 months, should now emerge on the very day that they are in Brussels trying to improve children's welfare and child safety. They would be more than interested to know if the Portuguese justice ministry will now demand an internal review of the police investigation to get to the bottom of how this material emerged in the way it has, on the day it has.” in The Mirror, 10.04.2008On the 11th, Mr Mitchell was in full combat mode, going as far as stating live on Sky News that he knew what the PJ was "up to":“We are not happy and the gloves are off.” in Sky News, 11.04.2008, Video hereIn an unprecedented move, the Polícia Judiciária, which had endured all sorts of humiliating, degrading remarks from the British media without uttering a word to defend its reputation, or that of its officers, released a press note from its National Directory, four days after the scandal broke:“At the end of last week, the Spanish television station Telecinco broadcast a news piece that reported that they had enjoyed exclusive access to alleged statements from the McCann couple to the "investigators" into the disappearance of the underage child, Madeleine. Based on this news piece, the spokesman of this couple, Clarence Mitchell, expressed publicly, to several media, the certainty that the Polícia Judiciária had been responsible for its publication. The Polícia Judiciária clarifies that it is entirely false that the contents of the news piece reproduces matter that is part of the inquiry, which is under judicial secrecy.On the other hand, the Polícia Judiciária cannot fail to lament the baseless intervention of the spokesman, especially at a moment when significant diligences to the investigation were being carried out.” in Polícia Judiciária’s website, 14.04.2008Now, the fact is, the Polícia Judiciária could, potentially, have leaked the information to Mr Abad.There would have been two possibilities:a) To source the information from Kate and Gerry McCann’s initial statements, which mentioned that Madeleine had told them that the twins had been crying, and never cited the actual sentence that had been spoken by the missing child; orb) The officers that attended Rachael Mampilly’s questioning, on the previous afternoon, could have called Mr Abad and instructed him to act accordingly. The timing is feasible. They would, of course, have nothing to offer Mr Abad apart from an oral reproduction of what Rachael had said under questioning.The only problem is, Rachael didn’t say much. The already anecdotal inability of the Tapas Seven to produce a single fluid, coherent sentence, makes it impossible for anyone without previous knowledge of the matter, to make much sense of her mention of the crying incident. Transforming the confusing half sentences that Rachael had said about the matter, into the following, requires more than a bit of imagination:“Crime reporter Nacho Abad, read out in Spanish an excerpt of the statement he said Kate had given Portuguese police. He said: "While we were having breakfast, Maddie said, 'Mummy, why didn't you come when we were crying last night?' "Gerry and I spoke for a couple of minutes and agreed to keep a closer watch over the children.” in The Sun, 10.04.2008I have no doubts in saying that none of the statements that were made public, in the official case files, contains anything that matches the above citation.There is only one possible source for the above mentioned ‘statement’, which seems to be a complete fabrication, based on facts that had only been superficially mentioned the day before, in Leicester, and 11 months earlier, in Portimão.The very same source that, despite feigning for the PJ its availability to take part in the upcoming reconstruction, which was to take place in May, had absolutely no interest in its fulfilment – and didn’t bother to conceal the fact, either:“Portuguese detectives want the McCanns to go to the Algarve for a reconstruction but the couple’s lawyers are concerned about being summoned back to Portugal.” in The Telegraph, on 10.04.2008The friends would ultimately be responsible for the reconstruction flop, as one after another, they informed the PJ that they would not be attending. Nobody can actually state that the McCann couple refused to attend the reconstruction; merely that the re-enactment would have been incomplete without the presence of their friends. And how terribly that is true.So, did Madeleine McCann cry for her daddy on Tuesday night, for over an hour? Did she cry on Wednesday? Did she cry at all?I suppose that, like so many other details in this case, this question will have to remain a matter of personal opinion, rather than fact. Whom we choose to believe has made an enormous difference in the manner how we individually perceive the Maddie case.What I don’t think anyone can refute is the fact that the manner in which this story was broken to the public – once again, involving Spanish ‘resources’ at a time when Método 3 was still employed by the McCanns, thus placing the source of the ‘leak’ conveniently outside the PJ’s jurisdiction – was actually a rather clumsy attempt to turn a negative fact that would, sooner or later, become public anyway, into something that would ‘work’ in favour of the McCanns, painting them as victims of a conniving Polícia Judiciária.After all, the PJ had taken all sorts of ridicule and abuse, lying down, for almost a year.But what it did, was to reinforce my personal belief that Mr Mitchell is capable of anything, including lying, manipulating and scheming against the legitimate police force of a sovereign country, to defend his clients’ image. Because according to the data that is publicly available, that is precisely what he did, in this case.I’m haunted by the sound of a crying child, tonight.
Read more: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/08/crying-incident.html#ixzz0Oy8SafnW Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
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Unfortunately some of the links are to the really good stuff that is on 3As, such as translations from the process files etc which is currently unavailable. Let us hope it is soon back up and running, with a clean bill of health!
Odd I thought Kate said Madeleine had asked her why she did not come when she and Sean were crying the night before...?
Are we supposed to belive it could not have been Madeleine as even though she was only 3 she was a little adult and was more than capable of looking after 2 year old twins (a job I would find hard at 38 if they woke up crying)...
There is spin for everything I am waiting to hear the reason they were so happy on her 4th Birthday is because the person who took Madeleine had been in contact and said if they did not look like they had won the lottery he would not bring her back...
Spin spin spin it wont help Madeleine but then she is no longer the victim is she...
Hi all
Viv
Thanks for the interesting article from Astro.
The one thing I will say is Clarence is doing a very good job. How he lives with himself is another matter though, or perhaps he really does believe the garbage that comes out of his mouth and perhaps he has been totally taken in by Kate & Gerry.
Time will tell, because if the McCanns are eventually arrested, I can't wait to see all the backtracking he will have to do.
Hope
Yes, we have it from Kate's own lips that Madeleine said it was Sean and her but cannot remember which interview it was.
I still don't understand why the PJ and LP allowed them to get away with all these discrepancies and complete changes to their original statements, if only they had pushed them further.
Goncalo Amaral to self-publish his book in UK. Joana Morais.
Now this will be interesting, will the T9 try to get it banned?
Hello Di
I cant see how they can get it banned when you can buy books like Mein Kampf in any bookshop...
If he finds it that hard he can always set up his own website to sell it through...
The book gives people who wish too read it the choice of if to buy it or not it will not be forced on anyone who is not intrested.
xxx
Hiya Di and Hope
The interview where Kate was specifically talking about the children waking up crying the night before was the one where is in the cream twinset for the first anniversary "do" on British TV.
I cannot specifically recall but I think she said me and the twins crying, I will have to try and find it later (going out).
That would obviously be different to what they both parrotted out to the police the following day, that it was only the twins. There was obviously a wish to detract from any suggestion that it was Maddie crying on 1 May, not 2 May as they suggest, which I find very sinister.
And yes, Hope, are we to believe she acted as a sensible 3 year old babysitter and just tended to the twins, perhaps got them out of their cots, cuddled them, gave them a drink, changed their nappies and stroked their heads.
This McCann couple are just really dreadful.
I have to say that video where Kate says that and how she "just moved on" and pulled that awful I could not care less face, is one of the things that has annoyed and upset me, most of all. How could she even dream of going on TV to make such a speech, why does she not just hang her head in shame, like any normal parent would at having to admit such a terrible thing, let alone try to excuse it?
As for Goncalo's book, ultimately the jurors who will have to judge the conduct of Kate and Gerry will be British jurors. If he does manage to bring that book here it will most definitely be said that has caused prejudice to their right to a fair trial. I await with interest how British authorities approach this problem. But as you say Hope, not everyone has to buy or read the book. That is their choice.
I think Goncalo needs to accept the law is very different in UK. Police investigations are confidential and if anyone tries to disagree with that, they can be imprisoned under the Official Secrets Act etc.
I am not in the least surprised no publisher will touch his book here. They know they cannot publish a book about an ongoing police investigation.
Hi
If there was an accident then I really dont care if the two of them go to jail for it to be honest the normal me would think they were stupid to have left them alone and what could be worse than the loss of a child to show them how stupid they were. Nothing IMHO could be worse for them than the loss of a child and they have to live with that forever.
As for the book even if it did throw a spanner in the works for a fair trial if there is enough evidence to show that Madeleine died then the fund has been fraudulant and I am sure an investigation into how it has been spent will cause them more grief than loosing their child through an accident...
The thought of a member of my family being paid a large wage to manage a fund to find my missing child makes me sick to the core. it is like watching a family empty a loved ones house of anything that may be valuble in the days after the death of an Auntie or Uncle passed away greedy scum with no feelings...
Madeleine Inc needs to stop the focus should be on searching for her if she is missing what kind of people hire idiots to search for her who dont even check out leads or actualy investigate?
I would say parents who knew their child could come to no more harm would choose people who were not up to the job of searching.
Everything has changed for me since the rogs were published I cant believe any of them Hated Madeleine so much and did not think her life was worth anything. Because everything they have done would have pushed her futher away and put her in greater danger. The McCann's may be crap parents but I dont belive they are so evil as to leave her to rot if there was a slight chance she could be found.
Kent Police explain the law very simply:
Information about police investigations Confidentiality
Police investigations are conducted with regard to the confidentiality and privacy of victims, witnesses and suspects.
Investigations may also frequently involve the use of policing tactics or techniques that, if widely known, would hinder the ability of the police to prevent and detect crime.
The release of information concerning current investigations may compromise any subsequent court proceedings.
For these reasons the police service will, in most cases, seek to apply an exemption to prevent the release of information concerning investigations when requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Public interest
Whilst adopting this general position, there is full recognition that in some cases there will be significant and compelling issues of public interest that require the disclosure of information.
However, to override issues of personal privacy and possible harm to individuals involved in the investigation, this public interest must be significantly more than mere curiosity or interest in a particular investigation.
In order to make sure that these public interest issues are fully considered, all applications for information concerning investigations will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
---
The police in the Maddie case did accept there was a great deal of public interest in this case, but issues such as protecting victims and suspects override any right to further information.
I am sure there is a cost to the taxpayer of protecting Kate and GErry McCann and the activities of Tony Bennett and now it would seem Goncalo Amaral can only keep putting that cost up.
At the end of the day, if people actually want to see this couple put on trial they should stop demanding that the police investigation is open to public debate. The Attorney General herself intervened to make sure Kate and Gerry could not get their hands on the police file against them, people are actually playing into the hands of Kate and Gerry. Who, as we know, see defending themselves before they are even charged as their number one priority.
Hiya Hope
If you read Goncalo's book and watch his documentary, as I have, you can readily see there is nothing in either that would clearly set out to a court exactly what the McCanns did with Maddie. It has to be hard evidence, not police hypotheses. The police develop hypotheses in order to pursue lines of inquiry in a case, but those hypotheses are not evidence in themselves that could stand up in court.
So much of what the McCanns have done is evidence that they are in involved in her disappearance and they have saw fit to tell lies about her disappearance. But it still does not answer the vital question that needs to be answered to form the basis of specific charges. What exactly did they do with her, who did it exactly, where is Madeleine now, why did they do that etc?
There are far too many remaining questions and just not enough answers.
Hope, I think it is very evil if the McCanns did what people assume they did, killed Madeleine is some way and then just callously dumped her body, denying her even the right to a christian and decent burial. This godfearing Kate McCann.
Whatever they did there can be no doubt they have never been the least bit concerned about Madeleine or co-operating with the police. They even issued pictures of her aged 2! Quite simply, they have never wanted that child to be found and they have wasted public money or clowns whose only job is to help them defend themselves. That just is evil.
Mrs Fenn says a child was crying in the McCann apartment on the 1st May 2007. She believed this to be the older McCann child.
The crying stopped when the parents returned home.
On the morning of 3rd May 07 Madeleine allegedly asked her parents why they did not come the previous night when she and the twins were crying.
Mrs Fenn does not report the twins crying on this night, next door in apartment 5B Fiona reports she was in her apartment the evening of 2nd May and heard no crying.
But both parents seem eager to tell that their daughter said they were crying on the night of 2nd May and perhaps more importantly Madeleine was able to report this so at least was alive and well on the morning of 3rd May ’07. Or so we are led to believe.
The question is why the McCanns thought it so important to tell of this alleged incident and took it so seriously they recounted it virtually identically without a single um, ah, er or you know.
I wouldn’t think the McCanns were doing this for nothing - there was a reason.
Either Madeleine was already dead on the morning of 3rd May – which goes against witness statements to the contrary or ……hmm - or to shore up hole in their version of events.
Hi all
Hope
I see what you mean about Amaral publishing his book, I also see Viv's take on it as well.
What I am unsure about is, with Madeleine being a ward of court could the book be blocked because it is not seen to be in Madeleine's best interest?
Totally off topic but just had to say..
Well done England on winning the Ashes :o)))))))))
So…Amaral want to publish the book in GB himself. This is no doubt his answer to the McCanns threat to sue him.
Having published it he would have difficulty in finding a conventional outlet to stock it.
Far simpler to translate it into English then sell and circulate from Portugal via the internet.
Hiya all
With Goncalo I sometimes wonder if he has forgotten what his former job was, it was certainly not to forewarn and forearm criminals and provide them with a get-out clause via The Human Rights Act.
I will always have a problem with people who seem to feel the need to make money out of this case. Even though I have been repeatedly pestered by Google to earn money from advertising on this site, I have refused to allow that. And let's face it with the British media and Goncalo Amaral we are not talking pennies. The money Bennett is making seems to be the other end of the spectrum and no doubt having lost other jobs, he scrapes a living as he sees fit, even if it is in a way that certainly I find quite repugnant.
The British Press are prevented from printing any genuine detail about the serious investigation into this case, but they know they can still make money by continuing to print the bizarre media circus of Kate and Gerry McCann. Sometimes I think that they are doing a public service, most particularly after the latest fiasco even using Posh Spice to grab the headlines, luxury yachts and millionaires etc, because thanks to that even the most gormless Pro McCann has surely been forced to wake up from their reverie and see this couple for precisely what they are.
Sickening criminals, cynically wasting public money to put on a sick media circus to suggest that Maddie was abducted by some stranger. Of course those strangers were mostly paedophiles, and at the same time as we have had this idea foisted upon us, Gerry McCann has repeatedly insisted, "there is absolutely not a scrap of evidence to prove that Madeleine has come to any harm". He told us she may be suffering as in the Frizl or Kampusch case. given Frizl was the father of the children he abused and given Gerry seems to believe Maddie could be still alive and quite well after such an ordeal, it is no wonder people question whether he is a paedophile himself. Only paedophiles, and they are renowned for it, make the audacious suggestion they are not doing children any harm. And then of course we have the evidence of Dr Gaspar about how Gerry and Payne were engaging in the most lurid sexual fantasies about what Madeleine, aged two, may do. Again, imaginary scenarios about lewd conduct with children are exactly what paedophiles engage in, pending the day when they get to do the real thing, rather than just looking at pictures or having sick fantasies.
Wiz, I just cannot help but keep seeing parallels between the conduct of Kate and Gerry on the one hand and on the other, Goncalo Amaral and Tony Bennett. What right do any of them have to foist their theories on anyone?
If people want to know about the Madeleine case, it is plastered all over the internet!
With Kate and Gerry, we get them in our daily papers and every time there is an anniversary event they can utilise we get them on the telly too. Goncalo wants to sell his book in UK even though it can already be read on the internet. Bennett wants to leaflet everyone in the country so that he can "educate" them, but the only thing he states in his leaflet that is actually a fact is the alerts of the dogs. Even in relation to that he cannot tell the truth, he describes them both as scenting cadaver. He describes them as "cadaver dogs" because it is sensational and promotes his messages. At no stage does he stop to explain that Keela actually only finds human blood and Eddie, properly called a victim recovery dog, will also alert to human blood.
Goncalo bases his whole theory on something that is not corroborated evidence at all and I think he has become too embroiled with the McCanns and personalised the issues to the extent he does not sound like a rational police officer. More someone engaged in a war with this couple. And unfortunately he has encouraged Tony Bennett to find another serious case to indulge his own perverse brand of conduct upon.
We are not talking about vigilante action over some road signs, we are talking about the life and death of a little girl, how dare he try to interfere and damage this case.
I have found the video of Kate saying Madeleine and Sean were crying.
link to video
From Times Online
September 21, 2007
Madeleine McCann: the key questions
David Brown and Steve Bird examine the puzzles and mysteries at the heart of the four month investigation
Kate McCann looks at an inflatable poster of missing daughter Madeleine
(Steve Parsons/PA)
Why are the “Tapas 9” key to solving the Madeleine mystery?
The friends are crucial witnesses but have said very little publicly. Police sources have claimed there are inconsistencies in their statements to officers. The friends are Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, Russell O’Brien and his partner Jane Tanner and David and Fiona Payne and her mother Dianne Webster.
Did any of them see anyone taking Madeleine?
Jane Tanner told police that she saw a man walking away from the McCanns’ apartment at 9.15pm. Sources close to the couple have previously said that the man had a child wrapped in the blanket and was walking in a southerly direction. However, the London Evening Standard reported yesterday that Ms Tanner had seen man carrying a girl dressed in Madeleine’s distinctive pink-and-white pyjamas walking eastwards, towards the house of the official suspect Robert Murat, 33.
Madeleine McCann: the key questions
Why are the "Tapas 9" key to solving the Madeleine mystery?
Related Internet Links
Do police believe this was a man abducting Madeleine?
Detectives refused to publicise the sighting for three weeks. Another witness, Jeremy Wilkins, is reported to have told police that he was in the area talking to Mr McCann and did not see the mystery man.
Did anyone else in the Tapas 9 notice anything strange?
Matthew Oldfield said he had checked on the McCanns’ apartment at 9.30pm. A source close to the McCanns had said he did not look into the bedroom where Madeleine was sleeping with the two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie. But the Evening Standard report claimed he saw the twins but did not have a view of Madeleine’s bed.
Was there anything strange about the room after Madeleine disappeared?
Mrs McCann was sure Madeleine had been abducted because the bedroom window was open and the security shutter was forced open, a source close to the family has insisted. Tests on the shutter showed no sign of forced entry. However, another friend claimed yesterday that the shutter had been left open.
When will the Portuguese courts decide what to do in the Madeleine case?
Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, a criminal instructional judge in Portimão, has decided that there is no need for the McCanns to be reinterviewed at this point, hence the prosecutor’s statement last night. The threat of them having to return to the Algarve in the near future has been lifted. The judge must complete his rulings by today on a variety of issues. It is believed that he has already authorised the use of Mrs McCann’s diaries as evidence.
Could the couple still be charged soon?
Unlikely. LuÍs Armando Bilro Verão, the lead public prosecutor, must now decide if there is sufficient evidence to bring charges against them, if he needs to request the PolÍcia Judiciária to carry out further investigations or if the case against them should be dropped.
Why is it all taking so long?
Portuguese detectives are still waiting for the results of tests on samples being carried out by the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham. They are also believed to want to carry out further searches in the Algarve and possibly at the McCanns’ home.
So how long will the McCanns have to wait?
The couple can remain as arguidos, or official suspects, for eight months before the Portuguese police have to apply for a four-month extension. After this time they automatically cease to be suspects, but there is no requirement for the prosecutor to clear them formally.
Robert Murat, a British self-employed property consultant on the Algarve and the only other official suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, has been an arguido for four months.
Why has there been so much confusion?
Portugal’s strict laws of judicial secrecy mean that nobody involved in a criminal investigation is allowed to reveal any of the evidence in the case. However, Portuguese police sources are regularly quoted giving incriminating details about the McCanns’ role in their daughter’s disappearance. Friends of the couple have increasingly been attempting to challenge these reports with their own interpretation of events. Both sides are actually breaking the law and could face up to two years in jail.
Who is who in Team McCann
Clarence Mitchell
Former BBC journalist appointed on Monday as Kate and Gerry McCann’s official spokesman. Represented them in May and June after being sent to Praia da Luz by the Foreign and Commonwealth Offic
Michael Caplan, QC
One of few solicitors to be appointed QC, expert in extradition and international criminal law. Prevented extradition to Spain of former Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet
Angus McBride
Leading criminal solicitor with expertise in dealing with media and protecting reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation
Carlos Pinto de Abreu
One of Portugal’s best-known lawyers with reputation for taking on controversial cases. Lodged McCanns’ libel action against Portuguese newspaper which said they were police suspects
Esther McVey
Former GMTV presenter and Conservative parliamentary candidate, trustee and spokeswoman for Madeleine Fund. Has known Mrs McCann since they did their A levels together
Father Haynes Hubbard
Anglican priest at church of Nossa Senhora da Luz (Our Lady of the Light) in Praia da Luz and his wife, Susan, have become close friends and confidants of McCanns
Calum MacRae
18-year-old internet expert runs Find Madeleine website which has attracted more than 400,000 unique users and helped to raise more than £1 million in donations for campaign
Philomena McCann
Mr McCann’s sister, a headteacher, has been key family member to publicise hunt for Madeleine and to defend her parents
Trish and Sandy Cameron
Mr McCann’s sister and brother-in-law have been frequent visitors to the couple in Praia da Luz and Rothley. About 30 other relatives and friends also visited them in Praia da Luz
Why are the McCann’s early television interviews being scrutinised?
Commentators have seized on the lack of emotion shown by Kate and Gerry McCann during a series of televised statements and interviews in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance. It is claimed that this was an unnatural response and indicated that the couple were hiding something. In fact, criminal profilers had advised them to display no overt emotion in case Madeleine’s abductor “got off" on the sight of her parents in obvious distress. Off camera, they were deeply distressed and received help from counsellors.
How can the police establish Mrs McCann’s state of mind?
Prosecutors are reported to want access to Mrs McCann’s medical records to see if there is any history of illness such as depression which could explain why she would kill Madeleine. They are also said to want British police to carry out investigations into the couple’s relationship and personal history.
Could Mrs McCann’s handwriting be used as evidence?
A judge has authorised police to seize Mrs McCann’s diary and detectives want a graphologist to study the handwriting, it was reported yesterday. Alberto Vaz da Silva, a criminal psychologist and a handwriting expert, told the newspaper 24 Horas: “It would be possible to discover the temper and the character of the person in question. You can see if someone is lying or hiding something.” However, handwriting evidence is usually used only for forensic science purposes, not to determine a person’s emotional state.
Why could Mrs McCann’s newspaper interview lead to jail?
Mrs McCann could be prosecuted under Portugal’s laws of judicial secrecy for telling the Sunday Mirror that police had seized her bible. She said: “One of the pieces of evidence is that a page from a passage in Samuel about having to tell a man his child is dead is crumpled - so I must have been reading it.” The 24 Horas newspaper said that the public prosecutor could accuse Mrs McCann of breaking the secrecy law, which carries a maximum two years' jail sentence. Varradas Leitao, a member of the Superior Council of the Ministerial Publico, said: “A witness or an arguida, the law is the same for everybody. You cannot divulge procedural acts.”
What are the police doing to find Madeleine or her body?
Portuguese police are reported to be preparing for a new series of searches using sniffer dogs and infra-red equipment in an area between Praia da Luz and the village of Burgau, about two miles to the west. It has also been suggested that they will search the church in Praia da Luz and the town of Arao, where a big operation was carried out after an anonymous tip-off to a Dutch newspaper.
Who is advising Kate and Gerry McCann?
British lawyers Michael Caplan, QC, an expert in international law, and Angus McBride, a solicitor who specialises in protecting the reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation. They have also hired a Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, who filed the libel action against a newspaper which said the police suspected them of involvement in their daughter’s death.
How can the couple win the battle of public opinion?
Clarence Mitchell, 46, has been appointed as their official spokesman. He resigned yesterday as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring Unit and had previously been seconded to the Foreign Office to help the McCanns in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance.
What can Mr Mitchell do to help the McCanns?
His job at the Cabinet Office has given him contacts among senior members of the Government and Civil Service. He also has extensive contacts with journalists in both Britain and Portugal and more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter.
Are the McCanns paying for his services?
No. He has been employed by one of their wealthy backers and will continue to work for that person after the Madeleine case is over.
What action will the police take this week?
Portuguese detectives are due to arrive in Leicester to work with a British police team investigating Madeleine’s disappearance. It has been reported that Kate McCann could be interviewed again this week. A Portuguese judge must decide by Thursday whether to approve requests by Portuguese police to secure more evidence.
Who’s advising British police on the case?
Tony Connell, a member of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special casework unit, has been advising the “Gold Group” of senior detectives at Leicestershire Police, which is investigating the Madeleine case. Mr Connell led the review which led to the conviction of Damilola Taylor’s killers.
Could the McCanns be prosecuted in Britain?
It is possible to prosecute a British citizen for a murder or manslaughter abroad under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. This was last done in 2005 when Christopher Newman was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of murdering Georgina Eager in Dublin.
Can the public support Kate and Gerry McCann’s legal battle?
A fighting fund to help to pay their legal costs is expected to be announced within the next few days. A source close to the family told The Times: “It will be getting set up and formalised as a proper fund. It has to be meticulously thought through.”
Why is the McCanns’ hire car pivotal to the investigation?
Portuguese police claim they have found traces of Madeleine’s hair and bodily fluid in the boot of the Renault Scenic, indicating that it was used to transport Madeleine’s body after her death. Scientists have said that it should be possible to establish whether the hair came from a dead or living person.
Does this mean the scientific results hold the key to the case?
Not necessarily. Kate and Gerry McCann used the Budget rental car to move apartments, taking with them all their children’s toys and clothing, which would have contained large amounts of genetic material. It was also used by friends, relatives and people who worked on the campaign to find their daughter.
Where is the car now?
When the McCanns left Britain they drove the car to the airport. They have since said they will hold on to the vehicle to get their own independent scientific examinations done.
Under what circumstances was the car searched?
Police seized the car last month and took it to an underground car park opposite their offices in Portimão. Police sources say this is an unusual place to carry out such a delicate search.
Is there any other explanation about how the material could have got there?
If the DNA samples did come from Madeleine’s corpse it would seem an amazing coincidence that the McCanns hired a car used by their daughter’s abductor and killer. However, friends of the McCanns claim that the couple are being framed. It has also been suggested that the samples may have been labelled incorrectly.
Why do Portuguese police want to read Kate McCann’s personal diaries?
Detectives want to check for inconsistencies with the information previously given to police and for clues about the personal relationship between Mrs McCann, her husband and other members of the party who went with them to Portugal. Mrs McCann was seen regularly writing several pages a day in the diaries.
What evidence could be held on Gerry McCann’s laptop computer?
Mr McCann sent and received dozens of e-mails almost every day from friends and people involved in the campaign to find his daughter. It may be possible to retrieve those e-mails, which detectives hope could provide information about the events surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance and the couple’s connections with other people.
Why does a Portuguese judge need to authorise the seizure?
Portuguese police must get an authorisation from a judge to request items which are abroad or to retain items taken without the owner’s permission. Mr and Mrs McCann are believed to have taken most of the objects home to Britain. There are also reports in Portugal that police seized a copy of Mrs McCann’s diaries before the couple left the country to ensure they could not be destroyed. A judge must be asked to authorise a seizure without the owner’s consent within 24 hours.
Why didn’t the Portuguese police seize these items in Praia da Luz?
It may be that the items left Portugal some time ago when Mr or Mrs McCann made previous trips to Britain, or a friend may have taken them. The couple left the Algarve on Sunday morning at very short notice. They notified the Portuguese authorities but perhaps police did not have the opportunity to ask a judge to authorise the seizure of items without the couple’s consent.
Has the judge been asked to authorise any other seizures?
Portuguese papers reported yesterday that officers wanted to obtain Madeleine’s favourite soft toy, which Mrs McCann took home. It is also claimed that police seized the Renault hired by the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The car contained samples of the girl’s hair and “bodily fluids”.
What else has the judge been asked to do?
It has been reported that detectives want to search the church in Praia da Luz where the couple regularly prayed after Madeleine disappeared. They would only require an order from the judge if the priest or bishop in charge refused to authorise the search. It has also been suggested that police want to search a cemetery beside the church and to excavate roads where sewers were being replaced at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Who is revealing details about scientific evidence?
By law Portuguese police are prevented from revealing details of investigations. However, some officers have been secretly briefing Portuguese journalists.
Just look at the stiffled smirk on Gerry's face after Kate says she would have liked to get hold of Madeleine and ask her "what do you mean" .....
What scientific evidence have police collected?
In a briefings on Monday night detectives said that they found traces of “bodily fluids” in the car which had probably come from Madeleine with a large amount of Madeleine’s hair in the boot of the car.
Why are the “bodily fluids” significant?
When pathologists refer to bodily fluids they usually mean the putrefying substance created during the decomposition of a body tissue and blood. This “fluid” is evidence that a corpse has been present, but DNA samples are required to identify the body. It is unclear what “fluids” have been found. It might be traces of urine, dried blood or vomit, which would not conclusively prove Madeleine had died.
Does a large quantity of hair prove that Madeleine’s body was in the car?
No. The hair must show evidence that it came from a decomposing body. Other hair could be “transmitted” from items of Madeleine’s clothing and belongings.
Is anyone else confirming these reports?
Sources in Britain who are assisting the Portuguese investigation have agreed that there is “significant” scientific evidence linking Mr and Mrs McCann to their daughter’s death. However, Portuguese officers took the highly unusual step of publicly denying a report which was allegedly based on sources in Britain.
Does the scientific evidence prove that Madeleine was killed?
Because the samples have degraded over time the scientists can never be 100 per cent certain that they came from Madeleine.
What happened in the four hours before Madeleine was reported missing?
Kate and Gerry McCann claim that while they dined at a restaurant with friends regular checks were made on Madeleine and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, at their nearby holiday apartment. Mr McCann told police he saw his daughter asleep at about 9pm. A friend, Matthew Oldfield, entered the apartment at about 9.30pm but did not look in the bedroom Madeleine and the twins were sharing.
It is not known if anyone apart from Mr and Mrs McCann saw Madeleine alive between 6pm and 10pm, when she was reported missing by her mother. The timing is crucial but would be only circumstantial evidence in any prosecution. Although a small child could be killed quickly it would take time to hide a body so that it was not discovered in the biggest search in Portuguese history.
Why did Kate McCann cry out “They’ve taken her?” when she discovered Madeleine missing?
Portuguese police are reported to find it suspicious that Mrs McCann immediately believed that more than one person had taken her daughter. This could suggest that she knew who had taken Madeleine, perhaps people who thought they were helping Mrs McCann by removing her daughter’s body.
Alternatively, it could be an off-the-cuff remark by an hysterical mother or perhaps was misheard or misunderstood in the confusion of the night.
What were the movements of the McCann’s friends on the night Madeleine disappeared?
The McCann family had stayed at the Ocean Club resort with three other British couples and their five children, and a single woman. Russell O’Brien, a doctor from Exeter, left the restaurant for half an hour to look after his own daughter, returning shortly before Madeleine was reported missing.
His wife, Jane Tanner, was the only witness to report a man carrying away child from the McCann’s apartments. There is confusion about when members of the party arrived at the tapas restaurant and left to check on their own sleeping children.
How much alcohol did the McCanns and their friends drink on the evening Madeleine disappeared?
Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends are reported to have told detectives they shared four bottles of wine, with another two barely touched before Madeleine was discovered missing.
However, it is claimed detectives have recovered a bill showing they downed eight bottles of red wine and six white during the afternoon and evening.
Why was Madeleine’s bedroom window and shutter open?
Kate and Gerry McCann told police that the window shutter in Madeleine’s bedroom, which could not been seen from the restaurant, had been forced open.
Police tests showed the heavy metal shutter had not been forced up from the outside, so must have been pulled open from inside the room. Assuming that the abductor entered through the apartment’s unlocked patio windows, why would he or she not leave by the same way or the use the front door?
Or was the window opened to make it appear as if an intruder had used it to enter the bedroom?
Why did Madeleine’s sister and brother sleep through her “abduction”?
Sean and Amelie were heavy sleepers who were not disturbed by their sister’s abduction, claim their parents. However, they also slept through their mother’s hysterical response to Madeleine’s disappearance and the presence of dozens of people who joined the search before being carried out by a female police officer. Kate and Gerry McCann have strenuously denied sedating their daughter.
Why were the McCanns allowed to leave Portugal if they are suspects?
The Portuguese authorities allowed the McCanns to return to the UK after they agreed to reside only at their home in Rothley and to return for further questioning if necessary.
Portuguese law states that after someone is declared a suspect, police have eight months to conclude the investigation into that individual. If they require further time officers can apply to the courts for a four-month extension.
If the McCanns refused to comply with a request to return to the Algarve for interview, Portuguese police could issue a European Arrest Warrant under which extradition can be carried out within six weeks.
Why has it taken so long to find the evidence that could implicate Kate and Gerry McCann?
The material was only collected at the end of July and early August in a review of the investigation carried out by Portuguese detectives with the help of British police and two sniffer dogs. Many of the samples are very small, containing just a few cells, while others are of poor quality because of damage by cleaning or simply the passing of time.
A full report of the findings will not be ready for weeks, but many results have already been passed to the Portuguese authorities.
What evidence were police looking for?
Detectives are searching for any evidence that proves Madeleine is dead or contradicts the accounts of Mr and Mrs McCann and other witnesses.
What is the most important forensic evidence?
It appears the Forensic Science Service believes it has discovered compelling new evidence, possibly from more than one source. Portuguese detectives told Mrs McCann repeatedly that they found traces of Madeleine’s blood in a Renault Scenic hired three weeks after she disappeared, suggesting that the missing girl’s parents used the vehicle to carry her body. It is possible to tell if the blood came from a living person or from a corpse, and even the time of death. However, some reports suggest that the quality of the blood sample was too poor to confirm the origin while others have denied any blood was found in the vehicle and claim it was other “bodily fluids”. Unless a body had been placed in a freezer, it would have badly decomposed during the warm weather; leaving a mass of traces invisible to the human eye.
Does any trace of Madeleine in the hire car prove she was killed?
No. Mr and Mrs McCann hired the car to buy new clothes in the town of Portimão a day before they flew to Rome to see Pope Benedict XVI. They then used it regularly for family outings and to collect friends and relatives from Faro airport. They continued using the car until shortly before flying home yesterday. Kate and Gerry and their two-year-old twins would have often carried in the car items used by Madeleine. These items could easily certainly carry Madeleine’s hair and minute traces of skin, dried blood, saliva and vomit. The same could be said of the holiday apartments used by the McCanns and their friends in the Ocean Club resort. However, if the blood came from Madeleine’s corpse the only other highly unlikely explanation would be that a previous hirer had moved the body.
One report suggested yesterday that Madeleine’s DNA had been found on the floor of the McCanns holiday apartment, but because of degredation it was based on an incomplete picture, with only 15 of the 20 genetic markers usually used for such analysis.
What is the DNA evidence that has supposedly been found by the Portuguese investigators?
Newspapers in Portugal have been reporting that “biological fluids” with an 80 per cent match to Madeleine’s DNA have been found underneath upholstery in the boot of the McCanns’ rented Renault Scenic. Some media reports claimed that another DNA sample with a 100 per cent match to that of Madeleine’s profile had been found in the car.
What would this tell us?
Perhaps nothing. If it was sourced from something such as a hair follicle or skin cells then that could have been one of Madeleine’s hairs that had stuck to the clothes of a family member or her “cuddle cat” toy that her mother carries. If it was from Madeleine’s blood or corpse, that could be more significant. The most important issue is the size of the sample found. If there was a substantial amount of material it is unlikely to be from accidental contamination and would indicate that Madeleine had been in the car.
Can investigators establish if the DNA sample comes from someone who was alive or dead?
Unlikely, according to British experts. A DNA profile does not change just because someone dies. You can tell if DNA has degraded but that can happen if, for example, it had been exposed to sunshine.
Does an 80 per cent match with biological fluids indicate that Madeleine was definitely in the car?
No. The sample will have been tested against a definite sample of Madeleine’s. A 80 per cent match indicates that profilers could find only 16 of the 20 markers usually used for such analysis and suggests that the biological traces are tiny and degraded. Additionally, the twins Sean and Amelie could share a high percentage of DNA characteristics as most siblings do.
What complicates the matter further is that all three of the McCanns’ children were born through IVF and it is unknown whether the couple’s sperm and eggs were used for conception.
What about the discoveries of the “cadaver” sniffer dog?
Mr and Mrs McCann were shown a police video of a sniffer dog used to find corpses “going crazy” when it approached the hire car. Reports also claim that is discovered the scent on the vehicle’s key fob. Mrs McCann is reported to have explained that in her work as locum GP she came into contact with six corpses in the weeks leading up to Algarve holiday.
This seems a high number for a locum GP working just a couple of days a week but would be easy to check against surgery records.
The crucial difficulty with the sniffer dog “evidence” is that it cannot distinguish between corpses. This type of dog is trained to find bodies, not identify where dead bodies have been. Crucially, they can become excited by other scents.
Any evidence of Madeleine’s death on Cuddle Cat?
The cadaver dog is alleged to have become excited when shown Madeleine’s favourite soft pink toy, called Cuddle Cat. The cat had become poignant symbol of a mother’s loss as Kate McCann carried it with her at all time from the night of Madeleine’s disappearance.
She washed it four days after the police tests, claiming it had become dirty. The toy was potentially crucial evidence and should have been seized by police very early in the investigation.
What evidence can be found in Mrs McCann’s Bible?
Mrs McCann, a devout Roman Catholic, claims that police told her that a crumpled page in her Bible was evidence that she was involved in the death of her daughter. The page contained a passage from Samuel II, chapter 12, verses 15-19, which recalls how man’s child is stricken with illness after he “scorns” the Lord.
The man fasts for seven days, refusing to get up off the ground, to try to gain redemption — but eventually his child dies. Mrs McCann claims that detectives told her that damage to the page proved she had been reading it.
Why are the McCanns suspects in their daughter’s killing?
Portuguese police refuse to say why the couple have been made official suspects. Under Portuguese law police can not question someone as if they had committed a crime unless they are a “suspect”. It could simply be that police wanted to ask the couple about the evidence they had collected, and that the seriousness of the process has been misunderstood and exaggerated by cultural and language differences. The McCanns believed that they were about to be charged with Madeleine’s death, but it does not appear police disclosed any crucial evidence to them.
All parties have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
When we have such massive and detailed reports in the British press about the case against Kate and Gerry McCann what is it that people think they can now educate the public with?
Note it also confirms that of course British Police can prosecute Kate and Gerry.
Di, thanks very much for the link to The Sun which helpfully also provides a transcript. As we can see from the extract below we have hard evidence of the McCanns directly contradicting themselves.
The following day 4.5.07 they both indicate to the police that the twins, not Madeleine were crying the night before, but here on TV Kate tells us it was Madeleine and Sean.
Kate McCann: Well, I... I can't remember if we'd just had breakfast, it was rou... it was, sort of, fairly early in the morning and she just very casually, really, said: (mimics Madeleine's voice) 'Where were you last night, when me and Sean cried?' and we immediately looked and said, you know: 'When was this, Madeleine? Was this when you were going to sleep?' and she didn't answer and then she just carried on playing, totally undistressed.
Q: But did she tell you off when she was saying it?
Kate McCann: No. It was a passing remark, you know, and...
Gerry McCann: Madeleine's very articulate and, errr... for her age, and, errm... you know, it's unlike her, if she's got something to say, to drop it. She just did... literally, dropped it, errm... and we both, kind of, looked at each other and said: 'Was it when we had just put them down?'
Kate McCann: We obviously told the police because we thought 'does this indicate that someone's been round the night before?' and that's what's woken her up; which is significant, you know... you know, I've... you know, I've persecuted myself over and over again about that statement because you think 'Why didn't I, kind of, just hold her and say 'What d'you mean? What d'you mean?,' you know, 'What d'you mean you woke up?,' you know, and, kind of... but, you don't think that. I mean, it's easy saying that after what's happened...
Stiffled, where did that come from, I obviously meant stifled.
Kate McCann: We obviously told the police because we thought 'does this indicate that someone's been round the night before?'
But when you look at the statements the McCanns gave to the police the following day it was clearly not so obvious because they never mentioned the reason they were saying this at all.
They had a year to sit and think about what they were going to say on TV and presumably did not reckon on us being able to actually read that police statement!
Hi Viv
I also think the gathering in the Rothley Hotel helped very much to get their future statements and press releases in order.
Di said: Just look at the stiffled smirk on Gerry's face after Kate says she would have liked to get hold of Madeleine and ask her "what do you mean" .....
Di, I quite like stiffled:-)) Maybe the McCanns will bring new words to the dictionary..
There is something repugnant about the way that Gerry can repeatedly be seen on TV doing those stiffled smirks, it has always suggested to me that he finds this all rather funny and there is only one type of personality that could see humour in such deception and on such a tragic subject.
Hiya Di
Well yes, there have been some leaks into the British Press that have been very embarassing for Kate and Gerry McCann, calling for all the skills of the Pink One to try and put a better gloss on it. Yes, it was just a nice get together.
Funny then, we did not hear of them all having a nice little holiday together again. I think the reality is the rest of the TAPAS stay as far away from the McCanns as possible and only grudgingly agree to have any contact with them when it is necessary to put on a show to cover their own backs.
I am sure that apparent conversation Kate was having with Jane on Cutting Edge was very important to Kate, that it should be on Cutting Edge. But in reality do we think these two are bosom pals, I really don't think so!
I can forgive your husband getting me branded across the world as a liar and a fantasist, it was all for a worthwhile cause!
Hi Viv
Gerry just can't help himself.
Off now.
See you tomorrow x
Night Di
See you tomorrow xxx
Di, there is a really shocking video compilation of the McCanns - their behaviour on Youtube.
At 4 mins 30 seconds, Kate talks about the crying incident, and does that sickening flounce, "she moved on". Where Kate, to her grave?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEftwIgA5Qw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emccannfiles%2Ecom%2Fid242%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded#t=310
One more quote from Kate McCann:
"Speculation is quite damaging, we realised that early on"
Maybe that was why they immediately employed "Control Risks Group"
I was reading Bren's blog and she posted a link to this massive blog where all the 3 As posters have moved in.
There is even a thread Viv's articles:-))) (but some of them are not actually written by me!)
http://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/blog-articles-opinions-from-anti-s-f17/blog-articles-opinions-from-anti-s-f17.htm
It seems a pleasant place where nasty comments are not allowed and many posters who had chosen to leave 3 As are also there. So it is like a drawing together, a kind of healing process.
Correia de Manha 16.8.09
August 16, 2009 - 00h30
England: Maddie's parents feel threatened and asked for police protection
Leaflets accusers scare McCann
Gerry and Kate McCann asked for police protection after being distributed on Friday, the people of Rothley, England, where they live, leaflets with arguments that lead to the guilt of both the disappearance of Maddie, the May 3, 2007, in Praia da Luz, Lagos.
'What really happened to Maddie McCann? - Ten key reasons that suggest that she was not kidnapped. " This is the title of the 500 leaflets were distributed by the mailboxes of several homes by elements of the Madeleine Foundation. Interestingly, this has not happened at the home of Kate and Gerry. The brochure points out ten reasons and justifies them with some facts.
THE TEN REASONS
1 - Majority of children abducted from home is already dead
2 - Sniffer dogs detected cadaver odor in the apartment
3 - The reactions of strange bed after the discoveries of dogs
4 - Lack of a kidnapper entered into home
5 - Refusal of the McCann and friends to help the police
6 - Amendment of the version of history by the McCanns and friends
7 - McCann rushing to get lawyers and spokespersons
8 - Reaction of strange friends after Kate announced abduction
9 - McCann made plans to mark the future disappearance
10 - Gerry and Kate washed the doll who always carried Maddie
"We are peaceful people, we do not harm anyone, we just want to pass our message. I do not understand why the McCanns were police assistance," said the head of the foundation, Anthony Bennett, in telephone conversation with the CM.
The lawyer, who has long struggle for existence of a private investigation to the case, justified the creation of this measure. "At the end of last year we launched the book '60 reasons why Madeleine was not abducted ', have already sold 3000 copies, and now wanted to make a short version and pass it to the population. The majority of English does not quite know what happened that night, but many believe that Kate and Gerry are not telling the whole truth, "Bennett said, explaining that the distribution of leaflets began in May, in places such as London, Devon, South Wales, Nottingham and Leicester. "Basically, we agree with the arguments presented by the investigator Goncalo Amaral."
A McCann family friend told the British press that this leaflet is just "a nasty blow." "It's terrible Gerry and Kate know that their neighbors are reading lies. The family is suffering and you feel cheated because nothing in these booklets will help find Maddie."
Just watched the video and would firstly like to say NO I do not get some kind of kick out of being nasty and after watching that attempt to imply that the reason Madeleine may have been crying is because the Abductor may have been there the night before is another reason I dont belive them.
Madeleine and Sean were probebly crying because they woke up and called for their parents. And got the same response from ever other night of their holiday total silence as they were not there to comfort them.
So I am a nasty blogger I can live with that as the opinion of me from a Mother who neglects her children counts for nothing what does it make Kate a nasty Mother who is only thinking of covering her own back?
Why dosent she go back to PDL and answer 48 very simple questions for Madeleine what kind of Mother refuses to help her missing child by playing games with her life and spining it away to save her own neck?
The interview shows just how lacking they are as parents children wake up and cry all the time. Monsters in cupboards, shaddows on walls to be left alone to deal with it in a strange apartment in the dark must have been terifying.
Mrs Fenn said Madeleine cried for 1 hour and 45 minutes where were they I thought you were checking every 15 minutes (well they were on the night she vanished)????
When the truth finaly comes out people will be devestated.
To be honest I would be amazed now if Madeleine had been taken because the campaign of spin silence and diversion will have put her in so much more danger and I cant belive they are so evil they would do that.
What kind of parents dont ask to have a case reopend if there is a chance it may help find their child? Who hires a fraud investigation firm or detectives who dont detect if Madeleine is really findable?
To get so excited over a 2 year old lead yet dismiss a sighting that at the time had the world holding it's breath is very strange but then everything they have done has been.
Not serching for a 3 year old because it is too dark is also a cold uncaring statement to make then everything they have done since deciding to neglect their children for a night in a bar has been uncaring.
I still wonder if the children were neglected as they say they were every night and it chills me to the core to think it may have been a better cover than what really happend. If they were all in one room and Madeleine was crying for so long what was happening to her?
The information about all the children sleeping in the same room confused me but by god if one of you was babysitting every night and it can be proved throws the abduction story right out the window. So why is it so important not to dwell on that question?
Poor Madeleine they want the world to believe they are searching for her and one day she may be found. But when a Mother wont answer questions and spin is more important than searching it would be pure evil to play games with her life in this way..
Hi All,
Just thinking out loud at the moment.
The Portuguese prosecutor’s office has shelved the case and stated that they believe Madeleine died in apartment 5A and her body concealed.
A fact that the British Press and the McCann’s do not mention.
The damage limitation exercise by the McCann’s team to this is to imply the Portuguese police’s investigation was inept and flawed. Also the pj were/are trying to frame them.
The British press working on the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ principle consistently back up this version.
So realistically where can an official investigation continue?
The fund could be fraudulent but to prove this the police would have to solve exactly what happened to M and who else was involved. Plenty of indications but not concrete evidence.
The Leicestershire Police’s current investigation in all this, if active, would be what? They could have surveillance on the parents/T9 but after all this time the cost would be prohibitive.
We can only assume there is something we do not know about that is still being investigated. We can but hope!
Hi Wiz
Never mind the fund being fraudulant it is being run by idiots...
The money has been wasted on two detective agencies who were not up to the job of searching and the rest has been wasted on wages spin dr's and lawyers...
If we forget about the McCann's ever being prosecuted they look as guilty as hell...
The last thing Madeleine needs are lawyers, spin dr's and her fund should be run by voulunteers not paying out to members of the family who have done such a terrible job with the money.
If you look at the fund as a good campaign to keep Kate and Gerry from being investigated it has done a wonderful job.
But what parent would mind being investigated if the only thing they did wrong was to neglect their children allowing an abduction in the first place?
The fund was raised for Madeleine people wanted to bring her home. Yellow ribbons were over every pillar in our town centre and in every town centre in England and beyond. The only people who dont seem to want to bring Madeleine home are her parents and the funds directors.
That may sound cruel but as a director trying to find a missing child you would surley hire people who could help who had experience of peadophile rings and children not a fraud investigation firm and Laurel and Hardy who never even followed up the hot tip they had about Posh Jeans before going live with a press confrence (they had 6 weeks to do this and nothing?)...
A Mother who refuses to answer questions for her missing child is not natural either.
How any of these people sleep at night is beyond me if there was a tiny chance Madeleine could be found they have made sure with their lack of care she wont be. people are not stupid and one by one are realising it has all been a huge game to stop the truth comming out.
I dont agree with the leaflet drop IMHO it has just given them a better victim status but I doubt there are many people who recieved one that actually belived their story in the first place.
It is about time Madeleine was seen as the victim of a vile crime whatever that crime was and if England is really bothered about children an investigation into the 9 adults on that holiday should be carried out.
Oprah did not bring the funds rolling in as they expected and she is not a stupid woman and I still belive she made them squirm and got them to say things that one day may come back to haunt them.
Hope some great posts with interesting thoughts as ever.
I still believe Payne and O'Brien have a great deal to do with this, along with Gerry of course.
Paynes are adamant they never left the table to check their children because they had this baby monitor. And yet, Gerry clearly states that Payne did make a check on his children. Diane Webster also was clear that each couple was responsible for checking their own children and yet we have them all clearly trying to assert they were checking on each other's children, particulary in relation to that fateful night.
I just have this awful feeling that Russell was only too happy to be one of those poor souls who was only too happy to forego his evening pleasures, apparently, so that he could be a babysitter. And I keep coming back to the undisputed facts, that Madeleine cried for one hour and fifteen minutes on Tuesday 1 May and Russell completely missed his meal that night. On 3 May it also seems pretty clear that Russell was again missing for much of the night, again claiming his children were "ill". But on this occasion he did not choose to just give up his time at the TAPAS he managed to get back at 10 pm, apparently, just after Maddie had been removed from that apartment.
So it seems to me pretty clear that Russell is involved in what happened, Gerry claims that Payne did a check, the Paynes are adamant he never left the table.
So I have to ask myself what is it that could see both of these two involved but the group do not want to do a reconstruction and Kate simply refuses to answer police questions. It is something terrible they will not talk about.
I am afraid I still come back to the same conclusion. Maddie was abused and maybe murdered or she was abused and removed to prevent that from being detected. Kate and Gerry knew exactly what was happening to her and they know exactly where she went.
I am going to continue to say this case is incredibly serious and there is just no way it is as simple as some would have us believe, and there is just no way, British Police are not continuing to try and resolve this case.
Wiz,
I am going to have to challenge you and ask you to make accurate posts, stating exactly what the Pt Prosecutor said, rather than what you wanted him to say to fit your theory:
He did NOT say:
The Portuguese prosecutor’s office has shelved the case and stated that they believe Madeleine died in apartment 5A and her body concealed.
He said what is clearly quoted on the top of this blog because it is so important:
PORTUGUESE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR: "No element of proof was found... as to the circumstances in which the child was taken from the apartment (whether alive, whether dead, whether the victim of negligent homicide or wilful homicide, whether the victim of kidnap-to-order or an opportunistic kidnap). "We can't even make a consistent prognosis of her fate, including... whether she is alive or dead."
He went on to add that she is more than likely dead, which I am afraid fits my theory, not your own. This case, I am afraid, is worse than people think. It is perfectly possible, and that is clearly what the police believe, that when Maddie got removed from there by them, she was still alive, but she had been seriously abused, and she was drugged.
Even Gerry himself has acknowledged that substances were used on the twins.
We have to ask ourselves who is it that uses substances on tiny children? Sex offenders so that they can abuse them and sometimes the child will not even be aware of what has happened to them.
Hope, you say "our" town, do you actually live in the McCanns' area?
This is just brilliant (do these middle class people who can afford half a million pound homes really need Tony Bennett to give them his version of what was far more accurately stated in The Times in September 2007, as above? Intelligent people do not come to definitive conclusions without all the facts, do they? ):
if there was a tiny chance Madeleine could be found they have made sure with their lack of care she wont be. people are not stupid and one by one are realising it has all been a huge game to stop the truth comming out.
I dont agree with the leaflet drop IMHO it has just given them a better victim status but I doubt there are many people who recieved one that actually belived their story in the first place.
It is about time Madeleine was seen as the victim of a vile crime whatever that crime was and if England is really bothered about children an investigation into the 9 adults on that holiday should be carried out.
Oprah did not bring the funds rolling in as they expected and she is not a stupid woman and I still belive she made them squirm and got them to say things that one day may come back to haunt them.
Hi Viv
No I dont live anywhere near the McCann's but our own town centre had yellow ribbons everywhere and people shaking buckets (they could shake as hard as they wanted to even way back then I found something very odd but was not sure exactly what)...
The McCann's may like to belive that all the people who live near by to them are swallowing what they have said 110% but if we are realistic this is not the case.
I never thought for a second I would blog about this case having never blogged before but this is one of the only times that the papers have acted in such an odd way with their reporting of this I really felt there was more to say.
To be imediatly atacked and told what kind of person I was made the alarm bells ring even louder as it was obvious the only thing that was allowed to be said was their version of events.
Since the rogs were released it is obvious most of what we heard way back then was true and Kate especialy had not been helpful at all???
The people who live near by keep the candle burning for Madeleine on the green but they are not stupid and some will have gone on line to read what the evil bloggers are saying and may well have gone away having their worst thoughts confirmed.
If my children were about to go to school with the twins or were already there I would be very quiet about my feelings around other people (well everyone knows I dont belive them now but I dont talk about it much) but if I lived nearby would clam up completly as the Twins dont need people looking at their parents in a funny way it is just not fair.
Behind closed doors I bet it is a very diffrent story people are not so daft that they would belive for one second if there was a chance to find Madeline her Mother would refuse to answer questions for her.
Although I dont talk about it much I only know a couple of people who think she was taken and even they have doubts...
Jack, do you think stalkers like you help the McCanns?
I think it just demonstrates how desperate they are:-))
But there again, suggesting someone as pathetic as you could have anything to do with Team McCann is probably giving you far more credit than you deserve.
You are just a sad stalker who no one wants, shame.
Hiya Hope
Bit disappointed you do not live in the area, thought we were going to get an insider opinion:-))
I think I mentioned about my golf playing builder who knows them and came across as Pro-McCann but also looked worried and like it was a taboo subject. It is really weird the way you get some people, like him, who seem to think it is really important to stress all the locals believe in their innocence. How on earth could they know that. It is also clear that no reasonable person who has been reading the British press alone and watching them on TV could be in the slightest doubt of their guilt in this case.
I watched Lorraine Kelly last night on Sky, Missing Children, mainly concentrating on the terrible case of Vicki Hamilton who it was eventually found 17 years later had been raped and murdered. The evening this 15 year old girl did not return home her mom was having to be sedated by a doctor. Two years later, aged just 41, she died, having taken to heavily hitting the bottle and finding it quite impossible to come to terms with her daughter going missing, even though she had young twins and an older daughter. The older daughter successfully raised the two twins. It is a really tragic story, but does give us the reality of how much genuine parents actually suffer in such a situation.
Although I believe Kelly has been known in the past to be Pro McCann, it was interesting to note that when appealing for other missing children who have been gone a long time on her programme and on her webpage, she does not mention little Maddie, at all. Maybe the focus is different, in Maddie's case, it is not the act of a stranger in taking the child, it is the act of the parents themselves and Kelly is steering well clear of this as other British Media have undoutedly been advised to do whilst the investigation continues into that.
http://www.skyoneonline.co.uk/missing_children/
Hi all
Going back to Kate & Gerry's first statements regarding Mrs Fenn hearing crying on the night of the 1st May. Kate and Gerry both stated it was not the first but the 2nd and it was the twins that were crying. Mrs Fenn is adamant it was the 1st and it was Madeleine shouting Daddy, Daddy which only stopped when the parents returned.
We now have proof that Kate & Gerry were lying. On video they state it was Madeleine and Sean who were crying but still maintain it was the night of the 2nd and not as Mrs Fenn states the 1st.
I really believe Madeleine had an accident on the night of the 1st, whether deliberate or not, and she was crying for her Daddy. Or was Sean crying Maddie Maddie possibly Amelie as well. This can be the only reason why they are trying to discredit Mrs Fenn to make us believe Madeleine was alive on the 2nd of May and therefore disappeared on the 3rd.
The fact that there is proof on video that they have lied must be looked into to re-open this case. Or perhaps not!
I know nothing Viv but know if one of my friends was acting the same way as them I would have to be brave and ask them what the hell they are playing at.
If any friend of mine refused to answer questions, blogged about how far they jogged and how their little family was fine and looked like they had won the lottery on their childs next birthday with laughter and joy I would keep well away in the future.
It is not normal behaviour I did not watch Lorraine Kelly but I dont know how I would get through another day if one of my children were missing I cant even begin to imagine every day would be full of hell and I would be so worried my angel was alone and hurt somewhere it would truly tear me apart.
I guess I would either fall apart or make it my lifes mission to find out what had happend to her and one thing is certain if people were not taking it seriously I would never let it rest if they tried to close the investigation I would not rest until it had been re opend...
Hi Viv
I believe Lorraine Kelly has the same opinion of anti bloggers as Rosie.
Di
I think you are right about LK she thinks we are the scum of the earth...
Although her opinion may be shifting especialy if she is working with people who are acting in a totaly diffrent way to the McCann's...
As time goes on the charade get's more ludicrous every time they open their mouth. The Mail reported the Defective Detectives had not even bothered to investigate the sighting of the year it is only a matter of time before papers run out of news again and report the other ludicrous things that have happend maybe even kicking it all off with the happy snaps of them 9 days after she went missing on Madeleine's 4th Birthday with a simple headline "Why were they so happy?"
xxx
Hi Hope
Let us also add Gerry laughing on the balcony when he didn't know he was being filmed. The Portuguese lady who said Kate was laughing with a friend as she passed her door, I believe after a couple of days, not to mention K & G after doing an interview which they said they could hardly bare to do, laughing after they had finished filming unaware the cameras were still rolling.
What a lovely pair these two are. Remember the twins will see all this footage in the future as well. That is unless Clarence manages to get the internet shut down, which I am sure they would all love to happen. In their dreams.
Hi DI
It is worrying for the Twins in the future but I am sure someone will spin the poor things in the right direction....
Clarance closing down the internet that is one is a funny thought...
Strange though we can talk about Dr David Kelly say Gordon Brown is a twonk slate Tony Blair or George W Bush till our hearts content but dare to say 2 parents who say they chose to neglect their children to go to the bar night after night and who never searched for their child may be lying and all hell breaks loose???
Maybe Dan Brown got it wrong in his book "The Da Vinci Code" and it was not Sophie who was the decendant of Christ but it is a direct line to the McCann's there's a new conspiracy theory to throw about for a while LOL
xxx
Hi all
Going back to Kate & Gerry's first statements regarding Mrs Fenn hearing crying on the night of the 1st May. Kate and Gerry both stated it was not the first but the 2nd and it was the twins that were crying. Mrs Fenn is adamant it was the 1st and it was Madeleine shouting Daddy, Daddy which only stopped when the parents returned.
We now have proof that Kate & Gerry were lying. On video they state it was Madeleine and Sean who were crying but still maintain it was the night of the 2nd and not as Mrs Fenn states the 1st.
I really believe Madeleine had an accident on the night of the 1st, whether deliberate or not, and she was crying for her Daddy. Or was Sean crying Maddie Maddie possibly Amelie as well. This can be the only reason why they are trying to discredit Mrs Fenn to make us believe Madeleine was alive on the 2nd of May and therefore disappeared on the 3rd.
The fact that there is proof on video that they have lied must be looked into to re-open this case. Or perhaps not!
Hiya Di
There are a number of nannies who state that Maddie was alive after this date. I think there are two describing her being frightened being taken out to the little yellow boats that very morning.
Apart from this, it just makes no sense to me that Maddie was crying all night and stopped immediately her parents walked in, to then say but she died. If she was able to just keep on crying she could not have been so seriously injured and I just do not believe that in those circumstances they would not have got her urgent medical attention. I know they are doctors but they clearly just did not have the equipment to deal with an genuine emergency.
I think there is a more sinister reason they want to state that Maddie was crying on the 2nd, not the 1st, because Russell O'Brien was at the table on the 2nd, presumably. Also, it is more proximate to the apparent abduction and it is clear they have used this to suggest there was an abductor in the apartment. They obviously knew that Maddie had been making such a noise witnesses would report this.
I do think Mrs Fenn would be able to differentiate between the crying of a child nearly four and the crying of toddlers, it would sound very different IMO.
Gerry was wanting to state to the police the following day that both he and Kate went around to the front and used their key to access the apartment.
But Mrs Fenn says that on 1 May, she knew they had returned because she heard the patio door.
Whenever someone tells lies about something they are obviously trying to cover something really serious up. Gerry claimed that Mat checked Madeleine via the patio door. I do not believe that he did. Leaving this door open is a really serious issue. It has not handle on the outside and as the police have stated actually had to be left ajar, for it to be slid open. Even worse than that, there is the large security shutter that comes down over the door. So they must have also left the security shutter up to enable this access, although I am sure I have read Kate saying, the security shutter had to be raised to then open the patio door to do the checks. This would have created such an incredible row it would obviously have woken the children.
By the afternoon of 4 May, when Kate comes to give her own statement she tells the police she used the rear patio door, she does not say anything about the security shutter.
This is the crucial evidence to solve this case IMO and the reason we saw Rebelo with his men in October 2007 on that patio and trying the patio door etc. They are telling a lot of lies about this. It would seem they did leave that patio door open if Mrs Fenn is to be believed on previous nights, and that must surely mean they also left the security shutter up.
So I am afraid I come to the sad conclusion that easy access to Madeleine by others without the key was being afforded and the twins and quite possibly Madeleine got drugged too, something Gerry actually admits because he knows the evidence the twins were drugged is so clear. But he gives the most bizarre reason for that, the abductor did it!
I would also say that had Maddie died an accidental death due to neglect, parents in that situation would actually be devastated, they would not be able to laugh like Gerry McCann was doing in particular.
There is something very sick and sinister about this couple.
I read about a case recently where a mom was in serious trouble because she had left her children alone and came back, I think having been drinking to find the house on fire. She just barged into the burning house and rescued all of her kids.
Being neglectful is one thing and it is serious, but it does not equate with someone who could then hide the body and mercilessly lie and cash in, that is something else.
Hi Viv
What you say makes a lot of sense regarding the crying.
However, if the patio door was left slightly ajar night after night, surely we come back to the theory that a stranger could have in fact entered the apartment after watching their movements. Although I myself have never believed this to be the case.
Hiya Di,
Yes a stranger could have got in via the patio door, but the problem with the McCanns, they never said that. They said the window and shutter got jemmied on Maddie's bedroom window.
Clearly if they had just admitted they were leaving the patio door open, whilst people may have been pretty furious, they no doubt would have believed in a stranger abduction.
That is clearly not what happened in this quiet area that was deserted at night. The question just has to be asked why on earth did they leave a security shutter up all night every night and the patio actually ajar? I can only think of a very sinister answer to that and all of their lies around this area.
As you flagged up for us, we have the clearest of evidence of Kate and Gerry most definitely telling contradictory lies about this.
Even after having several months to think about it and being an arguido, in November, on Panorama Kate says someone broke in an stole Madeleine.
On Oprah she was again only wanting to talk about the apparent open shutter and window on Maddie's room, she did not want to talk about them leaving the patio door and shutter open at the rear. There just has to be a reason as to why she would avoid that. It is the difference between being a negligent mom and one who nevertheless like the lady going into a burning building, demonstrated her love for her children, and one who really could not care less, self preservation. The negligent parents always face the music, they just do not act the way that the McCanns have.
That is the problem when people lie they make it bigger than it has to be.
If they had just said they left the door unlocked so as not to wake the children it was not a whole lot worse than the neglect.
To make up a story about forced shutters when it is obvious they never were forced is crazy.
The lies started to fall apart from day one but with the help of media experts they have kept the spin going...
Trouble is too many people know the truth and some of them will not be able to stay quiet forever.
I have always had a problem with Kate's description of how she knew immediately Madeleine had been taken. The whoosh of the curtains caused by the open from door. If this was the case either the childrens bedroom door would have slammed shut or the front door would have. I am sure we have all had situations in our own homes where there is a through draught and doors slam.
Hiya Hope
and even just the three of us are doing a great job on here, pointing out the truth to people.
They say they left the patio doors open, Mrs Fenn says they did, but they insisted some predator broke in through the front bedroom window. He would not even know given the shutters that was the childrens bedroom and would clearly have cased the joint first looking for the easiest way in.
They are telling some wicked and serious lies, no one can genuinely believe this couple are innocent.
Hiya Di
We have seen a picture, I think it is on Pamalam's site, of one of the little ones on this holiday clearly reaching the handle of the patio door and she looked smaller than Madeleine.
The simple truth is Kate could not possibly have known right away Maddie was abducted. All Maddie had to do was slide that patio door back a bit more and she was out. Kate's claims are just riddled with lies and holes and I have never seen anyone look or sound so guilty as she did when seeking to explain this to Jane Hill on that first interview for the BBC. She simply had not developed her lying skills at that stage.
In addition I forget his name but the Mark Warner PR man wrote in The Times that Kate was insisting to him that Maddie had probably just wandered off. Ah Woolfall I think! Alex? Is he a liar or is it Kate McCann, I know what I think and that is yet more clear evidence of what a wicked liar she is, never mind Gerry!
Hi Hope
That is what I cannot understand. They were pushing the abduction theory from day one, so why not just say we were stupid and left the patio door ajar thinking the children would be safe etc.,I think most people would have thought they were negligent but would probably have believed in the abduction.
Instead we have this incredible tale which just does not add up. They have dug their own hole and cannot escape.
Hi Viv
I must admit when I first started to think there was something wrong, I did wonder if Madeleine had managed to open the patio and fallen down the outside steps. However if that had happened then I feel the dogs would have detected the scent of blood on the steps which they are not reported to have done, although cadavar scent was found in the bushes.
hiya Di
I think the McCanns biggest mistake in terms of trying to convince the public of their innocence is putting so much in the public domain.
I sat and viewed some of the videos on Youtube last night thinking precisely that. What they have done is to give us clear evidence of their lies, then they expect people to believe them!
What I still cannot understand is why they do not just give up and shut up, because they just keep on digging that hole. I do not believe any reasonable person in the UK can have the slightest trace of doubt after the latest "press conference".
I think the police just keep applying the psychological pressure and watching, like a hungry female spider!
Let's hope so Viv
Off now
See you tomorrow x
Hiya Di
The possibility of Maddie opening that door and falling down the steps perhaps crying in the dark and even drugged has certainly always been a possibility I have considered. And the thing is, I do remember it hitting the press this is what the police thought at one point.
But just imagine the forensic evidence on those steps? But there again, LP have wanted the forensic evidence covered up.
I read that cadaver scent can pool or form cones depending on wind direction and things like that, so it is not inconceivable that it could have finished up lingering in the bushes where it became trapped from further air currents perhaps?
But just imagine the McCanns trying to clean those steps of forensic traces, that would have been a difficult thing to achieve, I would have thought.
It is another of those theories that just cannot be ruled out IMO.
I think that is what we need to be clear about, the McCanns have told some serious lies and there is only one reason they would do that. But we cannot be clear what they did, any more than the Pt AG could be.
Nite Di
We just do not know the situation with the police and the McCanns but perhaps that is what they are waiting for, Kate to crack up.
xx
There continues today to be a rush of registrations for former 3As members at
http://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/welcome-come-say-hello-f19/hi-everyone-t4188.htm
Even Photon who seemed to be running 3As pretty much, this does not bode well for the re-opening of 3As. It would seem Bennett did a good job there!
I gather 3 As server is in the States, maybe the McCanns gave them a desist notice or whatever they call it over there?
Ambersuz on Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:23 pm
.The Patriot Ledger
Posted Mar 28, 2009 @ 05:00 AM
QUINCY —
When children die – and parents are potential suspects – we often talk about abuse and neglect.
But when sedatives are found in a child’s body or at a crime scene, we need to talk about something else, too.
Child pornography.
The FBI has long taught about the use of sedative drugs in the making of child porn. Benzodiazepines such as Valium and Klonopin – and cheap alternatives such as chloroform – are commonly used to keep kids calm. Many of these drugs also cause short-term amnesia such that the victim has little or no memory of the event when the drugs wear off.
It’s scary to think that ANYONE would do such a thing to a child, but get this: According to the U.S. Attorney General, child porn is a multi-billion dollar industry and the people most likely to be making it are the victims’ parents.
I think you alter ego is Supertroll. Same sad repetitive behaviour.
17-Dec-2007
KATE AND GERRY MCCANN ARE LIARS - ABDUCTION IMPOSSIBLE
What was locked and what was open? Was there an 'abductor'?
To answer these questions, we need first to look at what was said by the McCanns to family and friends in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine's disappearance.
Jon Corner, as quoted above, clearly states that Kate had told him that they had left the apartment locked while they were having their meal. In other words both doors, front and patio, were locked.
Trish Cameron recalled that she received a call late that same night from Gerry and she recounted: "Kate went back at 10 o'clock to check. The front door was lying open, the window had been tampered with, the shutters had been jemmied open or whatever you call it and Madeleine was missing... They think someone must have come in the window and gone out of the front door with Madeleine."
Philomena McCann, Gerry's sister said on 04 May: "Some people may ask why they left the children alone in the apartment but it was locked and they had a full view of the front door and they were checking every half hour."
Gill Renwick, a family friend, told GMTV on 04 May: "She's obviously been taken as she couldn't have gone out on her own and the shutters had been forced open."
The clear implication in Gill Renwick's statement is that she couldn't have gone out on her own because the front door and patio doors were locked. Otherwise Madeleine, as an active 4 yr-old, could surely have got out through 'open' patio doors very easily and on her own. She was clearly too small to attempt a climbed escape through a closed and shuttered window.
However, police tests showed the heavy metal shutter had not been forced up from the outside, so must have been pulled open from inside the room.
Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, spokesman for the investigation, confided in British former Chief Inspector Albert Kirby that neither the windows nor their shutters had been tampered with.
What must be appreciated, at this point, is that these comments, from closest family and friends - the first to be contacted, are not Chinese whispers. It is not a case that the McCanns rang one person, who got the message wrong, and this got passed on to everyone else. These are four people who received independent telephone calls from Gerry or Kate, in the hours following the 'abduction', and made independent statements. Yet, the statements all recount the same story. The McCanns' apartment was locked, so the 'abductor' must have gained access via the jemmied shutters and left via the front door.
But this begs the question: How did the abductor get into the apartment if the patio doors were locked and the shutters, as attending officers quickly assessed, had not been forced from the outside?
There now appear to be two problems with the recounted version of events. How did the abductor get in and why was the window open? And it's at that point the story changes, in a crucial way.
It is suddenly revealed that the patio doors to the rear of the apartment were left unlocked. This immediately resolves the problem of how the 'abductor' entered the apartment but it makes the decision to leave their three babies alone, inside an exposed and unlocked apartment, seem almost unbelievable, not to mention grossly negligent.
So, to further justify and soften the decision to leave the doors unlocked, it is 'revealed' that the McCanns and all their friends on the holiday left their patio doors open throughout the evenings for fear of fire.
They also embark on a series of interviews where they repeatedly assert that they are responsible parents and that their decision to leave the children alone was quite normal behaviour. Gerry goes so far as to describe it as no different to leaving them in the house when you go into the garden.
The second problem that now faces the McCanns is that they have committed themselves to an 'open window and shutter' story. Indeed, it is quoted as the very reason Kate knew something was wrong because when she says she opened the patio doors at 10.00pm, the bedroom door slammed shut as a result of the wind running though the apartment.
So, if the abductor clearly didn't enter through the bedroom window, why was it open? The McCanns hadn't opened it, so there could be only one reason. The 'abductor' must have used it to escape from.
It is also vaguely claimed that the front door has curious locks and can only be opened with a key, further strengthening the bizarre decision of the 'abductor' to escape through a window, carrying a child who would surely have woken up.
But why, with access to a front door and an apparently unlocked patio door, would the 'abductor' complicate things, and heighten the risk of detection, by clambering through a window with a heavy metal shutter?
This idea of a 'key-only exit' front door can surely be discounted, as no apartment would be granted a fire certificate if you could only escape through the front door if you had the key. Mark Warner would surely not install doors that could leave them culpable in the event of a fire.
So, we now have the McCanns' insistance that the 'abductor', or 'predator' as he is now referred, was laying in wait, and entered through the open patio doors between checks on the children.
So what can we make of the way the story changed so quickly?
There is only one conclusion to be drawn.
If the patio doors were locked, as Kate and Gerry independently told Jon Corner, Trish Cameron, Philomena McCann and Gill Renwick, and the window shutters had clearly not been 'jemmied', then there can have been no way into the apartment that evening. And therefore, by deduction, no abductor.
And that, is a very disturbing conclusion.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id21.html
Viv
You wrote a good post on 3A about how Matt Oldfield has contributed to the lies about the patio door and security shutter, which can only be opened / secured from the inside.
He compounded this by his appearance in the Chanel 4 mockumentary. For some bizarre reason, he uses the rear patio entrance to check the Mccann children..(did he mention negotiating the baby gate?).. but then scoots around to the front windows of 2B, to listen out for crying from his baby girl ??
Rachael was too spooked to do these checks herself, unlike Kate...And didn't his baby have loose nappies all holiday?
Thanks very much for that Keesha and good to hear from you again.
I have written so much, worked out so much with many other really good posters and read so much on this case it is sometimes really hard to string it all together.
But when we can put it all together like this, it starts to make sense.. no one ever said that trying to piece together the fact from the fiction from nine lying adults who very clearly have one simple agenda. a conspiracy of lies to cover up just what they did with little Maddie, was going to be easy.
But it is this piecing together, this debunking the lies from Team McCann that is so important IMO.
We know the McCanns read the blogs and forums, Kate told us so. We want them to know they are not winning the battle for public opinion and all that money they wasted on reputation management companies, lawyers who specialise in this and of course the Pink Spinner himself was just a waste of money.
We point out their lies and confirm the police have always been right to disbelieve this couple and focus upon them as the main suspects in the disappearance of little Maddie.
Public opinion has been terribly important to them. It pays for their defence, or leastways it did do and that has always been the McCann plan, including their stint on Oprah, but she turned the tables on them and became the exploiter.
So people need to realise, we are making a difference. We are stopping them from having the means to defend the indefensible.
But there never is any excuse for harassment, bullying and being a vigilante. See part Bren post below, she puts this very well!
JUSTICE FOR MADDIE AND THE TWINS!
xx
Bren said:
(and very well said)
This post just confirms to me what I have thought over the weekend, it was not about getting Justice for Madeleine it was about getting one over on the McCann’s.
My god, what whatever were you thinking of, because that reads to me as if any suspect in the land that does not have enough evidence against them to take them to court are now open game and we can now produce leaflets, target their neighbours to tell them what that person has done. Even though I think Kate and Gerry have a lot of questions that need to be answered I will not throw away my basic principle and the basic principle of the judicial system “Innocent until proven guilty”.
You call that Justice? Well I don’t I think that is being a vigilante and taking the law into your own hands. Well all I can say, is I am glad I am a law abiding citizen and still have faith in the legal system, albeit with its faults, and it is far better to have a legal system than a pack of local hoods thinking they are the local Mafia and targeting people and by going to Rothley irrespective of whether you only delivered about 250 leaflets or 1, just has given some people, especially the Press, the golden opportunity to label all of us that doubt the McCann’s, nutters, vigilantes and fruitloops.
So, we now have the McCanns' insistance that the 'abductor', or 'predator' as he is now referred, was laying in wait, and entered through the open patio doors between checks on the children.
from the McCann files post above.
Well, at least now I know where Tony Bennett gets this idea from. Only trouble is, it is a complete myth.
At no stage have the McCanns ever said the abductor entered through the patio doors.
It is also wrong to dismiss the idea of the front door being deadlocked. A deadlock is an additional lock that you can fit to a front door to make it far more secure. And the only way that you can then open it back up is with they key, as opposed to a Yale type lock that can just be opened from the inside without the key.
Gerry told relatives the front door was left wide open, clearly implying the abductor broke in through the window and exited via the front door. It is for this reason he is deliberately vague with the police as to whether he "deadlocked" the front door. Clearly had he done so there is no way the so called abductor could have exited via the front door as he had suggested.
So what Gerry is saying is that the abductor came in through the window but is giving no explanation as to how he exited. Again the post on the McCann files where Tony Bennett has adopted his story from makes incorrect assumptions the abductor exited via the window. Gerry has never said this. The only thing he has ever said is to his relative, the front door was lying wide open.
So what he is telling us in incredibly bizarre. He left the rear patio door open for checks to be made on his children by other members of the group, but not by he and his wife, they walked all the way around and used their key to get in. He says this is how Mat got in to do that check that I do not believe he made because they were removing Maddie around this time. He also tells the police that although there was an additional deadlock for security to the front door, he does not recall if he bothered to use that. So he left the rear door open, he did not bother to put the deadlock on the front door, but this barmy abductor broke in through the window.
I think the McCann files and Tony Bennett have caused a lot of confusion and it seems it necessary not just to debunk the McCanns lies, but also the incorrect assumptions that have been made. Generally I think the McCann files are very good, but unfortunately in this instance inaccurate and adopted by Tony Bennett who does not seem able to actually work the facts out for himself and reach a sensible conclusion from them. He then starts printing all these myths.
Helpful? I hardly think so, we have enough problems sorting out the lies of the McCanns without someone giving us some more false versions of reality!
Hi Viv
So the door did slam when Kate entered the apartment, thanks for clearing that up for me. after two years there is still so much I do not know.
It really makes me appreciate just what Police forces have to go through just to get a conviction.
We have spent two years looking at inconsistencies and down right lies, spent hours pouring over the official files. We all know there is something very wrong and the Police I am sure will have come to the same conclusion, the parents and possibly one or more of the tapas are heavily involved with Madeleine's disappearance.
They must be extremely frustrated that they just cannot find that missing piece of evidence to convict and get closure for Madeleine. I am sure as you have said before they a biding their time watching and waiting for just one mistake, knowing they have to get it right and have a watertight case, expecially as Carter Ruck are involved.
hiya Di
I am not aware of clearing up the door slammed as Kate entered the apt, but would think that maybe it did. They were leaving the childrens bedroom door open and she opens the door at the rear much wider to pass through creating a through draft, perhaps. But anything Kate tells us is hardly capable of belief.
I agree it is worthwhile looking at just how complex the evidence is in this case. Unless you can get clear evidence of what took place it is impossible to establish the facts. That is clearly what Team McCann have banked upon.
It is an extremely difficult job for the police to try and get key evidence that would actually enable them to charge those responsible. It is clearly key to be able to state with certainty, precisely what they did with little Maddie.
I am sure the police continue to use covert measures to find that out and needless to say that is not something they are going to be answering Freedom of Information Act requests about!
Hi Viv
I was sure in someone's statement, they said K & G used their key to check on their children, which means they entered through the front door.
However in the mocku Kate clearly says she entered through the patio doors.
Off for a while.
Here is the link to the Whoosh
link to whoosh
Having seen this again I am shocked at how badly Kate comes across.
hiya Di
Gerry was interviewed first by the PJ the following morning and in his statement says that he and Kate accessed the apt to do their checks via the front door with their key. Bizarrely he says Mat Oldfield went through the open patio door to do a check. He does not attempt to explain why they would walk all the way around to the front, which is a much farther walk, when the back was just left open.
But when Kate gives her statement in the afternoon, although in so many respects it is almost word for word identical to Gerry's she directly contradicts him in saying that she entered to do her check via the open patio door.
Thanks for the link to Cutting Edge which I have put on the side of the blog and also your jukebox link. I see Joanna, Kazlux, Asto and Ines have now set up another blog. There seems to be a multiplicity of new blogs open to actually replace 3As, it would seem the feeling is it will not be back.
I do think that Tony Bennett/Debbie's harassment of the McCann family caused the problem and there were a number of his supporters on there clearly cheering him on. They clearly strayed into the realms of illegal behaviour and it is a shame 3As has been lost because it was so well known and came up in so many searches on the McCann case.
Even so, there were many who did spoil that site.
Mrs McCann arguido statement:
''They left by the veranda door, which they left closed but not locked. Main door was closed but not locked. She thinks it could be opened from the inside but not from the outside.''
Mr McCann 10th May statement:
Despite what he said in his previous statements, he states now and with certainty, that he left with KATE by the rear door which he consequently closed but did not lock given that that is only possible from the inside. Referring to the front door, while he is certain that it was closed it is unlikely that it was locked as [because] they had left by the rear door.''
So it would seem they are making it possible for the abductor to have entered via the window and left via the front door, because that was just closed on a Yale type lock, but they had not deadlocked because Gerry is now sure he was wrong in his first statement, they did not leave by the front door.
It can be seen how they tie themselves in knots. Gerry told his relatives and it was in the press the shutter and window got jemmied and the front door was lying wide open. But in his first statement to the police he said they left via the front door. If they had left via the front door they would obviously have used the other key to deadlock it. So by 10 May Gerry does another statement saying he was mistaken, they went out the rear patio door so that his statement released in the press that the front door was lying wide open would actually be possible. The abductor came in through the window and out through the front door. Ridiculous I know because the window and shutter were not jemmied or damaged in any way and neither was there any forensic evidence of anyone coming through the window.
Ridiculous also because any abductor could obviously have both entered and exited via the patio door which they say was left open, but of course Kate and Gerry do not wish to say this, for some strange reason...
Probably because Gerry got the "story" wrong in the first place by claiming entry was via the window and exit via the front door. He had not thought it through when he made his first statement to the police.
So Kate's insistence that she knew right away Maddie has been taken is pretty bizarre. They had not deadlocked the front door, so Maddie could have opened that, and they had actually left the patio door ajar as the police confirm, otherwise it could not have been opened from the outside. So Maddie could have gone out of either door, bar for Kate stating the windows were open, which is just a blatant lie.
Leicestershire Police Force
Witness Account
Statement by Paul Anthony Gordon
Occupation: Accountant
Date : 24th April 2008
I am married to Saleigh and we have two children, C...... aged three and J..... aged two.
We stayed in the same apartment that the McCanns would later stay in, apartment 5ª of the Ocean Club. We travelled to Faro on 21st April 2007.
On Wednesday the children were asleep in the apartment and Sal was reading inside. I was in the garden when I heard a male voice say “Ola”. I got up and went towards the man who asked me whether I was interested in making a donation to an orphanage. I talked to him and notice he had an ID label and what seemed to be a book of receipts. I thought he was either genuine or that it was a professional scam. I gave him 10 Euros and I think he gave me a receipt. At no time was he aggressive or persistent. I think he was genuine and it seemed to be a good cause.
There were no other incidents whilst we were in Portugal except that I cut myself whilst shaving in the bathroom. The cut bled for about 45 minutes. As far as I know, nobody else cut themselves in the apartment.
We felt safe in the apartment and were not robbed, neither did anything disappear. The doors, windows and shutters were in perfect working order. There was never any sign that that the doors, windows or shutters had been tampered with, but neither was there any need to check. The front door had a double lock that was difficult to lock, but we managed. The patio door could not be locked from the outside, only from the inside of the apartment and that is why we chose to use the front door when we left the apartment.
We used to open the shutters during the day and would close them again at night. The shutters made a lot of noise when we closed them. They have an internal cord as mechanism for opening and closing them.
We would generally have breakfast in the Millenium restaurant, we only dined at the Tapas Bar on two occasions. I remember there was a limit to how many times we could eat at the Tapas Bar.
I would like to add that since January of this year I have received numerous phone calls, messages and visits from the press with relation to the man collecting donations, which led to contact with other persons such as Brian Kennedy, Kate and Gerry McCann. I feel this to be constricting and it is difficult for me to make a more certain decision.
I have always tried to collaborate with the police in every possible form, telephoning them at the first opportunity when the news broke about Madeleine’s disappearance. There have been times when I have felt like a pawn in a chess game.
Di, do a search for one Dr Martin Roberts, who is providing, ahem, expert commentary on this case. He even gave an "exclusive" to the McCann files.
Maybe you will recognise the perverse arguments and prose from somewhere:-)))
Of course we have no details of what this man apparently has a doctorate in, now I could hazard a guess, writing utter bo77ux and selling it pretty cheap maybe?
xx
So it would appear this senior officer was involved and confirmed at an early stage that contrary to what the McCanns say, the front window was not an issue. He also confirmed the open rear patio door enabled Madeleine to be taken away swiftly and the police know what they are looking at.
I notice at a much later stage Clarence Mitchell indicated the abductor escaped through the bedroom window, the most bizarre suggestion, just to prevent his clients from looking like the liars they are by insisting, as Kate continues to do, she found the window open. It is interesting that neither Kate nor Gerry have ever said the abductor escaped through the window. That is the beauty of having a media spokesman it saves you from further incriminating yourself with yet more lies. I would say Clarence Mitchell knows exactly what his role is, to defend Kate and Gerry McCann. It has nothing at all to do with concern for Madeleine, it is to help the McCanns get away with what they did to Madeleine and at the end of the day, normal people must shun Mitchell for what he stands for.
I still believe the McCanns arranged for Madeleine to be abducted and earlier in the week Gerry was deliberately telling people how they left the children unattended. Hardly something the average child neglector would brag about! He is far worse than a child neglector.
Madeleine's parents 'left patio doors unlocked'
Last updated at 16:53 13 May 2007
Police in Portugal are working on the theory that Madeleine was snatched through patio doors left unlocked by her parents as they dined just 40 yards away.
Until now, it was believed that shutters at the front of the apartment had been jemmied open by the little girl's abductors.
But Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, spokesman for the investigation, has confided in British former Chief Inspector Albert Kirby that neither the windows nor their shutters had been tampered with.
Mr Kirby, who led the investigation into the abduction and murder of Liverpool-born toddler Jamie Bulger, revealed that it was the unlocked patio doors of the apartment that allowed Madeleine to be taken away swiftly and quietly.
Sources close to the investigation also confirmed that police attention was solely focused on the back of the apartment, which leads on to a small garden easily accessible from a public path through a gateway.
Gerry and Kate McCann would have used the patio doors as they checked on their daughter and her twin siblings during their meal near the Mark Warner holiday complex swimming pool and it is these doors that were left unsecured.
The McCanns and all their friends on the holiday left their patio doors open throughout the evenings for fear of fire.
Mr Kirby told The Mail on Sunday: "I had a very interesting chat with the officer in charge. The window shutters are not an issue.
"Their mechanism makes them almost impossible to open. The door was left unlocked. They did that every night.
"I think the police have a very specific understanding of what they are looking for."
Mr Kirby believes Portuguese police will solve the case of the missing toddler within days. He said: "I am impressed by the investigation. I have a feeling we will have a result by the end of the next week."
But what I still cannot understand is why people do not appreciate the dichotomy the police had, in always saying they were looking at two scenarios abduction and homicide.
They were not sure whether the McCanns just killed her or had her abducted. But they were always looking at the McCanns, rather than any strangers, although of course had to check, including as accomplices. Madeleine was handed over to someone and I believe the logical conclusion is she was taken off by boat.
Hi Viv
Just looking in for a minute, hopefully back later.
If, as we hope, the McCanns are eventually charged with the disappearance of their daughter, could Clarence be charged with perjury? It is so obvious he has lied.
Hiya Di, as he has not made these statements in court, it would be perverting the course of justice.
But I think he would probably get away with it, in terms he is acting as part of the defence team for Kate and Gerry McCann.
It is lawful in UK to act in this way. I think the issue would be did he tell deliberate lies to the police that frustrated the inquiry, if the answer to that is yes, then he could be charged, but I doubt he has been so foolish.
Many years ago when working at a criminal law firm, we would instruct private detectives to go out and hunt down evidence that would be useful to our clients in defending the charges against them. Likewise, we would instruct psychiatrists if it was considered helpful in at least, mitigating the sentence and the degree of culpability of the defendant.
That is precisely what Kate and Gerry are doing with the private investigators and reputation management firms etc, including Clarence Mitchell. If they say something it can and no doubt would be used as evidence against them, but if they get Clarence Mitchell to say it, that is a different matter.
So crucially it is Clarence Mitchell who has tried to turn the story around by claiming this so called abductor exited through the window. Kate and Gerry have been careful not to say that or suggest he entered through the patio doors either.
I think that is a complete explanation as to why they continue to hire Clarence Mitchell. Because they need to defend themselves but have to be extremely careful what they themselves say.
I cannot think of a legal precedent where a criminal suspect has actually used a media spinner so they are breaking new ground here, but I think Clarence knows what he is doing and operates very closely on the edge of breaking the law, rather than actually doing so.
What I mean is, so long as the McCanns are being investigated by the police and fear a criminal prosecution against them, they will continue to feel the need to use Clarence Mitchell.
Due to the law in UK and no limitation period in relation to serious offences, they will never be in a situation where they can go phew, got away with it. So what are they going to do in the long term to keep on raising finances to defend themselves?
Interestingly, there have been cases in UK where the police have actually said to a suspect, you are no longer on police bail as a suspect in this offence and we are no longer investigating you, but then suddenly arrest and charge him.
All is fair in this situation, I think. If a suspect knows they are being actively investigated this can greatly hinder the police, particularly with covert investigation techniques. However, I doubt LP would ever convince the McCanns they are no longer bothering with them!
I think it is also worth pointing out that so long as a criminal suspect does not tell you in clear terms they are guilty, a lawyer is doing nothing wrong by doing everything he can to defend his client.
Clarence is in an odd situation here, in that although he has a high opinion of himself he is not actually a lawyer. But nevertheless I would say is part of the defence team the lawyers and the McCanns want on board.
The big issue as to financing their defence is, will Brian Kennedy continue to bankroll them. Maybe he will because his degree of involvement seems to suggest he really is involved. But there is always the possibility he may cut them loose and find it safer to just defend himself and maybe he points that out to the McCanns. We have seen a deferential note at times from them. We respect his decision to dismiss private detectives etc..
Hi Viv
Thanks for all the infomation.
I for one am grateful you understand law and can help out when we have queries.
I have a friend who is a Solicitor but he specialises only in certain aspects of law. As he says on many occasions he was a lazy student. Will he give me anything to go on, nothing, nothing at all :o((
Will BK continue to finance TM, well if he has bought the house in Knustford, as has been mentioned, as their headquarters, then I would say he is in for a while yet.
The question is WHY...........
As i am sure you all know, i live in Knutsford.
I have kept my eyes open, but sorry, no sign of pinky yet, or Gerry for that matter :o(((
Hubby loves where we now live Knustford Lol.
Nite all..
Hiya Di
How remiss of your solicitor friend not to help you out:-)) But he is right to point out it is the study of laws and each area is a subject in its own right, so if he did not work in criminal law he would not be able to help you much.
It is a bit like Smethurst, he is not listed as having any proficiency in criminal law which is surely where the McCanns need some help!
I did not know you lived in Knutsford, maybe that is a little embarassing for our expert on all things McCann, but hey, keep em peeled Di. You know the reg plate of Kate's car from Cutting Edge. Strange really I would have thought she might have felt that was a bit of a security issue.
I gather it is a relatively small place so you should not have far to look:-)))
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