Madeleine McCann Not In Malta Or Morocco
FROM Paulo Reis in Portugal:
Portuguese CID spokesman, about Madeleine abduction: “The clue to this mistery is in Praia da Luz”
Portuguese authorities have dismissed as groundless all leads on sightings of Madeleine McCann in other countries rather than Portugal, namely in Morroco and Malta, said Polícia Judiciária (PJ), Portuguese CID, spokesman Olegário de Sousa (…) Further investigations are being carried out centered mainly on the area of Praia da Luz itself, said Mr. Olegário de Sousa. «The clue to this mistery is in Praia da Luz», according to other police source quoted by Diário de Notícias. (…)
Note: Kate and Gerry McCann are innocent.
Posted: 9th, July 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (6,189) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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December 17th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Have just looked at both CNN and BL sites but see nothing. Also the post about CNN on the BL site is not there. Could it have been removed as it was not true?
I wish it was true.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Oh God, i’m going to check out CNN, i hope this is true!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t see an established News channel such as CNN reporting this if there was no substance??? How long ago was this posted on the BL site???
I’m so excited!
December 17th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Gerry McCann was furious when he saw video tape of British police dog handlers examining the family’s hire car, a source revealed today.
He believes they bungled the moment a sniffer dog allegedly detected “the scent of death” in the back of the Renault Scenic.
The animal’s reaction led to Mr McCann and his wife Kate being named official suspects by Portuguese officers investigating the 3 May disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.
But Mr McCann has told his legal team that the dog walked around the car and was beginning to walk away but it was brought back by its handler and held at the boot when “it went rigid”.
A source close to the McCanns said: “Gerry saw it on the tape. Vehicles were lined up in an underground car park. Gerry says the dog went up to the Scenic, sniffed around it and went to head off.
“But he says he watched the dog brought back to the vehicle and finally it reacts around the boot area.
“Gerry was open-mouthed when he saw it. He feels the dog was manoeuvred into a position where it could react. To Gerry it looked like the dog was being encouraged to react in certain places of relevance.”
Portuguese detectives showed the video to Mr McCann during lengthy interrogation. The dogs were used to look for human remains in the McCanns’ Praia da Luz apartment and in several vehicles seized by police.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Here are the couple of postings on the Brian Ladd Website I have not been able to find anything on CNN that is recent, but I will keep trying perhaps one of you guys will have more luck, unfortunately the link was not posted ?
Fingers crossed that something is happening
Hi Brian,
If I were a Private Investigator hired by the McCanns to find their little
daughter, I would NEVER EVER promise to the entire world that I know who the
girl is with and that she could be home for Christmas.
First, he is somehow threatening the abductors and this could be dangerous
for the girl. He must know that and I’m sure he does. Second, he could
seriously hurt his client’s feelings (and all of us who pray everyday for
the girl’s safe return) if the promise is finally not delivered, not to
mention the consequences for his business with the McCanns.
I’m confident he is not that naïve, and that makes me think there is
something we don’t know. Either he already has the girl (God please, I hope
this is true) or he is definitely behind a very solid lead to get the girl
really soon. What do you think?
Greetings from Mexico City!
Carolina
CNN just broke the news that Detectives have found Madeline alive and she
will most likely be home before Christmas Praise God!!
reply
Hi, I hope this is true, but I’m not able to confirm that from CNN.
From what I know, detectives said that they know where she is…but don’t have her.
I realize that in most cases a statement like this would mean they have her, but with Metodo 3 I’m not sure.
I do hope they have her…Brian
reply
Here there are two CNN news. It’s the Headline news one. It came across the ticker tape on the bottom that she will be home by Christmas
December 17th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Just been reading the Brian Ladd website there was someone posted there that Madeleine had been found alive she was saying the news was on CNN but I could not find anything my heart skipped a beat, Matthew James on one of his transcripts that Madeleine would be found the news would be leaked in a news report but strongly denied by the McCanns Spokesperson, then a little while later the news would be broke to the world that she had actually been found and returned a few days ago and this was kept out of the press to avoid to much publicity to Madeleines return to her parents, the news would be told to one of the big newspapers and also the McCanns Spokesperson (but not Clarence) a woman, some other people were actually saying about the Metro3 claim to have her home by Christmas they are wondering whether she has already been found for them to have made such a claim, could this be the find and the McCanns asking them to remain quiet about their thoughts be the denial in order for Kate and Gerry to be reunited with Madeleine in private without the worlds press watching them, my fingers are so tightly crossed and my prays I hope will be answered and hope there is somthing to these new claims.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I am quite sure that the people who carried out this abduction and those who still hold Madeleine are heartily wishing that the media publicity would evaporate and all mention and thought of her would vanish from the public’s mind. Then they will be free to continue as if nothing has happened, which must have been their plan, just as happened with little Ben Needham who disappeared in Greece at the age of two and has never been found. He must be 20 years old now, with no knowledge as to his real family, To cease to look for Madeleine is to co-operate with her abductors. If Metodo 3 fail to find her I doubt that anyone would hire them in the future, and I must admit they like to publicise their every move which seems a strange thing to do.
I have become painfully aware of the number of lost children during these last terrible seven months - and I am certainly very angry that they too don’t seem to get similar publicity - surely they all deserve the same media attention - times have changed, modern technology enables news to travel across the world in seconds - more must be made of this, in order to help all missing children in the future.
Let us hope, even after seven months, that Maddie is found and returned to her parents - and redoubled efforts are made to identify these perverts who steal our children, lock these monsters up and throw away the keys.. I still hope and pray that Madeleine is returned by Christmas day. What a Christmas present that would be.
December 17th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Madeleine: Suspect Murat translated as police questioned Tapas Nine
By REBECCA CAMBER - More by this author »
Last updated at 08:53am on 17th December 2007
Translator: Robert Murat sat in on police interviews with Tapas Nine
The first suspect in the Madeleine McCann case sat in on police interviews with some of the Tapas Nine, it emerged last night.
Robert Murat, 34 - who later became an arguido or official suspect - was allowed to act as a translator for police during crucial questioning of Kate and Gerry McCann’s holiday friends.
It meant that he had an extraordinary insight into the investigation during the vital early days after May 3 when Madeleine, then aged three, disappeared from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz.
Friends of the McCanns reacted with disbelief and anger to the news.
There were also fears that Mr Murat could have influenced the police’s understanding of the statements of the Tapas Nine.
Rachael Oldfield, 36, who was dining with the couple on the night Madeleine vanished from her apartment at the Ocean Club complex, revealed yesterday how she spoke to police through Mr Murat.
Last night, Mr Murat’s lawyer, Francisco Pagarete, confirmed that his client also helped police during the interview of Dianne Webster, the mother of Fiona Payne, who was at the Ocean Club’s tapas restaurant with the McCanns that night.
He denied Mr Murat had helped in any other interviews of the group.
It has already emerged that another holidaymaker, Bridget O’Donnell, the partner of a key witness, spoke to detectives with the aid of the expat estate agent.
McCann twins plea: ‘Dear Santa, please bring our sister Madeleine home for Christmas’
Madeleine: Murat’s girlfriend says she’s being ‘maliciously accused to protect the McCanns’
Ocean Club nanny Charlotte Pennington, who said she was convinced she had seen Mr Murat outside the Mark Warner complex on May 3, also spoke to police via the translator. At the time, police had not been alerted to any suspicions about British-born Mr Murat, who was named as an arguido on May 14.
He has always denied any involvement in the child’s disappearance and claims he spent the evening at home with his 71-year-old mother.
His lawyer said: “My client did not preside over police interviews of multiple witnesses. The only interview of which he translated was that of Dianne Webster.”
Rachael Oldfield: She spoke to police through Robert Murat
But last night one of the McCanns’ friends: “It beggars belief. It’s absolutely outrageous that someone who a few days later is declared an arguido was aware of much of what initial witnesses said.”
The revelation came as a waiter at the Ocean Club cast fresh doubt over Kate McCann’s account of the night Madeleine disappeared.
Yesterday, the respected Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias reported that detectives consider the eyewitness account a “trump card”, critical to pining down supposed contradictions in the accounts of the Tapas Nine.
The waiter, who has not been identified, was first on the scene moments after Mrs McCann found she was missing at 10pm on May 3.
His evidence is said to be so vital that police have re-interviewed him for the third time in recent days.
The waiter claims that the parents and their holiday friends, the Tapas Nine, did not check on their children every 30 minutes.
Contrary to what Mrs McCann told police, he said that she did scream, “they’ve taken her, they’ve taken her” when she learnt Madeleine was missing.
The waiter said that instead of running back to the tapas bar, Mrs McCann raised the alarm from the balcony of their holiday apartment.
But friends claim the 39-year-old GP raised the alarm when she ran back to the restaurant on May 3 and shouted “Madeleine’s gone, Madeleine’s gone”.
The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “This is all lies. Kate has consistently and categorically denied that she said that on the veranda. Whoever this guy is and if he is saying this, he is either making it up or he is mistaken.”
December 17th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Barbara,
Hi,
Was this baby Grace that you refer to?? Some weeks ago a little girls body was washed up in a box. She has been identified as Riley (sorry,i forget her surname) her Mother and stepfather were arrested for this heinous crime. I hope they rot.
I have not heard of any other incidents, but maybe some of our American friends here will be able to shed some light, Jeannie?? Swissmiss??
Hope you are all well this morning.
I forgot to ask last night, but does anyone know if the searches and excavations of the mineshaft at the barn near PDL are taking place or is it just more nonsense? I would have thought if there was anything in this story then the worlds press would have gathered, but we have heard very little about it.
Glad M3 got a telling off, let’s just hope they are onto something and Madeleine will be home soon.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:34 am
I little blonde girls body washed up in a metal box, I believe, along the coast of Florida recently. She was about 3 or 4 years old. Has anyone looked into the possibility that she was Madeleine? Just a thought.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Hi Mike,
Appreciate you posting the letter from Isla.
Sorry for your plight Isla. I will personally miss your posts and helpful ways. I truly wish you and your husband well. Hope our prayers find you the resolution which you seek. God be with you in your time of need. Hopefully your prayers and Madeleine’s will be answered quickly. I know you might not read this but just incase you stop in my heartfelt words are here for you.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Mike,
Thanks for posting Islas message. If you have contact with her again tell her i am thinking of her and her husband and really really hope things can be resolved for them.
I am so sorry they are having such problems at all let alone at this time of year.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
This is a message from Isla which she has asked to be posted on the board
Hi everyone
This is just to let you know that I wont be posting on the forum again. Something absolutely horrendous has happened to my husband and I and to be honest I can hardly function at all never mind think about Madeleine or make posts.
I want to take this opportunity to say that I have come across some of the MOST decent people I have ever ‘known’ on this forum, which includes June. You have all made such a great effort and given so much of your precious time to help find Madeleine. I can’t begin to tell you how much I will miss reading your posts which demonstrate clearly how caring you all are, but very much an individual in your own right.
When Madeleine is found I will of course be thinking of her and her family. I will also sit at that very moment in time and think of each and every one of you, with very fond thoughts.
Tomorrow (Monday) will be a VERY difficult day for us. There has been no death in the family, but I would appreciate those of you who pray to say a prayer for my husband and I. For those of you who don’t pray please spend one moment making a wish for some kind of positive resolution in relation to our plight.
Best wishes to you all. I hope you have a lovely time at Christmas.
Isla x
December 16th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Very sad that the twins are wishing for Santa to bring Madeleine home. If only wishes like that could come true. It shows that Madeleine must be talked about regularly at home, otherwise at their young age, they may have forgotten their older sister. Sadly, unless a miracle happens, i cant see Madeleine being home in time for Christmas
December 16th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
That week in Praia da Luz, the week the McCanns were made suspects in their own daughter’s “death”, I was out there talking to them and to family and friends. I was at the home of the Anglican vicar Haynes Hubbard, sitting with him and his wife, Susan, while their own three children pottered around us. The Hubbards had flown in from Canada three days after Madeleine’s disappearance to begin Haynes’s tour of duty as the vicar of Praia da Luz. They had heard about Madeleine for the first time while changing planes at Lisbon airport, in a slightly unnerving encounter with an elderly Portuguese woman who had seized Susan’s arm and told her to “hold on” to the baby she was carrying, as a child had been taken.
The Hubbards had spent their first days at the resort fearing for their own children’s safety. Gradually they became friends with the McCanns, particularly Susan and Kate, drawn together at first perhaps by the McCanns’ need to find some comfort in religion. But mostly in Portugal the McCanns were enveloped by family and friends from the UK.
The McCanns were flying home that Sunday and had been to a farewell dinner that week at the Hubbards’. Susan told me that she and Kate had discussed how much one person could cope with. Kate seemed close to the limits of human endurance. Haynes chimed in: “And I don’t think she’s looking forward to tomorrow very much either.” The thought was left hanging there: how much can one person take?
Kate was to go to the nearby town of Portimao the next day, Thursday, September 6, to be questioned by detectives from the Policia Judiciaria (PJ). It would be Gerry’s turn the day after. For the media this would be a shocking new twist to the story – but not for the McCanns: the PJ had told them four weeks earlier they were going to be subjected to formal interviews and the McCanns had stayed on, instead of going home at the end of August as originally planned, waiting for the interviews to take place. Waiting. Waiting.
Finally, the PJ called. They told the McCanns they would be made official suspects – arguidos. The McCanns had noted the change of mood in Portugal, especially among the PJ, and the increasing viciousness of the Portuguese press. Some of the stories seemed so incredible and far-fetched – Kate, for instance, disposing of Madeleine’s body, or Madeleine’s DNA being found in the car the McCanns had hired three weeks after Madeleine disappeared – that I at first assumed they were the fanciful inventions of an unfettered press. I soon realised how well they reflected the thinking of the PJ. More recently I have discovered the stories were being fed to the press by the PJ, from the highest ranks. So much for judicial secrecy. One Portuguese journalist told me that segredo de justica – secrecy of justice – was like the speed limit. Everyone knows the law; nobody keeps to it.
It seems important to make it clear right away that I do not suspect the McCanns harmed Madeleine, nor do I think they disposed of their daughter’s body if, as the PJ believe, she died in an accident that night in their apartment.
This is not a mere prejudice on my part. I have spent a long time considering and examining every unpleasant scenario. The McCanns are not my friends and I have no axe to grind with Portugal, its police or its media.
To me, the McCanns are genuine people in the grip of despair – the accusations against them are ludicrous and a cruel distraction from the search for their daughter. That’s why I put the quotation marks around the word “death” at the top of the article. Madeleine may be dead, it may even be more likely she is dead, but nobody knows for sure. Nobody, not even the PJ, as we will see, can produce any persuasive evidence that she has come to harm.
) ) ) ) )
That evening, Thursday, May 3, at just after 8pm, by their account, Kate and Gerry McCann were having a glass of wine together in apartment 5a on the ground floor of Block 5 of the Waterside Village Gardens at the Ocean Club. Their three children were asleep in the front bedroom overlooking the car park and, beyond it, the street. Madeleine was in the single bed nearest the door. There was an empty bed against the opposite wall, beneath the window. Between the two beds were two travel cots containing the twins: Sean and Amelie. Gerry had bought the wine at the Baptista supermarket, 200 yards down the hill. They had lived and worked in New Zealand for a year and that particular bottle, Montana sauvignon blanc, was their favourite. It was the sixth day of their week’s holiday in the Algarve and they were reflecting on the enjoyable time they’d had, how surprisingly easy it had been with the children.
When their old friend Dave Payne had invited them on a group holiday, it had seemed too good to resist. Dave and Fiona Payne had been on another Mark Warner holiday the year before, to Greece with Matt and Rachael Oldfield. The Algarve group would be completed by Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner and Fiona’s mother, Dianne Webster. Six of the group were doctors. Gerry was a consultant cardiologist and had worked before with Matt and Russell. Kate had been an anaesthetist and was now a part-time GP.
The group first spent time together at Dave and Fiona’s wedding in Italy in 2003. Now they had eight children between them. Madeleine was the oldest, her fourth birthday a week after they would return from the Algarve. One of the attractions was that there were children for their own to play with. And the adults were a sporty group, a speciality of Mark Warner holidays; tennis had dominated the activities that week.
That might all sound very cosy and middle class, but that did not mean their lives had been easy or free of suffering – especially with the struggle to have children, eventually managed through IVF – or that they had been born into an advantaged world. Kate came from a modest Liverpool background and Gerry, the youngest of five, had been brought up in a tenement building on the south side of Glasgow.
The terms of the holiday were half-board, breakfast and evening meal, and the McCanns paid about £1,500. There had been some reduction when they had discovered that, unlike most Mark Warner resorts, the Ocean Club did not offer a baby-listening service. Instead, the group had asked for apartments close together, so they were all assigned to Block 5. The Paynes were on the floor above, the only couple with a functioning baby monitor. Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner had brought a monitor too, but theirs wasn’t getting much of a signal from the Tapas restaurant 50 yards away.
The Ocean Club was not a gated, enclosed resort in the usual style of Mark Warner, but a sprawling complex open to the village of Luz and scattered over such a wide distance that shuttle buses were used.
Even though the resort was open to the village, it felt safe and secure, and in early May it was still very quiet. Gerry never saw a soul, except once, on the last night, on his evening checks, going back and forth between Tapas and the apartment, an even-paced walk of just under a minute.
As the McCanns endlessly repeated afterwards, if they had thought it was wrong or even risky, they would never have left their children. With hindsight, of course, they would never have done it and now they are riven with guilt, but we can all be wise after the event, and so many of us have taken similar chances at times, in search of a bit of respite from our children.
Gerry had knocked up at the start of the 4.30pm tennis-drills session, but had decided not to exacerbate an injury to his Achilles tendon, so had dropped out and waited around by the courts until the children came back from the kids’ clubs at 5pm for tea. That had been one of the most enjoyable times of the holiday, all the children together for tea, then the adults playing with them afterwards.
Gerry was in his apartment at 7pm, had a glass of water, then a beer, while the children sat with Kate on the couch having stories with a snack. The children were clearly shattered – the last thing any of them needed was a sedative and, anyway, it was not something the McCanns ever did. They put them to bed after a last story. The twins were asleep virtually the moment they lay down, Madeleine not far behind them.
These days it was rare for Madeleine to wake up at all once she was in bed. If she did, she’d normally wander into her parents’ bed, whether they were there or not. At home in Rothley, sometime earlier, they had begun a star chart for Madeleine staying in her own bed. The chart, still on display in the kitchen, was full of stars. At about 7.30pm, Kate and Gerry showered and changed and sat down to have a quiet glass of the sauvignon blanc. They were first to the table at the restaurant at 8.35 and spent some minutes talking to a couple from Hertfordshire – two more tennis players – at the next table, who were eating with their young children. As they chatted, Gerry thought how lucky he was, his children asleep nearby, he and Kate free to come and enjoy some adult time at the restaurant and not have to sit with their children, as this couple were.
The McCanns sat down after a few minutes and then ordered some wine. The Oldfields were next to arrive, then Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner and, finally, always last, Dave and Fiona Payne with Dianne Webster.
That night their group ordered six bottles in total and two were still untouched on the table at 10pm. No more than half a bottle of wine each. The Portuguese magazine Sol reported that the group had drunk 14 bottles. Another Portuguese journalist told me a local GNR (national republican guard) police officer had described one of the group as being so drunk later that evening, they could barely stand.
They had just ordered starters when the routine of checking began. Matt Oldfield went first at 8.55 to check his own apartment and to hurry up the Paynes, who had still not arrived.
He was followed by Gerry, who entered his apartment at about 9.05 through the patio doors to the lounge. Earlier that week the McCanns had used a key to go in through the front door next to the children’s bedroom but, worrying the noise might wake the children, they began using the patio doors, leaving them unlocked.
When he entered the apartment, Gerry immediately saw that the children’s bedroom door, which they always left just ajar, was now open to 45 degrees. He thought that was odd, and glanced in his own bedroom to see if Madeleine had gone into her parents’ bed. But no, she and the twins were all still fast asleep.
Gerry paused over Madeleine, who – a typical doctor’s observation, this – was lying almost in “the recovery position” with Cuddle Cat, the toy her godfather, John Corner, had bought her, and her comfort blanket up near her head, and Gerry thought how gorgeous, how lovely-looking she was and how lucky he was. Putting the door back to five degrees, he went to the loo and left to return to the restaurant. That, of course, was the last time he would see his daughter.
As he walked down the hill, Gerry saw Jes Wilkins on the opposite side of the road pushing a child in a buggy. Gerry called hello and crossed over to talk. Wilkins and his partner were eating in their own apartment that night, but their youngest still wouldn’t settle. It reminded Gerry of the fraught time he and Kate used to have with Madeleine when she was a baby. In his memory, they could never eat a meal together when they went out, as she was always disturbing them and needing to be wheeled off to sleep.
As Jane Tanner walked up the hill, she saw Gerry talking to Jes and, as she passed them, she saw ahead of her a man walking quickly across the top of the road in front of her, going away from the apartment block, heading to the outer road of the resort complex. The man was carrying a little girl who was hanging limply from his open arms. The sighting was odd, but hardly exceptional in a holiday resort.
Her daughter fine, Jane returned to the table. At 9.30, Kate got up to make the next check on her children, but Matt Oldfield was checking too, as was Russell O’Brien, and Matt offered to do Kate’s check for her, which she accepted. Gerry teased that she would not be excused her turn at the next check.
In the McCanns’ apartment, Oldfield noticed the children’s bedroom door was again open, but that meant nothing to him, so he merely observed all was quiet and made a cursory glance inside the room, seeing the twins in their cots but, agonisingly, not directly seeing Madeleine’s bed from the angle at which he stood. Afterwards, he could not say for sure if she had been there or not. Nor could he say if the window and shutter had been open.
He would get a hard time from the police because of this, during his interviews not long afterwards, being aggressively accused of taking Madeleine – you passed her out of the window, didn’t you! – being suspected because he had offered to take Kate’s turn.
Jane Tanner, too, would be accused of fabricating or misremembering her sighting of this stranger with a child. There could be no answer to such an accusation – except that she was an ordinary, honest person who knew what she had seen. Sometime after 10pm, Rachael Oldfield would go to Jane’s apartment to tell her Madeleine had been taken and Jane would say: “Oh my God. I saw a man carrying a girl.”
It perhaps needs to be stated openly that all these timings and details, the way in which they weave and dovetail together, are based on witness accounts – corroborated not just by the McCann group but by others, such as Jes Wilkins – and that, despite suggestions to the contrary, there are no obvious contradictions or differences between them. Nor has any of the McCann group, at any time since, said they wanted to retract or change their statement.
That suggestion too is a lie.
Russell O’Brien checked his own daughter at 9.30 and found she had been sick. Jane returned to the apartment to be with her daughter, and Russell went back to the table. Russell would later fall under suspicion too, because of those few minutes he spent away from the table.
Finally, at 10pm, it was Kate’s turn to check the apartment. She only became alarmed when she reached out to the children’s bedroom door and it blew shut. Inside the room the window was open, the shutter was up and Madeleine’s bed was empty. Kate quickly searched everywhere and ran back down the hill and into the restaurant: “Madeleine’s gone, somebody’s taken her” or “Madeleine’s gone, someone’s taken her.”
Gerry stood up. “She can’t be gone.” “I’m telling you she’s gone, someone’s taken her.”
It was reported that Kate had said “They’ve taken her,” as if it was someone that she knew. She did use those words, but only later, back in the apartment, in her despair, as she said: “We’ve let her down. They’ve taken her.”
Matt went down to the 24-hour reception at the bottom of the hill to raise the alarm. The call to the police went in at 10.15. They arrived 55 minutes later. It is widely believed among the Portuguese media, and perhaps the police too, even now, that the McCanns called Sky News before they called the police. For the record, Sky News picked up the story from GMTV breakfast television, at around 7.30am the following day.
There was a latch lock on the sliding glass window, and the McCanns thought, but could not be sure, that they had locked it at the start of the holiday. They would later discover it was common for cleaners to open the shutters and windows to give the rooms an airing, so there was no way of knowing whether the window was locked that night or not and no forensic trace to indicate where and how an abductor had gone in and out. They could easily have used the front door, perhaps even had access to a key.
In the McCanns’ minds now, there is no doubt Jane Tanner saw their daughter being taken, but there was so little time to talk in the first few days that it was not until Jane saw the description of Madeleine’s pyjamas in the media, around Monday or Tuesday of the following week, that she told them the little girl she had seen was wearing the same design: pink top and white bottoms with a floral design.
While searches began, Gerry was worried about Kate, as she was so distraught and kept talking about paedophiles, saying Madeleine would be dead. He tried to be reassuring, but of course he was thinking the same things.
It all came pouring out of him at 23.40 – from his phone records – when he called his sister Trish in Scotland ranting and raving semi-coherently on the phone about Madeleine being taken, and Trish kept trying to get him to calm down. A sharp contrast with the way he would be later, particularly in public, once he had regained his self-control.
The detectives from PJ arrived at about 1am. By 3.30am they had gone and there was no police action at all, or none visible to the McCanns.
Four times that night they put in calls via the British consul; four times the message came back from the PJ, a message that the McCanns would never forget: “Everything that can be done is being done.”
One of the PJ officers had put on surgical gloves and begun trying to dust down the bedroom, but his powder was not working properly. He tried to take the McCanns’ fingerprints for elimination, but that didn’t work either. It all had to be done again the next day.
The twins slept on like logs, just as they always did at home, though even their parents were fleetingly worried – had they been sedated by an abductor? – that they should be quite so comatose. The Ocean Club gave them another apartment, but the McCanns did not want to be alone, so the twins were taken to the Paynes’ apartment, and Kate and Gerry went there later too, to try to rest.
They got up at first light and went to search alone on the open scrubland beyond the resort, wandering around, calling Madeleine’s name. It was cold and lonely – there was no answer.
Gerry had asked the departing PJ detectives at half three about contacting the media to make an appeal. One of the officers had reacted with surprising agitation, waving his hand emphatically: “No journalists! No journalists!” That, of course, was not quite how it worked out.
) ) ) ) )
For many weeks, the McCanns enjoyed a good relationship with the Portuguese police and were treated to regular updates and a flow of information via the family-liaison officers sent out by Leicestershire police. The problem with the three Leicester officers was that they didn’t have a word of Portuguese between them.
The first public indication of police thinking came at the end of June when the magazine Sol published a story about the McCann group, casting doubts on their evidence and claiming they had undertaken a pact of silence. It was the first time the McCanns’ friends had been named in public, but Sol’s journalist Felicia Cabrita had their names and phone numbers and details from their witness statements. She had called them all, and at least one other witness, Jes Wilkins.
The information had been handed to Cabrita by the police – she says she acquired the material through good journalism, which in a sense it was – and her source is widely believed by her colleagues to have been the former head of the inquiry, Goncalo Amaral.
The PJ appointed an official spokesman, Olegario Sousa. He was apparently plucked from his day job – he was a chief inspector on the art-robbery squad – because he was the only one who spoke decent English. He was never directly involved in the investigation and was rarely told much of what was really going on.
Initial suspicion focused on Robert Murat, who made himself busy with police and journalists from the first day, offering his services as an interpreter, as he spoke both languages and lived across the road from the Ocean Club with his mother at the villa Casa Liliana. In fact, the man Jane Tanner had seen carrying a child was walking straight towards the Murat villa.
Murat later said to me that he told the PJ the press were suspicious of him, and they told him not to worry and to keep away from the press and work for them instead. He had signed papers to become an official interpreter and even sat in during the witness interview of Rachael Oldfield.
Leaving the police station in Portimao one evening, a week after becoming an official police interpreter, Murat became aware he was being followed. Shortly after that he was arrested and interviewed himself and made an arguido.
Murat always denied he was out the night Madeleine disappeared, but three of the McCann group claimed at the time they had seen him and still insist they were right. I was told there was at least one new independent sighting of Murat out on the night of May 3.
Bizarrely, the McCanns believe they were inadvertently responsible for encouraging the PJ to take them seriously as potential suspects, as it was them bringing in a South African “body finder”, Danie Krugel, that led to search dogs being used. The PJ agreed to work with Krugel, and an officer from the UK National Policing Improvement Agency was called in to advise on a search based on Krugel’s findings. It was agreed the British would supply some specialist equipment for spotting disturbed soil and also some search dogs, including one trained in human-remains detection (HRD) and one trained to detect the scent of blood.
Ultimately, only those who were there and involved know exactly what happened, but the McCanns wonder just how the search dogs were presented to the PJ and what claims were made for their success rate and infallibility.
All British policing techniques are meant to be practised uniformly by every force across the country and defined in written policy created by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). But the ACPO was unable to produce for me any policy relating to search dogs.
Gerry was initially optimistic at the prospect of the searches by these supposedly elite British dogs and techniques. The dogs then went on to search the apartments of the McCanns and their friends. A line-up of cars were also called in by the police, including the cars owned or used by Murat and the Renault the McCanns had been using, which they had hired on May 27.
Those who told me about the dogs’ searches say they involved little objective science. It has been suggested that the HRD dog was treated differently in the McCanns’ apartment than in the others. The dog kept sniffing and running off and it was called back on several occasions. Eventually it “alerted”, meaning it went stiff and stayed still.
Then the blood dog was called in and directed to the area where the other dog had alerted. Eventually this dog alerted in the same place – behind the sofa in the lounge, which is where the trace of blood was supposedly found.
The cars were lined up, not in a controlled environment, but in the underground public car park opposite Portimao police station. Again the dog was led quickly from one car to the next until he reached a Renault with “Find Madeleine” stickers all over it. The dog sniffed and moved on to the next car, but was called back. The dog was taken around the McCanns’ car for about a minute, as opposed to the few seconds devoted to the other cars. Then the dog went rigid, an “alert”, and the doors and the boot were opened. It was this that led to the recovery of some body fluids that the PJ suspected would contain traces of Madeleine’s DNA, and which led to the supposed revelation that her body must have been carried in the car.
The role of such dogs is normally intended to find a body or remains. Without any subsequent discovery the alerts amount to little more than an indication – or worse: in one recent case in Wisconsin a judge concluded that similarly trained dogs were “no more reliable than the flip of a coin”, after hearing evidence that they were wrong far more often than they were right. The McCanns’ lawyers are in touch with the defence lawyers in that case. The PJ had never attempted to obtain a “control sample” of Madeleine’s DNA. That had been left to the McCanns, who had found traces of her saliva on the pillow of her bed at home in Rothley and provided that DNA sample to the Portuguese police.
Whatever the public’s perception – based on a slew of news stories – at this stage there is no published evidence that Madeleine’s DNA, or any trace of her blood, has been recovered from the apartment or the car. Any suggestion to the contrary appears to be misinformation from the PJ. Some Portuguese journalists and, apparently, some members of the PJ believed the UK’s Forensic Science Service (FSS), based in Birmingham, had been deliberately delaying the tests. There are some who suspect the involvement of the British secret services.
In fact, both the PJ’s national director, Alipio Ribeiro, and another PJ official, Carlos Anjos, have both said openly that the police have failed to establish a perfect match. The PJ found several specks of what they believe to be blood in apartment 5a, including one sample that someone had apparently tried to wash off.
They found a trace of body fluid – that is, not blood – in the boot of the Renault and a tiny trace of blood in the Renault’s key fob. Some forensic tests were carried out at the PJ’s own laboratories in Lisbon, where tests on samples related to Robert Murat were also made. The tests on the traces that were potentially the most significant came to the FSS. One sample was said to have produced DNA that was similar to Madeleine’s. An exact match would be 20 out of 20 bands, this sample was said to be similar in 15 out of 20 bands. But in reality, that result was meaningless, as any family member could produce the same match.
Some journalists were told that more advanced tests were being carried out on the smallest blood traces – tests called low copy number profiling, which could produce DNA findings in the slightest of samples. They were a slow process, but did not normally take more than two weeks.
In late November, PJ officers and forensic experts came to meet police and FSS experts in the UK, amid claims the PJ were still waiting for further results. Leicestershire police have apparently paid for all the forensic tests being carried out in the case by the FSS – they are the client in the case, not the Portuguese. The PJ have used this as evidence that the British are suspicious of the McCanns too – even the McCanns think the British police doubted them for a while, until the forensic results emerged – but you might think the PJ would have wanted to be in control of their own forensic findings.
I heard that a PJ officer had been surprised to find a member of MI5 at a UK meeting about the case, and this made him suspicious that shadowy forces could be at work. The Sol journalist Felicia Cabrita mentioned the “mysterious Clarence” – Clarence Mitchell, the former government PR officer turned McCann spokesman – and I was told there was suspicion too about another government official, Sheree Dodd, who had acted as a PR officer for the McCanns briefly in the early days – had she come out from MI6 to help dispose of the body?
These theories might seem preposterous, but for those involved in the case in Portugal, they fitted a pattern in which the Portuguese government and in turn the PJ had felt the heavy weight of diplomatic pressure from the UK – a pressure that the police and the journalists very much resented, with its implication that the police were not doing their job properly. This could be one reason why the PJ were so ready to suspect the McCanns.
There seemed to be no doubt that the PJ really did think the McCanns had done it. I was outlined a scenario in which Kate had come back to the apartment and found that Madeleine had fallen from the sofa and hit her head – hence the blood – and cleaned up and hid the body somewhere in the apartment, and perhaps had not even told Gerry until the next day.
The police could not answer all the questions, of course. They were almost as unanswerable as they were unimaginable. Where would they have hidden the body? How would they have got it into the car 24 days later, and where would they have taken it? What kind of people would they have to be – what borderline personality disorders must they both share – to keep that to themselves for six months, maintain a facade in front of everyone they knew, and at the same time not hiding away but going out to ask the world to help find Madeleine?
I know the McCanns believe the PJ were oversold the value of the dogs. It was after the dogs came out that the PJ’s attitude towards the McCanns changed and it became harder for the McCanns to obtain a briefing meeting. They were disturbed when the press began reporting that the PJ knew Madeleine was dead. Finally, after pressing for a meeting, one was arranged for Wednesday, August 8, three days before the 100-day point after Madeleine’s disappearance.
When they arrived at the station in Portimao the couple were separated and both interrogated. Kate especially was given “the third degree”. Gerry broke down and cried, pleading with the PJ to share any evidence that Madeleine was dead. “It’s coming, it’s coming,” he was told.
The interviews caused the couple “incredible emotional distress”. But they agreed, if they had been guilty, they probably would have cracked and confessed at that point. The police said there would be no more briefings. The next time they saw the McCanns it would be across the table, for formal interviews.
What was doubly dispiriting, of course, was that while the PJ treated them as suspects, they were no longer looking for Madeleine. I was told the PJ had “abandoned the abduction theory”. It was open season now on the McCanns. The publicity was wretched.
The British press were not blameless either, often lazily repeating allegations and sometimes repeating them despite emphatic denials from the McCann camp. If you read the blog sites on the internet you would discover an even darker, nastier tone. The McCanns and their holiday friends were swingers, apparently. That allegation was even made on the Portuguese equivalent of the BBC by a former PJ detective, Jose Barra da Costa. When I checked with him, he said he had been told by a friend in the UK who happened to be a police officer. No doubt that officer had plucked it from the internet. It is not true.
During Kate’s interviews with the PJ in September, just before she was declared an arguido, she was separated from her lawyer, and he was presented with a long list of factors pointing to her guilt, including entries from her entirely innocuous diary and a passage they believed she had marked in a Bible (which in fact had been given to her and marked by the original owner).
The PJ also told the lawyer there was a 100% DNA match with Madeleine in the car and showed him a document that appeared to prove it. Possibly, this was the document showing Madeleine’s control sample of DNA. The McCanns feared even their own lawyer thought they were guilty. Kate was asked by the PJ to explain the dog alerts by her car. “You’re the police,” she said. “You tell me.” Kate asked the PJ: “Are you trying to destroy our family altogether?”
Gerry was asked the same questions the next day but could not answer. (Sometime earlier a Leicestershire officer had said to him, just stick to what you know.) Why did the dogs only alert next to material belonging to the McCanns? The officer was brandishing the dog-handler’s report. And then: “Your daughter’s DNA, your daughter Madeleine McCann, how do you explain that?” “Show me that report,” Gerry asked. “No. This is the report that matters – with the dog.” Of course, they could not produce a DNA match because there wasn’t one.
The McCanns took heart when Goncalo Amaral was forced to step down after making public criticisms of them and the Leicestershire police – he had made the criticisms in a phone call to a journalist contact, not suggesting the comments were private or off the record.
The McCanns hope that Amaral’s replacement, Paulo Rebelo, a more sober, conservative character, will take a wide view of the inquiry. He is said to have stopped leaks to the press, and has been locked away on the upper floors of the station in Portimao reviewing the evidence with a team of officers.
Meanwhile, the McCanns are back home trying to recover some kind of normality. How long can you put your life on hold? They have the twins to think of. Gerry has gone back to work half-days, and has finally told the British Heart Foundation he plans to go ahead with the research fellowship they awarded him, a week before he was accused of being involved in his daughter’s death. He had told me, weeks ago, about the six-figure grant and how it meant almost nothing in terms of professional advancement, but might one day help in the prevention and treatment of heart disease.
He had prepared the application in his own time, working evenings and weekends.
In other circumstances it would have meant the world to him but, right now, he had other things on his mind.
If you have any information that may help the search for Madeleine, please call the confidential phone line 0034 902 300213 or visit http://www.findmadeleine.com
Have your say
I am impressed by the quality of the piece and the prudence of the words it uses. Well done and thank you David James Smith.
A reader (Felicity, London) remarked: “There should have been posters up at the Ocean Club that a girl had been missing for three years and had never been found. That would have made parents less likely to feel lulled into a sense of false security”.
I agree. May I risk the suggestion that national authorities should be compelled to report all such incidents on a single Europe-wide public website?
Schemes along the same lines already exist to make known the quality of bathing waters (www.blueflag.org), or the names of dangerous airlines (http://airban.europa.eu). There is also the FCO travel advice website.
Clearly the concept is not beyond what money can buy. Would it not be a worthwhile effort similarly to publicize all cases of certain categories of serious crimes around Europe? Perhaps not all tourism authorities would agree, though…
AJV, London, UK
Thank you for the well written article and the true facts. Its amazing how so many people thrive on speculation and other peoples misfortunes.. I feel so sorry for the McCann’s and just pray that this nightmare will soon be over. I have never been so sad in my heart about little Madeleine and it has alerted so many people all over the world that this can happen to anyone anywhere.
sandy gordon, cape town, south africa
I quote from this article -
‘As they chatted, Gerry thought how lucky he was, his children asleep nearby, he and Kate free to come and enjoy some adult time at the restaurant and not have to sit with their children, as this couple were. ‘
This point is what divides the public, not the portuguese police, not Clarence Mitchell, not the wealthy supporters, not the media spotlight, not the McCanns sober outlook when first in the spotlight, not the incredible sense of loss that is normal when a child is lost.
This is the only point.
One couple eating with their children, the other not. Therefore, the chance of an accident to the 3 very young children was magnified exponentially.
I feel sorry, now, for the situation is out of control, (Metodo 3).
But, we will probably see the heart wrenching headlines soon, Maddie not home for Christmas.
I will say a prayer for her, and her alone.
December 16th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
A crucial witness has cast fresh doubt over Kate McCann’s account of the night her daughter disappeared in a new police quiz.
Detectives consider the testimony of an Ocean Club waiter as the “trump card” in their investigation, it was claimed today.
The holiday resort employee was first on the scene moments after Madeleine’s mother discovered she was missing at 10pm on May 3.
His evidence, which highlights a number of contradictions in the McCanns’ statements, is said to be so vital to the police inquiry that they have re-interviewed the waiter for the third time in recent days.
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Kate McCann: A vital witness has cast doubt on her account of the night her daughter Madeleine disappeared
Read more…
McCann twins plea: ‘Dear Santa, please bring our sister Madeleine home for Christmas’
Madeleine: McCanns tell private detectives to put an end to ‘wild’ claims
Madeleine: Murat’s girlfriend says she’s being ‘maliciously accused to protect the McCanns’
‘Sweaty Murat was breathless and excited during Maddie police quiz’
Crucially, the member of staff, who has not been identified, claims that the parents and their holiday friends, the so-called Tapas Nine, did not check on their children every 30 minutes.
Contrary to what Kate McCann told police, the tapas restaurant worker also said that Kate McCann did scream: “They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her” when she learnt Madeleine was missing.
He said instead of running back to the tapas bar where she was dining with her husband Gerry and friends, Mrs McCann raised the alarm from the balcony of their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.
The mother’s precise words have become a pivotal issue in the case, with Portuguese police questioning why she would automatically assume Madeleine had been abducted.
Madeleine McCann has been missing since May 3rd
His version of events contrasts dramatically with the account friends of the couple have given.
They claim that the 39-year-old GP raised the alarm when she ran back to the restaurant on 3 May shouting “Madeleine’s gone, Madeleine’s gone.”
Yesterday the highly respected Portuguese newspaper, Diario de Noticias reported that the eyewitness account is considered a “trump card”, critical to pining down supposed contradictions in the accounts of the Tapas Nine.
The Ocean Club employee has been re-interviewed at Portimao police station in recent days about the McCanns’ behaviour where he reaffirmed his original statement.
Policia Judiciaria detectives believe the key to unlocking the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance lies within the group and alleged inconsistencies in their witness statements are at the heart of the investigation.
The revelation comes as police prepare to fly to Britain where Kate and Gerry McCann and their holiday friends will be re-interrogated about their movements on the night she went missing.
Police suspect that Madeleine died in an accident in the apartment and the McCanns disposed of her body - an allegation the couple have denied.
Detectives are working on the theory some of their friends helped cover up the crime and some could be named as suspects when they are re-interviewed.
But the McCanns have always insisted Madeleine was snatched from their Ocean Club apartment while they were dining with their friends just yards away.
The waiter’s account mirrors that of nanny Charlotte Pennington who said she heard Kate McCann scream: “They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her!”
But other waiters working at the holiday complex have disputed key elements of his evidence, saying that the group checked on their children every 20 minutes.
Yesterday the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell furious denied the claims. He said: “This is all lies. Kate has consistently and categorically absolutely denied that she said that on the veranda.
“But in the evening she may have said it at some stage as a general remark, but she did not run out with this phrase.
“Whoever this guy is and if he is saying this, he is either making it up or he is mistaken.
“Kate, Gerry and their friends told the truth. They will continue to maintain their stories, because it is the truth. Whatever this guy is saying, we reject it, it is not true.”
December 16th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
The parents of Madeleine McCann told of their heartbreak yesterday after her two-year-old siblings asked Father Christmas to bring the missing four-year-old home.
Kate and Gerry McCann fought to hold back the tears when their twins, Sean and Amelie asked: “Will Santa bring her home for Christmas?”
The devastated couple also spoke of their anguish as they face the first Christmas without Madeleine.
They said: “Celebrating is the last thing we feel like doing, but we want Christmas to be as normal for Sean and Amelie as possible.
Scroll down for more…
Kate and Gerry McCann have revealed that their twins have asked if Santa could bring their sister home
Read more…
McCanns tell private detectives to put an end to ‘wild’ claims
Madeleine: Murat’s girlfriend says she’s being ‘maliciously accused to protect the McCanns’
‘Sweaty Murat was breathless and excited during Maddie police quiz’
Key witness casts doubt over Kate McCann’s account of Madeleine’s disappearance
“They both seem to understand that they will be getting presents from Santa, but have also asked if Santa will be bringing Madeleine home, which about broke our hearts.
“Madeleine’s return would obviously be the ultimate present for all of us and would bring tremendous joy to people all around the world.”
Yesterday Gerry’s mother said the family were dreading Christmas without their daughter, whom they have bought presents for in the hope she will be there on Christmas Day to unwrap them.
Eileen McCann said: “They’re devastated right now. Christmas is coming up and there’s still no Madeleine. It’s very hard for them.”
The 67-year-old from Glasgow, who spent last week visiting the family in Rothley, Leicestershire, added: “They have two other children who want Christmas so they’ll do their best for them. But they don’t feel much like celebrating.”
Missing Madeleine: loved Christmas time
Kate’s mother Sue Healy, of Liverpool, said: “We don’t know what plans we’ve got for Christmas. Nobody knows who’s going where, whether we are staying at home or what we are doing.
“We just don’t know that sort of thing. I don’t think it will be worked out until the very last minute.
“We just want Kate to do what she wants to do. She certainly doesn’t know at the moment. I think it’s going to be very difficult wherever we are.”
Kate’s uncle Brian Kennedy, 68, a retired headteacher, who lives in Rothley, revealed yesterday that the family has received hundreds of Christmas cards from well-wishers.
Last year Madeleine beamed with excitement on her favourite day of the year as she played with her little brother and sister.
Madeleine’s grandfather Brian Healy, 67, said: “Madeleine loves this time of year and on the big day her face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“I will never forget how happy the whole family was last year as we watched the three children play so blissfully together. Now it just seems so far away and we had no idea how much things would change.”
Brian went on: “It was one of our happiest Christmases ever. That’s why we are determined to buy her presents just like we have always done.
“Madeleine loves Harry Potter and Dr Who so we will buy her something that we know she will love.”
Kate and Gerry have also made a fresh plea to anyone with information about their daughter’s disappearance to come forward.
December 16th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Of all the cruel and unusual headlines generated by the McCann case, it is simply the cruellest; Madeleine, we learned on Friday, could be “home for Christmas”.
They were words of hope, untainted by the horror, grief and controversy occasioned by her disappearance. Contained in them was the promise that the four-year-old was just days away from being reunited, safe and well, with her parents. For the first time in seven months, I found my support for Kate and Gerry McCann wavering.
Journalistic hyperbole was not to blame for the happy-ever-after headline. The words accurately reflected claims made by the private investigator hired by the McCanns. The couple turned to Francisco Marco in September, after they became arguidos themselves and feared the Portuguese police were no longer pursuing anyone else in connection with their daughter’s abduction.
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“I have always said publicly Madeleine is alive,” Marco told a Spanish newspaper. “God willing, I hope she’ll be back with her parents before Christmas.” He knew who the kidnapper was, he added.
It wasn’t Señor Marco’s first offence. Last month, he assured us that he would find Madeleine “within five months”. Next, he was telling CBS television in America that his agency, Metodo 3, was “100 per cent sure she is alive”. Then he popped up on BBC1’s Panorama, claiming that he knew who the kidnappers were and that “we are very, very close to catching them”.
It is not the strategy one expects from a professional investigator, but discretion is not one of Señor Marco’s attributes. The head of the “family-run” Spanish agency - a bizarre concept given the nature of their business - he relishes media attention. He courts the kind of sensational publicity guaranteed to have any kidnapper or paedophile heading for the hills.
Marco claims Metodo has returned 23 missing children to their families, though details of these successful cases have not been forthcoming - so far - despite requests from British journalists.
So why do the McCanns still believe Metodo 3 can deliver? The couple have suffered hellishly at the hands of a police force of such astounding incompetence that Clouseau would blush. Now, £50,000 a month from the Find Madeleine Fund is being paid to an agency which promises much and delivers little.
Following Señor Marco’s latest claims, the McCanns issued a statement reiterating their confidence in Metodo’s “operational capacity” to find Madeleine. At the same time, “sources” close to the family let it be known they were not entirely happy with the “level of certainty” Marco was expressing.
Kate and Gerry are intelligent people, doctors trained to deal in facts and probabilities, to face the reality of a diagnosis and deal with it. Their apparent refusal to accept, in the absence of a body, that their daughter is dead is, I suspect, for public consumption only.
In private, I’d be surprised if they persisted in denial. However, they also know that if they acknowledge the likelihood of her death publicly, then Madeleine’s name will slip from the agenda, donations to the fund will stop, and all hope would truly wither.
Did the McCanns ever expect Metodo 3 to find her? I doubt it. But what the agency is doing, courtesy of its outrageous claims, is keeping her in the news. Was it only coincidence that Señor Marco’s remarks emerged two days after claims that police in Praia da Luz were to abandon the case, and that the seaside town that has been at the eye of the storm since May 3 was ready to move on, too?
Faded posters and photographs of Madeleine are disappearing from around the resort, as are the symbols of hope we became familiar with during the long, painful summer - the candles and the now bedraggled green and yellow ribbons.
I don’t blame the McCanns for their desperate attempts to keep Madeleine in our minds. But the latest twist in the saga is unsettling. The Find Madeleine Fund was set up to do what it says, to discover what happened to her and bring her abductor to justice. Any surplus is to be used to help the families of other missing children. Instead, it appears to be funding publicity stunts.
“Home for Christmas” is such an evocative phrase, expressing a sentiment that most of us subscribe to. In Basra last week, the Prime Minister sympathised with those troops who would “not be home for Christmas”. We all do.
Linking Madeleine to this cosy celebration of family life highlights the fresh agony Kate and Gerry face over the next two weeks. Last year, their beautiful little girl was there to help decorate the tree with her brother and sister. This year, short of a Christmas miracle - which is what every sane person prays for - she won’t be and it was wrong to suggest otherwise. The McCanns should think again about Señor Marco.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
5534 - predicatable, lol
December 16th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Kirstie-5534
Thank you for your support – it’s really appreciated. I did start a reply back to Lauren but decided not to. I made a promise thousands of posts back that I wouldn’t respond to any more aggressive attacks. Like you and all the other regular posters I come on here to support the search for Madeleine and not to argue with people who I believe are trolls.
Jean, another example of the blundering Portuguese police, they have had this cctv footage for months with three suspicious men on it and they didn’t think to investigate further! If Madeleine is no longer with us due to their incompetence, then her blood is on their hands.
It’s good that m3 have had a ‘telling off’ and told to get on with what they should be doing, instead of all this attention seeking that they seem to thrive on.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
‘Sweaty Murat was breathless and excited during Maddie police quiz’
‘I’m relaxed about leaving the children alone’: What Gerry McCann said the night Madeleine disappeared
By REBECCA CAMBER - More by this author »
Last updated at 13:06pm on 15th December 2007
Robert Murat: ‘breathless’ and ‘a little excited’
Madeleine McCann suspect Robert Murat was sweating, “breathless” and “a little excited” at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz the day after the four-year-old went missing, a key witness said yesterday.
Bridget O’Donnell, who became friends with Kate and Gerry McCann while staying at the same complex, broke her silence to declare that although Kate and Gerry McCann made a “disastrous decision” in leaving Madeleine alone, they are innocent of any crime.
She described Gerry McCann was “relaxed” about leaving his children alone in their holiday apartment the night Madeleine disappeared, and told of the Portuguese detectives’ incompetence, saying that they did not even know what Madeleine looked like the day after she disappeared.
Yesterday, for the first time, Miss O’Donnell described a crucial encounter when her partner, TV producer Jeremy Wilkins, spoke to Gerry McCann during the hour when Madeleine vanished.
The cardiologist was on his way back to the resort’s tapas restaurant at 8.30pm after checking on his three children when he bumped into Mr Wilkins, who was taking his baby son out in a buggy to try to get him to sleep before spending the evening in the family’s accommodation.
“The two men stopped to have a chat,” she wrote in The Guardian.
“They talked about daughters, fathers, families.
“Gerry was relaxed and friendly.
“They discussed their baby-sitting dilemmas at the resort and Gerry said that he and Kate would have stayed in too if they had not been on holiday in a group.”
Gerry and Kate McCann: ‘relaxed and friendly’
Maddie: Portuguese police ‘came within an inch of jailing Kate McCann’
Encounter: Jeremy Wilkins spoke to Gerry McCann
Her account goes against the Portuguese police theory that Mr McCann was somehow involved in his daughter’s death and had left her body in the apartment at that time.
The chance meeting on the night Madeleine vanished has been subject to endless speculation and is critical in confirming the timing of the McCanns’ movements.
Miss O’Donnell, who worked as a producer on BBC1’s Crimewatch, said she “admired” the McCanns for being comfortable enough to leave their children alone in their apartment as they ate at a tapas restaurant nearby.
“I admired them, in a way, for not being paranoid parents, but I decided that our apartment was too far off even to contemplate it,” she said.
Her comments will be a welcome boost for the McCanns who have suffered a growing backlash in recent days from the mayor of Praia da Luz, where posters have been removed of the missing girl.
Miss O’Donnell was staying with her partner, her three-year- old daughter and nine-month- old baby son in their apartment a block away from the McCanns”.
She said: “Privately I was glad we didn’t get their apartment.
“It was on a corner by the road and people could see in. They were exposed.”
She described the dilemma parents faced when arranging childcare at the resort.
Although the Ocean Club had a ’sit-in’ babysitting service, she said it was expensive, highly in demand and parents had to book well in advance.
Alternatively, children could be taken to the kiddie club which also ran a babysitting service.
But Miss O’Donnell said that when she left her children there, the sitter called to say one was crying.
Madeleine vanished on May 3, turning the McCanns’ lives to horror
The couple had to leave their meal unfinished to collect their two children and return to their apartment.
On May 3, the night Madeleine disappeared, Miss O’Donnell said they decided to stay in with their children.
She said: “We ate, drank wine, watched a DVD then went to bed.
“On the ground floor, a completely catastrophic event was taking place.
“On the fourth floor of the next block, we were completely oblivious.”
At 1am they were woken with the news by a friend of the McCanns helping with the search .
The next day the couple spoke to police who were being aided by Robert Murat acting as a translator.
“The translator had a squint and sweated slightly,” said Miss O’Donnell.
“He was breathless, perhaps a little excited.”
Miss O’Donnell blasted the police investigation, saying that officers did not have a notebook and only wrote their details on a scrap of paper.
An officer also failed to recognise a photocopied picture of Madeleine distributed by the McCanns’ search party, which he mistook for a picture of Miss O’Donnell’s daughter.
Describing Kate McCann as “calm, still, quietly beautiful” and Gerry as “confident, proud, silly, strong”, she said the couple were physically transformed when their daughter went missing.
“The physical transformation of these two human beings was sickening . . . Kate’s back and shoulders, her hands, her mouth had reshaped themselves into the angular manifestation of a silent scream,’ she said.
“Gerry was upright, his lips now drawn into a thin, impenetrable line.”
Though they were not part of the McCanns’ group of friends - whom they nicknamed “the Doctors” - Mr Wilkins had previously played tennis with Mr McCann.
Miss O’Donnell said: “Throughout all this I have believed that Gerry and Kate McCann are innocent.
“There were no drug-fuelled ’swingers’ on our holiday - there was a bunch of ordinary parents worrying about sleep patterns.
“None of us imagined we were being watched. One group made a disastrous decision; Madeleine was vulnerable and was chosen.
“But in the face of such desperate audacity, it could have been any one of us.”
Three days after Madeleine’s disappearance, the couple left the resort.
British police later took a statement from Mr Wilkins, but she said Portuguese police never bothered.
Miss O’Donnell added: “My heart goes out to them, Kate and Gerry, the couple we remember from our Portuguese holiday.
“They had a beautiful daughter Madeleine, who played and danced with ours at the kiddie club. That’s who we remember.”
December 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
CHRISTMAS PLEA TO MADDIE WITNESSES
ABOVE: Maddie’s been missing since May16th December 2007 By Jonathan Corke Your Shout ( 19 )
DETECTIVES searching for Madeleine McCann are trying to trace 24 British holidaymakers who may hold vital clues.
They were staying at the same Portuguese holiday complex as Madeleine when she vanished on May 3.
Despite several high-profile appeals in the seven-and-a-half months since her disappearance, they have yet to come forward.
Meanwhile Maddie’s parents Kate and Gerry, both 39, last night revealed their pain at having to spend Christmas without their daughter.
The head of the private detective agency they have employed to find Madeleine said last week he hoped to have her home for Christmas Day.
But Kate and Gerry have told Metodo 3 boss Francisco Marco to get on with finding Madeleine rather than making bold claims to the Press.
In a statement they said: “Christmas 2007 will be an extremely difficult time for us if Madeleine is not found before then. We plan to have a very quiet, private Christmas with family in the UK.
“We would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the last seven months and ask you to stay with us as the search for our daughter continues.”
Detectives, acting on new information and sightings, believe Madeleine, four, is being held in North Africa.
The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the Brits staying at the complex in Praia da Luz in May could help “piece together the jigsaw”.
He said: “We need them to come forward. They may have no information or they may have a tiny amount of information, which could prove vital in piecing together the jigsaw
Mr Mitchell refused to comment on reports Metodo 3 had been given a “dressing down” for saying Madeleine would be home by Christmas.
But a friend of the McCanns said: “It’s fair to say Mr Marco has been told to get on with the job of finding Madeleine rather than making public statements.
Another friend said the couple may sack Marco and his team of 35 private detectives – whom they are paying £50,000 a month – if there are any more public outbursts.
Mr Marco was unavailable for comment yesterday
December 16th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Jean,
No it doesn’t look good atall. It is infuriating that this evidence has been there all along and cast aside by Amaral. I hope to God this interest of the barn turns out to be nothing atall, because it would be too unbearable to think about.
Does anyone know what led them (PP) to this barn in the first place?
I feel very nervous about all of this!!
I wonder if JT will be shown the cctv footage even though it is grainy, she might be able to pick out the guy she saw carrying off the child??
December 16th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Just found this on another Anorak site ……. Doesn’t look good.
NEW EVIDENCE ON MADDIE
Maddie went missing in May
Sunday December 16,2007
By James Murray Have your say(7)
The FBI has been asked to examine CCTV footage of three men acting suspiciously near the Algarve apartment that Madeleine McCann disappeared from.
The night before she vanished, two men were seen acting nervously near the complex and on the evening she went, the same men were seen with a third man.
One of the men captured on camera on both nights bears a strong resemblance to a man with long, dark hair seen carrying a child, as reported by the McCanns’ friend Jane Tanner.
Today we can also reveal that sniffer dogs taken to a disused barn 30 miles from Praia da Luz have shown strong interest in two sites.
Their behaviour does not look normal. It clearly looks furtive and suspicious
Investigation sources
One is what appears to be a 14ft mineshaft opening to an underground cavity, and the other is where earth has been disturbed, possibly covering a shallow grave.
Detectives have asked for specialist imaging equipment to be brought in and are planning to excavate the shaft.
Portuguese police are desperate to identify the three men seen on the CCTV footage and have had long discussions with British detectives on how to enhance the grainy footage to get clear images of the three faces.
They have been told to send all the footage to an FBI lab in America, which has the best equipment in the world for zooming in on CCTV images.
The footage was gathered in the early days of the investigation. It was set aside because detectives could not see the faces clearly.
But now that the investigation has been reinvigorated by the new chief investigator, Paulo Rebelo, old material is being reviewed.
A source close to the investigation revealed: “There is a great deal of interest from the new team in the CCTV footage taken from a business premise between 50 and 100 yards from the apartment where Madeleine was staying.
“On May 2 in the evening two men are clearly seen hanging around in the area. One is smoking and both are seen with their heads down, glancing from side to side.
“One of them looks similar to the artist’s impression of a man seen taking a child away.
“They are in the area for a time and then one disappears and comes back into view. The non-smoker who stays is the one who looks like the drawing of the man seen carrying a child from the apartment.
“Their behaviour does not look normal. It clearly looks furtive and suspicious but because of the quality of the film it is difficult to make out their facial features.”
Kate and Gerry issued a statement yesterday, thanking their supporters as they prepared for “an incredibly difficult Christmas”, their first without Madeleine.
The couple are staying in Britain but it is not known how much of the holiday will be spent at their Rothley, Leicestershire, home.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Hi All
Let’s all calm down and think about Madeleine and what we can do to help her. She needs every bit of support right now, because the papers seem to be full of bringing down her mum and dad and not concentrating on her. As I have said before, she is the most important person in all of this, let’s get her home and then the issue of her parents can be resolved.
I read this in the Daily Mail on Friday, which is very interesting….
Police in Portugal were investigating Robert Murat just three days after Madeleine disappeared, it was claimed yesterday. Detectives secretly searched the Brtish expat’s hire car eight days before they made him an official suspect, police sources said.
Previously it had been reported that Mr Murat hired the blue Hyundai Getz on May 12, nine days after Madeleine vanished from Praia da Luz. But yesterday police sources told the Portuguese daily paper Diario de Noticas that he hurriedly hired it on May 6, telling staff he could not even wait two hours for it despite apparently having two vehicles at home already.
His behaviour seemed so bizarre that the sales assistant reported the incident to the police. Portuguese police, who were already keeping Mr Murat under surveillance, were also suspicious of why he was unable to use one of his own vehicles.
However, the 30 minute search revealed nothing.
……. I wonder if the used forensics on that car!!! or did they just ‘look’ at it. It makes you wonder doesn’t it??
December 16th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Lauren,
I completely disagree with you. I do not think Maggies posts are full of BS atall. She has been here for months trying to make sense of this horrendous situation, and contributed in many ways. I think she rattled you and you clearly did not like it, manners?? where about??? because from what i have seen of you so far you’ve rubbed so many people up the wrong way not because of your views- because i for one share many of them; but more the way in which you verbalise them. Read back some of your own posts, quite aggressive in some of them. To state you have manners and don’t pick people up on typos and the to actually do it would suggest to me you are using some very bitchy undertones yourself- posts 5530, 5531, 5532 (particularly the latter) are testament to that.
Maggie? arguementative, small minded, petty? = pot, kettle , black.
And one more thing before i do not read nor refer to you again- this ‘core users’ saying- so three months ago!!
December 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Hello to all of you supporting the Gordon Brown intervention. He obviously is not even interested enough in the Country as a whole - he lingers when he should have been up there with the rest signing the treaty in Portugal. I am very relieved that he has not shown special privilidges to the McCann family - I want the government of this country of ours to concentrate on the issues of running the country and not get embroiled in individual cases. Maybe a letter supporting the police would have been more appropriate than one asking G.B.to go overboard to support suspects in a criminal case. If the police had more support they would probably be more in tune with the needs of the public - if you are shit on - particularly if it comes from a great height - there is an inclination to catapult it back.
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Mods and Admin
There should not be political involvement, there was a young English woman buried this week, who was murdered in Greece?,there was no comment/support/funding either for her family to retrieve her body for burial, just minor tv coverage and very little public interest.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Kirstie, re 5521 lol, what it is to be perfect.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Maggie, I am annoyed at myself that i responded to the pathetic remark that you directed towards me in your post. It has just hit me what an argumentative person you truly are. You only ever respond to me, to either provoke a reaction from me, or put down a comment i have made, by trying to make me out to be some kind of monster for not agreeing that young children should never be left alone. I think if the mods and admin were to look back at a lot of the animosity on this board, you are always right in the thick of it.
I will not be responding to any more of your posts, because one, you have very little of interest to say, as far as i am concerned. And two, you are a petty and small minded human being, which i am very happy to say, that i have only had the misfortune of coming to contact with on here. So as, i wouldnt give someone like you the time of day in real life, i shall be doing the same on here in future.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Maggie, re 5520 How pathetic, i made a typo, of course i know Madeleine has a brother and a sister. You come on here. moaning about people who are nasty to you, when to be honest most of your posts have a bitchy undertone to them, aimed at either myself or whoever else you feel like having a go at - not the core users of course. Your posts are full of typos and BS most of the time, i was just raised to have manners and not to comment on such things, in your case though, i am very happy to make an exception.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
the mccanns are going through the worst nightmare i have ever seen in my life and we are all going through it with them,they are fighting hell while people spew abuse at them,
the only advice i can give the mccanns and their supporters is,FIGHT AND YOU WILL WIN HER BACK DEAD OR ALIVE.
small prayer for the child is this bad time for her.