Madeleine McCann: Clarence Mitchell Speaks, Make Madeleine History And Breastfeeding
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY MAIL pages 10 and 11: “Madeleine cried for 18 hours a day. Kate tells of the special bond forged in the painful days of early childhood.”
Kate McCann is speaking with Portuguese magazine Flash!. This interview took place before Kate McCann was named as a suspect in Madeline’s disappearance. Kate says the first six months with Madeleine were “very difficult”. Madeleine had colic. “I had to carry her around permanently,” says Kate.
What does it mean, this interview that has “emerged”? That what you tell magazines can be taken out of context and used in evidence against you, or something else?
THE TIMES page 9: “McCanns go straight to the top in search for powerful backers.”
Gordon Brown is being kept abreast of the investigation on Kate and Gerry McCann, possibly by reading the British press and watching the news bulletins.
(Is any MP still wearing a yellow ribbon?)
The McCanns have a new spokesman. He’s called Clarence Mitchell. He resigned as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring unit to take this new post.
Mr Mitchell once offered: “There’s a whole level of debate taking place online which simply didn’t exist before and departments feel they need to be fully engaged in that.”
Look out for Kate’s blog.
DAILY MIRROR front page: “THE TIDE TURNS.”
“McCanns WON’T be ordered back to Portugal says Judge”
“Gordon Brown briefed on the case”
“New spokesman will declare Gerry and Kate innocent today”
Clarence Mitchell says: “They have nothing whatever to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.” And as the McCann’s new spokesman he should know.
Pages 4 and 5: “RAY OF HOPE.”
Madeleine has not been found but Kate and Gerry McCann will not have to fly back to Portugal for more questioning.
On the downside sales of the “Look for Madeleine” wristband are not going well in Portugal. In “LOCALS REJECTS ‘FIND HER’ BRACELETS,” this year’s Make Poverty History band is being turned down at a car boot sales in Praia da Luz.
Says one ex-pat: “It’s as if they want to forget something so horrible happened.” Or buy something less with their money?
Says another: “We can’t understand how they can carry on jogging after losing Madeleine. Gerry went to a hairdressers a few weeks after she disappeared and continued tennis lessons. The Portuguese feel they should b hysterical.” But not the British, who understand reserve…
THE SUN front page: “MADDIE COPS SLAPPED DOWN. KATE BACKED BY JUDGE. Mum won’t be hauled back to Portugal.”
Judge Pedro Anjos Frias rejected Portuguese police calls for the McCanns to return. “He is thought to have ruled the case to flimsy to justify the move.” Or, to put it another way, he has not received sufficient evidence to be convinced of the need for a trial.
Pages 4 and 5: “COPS CASE COLLAPSING.”
And: “McCanns tell Brown: We have solid defence.” Gordon Brown’s reaction to this news is not known.
THE INDEPENDENT page 32: Thomas Sutcliffe says the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been “yoked by journalists to another kind of story – the primal faction of fairytale”. Here “the beautiful child is swallowed by something that has emerged from the dark”.
It is, is it not, every child’s worst nightmare.
Page 4: “Kate McCann ‘will not be reinterviewed in Portugal’.”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE POLICE CASE FALLS APART.”
“Judge refuses to recall the McCanns”
“Impossible to detect sedatives in hair”
“But slurs against the parents continue”
Slurs?
Pages 8 and 9: “My struggles to control Madeleine – BY KATE MCCANN.”
As told to Flash! magazine. The twins arrive. “The worst thing is that she started to demand lots of attention, especially when I was breastfeeding them.”
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE ALL SEVEN McCANN PALS IN FRAME.” The seven dwarves, to continue Mr Sutcliffe’s analogy?
“Cops set to name them as suspects.”
Pages 6 and 7: “BRIT PALS ALL SUSPECTS.”
The Tapas 9 are in the frame. This will put the lid – the tapas – on the case. Right?
“Maddie cops jet to UK as group face grilling” – Portuguese police are “planning” to come to the UK to continue the investigation. British police will conduct interviews.
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 8: “McCanns to be interviewed by British police.”
Kate and Gerry are also keen to reach Gordon Brown. A source tell the paper: “The McCanns do not expect help or influence to be exerted on their behalf but want to get messages to the very top that they are innocent.”
Does Brown read the Telegraph?
THE GUARDIAN page 35: “Never mind the high street: Branson sells his Virgin Megastores.”
No mention of Madeleine McCann, granted, but this news one day after Branson pledged to help the parents clear their names looks like interesting timing?
Posted: 18th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,047) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
September 19th, 2007 at 1:41 am
938. Maria,
According to Mark Warner Resorts PR the McCann’s stay at teh resort after Madeleine went missing was free of charge. The resort informed the McCanns they could remain there as long as they liked free of cost.
Claiming that the McCann’s have not hired their own team of napping experts and private investigators to find Madeleine because it would be breaking Portuguese law is, with all due respect, to borrow Gerry’s favorite word LUDICROUS.
This misguided belief of yours, and many other McCann supporters, is ludicrous because if they cared at all about laws they would not have left their very young children unattended to go out socializing. Not just on May 3rd but on all the previous nights as well. On May 2nd they were 1 mile away from the Mark Warner Resort and again, left Madeleine and the twins unsupervised so they could go out dining and drinking and I guess save a little money on their travel costs byt not bringing along their nanny or hiring a sitter from the Mark Warner Resort.
Also, in respect of Portuguese law the McCanns and those of the Tapas 7 and anyone else related to this case were requested by the Portuguese police to not speak about the case to the media. It may even be Portuguese law that suspects are to refrain from giving any information to reporters, news agencies etc….Yet the McCanns have done so from the very beginning.
Also, to get back to your assumption that they’ve not spent the donated moeny to find Madeleine because it is against Portuguese Law is also LUDICROUS because if Madeleine was snatched she would more than likely be in Spain, North Africa, Malta, Italy or southern France. They could have hired experts without breaking the law but did not.
And finally, they did not follow any of the numerous leads on the Madeleine sights yet had the money , time and energy to travel Europe and North America giving interviews. WHile may I add the twins were not with them back in England being watched by a family member or friend.
Srange and bizarre doesn’t even begin to adequately describe the McCanns.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Can anyone tell me what the ppl on this site believe NON-transferable DNA to be?
September 19th, 2007 at 1:38 am
(940) Paulette:
“Getting inside is easy. (Tapas)”
Good to know.
“This was just one of the reasons why the group became suspicious in the eyes of the investigators. Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner’s husband, is already back in England, but he knows he could be summoned back to Portugal for a deposition anytime. Over the phone with Sol, he tries to keep his british phlegm: “It is normal that we are suspects, and the DNA test is a consequence thereof. We were the closest people involved”.
That’s the thing, he didn’t resist or shout when the Portuguese police questioned them. And I understand the McCanns being upset about the police “collecting evidence to charge them”, but the McCanns seemed to be outraged from the start instead of realizing that it was something the police really should do to cover all of their bases.
“And Russell, when the questions start to surround him, loses his sympathy: “[i]I have nothing further to tell you. I am not going to dishonor the compromise I assumed with Kate and Gerry. They want to control all information that is disclosed”. [/i]”
How could they control the information? I thought they too were under the secrecy laws?
““We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne, another element with the group.”
Then why call Sky News?
“This is always done “without neglecting other clues. Everybody who was at the resort at the time are suspects”.
Good, that is what should have happened at the start.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:36 am
943 Maria
Different cultures have different norms and behave in different ways. It might be quite normal for Portuguse police to beat out the truth from a woman whom they firmly believe is guilty.
After all, didnt our own British government working with the US government, partake or turn a blind eye to the use of torture tactics by sending alleged terrorists off to such places?
The British police use psychological pressure on a suspect, the PJ might slap them around a bit - still doesnt mean the person is not guilty.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:36 am
902
g says
I was interested in what you wrote about the eye defect “coloboma” just been reading up on it and like you say it can be part of the illness known as “charge” maybe you could have something there as it does state that it can be acompanied by other behavour problems..If there was any chance of the child having such problems then maybe that is the reason they dont like to draw attention to the fact that they left her unattended.Think of the oppinions people may have had, the two of them being doctors aswell…maybe they wouldn’t have got so much support from the beggining….
September 19th, 2007 at 1:32 am
The discrepancies in the statements of the Tapas 9 are incredible - they are not minor differences or differences in time estimates - they are much more substantial. Usually when there is a “pact” amongst several conspirators or liars, the common solution used by police is TIME.
Sooner or later, other things will happen between them, their relationships will change, people may have arguments or disagreements and someone will eventually break away, or one of them will accidentally speak to someone outside the group (eg. another friend or family member).
The McScams may think they’ve got away with it….I am confident that in time it will come out
September 19th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Sorry Spudgun, didn’t make myself clear!
I meant to ask you why you dismiss the story about the other girl in 2004 (Joana Cipriano) whose mother says she was beaten into some sort of confession by the police. I am NOT quoting it in any way to support a theory of conspiracy against the McCanns because it may be rubbish. You’ll know that the UK police have reported it and there appears to be a concern because one of the detectives on the Madeleine case is reported to be facing charges of cover-up in the Cipriano case. Pics of the mother, battered black and blue, have been published in both Portuguese and UK press. (However….photos?!) Joana’s father said many weeks ago that he feared Kate McCann was going to be set up as his wife had been.
I seriously mean that I do NOT quote that to add to any anti-Portuguese police theory. I detest xenophobia, totally. It could well be the usual press rubbish.
However, you referred to this case dismissively. I just wondered why? What more do you know about this particular case?
Why do you think de Sousa resigned by the way? Just interested.
If there is a phone conversation in which Kate McCann admits to accidentally killing Madeleine (other than by leaving her alone when she should have been under adult supervision), I cannot believe that a prosecution will not take place. If there is significant evidence, whether or not it is currently in the public domain, charges should be brought. I just seriously doubt that this is the case.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:29 am
(939) Maria:
“(7) I’d be surprised if some of this money wasn’t given at some point to other charities for missing children or used for some of the initiatives for missing children launched by the McCanns themselves.”
Giving the money to other missing children is conditional on the fact that Madeleine is found, the family’s expenses are taken care of (relating to the case, but not legal apparently), and that the abductor is brought to justice. I hope that, if they don’t find out who abducted Madeleine or Madeleine’s body (I do hope they find her body, dead or alive), that they will donate to other missing children’s cases, but they wouldn’t have to.
Also, I think if they would have, it would have been publicized by now (as they seem to be on a bit of a PR thing). But one can never really know, I’d like to hear they have but if they haven’t donated, I understand they may want to keep the money off limits in case there is a big break in Madeleine’s case.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:22 am
937
I have felt for a little while that the police should have leaned on Jane Tanner. She feels like a weak link. Her statement is potentially damaging in several possible scenarios.
Can you say who Kate was talking to when she said she did it and when that call happened?
September 19th, 2007 at 1:22 am
But a spokeswoman for the McCanns said: “To date we have had no contact from them, no request, nothing like that… if they are on their way, they have in no way let the family or the legal team know.”
Completely brilliant! I guess the McCanns are so used to being informed ahead of time so they can properly prepare.
You know like leave holiday apartment unlocked to make snatching go smoothly.
Clear away twins’ toys; polish Gerry’s halo; change necklace; call Sky News and tell them we’ve made the request for child welfare visit.
And all the other wonderful whacky public relations’ blurbs the McShams have generously given to the world!
September 19th, 2007 at 1:15 am
928. Simon,
You asked for a source for the Payne quote. This is the article I have where I first read it. You’ll find the Payne quote towards the very end of the article. There are some other wonderful quotes from the Tapas 9.
published in Sol, on June 30, 2007
an article by Felicia Cabrita and Margarida Davim
Madeleine Case
Pact of Silence
Madeleine’s parents and the friends with whom they spent their holidays in PDL are suspects in the inquiry. There are contradictory versions about the night of the kidnapping, and an assumed pact of silence in the group
The beginning of June is flowing in a strange way in the Algarve. A chilly wind and overhead clouds help to fill the auditorium of Lagos, where a solidarity concert is being held for the missing english girl. It’s been a month since Madeleine McCann vanished without a trace.
A few kilometres from Lagos, in the Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz, the faint illumination further densifies the climate. At the reception, which leads to the Tapas restaurant, there is nobody. Getting inside is easy.
A portuguese waiter, but with a british ‘behaviour’, strikes the first blow on the journalist’s plan: “We only serve dinner to the club’s clients”. “What about a drink?”. He says yes.
It’s 9.30 p.m. If we were to believe the several members of the McCann’s holiday group, and after several mismatching versions, at this time Madeleine was being carried out of her apartment by a dark-haired man, who would be around 35 years old.
From the same table where the group of nine had dinner on that evening, one tries, in vain, to observe the apartment’s front – a ground floor apartment that faces the restaurant. A linoleum screen on the side of Tapas and the corridor of bushes that follows the limits of the apartment’s back yards prevents any vigilance to that level.
The image of Madeleine – big blue, questioning eyes and an innocent smile, fixed on the photographic films – is always present. It doesn’t leave the conversations of whom passes by. One remembers the words that the mother, Kate Healy, is supposed to have said to a friend (and that the husband, Gerry McCann, did not know): “I had a bad premonition about my children, when I found out the Ocean Club had no baby listening service”.
The choice of Algarve as a holiday destination would come to change their lives. Everything was arranged with three other couples, with whom they used to travel. Some of them had recently been to Greece, with their children, and the Mark Warner agency, the same that prepared their trip to the Algarve, had done their itinerary for the islands. According to their reports, the hotel where they stayed had a baby listening service – a service that is assured by four or five members of staff who would control the children while the adults dined, by listening through doors and windows to confirm that everything inside was quiet.
At the Tapas bar, from bartenders to staff from the Kid Club, criticism is whispered: “[i]We have a creche where they left their children for most part of the day, where they could be until 11.30 p.m. without spending another Euro. They could also have used our baby-sitters, who stay with the children in their rooms until 1 p.m. In this case, they would have to pay an extra fee, but these people looked like they could afford it”, an employee comments, concluding that “this was a very strange group, that never stayed with their children”. [/i]
The children’s routine
The story of Madeleine looks like a tangled ball of wool. In the last days of April, Kate and Gerry, both 39 and doctors, arrive with their friends in Praia da Luz. The weather is not very good, but the group makes the best of it. The children seem to exist outside of the adults’ world. In the morning, Kate would take Madeleine, almost 4, and the 2-year old twins, to the Kid Club. The other couples in the group did the same. While the little ones entertained themselves with collages and paintings, the group divides itself between tennis and jogging until lunchtime. In the creche, the girl’s picture is taken: “She was shy and had some difficulty in adapting to the group. She always stayed close to the english children she already knew”.
It is at lunchtime that the families socialize a bit. After a short nap, the children go back to the Kid Club, while the parents use the activities that the club offers. They only get to meet again in the late afternoon, when the children’s dinner is served. [i]Before 8 p.m., Madeleine and her siblings, who seem to function like a clock, are already asleep. Half an hour later, the group of friends meets at Tapas. The staff remember that they only leave at midnight: “They were very lively and drank a bit too much. I didn’t even realize they had children, because I never saw them around”. [/i]
Mathew Oldfield, one of the elements of the group, is back in England. He reacts with surprise upon the contact of Sol, but he does not avoid the conversation: “We drank. We were on holidays. So what?”.
And thus the days followed one upon another, at the Ocean Club. The holiday week is almost over and the group’s spirit does not change. Nobody had noticed until then, how the children were kept at a distance.
The most reliable way to undrestand what happened on May 3, when Madeleine disappeared, is to analyze the various versions that emerged.
It would have been 10 p.m. when Kate decided to check the children at the apartment. This is the only moment in the story that gathers consensus. Madeleine had vanished from her bedroom and the twins were sleeping like nothing had happened. The mother was back at the restaurant in one leap. She was disoriented.
[i]PJ called two hours later [/i]
In seconds, the resort is in turmoil. The group’s four men and the club’s employees check every corner. They [i]seem to be oblivious of the essential: to call the authorities. GNR is the first to arrive at the scene, but the news only reach Policia Judiciaria (PJ) more than two hours later. The first explanations arise. Where were the parents when the child disappeared? Gerry explains that, inspired in the scheme that some of the friends had used on their holidays in Greece, the nine members of the group took turns in checking on the children with some regularity. [/i]
This is the beginning of a story that will change in many chapters. Gerry starts by saying that he first left the table to check on the children around 9.05 p.m. When he entered the apartment the children were fine, he just noticed that the door to their bedroom was partially open. He looked at the window, which was closed, just as the shutters, and relaxed.
Ten minutes later, his friend Jane Tanner, who went around the apartments, crossed ways with a dark-haired man who was walking in the opposite direction, carrying a child. She didn’t make any connections either.
A few minutes later, Mathew Oldfield enters the room, sees the McCann children fast asleep, and notices nothing out of the ordinary. It is at 10 p.m. that Maddie’s mother discovers her daughter has disappeared. The window was wide open and the shutters were up.
To GNR, who is in the area with sniffer dogs to search for the child, this is a highly unlikely scenario. One of the military assures: “This is an extremely silent area, where there are practically no passing cars. That shutter was very difficult to lift from the outside, and would have made a lot of noise. [i]It would have been a lot easier to use the door, but there were no signs of a break-in”. [/i]
This was just one of the reasons why the group became suspicious in the eyes of the investigators. Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner’s husband, is already back in England, but he knows he could be summoned back to Portugal for a deposition anytime. Over the phone with Sol, he tries to keep his british phlegm: “It is normal that we are suspects, and the DNA test is a consequence thereof. We were the closest people involved”.
[i]The conversation always comes back to the same issue: the night of the disappearance. The account of that last dinner has disparate versions among the group’s members. Some swear that someone left the table every half hour to check on the kids; other reduce that time to half of it. Some say control is made window by window; others say the adults entered each other’s apartments.[/i]
One of the employees that was on duty that evening does not remember a lot of movement: “I only remember a tall, grey-haired man getting up once from the table”. It was Russell, who, two days earlier, also had attended dinner.
An aerobic instructor from the resort entertains the dinner guests at Tapas with a ‘Quiz’. At 9.30 p.m. the game ends, and Gerry invites her to their table, where she stays for half an hour. During that time, as she later confided to friends, nobody left the table, but one of the chairs was vacant. Najova Chekaya refuses to talk to Sol. And Russell, when the questions start to surround him, loses his sympathy: “[i]I have nothing further to tell you. I am not going to dishonor the compromise I assumed with Kate and Gerry. They want to control all infornation that is disclosed”. [/i]
Gerry changes his version several times, but he maintains that the door to his children’s room was open. Mat revokes his first statement: when he entered Madeleine’s room, the door was open and there was more light, as if the shutters had been raised. Here starts to develop the theory that there was already someone inside the apartment. Which reinforces Jane Tanner’s version (that she saw a man carrying a child).
Only Jane saw the man carrying a child
But there is a witness whose deposition contradicts this theory. Jeremy Wilkins – a tv producer who had met Maddie’s father during their holidays and used to play tennis with him – was walking his eight months old son at that time. He met Gerry, who went out through the apartment’s back door after having checked on the children, and the two man exchanged a brief conversation. At that time, if one is to believe the first accounts, Jane would have left Tapas in the direction of the apartment’s main entrance, and would have crossed paths with both of them. “It was a very narrow road and I think it would have been almost impossible to walk by without me taking notice”, Jeremy says, pointing out the fact that he saw no man carrying a child, as Jane states.
But Jane continues to guarantee that, at the top of the street, she saw a man with a child in his arms.
Although the area is scarcely lit, and the situation did not make her suspicious at the time, she describes the beige trousers, the dark thick jacket and the black classic-style shoes in a detailed way. Once again, Jeremy disagrees: “If that happened, I would have likely seen it”.
On the next day, the media circus was fully installed. The first reports are on Sky News first thing in the morning, even before portuguese press takes hold of the story. Journalists and locals dispute the information. Robert Murat, the son of an english mother and a portuguese father, with little luck in business, does not waste the opportunity. He moves from failed businessman into the role of a translator for the press and the police. Some british journalists, after sucking him to the bones, start suspecting his availability.
The Murat contradiction
Contrarily to the GNR elements and the Ocean Club’s staff, who participated in the searches on the night before and assure they did not see Murat around, Gerry and some of his friends guarantee that he was there. And thus he becomes an arguido.
Gerry and Kate’s friends, who are interrogated tightly by the PJ over almost a month, refuse to clarify this contradiction, when asked by Sol. “We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne, another element with the group.
Minutes after we tried to contact Kate, Gerry, in a fury, calls the Sol journalist: “What do you think you are doing? Do you think you’re better than the portuguese police? I’m going to forward your contact to PJ and you will have to explain yourselves”.
——-
PJ says ‘everybody is a suspect’
The director of the Policia Judiciaria in Faro, Guilhermino da Encarnacao, confirmed with Sol that “we do not discard the possibility to have the family and friends as suspects”. This is always done “without neglecting other clues. Everybody who was at the resort at the time are suspects”.[/quote]
September 19th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Paulette,
As one who donated to the fund, already over a million, I am sorry that the McCanns felt that they should use their own savings for their living expenses for their extended stay in Portugal. I, like many, gave with the intention of facilitating anything they needed to do in their campaign to find Madeleine. I would have been perfectly happy for them to use the money for rent in Portugal.
However, I suppose I can understand the feelings which prevented them spending the money on anything which was not DIRECTLY connected to the campaign itself. They have, quite correctly, spent the money sparingly so far.
A few points might be worth making :
(1) It is illegal in Portugal to launch a private investigation while a police one was still in progress.
(2) I SUSPECT (can’t know) that they thought the police would do a better job anyway.
(3) I do not know the details of what the money which HAS been spent has actually been spent on (do you?) but we seem to be able to see that they are not wasting it. Nor should they. Especially since they hoped to use it for other missing children when Madeleine was found.
(4) I won’t mention wristbands. Peanuts.
(5) I think we will now see the fund spent a bit more readily, especially as the McCanns realise the police have not really been looking for Madeleine but focussing in on them as suspects. The McCanns will have to do more stuff themselves, just as they had to do the initial appeal to the abductor, the description of Madeleine’s clothes etc. because the police didn’t assist them
(6) When people give money to a cause, they should read the small print unless happy to trust the people concerned make wise decisions. I am happy to do just that. The fact that not a lot has been spent so far saddens me a bit in one way (they’ve spent their savings when it wasn’t really necessary, they could legitimately have used the fund) but in another way it reassures me that it won’t be wasted or used on themselves.
(7) They seem to be announcing openly how they intend to spend it. John McCann has just said £80,000 will be spent on advertising Madeleine’s plight.
(Now, you may not agree with this? Tough. Those who donated did so with no strings attached. It was for the campaign to decide what was needed and for the directors to decide what the money could and could not be spent on. I don’t think donors imagined they would NOT spend it in ways which they thought would be helpful.)
(7) I’d be surprised if some of this money wasn’t given at some point to other charities for missing childre or used for some of the initiatives for missing children launched by the McCanns themselves.
What do you think they’ll do with the money? Hols? Luxury house on the other side of the world? Posher car? Manicures and pedicures?
Let’s have a bet now!!
September 19th, 2007 at 1:13 am
934 SIMON
???????????
We are talking about a fair bit of blood here. It would have HAD to be properly cleaned up THAT NIGHT, otherwise PJ would have seen it when they did their first analysis of the scene, looking for abduction evidence. Tanners statement was dismissed pretty much immediately by PJ because they already had Gerry McCann and Jeremy Wilkins statements, and they couldn’t have ALL been correct!!
September 19th, 2007 at 1:08 am
934
Ok. So the blood was left by Madeleine but cleaned away before the dogs went in.
Which was after the apartment had been cleaned at least once by the apartment cleaners, prior to letin gthe apartment again shortly after the McCanns left.
When and why was the Jane Tanner statement discredted?
September 19th, 2007 at 1:04 am
On todays news that Portugese police may be flying to the UK, the Press Association says:-
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iJYmnpsg7d22gXXeQCVeTV-u773w
But a spokeswoman for the McCanns said: “To date we have had no contact from them, no request, nothing like that… if they are on their way, they have in no way let the family or the legal team know.”
I would have expected them to say something along the lines “We hope they have some news in the search for Madeleine” or “We welcome their visit and will give them all the information they need to help them find Madeleine.”
The McScam hole gets deeper…
September 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am
933 Simon
The blood was found when the British dogs first went in to ’scent’ the appartment. Together with other samples, it was shipped off to Birmingham. The first results, as is widely accepted, pointed to a ‘North European Male’. The second set of results came back several weeks after that. Of course, I didn’t personally take the samples, and am not sufficiently gifted to know what it means anyway, but you either have to believe Birmingham Forensics, who supplied that information to the Portuguese, or the McCann PR team.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:58 am
929
Spudgun, I really want to respond to this very intelligent post, but I have to head for bed.
Can I just ask, the blood and blood spatter and cleaned up blood. When did the Poloce find this?
September 19th, 2007 at 12:57 am
931 Paulette
LOL!! Yes, and if you want to know what I REALLY think is horrific, is the fact that they charge TWO F++++NG QUID for them!!!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:55 am
919.
Seriously though Spudgun: Don’t they look like morgue id bracelets?
I was horrified the first time I visited the Madeleine site and saw those macabre bracelets.
OOooooh I need to find something to do with McCann and macabre! (Must get back to my lab but it’s 3am!)
September 19th, 2007 at 12:54 am
I should also add that some of the points I have touched on are NOT fully in the public domain, and as with everything else, does NOT amount to conclusive proof.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:52 am
MARIA 916
This is part of a listing I have made previously, which i hope explains my stance.
I am happy to agree that much of the evidence as reported in the Portuguese press, pretty much from since not long after May 3rd, still has not been conclusively proven, however, to stick with an abduction theory, you have to dismiss the following:……………
Madeleines blood was spilled in the apartment. (Birmingham Forensics have confirmed it likely to be hers, to an unspecified percentage of accuracy).(I am aware that recently there has been so called “experts” out in force for the McCann team, explaining how and why that could mean nothing).
Kate McCann didn’t deny that Maddie’s blood was in the apartment, suggesting that Maddie might have had a nose bleed. However, she refused to answer why the alleged blood spatter pattern was not commensurate with a nose bleed, and was also unable to say who, if anyone, had cleaned it up. This evidence cannot be attributed to ‘lies, conjecture or slurs’, because it WILL form part of the PJ’s evidence. The PJ investigated an ‘abduction’, because two very credible parents stated that was what it was. Unfortunately, they made their examinations and their investigations with regards an abduction, and found NOT ONE SMIDGEN OF EVIDENCE to support it, except for the now discredited evidence of Jane Tanner, observing a ‘man carrying a child’. However. What they DID find was blood residue. Only it was invisible to the naked eye because SOMEONE cleaned it up. If there were no cleaners, and Maddie and the twins didn’t clean it, and you have TWO parents saying that they didn’t clean it, then we are presented with something of a problem, are we not?.
I could also mention that the PJ have recorded telephone conversations where Kate McCann has admitted to the accidental killing of Madeleine, but I know you are simply going to say’Bu****it’, that isn’t proved. However, given that it WILL also form part of the PJ’s evidence, I will simply let that go and give you the opportunity to say ther same when this fact is released. I also appreciate that there has been quite a lot of ‘Pro-McCann’ experts lining up to dismiss the DNA evidence found in the boot, stating that it doesn’t prove that the parents killed Maddy. And they’d be absolutely correct. Except, Birmingham Forensics will state that it DOES indicate ‘NON-TRANSFERABLE’ DNA, and is indicative of having been derived from a cadaver.
The ‘Cadaver’ dogs who scented positive in both the apartment, the car and on a number of Madeleines toys and Kate’s clothes will NOT be admissable evidence, but given that these dogs were British and handled by British handlers, who know the accuracy and reliability of these animals, you would have to explain away them making innumerable mistakes for Maddies corpse not to have been in the areas where they indicated.
I pay no attention to the large amounts of so called ‘expert’ evidence, who all point to the McCanns play acting, to the psychologists who suggest they are acting guilty, or to the facial experts who have stated that Kate has persistently faked her ‘grief’. I also pay no heed to the ‘lip readers’ who have evidently amassed quite a lot of circumstantial evidence, absed on observed comments made by the McCanns out of ‘earshot’.
I have, over the course of many weeks, posted MANY points about this case, for which I was lambasted or ridiculed, or scorned for ‘pretending’ to be in the know. I do not claim any more insight than anyone else, but I am unequivocal in my assertion that the McCanns are guilty as suspected. There is an awful lot that is going on at the moment. There has been a bit of a news black out, both here and in Portugal, but there are a number of commentators in the Media, several of whom I have spoken to over this Friday and Saturday, who are stating that there is going to be some pretty big, explosive news occuring in the next 48 hours.
Again, I personally do not believe that. As has always been my fear, the case will be dropped. The pressure is still mounting on factions of the Portuguese judiciary to drop the charges. The British government, from DAY ONE, has always applied such pressure, with Gordon Brown HIMSELF personally intevening in order to ensure that PJ permitted the McCanns to make a televised plea for what they described as “a significant development” regarding the man that Tanner was alledged to have seen, even though the Portuguese had discarded that as evidence almost immediately.
With Home Secretary Jacqui Smith coming on TV to ‘quell the media’, and to insist that everyone “concentrates on finding Maddy instead”, it’s pretty obvious that Gordon certainly hopes the abduction theory is greater believed amongst the Electorate than any culpability on behalf of the McCanns. Given that virtually ALL of the “spokespersons” and PR magnates employed by the McCanns also have intrinsic and established HM Government links, also compounds this notion.
When SKY News AND the BBC run as “BREAKING NEWS” for most of the day, the “STORY”, that Kate McCann was offered a “two year deal” to confess, (SOURCE: Philomena McCann!!), even though it would have taken the journalists all of two minutes to establish that such a situation was an IMPOSSIBILITY within the constraints of Portuguese Law and Procedure, then it really shows the level of pressure being applied to the PRESS of this country.
ABDUCTION? The only things that have been abducted are JUSTICE, Democracy and freedom of speech.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:51 am
920
““We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne.
That’s a really interesting quote. DO you have the source for that?
September 19th, 2007 at 12:51 am
920. g:
Doctors are notorious (documented) for sticking together to cover medical malpractice incidents.
Yes! I’ve thought about this too. I love that quote from Payne. O’Brien got frustrated with a Portuguese reporter and tol her something like: I cannot comment any more because the McCann’s want control of all information coming out.
Payne and Obrien’s statements may be the only truth ones we’ve heard from Camp McCann!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:50 am
#915, I feel like crying when they all leave.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:48 am
#920g , Right on.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:47 am
900. Judith C:
Also the video of Mrs. McCann when asked unexpectedly, at the last moment, “What would you say to Madeleine if she was watching” and the reply, after looking down, looking away and saying “Huh!” is “Oh, she knows we love her” not looking at camera, (looking at Madeleine)…. is bizarre. Mrs. M is supposed to be a loving, caring, warm, gentle, everything else you can think of, mother. I don’t think so. She comes across as hard as nails. And, after all we can be specific because it is the Madeleine case we’re all examining, otherwise we wouldn’t be on this forum.
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Anyone have a link to this video? It as reported in French, Italian & Portuguese papers but I wasn’t sure if they were misinterpreting or flat out exaggerating the way Kate supposedly looked away from the cameras when asked this question? YEt I don;t recall reading her physical repsonse in the UK press only the quote:
She knows we love her.
THAT IS A STRANGE WAY TO TELL YOUR MISSING CHILD, A CHILD WHO COULD BE WATCHING OR BE WITHIN EARSHOT OF A TELLY, THAT YOU, YOU HER MOTHER LOVE HER.
Strange, pathetic, sickening the bizarre words and concerns of the McCanns.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:47 am
917 Simon
What specifically is sick?
September 19th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Ian,
LOL LOL ohhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s been a long day!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:46 am
(912) paulette:
“You must mean a McCannister of acid?”
Whatever you wish, just beware of the hazard labels!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:46 am
YES! humour is the best intellectual defense in this inappropriate PR spin-world. Where are the political cartoonists to pop the balloon of hot air.
As for an accident or assistance from doctor friends, I cannot help but notice how such a scenario fits that weird weird quote by one of the tapas gang: ““We have a pact. This is our matter only. It is nobody else’s business”, says David Payne.
“A pact”? in a police investigation? Huh???”
Doctors are notorious (documented) for sticking together to cover medical malpractice incidents.
Nobody else’s business? That’s right, it’s just Gerry’ Business $$$.