Madeleine McCann: Amaral Policing, Secrets Out And EastEnders
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: PORTUGUESE POLICE CHIEF IS SACKED AFTER AMAZING OUTBURST.”
Page 9: “Madeleine detective kicked off case after blasting British police” – Chief inspector Goncalo Amaral says: “The British police have only been working on what the McCann couple want them to and what suits them.”
Says Amaral: “The Ocean Club is in Praia da Luz, not in London…It won’t be an email, and an anonymous one at that, which will distract our line of investigation.”
Mr Amaral is making reference to the email sent to the official website of the Prince of Wales last week claming a vengeful nanny had abducted Madeleine.
Pages 30 and 31: “HAIR-RAISING TRUTH ABOUT THE PSYCHIC BARBER – During the day Gordon Smith cuts hair, at night he claims he communes with the spirits. So does he really think he can help the McCanns find Madeleine?”
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER confirms that former EastEnders actress Michelle Collins is a “BELIEVER”.
DAILY MAIL page 7: “Off the case. Madeleine police chief demoted after amazing rant against McCanns and British detectives”
Say Amaral: “They [the English] have been investigating tip-offs and information created and worked upon by the McCanns”
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE: CHIEF COP SACKED.”
Page 10: “INSPECTOR CLUELESS GETS THE BOOT”
Page 11: “If Maddie IS dead she will tell me where he body is” – Says Gordon Smith
DAILY MIRROR front page: “Maddy copper is axed”
Page 7: “OFF THE CASE – Boozy cop is demoted after furious outburst against the McCanns”
THE SUN page 7: “MADDIE COP FIRED FOR McCANNS RANT – storm as bungler says family duped Brit police”
Comments Clarence Mitchell: “I can confirm that Kate and Gerry are aware of this development but we cannot comment”
THE GUARDIAN page 7: “Detective leading hunt for Madeleine sacked after blast at UK police” – Mr Amaral is 47. He has been demoted. He is 48 in the Sun. Such are the facts
Carols Pinto de Abreu, the McCanns’ Portuguese lawyer, says: “The McCanns cannot confess to something they did not do and cannot and should not lie to please the police”
THE INDEPENDENT page 8: “Detective leading Madeleine hunt dropped from case after outburst” – Amaral is being investigated over an alleged attack on the mother of a different missing girl. Read about that here
THE TIMES front page: “Detective in charge of McCann case sacked”
Page 9: “Madeleine detective sacked after outburst”
Alipio Ribeiro, Amaral’s boss, says: “The police should be discreet and keep quiet, but there is always someone who talks” – So much for those secrecy laws
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 15: “Madeleine inquiry chief sacked after attack on British police”
A “family friend” of the McCanns says: “What he [Mr Amaral] is saying is just plain wrong. Leicestershire Police are not doing anything on Kate and Gerry’s behalf. They are simply there for liaison. There is certainly no strategy to distract form the Portuguese investigation”
What investigation?
Posted: 3rd, October 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,208) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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October 3rd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
420, STEVO
in schools, in the work place, pretty much everywhere and like I said if you want to keep using it by all means do so, who am I to stop you.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
404. Solaris Says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Folks, no Amaral has not been charged with anything. Leonor Cirpriano withdrew her statement / accusation.
What then happened is that in any case the PJ opened an internal enquire to understand if they had or not been involved in wrongdoing. That is an ongoing enquire - if they were found guilty of anything they would be suspended from duty and charges put forward by public prossecution.
************************************************************
Will people stop posting this nonsense & check the facts. Amaral & the other 4 policemen have been *charged* with offences and are awaiting a criminal hearing which will be held, as is the Portgual system, in secret.
All you have to do is google to get the facts!
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
415 Paulo Reis has reported as early as 2 weeks ago (perhaps earlier) Amaral was on his way out. Plus I think you wish to research the Cipriano case further.
Amaral timed his comment perfectly and only said what a lot of people are thinking anyway. (imho)
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
#407
Thanks for the good post.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
412
the shot liverpudlian school boy, rhys’s voice was screened on crime watch
so very sad too
have they caught that bugger yet?btw
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
416 - Sunny
Do you realise that words like “idiot” and “moron” were originally medical terms to indicate where someone was on the IQ spectrum? They are actually scientific words.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
55. Brandonflours,
“Mrs McCann said: “Leaving them is really hard, I have never left them before.”‘
Maybe she’s suffering from a unique form of selective amnesia?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
416 - Sunny
I’ll ask it again - not PC where?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
413-
its the same with ian brady-
the one and only body they cant find he cant be done for because there is no evidence
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
yes dee dee
The evidence is not the dog on the stand wagging his tail and pointing at a bin bag scooby doo style.
They still have the contents hair, body fluids, and the fact it was under the flap of the wheel well , not just a flip flop a brush and a rotting nappy sack thrown in their rush to move in the boot.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
411 - Stig
Cheers!
When this case is finally solved I say we hold an Anorak social do and we all get together and we all try to work out who is who.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
395, STEVO
it is not PC. And you won’t sway me on that, but if you like using the term by all means who am I to stop you.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I cannot see how Amaral did not plan his leaving, since this morning he already has a new job. He simply broke the law on the secrecy of the inquiry for the last time he would have the opportunity to do so. Pretty cheap, to my point of view, but what to expect of a man who covers-up the beating of a woman and pretending she “fell down the stairs”?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
(401) Peter O
Makes sense to me. Having Amaral on the case (whether he is guilty or not) will be fuel for the defense.
Smoke Screen before the Ace is played.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
405 - Stig
No it isn’t - the bottom line I mean.
When you build a case where there’s no body, you will need an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence. Proving murder without a body is possible but very difficult. One or two pieces of good evidence won’t swing it either.
If the PJ have some awesome evidence, and it sounds like they do, it’ll take a ton of evidence for them to finally say ‘ok, bring them in’.
Given the media attention, the PJ and the Plod will be doing all this as we speak and no doubt will continue looking for a dead body because that’s all we hear from Portugal.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Does anyone know why videos including Madeleine speaking have not been released?
Do the police normally release voice recordings of missing children? I don’t recall ever hearing one.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
406 stevo
I agree with you on this.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
43. Man on the hill
Yes but he gives good orgasm.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
347. Will
http://a-lil-bit-of-everything.blogspot.com/2007/07/channel-4-censors.html
Found this article that covers the timeline a bit. It was removed from Channel Four comment setcion for some reason. Anyway it’s from SOL newspaper dated June.
Might be helpful in building a picture, might not.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
394 yes I did read it but as it was from the biased british press,I instantly disregarded it,I mean do you promote someone to Regional Directot for Faro,if he is liable to be banged up shortly,this despite skymakeitupnews saying he was busted to inspector,lost pension rights career in ruins,typical crock of brit media shit.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
[This is something I tried to post yesterday evening, but the Wordpress filter disagreed - as I only realized hours later - on the sum of 1+5 (I guessed 6, but wasn't told the correct answer). Since it also relates to today's thread, I'll post it here]
As they often complained, the McCanns were frustrated since May that they didn’t know what evidence the police had. They expressed this in terms of ‘We don’t think they’re doing enough to look for Maddie, but we need to know what they know, so we can help’. They became particularly anxious as it was hinted that there was new forensic evidence at the beginning of August, and even suggested they would ‘formally make themselves arguidos to get better access to the police operation’.
This echoed the stepping-up of their own ‘abduction investigation’ (FindMaddy)a week after May 3, supposedly to supplement the PJ investigation which was being scaled down, but probably - as the head of the PJ has complained - to distract attention from the other line of investigation to which they feared the PJ were beginning to place more emphasis, even then. (This answers the often-asked ‘If they were involved, why would they draw extra attention to the case?’)
It also echoes, for example, Huntley’s attempts to discover what lines the British police were following, by hanging around reporters after the Soham murders.
Without knowing much of what the PJ then knew, the McCanns must have been very concerned about unnecessarily incriminating themselves in the latest Portimao interrogations. The PJ suggested they (the PJ) knew various incriminating things, but wouldn’t tell the McCanns just WHAT they knew.
This put Kate and Gerry in a VERY awkward position, under interrogation. When asked ‘Did you sedate your children’, Kate couldn’t risk answering ‘No’ (if in fact she did), in case the PJ already had evidence that she did, as this would prove she was lying. On the other hand, she didn’t want to volunteer incriminating material which the PJ MIGHT NOT have actually had evidence for. The refusal to answer this direct question was apparently the point at which she formally became ‘arguido’.
This scenario, I think, explains a lot of the discussion (on both ’sides’) around the ‘agressive’ interrogation - and the silences of Kate (and more particularly Gerry) would have told the PJ - and the British cops who were apparently DIRECTING SOME OF THE QUESTIONING AND WATCHING IN ANOTHER ROOM - quite a lot about the suspects.
For example, if Kate was sure the PJ could have no evidence of sedation (because they HADN’T sedated Madeleine) there would be absolutely no reason not to just say ‘NO, I/we didn’t’. So she must have thought they MIGHT have such evidence. Which means she DID sedate the children. Naturally, Kate and Gerry were very unhappy with this interrogation technique. But they knew that in Portugal, no inferences can be drawn in court from the silence of an arguido, and so on their lawyer’s advice both remained silent from that point on.
Inferences were drawn, though, by the PJ, to guide their investigation. This is why they can say ‘we know they killed their child, but can’t yet prove it in court.’ The idea that the PJ are just ‘Keystone Cops’ is a tabloid fantasy. They perfected their skills over five centuries, down from the Inquisition (from which much of the European civil law tradition of criminal investigation derives) to Salazar’s police state.
Amaral was removed not because of the Cipriano case (remember that a confession made under duress must be disregarded by a court, and the Cipriano appeal was rejected by the Portuguese Supreme Court), but because his public complaints about the lack of full cooperation from the British side of the investigation. It is not as if the investigation has been derailed - his deputy has taken over. And don’t forget that the head of the PJ has also publicly complained about the McCann’s diversionary tactics - and remains in his post.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
389 - Andy
Yes, I just read that article and agree wholeheartedly. I’ve said many times, the McCanns shoot themselves in the foot with this media bandwagon. It’s not helping them gain support at all - just the opposite.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
396 deedeedee
The last thing I read on that was that the hair could not be identified as Madelein’s and the other stuff was not forensically certain. I seem to recall a suggestion that Birmingham Forensics were none too happy about the PJ interpretation of the results supplied to them thus far, so much so that they were considering not providing any further results. This has all been trawled over several times.
Bottom line is that if the PJ had any real evidence they would have them back in a flash and would charge them, but since they haven’t, that in itself is a good indicator of the quality and nature of any evidence they actually do have. The technical term is diddly squat.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Folks, no Amaral has not been charged with anything. Leonor Cirpriano withdrew her statement / accusation.
What then happened is that in any case the PJ opened an internal enquire to understand if they had or not been involved in wrongdoing. That is an ongoing enquire - if they were found guilty of anything they would be suspended from duty and charges put forward by public prossecution.
I agree that he should not have been given this high profile case. But then again, I also read that those responsible for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes have been PROMOTED… has anyone else heard about any suspension for shooting an innocent man with 6 bullets in the head? I haven’t. Is it less serious than Amaral’s conduct?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
386, STEVO
“Any policeman is open to being accused of something because they deal with criminals as part of their job”.
This point makes no sense whatsoever.
Are you suggesting that police officers are more susceptible to commit crimes because they deal with the prevention of crime on a daily basis?
And no Stevo based on YOUR argument you can not make a parallel comparsion between Amaral and the McCanns.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
397 - Stig
Since the dawn of time, humans have committed crimes and realised that lies are the best way to show innocence.
I’m anxious to know the results of the case against Amaral. I’m curious why the police would take photos of her badly bruised if they were then going to be charged with causing it.
I also wonder why the lady was convicted of the murder if indeed there was a jury trial. A jury doesn’t say “oh well, it’s an open and shut case - the lady confessed”. So, at first glance, you’d say the lady was guilty and Amaral innocent. My point was that all these murderers say they’re innocent. And the McCanns also say they’re innocent.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
371 brandonflours
Consipracy theories abound – see post 818 Anonymous yesterday
http://www.anorak.co.uk/madeleine-mccann/176686.html
EXTRACT +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former policeman and managing director of WT Associates, a PR company specialized in child protection, media handling and advice for high profile cases, urged Portuguese police to ditch the case against the McCann – a case that he classified as “ludicrous” - and follow another lead that he thinks could take PJ to the real kidnapper.
The managing director of PR company WT Associates, who is usually introduced to Sky News viewers only as a “child protection expert” or “crime expert”, criticised Polícia Judiciária for not paying attention to “such a strong line of inquiry”. The PR expert referred that, even if “over 90% of murders are domestic-related”, he can’t “accept that Gerry and Kate as parents of the child could have been involved in her murder.”
Edit……
The fact that one of the officers accused in Chief-Inspector Gonçalo Amaral casts “huge doubt” to the managing director of WT Associates, who believes that Mr. Amaral should be ousted from the investigation of Madeleine’s case: “”Even if we work on the basis that he is innocent, given this allegation against him, he shouldn’t have anything to do with the Madeleine investigation”, the PR expert told to Sky News.
Questioned yesterday, September 14, about his business relationship, as a expert also in media handling and advice for high profile cases, Mr. Mark Williams-Thomas initially confirmed that his company had a contract to provide services to the McCann. Asked to confirm some details of that business relationship, he changed his initial answer and denied any relationship, admitting only that he has “been in contact with the press officers for the family.”
We asked also to Sky News if they were aware of the fact that Mr Mark Williams-Thomas was also the owner and managing director of a PR company, as Sky News has invited almost every day, to comment about Madeleine McCan’s case, introducing him only as a “child protection expert” or a “crime expert”. We are waiting for Sky News answer to those questions.
Duarte Levy (Rothley) and Paulo Reis (Sevilha)
EXTRACT END ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If this journo related post is to be believed, one of the ‘experts’ pushing this line has a ‘link’ to the McCann team. That aside, you would think it prudent that if a senior police officer is suspected/accused of things Amaral has been that it would be best if he were removed from any ongoing investigations with a faintly similar offence.
My own take on it is that Amaral may have been ‘encouraged’ to ‘speak out’ yesterday in relation to the Madeline investigation to give his employers/seniors a ‘reason’ to remove him from the Madeleine case without implying any guilt in relation to the accusations in the other case. It may also have been an ‘opportunity’ for the Portuguese ‘authorities to publicly state they believe the McCann’s are interfering with their investigations from afar.
Just my opinion(s). Can’t prove any of it.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
389 - Andy
Did you read my corrected post yesterday about Amaral? My joke about the Sweeney was in poor taste.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Amaral has not been sacked, but promoted. He is now at Faro’s Regional Direction service.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
268 Brandonflours
Thank you for this link. I begin to see why there were no videos of Madeleine.