Madeleine McCann: Child Alert, Daily Mail Knows And Fay Weldon
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY MIRROR: “McCanns win child alert fight MADELEINE”
Kate and Gerry McCann yesterday won their fight for an EU-wide missing child alert system, in tribute to their daughter Madeleine. A declaration supporting the couple’s plea attracted backing from at least 398 MEPs - more than half the 785 European Parliament members.
Or as the Mail said earlier in the week: DAILY MAIL: “Brussels throws out McCann’s appeal for European missing child alert system”
THE INDEPENDENT: “Cultural Life: Fay Weldon, Author”
Film
I went to see Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone for Radio 3’s Saturday Review. “Emotionally disturbing” it claimed to be, with its echoes of the Madeleine McCann case, and so it was, and a welcome change from the dull, written-to-formula films that pour from major studios. If profit rather than enthusiasm is the bottom line, all you get is variations on what made a profit last year.
On it goes…
Posted: 11th, July 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (891) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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July 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
It appears more and more that the sainted Lady Justice is indeed driving the train.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
ferdinand
IMO the only people to distract the investigation are the mccs! the fact is that the cadavar evidence on its own, without a body, would not be enough to present in court. Why on earth would they bother, as i have said before, it would have been so much easier to go with abduction theory if they genuinely had nothing, rather than put themselves on the line, in the spotlight of the world. I dont for one second think that the pj are stupid
July 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
729 chenier Says:
” Perhaps you would care to provide an link to the full transcript? ”
I thought you were there? Is my quotation incorrect?
July 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
728 wtf Says:
” 726 ferdinand
I would have thought the dogs evidence was the only piece that could be relied on, they dont lie ”
But given the fact that no evidence has been found to corroborate their alerts… The dogs’ findings seemed always a bit too obvious pointing in one direction… Kates clothes … cuddle cat … the boot of the car … it could be a coincidence, but it neatly suits to distract the investigation.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
chenier
would you like a drink while your waiting?
July 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Still waiting, Ferdinand…
July 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
steve t
Will he then appear disguised as egg man, and everyone will laugh their socks off?
July 12th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
wtf,
Is Ameral a Portuguese version of Jeremy Beadle? “We then put cadavar in the McCanns hire car. Watch their faces when we play the video back with the dogs!”
July 12th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
In your own time, Ferdinand, of course…
July 12th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
steve t
Hellooooo
Exactly, i mean, it must be so boring with nothing to do all day, so lets just add a bit of pezazz to this dull boring case, with the worlds media watching, plant a bit of cadavar, oh, and to make it a bit more interesting, involve british sniffer dogs!
July 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
wtf,
And of course the police often put the scent of death around to try and frame people!
July 12th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
725
Ferdinand Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
———————–
Perhaps you would care to provide an link to the full transcript?
July 12th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
726 ferdinand
I would have thought the dogs evidence was the only piece that could be relied on, they dont lie
July 12th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
The sad fact in all of this is that despite all these findings-Common sense has not prevailed-the Mccanns don’t seem to have learnt a lesson, or not one that they are preaching. Parents-if you fancy a nite out-go for it-seems it is wholly acceptable to leave minors-however young-If anything goes wrong-say ‘Prosecute me, I dare you.’…as long as you can afford the defence that is….the precedent is set….!
July 12th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
722 Gandolf Says:
” Investigation English dogs’ scent is the only evidence against the parents. ”
Apart from the scent being no evidence on it’s own.. Could the scent have been planted?
July 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
717 chenier Says:
” If both sides had reasonable arguments the result would not have been an unprecedented public hearing, much less one in which the Judge had to sit there listening not only to Counsel for the Chief Constable, but also to Counsel for SOCA, and Counsel for the Attorney General, all putting the boot in… ”
I beg to be allowed to decide on my own whether I regard an argument as reasonable or not.
I quote this from a transscript of the court hearing:
Mr Lewis on behalf of the Chief Constable: We would like you to approve the Order. As the Court heard, any person served with the Order should disclose any information that would help to find Madeleine . We wish to make it clear that the primary aim is to ensure that no stone is left unturned. There must be a balance between the rights of Plaintiffs to have as much information as possible and the risk of compromising a criminal investigation; and a potential breach of Portuguese law.
Obviously Mr. Lewis acknowledges the conflict of interests, as he speaks of a “balance between the rights”.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
719
Lone Pigeon Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
not really busy steve just popping in now and then dude! Julie - it makes me feel warm you saying how cold it is - I wish it was warm for you just as I wish we had it nice and warm here……oh those days of melting tarmac and bee swarms and long heady days seem a distant memory. What the hell has happened to the weather! Global warming???? Seems like global cooling to me!
—————————–
If it’s any comfort, best buddy just got back from Hong Kong and it was pouring there, too…
July 12th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Yawn.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Dear me.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Investigation English dogs’ scent is the only evidence against the parents. Murat was made an arguido based on an English journalist
Expresso discloses PJ’s final report
Not even the reasoning of famous detective Sherlock Holmes – after eliminating the impossible, the hypothesis that remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth – can be applied to the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, on the 3rd of May 2007. In its final report, that Expresso had access to, the Polícia Judiciária (PJ) asserts that all possibilities were exhaustively investigated: abduction, murder, accidental death and even the child having left the apartment on her own. To no avail. “Did the girl go up in smoke?” Gonçalo Amaral, the former inspector who directed the investigation for five months, asked last week.
The complete disorientation of the investigation is exposed by the constitution of Robert Murat as an arguido: denounced by an English journalist, who found his curiosity towards the press strange, the judiciária considered that he reunited all the conditions to be presumed a suspect. Reasons? A set of unspecified pieces of “information”, one of them related to Jane Turner [sic], one of the group’s elements, who reportedly stated she saw a man carrying a child, walking into the direction of Robert Murat’s house.
The PJ placed Robert Murat and other “individuals with whom he directly or indirectly interacted” under surveillance, they searched his house, excavated his garden. Result: “Despite the exhaustive and methodical investigation of Murat and the persons that are close to him, no elements were collected that would connect them to the crime that is under investigation”.
The frailty of the collected indices does not only apply to Robert Murat. Also concerning Gerry and Kate McCann, the sole evidence that was collected over 13 months, which directly connects the parents to an eventual death of their daughter, is the scent of two English «springer spaniel» dogs that were in Portugal during the investigations. “One of the dogs was trained to detect cadaver odour and the other one to detect traces of human blood”.
And what did they detect? One of them detected cadaver odour “in the couple’s bedroom, in a corner, near the wardrobe, and in the living room, behind the sofa, near the side window of the apartment” that was rented by the couple at the Ocean Club, in Aldeia da Luz. The dog that specializes in detecting the odour of blood, marked a spot in the living room, precisely coinciding with the location that had been identified with cadaver odour.
The marking of cadaver odour followed into clothing and personal items: on two pieces of clothing that belong to Kate McCann, on another piece belonging to Madeleine, and on the soft toy that was habitually used by the child (here, the dog marked cadaver odour both in the inside and the outside of the apartment). The strange odours were further detected on the key and in the trunk of the car that was rented by the McCanns on the 27th of May 2007, 24 days after the evening of the disappearance. It was based on the dogs’ performance that Gerry and Kate were made arguidos. The PJ says that, in Kate’s case, her constitution as an arguida was due to “the mere possibility of her involvement with the eventual cadaver”.
At the same time that thousands of sightings that reached the PJ, concerning supposed sightings of the minor, were being digested, the investigation elaborated a listing of the communications that were made by the mobile phones that were used in the area of the Ocean Club. The hundreds of crossings of phone calls yielded no results either. It should be pointed out, though, that the Public Ministry wanted to access the contents of 14 text messages that went through Gerry McCann’s mobile phone on the 3rd and 4th of May, but the instruction judge, Pedro Frias, impeded said diligence. The biological residues that were collected from inside the car were analysed in Portugal and in England, but the results did not allow for a conclusion to be reached.
On its way to the archive
In their final report, the PJ stresses the “magnitude” of the operation that was initially built to search for the minor. Something that “right from the outset, exceeded the dimension that is commonly applied to similar cases”. But after 13 months, there is only one conclusion: “From everything that was done, and despite the efforts that were made and all lines of investigation having been explored, it results that it is not possible to obtain a solid and objective conclusion about what truly happened on that evening, and about the present location of the missing minor”.
“This way, as we do not envision, at the moment, any diligence within the process that would be susceptible of producing a useful result for the present files”, according to the document, the judiciária places the final decision on the case in the hands of prosecutor Magalhães e Menezes. According to what Expresso was able to establish, the Republic’s General Attorney, Pinto Monteiro, asked the Public Ministry’s prosecutors that have been accompanying the case (Bilro Verão, the district prosecutor of Évora, and Magalhães e Menezes, who is directly responsible for the investigation) to produce a final decision before the end of this month.
——————————
Excerpts from the PJ’s report
Throughout these more than 13 months, the investigation followed all the credible indicia that concerned different hypotheses and tried to analyze, to correlate and to synthesize them in an impartial form.
From the 4th onwards – the day that followed the facts – the PJ was reached by thousands of sightings and locations that covered the entire national territory, the most diversified foreign locations, from neighbouring Spain until Indonesia.
It should be stressed that the entire apartment had been searched through and rummaged by an undetermined number of persons, with the contamination that it carries and the difficulty in collecting residues.
The PJ, probably unlike in no other investigation in Portugal, did not spare any efforts in the sense of providing exceptional technical, human and financial means to discover the minor.
The persons (the parents and the couple’s friends) were inquired in a detailed and lengthy manner, on diverse occasions, with the purpose of collecting any relevant elements.
The degree of cooperation and understanding between the PJ and the Leicester Constabulary attained very high levels.
The witness Rachel Mampilly admits to having established contacts with British television station BBC at around 2 a.m. on the morning of the 4th [of May].
The forensic exams did not corroborate the canine markings, more precisely, cell material was collected that could not be identified as belonging to a determined person, and it was not even possible to establish the quality of that material.
It results that it is not possible to obtain a solid finding about what happened on that evening.
http://aeiou.expresso.pt/
July 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
707
chenier Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
______
Thanks for the explanation. Over here, also, Chenier, children’s court division is kept private - only attorneys and parents or guardians can be sitting inside the courtroom. and any witnesses for whatever proceedings are called in when their time to testify. Though on second thought I’ve seen police who were there to testify on cases sit in the courtroom. However, Chenier, in a court proceeding over here - even adult - the Judge has ALL the files before them on the bench pertaining to the case. Also, when a judge has a case before them and in any future hearings it is usually sent back to them.
Lawyers ‘judge shop’ over here! They all know what judges are lenient or their track record in whatever cases they rule on and try to get on their docket. But once a lawyer pisses off a judge the lawyer will move heaven and hell not to get another case put on their docket. Judges never forget!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
SteveT - global WARMING
Notta chance, I’m becoming morbid and down in the dumps - we’re supposed to be laying flat out in the garden topping up on the tan ….. not sitting “chitter chitter chitter” under blankets!
Although the boyfriend reckons this is the breeding season …..
July 12th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
not really busy steve just popping in now and then dude! Julie - it makes me feel warm you saying how cold it is - I wish it was warm for you just as I wish we had it nice and warm here……oh those days of melting tarmac and bee swarms and long heady days seem a distant memory. What the hell has happened to the weather! Global warming???? Seems like global cooling to me!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
715
Julie
Thats global warming for you!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
703
Ferdinand Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
699 Maria Says:
” I do not know for sure (don’t want chenier accusing me of dishonesty again!) but I strongly suspect that the outcome of the hearing, had the original application gone ahead as planned, was not necessarily 100% a foregone conclusion. ”
It’s obviously a conflict of interests between two authorities. The family court is interested in the ward’s whereabouts and well-being. The police has also to consider the relationship to foreign police forces. Both sides have reasonable arguments. How could the outcome be 100% predicted?
——————————————-
No, they didn’t.
If both sides had reasonable arguments the result would not have been an unprecedented public hearing, much less one in which the Judge had to sit there listening not only to Counsel for the Chief Constable, but also to Counsel for SOCA, and Counsel for the Attorney General, all putting the boot in…
July 12th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Lone,
OK thanks. You have been busy on here today!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Hey there birdie
I’m bloody freezing …. about to go and dive under the warm covers
SA is not meant to run on 12 degC .
July 12th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
713
Julie Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Julie me ol china - how the hell are you ?
July 12th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
You have to forgive Gandy, he’s running out of arguments ………
July 12th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
711
SteveT Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
697
Evening Mr T!
How the hell are ya?
July 12th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
697
Carmen
Re Gandolph -”You are becoming that unforgivable Anorak poster - a bore”.
Im glad its not just me that thinks that!