KATE McCann’s request to see a priest on the night of her daughter Madeleine’s disappearance was used as evidence against her, it has been revealed.
The devout Roman Catholic claims she came under suspicion because of the belief that people in Portugal ‘only called for a priest when they wanted their sins to be forgiven.’
The flimsy dossier against the McCann’s also included British sniffer dog evidence indicating the presence of blood and human remains in the apartment, later dismissed following forensic tests.
The revelation comes as British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the reopening of files relating to the McCann case following a direct appeal from her parents.
The Met Police have been ordered to conduct a full review of all evidence in a bid to shed new light on the case.
Meanwhile, an image of the girl’s abductor could finally be revealed thanks to high-tech profiling computers.
A Met Police case review team will run descriptions of potential suspects through facial identification software in a bid to produce the most accurate new e-fit.
the devout catholic who had fertility treatment?
the flimsy dossier with 70,000 pages?
uh-huh
As the alleged ‘abductor’s’ face was not seen by the ‘winess’ Jane Tanner what would be the point of the Met Police producing a new e-fit with facial identification?
Waste of money and resources with the UK tax payer footing the bill. A far cheaper option would be for the Mccanns to take up the offer from the Portuguese to RE-OPEN the case. A review will achieve nothing and waste much.
A devout Roman catholic doesn’t use IVF to have children; a devout roman catholic doesn’t have sex before marriage; a devout roman catholic doesn’t go to swing parties; a devout roman catholic doesn’t LIE, etc
Who told you she was devout?
That woman is a bloody liar and not so disturbed by the disappearance of her child as she is about the suspicions about her.
Nobody ever accused her because she called a priest, but if are a rational person, you have to find it starnge that at 4:00 a.m. she was more worried to ask for a priest than to move her ass to go look for her child, as hundreds of people from Praia da Luz were doing.
That devout catholic the very next day threw her 2 other remaining children in the creche and went for a jogging session, in the afternoon took a sunbath by the pool. Meanwhile the population from Praia da Luz kept searching for another week, missing their work and being charged for it.
What a PIOUS ROMAN CATHOLIC DEVOUT!!
A full verbatim quote of Mrs Mccann’s response to BBC’s Jane Hill who asked her whether she didn’t want to, at any time, physically search for her missing child.
” (long hesitation) I mean I did. (long hesitation)
erm ..I mean we’d been working really hard…I mean the first 48 hours, as Gerry said, were incredibly difficult…we were almost non-functioning I’d say..(hesitation)erm ..but after that you get strength from somewhere and we’ve certainly had loads of support, and thats given us strength..um..it’s been able to make us focus really so we have, actually, in our own way..it might not be physically searching…but we’ve been working really hard…and doing absolutely everything we can really to get Madeleine back”
when is this farce of a lying circus ever going to be stopped? shame on the mccanns and shame on them for all their lies
kate mccanns new book is riddled with them
who is protecting their sh**
steve bywaters
May 23rd, 2011 8:36 pm
A full verbatim quote of Mrs Mccann’s response to BBC’s Jane Hill who asked her whether she didn’t want to, at any time, physically search for her missing child.
Good question!
Was that a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response which would answer your question. I think NOT as a response to ‘did YOU search?’
What we know is that a child is missing. You SUSPECT the parents are lying. You SUSPECT the child is dead. What you KNOW is she is missing without answers and deserves to be searched for. The Portuguese police did nothing. They spent so much time on absolutely NOTHING.
I would not leave my children alone in a hotel room or anywhere else. I blame the parents for that negligence. However, I do not see any evidence that supports the idea that Madeleine does not deserve to be found. If she is dead, she still deserves to be found. There is no eveidence to support she is dead though. Please people, this is a child you are talking about!! Further, who cares if the McCanns had sex before marriage?? Or IVF? Does this make them less deserving to have their child returned to them?
The Portuguese police are long historied for corruption and pedophelia people. Children go missing all the time there. It just happens that this time it was a child of parents who will not shut up. Nor should they. They made a horrible and negligent decision to leave their children alone. They were so very wrong and negligent there. But why should Madeleine pay for hte rest of her life?? If you are Catholic, I presume Catholicism teaches kindness, respect, and to cherish/protect children? Let’s see then…maybe we should be searching for the child??
And now in the book she says she and Gerry DID search the following morning. For an hour ! Both statements cannot be true at the same time. I think I know which to believe.
Susan
There was NO evidence to support the ‘abduction’ theory but plenty to suggest a death in the apartment. As no-one died there before the McCanns visit the dogs detected information which was a starting part for gathering evidence.
I hope we don’t get a flurry of how unreliable the dogs are as usually happens when that topic is brought up.
The latest spin is Gerry McCann was the one who suggested the dogs were brought in. The McCanns also spent a lot of the ‘fighting fund’ money (as it was called by John McCann)on discrediting the dogs in the Zapata case. Unfortunately after wasting this money Zapata confessed to murder.
I agree totally that the search for what happened to Maddie should continue until justice is done.
During the McCanns visit to Portugal this week they could have taken some time to formally request the Portuguese police to RE-OPEN the case.
Again lets not get the argument this cannot be done. It CAN!
It’s no surprise this article is accompanied by vicious attacks on the McCanns. Have you people no shame! Why kick someone when they are down. Have any of you, who have commented and passed judgement, actually read the police files? It would appear not. A child is missing and until concrete proof of death (which currently does not exist)is found, she should be looked for.
Jill
I can assure you I’ve read EVERY word of the police files. That’s how I came to my conclusions. I guess most other poster will say the same.
I don’t see any evidence of vicious attacks on the McCanns in the comments just for them to formally request the case is RE-OPENED. No stone unturned?
Susan is the person writing libelous statements about the Portuguese police. That is vicious. Kicking someone when they are down is exactly what she is doing implying the Portuguese are a corrupt nation with more paedophiles than others when the police and population of Praia de Luz unturned more stones than Maddie’s parents.
What nasty awful comments by some people.
Two things- Firstly, I am so glad that none of you have ever
had anything so awful happen to you that has left you numb with shock and dread !
Secondly – Can someone explain why, if the Mc Canns were guilty of anything they would persevere, keep searching and asking for official help, and not shut up for over four years?
Surely a guilty person would keep everything crossed and hope the news would fade?
Please dont insult readers by saying falsely that the McCanns make money out of their pain.
To those who criticizes, think about this: what would be your reaction if it was with one of your offsprings? You people, which criticizes, perhaps you people thinks you are untouchable. You don´t know the feeling of having a child abducted, those who criticizes, never experience this kind of problem, so who are you to condemn, to accuse, to say or write nasty comments? Shame on you. About the police, know this: gonçalo amaral in the middle of his dinner, at the proximity of praia da luz, received a phonecall about the child´s abduction, he decidedc to go to his home, instead of showed his face at praia da luz, then, in the morning, without talked to the child´s parents, without talked with the friends of the couple, decided to accuse them without any evidence to prove. Then, when amaral was sacked, he wrote books of lies, spreaded smears, with the disgusting purpose of gain fame, fortune at the expenses of the innocents betrayed by him. I ask: is this the proper behaviour of as former PJ? the answer is: NO. If amaral had the same committment in finding the child, as he had in writing books of lies, this could have been solved in an hour or two. Besides, need I remind that amaral is guilty of torture at the cipriano case? Is this the kind of assistance showed by the pj coordinator? NO it is not.
I agree with Talulah, besides, the only who made money at the expenses of innocents suffering, was: gonçalo amaral.
Talulah
Your comment “Firstly, I am so glad that none of you have ever
had anything so awful happen to you that has left you numb with shock and dread !”
What a strange thing to presume! Something did happen to me that left me numb with shock and dread. I’m appalled at your insensitivity.
I certainly didn’t expect to be paid for this terrible event, which was my pain. I would not prostitute my grief.
The only fingerprints on the children’s bedroom window were that of Mrs. McCann indicating an opening of the window. She denied having ever opened the window. The scenario indicated a staged abduction by the McCanns, whatever else happened to Madeleine, one can only guess, though death is highly likely due to the cadaver odor found only on items associated with the McCanns. The McCanns need to own up to their promise to take polygraph tests. All innocent parents would be demanding to take these tests in order to keep the investigation focused away from themselves. Not the McCanns. Not only have they refused the tests, but Kate refused to answer 48 official police questions, and they and their friends refused to take part in a reconstruction. This is certanly not behavior of innocent people.
Tom, I am very sorry for the happening which ‘left you numb with shock and dread’ If it was the same as losing a child in the same circumstances as the McCanns then I can empathise, and surely you should not begrudge the McCanns the same empathy you expect from others. They did not prostitute their grief, when Madeleine was first taken and it was broadcast over the news, people wanted to help, and the only means that they could was to contribute money. There was so much money sent that the Mccanns decided to open a ‘Fund for Madeleine’. People sent the money through the kindness of their hearts, they were not asked to send it – there wasn’t a world wide appeal, as with an earthquake or other disaster. I am sure you will agree that losing a child is bad enough, but to have one taken from you without trace, not to know whether she is dead or alive, must be a living hell. They are doing everything in their power to find her, which includes putting their heads ‘above the parapet’, which gives people such as the ones writing on here the ammunition to come out with the most vile comments possible. For the woman called Luisa to write such horrendous comments is bordering on libel. My challenge to her is how does she know that Kate McCann had sex before marriage, who told her that the McCanns went to ‘swing parties’. Why should Kate not have IVF treatment so that she could at last have a longed for child. If Luisa is a roman catholic she should be ashamed of herself for making these comments. She should go in a corner and say three hail mary’s before she speaks again, or else she will be doomed to a fate worse than death!! I am so glad I am an agnostic if this is how devout catholics behave. AND by the way Tom, sorry to be predictable, but the dogs ARE very unreliable – the one in the garage was more interested in the brick wall than it was the hire car until Grimes persuaded it to do its tricks. The blood in the apartment was most probably from a man who stayed in the apartment weeks before the McCanns – he cut himself shaving and bled for approximately one hour, whilst walking around each room. As far as the searching for Madeleine is concerned, the police went home at 1 a.m. after taking statements, saying they would be back at 9 a.m. If you were distraught parents, in a foreign country, not being able to speak the language, not knowing the lay of the land, you would depend on the police to put up road blocks, inform ports and airports, start a thorough search and cordon off the apartment – none of this was done. Many police in this country criticised the Portuguese police for their shoddy reaction to the situation. They were rubbish. It seems to me that they were only interested in pinning the disappearance of Madeleine on their parents from the outset, so as to protect their precious tourist trade. But as Talulah says the McCanns would not, and will not shut up until their precious daughter is found, and I will be there supporting them until she is!!
From another article to illustrate my point ….
Clearly, the Portuguese police did not act promptly enough, and when they did take action they were grossly incompetent. The fact that there had been no murders in the area for several years is no excuse for their ineptitude. There are basic rules and guidelines that are supposed to be followed in cases of this kind: preservation of evidence; isolation of the scene (of the suspected crime); early interview of witnesses – and so on. The Portuguese police failed on every count, and their subsequent handling of the case has been bumbling to the point of being farcical – somewhere between Inspector Clouseau and the Keystone Cops.
“From the Portuguese Police Files released July 2008
Madeleine McCann
A report by Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida to the Coordinator of the Criminal Investigation
NUIPC-201/07.0 GALGS
Intercalary report
For the attention of the Criminal Investigation Coordinator”
The INTERIM report, based on the now wholey discredited ramblings of a proven corrupt and incompetent cop. The FINAL report, as released by the Portuguese Attorny General, concluded that there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that the McCanns commited ANY crime.
Jean, I completely disagree. Clearly it was the McCanns and their friends who contaminated the crime scene and delayed notification of police. If Kate had known immediately that Madeleine had been taken, then they should have made sure that nobody else entered the apartment and sent everybody looking elsewhere. Also, they should have notified police immediately after finding Madeleine missing, which was in fact up to and hour later than any person had seen her as reported seeing her on his 9:00 check. It was the checking that was inadequate, not the Portuguese police. The McCanns cannot blame somebody else for the loss of their child. Upon finding Madeleine missing, the McCanns waited and additional 40 minutes before notifying police. Furthermore, they did not even bother to do it themselves, they sent a friend (Matt Oldfield) who had been the one who did not see Madeleine a half an hour before Kate found her missing yet reported that everything was fine. How grossly inadequate is that? The McCanns have only themselves and their friends to blame for what happened. Not all crimes all solved, not all missing children are found, and this has nothing to do with the police. Stop being xenophobic and read the police files, a massive search and investigation were done. A trampled crime scene and notification of a missing child up to 1.5 hours after the child goes missing, what do you think the chances are for her to have been found?
Jenny, about contaminated the 5A, know this: police officers entered at the apartment smoking, ashes were found at the apartment, now you tell me Jenny: is this the proper behaviour of policemen? To enter at a crime scene with cigars in their hands? NO IT ISN´T.
Even the dogs contaminated the crime scene, because they were not properly handled by Mr. Grimes.
If the person which was in charge (at that time) gonçalo amaral did properly what was to be expected from a police officer, it would have increase the chances of solving this between an hour or two. But, for amaral, we know what was truly important. Read above.
Interview with amaral at Portuguese channel
Miguel: Good evening GA, thank you for this interview. Now the investigation begins, you are dining with a friend in Portimao, you are placed in Portimao eating some shrimps, good taste, you coordinate that area at the Portimao county, of Lagos, and then you receive a phone call saying that a little British girl has disappeared at Praia da Luz, so, I think that in your place you should be released immediately because that was a case which assumed great gravity, paedophile, Algarve, tourism, English, etc, etc, why didn´t you go immediately to the crime scene and give instructions to PJ picket, let me finish, to say to whoever goes there to be very careful with the evidences?
GA: it´s like this, we have many cases in Portimao, and the PJ coordinator could not, would not be present, it´s like this now, PJ works really well, has experts, has technicians, it is established to function well, it doesn´t need a coordinator, the coordinator has other things to do, besides to go along to the police picket, as you can guess, we have many cases (Miguel says: that is in any case, but in this case that´s not justified, you are at 20 kilometers of the crime scene (GA says: perhaps in a week or two it could justified), now the issue is, we have many things to do (Miguel says: you released yourself, that, the first ones, gathering evidences, whoever was there, did not do a very good job (GA says, a normal job inside the perspective that abduction, shall we say, the theft of, the theft of a person in the case and that inspects the site as if it were a theft, the object who was there was removed, it was a lack of procedures that PJ is somehow rethink and has a lot to do with that, with the perspective approach to inspect the site in this case (Miguel says: didn´t you think that you must go there immediately?) it´s not to think, it´s like this, the coordinator or director doesn´t have to go there, the coordinator has to control and I controlled it (Miguel: perhaps it was better to go there, don´t you regret of not being there later?) No, I don´t regret, police professionals, are police professionals, they are experts, technicians, we being there and as a sign for a technician to gather fingerprints and with the job of taking photos (Miguel: for example, at certain time you…) it is something that should justified PJ to go there (Miguel: public experience, at a certain time you must regret that you did not know how the English, the McCanns were dressed on that night, and says it is a shame that they took so many photos during holidays, but not during night?) No, they took during night they just didn´t showed up (Miguel: didn´t showed up) and I (Miguel: I asked you if you a have a man there?) GA If Miguel allows me, it´s like this, I’m a man under an injunction and talk directly about it here in the case, I don´t know if I´m going to break the injunction, there is a conflict of sides, help me a bit in that (Miguel: I´ll help: justify people, an injunction is a order governed by court, I read the sentence which says: you cannot talk about your book´s thesis, but you can talk about other thesis) I can talk about the abduction (Miguel: I asked you this because when you said you regret that there are no photos to know how the English were dressed that night, yet you had a man in charge of taking photos, so why did he not take photos of the English people also? How can anyone remembers saying to take photos of everything? Yes, such mistakes happen a lot, and in many cases, I remind a case, it´s in the book also, of an expert who showed up in the photos with a brush in her hand in the outside window of the little girl´s room, and without any protection, today the experts, the police in the crime scene has their own clothes (Miguel: you´ve learned with your mistakes) and we didn´t look at CSI (Miguel: seems to me you had a lifetime chance as a pseudo-criminal investigator, you had a difficult case to solve, no argument about that, but under worldwide attention, that immediately became global news, at a time when speaks about child abductions, paedophiles, you had a golden chance to shine personally, to show your corporation in a good light (GA says: it´s not bright) Miguel says: you had 2 goals: 1- find Maddie, or discover what happened to her, you have failed both, you failed your mission and you failed your chance) GA: no, no, I gave my contribution to the investigation until I was no longer allowed to be there, and I can tell you that I was not alone in the investigation as the coordinator. GA, the director of Portimao who was alone in the charge of the investigation and the director (Miguel: but it was you who was the public face of the investigation) GA says no. Miguel says: you were the one who talked a lot about her) GA: no, the public face was the one used in England´s terms, or here, in Portugal also, I just spoke about her when I left the police, until that, if I was seen in or out the police, it was to go to my office, to lunch with colleagues and so on, Miguel says: then I ´ll take the explosive charge on yourself: The team you conducted failed both goals. GA says: no. Miguel: it´s a fact evidence isn´t it? GA says: not wanting to break the injunction, many evidences was gathered and I´m talking in good faith, and I think I´m not breaking the injunction. I cannot speak about the book, but you doctor can (Miguel: yes I can, I was not forbidden, when you talk about evidences, you speaks about the hypothesis of her being killed by her parents, to hide her body) GA: no, no I never said that, Miguel says: but it is what is in the book, GA: what I say in the book, let me explain (Miguel: but you had fun yourself). GA: I don´t say, (Miguel: the final conclusion), GA: no, no, then you had not read the book, that book is the English truth and there is nothing there. Miguel: I have not read it? Oh yes I have read it, the book ends with 4 conclusions marked in black. GA says: conclusions which are not talking about murder by the parents. (Miguel: I didn´t said murder by her parents, could been killed accidentally). GA repeats: no, no,accidentally is not killed by someone, an accident is an accident, it´s not any murder. Miguel says: it is involuntary murder, you always told that they hid their daughter´s body, is that not in your book? Miguel repeats this question, Is this not in your book?) GA says: this is where you Miguel is wrong, what´s in the book is six month of investigation, during which I was in charge and where it concludes with reports which are there, the suspicions at that time and has you Miguel knows, criminal investigation has it´s time, a beginning, a middle and an end, and so on, and in that moment there was suspicion, which doesn´t mean later, but, but (Miguel says: but the suspicions were mostly yours, you know GA, another thing that is impressive is, let´s get back, shall we (GA: you are putting words in my mouth, you are forbidden) Miguel continues: no no, the words are mine, my conclusions and taken from your book and taken from the process)
GA says: no the suspicions, you are putting words in my mouth or what, no, you are talking about the injunction, it is an interpretation of the book (Miguel: it is an interpretation of the book, you receive the news, gives the order to PJ picket, go to your home, (GA: yes, like in any other case). Miguel continues: you go to your home, wake up in the morning, this is in your book, and the first thing that comes to your brain is to ask the British who are the McCanns? And you start immediately to suspect and ask questions, the questions you ask are: if they hurt children, if the have a serious problem with law, if they have psychological problems, if they are in fact doctors in full time, and then, much ahead you say is common sense in these cases to suspect of the parents, so, you have not yet seen the McCanns, you have not yet been at the crime scene and you´re already suspect them? Is it, or is it not. You´re a master). GA says: yes, then says, listen, I or any other, yes, yes, it´s normal, to suspect, you´re wrong, it´s common sense, listen doctor, you are making fantasies, something, Miguel says: no, I´m not making fantasies, I read your book). GA repeats: the issue is this: the national and international laws in any of these cases and we were criticised by the FBI about this, is the issue of suspect or not of parents, or the closest in these types of cases and I can tell you, (Miguel says: you believe, but I don´t say suspect, at a certain time now, the first suspicions is that it?). GA says: it´s not the first suspicion, we have to know first who those people are. Miguel says: Was it not most urgent to know if the borders were all closed? Are all the marinas under surveillance? All the cars who left there under control?). GA says: But we knew. We took care of that. No, it cannot know all cars who left there. And look, we reached the conclusion that for example the Via of Infant has some TV cameras which didn´t work, we talked with Spanish colleagues to control the border of Cádiz, in terms of access to Morocco, all those, Tenerife, and so on (Miguel says: the marinas were not immediately controlled, because I know who left for example of Lagos marina one day after, quietly).
GA: but we have all that information. We know that. From a place where some occurrence happens, we analyze it, if there are CCTV, if there are no CCTV, if there are any CCTV, what can be seen, what cannot be seen, all of that, at the same time, look, saying that we aimed immediately to, it´s not like that, that question is relativity to the parents, excuse me, that first question, that, was answered, it is the first, was never answered, it is the first, it is important to understand… (Miguel: since the first day, anyone who read your book concludes immediately that in the first meeting, at the end of the first day, is the strongest hypothesis you have, and I believe that has been created at a certain time of the investigation, but now, is the first hypothesis of work, it is the first hypothesis of work you pick and seems to be the only. GA says: it´s not (Miguel insists: it looks to be the only one). GA repeats: not it´s not. Miguel insists again: it is, it is. GA says: doctor read the book. Miguel says: I read the book. GA says: notice, there are at the book , there are the investigations for the abduction, there we have the abduction, what has been done. Miguel says: in terms of abduction, yes). GA says: talks about a polish couple and an investigation, that, if you read the book (Miguel: yes, I read it) GA: as for me, I don´t agree with that end of, I don´t agree, but even the McCanns don´t talk about them and there are other situations, situations if, goes to the process, we have the book, then, the process, we have the book which I wrote, I was inside, this is the reason why I wrote it , I can explain it to you later, and there is the process which was been given to the journalists, the book is forbidden, the process is not, the process reaches the same conclusions of those first six months, but if you notice, (Miguel says: no) Ga, says: there are diligencies, if you notice doctor (and Miguel says: no). GA says: have you read the process?. Miguel says: there are diligencies which have not been carried out and which are not made, exactly because it stays since the beginning in the hypothesis of being the parents guilty. GA says: that’s a lie, no, it´s a lie). Miguel says: On the very first day: the GNR dogs which went there on the first day all of them pointed to the parking lot, the trail which they follow stops at the parking lot, that lead points to a car that took the child out of there, and that is never, excuse me, never, instead, it stays, stayed six months, five months…).
GA says: and I´ll tell you more, yes, pointed to what? No, sorry, pointed to a car, why, where did you read that, in my book? (Miguel: no, that is not in your book). GA: but it is also in the book, the GNR dogs are good, these are sniffer dogs, what they followed was the trail of a living child, you understand, it was the route of that child, you doctor say it is a car, and Miguel says: why do you say that she was not alive? GA says: excuse me, but, how do you doctor say it was a car, you don´t know the day, hours before the… Miguel says, that in a parking lot it is most likely that it was a car, and if you accepted the idea you give me, I´m not an expert in criminal investigation, now the idea that gives me that is since the beginning and if what we have, started with a serious work in the hypothesis of the abduction, the first suspicion is that the child was taken by a car, instead, instead…).
GA: oh doctor, there is a witness who even talks that the child went out in the opposite way (Miguel says: exactly, which you give no credibility, which is another English friend of the McCanns, and which you give also no credibility to that witness). GA: I´m not giving credibility? And Miguel says again: no you don´t, you give no credit at all. GA: it´s possible, neither me, nor anyone else. That lady starts by saying this, then by saying that, then it´s going to change, when, in the middle, the only thing she remembered was the hair, she remembers the photo-fit which was the hair and so on, what she remembered is that it was filling everything, until reach the point of recognizes Robert Murat as the author, so, that cannot be, now it´s yes, these are all things which are to be done. Miguel says: the first person who suspects of Robert Murat is you, isn´t it? It is you. You´re the first. You´re the first who goes there and decides to put him under surveillance. GA says: It is Jane Tanner. You´re wrong. It is Jane Tanner, no, no, and Miguel says: yeah, but I don´t talk about that suspect. Well, back to my story, this is a thesis, much like yours, I think the story of the abduction was not investigated properly or enough, because the PJ was a prisoner immediately attached to the other hypothesis: the most darkest theory of them all, and moreover, for me, it contains a thing that I still don´t see any person to explain it: How can a British couple, who is on vacation at the Algarve, who doesn´t know the country, then at night, between 9.30 and 10.00 pm, doesn´t know why, doesn´t know the reason, which mobile / purpose, in which circumstances, wanted, not wanted, kills their daughter and makes the body disappear in half an hour and that no one can find? Evaporates? GA says: It´s like this, the words kill the daughter are form you doctor not mine (Miguel says: they´re mine) the period between 9.30 and 10.00 are from the suspects (Miguel says: from the suspects, of some of the suspects, which were already at the restaurant where employees, witnesses seeing them, even if they were all in… how can a body just disappear?). GA says: oh doctor, let´s talk about one thing, there is one thing, one thing that is said, wait a minute, there is one thing that is said in the report, for me is the principal mistake of the shelve of the process, let me remind, the doctor in an article of June 21st told no to the shelve and against the shelve, and there I agree with you, with everything else behind, the most part I do not agree, but in the issue about the shelve, I agree with you, not a bit as the report about the public ministry: the issue, and even at the British police reports at mpa (Miguel says: are reports… makes a body disappears in half an hour in a foreign country at night?). GA says: I´´m going to answer, wait, what half an hour? Miguel repeats: half an hour. GA says: the child is seen by people outside the couple (Miguel says: 7.30) at 17h35 and then an Irish couple which told saw someone with the, with possibly with that, not sure, at 22h15 and which gives (Miguel says: ah, then) excuse me, who gives the wall, who gives the window of (Miguel says: so your thesis….) is Mr. Gerald McCann, not my thesis (Miguel says: so, you cannot speak about your thesis, but you´re telling me that is also possible to put the hypothesis that, the child died between 17h35 and 22h). GA says: don´t have any doubts about that. you doctor limited half an hour, and I´m not talking in deaths, is someone to have killed, the couple, never mind about it, what is told internationally, (Miguel says: so, if it was not death, what was it? They abducted themselves their own daughter?), GA says:; wait, I´m not telling you that they killed her, that´s not what I´m saying, what is told internationally and in terms of investigation here in Portugal and in any country of the world and it is told by British police, that cannot be trusted at the timetables which are provided by the suspects, and that is why the Public ministry made a mistake to the shelve the process, if you read the dispatch of the shelving, it says: the couple could not have done this or that at that time because they wasn´t there, but who gave that half an hour? Was it Mr. Gerald McCann and Mrs. Kate McCann? (Miguel says: and all the others, all the friends?), GA says: no, no, not all the friends.
GA: It is you, whose going to use an apartment (Miguel says to go to that apartment) GA says: just to that apartment (Miguel says: not just that one, there are other apartments, six friends dining plus an older lady, seven people who says all that goes there minutes in minutes) GA says: there are seven children and only goes to that apartment? No, it´s like this: Mr. Matthew Oldfield, for example, said that he never saw the girl and says he entered in the apartment and didn´t see her, now it´s like this: I´m talking in general terms, not want to break any injunction, it is needed to have careful with that, all I´m saying in technical terms, of police experts, in police terms, it cannot be trusted in, it´s in the reports, even the British police (Miguel says: it cannot be trusted and I believe in what the witnesses says) GA says: it is not about what the witnesses says, the suspect, don´t you forget that (Miguel says again: but you determined them as suspects before they become suspects, it is what it seems to me, really, the idea you give me is and they are immediately suspects, that you woke up in the next day in the morning and without even having looked at their faces, you are already suspect them, is that a golden rule? I think that the golden rule here is to start investigate, if there are evidences and then comes the suspicions, but before you have any evidences there are already suspicions? Seems to me Mr.Amaral, excuse me for that, but seems to me that you started from a thesis and looked for evidences to confirm your thesis, instead of doing otherwise). GA says: you´re wrong, they are not, but it is a golden rule, no, in international terms, in rules terms, we don´t have many cases. No, on the contrary, I can tell you something: in the beginning they said it was a case similar to the one with Joana Cipriano, I said no (Miguel says: similar with the Joana Cipriano) and GA, nervously, says:not again, Miguel repeats: similar with the Joana Cipriano, GA says: our mistake (Miguel says: it´s the same), GA says: no, it´s not the same, it´s not the same, Miguel says: you also investigated, also no body and you concludes with it was the mother and the brother). GA, nervous: I, I, didn´t conclude it, it was the court of Portimao who concludes it and they were condemned (Miguel says: you only feels satisfied, now, let me ask you: you were convinced, I´m not convinced, I believe you had been satisfied as investigator that the court corroborated your thesis, right? In the case of Joana Cipriano).
GA says: But why my thesis? (Miguel says: now, after being proved that she was beaten, that is also being judged, that she was beaten hard (GA says: who was condemned?) Miguel says: you are condemned with a suspended probation, suspended not for beating her but for making false declarations about the case), GA says: how can false declarations, how can we reach that? I´m going to explain it quickly (Miguel says: a judicial sentence, I´m guided by the sentence now) GA: no, I was listened always and as a witness… (Miguel says: let me ask you a question: you think that in this country (Portugal) many people believes that Leonor Cipriano killed her daughter? A very few people Mr. Amaral, very few people (GA says: You think?) very few people and we don´t believe: how can a woman without any instruction, without any proof, who was beaten hard by PJ (GA says: nothing has been proved, you are going to…) how can she managed, managed to be so clever, that she kills her daughter, hides the body and PJ couldn´t get a single trace? Miguel continues: where is the body? (GA says: the inspection which was carried 12 days after and then let´s see the circumstances in which he was, there is blood, washing of the apartment itself, a person who never washed the apartment, wash it at that time, there are a series of traces, if you want to talk about that case, let´s talk, I mean (Miguel says: no, some should exist for the court to condemned her, now there is also a revue of the sentence based on something) GA says: yes it was inferred the review of the sentence), Miguel says: it was inferred? I didn´t know that, look, I wish it had been, because that doesn´t convince me) GA says: why doesn´t it convince you?, Miguel says: because it doesn´t convince me, because I have a previous suspicion about defendants who reach court, after confessing to crimes made under beatings, which is obvious, I cannot accept that, therefore, I suspect). GA says: but, do you suspect of me? Miguel says: you signed the confession. GA says: Do you think so? In what time? Miguel says: it´s in the confession in the files, I don´t know or have assumed? What I know is: she was taken out of jail, during night, she was taken back to PJ facilities and they returned her beaten, it was during night, and besides, it was participated by the warden of the jail, right?).
GA says: at night? Took her at night. Yeah, it was, maybe it should be listened better, because you know… if we are going to talk about this case (Miguel says: but we are not going to talk about Joana Cipriano, let´s go back to Maddie´s case), GA says: Let´s talk, look, there is one thing essential, let´s focus here a very fast thing: I was accused in this process of omission of seeing and denounce and I ask: what does that lady do when she thought that she had someone there and she told that PJ doesn´t asked for forensics, didn´t inform the Public ministry, why does she asked to a worker, a person under her dependence, wait, let me finish this, why did she asked for a dependant medic by green tickets to make one medical exam attached to a psychiatric, this is interesting, because there are experts in Odemira, you doctor know where Odemira is and there are forensic experts there, it can be done there. It will not be a German psychiatrist in green tickets dependent of the lady warden that will make forensics (Miguel: I´m not discussing the Joana case, I don´t have time, what I want is Maddie case, it still actual, it didn´t reach any conclusion, at the time of the Maddie case, the Times of London wrote something which I agree completely: it said like this (GA says: it´s in your opinion? I cannot give mine?) Miguel says: about this you can give it, Times told: “Portuguese police continues to be the bulk of their investigations in the self-incrimination of arguidos, of suspects (GA says: that´s a lie), Miguel continues: listen: or thought the tapping phone calls where they confess the crime, or through confessions and I remembered this; after that, because when you tell in the book that you invited Kate McCann as arguida, that there was great expectations that she confessed spontaneously and she didn´t confess and the husband didn´t confess and then they return to England, you become very disappointed because they returned to England, because from that moment on, they are not here for you to continue interrogate them, because, (GA says: To England we already knew they were going to… it says here that our director, was hasted the nomination as arguidos, but they were leaving and there are statements in that direction, but saying that (Miguel says;: but it was a right who assists them) Ga says: yes, it was, completely), Miguel says: to whom had read the news blown by police and by the press, by police obviously (GA says: why obviously? Why not by the Public ministry, by British police?) Miguel says: it was by Public ministry, by British police. Its another opinion of mine; for you it seemed that the McCanns were suspects because they returned to England, to return home five months later, but, their purpose was to stay here and be interrogated, be interrogated by PJ until they confessed something they never did, isn´t that right?), GA says: we are running out of time, you told me so, let´s change the format and you doctor talks and I´m going to tell you very quickly one important thing: look, as for the couple McCann, the couple only mentioned in leaving in the day that British dogs arrived to Portugal and then Mr. Gerald McCann knowing the potentialities of those dogs, and to be all enlightened (Miguel says: I don´t see the connection, if he were in London, wouldn´t the dogs acted the same way?) GA says: seems that the dogs only failed here, it´s because of the heat in Algarve (Miguel says: what difference can they make by being here or not, at the same time as the dogs?) GA says: what difference? They knew what´s going to happened next, until that, they walked holding hands and PJ gave them information, just to say something. I wrote that book – the truth of lie, in the exercise of my freedom of speech like the judge told, because the attacks towards me, which I was targeted, I´m going to tell you: they call me, the British press: 418 times shameful, 440 times outrageous, 140 times torturer, 45 times disabled, 37 times incompetent, 23 times libertine cop, 20 times sacked, let me tell you: when my freedom of speech is in stake, and when at Republic Assembly discusses problems of freedom of speech, as it was told recently, for me is something smaller, because the discussion should be extended, because what´s in stale here is not only the Gonçalo Amaral´s freedom of speech, it´s in stake the freedom of speech of the journalists and the freedom of speech of this country´s citizens. Miguel says with a bored expression: yes, yes, I heard, so, you made your statement, I only want a short answer to this question: imagine, imagine yourself, because me I cannot imagine: that the McCanns are indeed innocent, imagine that they under the excruciating pain of losing their daughter, who was abducted, which they do not know what happened to her, they had still suffered the ignominy of seeing themselves considered suspects of having killed and hiding their daughter´s corpse, have you already thought about that hypothesis? GA says: I have already thought and thought about all of them. Miguel says: and you sleep with tranquility with the certain that that didn´t happened? Ga says: I do sleep, you know why? It´s like this: who demanded the shelving of the process? You doctor told in that title from the Express diy 21: The couple McCann. Who conformed with the shelving of the process? The couple McCann (Miguel says: excuse, but, they are not confirmed they want reopen the process). GA says: Excuses, you doctor don´t know the rules. They at that time, opening the instruction, speaks about the process reopened.
Miguel says: Dr. GA, I have to “shelve” the interview.
GA says: sadly, sadly.
Jenny know this, if the coordinator (amaral) did properly what was expected from a police officer, it increased the chances of solving this case in a hour or two.
Shame on you who criticizes, without experienced such issue.
Don´t write about things you never felt. Because if you experienced such issue, perhaps you acted with the purpose of finding your child.
jean´s words are also mine.
Pedro, you don’t need to experience something to have an opinion on something. FACT. Jean’s getting paid to write such tosh, are you too?
I leave you to ponder the following, as obviously you have been granted access to all the police files including the ones Leicestershire Police have not disclosed for you to have such an informed opinion lol!!!:-
“While one or both of them may be innocent, there is no clear evidence that eliminates them from involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.”
The Assistant Chief Constable Leicestershire Constabulary.
Alonso, I´m not getting paid, what I wrote is what I truly believe, if you don´t like, that´s your problem, what I don´t allow is you or anyone else to say the b*** you wrote. You Alonso, don´t know me, so you have no authority to write what you wrote about me. If you, who wrote such disgusting comments uses your so called “freedom of speech” to criticize, then, I use my friend of speech to write what I truly believe.
I have read the police files, and I maintain my true opinion, which is written above.
Alonso, I disagree: you have to experience the fact of having a child abducted,to know what is fear, anguish, desperation.
Have you Alonso have a child of your own abducted?
If you don´t, how can you know what parents with abduction chidrens feels? You don´t know.
Alonso, when I read your comments, I think: here is someone who I ask: what kind of behaviour you had, if you knew that your child was abducted, and what would you do, to find your child, to have your offspring back in your arms?
Wouldn´t you move heaven and earth to have your child safe in your arms?
If it was my son or daughter, I would do exactly the same these parents are doing to find their daughter.
And that: no one has the right to criticize, specially those who never felt it in their skins.
Besides, the PJ admitted the innocence of these parents.
Also, their campaign proves also their innocence.
If you don´t understand this, it´s because you people are so blind in your desire of writting your nasty comments, that you don´t release what is in front of you.
Pedro
June 1st, 2011 10:06 am
Even the dogs contaminated the crime scene, because they were not properly handled by Mr. Grimes.
*********
Mr Grimes was not at the crime scene. He and his dogs did not arrive until July/August.
Any reference to contamination of the crime scene is for May 3/4. And it is in the final prosecutor’s report that it was the family and friends who contaminated it. Further, the PJ did not proclaim their innocence. You must be reading different files.
Easy Pedro you will do yourself a mischief! I agree with you my friend, you speak the truth “Wouldn´t you move heaven and earth to have your child safe in your arms?”. Yes I would Pedro, yes I would. Then I ask you this, why did not the Mccans. They knew the investigation could not move on if they did not eliminate themselves from the enquiry yet still they chose NOT to answer the questions put to them by the PJ and NOT to do a reconstruction. Effectively therefore the investigation was shelved. Move heaven and earth??? No Pedro not even a single effort.
Please answer for me this, why did the Mccanns take their other children to the creche the next day, why did they laugh on their missing daughters birthday, days after the abduction, why did they use the fund money to sue people, why do the mccanns not jump for joy when Scotland Yard get on the case, something they have been whining about for years. Not a word Pedro not a single word.
What I find so awful about the McCanns is the great job they did at the time of suppressing the facts.
At the time that this young girl went missing there was zero information that:
every night of the holiday they had left their children alone:
that there were babysitters available but they were too mean to put their hands in their pockest – dual income over £350,000 per year!
That they left the door to their apartment unlocked!
That all the children had said they were upset at being left alone and had nightmares!
If this had been working class parents they would have faced charges back home and the the two other children would have been taken into care.
To blame the response of the Portuegese police is a red herring – if these children had not been left alone – if the door had not been left unlocked night after night – if these mean sods had put their hands in their deep pockets and paid for a baby sitter which were easily available that poor young girl would not have gone missing – it really is as simple as that.
The McCanns lied about the shutters being jemmied from day one in order to place more emphasis on their “abduction” theory. That was just the beginning of their lies. Why would innocent parents feel the need to lie at all? I suspect that the cigar smoking Portuguese was just another lie perpetuated by the McCanns themselves, as was the lie that nobody was looking for Madeleine, when in fact EVERYONE but themselves was looking. It was too dark for them to go out and look for their own daughter whom they had lost due to neglect. The only thing that explains why they wouldn’t look is that they knew she wouldn’t be found.
No one knows what happened to Madeleine, but it’s to be hoped the Scotland Yard review will focus on all the possibilities and not just on one. So far there seems no evidence for abduction but there is evidence of cadaver odour. The cadaver odour need not be Madeleine’s but it seems a very big coincidence that there was cadaver odour in an apartment from which a child went missing. I know if my child went missing and cadaver odour was found in the place she’d disappeared from I’d be frantic with worry, I wouldn’t be trying to persuade people that cadaver dogs are unreliable (they aren’t).
Why is it considered nasty to point out facts in this case or to refer to the official case files, the statements, the interviews, etc.? Most of us who are interested in crime have enough sense of fairness to look at all sides, to try to see where the evidence leads. Is that not the best thing to do? There are so many things in this case that are crying out for explanation that I really hope Scotland Yard goes right back to the beginning and does a full investigation, including a reconstruction and reinterviewing everyone. Maybe then the smoke will clear and things will become clearer.
I read articles like this and wonder why the author as a journalist, doesn’t have a more balanced view. The author incorrectly discusses an abductor, when at this stage we don’t know for sure they is one. It’s possible the child left the apartment of her own accord and came to some harm thereafter. Because there are no clear cut answers to this mystery then it’s perfectly reasonable for the police to question the parents and their friends and all of their actions during the holiday.
Instead of criticising those people who seek elucidation to unanswered questions, they should be glad they are being thorough for the child’s sake. Sometimes the wood has to be cleared before you can see the trees.
I quote Alonso
June 1st, 2011 11:40 am
….Pedro, you don’t need to experience something to have an opinion on something. FACT. Jean’s getting paid to write such tosh, are you too?…..
So it is FACT that I am getting paid to write on these sites, I wish I had know that, I’ll go and check my bank account right away!! No young Alonso I am NOT being paid I write what I write because I KNOW that it is true. Tosh it is not.
I will repeat once again some FACTS that keep raising their heads …… Kate McCann did not answer the questions put to her by the Portuguese police because she was advised not to by her lawyer, who was sitting in at the interview.
The cigarette ash was found by the Forensic Science Laboratory in this country – not by the McCanns – therefore rendering the DNA useless.
The dogs were useless – they did not discover anything – especially two months after Madeleine had gone missing.
The Social Services looked into the case and decided that they were completely satisfied that the McCanns were good parents. No way would they have taken the twins from them.
The McCanns asked the Portuguese police to film a reconstruction – but they refused.
Jenny – if I had lost my daughter I would be so distraught that I wouldn’t have been able to function properly. They knew people were looking for Madeleine. They asked the receptionist at the Ocean Club to ring the police. Do not forget they were in a foreign country, and did not speak the language. What would be the point in them making the call. None whatsoever. When the police eventually came it was only the local bobbies, they rang the big boys approximately one hour later, and it took them until 1 p.m. to arrive. They took statements and then told the McCanns they would be back IN THE MORNING. No urgency there.
All of this supposition is irrelevant – there is still a little girl missing – we all want to get to the bottom of what happened on the night of 3 May 2007. I have my thoughts and apparently you have yours, so we must beg to differ. Hopefully, now that the Metropolitan Police are involved Madeleine will stand a better chance than she did when her fate was in the hands of the Portuguese police.
Correction …. DNA from the apartment which was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in this country was found to be contaminated with cigarette ash.
My answer to those who asked questions to me is this: read the interview above, jean´s words are mine.
About the questions: Mrs. McCann´s lawyer advised her not to answer those questions, because those questions had a single purpose: to accuse of something she never did.
Jenny, Tina, you´re so wrong.
Jean, provide proof DNA was contaminated with fag ash, back up your statement, cheers
There is only one person who failed here: gonçalo amaral. this man is the true responsible for the way the investigation in Praia da Luz was conducted.
Also, know this: The “arguido” status, had only one purpose:
to prevent the McCanns to speak,
to allow gonçalo amaral to carry with his disgusting behaviour.
I agree with jean:
“there is still a little girl missing – we all want to get to the bottom of what happened on the night of 3 May 2007. I have my thoughts and apparently you have yours, so we must beg to differ. Hopefully, now that the Metropolitan Police are involved Madeleine will stand a better chance than she did when her fate was in the hands of the Portuguese police”.
THIS IS WHAT REALLY MATTERS.
Pedro you need to just stfu idiot
Tina – I don’t have to back it up – the Forensic Laboratory did that. All the DNA was contaminated, and none was proved conclusively that it was Madeleine’s. CHEERS !! (It was cigarette ash – NOT ‘fag’ ash!!)
These people with their nasty comments and lies about the parents are deaf and blind for reality. They can’t hear the scream or see the child that is in front of them:
Madeleine, a missing little girl that needs to be found!!
Pedro, my friend, thanks for printing the interview with Goncalo Amaral, this evil person who was convicted for criminal acts around evidence and lying about it in front of 3 judges in the case of another missing child: Joana Cipriano.
Pedro
June 2nd, 2011 10:39 am
Also, know this: The “arguido” status, had only one purpose:
to prevent the McCanns to speak,
to allow gonçalo amaral to carry with his disgusting behaviour.
+++++++++++
I wasn’t aware that Mr McCann did not speak, just Mrs McCann, not telling porkies are you?
And Jean, awaiting the report about your fagash, hopefully you too can prove you’re not telling porkies dear
“Pedro
JUNE 2ND, 2011 10:33 AM
There is only one person who failed here: gonçalo amaral. this man is the true responsible for the way the investigation in Praia da Luz was conducted.”
How ridiculous to suggest that. There were many police officers involved including officers from the UK. All of them were part of the investigation and had plenty of input, much of that input came after the first guy left.
The fact that there is no clear evidence one way or another to solve this case is not something unique, however, it may have helped if the people there that night had done a reconstruction and answered any further inquiries or questions the Portuguese police had.
If the police are unable to get a full picture of events then they can hardly be blamed for not getting a clearer picture, can they?
jean
June 2nd, 2011 1:02 pm
Tina – I don’t have to back it up – the Forensic Laboratory did that. All the DNA was contaminated, and none was proved conclusively that it was Madeleine’s. CHEERS !! (It was cigarette ash – NOT ‘fag’ ash!!)
+++++++
You made a statement of fact. You are obliged to back that statement up with proof. Now let’s have the link to the FSS and any cigarette ash. Otherwise you prove yourself to have no credit. I’m sure you wouldn’t like that. Cheers.
PS. I never said the FSS proved conclusively that it was Maddie’s DNA, so go fight with someone else about that.
In fact Jean, give me any link at all for any cigarette ash found in that apartment, any. :)
You welcome Chicane.
I agree with you my friends Chicane, jean.
It is obvious that the authors of comments like Tina or Davy, have no respect for every people who writes here comments which are against what they wrote above.
From what I read above about amaral, I don´t see written or mentioned the UK police. Only Davy mentioned.
Tina, go to learn some manners. it is no use to talk here with people like Tina who are so absorbed in their fantasies, that don´t allow contrary opinions to their thoughts.
Davy, I have not mentioned the UK police, you did, not I, so, don´t change my words, just because it suits you.
Tina – I really am not obliged to back anything up. I’m telling you that the Forensic Science Laboratory stated that due to cigarette ash contaminating the DNA that was found in the apartment, the DNA was useless.
Davy – as for the questions the police asked Kate – have you read them – what a load of pointless twaddle …
Here are the questions she was asked:
1- On May 3 2007, around 22:00, when you entered the apartment, what did you see? What did you do? Where did you look? What did you touch?
2- Did you search inside the master bedroom wardrobe? (she replied that she wouldn’t answer)
3- (shown 2 photographs of her bedroom wardrobe) Can you describe its contents?
4- Why had the curtain behind the sofa in front of the side window (whose photo was shown to her) been tampered with? Did somebody go behind that sofa?
5- How long did your search of the apartment take after you detected your daughter Madeleine’s disappearance?
6- Why did you say from the start that Madeleine had been abducted?
7- Assuming Madeleine had been abducted, why did you leave the twins home alone to go to the ‘Tapas’ and raise the alarm? Because the supposed abductor could still be in the apartment.
8- Why didn’t you ask the twins, at that moment, what had happened to their sister or why didn’t you ask them later on?
9- When you raised the alarm at the ‘Tapas’ what exactly did you say and what were your exact words?
10- What happened after you raised the alarm in the ‘Tapas’?
11- Why did you go and warn your friends instead of shouting from the verandah?
12- Who contacted the authorities?
13- Who took place in the searches?
14- Did anyone outside of the group learn of Madeleine’s disappearance in those following minutes?
15- Did any neighbour offer you help after the disappearance?
16- What does “we let her down” mean?
17- Did Jane tell you that night that she’d seen a man with a child?
18- How were the authorities contacted and which police force was alerted?
19- During the searches, with the police already there, where did you search for Maddie, how and in what way?
20- Why did the twins not wake up during that search or when they were taken upstairs?
21- Who did you phone after the occurrence?
22- Did you call Sky News?
23- Did you know the danger of calling the media, because it could influence the abductor?
24- Did you ask for a priest?
25- By what means did you divulge Madeleine’s features, by photographs or by any other means?
26- Is it true that during the searches you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?
27- What was your behaviour that night?
28- Did you manage to sleep?
29- Before travelling to Portugal did you make any comment about a foreboding or a bad feeling?
30- What was Madeleine’s behaviour like?
31- Did Maddie suffer from any illness or take any medication?
32- What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister?
33- What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister, friends and school mates?
34- As for your professional life, in how many and which hospitals have you worked?
35- What is your medical specialty?
36- Have you ever done shift work in any emergency services or other services?
37- Did you work every day?
38- At a certain point you stopped working, why?
39- Are the twins difficult to get to sleep? Are they restless and does that cause you uneasiness?
40- Is it true that sometimes you despaired with your children’s behaviour and that left you feeling very uneasy?
41- Is it true that in England you even considered handing over Madeleine’s custody to a relative?
42- In England, did you medicate your children? What type of medication?
43- In the case files you were forensic testing films, where you can see them marking due to detection of the scent of human corpse and blood traces, also human, and only human, as well as all the comments of the technician in charge of them. After watching and after the marking of the scent of corpse in your bedroom beside the wardrobe and behind the sofa, pushed up against the sofa wall, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
44- When the sniffer dog also marked human blood behind the sofa, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
45- When the sniffer dog marked the scent of corpse coming from the vehicle you hired a month after the disappearance, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
46- When human blood was marked in the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
47- When confronted with the results of Maddie’s DNA, whose analysis was carried out in a British laboratory, collected from behind the sofa and the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
48- Did you have any responsibility or intervention in your daughter’s disappearance?
Portuguese detectives knew there was no conclusive evidence against the McCanns three days before they interviewed them and made them suspects, official files have disclosed.
Officers had been told in an email from the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham that no conclusive traces of Madeleine’s DNA had been found in the family’s hire car.
But detectives went on to tell Mr McCann, during an eight hour interrogation, that his daughter’s DNA had been found in the boot of the vehicle, which was rented more than three weeks after she vanished.
A friend of the couple said: “It was pretty clear they were seeking a confession and were prepared to do this (put forward false information) to achieve that.
“Serious questions need to be asked about why this was put to Gerry as fact. It was sloppy at best and deliberately manipulative at worst.
“A number of senior officers went down the route of making assumptions and suppositions and trying to force a confession to something that didn’t happen.”
This was one of the main areas of suspicion and Mr McCann was made a suspect or “arguido” into Madeleine’s disappearance, along with his wife, immediately after being questioned at Portimao police station on September 7.
“Police were wrong to pursue this line so vigorously, and the Portuguese legal system has now accepted that there was no evidence to support it.
“I can confirm that the Portuguese police put it to Gerry as a fact that Madeleine’s DNA had been found in both the apartment and the vehicle when it is now clear that the initial FSS report had made no such claim.
“You have to ask yourself what the police were trying to achieve by overstating evidence that they didn’t have, nor could claim to have.
“One wonders, under those circumstances, what the motivation was.”
Certain information – such as the details of suspected and known paedophiles in the area – has been removed, while video tapes of the reaction of the sniffer dogs to the McCann’s hire car will be released in due course.
The transcripts of interviews with Kate and Gerry McCann came from notes made by a police officer because the sessions were not recorded.
According to the files, Mr McCann was told on September 7 that Madeleine’s DNA was discovered in the boot of the rented Renault Scenic, and behind a sofa in the family’s holiday apartment.
“Confronted with the fact that Madeleine’s DNA was gathered from behind the sofa and from the boot of the vehicle, and analysed by a British laboratory, he said he could not explain why this would be,” the officer wrote.
But an email written by John Lowe of the FSS four days earlier on September 3 said the analysis of the samples in the car had proved nothing.
The message – written to Superintendent Stuart Prior, head of the British part of the investigation and forwarded to the PJ – concluded that there were some elements which matched the little girl’s profile.
But the email, which was translated into Portuguese on September 4, warned that the samples could match huge sections of the population, including himself.
He said the result was “too complex for meaningful interpretation or inclusion”.
“The Portuguese Attorney General made it very clear indeed that there’s absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing by Kate and Gerry in any way, shape or form,” he said.
“A lot of this is historical detail drafted by officers who failed to find Madeleine and who quite wrongfully were going down inaccurate lines of supposition and assumption.
The case was closed on July 21 after Portuguese prosecutors announced there was insufficient evidence, but said the case could be reopened if credible new evidence comes to light.
DNA evidence found in the apartment where Maddie McCann vanished was at the centre of a row between Portuguese and British experts yesterday.
Police in Praia da Luz believed they found tiny specks of blood on an armchair and a wall.
They became convinced the specks were from four-year-old Maddie and proved she was killed inside the apartment in the town in Portugal.
But at a tense meeting between experts from Britain’s Forensic Science Services and Portuguese scientists and cops it emerged the specks were so contaminated they could not even be identified as blood.
The collection of samples by Portuguese cops is reported to have been “shambolic” and there are claims they dropped cigarette ash in the apartment contaminating evidence.
The FSS presented their findings to the Portuguese team last week at a meeting at Leicestershire police HQ.
A source revealed yesterday: “There was a stand up row between the British team and the Portuguese.
“The Portuguese arrived demanding ‘Where are our results?’ They were very unhappy when told there weren’t any conclusive ones.
“The British experts accused the Portuguese of ‘unprofessional behaviour’ saying that their collection of the samples could have been handled in a better manner.
“The Portuguese did not take this criticism very well. There were heated exchanges.”
Pedo, you say “There is only one person who failed here”
So were the UK police any more successful than the Portuguese police in discovering the circumstances in which Madeleine went missing 4 years ago? Leicester Police and other personnel from the UK were involved in the investigation from the beginning.
The case was also reviewed by the Portuguese officer that came in to replace the first guy in charge, He didn’t find anything in the the investigation that was fundamentally different from his predecessor did he? So Lets stop this pretence that the whole thing was run by one man and one man alone, simply because it suits you.
Davy, it doesn´t suit me, it´s the true, it is you Davy who cannot see or understand, or don´t want to see or understand, because you have difficulty in accepted. That´s your problem Davy. It suits you.
So Jean what is the source of your quotes, pls don’t tell me some crummy red rag, I want proof as in from the FSS or the police files otherwise it’s worthless, cheers
Besides, as a former coordinator, he was in charge until the day he was sacked. He was the one who told how thingh should have been done, just to feed his lust for greed and fame. If you cannot or don´t want to understand this, that´s your problem, just don´t put or write words not used by me here.
Oh and Pedro, get a life, I have not said no one is not allowed opinions, I merely exercise my right to challenge them, and also falsehoods put out by you, did you answer my post where I said they were not made arguidos as you put to silence them seeing as Gerry answered all his questions whereas the mother decided to shut up
Davy ignore Pedro, he is from a gang of witch hunters for dr amaral, blinded by his hatred for a man that was just doing his job as opposed to the negligent parents of missing child who blame everyone except themselves and who just make money,sad
Hi Tina – I think things are getting a bit out of hand here, we must now agree to differ. I haven’t got the time or the inclination to answer your pointless, irrelevant questions. Pedro and I believe that the McCanns are innocent of all charges, except of course leaving the children in an unlocked apartment. But, if you have children, I am sure there are moments when you think that you shouldn’t have done what you did, but fortunately for you, and me, we did not have to suffer such drastic consequences. My next door neighbour let her father in law take her four year old son to the shops, he left him on one side of a busy road whilst the man went to a shop on the other. He left him for so long, that when he came back the ambulance had taken the little boy away. He was dead on arrival at the hospital. That was a very stupid thing to do, but unfortunately you can’t turn the clock back. The same with Madeleine, do you not think that the McCanns are not suffering enough. They don’t need the likes of you and others criticizing their every move, or is it just a hobby on your part to see how many people you can rattle? They know what they did, and they will pay for it for the rest of their lives. For goodness sake have some empathy towards them, and let’s all hope that Madeleine can be found with the help of the Metropolitan police. I am sure that is what we all want!!
As far as Goncalo Amaral is concerned – he should not have been put in charge of this case from the outset. He is now a criminal in the eyes of the law, and was before 3 May 2007. This man has made false accusations in his book, making statements he cannot prove. And he has now written another, which is digging himself deeper into he hole he has made for himself. This man is a gold digger, making money on the back of the disappearance of a little girl. What makes me laugh is that he has volunteered his services to the Metropolitan police – as though they would touch him with a barge pole. I hope they interview him on behalf of the McCanns – in order to charge him for libel and slander. The man is a leech!! But of course, we will differ on that point too.
Davy – The UK police were not in charge of the case – they did not have access to all of the information. And as far as the second officer is concerned, who took over from Amaral, he was just as bad. Their secrecy laws are a shambles – they only want secrecy when it suits them – what about all the leaks that came out – where do you think they came from – Amaral and Co that’s where. One thing is certain – the people who ruined Portugal’s tourist trade wasn’t the McCanns it was the inept policing of the whole Madeleine affair.
Tina
June 3rd, 2011 10:11 am
Davy ignore Pedro, he is from a gang of witch hunters for dr amaral, blinded by his hatred for a man that was just doing his job as opposed to the negligent parents of missing child who blame everyone except themselves and who just make money,sad
AND AMARAL DIDN’T – £1.2million on a book of lies. I rest my case.
Obviously, that, with people like Tina, it´s no use to try to argue, because they are so consummed by their nasty hate, that they don´t allow different opinions, instead prefers to call names, because these antis knows that they cannot handle with the evidences presented here. Falsehoods? That´s hilarious, coming from a person like you, who have no respect for other people´s opinions or beliefs, simply because it goes against your sick purpose or should I write: fantasies.
Pedro get help and learn to read, and Tina, you cannot provide proof that all the DNA was contaminated with fag ash, it was your assertion, I rest my case
Pedro
“Besides, as a former coordinator, he was in charge until the day he was sacked.”
As your sentence says, he was in charge until he wasn’t, then someone else was in charge, alongside the British police. So how exactly is he the only one you think is somehow to blame?
Mind you you haven’t yet been specific in what you think he is to blame for have you? You just let your judgement get clouded by your personal feeling for the guy.
No police force can guarantee they will be successful in solving a crime, however it helps if everyone involved with the situation is cooperative and helpful don’t you think.
You´re wrong Davy, if you think, this about me: “You just let your judgement get clouded by your personal feeling for the guy” What I wrote is the true about him, if you can´t understand this, that´s your problem Davy. Besides it is common knowledge (with true evidences about his behaviour which is not a proper behaviour from former coordinator. If you or any other person here can´t accepted, that´s your problem. It is you Davy who have, sadly, your judgement getting cloud, which don´t allow you to see what is front of you Davy.
Besides, I don´t have neither the time nor the patience with people who chooses to remain with something that is contrary to the evidences written here, simply because you don´t allow to have other theories then a theory (used by Mr. Amaral) which has no evidence to prove it.
Pedo, what I see in front of me is people who are desperate to find blame for the fact the child hasn’t been found. Like any investigation there may have been things that could have been done better or indeed differently. I’m perfectly open to the possibility that a case this large will have things that could have been done better. I’m sure also you are aware that police forces reflect on how a case have gone, they realise they are only human and that things can be improved for the future. Just as I’m sure the PJ will do if they have a similar situation arise.
Of course if there is any evidence of deliberate criminality in the way the investigation was run then it should be dealt with, but just because a case hasn’t gone as well as hoped doesn’t mean people should take out their frustrations where they are not warranted.
Lets not forget that the files were reviewed by Mr Amarals successor and he came to his own conclusions completely independently from Mr Amaral, so perhaps you should think on that fact and direct your irrational ire in a different direction, to the direction you seem obsessed with.
Of course if you have proof that Mr Amaral deliberately messed up the case, rather than just saying he’s to blame then I’m sure you will be more than willing to share it with us all and pass on your findings to the Portuguese authorities while your at it.
No Davy, you are wrong, I have no obsession, I assure you.
The name is Pedro, learn how to write it properly.
Davy – Amaral was sacked off the case. You can’t have better proof than that. If he had done his job properly he would still be in the police force, but then again he retired because he wanted to write his book of lies, and he couldn’t whilst he he was still employed because of the secrecy laws (of which he had broken anyway!!). The first spokesman, I think his name was Sousa, actually asked if he could be taken off the case because he felt that it was such a shambles.
As I have said previously Amaral was supposedly the ‘chief coordinator’ in this but he chose not to attend the Ocean Club on the night of 3 May 2007, he did not arrange for the ports to be policed, he did not arrange for road blocks, he did not even meet the McCanns throughout the time they were in Portugal. Altogether he did nothing that could vaguely be called policing, except sit on his fat backside, making claims that could not be proved. Instead of looking for the child, he had made his mind up from the moment he got the call that the McCanns were guilty. That in my mind is ‘taking the easy way out’.
As far as Tina is concerned, I think she should also get help and learn to read as she is calling herself and not me in her last post!! I think that she should change her name to ‘fag ash lil’.
Hi Pedro – I really wouldn’t bother replying to any of these posts – they don’t understand that you are Portuguese, but it shows how ignorant they are because I should bet that they can’t speak any other language than English. So you, my friend, have one up on them anyway, your English is excellent.
jean posted that fag ash was found all over all the dna samples, she failed to prove it, quoted that the fss had said that, she didnt provide proof, i rest my case, i only want decent answers to decent questions cheers
Jean
“Instead of looking for the child, he had made his mind up from the moment he got the call that the McCanns were guilty.”
That’s an opinion Jean, to which you are entitled, but it’s not a fact that you have proof for is it?
Pedro,
I apologise for the tying error over your name, however, I would never be so impolite as to point out your spelling and grammar mistakes, nor would I ever be so ill mannered as to ask you to learn how write anything properly.
Tina – we must beg to differ on all of your points. You should be very very careful what you call people – it is called libel and you could come unstuck just by trying to prove a point, which isn’t valid anyway. As far as the DNA is concerned there is not one iota of proof that Madeleine was harmed in the apartment, whether there was cigarette ash or not. That is the main point, so let’s drop the sarky comments, and act like grown ups!!
Yes jean, I agree with you my friend, following your advice. Thank you for your kind words about my English.
About Mr. Sousa, his name was Mr. Olegário Sousa.
“Jenny
June 1st, 2011 8:07 am
Clearly it was the McCanns and their friends who contaminated the crime scene and delayed notification of police.”
They did not delay that. Read the statement of the receptionist..
The Crime Scene was also contaminated (if not most of all) by the GNR and PJ. Read the Portuguese Forensics report about that. Dog hairs and red fingerprint powder all over the place. Not to mention how numerous POLICE men searched the apartment for Madeleine without taking care of preservation of the crime scene. I could go on a bit more, but for now this is enough. Both the PJ and the GNR acted very amateurish.
“The McCanns cannot blame somebody else for the loss of their child.”
What’s wrong with you? Yes they (and their friends) were wrong in leaving those children unattended – and they admitted that and will have to live with it the rest of their lives – but that doesn’t mean that anybody can walk in and take one. HE (or she) is the person who should be blamed.
“Not all crimes all solved, not all missing children are found, and this has nothing to do with the police.”
Indeed, not all crimes are solved, but if this one would have been handled any better right from the start, if the Police would have taken it more serious instead of thinking she’s wandered off, if their boss wouldn’t have told them to stop searching and go back to the office, may be, may be they would have found her. The way they acted those precious ‘golden hours’ when there’s the best chance of finding a missing person, were lost.
“tina
June 1st, 2011 5:46 pm
Any reference to contamination of the crime scene is for May 3/4. And it is in the final prosecutor’s report that it was the family and friends who contaminated it. Further, the PJ did not proclaim their innocence. You must be reading different files.”
Well it looks like you haven’t read any of the files, or did you just skip the things that don’t suit you?
The crime scene WAS contaminated by the police, like I said earlier,both by the PJ and GNR. But ALSO by dogs. Portuguese forensics found numerous dog hairs in the apartment, even in the children’s bedroom. And it was the POLICE who’s allowed Silvia Batista to go into that room and remove things from it. It’s all in the files. Makes me wonder why the PJ is shy to admit their ‘mistakes’ or should I call them failures?
And re their innocence, let me tell you first of all everybody is assumed to be innocent until they’re proven guilty in a court of law. That’s one of the fundamental human rights.
But there’s more, there’s the statement of the AG, made after an extensive investigation into Madeleine’s parents and after careful consideration of everything that’s in the files:
b) The archiving of the Process concerning Arguidos Gerald Patrick McCann and Kate Marie Healy, BECAUSE THERE ARE NO INDICATIONS OF THE PRACTISE OF ANY CRIME under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code.
Apologies Jean I did not see your JUNE 2ND, 2011 11:57 PM post to me.
I’m not sure why you think police questioning is twaddle, any information could useful or even invaluable to an investigation.
A lot of the criticisms of the Portuguese police seems to centre on their alleged inactivity in the investigation. Surely then they should not be criticised for asking questions of anyone involved? Regardless of whether people think they are twaddle or not.
If I was in that situation I would be more than happy to help the Police, even if it meant answering what I thought were unimportant questions.
And I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with answering question 48, probably the most import and relevant question of them all.
So Davy you wrote: “If I was in that situation I would be more than happy to help the Police, even if it meant answering what I thought were unimportant questions”. Need I remind you that the purpose of those 48 questions was only to accuse innocents of something they never did, just to hide PJ´s failures?
Why don´t believe if it was with you, that you would answer to those questions knowing that you were innocent, and knowing the only purpose of those 48 questions were to accuse you of something you never did. You talk, you write here, but experienced in your skin: No, you have not experienced.
I agree with Louise, I also remember that police officers entered at the apartment smoking, then the cigars ashes were inside the apartment at the floor, truly, some careful with preserving the possible clues inside the 5A.
What a lack of procedures, what a lack of careful about preserving evidences which could solved the case.
Good point Louise: I agree also:
“Well it looks like you haven’t read any of the files, or did you just skip the things that don’t suit you?”,
To be honest, this is what I think about some people here who writes some comments: “just skip the things that don’t suit you?”, because they just can´t accept diferent opinions with evidences, which goes against their sick purpose, just to feed their fantasies.
Davy – Kate was directed by her lawyer not to answer the questions. So, therefore, it makes me wonder why if the questions were so vital to the enquiry? Perhaps it was because the questions were asked before Kate was made arguida, when she could chose which answers to give? Do you not think that she was in such a bad state of mind, especially after an 11 hour grilling, combined with the fact that there was still no advancement in finding her daughter? Just imagine how you would feel, I wouldn’t be able to function after all the trauma she had been through. Why on earth is question 48 so important, she had protested her innocence time and time again. The police knew the answer so why keep repeating it. To me it really is nonsensical to go over these points again and again. It really doesn’t achieve anything.
Thank you Louise for quoting the statement from the AG. That really is the bottom line.
jean
June 4th, 2011 1:17 am
Tina – we must beg to differ on all of your points. You should be very very careful what you call people – it is called libel and you could come unstuck just by trying to prove a point, which isn’t valid anyway. As far as the DNA is concerned there is not one iota of proof that Madeleine was harmed in the apartment, whether there was cigarette ash or not. That is the main point, so let’s drop the sarky comments, and act like grown ups!!
————————————–
who did i call what names? you can beg to differ, that is fine but not empty threats – where did i say there was any proof of madeleines dna found? see? you are lying again are you not? If you post lies I will post sarcasm, after all it’s all you deserve going by your behaviour thus far, now where is the evidence to prove your assertion that all the dna evidence was contaminated with cigarette ash – can’t provide it can you? Oh diddums
as for the poster louise who is saying there was contamination by dogs, my original post was to PEDRO who stated that mr grimes dogs contaminated the flat, you know, like 3 months later, do at least attempt to get your facts right before blabbing away, cheers
jean, your words are also mine.
By the way, end of my comments.
Jean, thank you for your reply, but I must disagree with you about “imagine how you would feel after 11 hours” while I understand it must have been an ordeal, there is no ordeal that could compare with what the child may have been suffering, so it sort of puts the parent’s experience in to perspective a little when you think how much worse a child’s ordeal may have been.
I understand too how frustrating it may have been for them however, a parents role is do to everything they can and in these circumstances I think it would have been better to answer the police enquiries no matter how repetitive or tedious they had become. After all wasn’t Gerry given the same advice not to answer questions and he chose to disregard his legal advice.
People can’t have it both ways, you can’t condemn the police over what they see as inaction, yet condemn them when they are actively trying to get information.
Hi Davy – I completely agree with you that the experience of Madeleine’s parents does not in any way compare with her ordeal. Even if the worst possible senario didn’t happen, which I don’t even want to think about, I can’t imagine the terror she felt when she awoke and found herself with a stranger, the poor little mite must have been terrified. That is why every effort must be made by our police together with the Portuguese police to find her, or at least find out what happened to her.
Nothing has ever been said about Gerry, whether he answered questions or not. I think that they targeted Kate, because they told her that if she confessed she would only get two years, and Gerry could come back to England to continue with his job.
Goodbye Tina – You are boring me now.
Pedro
June 4th, 2011 4:22 pm
jean, your words are also mine.
By the way, end of my comments.
–
well thats good you are now shutting up? pleased to hear it and you didnt apologise for saying mr grimes dogs contaminated the crime scene seeing as he was only there 3 months later
and jean has STILL not provided the evidence to show that ALL the dna samples as SHE asserted were contaminated with cigarette ash – rest my case twice over now for all SANE people to see
Tina, I don´t have to apologize nothing, I´m not shutting up, it´s just that with people like you that are so blind by disgusting thoughts, it´s no use to talk, because you cannot accept what has being proved by me and by jean.
People like Tina cannot accept other people´s beliefs, thoughts or opinions, because it goes against their sick fantasies. So, it´s no use to talk with people like this.
I agree with jean.
Tina, know this: about Mr. Grimes, what I wrote here was neither an accusation nor a lack of respect, it´s just my opinion, I´m entitled to have it, to write it here. If you tina can´t handle with that, that´s your problem. I have not shown any disrespect to Mr. Grimes.
Good morning Jean, I understand fully that the efforts should concentrate on finding either the child, or what happened to her and that is why I have always supported the Portuguese police’s efforts to that end. That is exactly my point about why those there that week should have done anything and everything to help the police with their enquiries.
I understand the point that they were concerned about being arquidos, but I think they had a duty to put their child’s needs above their own fears over the situation.
P.S.
It a terrible thought over what Madeleine may or may not have awoken too, but as yet we don’t know for a fact what exactly it was or indeed whether she just left the apartment of her own accord. Which is another reason to put into the investigation any possible information, regardless of whether people think it’s unimportant or irrelevant.
Davy, can you imagine the sad thoughts into parent´s mind (knowing that parents are innocent)to waste precious time with the arguido status, to try to prove something parents never did, instead of searched for the abductor, instead of searched for the child? Also know this: Madeleine´s parents told PJ all possible information, regardless of whether people think it’s unimportant or irrelevant, what is appaling is that information was used by someone with the purpose we know about his books. What I don´t understand is: if the couple were under judicial secrecy, why the former coordinator (Mr. Amaral) broke that judicial secrecy using smears, lies given to the press? As a coordinator at that time, surely he knew that he also could not speak to the press about the way the investigation was conducted, during the investigation.
It is also common knowledge, that, when a chid is abducted, the Amber Alert system is immediately activated: showing at highways, etc, all the information available to track, identify, caught the abductor, to rescue (during the golden hours) the child, which included borders, airports, marinas, airstrips, etc, to be under heavy surveillance, sadly, why was this used too much later, when it should have been used immediately?
Pedro, there was no Amber Alert system in Europe when Madeleine went missing. There was a European wide hotline number which was only in operation in one country (Greece) In fact Gerry Mccann himself said in one of his blogs in June that he considers the system the EU has been setting up since 2006, does not mean an Amber alert will be issued for an abducted child as no such system exists.
Instead of criticise about who did this or that, know this:
It is much more important to help find this child, which can still be found alive, she is the most important in all this, so,focus only in finding her, because she is the most important.
Pedro or maybe Solomon or whatever name or identity you choose for each forum. This is not a game. Please don’t pretend to be Portuguese for this one, that’s insulting. No doubt we will get the defensive ‘sister’ because of this comment.
Don’t you realise what is happening behind the scenes? This sad saga is almost played out, thank goodness!
Hi Davy – Did the McCanns not achieve this through lobbying the EU in Brussels? I’m sure some system is available now because of their actions.
Wise words Pedro, it is important that everyone without exception, help the Portuguese police and their UK counterparts in their endeavours to find out where the child is.
Criticising them is most disingenuous considering the amount of effort the investigation teams both in Portugal and the UK have gone to.
Tom – What on earth are you talking about? Pedro is Portuguese – I am not his sister, and what is happening behind the scenes, and why is ‘this sad saga almost played out’?
It’s only just beginning – things are happening now that should have happened four years ago.
You holier than thou people make me sick that complain about the McCanns – if you are fed up of hearing about them – don’t come onto sites who talk about them, and don’t read about them. It’s as simple as that.
Jean or maybe any other of the identities the McCann supporters use.
Thank you, you proved my point! I never said anyone in particular was a ‘sister’. You rose to the bait and now please tell all the other readers why you KNOW Pedro is Portuguese.
I totally agree with you that things are happening now that should have happened 4 years ago…and they are at last.
Tell me EXACTLY why you accuse me of being ‘holier than thou’.
While you are it please give even one example that would indicate Maddie was ‘abducted’.
Davy, I know that there was no Amber Alert system in Europe when Madeleine went missing. Because if it had, she would have been found much faster, when the golden hours were there, to helped solved the case.
Tom, grow up.You have no right to say such lies about me or jean. You don´t know us.
I agree with jean:
“Tom – What on earth are you talking about? Pedro is Portuguese – I am not his sister, and what is happening behind the scenes, and why is ‘this sad saga almost played out’?
It’s only just beginning – things are happening now that should have happened four years ago.
You holier than thou people make me sick that complain about the McCanns – if you are fed up of hearing about them – don’t come onto sites who talk about them, and don’t read about them. It’s as simple as that”.
I REPEAT: JEAN IS NOT MY SISTER.
Yes, I agree with you Davy:
“it is important that everyone without exception, help the Portuguese police and their UK counterparts in their endeavours to find out where the child is.
Criticising them is most disingenuous considering the amount of effort the investigation teams both in Portugal and the UK have gone to”
Pedro if you know there was no Amber Alert when Madeleine went missing why did you say this?
“why was this used too much later, when it should have been used immediately?”
I can’t understand why people are intent on blaming the Police over this. Some mistakes possibly were made and those were probably down to the Portuguese having less experience in these matter than countries such as the USA or the UK, but unless there is proof they were deliberate mistakes then people should focus on what they can change rather than what they can’t.
For instance, they contamination of the forensics whether by the police or the mccanns and their friends can’t be changed, but things like a lack of a reconstruction can be changed, therefore it’s better to concentrate on those things, rather than waste times on things that will bring nothing to the investigation, don’t you agree?
I´m not blaming the police, I´m just writing here my opinion, but not accusing neither police nor anyone else. All I´m saying is: it should have been acted more faster.
Yes, I agree:
“it is important that everyone without exception, help the Portuguese police and their UK counterparts in their endeavours to find out where the child is”, because this is the most important.
This is the most important for me: to help find the child. So, I urge everyone to do the same: to help find the child, to help both police forces to solve the case, to help both police forces to find this child.
Other comments that are not related with what I wrote above, I will not write here any comments.
Besides, with all do respect: I´m not interested in creating wars or discussions with people that don´t share or have my beliefs.
MY ONLY INTEREST IS MADELEINE. MY ONLY INTEREST IS TO DO MY BEST TO HELP FIND HER, TO HELP HER REUNITE WITH HER FAMILY, BECAUSE THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT.
“Besides, with all do respect: I´m not interested in creating wars or discussions with people that don´t share or have my beliefs.”
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Pedro, you are perfectly entitled not to reply to a post if you don’t wish to, that your right and everyone’s else’s too
However, the fact that some people may not share some or all of your beliefs doesn’t mean they can’t post themselves or reply to your post or other people’s posts. It’s certainly not about a war either, it’s about civilised debate and discussion. When I take part in that, I do not expect posters to have identical views, it would certainly result in an uninteresting conversation and end up being a little sycophantic to the topic.
It’s good to hear different points of view, even if those views are not your own, that’s the brilliant thing about free speech, everyone is entitled to it despite some folks thinking otherwise.
Yes Davy, I agree. What I don´t understand is why call me names here, or inventions about me or jean, when I have not used that kind of behaviour here. I respect everyone´s opinion, what I don´t allow or understand is the kind of behaviour of lack of education and respect, just because I don´t share opinions contrary to mine. I repeat: I respect everyone´s opinions, I expect, or expected (but this is too much to ask)the same respect about my beliefs.
Pedro, I have not called you any names at all and my last post hasn’t even mentioned Jean. So I’m not sure why you would suggest what you have.
You were the one who said you were not interested in having discussions with people who don’t share or have the same beliefs as you. All I have said is I’m quite happy to have discussions with anyone, regardless of whether they share my views or not. I respect everyone’s right to an opinion, even if it is contrary to my own. In fact as I said, it would be boring to converse or debate in a blog were everyone’s views were identical. If you do not wish to converse with me, then that’s fine by me.
Davy, when I wrote about calling me names, I wasn´t talking about you. Of course I enjoy talking with you.
Davy, I enjoy talking with every person here. Even with those who don´t share my thoughts.
Tom – what other explanation is there for Kate going to check on the children, and Madeleine was missing from her bed?
The McCanns involvement has been discounted as per Louise’s post above …. . b) The archiving of the Process concerning Arguidos Gerald Patrick McCann and Kate Marie Healy, BECAUSE THERE ARE NO INDICATIONS OF THE PRACTISE OF ANY CRIME under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code.
I think it is highly unlikely that she left the apartment on her own, and even if she did where is she now? But for arguments sake just say she did manage to leave the apartment and wandered down the road looking for her parents, what has happened to her? If someone found her, picked her up and took her away that is what I would call abducted, would you not?
As with your comment about ‘sister’ I did not have anyone in mind when I quoted the phrase ‘holier than thou’ – but if the cap fits!!!
Davy – I have been on these forums since Madeleine was abducted, and I have listened to numerous arguments about whether she was abducted, or whether the McCanns are covering up some terrible crime. I write to Kate McCann often, giving her my unending support, because I completely believe that they are both genuine people, who are broken hearted over the loss of their precious daughter. They had no need whatsoever to make this whole saga up, they were on a family holiday and they made a terrible mistake in leaving the children in an unlocked apartment. They are trying their utmost to find Madeleine, and are going through hell on earth in the process. AND before it is said, the thought of Madeleine’s fate is too painful to even contemplate. This is what is driving them on, they must find her, not only for their peace of mind, but also more importantly to save her from whatever fate has befallen her. I believe that the love they feel for this child is far stronger than anything that they have been through during the past four years, and they will go on and on until they find her.
jean, your words are mine.
Jean,
I make no comment over who is or is not involved in the disappearance of Madeleine. I will leave that to the investigators to decide. I’ve always been behind the PJ’s decision to shelve the case due to insufficient evidence at this time. A case can never be active indefinitely when there is not enough evidence to progress it and no one wants them to waste time on either the wrong perpetrates or allow the rights ones to avoid justice. Far better that they wait until they have enough evidence and they can move the case towards a more successful outcome.
However, what I will make a comment on is that I believe the family were wrong not to insist their friends accompanied them to do a reconstruction and believe kate mccann should have answered the police questions. I have heard all the arguments over why they did not do a reconstruction or answer questions and frankly I don’t think any of them are enough justification for not complying with the Police’s requests.
One has to remember who was important here and to that end do all and everything possible to help the inquiry. I don’t know how they can live with the fact that they or their friends may just have had the vital piece of information needed and they didn’t take the opportunity to present it to the investigation.
Davy, with all do respect, how many times I or jean have to explain that about the 48 questions, Mrs. McCann were told by her lawyer not to answer those questions, because te purpose was to accuse her of something she never did.
Is it so difficult to understand this? So it seems.
Perdro, with due respect what exactly is wrong with the police asking someone questions? They asked many people questions in this investigation. Did any of these others people refuse to help the police with their inquiries? They probably didn’t like the experience either, especially as some of them were being accused of being involved with Madeleine’s disappearance, but they still cooperated didn’t they? Even Madeleine’s father disregarded his legal advice and answered the questions put to him.
The Police obviously had some questions they thought needed further clarification. Why is that such a big deal? It’s what Police forces do they gather information and then they decide whether any of that information merits further investigation or not.
I realise that Kate was told not to answer the questions by her legal team, but I think most people would disregard that advice if it meant there was a possibility that they could help in the search for their daughter.
I’m sure that the McCanns agreed with a reconstruction as long as it was filmed and televised, but the Portuguese police refused. If my memory serves me right did Gerry McCann not go back to Portugal and film a reconstruction with a television crew, and it was broadcast on British tv? I know it was months after, but I’m sure they wanted to make a film and the police refused. It was also left up to them to transmit pictures of Madeleine when she was first taken, because the police refused again. Which seems strange, especially when they needed the public’s help!!
I don’t know how they can live with the fact that they or their friends may just have had the vital piece of information needed and they didn’t take the opportunity to present it to the investigation.
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Surely they did! Jane Tanner told them, when she realised that she had most probably seen the man taking Madeleine away, and what good did that do? They broadcast the picture of an egg. They did not search any of the empty apartments on the complex, nor did they question all of the guests in the Ocean Club. They didn’t set up road blocks, they didn’t inform any of the ports or airports, they didn’t start a thorough search until the next day, they didn’t cordon off the apartment from where Madeleine was taken, they let a cleaner clean, there was no CCTV cameras working within the town. Altogether they didn’t do a very good job of anything that they attempted. The McCanns weren’t taken in for questioning until days, if not weeks, after Madeleine was taken. What good would those 48 questions have been then. Talk about closing the door after the horse has bolted that has nothing on the Portuguese police.
I agree with you jean.
Also yes, a reconstruction was made:
Mr. McCann returned to Portugal to film a reconstruction with a television crew, and it was broadcast on British tv.
Davy, I have answered to your question above. Also jean have answered to your question.
Honestly, I see no problem in going to dinner while checking children inside the apartment.
Nobody could ever imagine that someone was watching the couple, waiting for the right moment to enter at the apartment, abducting the child.
It is much more important to find the child, it is what really matters above everything.
Pedro, I know you have replied to my posts. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with your opinion. As I have said previously in my opinion, there is no justification for not helping the police with the investigation. A parent shouldn’t be putting themselves before a child. The missing child needed them to do everything possible and they could not know for sure that they didn’t have some piece of information that could have helped in the investigation.
Davy, with all do respect: I´m not forcing you to agree with me.
jean and I presented here undeniable evidences.
What I don´t understand is: why is it so difficult to understand what jean and I wrote here.
Good morning Pedro,
Understand Pedro? I understand perfectly well that some members of this group refused to comply with certain requests. I’m sure you will agree that it isn’t just undeniable evidence, it’s an undeniable fact. A fact which shouldn’t even have been a consideration, given the fact that a child was missing.
Hi Davy – Ultimately, I think what we all want is the safe return of Madeleine. What has happened in the past cannot be rectified, whether we all agree or not. My point is that Kate was called in for interview a long time after Madeleine was taken, she was still in a state of shock (as we all would be), she didn’t feel that the police were getting anywhere, and she was advised by her lawyer not to answer the questions. Why he did that we shall never know. The majority of the questions seem pointless to me, especially after such a long time had elapsed, but I see that you feel differently. As you say, there may have been something which the police could have used, but to me it seems as though these questions should have been asked much earlier, perhaps even on the day after Madeleine had been taken. That would have made more sense. I still believe, that four years on, with their campaign being as strong as it ever was, if there had been any truth in their involvement surely they would have kept a low profile, and continued with their life as though nothing had happened.
Some people on another site are suggesting that they both have narcissistic tendences, but I discount that theory completely. It really does make me cross that people cannot believe that they were a group of ordinary, professional, friends on holiday in Portugal, one of their children was abducted, the police performed abysmally, and the parents are still looking for their daughter after four years, hoping against hope that she is still alive. End of Story. To me it is simple – no cloak and dagger stuff, just a terrible terrible tragedy, which we should all empathise with Kate and Gerry McCann about. Madeleine’s parents made a terrible mistake, which they will live with for the rest of their lives. I would give anything to see her back home again, and because I feel so strongly that that is the truth I will support them for as long as it takes on these sites.
Jean
“she was advised by her lawyer not to answer the questions. Why he did that we shall never know”.
Of course we know why! Her lawyer was doing his job telling a client if she opened her mouth it would be self incriminating.
‘No comment’ is always used when someone doesn’t want to tell the truth.
Good evening Jean.
Can I just make it clear I have no idea what happened to madeleine and I am quite happy to leave it to the investigators to decide what did. We don’t know if an abductors was responsible, or if Madeleine left the apartment of her own accord and came to some harm and we may never know.
There probably were some mistakes made by everyone at the beginning of the investigation, but instead of trying to find someone to blame, the focus should be on rectifying anything that can be. That might mean that certain witnesses, suspects or events need to be looked at again.
I understand that you feel the questions were pointless, but we don’t know that. The Portuguese police obviously had some things that needed clearing up. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding over certain things and if Kate had answered then they may well have had the information they needed to clear those things up.
I realise that you think they were justified in not answering because it was distressing and shocking and that they were angry at being questioned, I don’t agree that it was enough justification, however, I think now they would be able to cope with it all and it’s something they could rectify without too much difficulty.
If you still conclude that questions are pointless after a lapse of time, then you can only wonder why Scotland Yard are bothering to investigate the case. They obviously feel it’s never too late to ask questions in a quest to solve a case and I agree completely.
Davy – I agree completely with your comments – except for the fact that the Metropolitan Police will ask questions pertinent to the crime. The following questions were completely pointless, together with the fact that the police knew the answers to most of them anyway.
4- Why had the curtain behind the sofa in front of the side window (whose photo was shown to her) been tampered with? Did somebody go behind that sofa?
8- Why didn’t you ask the twins, at that moment, what had happened to their sister or why didn’t you ask them later on?
26- Is it true that during the searches you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?
33- What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister, friends and school mates?
34- As for your professional life, in how many and which hospitals have you worked?
36- Have you ever done shift work in any emergency services or other services
27- What was your behaviour that night?
28- Did you manage to sleep?
37- Did you work every day?
38- At a certain point you stopped working, why?
THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS WERE TRYING TO TRICK KATE INTO ANSWERING – BECAUSE, AS WE ALL NOW KNOW, NO EVIDENCE OF MADELEINE’S DNA WAS FOUND IN THE APARTMENT. THE SAMPLES SENT TO THE FORENSIC SCIENCE LABORATORY WERE NOT PROOF AT ALL. THE POLICE WERE TELLING LIES!!
43- In the case files you were forensic testing films, where you can see them marking due to detection of the scent of human corpse and blood traces, also human, and only human, as well as all the comments of the technician in charge of them. After watching and after the marking of the scent of corpse in your bedroom beside the wardrobe and behind the sofa, pushed up against the sofa wall, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
44- When the sniffer dog also marked human blood behind the sofa, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
45- When the sniffer dog marked the scent of corpse coming from the vehicle you hired a month after the disappearance, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
46- When human blood was marked in the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
47- When confronted with the results of Maddie’s DNA, whose analysis was carried out in a British laboratory, collected from behind the sofa and the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
Kate knew that they were lies, and that is why she opted to remain silent. If she had been Portuguese she would have been charged with murder, exactly the same as Joana Cipriano’s mother has been. By this time the police were determined to charge her, to shut her up, because of the damage she and her husband were causing to the Tourist Industry.
I agree wholeheartedly with you Davy, that hopefully the Met will unearth masses of new evidence, which will eventually place a great deal of blame on the Portuguese police (perhaps including colluding in the act of kidnap).
Jean,
“Kate knew that they were lies, and that is why she opted to remain silent”
If that was the case then surely it would have been better to answer the questions and prove the Portuguese police were wrong in any miss held assumptions, which of course they may well have been, we don’t yet know.
As for Portuguese police getting a great deal of the blame? nothing new there then, that’s exactly what they been getting for the last 4 years and I personally don’t think it will be any different after the Scotland Yard investigation. I think you and I agree that they were probably not as experienced as some other countries and that possibly things could have been done better.
However, where I think we differ is that I don’t believe they deliberately messed up the investigation in an attempt to frame anyone or protect the tourist industry. Most people are intelligent enough to know that their children are at risk in any country of the world from undesirables, it doesn’t stop them going to holiday destinations.
If they had wanted to frame someone, they already had the perfect candidate in Mr Murat, who unlike the mccanns didn’t have, ambassadors, prime ministers, the media, celebrities and the best legal team other people’s money could buy looking after him. So I think it was no brainer who they would try to frame if that was their intention, don’t you?
Jean, perhaps you could explain your rather a extreme statement and say exactly what your evidence is for suggesting the Portuguese police are complicit in a kidnap?
Davy – It is my opinion that the Portuguese police, particularly in the Algarve, suspect shady dealings within their ‘patch’ and turn a blind eye to them. This time they have come ‘unstuck’ because the crime was committed to an educated British couple, who will not let the matter rest. It beggars belief that Kate McCann was ‘offered’ a reduced sentence of two years if she confessed to killing her daughter. That, to me, shows how desperate they were to ignore any evidence they may have had which proved that Madeleine was abducted, for an easy life!!
Jean, there isn’t a police force in the world that hasn’t got an element of shady dealing amongst it and yes that includes the police in the UK too. However, even if it has take place in the past, you can’t just assume it would happen in all cases simply because you dislike the Portuguese police. You have to have information/evidence that it has taken place in this case.
I think what you are forgetting is that the British police were involved from the very early stages, they may have thought they would do things a little differently, but they have never said they thought there was shady dealings from the Portuguese investigators.
Not sure what your point is about educated British couple, most people are educated in the UK, they are not particularly unique in that respect, so I don’t think that has any bearing on anything.
As for offering a deal it seems to be a little hazy over who actually offered it, her own lawyer or the police. Nevertheless, I think it’s well known that in police stations around the world deals are offered, so not sure why you are so surprised. No one has to accept a deal if they don’t wish too, they have the opportunity to turn it down.
The trouble is some people see them as being victimised, whereas I don’t see what the problem is with them being questioned, which I would expect any police force in the world to do as it’s normal practice to do so.
Anyway, I have said enough on this point. I leave you with my thoughts.
I think the Portuguese police and the Portuguese people should be applauded for the efforts they went to to get this child found. The xenophobia and animosity shown towards Portugal in the media is something to be thoroughly ashamed about. I wish Scotland Yard good luck in finding something that may lead to new openings and I hope that everyone involved cooperates without questioning the necessity to do so.
Good night,
Thanks for your comments Davy – interesting though they are I am afraid we must beg to differ.
1.
1. I don’t dislike the Portuguese police, because I have had no dealing with them.
2. The British police were over in Portugal in the early stages, but because of the farsical Portuguese secrecy laws they were not permitted much input, and whenever they suggested a ‘plan of action’ they were ignored. Two people saw a suspicious man around the apartment days before Madeleine was taken, this was reported to the police with a full description (which was the same man). The police completely ignored this information, and filed it ‘in the bin’.
3. I’m sorry, but there is educated and educated!!
4. The police offered Kate the deal. I should hope that deals of this nature are non-existant, or at worst few and far between, in this country. It is frightening to think that deals of this nature may be struck anyway.
5. There are questions which are necessary, but as far as I can see the majority of the questions Kate was asked, in my opinion were pointless, and would lead nowhere.
6. If you read Kate’s book (you will say it is her point of view!!) you will see that the Portuguese police were unhelpful from the word go. They hid behind the secrecy laws all of the time, they did not act with any urgency, and I certainly don’t think they deserve the praise you are affording them. The amount of British ex-policemen who have commented on the shoddy way in which they approached the task are considerably more than those who congratulated them on their performance.
I hope that now the Metropolitan police are involved the Portuguese authorities will bow down to their expertise and give them every scrap of information they have. It really annoys me that we are both supposedly members of the European Union, but we have to jump through hoops before they will co-operate.
Good night to you too!!
5.
Blimey Jean,
bullet pointing??
I think I’ll just stick to paragraphs and leave out the numbering.
You say you don’t dislike the Portuguese police, then it must just be coordinators you have a problem with, as you didn’t like the first and you didn’t like the second either. You say the British police didn’t get much input, well we shouldn’t forget it was a Portuguese investigation and they had jurisdiction for that investigation. Can you imagine a British police force’s reaction if the situation was reversed and a force from another country wanted to come in and tell them how to run the investigation?
The British police were there to assist not take over. Nevertheless, they did seem to have a lot of influence, wasn’t it the British police not the Portuguese who suggested the cadaver dogs and wasn’t it a British profiler who suggested they should be questioned? The Portuguese were following the abduction theory at the beginning; in fact didn’t they bring in a suspect and make him Arguido, as well investigating hundreds and hundreds of other leads long before the mccanns became Arguidos?
If there was a mistake then perhaps they should have followed what would be normal practice in the UK and question those there that evening and establish if further investigation was necessary or not. The fact they were focussing intensely on an abduction theory was probably the reason they didn’t.
As for what you call “farcical” secrecy laws, it’s not for us to decide how a country should legislate it’s law. The secrecy laws are part of the Portuguese constitution and not something the police decided to do off their own backs, they have to abide by these rulings whether they like it or not. The fact that despite this privacy law there were leaks is probably down to human nature, people tend to let things slip and journalists are good at getting information and we don’t know for sure which source all the leaks came from.
Although we don’t have privacy a law in the UK it doesn’t mean a case can be discussed, yet information still leaks out to journalists, news media etc just the same.
There may well be different levels of education, unfortunately an education, any education is not a guarantee of common sense, which probably is a good thing to have when you make decisions on whether to leave young children in an unlocked apartment or not.
Plea bargaining is neither non-existent nor few and far between anywhere in the world, it goes on in UK police stations every day. While more often it will be something like a drug user given the chance to reduce his sentence if he names his dealer or a burglar getting a reduced sentence if he names his fence, plea deals are still offered in more serious crimes just the same. They are a normal part of police practice and something defence lawyers will suggest them too. I suggest you google it if you still don’t believe it happens elsewhere, it’s not some dreadful conspiracy only applied by the Portuguese.
In your opinion you think the questions were pointless, but the police obviously didn’t think they were pointless and as they were the investigating officers I think they were in a position to know what needed further clarification better than anyone else.
As for the Portuguese police not being helpful, that’s a bit of an enigma, especially as Gerry is quoted as saying how he had “seen at first hand how hard the police are working in the search for Madeleine and their strong desire to find her” I think they were not the only ones to see how hard the Portuguese police and their citizens worked, which is why I said they should be applauded.
The fact that the case has not been solved doesn’t mean they didn’t try, it happens in British cases too. Think about the Genette Tate case still not solved after more than 30 years. There may be many reasons this case hasn’t been solved, not enough evidence as it was stated in the conclusion, maybe because they are less experienced than major investigating forces and yes even the possibility of a missed lead (Think Dr Shipman when you think how many people went to the UK police with concerns about him before he was caught).
However, unless people have proof of deliberate mishandling then I think it’s ungracious to suggest the police didn’t do their best. I also think the police officers who were involved with the inquiry are best placed to say how well or not an investigation was run, not ex police officers who have not had that first hand knowledge, which Gerry talks about.
As for Scotland Yard being involved, we can welcome their expertise and wish them well in their cold case review, but it’s rude to suggest a country should bow down to them. We are no longer an Empire demanding how nation states should behave. As for Portugal being a member of the EU, that is correct, however, that doesn’t mean when they joined that they gave up their right to national sovereignty. We should respect that national sovereignty, just as we would expect others to respect ours.
That’s my final word about it Jean, I think we will just have to agree to disagree over the matter.
Have a good evening.
Davy, you´re missing the point here: jean never suggested this: “a country should bow down to them”.
Know this Davy, when the British police was called to assist PJ, it was the Leicester police (I´m not attacking any police force, regardless of country the police belongs. When Leicester police helped, it was told by them, thay they were there to assist, and not to tell PJ how they should run an investigation (although this don´t mean that Leicester police agreed with PJ´s investigation, again, I´m not attacking both police forces).
Those are your words, not jean´s words.
Davy, you wrote: “No one has to accept a deal if they don’t wish too, they have the opportunity to turn it down”, then, I don´t understand your point about the questions Mrs. McCann didn´t answered (advised by her laywer) which had the purpose of trying to obtain a confession about something she never did.
Perhaps, in your thoughts, this “No one has to accept a deal if they don’t wish too, they have the opportunity to turn it down” applies to other cases, but, when it is about this case, it is so obvious that you don´t share the same thought, shame on Davy.
Besides, Ricardo Paiva told in court: “Amaral’s thesis has prevented other theories from being investigated”
Tell me Davy, how long have you been aware about this case?
I believe that you are not so aware as I am (because since the first second this case started, I am aware of everything related to this case).
Tell me Davy, if you were in a foreign country, without any knowledge of the language, without any information about the foreign country you were in holidays, you knew that your son or daughter was abducted, you knew about your true innocence, I ask: wouldn´t you ask for assistance from your British consulate in the Algarve to help you?
It is so obvious that: if a child is not inside the apartment, in her room, someone entered at the apartment and took her (clearly, true evidences of abduction).
Someone who entered through the door, with a (probably) copy of the key master, knew where to find her, took her, gave her through the window, then walked out the apartment through the door.
It is not needed to be an Einstein to understand this.
it is obvious when a child is missing that something happened to that child, in no way does missing ever mean abducted by a stranger,FACT – as for who went in when and with whom its pure speculation ONLY – there is NOTHING to prove that the mccanns and/or friends were not involved and the british police have said so, as quoted by km in her book
What the law says in the UK
The law does not set a minimum age at which children can be left alone. However, it is an offence to leave a child alone when doing so puts him or her at risk.
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This is referring to in a place the child knows (there home) in there own country ..
Seems strange how the parents bang on about how good they were/are yet the go on holiday and totally ignore this simple fact and say they weren’t negligent
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Simple fact is if they had been with there kids this shouldn’t and couldn’t have happened so weather or not they are innocent of the larger crime to me is seriously in doubt. To me the suspicion of guilt falls on them because of there actions prior to the alleged abduction as well as afterwards the lack of evidence in this case actually makes me wonder if the time frame has been accurately recorded and if the last positive sighting of the child has been verified. As this would have broadened the field. i feel there is a lot of the facts behind the case that have not come out and because of trial by press a lot of false facts have been created.
Its not just even a media circus because the parents are just as bad handling things the way they did will the truth ever come out … Doubtful if Maddie is dead after all this time finding a body isn’t likely if shes alive (odds against sadly) if no-ones come forward by now that’s met her do you think they will now and would you choose to abduct a child with such a obvious identification mark for that reason.
tina, don´t change my words, with the purpose of feeding your sick fantasies.
As for you Alan, know this: she can stil be found alive.
@Pedro I know that & said that but as time passes by the chances decrease.
Davy
Tell me what did Amaral do to make you support him? As I can see it – Nothing. He did not attend the crime scene at all – never mind during the crucial hours immediately after Madeleine had disappeared. A co-ordinator co-ordinates, which means he is in charge of co-ordinating – Amaral managed to co-ordinate his mouth around his meal at his favourite restaurant, instead of co-ordinating a search for a missing child!! As for the other co-ordinator, by the time he came on the scene – there was nothing to co-ordinate because all the evidence had been swept away by the Ocean Club cleaners.
And as Pedro says quote : Ricardo Paiva told in court: “Amaral’s thesis has prevented other theories from being investigated”
There was no point in the British dogs going to Portugal because by that time the Portuguese police had already made their minds up that Madeleine’s parents had ‘done away’ with her, hidden her body in front of all of the worlds media, and managed to get rid of her body in the Renault hire car 28 days after she had gone missing. There was also rumours that they had stuffed her body in a freezer so as to preserve it in the heat of the days before they hired the car.
As for Murat being made arguido – it wasn’t the ‘initiative’ of the Portuguese police who spotted his unusual behaviour, it was a British reporter by the name of Lori Campbell? She reported her suspicions to the police and they followed up by making him an arguido, because they were desperate to be seen to be achieving something.
The secrecy laws are ‘farsical’ because there were more leaks than a sieve. But I do admit the newspapers made an awful lot of stuff up, and that is why the McCanns were successful in suing them.
As far as Scotland Yard are concerned – it is a known fact that they are one of the best forces in the world. They are extremely experienced in cold case reviews – and this is what the Portuguese need – people who can work side by side with them to put all of the information together and see if anything vital has been missed. Unfortunately, we do not rule over an Empire any more, mores the pity, a lot of countries that were in our control were much better off than they are now. But, we do have the EU (unfortunately) where the member countries are supposed to co-operate fully with each other, and despite your comment about it being a Portuguese investigation, my point is that Madeleine is a British citizen therefore they should have allowed the Brits access to every bit of information they had, and worked together to find her. As it was they have hampered the search from day one for an innocent little girl, and more importantly, it seems to them, have lost a massive amount of tourist trade due to their bungling.
With all do respect Alan, but, I disagree with you.
Natascha Kampush, Shawn Hornbeck, Jaycee Duggard, are the living proof, that children can disappear, but return or being founds years later.
@ Pedro.. That’s OK there have been subjects in life I’ve disagreed with my self over..
@ Jean.. I agree Scotland Yard is (Was) up there with the best of them. But due to the unique way laws are being created, System’s invented & Cost cutting I’m concerned this may not be the case forever.. They say its for efficiency but the red tape and hoop’s they have to jump through to actually get moving on any case nowadays means time and fund’s are wasted away from any crime scene. Even when a crime has been proven and witnessed it don’t always mean it will get to court as this may indeed cost to much.
Crime may not pay (or so they say),
But Lawyer’s always Profit.
If you commit a crime most every time,
you’ll be lining some law firms pocket.
Guilty or not isn’t the point,
it’s all the same to them.
A bulging pay check is what they want
not who what when or when.
Had a accident they say that’s sad,
As they rub there hands with glee.
They are drinking champagne.
While your left drinking tea.
You may say I’m being cynical,
I’m sorry if i am.
But i see them eating caviar,
While I’m on bread and jam.
Too true Alan! I’ve never had caviar but I don’t think I’d like it anyway. But, to the point, I don’t care how much the lawyers cost as long as they prove that Amaral is a snake and put him behind bars.
Sir Paul Stephenson has said that investigating Madeleine’s abduction will guarantee some experienced officers will keep their jobs who would otherwise have been made redundant because of the fall in murder investigation. So, surely that is a good thing, not only for Madeleine, but also for the police officers? The only stumbling block that I can see, which is a big hurdle, is the co-operation of the Portuguese police. Hopefully, they will realise that, after four years, this is not going to go away, and they will pull out all the stops to co-operate. Now that David Cameron, and our top policeman is involved, surely they will see the light, because if they don’t they will practically destroy their tourist industry. I am sure that families throughout Europe and beyond will certainly think again about taking their children for a holiday to Portugal.
I agree with you jean.
Firstly Sorry think i got carried away in my last lol..
Yes Jean i agree it good saving any redundancies in the police force I for one don’t agree with axing any of them purely on the length of time the have served (although yes some have got complacent and are I’m sure concentrating on just getting through the week rather than there work load so maybe a review of performance is more in order but hey i hate politics as a wise man once said “If i ruled the world first thing I’d do would be axe all the Lawyer’s”(think he said kill not axe but i don’t agree there) but second I’d “Axe all the politicians as well” ..
Red tape has delayed this and most investigations and many many others and Politics should stay out of policing if it did far more could get done. I realise this is a international case/investigation and so it is a little more difficult because the human race has a inherent flaw in its logic it thinks nationality and skin pigmentation rather than the simple fact we are after all the same Species HUMAN. If only we concentrated on that simple fact instead of in planet bickering this world would be a better and easier place to live.
The problem i see with the four year gap is Witnesses you cant really re interview them because can you remember what you were doing 4 years ago. The evidence even if in sealed environment will have diminished and is possibly contaminated. So the main thing your left with is the Officers notes and existing statements. I’m not saying things are hopeless because indeed there are cold case examples that do get solved but that sadly is the exception rather than the rule.
If I was in Praia da Luz at the same time Madeleine was abducted I’m absolutely positive I would remember practically every detail. I do now, and I wasn’t even there.
I must put this quote on here from another site …
The Perception of Class
I honestly wish I had a pound for every time I hear the old, worn out saying, “If they had been working class and from a council estate they would be in jail by now.” The inference is that because they are middle class doctors the establishment is somehow protecting them, or that their status gives them undue, or biased, treatment. Personally, I do not accept this.
First of all, both Kate and Gerry came from the very working class background that would have seen them carted off to jail, that some people seemingly expect. Gerry in particular grew up in a Glasgow tenement block, a whole family of seven, plus the odd lodger, in a one bedroom house! How much more working class can you get? I do grant you though, that they are now no longer, at least on the face of it, working class, though I wonder how Kate and Gerry view themselves?
But the inference that status endows some sort of privilege or protection needs a little further examination. Within what we might call the ‘Establishment’ I think few would disagree that the government tops that heading, and that the House of Lords would be perceived as the very pinnacle of status. A member of said House of Lords would, therefore, expect the full weight of the establishment to come to his aid, to offer support and protection at times of self induced strife. So then, can someone explain Jeffrey Archer?
Archer was a British MP, a Government minister and eventually a peer, a member of the House of Lords. But in January 2001 he was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice. Had he been from a working class housing estate he would have gone to jail, but being a Lord, he enjoyed the protection of the establishment.
Except…he didn’t! In July 2001 he was found guilty, and sentenced to four years imprisonment. Kate and Gerry are just simple doctors, nothing nearly so grand as Jeffrey Archer, so how is it that the establishment is somehow perceived as protecting them when it did nothing to protect Lord Archer?
I rest my case!
jean´s words are also mine:
“jean
June 21st, 2011 1:27 am”
@jean … Oh how i wish you had not put “The Perception of Class” bit there (one of my pet hates) normally spoken/typed only by the people Whom are tagged in the system (not by me i add) as middle to upper class … (in my books class is a fallacy when we are born do we all not make potty in are pants and that’s very classy isn’t it i think not) MONEY is nothing to do with Class for instance, A winning lotto ticket may take you from the council estate but it wont change the person inside you..
I’m not young I’ve lived in a council house, Ive had money and owned homes, I’ve lost money (divorce etc) even homeless / jobless for a while. So yep I’ve got a few miles on the clock now but I’ve seen life from Financially most if not all levels.
I can say from personal experience Money will never change the person inside (well i can state that as a fact for myself any-rate) also and many wont believe this i feel, Money will not get you Happiness. If you have £100.00 a week you want £200.00 if you have £1000.00 you want £2000.00. At the end of the Day A Ferrari gets you from a to b so dose a Skoda.A house is just a roof.Bang & Olufsen sound systems Are just stereos (OK nice ones i admit lol) Love is nothing that can be purchased & a friend don’t only go out with you if your paying. The only thing money brings is bigger bills. (OK i wasn’t ever as well of as say Mr Branson so i cant say that effects him that much but ask yourself how many of his friends would still be friends if he didn’t have the wonga ???).
Any-who to the point … Wrong Uns are in all walks of life Think of products made in the past by Amstrad for example.. Were they ever fit for purpose of use ( i may be doing an injustice here if so I’m sorry ) but from personal experience they were all just rubbish that i had anything to do with,And look where that got the owner of that company.
Lets face it the only reason people from the Council and lower priced housing estates get bad press is if you actually look around isn’t there more of them. I personally would like to see for example % crimes committed by people in houses valued over £1mill and same for council estates BUT you would also need to take into account if you have a house over £1mill you can afford a dam good lawyer. But i bet the difference wouldn’t be as big as anyone (except of course my like minded martians)expects.
There is no real such thing as class in the monetary world. Politeness a caring nature and the ability to not be a human lemming to me is the Qualifications needed NOT Brass.
Hi Alan – you are right in all that you say – but my point is that all the ‘whohar’ about the McCanns being doctors, and being upper middle class is uncalled for. As the article says Gerry McCann was brought up in a Glasgow tenament block, being one of seven children, living in a one bedroomed house. Granted Kate is an only child, but they both had to work damned hard to get to where they are today, a medical degree isn’t a walk in the park, and they had to study for seven years before they got any return!! As you say politeness, a caring nature, and the ability to not be a human lemming are the qualifications needed, and as far as I can see the McCanns have all three of those qualities, and more besides. Previous to 3 May 2007 they were two parents, with three children, having a weeks break from the tedium of work, when they were plummeted into this hell on earth, together with their precious three year old daughter. That is why they carry on, taking all the flack ignorant people are throwing at them, because they are desperate to find their little girl.
Hello Jean, Thanks for your comment (I’m in a state of shock you said i was right I’m not used to being agreed with lol).
I know i shouldn’t draw any comparisons here but i think what really damaged a lot of the public’s opinions was the “Shannon Matthews” Case or should i call it “fiasco”.
I do not see Madeleine’s parents as “faultless or blameless” in this case but that alone don’t mean they are guilty of this crime (what ever it is because as yet that still isn’t proven) be it Kidnap, Murder, Fraud or for that matter selling a child. One person’s theories don’t lead necessarily to evidence or make them a fact.
For example if your walking down the street and see a guy throwing a brick through his car side window is he a thief, vandal or just a idiot that locked his keys in the car and cant pick the lock ???
I know I’ve done things in the past that to the outside world must look a little hinkey many that seemed a good idea at the time (some proved afterwards they weren’t) but all i assure you were done “in the best possible taste”, as Kenny Everett used to say.
With all do respect Alan, I don´t blame the couple, they are not guilty of nothing, no one, not even the couple could suspect that they were under observation of the abductor, or someone related to him, but, the only person who is truly guilty of why this case is taking so long to be solved is a certain sacked former pj.
———————————————————-
I agree with jean:
“That is why they carry on, taking all the flack ignorant people are throwing at them, because they are desperate to find their little girl”.
TO FIND THIS LITTLE GIRL IS WHAT REALLY MATTERS, THIS LITTLE GIRL CAN STILL BE FOUND ALIVE.~~
@Pedro I totally agree with most you say but i will just re-post this bit i posted earlier
Alan
June 18th, 2011 8:55 am
What the law says in the UK
The law does not set a minimum age at which children can be left alone. However, it is an offence to leave a child alone when doing so puts him or her at risk.
________
So while they may not be guilty of a set crime there to me leaving the Kiddies alone in strange surroundings isn’t exactly great is it. Being under the “observation of the abductor” remains to be proven why observe someone unless you already knew they would leave there kids alone and if that’s the case it means to me its someone that knows them and there habits well.
To me If it was just a chancer who did it on spur of the moment would be at least some evidence unless for example it was a bungled theft seeing the adults out assumed rooms were empty but even that i think is to unlikely as nothing has turned up in four years.
As i said.. I don’t accuse anyone of any crime but on the same front i will not state that any of the known cast are not guilty jumping to either conclusion would be incorrect as there is a lack of evidence & proof either way. But i will say i would/did/never will personally leave a kid (my own or any I’m responsible for) alone in a house/hotel in there home country or abroad any number of things can happen and where kids are involved they have a habit of doing just that. Eating or Drinking wrong things, playing with matches( me a long long time ago), Being sick at inopportune times (i’m sure they are mind readers), having nightmares (allegedly me a lot as a kid). Getting up in middle of the night to go to loo turning the wrong way and falling down the stairs (that was my son at 16 lol no he wasn’t drunk).AND the obvious one more than one kid can lead to arguments punch ups tantrums etc normally over nothing and forgotten just as fast as started i admit.
Alan, with all do respect, I disagree when you wrote: “observation of the abductor” remains to be proven”, that observation is well proved, it was proved by those who really cares about the child, it was proved by ty those who really wants to see this abduction case solved, so I don´t understand why you have difficulty in understanding this scenario, which was what really happened.
Hi Pedro,(im a little confused here so please forgive me).
Are You are saying that there is proof that they were under observation and this was proven by the parents i assume (have i got this correct?)
So if that is correct your saying they left the kiddies alone when they suspected someone or something wasnt right then.
Alan, don´t change my words, I didn´t told what you wrote.
I repeat again: “With all do respect Alan, I don´t blame the couple, they are not guilty of nothing, no one, not even the couple could suspect that they were under observation of the abductor, or someone related to him”.
It is well know (with undeniable evidences) that if, by any chance, someone who checked the children suspected of someone watching the couple´s movements, also their friends movements, they would stayed inside the apartment.
Alan, with all do respect, don´t change my words, with the purpose of trying to feed your fantasies.
Is it so difficult for you to understand my words? So it seems, because you change them to something I never wrote.
So Alan, just keep in your mind this true fact:
The couple is innocent, they have done nothing wrong (PJ proved that when the arguido status was removed), the child was abducted.
Keep this in your mind, instead of digress or divagate.
With all do respect Alan, you know what I think: I must speaking or writing chinese here, or is it my English so bad, that you don´t understand my words written here? So it seems, because you change my words for words I never wrote it here.
Besides, I never mentioned here these words of yours:
“this was proven by the parents i assume…
So if that is correct your saying they left the kiddies alone when they suspected someone or something wasnt right then”.
Hi Pedro… I’m Sorry my comments upset you I must have read that the wrong way … I must point out here I DO NOT suspect the parents any more or less than anyone else at the moment (in my employment that is frowned upon I have to keep a open mind) so please do not spout on about Fantasies because unlike most I have a open mind…
I don’t on the other hand have the information you yourself must be privy to though I admit where you can state “they are not guilty of nothing” (proof of innocence I realise is actually harder to arrive at than proof of guilt) for example DNA or finger prints may prove you were there, Lack of DNA or finger prints dose not prove you were not. Because that I have not read anywhere just Lack of evidence and that’s the same all the way round because if they had any someone somewhere would be arrested lack of evidence alone IS NOT PROOF OF INOCENCE.
I would on the other hand like to be in a position to view all of this case and see if there was a official appeal for every photograph snapped by every body in and round the resort as well as any cctv footage if there was any inside a mile for the few days prior to events as well as the day and day after as they may indeed hold the identity without realising it.
There are many theories in this case but because the facts we are working with well ill change that to I’m working with have come via the media it would be totally incorrect to base a totally valid Guilty or Not on anyone from the information I’ve been privy to at this moment in time. I have hunches and gut feelings like every one else, but to publish them if incorrect here or any other place for that matter would be wrong. I have on the other hand said on here twice the one thing that really concerns me nothing else and that is a fact. About the UK law and leaving kids alone If that’s what you feel makes you think I think they are guilty I’m sorry.
Alan, about what I wrote above, it is neither an offence to you nor lack of respect, it´s just my honest opinion.
Hi Alan – I think you and Pedro are getting your wires crossed somewhat. He is Portuguese, and a very staunch supporter of the McCanns, and he is convinced, like a great many other people, that Madeleine is still alive and findable, her parents are innocent of all charges, and we will do everything in our power to get her back home.
What Pedro is saying is that it is most probable that the McCanns had been watched throughout their holiday. I also feel that it was probably the case that Madeleine had been earmarked to be taken, and I am certain that the senario of the abductor being in the apartment when Gerry did his check is very very close to the truth.
Can I ask you why you have doubts about the honesty of her parents? It really does seem a simple clear cut case to me, they were having their meal as they had done for three nights previously, they went to check on their children at regular intervals, and Madeleine was abducted from her bed. What is there to disbelieve? Surely, you do not believe for one minute that either of the McCanns found her dead because of an horrific accident, or that they actually killed her, and hid her body until they could ‘get rid of it’. That is the stuff horror stories are made of in films, this senario is not real life stuff. For heavens sake they are educated, sensible, caring people who think the world of their children, and these suggestions that are continually floating around by the minority are beyond belief. Don’t come back with the suggestion that Kate didn’t answer the questions, or that they didn’t get their stories right between all of the friends, because that does not hold any water any more. If you had just discovered your child missing from her bed in a foreign country, with the frustration of having no way of communicating with the police in those vital hours after she had gone missing, I think you would be lying if you could remember every single thing that happened a few hours before. As Kate and Gerry were, you would be beside yourself, especially when there was no sign of assistance from the Portuguese police in the first instance. No extensive search of the surrounding area, no road blocks, no informing the ports or airports, no sign of their chief co-ordinator. None of this happened within the first crucial hours of Madeleine going missing. What on earth was the point of road blocks hours and hours after the event. No, I’m sorry but I believe that Madeleine was taken by a preditor, and the police behaved abysmally towards the McCanns, either because they had had no experience of something so serious or because they just couldn’t be ‘arsed’!!!
Have you heard of Joana Cipriano – she is a little girl who went missing about four years before Madeleine, within a few miles from Praia da Luz, and the police treated her mother the same way as the McCanns. Even though they have found no body, her mother was taken into custody, beaten until she confessed and she is now serving 16 years in prison. Unfortunately she is Portuguese, and is not as intelligent as the McCanns. The same detective was one of the lead policemen in her case, and has subsequently been charged with perjury, and has a 18 month suspended sentence. His name is Goncalo Amaral. He is the one who was intent on pinning the disappearance on Madeleine’s parents, and because of that thesis, no other was investigated! He seems to make a regular habit of accusing parents of murdering their child, but in the McCanns case he has come across an intelligent force who will fight him all the way.
May i enquire why my last posting was deleted ???
in reply to Pedro’s last post is there some rule i broke or was this just Censorship for the sake of being biased ?
WEB MANAGER: Alan, your last comment wasn’t deleted. But it was held in a queue for moderation before appearing ‘live’ on the website
Thank you jean, your words are also mine.
Alan, with all do respect, about guilty: you´re wrong.
jean and I presented all you need to see how wrong you are, you still insists in your fantasies, that´s your problem.
You´re so blind by your thoughts that you cannot see or understand the truth presented through jean and I.
I’m happy to read the British police are looking into Madeleine’s case for her parents. What a shame it’s taken this long but with a good solid review a lot of new insights will turn up.
I’ve heard that some key evidence and new witnesses coming forward were what truly motivated the reopening. Let’s hope so. I believe it will only be a matter of months before the Mccanns finally learn truths around their beloved daughter’s disappearance.
To those who are still hiding …time’s almost up.
Silky, I agree with you, let´s hope so yes.
About what happened: it was an abduction.
The motive, someday (hopefully very soon) it will be know.
But first, find her, return her safe to her home.
Pedro .. With all due Respect to yourself and jean
I give up unlike you i have not accused or for that matter ruled anyone out of suspicion … You have hence it is not my vision or eye site that is being obscured how YOU can state as a fact and the TRUTH is beyond me at best it can only be a repeat of someone elses statement or your view unless you have everdence noone else has.
Unless i have missed something somewhere and i have spent a week checking now so i dont think i have..
There is nothing to prove the girls parents DID NOT have part in what ever crime there was commited.
But likewise there is NO PROOF they did.
Hence at this time they are NOT and SHOULD NOT be ruled out of suspicion they have not been proven innocent just as as as yet the exact crime has not been identified,there is no proof of guilt.
The Girl is still missing reason unknown CASE STILL OPEN.
If you want to state your opinions fine but please dont try and invent facts.
Alan, with all due respect:
I have not invented nothing.
What I wrote is true.
If you can´t handle with the true facts presented here by jean and me, that´s your problem.
Just don´t write here that I have invented facts, because that´s not true.
Alan, know this: you wrote:
“The Girl is still missing reason unknown CASE STILL OPEN”.
The case is open until she returns to her home, which is the main concern.
About your thoughts writen above about her parents, I repeat: they are innocent.
You are doing the same disgusting behaviour showed by gonçalo amaral, who, wasted precious time (trying to prove his sick unproven fantasies, with the nasty purpose we all know)around her parents, instead of showed care about the the child.
You´re the one who invented things.
Besides, I´m inside this case (from the first second) since it started, so, I know more then you.
Pedro ..
Know this YOU are the one that is insulting everyones intelergence and the only one that can say catagorically anyone is innocent IS someone who knows who did it or was there themselves. YOU have fantasies and you need help if you do not realise that you are touting as FACTS your views THAT ARE NOT FACTS bur as i said JUST YOUR VIEWS if you cannot keep an open mind all i will say is THANK GOD YOU ARE NOT A POLICE OFFICER. I do not know how old you are but you rave on like a spoilt child GROW UP PLEASE AND LEARN TO THINK.
If as you say you are inside this case means you are either a friend whitness or involved in this case profestionaly if its that latter god help the justice system where you come from because it is blinkered and you are tainting the facts with your fictional views.
It is apparent there is only your view and you try by shouting your mouth of to make your self sound intelergent it sounds more to me that you are more intrested in proving them innocent than doing what real police do and thats look at the entire case and search for the everdence and the guilty parties.
Untill now i have never once said i believe them guilty just there is and there have been police statements saying the same thing No proof either way so they ARE NOT PROVEN INNOCENT but are NOT ruled out of case this is normal.
Alan, I never insulted you, I don´t allow lack of respect from anyone, specially from a guy like you, who have no right to criticize me, I don´t needc to growm I(´m not acting like a spoilt child. About my knowledge from the first scond, I don´t have to give you any explanations it is you Alan who is speculating, distorting my words. It is you Alan who needs to learn to have manners, to respect other people´s beliefs contrary to your opinion. I suggest you going to learn some manners and respect. If you cannot have a decent, respectful conversation, with respect about other people´s beliefs contrary to you, that´s your problem, what I don´t allow is to tell me what you wrote above, your words applies only to you. End of discussion.
You are right Alan – these are Pedro and my views, and the reason we have them is that both the Portuguese and the British police have stated that there is NO EVIDENCE that the McCanns have committed a crime. I don’t think those statements can be ruled out, do you? But, if you chose to disagree that is up to you. I feel that they are innocent of all charges, not only because of the statements from the police, but also because it is an unbelievable senario. As I have said one million times before, they are a loving family, they adore their children, they went on holiday with a group of friends, they made a most terrible mistake and Madeleine is suffering for it, and because of this they are now paying dearly, and will do for the rest of their lives. My question is, which no one has answered sensibly is – why on earth should an ordinary couple wait until they were on holiday to kill their child, or if she had died in the apartment due to an accident, try to hide the facts by saying that she had been abducted. The time scale argues against everything that has been made up. How on earth do you get rid of a body within such a short time, in a resort that you have only spent six days, and managed to cover it all up within that time. Together with the fact that they must have cooked up the story with their friends in double quick time. Together with the fact that not one of their friends have ‘spilled the beans’ during the last four years. No Alan, I think that the theory is too ludicrous for words, and people who believe it have been watching too many ‘make believe’ movies. But, as I have said before, if you wish to believe that there is a chance that the McCanns had something to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, there is nothing I can say that will change your mind. I think I have said before that Pedro is Portuguese, he is very very involved in helping to find Madeleine, and he gets very very passionate about anything that anyone says about the McCanns, because he, like me believes that they are suffering enough without all of these unfounded theories about what happened to Madeleine. We don’t want to fall out with anyone, but I think it is time to stop making comments when we don’t know the person concerned.
If you go onto a site called http://justice4mccannfam.5forum.biz/ and read many of the comments and evidence we have found within the files and elsewhere, you will see why we all believe the McCanns are innocent, and I hope this may change your way of thinking.
Best wishes – Jean
Jean is correct, at this time everything people say or think is just personal views, no matter how strongly someone holds those views, nonetheless that’s still what they are.
It may be that everyone that has been questioned up to now are innocent, in fact Alan has already said that, but he acknowledges the possibility that one or more may not be.
The fact that the Portuguese police and the British police do not think they have enough evidence to progress anyone to charges, is not the same as exonerating then. Something may come to light at a later date that changes the focus of the investigation, but you can’t just decide someone is not involved, unless they can be categorically excluded.
@ Davy
Thank you,i was starting to think maybe i was speaking Martian.
@ Pedro
Sorry you feel i show you a lack of respect wasnt intended i assure you. I do take offence at being called Blind and you feel what i type is to feed my Fantasies (strange really as all ive typed on here is the truth) but you refuse to open your mind to the entire picture and keep quoting as a FACT something that is not.
As for this line i quote “I don´t allow lack of respect from anyone, specially from a guy like you, who have no right to criticize me”
YOU dont know me. OR what i do for a living & have had over 10 years experiance of.. So DONT TRY AND PREACH AT ME, RESPECT IS SOMETHING THAT HAS TO BE EARNED YOUR INSULTS ARE NOT THE WAY TO EARN IT.
@ jean
Fine ive given up anyrate the odd thing i find is this though.I will say this as simply as i can there is kind of a scale in most criminal cases ill call it 1 to 5 1) proven innocent (this normally only happens after 5 in many cases)
2) probably innocent
3) suspect
4) strongly suspected ( people picked up detained questioned etc)
5) guilty (charged arested banged up fined)
It cannot be stated as a FACT the parents are innocent. They i assume will be listed @ 3 on this simple scale.
What you and Pedro seem to think is i assume them to be guilty I DO NOT if i did i would resigne as pre judging is not in my job description or any good police officers. This is the only point i have tried to get across to Pedro and have been insulted for it several times. He nore anyone else should state as FACTS things that havent been proven.
Hi Alan – I am curious now – are you a member of the police force? If so, I understand your caution. You are right, it cannot be stated as fact that the parents are innocent, but I suppose we are looking at the case with different ‘eyes’. Because I have four children of my own, and on a couple of occasions over the years I have had very scary situations, I put myself in the McCanns shoes and my instinct tells me that they are not guilty, and try as I may I cannot think anything other. I have written to Kate McCann, and she has written back to me, and I see in those letters a heartbroken mother, who longs for her child to come home. I do not see any guilt whatsoever in her or her husband, only pain and despair.
Alan, with all do respect, I have never insulted you, actually, I used frequently the words: with all do respect. You wrote “over 10 years experiance of…”
With all do respect Alan, if you have that kind of experience then, you should also understand other people´s beliefs, even if contrary to your opinion.
About: “a lack of respect wasnt intended i assure you”, I believe it wasn´t intended.
I also admit that I´m very passionate about everything that is related with this case, I admit that I strongly defends my beliefs, which are based on the evidences wrote here through jean or me. I have an open mind.
My apologies to you Alan if it seemed to insulted you in my comments (like you: it wasn´t intended I assure you also).
Tell me Alan: have you ever felt the desperation of having a child abducted, and what is worse: to know that police lost precious moments in which the case could be solved in an hour or two (because of the responsability of a sacked person, who, never talked with the parents, and, suddenly, without any evidence to prove it, decided to accuse innocents of somethimg they never did: 1-it was the first time they visited Praia da Luz; 2-they have neither the knowledge of the geographic situation (except the one through Mark Warner)not the persons who are at Praia da Luz (Portuguese citizens, British expats; 3-no one could ever imagine that someone related with the abductor studied al the couple´s movements waiting for the right moment to carry with the abduction; 4-under the heavy surveillance from pj, from the press worldwide, from tourists, from Portuguese residents in Praia da Luz, from the British expats residents in Praia da Luz; 5-it was the summer season; lots of tourists through all the Algarve day and night; 6-under the desperation of wanting the child found, Alan, think about this: do you think that someone through the reasons above, could have imagine or carry with such bullshit told by amaral? The answer is no. Impossible to do), tried to prove something the parents never did, instead of looking for the child (just because the sacked coordinator had no experience in abduction cases, who, also have not learned nothing with the Cipriano case, amaral´s words: abductions don´t happens in the Algarve / Portugal, then, wrote lies in his book, with the purpose of fame and fortune (the same commitment he used with his liesm, should have been used in solving the case which could happened in an hour or two, if the proper behaviour from a sacked coordinator had been done properly, when he was sacked, the pj tried to solve the case, sadly (thanks to amaral, the damage had already been done, the golden hours were lost due to his incompetence and lack of knowledge (or interest) about abductions. You may think that I have an obsession for amaral, you´re wrong: I assure I don´t have that obsession. I just like things well explained based in the evidences presented here through jean or me.
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If there is one person here who showed not to have an open mind (except to fulfill his unproven theories written in amaral´s book of lies) is / was: gonçalo amaral.
But amaral is nothing, he is not important.
———————————————————-
Besides, their campaign proves everything jean or I wrote here.
I will not write more comments about amaral.
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I (together with jean) presented all the evidences based:
please, read jean´s comment:
“July 2nd, 2011 2:00 pm”
Also read jean´s comments.
Hello Jean,
Thank you I finally got there. If you read everything I have written I have never once said I believe they are guilty I am not saying I believe they are innocent I can only deal in facts. Stating any thing as a fact if it is a personal belief only is wrong because to anyone who hasn’t read everything it taints there thought patterns and judgements. The fact Peanuts are poisonous to my son (he’s allergic) don’t mean peanuts are poisonous to everyone for example. I am not working on this case but due to huge publicity I can’t say it is not of interest to me and I have read, listened, watched and reviewed large amounts of information on it.
I do see Errors in proceedings I can’t say I don’t but due to the international bureaucratic & diplomatic red tape I have seen this problem a few times in the past.
Pedro.. Apology accepted thank you. No thank god my son has never been abducted (I don’t see the relevance of that question) unless you think that this is a essential qualification as I can assure you over 90% of involved personnel in cases like this emotionally are put through the wringer every time and yes many have reoccurring nightmares imagining it is there kids in this situation I can name several that have gone over a week without any sleep or downtime a few far more than just 1 week. Do I care about amaral no at this time I do not he like many others have added to the dust that has settled on top of the facts that need defining and sorting from the fiction and personal opinions to find out what the exact coherent Facts actually are and then to try and plug the gaping holes left in the investigation.
Already I’m kicking myself for typing this next bit but I feel I should sorry.
Jean … Firstly something you typed made me smile.. Caution is a word many would say I don’t know the meaning of in fact I have been criticised many times for my lack of it (maybe I’m getting old gulp)
Ok now the bad part your closing sentence “I do not see any guilt whatsoever in her or her husband, only pain and despair.” I’ve actually read similar to that a few times in different places and I will admit and this is a personal comment it worries me you say you have four children of your own I’ve one and two step kids and two other’s I kind of look on as my own. In my experience 99% of the time parents blame themselves needlessly they feel its there fault they could have done more or things differently. I know when my son had accident on his bike and was in hospital things not looking so good even I illogically did it myself as id purchased the bike for him. I dread to think how many times my parents felt that way as I was a bit of a failed stunt lunatic as a child, I think I liked drinking hospital food through a straw. As I said that is only a personal thought opinion and is one of several curious inconsistencies with the normal I’ve noted and I’m now as we have got the issue straightened out going to put my personal thought on another matter that seems to be of vital importance to you and Pedro ..Although I personally couldn’t condone leaving children of that age in strange hotel/ or surroundings from what I have seen, read, listened to etc I don’t think the parents seem to be involved in the disappearance of there daughter but I will not rule anything out.
I hope this clears things up.
Thanks Alan – I think perhaps I should elaborate on my sentence about not seeing any guilt in Kate or Gerry McCann. The guilt I am referring to is the guilt of either murdering Madeleine, or finding her dead due to an accident and hiding her body. The guilt that they do feel is the guilt of leaving their children in the apartment alone, especially with the door unlock. It was obvious from the first instance when Kate was reported as saying ‘we’ve let her down’, when she first disocvered Madeleine missing. They are so guilty of that fact that it will haunt them for the rest of their lives. But, they felt safe in a small, sleepy town, along with a number of other parents who did exactly the same thing. My daughter has a friend who worked at Mark Warner and she says that there was no baby sitting service on offer, all they did, at the request of the parents, was go around the apartments, listen at the doors (not even go in to check on the children) and if they heard crying they went to reception who paged the parents, who dealt with the child themselves. That is why the McCanns did their own checks, which was better than that on offer. Kate has also said that the Mark Warner in Praia da Luz did have a scheme whereby parents took their children to the creche from 7.30 until 11.30. But she said that her three children were asleep before 7.30 so it was not feasible for them to be disturbed to be taken to the creche, then disturbed again at 11.30 when they were collected. To me, that is a fault with the Mark Warner establishment. The only thing in the whole heartbreaking affair is I can’t understand why they left the door unlocked. That to me is the most stupid thing for two intelligent people to do.
With all do respect jean, but about:
“The only thing in the whole heartbreaking affair is I can’t understand why they left the door unlocked. That to me is the most stupid thing for two intelligent people to do”.
I don´t think this was a stupid thing:
1) I remember someone told at the time when Madeleine was abducted, that the door was unlocked, because in a case of fire, it was much more easier to enter in the 5A and rescue the children.
2) No one including the McCanns or their friends could ever guess that someone related with the abductor was studying the McCanns schedule with their children, waiting for the right moment to enter in the apartment, to abduct her, pass her through the window, because, if it someone (who was not her parents, or friends of the couple) walked out the apartment with Madeleine, surely that could have been caught by the couple or by their friends, not to mention, that someone could see the abductor with the child in his / her arms, and recognize that the person who carried Madeleine was neither her parents nor any of their friends, so, it was much more easier to pass her through the window (which I believe it happened) to avoid being caught or recognized, also not to wake up the twins.
(Just as you thought it was safe to go back into the water I return :)..)
Did Ya all miss me (sorry been busy week)
Jean should I really comment on the door? If I do I get the feeling it will turn into WW3 and get nowhere but I totally agree with you it’s just not rite, and I can’t fathom a reasonable excuse for it.
You say that’s the only thing you can’t understand in this heartbreaking affair I so wish I was at that stage another question that keeps coming back to me is (and I know this may seem a strange thought) but. Why Madeleine, logically you would pick a child that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Car theft for example you pick a car that isn’t bright orange with pink stripes if you want to get away with it something that blends in. To select a child with such a identification mark is unusual to say the least.
I have way to much reading to do over the next few days so my head may well implode explode decompose melt down pack up all together frazzle (to name but a few scenario’s) so not a clue what ill type next or when.
@Pedro
“I don´t think this was a stupid thing:”
Well I’ve got to say that I’ve seem lots of strange comments over this case, but that has to be one of the silliest. Of course it was stupid to leave the door unlocked.
If I remember the reason the door was left unlocked was said to be so that Madeleine could come looking for them in the event she awoke and became distressed, as she had done so on a previous night. So what that showed was that they were aware of the possibility that one or all of the children could awake and become distressed. That fact alone should have made consider changing their dining arrangements, but not to do so and then make the situation even worse by leaving the door open, is incomprehensible.
If a door is left unlocked for access in an emergency, it doesn’t take a genius to know that access into the apartment was possible for anyone else too.
But just as important was the fact that access out of the apartment for the children, where they may have encountered numerous dangerous situations was a possibility too and a monkey could have worked that out, never mind two supposedly intelligent adults.
Door locked, Not locked… not much difference..saying it is ‘incomprehensible’ is over dramatic. There were numerous break-ins at the time in the Algarve… crime’s on the rise, especially violent crime, in major part due to the influx of desperate factions. Seems some criminals have gained access to keys, others break-in, and some take advantage of the naivete of those lulled into a sense of ‘holiday’ security. The Algarve enjoyed the reputation as a safe sanctuary and profited big $$$ from this for decades. It’s still relatively safe but the Algarve like so many other destinations did a good job of keeping a deceptively low profile on the crimes.
Many holiday spots profit from a false sense of security. Check out crime statistics on cruise ships for example…most cruise guests are clueless thinking they’re safe.
Hindsight really is perfect…it’s hard to go back and see how it all seemed but at the time, at least to the McCanns, what was ‘incomprehensible’ was that someone would take their child. This notion was positively alien. They were concerned the children ‘might’ wake up and be distressed but, as analytical doctors, they weighed that possibility and determined that checking often would be enough. As they were sitting a very quick walk away, they felt like they were enjoying a summer evening in their own garden. The person who reads they were ‘out to dinner at a restaurant’….to them it may seem careless if not reckless…but those who have spent time in the MW resort know its family-friendly, homey feel (a deliberately perpetuated feel by the resorts) and are not particularly surprised a door was kept unlocked. Many of the guests would come and go leaving the doors unlocked.
This said…my true objection to discussions about doors unlocked or not is that these discussions work to distract people from the heart of the matter. A child is missing. Her parents did not consider her abduction even a remote possibility when weighing options that night.
I think that maybe…someone laced the children’s food or drink with sleeping drugs that night. The person(s) tried to take the children the night before but the children awoke from the noise so the abductors decided to spike the food and try again. I think Madeleine was taken first but that the plan was to take all three. This night the abductor was taken by surprise by the higher frequency of parent checks.
@Silkie
“I think that maybe…someone laced the children’s food or drink with sleeping drugs that night. The person(s) tried to take the children the night before but the children awoke from the noise so the abductors decided to spike the food and try again. I think Madeleine was taken first but that the plan was to take all three. This night the abductor was taken by surprise by the higher frequency of parent checks.”
You wrote that paragraph and you call ME “over dramatic”
haha Davy… funny. Well take it from someone who once suffered a spiked drink…it happens and is becoming a more and more common tool for thieves etc, especially against those who are vulnerable visitors to a country.
You must admit Davy it is an interesting senario, but most probably unprobable. I agree somewhat with the first part of Silkie’s reasoning, the McCanns were in what seemed to be a friendly resort, and because of that were lulled into a false sense of security. BUT, and it is a big but, I would never, never have left their apartment unlocked because of the safety of the children. The main reason being that this apartment was the end one and was accessible from a road which could not be seen from the Tapas Restaurant. I think that these apartments are the only ones of Mark Warner that are not in a complex, they are spread over quite an area so therefore cannot be patrolled. I have been in camp sites where, no matter how large the site is, they have a security barrier, with a security guard on duty all night. Now if that had been the case in Praia da Luz I may have considered leaving my children, but NOT in an unlocked room. But there is no point in dwelling on that fact, some believe it was ok, others think it was irresponsible, the fact is Madeleine was taken and we have to get over the ‘what might have been’. The task in hand now is for the Metropolitan police to do everything that they can to find her, and I hope to God that they do.
I agree with jean: “The task in hand now is for the Metropolitan police to do everything that they can to find her, and I hope to God that they do”, because this is what really matters here.
Davy, with all do respect, but if the abductor or someone related to him, was determined to abduct her, I believe that nothing or no one (even a locked door) would prevent him to carry on with this abduction.
OK ill make a door comment as everyone seam’s to be a little fixated on it. Do they (the parent’s) leave there doors unlocked at home in the area they know there neighbough’s? Because the fire excuse holds weather you are locked inside a burning building as well as outside. Yes ultimately if it was someone persistent they would have broken in even if door was locked but that would have A) lead to more chance of whiteness seeing B) given the potential of more evidence and DNA C) been the obvious thing to do weather kids were in the room’s or not as I assume they had clothes and personal items in there they wouldn’t want stolen.
Hi Alan – Yes, I think the possibility is that the McCanns would leave their door unlocked at home when they are in the garden, which has been stated by them, would be the same distance away from the children as they were in Praia da Luz. Although with ‘creatures’ such as Tony Bennett & Co skulking around every bush I doubt they would now!! And as far as your other comments are concerned, I think it would be a very ‘thick’ abductor to break the door down and leave so much evidence. No, I feel that the McCanns were watched throughout their holiday, possibly by someone on the Ocean Club staff, who knew their movements for the three evenings they left their children, and found out that they were leaving the resort soon, so decided to take Madeleine on that night.
Hi jean..You’d be suprised how much a door can tell you and how Un-clever people are when they have to break in in many cases.Sorry i think you missed my point when i mentioned there home i was making the point they know there neighbough’s so in theory should feel safer there and i think most people leave there doors unlocked when in there garden. But noone in there rite mind would do that in a strange land with unknowns in my opinion to use your fraze “I think it would be a very ‘thick’” (pulls on blind fold, closes eyes ducks for cover) sorry.
As I have said before I agree with you that they should never have left the door unlocked, but it was the ineptitude of the Portuguese police who didn’t seal off the apartment etc, that I blame for the lack of evidence. Although we don’t know what the Met will find, hopefully something important, which the Keystone Kops missed!!
Oh I think you’re heading up the wrong crooked lane… The McCanns may lock their doors at home because they know about the local crimes that occur… are apprised of them…In the Algarve crime was kept hush and minimized so visitors are under the false illusion of utter safety. Makes for better profits from holiday guests…That’s why people pay so much to go on holiday, right? If I didn’t care about crime then I can buy a great cheap holiday in Somalia. Most places divulge crime but holiday destinations. That said the Algarve suffers crime but still no where near the crime level in most areas. and btw…not all peoples feel so fearful as to lock doors…most of Canada does not…ever.
OT but obviously indirectly related…I read yesterday that Jaycee Dugard’s kidnappers used a stun gun on her 20 years ago. Who would ever believe that a middle aged couple in Nevada would ambush a girl at a bus stop within view of her step father and even stun gun her to carry out their depraved plans? I believe the monster had pegged her days earlier and tried once or twice to get her before succeeding.
I think the majority of us cannot fathom the extent of planning and the tools used by these predators.
Because the door of the 5A had no signs of being forced (or damaged) I believe that someone used a spare key, or made a copy of the key to enter at the 5A.
I still wonder, even today, the possibility of being granted the 5A, with the purpose of making much more easier the abduction.
I’m just reading this older post, but want to comment. Really, many people are right because nobody knows what happened yet. I have to defend the police, however, because it is common practice (here in the US) to never release police reports from an ongoing investigation. Otherwise, how could the police hold back certain details, which is very common to weed out the quacks. It would just seriously compromise the investigation to make it public. Also, I would think any cops who didn’t question a suspect would be negligent. Cops obtain confessions all the time. The purpose of arguido status, as I understand it, is due to the fact if the police question somebody as a witness and they make an incriminating statement, it cannot be used against them later in a trial. So they have to make them suspects, which then affords the suspect the right to remain silent. The whole thing is similar to reading a suspect their Miranda warnings in the US.
As to the McCanns being made suspects, I actually think they should have been treated as such at the outset, just based on the circumstances at the time. I almost think the police catered to the McCanns which did everyone a disfavor, including the McCanns who can’t clear their names no matter how hard they try now. It is common for the most likely suspects, which statistically are the parents of the missing to child, to be eliminated, often via polygraph right at the outset. But they must be eliminated and in this case, that is hard because of their behavior, etc.
Honestly, I agree that it is nearly impossible to imagine these people harming their own child, but maybe there’s a bit of truth to all of it. Maybe Madeleine was gone, but they were scared to death because they left her alone, so they started trying to bolster evidence. According to the police reports, which I have actually read, Kate’s prints were the only ones on the window she said was open, but no other person corroborated that and they would have been right outside the window after the abduction. So maybe she did open it to deflect any blame from herself.
As to Kate refusing to answer the questions… Smart lawyer, smart client. They are in a foreign country, and the sole purpose of the questions were to elicit incriminating statements, of course. In fact, often a suspect will incriminate herself just by contradicting the slightest statements. Everything is under the microscope so everything can be dissected… Never good for a suspect.
Finally, while I still find it incredulous, after reading everything, it is hard for me to proclaim the McCanns’ innocence. I actually believe wholeheartedly in sniffer dogs, and believe me, unless you’ve seen them, you cannot even imagine it. As a prosecutor, I had the opportunity to work with an arson dog. There was no mistaking it when the dog hit on the accelerant and testing proved the dog right. In this case, while the DNA testing was not conclusive, it did hit on the majority of markers matching Madeleine’s. Plus, the sample from the trunk, which the cadaver dog hit on, as well as the blood dog, so it wasn’t debris from “nappies,” was a 50% match to Gerry, so it was one of his kids. What people may not realize is you have to have a large enough sample in order to have a full match. These were samples so small that they took the carpet and sent it in, rather than lifting the blood. But what I keep getting stuck on, as much as I want to believe in the McCanns, is the fact that a partial match, which was actually there when both dogs hit on it (in other words, the dogs were definitely right b/c they hit on actual samples), is too much for me to turn a blind eye. If I were prosecuting this case, I might just go forward with the dog evidence (again, the dogs hit on actual microscopic samples) and the inconsistencies in the stories. Also important is the fact that the Irish guy gave a story the day after and then later felt he recognized Gerry. Again, just too many coincidences to ignore. That Irish guy was generally upset when he saw Gerry, according to the report of his local police, not the PJ. I would probably charge the McCanns with child abuse resulting in death. It’s the same as driving drunk and killing your child. They just took too big of a risk leaving those kids at a public resort. I would have much more sympathy if they were at home and went across the street to the neighbors. At least then you have the justification that your neighborhood is safe, etc. In this case, there is just no excuse. It’s hard for me to believe they either harmed the child or covered up an accident, but wouldn’t you do the same? Again, you’re in a foreign country, you leave your child alone, which was negligent in and of itself, and while unattended your kid falls and breaks her neck. You’re a doctor, so there is no need to call one to try to save her. You try and can’t. Who wouldn’t try to cover it up so that you could still parent the two kids you’ve got left? I might try. But we will all never know. I can tell you this…having read those police reports, a full review may not go so well for the McCanns. To say there is “no” evidence against them is naive. There is enough to give pause, and that is never good for the parents when, again, they are statistically usually to blame when a child is harmed or missing. And have you all seen the volumes of investigation files? These officers were in no way sitting on their bottoms suspecting the McCanns. They were doing good old fashioned police work without one thing to work with.
So those are my two cents. I’ll be curious to see what happens with this review, if it is indeed going to happen.
That was very well presented and fair Lisa, thank you. I too feel that there are just too many unanswered questions. I feel that the dogs’ evidence of the blood and cadaver in the apartment and the sample in the car (hired 3? weeks after the disapearence)were not a ‘heads up’ to follow up the possibility that Madeliene died in the apartment. Mrs Mccann stated that the cadaver was as a result of her working with 6 dead bodies the previous week; but how did the cadaver then get on to the childs”cuddle cat’? Did she take the toy to work and place in on a dead body? There was no sign of a break in, so why was this idea forced on us? If the doors were unlocked then why did the ‘intruder’ ‘break in’?Were the doors open or locked?Why did Mrs McCann wash the curtains behind the sofa in a holiday apartment? Why would none of the Tapas 7 agree to a reconstruction? There are so many unanswered questions that I hope Scotland Yard will review the case with an open mind. Unfortunately due to the unusual way the McCanns took control of their daughters’ disappearence rather than trusting that the police were experts with qualified training,I felt bewildered. Surely you ‘have’ to cooperate with the police? The McCanns seems to be in contempt of the very people who were trying to help them.Usually the parents cooperate fully with a police investigation to maximise the outcome of finding their child. In this case the parents contacted Sky news before the police;Kate refused to answer all questions except one; all refused to do a reconstruction; left their twin children alone immediately ater finding Madeleine gone; hired a publicity firm and conducted themselves in a manner that seemed alien to most people. Too many unanswered questions for me.I hope we will now get some clarity and find little Madeleine, hopefully alive.
Carol and Lisa – Please read this.
LIES, BEATINGS, SECRET TRIALS: THE DARK SIDE OF POLICE HANDLING MADELEINE CASE.
By DAVID ROSE
Last updated at 18:57 16 September 2007
According to his friends, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral of the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria, co-leader of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the Mark Warner Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, is a dedicated and capable detective, determined to do whatever it takes to find her ? or those responsible for murdering her.
As a foreign reporter in Portugal, it is difficult to form a view. Thanks to the country’s stringent judicial secrecy laws, Amaral is officially forbidden from talking to the media.
I confronted the sweaty, corpulent figure in an ill-fitting jacket twice last Friday: the first time at 10am, as he sat slurping coffee and cakes at the Kalahary cafe in Portimao with his colleague, Chief Inspector Guillermino Encarnacao; the second just before 3pm, when the two men made their way from a restaurant to a waiting black Mercedes, in which they were driven 400 yards to meet officials at the courthouse.
The reaction was the same both times: “No speak! No speak!” was all Amaral would say, making a swatting motion as though batting away an insect.
But Amaral’s official silence is not the only difference between him and his counterparts in Britain.
In the UK, it is unlikely he would be leading the McCann inquiry at all.
Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry may never be charged with anything, despite their present status as arguidos, or official suspects, and by the end of last week, apparently well-placed sources were admitting that any case against them is circumstantial and weak.
Amaral, however, is in a similar position. He, too, is an arguido, facing possible trial on a serious criminal charge arising from a murder case brought to court in 2004, the last occasion a little girl vanished in the Algarve.
The Mail on Sunday can today reveal new details of this case, the subject of a draconian judicial order that has stopped most sources who know about the case from talking to the Portuguese Press.
According to the order, documents about the case have been restricted to a handful of officials, while the next stage of the process ? a hearing at which Amaral and four fellow officers may be asked formal questions ? will be conducted in secret.
It is believed that this is set for next month.
Three of Amaral’s senior PJ colleagues have been made suspects for the torture of the missing girl’s mother, Leonor Cipriano, who has been convicted of killing her daughter Joana, aged eight, and jailed for 16 years.
As for Amaral, the claim against him is “omisado de denuncia” ? that he tried to hide the evidence of the alleged torture or, in other words, attempted a cover-up. He is said to deny it strenuously.
In internet blogs and newspaper columns, Amaral’s supporters have claimed that the Cipriano case is built on lies ? a vicious smear against a decent detective trying to do his job.
It has, they say, “no connection” to the Madeleine McCann inquiry.
Experienced lawyers in Portimao, the town 12 miles from Praia da Luz where Amaral is PJ chief, disagree.
The case against the detectives began as a complaint lodged by Cipriano’s lawyer, they pointed out, but has now been adopted by the public prosecutor.
“In order to bring formal charges, the public prosecutor has to believe there is a strong case,” said Oliveira Trindad, who has practised law in the area for more than ten years.
“That means that after assessing all the evidence, he thinks that if the case goes to trial, a conviction is more likely than not.”
That decision is likely to be made well before the McCann case is closed.
There are, to be sure, many differences between Leonor Cipriano and Kate McCann.
But there are also similarities, starting with the fact that although the bodies of their daughters have not been found, Amaral and his PJ colleagues have long been convinced that both girls are dead.
No one would suggest that in the course of the marathon interrogations that preceded their departure from Portugal last weekend, Kate or Gerry McCann were the victims of physical violence.
But at times it seemed they were also being subjected to torment, albeit of a different, psychological kind.
It, too, say Portimao’s criminal defence lawyers, may have been inspired by PJ officers desperate to achieve the end they sought with Cipriano ? a confession.
It isn’t hard to locate the source of some of the McCanns’ current difficulties: Hugo Beaty’s bar.
There, amid the burnt orange concrete of the Estrela apartment complex, a five-minute walk from the Ocean Club, most of the seats along the shady terrace and more inside will be taken all day by reporters with laptops, authors of a daily verbal torrent that has come to seem unstoppable.
After Kate and Gerry’s abrupt return to Leicestershire last Sunday, almost nothing happened in the McCann case last week.
The only verified fact is that after considering a ten-volume PJ dossier about Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, a junior judge in Portimao, decided to grant certain requests made by the prosecutor, Joao Cunha de Magalhaes.
Every news outlet covering the story ? a waterfront that now extends across the whole of Europe to the major American TV networks and even, unbelievably, a paper in war-torn Somalia ? has stated that these requests were for warrants to seize items including Kate McCann’s private diary, Gerry’s computer and (though this seems slightly less certain) Madeleine’s beloved cuddle cat.
There is, however, nothing approaching official confirmation of these claims.
Like everything else about the case, the details of the prosecutor’s approach to the judge are covered, supposedly, by the judicial secrecy laws, under which the penalty ? in theory ? for making unauthorised disclosures is two years in prison.
Thus it is that like almost everything else being broadcast and published beyond Portugal’s borders about the hunt for Madeleine, the claim that the police want to read Kate’s diary has reached its audience via Hugo Beaty’s bar.
Every day there starts the same way shortly after it opens at 9am, with an informal briefing to the foreign Press by a locally resident British woman who normally makes a meagre living acting as an occasional interpreter ? for the Policia Judiciaria.
Every morning, the woman ? who asked me not to publish her name ? goes through the Portuguese tabloids and translates their ever-more febrile articles.
Every afternoon, the foreigners ? almost none of whom can speak more than the most basic Portuguese, nor claim a single, genuine source inside the police investigation ? recycle the tales for consumers abroad.
By the end of last week, some of the assertions made by the Portuguese had become part of a settled consensus.
For example, it was reported from Berlin to Baltimore that the police had already made a photocopy of Kate’s diary ? which, if true, would mean they had broken the law ? and merely wanted to obtain the judge’s approval to use it as evidence.
The reason they are so keen on it, it was alleged, is that it suggests she found her children “hyperactive” and difficult to handle, while railing at her husband’s allegedly dilatory, hands-off approach.
The claims about the diary’s contents were first published on Thursday by Jose Manuel Ribeiro, crime correspondent for the Lisbon daily Diario de Noticias.
By chance I ran into him that same afternoon, outside the apartment where Madeleine disappeared.
I congratulated him on his scoop, but he shook his head, disconsolate. Already, he complained, it was turning to dust.
Ribeiro said he had been given the story by an impeccable inside source, but already officials in Lisbon were denying it, and the source himself could no longer assure him it was true.
“Why is bad information getting out to the public?” he asked. “Because we’re being given it.”
Somehow, however, the denials that had made Ribeiro so angry did not get through to the foreigners.
If the questionable leak had been planted for a purpose ? to increase the pressure on the hapless McCanns ? it may well have succeeded.
And, in the foreign public’s mind, the germinating notion that Kate might have killed her daughter because she could not handle her had been nurtured by a further dollop of manure.
A similar, apparently sanctioned but inaccurate leak had already gone around the world to still more devastating effect.
Early on Monday evening, TV channels began to report that British forensic scientists had made a “100 per cent” DNA match to Madeleine from “biological material” ? said to be hair and “bodily fluids” ? recovered from the Renault Scenic that the McCanns did not hire until 25 days after she vanished, suggesting that they had hidden her body on May 3 and moved it weeks after her death.
With no time for reporters to make checks before their deadlines, the story spread like foot and mouth to almost every British front page the next morning.
It was only in the ensuing days that it began, spectacularly, to unravel.
The match was not 100 per cent after all, it transpired, but 80 per cent or less ? a level that, according to Professor Alec Jeffries, DNA matching’s inventor, might mean that the material had not come from Madeleine at all, but another member of her family.
Even if it had, other experts said, it would prove very little.
Among readers who followed the forensic details, the case against the McCanns had been seen to suffer damage.
But others were left with a clear impression ? that the PJ now believed they had real evidence that the McCanns must have been responsible for Madeleine’s (still unconfirmed) death.
As for those who still harboured doubts, more rococo “revelations” were being published widely by the end of the week, such as the claim that having bundled Madeleine’s body into the car, the McCanns drove it to the marina in nearby Lagos.
There they are said to have hired a boat, swore its owner into their conspiracy, then sailed into the Atlantic, into which they tipped their child, weighted down with rocks.
Could such stories really be part of a conscious PJ strategy? Some lawyers around the Portimao courthouse believe that they could.
“Portuguese journalists aren’t just making this stuff up,” said Oliveira Trindad.
“They are getting it from the police, of course, and the justice officers, the people working for the prosecutors. It’s obvious that some information is coming from the PJ.”
Some of it, he added, appears to be accurate ? so making it that much easier for the same sources to seed disinformation.
Another Portimao lawyer, who asked not to be named, claimed the PJ was fighting a “propaganda war” with the McCanns.
“It is the fault of the British Press,” he said.
“They were the ones who started saying, ‘You’re no good, you’re no good.’
“If you say a lie like that many times, so many people believe it. You cannot blame the PJ for wanting to hit back.”
But there might be another reason.
“Some people think journalists pay their PJ sources,” the second lawyer said, citing a case where an officer from Lisbon is facing criminal charges after being caught red-handed copying secret documents about a fraud case, allegedly for private profit.
“But they also have an interest in the case and its coverage.”
With the forensic evidence apparently confused and contradictory, “it seems the main goal of the PJ now is to get a confession. It’s like in the films, ‘Aha, we have a confession, let’s take them to court.’
“It’s normal to want a confession when they don’t have much else.”
Intense interrogation of the McCanns has so far failed. But perhaps, the lawyer implied, using the media might be another way of applying the third degree.
“I want to believe that the Portuguese police do everything the right way,” said Joao Grade, the lawyer for Leonor Cipriano.
“But sometimes, if they really think someone is guilty, as they did with Leonor, they may find other ways to get what they want. It’s only human.
“When they believe someone has killed a child, it’s normal that they will apply pressure.
“In the McCann case, it seems that the police have what they consider half-proofs.
“But it’s not airtight, it doesn’t interlock, so maybe they need more.”
As he spoke, I found myself recalling British miscarriages of justice: cases such as the Birmingham Six, wrongly convicted of IRA pub bombings that killed 21, where the police, under tremendous pressure to “get a result”, built dishonest but convincing prosecutions based around confessions.
Could the same thing be happening to the McCanns? The pressure on the police is certainly intense.
The loss of a child evokes horror everywhere. On the Algarve, however, the need to solve the case ? and, perhaps, not to leave the fear that Madeleine was killed or abducted by an unknown paedophile ? has other roots as well.
“The Algarve is a family destination, and situations like this are not agreeable to anyone,” said Elderico Viegas, the regional tourism authority president.
“Our reputation for safety is one of our most important values ? especially with the British, who make up our biggest market.”
And Algarve tourism, worth about £2.8billion a year and growing rapidly, is, Viegas said, the single biggest component of the entire Portuguese economy.
The police had, he added, mishandled the media, giving rise to damaging speculation.
“But for me, the details are not important. What’s important is the economy. I was born and brought up here and I can’t remember the last time a tourist was murdered.” So far, he added, visitor numbers this year are up.
Central to many British miscarriages of justice was a shared, deeply ingrained belief among police and prosecutors that their suspects “had” to be guilty.
With the Birmingham Six, it was founded on botched forensic tests that “told” investigators that the men had been handling the explosive nitroglycerine ? false positives that arose because they had been playing with cards coated in the harmless chemical nitrocellulose.
In Praia da Luz, there are signs of a similar mindset at work, derived from equally tendentious “evidence”.
For example, said a local source who knows several of the PJ inquiry team, from an early stage detectives laid great weight on Kate McCann’s apparent composure when she appeared in public.
One of the strangest aspects of Portuguese coverage of the case has been frequent recourse to media psychologists, who have made all manner of deductions about her personality and state of mind by “analysing” her TV image, claiming that the absence of tears and presence of carefully applied make-up indicates a “cold”, “manipulative” or even “psychopathic” personality.
In other words, someone capable of reacting instantly to the death of her daughter, whether deliberate or accidental, by deciding that she had to hide the body and conceal what had happened, and able to persuade her husband and perhaps other “accomplices” to go along with her plot.
Disturbingly, said the local source, such analysis has not been confined to the media.
“Pretty early on, they had forensic psychologists in, studying hours of video footage, drawing extremely unfavourable conclusions about Kate’s personality,” she said.
“You could say she’s been damned by her stiff upper lip.”
There have been reported claims that Kate McCann had “confessed” to killing Madeleine to a local Catholic priest.
But the Rev Hubbard Haynes, the Anglican vicar who lives in Praia da Luz and got closer to the McCanns than anyone during their months in Portugal, refuted them with controlled fury.
A young, passionate Canadian, who took up his post a week after Madeleine’s disappearance, he said: “When I mention Maddie, Gerry and Kate in my own prayers, I find myself weeping.
“I have gone out into the fields and looked in the hedgerows, begging God for some sign that will help us find her, and I have wept because He has not given it to us yet.
“All I can say is that my tears are as nothing to the tears I have seen shed by Kate and Gerry.
“They may not have cried for the cameras, but to say they do not weep in private is facile and offensive.
“The man and woman I have known for the past four months are a couple whose lives have become unbearably empty because their little girl was missing.
“I do not recognise those people in recent media reports, and I find the idea that they had anything to do with her disappearance just inconceivable.
“There is great evil in this world, and someone has taken this child.”
Other aspects of the emerging mindset against the McCanns seemed equally questionable.
Several Portuguese lawyers and journalists, along with a uniformed police officer from the National Republican Guard I spoke to outside the Ocean Club apartment, told me solemnly not only that the McCanns and their friends were “swingers” who had taken their holiday together to indulge in group sex (an assertion made repeatedly by the Portuguese Press), but that “everyone knows” that its tolerance of orgies is the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort’s main selling point.
One afternoon I decided to test this proposition, approaching two holiday reps there, dressed in their red Mark Warner sweatshirts. “Er, is this a good place for swingers, then?” I asked.
They looked at me in total bafflement. “Swingers?” one replied.
“Look around you, sir. Most of our guests are retired, or families with children.”
Another assertion published several times last week is that, on the night that Madeleine disappeared, the McCanns phoned Sky TV before contacting the police ? another claim echoed by the uniformed cop.
Outside the Portimao courthouse, I asked Sky’s reporter Ashish Joshi if he thought this might be true.
He rolled his eyes wearily. “It’s just nonsense,” he said.
“The first anyone at Sky knew about Maddy was when the story appeared on the Press Association wire.
“I was asked about this just yesterday by a Portuguese reporter. I told him it was crap. And this morning, his paper printed it.”
I passed this on to the Republican Guard officer, but he was unmoved.
His unit, he said, had handled the case in its early stages, and from the start he and his colleagues had been convinced there was something fishy about the McCanns.
“My partner was there on the night of May 3,” he said, “and I can tell you, that apartment was full of people, Kate was screaming ? and yet her twins didn’t wake up.
“How do you explain that? They must have been drugged. Nobody on the force believed their story about a kidnap for a moment.
“That little girl is dead, for sure. Soon you will see the truth.”
Why the need for such bizarre allegations? The answer, I believe, is that there is a massive hole at the heart of the emerging PJ theory.
When Madeleine disappeared the McCanns did not have a car.
The Ocean Club is in the middle of a busy resort, and the notion that somehow the McCanns found a way to conceal her without transport, and then went to dinner with their friends as if nothing were amiss is beyond credibility.
One Portuguese journalist suggested to me that they might have hidden her on a scrubby headland a few minutes’ walk away.
But as I found when I attempted to go for a run there, at night it is inhabited by feral dogs, whose barking would have made the digging of some putative shallow grave impossible.
The PJ enjoys a high reputation in Portugal.
“They are ranked among the top five police forces in the world,” attorney Trindad said, albeit admitting he did not know the source of this curious international ranking.
Most PJ officers are graduates, and would-be entrants face severe competition, with a battery of psychometric, physical and academic tests before they can even be considered for the PJ training school.
The force’s Press office likes to compare the PJ to the American FBI: “We are an elite,” spokeswoman Ana Mouro said.
But beneath the veneer, as the case of Leonor Cipriano suggests, the reality can look less impressive.
“She is nothing like Kate McCann,” her lawyer Joao Grade said.
“She is very poor, with maybe only three years of schooling, and her children have several fathers.
“She did not get to meet the Pope and she did not have the support of Sky and the BBC.
“But I tell you this: if Kate had been treated like Leonor, she would have done what Leonor did ? ended by saying, ‘OK, OK, I’m guilty, and this is how I did it.'”
The special judicial order ? imposed on top of the usual Portuguese secrecy ? means not only that Grade is prevented from disclosing virtually anything about the Cipriano case, but that pre-trial hearings of the charges against the detectives, due as soon as next month, will be held in camera.
The Mail on Sunday has established crucial alleged details from other legal sources in Portimao.
After Joana disappeared in September 2004, Leonor was arrested by the PJ in Portimao on October 14 at 8am.
Held there and in the city of Faro without access to a lawyer, she was interrogated without sleep for 22 hours.
Then, after a two-hour respite, she was interrogated again until 7am on October 16.
By this time, as photos published by the Portuguese media make clear, her face was a mass of bruises.
According to Grade: “Not just her face but her whole body was black and blue.”
The police said she “tried to commit suicide” by throwing herself down stairs.
If the alleged torture was to force a confession, it succeeded ? only for Leonor to withdraw it when she finally saw her lawyer the next day.
The supporters of the accused police have claimed that the officers must be innocent because Cipriano could not pick out her alleged attackers in an identity parade.
However, according to the sources in Portimao, this is because they are not alleged to have beaten her themselves, but to have brought in paid thugs.
In any event, she was convicted and sentenced to 21 years.
Last June, this was reduced on appeal to 16 ? though one of the five appeal court judges issued a dissenting opinion, stating that he was convinced she had been assaulted in custody and was innocent.
If the criminal case against the PJ officers does lead to convictions, Grade said, she will appeal again. He has also lodged a case in the European Court of Human Rights.
Strangely enough, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral is not the only link between the Cipriano and McCann cases. Another of the senior officers who is now an arguido is the recently retired Chief Inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao.
He is one of the McCanns’ principal scourges ? not as a detective, but in his new capacity as a columnist for Diario de Noticias, among the most active of Portuguese newspapers in its pursuit of stories about Madeleine derived from leaks.
“There is another link between the Cipriano and McCann cases,” a Portimao lawyer claimed.
“You know, it’s like if Manchester United lose a big game: next week the pressure they have to win is very big.
“The PJ are beginning to worry that now they might lose the Cipriano case.
“If that happens, they have to win with the McCanns.”
Of course, there is yet another connection.
If Leonor Cipriano did not kill Joana, the chances of discovering the truth ? or indeed her body ? are now remote.
And as the McCanns have stated repeatedly, if they are innocent, the enormous effort being poured into trying to blame them is effort diverted from the search for a missing four-year-old girl, and the person or persons who abducted her.
That is a thought so grim that it almost makes one wish that the mindset so evident around Praia da Luz had a real foundation.
My fear is that it has as much solidity as the sandcastles on the beach.
• David Rose has been investigating miscarriages of justice for 25 years and has written several books on the subject.
Jean – TREMENDOUS job you did in presenting your details & views.
In Summary: only God knows for sure,
at least for now! As is their history, Scotland Yard will do a full Public Inquiry at UK Taxpayers’ expense..
about 20-30 years from now.
Hi Best of Spain – I sincerely hope that you are not being sarcastic in your comments? These are not my views, but the evidence as seen by David Rose, although I believe completely in what he has written. Since the article was written Amaral has been convicted and given a suspended sentence in the Cipriano case, and by all accounts, hopefully, will be convicted again in regard to the McCanns. I also hope that Scotland Yard, together with the assistance of some dedicated officers from Portugal, find something that will lead to the discovery of Madeleine, no matter what the cost. I am a UK tax payer and I agree wholeheartedly that this inquiry should continue until the whereabouts of Madeleine are discovered. Unfortunately, it has been nearly five long years before a proper investigation has taken place. If the PJ (Ameral) had done their job properly in the first place on the night of 3 May 2007 Madeleine would most probably have been found, but Amaral was intent on finding her parents guilty, and not finding the child. He was trying to take the easy option as he had previously!!