A PILE of discarded cigarette butts could have been the link to finding missing Madeleine McCann.

A witness claims the discarded butts were found on a shared balcony that had a bird’s eye view of the apartment in Portugal, from where toddler was snatched a few days before her fourth birthday in 2007.

However the tourist, who contacted the police, insists detectives never took vital DNA evidence from them.

She had stayed in the apartment a week after Maddie’s disappearance from Praia da Luz, while on a family holiday.

“You could see the front and back of the building from that view point,” she told detectives.

“It was as if there had been someone stood there for some time smoking.

“I thought that was odd and it could have been someone watching the McCann’s apartment to monitor their comings and goings.”

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230 COMMENTS

  1. Well, was that apartment not cleaned up before that tourist arrived? If even Maddie’s window was cleaned up the day before she disappeared, discarded butts would ceirtainly had been, in that other apartment.
    Why is this witness coming up with this story right now?
    It is made up.

  2. This witness is NOT coming up with it now. This was in Graham McKenzie’s statement which was released with the others 4 years ago. It is dated 12th June 2007. McKenzie is incidentally the man who reported that as early as 11 pm that evening GM was on the phone talking about paed**** gangs. That’s right, everyone else was searching, including McKenzie, but GM was on the phone.

  7. when will the police let me have the address of the car owner i took the reg number of so we can take it out of this line of inquiry,as with nicola payne again the police dig up a common nothing found ,but why will they not tell me if they have checked the sand pits on the other common ,if i am right about the other children why am i wrong about these or perhaps i am not & its the police that are wrong ,as its on there record of what i told them on 15 children plus other events its can not all be coincidence come on kate & gerry get this car reg number checked out ,taken 7th feb 2010 in luz plus video of man & woman plus girl who i say is madeleine

  10. How strange. I was discussing these cigarette butts only last night with somebody and here is the story in The Olive Press now!!

    It was a man who with his wife was moved into this apartment for a few hours after he vacated his original apartment. This often happens in resorts overseas. A courtesy apartment is allocated for tourists to leave possessions and have somewhere to freshen up after handing back the keys to their apartment. We have had this happen when abroad.

    The man reported in a statement back then 2 things and that was he helped search for Madeleine and during the search he overheard Gerry, who he states was visibly distraught, talking to family member about his fear regarding paedophiles. It must be remembered there are many living not far from Praia da Luz and possibly some living in the village. Certainly men whose computers were seized has child porn on said computers.

    But his other concern was the fact that the aprtment he and his family were allocated had a vantage point second to none over the McCanns apartment 5a, both to front and rear of that apartment. And on the balcony where he was standing he noticed a pile of cigarette butts in the corner as if somebody had indeed been standing outside and possibly watching the McCanns movements. Those cigarette ends were never, as far as we know, tested for DNA. It was obviously a MW apartment so they must have had on record who was in that apartment around that time? Was that person/persons ever traced and interrogated?

    The Olive Press story mentions a woman reporting this. So were those cigarette ends still there on the balcony when the keys were given to another holidaymaker? Was the apartment only used for transit inbetween flights home? Is that why it was not cleaned properly?

    Many questions which need answering and the only people who can get the answers are the PJ who let that little girl Madeleine down so very badly in the first instance, the Golden Hours after she was reported missing.

  12. Interesting that in the espacio article the photos are not taken at the same time. The aerial photo shows the thick foliage in the car park as it was in 2007, and the lower one shows it cut down, as it is now. Every one of those apartment balconies faces south so it would be a natural place for anyone to have a quiet smoke and a drink every evening. Quite why that makes it significant, or a “missing link” is entirely unclear.

  14. The photos were not taken at the same time in the Espacio article, but the entrances to the Apt5A back patio and the entrance to the parking area of Apt5A (the entrances used by the Tapas9) were clearly visible despite the thick foliage. The important points are the two entrances and the street path between the two …

  15. I am making comment on this because the woman who calls herself a criminal profiler in USA has poo-pooed this on twitter whereas I think there should have been more investigations at the time and those cigarette butts should have been tested for DNA. It was the ideal apartment and was obviously being used as a transit apartment with various short stops. Who was in there on the nights leading up to Madeleine’s abduction? I would want to know.

  17. When Jean calls the PJ the “Keystone Kops”, she sounds as bad as Tony Parsons famous “sardine muncher mouth”… but I can handle that. I’m a bloody sardine eater with a sense of humor.

    Now, let me analyze the “cigarette butt DNA” argument. Let’s say the Police had collected those cigarette butts and had them analyzed for DNA.

    Then the Police would need to find someone to match the DNA.
    So, to who should they try to match this cigarette butts DNA?

    All the alleged pedophiles in the area? The McCanns? The Tapas 7 group? Everyone at Praia da Luz?

    Let’s even admit that, amazingly, they could find someone who’s DNA matched the DNA on those cigarette butts.

    Since smoking in front of a house is a bit “thin” to charge someone for kidnapping I guess the Police could accuse this smoking man of… hum… littering?

  18. Pericles, I know your name of old and please believe me that I am not running Portugal down but the investigation by this group of officers was not good. We have a young girl Tia Sharp just gone missing a week ago here in UK and the police are seen to be working hard and are I believe on the point of making an arrest.

    Those cigarette butts should have been analysed IMO and whoever was in that apartment at the time should have been interrogated deeply. This would be normal procedure surely?

    If swabs had been taken from everyone in PdL then the DNA could have been matched.

    Madeleine is still a missing person and we will support her parents until the day she is found and hopefully that will be soon and praying she will be alive.

  22. Marli here is the extract from HIS statement

    It was across the road from the McCann’s apartment and the public balcony overlooked the side of their building and the road. You could actually see the front and back of the building from that view point. I noticed on the balcony that there was a pile of cigarette butts as if there had been someone stood there for some time smoking. I thought that was odd , and it could have been someone watching the McCann’s apartment to monitor their comings and goings.

  24. Pam and Rachel are alias of the Spanish guy who writes Espacio Exterior, a fraudulent guy and a lunatic – as you can clearly read in the above ramblings. So, Heriberto will we see you in jail soon? You and Birch should get together, birds of a feather and all that….

    As to this story, this is the Olive Press, all of their articles in the past about the McCann case have been biased, misinformed, or have been simple attempts, like this one, to push the “abduction” fairy tale and simultaneously get some extra copies sold in Spain. Only fools will believe their rehashed stories.

  25. The sardines were not that good today so I went for the red mullet instead. Now, back to Olive Press.

    Pam, you say “if swabs had been taken from everyone in PdL then the DNA could have been matched.”

    Clearly, you have no idea of the number of people in Praia da Luz!!! In the summertime, you have probably more than 5.000 people staying there.

    Do you really want to convince us that the British Police (or any other police in the world) has ever taken swabs to 5.000 persons at one point in time to solve a case?

    Please… not even Zezé Camarinha can go that far.

  27. @ The Truth. Please if you are truly for Madeleine speak the truth for her.

    Heriberto is a criminal psychologist who travelled to Praia da Luz quietly and without all the publicity of teh American woman who is just a big mouthed talking head.

    There is no way on earth Heriberto should be spoken of in this unkind way by yourself as he is a really lovely man and I am not an alias of him…silly!!

    You do yourself no favours by your attitude.

  29. @The Truth What evidence can you show about the “guy who writes Espacio Exterior” to be a fraudulent and a lunatic guy … How fraudulent? How lunatic? I follow his blog and did not see any evidence of what you say …

  30. @Rachel. The person calling themselves The Truth is talking absolute rubbish. Heriberto is not fraudulent, he is a very intelligent and calm, cool and collected criminal psychologist. He knoes his stuff and his blogs are extremely worthy of reading.

  33. Yes Stefanjo they constantly do this. The tweeters and bloggers are at it constantly. Poor people with very sad souls.

    Madeleine is a missing child who needs finding and the sooner the better. All the lies and disinformation flooding the internet from a few either sick minded or very gullible people is upsetting to see and I wonder how the Mccanns find the strength to survive this knowing it is going on in the background. Can you imagine if this was going on about yourself?

    But they have to be strong and get on with it if they are to find their Madeleine.

  34. police search house of tia sharp grand mother find body been there a week ,it looks like someone was not doing there job ,as with madeleine mccann what are they missing by not checking the car reg number i gave them plus the video ,plus how did i tell a friend it was going to happen 2 days before she went missing nobody checked with my friend or even seen me about it apart from me going over to leicester police with my video so they could copy it ,it now appears they did not do a copy of it ,as they cannot pass it on to operation grange paul burns ,so i am the only person with a video of madeleine taken 7to8th feb 2010 in luz .

  35. Well it seems the Met were a bit slow on this one, believing the abduction theory, they brought in the sniffer dogs then later on Thurs the cadaver dogs and BINGO Tia is found. Poor child. Why if someone says your child is buried under a patio would you not search there, I would claw at the ground with my bare hands, the parents get detectives to check out all the obscure sightings, why not this. Mrs McCann should have come out and said something about Tia being missing and now her fate, she is the ambassador, is she not. 99% of child abductions are done by family, friends or known to them as stated this week by the Yorkshire Police spokesman .

  36. Derek,

    Gooodness only knows what took the Met a whole 8 days to find Tia Sharp, but one thing it proves and which was stated by a DI from the Met on television yesterday evening is that the sniffer dogs in his own words are “susceptible to being wrong”. So they did not scent the odour of death as some are now proclaiming that they did.

    If I were you I would ring Operation Grange yourself and give them your info regarding the registration number etc. They are always kind and listen and take down everything informants give them including of course your own info to get back to you. So please do not hesitate in contacting them.

    I believe you are a psychic? Again, the Met are using psychics info now on Madeleine’s case as they did on Tia Sharps. So please do not feel foolish about submitting your findings whether psychic or as in the photos, very real.

  38. @ Alison,

    The dogs did not find Tia as stated by the Met DI on tv last night.

    He stated that these dogs have a susceptibility to being wrong. So that was straight from the horses mouth and there can be no denying that he is right.

    The dogs DID NOT pick up on Tia.

  40. They didn’t bring cadaver dogs in until the end of the week, why would ordinary sniffer dogs be able to find a cadaver, they are trained to find a totally different scent, ie, scent from the childs clothes, at that time they were looking for a living child. How anyone can dispute this fact about the dogs is wrong on so many levels, especially not helpful in finding the missing.

  41. I would very much like to know how is it possible to see BOTH the front and the back of the apartment at the same time!? Not even from a lateral point, I mean, from a building on the other side of the street from the entrance to the Ocean Club, would it be possible. If you know the location you would know this is not possible.
    And about the cigarettes, well, many people don’t smoke inside the apartments, they do it on the balcony, because they don’t want to upsettheir family, to protect their children and the “other-half” from second-hand smoking. Also, I bet there were plenty of cigarette buts on the street outside apartm. 5A, should the police have collected them all for forensics?!
    This is just another bullshitt tale,”para encher chouriços”, as the portuguese say!

  42. The fact remains all such evidence should have been picked up on. I agree most people would smoke outside nowadays but from this apartment the witness stated he could see both front and back of the apartment 5a. And yes, if necessary pick up other butts from outside of 5a…absolutely.

  43. @ Alison. the dogs went into Tia Sharp’s grandmothers on Wednesday. IF they had picked up on a scent the police would have been straight in. That was not the case and a senior DI from The Met stated “the dogs have a susceptablity to being wrong”. That to me is as clear as the nose on my face.

  44. @Roseanne

    Here are the photos which show how is it possible to see BOTH the front and the back ENTRANCES of the apartment (THE MCCANNS AND TAPAS7 USED) at the same time:

    “http://espacioexterior.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/monitoring-mccanns-activities.html”

  45. Thank you Rachel.

    Trouble is there are a certain number of people who just do not want to believe Madeleine may well be alive. They would rather she be dead and then they can continue on their hate campaign against her parents. So very unfair and unkind.

    Better I feel to assume that as no body has ever been found and going on what we know to be FACT and not fiction as made up by some of these sad people, Madeleine is somewhere and she needs to be found and whoever has done this dreadful deed needs to be brought to book.

    Do we leave these people to carry on with their child trafficking and therefore making this world an unsafe place for our children or do we do something positive and help as much as we can to find this child and with her perhaps it will lead us to others?

    I think I know which is the best thing to do and the best way as a human being (with empathy and humility/humanity) to be reacting to Madeleine’s plight and it is not in witch hunting her parents.

  46. pam ,if you click on derek spring coventry ,you can read my 4 stories of visits to luz plus how does a girl speak to you asks you have i come to take her home telepathy if you know what i mean looks like her i say it was her with contact lens in ,regard police if they lost the video what the point sending them another one at my cost & get no reply does the car number still belong to this couple was it madeleine prove me wrong thats all i ask one phone call .d cameron passed it to home office they passed it to met police to reply still waiting 1 year on for a reply

  48. Hi Derek,

    It doesn’t mean they have discarded your evidence so please don’t think that at all. They probably are looking at it together with thousands of other bits and pieces of information sent into them and yours could be one of the 200 and more leads.

    I will take a look at your stories Derek, thank you.

    I, like you and so many thousands of others here on the internet, believe Madeleine was abducted and is still alive and findable. If only more had been done in the beginning!!

  49. @ PM. I think one could tell immediately that something was wrong with this family as everything pointed to it being dyfunctional.

    But I do not see this with the McCann. I see a couple wrought with anxiety and heartbreak and yes, they are nervous in front of the cameras because they know full well every single word, smile, gesture is going to be dissected by the more disbelieving element of society. This in no way implies guilt though does it?

  50. Interesting that people are saying the dogs got it wrong. In fact it was the HUMANS who refused to believe what the dogs were telling them. The HUMANS kept insisting that they had checked the loft, and that therefore the dogs’ alerting MUST have been a false positive. Clearly the SIO refused to disbelieve the dogs, and organised the full search, yet again, KNOWING that the body was there, but that the HUMANS had failed. Not the dogs. That is why the Met are publicly and openly admitting it was HUMAN error. Not canine.

  51. The dogs have a certain degree of reliability, there is no denying this fact, but not 100% reliable and that dear PM is a fact.

    The dog taken in on Friday may have alerted properly, we just do not know, but I watched and listened to 2 Senior Detectives saying that they are susceptible to being wrong. Straight from the horses mouth eh?

  53. What was actually said twice was “dogs are susceptible to being wrong” Alison, with all due respect.

    We do need these dogs and I am not disrespecting them as I know dog handlers myself who work in Afghanistan and places like that and they are absolutely first class but cadaver dogs do not always alert correctly and can be unreliable and are used only as a tool to aid investigations and not as proof of anything.

  55. Maybe Alison. But there is absolutely no point in the anti Mccann brigade saying “dogs don’t lie”….of course they don’t lie and that mantra annoys me intensely, but the dogs are not always right and as there was absolutely no proof of any wrong doing on the part of Madeleine’s parents, I find it quite unacceptable and disgusting that they try and sway people into the way of believing there was proof and that they did harm their beloved child.

    The McCanns are a wonderful couple who are working so very hard for not only Madeleine but for others too. I admire them greatly and will support them for as long as it takes to get Madeleine home.

  57. There are numerous stories out there about the Cadaver dogs, I have never come across a negative alert, never in all my time as a trainer. It may take a couple of indications but always 100%. Cadaver dogs will not alert to anything belonging to a living person, all that you may have read is totally wrong, we have sniffer dogs solely for that purpose. Our dogs are in great demand worldwide, we cannot keep up with all the requests. People do not hate the parents of Madeleine, they want her found and the perpetrators arrested. The dogs have spoken.

  59. @ Alison. I do not believe you are a trainer and especially not by the way you have stated “the dogs have spoken” TRASH! Could you please tell me where you train as I would like to have a word in the managers ear.

    @ Reality….there is a chance Madeleine is no longer with us yes, but as there is absolutely NO PROOF of that then she remains a missing and ultimately findable young girl.

  61. I am afraid PM I don’t see Alison as a professional dog trainer other than pet dogs perhaps. She doesn’t speak with any knowledge.

    You are all entitled to your opinions but mine is that Madeleine is alive and findable and to write her off in the way you people wish to do is nothing more than negligent of the facts.

    I also come from a place where multi thousands of us are of the same opinion and work at finding ways to help keep her name alive and her face high profile too.

    Thank God above you come from a place of a few disbelieving sad souls.

  62. Funny then how 2 very senior Scotland Yard detectives have said in the past couple of day in interviews that the dogs are susceptible to being wrong. How do you answer that one?

    And how do you answer ACPO saying that Grime should not work his dogs in PdL and that officers using the terminology “scent of death” are very wrong to do so?

    Where are you serving in the police Alison? I have many dogs here on the doorstep, so to speak, and they are fully trained sniffer dogs. I agree they are wonderful animals and have great use in every field of detection as a tool.
    what they alerted to in PdL is anybody’s guess because no proof of human decomposition was ever found.
    However

  63. Snippet from Daily Mail:

    “Officers had previously conducted a full search of the house and a second sweep using dogs trained to detect dead bodies. Colleagues suspect the body was behind a door connecting the loft to that of an adjacent property.

    Sources claimed a team who spent two hours searching the property last Sunday did not check the neighbouring loft space because they needed a search warrant.

    A further search of Sharp’s house began on Friday morning when a junior officer insisted a sniffer dog was ‘indicating’ towards a bedroom ceiling. The officers themselves could also smell decomposition.

    Initially a senior officer co-ordinating the search said the loft had already been checked but was persuaded to change his mind.

    Colleagues lifted the loft hatch and saw a large ‘container’, possibly a rigid suitcase, containing Tia’s body with her arms and legs sprawled outside.” :((

    Not that I take the DM’S word as law, but I would think that is a pretty accurate description of what happened…………

    _________________

  64. @jean on Aug.10

    Daily Mail: “Tia Sharp’s step-grandad held over her murder… but why did it take police a week and THREE searches to discover her body in granny’s home?”.

    So, who’s the “Keystone Cops” now?

  65. Debbie,
    Quite so. The dogs were right, it was the humans who refused to believe them. Human error, as the senior police officer has admitted. And I do not blame anyone for hoping or praying or wishing that Madeleine were still alive, any more than I think the people who did all that printing of T shirts and keeping candlelit vigils in south London were not entitled to do what they thought might help. But it didn’t.

  66. Actually the DM is correct on this one Debbie, why some people insult the dogs and or handlers, is a travesty, Martin was asked to go with his dogs to Portugal, he didn’t just turn up, there is legal protocol to go through before hand. After Portugal he took them to the US and again with positive results arrests were made.

  67. I really would not believe any red top newspapers and wait instead for the official story to be announced.

    Tia was found in the loft space in a sheet then this was put into a black bin liner from what I am reading on ticker on the news.

    I have no doubt at all the dogs are useful and have never said otherwise, but what I am telling you, and it came straight from the horses mouth, is that they are susceptible to getting it wrong.

    If the officers could smell decomposition on Friday then quite obviously the dogs would. So it proves nothing other than they are a valuable tool but not foolproof by any standards.

    I have no doubt Portugal have really good police officers Pericles, but the ones who were investigating Madeleine were not particularly good were they and by Amaral’s own admission did many things wrong.

    I agree that if I had been leading the Tia Sharp investigation then those houses would have been ripped apart almost immediately, but for some reason it didn’t happen, so what did go wrong? At least the Met have put their hands up immediately and said that “human error” was to blame for the delay in finding Tia and bearing in mind that she was probably next door in their loft to begin with, that is understandable.

    Pericles I am in no way a xenophobe…you are Portuguese I believe? Portugal is a beautiful country with beautiful people, but there have been abductions there over the past two decades as you well know. There are abductions everywhere and child trafficking is seemingly getting a hold and it must not be allowed to, so instead of having this Portugal v Britain argument, why not join in and try and get something positive done to ensure these criminals do not get away with this in the future. Are we to leave it as it is and feel our children are at risk for the rest of time?

  68. @ Alison. Martin Grime was on his de-mob leave when he went to PdL. He went there with NPIA turning a blind eye and ACPO being rather perturbed about it as his license was running out and in any case ACPO felt he would lead the whole working sniffer dogs into disrepute…funny how ACPOs fears have come into fruition really?

    You have yet to tell me which force you work for, or are you just a disobedient dog trainer (pets)?

  70. Police sniffer dogs used to find missing people and dead bodies “urgently” need better training and monitoring, according to an official report.

    The Government’s National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) said specialist victim recovery dogs are not trained to approved standards, with no way of gauging their competence.

    The NPIA reviewed the use of the specialist sniffer dogs two years ago, but its report has only now surfaced following a request by Sky News.

    “There is no consistency in what the dogs can do and how it is done,” the report states.

    “Furthermore, there is no national standard for accrediting dogs and handlers or record keeping of the success rate they achieve.”

    The report added the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have “the potential to cause complications in an inquiry”.

  72. Oh Alison you cheeky thing!

    I still do not believe you are a sniffer dog handler. If you are please provide me with proof.

    The above was from the NPIA so are you disputing this and there is more somewhere. Coupled with the 2 senior Metropolitan Police Officers who this week stated that the dogs are susceptible to being WRONG…what other conclusion can we come to except that the dogs are NOT ALWAYS RIGHT and cadaver dogs can actually HAMPER THE INVESTIGATIONS!!

    What was it you wanted me to goggle regarding yourself? I would need your actual name in full.

  73. John Best says:
    25/03/2011 at 15:13

    Interesting to see the authors of this report are from the NPIA. This is the organisation who supported a retired dog handler whilst he searched in Portugal and Jersey, against the wishes of the ACPO police dog working group who could see the Police being bought into disrepute. Some of his outrageous comments around finding “the smell of death” are believed by police officers around the country. Victim recovery handlers are often asked, “has your dog found the smell of death”

    Victim recovery dogs and handlers are licensed to set ctiteria, something the NPIA sponsored dog never was. This criteria is about to be updated in the new Training and Care manual. The ACPO police dog working group and the NPIA were in a constant battle with regards the retired handler. Not often budget cuts can be applauded, on this occasion they can, the NPIA is about to be scrapped!!
    surreywebmaster says:
    25/03/2011 at 16:05

    Thank you John for posting this comment. As the Police Dog School Manager you are in a position to know the latest information on this and as usual it looks as though Sky have not reported all there is to know in this.
    surreywebmaster says:
    26/03/2011 at 17:26

    I have received the following from a serving officer in relation to the Sky News report, which explains a great deal including the fact that the dogs in question were not police dogs at all but private security dogs with allegedly dubious credibility:

    It was again Sky who reported in Jersey that it was Police Dogs involved in the search, watching from here l was shouting at the TV that it was not. Sky just assumed or thought it would be more newsworthy l presume…or did the private security handler not give them the correct info or any info at all.

    l have entered a reply on Sky News’s discussion board as l was a tadge annoyed by the so called experts at The NPIA, which is to be closed under the cuts, and Sky News typical ‘lets cause a row’ type of reporting.

    Firstly lets remember that the report that is mentioned by Sky is in fact two years old so things have changed and are still changing in Victim Recovery dogs training.

    The main discussion points are around Portugal and Jersey and the employment of a private company earning reputedly 1k a day plus expenses…l think l would blow my own trumpet if l could rake in that sort of money.

    These two particular dogs were owned and worked by ex Police Officer Martin Grime, were not licensed in any way, and on the many occasions he was offered to attend a Regional School anywhere in the country to be assessed he declined.

    I know of many more stories regarding this individual and his ‘trail of death’ dogs and he is not a favourite of mine, he has set us back in the forensic expert world due to the two main stories.

    As to whether or not the dogs did indicate something l do not think we will ever know….if only they could speak eh. If they did indicate something it could have been from anything, in the apartment in Portugal someone else could have injured themselves and left traces of blood…unfortunately the samples taken from the ‘find’ were insufficient to give any DNA readings….

    The Jersey scene could have been exactly the same but l think someone needed to engage brain before speaking on this one…and l have yet to see anything conclusive on what he allegedly found.

    Re a cover up…Why, if there was enough evidence to prosecute then why didn’t they…?

    Finally from this ramble….. Regarding training we have an initial six week course and have for the last five years, with the usual one day a month and two one week refreshers annually. The new ACPO Manual draft is out and it has a comprehensive national policy on the training and handling of Victim Recovery dogs with I believe 10 or 11 disciplines that the teams have to pass competency tests on.

    Don’t forget there have been many successes with these dogs and no doubt some failures.. some of which we do not know about. But we have found 11 bodies since we have been going and two murder weapons discarded some distance from the scenes…and some lucky ones amongst us have been to Ascension Island on a job. We regularly attend POLSA conferences and give talks and demos..

  74. @PM “This witness is NOT coming up with it now. This was in Graham McKenzie’s statement which was released with the others 4 years ago. It is dated 12th June 2007.” You are wrong with the date, it is 6th December 2007. The confusion is for the way the date is written: 6/12 or 12/6 …

  75. @PM See here: “http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GRAHAM-MCKENZIE.htm” pages 3903 to 3908 from the original Polícia Judiciária of Portugal Files. McKenzie statement about the cigarettes butts was on December 6th. 2007.

  76. Thank you John, another expert with the elderly woman, you can find so many stories on the internet, I’ll be sure to make a print out and take it in tomorrow. We are doing it wrong, after just receiving numerous awards.

  78. Oh dear Pam, do stop making it up as you go along won’t you, it is laughable at the very best, it also helps if you could back up your spurious points but we all know you cannot, not to worry pet

    PS Derek Spring if you are so psychic do pray tell where Maddie was on the night of 3rd May and with whom, cheers

  79. Suffice to say for some reason some people are chewing carpets in order to attempt, note attempt, failed, to discredit these wonderful le dogs, why go to such attempts if it is clear they are as the Gerry McCann says so useless, answers on a postcard :)

  80. June, I am not making this up, it is on the internet for anybody to access and comes from reliable sources.

    The dogs while being of use to the police are not always accurate in their findings. That is not made up as I go along dear, that is fact.

    Why should I be chewing carpets? If there had been any chance the dogs in PdL alerted to Madeleine I would be interested. As it is, I am certain they didn’t so am not interested.

  81. Pam – “Furthermore, there is no national standard for accrediting dogs and handlers or record keeping of the success rate they achieve.”

    This is probably the most interesting thing in all of the discussion. If there is no record keeping of the success rate of the dogs then we really have no way of knowing how accurate they are at all.

    I do know that in the USA and Australia most police divisions do keep track of the true positive/false positive rate of drug sniffing dogs. And many are no more accurate than 50/50. There have been cases of charges being dropped (despite actually finding drugs!) simply because the dog had a bad track record of signaling false positives. This meant that the positive signal could not be considered sufficient reason to perform a search, thus the evidence was inadmissible.

    Related to that is the “clever Hans” effect – where an animal will signal based on the unconscious behaviors of the handler.

    The other problem with the accuracy of dogs is that one can only measure true/false positives. There is no way of measuring a true negative in the field. This means that for every missing person that isn’t found, body not found, drugs not detected, etc. it is impossible to know if there really was no person/body/drugs or if the dog simply failed to detect it.

  82. My word you have been busy, amazingly you have found us out, thank g-d for the internet. We shall stop using dogs full stop according to the elderly women on Olive Press. Well done. See you also post on my friends page, he is also in awe of you. Keep it up.

  83. Precisely so Reality as was stated by the ACPO manager I believe. He stated in that article or in something I was reading last night that in the time the dogs ahd been in operation (this up to Madeleine’s time so 2007) the dogs had only had 11 positive hits and many negative (for want of a word) deployments. The manager said that these dogs may have missed vital clues in those deployments but there was no way of knowing. He also stated that the dogs had positively found “some” weapons, So where do these people who will defend the dogs get that Grime’s dogs alerted positively over 200 times on their own? The whole team in UK hadn’t even been out to that many cases. I think I saw somewhere a figure of around 85 cases (up until that time) and they were shared out to the appropriate handler. Goodness the UK only needed Grime if he was so good!

  87. What statements are you talking about June? Do you have back up for anything you say on this matter of missing Madeleine other than the pjfiles which may not be totally accurate and which have parts missing? All open to misinterpretation I am afraid.

    But please tell me just what proof you have Madeleine came to harm and I beg you do not come out with that same old mantra “dogs don’t lie”!

  88. Rachel,August 11th, 2012 2:23 pm, wrote:

    “@Roseanne

    Here are the photos which show how is it possible to see BOTH the front and the back ENTRANCES of the apartment (THE MCCANNS AND TAPAS7 USED) at the same time:

    “http://espacioexterior.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/monitoring-mccanns-activities.html ”

    Rachel, thank you, but…

    “La página que estabas buscando en este blog no existe.”

    Roseanne

  91. Do I need proof PM? What I will say is that other abductions have occurred in that region over the past few years and as there is absolutely no proof of harm ever coming to Madeleine in the apt 5a, then we must surely assume she has been abducted and could be alive.

    So the right and proper thing to do is to continue to search the world for her.x

  92. In a court of law the prosecution first has to prove that a crime has been committed, and then that the accused committed it. In one sense of course you are right. YOU do not have to have proof of an abduction. You are free to believe the assertion without any supporting evidence. That is your privilege. And as you admit you are doing nothing more than making an assumption. But you must understand that others, police, lawyers, and the rest, even journalists from time to time, do need some evidence to go on. The statement from KM that “I knew” is not likely to be sufficient to secure a conviction.

  93. Look PM, there is no proof Madeleine came to any kind of harm in apartment 5a is there? No DNA, nothing, nada, zilch!

    Therefore the only reasonable conclusion is that she has been abducted and I and many thousands here online (alone) support that theory.

    And as there is no proof of harm, nothing, nada, zilch…then the right and proper thing is to keep looking for her. Agreed?

    We would feel the same if it had happened to one of yours.

  94. Pam in over 200 case searches…….. PDL case alone had over a dozen searches for the cadaver dog, each case is different

    As to my providing back up for anything I have posted which you have a problem with, do quote me and I shall provide though having said that I haven’t made any hyperbolic statements as you have so hardly need to back anything up

    lastly the very fact that a highly trained cadaver dog with a very successful track record alerted over and over again around the whereabouts last of mad die McCann doesn’t seem to phase you one bit, does in itself, raise many questions, the simplest being, it should do so why not

  95. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence Pam, but it’s a free country, you can BELIEVE what you like but you have no riight whatsoever to tell others what to think or to disdainfully brush evidence under a carpet and also state falsehoods, hope that is understood

  97. So what…you are going to ignore the fact she has been? Is that the right way to react? I don’t think so June.

    No proof of any harm should, in my opinion mean we keep vigilant for this little girl and find out where she is and who has taken her. That is the human, caring way to be.

  98. June, please explain to me what 200 cases you are on about? I do not understand your comments there at all? Are you inferring Grime and his dogs worked 200 cases because these figures are grossly exaggerated. The whole police dog squad in UK had only worked about 85 cases in total up to that date and they were shared among all of the handlers!!

  99. Pam Pam Pam

    Did you not understand my post, I thought it was clear enough, Mr Grime in his report states that in over 200 case searches the cadaver dog has not falsely alerted….now…. This means Eddie performed over 200 searches by the time that report was written… now….this has nothing to do with actual criminal cases but actual searches, ie in the mad die case Eddie was deployed in over a dozen places, in other cases he could have been deployed to search one two a dozen or more places, get it now?

  100. June June June dear…I have read much on this case and have researched the dogs and have read, and at times posted, that the entire Dog Squad of UK had NOT been deployed on that many cases between them…around 85 shared. Now do you understand that June? The dogs Eddie and Keela did NOT go out on over 200 cases. It would have been impossible.

    And no I don’t accept 200 searches either…sorry old bean! This was grossly exaggerated.

    And the dogs do NOT have anywhere near 100% accuracy regarding alerts. In fact the ACPO have said that they cannot even say that the dogs in general have alerted to many positives at all and as for negatives, well as they are not registered there may have been a great many and a great many misses where there should have been a positive.

  101. Pam – “No proof of any harm should, in my opinion mean we keep vigilant for this little girl and find out where she is and who has taken her.”

    True – but for a limited time. How long are people expected to pour resources into a multi-national search for a missing girl? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of missing children at any given time. Why does this one deserve more attention than any of the others? There seems to be a large bias for certain cases as far as the attention they get in the media and the resources that are devoted to them from the police (and ultimately the taxpayers – the ones paying for it). Just ask yourself – why this particular girl and not one of the other thousands of missing children? It sounds callous, but law enforcement has to be pragmatic. The freshest cases are the most likely to be solved – they deserve the most resources and attention.

    I would chalk this up to “keep an eye open, but she’s probably dead.”

  102. Reality, we are concerned about ALL missing children but until Madeleine disappeared we had no idea just how many have gone missing and still go missing,

    Madeleine has captured the hearts of people from every corner of the globe and will continue to until the day she is found.

    Taxpayers are having to fund much less worthy causes than this review Reality. There are many things we grumble about having to share the burden of, but not this case. The money shared between each tax payer in the country would mean we contribute less than a 1p each I should imagine. Not an awful lot to worry about but the end result may have wonderful results in not only finding Madeleine but perhaps some of the other children who have gone missing in much the same way.

  103. Wow Pam – you seem to be getting quite a battering from various sources – but I applaud your persistance and would like to add that I for one agree with everything that you have said. The McCanns are completely innocent of any aspect of Madeleine’s disappearance, the only problem I have is that they left their children alone in an unlocked apartment. But, that was naivety and nothing else, as practically everyone has done the same sort of thing at some time or another, and put their children at risk (even though they would never admit to it!!) I have supported the McCanns ever since 3 May 2007 and will continue until Madeleine is found. In my opinion she is still alive, and will eventually be found. These ‘doubting Thomas’s’ are nothing but a hinderance to all concerned, and I wish that they could be ‘got rid of’ in the ‘nicest possible way’ but unfortunately I have battled with them for the last five years and they show no sign of abating. So, I keep my thoughts to myself, (except for tonight when I feel you need some support) because whatever you say, and whatever arguments you put forward they always have an answer, whether it be right or wrong. Just keep having a positive attitude Pam, don’t argue with the losers, and feel as I do that Madeleine will eventually be found. My message to the non-believers/anti-McCann brigade is that the Metropolitan Police must believe that she is still findable or else they wouldn’t have spent all this time scouring the documents, and making the statements that they have without some sort of proof. As for all the other missing ‘children’ the majority are found, the rest are teenagers or early 20’s who leave home because of family disputes and don’t want to be found. Never before has a 3 year old gone missing in such circumstances in a foreign country – and this is very bad news for not only the country but also for the tourist trade. By the way has anyone read about the 12 year old called Jack who nearly got abducted in the Canaries? last week – his parents likened it to the Madeleine McCann case. Were they negligent by letting their son walk to their bungalow on his own to get his sweater? Nuf said!!

  104. As far as the comment from PM is concerned …. PM
    August 16th, 2012 6:15 pm

    Pam. Do you have, or know of any proof that Madeleine was abducted ? Any evidence, other than a report of a missing child ?

    My question to you PM is – if Madeleine was not abducted where is she? If the McCann’s had killed her by accident where did they put the body? Surely if the sniffer dogs are so good why haven’t they found her? A three year old child is rather too large to hide, especially in the freezer that has previously been suggested.

    You should all seriously think about the possibilities and perhaps post some of your theories, and we will then discuss how impossible it would have been for the McCanns to have hidden the body. Then perhaps you may realise that this child might actually have been abducted, and you are all wrong!!

  105. Jean – “As for all the other missing ‘children’ the majority are found, the rest are teenagers or early 20?s who leave home because of family disputes and don’t want to be found.”

    Ah, ‘children’ in parenthesis. Because it is a rare occurrence. The others must not be actual ‘children’.

    According to NISMART (National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children) there are actually 800,000 children reported missing each year, with a majority (200,000) abducted by family members, relatives or people they know, and a smaller number (58,000) abducted by strangers.

    A related set of statistics (Case Management for Missing Children Homicide) found that almost 80% of abducted children who are found deceased are murdered were murdered within the first three days of abduction. And – very importantly here if this young girl was not abducted by her family – in non-familial abductions 76% of the children abducted are murdered.

    This means that there is a 76% percent chance that she is dead if someone took her. And that it most likely happened years ago.

    There is a saying in law enforcement that the first 24 hours are crucial. I believe that there is even a pseudo-documentary type show called the ‘First 24’. Essentially, if sufficient evidence isn’t collected in the first 24 hours to solve a kidnapping, robbery, murder, etc. then the chances of it ever being solved drop dramatically. It becomes a cold case. And cold cases need to go on the back burner so that the police can focus on cases that actually have a chance of being solved.

    So, just based on the facts, I am skeptical that she would still be alive. It is possible, but is it justified to focus so much attention on this one child when there are 800,000 others who receive little to no attention?

    Or what about other issues completely? For every newspaper slot about a girl missing for 5 years there could, instead, be news about something perhaps more significant going on in the world. It doesn’t take long to locate “thousands of X massacred/tortured/killed/trafficked/etc.” in news slightly less myopic than the Olive Press. (How about the 300,000 babies kidnapped in Spain?)

    Or what about only focusing on other missing children? People are reporting seeing this young girl more than they report seeing Elvis. Those picture slots could be filled up with photos of children who actually went missing recently (i.e. first 24) – thus helping to solve missing child cases that are actually solvable.

    Jean – “Never before has a 3 year old gone missing in such circumstances in a foreign country”

    I do not know if it is true that a ‘3 year old’ has never gone missing in ‘such circumstances’ in a foreign country. These qualify and narrow the statement – even if another child is missing it would still be factually true that they are not ‘such circumstances.’ This could actually be said about every abduction, the circumstances are always different.

    However, children do go missing in foreign countries – including Spain – often. And are also never found, or found dead. You can search “child missing in Spain” or “kidnapped in Spain” and see all of the results. Just on the front page I am seeing another British girl missing, an American boy missing, a boy from Norway missing, etc. So the case isn’t anything special or unique.

  106. Reality. Madeleine has captured our hearts as I mentioned before. Perhaps that is because there was such media coverage from the start and also because her parents have kept her image out there as any loving parent would want to do, although not many have the strength or knowledge of how to go about doing so. I applaude the McCanns for their tenacity.

    Madeleine’s abduction has also highlighted the vast numbers of children who are missing and you can bandy statistics all you like but if there is a glimmer of hope then we should continue searching and as I said earlier, in finding Madeleine we may just uncover some of the other children ~ maybe some of the 300,000 babies in Spain who you mention have been trafficked. I personally knew nothing of this problem before Madeleine’s abduction but it is seemingly quite a major problem in the region.

    U have no problem with the very rare media story about Madeleine and cannot understand for the life of me why you should. Most “red tops” are full of meaningless and uninteresting twaddle anyway. So Madeleine gets mentioned at times because there has been a sighting (always blamed on the McCanns) or the police have made a statement. What is your problem Reality? You’d rather read more rubbish about the X Factor or Big Brother winners would you?

    I would think it a great move on the part of these newspapers if they were to dedicate a page or even centre spread to these children each and every day ~ that would be worthwhile. However never moan about coverage for Madeleine please, because the vast majority of people here in UK and across the world do care about her and want her found and will help in any way they can. That proves to me that human kindness is not a thing of the past although I cringe at the hatred the few on forums/facebook/twitter spew from their nasty minds.

  107. Hello Jean, Thank you for coming in with some support here.It has amazed me that more haven’t done so as the majority of people throughout the world are supporting this continued search for Madeleine.

    I have become the most hated name on the internet because I voice my opinions FOR the McCanns. There is a tiny element of people who are really quite frighteningly vociferous in their hatred and I will never understand this if I live to be 100.

    What is wrong with wanting this child found? Can anyone here please explain? Reality says it isn’t fair because this case seems to have more media coverage than others? Well it is up to the parents whose children have sadly gone missing to start shouting from the rooftops that their child has gone and to start demanding of their country’s government to do something about it. It is frightening how much trafficking goes on and it has to be stopped. Kerry Needham has and is continuing on with her fight to find her son Ben who has been missing for over 20 years and was taken on Kos. I support her too. I am certain that one day he will return to her as a grown man. Leonor Cipriano would have fought on for her child Joana, but look where it got her, tortured into a confession and now in jail. There are parents who would fight had they the strength and tenacity that thank God the McCanns have because what this poor couple is put through by this minority group of haters is nothing short of criminal. We must never let them bring the McCanns down and so we must start showing the support openly and without fear.

    The whole death by accident and concealment of Madeleine’s body is way beyond possible as you rightly say Jean. To have found their child dead and quickly and callously decide to dispose of her body? This child they fought long and hard to conceive and who they cherished deeply? Just dispose of her like a piece of garbage? NO! Their minds would have been so all over the place with the horror of finding her dead that they could never have planned and executed such a clever concealment. Oh and the ideas that come from some of the running through the streets with her down to the beach and either dropping her off a cliff and into the eater (when it would be obvious to most her body would wash back up anyway) or hiding her in some tunnel until further notice while realising a search would be called and the possibility of her body being uncovered would be great, because don’t forget, those dogs never fail do they? All laughable if this were not such a serious matter. The haters have got the priest being involved and agreeing to bury Madeleine and she was kept in a freezer before moving her thawing body to Huelva where she was dumped into the acid baths!!!!!! All stuff born of too vivid imaginations or too much watching B rated TV programmes or soap operas where, of course, anything is possible.

    Madeleine has been abducted as sure as eggs are eggs and it is time she was found. Five years is a long time in a child’s life and it will be hard for her to readjust now, but legally she is a McCann and she will always have flashbacks to waking up and finding herself in the company of strangers. The trauma for that wee girl must have been so horrific. God Bless her and the McCann family. You will ALWAYS have my support and the support of millons.

  108. Pam stay deluded and carry on posting lies if that makes you happy

    You have proven you are too thick to realize 200 searches is nothing in a dogs working life, get over it, the dogs are a massive thorn in your heroes eyes and good

  110. Pam – “What is wrong with wanting this child found? Can anyone here please explain?”

    There is nothing at all wrong with wanting her to be found. And I don’t hate you or have any ill feelings for you for wanting her to be found. I don’t want to be one of the crowd calling you a liar or anything. I just don’t entirely understand why you think she is alive. It’s possible – but it would actually be rare And you seem to be leaning very strongly toward the ‘she is alive’ camp.

    So just to recap – do you think she is alive? If so, why?

  111. Reality, I am so pleased to read above that you would like her found and alive.

    I am fully aware what some of facebook and twitter misfits think of me, but all I can say is I am not a liar and abhor the likes of those ho do lie.

    This is a child who went missing in mysterious circmstances 5 and a quarter years ago now, and I have been interested and researched and done so much work in that time and more recently within a facebook group. I am firmly of the belief Madeleine was abducted and taken out of PdL and then out of Portugal. The Golden Hours were lost.

    I have a very strong feeling about this as do many, many others in the world. Thousands alone on facebook feel exactly the way I do. I will always believe her to be alive until proven otherwise, just as strongly as I knew immediately Tia Sharp had been murdered. How can I say more than that?

  112. Pam, I am utterly agog at your blatant defence of Joana Cipriano in your comment above. The woman murdered her own daughter! How could you? Are there no depths to which you will not sink in your foul attempts to blacken the name of Senhor Amaral, purely because he had your beloved (and NEGLIGENT at least) McConns bang to rights? I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone as disingenuous or as utterly dishonest as you. You actually turn my stomach.

    Actually, given your rabid defence of the McConns, in the face of all the evidence, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d think nothing of leaping to the defence of a convicted child murderer. You should be ashamed of yourself.

    By the way, here’s another doozy for you — not one single opinion poll anywhere has a majority result in favour of the despicable McConns. Not one. Look it up. So your assertions that anti-McConns are a minority can be proven to be nothing but absolute claptrap. In fact, it is the likes of YOU who are the minority as you are WELL aware.

    Your claims of not being known to the two child-neglecting McConns are bold-faced lies as well. Anyone who posts about and idolises them as much as you do is most certainly known to them. I strongly believe you would go to any lengths to be noticed by them and in actual fact you have been noticed — and they are not impressed by your unrelenting fixation. Get your elderly gums around THAT.

    Lastly, it would behoove you to cease your attempts at living vicariously through Kate McConn and get your OWN life. Your obsession is entirely unhealthy and frankly rather alarming.

    To summarise: cut the crap, log off and get out more.

  113. Pambo – “By the way, here’s another doozy for you — not one single opinion poll anywhere has a majority result in favour of the despicable McConns. Not one. Look it up.”

    Good thing the legal justice system works on a presumption of innocence and not opinion polls on the Internet.

    Although I am sure everyone who has formed an opinion is working from the facts – because all of the case evidence is completely public – not just random things they read in tabloids. (This is sarcasm here, you see.)

    What is the deal with calling someone an ‘old woman’ as an insult, by the way? Until reading through these comments I never had any idea that this was an insult. How does that work exactly? “You’re wrong, where is why…” “Well you’re ELDERLY AND FEMALE!”

  114. I believe the Pambo Gurning author to be none other than Mr David Bret (author of celebrity biographies no less). I have seen him saying these things about me elsewhere. He hates women in general, so it is no skin off my nose that he has this hateful obsession with me. I am not alone in wondering why he has to be like this. The next thing he will come back and say is that I have accused him of having AIDS and have lambasted his mother. Well I can assure everyone that I have done no such thing and would do no such thing. Just pre-empting his next round of insults.

    I don’t even know how the Olive Press debate came by me now, but as it did and as saw some of the debate unfold, I wanted to redress some of the more accusatory assumptions being made by the few people who hate the McCanns for whatever reason they see fit. I will never understand the callousness of what has been said and done on the internet.

    As someone who abhors both liars and bullies I wanted to debate the feelings the majority in this world seemingly share and that is the Madeleine is alive and could be found and hopefully will be found one day soon.

    Joana Cipriano. There never was proof of her death either. People only have to go and research these cases themselves to find the horror behind this case also

    I am not the evil one here. I think readers who have seen Pambo Gurnings (David Bret) remarks above will know where the insanity lies. But I now seem to be feeding some of the nastier commentators of the McCann case, so will now back out and leave it to others to state their opinions of what they have seen. Of course Bret’s mates or aliases will appear in droves with their hatefilled imaginings of what took place in PdL in May 2007.

  115. Pam you lied when you said that Mr Grimes dogs were security dogs, they have never ever been such, that’s just one lie you have peddled all over the net I am told

    Your other lie was that ACPO were unhappy about Mr Grime working in PDL and didn’t want him to go out there, a very bizarre claim

    Your other half lie was that Mr Grimes dogs were not licensed, and unfit for use, I guess you should take that up with the UK and Irish and USA law enforcements who have used him and the dogs both before and after the Maddie case, and with great success
    Yawn….

  116. Pam the golden hour, not hours, did not exist in this case, police were not called until 40 minutes after Maddie was noticed missing and then you have the time beforehand when she wasn’t noticed missing by Oldfield who physically went into the flat to check but didn’t actually check, so IF we are to believe the Gerry McCann that he saw her at 9.15 the golden hour was long gone before first the phone call and the time it took police to arrive, to find a contaminated apartment too with evidence being tamboured with, chew on that

  117. June, I refer you to the article from John Best above regarding the dogs and as far as I am aware Grime did work as a security man with his dogs after leaving the police force.

    ACPO were unhappy with him taking Eddie and Keela to PdL…again refer to John Bets article above. I never said they were unfit for use, but if they were unlicensed they should not have been used.

    On the subject of the Golden Hour, I believe it was the main police who took time to arrive and Amaral could hardly be bothered to put himself out and attend. This is what I have read. Please give links if his is not so.

  118. I have spoken with John Best and he has never contributed to any web article and certainly not this one, he will be taking this matter further, John is good friends with Martin so this is far removed from the truth, somebody has falsified this statement and it’s now being investigated . Twisted and changed….

  120. I hope so Alison. There is too much misinformation regarding this case and I do wonder why that is?

    Madeleine is a missing child of the UK and we want her found and returned to her mummy and daddy as soon as is possible.

  122. June – “Your other half lie was that Mr Grimes dogs were not licensed, and unfit for use, I guess you should take that up with the UK and Irish and USA law enforcements who have used him and the dogs both before and after the Maddie case”

    What Pam said is factually true about the dogs not being licensed. In the USA, the only dogs that are licensed in any form are actual police dogs. A department might hire a private contractor but that does not mean that the contractor is suddenly law enforcement. The dogs could very well be accurate – but they aren’t ‘licensed’ in any sense at least in this case. The UK also has a licensing program for service dogs that, if I remember correctly, these dogs never completed.

    Just because a department hires a criminal profiler it doesn’t automatically grant some type of ‘criminal profiling license’ to the profiler, or if the FBI hires an Arabic translator they don’t automatically become FBI agents.

    They could all be great resources, but without any licensing criteria there is no way to quantitatively determine it. We could use what the handler reports as accuracy, but then we run into a problem of handler bias and also the ‘clever Hans’ issue whereby animals respond to trainer cures, or alternately a ‘reverse clever Hans’ issue whereby an animal signals, or wants to signal, but is ignored or misinterpreted by the trainer. This is why not just licensing – but repeated periodic licensing along with official record keeping – is important.

    Otherwise, what is to stop me from buying some dogs, saying they are trained cadaver dogs and freelancing it around the world searching for bodies? “Nope, no body here.” “Oh, yes, these dogs smell death.” Who could tell me I am wrong if there is no official oversight or external record keeping?

    In any case, I think we both believe that the child is dead. And I think we also both agree that dogs are powerful law enforcement tools (be it for missing persons, drugs, dead bodies, etc.). The issues are the specifics of the case. The dogs didn’t locate a dead body – this is a fact. If, after the fact the dogs failed to locate a dead body we are suddenly going to claim that the dogs alerted to a dead body then there is a real problem. That is a reflection on the handler. And if the handler loses credibility how can we possibly trust the handler’s dogs? Cases have been dismissed for less.

    June – “so IF we are to believe the Gerry McCann that he saw her at 9.15 the golden hour was long gone before first the phone call and the time it took police to arrive, to find a contaminated apartment too with evidence being tamboured with”

    The great thing is that it really doesn’t matter what the general population believes based on the selective evidence released to the tabloids. None of us have any of the real evidence to draw good conclusions from. Just suspicion based on tabloids. And the belief that the McCanns pulled off the perfect crime is just as unlikely and unreasonable as the belief that she’s still alive floating around out there.

    As far as evidence being tampered with – this is actually normal for most crime scenes. The very first thing a person does when they arrive on a crime scene is start touching stuff. A dead relative? They touch it, move it around, try to resuscitate it, etc. A missing child? They search the house. Make phone calls. Look for evidence, etc. The first people on crime scenes are rarely the police; usually they are the victims. And civilians are great for touching everything they can and contaminating evidence.

  124. Thank you Reality. You have said it in a way I could never have done! I try but obviously fail miserably!!

    The 2 dogs licenses had expired I believe because Grime was on demob leave and so no longer working for the UK police on this matter but as a highly paid freelance dog handler. Am I right? Hence the disapproval from ACPO when NPIA turned the “blind eye” to him actually taking the dogs to PdL.

    I do believe there is a need for sniffer dogs, of course. Many lives have been saved in earthquakes when search and rescue dogs have been deployed and also drugs and explosives sniffer dogs. Where would we be without them. I do not disrespect their valued work. What I do find incredulous is the way these people hold so much belief in these 2 particular dogs when it was almost 3 months after Madeleine’s disappearance that they were taken to work on the case! Of course contaminants would hinder any search after so long, surely?

    And as you rightly said, and I am sure I have said somewhere above, the friends first and normal reaction would be to enter the apartment and search every nook and cranny for Madeleine in case she had hidden herself away and become trapped in a cupboard say and fallen asleep. Anything might have happened and obviously did. What we need to find is exactly what that was for the sake of all children.

    I am neither a bad person nor an evil person but I am a very concerned and caring person I believe. But like the McCanns I cannot do right for doing wrong as far as a certain element on the internet are concerned!

  125. Thank you Reality for all of your input – you seem to be very knowledgeable about various points so much so that it makes me feel that you may be a police officer perhaps? I just think it is very strange that a Metropolitan police inspector, who has been in charge of examining all the evidence, has come to the conclusion that the McCanns are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and the probability is that Madeleine is still alive? As far as Mr Grimes and his dogs are concerned, I have nothing to say because they acted like Fred Carno and his performing dogs from the local circus!
    I am very concerned about this Pambo character though. He seems exceptionally rude, especially to someone he most probably has never met, the same goes for one or two others on this particular blog. AND as it happens I also support Joana Cipriano. Her daughter went out to the local shop and was never seen again. All this tripe about her mother feeding her to the pigs, and stuffing her into a freezer is absolute nonsense. Surely Ameral, who once again was the policeman in charge, should have discovered some sort of evidence or even a speck of blood on the mouths of the pigs, or was he too busy eating at his favourite restaurant once again to bother attending the ‘crime scene’. The strange part about it is that it happened exceptionally near to Pria da Luz, where Madeleine went missing some three years later. Perhaps, just perhaps, there may be some form of child trafficking going on in the area that has been covered up by Snr Ameral and his cronies? Just my opinion of course!

  126. Reading through the comments made by Reality this one has come to my notice …

    Related to that is the “clever Hans” effect – where an animal will signal based on the unconscious behaviours of the handler.

    If you have seen the video of Grimes and his dog in the garage where the hire car had been taken by the police, it is obvious to all concerned that this was the correct hire car because there were posters of Madeleine in practically every window. Grimes made a point of standing by the car, but the dog insisted on going off in the other direction, and even jumping up against a wall. It was only when Grimes made a specific motion did the dog go back to the correct car and start barking. That was complete proof to me that the dog had been led by the handler, which showed that the dog did not detect anything.

  127. Hi Jean,

    Well you are very far from being alone with your concerns regarding the way the dog was handled in the car park.Of course it was obvious which car had been the McCanns and there seemed to be much signalling for the dog to come back to said vehicle when it was excitedly running off in the other direction. It has never sat easily with me having watched and watched that video clip.

    Dogs will ultimately want to please their masters and in this instance I believe that is all the barking amounted to and nothing more.

  128. And Jean, you put into words everything the sensible element of the debate feel on the matter of Leonor Cipriano and her torture and subsequent imprisonment. Definitely a put up job and makes me wonder what on earth is going on in Portugal that this woman is still languishing in prison. Her injuries were obviously not from falling down stairs and surely any medical person could have vouched for that? The world would probably never have heard of her plight if it hadn’t been for Madeleine and the connections regarding the 2 girls disappearance and officer leading the investigations.

  131. Excuse me, the matches were 15 out of 20 and yes I do know the dogs very well and after speaking at length with the team involved, British not Portuguese, we all came to the same conclusions that it needs to be looked at more thoroughly.

  132. Alison – “And you carry on regardless. You do make me laugh, barking at pictures, the evidence the dogs alerted to was examined and results came back as positive match, they weren’t just pleasing Martin.”

    That’s actually not the way it works. The dog didn’t see the pictures and bark because the dog recognized the pictures. The way that the ‘clever Hans’ effect works is that dogs – and in the case of Hans, it was actually horse – respond to extremely subtle, nonverbal clues from their handlers. The handlers aren’t even aware that they are the ones causing the phenomenon.

    I don’t know what happened in this instance, but there have been literally hundreds (maybe thousands?) of replications of the ‘clever Hans’ phenomenon in laboratory conditions. And with various intelligent animals (chimps, dogs, cats, horses, even ferrets). It’s kind of one of those ‘intro to psych’ textbook examples. If the dog handler had reason to believe that the car was related to Madeline then the handler could exhibit a clue; a shift in body language, eye movement, even a spike in adrenaline (which dogs can pick up on). Thus the alert.

    To really know if the dog alerted because it picked up on something and not due to a cue from the handler would require a double-blind situation. You would need to get someone with no past history with the dog. And you would need to make sure that the handler has no clues related to the target. This is of course impossible in a law enforcement situation. If you’re searching for drugs/explosives/bodies/etc. you have already singled out a target – or at least a target area – and have suspicion of said target before you bring in a dog.

    Even that would be tricky due to the way sniffer dogs are trained and live. Most handlers live with their dogs. To get them to function well there has to be a bond. And if a dog doesn’t get correct ‘hits’ with regularity it can actually cause psychological issues that make the dogs nonfunctional. So training and working with sniffer dogs (be it drugs, bodies, etc.) isn’t ever a ‘scientific’ process by any means. It works – and it works well. But there is error. And in many cases, depending on the handler and the dog, it is often no better than 50/50. I believe I mentioned earlier that there have been cases dismissed when the defense noted that a dog did not perform better than chance – even when drugs were actually located.

    Alison, you said “the evidence the dogs alerted to was examined.” A dog alert actually is not evidence in and of itself. Dogs are tools to collect evidence. If a dog alerts to something (a body, drugs, explosives, etc.) but they don’t find said item, you can’t go to court and say “well the dog barked, but we found nothing” and get a conviction from it. You can’t even bring charges. The dog alert is used as a tool to find evidence; it is not evidence in and of itself.

    There is also no evidence that “comes back” as a “positive match.” It isn’t as if the dog is collecting a sample and sending it to a laboratory.

    And when a dog alerts there is no way to go back and review this in any consistent way. You just search and act on the alert in the moment – or as soon as possible with a warrant. If you find drugs/bodies/explosives only then do you have evidence. If a dog seems to signal – but the handler doesn’t search – this is usually because the handler knows that the signal is the result of something else.

    Jean – “Grimes made a point of standing by the car, but the dog insisted on going off in the other direction, and even jumping up against a wall. It was only when Grimes made a specific motion did the dog go back to the correct car and start barking.”

    I never saw the video and I haven’t been following this at all. But if this is true I think it says it all. If a dog is running around jumping on walls (unless jumping on the wall is the trained response and the body is hidden in the wall) it probably needs to be retired. And if a dog handler made a specific motion to get a signal, that isn’t even the clever Hans effect. That’s just fraud.

    On a related note, many police officers who have drug dogs train their dogs to respond to specific (intentional) cues in order to give them excuses to search vehicles. So this isn’t an uncommon thing when it comes to sniffer dogs. It probably also explains a lot of the abysmal accuracy ratings of some dogs.

  133. Really Alison? Ah well, then you have all the answers and proof we need!

    You do realise we all share the greatest proportion of our DNA and only the tiny portion makes us unique?

    But of course you do…you know everything. Silly me!

  134. This info can be found on the internet Alison:-

    Despite popular belief, DNA evidence is not as accurate as people might assume. The 99.9% people often cite is actually just an estimate and no one is actually sure how accurate it might be. While every person’s DNA is different, a DNA profile, the bit used as evidence, is only a small sliver of a person’s entire DNA, and even siblings may share a very similar DNA profile. In 2001 Kathryn Troyer ran a test of Arizona’s DNA database of felons and discovered two felons with DNA profiles where 9 of 13 markers were identical, despite the fact that one was white and one was black, and later discovered dozens of other similar matches, yet the FBI estimates the odds of some one sharing those genetic markers to be 1 in 113 billion. The fact that only 13 markers are used out of the entire DNA strain should bring into question the validity of DNA evidence.

    Read more: “http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_accurate_is_DNA_evidence#ixzz24MLcFwGi”

  136. Spin it any way you like, these facts remain and there is simply no way to get away from it: the dogs alerted to cadaver scent in apartment 5A, in their hire car and on Kate’s clothes, and to blood in apartment 5A. There are no records of anyone else dying there.

    Kate refused to answer FORTY EIGHT straightforward questions despite being warned that she was hampering the investigation.

    The McConns repeatedly changed their stories and have been outed as proven liars on numerous occasions.

    By their own admission, they NEVER searched for Madeleine. Never.

    A multitude of body language experts have stated that the McConns display signs of being untruthful which comes as no surprise to the majority of people.

    There is no, repeat, NO evidence of an abduction taking place.

    You lot can stick your fingers in your ears and scream ‘la la la I can’t hear you’ as much as you damn well please but you cannot deny the FACTS.

    By all means continue with your bizarre spin and tall tales (I’m looking at you, Pam) but you will NEVER be able to explain away any of the facts I have listed and that is merely the tip of the iceberg, as you are all WELL aware.

    Shame on you.

  137. Just quickly popped back for an update and we still have the elderly woman sprouting her untruths and misleading accusations.This year alone myself and team have been on 300 searches up to August, we sometimes go back and double check, always with the same result, we expect to be doing lots more before the year is out. And you can never belittle me with your put downs old bean.

  138. Hey Pambo Gurning…we are not spinning it YOU ARE with your blah blah blah constantly!

    Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see what is truth and what is not.

    And Alison…did you take the dogs walkies 300 times around Tesco’s or something? I reckon IF you are a handler as you like to portray, then you do security walkies with woofing doggies with snarly teeth! Not of the same genre at all.

  139. Pambo – “Spin it any way you like, these facts remain and there is simply no way to get away from it: the dogs alerted to cadaver scent in apartment 5A, in their hire car and on Kate’s clothes, and to blood in apartment 5A.”

    Dogs are usually only trained to alert to one thing. We usually think of them, for example, as ‘drug dogs’ but really you’ve got ‘cocaine dogs’ or ‘heroin dogs’ or ‘marijuana dogs.’ They get trained to sniff out a very specific scent. You could, theoretically, train a dog to alert to a multitude of different scents, just like you can train a dog to sit and shake hands, or do a multitude of tricks. It wouldn’t be impossible. But to keep the dogs efficient you usually have specific sniffer dogs trained for just one thing.

    Note, I’m not trying to just argue with you or call you a liar. Pambo, I think we actually both agree at least on the aspect that she is probably dead. But I don’t understand this part – “the dogs alerted to cadaver scent in apartment 5A, in their hire car and on Kate’s clothes, and to blood in apartment 5A.”

    Were there multiple dogs – one for tracking (for the scent of the girl’s clothes), one for cadavers (dead body scent) and one for blood (honestly I did not know there were even dogs trained to alert to blood)? Or was this one dog supposedly trained to sniff out all of these different things?

    1. In the case of a tracking dog, it would be normal for them to alert to the scent in a car that the girl had been in (dead or alive). That alone wouldn’t tell us much.

    2. In the case that the dog alerted to a cadaver, but no body was found, you actually have to count that as a false positive. Even if there was a body previously the dog shouldn’t alert to it.

    3. If the dog alerted to blood (is this even real?) – why did they not find blood? Blood can even be detected after people try to clean it up with all types of chemicals. Even after the dead body cleaners (the people whose job it is to clean up crime scenes) come through, you can still detect that blood was there. Sometimes you can even still get DNA from it. So if there is a blood-detecting dog and it alerted to blood, where is the blood or evidence of blood?

    Just to go back to point 2 – I’ve never trained a cadaver dog. In fact, I haven’t even managed to get my current dogs to stop peeing on the floor. However years ago I had hunting dogs for rabbits. They were Beagles (a breed used in police work). I would put multiple rabbit scents (tufts of hair, parts of rabbits, sometimes dead rabbits) in hidden locations, boxes, crates, even up in trees – and then hide an actual live rabbit in a different location. Typical scenario for training rabbit dogs. Then I’d let the dog go run around in the country looking for the rabbit. Usually an area of a half kilometer or so while I’m sitting on the porch watching. The dog always knew where the real rabbit was; it was never fooled by the other scents. It would run into them, sniff around and then move on looking for the real thing.

    Long story, short point – the dog is trained to find a cadaver. If it’s alerting to a scent but there is no cadaver it isn’t doing what it was trained to do. For all we know, it’s alerting to a completely different body – maybe the McCains were like Dexter, killing people left and right. Then, one day, their child got kidnapped. Clearly implausible and a silly example, but it illustrates the point. If the dog didn’t actually find a body then the alert is technically a false positive.

    Pambo – “Kate refused to answer FORTY EIGHT straightforward questions despite being warned that she was hampering the investigation.”

    Kate (this is the mother correct?) did the right thing. If I had a child that was kidnapped I would immediately get an attorney and refuse to answer questions. Because the very first suspect in a crime is a known person; parents, relative, neighbor, boyfriend, etc. The police know most crimes of violence are committed by known persons, not random strangers (although child abductions are actually an exception; 76% of abducted children found dead are murdered by strangers as per source listed previously. Parental/familial abductions usually result in the child found alive). So there is a bias toward grilling and pressing known persons for incriminating evidence.

    This is why any lawyer will recommend you stay silent and do not speak to the police without legal counsel present. Even if you are innocent – or a victim of a crime.

    Pambo – “The McConns repeatedly changed their stories and have been outed as proven liars on numerous occasions.”

    This can be normal too. Changing a story could mean that the person is lying – but it could also be what is known as “witness malleability.” I would search that term – it’s also one of those ‘intro to psych’ textbook examples. We often think of our minds as tape recorders that miss things – we remember some, but what we do remember is recorded accurately to be replayed. It’s actually not at all like that. The mind creates memories based on experience; a person can ‘remember’ one thing and then the next week they will ‘remember’ the same thing, although in a completely different way. And they believe it – the memory is just as real. They aren’t lying to themselves, the brain is just wired that way.

    Example: there is a kidnapping and a witness sees a truck. The officer asks, “Was it a black truck?” And the witness responds, “I don’t know, maybe.” A week later they question the witness again. But over the course of the entire week you have the witness thinking “was the truck black?” Now an interview with the prosecuting attorney; “Our suspect drove a black truck. Was the truck black?” The witness responds, “Yes, I think so, maybe.” When it comes time to take the stand, the witness is asked, “You saw a black truck, correct?” Witness; “Yes, it was a black truck.” So the original “honestly I have no idea” turns into a statement of fact. “Yes, I’m sure it was a black truck.” That is witness malleability and it is responsible for a lot of changed stories and apparent ‘lies’ – be it in legal situations or just day-to-day life.

    The important thing to remember is that the witness is not lying. It is that, over time, they’ve actually constructed a new memory based on the suggestions that they have received. They believe that memory. There is no dishonesty involved. It’s just how the human mind works. If a story changes it could be a lie, but it could be any other number of things – remembering new details, forgetting details, witness malleability, etc.

    And actually, in situations where people are deliberately lying you get a lot of consistency. A lot more than when people say “I don’t really know for sure.” People rehearse their lies, – especially for big crimes – so you don’t usually trip them up by getting them to contradict themselves. You usually prove it’s a lie by examining physical facts that contradict the story; Criminal – “I was at work all day” Police – “Oh well we examined your phone records and the GPS data says you were in the victim’s neighborhood around 4:30 when she died.” Busted – but not because the person changed their story.

    Pambo – “There is no, repeat, NO evidence of an abduction taking place.”

    There is no evidence of a homicide either. If there were, she would be declared dead and (likely) we would see some arrests. Homicides leave a lot of evidence behind. Abductions leave very little.

    Also remember that the girl is missing – she was, technically, abducted. Be it by her parents, a stranger, space aliens or a sea monster. Unless she ran away and is surviving self-sufficiently like a feral child it was an abduction. This doesn’t mean she is alive, but actually missing child = abduction. The debate is who abducted her and if she is dead or alive.

    And keep in mind the maxim: “an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” There is very little evidence in most abductions. We’re not talking about a homicide. If someone snatches up a child on the street it isn’t like many other crimes – you don’t have a trail of bloody footprints. There is no ‘paper trail’ like in a fraud case to trace back. Even with a robbery you can usually get a grainy picture from a camera. What type of evidence do you expect to have for an abduction?

    Pambo – “A multitude of body language experts have stated that the McConns display signs of being untruthful which comes as no surprise to the majority of people.”

    For me personally this is the only thing you’ve said that raises some (conditional) alarms. There are individuals who can detect lying with extreme accuracy – a greater degree of accuracy than the polygraph (‘lie detector test’). I am referring specifically to Paul Ekman and his research on microexpressions. He’s demonstrated that microexpressions can, in some cases, reveal dishonesty with an accuracy upwards of 80-90%. He can do it and he can train others to do so as well (but some people can’t seem to learn it either). There is also a significant amount of peer-reviewed, published research that does prove the scientific validity of microexpressions in detecting lies. The TV show “Lie To Me” was based on Ekman (he’s also a psychologist, PhD from Adelphi, one of Time’s 100 most influential men, contractor for the CIA, FBI, NSA, and a whole other host of credentials and awards). That being said – microexpressions are actually almost never used in law enforcement.

    And there is also no special license or requirement to market yourself as a “body language expert.” So it is dubious and, although a very rare subset of trained psychologists can do it (Ekman), it isn’t something that is common.

    So it all depends who these ‘body language experts’ are. If Ekman told me that the McCains are lying I would believe him. But if “Joe Smith, The Human Lie Detector!” told me then excuse me if I ignore it as pseudoscience.

  140. Reality:

    Thank you so much. I read that with such interest as you (once again) describe so succinctly what so many of us fumble about trying to say.

    It is very obvious that you know your stuff!

    You will never convince these brain dead morons however!

    Should leave it there and not respond, but I am grateful for what you have written above here and how can anybody argue back against that, but they will.

    They are like a cracked vinyl record, stuck, stuck, stuck on the same old ideas and accusations and to be quite honest with you, I don’t think they believe what they write/say themselves, but just like being obtuse.

  141. @Pambo Gurning: I stand up and applaud!

    @Reality: Before you write about something, you should inform yourself. This will avoid LONG texts full of questions…

    Yes, the British police brought TWO dogs – Eddie and Keela – one trained to find BLOOD and the other trained to find CADAVER.

    And just for the record: DNA evidence WAS found in the rental car, but the Portuguese Police was stupid enough to sent it to a British Lab… ups…

    @Pam: I just love sardines! They’re tasty and full of Omega3, good for your health… Should try it one of these days!!! :D

  142. @ Pericles Pinto: The British Police WAS stupid enough Pericles? hmm! Grammar!! The British Police maybe were stupid enough to send to the FSS but I don’t think so really. I think to have sent the samples elsewhere may have been open to corruption. So I applaude the Portuguese authorities for doing the right thing.

    There was a no match DNA no matter how you wish to spin it Pericles. NO MATCH Pericles , have you absorbed that piece of info now?

    I happen to love Portuguese Sardines although my husband cannot abide them as they repeat incessantly with him. Nothing to do with hating Portugal or its friendly people, just the sardines…ok? Fresh BBQ’d ones are always the best!!

  143. The DNA samples were not corrupted; it was just “too small for testing”.

    How about if the “too small to be tested” was decided by someone “up above” to whom the Lab people couldn’t say no?

    Let’s not forget that “the first call of Gerry in the night of the crime was for Alistair Clark, a great friend of the times of the university and diplomat next to Gordon Brown. Clark made various contacts to the highest level and – before the Judiciary Policy – already the Sky News and the British ambassador were informed of the abduction.” (by Joana Morais)

  145. Joana Morais – She is a great croney of Amaral is she not? Which says it all. The same Amaral who wrote a book on the disappearance of a three year old girl, using made up stories to accuse her parents of killing her, and on the back of that gaining approximately £1m to spend on diamonds for his ears, and a Jaguar car. He also has a criminal record because he turned a blind eye to the torture of Joana Cipriano by three other officers. What a schister!

    Alison – How have you discovered that Pam is an elderly woman? I should so like to know.

    Pericles – It was actually his sister who made the call to Sky News.

    As far as the DNA found in the rental car, this was put down to either Madeleine’s clothes which had been transported to their other accommodation, or her toys.

    If there had been evidence of her being in the car the Portuguese police would not have let them leave the country because they were so desperate to charge them. As it is it is the diabolical ineptitutde of the Portuguese police during the first hour of being notified of the disappearance of Madeleine that prevented all hope of her being found alive.

  146. @ Alison. I have been out for dinner this evening and very enjoyable it was too. I have plenty to do but a lot of my work is done on the computer and I get notifications in my email acct when you and others post here. Hence my replies.

    As far as I am aware I have not been vile to anybody here. Vile in my estimation are those people who will lie and stir and cause trouble (or try to) for the McCanns at any and every opportunity. There is simply no need for it and it is unforgivable.

    @ Jean. I think Alison has been on some of the anti McCann forums where they like to pick on people whose views differ from their own very bizarre and rather dodgy ideas on what MIGHT have happened in Praia da Luz. These people are obsessed with the case in a rather morbid way. They can be seen every day saying similar to the things said here but on facebook and twitter. Thank God in heaven above they are a minority group and of little or no consequence.

    They do idolise Amaral it is true and can not see the man for what he truly is or was, because he is a nobody anymore, thank goodness for that small mercy. The world waits and watches.

  147. Alison – “What a sad life this old woman must have, she’s here 24/7 insulting people, get out and get a life you poor old soul, it can’t be doing you any good, your brain is bitter and twisted, just vile.”

    How can you call someone out on being insulting when simultaneously you just insulted them by calling them “old woman” (for the 50th time), that they need to “get out,” “get a life”, they are a “poor old soul” with a brain “bitter and twisted;” also “vile.”

    I count 7 insults in one sentence. And, ironically, you’re attempting to admonish someone else for being insulting.

  148. Pericles – “Yes, the British police brought TWO dogs – Eddie and Keela – one trained to find BLOOD and the other trained to find CADAVER.”

    So what you are saying is that both dogs actually failed to discover anything. We have no cadaver and we have no blood samples matching this girl.

  153. Neither does it matter what you say or think June in the greater scheme of things, now does it?

    Grime may have still been with the SYorks police but on demob leave and his dogs were unlicensed from what I read, hence the controversy between NPIA turning a blind eye to him going and ACPO vociferously opposing it.

    He was also wearing civilian clothes if you go and look at the video. He would have been in uniform if on official police work.

    As for Scotland Yard wanting to close the investigation…I don’t think that is so. They have asked if they are to carry on as everything these days is budgeted and that is the reason behind this story.

  154. and please do not expect me to read any of your anti McCann blogs as I will not do so any longer. I have seen more than enough twisting and turning of the facts to last more than a lifetime.

    Not one of you has the full facts of the case, not even from the available files because they are incomplete. So you work on your own imaginings of what MIGHT have happened as opposed to what DID happen.

  155. “http://dogsdontlie.com/main/2008/11/operation-task-canine-deployments-1-8-august-2007/”

    Go and read this properly regarding 1) Martin Grime states he is retired from SYorks Police and 2) What alerts the dogs made but are totally uncorroborated. There was no proof of Madeleine’s DNA or cadaver odour anywhere…apartment or car.

    He states also the dog was unusually interested and should have been in the sit position before entering the apartment. The video always worried me as it was quite obvious from the start the dog was overly excitable on entering 5a. Not right at all. Why was it excited outside of the apartment?

  156. @Reality: The dogs showed us that Maddie died in that room, hence the cadaver odor, both in the room AND in the car rented afterwards…
    As far as finding evidence that could be used, we can blame the McCaans and all the people who entered the apartment 5A BEFORE the Police could get there!

  157. @ Pericles. the dogs did no such thing and you must surely realise this? the car was hired 3 weeks later! Where was Madeleine cleverly concealed in all of that time without smelling to high heaven?

    Read thedogsdontlie blog and see Martin Grime himself say he was retired from SY Police and the way he relates how the dogs reacted. There we have cause for concern as we have no evidence as to why they reacted or what they reacted to.

    There is simply no proof Madeleine has come to any harm at all and is probably still alive and waiting to be found. Poor little girl, why deny her this chance of recovery?

    Amaral twisted everything to suit his own agenda. And as his track record is hardly squeaky clean, I will never believe a word that man utters and I am far from being alone in this matter.

  158. If you look at the print edition you will see that Maddie was in Ibiza a couple of weeks ago, with a German family. Flew back with Lufthansa. Her father and her brothers (OP’s words, not mine) spoke German and she spoke British English. We have no idea to whom she was speaking, since apparently her mother (OP’s words) did not speak during the entire flight. It is reported that they contacted the British Police ( Force unspecified) and that the OP followed it up. Again, Force unspecified. They had no record, apparently. And he doesn’t know how to contact the McCanns either, to send them the photo. Brilliant stuff.

  159. And you may not wish to know that Martin Grime is to be allowed to give evidence in a court in the USA – “http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120824/METRO01/208240420#ixzz24a3uvyi9” –
    “Grime said the dogs detect only the generic scent of human decomposition. The dogs, he said, cannot determine identity, age, race, gender or the rate of decomposition.
    Grime testified in court Friday that Morse has never had a false positive response, and that testing done just prior and after the dog worked in the Jones case was successful.”

  160. I am aware of this PM. What the USA courts decide is hardly up to me. He wasn’t working Morse in Pdl but Eddie and Keela. And he himself has said on more than one occasion that unless there is corroborating evidence the alerts are not used in evidence in court. And jolly well right, they shouldn’t be.

  161. Regarding the Lufhansa sighting…I hope he will continue on with his appeal to be listened to. I have not heard of this incident so cannot comment. Whoever thinks they saw Madeleine is obviously vigilant And so should we all be because there is no proof she has been harmed…not one tiny weeny iota of proof!

  162. Pericles – “The DNA samples were not corrupted; it was just “too small for testing”.”

    This means that there is no evidence. It doesn’t matter why the DNA didn’t work out – corrupted, no match, small sample, etc. The fact is that no actual evidence was produced as a result. It could be McCain DNA – it could also be Bigfoot DNA. Without a match we have no evidence and we can draw no conclusions.

    Pericles – “The dogs showed us that Maddie died in that room, hence the cadaver odor, both in the room AND in the car rented afterwards.”

    Unless a body was found the dogs did not show that anyone died in the room. We have no way to know if the signal was a true positive (person deceased and gone) or a false positive. It’s like in a drug investigation – a dog alerting to drugs never ‘proves’ that drugs were in a location. You have to actually find the narcotics. The dog itself alerting doesn’t provide any actual evidence. A dog alert is not “proof” in a legal sense – or in a scientific sense, due to false positives.

    Also worth pointing out that for a cadaver dog to alert to a deceased body the body has to be in a state of decomposition. Not ‘rotting’ – but not simply dead. Unless we’re talking about a body that was sitting in this room, deceased for (at the absolute least) 48 hours, a cadaver dog should not signal.

    And again, it is worth pointing out that, even if there are no other records of deceased in the room, a cadaver dog could alert to a previous body (that no one had known about/recorded). So even if the dog alerted correctly it proves nothing regarding the specific body alerted to.

    So no matter how you slice it, there is no actual evidence showing that this McCain girl passed away in the room. It’s possible – but “no evidence” is the big key. The law doesn’t work on “it’s possible,” but on hard facts. It also works on a presumption of innocence – innocent until proven guilty. “Proven” being the key, with actual “proof” being nonexistent here.

    Pericles – “As far as finding evidence that could be used, we can blame the McCaans and all the people who entered the apartment 5A BEFORE the Police could get there!”

    Sure, you can blame them. And all other crime victims who accidentally tamper with evidence. That is actually the norm – not the exception. Victims are the ones who are the first people to stumble into crime scenes and they pollute the evidence. People see dead loved ones and embrace them; then contaminate the crime scene with their own DNA a a result. Burglary victims run around their homes checking to see what was stolen before the police show up. How do you think it works in real life – that the police know of the crime before anyone else and arrive on the crime scene before the victim discovers that a crime has even been committed?

    This is, of course, all assuming that there was actually evidence in the an apartment. To reiterate – an assumption. No evidence was found, so we can’t conclude that there was any evidence to begin with.

    You realize all of this is why these people have not been charged and convicted of a crime, correct? Because, despite an abduction/murder investigation, there is no evidence. No DNA. No body. No witnesses. Nothing that would give the police a leg to stand on, regardless of if she is dead or alive, or who is guilty or innocent.

  164. PAM ” because there is no proof she has been harmed…not one tiny weeny iota of proof!” On the official web site they say “There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Madeleine has been harmed.” But later Kate herself says, – “All missing children are vulnerable to exploitation including sexual exploitation, with this being the motive in many of those cases of stranger abductions. . . ” – and later – “My thoughts of the fear, confusion and loss of love and security that my precious daughter has had to endure are unbearable – crippling. And yet I am not the victim, Madeleine is. No child should EVER have to experience something so terrible.” By my limited understanding, that counts as harm, and slightly more than “one tiny weeny iota” though I stand to be corrected.

  165. PM…why do you find the need to go on about this then? If you feel she died, that’s your choice entirely, but thinking of her that way will not help in finding her.

    There was not a shred of evidence Madeleine died in 5a or that she has died since so the right and proper thing for us to do is to carry on the search. Like Joanna Cipriano…they have both been abducted in much the same way and from neighbouring towns.

    Of course Kate will have gone through a multitude of fears and feelings…that is normal. So what is your problem?

  166. Pam – “There is simply no proof Madeleine has come to any harm at all and is probably still alive and waiting to be found.”

    In a kidnapping/murder it would be normal if there is no immediate proof that the abducted has come to physical harm. These people just disappear. There are tens of thousands of cold cases of missing people – people missing for decades. And most never get found. If someone is dumped into the ocean, for example, there isn’t going to be any evidence. Basically it’s again a case of “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” We can’t assume simply because there aren’t bloody footprints that she is most likely alive.

    And actually, since 76% of non-parental abductions end up with the child dead (source referenced earlier in the comments), she is ‘probably’ dead. That is, the probability of her being dead is 76%. And the longer a person is missing the more likely they are to be found dead (if found at all).

    I don’t see anything especially wrong with keeping an eye open or keeping your hopes up. It seems naive to me, but there is nothing that makes you a liar, or evil, or an ‘old woman’ or a bad person. And sometimes you actually do find people alive – even decades later. But it is very rare.

    So in a way, I kind of disagree with everyone. All of the people talking about dogs “proving” something are obviously wrong. But at the same time this girl is probably actually dead.

  167. @ Reality. I do see and understand your point regarding the 76% but then that means 24% chance of Madeleine and Joana and others who have been abducted (numbering many hundreds if not thousands since or around that time) are alive and as has been seen in recent years, some do return home. So it is the wise and only decent thing not to give up on these children.

    These people seen here have a different agenda however. They are supporting in every way they can, Amaral and those they seem to feel we have a grudge against. There is no grudge only with certain few police who have been inept to say the very least.

    I stand for justice and for hope that one day those who have perpetrated the crime will be caught and punished. I also hope that in finding out who has been responsible that other children may just be found. It maybe naive, but if this is part of a child trafficking gang, then why would this not be the case?

    I am frightened to see how nasty and downright vicious the people against the McCanns can become when confronting those they refer to as pros. Twitter is even worse as people seem to feel they are anonymous behind their computer screens and with false identities. They should know they are not.

    Will be thankful when this whole sorry saga comes to an end, but until it does, I will remain a firm supporter of the McCanns. For all they did wrong, they are human beings with human failings and above all of that they are grieving parents who are trying so hard to find answers and I find that admirable.

  168. Madeleine was in Ibiza ? two weeks ago. And its a fact? dear God, perhaps she was clubbing too

    Pam you consistently FAIL monumentally to understand that Mr Grimes dogs have been very successful in their work in the UK Eire and USA both BEFORE and AFTER this case

  169. Pam – “@ Reality. I do see and understand your point regarding the 76% but then that means 24% chance of Madeleine and Joana and others who have been abducted (numbering many hundreds if not thousands since or around that time) are alive and as has been seen in recent years, some do return home. So it is the wise and only decent thing not to give up on these children.”

    Fair enough. Nothing wrong with not giving up. In fact, if she is alive she’s very fortune that her case has so much publicity and people who have ‘kept the faith’ so to speak. Because most people definitely don’t get that. So if she is found it will probably be because there is so much public awareness. And if it turns out she is not found alive, or at all, there is certainly no harm in having a Facebook page (modern face-on-a-milk-carton), a few blogs talking about leads or anything like that.

    The only exception is that when a case gets so many leads it can cause a bit of confusion for LEOs when it comes to weeding out the good and bad information. For example, whenever a serial killer is reported to the public (fun fact: lots of serial killers are actually never reported to the media by law enforcement so we don’t even know they are out there) usually the police get hundreds or thousands of “tips” that just clog up the lines and that – depending on the tip – they actually have to follow up on. But then again, that’s the job of the police. So if people want to make pages, blogs, websites, etc. looking for a little girl – even if it is a long shot – for the vast aspect of it there is really no harm here.

  170. Pam. Joana was murdered by her own mother and her uncle. They reported that she had been abducted, but later confessed to having killed her and disposed of the body. They are in prison serving long sentences. Please do not tell us you are an apologist for child killers.

  171. June – “Pam you consistently FAIL monumentally to understand that Mr Grimes dogs have been very successful in their work in the UK Eire and USA both BEFORE and AFTER this case.”

    I don’t know the man or the dogs – let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, these dogs are the best dogs in the entire world. 100% success rate. They’ve always found a body. Always located their prey. They know how to do algebra and can cook an English breakfast.

    In this case – in this specific case – the dogs didn’t find anything. No one needs to discredit the dogs. There simply as no body for the dogs to find. Not even a piece of body – or even a piece of skin (which sounds morbid, but is important; when you’ve got a dead body it isn’t necessarily an entire body).

    I’m always slightly skeptical of the use of dogs in certain situations (primarily civil drug enforcement) because of ‘extra’ training from their handlers (see: training drug dogs to signal on cue), or the clever Hans effect mentioned earlier. But we don’t have to assume any of those things in a case like this. Both are possible, but we don’t even need to go there. The dogs simply didn’t come up with anything. If they did, we’d have a body. But the dogs just didn’t find anything.

    PM – “And you may not wish to know that Martin Grime is to be allowed to give evidence in a court in the USA –
    “Grime said the dogs detect only the generic scent of human decomposition. The dogs, he said, cannot determine identity, age, race, gender or the rate of decomposition.
    Grime testified in court Friday that Morse has never had a false positive response, and that testing done just prior and after the dog worked in the Jones case was successful.”

    In the USA, for the most part, anyone can give evidence in court that is called as a witness. There is an extreme proliferation of ‘expert witnesses’ – many of whom are very dubious. And they always give the ‘evidence’ that supports whoever is paying them. For example, it’s not uncommon to have both the state prosecution and the defense attorney both hire psychologists.

    State psychologist; “This is the most dangerous criminal I have ever seen in my 20 years of practicing forensic psychology. He is a clear psychopathy and, frankly, a terrifying individual.”

    Defense psychologist; “I’ve conducted the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, as well as sought evidence of other personality disorders. He only scored a 5 on the Hare checklist out of the required 30 out of 40 points. He is not a psychopath. He definitely doesn’t have Anti-Social Personality Disorder, or any other illness. In fact, this is one of the most compassionate men I have ever spoken with, despite the serious nature of the crimes he has committed.”

    (The above isn’t a hypothetical example – it’s a real one I’ve seen in sentencing hearing.)

    Basically, in the USA, expert witnesses are hired guns. They lie, they lie big, they lie good – and they get paid big accordingly. So if Grimes is going to be an expert witness in the USA it isn’t exactly anything special.

    In fact, if he’s for hire to testify as an expert witness in court I would say he has gone to the ‘dark side’ so to speak. That’s a dirty job with little honesty (they say what the defense/prosecution wants, depending on who is paying them). So don’t be too impressed here.

    Also, it’s possible that if he claimed his dogs never had a false positive he actually perjured himself. If the dogs alerted to a dead body in the McCain case – or lets just say ‘decomposition’ – but there was absolutely no evidence of a dead body then that is, by definition, a false positive. But, as the saying goes, all is fair in love and legal wars.

    I’ve just now had a chance to look at this “dogs dont lie” website. It’s pretty clear the man is a legal profiteer. And what kind of dog handler writes in the first person style of his dogs; “We’re such good doggies and we help our daddy…” Clearly psychological manipulation for his readers. Along with 20+ domain names registered to him, selling ebooks, collecting donations, etc. I think this man has probably been making a very good living with his dubious, talking dogs.

  172. @ Reality. Regarding the 24% chance of Madeleine being alive.

    It is mine any many others choice to consider she may be alive and findable which is surely the better way to look at this case as opposed to writing the child off like some here want to do? I cannot, as a mother, understand the mentality.

    I see above here PM making reference to Joana Cipriano again. Well we consider there is a more than fair chance she has also been abducted by the same gang perhaps? Her mother languishes in a jail in Portugal where the Governor is even known to be unhappy with her conviction because to get a confession from a woman being tortured should hardly be admissable evidence in court. Much like the dogs alerting to something, but what. No proof of either thing.

    I would never be an apologist for child killers but there are many here who believe like me that something sinister went on there.

  173. @ Reality. Re The DOGS!!

    You certainly know your stuff and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being brave enough to face these people and tell it exactly like it is.

    I am not saying Grime is a bad man but he was being paid mega bucks even back in PdL. Money does tend to talk and talk for the person paying the bucks as you said.

  175. Pam – “It is mine any many others choice to consider she may be alive and findable which is surely the better way to look at this case as opposed to writing the child off like some here want to do? I cannot, as a mother, understand the mentality.”

    I think what is even worse is people accusing the parents as if they were responsible for some sort of abduction/murder; calling them ‘McConns,” etc. The entire legal system works on the presumption of innocence. Unless there is actual evidence to charge or convict these people – which the police don’t have – I have no idea how random people on the Internet can be so sure they are guilty. The police usually have far more evidence than they release the the public; frequently in unsolved murder cases the only evidence released to the public is done to try and get a response from the killer (thus a clue). It seems like the gossip/tabloid mentality to me to blame the McCains. And frankly I’m not sure why they aren’t suing people for libel/slander at this point, when there are entire websites accusing them of being murderers. But I understand it psychologically – people need someone to blame and it is a lot easier to blame something concrete, “two bad parents,” than to admit “we have no clue what happened to this child.”

    As far as the Cipriano case I have no idea. I’d assume if she is in jail there is at least more evidence than the McCain case. But there is a bias in police work toward making arrests. It makes a department look bad and incompetent – or an entire country in an international case – if an arrest isn’t made. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the easiest route was just to arrest the parent. Someone has to get arrested.

    But like I said – I have no clue about the Cipriano case so I really don’t even have an opinion one way or the other.

  176. @Reality.

    I have not been able to figure out yet why people’s IP numbers have not been tracked and those holders charged with libel/slander either. I feel perhaps more is being watched than we know as they are saying now that “facebook” is the modern day Big Brother. So those charges may yet come and I would welcome that as it will be the only thing to stop some of these cruel people from spouting their out and out lies regarding this case. So far the “twitter” prosecutions haven’t had any effect so some still have the opinion they are bullet-proof. I think their opinions are misguided and they really ought to watch what they are saying. However, if you think this bad here Reality you should see twitter on #Mccann! That goes far too far and twitter ought to take more responsibility as should facebook.

    You are right to say that the general public does not hold ALL of the facts of Madeleine’s case…of course we don’t. There will be a whole lot the police have at their finger tips than joe public. And what joe public has has been interpreted from Portuguese which is a notoriously difficult language to translate. We know who some of the translators of certain files are and so enough said!!

    As for Joana Cipriano, she was abducted from that same region around the same time and eventually, with lack of any other evidence it would seem her mother Leonor and her uncle were tortured into confessions. The police said the injuries were from falling downstairs…right!!! If you google the case Reality you will see what we mean. There were certain PJ officers charged with her torture and the one who lead Madeleine’s case was there in the mix and charged with perjury in covering it all up, He was given an 18 month suspended sentence. It is still ongoing with others since being charged with this and that. All available on the internet.

    If Madeleine had not been abducted we should never have known and the world would be none the wiser. Scary what still goes on in this world.

  177. June – “Pam states Mr Grime was paid mega buck a in PDL, source and link please Pam to prove u are not making thinks up LOL”

    If I understand correctly, the “dogsdontlie” website is either the actual website of Grimes or done by someone working on his behalf (e.g. web designer/manager) correct?

    It is also connected to about 20 other websites owned by the same person with the same hosting (obviously Grimes himself or his web guy is manging all of these websites). They don’t attempt to hide this – all of the links are right on the front page. And almost all of the websites are selling something for Grimes (including the dogsdontlie site); t-shirts, mugs, magnets, ebooks, collecting donations, etc.

    Nothing ‘wrong’ with any of this. Having a bunch of websites about the same thing linked up and selling your products is just business on the ‘net. Everyone needs food and new shoes.

    That’s probably just a fraction of his income though (although it does show that he is actively profit-driven).

    The big clue to how much this man is actually making with his cute doggies that talk in first person and never lie (he’s a great marketer with emotional tactics, if he’s the one making these websites, by the way. “We’re such cute doggies, we never lie, we just smell good!”) is on (mccannfiles). There is a page devoted specifically to his two dogs. This is actually just an article reposted from Sky News. I won’t post a link, but you can cut and paste the quote and find it just as easily. Here goes:

    “Keela is a top dog in the police world, earning more in a day than her force’s Chief Constable by working on some of the country’s highest-profile crimes.”

    “Her going rate is £530 per day, plus expenses.”

    “If she worked every day of the year, she would earn almost £200,000 – around £70,000 more than her force’s Chief Constable.”

    So the dogs, just for hire, make an inordinate amount of money. But the man is also being used as an expert witness in the USA. In the USA, expert witnesses are either paid by the defense or prosecution. And they are paid a lot. I mean huge sums – 10-20k USD, or more. If in a lump sump. Or, some insane hourly rate like 700-1000 USD/Hour (with 20-50 work hours, depending on the case). That’s standard for expert witnesses. They make big bucks (I have some first hand experience because I dated an American forensic psychologist who did just this. Every week she was flown someplace to testify on the mental state of a person. Usually divorce cases.). He may even be making more, since we’re likely talking about homicide cases (they are dead-body-dogs, after all), rather than a custody battle. And of course, they have to pay for his flights, accommodation, villas for his talking dogs who never lie, etc.

    So lets not pretend like this man is doing this at some great expense to himself, as a charity or out of the good of his heart. He’s milking it for, literally, every cent. From the “Dogs Don’t Lie” coffee mugs to the tens of thousands USD he’s making being flown around to testify as an expert witness, the man is getting rich.

    I’ll tell you what – my kids aren’t going to school. They are getting two dogs and training them to smell blood and bodies. Training police dogs is the new doctor/lawyer.

  178. As I have said many many times, if the McCanns were guilty of murdering their daughter they would have kept an exceptionally low profile when they arrived back in this country in September 2007. Instead they launched a campaign like no other, doing everything that they could to put Madeleine in the spotlight so that no one would ever forget her. These two people have gained the respect and love of millions of people, and it is that that has kept them going, together with the hope that one day they will get their little girl back.

    These people who insist on trying to bring them down by making all sorts of insinuations should be hung drawn and quartered, and most probably they will be in the not too distant future. The McCanns in the meantime will never give up because they, along with the Metropolitan Police, think that she may still be alive, and who on earth would ever give up looking for their child. I would go to the ends of the earth, and as they have, learn to live with the few small, insignificant people in this world who spit venom because they can in the secrecy of their own home.

  179. The funny thing here is, some people try to discredit the Portuguese Police AND the dog work.

    The dogs were brought to Portugal by… the British Police!

    If Martin Grimes plus Eddie and Keela were not accredited to do their work, as some suggested, why were they chosen by the brits? Hummm…

    “reality” stated: “Also worth pointing out that for a cadaver dog to alert to a deceased body the body has to be in a state of decomposition. Not ‘rotting’ – but not simply dead. Unless we’re talking about a body that was sitting in this room, deceased for (at the absolute least) 48 hours, a cadaver dog should not signal.”

    This is NOT TRUE! Either you are an ignorant guessing on this or you are simply LYING!

    How long does a cadaver have to be in contact with a surface or an object for the odour to be detected? Cross-contamination is immediate.(a)

    (a) As you can read here:
    “http://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_GRIMES_RIGATORY.htm”

  180. @ Reality and @ Jean.

    It has been so good having your perspectives on the case which actually seem to match with my own, except you both manage to put things so much better than I.

    Am very interested in Reality’s knowledgeable take on the dogs and the law and how in USA the highest payer in a court case, be that prosecution or defence gets the witness. Money certainly talks. And I agree that the dogsdontlie website is full of profiteering which is alright as a business, as you say, but not if one wants to find the truth. These people against the McCanns have the audacity to bemoan the fact the McCanns have a website where bracelets and posters can be bought or downloaded for a matter of pence. All money goes towards the fund set up to find their daughter. On the other hand they support websites whereby the money made goes into the coffers of the web owner, whoever that may be?? Double standards me thinks.

    Jean: I agree wholeheartedly that the McCanns would never keep Madeleine’s profile so high if they had done something so dastardly that Madeleine died in apartment 5a. They would instead be happy to let things die down and disappear into obscurity. But no, they have fought for the right to gain answers and keep Madeleine alive in everyone’s minds in the hope we will someday be able to find her. Not the way murderers act is it? And I agree that the worst offenders in this nasty anti MccCnn world may yet have their day in court and hopefully have the book slung at them they are hardly anonymous as they can be traced through their IP numbers as paedophiles are traced these days.

    Pericles: Please do not shove the mccannpjfiles down our necks any longer. We have read and are not convinced. The dogs were requested by Portugal I believe? the British police would surely have sent working dogs and not retired dogs across otherwise? We do not pull the entire Portuguese police down, just a few, and with good reason.

    Most people I have knowledge of are in no way xenophobic and find Portugal a very pleasant country with lovely family friendly people, but there is an undercurrent of worry where taking children to Portugals shores is concerned. Bad history I am afraid Pericles and it is up to you people of Portugal to insist this is changed for good.

  182. Pericles – “This is NOT TRUE! Either you are an ignorant guessing on this or you are simply LYING!

    How long does a cadaver have to be in contact with a surface or an object for the odour to be detected? Cross-contamination is immediate.(a)”

    Lets try to discuss without any name calling – like “ignorant or “liar.” It’s just as easy to say “you’re wrong, here is why” without being rude. Funny thing is I think you and I actually agree on the most essential point – she’s probably dead. No need to be nasty.

    I think you may have also misunderstood what I said, because what you wrote actually does not contradict it. A sniffer dog can pick up a scent that has simply touched an object; “cross-contamination is immediate” like you posted. I agree.

    However, the scent cadaver dogs are trained to pick up on is that of a cadaver – specifically, decomposing human flesh. Lets say a person is murdered someplace and the criminal immediately moves the body (Dexter-style) – a cadaver dog wont alert to it. This is because, due to the fact that there is no decomposition (which is the scent trained for), there is nothing to alert to. There isn’t “dead body scent” that appears as soon as the soul departs the body. The dogs will only alert if the body is in a state of decomposition.

    Do you know how sniffer dogs are trained? You take the desired object (drug, explosive, etc.) and basically make it a toy. In the case of training a dog to search for a narcotic – like marijuana – the actual narcotic is used to provide the scent. The trainer can stick a sock or toy in a jar with a small amount of said narcotic and then you have your training object.

    Training a cadaver dog is a bit different; actual decomposing human flesh isn’t used. This would be impractical, unsanitary and probably unethical. What is used is actually a synthetic chemical that replicates the scent of decomposing human flesh. “Decomposing” is the key here. Basically what it comes down to – the body has to be in a decomposed state. A cadaver dog wont alert to a fresh corpse.

    Other fact – decomposition, on average, begins in 48 hours. However, it can be increased or decreased rapidly by certain factors. Temperature as well as exposure to light are big ones. Heat and light speed decomposition. Cold slows it. There is a famous hit man/serial killer they called the “Ice Man” because he froze his victims and then dumped them at later points in time to throw off investigators. This helped him to confuse the actual time of death. Even when they realized he was doing this – and has suspicion of where to search for bodies – there were times the sniffer dogs had difficulty locating bodies because they were frozen or just recently thawed (thus not in a state of decomposition).

    Just a final thought – if you want info on sniffer dogs I’d search some unrelated third party websites (maybe a police website?). Ones completely unrelated to McCann (neither pro nor con) for your info, rather than “mccannpjfiles.co.uk,” a website owned by Grimes.

    I’m not saying Grimes probably has an agenda to defend his extremely lucrative business and conclusions regarding the McCann case – but he probably has an agenda to defend his extremely lucrative business and conclusions regarding the McCann case.

  183. Pericles – “For those who try to discredit Martin Grimes, please read this piece at The Detroit News:

    “http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120824/METRO01/208240420#ixzz24a3uvyi9?”

    I don’t know Martin Grimes; I’ve never said anything to discredit him personally. I am sure his dogs are as good (maybe better) than any. That being said, your conclusions based on the article may be a bit misguided. Consider these two parts:

    “Lane’s girlfriend, Anjali Lyons, has testified she awoke Dec. 2 to Bianca’s screams as Lane used the stick to beat the toddler for urinating in bed. Later the same morning, Lane carried a silent Bianca to his car. She was covered with an animal print blanket.”

    “He [Grimes] said the dog detected a cadaver scent inside Lane’s car, on the child’s blanket and car seat, and in the girl’s bedroom and Lane’s home.”

    In a preliminary hearing, you’ve got the defense and prosecution debating which evidence should be admitted – presented to judge or jury – and which evidence cannot be admitted. A judge will make a decision based on the totality of the facts and arguments they get. In this case, there is an actual witness who testified to hearing the screams of the child being beaten with a stick, as well as seeing the defendant actually move the “silent” (presumably dead) child to the car wrapped in a blanket.

    So you’re not looking at a situation like with the McCaans at all. Here we’ve got a witness – a witness to the actual crime. Someone who heard the beating, saw the body, the blanket with a body (dead?) wrapped up in it, the body placed in a car, etc.

    Then – only after – the body disappears. Finally, Grimes is called in and his dogs detect exactly what the witness described. So, considering that Grimes’ testimony was consistent with witness testimony, it’s a given the judge is going to declare it admissible.

    Now, contrast with the McCaan case. No witnesses. No body. No physical evidence. The dogs may or may not have alerted – McCaan said yes, but even that was disputed. Assuming they did alert, there is still nothing to corroborate. It is very possible that the exact same judge would say it is inadmissible in the McCaan case.

    In fact, it wouldn’t even get that far. Because you generally can’t arrest someone simply because a dog alerts. Imagine a world like that – “Well, we found no drugs in his car. No one saw any narcotics. There is no evidence of a drug deal. But the dog signaled. And dogs don’t lie. So we’ve arrested him for possession of cocaine, with intent to distribute.”

  184. Reality, I tend to become nasty when I read posts where the Portuguese Police are called the Keystone Cops… but it was unfair to put you together with those chafs.

    As for the cadaver scent, even though there is artificial odor, real cadaver parts are sometimes used (at least in the US).

    You are wrong when you presume the “cadaver dogs” are searching for odor of decomposing flesh. What the dogs are trying to pick is the scent of body fluids that emanate from bodies, just minutes after death occurs.

    Assuming Maddie died accidentally, by falling behind a sofa when reaching for the window, she would’ve stayed there long enough for the cadaver scent to be transferred to the floor. The dogs would pick this scent.

    As for those questioning who could be so calm as to think on how to architect a fake kidnapping, I can just remember the recent Tia’s case, but let’s think for a while:

    Gerry and Kate are doctors. They are used to deal with death and stress situations, daily. Gerry had political ambitions. Gerry knew is political career would be over even before it began, if he was found responsible for his daughter death. All these are facts.

    Now, with this in mind, is it really so difficult to picture Gerry and Kate trying to get away with pretending Maddie had been kidnapped? No, it’s not.

    As for where would they conceal the body, you surely know there where British living in Praia da Luz (apart from the Tapas 7 group). Gerry knew of those.
    Wouldn’t a real friend help a desperate friend if he came up and ask?

    The two bedsheets from the twins beds disappeared. Do you believe in coincidences?… I don’t.

  185. The remains of the two children Ruth and Jose Breton, reported by their father as “abducted” in Cordoba, have been found. On a bonfire on the father’s estate. See OP page 1.
    Yet another false report. (Tia, Shannon, the list is a long one)
    But in fairness, what else can you say. You do not wish to spend the rest of your life in prison. It is like being found at an airport in possession of drugs. You can either admit it, or say they have been planted. There are few other options open to you. If you confess to a crime, but change your mind later, on the advice of your solicitor, what can you say ? Made a mistake is not really enough, so it has to be torture. What other option is there ?

  186. @ Pericles Pinto. You know something Pericles, in all the time I have followed the Madeleine McCann case the only person I have ever seen refer to the Portuguese Police as Keystone Cops is YOU!!

    My goodness me I am aghast at most of what you have written, and would like to pick you up on a point or two.

    1) Is that I have never heard that Gerry had aspirations to be a politician other than on anti McCann forums full of myths. Where did this rumour ever start?

    2) Tia Sharp’s case is completely different from Madeleine’s in that there was no faked abduction. Like Madeleine she was a missing person but sadly for Tia the truth of the matter is that she was murdered in the house next door from what we can ascertain. Madeleine remains a missing UK citizen and we want her found.

    3) Gerry and Kate are doctors and used to dealing with death and stress you say. Well I guess you are right, but when there has been talk within your ranks of Kate dealing with deaths it is kind of poo pooed is it not? But I agree they are used to coping with stress and handling it in a way that you or I may not be able to. That does not make them murderers of their own child.

    4) You assume they had friends from the UK in Praia da Luz who might just do them the favour of hiding their dead child? What planet are you on Pericles please? I can just imagine my reaction now if one of my neighbours happened to call by and ask if I could accomodate them by hiding their dead child. I would be on the phone to the police quicker than you could say the word “police”! Just utterly bizarre that you could even have such thoughts. Sorry but that is true Pericles.

    5) the two sheets from the twins beds disappeared did they? first I have heard of it!! The twins were asleep on top of them from what I have read, so where did this little gem of yours arise? And what exactly are you trying to imply anyway? Please do not make such a fool of yourself.

    As for our friend Reality’s take on the whole cadaver/body odour scenario, I think I am right in thinking this is a man from the USA, a very knowledgeable man at that, so there is absolutely no point in you trying to convince us that Reality does not know his stuff because very obviously he does.

    Oh and going back to the scenario of yours regarding Madeleine falling behind the sofa, then it was blood they were looking for and not a cadaver or scent of a cadaver. And Grime himself said on video that it could be “old blood” ergo the blood of anybody. But DNA could not be ascertained anyhow. So why try laying murder at the McCanns door Pericles?

    All the thousands of people supporting the McCanns online would not be doing so if we felt there was any chance that they harmed their own baby. We are not unfeeling but we are very concerned at their treatment.

  188. Pericles Pinto
    August 27th, 2012 12:26 pm

    The funny thing here is, some people try to discredit the Portuguese Police AND the dog work.
    Reality, I tend to become nasty when I read posts where the Portuguese Police are called the Keystone Cops… but it was unfair to put you together with those CHAFS.

    Hello again Pericles

    First of all I should be obliged if you would let me know what a CHAF is, I have never come across this word in an Oxford English Dictionary, especially if it is an endearment?

    I refer to the Portuguese Police who first entered the apartment of 5A on the night of 3 May 2007 as Keystone Kops, for the simple reason that they were. The first ones that arrived were just beat bobbies even though it had been reported that a little girl was missing. They went into the apartment smoking, dropping ash all over the place, they DID NOT seal off the apartment as the British police would have done, instead they let civilians traips all over the rooms. Eventually when Amaral’s cronies arrived, which was approximately one hour after the arrival of the first crew, they questioned and took statements and left after ONE hour saying that they would be back the next morning. They did not order road blocks, they did not alert the port, or the airport – they did nothing!! AND to top it all Amaral, who was supposed to be the man in charge, did not even arrive at all. When the incident was reported the next day they did not issue a photograph of Madeleine, it was left to her family to do that. Their spokesman actually took himself off the case because he disagreed with the way the investigation was going. There are many more reasons why I call the men in charge Keystone Kops because they completely deserved this title.

  189. @ Reality.

    Just going back over some of your exceptionally astute posts and you mentioned that Grime worked his dog fro somewhere in the region of £500 per day. Let;s not forget that is times two (x2) in his case with Eddie and Keela. A very profitable occupation indeed.

    In fact I am going to get myself a couple of working dogs and get training them myself. Mega bucks here I come!!!!

  190. Pericles – “As for the cadaver scent, even though there is artificial odor, real cadaver parts are sometimes used (at least in the US).”

    Pericles – “You are wrong when you presume the “cadaver dogs” are searching for odor of decomposing flesh. What the dogs are trying to pick is the scent of body fluids that emanate from bodies, just minutes after death occurs.”

    I admit could be wrong – I know that they use an artificial dead body scent, but it’s certainly possible that they could use some actual human remains in some training centers/PDs. There is no way I could prove it isn’t being done (sounds like a nasty way to do it though). All I’m familiar with is the dead body scent spray that is used. This is supposed to mimic decomposing human flesh. And I do think this is actually the most common way to do it. But there are chemical changes that occur in a body very quickly after a person passes (before decomposition takes hold). So it is theoretically possible you could train a dog to pick up on the scent of a person who died very recently.

    And if this is already being done it means that there is variation in the actual sniffer dogs. If you’ve got one dog trained to pick up on some scent that results soon after death and another dog trained to pick up on the scent of decomposing flesh, then you’ve got two dogs trained to alert to different scents. Both dead body dogs, but trained to signal to different scents. Kind of like how you’ve got dogs trained to sniff out heroin and dogs trained to sniff out cocaine; but it is usually one or the other. Not just generic ‘drug dogs’ that pick up on any narcotic.

    To comment further on Grimes’ dogs I’d have to know how what scent the guy trained his dog with. Otherwise at this point I’d just be guessing. I had guessed it was the synthetic dead body spray that mimics decomposing flesh. For all I know he could have used an actual human hand in a sock. Or a complex human pheromone that is emitted immediately when a person dies.

    Pericles – “Assuming Maddie died accidentally, by falling behind a sofa when reaching for the window, she would’ve stayed there long enough for the cadaver scent to be transferred to the floor. The dogs would pick this scent.”

    Agreed. And I thought I had written something similar earlier in fact? If you’ve got a dead body sitting under a window in Algarve for a few hours I’d wager decomposition could set in within a couple of hours (light and heat).

    Pam – “Oh and going back to the scenario of yours regarding Madeleine falling behind the sofa, then it was blood they were looking for and not a cadaver or scent of a cadaver. And Grime himself said on video that it could be “old blood” ergo the blood of anybody.”

    True if he was using the blood dog. He says he has a dog trained for blood and a dog trained for cadavers. And that is the big thing – even if the dogs alerted correctly the body was never found. So if it was the dog that alerted to blood, it could be any blood. And even if it was the cadaver dog maybe it alerted to a different dead body? I admit the latter is a stretch (we’d have to assume that they’re running dead bodies in and out of the place). But just the alerts without a body don’t actually tell us anything about who really died, if it was murder, an accident, who did it, etc. There just isn’t enough evidence to blame anyone – so we have to give the parents a presumption of innocence. I mean, was there even enough to make an arrest?

    I’m bored of dogs and mine still pee on the floor, so I am going to change the subject. But to something still relevant:

    Pam – “You assume they had friends from the UK in Praia da Luz who might just do them the favour of hiding their dead child?”

    Most criminals are caught because they talk – someone tells. They tell a friend, they brag, an accomplice ‘snitches’, etc. So any time you have a crime involving multiple people it is more likely they get caught. Risk increases exponentially the more people you’ve got involved in a crime.

    The McCanns have been as consistent as most witnesses (changed stories, etc, but nothing all witnesses don’t do). Now imagine we’ve got more people involved. Someone would talk and slip up. The more participants you have in a crime the faster/easier they get caught. Some criminals even just show up and admit crimes because they feel guilty (rare, but it happens, especially if they are worried about being caught or want a deal). So while I can’t assert any fact on this specific case, it does make me feel that it is unlikely the McCanns did it and even less likely that they got additional people involved to help them.

    I also feel the same way about a “pedophile ring.” These exist – but an actual organized gang kidnapping children is extremely rare. The idea that you’ve got a group of people out there kidnapping children – and consistently getting away with it – is hard to swallow. Again, for the same reason. The more people you have involved in a crime the faster the criminals get caught. The viability of an organized pedophile gang kidnapping children and getting away with it for any extended period of time isn’t very good.

    Now, there are definitely organized sex trafficking gangs. Mafias, if you will. Some are managed extremely efficiently. But their MO isn’t kidnapping random people; especially not high-profile foreigners from countries with strict law enforcement and high economic resources, like the UK. These are gangs who, for example, go to a small village in Romania, ‘buy’ a girl from a poor peasant family and then send them to Western Europe (Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.). They take away the passport and tell them they have a ‘debt’ to repay. Then they say “Well, we can always get to your parents back in Cluj if you don’t cooperate…” They use coercion to lure and keep these women in line. The women can’t go to the police because they have no passports and are from the East (Russia, Ukraine, etc.). They are more afraid of going home, or of the police, than being prostitutes. There has even been a series of articles in the Sur talking about Nigerian gangs using the threat of Voodoo to frighten trafficked women into submission. And further – some women are even lured into it by family members; older brothers, uncles and even fathers.

    Contrast to the hypothetical sex trafficking gang with a kidnapping MO. All it takes is for one victim to escape and talk. Then everyone is busted. When I read stories like, “Missing girl seen on airplane” I think to myself, “Why doesn’t she just say “these people kidnapped me.” They would be detained on the spot. And that would make the risk extremely high. Organized criminals know this and reducing risk to a minimum is part of the business. So kidnapping random children on the street isn’t exactly an MO of organized crime. That’s not a business model that you’re going to get away with for very long.

    Most plausible scenario – she was kidnapped by a single individual and killed within the first few days.

    A less plausible scenario – she was kidnapped by a single individual, but is alive and locked up in a basement like that man in Belgium who had a woman trapped for 20-something years.

  191. @Pam: The first person to use the “Keystone cops” was jean on August 10th, 2012 1:58 am. If you had bothered to scroll up, you would have read her witty remark “Another error by the Keystone Kops”.

    As for the missing blankets, try searching a bit more, reading a bit more…

    You (and Reality) have wrote long posts full of “if this” and “if that”, which in some cases show that you have started to follow Maddie’s disappearance very recently and ignore a lot of FACTS concerning the case.

    I suggest you try reading a bit in here here:
    “http://themaddiecasefiles.com/”

    @Jean: chav was the word I meant to write… :D

  192. Well Pericles/D – even though you have corrected your error in spelling – this word CHAV is still not in the Oxford English Dictionary – so I presume it is slang for ‘someone who knows what they are talking about’?

    As far as the FACTS of the case are concerned, the Metropolitan Police have been going through these very same facts and have come to the conclusion that THE MCCANNS ARE NOT GUILTY OF ANY MISDEMEANOUR AND THAT MADELEINE MAY STILL BE ALIVE AND CAN PROBABLY BE FOUND. Which is a lot more than you, or I, or anyone, has been able to do because we do not have access to the actual paperwork detailing the true FACTS of this case.

  193. Sorry Pam – yes it was me that called Amaral and his gang Keystone Kops – because in my honest opinion their reactions/non-existent reactions to the events of 3 May 2007 was absolutely disgusting. If they had done their jobs properly most probably Madeleine would have been found a long, long time ago, instead of instantly finding non-existent evidence to blame the parents. That is what is normally called ‘a cop out’!!!!

  194. @ Pericles Pinto.

    I have followed this case from the very moment it was announced that Madeleine had been abducted and I don’t think there is much you can tell me about it with all due respect.

    You stated 2 sheets from the twins cots were missing and this is not true. A pink blanket is “supposedly” missing but we have no idea whether or not that is actually fact. I daresay Operation Grange do now have the facts to hand over this matter.

    I will not read any more of the fantasy maddiecasefiles I am afraid. I have made up my own grown up mind that there were many, many mistakes made in Praia da Luz right at the very beginning of this whole sad and tragic abduction. The Golden Hour was lost when the police in Portugal dragged their heels. I in no way imply all Portuguese police are inept, but those officers lead by Amaral were. Even Amaral says there were many, many mistakes made throughout that sorry investigation. You must know that?

    I may write reams of “if this” and “if that” but it happens to be the case…there were a lots of iffy things done Pericles and it has cost this child her wonderful life with her parents, who, apart from being naive and leaving their children alone while they dined across the complex *(with regular checks in place), were the very model of perfection as parents. those children were loved and cared for and that is very obvious.

    It would be good if Portugal would see her way clear to helping in the search for this child who is a citizen of the United Kingdom.

  195. @ Jean.

    I am in total agreeance with you. Too many mistakes were made or no effort at all to find Madeleine and her abductors. And I also agree too many lies and stories made up as to her parents harming her either through negligence or through murder. Where do these people get off accusing the Mccanns the way they do?

    Do they think we are all as green as grass?

  196. Pericles – “You (and Reality) have wrote long posts full of “if this” and “if that”, which in some cases show that you have started to follow Maddie’s disappearance very recently and ignore a lot of FACTS concerning the case.”

    In my case – you’re correct. I have not only not been following the disappearance very recently, but I haven’t been following it at all. And even now that I’ve seen the photo enough to have the image burned into my brain, I’m still not going to start following the case unless I see her eating breakfast at a table next to mine. The actual case doesn’t really pique my interest more than any other missing person. I’m cynical and I think she is probably dead. And, if within first 24 hours we don’t have enough evidence to bring a charge then it’s probably going to stay a cold case.

    That said, in my defense, 90% of what I’ve written is just about sniffer dogs in general. Some of it supports the claims of both ‘sides’ of the argument. The other 10% just relate to crime trends and statistics, legal proceedings or law enforcement (e.g. most kidnappings that are non-familiar end in death; sex trafficking gangs don’t have a kidnapping MO; expert witnesses make a lot of money; etc.). I don’t need to know much about the specific case to comment on these issues. Kind of like I don’t need to know how to grow exotic Amazonian orchids to tell someone how plants use photosynthesis.

    I can’t tell you if a sheet was missing on a bed or the number of cigarette butts outside of the house. Or if you an see the back and the front at the same time. You’ll notice I’ve never commented on any of these types of ‘facts’ presented. Actually I couldn’t even identify the parents in a photo if you presented one to me.

    Furthermore, I don’t have access to a case file or any actual evidence. So even if I were interested in following the case all I would have are tabloids and dubious sources to begin with. I could read a “Find McCann!” blog, but then it’s pretty obvious they are going to skew it toward her being alive. Or I could read Mr. Grimes’ 20+ websites, all of which want me to buy a “dogs don’t lie” t-shirt while at the same time saying anything necessary to keep his reputation and notoriety up. So as far real facts – we all actually have very little. You know who has the most facts here, ones they don’t even share with us? The police. Bringing us to what Jean said:

    Jean – “As far as the FACTS of the case are concerned, the Metropolitan Police have been going through these very same facts and have come to the conclusion that THE MCCANNS ARE NOT GUILTY OF ANY MISDEMEANOUR AND THAT MADELEINE MAY STILL BE ALIVE AND CAN PROBABLY BE FOUND. Which is a lot more than you, or I, or anyone, has been able to do because we do not have access to the actual paperwork detailing the true FACTS of this case.”

    100% correct. It’s fine to be skeptical (me). Or to have hope and think she is alive (Pam). Or to be a big meanie and assume the guilt of the parents (whomever else). But like Jean said, the only ones with the available facts (police) don’t have enough of said facts to prosecute the McCann parents.

    Just to clarify on a final issue – are the police even still investigating the parents as suspects? Or have they already pretty much decided it wasn’t them?

  197. @ Reality.

    It is good to have had your take on some of the aspects of the case even if you haven’t been following it. Your points regarding the dogs alone should hopefully make the anti McCanns here think surely? I can only hope so. Those dogs are a wonderful money making commodity and as I think I might have said before, I am going to get me a couple and make me a fortune!

    The case of Madeleine McCann has captured the hearts and minds of so many and until I got myself a computer 2 years ago, I had no idea how many people followed the case for better or for worse. I had followed it from day one as far as newsreels and documentaries and my husband said I would undoubtedly find more about it on the internet. Sadly, while there are many wonderful sites there is the polar to this…many nasty sites. It makes me ashamed to be a human being the way a lot of people spend all day mealy mouthing a couple they really know nothing about. Where I see pain and anguish etched across Madeleine’s mother’s face they see a hard woman. Where I see nerves they see a woman they describe as feelingless, emotionless. However the couple of times she and her husband have smiled, like when they were receiving the well wishes of locals in Praia da Luz, they were torn to shreds for that too. They cannot do right for doing wrong in these pathetic people’s small minds.

    I am ever hopeful, of that you are aware Reality, and I have this deep gut instinct that Madeleine is alive and I belong to forums and groups of people who have this same feeling. As the adage goes “Hope Springs Eternal”. Would rather be feeling this way than to be bitter and twisted like some of our friends here.

    So much went wrong in those first 24hrs in Portugal and sadly I and many feel this is the reason Madeleine was able to be taken away from the area and probably the country without any trouble whatsoever. So very sad! A darling little girl who must have been terrified when she realised she was no longer in the family fold but with complete strangers. Can only pray she is being treated well IF she is still alive.

  198. Hi Reality – The British police have dismissed the fact completely that the McCanns had any part in the disappearance of Madeleine.

    They were made ‘arguidos’ for a time in Portugal, which means that they were suspected of a crime. Along with this status they were allowed to refuse to answer any questions, and have a lawyer present. During questioning Kate was told that if she confessed to killing her daughter she would be guaranteed a lenient sentence of 2 years, and her husband would be allowed to go home with their two other children. Very shortly after this happened they returned home to England, which speaks volumes to me. If the Portugese police had had any evidence whatsoever which they could have used to find them guilty, no way on this earth would they have let them out of the country. Together with the fact that they tried to blackmail her into saying she was guilty of heinous crime.

    Who we now refer to the ‘anti-McCanns’ are still of the opinion that no matter what they are guilty of, either killing their daughter with an overdose of some sort of drug, because they are both doctors, or finding her dead in the apartment after a fall of some sort, and because they feared for their reputation they staged this elaborate story that she had been abducted. It has also been suggested that they hid her in a freezer until the coast was clear and then buried her either in a sand dune or took her 28 days later to another village in a hire car. Not taking into account that by that time the smell of the corpse would be noticed by all the worlds media, which had gathered on the day after Madeleine disappeared. All of which makes me believe that the people who make up these stories ought to stop watching the television late at night because it is affecting their brain!

    Together with the fact that – according to the anti-McCanns, they enlisted the help of the seven friends they were on holiday with. As you have stated previously, the more people who are involved in a crime, the more chance there is that one of them will slip up and tell the truth. Which to date, five and a half years on, has not happened!!

  199. Linking this article showing that the families of missing children never give up hope. Even 50 years down the line they want answers:-

    “http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/new-reward-money-offered-in-missouri-girl-s-abduction/article_0e314c02-f1e8-11e1-9309-001a4bcf6878.html”

  200. @jean: “Metropolitan Police have been going through these very same facts and have come to the conclusion that THE MCCANNS ARE NOT GUILTY OF ANY MISDEMEANOUR”

    Actually, the Portuguese Police could have charged the McCanns with misdemeanour: leaving children unattended is, by itself, enough for that, under the Portuguese law.

    And that, I assure you, would have happened if the the missing child was from a Portuguese couple and they had no “connections”.

    Clearly not the case of the McCaans… and that’s the ONLY reason they got away with no accusation for misdemeanour by the Ministério Público.

  201. @ Pericles Pinto.

    Do you mean justice as in the way or torturing confessions out of innocent parents by any chance?

    As far as I can ascertain the “connections” you seem to think the McCanns have and the power they wield is purely in your and a few sad others heads.

  202. Pericles – “Actually, the Portuguese Police could have charged the McCanns with misdemeanour: leaving children unattended is, by itself, enough for that, under the Portuguese law.

    And that, I assure you, would have happened if the the missing child was from a Portuguese couple and they had no “connections”.”

    I usually hear the opposite perspective on the Olive Press; “The police are discriminating against us and treat us badly because we’re English!”

    But I digress, this is another issue completely. I know that the police, in general, often will not charge a person for a lesser crime in the moment if they are being investigated for a greater one (for example, a misdemeanor for neglecting the child when there is evidence of murder). Usually, charging a person for a lesser crime is a tactic to do one of two things: keep them in jail for a short time period (various reasons for this) or to put psychological pressure them.

    Because really if an investigator or detective believes that two parents murdered a child, or that the child were kidnapped, the last thing they want to do is arrest the parents for a lesser charge. Worst case scenario suspect immediately lawyers up in jail and stops cooperating. Or it turns out ‘proof’ shows up in a couple of days that they caught the kidnapper and found the child. Imagine the headline: “Child Found, Accused Parents Released From Portuguese Jail.” The police (and politicians/city counsels/tourist authorities/etc.) don’t like that.

    Anyway, it is all like you had written in en earlier post, “What ifs.” Sure, “what if” the police could have arrested them, and “what if” they had been Portuguese, and “what if” they could have applied that misdemeanor law in this case in Portugal, but not the UK. “What if” a body fell behind a couch.

    In fact – since there is no evidence – isn’t every single scenario accusing the McCanns of criminal wrongdoing really a “what if” at this point?

  203. Sorry to disagree with you again Mr Pinto – but if the Portuguese police had any evidence whatsoever they would have used it despite the ‘connections’ you say the McCanns had. Because they were in Portugal British opinion, no matter where it came from would have held no water, and they would have been charged.

    As far as the ‘neglect charge’ is concerned, even though the children were left alone in an apartment, they were checked on every half hour, therefore this does not constitute neglect. If that were the case, practically every family staying at the Ocean Club should have been charged!!

  204. reality, I missed your earlier post. These types of dogs find remnant scent not just bodies. there endeth. the point is that that scent should be of concern, ie it is justifiable suspicion, the polices words by the way, not mine.

    The fact that this dog has worked many cases of missing people and alerted to remnant scent where later the missing person was found and the relatives charged and convicted should be another prick up your ears moment.

    Not forgetting that the cause of the scent has not to this day been identified as otherwise.

  205. Hi June,

    Read your comments and while I agree with you to a degree it has to be taken on board here that the dogs were retired from S.Yorks police, unlicensed as far as I can ascertain and went to PdL because the Portuguese police requested them some 3 months after the abduction.

    The PJ had allowed contamination of the crime scene…no SOCO’s it would seem in Portugal so there would have been very little chance of getting any positive DNA in anycase. But nothing happened in 5a apart from a previous occupant having cut himself badly when shaving and reporting he had bled right through that apartment…probably including the wardrobe which was, after all, in the main bedroom.

    The dog reacted much too hyperactively before entering 5a in my opinion, even before reaching the door as f excited to be out with her master. And why did Grime not wear protective clothing? he did in the car park where again Keela acted in a rather peculiar manner completely ignoring the Mccanns hire car until prompted to come back.

    Too many worrying discrepancies regarding the dogs to even warrant them a viable consideration.

  210. Hi June,

    Please supply me with those cases where these dogs helped in a case? Are we talking of Haute de la Garenne? Nothing concrete came of that exercise either did it?

    I don’t doubt that sniffer dogs can help as there are many wonderful dogs who help locate living people and explosives and drugs, but the McCann case….well the opposite has been achieved and as one report has said…dogs can hinder the investigations rather than help. I think this is definitely one such case.

  211. Pam what would be the point in citing the many cases where Eddie Keela and or mr grimes other dogs have helped find the remnant scent of death? you would only just be intent on trashing them, it’s all on google

    I have not exaggerated anything at all, you should also ask yourself why you and others are gong apoplectic about them if there is no substAnce, quite telling don’t you think?

  212. June dear, the reason we go apoplectic about the dogs, as you put it is only because you are apoplectic about them in the anti McCann world of hatred. You will keep pushing that the dogs found gallons of Madeleine’s blood (as I read on twitter only last night) under the tiles when in fact NOTHING attributable to Madeleine has been found anywhere and some of it stinks as a set up to most of us. Not saying Grime deliberately set anything up, but there was a well orchestrated plan there by somebody.

    I really do feel that some of you have very blinkered minds and cannot see the wider picture. Perhaps your whole lives have been spent watching soap operas and believing these things can and do happen. Well yes, maybe in this instance they can, but what you have to think is who is the story teller here???

  216. June – “Pam what would be the point in citing the many cases where Eddie Keela and or mr grimes other dogs have helped find the remnant scent of death?”

    Here are some facts about Eddie and Keela that come directly from Mr. Martin Grimes, just to try and clarify how the dogs are actually trained:

    Regarding the dog Eddie:

    “The initial training of the dog was conducted using human blood and stillborn decomposing piglets. The importance of this is that the dog is introduced to the scent of a decomposing body…He has additionally trained exclusively using human remains in the U.S.A. in association with the F.B.I. The enhanced training of the dog has also involved the use of collection of ‘cadaver scent’ odor from human corpses using remote technical equipment which does not contact the subject.”

    “Pig is used as it has been proven in training and operationally over the last 20 years to be a reliable analogue for human remains detecting training for dogs. The possession of human remains for the purpose of training dogs in the U.K. is not acceptable at this point in time.”

    So the important thing to remember about Eddie is that this dog was first trained in the UK using decomposing pig – this is the initial scent it was trained for. Later, the dog received additional training for decomposing human scent. This is the key here – there was never any training for “remnant of death” unless by “remnant of death” you mean the smell of decomposed flesh.

    If a person were to die and be moved from the scene immediately the dog would not alert; the body must be in a state of decomposition. The dog’s training only lets it alert to the scent of decomposition. There is no “death remnant” scent that suddenly appears the instant a person dies. There is only the scent of decomposition when the body’s enzymes begin to break down the tissue (which can be hours or even days after death). This is a dog trained using dead pigs, decomposed human remains and synthetic cadaver scent. It isn’t a dog that sniffs out ghosts, spirits or an ephemeral “remnant of death” scent.

    On Keela:

    “‘Keela’ The Crime Scene Investigation (C.S.I.) dog will search for and locate exclusively human blood…In order for the dog to locate the source the blood must have ‘dried’ in situ. Any ‘wetting’ once dried will not affect the dog’s abilities. Blood that is subjected to dilution by precipitation or other substantial water source prior to drying will soak into the ground or other absorbent material. This may dilute the scent to an unacceptable level for accurate location.”

    Keela is only trained to alert to human blood. Additionally, unless the blood has first dried the dog will not alert. This means someone could, theoretically, clean up a recent wound, or just dilute it, and Keela might not alert. The implication is that Keela could not alert to any bloodless crimes (e.g. strangulation, suffocation, a bloodless fall, head trauma, etc.).

    Now, isn’t the idea most people have that this girl was moved shortly after her death? And that it was a bloodless crime? If so, neither of the dogs are of any use. They could be great dogs, but they would be useless unless the girl’s body was in a state of decomposition or bloody.

    In fact, consider this grizzly hypothetical situation – say someone commits a murder in a bathroom, chops the body into pieces and then immediately wets down and cleans up all of the blood. Neither of the dogs would alert – Eddie wouldn’t (not enough time for decomposition) nor would Keela (because the blood was diluted and never allowed to dry). I use this example because historically it was a common method of body disposal for victims of various Mafia groups.

    Sniffer dogs are limited. They aren’t magical murder detectors. I have no doubt that Mr. Grimes’ dogs are as good as any other dog trained for the same thing, but what I think people fail to realize is just how limited the dogs are.

    It also does not matter how many successes the dogs have had in the past. If a dog alerts to a scent – but there is no evidence of a body, or blood, there is no way to tell if the alert is a true positive or false positive. The dogs found no blood and no bodies. Thus, there is no evidence. You can’t bring charges of drug trafficking just because your dog alerted to the scent of a narcotic – just like you can’t bring murder charges because your dog alerted to the scent of blood or decomposition.

    June – “Looking forward to the libel trial and the mcanns LOSING”

    I am not sure if you know this, but the burden of proof in a civil trial is less than a criminal trial. Thus, it is actually easier to ‘prove’ someone guilty of libel than it would be to ‘prove’ them guilty of murder. All they would have to show is that (a) there was damage to their reputation and (b) the person knowingly made a false statement resulting in (a). Since the McCanns were never found guilty of any crime, (b) is already a given. If they wanted to, they could probably make a living suing any media outlets accusing them of murder. Most would settle right away.

  217. Reality: I applaude you for coming here and explaining things with such clarity. At least it is clear to me but whether or not some of these others here will take it on board is quite another matter.

    You see they have a hatred for these grieving parents of Madeleine’s. They took it into their heads years ago to disbelieve every word they utter and analyse every move they make and stamp across their foreheads the words “GUILTY OF MURDER”. This is the truth of the matter. And unfortunately the internet has enabled these few people to band together and attack the McCanns at every possible level and at every given opportunity…or just for the hell of it!! Very sad to witness such activities, but what we see displayed here and on other forums and facebook/twitter is the mental capabilities of the schoolyard bullies. Nothing more and nothing less. Incredible as it seems these people have not grown up!

    I fully understand what you have said regarding the dogs and agree with you totally, but it is futile trying to get through to these people whose mindset is that the dogs are never inaccurate, although we know full well they can be. That is not to say the dogs lie, because dogs don’t know how to, but they can be wrong. That is entirely different to lying. You have pointed this out admirably above.

    So the dogs did not prove a damn thing in Praia da Luz and Mr Grime did not say they had any proof…this is what annoys me. So why make out he did? These people have made the situation much worse for the man by claiming he did make these claims!!!

    The libel trial has once again been postponed I believe. We wait and wait for this to be put to bed but delaying tactics seem to be the order of the day. Maybe, just maybe, the defendant knows he will lose and quite rightly so. He has slurried the name of a couple who have suffered unimaginable years of grief and guilt. Not guilt for having harmed their child, because it is quite obvious to most that they haven’t, but grief and tremendous guilt at leaving the children in a vulnerable position there in Praia da Luz. Nobody can say they were right to do this, but it felt safe enough in that quiet little resort and regular checks were in place. What these people fail to understand is that even in our own homes we are vulnerable. A person living close to me had their lounge window removed the other night while they were sleeping soundly in bed. The burglar casually poured himself a whisky while he sifted through their belongings! Now had that person been an abductor, I daresay he may well have managed to take a child out through the window. It has happened this way before as has been reported, and then other children have been raped and murdered in the next room to sleeping parents both here in UK and in USA. So please do stop hounding the McCanns you lot. Madeleine has been abducted…I am sure as sure can be that this is the case. Somewhere she may still be alive (especially as no body has been found) so good people will continue to keep this in mind and treat her as a missing UK citizen abducted while abroad.

  219. Do you mean as in not being able to get blood from a stone Pericles? Do you understand that English expression?

    I don’t think it has much to do with the money anyhow but perhaps more to do with justice? The McCanns were libelled by this dreadful little man and he did as much as he possibly could to get people on his side and believing that Madeleine is dead!!!!

    Is that right? How would you feel had your daughter disappeared…whoosh…gone? That simply. How would you be then Pericles if you were up against such a policeman? Honest answer please.

  220. Pericles – “Reality, I’m willing to bet that the McCanns will not get a dime out of this.”

    I have no idea, libel cases can go any way. Often the point isn’t even winning money, but breaking the other person via attorney and court costs.

    Pam – “The McCanns were libelled by this dreadful little man and he did as much as he possibly could to get people on his side and believing that Madeleine is dead!!!!”

    Actually making the argument that she is dead probably isn’t libel. Accusing the McCanns of being murderers would definitely be libelous though. A key component of libel is usually knowingly making a false statement (that causes damage, etc.). If he actually believes she is dead and outlined the reasons why it would be a stretch to turn that into libel. However, if he says she is dead because of the McCann parents then it starts crossing the line into libel-land.

  221. @ Reality,

    I haven’t read his book and neither would I, but seemingly he must have crossed this libel line for the lawyers to be pursuing him. I am positive the McCanns don’t want this angst in their lives constantly. God help them, they have more than enough to contend with!

    What I said I stand by. Amaral has tried making us believe Madeleine died in the apartment, when, as we know, there is no proof that she did. This is so wrong and in my opinion unforgivable.

    • Jeez! The mccanns have brought this all on themselves. All these people calling everyone “haters” when it’s not the mccanns that they hate, it is the things that the mccanns have done and still do. I agree with the dogs findings and I agree with Gonçalo Amaral. I don’t believe the children were being checked every half hour or even hourly. I don’t believe there was an abduction. Have you not read Yvonne Martin’s statement? I believe that the McCanns are finally giving up the ghost and they have nobody to blame but themselves.

  222. Pam writes “I haven’t read his book and neither would I […]”.

    Yet, the same Pam is willing to comment about the case where Gonçalo Amaral is being sued by the MCCanns and dissert about the man.

    Let’s not forget that the case is actually all about what he wrote, not about what he did while he was an investigator.

    What does this tell us about Pam?

    Pam, before you go on and make a fool of yourself, go buy yourself this book, or read it on the internet.

  223. Oh Pericles you are keeping me busy!

    I have no intention of ever lining this man’s pockets or wasting my time reading his piffle on the internet either.

    I am firm in my belief Madeleine was abducted and will never change my mind. Sorry! Nice try!

  225. @ Reality. Oh the author won his appeal to have the books returned. Much good it will do him. So the ban has been lifted.

    I don’t imagine it will ever be on sale in the UK and if it is, I will be very surprised if it does well.

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  228. Nice comments from Pam Gurney who claims Scotland Yard come to her house to watch in amazement as she consults a crystal. This woman also claims to have been given the codename ‘agent Maria’ by Operation Grange. Is that a cuckoo flying over the nest I see?

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