Dr Martin Roberts: A crying shame

[size=9]A CRYING SHAME

Just when you think there's nothing more to add, that all of the inconsistencies have been thrashed out like grouse from the undergrowth, up pops another. Admittedly it's not totally new inasmuch as the topic in general has long since come to the media's, and hence public attention. However, the emergence of one extra, small, yet significant detail makes the overall picture just that little bit clearer.

For an en passant remark, adjudged (and so nearly dismissed) as whimsical, Madeleine McCann's question to her parents about why they didn't come when she was crying, must rank as one of the most widely reported quotes to have emerged from the McCann family's Portuguese holiday. It was reported by the McCanns themselves in their 'one year on' documentary of 30 April, 2008, and in their interview with Dermot Murhaghan for Sky News a day later. Further back in time it was repeated by Kate to Fiona Payne, Rachael Oldfield and Jayne Tanner on the evening of May 3, 2007 and by Kate and Gerry independently to the Portuguese police on the occasion of their initial interviews, as revealed by an apparent 'leak' to the media after a year had elapsed.

The bruhaha this 'leak' created when first reported arose on account of there being two implications entailed by the comment in question. The McCann stance was that the question was considered, with the benefit of hindsight, to be of potential significance, suggesting as it did that something or someone made Madeleine cry the night before she was reported missing. The alternative implication to be brought to the fore however was that Madeleine's crying, and hence Madeleine herself, was unattended for some time. This was the unspoken accusation which the McCanns' champion, Clarence Mitchell, stentoriously defended them against when answering questions put by to him by Anna Jones of Sky News, on 11 April, 2008. Clarence very helpfully confirmed that Rachael Oldfield, who happened to be in her own (adjoining) apartment that Wednesday night, heard no crying whatsoever, so slight and transient it must have been. When one considers that the partition walls within the Ocean Club complex are sufficiently insubstantial as to have allowed the Oldfields to hear their immediate neighbours in the shower, it seems rather to have been a case of 'silence is golden', i.e. Rachael Oldfield heard no crying, because there was no crying.

Already there is a chink in the curtains here. Had Madeleine been crying on the Wednesday night she would undoubtedly have been heard by Rachael Oldfield nearby, just as certainly as infant crying from 5A was heard by Mrs Fenn, resident in the apartment above, on the Tuesday night. And those episodes of retelling in hindsight? They took place at the dinner table on Thursday night, i.e. before Madeleine's absence had been noted. That is not hindsight at all, but foresight, the all-important observation being made to friends first, the police afterwards (by both parents on 4 May, Gerry again on 10 May, Kate once more on 6 September and Gerry on the 7th).

We see this particular chink widening further, with the uncovering of a witness statement by Leicestershire Police Officer Stephen Markley, made on 25 April, 2008, in relation to his activities as family communication officer while working in Portugal with the McCanns. The key aspect (for present purposes) of his statement is as follows:

"However, in relation to the above, I would like to add the following: At about 20.00 on Saturday 5th May 2007, I arrived at the apartment where Kate and Gerry were staying, with other officers. During the meeting Gerald and Kate had a number of questions to which they wanted follow up and responses from the PJ.

"One of these questions was that they wanted the PJ to be aware of was Madeleine's revelation about Wednesday night, when she said that she was left alone during the night. She told Kate and Gerry that she remembered the twins crying and that she wanted to know why neither her mother nor her father had gone to the room to see what was happening."

There is something distinctly unsettling about the McCanns' various bouts of selective amnesia in relation to events surrounding their daughter's as yet unexplained absence from apartment 5A (an unsubstantiated hypothesis, even one of abduction, is not an explanation). When interviewed for Spanish broadcaster Antena 3 they were each unable to offer up any recollection of their last sighting of Madeleine. And yet they attached such importance to one off-hand comment by her, a comment latterly reported as having no importance at all for the child herself, that they repeated it to several friends, and then, on several occasions, the Portuguese Police. They have, as we know from the intervention of their professional mouthpiece, vigorously refuted the implication of child abandonment, whilst publicly expressing the view that it is the implication of some unidentified intruder which drove them to alert the PJ to Madeleine's unusual tale of crying. These are the obvious alternatives. But there is a third, rather less obvious motive to consider; one which might offer a more convincing justification for the McCanns seeking to 'over-egg the pudding' than their calling attention to the possibility of prowlers in a sleepy holiday complex.

On the face of it there's nothing unusual about the McCanns 'wanting the PJ to be aware' of Madeleine's revelation concerning the Wednesday night. It's only when this desire is set against the fact that they had already (4 May) twice told the PJ themselves about the incident, that their request to Officer Markley on the 5^th appears overly insistent.

It is noteworthy that, in terms of recollection, Wednesday 2 May in Praia da Luz represents something of a 'black hole' as far as the McCanns and their friends are concerned. We might then ask ourselves this question: As a bare minimum, what does Madeleine's mention of her being unattended confirm? Simply that she was able to refer to it subsequently. If 'the night before' is assumed to have been the Wednesday then the conversation in question can only have taken place on the Thursday morning, and Madeleine was in a position to be 'taken' that night. But there was no crying on the Wednesday to speak of, so why would Madeleine have spoken about it? Or are we to suppose she was referring to the Tuesday? (I ask you, does a 3/4 - year-old carry such issues forward over 30 hours? Certain adolescents of my acquaintance have difficulty in remembering something for 30 minutes).

What stands out most from this determination to bring Madeleine's transient unease to everyone's attention, is that Madeleine herself is portrayed as having drawn attention to it, on the Thursday, from which one is invited to conclude that she must have been in a position so to do - on the Thursday. Hence, verbal 'signs of life', promulgated, of course, by the McCanns, as was the untruth about 'jemmied shutters.'

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id232.html