Where has CMOMM got to – and what do we need to do in 2017?

By Tony Bennett - January 2017

Over the past two years, two significant developments – one consisting of research on CMOMM and the other posted by CMOMM member HideHo – have altered the majority view on the forum on what happened to Madeleine McCann and when.

I refer to the ‘Last Photo‘ threads and to HideHo’s very comprehensive work on ‘the lack of credible independent sightings’ of Madeleine from Monday 30 April onwards.    

If we look back, the account of Madeleine’s disappearance began with the McCanns’ assertion that Madeleine was seen alive by Gerry McCann at 9.10pm but was being whisked away by a nattily-dressed abductor five minutes later by their friend Jane Tanner. We have all come a long way since then, including even Operation Grange. To widen the time period in which Madeleine could have been abducted from 5 minutes to 50, and to allow Jane Tanner to recover an element of credibility, DCI Andy Redwood invented ‘Crecheman’.

We eagerly awaited the first English translation of Goncalo Amaral’s ‘Truth of the Lie’, and ‘AnnaEsse’ obliged during the latter half of 2008. By that time we had all had a chance to pore over the many translations we were getting from our Portuguese friends from the PJ DVDs released on August that year.      

From reading Amaral’s book, it was clear that he regarded the statement of Catriona Baker, Madeleine’s  nanny, as valid independent proof that Madeleine was indeed still alive at around 5.30pm-6pm on Thursday 3 May,  She confirmed that Madeleine attended the ‘high tea’ at the Tapas restaurant that day. So Amaral and his team suggested that Madeleine died from ‘an accident’ in the McCanns’ apartment, G5A, sometime after 6pm that evening.

And that conclusion has been a fixed ‘fact’ in the minds of many Madeleine McCann researchers ever since.  Notably e.g. ‘Textusa’, whose website still says:  This blog believes that concerning the MADDIE McCANN case the following happened: -  Maddie McCann died in the early evening of May 3rd, 2007, in the Apartment 5A.

Another researcher, U.S. criminal profiler Pat Brown, also adopted Amaral’s conclusion that Cat Baker must be telling the truth, and gave her own account about how Madeleine may have died after 6pm that evening. ‘UnterdenTeppichgekehrt’ (= ‘swept under the carpet’) was another.

From the beginning, people not only queried whether Madeleine had been abducted but openly speculated that she must have died 1, 2 or 3 days earlier. I clearly recall someone called Eric, either from Austria or Switzerland IIRC, who on the early days insisted that she must have died three days earlier.  

The two breakthroughs

But the Last Photo thread and HideHo’s research eventually came up with a truly remarkable coincidence.

PeterMac, a retired British police superintendent, sought out two top class experts on digital photographs, one a U.S. University Professor, to give their opinion on whether or not there was evidence that the Last Photo was photoshopped. He did this partly in order to silence the multiple voices of amateur ‘experts’ who insisted that the Last Photo was photoshopped in dozens of different and contradictory ways, and moreover no two of them could ever agree on which way the photo had been photoshopped.

The verdict of the two experts was remarkably clear-cut; The Last Photo is a genuine photo and has not been photoshopped.  The experts carried out a battery of forensic tests on the photograph. Both noted that the shadows were very short and noted no inconsistency in the shadows anywhere in the photograph. Professor Harry Farid carried out specific tests on the shadows. Again, he found no inconsistency in them. It was Prof. Farid, however, who noted that it was very easy to change the ‘metadata’ for a photograph, suggesting the possibility that the photo was perfectly genuine but could have been taken on a different date.

That set PeterMac off on a number of new lines of research. He researched the weather data for the week in as many places as he could find. He consulted an expat British amateur meteorologist who lived in Praia da Luz who had maintained contemporaneous notes on the weather that week (28 April – 5 May) in Praia da Luz. He then hunted the internet for photos taken on each day that week in turn.

He noted the main features of the Last Photo: (a) all wearing light clothing, T-shirts, shorts etc. (b) signs it was a hot day – e.g. a sheen of perspiration on Gerry McCann’s forehead (c) children wearing sun hats (d) no sign of wind or breeze (e) Gerry wearing sunglasses (f) all dipping their feet in the pool etc.

He was able to conclusively show from all these data that only the Saturday and Sunday that week were sunny and hot; the weather broke on Monday with a cold front bringing more cloudy, cooler, windier weather and some train. The McCanns didn’t arrive in Praia da.Luz until late Saturday afternoon. He concluded that the Last Photo could ONLY have been taken on the Sunday. How anyone could have the sheer brass neck to accuse PeterMac of being a ‘fake’ or a ‘government shill’ - as has been seriously suggested elsewhere on the net in recent days - is beyond belief. He has for years been putting his heart and soul into researching and publishing facts and analysis on the Madeleine McCann case and every one of us who is sincerely striving to understand what happened to Madeleine, should be hugely grateful to him for his dedicated efforts.

HideHo’s contribution, through coming at the issue from a wholly different angle, provided dramatic confirmation of PeterMac’s work. She meticulously spent hours of research analysing each claimed sighting of Madeleine that week, concentrating on the claims of independent witnesses. i.e. independent of the McCanns and their Tapas 7 friends.

She could not find any credible independent sighting on the Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday. The latest one she could find was of a cleaner, María Serafim da Silva Espada who saw Madeleine, and all five members of the McCann family, emerge from their apartment and walk up towards the Payne’s apartment. Her description is detailed and accurate. We can definitely take it as a confirmed, actual sighting. She says it happened at about 1.15pm on the Sunday.

The Last Photo metadata show that the photo was taken at 1.29pm (albeit on a different day). If correct, that would be consistent with my own detailed calculations which showed that in Praia da Luz on 29 April 2007, the sun would be at its zenith at 1.35pm. The shortness of the shadows is a striking feature of the photographs. They are consistent with each other and could not be faked.

The last confirmed photo of Madeleine, then (I exclude the Tennis Balls photo from consideration) appears to have been taken at 1.29pm – or possibly 2.29pm if Gerry McCann was ever right about the photo never having been adjusted for time zones. This matches perfectly with the very detailed account of María Serafim da Silva Espada. The only credible claims of Madeleine being seen after that time are by the McCanns and their Tapas 7 friends – and two very questionable child nannies: Cat Baker and Charlotte Pennington.

So after this research was discussed, published and debated on CMOMM, it was almost inevitable that, unless anyone could demonstrate otherwise, most forum members would be driven to the conclusion that something very serious must have happened to Madeleine either on the Sunday evening or the Monday morning.

Focusing research on the four days before Madeleine was reported missing

And so has begun, and continued, a process of asking questions about what really happened during the four days before the alarm was raised. Some of these issues have been aired and discussed on the forum. Some have not. I list them here in the hope that members and guests here will think about these questions, and suggest possible answers or lines of research. Apart from that, I wish all genuine truth-seekers here a Happy New Year.

A The visit to Praia da Luz of the Managing Director and fellow Director of Resonate, a subsidiary of global PR firm Bell Pottinger, the week before Madeleine was reported missing

We now know that Resonate CEO Michael Frohlich and Resonate dir­ector Tricia Moon were in Praia da Luz days before Madeleine was reported missing, probably from the Monday.  The PR News magazine who reported this claimed they were just the4e ‘on a generic brief’.  By Friday that week, however, they were already “helping liaise with the British Consulate in Portugal, the Portuguese Police and the Portuguese and UK media”. Hmmm. One moment ‘just there on a generic brief’ but then, by Thursday, right at the very heart of an international media storm. So the questions:

1 Were they just there on a ’generic brief’?

2 Had they been sent there because something serious had already happened to Madeleine?

3 Who sent them?  Did Mark Warner contact them and say ‘We just want you here for a few days on  a generic brief’?

4 Or had they been in touch with Bell Pottinger on Sunday and Bell Pottinger had ordered their subsidiary to get down there PDQ and do some necessary preparatory work?

B The fabricated lies of an alleged kidnapping by Nuno Lourenco

We have now exposed that Nuno Lourenco’s account of how a man on Sagres beach allegedly tried to kidnap his young daughter was a blatant tissue of lies. We also know that his description of the alleged kidnapper was based fairly and squarely on a Polish holidaymaker, Wojchiech Krokowski. We know that when he contacted the PJ on the morning of Saturday 5 May, Lourenco had with him a photograph of Krokowski;s rented car. We also know that his description of the alleged kidnapper matched almost exactly the description given the previous day by Jane Tanner of ‘Tannerman’.And we also know that Goncalo Amaral and his men were cunningly duped by this deception.  We can safely deduce from all of that, that this cunning deception was meticulously planned beforehand. So, here are some important questions that arise from all of that:

5 Was he no more than (as he claimed) a Portuguese ex-pat now living in Germany who had returned home to Sagres over the Easter period to visit his dear old Mum?

6 Who instructed him to carry out this deliberate deception on the Portuguese police?

7 Who decided that Jane Tanner and Nuno Lourenco would both describe Wojchiech Krokowski?

8 Who came up with the description “didn’t look like a tourist’?

9 Was there a planning meeting at which Jane Tanner and Nuno Lourenco were jointl;y given these instructions?

10 Given that hairs of the same haplotype of both Jane Tanner and Robert Murat were found at Krokowski’s apartment, could the planning meeting have taken place there, with Krokowski himself in attendance? – and Robert Murat and Jane Tanner also in attendance?

11 Krokowski stayed in an apartment maintained by a company associated with Murat’s father. He ate most of his meals that week at the Burgau Beach Bar, owned by Murat’s aunt and uncle, Ralph & Sally Eveleigh. It was Ralph Eveleigh who apparently supplied the PJ with the information that they should go and check out the CCTV of a record shop in Lisbon. Was there a prior connection between Krokowski and the Murat family?    

12 Was Krokowski a willing patsy? Or not?

C The fabricated lies of Vicky Boyd about her son Louie playing football with Madeleine on the Wednesday that week

The story that appeared in the short-lived First Magazine article about Madeleine, in which Mrs Boyd describes lying on a sun-lounger with Kate McCann while her son Louie played with Madeleine is demonstrably false for so many reasons. Richard Hall ; covered this fully in his last Madeleine film and PeterMac has done so in an extra chapter of his e-book ( ’Spot the water-slide’, here:  
http://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/chapter-20-spot-water-slide.html ).

So many questions arise from this, e.g.:

13 Why did Vicky Boyd agree to tell all these obvious lies?

14 Was she paid for her ‘work’? If so, how much?

15 Who set this magazine article up? Did someone do it on behalf of the McCanns? Was it arranged y Clarence Mitchell?

16 What were the roles of the magazine’s owner/editor, and the journalist. In checking out and agreeing to publish this false story?

17 What was the real purpose of this article?

The Make Up Photo

18 Was it taken, as has been suggested, in Praia da Luz the week the McCanns were there?

19 Could it have been taken the very same day as the Last Photo, maybe later on?

20 If so, who took it?

21 Who dressed Madeleine up with hair beads, necklace, blue eyeshadow and lipstick?

22 For what reason?

23 Why do we see no confirmed photos of Madeleine that week (excluding the doubtful Tennis Ball Photo)?

The booking of the Tapas restaurant for the week

24 Who actually booked it? There are different versions.

25 When was it actually booked? Again there are different versions.

26 What was the real reason the restaurant was booked for the whole week?

Indications of preparation

27 Why did the McCanns switch on Monday to having breakfast and lunch in their own room? Had something happened on Sunday?

28 [‘madeleine’, p. 57] Why did the McCanns, as early as Monday, need to use the washing machine and know how to work it? Has something happened the day before which would mean that they needed to do a lot of washing?

29 [‘madeleine’, p.57] Why did the McCanns, as early as Monday, break the window shutters so they need repairing?  Was this a mere accident?  

30 [‘madeleine’, p.57] Why did Kate McCann specifically mention Madeleine’s new holiday sandals, when discussing the Tennis Balls Photo? Could it be because the body of the girl shown in the Tennis Balls photo was not Madeleine after all?  

31 [‘madeleine’, p. 58] Kate claims that Gerry ‘needed a pair of sunglasses’, so bought a pair at a market stall in Praia da Luz on Wednesday. It was, as Kate says, raining that day. But if the Last Photo was taken on the Sunday – a sunny day – why on earth would he need another pair of sunglasses? Or was this reference to Gerry buying sunglasses because the McCanns know the Last Photo of Madeleine on Sunday was the true Last Photo of her? - and they had already planned to change the date it was taken?          

32 [‘madeleine’, p. 65 - Kate washes Madeleine’s pyjamas]. Dr Martin Roberts has already provided ample evidence that the pyjamas Kate washed were the very same ones produced in a photograph on a blue hessian–style background and shown to the Leicestershire Police on or about 8 May 2007. These, shows Dr Roberts, were the very same pyjamas shown to BBC Crimewatch on 5 June and again at the Amsterdam press conference on 7 June. They were not Amelie’s as claimed. More evidence of careful planning and preparation for an abduction scenario.

The swift involvement of the world’s media in the project  

33 How was it that the world’s media were switched on simultaneously to cover this case at full  blast from the very morning of Friday 4 May? Was it just a few random ‘phone calls to press contacts during the early hours of 4 May? Or had key media figures been briefed some time in advance thata big new story was about to emerge?        

The people who rushed out to Praia da Luz

The following were all buzzing in and around Praia da Luz within 2-3 days of Thursday 3 May:

British Ambassador and support staff

Foreign and Commonwealth staff
3 top Leics Police officers
Alex Woolfall, Head of Risk at Bell Pottinger

At least 2 members of Control Risks Group
Staff from MI5 or other branches of the security services, including ’criminal profilers’
A team of lawyers
The Head of Centre for Crisis Psychology, Alan Pike, and a colleague
The boss of Mark Warner, David Hopkins and his deputy  

In addition:

A Bell Pottinger subsidiary Resonate were on the ground there at the beginning of the week
B Clarence Mitchell was appointed on 6 May, and
C The government convened a meeting of top government officials and agencies on 8 May under the chairmanship of Matt Baggott – which agencies were represented they have kept secret.

So, last, comes maybe the most crucial question we need to answer:

34 What was it about this case that forced the government and everybody else, to act with such lightning speed?  What were they trying to suppress?  
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Members wishing to comment on this subject can do so here:  https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13371-where-has-cmomm-got-to-and-what-do-we-need-to-do-in-2017-34-questions-we-need-to-find-answers-for