If Madeleine McCann died on Sunday 29 April, what was really going on behind the scenes that week?

If Madeleine McCann died on Sunday 29 April, what was really going on behind the scenes that week?

There are a great many indications that Madeleine was not alive after Sunday 29 April, which have been discussed on CMOMM and elsewhere, notably the films of Richard D Hall and the ebook by PeterMac.

If Madeleine McCann did die on Sunday 29 April, then, very obviously, there must have been a carefully constructed plan to deceive the police and the world that Madeleine had been abducted. 

The theory of Goncalo Amaral and the Portuguese Police is this. They believed that Madeleine was at a 'high tea' with her parents and that Catriona Baker, a children's nanny, and the McCanns, were enjoying a 'high tea' together at the Tapas restaurant, until after 5.30pm on Thursday 3 May. This theory requires the following to be believed; namely that:

1. Madeleine died some time after 5.30pm that evening
2. If she was badly hurt or unconscious, that they tried to treat or revive her
3. If the twins were present or nearby, the McCanns would have moved them out of the way whilst they decided what to do
4. (Once sure that she was dead) they presumably considered whether they should report her death to the authorities 
5. Decided not to do so
6. Got over the initial shock 
7. Hid Madeleine from view whilst they considered what to do
8. Cleaned up e.g. if there was any blood 
9. May have washed the curtains
10. Arranged to disposed of any evidence
11. Deleted messages on their mobile 'phones1
12. Contacted some or all of their Tapas 7 friends to see if they would co-operate with a faked abduction 

13. Got every single one of them (with the possible exception of Dianne Webster) to agree with them
14. Put the children calmly to bed
15. Got dressed for dinner
16. Both ate with their friends at the Tapas restaurant, from 8.30pm to 10pm, with only short interludes for 'checking'
17. Moved and hid the body so well that it was never found, and, finally 
18. Staged an abduction.

Manifestly this was impossible. 

The purpose of this new thread therefore - if this was indeed a planned hoax abduction as some believe - is to discuss how such an audacious and successful plan might, or could, have been put together, to explore various possibilities and theories, and to consider some of the people who are likely to have been involved in the planning and execution of such a hoax. 

The primary focus is intended to be on all the hidden actions of various actors that might have taken place before 10pm Thursday 3 May 2007, rather than (if this was a cover-up) to dwell on all of what happened after that date.

The key questions, then, are:

Who was involved?

What did they do?

When did they do it?

Why did they do it?

See also the OP on this thread for some related ideas:
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14970-possible-timeline-discuss

Below is a background for discussion

BACKGROUND

In the MMRG’s Letter to Portugal dated 28 February 2018, which was sent to the then Portuguese Attorney-General and forwarded by her to the Portuguese Police, these main lines of evidence pointing to Madeleine’s death on Sunday 29 April 2007 – four days before she was officially reported missing – were listed:

A.  A large number of false statements made at the outset, containing a huge amount of fabricated evidence

(These included, for example:
(i) The wholly contradictory accounts of an alleged meeting between David Payne and Kate McCann around 6.30pm on Thursday 3 May which suggest that such a meeting never happened
(ii) Jane Tanner’s numerous changes of story about the abductor she claimed to have seen, making one doubt that she actually saw anyone
(iii) An unconvincing account of Madeleine being at the beach for a min-sail with the Lobster group on Thursday 3 May
(iv) A photo of Madeleine holding some tennis balls, known as the ‘Tennis Balls Photo’, claimed to have been taken by three different people on three different dates, making its authenticity extremely doubtful)
(v) The multiple contradictions surrounding an alleged 'high tea' said to have taken place between 5pm & 6pm on Thursday) 

B.  The photograph of Madeleine McCann, Dr Gerry McCann and Amelie, taken by the Ocean Club pool, which was clearly taken on Sunday 29 April 2007 and not on 3 May 2007 as claimed by the McCanns.

C.  The absence of photographs of Madeleine taken after Sunday. 
 
D.  The fabricated statement of Nuno Lourenco, who had framed Wojcek Krokowski as Madeleine’s abductor
 
E.  The unreliable evidence of the children’s nanny (and McCann family friend), Catriona Baker, Dr Gerry McCann and Dr Kate McCann about an alleged ‘high tea’ at the Ocean Club Tapas restaurant about 5pm to 6pm on Thursday 3 May
 
F. The lack of any independent or credible independent evidence by anybody that Madeleine McCann was seen alive after Sunday 29 April. 
 
G.  The mystery of the strange ‘Make-Up Photo’ of Madeleine, which appears to have been taken on Sunday 29th April
 
H.  Clear photographic evidence that the same pyjamas Madeleine had with her on holiday in Praia da Luz were later held up by the McCanns at two press conferences, one in London on 5 June 2007, the other in Amsterdam on 7 June 2007.

In each case, particulars of each of these lines of evidence were given to the Attorney General.


Since then, additional evidence that Madeleine may have died as early as Sunday has been obtained, as follows:

1. According to evidence from the internet site, the Wayback Machine, during Monday 30 April 2007, an employee of CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), presumably with the full approval of its boss, Jim Gamble, uploaded a dummy (blank) page to the CEOP website, featuring a photo of Madeleine when she was about two years old. What prior knowledge did CEOP have about Madeleine's disappearance, and how and when did they obtain a photo of Madeleine, apparently taken a year or two before the McCanns' Praia da Luz holiday?   

2. Evidence (on his own admission) by Jon Clarke, owner of the expat newspaper The Olive Press, that he arrived in Praia da Luz at 1.30am on Friday 4 May, strongly suggesting that he had been tipped off by one or more newspapers – before the abduction alarm was raised – that there was going to be a story about her abduction.

3. Evidence recently obtained about Michael Frohlich and Tricia Moon, the two members of Resonate Communications who we know were in Praia da Luz well before Thursday 3 May. While we were told that Resonate was merely an independent ‘subsidiary’ of PR giant Bell Pottinger, we now know that Tricia Moon had been the Company Secretary of Bell Pottinger and that while she was in Praia da Luz that week, and for four months afterwards, she was actually a Director on the Board of Bell Pottinger. 
For more information on this, see this recent thread:
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t17244-a-director-on-the-board-of-disgraced-pr-company-bell-pottinger-was-in-praia-da-luz-before-madeleine-was-reported-missing

A. TIMETABLE OF RELEVANT EVENTS

We have accounts of that week’s events (from the McCanns’arrival in Praia da Luz on Saturday 28 April onwards), from the McCanns and their ’Tapas 7’ friends. These tend on the whole to be in very general terms, vague and with few checkable details. They are not helpful in establishing what events took place that week that went towards creating an audacious abduction hoax that Thursday. The aim of this thread is to explore what actions were taken, and by whom, to create the abduction hoax.

Below we have set out a timetable of some known, checkable events (with approximate dates and times) that may have a bearing on how the abduction hoax was developed and planned that week.

Below that we add a large list of events that we say must have happened that week, most of which have been largely hidden from public view. We take some educated guesses as to when these events might have taken place.

CHECKABLE EVENTS THAT WEEK (FOR WHICH WE HAVE INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE]

Sunday 29 April

about 10am - Madeleine enrolled in Lobster club

about 10-11.30am - Lobster group with multicoloured parachute 

about 1.15/1.30pm - Madeleine and family seen by cleaner, going up to join the Payne family for lunch

probably 2.29pm - Madeleine photographed by the pool - but McCanns said the photo was taken on Thursday

8.18pm SUNSET

around 8pm-10pm  A tall man, accompanied by a young child, apparently late in the evening, makes an urgent request to Ocean Club reception on behalf of the McCann group to book the Tapas restaurant for the rest of the week. The receptionist says the girl is Madeleine McCann, but that is very doubtful. This version of events is later contradicted by Kate McCann herself AND Matt Oldfield, who says Rachel made the booking on Monday. that there were in fact two visits to make the booking, the ‘tall man’ on Sunday night, and Rachel on Monday morning]

evening meal - McCanns say Matt was not at the meal (stomach ache). Stephen Carpenter says he saw Gerry McCann at the Tapas restaurant that evening

Monday 30 April

morning - Apartment cleaned by middle-aged lady

sometime - Gerry had trouble with the shutters (said to be in the parents'  room) and reported them for repair. Matthew also had trouble with his shutters?  [It is not wholly clear if these shutters were in the children's room or the parent's (back) room where the children were originally supposed to be sleeping?]

The McCanns and the Tapas 7 give very little detail about what happened this day, they all seem to stutter and are unable to remember anything.

8.19pm SUNSET

11pm? - Robert Murat books a ticket to fly to Faro Airport

Tuesday 1 May

7am - Robert Murat leaves Exeter Airport

9.30am - Robert Murat arrives at Faro Airport. Is met by his mother

10.00-11.00am  Washing machine and blinds/shutters fixed by two men, between 10-11am. Kate was there, not Gerry. The men show McCann how to use washing machine (these actions COULD suggest preparation for (a) having to wash clothes in the week and (b) a hoax abduction later in the week, involving the shutters)  

lunch-time - It was raining. Gerry allegedly bought sunglasses this day according to Kate McCann's book, 'madeleine': “All 5 of us were at the beach”. Was this because the ‘Last Photo’ had been taken on the Sunday, so, by saying in the book that he didn't have sunglasses and needed to buy a pair, was this intended to lend credibility to it having been taken after Tuesday )

8.20pm SUNSET

evening meal - Russell not at dinner, not sure about Jane Tanner as well?

10.16-10.27pm - unusual flurry of six calls to Kate McCanns’ mobile. We can’t be certain where she was at the time

Wednesday 2 May

7.00am-9.00am - Very early, around 7am, Kate has 3 calls (deleted) to her friend in England, Amanda (who is married to a pathologist). Shortly after, at around 8am, Gerry starts receiving the first of 14 text messages. ['The calls that day also include the ‘strange’ Swansea number…the only
number that Kate never deleted.

morning - Apartment cleaned by middle-aged lady - Maria Julia. At some point during Wednesday morning the cleaner is let into Apartment 5A and the McCanns say “we are going on the balcony” but actually they leave the apartment via the balcony door. The cleaner makes the beds and notices a cot in the McCann’s bedroom. Gerry and Kate both later deny that the cot is there]

Kate McCann “Today it rained” (confirmed by weather charts)

8.21pm SUNSET

‘Rachel’s turn to feel under the weather’

very late evening - the group stays at the Tapas until late that night. The waiters want to leave at midnight but the group stays until approx 1am. Is there perhaps something very important to discuss/plan?

Thursday 3 May

morning - Kate washes Madeleine’s pyjamas because of a tea stain (confirmed in her book). Photographs of these pyjamas later appear in newspapers with a false claim that they are ‘stock’ photos from a sales brochure - see many analyses of this by by Dr Martin Roberts, e.g. 'A Nightwear Job'.

5pm -6pm Tapas 7 seen at Paraiso Bar, but not the McCanns

8.30pm-8.55pm Gerry, Kate & Jane to Tapas, followed by Matthew & Rachael, then David, Fiona & Dianne to Tapas. Russell O’Brien delayed.




PLEASE SEE NEXT POST>>>

i do not agree with the conclusion about apartment 5a, it had ever been forensically cleaned, in any way or means undertaken to get rid of dna of madeleine during the times the mccanns had access to 5a.

there is no evidence for a forensically cleaning, there is evidence that did not happened. there is no existing technology to clean a way, the dna of only one donor. it is still all, a bit or nothing. 

read again both reports of the forensics in 5a, and there are findings from people who have stayed before them. it is not likely the mccanns had at any time the premonition to save biological traces of the people who stayed there before them. or had at any time access to fresh material of these people to get in after the fact. it is fair to say, it always stayed there. 

not all people shed an even amount of biological trace material. material that is also easily damaged to a state, it loses it worth for an investigation. 

most hairs found, only are screened on mt-dna, that stand for a small part of our dna, that is part of all of our true cells, and that you get from your biological mother and the line of mothers before her. or in modern terms the lady that bring her eggs in. 
so there is no difference in mt-dna between kate, madeleine and both twins. all also had blond hairs, so there's no way to tell who was the individual donor of the hairs. 

also it would not have been standard practice to go and look for dna of madeleine, she was already a known victim in this case, there were enough other means to tell she was a real existing person and was there. 
the dna of madeleine in 5a would not change anything, if it was a setting that had no binding to the victim, that would be when to look for dna of that victim. 

we still can not hang a date to most biological traces. also lack of finance and hands means you have to make choices in what you take and send in to test. 

all people who were within legal rights to have access into 5a could not be in or excluded by those type of traces. we simply have no means to tell when, why, how, or what about those traces, to include or exclude them in a crime scene. madeleine included.

the investigation needs a bonding between traces of someone, and the crime, and the actions that go with that crime. 

a classic forensic search in a case like this one, it is never about the victim, it will look to places that from known experience have a good chance to have traces of the person who take part in a crime. 
you will look for ports of entry and exit, and the most logical pathways in between in relation to a crime. 
you do not let the forensics take on a complete accommodation to swab away. 

another part of the forensics is gathering information about the actions during the crime. the how it was done part.

the second forensic search for biological traces did not even had enough swabs, they also had to make choices. 

meaning chance findings from madeleine would not have been high. more swabbing is more chances, but also more noise in the results.

the only evidence there has been cleaning, is the find of human cellular material (conclusion fss), most likely blood (per keela) in the grout between tiles behind the sofa and under said tiles. 

so that makes it to a deposit of humane cellular material on a unknown time, in unknown circumstances, dna result does not exclude madeleine. it is evidence out of sheer logic. because if it was blood or other biological fluid someone had to clean it up, or you had no need, of keela and the forensic people. that type of cleaning could only have been superficial. otherwise there was a fleck or spot to see. 

forensics are always based on knowing what you looking for, and even more, where you have to look to find it. it is far too expensive to just swab around. that money and time could used for better. 

tourist accommodations are also cleaned with industrial grade cleaning products. most are pretty degenerative and even destructive on dna. most standard cleaned objects and surfaces, are also the most common used ones. exactly those you will use over and over again during a normal day. these are exactly the places children prefer to leave their biological traces. those places are not the ones you have a fair chance to find evidence of a third party. 

it was simply not in the scope of this investigation to look specific for biological traces of madeleine, and we could read, most what could be, ended sadly up under inconclusive results. not in, not out. that question about missing dna of madeleine arrived later on, when they started to gather excluding dna samples of people with a legally safe bounding to 5a. 

also if dna of madeleine was found, they still needed a control sample, otherwise you end up with dna by exclusion. that problem was tried to be solved by the pillowcase from rothley, but the also on a later date, the uk was able to use het boodcart from just after she was born as sample to conclude what madeleines dna was. 

there is a likely conclusion i would dare to make, based on her age, and the small amount of time she was in 5a, if that was a day, or nearly a week does not matter for this conclusion, she was not a so called supershedder, but most people are not. 

dna is often overrated as evidence, in itself it is never evidence, you have to build the donor of the dna to a crime. cases that happen in a family bond, dna is almost never part of the hard evidence. 

also forensics are a pretty young science, we have the chance to look back and see how quickly it is developing, it is still growing fast. there could be still a lot of material that in 2007/8 not could get processed. 
i do hope portugal has an opportunity to keep that material, and not destroy it because their statute of limitations is reached. 

at least it would have been very unlikely that the mccanns on any moment had played cleaning ladies in 5a. 


for the rest, more time than they likely had besides some hours on thursday evening, the more opportunity to set a stage.
i find the statement for being part of the high tea meagre, the musings of the nannies that day do not add up for me. sightings before that are also not in a way, that you got the feel they could even be true. 
i never like it when it comes to must believe instead of knowing what happened. 
for me, something between late on wednesday and early morning thursday could still fit. 
and even only that thursday evening is not definitely out of my book, it would ask a lot of hard work. on the other hand it is amazing how much could be done in little time with hindsight. the mccanns had no time limit on thursday evening, if it was done, it was simply because they were ready. that 22.00 hours or just over was not set in stone until it was used. 

the first moment they had to escape was the children to show their parents what they learned at the kids club. that and traveling back with the plane would be the only true deadlines. all other moments could be done of with some storytelling. this are the only two moments that week madeleine had to be shown together with her parents. 

for the portuguese it is different, they have still morals and honours set in their society, so a witness must tell only the truth. they have to go from those truths in an investigation. well the rest of the world would no longer subscribe to such principles, what made it a flaw to their system. and it was one of the bombshells under this investigation. the portuguese would simply not lie easily, but just have said, i do not know that, or just have kept silent. 

the case itself is still too much information, to little facts.

Monday 30th April.

sometime - Gerry had trouble with the shutters (said to be in the parents'  room) and reported them for repair. Matthew also had trouble with his shutters?  [It is not wholly clear if these shutters were in the children's room or the parent's (back) room where the children were originally supposed to be sleeping?]




Luis Ferro, maintenance worker, said he went to 5a to fix blind in the room of the parents of the minor with his colleague Mario.
They went only into the kitchen and parents bedroom.


Mario Moreira, handyman, who went with Lois Ferro to 5a, said. he went to fix shutters in the bedroom at the back of the apartment facing the tapas restaurant.


See their statements in the PJ files for exact wording.


There is a worksheet in the PJ files regarding this maintenance, this should give the date and time the work was done. I can't locate it at the moment.


I don't think there is any doubt which room the broken blind was in.

Found the worksheet here
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/SILVIA_BATISTA.htm

crusader wrote:Monday 30th April.

sometime - Gerry had trouble with the shutters (said to be in the parents'  room) and reported them for repair. Matthew also had trouble with his shutters?  [It is not wholly clear if these shutters were in the children's room or the parent's (back) room where the children were originally supposed to be sleeping?]



Luis Ferro, maintenance worker, said he went to 5a to fix blind in the room of the parents of the minor with his colleague Mario.
They went only into the kitchen and parents bedroom.

Mario Moreira, handyman, who went with Lois Ferro to 5a, said. he went to fix shutters in the bedroom at the back of the apartment facing the tapas restaurant.

The following has been on my mind for a while................do we know at what time on Monday Gerry first reported trouble with the shutter in their bedroom ? This appears to be a much larger full-height/width window. Did this slide/open, as it leads to a narrow balcony (on which an historic image shows a clothes airer) ? 
On the assumption that something tragic & fatal befell Madeleine on Sunday 29 April, they decided they had to dispose of her body quickly and chose the window/door in the parents bedroom as it led straight onto a narrow balcony (one historic image shows a clothes airer there) with direct access to the rear steps and/or shrubbery. With this action and perhaps, instead of lifting the shutter fully by the mechanism/cords inside, they decided to simply lift the bottom edge enough to slide a body out, they broke or jammed the shutter. 
Later, as the grand plan was hatched, and to divert attention away from this area, they decided that the abduction should be focussed on the far riskier window in the children's bedroom, that led directly on  to the carpark/street.

I don't know when the broken shutters were reported, in Kate's book, she says Gerry managed to brake the shutter mechanism in their bedroom shortly after they arrived.

The clothes area was on the balcony outside the patio doors, the balcony runs from outside the parents bedroom to the steps.

This happened on Tuesday, the first of May, in the sequence of a service that he had to carry out in the apartment where this family was staying, also known as Block G5, Letter A; 
. This serviced was carried out between 10H00 and 11H00, together with his colleague who is named Mario, and consisted of the repair of a blind in the room of the parents of the minor; 
. In this sequence, the deponent and his colleague also taught the mother of the child how to operate the washing machine; 
. The woman in question was alone in the apartment;
. The only places of the apartment where the deponent and his colleague entered was the kitchen and the parent's bedroom.


https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LUIS-FERRO.htm

REPLYNG TO onehand #3

Thank you for your detailed response. 

You provided detailed evidence that it was highly unlikely that anything resembling a 'forensic cleansing' of Apartment 5A took place.

For that reason we have decided to remove that point from the list of 19 'things the McCanns must have done after 6pm Thursday 3 May (see OP).

I think, however, you were acknowledging that there was sufficient evidence that someone, at some time, appears to have cleaned up blood around the floor tiles in the living room behind the sofa/below the curtains. I think you would agree that the initial presumption would be that this is more likely to be Madeleine's blood than anyone else's. And of course the Forensic Science Service as the second attempt said that this sample of bodily fluids could have been Madeleine's, after its original report said that it was Madeleine's blood (as reported on TV by SKY News's Martin Brunt).  

There is however a separate mystery as to why there was no trace of Madeleine's DNA found in the apartment, hence needing Gerry McCann to find a sample on her pillow. We accept the point about the mitochondrial DNA hair evidence being of the same haplotype as between Madeleine, Kate McCann and the twins. But there were many possible sources of DNA which might have been obtained: pillow, towel, clothes, comb, hairbrush etc. We must ask why none of these yielded any of Madeleine's DNA.

Was it because of a hasty or otherwise inadequate forensic search? Or because all these items used by Madeleine were washed or cleaned? We know that Kate McCann washed Madeleine's pyjamas on the morning of Thursday 3 May, because she told us so in her book.    

You also wrote:

"I find the statement for being part of the high tea meagre, the musings of the nannies that day do not add up for me. Sightings before that are also not in a way, that you got the feel they could even be true". 

We agree.

You also wrote:

"For me, something between late on Wednesday and early morning Thursday could still fit. And even only that Thursday evening is not definitely out of my book".

In response, how do you judge this evidence:

1. 'Last Photo' definitely taken on Sunday and not Thursday ,and
2. Five or six photos of Madeleine on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th, but none the rest of the week?

crusader wrote:Monday 30th April.

sometime - Gerry had trouble with the shutters (said to be in the parents' room) and reported them for repair. Matthew also had trouble with his shutters?  [It is not wholly clear if these shutters were in the children's room or the parent's (back) room where the children were originally supposed to be sleeping?]

Luis Ferro, maintenance worker, said he went to 5a to fix blind in the room of the parents of the minor with his colleague Mario.

They went only into the kitchen and parents bedroom.

Mario Moreira, handyman, who went with Lois Ferro to 5a, said he went to fix shutters in the bedroom at the back of the apartment facing the tapas restaurant.

See their statements in the PJ files for exact wording.

There is a worksheet in the PJ files regarding this maintenance, this should give the date and time the work was done. I can't locate it at the moment.

I don't think there is any doubt which room the broken blind was in.

REPLYING TO crusader #5

Thank you for your observations.

Here is a plan of the apartment:



On this plan, we can see (top of diagram) the room facing the car park marked 'Kids room window' and the room above the front garden, 'at the back of the apartment, facing the Tapas restaurant', marked 'Parents room window'.

Thank you very much for this important clarification. It was the shutters in the room marked 'Parents room window' that were repaired.

It’s worth noting that the “kids” window and “parents” window are very different sizes. I’m can’t determine whether the parents “window” is in actual fact an opening or sliding door. The shutter is about 1.5m wide and full height from ground to soffit. Does anyone know for certain ?

crusader wrote:The theory of Goncalo Amaral and the Portuguese Police is this. They believed that Madeleine was at a 'high tea' with her parents and that Catriona Baker, a children's nanny, and the McCanns, were enjoying a 'high tea' together at the Tapas restaurant, until after 5.30pm on Thursday 3 May. This theory requires the following to be believed; namely that:

1. Madeleine died some time after 5.30pm that evening
2. If she was badly hurt or unconscious, that they tried to treat or revive her
3. If the twins were present or nearby, the McCanns would have moved them out of the way whilst they decided what to do
4. (Once sure that she was dead) they presumably considered whether they should report her death to the authorities 
5. Decided not to do so
6. Got over the initial shock 
7. Hid Madeleine from view whilst they considered what to do
8. Cleaned up e.g. if there was any blood 
9. May have washed the curtains
10. Arranged to disposed of any evidence
11. Deleted messages on their mobile 'phones
12. Contacted some or all of their Tapas 7 friends to see if they would co-operate with a faked abduction 
13. Got every single one of them (with the possible exception of Dianne Webster) to agree with them
14. Put the children calmly to bed
15. Got dressed for dinner
16. Both ate with their friends at the Tapas restaurant, from 8.30pm to 10pm, with only short interludes for 'checking'
17. Moved and hid the body so well that it was never found, and, finally 
18. Staged an abduction.

Manifestly this was impossible. 

What if there was a high tea, G Amaral must believe the statements of the tapas staff, nannies and guests who said there was.

The theory Madeleine died before 3rd May hinges on her not being at high tea, not that the high tea didn't happen.

What concrete proof is there that Madeleine was not at the high tea?

REPLYING TO crusader #7.

Thank you for your comments.

You wrote: What if there was a high tea, G Amaral must believe the statements of the tapas staff, nannies and guests who said there was.

Could you please enlighten us on what evidence you say that we have about this alleged 'high' tea' from

A. 'the tapas staff'
B. 'nannies' and
C.  guests. 

Please provide links where possible.

Could you also please state from your knowledge:

1 - Whether there is evidence that was a 'high tea' every day that week
2 - Whether there is sufficient evidence that there was a 'high tea', involving a number of guests and children on Thursday 3 May
3 - Which 'Tapas staff' said there was a high tea on Thursday?
4 - List all the nannies and guests who said there was a high tea that Thursday.

So far as we are aware, the only persons giving evidence in any detail about the high tea on Thursday are Kate McCann, Gerry McCann and Catriona Baker, apart from a late statement given in September by Charlotte Pennington which was published in  one of Britain's leading newspapers, in an apparent effort to bolster the 'high tea' claim. Her statement seemed to add confusion rather than substantiate the high tea.

crusader wrote:The theory Madeleine died before 3rd May hinges on her not being at high tea, not that the high tea didn't happen.


What concrete proof is there that Madeleine was not at the high tea?

REPLY TO crusader #7

There are three separate elements involved here:

1. Was there a high tea at all on that Thursday evening?

2. Even if there was such a communal high tea, do we have sufficient evidence that Madeleine was present, and

3. Do we have concrete evidence, or at least very strong evidence, that Madeleine  could not have been present at any high tea that day? 

By way of reply, if three people (Gerry & Kate & Cat Baker), and later a fourth (Charlotte Pennington) give seriously contradictory statements about an event, we are entitled to question whether it took place at all.

However, when we have two other salient pieces of evidence that she had died well before that Thursday, then the claim she was present at a high tea that day becomes impossible to believer.

These two pieces of evidence are:

A - The Last Photo taken in Sunday, and
B - The fact that we have five or perhaps six photos of Madeleine on Saturday and Sunday, and none of her for the entire rest of the week.

In the face of these three elements:
- multiple discrepancies about the high tea
- the Last Photo forged to make out it was taken four days later, and
- the absence of any photos of her after Sunday...

...we must at the very least have very powerful, persuasive other evidence that she was alive after Sunday.

Silentscope wrote:This happened on Tuesday, the first of May, in the sequence of a service that he had to carry out in the apartment where this family was staying, also known as Block G5, Letter A; 
. This serviced was carried out between 10H00 and 11H00, together with his colleague who is named Mario, and consisted of the repair of a blind in the room of the parents of the minor; 
. In this sequence, the deponent and his colleague also taught the mother of the child how to operate the washing machine; 
. The woman in question was alone in the apartment;
. The only places of the apartment where the deponent and his colleague entered was the kitchen and the parent's bedroom.

REPLY TO silentscope #10

We found a very interesting discussion about when Gerry reported the shutters broken on a thread from 2017. Here are some excerpts:

LUIS FERRO AND JOAO CARLOS SILVA BATISTA WASHING MACHINE AND FIXING SHUTTERS

#7 (Guest)

I wish we knew when exactly GM approached maintenance and asked for help with shutters and washing machine. The evidence of cadaver is established, so I want to know exactly when Gerry felt confident enough to allow maintenance workers into the apartment. We know JCS Batista's day off was Monday - I believe a lot could be inferred if we knew when he was contacted - was it Monday or Tuesday? Rhetorical question... Very intriguing!

#13 (roz)

I've just finished reading Kate Mccann's book and I'm intrigued as to why she recounts this episode. She contradicts Luis Ferro who, by saying they 'also taught the mother how to use the washing machine', implies that the shutters were attended to first - which in turn shows KM would be there for the entire duration. I'm also curious about what KM says about the shutters:

"Gerry had also managed to break the window mechanism in our bedroom, shortly after we'd arrived, in spite of the sign asking guests to be gentle with it. What can I say... It's the Gerry touch! "


Kate tries to engage the reader with a bit of Bonhomie - we-all-know-what-men-are-like-don't-we-girls type of thing - but does she really think that readers are going to believe that Dr Gerry is really that cack-handed? Is it more the case that Dr Gerry was instead experimenting, in order to ascertain what happened when you apply too much force? The very inclusion of this domestic incident in the book suggests it has some significance beyond what is told and Im not sure she achieves her goal, as many readers will find it hard to believe that Gerry Mccann didn't at least think he knew what he was doing.

#14 roz & #16 guest

... I wanted to add also that the issue of the shutters appears again later in KM's book when she tells us about how GM inspected the shutters from the outside shortly after Madeleine disappeared:

Rushing outside he made the sickening discovery that it could be raised from this side too, not just from the inside as we'd thought

What I find disconcerting is the priority GM gives to this task and you have to wonder why. Secondly, GM would have discovered that the shutters could not be opened to the same extent from the outside, so why was this 'sickening' rather than baffling? Did someone assume that the shutters could be fully jemmied open from the outside and on discovering it was not the case, feel the need to investigate? Why did GM tamper with the shutters at such a critical time? KM tells us that GM closed them on the inside and then went outside to see if they could be opened from the this side. Did GM panic, knowing they had been opened from the inside? Why was he wasting critical time testing his shutter hypothesis when he should have been looking for his daughter? It really doesn't stack up...

The Parents window is also a sliding door in this Video.
The Wash machine is in the Kitchen.

^^^ Silentscope
Thank you ! So, the doors slide open. That’ll be quite a weighty shutter but, with sliding doors it would be possible to raise the shutter slightly, then slide the door open in order to give something to someone waiting on the small patio outside.

The problem for most Guests seemed to be the usual one for anyone not familiar with ‘Rolladen’ or Roller blinds.

You have to pull the cord away from the Wall first, in order to unlock the Ratchet, if you pull straight away downwards, it locks up.

The harder you pull, the less it works, until it breaks either the Ratchet, or the Cord comes away from the Drum at the top of the Window.

about looking for dna.

often there is no need to get the dna isolated to establish that a person exist, and for that the passport, the declaration of the parents, the tickets and a bit later the footage of the airfield would have been enough to tell, madeleine beth mccann was a existing person, that indeed arrives in portugal, as per declaration of the parents and in this case some of the friends and the creche sheets and pictures. 

in a case with a body at the site, you simply have the body, so also access to dna. 

around 2007 it was not like today, that you also try to get as soon as possible a dna sample of the missing person. this case is quite unique because it is not a case on home grounds. to get a good and usable sample of dna, you want something that first has a good chance of having only the dna of that person. you not need only the dna, but have at least a good indication the carrier of that dna was part of the life of the missing person. 

it is not acceptable to just get a lot of dna samples, and the one person you not have in person must be the same as the missing person. it will do as long it is about a missing person, because that is no crime, but when a third party exist, it could be, and you can not make good guesses with evidence. 

clean clothing would not do, and there was very little that would be uniquely used by madeleine in a manner that she left trace dna on it. look back at the first set of pictures from the pj files of 5a, all clothes that have been worn are together on a shelve in the parents bedroom, jackets on furniture, same picture as the blue bag. also a lot of that and possibly other pieces of clothing that have been worn by madeleine alone, was washed very early. with the help of the ambassador of the uk. her blanket and towel was already use for the man trail dogs, that first night. 

a missing child case always has his conflicts, you simply will try to find that child alive and well. small children are not build for staying out at night in the dark, it is not only other people, but the cold, maybe getting wet, or wounded from a mishap in a terrain. the actions you have to take are working against the investigation if it becomes more then only be missing. 
who would want to be responsible if the child died because of being to long into the cold, because you work the site the child was last seen is worked as if it was a case of murder or abduction? as long there is a good chance to find the child alive, that would have priority above all else. 

what we have seen in this case is a lot of natural and instinct behaviour of people. if you miss something, you go looking. a missing child works the same, all actions are going into finding the lost child. look how many people told they had looked in 5a for madeleine, as if she was hiding somewhere. people had looked under the bed they say, in the closets, meaning all what could have had been a unique item with madeleines dna, was already contaminated before the gnr officers arrived, and they also had to take a look. 

then there is the toothbrush for all story, also there was something that ended up into two hairbrushes from madeleine. one was kept by the kruger figure. most hairs, even with the root on it, are dead as a doornail, and do not give good dna, most in a brush will be even without roots. the technique for getting dna from a hair shaft is still not fully available, it could be done in 2007, but it was not a standard testing array anywhere in use in europe. 

it is far more common that bed linen and pillowcases are simply not washed at all between transfers of tourists. even in 5 star hotels they just use it again. and the forensics from 5a have proven this was indeed the practice in 5a. 

she was already to old for having the habit to put everything in the mouth. 

because of what 5a was, a holiday rental apartment for years it was already pretty contaminated, and all people who got in after 22.00 hours til the gnr officers were there, made it  alreadty into a forensic nightmare. 
the first two officers must have also have understood that saving a crime scene was already impossible. 

when this case a body was found, they could simple use the dna from that body, and the dna from the parents to make it into a very likely outcome it was indeed a natural child of the mccanns. the body itself would be used as the control. the standard of how a body is identified, is still very old school, family or others who did now the person in life can do that. dna for identification is mostly restricted to cases were a body is no longer recognizable. 

the pillowcase from rothley was not seen as the true source of dna from madeleine, they did simply checked it against that of the parents and the twins, and the result was, it had a high chance to be from a natural child of these parents. it was the blood card taken shortly after her birth, that was the proof to say it was indeed the dna of madeleine.

I can't remember whether it was Peter Mac who put the video of the shutters on YT but I clearly remember watching a video about the shutters.  

One question does anyone know whether the shutters are mechanic or manual? 

for me, the high tea at that thursday has indeed questions, it is mostly my still incomplete opinion.


first we do not know, how the childcare truly was arranged, was it really mark warner only, or was it ocean club. there is a lot of information about the mark warner part. one of my never answered questions has been, what with the children of other couples who booked from other holiday operators. did the mark warner child services were truly unique to their guests or not.


the creche sheets are only mark warner, and their goal looks like more who have we to charge extra for what is not included by the booking upfront. the way the sheets are kept and filled, leads me to think, access to the parents in case of emergency was secondary. the chaotic upmake gives room to expect their was no supervision when the parents fill in the sheets.


for me this is important. if there was the possibility more children of other holiday operators could be part of the kid clubs, there must be more sheets, each company their own. different companies , different bookkeeping.


if this is known we could get a further look into the children who did take part on thursday, and also other days. 


why, well looking at the children there have been on that thursday afternoon only two girls in that age group in that specific kid club, the others are boys. one girl must have been madeleine, the other the daughter of jane and russell. following that sheet and the story the parents told in their statement, russell took his daughter out well before that high tea moment. they arrange their children would get their food in the restaurant at the beachfront. 


that girl gone, there only be 1 single girl in that already small group, the other 3 are boys. all 3 boys would not take part in the high tea, but would eat with their parents. 


1 boy a. was almost certainly leaving before anyone walked up to the tapas area. the other two is not clear when they leave the group of kids. 


the nannies would walk from the central reception with the children to the tapas area. we learned stories about sammy the snake, a rope the children would hold to keep the party together. 


the nannie talked enough, but what i miss in her story is, how many children she had to transport by foot to the tapas area. that was easy, it was or 3 children 2 boys and 1 girl, or more likely because both boys would not take part in the high tea, this nanny did not need sammy, she could just get madeleine by her hand and walk to the tapas. 
and i want to hear that back in the nannies statements. these are things that will stick in your memory. 


if you really take a look into the story of the same nanny, about the boating adventure, you will find what and how she tells what take place, you see it is impossible, this was a formal statement, i want to know why did she lie? count children, 2 boats, only two extra sets of hands in the boats and how many seatings available per trip. she had to leave children alone on that beach, no one would got her arse in a boat and play happy nannie and left two under 5 year olds alone on the beach. if this did not happen, there was another statement that would tell more about this event  that could give back up. this story is simply not true. 


so i have a witness, that has no problem to tell a s..t story in a formal statement, that also is the last independent witness that did see the child. no, not hard enough.


the more recent netflix info that madeleine had saved 'a lost hat' in exactly that same excursion, means one of the two tells a lie. but maybe both do. 


it is the story of the upset girl in the boat, on the lap of her nannie, or the tom boy who had no fear of that water and dived in after a hat. not both in that  little amount of time.


we also have another nannie, the fairy, that not showed up in the statements, or any other moment in time in the story of the nannie cat who was the one who was responsible for madeleine her group. 


madeleines nannie that had a lot of head troubles after the fact.  kept also in touch with the mccanns. 


also these high tea's meant all children of the younger groups, and there were no older groups at that time, did eat at the same time. why are there no statements known from the parents that had a child in that high tea and picked them up. 


for me the testimony of the nannie from madeleine her group is very week, to week to use as alibi for last seen alive. i would like to have corroboration from those statements. 


it is not even, that i see that nannie just cooked up a story in assisting the mccanns. the child care possibilities always have been a big fat selling point for mark warner. they already had negative outcomes in egypt, that could be reason enough to tell the nannies only tell positive anecdotes, even if they had to make them up. that they got send out of portugal, could have been on instruction of their pr firm. the result; no ways to get extra statements. 

In reply to MADELEINE McCANN RESEARCH GROUP.

1. Was there a high tea at all on that Thursday evening?


Maria Manuela Antonio Jose. cook Statement 6/5/07.
(Snipped from her statement)


The last time she saw Madeleine was aprox 4-30 3rd May when she was having dinner with the other children in their part of the restaurant as she did each day of the week.


2. Even if there was such a communal high tea, do we have sufficient evidence that Madeleine was present,



The only person who says she saw Madeleine on 3rd at the high tea was Maria Jose, see above.
She said she didn't know who the missing child was until she saw a picture of her on tv, she then recognised her from the high tea.

3. Do we have concrete evidence, or at least very strong evidence, that Madeleine  could not have been present at any high tea that day? 


I don't think there is enough evidence to say Madeleine was not at the high tea on Thursday 3rd.


Are the research team saying there was no high tea any night, or just on the 3rd?

Cat Baker (Nanny) in her 18/4/08 statement said
Some children return for the afternoon session which includes accompanying them to high tea at about 5 in the afternoon.

Emma Wilding (Nanny) in her 7/5/07 statement said
the teachers took the children to eat something appropriate for their age at the tapas restaurant.

Jaqueline Williams ( Nanny) in her 8/5/07 statement said
She only had contact with Madeleines parents twice when they came to collect the twins after their meal which happened every day at about 5-30.

Graham McKenzie guest at the Ocean Club, in his 6/12/07 statement, said he saw the McCann party when children had high tea.

@Vera Krista Post #22


Manual Rolladen Apartment 5A Lounge window.