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

onehand wrote:the statement you refer to tells this;

She remembers that on Sunday 29th April one of the elements of the group arrived with the child Madeleine McCann, she does not know his name and can only say that he was male and tall and thin and that he approached her to request a booking for the whole group, for the whole week and always at 20.30.

When questioned, she confirms that the man was not the father of the girl but one of the members of the group whom was often seen in his company.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LUISA_COUTINHO.htm

from other statements it is known the tall man must have been russell o'brien, and that it was very unlikely the child, was not madeleine, russell has 2 daughter himself. 

both daughters and madeleine would fit in the description of small or young child. it is very usual to call children under 6 small or young. the man himself use the words small children in his presentation to the witness. and end from that up into her statement.

an urgent request, does not per se mean a urgency, as in with haste, but also you want exactly what you ask. 
being serious in your request. you do not want to hear no. 

the rest of your questions are for the MMRG group to answer. 

MMRG agrees that the tall man was Russell O'Brien and that the girl was his daughter, Ella. 

It would be helpful if we knew what time he made his visit to Ocean Club reception.

Our guess is that the visit would be likely to have been made before, say, 9pm that evening.

If that is correct, MMRG believes that it is likely that Madeleine McCann may have suffered a serious event at least, say, two hours before that.

In this connection, can you or anyone other CMOMM member help us with these two questions:

1. Do we have any indication at all of when this Tapas booking was made?

2. Do we actually know for certain whether or not the Tapas group ate at the Tapas restaurant that night (Sunday)? 

Thank you in advance for anyone who can help us on those questions.

nothing exact about possible time. 

if you read more of the statements of the people working there, most have a schedule, that is given as the usual hours, not all work every day, but most looks to have a set schedule.

on thursday luisa the receptionist works from 9.00 to 19.00 next day she arrives at 8.00. so no concrete information. but in a reporting style statement is was usual to use the the nearest lower whole hour, so when somebody said i arrive around 8.30, or 8.40 is would end up to 8.00 hours. 

it is a relict of the past, but still used, because there is an exact time, and many devices that do not have the correct one, or someone just make a guess, because the usually be somewhere between two hole hours. 

to not arrive at the problem, a witness tells, i was on place a at 8.34 hours, your defendant gets an false alibi, because his alibi had a time devise that was 5 minutes behind on place b.  

it was for us protocol to use the nearest but lowest hole hour in statements and declarations made outside the courts. 

if this works the same in portugal, i do not know that, or worked the same in 2007, it means. to read as any time between 08.00.00 hours and 08.59.59 hours. but from reading through the report style taken statements it looks to be. 

you read it as this witness arrived around 8.00 hours. 

in the direct written notes of the officer who takes them it could be have a more direct notation. 

you could do a bit of an educated guess, their was a small child with the tall man. all children of the tapas 9 were under 5. so late in the evening is from that very less likely. and if the hours of louisa were standard working hours, on days she worked, it must most likely have taken place between 09.00 and 19.00 hours. on sunday the 29th.

Rachael Oldfield said in her rogatory, she booked the tapas for the whole group  on Sunday.

On Monday morning she begged and pleaded to let them book for the rest of the week at 8-30pm.

There is no tapas booking sheet for Sunday in the PJ files.

https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/RACHAEL-OLDFIELD-ROGATORY.htm

Tiago Rochas Barreiros statement   
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/TIAGO_BARREIROS.htm

He knows the family of the missing child as they were clients of the tapas restaurant which they began frequenting the 2nd day of their arrival to the Ocean Club.

From the very beginning a request was made to the restaurant workers to reserve a table for 20-30 until the end of the week.

Hi onehand, 

Thanks for your response, unfortunately you repeat what has been discussed countless times, based I think on a faulty translation. I was wondering if there is other information as specified in the original post, that I missed and MMRG can provide but it seems not.

Before other flights of fancy, I should bring to the attention of MMRG that even if a tall man made an insistent - not necessarily urgent - request at reception, he was not accompanied by any girl to be taken from evidence in the witness statement of Luisa Coutinho. I read carefully through the original statement and can say the translation (by 'Ines') at the link onehand suggests and quoted above that goes with it is wrong, among the awkward phrasing there is a missing word and a misplaced comma that changes the emphasis so that it might appear the man was at reception with a girl when he was not.

As my answer to the questions in post #51:

1  The receptionist worked - on Thursday at least - 09:00-19:00. Why guess at a time later than that? It's an important point because if there was a plot afoot a central plank was dining at Tapas - as repeated in every newspaper report ever since.

2  We do not know for certain that they ate there any night. The 'Tapas Restaurant' booking sheets (?) that are intended to show this only raise questions and the various witness statements are a mess of contradiction along the lines of "Tuesday or Wednesday or it could have been Monday". I would like to see the bar bill mentioned by R'OB.

@crusader
I wouldn't rely on "so erm I booked" Rachael any further than I can throw her and she doesn't look that big.

there is no booking sheet for the tapas restaurant in the files before may 1, spo all their is, needs to come from statements.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/TAPAS_BOOKING.htm

the only strange thing about the sheets that are there, you see for the tapas 9, on 1,2 and 3 may the number 9, there is no correction for an absent person. 
so even the sheets from the taps do not deliver any corroboration for the sick per statements of the tapas 9. 

mark warner had only 20 couverts, aka places to eat for their guests, there is no way to know who the other seatings filled. the tapas restaurant was far bigger. it is very unlikely such a restaurant would only serve 20 guest, it always sounded strange to me. if you read luisa het statement you find the 20 for mark warner guests.

The deponent made some comments about the request, saying that the Tapas received many requests and that MW only had a quota of 20 per day, but upon the insistence of the guest she managed to make the bookings requested.


http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LUISA_COUTINHO.htm



but the talk was also, the tapas was only to be used by guests who actually were staying in accommodation of the ocean club. so it was not walk in if you like for everyone. 
so there must have been some type of checking. 


from raj balu and neil berry their statements we know as mark warner guest you had to book in the morning as soon as the receptionist was there to be able to book for that evening. they used themselves a take out opportunity, the tapas restaurant also could do. 

i think a lot of people are never seen as witness because all there is , except the ocean club guest lists are from only mark warner. most have the look van just inside corporation lists, to know who had to pay to who for what services. 


for the tapas it would not be believable that only fill 20 seats a night would pay the bills. they had between 5 and 8 people there in two shifts, one would be needed for the bar, but still for all days open, the restaurant 6 days.  the had to pay 8 full time waiters, and the kitchen personal. even with low wages you have to get at least even in earnings. 


there is hardly a word about other guests, the non mark warner bunch, not for the restaurant, not about the bar. 


german and dutch people would hardly have books through mark warner, neckermann had it in the dutch travel guides for booking, there was a kind of affiliation with thomas cook, but both are gone bust to long a go to get at the information. 


i understand the 20 seats for mark warner as a mx, the mirage had a buffet, and that would need a fair amount of guest to make it pay back. 


if you want to make me very curious, it would be because of these factors. why was not all information there. 
could other non mark warner guest just walk in, and eat, do they have to show something, do they also had to book?


it was pretty easy to book under just one name of a party. only the number of people in the party is on the lists of the ocean club itself, the mark warner list are far more complete. it means it would very easy to stay there, without ending up in the pj files. and that are only the official made know users of the accommodations. 


thinking to the ambassador post. maybe there is a small chance the pj just had told, everyone in the ocean club had to stay until statements were taken, that could be an event, the british send in the ambassador himself. to not let that be happening. it is common practice to freeze the public that is part of a possible crime scene, meaning, you only could go out, if your identity was cleared and addresses, were to reach none, and a statement given. 


it would mean the ambassador was never there for the mccanns or tapas 7, but to get everyone out on their expected times.  it still a guess. 
it could have been an excellent way to get people out, you do not want to become known. 

Jonal wrote:Hi onehand, 

Thanks for your response, unfortunately you repeat what has been discussed countless times, based I think on a faulty translation. I was wondering if there is other information as specified in the original post, that I missed and MMRG can provide but it seems not.

Before other flights of fancy, I should bring to the attention of MMRG that even if a tall man made an insistent - not necessarily urgent - request at reception, he was not accompanied by any girl to be taken from evidence in the witness statement of Luisa Coutinho. I read carefully through the original statement and can say the translation (by 'Ines') at the link onehand suggests and quoted above that goes with it is wrong, among the awkward phrasing there is a missing word and a misplaced comma that changes the emphasis so that it might appear the man was at reception with a girl when he was not.

As my answer to the questions in post #51:

1  The receptionist worked - on Thursday at least - 09:00-19:00. Why guess at a time later than that? It's an important point because if there was a plot afoot a central plank was dining at Tapas - as repeated in every newspaper report ever since.

2  We do not know for certain that they ate there any night. The 'Tapas Restaurant' booking sheets (?) that are intended to show this only raise questions and the various witness statements are a mess of contradiction along the lines of "Tuesday or Wednesday or it could have been Monday". I would like to see the bar bill mentioned by R'OB.

@crusader
I wouldn't rely on "so erm I booked" Rachael any further than I can throw her and she doesn't look that big.

Thank you onehand, crusader and Jonal for your excellent contributions to the discussion.

We are especially interested the contributions of Jonal and the extracts bolded above in purple.

If we accept Jonal's translation and other comments, then the Tapas booking was made by a man on his own before 7pm. We should draw the attention of everyone on this thread to another thread on CMOMM which looks in great detail at the issue of the Tapas booking (we will find the link later). It discusses evidence that an Ocean Club manager, who was away from Praia da Luz, on holiday, was consulted (on the Monday) and had to personally authorise this unusual booking. 

We seem to lack evidence from other guests about the presence of the McCanns & the Tapas 7 at the Tapas restaurant that week. We know that Stephen Carpenter, from Stevenage, gave evidence that he was with the Tapas group at the restaurant on the Thursday, and one of our group thinks there may have been a reference by Carpenter to being with them at the restaurant on either Sunday or Monday. Carpenter, it may be recalled, provided a convenient back-up for Robert Murat's claim that he knew nothing about any missing child until Murat happened to pass by his apartment/villa early on Friday, got into conversation with him, with Murat then volunteering to go and so some interpreting up at the Ocean Club.         

One of our group believes that the Tapas group may have met in secret every night from Sunday/Monday to Wednesday, only showing up there on Thursday to provide 'evidence' of the checking regime.

Any help on these issues would be very welcome.

to jonal, i have taken a fresh look, and in my view, you are wright in the true meaning of these words.

but i think you want to look at this part starting from line 23 onwards, from original page http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P3/03_VOLUME_IIIa_Page_570.jpg

 reconda que, no dominga, dia 29, um dos elementos do grupo que chegou com a menor madeleine, cujo nome desconhece e apenas sabe ser do sexo masculino e magro, dirigiu-se a ora depoente soliciotand a marcacaode jantar para toda o grupo, para toda a semana, e sempre para as 20h30.

sorry i can not handle capitals and special letters anymore, but feeding it into deepl i got this;

recounts that on Sunday 29th, one of the members of the group that arrived with the madeleine child, whose name is unknown to her and all she knows is that he was thin and male, approached her and asked her to book dinner for the whole group, for the whole week, and always at 8.30pm.

 if i single out this sentence out of the tekst; one of the members of the group that arrived with the madeleine child, i do see opportunity to read it in two different meanings. 

one is a man with madeleine, the other , and i do think you are correct a man... from the group that travelled/arrived/ as in part of the group of the child madeleine. 

using another translator i got this, lesser of quality;

recalls that, on Sunday, the 29th, one of the elements of the group that arrived with the smallest madeleine, whose name he does not know and only knows that he is male and thin, went to the deponent now to request a dinner appointment for the whole group, to all week, and always for 20:30.


it could very well be luisa meant; a man from (the group that arrived together= at the ocean club) and not he was with madeleine before luisa will asking for the dinner appointment for the full week. 


it has its very different meaning, the fresh translation per deepl tells us, luisa did not see madeleine with russell before her desk. 


also meaning there was no child with russell at that moment, what would open up the time this had taken place. 


solving that question with the statement crusader already bring to our attention, thanks crusader! 


Tiago Rochas Barreiros statement   
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/TIAGO_BARREIROS.htm

He knows the family of the missing child as they were clients of the tapas restaurant which they began frequenting the 2nd day of their arrival to the Ocean Club.

From the very beginning a request was made to the restaurant workers to reserve a table for 20-30 until the end of the week.


if this statement is correct the booking episode of russell, at least a male from the group we know better as tapas 9, was made before the dinner started. 


and the guess from the statements of raj and neil ; that you have to get as soon to the desk in the morning when luisa or another college opens up have to get your feet in, or the places are already booked. will makes it likely russell books in person , alone for the full week at the desk of luisa around 09.00 hours in the morning.


and luisa never had eyes on madeleine during that episode.


if we look at the top of the tapas booking sheets there were not even 20 seats to go, but 4 tables with 4 guests as maximum. 

onehand wrote:
 if i single out this sentence out of the tekst; one of the members of the group that arrived with the madeleine child, i do see opportunity to read it in two different meanings. 

Yes, indeed, the missing element in the Ines translation is "que chegou" referring to the group as it was in question, arriving with the girl everybody was looking for, then her describing the man she saw belonging to that group. 

Questions might be asked as to how she knew this man was part of the McCann group, and her description might apply to two or perhaps only one of that group each of whom ruled themselves out, leading to speculation about a Tenth Tapas. For sure this figure isn't Kate's friend Rachael who "managed to get a table for nine at 8.30pm pencilled in for the rest of the week after having a word with the receptionist at the pool and Tapas area."

The existence of the tall man is conjured by this witness statement, given at midday on Tuesday 8 May. At the same time - at whose bidding I wonder? - the receptionist produced the fabled 'book' that was supposedly left open at reception that is more correctly described in the original wording as a handwritten minute book, most likely the loose sheets labelled 'Tapas Restaurant'. If she was part of a plot still not quite hatched, there is nothing to say that the tall man ever existed or more likely that her description should be intended to fit those possibly two men in the group if it was vague enough. RO still had to pick up the "I made the booking" stick so I think the cracks in the plan would show up right here if these witnesses were cross-examined. If the Tapas lot were entirely innocent, RO would indeed have made the booking at whatever time it really was and all parties would remember and agree.

Thanks crusader, I am very familiar with those pieces of paper that you say are bar bills. There are not two restaurants in the world that scrawl a meaningless list of drinks and quantities on a handwritten sheet and call it a bar bill without any sign of customer or cost!

It's in his rogatory: "I recall that orders may have been put onto a bar bill and paid at the end of the week." There should be details on that to show where everybody was and what they were necking but somehow I doubt it exists.

@Jonal

The " bar Bills" in the files are a computer printout of the daily expenditure by guests .

So you "pay" with your card that every guest is given on arrival and this must be produced to obtain services and drinks. At the end of the week you pay the total bill.

From my experience, when you order something or book something, you produce this card to pay but you also receive a copy receipt for your own record.

The main receipt is retained by the waiter to be later put on your bill.

Looks like they didn't buy any extra drinks all week.

to jonal, 

i was already underway in typing, i do agree with you, that the daytime was most likely when the booking  for the tapas dinners was made. 

i am not part of the research group. i am just a poster like you and the rest. 

i never have seen a bar bill, and i would have certainly have been keen to look at them. the tapas sheets itself only take the wine that goes with the dinners. they lack indeed functional information. the total for extras on the client listings are just a total, including also extras beyond their booking. so you do not know if it is from surplus childcare, or booze.

it does not matter if the client got their own bar bill in print, it is in most countries customary in this branche, that there are printouts with timestamps and even waiter numbers on it. they usually use a till to register each giving. same as are in the files from kelly's bar. the tills in use have always a duplicate on a second roll or  a digital memory register. a paper bill usually only will be printed out from that till, when the client ask for it. 

it is not a owner at the till, a large company loves to keep an eye on what happened in their facilities, the second roll of bar bills, or an digital memory register gives a lot of information. there are always sidesteps to make, but at least it gives something to check. 

it is the register with bar bills that i wanted to see, the tapas 9 could never cheat with that on their own. personel or owners can. a printed bill presented by a client is no proof when it has no declaration that identify that client as the buyer. i still would have wanted to see the print out in from the till itself. it is never foolproof, but it is at least something, you can hold to a statement. 

about the tapas booking sheets,

we don't even know if these are just loose sheets, just a easy to copy form, to fill out when needed( i think they are), kept in some folder or loose binder, or indeed part of a true book. most practical would it be, if it are just loose sheets, somewhere the next morning, someone of the administration would get them to transport the numbers into the books. 

if it is a book bound or glued together it is less easier to keep information under the table. with loose sheets you never are to be sure it are indeed originals. making it the information on them could never be proven to been made on the date on it. so i do hope they got also the book keeping from the computers it was kept on. 

it is that type of information that would not end up in open files. most companies would protest if it became for everyone to see.  

the reason a bar bill would of use, is to get at least an impression if their intake could have some influence on their memory. also as we seen with the bills from kelly's bar, their are often times stamped on them. like all other things, time stamps could help a lot to get a grip on what happened when. time plus a pass or card number would at least be an indication that they really have could been there.

it is always nice, if a timeline is not only from statements.

to mmrg post 57

a tip of for searching old topics on a large forum. 

just start typing the forumadres jillhavern. forummotion.net  into the search bar in google, if you halve there, google will suggest, if you have chosen in your settings that google can give suggestions, the full basic forumadres, with a small search bar under that in the suggestions. 

this works far better than to search on cmomm itself, you can choose to search the forum itself directly, or what is on google itself.

you can even search pretty long sentences.

so let me give the first load i already found;

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t13064-the-complete-mystery-of-the-booking-of-the-tapas-restaurant-on-sunday-29-april

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16919-a-tale-of-a-tapas-restaurant-booking

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t4475-tapas-reservation-sheets

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2818p50-the-mccanns-say-they-thought-they-might-not-get-into-the-tapas-restaurant-the-night-madeleine-disappeared

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2453-kate-mccann-fears-restaurant-reservation-booking-tipped-off-madeleine-mccann-s-abductor

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t12117-anomalies-in-the-mccann-records

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/p1025896-once-upon-a-timeline

you would not only end up with only topics from this forum, but also some others as an extra. 

it would never hurt to read them again, but it eat a lot of time away.

statement of Tiago Rochas Barreiros

answers how the alcohol outside the bookings was payed ;

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/TIAGO_BARREIROS.htm

That the payment for alcohol, not included in the vacation package, was paid by credit card. This payment was made by random members of the group of nine.
------------------------------------------------------------
it is a bit hidden, because this sentence is the start, were tiago refers back to the holiday period, after he talked about the arrangements after may 3 2007.
------------------------------------------------------------
a bit later it is said again, and that all list from the tapas have been given to the police.


The nine individuals, including the family of the missing child, were included in the half pension regime. They had the right to dinner (a menu that included starter, main course, desert and drinks as listed). All aperitifs, and after dinner drinks were paid separately using the credit card.

That generally, it was always the same people that dined in the Tapas and who were registered for dinner. A list of all the people who dined at the Tapas from the arrival of the missing child's family to 2007.05.04 has been handed over to the investigation.

------------------------------------------------------------
it is of course possible the april sheets from the tapas were no longer available, in between there have been already some working days, and end of the month books could already be processed by the administration. 

crusader wrote:@Jonal

The " bar Bills" in the files are a computer printout of the daily expenditure by guests .

Sorry, I was thinking of the 'TAPAS Restaurant' sheets 606-610 because you mentioned the bookings. So where are these, on the sheets 615-638 marked "Listagem de hóspedes" (Guest list) with TAPAS handwritten (on some of the sheets) above? Those are not bar bills.

I can discuss it at length but if anyone believes either those documents or the 'TAPAS Restaurant' booking sheets (?) are proof that actual dining went on there, I think I have a bridge I can sell to you.


@onehand
I want to see a proper bar bill for the reasons you suggest. Has anyone seen so much as a menu for this fully booked Tapas? I know only of online reviews before the Mcs that say it was a snack-type poolside place.

If those 'TAPAS Restaurant' booking sheets (?) are genuine then there should be possibly hundreds of them going back for all the time it was open but I somehow think that is another thing we will not see.

crusader wrote:@Jonal

The " bar Bills" in the files are a computer printout of the daily expenditure by guests .

Sorry, I was thinking of the 'TAPAS Restaurant' sheets 606-610 because you mentioned the bookings. So where are these, on the sheets 615-638 marked "Listagem de hóspedes" (Guest list) with TAPAS handwritten (on some of the sheets) above? Those are not bar bills.

I can discuss it at length but if anyone believes either those documents or the 'TAPAS Restaurant' booking sheets (?) are proof that actual dining went on there, I think I have a bridge I can sell to you.


@onehand
I want to see a proper bar bill for the reasons you suggest. Has anyone seen so much as a menu for this fully booked Tapas? I know only of online reviews before the Mcs that say it was a snack-type poolside place.

If those 'TAPAS Restaurant' booking sheets (?) are genuine then there should be possibly hundreds of them going back for all the time it was open but I somehow think that is another thing we will not see.

@Jonal

615 to 638 give the guests names, room number and daily totals.
2nd May is missing

I think there may be some confusion about the tapas bar restaurant.

There was seating for 20 Mark Warner guests per day that is why if you were a Mark Warner guest, you had to book early to get in.

The rest of the tapas restaurant was for other guests staying at the Ocean Club village and non guests.

The main restaurant was the Millennium where guests would eat breakfast and dinner.

The tapas was not somewhere guests were supposed to eat every night, I believe Mark Warner guests had the option to eat at the tapas one night during their stay and this had to be booked the same morning.

I will try to find the link.

https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PAUL_GORDON.htm


I remember there [having been] a limit to the number of times we could eat meals at Tapas, but we managed to do it twice.

to crusader post 69

it never became clear if the tapas bar and restaurant also could be used by non guests. it could be the official take on that is somewhere in the unreadable signs and notices at the entry. 

if someone have a picture with readable words, i am interested in that. 

it was meant of course for guests of the ocean club, but how serious they have been in that before 3 may 2007 is hard to get a view on. 

if you take a look at that part, it is fenced/walled in, everyone would have to go in by the reception desk, once you would be in, you could access not only the tapas bar and restaurant, but also the pools. this setup is usually guest only. 

it is not known how easy non guest could get access, it is not you could pay for a day ticket or such things, it could be accepted if a guest wanted a seating with a non guest. 
the small reception is simply there to restrict or control the access. there was not something as a access card, the checks had to be made  hands.

after 3 may 2007, they had access restricted for guests only, the morning of 4 may, journalists could just walk in, but it did not take long before they got back to guest only. some years back i had someone who got on a holiday near pdl, but the access was restricted. 

from my own experience in other places outside the summer season , or high season, the rules for access and use of facilities  would not be taken that strictly. but most of those these restaurants and bars would be in the hands of a subcontractor, and for most it will mean some extra pennies are welcome in the low seasons, this was just under the ocean club. 

so rules and signs with rules are one thing, how that was kept in place another. 

there was per statement of raj and neil there was also take out possible.

but there had to be others guest to keep that place afloat. 

the problem i have with the sheets is,they only give some information about mark warner guests. same with the creche sheets, only mark warner. so there is possible information of witnesses just missing out. 

same with the reception at the entry of the tapas area, it looks to be manned daytime only, i never found out if after 19.00 hours someone always was even there. if it was manned, there would be a fare better view on all the checking tapas 9 movements. 

it would means simply more eyes on them, if there were other guest in the bar , or the restaurant they stay incognito for the investigation. 

it could not only help in information if they truly have been there, but also their mood, and what some would have wearing. because that last thing is still a mystery. none of them could be at least a bit sure what clothes they have been wearing that evening. 

from the guestlist of the ocean club itself it is known, it was certainly not mark warner only, but other than on that list those people do not show on up on other activities by name. 

because of what the ocean club really was, not all would have to be on such a guest list either. there would certainly be some rules, that any owner of property under the ocean club, would have the responsibility to make known, when and who was in. easy money was to make it to just do not tell. 
all in all it would be certainly a place you could stay incognito to any registration. 

in the files it looks like only the folders with mark warner printed on them made it to the investigation. making the other guests on the ocean club guest listings invisible to the investigation. 

without names you will miss out on witnesses, the people of the' not my cup of tea' stances become unseen. most of those would talk if you simply can ask them questions. that is mostly the reason you want house to house calls, they cost a lot of time and manpower, and in this case they had not even 48 hours to realize that. they got pretty quick in house to house calls, but most people who could have had eyes on the ground would be gone after the morning of the fifth. 
if you look in operation paris, a uk case, the shannon matthews- case, it was day 24 she was found, because of this;

In this case, the investigative strategy covered the full range of scenarios and deployed an array of investigative techniques. It is true to say, however, that it did not generate a single piece  information about what had happened to Shannon until officers engaged on routine TIE enquiries and were given information wholly unconnected to that enquiry. The person who had that information did not think it particularly significant and so had not reported it to the police but passed it on when an investigator visited their home for another reason. The intelligent handling of that information and follow-up enquiries quickly led to the safe recovery of Shannon on 15 March.

from the debrief report of operation paris, no direct working link available.
it is read only also, but i could work around that.

you can never tell what in the end will leads to solving a case, but information had to get to an investigation. you never can look into something, that simply is not even there.  more about this why that plays a role is for another message.

@onehand
When guests arrive at Ocean Club they are given a card which amongst other things, give entrance to the pool and tapas area.

Having said that, I have seen a video showing the reception area, it showed there was no place to put an entry card to gain access, it was an normal door.

I agree the rules would be relaxed outside of summer season, like you ,I have had experience  of this.

It would be great to have the statements of all the guests and I'm sure they do exist, unfortunately we only have the information released in the PJ files to work with.

The tapas 9 were supposedly running about all evening checking on their children and when Kate came running back at 10pm,
did she remember to bring her entry card with her?

 I don't think we can put much faith on them using every time they entered and left the tapas restaurant.

I can't remember their names at the moment, but weren't the family with the buggy walking away from the OC playground photos of MM just day visitors?

PS
The Boyd family. They were the ones who gave the interview with their photos on the beach saying their kids had been playing football with MM by the pool.

Doug D wrote:I can't remember their names at the moment, but weren't the family with the buggy walking away from the OC playground photos of MM just day visitors?

PS
The Boyd family. They were the ones who gave the interview with their photos on the beach saying their kids had been playing football with MM by the pool.

Vicky Boyd comprehensively lied about being in the sunlounger on the afternoon of Wednesday 2 May while Madeleine and her son Louie played football together 'for an hour' and the children were all playing on the waterslide.

FACT: It rained on Wednesday

Tony Bennett wrote:

Doug D wrote:I can't remember their names at the moment, but weren't the family with the buggy walking away from the OC playground photos of MM just day visitors?

PS
The Boyd family. They were the ones who gave the interview with their photos on the beach saying their kids had been playing football with MM by the pool.

Vicky Boyd comprehensively lied about being in the sunlounger on the afternoon of Wednesday 2 May while Madeleine and her son Louie played football together 'for an hour' and the children were all playing on the waterslide.

FACT: It rained on Wednesday

It was the journalist Danielle Gusmaroli who made up the story, not Vicky Boyd - Peter contacted Vicky and spoke to her via zoom.

https://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.com/2016/08/chapter-39-beyond-reasonable-waterslide.html

And now we know, know, that the respectable married woman on holiday with her extended family DID NOT allow herself to be coerced.
Her name, and that of her family, has been taken in vain.
Lies have been told. Her veracity has been impugned. She has been, in journalists' language "Set Up".
And let it be clear that Mrs Boyd played no active part in this disgraceful episode.

But as always, the journalist has been handsomely rewarded for lying about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and probable death of a three-year-old girl.