Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?

If I recall correctly, didn't the friends and family behave as if on holiday, arriving armed with swimming clothes, and lounging around in the pool?

I have said before, I don't think there was one decent person in Madeleine's life.

At 9.30pm I stood up to go and make our second check. Almost simultaneously, Matt [Oldfield] got to his feet to see to Grace.

As his apartment was right next door, he offered to look in on our three while he was there. I hesitated. I was quite happy to go myself but it seemed a bit silly to insist when Matt was going anyway. ‘Oh, OK, then. My turn next.’ When Matt returned he reassured us, ‘All quiet!’

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

No mention of swinging doors, open/closed/flapping windows/blinds/curtains compared to the previous Oldfield check from outside the apartment?

Did they have a responsible parenting nightly child listening/watching system of their own making or some ad hoc hokey cokey everything free and easy do as you darn well pleasy arrangement?

As I've said time and time again - clearly they had no idea the Portuguese police files would ever be released into the public domain.

What a killer!

Then again, the group clearly had it in mind to leave their children every night whilst wining and dining.

Matt Oldfield witness statement - 10th May 2007

For the rest, he relates that the couples would give preference to resorts that have 'baby listening' services available.

Pressed to define 'baby listening' service he clarifies that that service can be summed up as a watching, by doing 'rounds' of the outside of an apartment in the course of which someone checks for noise coming from the location where children are sleeping and, if noise is heard, to alert the respective parents of that situation.

Furthermore, he wishes to make clear that while making the aforementioned reservations the operator had told them that a 'baby listening' service was not in place in the Ocean Club Garden.

That fact had made some of the couples - and himself in particular - reluctant to come to Portugal because all the families have minor children.

As far as he [MO] is concerned, he wishes at this time to add that, in conversation with DP on a date he does not recall with certainty but likely to have been on 7 or 8 May, he [DP] confided in him that that, at that time, KH had been particularly reluctant about coming to Portugal because she had had a bad feeling [presentiment] about the children of the group and the non-existence of the 'baby sitting' service.

Nevertheless, he relates that, they had discussed this problem resolving to make the trip since the operator had assured them accommodation sufficiently close together that, collectively, they had managed to assure the checking and supervision of their respective progeny.

So again I question the logic.

A trifle airy-fairy for such an important issue as child care - what to do with the kids whilst you go off on a jolly with your mates.

Again I ask - a grandmother, in this case the Payne family, agreeing to leave very young children alone in their respective apartments - being part of the dinner group? Never !!! A grandmother would never agree to such an arrangement unless they knew the children where being properly cared for - like a babysitter official or unofficial.

Was Charlotte Pennington taken on that trip to Portugal to care for the children? Was there some sort of strange agreement with Mark Warner staff to accept such a proposal?

There has to be some acceptable explanation.

KH had a bad feeling about the children, but she also said that she 'would never have taken the risk'.  Which is it, Kate?

Quite!

Matt Oldfield wasn't happy about the Portuguese Mark Warner night time child care facilities - he/they went ahead with it anyway.

David Payne packed a duper-super child monitor, another couple packed a not so duper-super child monitor.

It's apparent they intended to leave their children every night whilst they wined and dined. The most obvious clue is the grandmother - perhaps packed for childcare, why else was she there amidst a group of 30'somethings, all with something in common. But then she, the grandmother, was at the Tapas restaurant with the rest of the group - apparently!

It stinks like rotten sea bass.

The kidnapper would have no knowledge of when the next check was to be made, 
so at what point would he/she have decided was the best time to make their move.


But if the 'kidnapper' had been watching and making notes ( KM) then
he/she/it/they would have noted that the 'window of opportunity' was vanishingly small.
ONE minute and 20 seconds to be fairly precise.   Every check involved wandering past 5A in BOTH directions,
and since it is on a corner, three sides of the apartment, both doors, and all the windows are in view for much of the time 
any passer-by is passing by.
It is not like walking past the 12' front of a terraced house. It is like walking right round a semi.


even Jez Wilkins has to be added into the pot-pourri of diligent watchers, as we must also 
now add Dr Totman wandering in the wrong direction with his child held as if on a fork lift.

There is barely room to squeeze him in the graphic.

Wasn't it Jane Tanner who spoke of the eerie quiet streets of Praia da Luz, when she was flip-flapping her way around - like a soul lost in the dark?
 
The night of 3rd May must have been the proverbial exception to the rule - people congestion off peak!

We realize that Madeleine’s abduction has been hard for every parent to bear. It has brought home to everyone how vulnerable our children are and how fragile our lives. I have come to understand that some of these critics have been acting out of self-preservation. Holding us culpable in some way makes them feel their own children are safer. Who knows how we might have reacted if this had happened to another family and we had been the ones watching from the sidelines?

Whatever lies at the root of these negative reactions, they have never stopped us doing what we think is best for Madeleine, and they won’t do so now. As long as we are acting in her interests, we will withstand whatever slings and arrows we must face.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

Oh, how noble she is.

" we will withstand whatever slings and arrows we must face " 

Aah yes " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune " ! 

All done in Madeleines interest of course , that " outrageous fortune " that was supposed to pay for " the search " named The Fighting Fund . 

The taxpayer suffers the " slings and arrows of outrageous fortune " paying for Operation Grange .

ABOUT THE BOOK

‘The decision to publish this book has been very difficult, and taken with heavy hearts … My reason for writing it is simple: to give an account of the truth … Writing this memoir has entailed recording some very personal, intimate and emotional aspects of our lives. Sharing these with strangers does not come easily to me, but if I hadn’t done so I would not have felt the book gave as full a picture as it is possible for me to give. As with every action we have taken over the last four years, it ultimately boils down to whether what we are doing could help us to find Madeleine. When the answer to that question is yes, or even possibly, our family can cope with anything …
What follows is an intensely personal account, and I make no apology for that …
Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl.’

Kate McCann, May 2011
_______________________________________________

‘It is a sad fact that not a single police force anywhere is proactively looking for Madeleine (as is the case for many other missing children). I am sure this book will re-energize the search for our daughter and the public will get behind the Find Madeleine campaign once again. It is simply not acceptable that the authorities have given up on Madeleine – especially when no comprehensive review of the case has been undertaken. Our daughter, and whoever took her, are out there. We need your help to find them.’

Gerry McCann, May 2011

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

Friday 4 May. Our first day without Madeleine. As soon as it was light Gerry and I resumed our search. We went up and down roads we’d never seen before, having barely left the Ocean Club complex all week. We jumped over walls and raked through undergrowth. We looked in ditches and holes. All was quiet apart from the sound of barking dogs, which added to the eeriness of the atmosphere. I remember opening a big dumpster-type bin and saying to myself, please God, don’t let her be in here. The most striking and horrific thing about all this was that we were completely alone. Nobody else, it seemed, was out looking for Madeleine. Just us, her parents.

madeleine by Kate McCann

Liar

Our apartment was cleaned on the Monday and Wednesday (another perk) by a middle-aged Portuguese lady. On Tuesday 1 May, after my tennis lesson, two maintenance workers came to have a look at our washing machine, which I couldn’t get to operate. Gerry had also managed to break the window shutter 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 . . . The two men looked at the washing machine first. Once they’d established that the problem was something simple – not quite as simple as me not having pressed the ‘on’ button, but not much more complicated than that – I went to meet Gerry, whose lesson had started at ten-fifteen, leaving them to fix the shutter.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

THE EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN

On we pressed with our campaign to spread the word across Europe. We had decided it would further our cause to visit one or two key countries ourselves and appeal personally to their people for help, seeking assistance and advice from politicians and children’s charities. We wanted to reach some of the hundreds of potential witnesses from elsewhere on the continent who had been on holiday in the Algarve around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. Perhaps even more importantly, it was quite possible that Madeleine was in another country now. Had anyone noticed a little girl who seemed out of place, or somebody behaving suspiciously?

We chose Spain first, as it is so close to Portugal. After the British and Irish, most other visitors to the Algarve are German or Dutch, so we added Berlin and Amsterdam to the itinerary. Finally, we felt we needed to venture beyond Europe, to north Africa. Morocco was so easily accessible from Praia da Luz – ferries make the thirty-five-minute crossing from Tarifa in Spain to Tangiers several times a day – that there was a distinct possibility Madeleine could have been taken there. The Foreign Office helped us by arranging consular assistance in all these countries.

Now that it looked as if we were going to be based in Praia da Luz for the long haul, with frequent journeys to airports and regular meetings set up with the police at the British Consulate in Portimão, we’d decided it would be easier if we had our own car. We’d duly taken possession of a rented Renault Scenic on 27 May.

We left for Madrid on Thursday 31 May, taking a flight from Lisbon airport. Again it was horrible leaving Sean and Amelie. As well as the huge, central agony of missing and fearing for Madeleine, there were lots of other heartaches, and I resented being put in the position of having to make choices like this. I cursed the person who had brought such pain and suffering to our family. Our only comfort was that these essential separations seemed to affect Gerry and me far more than they did the twins.

At the check-in desks at Lisbon airport I looked around for pictures of Madeleine. I couldn’t see a single one. I was dismayed. I talked to one of the staff, who explained that there were some notices pinned up behind a few of the desks. The tears pricked my eyes yet again. This just wasn’t enough. Lisbon turned out to be one of the few European airports we visited that wasn’t plastered with Madeleine’s image. Poor Phil almost got herself arrested later for trying to rectify this by putting up some of our posters. The Portuguese, it seemed, took a less liberal view of flyposting than that encountered by our supporters elsewhere.

Sitting in an airport café, I couldn’t avoid casting my eyes over the people rushing for planes or pushing trolleys backwards and forwards aimlessly. Where were they all going? Did they not know a little girl had been stolen? How could they take a holiday, or a business trip to talk in meetings about projected sales figures, when Madeleine was missing? Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, I had an overwhelming urge to shout, ‘Stop! Everybody stop! ’ It’s so hard to accept that for everyone else life goes on, but of course it does.

We were met at Madrid airport by several British Embassy staff, a liaison officer and two press officers, as well as a crowd of journalists and photographers, and taken to the hotel where we were to spend the night. Clarence briefed Gerry and me about the meetings and press conferences arranged for the next day and then we went up to our room to get some rest.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research and study only]

It's like  showbiz person's account of a world tour. 

Being based in Praia da Liz for " the long haul " didn't last did it !

sandancer wrote:Being based in Praia da Liz for " the long haul " didn't last did it !