That door again

by **PeterMac** 26.05.11 18:22

p 130. “For a long while we would assume that the abductor had entered and exited through the window of the children’s bedroom, but it is equally possible that he used the patio doors or even had a key to the front door. Perhaps he’d either come in or gone out via the window, not both; perhaps he hadn't been through at all, but had opened it to prepare an emergency escape route if needed, or merely to throw investigators off the scent. he could have been in and out of the apartment more than once between our visits.
p 131 “ That would explain the movement of the door to the children’s bedroom. At 9.05pm, when Gerry had found it further ajar that it should have been, he had pulled it back to its original position. On his arrival half an hour later, Matt hadn’t gone into the room, he had simply listened at the door, which he hadn't adjusted. And yet when I returned at 10pm it was wider open once again. How had that happened ?.... Whatever the case, it may have helped if I had done the nine-thirty visit instead of Matt. I would have noticed that the door was not how we left it - something that nobody could have expected to be apparent to Matt - and raised the alarm sooner.”

This is very strange writing. (Quite apart from the strangeness of the language, -‘More ajar’ is not a possible construction in Standard English. More open, more closed, are the only possible ones.)
Is it an attempt to answer the criticisms which have been made of the original story over the years ?

Is she trying to divert attention from the state of the window, and therefore by implication of the shutters. Since the original story did not ever hang together, she has little choice but to gloss over it as irrelevant. Unfortunately what was reported in those first hours and what was allegedly done to the shutters won’t go away that easily.

So now we have to believe that Gerry came back to the Tapas Bar and reported in detail to Matt and to Kate what he had done with the door.
Ditto Matt, who must then in turn have told Kate that he didn‘t go in or touch the door, and report again on the precise angle, so that Kate in her turn can see that there door is in a different position.
Is there evidence of those conversations ? I think not.

In which case what Kate is therefore saying in the book is this
• Gerry and I left the door at a particular angle.
• Gerry came back in, opened the door, and then put it back where it had been - but did not tell me, so in fact I could have reasonably assumed that he left it at some other angle.
• Matt went in and did not touch the door - but also did not tell me, so I could have reasonable assumed he did open it to do a proper check as he promised to and was supposed to, and that he left it at some other angle.

My own possibly inadequate recollection is that Matt only confessed to NOT having even looked at the children the following day, when it became clear that otherwise he would have been in the perilous position of being last person to see her alive.
So Kate
CAN NOT have known what state the door was in,
CAN NOT have known how Gerry left it, and
CAN NOT have known how Matt left it.

Her statement at p 71, para 4: “... the door to the children’s bedroom was open quite wide, NOT HOW WE HAD LEFT IT” thus becomes a statement of an entirely different type, and implies something totally different about the checks.

by Guest 26.05.11 18:29

esterday, after the daily routine, MADELEINE and the twins were put to bed in their respective beds, and he stresses put to bed, at 7.30 pm. The deponent and his wife remained in the apartment to relax and drink a glass of wine until 8.30 pm. After checking the children, the deponent and his wife and the adults went to the "Tapas" restaurant, around 50 metres away, where they had dinner together. As usual, every half hour and considering that the restaurant was close to the apartment, the deponent or his wife went to check if the children were ok. Thus, at 9.05 pm, the deponent entered the club, using his key, the door being locked, and went to the children's bedroom and noted that the twins and Madeleine were in perfect condition. He then went to the toilet, where he remained for a few instants, left the apartment, and then crossed ways with someone with whom he had played tennis, who had a baby buggy, also a British citizen, with whom he had a brief conversation. He then returned to the restaurant. At around 9.30 pm, his friend MATT (a member of the group) went to his apartment where his own children were, and on his way he went into the deponent's apartment, going in through a sliding glass door at the side of the building, which was always unlocked. He went into the room, saw the twins and didn’t even notice if Madeleine was there, as everything was quiet, the shutters closed and the bedroom door half-open as usual. Then MATT went back to the restaurant.At 10pm, his wife Kate went to check on the children. She went into the apartment through the door using her key and saw right away that the children’s bedroom door was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains drawn open. The side door that opens into the living room, which as said earlier, was never locked, was closed.

From GM' witness statement 4th May

by **PeterMac** 26.05.11 19:15

The door and the ceremony of the keys, all get tied in together. We cannot separate one part from the other.
None of it works, however hard one tries to understand what they say they did.
Little wonder they refused to do a reconstruction of this part. I cannot see how they could write a script which covered everything they said.

by **PeterMac** 27.05.11 9:19

In law the stuff in Gerry's statement about what Matt did, in English law is called "Hearsay". He cannot give direct evidence of it, since he was not there watching Matt.
Although it may be interesting it cannot stand against what Matt says he did, in the first person. And my recollection is that Matt eventually confessed to not having looked at the children at all.
But an interesting attempt at a statement nevertheless.

Gerry says he went in through the front door using the key
Gerry says Matt went in through the Patio door, which was always unlocked
Gerry says Kate went in through the front door using the key

None of that makes sense, hearsay or not. And Kate says something totally different. As does Matt.
I wonder why they felt the need to elaborate so early on, rather than just saying what they individually did. It shows a certain degree of discussion and collusion had taken place even at that early stage.

by Baronstu 27.05.11 11:28

At 10pm I went back to the apartment myself. I entered the sitting room via the patio doors, as Gerry and Matt had done, and
stood there, listening, for a few seconds. All was silent. Then I noticed that the door to the children’s bedroom was open quite
wide, not how we had left it. At first I assumed that Matt must have moved it. I walked over and gently began to pull it to.
Suddenly it slammed shut, as if caught by a draught.
A little surprised, I turned to see if I’d left the patio doors open and let in the breeze. Retracing my steps, I confirmed that I
hadn’t. Returning to the children’s room, I opened the door a little, and as I did so I glanced over at Madeleine’s bed. I
couldn’t quite make her out in the dark. I remember looking at it and looking at it for what was probably only a few seconds,
though it felt like much longer. It seems so daft now, but I didn’t switch on the light straight away. Force of habit, I suppose:
taking care to avoid waking the children at all costs.

Apart from stating that all three of them entered by the Patio doors, its the bedroom door slamming that is interesting.

1) If, as she states the patio doors were shut, how did the bedroom door slam shut? There is no through draft.
2)Why, if the bedroom door "Slammed Shut" did the twins not stir?

by Guest 27.05.11 11:39

From Matt Oldfield's Rogatory Statement 9th April 2008

when Kate went in something about the door shutting, there was, I presume, a through draught. So I just sort of went towards the doorway, I didn't step over the threshold, I didn't see Madeleine and I didn't check, I turned round and came back out, said all was quiet when I got back to the table and then we went on with food. Now the room was, we talked also in the interviews about how light the room was and whether I could see the shutters, and I can't see the shutters because the curtains were shut and, they're similar curtains to the ones you've got in there, and you just get an impression of just like green and yellow, but they were closed, they weren't sort of blowing about, because I'm sure I'd have noticed if there was sort of movement like that. But the room seemed light, and we spent a lot of time talking about this, whether it could be light coming in from the street outside, but there was a light behind us in the room and for some reason I thought, I got the impression of light coming through the doorway from behind me, which is why I said that I thought perhaps the moon was out, erm, but there as no sort of, you know, it's a question of whether, there was no sort of slats of light coming through the back that particularly caught my eye. So I didn't specifically see the shutters and I couldn't say that they were definitely open, but certainly the curtains were shut and everything was quiet".

4078 "So you weren't, just to clarify what you have said, you weren't conscious of any draught?"

Reply "Yeah".

4078 "The curtains were drawn and weren't blowing around?"
Reply "Yeah".

4078 "You weren't conscious of light coming through that window but the room was light enough for you to see into it?"
Reply "Yeah. I mean, the difficult thing about that is, when we talked about it afterwards, I agonised for whether it seemed as though there was light coming through the room. And I have to say my answer then was probably more accurate, in that, the room was lighter than I expected but I definitely didn't see the shutters up, the curtains were definitely not disturbed and the shutters would have had to have been completely up,

So no draught then at around 9.25/30 and the curtains still closed. Sow HOW did JT see the abductor at 9.15???

by Kitti 27.05.11 12:01

How did Rachel not notice the shutters were up when she went back to her apt via the car park?

She had already spoken to Kate McCann who told her that the shutters were UP and the windows were OPEN....yet we are to believe that Rachel didn't even glance at the window when going back to her apt, she said she was too busy thinking about her own daughter and was focased on that!

Pull the other one....it's got bells on!

Now, if someone had said to you about the shutters and window.....would you walk past the window with your eyes SHUT on the way back to your won apt?

by Kitti 27.05.11 12:12

Rachel oldfield in her statement on 15.3.2007.....the mccanns shutters on the windows were shut and patio door shutters also shut and you would have to pull them up to get into the apt.

I thought that using the key was noisy yet they pulled the gutters UP and DOWN to enter the patio doors.

Off course....rogatory interview changed all that.

I don't believe ANY off them went Into the apt to check, they just listened at the shutters, outside, for crying......Gerry McCann slipped up in the mockumentary when matt said.....'if I had only taken those few
Extra steps and went Into the room'...with which Gerry McCann answered..'it's the first time that I had gone into the room ....etc etc'......

by **PeterMac** 27.05.11 12:58

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said."
None of them can remember what they said, let alone what were supposed to say.

by lj 27.05.11 14:25

About the draft: the door should have slammed shut when she opened the pationdoors, not when she tried to close the bedroom door.

by **PeterMac** 02.06.11 7:23

Kitti wrote:Rachel Oldfield in her statement on 15.3.2007.....the McCanns shutters on the windows were shut and patio door shutters also shut and you would have to pull them up to get into the apt.
I thought that using the key was noisy yet they pulled the shutters UP and DOWN to enter the patio doors.
Of course....rogatory interview changed all that.
I don't believe ANY off them went Into the apt to check, they just listened at the shutters, outside, for crying......Gerry McCann slipped up in the mockumentary when Matt said.....'if I had only taken those few extra steps and went Into the room'...with which Gerry McCann answered..'it's the first time that I had gone into the room ....etc etc'......

You can only open the shutters from the INSIDE. Patio door shutters included.
So Rachel's first statement is pure nonsense. As the PJ obviously knew. They all have shutters like this on their own houses, and would have been bemused at the succession of 'Limeys' clearly making things up.