the shutters revisited

by friedtomatoes 05.06.12 17:43

shutters were jemmied, opened, smashed from the outside we have been told by friends and family of the mccanns

kate mccann says on her check the shutters were raised right up

pat brown after her trip to pdl posted a video showing that whilst the shutters could be raised from the outside they couldnt stay up

ergo, they were not raised from outside, jemmied, smashed or broken, and as seen in the police photos taken after the events, were in perfect working order

as kate admitted, the shutters were a red herring!

the other anomaly is diane webster saying she couldnt raise them more than a few inches without them getting twisted whilst gerry opened them with ease! and then we have at least three people testing the shutters minutes after a child has gone missing..... for what reason? if a child has been taken from an apartment why would anyone try to test how theycould have entered? and all before police got there

by Guest 23.10.12 14:43

It's a good point, friedtomatoes.

Especially when Kate is adamant they didn't touch anything in the apartment for fear of contaminating the evidence.

What I also find peculiar is why when she was searching the cupboards for a cowering Madeleine she didn't check outside the open window.

by Guest 23.10.12 14:54

Finn wrote:It's a good point, friedtomatoes.

Especially when Kate is adamant they didn't touch anything in the apartment for fear of contaminating the evidence.

What I also find peculiar is why when she was searching the cupboards for a cowering Madeleine she didn't check outside the open window.

That is an excellent point Finn, it would be an immediate reaction to run to the window to see if she had tried to get out and fallen out of it and hurt herself. KM looks in bedroom sees open window, why think your daughter was abducted. Why not think there's been a burglary, someone has got in, and Madeleine could have tried to get out the open window? If it was open it was easy enough for Madeleine to have pulled herself up after standing on the bed underneath.

by Guest 23.10.12 15:12

If a child of almost 4 tried climbing out the window chances are they'd hurt themselves. It's a sure thing, first to look out the window and if you see nothing go out the front door, she might have been just around the corner with a cut knee, injured limbs or worse.

But the front door never really gets a proper mention. It'd have been way too dangerous for Kate to bring it into her little story.

by **tigger** 24.10.12 7:16

Finn wrote:If a child of almost 4 tried climbing out the window chances are they'd hurt themselves. It's a sure thing, first to look out the window and if you see nothing go out the front door, she might have been just around the corner with a cut knee, injured limbs or worse.

But the front door never really gets a proper mention. It'd have been way too dangerous for Kate to bring it into her little story.

'the shutters were 'jimmied' (I think they meant jemmied) and the front door was 'hanging open'. According to that fount of knowledge or early PR rep Philomena. The same was said by others, friends of the mcCanns and so on. Those were the first reports.

The contempt the Planner of this disaster seemed to have for the intelligence and power of the PJ comes through here imo.

In one of the later interviews - Rachel M tells the police that ALL the shutters were down, those of the patio doors too. It is in one of the shutter topics.
So not entering the room and not putting the light on so the children would sleep on, doesn't work with lifting the very noisy shutters.

by **PeterMac** 24.10.12 7:44

Very good point about why KM did not nip outside to see if M had climbed or fallen out.
But the answer is simple.
The shutters were closed. !

by aiyoyo 24.10.12 10:48

She didn't even think one of the checkers might have opened the window for some reason and forgot to close it, but immediately thought Maddie was abducted. Why Maddie?
Reportedly she hadn't even looked into the room at that point, so how did she know it was Maddie taken, and not all the children or one of the twins?

She knew, because it was staged.

by **PeterMac** 24.10.12 11:06

aiyoyo wrote:
She knew, . . ..

And in her book she emphasises this.
p. 73

"I knew. I knew."

The italics make all the difference you see. If it is italic it is true.

by **tigger** 24.10.12 11:46

PeterMac wrote:
aiyoyo wrote:
She knew, . . ..
And in her book she emphasises this.
p. 73

"I knew. I knew."

The italics make all the difference you see. If it is italic it is true.

This was reinforced at the start by the story of cc being on a ledge too high for Maddie to reach. However, due to sloppy workmanship, there was no ledge in said bedroom, one may wonder if quite another bedroom had been used as a template. Do any of the other bedrooms in use by the T7 have ledges. Certainly the one that MO was familiar with had two windows, not one, since he described the bedroom in 5a as having two.

What amazed me that the ledge is more or less dropped from the story and then resurfaces in the press, led by Lori Campbell as late as August 2007.

She 'knew', but she still said she was looking in cupboards to see if Maddie was cowering there. The cc now just being left had to be
sufficient evidence, together with the blanket. A child never has two of these - it would be either the blanket or the cuddlecat, not both.

The three points of evidence in the 'scene' were:
An open window -- which Maddie would be unable to open by herself. - Debatable. She looks tall and strong enough in the tennis photo.
A toy left on the bed - Maddie was never without that toy. - The blanket was most likely her comforter, not the new-looking toy.
The raised shutters - Maddie could never have raised those heavy shutters. - She was a bright child, according to her parents, imo she could have raised them from inside via the mechanism.
The patio doors - which were open could not be moved by a small child - again, a child of four (tennis photo) looks capable enough to slide a door on runners.

The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block.

by Springers are FAB 24.10.12 13:07

Tigger, you said:

"The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block."

I think you are definitely onto something here...are there any pics of the insides of the other T9 appartments???

by sami 24.10.12 13:22

With regard toMadeleine not being able to open the doors David Payne says this about his patio doors in his rogatory statement:

”Err
the sliding doors were a slight, they were slightly difficult
to lock and that was you
know one of our concerns err when we were there and it was, it was
quite temperamental whether you
could open them or, or,
or lock them, and err yeah especially you know sometimes we had the
other children coming up there
so it was difficult but
there was someone on the balcony or if their children were to you know
venture out we would keep an
eye and you know explain
to them that they shouldn’t be out on the balcony you know without an
adult present. Err but
obviously we tried to
keep the err door shut when no-one was out on the balcony and err open
if there’s someone sat
out there keeping an eye
on them. Err the way it opened and locked was again I think it was err
like a, a, a lat, you know
like a lever which went
up and down and I just remember it not being the most easy to err work
out how to shut and, a bit
temperamental.”

Seems to me that it was on his mind the children could open them and wander out, or do I interpret it incorrectly

by bobbin 24.10.12 13:52

sami wrote:With regard toMadeleine not being able to open the doors David Payne says this about his patio doors in his rogatory statement:

”Err
the sliding doors were a slight, they were slightly difficult
to lock and that was you
know one of our concerns err when we were there and it was, it was
quite temperamental whether you
could open them or, or,
or lock them, and err yeah especially you know sometimes we had the
other children coming up there
so it was difficult but
there was someone on the balcony or if their children were to you know
venture out we would keep an
eye and you know explain
to them that they shouldn’t be out on the balcony you know without an
adult present. Err but
obviously we tried to
keep the err door shut when no-one was out on the balcony and err open
if there’s someone sat
out there keeping an eye
on them. Err the way it opened and locked was again I think it was err
like a, a, a lat, you know
like a lever which went
up and down and I just remember it not being the most easy to err work
out how to shut and, a bit
temperamental.”

Seems to me that it was on his mind the children could open them and wander out, or do I interpret it incorrectly

I absolutely agree. Payne has the blabber-mouth gift of saying too much... a bag you wouldn't be able to ~~hide~~ a tennis racket in, for starters.
A real attempt here to make it look as though the adults were aware that the children on the balcony alone could be a dangerous thing, therefore an extra important effort put into making sure they were always looked after by an adult.
This of course leads entirely to the question, if the McCs' patio doors were left 'open-able' at night, so that any of the tapas could enter easily to check, and so that Maddie could get out of the door to rescue the twins and herself in case of fire, could Maddie have opened the doors, for any reason, climbed on the little wall and fallen, damaging herself.
Certainly, Payne is openly declaring that the patio door was risky, that little children on the balcony, unattended by an adult, were considered to be at risk.
Now would Mark Warner or an attendant nanny feel liable, with doors like that, with a little wall that had a drop onto hard ground below it, if a child had fallen down and banged its head and become tired and then died from internal bleeding, blood clotting etc. because the parents hadn't gone for hospital help and monitoring.
Just a question of course, no implications intended.

by **tigger** 24.10.12 19:20

Springers are FAB wrote:Tigger, you said:

"The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block."

I think you are definitely onto something here...are there any pics of the insides of the other T9 appartments???

I'm sure there must be, I can't remember seeing any. We've discussed on other occasions that 5a seemed more like a stage set than anything else (PJ noticed too, few children's things, not much in the fridge etc). Imo they used another flat most of the time. If there was an 'accident' they might have vacated 5a and just cleaned it up whilst living elsewhere, meanwhile working out the story. All my supposition of course.

I did read some time ago that the Oldfield apartment's bedroom did have two windows.

by Guest 24.10.12 19:26

tigger wrote:
PeterMac wrote:
aiyoyo wrote:
She knew, . . ..
And in her book she emphasises this.
p. 73

"I knew. I knew."

The italics make all the difference you see. If it is italic it is true.

This was reinforced at the start by the story of cc being on a ledge too high for Maddie to reach. However, due to sloppy workmanship, there was no ledge in said bedroom, one may wonder if quite another bedroom had been used as a template. Do any of the other bedrooms in use by the T7 have ledges. Certainly the one that MO was familiar with had two windows, not one, since he described the bedroom in 5a as having two.

What amazed me that the ledge is more or less dropped from the story and then resurfaces in the press, led by Lori Campbell as late as August 2007.

She 'knew', but she still said she was looking in cupboards to see if Maddie was cowering there. The cc now just being left had to be
sufficient evidence, together with the blanket. A child never has two of these - it would be either the blanket or the cuddlecat, not both.

The three points of evidence in the 'scene' were:
An open window -- which Maddie would be unable to open by herself. - Debatable. She looks tall and strong enough in the tennis photo.
A toy left on the bed - Maddie was never without that toy. - The blanket was most likely her comforter, not the new-looking toy.
The raised shutters - Maddie could never have raised those heavy shutters. - She was a bright child, according to her parents, imo she could have raised them from inside via the mechanism.
The patio doors - which were open could not be moved by a small child - again, a child of four (tennis photo) looks capable enough to slide a door on runners.

The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block.

Hi Tigger, where can I read about cc on the shelf, that's a new one for me. Thanks.

by **tigger** 24.10.12 20:01

@ Finn (from the CC topic) - the high shelf featured in the early stories via the (literal) mouthpieces of family and friends, together with the jemmied shutters, doors hanging open etc. It was definitely part of the 'story'.
Advantage of having others speak for you of course is that it can be denied at any stage. Could not believe the high shelf was back, despite photographic evidence to the contrary and the shelf not having featured for a while.

The Clue That Gives Kate Hope, 13 August 2007

The Clue That Gives Kate Hope Daily Express (no longer available online)

Monday August 13, 2007

NEW evidence emerged yesterday to support Kate and Gerry McCann's theory that Madeleine was abducted and not killed in her room, as suggested by Portuguese police.

Her Cuddle Cat – her favourite comfort toy – was taken while she slept and placed on a shelf in the room, which only an adult would have been able to reach.

Madeleine's mother, Kate McCann, has regularly been photographed clutching the soft pink toy since her four-year-old daughter disappeared.

Mrs McCann has refused to say publicly where she found the toy when she returned to the villa in Praia da Luz at 10pm on May 3 to find her daughter's bed empty.

However, she has indicated that the room was left in such a way that she knew almost instantly that Madeleine had been abducted.

A police source said yesterday: "When Kate tucked Madeleine up in bed earlier in the evening, she had the toy tightly in her arms, as she did every night.

"So Kate was terrified when she spotted it had been left in a place too high for her to reach."

Police have found no fingerprints or DNA on the stuffed toy, which suggests that the intruder wore gloves.???? but Maddie's DNA?

The toy has helped Mrs McCann feel close to her missing daughter, though she recently revealed that she can no longer smell her daughter's scent on it.

In an interview with Woman's Own magazine, Mrs McCann said of the Cuddle Cat: "In a way I wish they'd taken this with her. It would be a comfort to know Madeleine had something she loved, wherever she is."

by Guest 24.10.12 21:52

Thanks, Tigger. I was busy with work commitments so missed most of the initial news coverage. But now that you say it, I do recall something about the toy put up high. It wouldn't have been Daily Express for me, probably only Sky news or perhaps one of the BBC news channels. I will check through some photos that I have downloaded.

I think it's irrelevant in this situation but my niece had a favourite teddy in her childhood and wouldn't sleep without it. My sister (who is a clean freak) bought about 3 of them at the time and would substitute them so they all looked brand new. As I say I don't think this is the case here. I think CC was an attempt to get something from the manufacturer but it didn't work out. To me it's the only thing that explains the two cc websites.

by **tigger** 25.10.12 15:49

Finn wrote:Thanks, Tigger. I was busy with work commitments so missed most of the initial news coverage. But now that you say it, I do recall something about the toy put up high. It wouldn't have been Daily Express for me, probably only Sky news or perhaps one of the BBC news channels. I will check through some photos that I have downloaded.

I think it's irrelevant in this situation but my niece had a favourite teddy in her childhood and wouldn't sleep without it. My sister (who is a clean freak) bought about 3 of them at the time and would substitute them so they all looked brand new. As I say I don't think this is the case here. I think CC was an attempt to get something from the manufacturer but it didn't work out. To me it's the only thing that explains the two cc websites.

Well that's an interesting idea.
We have in very short time :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
We have around September allegedly Kate giving Metodo3 twenty cc for their staff, to 'motivate' them with instructions to rattle or squeeze the damn things.
We have a very new looking cc around 3/5. which is being carried prominently and the press are given details on this toy.
We have indeed, Cuddlecat playing a starring role in the disappearance, because without CC Kate wouldn't have 'known' Maddie was abducted.
We also have (although I think cc has vanished since I located it) ethicalkidz.co.uk website, run by a friend of the McCanns (who went on holiday with them to Majorca in 2005) selling cc and naming the Fund as a charity which they promote.
They must read this site very frequently because once that was posted on the topic 'Please note the Fund is not a charity' the charity listing of the Fund was corrected. Very good of them and I would not be surprised if they didn't even know the Fund is not a charity.
But the question remains that cuddlecats turn up on a website belonging to a friend of the McCanns. One might wonder if a large quantity of cc's were bought in at some very early stage which still needed to be jettisoned? They are no longer available on Ethicalkidz although they list the Madeleine Fund as well as Missing People as beneficiaries of their fundraising activities.

I believe that CC was an integral part of the plan.

by Newintown 25.10.12 16:18

sami wrote:With regard toMadeleine not being able to open the doors David Payne says this about his patio doors in his rogatory statement:

”Err
the sliding doors were a slight, they were slightly difficult
to lock and that was you
know one of our concerns err when we were there and it was, it was
quite temperamental whether you
could open them or, or,
or lock them, and err yeah especially you know sometimes we had the
other children coming up there
so it was difficult but
there was someone on the balcony or if their children were to you know
venture out we would keep an
eye and you know explain
to them that they shouldn’t be out on the balcony you know without an
adult present. Err but
obviously we tried to
keep the err door shut when no-one was out on the balcony and err open
if there’s someone sat
out there keeping an eye
on them. Err the way it opened and locked was again I think it was err
like a, a, a lat, you know
like a lever which went
up and down and I just remember it not being the most easy to err work
out how to shut and, a bit
temperamental.”

Seems to me that it was on his mind the children could open them and wander out, or do I interpret it incorrectly

If you were a family on holiday with very young children and the patio doors didn't lock properly, wouldn't you make a fuss about it to the reception and make sure that you were moved to another apartment or have a DIY person come in pronto to fix the lock. I know I would have. I've been on quite a few holidays where something was wrong with the room/apartment and have kicked up a stink until the problem was fixed. I find it hard to believe that the Payne's didn't do anything about their "dodgy" patio door.

I think David Payne doth protest too much, and doesn't know when to shut up. As in all the other statements, they give away too much by trying to explain what didn't happen.

by Guest 25.10.12 19:47

tigger wrote: I believe that CC was an integral part of the plan.

Most manufacturers will donate product in this situation and my gut feeling is this is what the McCann's were angling for. So they could raise money for selling a free product. A win win situation from TM's point of view. They get free product because they promote a manufacturer and it's product. But I think I remember reading somewhere that this company did large volumes of product but in smaller lots.

The other win was the sight of KM with the toy tugging at the world's heart-strings.

But I think they went live with the cc sites before they had finished their negotiations. I find it hard to believe they weren't sued. TBH it turned my stomach when I saw the two sites.

by sami 25.10.12 20:12

Are they still manufactured ? I would think that line of toy suddenly stopped selling. If somebody gave a cuddlecat to my child it would give me the creeps.

by Guest 25.10.12 20:31

tigger wrote:
PeterMac wrote:
aiyoyo wrote:
She knew, . . ..
And in her book she emphasises this.
p. 73

"I knew. I knew."

The italics make all the difference you see. If it is italic it is true.

This was reinforced at the start by the story of cc being on a ledge too high for Maddie to reach. However, due to sloppy workmanship, there was no ledge in said bedroom, one may wonder if quite another bedroom had been used as a template. Do any of the other bedrooms in use by the T7 have ledges. Certainly the one that MO was familiar with had two windows, not one, since he described the bedroom in 5a as having two.

What amazed me that the ledge is more or less dropped from the story and then resurfaces in the press, led by Lori Campbell as late as August 2007.

She 'knew', but she still said she was looking in cupboards to see if Maddie was cowering there. The cc now just being left had to be
sufficient evidence, together with the blanket. A child never has two of these - it would be either the blanket or the cuddlecat, not both.

The three points of evidence in the 'scene' were:
An open window -- which Maddie would be unable to open by herself. - Debatable. She looks tall and strong enough in the tennis photo.
A toy left on the bed - Maddie was never without that toy. - The blanket was most likely her comforter, not the new-looking toy.
The raised shutters - Maddie could never have raised those heavy shutters. - She was a bright child, according to her parents, imo she could have raised them from inside via the mechanism.
The patio doors - which were open could not be moved by a small child - again, a child of four (tennis photo) looks capable enough to slide a door on runners.

The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block.

God, I hate that word 'cowering' with its connotation of cowardice.

Who, in the name of bleeding Jezus, would describe their -supposedly- abducted child as cowering?

Kate has a strange way with words. Most of the time she's conjuring up images most civil people wouldn't be remotely associated with, as being too vulgar, too suggestive or too horrible to contemplate.

Three cheers for the $$$$!

by Swizzlestick 27.11.12 9:12

Portia wrote:
tigger wrote:
PeterMac wrote:
aiyoyo wrote:
She knew, . . ..
And in her book she emphasises this.
p. 73

"I knew. I knew."

The italics make all the difference you see. If it is italic it is true.

This was reinforced at the start by the story of cc being on a ledge too high for Maddie to reach. However, due to sloppy workmanship, there was no ledge in said bedroom, one may wonder if quite another bedroom had been used as a template. Do any of the other bedrooms in use by the T7 have ledges. Certainly the one that MO was familiar with had two windows, not one, since he described the bedroom in 5a as having two.

What amazed me that the ledge is more or less dropped from the story and then resurfaces in the press, led by Lori Campbell as late as August 2007.

She 'knew', but she still said she was looking in cupboards to see if Maddie was cowering there. The cc now just being left had to be
sufficient evidence, together with the blanket. A child never has two of these - it would be either the blanket or the cuddlecat, not both.

The three points of evidence in the 'scene' were:
An open window -- which Maddie would be unable to open by herself. - Debatable. She looks tall and strong enough in the tennis photo.
A toy left on the bed - Maddie was never without that toy. - The blanket was most likely her comforter, not the new-looking toy.
The raised shutters - Maddie could never have raised those heavy shutters. - She was a bright child, according to her parents, imo she could have raised them from inside via the mechanism.
The patio doors - which were open could not be moved by a small child - again, a child of four (tennis photo) looks capable enough to slide a door on runners.

The shelf that wasn't there is a real bugbear. Would have impressed the PJ a lot more I expect.
I'm also wondering if there was one in e.g. the apartment with the rotting meat.
Perhaps we are looking for a bedroom with a high ledge/shelf and two windows somewhere in that block.

God, I hate that word 'cowering' with its connotation of cowardice.

Who, in the name of bleeding Jezus, would describe their -supposedly- abducted child as cowering?

Kate has a strange way with words. Most of the time she's conjuring up images most civil people wouldn't be remotely associated with, as being too vulgar, too suggestive or too horrible to contemplate.

Three cheers for the $$$$!

Not so much the shutters but the "open window" - I was wondering if anybody knew what response KM gave when / if it was put to her that the window could not, and had not, been forced open IMO?

by **PeterMac** 27.11.12 10:07

And here is the photo, showing clearly
The open window ? Err, no.
The smashed and jemmied shutters ? Err, no.
The "whooshed" curtains ? Err, no.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

by Swizzlestick 27.11.12 11:38

PeterMac wrote:And here is the photo, showing clearly
The open window ? Err, no.
The smashed and jemmied shutters ? Err, no.
The "whooshed" curtains ? Err, no.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Yes... I think I have read somewhere that a possible reason for the window being found open was that the "abductor" opened it in readiness for a quick escape should somebody have entered the apartment whilst he was there... (I say "he" because of Jane Tanner's evidence).

So, this "abductor" who has the presence of mind to open the window, IMO, then is so brazen as to walk across the street where GM is stood talking to Jeremy Wilkins??? IMO.

by morskaj 29.11.12 4:56

I have never seen this account of Maddy 'cowering' before, I assume that as it seems to be a quote of Kate McCanns, that it comes from a statement by her, or from a quote in her book? Why would a child cower? The dictionary definition is - crouch or shrink with fear or cold. Assumably in Portugal she wasn't cold, does that mean fear? Why would she crouch in fear? Just asking.