Phone call timing discussion/debate

There was a useful debate started in the Blacksmith 2/2a thread here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but his subsequent pieces and separate threads have now spread that discussion so I think it's valid to try and bring it in under one thread.

I'll repost my initial long post in that thread under this one in a minute and I hope that Ross (at least) and hopefully the other contributors in there repost their interesting ones too. In a nutshell I don't agree, in this instance, with the McCann bashing over this particular aspect of the case as I think it's plausibly arguable that they thought that the authorities had been alerted quite early on in the chain of events. I also don't agree with those saying that the entire party would have known which number to call and should have done so immediately as I've been on many foreign holidays, lots of which were organised by tour companies, and my recollection of the introductory talks was that we should contact the rep in resort as a first step. Anyhow it doesn't really matter about individual experience as I dare say there are those who have been told to call the police directly anyway. The point is that to speculate/condemn along the line of, "they were educated doctors and should have known" or "they would have been given a leaflet" is utterly pointless as none of us KNOW what they were or weren't given/told. Even if they had been given leaflets/told what to do, I can imagine that at moments of high panic that whole thing goes out of the window. Many people die on aircraft when landing/crashing on water as they inflate their lifejacket BEFORE leaving the aircraft... er, I remember the safety briefings on not doing that even now and it's been a couple of years since I last flew. The point is that people don't necessarily stop and think at times of panic so why expect anyone to do what would be considered "normal"?

In Blackmith's latest piece (Libel Diary 5) he says:

The “abductor” was given a minimum of 75 minutes (based on the abductor driving off at 9.25PM) to get clean away, that is if we accept the claim that the child vanished between 9.13 and 9.20.

Well that could be true. However what's implicit in that statement is the assumption that at 10:41 and 29 seconds, the McCanns suddenly decided it was time to call the police and that, if you look at the confused jumble of timings from the night, does not seem to have been the case at all. I think it's highly likely that they thought the alert had been raised within minutes of the panic starting at 10pm as Matt Oldfield was despatched to reception (allegedly) to raise the alarm. I say allegedly as the receptionist doesn't actually mention MO's appearance in reception in his statement, which is distinctly odd, but I do give MO the benefit of the doubt on this one at present as his statement relating to his visit seems very believable to me the way it's reported. Others may disagree. The only three explanations for Helder not mentioning MO's appearance are a) he forgot (unlikely) b) he was covering his own arse for not calling more quickly (far more likely) or c) MO never did go to reception and is presenting it as a cover story (would fit in with the wider conspiracy theory but it doesn't (to me on face value anyway) appear that way in the statement - it comes across as more of a true report of an interaction than a fabricated event.

Blacksmith goes on to say:

So it is proven that this extraordinary and fatal delay, which guaranteed that the police would have no chance at all of pursuing or intercepting a fleeing vehicle, was the sole responsibility of those who failed to report the crime until 10.41PM.

And I have a real problem with that statement.I don't think it proves anything using the arguments he has, but maybe that's just me. I don't follow his leap of logic at all.

Blacksmith goes on to say:

Extraordinary? What other word can there be when the group of nine were unanimous in their police statements that the children were all being checked every half an hour? How can half-hourly checking for safety lead to one hour and fifteen minutes delay before police are informed? The group cannot be telling the truth –any of them – otherwise the absence of the child must have been detected at 9.30. So they are all lying.

This is complete bollocks Blacksmith! I'm sorry to be so blunt but how does that logic follow? Again his statement is based on the assumption that the McCanns or one of the T7 suddenly had a moment at just before 22:41 when they thought, "you know what, enough time has been wasted, let's call the authorities!" and this isn't backed up by any of the evidence that I can see in the files and I think I had a pretty decent look. If the McCanns and friends WERE checking every half hour (and I don't believe for a moment that they were) then they could feasibly have discovered the missing Madeleine at 10pm as claimed and set the chain of events in motion as reported (albeit in a confused and jumbled way) on the night. If, as is claimed, MO went to reception at 10:05-10:10pm that night then to the best of the McCanns' knowledge, the alarm had been raised within minutes of the discovery.

A lot of Blacksmith's (extended) point about this missing 41 minutes is based on him believing KM's statement that she "immediately knew" that Madeleine had been snatched. I personally think that she's being a drama queen with that statement - a bit of an "I'm her mother, I knew INSTANTLY what happened... I was there, I saw... etc." as a way of emphasizing her point when under difficult questioning and, if she's to be believed about what she saw/discovered (and I don't think she is) then (to her mind at least) there was cast iron evidence that M had been abducted. OK, it's still at least possible/feasible that there was an abduction but I can think of no circumstances where an abduction can be so instantly evident and yet, on investigation, have no physical evidence whatsoever. I mean, if there'd been big black footprints and signs of a struggle then fine, but none of that was the case. Therefore this whole "I was there, I know what I saw..." line from KM comes across as a later development and was backed up with judicial secrecy as a reason for not divulging the information (hey Kate, there's no longer Judicial secrecy in play... I'd love to know exactly what it was you saw that led you to believe instantly that it was an abduction - would lend great credibility to your story?).

I think it's pretty clear from the reported events that night that there was no such clear belief in an abduction as there was (at least at first) frantic searching by many people around the OC. For Blacksmith's summary to be true, the McCanns would have to be stopping all that searching saying, "don't bother! we know she's been abducted, she's not wandered off! Stop searching and what's that number for the police please!?"

Blacksmith goes on to say that the OC didn't use the right number... well that's hardly the McCanns' fault is it? If the OC had procedures (we KNOW they had procedures, it's mentioned in the files) then by the time someone (god knows who and I can't believe the police haven't established this yet) decided it was time to call the local GNR, it was their decision which number to ring. That they still thought the toddler had wandered off seems fairly clear.

Blacksmith concludes:

On whom lies the ultimate responsibility for reporting only “a missing child”, which by definition is not an emergency, when both parents had witnessed the crime scene evidence? Why should such a thing have happened?

is confusing. I think the subtext of his argument is valid, in that he's presenting an anomaly in the stated events and the action, but his written conclusion is distinctly spurious. He's still presenting as "fact" that there was immediate and obvious reason to believe/evidence of an abduction and that the parents and friends therefore didn't follow the correct emergency procedures, therefore there couldn't have been an emergency, therefore they were making the whole thing up and yet we know that wasn't the case as there was no such evidence found so his whole point withers and dies when presented that way. The question raised, for me, by all this is the one I raised above - why, KM, did you immediately "KNOW" there had been an abduction? What did you see? How could you be so sure? There's nothing in your book about this and yet you led us all to believe there was amazing evidence to come out that couldn't be revealed at the time as you were under judicial secrecy...

In that thread, Candyfloss says:

This is excellent from Blacksmith, and something that hadn't entered my mind before now. Of course he is right, why would you take the slow route and call the local police station, try to find numbers etc., you would immediately call it as an emergency i.e 999 in this country, and 112 in Portugal......

Well, fair enough, but as I already said, in panic people don't necessarily do logical things do they? I think it's reasonable to assume that they thought that the receptionist would do the job as they knew the procedures to follow. I really don't see the validity of Blacksmith's point on using the "wrong" number. It was nothing to do with the McCanns at that point I don't think. I think in that position that I'd have gone for the local staff/reception as I'd have been worried about the language barrier personally. What we would do in the situation or what we think others should have done is pretty bloody irrelevant as it's what actually happened that matters and there seems to be a lack of clear detail on what actually did happen that night.

sonic72 says

Any normal person would contact the police immediately. The sooner they can assist, the more help you have, the more chances you have of finding her quickly.

If they were unsure who to ring, or were concerned with the language barrier, the staff at the resort would have helped. The long delay in calling the police adds to the suspicion people have. There were 9 adults in that group, some supposedly trained professionals, yet none of them could get it together to immediately call the police?

That is just very implausible in my book. Something smells very fishy about their actions and versions of events.

Again - supposition about what would be the "normal" thing to do is irrelevant. Is it even normal by some standards to have left the kids alone? Why therefore assume normality in other events/deeds? It's shown in the statements that the staff of the resort DID help! And they did think they'd done this pretty much immediately (MO going to reception - if he did!). You find it implausible - I don't. We can agree to differ on that one I suppose.

My "timings" post from the 2/2a thread:

I'm baffled by this. I saw Blacksmith's article and then I saw him engaging in a spat with the "Amaral haters" as he calls them and did a bit of reading.

I have to say that the whole issue surrounding timing of the calls and who called when is completely confused in the witness statements. The most reliable timing in there appears to be John Hill's, who says he was contacted at 22:28. Assuming he recalls the time from checking his mobile phone, then as long as that phone has an accurate time on it, he's pretty much nailed the time that he was alerted. He goes on to say it was Lindsay who called him.

This indicates that Lindsay knew about the disappearance prior to calling John Hill.

So, on to Lindsay. She says she was told by Amy T at about 22:20 of Madeleine's disappearance. She then put into place the missing child procedure and must have called John Hill. Times sound about right, no problem so far.

Moving on to Amy Tiernan it gets a bit muddier... She says that she was on duty and that "the girl's father went to the reception to call the police as soon as her disappearance was noticed and that twenty minutes had passed" so that (assuming that 10pm was the time of the disappearance being noted) puts Gerry's visit to the reception at about 22:20 and it's reasonable to believe that Amy called Lindsay at that time. She also says the police arrived 30-35 minutes later, putting their arrival at about 22:50 or so.

We then have Emma Knight, who also gives a very accurate time - 22:17 - when she says she was called by Lyndsay. Assuming her mobile records were used and the time was right, this means that it was a further eleven minutes between Lyndsay calling her and calling John Hill. Presumably this was a time when the news was filtering up the chain of command and procedures put in place were being acted on. All feasible so far and assuming Lyndsay called Emma as soon as Amy called her, times match to within a few minutes.

Where it really begins to fall apart a bit is when the other Ocean Club employees get involved...

Firstly I think we have to accept that there were only two calls made to the GNR from the Ocean Club that night. One at 22:41 and another at 22:52. The telephone company provided this information and it's clear to see. If there were calls made from mobile phones to the GNR there doesn't seem to be any mention of it at all.

Moving on to the statement of the receptionist at the time, Helder Luis, he states quite categorically he "was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 09.30 and 22.00" and that "he immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos" and "shortly after this the child's father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again." Well hold on there, there's a world of difference between being a few minutes out (as Amy/Emma/Lyndsay appear to be) and being (at least) 41 minutes out. If he was contacted between 9:30 and 10pm and immediately contact the police, where is the record of that call? The first call has to be at 22:41:29 as we know from the records and presumably the second one at 22:52 is when John Hill walks into reception with Gerry?

However, it gets more confused... Vitor Santos in his statement says, "he remembers that at 22.00/22.15 he received a phone call from the reception, from receptionist Helder, who told him that John Hill was extremely agitated as a child had disappeared and that the GNR had been contacted but had not arrived yet." Well hang on... we know from the phone company records that the call was at 22:41 and not any time between 22:00 and 22:15... He continues that the receptionist says, " that he had phoned the GNR post several times and that he had been told that they would arrive when they could but that they were investigating a theft in Odiaxere. The receptionist asked the witness whether he should contact the PSP, to which the witness replied no as this area belongs to the GNR." So that all seems quite detailed and plausible apart from the timings which are WAY out and not just a few minutes.

Vitor adds more details though... "When he arrived at the scene about 10 to 15 minutes later, he immediately went to the reception where the GNR were present, taking a statement from the girl's father." So when Vitor gets to the OC at sometime between, say, 22:20pm and 22:35pm, John Hill and Gerry are already in the reception with the GNR? And yet the GNR weren't called until some minutes after this time... Vitor's timings are looking suspect, it must be said.

Further confusion - Emma Knight says the police arrived some time around midnight to half past. Amy T says they were there before 11. Vitor says they were there not long after half past 10. Matt Oldfield says that he went to reception to ask them to contact the police at five past or ten past ten. Why doesn't Helder mention this? He says that the Tapas bar contacted him and he called the police immediately. Matt Oldfield says he was having to argue quite hard to persuade the receptionist to call as they assumed Madeleine had wandered off.

More times: George Crosslands says he was called by John Hill at 22:15 (and yet John Hill himself says he wasn't told until 22:28) and that when he got to the OC 10 minutes later, John Hill was already there (some minutes before he was even contacted... good effort) and that the police arrived at 22:50.

If you want even more confusion, refer to Arlindo Pelega and Jeronimo Salcedas's statements! Pelega says the commotion started at 21:20 and by 21:40 the table was empty in the Tapas bar. Salcedas states in his first statement in May that the table was empty at 22:20 - 22:30 and yet by the time of his rogatory this had changed to 21:30 to 22:00 but he's not really sure...

Confused? I am. I haven't been able to establish the chain of who told whom what and when to start the whole chain of events of. I assume that as Amy Tiernan was on duty, she was the first person contacted but I have no idea who by. Maybe by Helder the receptionist after Matt Oldfield had been in? Or was it in response to the call from the Tapas bar he says he had?

Anyhow, all that seems clear is that only two calls were made and the first of those was at 22:41. I don't think it's fair to blame the McCanns for the lateness of the call though. They probably assumed that after Matt had rushed off to reception that the call had been made. Up until 22:41 it looks as though the OC were following through on their procedure for missing children as they wouldn't want to drag the GNR out on a wild goose chase if Madeleine was hiding in the bushes. At some point they obviously took it seriously enough to call the GNR and then when John Hill arrived in reception with Gerry, they were told to do it again to reinforce the urgency. Kate McCann's claims that she knew with certainty that Madeleine had been abducted and not wandered off wasn't really communicated to anyone that could call the police as far as I can tell (none of them spoke Portuguese so they needed an OC employee to do it), so can she be blamed for it taking the OC staff a good half hour more to get around to calling?

I can't believe that there appears to be no clear work on establishing the exact chain of events that night. Who told whom? Starting with Amy T - how did she find out and who did she tell? The timings are all so jumbled and confused that it's hard to see exactly what happened when, but apart from the way out timings of Vitor dos Santos, Salcedas and Pelega, the rest seem to match fairly well. I'm not exactly sure what Blacksmith expected the McCanns to do... stand over the receptionist until he called? If, as seems to be confirmed, they were rushing about and someone told Matt to go and get the police called, they kind of thought they'd done the job by about five past ten as far as I can tell.

Is there any more information out there that I've missed in all this? It seems to be very confused from what I've read.

Very interesting points, let's hope some discussion develops as this is an important issue.
I posted that I would be surprised given the layout of that resort, if there was not a list of emergency numbers, at least I would have expected a line to reception for rapid assistance, considering many guests would be a long walk away. As you correctly state, we do not know, so speculation is rather pointless. Having thought about this again, had I been there in the claimed circumstances, given that I do not speak any Portuguese and given my apartment was not far from reception, a sprint there would be much more likely to get a result than an emergency call to a police switchboard.......how would I explain what had happened? All I could do is name the resort and a nearby street in the hope someone would come and investigate. With so little information given, would a response be likely? I would hope, hearing English and the basic info, that someone would be dispatched to that location....hope not near certainty. With Portuguese staff nearby and people who have experience of what to do in an emergency, going to reception was the best thing to do to ensure a rapid response.

How could MO possibly have gone to reception at 10.05pm to 10.10pm, when GM himself states this in his witness statement from 10th May 2007. He is very precise with his timings............

Half and hour later, without anything to remark, it being 22h03, he again alerted KATE that it was time to check the children. She immediately made her way to the apartment by the usual path, having entered through the back door. About 10 minutes later, he started to worry about her taking so long, and, at the moment the deponent prepared to get up and to check why she was taking so long, KATE appeared running, completely distraught and crying, saying that MADELEINE had disappeared and that she was sure because she had looked throughout the entire house.


So according to GM Kate had not even left the apartment by 10.10pm, after which she had to run back to inform the others, and they then all went back (apart from DW who stayed at the table for some reason) to the apartment and searched, including MO. If KM didn't leave till 22.03 it would have taken a couple of mins to get to the apartment, i.e taking it to 10.05, she then had to search everywhere, under beds, in wardrobes in case Madeleine was cowering in one of them etc. According to the above statement, the Timeline doesn't fit for MO to have informed reception at 10.05

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

Thanks Candyfloss. That's a new bit of timing to add to my list. I may try and organise this into a bar/timing chart at some point and see if it makes sense that way! A few minutes each way isn't a major discrepancy to me, but Matt Oldfield in his rogatory says:

so Fiona, I think, asked me to go and phone the Police, so I actually went down the route to where she would have gone for Nursery drop off, which his back to the, to the main reception essentially, so I went down that route looking for her at that time and I asked the reception to phone the Police, and that must have been about five past, it's difficult to know what time it was at that time, but maybe about ten past ten, five past ten, ten past ten'.

...which, if Gerry's timing is to be right, must be out by a good bit... of course it makes me wonder how Gerry can be so accurate with his times (not "about 10", it's "10:03") which goes against the argument that none of them were taking note of the time at all. Not saying he's wrong, but if he is right, it further concertinas the time up between the discovery and the informing of other people who have also given specific times. I'd love to know the full chain of events of who told whom what and when!

A lot of precision for people who did not have the means of telling the time on them, I recall reading somewhere that Gerry's check was at 9.04 . Even if there had been a clock in the tapas cuckooing like mad, why on an evening when you did not expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, would you note such an exact time? Would you not simply say.. oh it's almost a quarter past, half past, time for a check........why would you note the time so exactly?

Why would Gerry task MO with something so important or even expect anyone to believe MO actually went to the reception to ask them to call police (assuming he indeed asked him to do that) when the same MO didn't bother clapping eyes on one single McCann child during the "visual" check he was allegedly asked to perform on the kids? How can you do a visual check without seeing a single person and report back that "all is fine"? Their stories anger me no end.

Looking at Gerry's statement, it says, "Half and hour later, without anything to signal [with no way to tell the time], it being 22h03, he turned to alert KATE"

(http://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GERRY-MCCANN-10MAY.htm) so I think this is a translation/suggested time issue. That seems to be saying that GM had no way of telling the time so I can't believe he'd have said "10:03" bluntly, it sounds more like something suggested to him as a time to be honest and he possibly just thought, "whatever... thereabouts". If, as seems to be the story, they weren't clockwatching then I can't believe they'd have know the times so precisely without text message/timed receipts or something to go by.

If you notice on the tapas own timeline of events which they had typed out and gave to the PJ there is a point made about RMO asked time at table at 21.55. Strange thing to put..............

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



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

ShuBob wrote:Why would Gerry task MO with something so important or even expect anyone to believe MO actually went to the reception to ask them to call police (assuming he indeed asked him to do that) when the same MO didn't bother clapping eyes on one single McCann child during the "visual" check he was allegedly asked to perform on the kids? How can you do a visual check without seeing a single person and report back that "all is fine"? Their stories anger me no end.

If you read MO's statement (rogatory: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] you can see his story about the trip to reception. It reads pretty plausibly to me so I have no reason to doubt that he was there, but it is odd that Helder (the receptionist) fails to mention his appearance in his statement. MO also says that it was probably Fiona, not Gerry that suggested the visit to reception.

C.Edwards wrote:Looking at Gerry's statement, it says, "Half and hour later, without anything to signal [with no way to tell the time], it being 22h03, he turned to alert KATE"

(http://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GERRY-MCCANN-10MAY.htm) so I think this is a translation/suggested time issue. That seems to be saying that GM had no way of telling the time so I can't believe he'd have said "10:03" bluntly, it sounds more like something suggested to him as a time to be honest and he possibly just thought, "whatever... thereabouts". If, as seems to be the story, they weren't clockwatching then I can't believe they'd have know the times so precisely without text message/timed receipts or something to go by.

This is what I got from the mccanfiles.com slightly differrent to above.............

Half and hour later, without anything to remark, it being 22h03, he again alerted KATE that it was time to check the children. She immediately made her way to the apartment by the usual path, having entered through the back door. About 10 minutes later, he started to worry about her taking so long, and, at the moment the deponent prepared to get up and to check why she was taking so long, KATE appeared running, completely distraught and crying, saying that MADELEINE had disappeared and that she was sure because she had looked throughout the entire house.

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

MO did say he saw bits of breathing though...this was describing the twins in their cots! Of course he had to be inside not out for that check.......or he would have had to say he saw the shutters up and window open at 9.30. What a crock.....yes it does make you angry reading all the lies.
It was all done in retrospect, so why did the timeline not read.....MO check, saw Maddie's bed empty, alarm raised immediately. The alarm could not be raised until later..........maybe little Ella O Brien was not ready for being carried to the Smith sighting as I believe she was.
Unless I am missing something, why was the discovery/ alarm at 10pm when the JT sighting was 45 minutes earlier?
Sorry if I AM missing something obvious, I am very tired today.

It is odd in the printed timeline to see Rachel Oldfield as having asked the time at the table. This does seem on the face of it to be an attempt to anchor the timeline by adding credibility based on a "known timed event." It's plausible it happened but it would have had to be a fairly demonstrative question to be remembered so well subsequently I think. Dunno really, it's hard to know if that sort of thing would be a memorable occurrence or not. I suppose it would be memorable to Rachel Oldfield if she did ask! That said... I would have thought she'd also have mentioned this in any of her interviews/statements in order to establish credibility of timing. Just having it mentioned in passing in the printed timeline seems a bit odd. Not impossible, but worthy of investigation, surely.

C.Edwards wrote:

ShuBob wrote:Why would Gerry task MO with something so important or even expect anyone to believe MO actually went to the reception to ask them to call police (assuming he indeed asked him to do that) when the same MO didn't bother clapping eyes on one single McCann child during the "visual" check he was allegedly asked to perform on the kids? How can you do a visual check without seeing a single person and report back that "all is fine"? Their stories anger me no end.

If you read MO's statement (rogatory: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] you can see his story about the trip to reception. It reads pretty plausibly to me so I have no reason to doubt that he was there, but it is odd that Helder (the receptionist) fails to mention his appearance in his statement. MO also says that it was probably Fiona, not Gerry that suggested the visit to reception.

Well, forgive me for not believing anything MO says- a man who apparently went into an apartment to do a "visual" check yet failed to see a single one of the 3 kids he was asked to check on. Out of interest, who does Kate say in "Madeleine" asked MO to go to reception to call the police? Fiona, Gerry or someone else?

russiandoll wrote: MO did say he saw bits of breathing though...this was describing the twins in their cots! Of course he had to be inside not out for that check.......or he would have had to say he saw the shutters up and window open at 9.30. What a crock.....yes it does make you angry reading all the lies.
It was all done in retrospect, so why did the timeline not read.....MO check, saw Maddie's bed empty, alarm raised immediately. The alarm could not be raised until later..........maybe little Ella O Brien was not ready for being carried to the Smith sighting as I believe she was.
Unless I am missing something, why was the discovery/ alarm at 10pm when the JT sighting was 45 minutes earlier?
Sorry if I AM missing something obvious, I am very tired today.

But crucially, he did not actually see who or what was breathing.

C.Edwards wrote:
In a nutshell I don't agree, in this instance, with the McCann bashing over this particular aspect of the case as I think it's plausibly arguable that they thought that the authorities had been alerted quite early on in the chain of events.
unquote

Leaving aside the evidence as given by the Tapas 9, we have independent witnesses all of whom say that they learned about the disappearance from staff.

Receptionist Ocean Club H. J. S. L. was on duty and was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 21.30 and 22.00 who informed him that the daughter of some guests who were dining there had disappeared. He immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos, shortly after this the child’s father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again.

At about 22.17 Hotel manager E. L. K. received a call from L.J., the Crèche Manager, informing her that the girl had gone missing. She met L.J. and the Service Manager, A.T., near to the Tapas Bar and they initiated the “Mark Warner procedures for the search of a missing child”.

22.28 Manager J.H. gets a phone call from L.J., head of the child care service, who told him about a female child staying at the resort who had disappeared. This phone call was made to his mobile phone at about 22.28 on 03-05-2007. About 5 minutes later J.H presented himself at the resort.

22.28 So manager JH doesn’t get call until 11 minutes later from ELK?
He is at OC 5 minutes later.
First call to GNR is 22.41
Second call to GNR is 22.50.

Not a Tapas in sight.

russiandoll wrote: MO did say he saw bits of breathing though...this was describing the twins in their cots! Of course he had to be inside not out for that check.......or he would have had to say he saw the shutters up and window open at 9.30. What a crock.....yes it does make you angry reading all the lies.
It was all done in retrospect, so why did the timeline not read.....MO check, saw Maddie's bed empty, alarm raised immediately. The alarm could not be raised until later..........maybe little Ella O Brien was not ready for being carried to the Smith sighting as I believe she was.
Unless I am missing something, why was the discovery/ alarm at 10pm when the JT sighting was 45 minutes earlier?
Sorry if I AM missing something obvious, I am very tired today.

According to the photographs taken by the police of the bedroom showing the two cots with Madeleine's bed on the left, the cot on the right has a filled in end piece (near the door), it also has a blanket or rug hanging over the bottom of it, so I would presume looking at the photo from the door MO would not have even seen the twin from the door as the cot had a filled in end piece, he would have had to walk further into the room to see over the end of it and the twin actually laying on the bottom. Therefore, he would have seen the bed on the left of the door if he had to actually walk into the room. The cot on the left was made of a netting material so he would have seen the twin laying in that one from the door. If he could not see into the cot on the right how did he not know whether the twin was in it and had not climbed out and gone for a walk around the apartment?

Kate actually said on the Irish TV interview "I went to do one of my checks" (that was when she found Madeleine missing), but as that had been the only check she'd done since arriving at the Tapas at 8.45 p.m. how many more checks did she envisage on doing that night? In that case, how long were the children left alone on other nights and what time did K & G arrive back at the apartment on the other nights?

tigger wrote:C.Edwards wrote:
In a nutshell I don't agree, in this instance, with the McCann bashing over this particular aspect of the case as I think it's plausibly arguable that they thought that the authorities had been alerted quite early on in the chain of events.
unquote

Leaving aside the evidence as given by the Tapas 9, we have independent witnesses all of whom say that they learned about the disappearance from staff.

Receptionist Ocean Club H. J. S. L. was on duty and was contacted by a member of staff from the Tapas Restaurant between 21.30 and 22.00 who informed him that the daughter of some guests who were dining there had disappeared. He immediately contacted the GNR in Lagos, shortly after this the child’s father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again.

At about 22.17 Hotel manager E. L. K. received a call from L.J., the Crèche Manager, informing her that the girl had gone missing. She met L.J. and the Service Manager, A.T., near to the Tapas Bar and they initiated the “Mark Warner procedures for the search of a missing child”.

22.28 Manager J.H. gets a phone call from L.J., head of the child care service, who told him about a female child staying at the resort who had disappeared. This phone call was made to his mobile phone at about 22.28 on 03-05-2007. About 5 minutes later J.H presented himself at the resort.

22.28 So manager JH doesn’t get call until 11 minutes later from ELK?
He is at OC 5 minutes later.
First call to GNR is 22.41
Second call to GNR is 22.50.

Not a Tapas in sight.

I've covered all those in my post brought here from the 2/2a thread (2nd post in this thread). There are other OC staff who give other timings and it's all very confused. I've also pointed out that Helder, the receptionist, doesn't mention MO's appearance at (supposedly) 10:10-ish and I find this strange. I think Emma Knight (ELK in your list) and John Hill (JH) with their 22:17 and 22:28 timings very believable as it sounds likely they were called on mobile phones and subsequently checked the times. Pure supposition of course, but sounds likely.

You also have to question Helder. Called at 9:30-10pm by the Tapas bar and "immediately" called the police. Like balls he did! 22:41 is hardly immediately unless he was way out with his 9:30-10pm estimate.

Even so, the only Tapas in sight is MO, which according to other statements, is unlikely.

It is also evident that the greater part of the events only started off about 10.30. As Mrs. Fenn is the nearest neighbour, one might have expected her to hear about it first.
Of course it is strange that the receptionist states that he immediately phoned the police when there is no record. However, the recorded times of the GNR calls fit perfectly with the arrival of the manager arriving after being called by a member of staff.

tigger wrote:Even so, the only Tapas in sight is MO, which according to other statements, is unlikely.

It is also evident that the greater part of the events only started off about 10.30. As Mrs. Fenn is the nearest neighbour, one might have expected her to hear about it first.
Of course it is strange that the receptionist states that he immediately phoned the police when there is no record. However, the recorded times of the GNR calls fit perfectly with the arrival of the manager arriving after being called by a member of staff.

We can't speculate on Mrs. Fenn. She may have been accurate with her 10:30pm estimate but also could have been way off. Besides which, if she was accurate with that time, it makes a mockery of Emma Louise Knight being called at 22:17. John Hill was called at 22:28 and got to the OC 5 minutes later. The first call came at 22:41 and the second at 22:52 and was almost certainly when "shortly after this the child's father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again" according to the receptionist's statement. I imagine John Hill went straight to 5a and then down to reception with GM. He would then have demanded that Helder call the GNR a second time, hence the second call on the record. I'd love to know what prompted Helder to finally make the call at 22:41... maybe some other member of OC staff saw John Hill and advised Helder to get on with the phone call sharpish? Who knows...

C.Edwards wrote:

tigger wrote:Even so, the only Tapas in sight is MO, which according to other statements, is unlikely.

It is also evident that the greater part of the events only started off about 10.30. As Mrs. Fenn is the nearest neighbour, one might have expected her to hear about it first.
Of course it is strange that the receptionist states that he immediately phoned the police when there is no record. However, the recorded times of the GNR calls fit perfectly with the arrival of the manager arriving after being called by a member of staff.

We can't speculate on Mrs. Fenn. She may have been accurate with her 10:30pm estimate but also could have been way off. Besides which, if she was accurate with that time, it makes a mockery of Emma Louise Knight being called at 22:17. John Hill was called at 22:28 and got to the OC 5 minutes later. The first call came at 22:41 and the second at 22:52 and was almost certainly when "shortly after this the child's father and John Hill arrived at the reception and he phoned the GNR again" according to the receptionist's statement. I imagine John Hill went straight to 5a and then down to reception with GM. He would then have demanded that Helder call the GNR a second time, hence the second call on the record. I'd love to know what prompted Helder to finally make the call at 22:41... maybe some other member of OC staff saw John Hill and advised Helder to get on with the phone call sharpish? Who knows...

Mrs. Fenn is one statement amongst several about events which took place after 10.30.
As the greater part of all the Tapas statements on almost any subject have proved to be unreliable, it makes sense to take the evidence of the staff seriously, particularly as several calls were from mobiles where the times could be checked.

tigger wrote:
Mrs. Fenn is one statement amongst several about events which took place after 10.30.
As the greater part of all the Tapas statements on almost any subject have proved to be unreliable, it makes sense to take the evidence of the staff seriously, particularly as several calls were from mobiles where the times could be checked.

I don't really see what you're arguing about! As far as I can tell, we're agreeing on almost all points. You started with a post that rehashed some of what I'd included in my earlier post and seem only to be refuting the involvement of any of the T9? I'm open to debate on MO's appearance or otherwise at reception but I don't agree if you're saying nothing really kicked off until 22:30 as Emma Knight seems to have been contacted at 22:17 and John Hill at 22:28. Mrs Fenn probably only became annoyed with the ongoing noise by 22:30 and joined in the rumpus a bit later, perhaps. Either way, it's pure speculation as her timing also appears to have been an estimate and isn't likely to be as accurate as the ones apparently received on mobiles.

Newintown wrote:

russiandoll wrote: MO did say he saw bits of breathing though...this was describing the twins in their cots! Of course he had to be inside not out for that check.......or he would have had to say he saw the shutters up and window open at 9.30. What a crock.....yes it does make you angry reading all the lies.
It was all done in retrospect, so why did the timeline not read.....MO check, saw Maddie's bed empty, alarm raised immediately. The alarm could not be raised until later..........maybe little Ella O Brien was not ready for being carried to the Smith sighting as I believe she was.
Unless I am missing something, why was the discovery/ alarm at 10pm when the JT sighting was 45 minutes earlier?
Sorry if I AM missing something obvious, I am very tired today.

According to the photographs taken by the police of the bedroom showing the two cots with Madeleine's bed on the left, the cot on the right has a filled in end piece (near the door), it also has a blanket or rug hanging over the bottom of it, so I would presume looking at the photo from the door MO would not have even seen the twin from the door as the cot had a filled in end piece, he would have had to walk further into the room to see over the end of it and the twin actually laying on the bottom. Therefore, he would have seen the bed on the left of the door if he had to actually walk into the room. The cot on the left was made of a netting material so he would have seen the twin laying in that one from the door. If he could not see into the cot on the right how did he not know whether the twin was in it and had not climbed out and gone for a walk around the apartment?

Kate actually said on the Irish TV interview "I went to do one of my checks" (that was when she found Madeleine missing), but as that had been the only check she'd done since arriving at the Tapas at 8.45 p.m. how many more checks did she envisage on doing that night? In that case, how long were the children left alone on other nights and what time did K & G arrive back at the apartment on the other nights?

Which is perhaps why MO suggested the police may have manipulated the scene by moving furniture around before taking the pictures when confronted with the photographs during his roggies. In the cold light of day, he could see that his version of events could not possibly be believable given the facts.

@ Shubob, what - the police took out a window as well? Because there is only one and MO saw two.

Tigger, MO was rumbled and he knew it. He hadn't even made his first police statement when the photos of the scene were taken. How would they then know what he was going to claim and then manipulate the scene accordingly lol?