Maddie: Hunt for 6 Brit Cleaners - The Sun 15/03/13

PeterMac wrote:

This was an important moment in her life and it would be expected, even for the numerous times she has been asked the same questions, that she had kept it in her memory" argued the Public Ministry prosecutor, concluding that Leonor "insists on lying" and that she should be condemned to a jail sentence [for those lies].

The defence attorney alleged that Leonor Cipriano "has difficulties in explaining herself", which, allied to a situation "in which the discernment wasn't the best", explains the contradictions.

The sentence was scheduled for the 14th of March

Oh ! And there's a stupid story in the Sun. What a coincidence.

Incidentally, the defence attorney's remarks about LC being really thick, and really stupid and unable to formulate her ideas, and that THEREFORE her contradictions must be understood and ignored, - - -
- has just mucked up any possible defence anyone else in any other case involving any persons close to the instant one - might have had.

My post crossed with yours. I do think you've got something there. A very valuable piece of 'Portuguese' judicial comment, especially as someone's case is still very much a 'Portuguese Matter', as declared by the swat MET team head, Mr. Andy Redwood.

Just logged onto the Sun website: oh dear - what a joke - a Ford white van is a lead! One of the most common marques going?

Just come online and read this... what a refreshing change from a sighting of a blonde girl in various parts of the world. This time our attention is drawn to a group of 6 to 8 British people in Praia da Luz and they were a group of men and women....
Now who does that bring to mind...........

russiandoll wrote:Just come online and read this... what a refreshing change from a sighting of a blonde girl in various parts of the world. This time our attention is drawn to a group of 6 to 8 British people in Praia da Luz and they were a group of men and women....
Now who does that bring to mind...........

The number is about right. Where was the figure plucked from I am wondering? As in were they all seen together in the van?

Cherry Blossom wrote:DISTRACTION, DISTORTION & DECEPTION.

Just like all Maddie sightings. They didn't spot the little gem Tiny because I don't believe it was there.

Man in white van 'an urban myth'

John Stewart for Lateline

Updated Mon May 18, 2009 9:02am AEST

In recent years, many media reports about men in vans attempting to snatch children off the streets has played on a parent's greatest fear.

But criminologists say most of the reports are false, and the story about the man in the white van has become an urban myth.

They believe children are far more likely to be harmed by domestic violence than by strangers.

Last month, a report about two men in a van attempting to abduct a nine-year-old girl on the New South Wales central coast sent the media into a frenzy.

Two days later, police informed the media that the attempted abduction report was false, that the young girl had made it up.

There was little media interest in the clarification. The Daily Telegraph reported on page nine that the story was false.

"There's nothing more frightening to a parent that some complete stranger could snatch their child and inflict harm or murder the child," said Dr Don Weatherburn, the director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

"The media know that and they exploit that."

During last September's school holidays, New South Wales police received 30 reports about attempted child abductions in one week.

No child had disappeared, but that did not stop images of white vans appearing on front pages and on the television.

"Last Friday here in Auburn, a 12-year-old girl was being followed around by a man in a white van," said one television report. "Two weeks ago in Tempe a girl was being followed by two men in white van, a bit different to the other two white vans."

Sydney mother-of-four Natalie Morris lives in a street where one of the attempted child abductions was reported to have taken place.

Police were unable to establish a case, but six months after the story about the attempted abduction Ms Morris says parents and children in her street are still living in fear.

"There's a pit in your stomach thinking I can't let me kids walk next door without me being there," she said. "They've lost their freedom and they've lost trying to explore and be little children."

Dr Weatherburn says the media knows the vast majority of reports about men in white vans trying to snatch children are false.

"They've got no interest in telling people subsequently that it was a false report or that there was no evidence that an abduction took place," he said.

"They're certainly not interested in correcting anything they got wrong at the time, so people are left with this after taste, feeling that abduction is extremely prevalent."

Ms Morris wants the media to change the way it reports child abduction stories, especially during the school holidays.

"I'd like to see the truth," she said. "If it was untrue, print something just as big, just as bold, and say that due to further investigations it wasn't true."

Police say they take all claims of attempted child abduction seriously, but reports about men in white vans often peak during the school holidays.

The false reports also waste valuable police resources.

"It seems to be a common theme, whether each and every one is made up I can't confirm because I don't know what took place at the scene," said Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec.

"But I can say that there are several matters that are totally false that have involved white vans."

Forensic psychologist Dr Christopher Lennings says the urban myth about the man in the van probably began when the America's FBI created of a profile for a highly organised killer.

"And a typical profile was a person who had duct tape and a knife and scissors and all that sort of stuff and they could drive people around in a van with no windows and that sort of thing," he said.

The FBI profile of the man in a van was then picked up by Hollywood movies, like The Silence Of The Lambs.

Criminologists say that children are far more likely to be harmed by domestic violence than by strangers.

"The stranger danger is grossly over emphasised in the media," Dr Weatherburn said.

"It's not interesting for the media to know that the majority of harm inflicted on kids is by parents or relations.

"The idea of the stranger walking in and abducting a child or murdering a child is given way too much emphasis, when the prosaic reality is that it's the people the child knows who represent the biggest threat"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-16/man-in-white-van-an-urban-myth/1685570

More..

Swedish police: white van child-snatchers 'an urban myth'

http://www.thelocal.se/38650/20120122/#.UUPKJ1evPP1

Olympicana_Reloaded wrote:

Cherry Blossom wrote:DISTRACTION, DISTORTION & DECEPTION.

Just like all Maddie sightings. They didn't spot the little gem Tiny because I don't believe it was there.

Man in white van 'an urban myth'

John Stewart for Lateline

Updated Mon May 18, 2009 9:02am AEST

In recent years, many media reports about men in vans attempting to snatch children off the streets has played on a parent's greatest fear.

But criminologists say most of the reports are false, and the story about the man in the white van has become an urban myth.

They believe children are far more likely to be harmed by domestic violence than by strangers.

Last month, a report about two men in a van attempting to abduct a nine-year-old girl on the New South Wales central coast sent the media into a frenzy.

Two days later, police informed the media that the attempted abduction report was false, that the young girl had made it up.

There was little media interest in the clarification. The Daily Telegraph reported on page nine that the story was false.

"There's nothing more frightening to a parent that some complete stranger could snatch their child and inflict harm or murder the child," said Dr Don Weatherburn, the director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

"The media know that and they exploit that."

During last September's school holidays, New South Wales police received 30 reports about attempted child abductions in one week.

No child had disappeared, but that did not stop images of white vans appearing on front pages and on the television.

"Last Friday here in Auburn, a 12-year-old girl was being followed around by a man in a white van," said one television report. "Two weeks ago in Tempe a girl was being followed by two men in white van, a bit different to the other two white vans."

Sydney mother-of-four Natalie Morris lives in a street where one of the attempted child abductions was reported to have taken place.

Police were unable to establish a case, but six months after the story about the attempted abduction Ms Morris says parents and children in her street are still living in fear.

"There's a pit in your stomach thinking I can't let me kids walk next door without me being there," she said. "They've lost their freedom and they've lost trying to explore and be little children."

Dr Weatherburn says the media knows the vast majority of reports about men in white vans trying to snatch children are false.

"They've got no interest in telling people subsequently that it was a false report or that there was no evidence that an abduction took place," he said.

"They're certainly not interested in correcting anything they got wrong at the time, so people are left with this after taste, feeling that abduction is extremely prevalent."

Ms Morris wants the media to change the way it reports child abduction stories, especially during the school holidays.

"I'd like to see the truth," she said. "If it was untrue, print something just as big, just as bold, and say that due to further investigations it wasn't true."

Police say they take all claims of attempted child abduction seriously, but reports about men in white vans often peak during the school holidays.

The false reports also waste valuable police resources.

"It seems to be a common theme, whether each and every one is made up I can't confirm because I don't know what took place at the scene," said Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec.

"But I can say that there are several matters that are totally false that have involved white vans."

Forensic psychologist Dr Christopher Lennings says the urban myth about the man in the van probably began when the America's FBI created of a profile for a highly organised killer.

"And a typical profile was a person who had duct tape and a knife and scissors and all that sort of stuff and they could drive people around in a van with no windows and that sort of thing," he said.

The FBI profile of the man in a van was then picked up by Hollywood movies, like The Silence Of The Lambs.

Criminologists say that children are far more likely to be harmed by domestic violence than by strangers.

"The stranger danger is grossly over emphasised in the media," Dr Weatherburn said.

"It's not interesting for the media to know that the majority of harm inflicted on kids is by parents or relations.

"The idea of the stranger walking in and abducting a child or murdering a child is given way too much emphasis, when the prosaic reality is that it's the people the child knows who represent the biggest threat"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-16/man-in-white-van-an-urban-myth/1685570

'Gor blimey! To think I was offered a white Ford Transit recently... Thank goodness I didn't have the money or with my short hair I could be mistaken for 'the man in the van'

Its just a nonsense! In the UK, don't know about other areas, white vans are widely used commercially. That means men in vans 'sitting around' having breaks in between jobs. Driving up and down looking for correct addresses which could, by a paranoid parent, be misconstrued as a 'stalker'.
Very good article Olympicana_Reloaded, says it all really, especially that most crimes against children are perpetrated by those close to them.

jd wrote:We've had the white van on the "Maddie was Here' mocumentary years ago, an edgar/cowley special.....Derek Flack

Textusa did an article on it...
http://textusa.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/flack-and-white-van.html

or was it Barrington Godfrey Norton? He lived in an Escort Van in PDL
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/BARRINGTON_NORTON.htm

Or Madeleine McCann And Raymond Hewlett’s White Van (Hewlett again! yawn yawn)
http://www.anorak.co.uk/213897/madeleine-mccann/madeleine-mccann-and-raymond-hewletts-white-van.html/

There are even e-fits of the suspects in their white vans. Why doesn't the Mirror/Star release these today? instead of the usual photoshopped Maddie eye photos from 6 years ago
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/2505636/Madeleine-McCann-Portuguese-police-had-pictures-of-suspects-but-did-not-release-them.html

Swedish police: white van child-snatchers 'an urban myth'

Swedish police were able to confirm last year that not one single crime of this type was on record connected to the existence of a white transit van.

Ludvig Sandberg told Dagens Nyheter that despite reservations, the reports are taken seriously but that the flow of reports complicate police work.

If the enquiry is to be believed, maybe the Police werent looking for the cleaners so much as they were looking for the white van with Maddie seen laying in the back. That begs the question: did the mccanns ever make use of a van either lent to them from contacts or hired one?

Either this is a : don't look here, look over there, story or there is more to the story. Can't just be catching an illusive white van or a gypsy caravan with a bunch of Brit cleaners.

Saw this on twitter yesterday.
Syn0nymph ‏@Syn0nymph
@5haronl Spoke to DI at Homicide Command today who confirmed there is no appeal by them to find 6/8 cleaners with a white van. He said...

so it was a load of rot,or the sun warning the mccanns ,hmmmm

Ford made over six million transit vans.
Perhaps that is where all the six million missing children are ?

tiny wrote:Saw this on twitter yesterday.
Syn0nymph ‏@Syn0nymph
@5haronl Spoke to DI at Homicide Command today who confirmed there is no appeal by them to find 6/8 cleaners with a white van. He said...

so it was a load of rot,or the sun warning the mccanns ,hmmmm

I think this is a warning to the McCann's (Gerry has 'hacked off' Cameron and Murdoch)
If you read the article carefully it does not say British cops are following up the cleaners as a lead. There are a couple of factual statements about the current review but it is cleverly written to make the reader confuse the Portuguese investigation (original and current?) with SY.
There are many things that The Sun could publish which, while not directly accusing the parents / Tapas of a crime, could certainly undermine the credibility of the McCann's.
That's how I read it.

I can't find a reference for this at the moment: it's from the topic Business Sense of the McCanns . The bit at the end caught my eye.
I think the statement is from around the 11th of May 07.
That's another bit of evidence I don't think is in the public domain. The early Tapas statements on camera. I wonder how they would compare to the rogatories?

Quote:
Gerry and Kate McCann issued a brief statement from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz 11 days after their little girl disappeared from their hotel room.
The pair said they were "fully supporting" the police investigation into their daughter's abduction and reaffirmed their belief that their daughter is safe.
Mr McCann said: "Until there is concrete evidence to the contrary, we believe Madeleine is safe and is being looked after".
Madeleine's mother also emphasised that the couple had no intention of returning to Britain from Portugal in the immediate future.
A British legal team has flown to Praia da Luz to help them and has launched a special "fighting fund" to help in the hunt for Madeleine.
A statement from the International Family Law Group, the firm instructed by the McCanns, said details of how people could make donations would be released within days.
A QC, Michael Nicholls, has also been instructed by the family as their determined battle to find Madeleine enters another week.
Madeleine's uncle John McCann, who lives in Glasgow but was in Praia da Luz last week, said the lawyers would play a liaison role and would not interfere with the criminal investigation.
A spokesman for the International Family Law Group said yesterday: "Gerry and Kate are very grateful for all the support and generous offers of help that they are receiving.
"Details of how contributions can be made to help get Madeleine back to the safety of her own family will be made available in the next couple of days."
The McCanns were among around ten British people who have been re-interviewed by police in recent days to clarify their statements.

This week some of the witnesses are expected to appear in court behind closed doors to record their evidence before they go back to the UK.
The McCanns themselves are not expected to be asked to take part.
The procedure, known as "memory for the future", means taped statements can be shown during a future trial so the witnesses do not have to return to appear in court.
unquote

Memory for the future eh?

Saw this one as well.
The Sun reporter‏@sunnewsreporter
@glitter_brain just because something is in a police file does not allow us to use it without fear of being sued,unlike things said in court

Details Expand

The "new lead" about the cleaners has been in vain.
Sentencing in the Cipriano case has been postponed until 2nd April (JM)

So they will have to come up with another one in the next fortnight !

@tiny
That is very interesting. They might consider suing the police then for releasing the files to the public? If they hadn't been released, questions could not have been asked. I am guessing they would not sue the police in a million years.

This section is the most interesting part imo

They are now asking for information about the group from owners whose
properties overlook the Praia da Luz apartment where Madeleine stayed.

so , according to the Sun, the police are interested in the movements of a certain group who were associated with one apartment in particular.....an apartment which the files suggest had been thoroughly cleaned. Unlike previous reports, the police do not think that there were people in overlooking apartments observing 5a waiting to make their move and abduct a child. Their interest is in asking people in those nearby apartments with a good view of movements around the McCanns and friends' block.........if they noticed the activities of a certain group of between 6 and 8 non-swarthy British looking people.

I think it is a fantastic piece of news that the headline bring us back to where it logically should...

Portugal, Praia da Luz specifically.
a group of people, mixed gender
not Mediterranean or gypsy in appearance. not just Caucasian, but British.

the article does use the word disappearance but does not suggest that these people took Maddie, just that cleaners were linked to 5a.

Intriguing stuff. So off the wall I think there is some truth in it.

I have tried to reason how a group of cleaners could be linked to an abduction, rather than a cleansing operation and cannot.

It does at face value read like another look here not there item, however it is unlike anything that has appeared before when you look more closely at it and read it carefully.

this is interesting also..The current inquiry — codename Operation Grange — is reviewing all evidence
and leads thrown up by the original probe.

why refer to Grange being a codename? I have never seen this before......Grange is simply the name given to the review, it is not a code for anything, is it??

from zelo street blog Fri. 15th March. More Made Up Maddie Moments.
Not for nothing did the Express
devote so much coverage – much of it invented to such a degree that the paper
ended up not merely being taken to the cleaners, but forced to
publish a front page apology – to the Madeleine McCann story. Because
little children, especially those who go missing in countries where they speak
foreign, sell papers. This is universally understood by the Fourth Estate.



And that is why the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has returned
to the story, and on the flimsiest of excuses. “Maddie:
Hunt for 6 Brit cleaners”, proclaims today’s headline, explaining “Cops’ new lead”. Readers are told that
as many as eight Britons may have been engaged cleaning hotels and apartments
in the resort of Praia de Luz on the western Algarve.


Moreover, they may – but only may – have used a white van.
In case the average Sun reader has
difficulty grasping this concept, a photo of a white van is helpfully included.
But they may also not have used a white van, and there may not have been eight
of them. And in any case they were not cleaning the apartment complex where the
McCanns stayed.


So it’s a bit of a lame stab on which to hang the “Exclusive” tag. And no-one seems to have
engaged brain before churning this out: the Police may have been asking about
this group, but the idea that they would be hard to trace does not hold water. Average
wages are lower in Portugal than the UK, so most likely they were living out
there already – and probably still are.


Also likely is that we’re looking at a group of pensioners
making a little extra money because lower exchange rates mean they have to. And
the story, like so many recent Maddie moments, has not been run past the
McCanns first. We can tell because there is no mention on the official Find Madeleine website. The main news there is that Kate McCann
is running this year’s London Marathon.




Perhaps the real reason the Sun is dredging up anything Maddie related it can find is to keep
its readership from looking at what the McCanns are also majoring in right now,
and that is speaking in support of the Hacked
Off campaign, on whose site Gerry McCann’s latest
statement has been published today.




“We gave evidence to
the inquiry so that some lasting good might come out of a horrendous
experience. We want our politicians to protect us, to stand up for the ordinary
victims instead of siding with the wealthy and powerful. On Monday, it comes
down to a binary choice: the newspaper barons or the people they abused in
search of profit. Leveson or more of the same. It is as simple as that”.




It is, indeed, as simple as that. Stop telling us to “look over
there”, Murdoch hacks.

Cheshire Cat wrote:

tiny wrote:Saw this on twitter yesterday.
Syn0nymph ‏@Syn0nymph
@5haronl Spoke to DI at Homicide Command today who confirmed there is no appeal by them to find 6/8 cleaners with a white van. He said...

so it was a load of rot,or the sun warning the mccanns ,hmmmm

I think this is a warning to the McCann's (Gerry has 'hacked off' Cameron and Murdoch)
If you read the article carefully it does not say British cops are following up the cleaners as a lead. There are a couple of factual statements about the current review but it is cleverly written to make the reader confuse the Portuguese investigation (original and current?) with SY.
There are many things that The Sun could publish which, while not directly accusing the parents / Tapas of a crime, could certainly undermine the credibility of the McCann's.
That's how I read it.

The fact that this story seems to have limited exposure (not in Express, Star, Telegraph, Guardian) rather than the usual mass exposure is also intriguing. Six British people cleaning the McCann appartment on or before 3 May 2007?

Having thought about this 6-8 british cleaners,there is no doubt in my mind that this is a warning to the mccanns.

tiny wrote:Having thought about this 6-8 british cleaners,there is no doubt in my mind that this is a warning to the mccanns.

I think I agree with you.

O/T: Gerry reminds me of Chris Huhne. He may also suffer the same (or worse) fate as Huhne when the truth emerges.

PdL is not a large resort.
The cleaning contracts will be handled by a few companies and families, all of whom will make very sure that they operate a "cartel", and that no one else is allowed to muscle in, or to undercut their agreed rates.
Cleaners for companies such as MW will have been checked, even if superficially, will be operating as quasi-employees, and will have to go to the main reception for the keys to the apartments on change-over day, to get the list of what needs to be changed.
And then hand them back !
If you own a holiday apartment your agent holds the spare linen, (obviously) and hands it over to the girls with the key every Saturday. He then organises the laundry delivery and collection during the week.

(Which also incidentally means that the story about changing sheets is tosh.)

It is highly unlikely that there would be any "freelance' cleaners mooching around.
But than so many totally unlikely things happened that month in PdL, perhaps even this might be true.

ShuBob wrote:

tiny wrote:Having thought about this 6-8 british cleaners,there is no doubt in my mind that this is a warning to the mccanns.

I think I agree with you.

O/T: Gerry reminds me of Chris Huhne. He may also suffer the same (or worse) fate as Huhne when the truth emerges.

Admittedly, it must be very awkward being locked up with mr Huhnes ex-wife.

That would be hard to beat. Or would it now?

PeterMac Yesterday at 2:08 pm

PdL is not a large resort.
The cleaning contracts will be handled by a few companies and families, all of whom will make very sure that they operate a "cartel", and that no one else is allowed to muscle in, or to undercut their agreed rates.
Cleaners for companies such as MW will have been checked, even if superficially, will be operating as quasi-employees, and will have to go to the main reception for the keys to the apartments on change-over day, to get the list of what needs to be changed.
And then hand them back !
If you own a holiday apartment your agent holds the spare linen, (obviously) and hands it over to the girls with the key every Saturday. He then organises the laundry delivery and collection during the week.

(Which also incidentally means that the story about changing sheets is tosh.)

It is highly unlikely that there would be any "freelance' cleaners mooching around.
But than so many totally unlikely things happened that month in PdL, perhaps even this might be true. UNQUOTE


I know of some people who clean apartments and do pool maintenance on a freelance basis in PDL. They don't advertise and work on personal recommendation and work on a fairly small scale in privately owned properties, not at any of the complexes though, like OC or Luz Bay, etc. There's not 8 of them though and they don't drive a white van and it seems pretty unlikely IMO that such a cleaning "squad" exists. Sun article seems to me to allude to cleaners of privately owned properties adjacent to the McCs apartment, not that apartment or any of the OC apartments. It wouldn't be surprising if the investigation hadn't looked at this angle back in summer 2007 but bit strange it made Sun front page in 2013.

It wouldn't be surprising if the investigation hadn't looked at this
angle back in summer 2007 but bit strange it made Sun front page in
2013.

A slow news day, so the Sun needs to drum up a few sales?
Interesting events happening in Portugal? So a distraction required?