"Incompetent and unco-operative Portuguese held up Scotland Yard for a year by refusing to supply forensic evidence" - Sunday Mirror 21 Dec 2014

Tony Bennett wrote:British police believe Madeleine was killed during a bungled burglary.

Brian Griffin wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:British police believe Madeleine was killed during a bungled burglary.

You go out robbing for trinkets and come back with a kid? It sounds like something straight out of 'Family Guy'!

Not that I watch it or have ever heard of it.

In my opinion.

Brian Griffin wrote:Well, it was bound to be the fault of the Portuguese, wasn't it? That play has been on the cards for ages. So, was it worth burning one of your senior police officials now that your counterparts are turning round and biting you in the soft, sensitive bits?

Withheld information (photofits anyone?) and DNA samples. Priceless!

Bottom line: SY has no jurisdiction and no business meddling in Portuguese police or state affairs. Had they not done so this BS case would have been done and dusted long ago. I wish the Portuguese would have the balls to say that!

In my opinion.

Joss wrote:

Brian Griffin wrote:Well, it was bound to be the fault of the Portuguese, wasn't it? That play has been on the cards for ages. So, was it worth burning one of your senior police officials now that your counterparts are turning round and biting you in the soft, sensitive bits?

Withheld information (photofits anyone?) and DNA samples. Priceless!

Bottom line: SY has no jurisdiction and no business meddling in Portuguese police or state affairs. Had they not done so this BS case would have been done and dusted long ago. I wish the Portuguese would have the balls to say that!

In my opinion.

Yes the Irony is indeed rich! The crime happened on Portugese turf and the investigation should of been kept there IMO.

Tony Bennett wrote:Madeleine McCann cops had to fight for a YEAR for crucial DNA evidence

Dec 20, 2014 22:20 By Nick Dorman

The Metropolitan Police made repeated requests for samples and fingerprints from four Portugese men.

Portugese police snubbed a request by their British counterparts for crucial DNA evidence in the Madeleine McCann case for at least a year.

Repeated pleas by the Metropolitan Police for samples and fingerprints from four Portuguese men were denied as local police said it would be illegal.

The first appeal was made by officers working on Operation Grange in July 2013.

Portuguese police finally questioned the men as arguidos – “person of interest” – at the request of Scotland Yard a year later.

However, the Home Office has refused to reveal if DNA samples were handed over.

A source said: “This dragging of heels by police in Portugal can’t have helped the investigation.”

Earlier this month detectives spent four hours quizzing British ex-pat Robert Murat at Algarve police station.

He was on a list of 10 men and women, made up for four Brits, a German and five Portugese national, who were questioned by Scotland Yard.

Mr Murat is not suspected of any involvement in Maddie's disappearance and has said he is happy to cooperate with the investigation.

British police believe Madeleine was killed during a bungled burglary.

Parts of the Praia da Luz resort, where Madeleine vanished from, were dug up by detectives in June but no clues as to what happened were found.

Madeleine was just three when she vanished from her family’s holiday flat in 2007.



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

+++++++++++++++++

COMMENT:   The Scotland Yard theory for over a year now appears to be that Madeleine was killed during a bungled burglary - and that the burglar was spotted by the Smiths at 10.00pm on 3 May. I think they may also try and get away with suggesting that the cadaver dog's alerts were indeed to cadaver odour resulting from Madeleine's murder by a burglar in the apartment after 9.10pm that evening. Several signs have already pointed us this way; tonight's Sunday Mirror story is IMO another pointer in the same direction. Martin Smith appears to be going along with the 'bungled burglary' theory, since we know he was interviewed by Grange twice, in 2012 and 2013. He has, according to Grange, endorsed the two e-fits of different-looking men, and has obviously long since abandoned his claim that he recognised the man he said he and has family saw as Gerry McCann

Trainer wrote:So this burglar didn't bother stealing anything of value , mobile phones , watches etc that we are told were all left in the apartment ? But killed a child then wandered round the resort with a body that they then hid so well it's never been found . Doesn't sound very believable ......

margaret wrote:That story's got pink all over it and is best ignored.

ScarletLaw wrote:Tony, were the e-fits put together by the Smiths?  I'm sure I read that they were put together by the spies?

Tony Bennett wrote:
11. The two e-fits show - according to computer graphics experts - clear signs of having been produced on different computer programs; why would that be the case if they were both drawn up by Exton and both based on the recollections of the Smiths? 

12. The likely date when the Smiths drew up their e-fits was spring 2008 - a year after 3 May 2007. How could they possibly, a year later, draw up detailed e-fits of a man they had only seen for a second or two in the dark, and whom they all said they would never be able to recognise if they saw him again?

Khaleesi wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:
11. The two e-fits show - according to computer graphics experts - clear signs of having been produced on different computer programs; why would that be the case if they were both drawn up by Exton and both based on the recollections of the Smiths? 

What experts? Link, please.  

REPLY: A number of professed experts made the same observation on one or more of the Smithman threads. If you go through all the threads, you will find the observations there.
 

12. The likely date when the Smiths drew up their e-fits was spring 2008 - a year after 3 May 2007. How could they possibly, a year later, draw up detailed e-fits of a man they had only seen for a second or two in the dark, and whom they all said they would never be able to recognise if they saw him again?

Don't you think that the timespan of a year between the sighting and the drawing might be one of the reasons that the e-fits differ so much?
(other being that these e-fits were based on the descriptions given by two different people...)

REPLY: The very idea that anyone, one year after seeing a bloke in the dark for a second or two, could possibly have been in a position to draw up any e-fits at all, is IMO unlikley in the extreme - and one of the strongest reasons to object to the claims made about these e-fits by DCI Redwood. It could only be guesswork at best.

I agree with your essential point that after one year after an event, if you ask two people to independently remember what they saw for a second or two in the dark, you are likely to get very different results.  But then what was the point of showing 6.7 million people in the U.K. two images which, in your own very true words, 'differ so much'? 

Was it a genuine attempt to find out who this bloke was?

Or was the programme, rather, a very expensive and carefully crafted event to embed deeper than ever in people's minds that Madeleine was abducted?

And at the very same time, was it a very cunning effort to move the time when the abduction took place from the embarrassingly narrow time-frame of 9.11pm to 9.14pm (pre-Crecheman) to anywhere between 9.11pm and 10.00pm (post Crecheman)?

Look back at the programme itself and see just how mightly chuffed they all were that they had extended the time-frame for the abduction from an impossible 3 mintues to a much more flexible 49 minutes.

Due to their 'careful and critical analysis', in their own boastful words.

It was not merely a 'revelation' moment.

It was much more like an 'exultation' moment...   

 
 

      

Khaleesi wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:
11. The two e-fits show - according to computer graphics experts - clear signs of having been produced on different computer programs; why would that be the case if they were both drawn up by Exton and both based on the recollections of the Smiths? 

What experts? Link, please.  

REPLY: A number of professed experts made the same observation on one or more of the Smithman threads. If you go through all the threads, you will find the observations there.

I agree with your essential point that after one year after an event, if you ask two people to independently remember what they saw for a second or two in the dark, you are likely to get very different results.  But then what was the point of showing 6.7 million people in the U.K. two images which, in your own very true words, 'differ so much'? 

Was it a genuine attempt to find out who this bloke was?

Or was the programme, rather, a very expensive and carefully crafted event to embed deeper than ever in people's minds that Madeleine was abducted?

And at the very same time, was it a very cunning effort to move the time when the abduction took place from the embarrassingly narrow time-frame of 9.11pm to 9.14pm (pre-Crecheman) to anywhere between 9.11pm and 10.00pm (post Crecheman)?

Khaleesi wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:

REPLY: A number of professed experts made the same observation on one or more of the Smithman threads. If you go through all the threads, you will find the observations there.

I won't be digging through the forum to find [them]...

OK, your choice
 
++++++

If it is all a hoax, why then the McTeam supressed these e-fits for years?

We have been through this a thousand times before on the forum.

1. The McCanns passed the e-fits to DCI Andy Redwood in 2011 soon after Operation Grange started (source: Carter-Ruck letter to Times Newspapers, December 2013, in response to Jonathan Calvert Sunday Times article based on Exton's claims, published 27 October 2013). Therefore any delay after that in publishing the e-fits was down to Redwood, not the McCanns

2. McCanns directly promoted the suggestion that Tannerman and Smithman were one and the same in the Channel 4/Mentorn Media documentary of May 2009

3. Thereafter, from May 2009 to now, they have carried details in a prominent place on their 'Find Madeleine' website of the sighting by 'an Irish family', always accompanied by a 30-second audio in an Irish accent describing the circumstances of the sighting

4. Kate McCann's book, 'madeleine', published May 2011, mentioned Smithman on SIX separate pages, including THREE pages giving a very detailed comparison between Tannerman and Smithman, pointing out how 'strikingly similar' they were (no suprise that, given my thread on Wojchiech Krokowski).


@ Khaleesi    Now that I have reminded you of the above four facts, will you please withdraw your false claim that 'the McCann Team suppressed these e-fits for years'?  (The Sunday Times made that same false claim and had to pay the McCanns £55,000 in libel damages as a result) 

++++++

Yes, telling the public to disregard Tanner's statement was sooooo very hurtful to the investigation. Telling the public that they might have seen something important much later than the Tannerman sighting (which was earlier hammered into people as an official time of Maddie's abduction) is also an incredibly crappy move on SY side...

Seriously...

Que?

ultimaThule wrote:I seem to recall that following the Crimewatch programme which was broadcast in October 2013 PeterMac posted a revised timeline based on the statements of the McCanns and their pals which showed that the only window of opportunity available to any abductor(s) was a matter of a couple of minutes c9.55pm.  

Tony Bennett wrote:
1. The McCanns passed the e-fits to DCI Andy Redwood in 2011 soon after Operation Grange started [/b](source: Carter-Ruck letter to Times Newspapers, December 2013, in response to Jonathan Calvert Sunday Times article based on Exton's claims, published 27 October 2013). Therefore any delay after that in publishing the e-fits was down to Redwood, not the McCanns

[/color](no suprise that, given my thread on Wojchiech Krokowski)

@ Khaleesi    Now that I have reminded you of the above four facts, will you please withdraw your false claim that 'the McCann Team suppressed these e-fits for years'?  (The Sunday Times made that same false claim and had to pay the McCanns £55,000 in libel damages as a result)

Yes, telling the public to disregard Tanner's statement was sooooo very hurtful to the investigation. Telling the public that they might have seen something important much later than the Tannerman sighting (which was earlier hammered into people as an official time of Maddie's abduction) is also an incredibly crappy move on SY side...

Seriously...

Que?

Khaleesi wrote:

Did she put the e-fits in the book? No. Why if [they - sp.] are a hoax, created to help the McTeam to reinforce the abduction thesis?

REPLY: There were 3 pages in Kate's book devoted to a detailed comparison between Tannerman and Smithman - that we cannot get away from.

She did not include the two e-fits. My suggestion would be that that was because they found these two e-fits - of two very different-looking men (your own words) - a real problem. They couldn't solve it - so left out the e-fits whilst promoting Smithman as the likely abductor in the book and on their website.

They needed Redwood and Grange to help them over this problem. It took Redwood over 2 years to sort it out for them


++++++


Okay, they did not suppress the e-fits (please dear Carter-Ruck do not sue anyone). But they weren't very keen to use them.

REPLY: The McCanns promoted Smithman in various ways from May 2009 onwards as I think is generally conceded on the forum. But they did not use the e-fits, waiting for the review which Rebekah Brooks kindly in order to boost circulation of the Sun helped her to obtain    


++++++


Yes, telling the public to disregard Tanner's statement was sooooo very hurtful to the investigation. Telling the public that they might have seen something important much later than the Tannerman sighting (which was earlier hammered into people as an official time of Maddie's abduction) is also an incredibly crappy move on SY side...

Seriously...

Que?
 
Irony, you know.
REPLY: Still lost on me, I'm afraid    

Tony Bennett wrote:

Khaleesi wrote:Did she put the e-fits in the book? No. Why if [they - sp.] are a hoax, created to help the McTeam to reinforce the abduction thesis?

REPLY: There were 3 pages in Kate's book devoted to a detailed comparison between Tannerman and Smithman - that we cannot get away from

She did not include the two e-fits. My suggestion would be that that was because they found these two e-fits - of two very different-looking men (your own words) - a real problem. They couldn't solve it - so left out the e-fits whilst promoting Smithman as the likely abductor in the book and on their website.