Met Police (Operation Grange) - Bollocks or not bollocks?

I note in 15_VOLUME-XVa_Page_3972 of the PJ: McCann Files that Alfred Schuurmans "confirmed that his friend had owned the apartment next to 5A at the Mark Warner Resort" (my bold and underline).

He is referring to Gordon Sillence, whose daughter is Tasmin Milburn Sillence.

Tasmin claimed that her grandmother used to own the apartment where Madeleine disappeared from, and that she had spent a lot of time in apartment 5A (see pp. 800-805 of PJ files). Did her father own 5B and her grandmother own 5A? Or is it just an error?

Ex-DCI Andy Redwood of the Yard, actively promoted the dubious work of Oakley International, at the time headed by criminal mastermind Kevin Halligan [sic] and his side kick ex-MI5 undercover operations expert Henri Exton.

A free-thinking independent Portuguese journalistic perspective..

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Posted on 29 October 2013.
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It turns out that Kate and Gerry McCann suppressed for five years ‘critical evidence’ that became the centerpiece of the recent BBC Crimewatch program on the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Findings by ex-MI5 agents long kept under wraps by the McCanns included the two e-fit images described in the Crimwatch program by Scotland Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood as of “vital importance.”

The images are of a suspected kidnapper seen by an Irish family in Praia da Luz the night Madeleine went missing.
They were given to the McCanns by a handpicked team of investigators from Oakley International hired by the McCanns’ “Find Madeleine Fund” in 2008.

Henri Exton, an MI5’s former undercover operations chief who led the team, told the Sunday Times he was “utterly stunned” when he watched the Crimewatch program and saw the evidence he had passed to the McCanns presented as a new breakthrough.
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Efit images of the man who police want
to contact over the 2007 disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal.

He said the fund had silenced his team with a lawyer’s letter binding them to the confidentiality of a report they had compiled that contained controversial findings. Mr. Exton said the legal threat had prevented them from handing over the report to Scotland Yard’s investigation until detectives had obtained written permission from the fund.

The Oakley International report, delivered in November 2008, gave little credibility to Jane Tanner’s 9.15pm sighting and focused instead on the 10pm sighting by the Irish Smith family. The investigators recommended that their e-fit images be released without delay.

For some reason the images were not published even in Kate McCann’s 2011 book Madeleine, though it devoted a whole section to eight “key sightings” and carried e-fits on all of them except the Smiths’.

In its Insight report, the Sunday Times quoted one of the Oakley International investigators as saying: “I was absolutely stunned when I watched the program . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to suggest either of those things . . . And those e-fits you saw on Crimewatch are ours.”

The hushed-up report is said to have questioned parts of the McCanns’ evidence, contained sensitive information about Madeleine’s sleeping patterns and raised the highly sensitive possibility that she could have died in an accident after leaving the apartment herself from one of two unsecured doors.

The Sunday Times quoted a source close to the Find Madeleine Fund as saying the report was considered “hypercritical of the people involved” and “would have been completely distracting” if it became public.
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Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of Madeleine.

In fact, the Portuguese lead detective Gonçalo Amaral considered the Irish sighting to be very important back in May 2007 when the Smith family first reported it to the Polícia Judiciária. Details of the sighting and ‘hypercritical information’ were in the public domain early in January 2008, three months before the Oakley team arrived on the scene.

Ebullience at the huge response to their Crimewatch program turned to embarrassment in certain quarters when it was revealed that the BBC had cast a porn star in the ‘reconstruction’ of events the night Madeleine disappeared.



With such films such films as ‘Tight Rider,’ ‘Dr. Screw’ and ‘From Dusk Till Porn’ on his CV, the actor Mark Sloan was engaged by the BBC to represent one of the McCanns’ holidaying friends with whom they dined each night, Dr Matt Oldfield.

“How could the casting director not know of his background when they picked him? It’s all over Google. Did no one check? It is unbelievably stupid,” an agent, who did not wish to be named, told the Daily Star.

Meanwhile, although a new Portuguese police investigation only became official last week, a PJ team in Oporto in the north of Portugal has been reviewing the case for some time, and another PJ team in Faro in the Algarve has been assisting Scotland Yard with their inquiries. It is believed that the new Portuguese investigation will be conducted by group of PJ detectives working independently of Scotland Yard.

Things seem to be hotting up, though there is still no end to the mystery in sight.


____________

Things seem to be hotting up.....

But the link is dated 29 October 2013 ?!

Extract from interview transcript between AC Mark Rowley (MR) and broadcast media for use from 21:00hrs on Tuesday, 25 April 2017

Q: Six years’ on of Scotland Yard’s involvement, a team of largely 30 people, £11/12 million you’ve
spent, what have you achieved?

MR: We’ve achieved an awful lot. I think you know that we have a track record for using cold cases
on serious old cases, and we solve many cases that way. This is no different in one respect but is
particularly complicated. I think people get seduced perhaps by what they see in TV dramas where
the most complex cases are solved in 30 minutes or 60 minutes with adverts as well.

What we started with here was something extraordinary. We started with 40,000 documents. We’ve got the original
Portuguese investigation and six or eight sets of private detectives who’ve done work and we did
appeals to the public, four Crimewatch appeals, hoovering as much information as possible. Sifting
that, structuring it and working through it is an immense effort. It’s much more ‘hard slog’ in reality
than it is inspiration. That takes time and it takes systems. That’s what we’ve been working on.

And what you’ve seen in the bits which have been reported publically is those appeals, when we’ve
announced suspects, when we’ve made particular announcements, slowly crunching through it and
focusing our attention and making progress. And of course at one stage we had 600 people who at
one stage have been of interest to the enquiry, that doesn’t mean that they are suspects, people who
were suspicious at the time or have a track record which makes us concerned about them, sifting,
which focused the enquiry increasingly and when you’re doing this then across a continent and with
multiple languages and having to build working relationships with the Portuguese, you put that
together and that takes real time.

So we’ve achieved complete understanding of it all, we’ve sifted out many of the potential suspects,
people of interest, and where we are today is a much smaller team, focused on a small remaining
number of critical lines of enquiry, which we think are significant. If we didn’t think they were
significant we wouldn’t be carrying on.
~~~~~~

Q: So when you talk of success and progress, it’s really a case of eliminating things? You’re not
getting any nearer to finding out what happened?

MR: So our mission here is to do everything reasonable to provide an answer to Kate and Gerry
McCann. I’d love to guarantee them that we would get an answer, sadly investigations can never be
100 per cent successful. But, it’s our job, and I’ve discussed it with them, we’ll do everything we can
do, reasonably, to find an answer to what’s happened to Madeleine. And I know, Pedro, the senior
Portuguese colleague I’ve worked with and his team, have a shared determination, to find an answer.

That’s what we’re going to do.
~~~~~~

Q: Do you have some evidence, in your six years of investigation, have you unearthed some
evidence to explain what happened?

MR: We’ve got some thoughts on what we think the most likely explanations might be and we’re
pursuing those. And those link into the key lines of enquiry we’re doing now. As I said, those are very
much live investigations and I know that’s frustrating when you’re doing a programme looking back
but it’s hard to talk about that now, it’s going to frustrate the investigation.
~~~~~~

Q: Do you have any other suspects at the moment?

MR: So, we have got some critical lines of enquiry that are definitely worth pursuing and I’m not going
to go into further detail on those. Another I would say though is, these lines of enquiry we have to
date, they are the product of information available at the time and information that has come from
public appeals that we have done. Four Crimewatch appeals, and other media channels have been
incredibly helpful, including yourselves, and thousands of pieces of information have come forward,
some useful some not, but amongst that have been some nuggets that have thrown some extra light
on the original material that came from the time and that is one of the things that has helped us to
make progress and have some critical lines of enquiry we are pursuing today.
~~~~~~

Tch tch tch AC Mark Rowley - forsooth!

Note:  Text extract for research and study purposes only.

" Some nuggets " !

Yes I think we could name a few that have been " thrown " at us over the past 10 years !

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"...... hoovering as much information as possible ......"  AC Mark Rowley of the Yard

15 or more million spent to apparently provide an answer to Mr & Mrs.   Well they still haven't got an answer so please can we, the taxpayers, have our money back?

There was I thinking this, as in Operation Grange, was about finding answers for Madeleine McCann - not her parents who were, and still are, prime suspects.

Yes yes I know, the McCanns were cleared by the PJ, so say AC Mark Rowley, so they didn't need to re-investigate their possible culpability but but but - what alternative is on offer?  Another nugget - another person of interest previously overlooked by the PJ the UK police and six or eight sets of private detectives [sic]?

That's some pretty shabby detective work.  Still, there is no evidence is there..

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?

Verdi wrote:There was I thinking this, as in Operation Grange, was about finding answers for Madeleine McCann - not her parents who were, and still are, prime suspects.

Yes yes I know, the McCanns were cleared by the PJ, so say AC Mark Rowley, so they didn't need to re-investigate their possible culpability but but but - what alternative is on offer?  Another nugget - another person of interest previously overlooked by the PJ the UK police and six or eight sets of private detectives [sic]?

That's some pretty shabby detective work.  Still, there is no evidence is there..

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?

Hi Verdi,if Assistant Commander of the Metropolitan Police force is so convinced of the Tapas 7/9 being innocent of any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann,reported as 3 May 2007 from apartment 5a Ocean Club.
Then it wouldn't affect his credibility to ask the Seven or nine person's to undertake questioning under "Oath"as to what they had previously stated as facts to Two different sets of Law officers from Portugal and Leicestershire Police Force?
The services of Eddie,Keela would not be needed to in regard to Mark Rowley's"Classic Statement"Bovine spirit production in essence as to why his Police force had not interviewed the Tapas 7/9?
They(Kate,Gerry,Tapas 7) were not Present when Madeleine disappeared,as they were at the Tapas Bar or where they had previously made statements,stated were they Where?

Hi Verdi, thanks for your reply.
Mark Rowley must cringe"Every time"that he either hears his verbal response or if he ever has to re-read his statement as actual explanation,not known facts of the case,just top flight Metropolitan Police Force Work?
CMMoM members now know what a "Cesspitt"looks like,with all these fine highly Ranked Officers,with years of experience in Crime Detection,clearly unable for Cognitive dissonance to come to the Conclusions they have given to the public,via their statements?

It's a travesty, that's what it is - he should have been told to clear his desk by the end of the day after that embarrassing display of ineptitude and unconvincing excuse to explain away expenditure of in excess of 15 million of public money on a pseudo case review/investigation.

Take for example, I quote..

"... the involvement of the parents, that was dealt with at the time by the original investigation by the Portuguese. We had a look at all the material and we are happy that was all dealt with and there is no reason whatsoever to reopen that or start rumours that was a line of investigation. The McCanns are parents of a missing girl, we are trying to get to the bottom of.  In terms of Andy using the word abduction, she was not old enough to set off and start her own life...."


If, as Rowley says, they were happy that the Portuguese investigation had satisfactorily dealt with it all. The PJ made the McCanns arguidos, effectively meaning suspects.  They concluded by evidence and intelligence that the McCanns, in my words, could be guilty of faking an abduction and concealment of a corpse.  Good so far ... what then?  Do Britain's finest think that to be the end of the matter - do they conclude that the McCanns are totally innocent of any involvement in their daughters disappearance based on the PJ investigation?  That doesn't compute, no matter how you try to twist and turn the evidence.

In addition, does AC Mark Rowley with his vast policing experience, think the only two possibilities to explain the disappearance of a three year old child are a) wandering off alone in quest of a new life or b) abduction?

Unbelievable - Rowley should be struck off!

" However she left that apartment , she was abducted " 

This sentence alone , without all the rest of the rubbish he spouts tells us exactly what Operation Grange is all about !  

How many " last throws of the dice " are we on now ?

Are " bungling burglars " still on that dice ? Is there a dead man still under suspicion ?

Have you found the " woman in purple " yet ? 

Has E. T turned up ? How about a " Quantum Leap " , a timeslip ?

As a plot for films or TV , your sorry story would be laughed out of the building ! 

For " bungling sardine munchers " read " bungling fish and chips munchers "  ( sea bass of course )

According to AC Mark Rowley, the work of six or eight private investigators was incorporated in the review/investigation of the case of Madeleine McCann by Operation Grange

I'd be interested to learn from Operation Grange, why they included the work of dubious private detectives hired by the Find Madeleine Fund - none of which have any expertise in missing persons.  At best frauds - at worse criminals + implications of money laundering.

If Operation Grange is a legitimate investigative force - why are they considering the evidence of a selection of unauthorized crooks?

Verdi wrote:According to AC Mark Rowley, the work of six or eight private investigators was incorporated in the review/investigation of the case of Madeleine McCann by Operation Grange

I'd be interested to learn from Operation Grange, why they included the work of dubious private detectives hired by the Find Madeleine Fund - none of which have any expertise in missing persons.  At best frauds - at worse criminals + implications of money laundering.

If Operation Grange is a legitimate investigative force - why are they considering the evidence of a selection of unauthorized crooks?

Exactly!  Operation Grange is not a legitimate investigation. They know it, we know it, they know we know it but for some unknown reason, they are getting away with it.

Cmaryholmes wrote:Exactly!  Operation Grange is not a legitimate investigation. They know it, we know it, they know we know it but for some unknown reason, they are getting away with it.

With Home Office seal of approval!

Verdi wrote:

Cmaryholmes wrote:Exactly!  Operation Grange is not a legitimate investigation. They know it, we know it, they know we know it but for some unknown reason, they are getting away with it.

With Home Office seal of approval!

Hi Verdi,so that concludes that there is a massive Cover up by the Establishment of what has happened to Madeleine McCann,but what is not clear is the reason for the Cover Up in the First place(Gasper statements stalled from Portugal PJ)?

willowthewisp wrote:

Verdi wrote:

Cmaryholmes wrote:Exactly!  Operation Grange is not a legitimate investigation. They know it, we know it, they know we know it but for some unknown reason, they are getting away with it.

With Home Office seal of approval!

Hi Verdi,so that concludes that there is a massive Cover up by the Establishment of what has happened to Madeleine McCann,but what is not clear is the reason for the Cover Up in the First place(Gasper statements stalled from Portugal PJ)?

  Everything comes to he who waits ....

willowthewisp wrote:

Verdi wrote:

Cmaryholmes wrote:Exactly!  Operation Grange is not a legitimate investigation. They know it, we know it, they know we know it but for some unknown reason, they are getting away with it.

With Home Office seal of approval!

Hi Verdi,so that concludes that there is a massive Cover up by the Establishment of what has happened to Madeleine McCann,but what is not clear is the reason for the Cover Up in the First place(Gasper statements stalled from Portugal PJ)?

Still those who support the McCanns continue to call the Portuguese Police corrupt .

Blinkered , heads in sand , fingers in ears !

Is it possible to ask someone at OG or anyone in authority what action was taken on the Gasper statements.

Surely they were investigated?

Anyone got channels that won't get ignored?

Is it possible to ask someone at OG or anyone in authority what action was taken on the Gasper statements.

Tricky one that. 

Firstly you have to remember that the Gaspar allegation (at least missus), cannot be in any way directly connected to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.  If there is any truth in the allegation, which I've no reason to doubt, the incident occurred a long time prior to Madeleine's alleged disappearance.  Plus, in fairness to the police in general, if any attention was/is paid to the Gaspar allegation, it would be investigated by a separate force concerned with child sex abuse.  The likelihood of any detail being revealed by the police hovers around zero - for obvious reasons  I feel.

Also, if I remember rightly, Dr Katherine Gaspar warned her husband to watch their children at bath time as David Payne was said to be one of the fathers that supervised communal child bathing on that particular holiday.  She also said that they met the McCanns again, after this holiday, at a child's birthday party.  Seriously, would any right minded parent allow a man to bathe their child/ren having witnessed the Payne sexual gestures - or indeed to again meet up with the other person involved, Gerry McCann?  If it ever came to that stage, which I doubt, I believe the Gaspar statements would be laughed out of court.  Important intelligence maybe - conclusive evidence most definitely not!

I wouldn't trust David Payne further than I could poke him but sometimes, as a member of the public, you have to look at matters through the eyes of the law - at least when considering asking pertinent questions about a delicate policing issue.  I don't see the harm in raising questions on an internet forum or suchlike, to expect a positive response from the authorities about every curious detail is however another matter altogether.

Despite the yearning for a positive satisfactory conclusion to this never ending case, I can't help but think that flooding the authorities with requests for information on every case detail, no matter how trivial, is more detrimental to the overall aim than beneficial.  Can't think of any example off the top of my head but it can't be denied, there have been some pretty stupid FOIs and petitions submitted by well meaning folk over the years.  I think it ruins the chances of any positive response from the authorities when a well constructed, coherent evidence based request is put forward.

It's a pretty important "case detail".

It's a "case detail" that was bizarrely withheld from the PJ for quite a while.

I think it's a fair question to ask what was done about it.

Especially as taxpayers we have spent a lot of money on this.  

It wouldn't exactly be flooding the authorities to ask.

BlueBag wrote:It's a pretty important "case detail".

It's a "case detail" that was bizarrely withheld from the PJ for quite a while.

I think it's a fair question to ask what was done about it.

Especially as taxpayers we have spent a lot of money on this.  

It wouldn't exactly be flooding the authorities to ask.

Hi Bluebag,the connection to the Gasper statements is the"Bathing of other peoples children"and the videos/accountability of how the parents perceived these events,Crying Incident,Was this when they were being Bathed,tired before bed?
Perhaps it may be too much studying of the case,to conclude as to what actually happened to Madeleine McCann,but of the Tapas 7/9,at least one person made a statement not confirming where he was at the time but the other Parent didn't raise any objection,when they offered to assist,at Bath Time 3 May 2007,only there for 30 Seconds,Minutes?
Would that be pertinent to a different forum,eh DP?
That is if the claimant still states where he was on that day,at that time offering assistance?

Just imagine for a moment that the O.C. holiday had been adults and no children. Imagine Gerry returns to the apartment and Kate is missing, vanished into thin air. Now, it is unlikely that abduction would immediately spring to mind (although possible) but accident, suicide, having gone out to down town and met with foul play would probably be in the running. Now imagine that Gerry and his friends' stories of what they were doing that evening and who had last seen Kate and when were full of contradictions, holes and changes of story. Then imagine that Eddie and Keela are sent for and alert to cadaver odour and blood matching Kate's D.N.A. in the apartment and hire car. Where would Gerry most likely be by now? Would it be acceptable if Op. Grange did not at least re-examine Gerry's contradictions and changes of story? Why is it different because the victim is a child?

Because :
A).  Madeleine's body betrays something unsavoury
B).  There is another big cover up that may or may not be exposed by Madeleine's body