Dr Martin Robert "Access All Areas" (Robert Murat article FAO Tony Bennett)

ACCESS ALL AREAS

 By Dr Martin Roberts
 15 October 2015 

 On the 4 May, 2007, following the international (no less) announcement of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance from apartment 5A, the Ocean Club literally played ‘open-house’. Robert Murat, who was on the scene and talking to GNR officers that very morning, later said, when questioned as ‘arguido’ on 14 July:
 “Together with an officer of the GNR and an employee of the resort with several keys, entered several apartments, opened with the keys or by the tenants in order to locate the child. Some of the apartments were closed and there were no keys, these sites were flagged by the GNR man.

 “At that time he met John Hill, manager of MARK WARNER, who supplied them with more keys to other apartments.

 “Prior to this occasion, he did not know the interior of the "Ocean Club", only entering the resort after the disappearance.

 “In the meantime the tracker dogs arrived that undertook a more rigorous form of search.”
 Sure enough. There is a statement on record from Marina Castela (Ocean Club general manager), taken on 16 May, which describes Robert Murat’s entering various apartments as he later said, but not quite the way he said it:
 “She saw the suspect, Robert Murat, for the first time on that day at about 12.30 when the witness went to meet GNR officers whom she cannot identify, to open the doors for them and speak to guests staying in apartments in block 6….

 “When she was beginning this task together with GNR officers, this individual appeared, she does not know from where, he immediately saw what operations were going on, speaking ostensibly to the guests from the first two apartments, explaining to them what they were doing there, showing much will and anxiety in the transmission of this information.

 “Given his behaviour, for a few minutes the witness thought that he belonged to one of the security forces, namely the PJ.

 “The GNR officer who was with them did not speak any English nor say anything.

 “After the second apartment, the witness says that Robert's attitude was not the most correct, as he spoke to the guests in a very dry and affirmative way and she took the initiative to introduce herself to the clients, not letting him speak.

 “She thinks that is the reason why he immediately disappeared and did not accompany them to the rest of the apartments.”
 Not exactly the tandem task as described by Murat. John Hill also seems not to have put in an appearance on this occasion either (in his own statement to police of 20 June, he makes no mention of his own activities that day or any interaction with Robert Murat for any purpose whatsoever).

 Since Ms Castela describes Murat’s intervention here as occurring shortly after 12.30 p.m., we might suppose that he was dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans – not because she says so, but because others did.

 Sisters Annie Wiltshire and Jayne Jensen were reported (The Sun - 27 December, 2007) to have interacted socially with Robert Murat that very same day (4 May), having not long previously been to the police to report having seen two men acting suspiciously on the ground floor balcony of a supposedly empty (block 5) apartment the afternoon before (3 May). The sisters apparently thought it odd when Murat announced:
 ‘I must go and shower and change, I’ve been in these clothes all day.’
 According to their account, he had been in a striped shirt and grey trousers not long beforehand. 

 This report was picked up from one first appearing in the Portuguese press (Diario de Noticias). The Sun also tells how the sisters ‘have given an "extensive interview" to cops detailing their suspicions about suspect Robert Murat’ (and of which there is no trace among the files released to the public – perhaps because the sisters apparently voiced their concerns to Leicestershire Police on their return to the UK, and the questionable Spanish agency Metodo 3 subsequently, their information welcomed by that ubiquitous ‘source close to the investigation’).

 The reliability of Witshire and Jensen’s further sighting of Robert Murat (outside the apartments on the night of 3 May, and deemed significant by that aforementioned ‘source’) is of less immediate relevance than their description of Robert Murat’s keenness to divest himself of a blue t-shirt, which he had presumably done by the time he made his way to block 6 and his interaction with Maria Castela. Although she had misgivings about his demeanour, she made no comment as to his ‘sweaty’ attire.

 Someone who did observe Robert Murat’s style of dress, however, was property manager Barend Weijdom (interviewed by police on 16 May, 2007). He recalled seeing Murat on the morning of 4 May dressed in a yellow shirt and light coloured trousers. These may or may not have been grey, but Weijdom makes no reference to stripes in respect of the shirt (as distinctive a feature as its colour one would imagine).

 Blue t-shirt, yellow shirt, striped or otherwise, wearing the garment since breakfast hardly equates to ‘all day’ endurance when scarcely noon. If the Wiltshire-Jensen retelling has any substance, then there is something odd about Murat’s apologia to them, just as there would seem to be about his inspection story, as it relates to Block 6 at least, especially since none of the GNR officers interviewed, including dog handlers, recorded having been in the company of one Robert Murat that morning, 4 May. But someone else did.

 Barend Weijdom’s role as property manager saw him responsible for apartment 5E, which, like 5J diagonally above it, was unoccupied at the time. Such was his professional concern, that on the morning of the 4th he suggested to the authorities that they check it out, in case it too had been entered inappropriately (the McCanns having first reported a break-in don’t forget). The core of Weijdom’s statement is particularly germane:
 “He went to the apartment with a GNR officer and after a few seconds Robert Murat also entered the apartment without anyone having requested his presence.

 “The witness says that he found Murat's presence in the apartment to be strange, adding that after he entered the apartment he gave the witness a 'pat on the side' and said 'thanks for your collaboration'. During this situation the witness thought that Murat worked for the police. On that morning the witness saw Murat moving around the site a lot…”
 Here, at last, we have Robert Murat entering an Ocean Club apartment in the company of a GNR officer and one other. Except he didn’t. He followed them inside. And far from being an Ocean Club employee brandishing a set of keys, Weijdom was an independent operator, making use of one key in his possession. (It seems as if Murat has deliberately conflated his experience at 5E with that of his later visit to block 6).

 Robert Murat’s explanation of his activities in relation to this sorry tale are therefore inaccurate, and not for the first time. Weijdom’s brief account enables us to draw a few pertinent conclusions besides.

 Murat’s attention grabbing (‘Look at me, I’m a policeman’) behaviour, enacted in the presence of Maria Castela and her GNR associates at Block 6 on the Friday afternoon, had first been practised in and around block 5 that same morning. Apartment 5E was one of six in block 5 that were not in Mark Warner’s custody, so to speak (E, F, G, J, N, O were not on cleaner Maria da Silva’s rosta). Since we know that 5G was occupied by its owner, Mrs Fenn, and that responsibility for 5E had been delegated to Barend Weijdom (who had a key to the place), it seems only reasonable to suppose that 5J, also known to have been empty for quite a period of time, was itself owned in absentia, and the key left in the charge of a local ‘manager’ (such as Barend Weijdom, for example).

 We don’t really know what Robert Murat was wearing that morning; the different accounts conflict. We can however tell that his self-aggrandizing explanation for his presence in and around the Ocean Club on Friday 4 May is an exaggeration at the very least, a lie at worst, as is his claim, again made during his ‘arguido’ interview that:

“never in his life has he entered the apartment where Madeleine was when she disappeared, neither before nor after the events under investigation."
 ‘Never’ was a rather dangerous word to use under the circumstances, especially when one considers Weijdom’s further evidence:
 “On that morning the witness saw Murat moving around the site a lot and saw him enter and leave the apartment Madeleine disappeared from, without knowing whether he was with anyone there. He said that Murat moved a lot between the authorities and journalists.”
 Indeed the witness testimony of conscientious Barend Weijdom should be given more than merely due regard:
 “He heard about the news being investigated on the evening of 3rd May at about 21.30 - 21.40 from P**** B******, a Dutchman and owner of the Atlantico restaurant, who passed by the witness near the Baptista supermarket, in P da L and who asked for his help in searching for Madeleine.

 “He then went to the place where the events occurred which was at about 21.45 - 21.50. At this time various local people and MW staff were present.”
 When did Kate McCann say she did her ‘check’ again?

 Martin Roberts

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

Posted today from Dr Martin Roberts;

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

Dr Roberts claims that the phone records were deleted the day before the abduction was announced. Very interesting if true. How could that be known ?

LONGGGG but 'worth' it!

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

Thx to Dr Roberts.

Saturday, November 28, 2015Madeleine McCann Was Not Abducted Re-Up

Updated and bumped

Introduction: Dr Martin Roberts.

Insight is a truly wonderful thing. It nourishes and advances those who are able to appreciate it. For the rest, knowledge is merely borrowed for the purposes of reference, not genuinely shared. Things are either what they are because we appreciate and understand what has been established, or they are simply taken on trust, on an ‘it is said by others’ basis.

For seven years past a watching international community has been witness to a growing clamour of borrowed knowledge regarding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, hearsay tearing repeatedly through the fabric of reason like a succession of tornados in America’s mid-west, and bringing us more recently to the most ludicrous of situations; one in which a UK police force is given a seemingly limitless budget, so as to review and pursue a case over which it has no legal jurisdiction, and in deliberate disavowal of the evidence collated by the original investigators. In an admitted collaboration with the UK government, they are acting ‘as if the abduction happened in the UK’ without first, or indeed ever, establishing whether ‘abduction’ happened at all.

It is at this point that I refer you wholeheartedly to the post that follows.

Besides being wonderful, insight is also scarce – so scarce in fact that, in all these seven years no one has truly been able to cut the Gordian knot that is the ‘abduction’ of Madeleine McCann, never mind cut it completely in two. Or three for that matter. For that we must defer to Himself. What he presents here is not ‘opinion’, coloured so as to conform to a context of allegiance, nor interpretation influenced by surmise. Here we have evidence, pure and simple - evidence conveniently shunted into a siding by all those who cannot bear to confront the truth, and largely undervalued by others unduly concerned with the incessant regurgitation of garnish so often first coughed up by ‘a source close to something or other’.

Law enforcement agencies, crime writers and Hollywood film producers are all perfectly aware that the crux of any crime resides at the point of commencement, when the perpetrator, however practised they may be, is most likely to have made a mistake. The disappearance of Madeleine McCann involved circumstantial criminals who did exactly that. To appreciate what these data are telling us therefore, it is necessary to discard the shroud that has been thrown over them in the intervening years and look afresh at what has been staring at us all from the outset.

How likely is it that two people can be independently mistaken about an open or shut situation? How likely is it that these same two people should independently, yet simultaneously, decide to ‘prune’ their respective cell ‘phone memories? How likely is it also that two different dogs, on two separate occasions, could show interest in different, yet mutually corroborating, scents, and at the very same loci?

These are the fundamental issues addressed here, and for which various bizarre, unrealistic, even childish explanations have been proffered over time – as knowledge for the undiscerning. If instead we open our eyes to another’s insight, it soon becomes apparent that the origins of, and explanations for, many of the reputedly paradoxical phenomena associated with the case of Madeleine McCann do indeed reside at the very beginning. - Martin Roberts

Madeleine McCann Was Not Abducted

Should I so desire, I could lay before you, anomalies related to this case, by the score. As equally by the score, I could inundate you with unanswered questions. But that is not my intention here today. Rather, I present just three, but extremely important questions for your consideration.

But these three chosen questions are not exclusively for your perusal, they are in fact directed at what I shall call the McCann Establishment, or for ease here on in, the Establishment.

That the Establishment now includes the Prime Minister David Cameron, who, as a result of pressure by Rebecca Brooks, pressure being a polite word for coercion, as coercion is for blackmail one must say, is for the intents of this post, quite academic.

As for the involvement of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, that involvement becomes a good deal less academic, given the Home Secretary's overall responsibility for the policing of the Nation. Granted that some of that responsibility is now diminished since the introduction of police and crime commissioners, a system laid bare to justifiable charges of nepotism, I easily add. But that is by the by and concerns us little, for there was no such office at the time of initiating a "review" of the Madeleine McCann case by DCI Andy Redwood and Scotland Yard's finest. Something, I think I can maintain, that is unique in the history of English policing. But that uniqueness is far from alone, as we shall see.

Nice company Home Secretary.

Is it not unique, that in the case of a missing child, presumed dead by the investigating police force and for good reason, that when the very cornerstone of the McCann's claim for a case of stranger abduction, turns out to be a tissue of lies, but is then seemingly ignored by those charged with this nonsensical review?

The McCanns set the parameters.

Before we had even heard the name Madeleine McCann, the script had been written, distributed, and was being learned by rote, albeit to an embarrassing degree, by seemingly every member of the McCann's extended family and various friends. The source of which, and undeniable, Kate and Gerry McCann.

"The shutters had been jemmied and poor wee Madeleine was abducted." echoed every family member, with  unwavering similarity. The First Reactions

Update: Pennies from heaven.

Meanwhile, Madeleine's uncle, John McCann, from Glasgow, countered criticism from those who say the couple were wrong to leave their children alone in the holiday apartment while they ate dinner at a nearby restaurant.

  link
"If you look at the layout of that place, it was entirely safe. The issue at stake here was, that the flat was broken into, and wee Madeleine was abducted," he told BBC Radio Five Live. BBC online

Only the shutters weren't jemmied, and wee Madeleine was not abducted.

Cause and Effect

So let us look at such.

"The shutters had been jemmied" cause.

"and poor wee Madeleine was taken" effect.

I hardly need to say it do I? No cause, no effect.

It is that simple and so fundamental to the McCann's claim of abduction. No jemmied shutters, no abduction.

Never forgetting, the jemmied shutters story was not some wrongly evaluated, mistaken concept, it was orchestrated by the parents of the missing child. The First Reactions

As simple as that may sound, it is in fact, of such profundity that it cannot, and should not, be ignored. The cornerstone for abduction, and all that surrounds it, is a house of cards. A house that took a shift years ago. The only thing propping it up now, is the litigious nature of the McCanns. Not forgetting of course, the wilful blindness of the Establishment whose reputation and roll in this sordid affair would hardly stand the scrutiny that would be so deserved.  

Now call me old fashioned if you will, but this bothers me. But it bothers me more, that this fundamental and crucial component of this case, not only remains unaddressed, but seemingly, is totally ignored.

To finish up this part of the post, there being two other fundamental issues I wish to address, let me try and apply some perspective to this staggering and blatantly obvious miscarriage of justice.

If our featured two were suspected of robbing a Post Office, and it's not by accident that I use a PO as an example, because, you may be surprised to know, there is no greater crime in the UK than making an unauthorised withdrawal from said establishment.

So if our two suspects, under questioning, uttered the kind of testament or set in motion testament such as we have witnessed, what might you suppose, the outcome would be?

Parts two and three will be delivered when and whenever, creativity and the will to write are pretty rare commodities for me these days.

But do bare in mind, should you come under attack, from whatever quarter: No jemmied shutters, no abduction. And also remember who set the parameters, within which, enabled the child to be "abducted," the parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

Part Two, The Deleted Phone Logs

Are they such an important issue you may ask? Well they were important enough for the McCanns to lie about them, so they must be.

That we have already ascertained in part one, the setting up with family members the case for abduction, the deleted phone logs, selectively deleted I must add, and at a time, the day before in fact, of Gerry McCann's announcement to the world that his daughter had been abducted. Via of course, the jemmied shutters that weren't  

What follows, is the only section of this article where some parts are not provable, but given the circumstances, let us take a look at the situation circumstantially.

The speed, or should I call it indecent haste? (and being all the more suspicious for it)  The indecent haste with which the McCann Machine (Government machine) rolled into action was, putting it mildly, quite staggering.

I think at this moment, I shall let the Portuguese coordinator of the case, Goncalo Amaral, take over the narrative. This on the 4th of May

GA:  At ten in the morning, twelve hours after the disappearance, the British Consul to Portimão goes to the Department of Criminal Investigation.

We inform him of the actions taken up to then and the next stages being considered. He doesn't seem satisfied.

Someone hears him on the telephone saying that the police judiciaire are doing nothing. Now, that's strange! Why that untruth? What objective does he have in mind? Giving another dimension to the case? Perhaps, I don't know a thing about it, but this is not the time for conjecture; we have to concentrate on our work, of finding the little girl.

Why indeed?

A little later still on the 4th May John Buck, British Ambassador to Portugal, descends on the scene.

GA- The McCanns are put up with David Payne.

We want to search the accommodation of the family friends to try to pick up Madeleine's clothes, especially those she was wearing on May 3rd at 5.35pm when she returned from the day centre with her mother and the twins.

Evidently, this initiative is not widely supported. The British ambassador meets with the team directing the investigation. The political and the diplomatic seem to want to prevent us from freely doing our work.

GA- I'm sure this check is necessary.

JB- The clothes? Are you mad? if I understand you properly, you want to go into the apartment to take clothes to have them analysed?

GA- Yes. What's the problem? It's a perfectly normal procedure in cases like this.

JB- Of course, but with this media hype...I don't think I have ever in my life seen so many journalists....And I didn't come down in the last shower.

I leave you to arrive at your own conclusions regarding that little nest of vipers.

To the phone logs then.

To fully understand the importance of this clip, one has take into account, that having just fled Portugal, the McCanns feel free to tell all the lies they wish and to do so with impunity. Never realising of course, to just what degree the files of the investigation would be made available to the public once the investigation was shelved.

Gerry and Kate McCann's fury after 14 texts slur

Gerry McCann reacted angrily yesterday to claims he received a string of mystery texts the day before his daughter vanished.
Police applied to Portugal's supreme court to seize his phone records after learning of the alleged messages.
They claim Gerry was sent 10 texts from an unknown number 24 hours before Madeleine disappeared.
And detectives say four messages arrived from the same mystery number the day after she went missing, according to court documents.
But Gerry and wife Kate have dismissed the claims as "utter rubbish".
A source close to them said: "They have had their phone records available for inspection for months. But the police never asked for them. And now they have formally asked, they have been refused.
"Any suggestion of Gerry receiving 10 texts the day before Madeleine disappeared are utter rubbish.
"He hardly used his phone during the holiday and most of the friends with them didn't even have mobiles.
"The only time his phone rang was when work called and he explained he was on holiday. There are no mystery texts. Gerry has nothing to hide. It's yet more nonsense coming from Portugal." more

Whoops!

More on the deleted phone records from Paulo Reis, a worthy read.

So from whom, and what was the content of the fourteen texts messages that Gerry McCann selectively deleted and subsequently found the need to lie about?

It is my personal opinion that 90% of the answers to this case are inseparably linked to the source of said deleted text messages.

Just one last question and then we shall move on. A question you might ask yourself for that matter.

Would Gerry McCann have the wherewithal to implement and carry out such hair-brained scheme as the one we have witnessed without the gears being set in motion by third parties of no little importance or influence?

Part Three, Cadaver Odour.

Disregarding the thousands of column inches that have been written on the subject. Disregarding the thousands of arguments for the accuracy of the dogs' alerts and to a lesser degree, the arguments against the importance of said findings, and quite shamelessly by some that, not should know better, but do know better, we have but a few things to consider.

Originally upped as "large." But I think twenty five year career cop, Jim Gamble, justifies extra large.

Firstly, two irrefutable facts. No one had previously died in the McCann's holiday apartment, likewise nobody had previously met their end in the car hired by the McCanns.

Keeping in mind, that all that has been written about the dogs, for the purpose of this article, and for the sake of my argument, we shall ignore.

What we can't ignore however, are two simple facts, but by virtue of their simplicity, they do in fact become the most damning.

You may wish to remember, that the dogs alerted uniquely to things McCann without exception. On the other hand, you may choose to ignore these facts. It doesn't matter. And why doesn't it matter you may well ask?

It doesn't matter, because Kate McCann acknowledges the existence of both blood residue and cadaver odour, both in the hire car and on her own clothes.

The reasons for such we are asked to believe, range from rotting meat in the car (odour) to the transporting, however unlikely, dirty nappies of the twins. (DNA)

Regarding the cadaver odour on  Kate McCann's clothes, what we are asked to believe is even more unlikely than the dirty nappies explanation. So unlikely in fact, it staggers the imagination.

The reason for Kate McCann's clothes smelling of cadaver, we are incredulously asked to believe, is that prior to the ill fated holiday in Praia da Luz, Kate McCann, as a part time locum in a general practice, came in contact with cadavers. Any number of them, depending on which source you read.

But that's not all we are asked to believe, she came into contact with said cadavers wearing her holiday clothes. And if you like that cake, I have some topping for it, she took Madeleine's soft toy, Cuddle Cat, along with her for the ride.

How hard to confirm or deny this, DCI Andy Redwood?

And of course, not only does Kate McCann acknowledge the existence of cadaver odour, but her husband too, Gerry McCann. Why else would he go to such lengths (America) to discredit the accuracy of the dogs?

And it was to such lengths he went, contacting lawyers in the US and quoting the Eugene Zapata case where the judge wouldn't accept as evidence, the alerts of the dogs.

How did that one work out for you Gerry McCann? Not too good when the Zapata eventually admitted to killing his wife and the subsequent revelations that the dogs were right all along.

How damning do the actions of the parents have to be? Madeleine McCann disappeared in the most controversial circumstances imaginable, and the last two people to see here alive, and statistically the most likely people to be involved in that disappearance, the parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, are doing their utmost to explain or discredit the stench of death that surrounds them.  

I'm sorry, not in my world. Madeleine McCann was not abducted.

For Brenda Leyland RIP

All issues mentioned here are searchable and verifiable.

For Martin Roberts. Catherine Meyer
------------------------------

There are 'pictures' in the 'article' and a couple of 'telling' videos, I'll try to 'post' later.

Hi Jeanmonroe, thank you for collating this article from onlyinamerica.  I wonder if dear DCI Nicola Wall has had a chance to read this article, especially with regard to a former colleague's statement of "who they wish to interview as suspected" and deleted phone messages eh, Nicola?

Hat Trick
By Dr Martin Roberts
24/01/2016

“Neither the parents or any other member of the group are either persons of interest or suspects” (DCI Andy Redwood (retd.)).

From which it follows, that should anyone develop evidence to suggest the McCanns circulated photographs of Madeleine’s pyjamas taken before she disappeared, said evidence would be ignored by Operation Grange on the grounds that the McCanns were neither persons of interest nor suspects.

It follows also, that should someone bring to the attention of investigators conflicting statements by Dr David Payne, which record the complete impossibility of his last seeing Madeleine McCann on two separate occasions,* said contradiction too would be ignored, on the grounds that other members of the group were neither persons of interest nor suspects.

Despite these observations seeming to indicate misdemeanours at the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, prior to Madeleine McCann’s supposed abduction (supposed by Operation Grange that is) and hence prior to ‘point zero’ (as defined by DCI Redwood), they would not qualify for further scrutiny within the remit of the investigation, for the reasons above mentioned.

Robert Murat, however, is not to be numbered among other members of the McCann group and has already been recognised as a person of interest to the investigation.

So when, in an earlier statement to Police, he alludes to Madeleine McCann having been taken from an apartment other than 5A,** there can be no excuse for overlooking the significance of his remarks, because, for Madeleine to have been removed from somewhere else, despite her parents declaring her absent from their own apartment, she must have been relocated beforehand.

Martin Roberts

~

*At 6.30 p.m. in the company of Kate McCann, according to David Payne’s own rogatory statement [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

*At 5.00 p.m. in the company of both parents, according to a document read and referred to by DC 1756 Marshall in October 2007 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

** Robert Murat (arguido statement): “never in his life has he entered the apartment where Madeleine was when she disappeared, neither before nor after the events under investigation." [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

**Barend Wijdom (witness statement): “On that morning the witness saw Murat moving around the site a lot and saw him enter and leave the apartment Madeleine disappeared from, without knowing whether he was with anyone there. He said that Murat moved a lot between the authorities and journalists." [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Supposing both Murat and Weijdom to be telling the truth, then Murat can only be referring to an apartment other than 5A.

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

Copied from: onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com

Good article from Dr Martin Roberts exposing contradictions in the statements given by both Jenny and Robert Murat;

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

[size=30][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][/size]

The Sirens of The Lambs

By Dr Martin Roberts
February 10, 2016

“Eeyore, Eeyore”

It would appear that much can be gleaned from the ‘sound of sirens’, just as Simon and Garfunkel once suggested. Jenny Murat in particular was in no doubt about that on the morning of Friday 4 May, when interacting with a lady journalist (Maria Cecilia Pereria Peres) and an unidentified male, while visiting unoccupied premises in Praia da Luz. According to the journalist’s account of their conversation (as given to police on 23 May, 2007):

“The previous night she heard the Police arrive, due to the sirens, according to her at 22h00. The old lady said she had been eating dinner with her son when she heard the sirens, that is the Police, it being that it was at that time that she became aware of the disappearance of a girl from the ‘Ocean Club’.”

Thus sirens at 22.00 equals ‘Police’, associated with personal awareness of a little girl’s disappearance.

Immediately one has to ask how any of this is at all possible, when the local police were not contacted until 22.40 and the first patrol to arrive turned up at 23.00? Even theydidn’t know the nature of the crime they were sent to investigate until they asked at the Ocean Club reception!

Jenny Murat seems to have been ahead of the game somewhat.

When interviewed by police 11 days later (15 May) she had rather more to impart:

“About 19h50 she went to the ‘Batista’ supermarket to buy bread. Then she went back to the house where she arrived more or less at the same time as Robert. Later they sat in the kitchen where they were talking for some time, having also eaten.”

And

“While they were talking in the kitchen, she is not able to say when, she recalls having heard a siren ringing at least once. Although not usual, she also did not "connect" because it could possibly have been an ambulance. (She recalls that sometimes, when the wind blows in a certain direction, it is possible to hear in the house sirens of police cars or ambulances that pass on the EN125).”

So, sirens don’t necessarily equal ‘Police’ after all, their sirens being indistinguishable from those of ambulances in Portugal, according to Jenny Murat at least. Wrong. The Portuguese emergency services (police and ambulance) operate quite different sirens on their vehicles, except at night, when they are not utilised at all.*

If we now juxtapose this observation of Jenny Murat’s with that of her son Robert on the same topic, things then take a very odd turn indeed.

From his arguido statement of 11 May we learn that:

“He was home with his mother, when at 22:30 or a little later, he heard a siren of an ambulance or police. He commented on that with his mother, however, did not leave the house to investigate. He did not leave again until the morning, having gone to bed around midnight.”

Once again the identity of the siren remains unspecified.

Besides wondering why anyone would step outside their house to ‘investigate’ a distant siren, there is an obvious discrepancy between the two reports of half-an-hour to account for. However, if an emergency services siren should be heard in the Portuguese Algarve, any unfamiliarity with the sound would be dispelled by seeing the vehicle to which it belonged. If Robert Murat didn’t bother to take a look outside the house, and there is no indication that his mother did so, how was she able to conclude, for the benefit of her Friday morning acquaintance, that a siren heard at 22.00 signalled the police arriving to investigate the disappearance of a little girl?

Given her advancing years, and offering a generous helping of charity, we might imagine that Jenny Murat latched onto the detail of events as reported earlier that Friday morning and simply ‘put two and two together’ as regards the siren she says she heard at 22.00, and which her son describes as audible at ’22.30 or a little later.’ In reality, even had the GNR turned up at the Ocean Club with their siren wailing (which we have it on good authority they did not), it wouldn’t have been much before 23.00. And what we do not get from either of the Murat’s is a conspicuous connection between the sound they claim to have heard a considerable distance away and a more blatant announcement in Praia da Luz, anything up to 30 minutes, or even an hour, afterwards.

The pearls of redacted uncertainty do not end there however.

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

Selfless altruism?

Kitchenalia

According to Robert Murat (in relation again to the Thursday):

“(He) headed for his residence, where he arrived between 19.15 and 19.30….He does not know if his mother was at home, but thinks so….After entering, he may have taken some tea and turned on the TV or it was already on. He may also have read a newspaper. He talked with the mother, who if she was not there had arrived shortly afterwards…. He ate a sandwich of cheese and ham sitting in the kitchen with his mother, until 22:00 or 23:00.”

So Robert’s mother, Jenny Murat, may (or may not) have been at home when Robert himself may (or may not) have had a cuppa, and may (or may not) have turned on the TV, before reading a newspaper (or not) and speaking to his mother (who, don’t forget, may not in fact have been there at the time).

And this from someone who purports to be a businessman?

But do let’s pay attention to the last of the imponderables in this instance:

“He ate a sandwich of cheese and ham sitting in the kitchen with his mother, until 22:00 or 23:00.”

Jenny Murat too has a ‘take’ on what transpired in her kitchen, and when. It is somewhat different to her son’s account however:

“She recalls that they were talking until close to midnight”.

Some latitude in recall is all very well, but 11.00 p.m. cannot be considered ‘close to midnight’, much less 10.00 p.m. Things start to go even further awry when the PJ question Robert Murat a couple of months later (11 July):

“Questioned he says that when he heard the sound of a siren he was with his mother in the kitchen, still talking, it would be about 22:00/22:30”

And then the ‘maybe, maybe nots’ are remorselessly exposed:

“He remembers that at one time he spoke with his mother, however he cannot recall whether she arrived meanwhile or she was already there. He remembers that they were sitting in the kitchen and the defendant remembering that he ate, how long with his mother he does not remember. Confronted with the testimony of his mother who told that she arrived at the house around 20.30 and that Robert had also arrived at that moment, he says that he cannot account for having arrived at the same time as his mother.”

What are we to make of these peculiar discrepancies? 

First, let’s reprise a particular couplet of Robert Murat’s:

“He ate a sandwich of cheese and ham sitting in the kitchen with his mother, until 22:00 or 23:00.”

and

“He was home with his mother, when at 22:30 or a little later, he heard a siren of an ambulance or police.

Obviously, if option 1 (22.00), embedded in the first of these statements, is correct, then Robert Murat would not have heard the later siren from his mother’s kitchen at all. If the siren event were genuine, he must have been conversing with her there for longer to have heard it from that same location. And if it were not genuine?

If the siren were more imaginary than real, then Robert Murat could conceivably have parted company with his mother as early as 10.00 p.m. Of course “She recalls that they were talking until close to midnight”, but then she also either fails completely to recall when she heard the mystery siren, or positions the experience chronologically at 10.00 p.m.

The bottom line, as they say, is that, of the two persons who experience the same unidentified sound, only one, Robert Murat, places it comfortably within the hour between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. His mother puts it no later than 10.00.

Since it is an occurrence they apparently discuss between them, we might suppose Robert Murat’s whereabouts at the time to have been his mother’s kitchen. Both the fact of the siren and its timing are of some significance therefore. ‘Genuine and late’ affords Murat the younger an alibi for an hour of some importance. ‘Fictitious or early’, however, and he could have been anywhere. Jenny Murat does her level best to repel boarders by talking until ‘close to midnight’. Unfortunately for her son, she seems unable to defer what they were talking about.

The power of suggestion

Another reprise is appropriate:

“He was home with his mother, when at 22:30 or a little later, he heard a siren of an ambulance or police. He commented on that with his mother, however, did not leave the house to investigate. He did not leave again until the morning, having gone to bed around midnight.”

Besides driving home the point that ‘he did not leave the house to investigate’ (Why would he? The supposed siren was nowhere near), Murat junior describes having ‘commented on’ the siren ‘with his mother’.

This seems an odd turn of phrase; one which has probably migrated in translation from, ‘mentioned to his mother’ (as in, ‘Did you hear that siren, mother?’), following which, Jenny Murat dutifully logs the experience in her mind’s ear, to be recounted in due course. There is no reciprocal suggestion on her part that she brought the sound to her son’s attention or ‘discussed’ it in any way. As she says, she did not ‘connect’ with it. 

Robert Murat, having introduced a shared, putatively relevant exterior reference, is therefore free to position it in time, thereby confirming his own whereabouts. What he fails to anticipate, however, is his mother’s dogged refusal to advance her own auditory clock beyond 22.00, even by half-an-hour.

This is yet another story badly told. Just how badly we may judge from the following:

RM: “He ate a sandwich of cheese and ham sitting in the kitchen with his mother, until 22:00 or 23:00.”

JM: “She recalls that they were talking until close to midnight”

And to which we might add:

RM: “I was in my mother’s kitchen until one a.m.” (to Judy Bacharach, Vanity Fair contributing editor, and reported in the article, ‘Unanswered Prayers’, Jan. 31, 2008).

Between them Robert Murat and his mother wish it to be known that Robert went to bed that night, sometime within the four-hour period 10.00 p.m. to 1.00 a.m. Given such a range, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that Robert Murat was not in fact inside the house at all between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m., never mind the kitchen.

Of course ‘they were talking until close to midnight’.

Really.

If there is one item of domestic equipment the use of which is guaranteed to kill any conversation stone dead it is a computer. 

Robert Murat had no recollection of using a computer that night, a situation confirmed by forensic analysis of his personal device, which CEOP, in their report complementing that of the PJ’s own technical staff, helpfully labelled ‘Robert’. However, there was another device in almost continuous use that same night, and which CEOP have identified as ‘Jenny’ (no prizes for guessing to whom that one belonged). According to CEOP, ‘Jenny’ the computer was switched on and utilised by Jenny the user, from 10.00 p.m. until 11.34. If Jenny Murat was ‘talking’ all that time, then it was via a keyboard.**

Placing the last of Robert Murat’s above-mentioned claims in its proper context disperses a little more fog:

“All I can say is that I am innocent. There is no way I was at the resort that night. Full stop. I was in my mother’s kitchen until one a.m. Yes, we are a kitchen kind of family. I spent the night at the house.”

Robert Murat may not have been at the resort, but there are lots of other places he might have been. And spending the night somewhere is what we do when we sleep through the early hours. It does not necessarily embrace something we might choose to do beforehand, whether there or somewhere else.

Robert Murat’s explanation of his whereabouts during the crucial hour 10.00 – 11.00 p.m. on Thursday night 3 May, 2007, is clearly suspect, his alibi being furnished unconvincingly by his own mother, who, when interviewed subsequently by the media said, on her son’s behalf, that he was 

"Very bitter. Somebody has set him up."

"How do you think that happened?"

"We don't know. Probably the people who did it."

I can understand being angry (livid actually) at being ‘set up’ by a perfect stranger, but ‘bitter’? That’s more a description of how one might feel toward a duplicitous acquaintance, close or casual. 

And who set Robert up? Why, ‘The people who did it’. Not the by-now-over-the-hills-and-far-away abductor you’ll notice, but the people plural, who had obviously stuck around to see to it that Robert Murat was ‘clocked’ that Thursday night.

This was of course Jenny Murat talking, not Robert. That’s what it looks like anyway. But when you consider that she is describing her son’s emotions, how on earth is she to know he feels ‘bitter’ without either asking him or being told. It’s not something one can read in another’s facial expression. For this moment on record, therefore, it is indeed Robert Murat talking, albeit by proxy, and it behoves us to listen just as carefully to what is being said here as to the sound of sirens.

 Martin Roberts