Madeleine McCann latest: are police any closer to knowing the truth? 6/57

Madeleine McCann latest: are police any closer to knowing the truth? 6/57
The Telegraph
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter6










  
 Provided by The Telegraph

 In the nine years since Madeleine McCann went missing from a holiday apartment in Portugal, myriad theories about what happened to her have taken root, but only one fact remains uncontested: that she was reported missing at 10.14pm on the evening of Thursday, May 3, 2007.

It was at that point, when police were called, that the clock started ticking on the biggest missing persons investigation for decades, a search which remains very much active to this day.

Facts, the hard currency of any police investigation, have proved almost uniquely elusive; every sighting, every timing and every witness statement has been disputed in the years that have elapsed since.

Madeleine’s parents  Kate and Gerry McCann quickly came under suspicion by Portuguese police, a development that the couple are certain meant vital clues were missed in the first hours and days after Madeleine’s disappearance.

© Provided by The Telegraph  Every possible theory has been explored since then: that Madeleine was abducted by a paedophile; that she was killed during a bungled burglary and her body dumped; that she was abducted by traffickers and sold to a childless couple; that she wandered out of the apartment and died in a tragic accident, and many more besides.

To date, however, not one shred of proof of what happened to Madeleine has been unearthed. The question of what happened to Madeleine would become not only a personal tragedy for the McCann family, but a national obsession in the UK and in Portugal.

Madeleine, of Rothley, Leicestershire, was on the penultimate day of her family holiday on the day she vanished. She had spent part of the day playing by the swimming pool in the Ocean Club resort, where the  last known picture of her  was taken at 2.29pm.

Reports of when she was last seen alive by independent witnesses vary, but she was still alive at around 6pm, when she and her parents went into their apartment at 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, where Madeleine and her two-year-old twin brother and sister were readied for bed.

© Provided by The Telegraph  The McCanns told police they put the children to bed at around 7pm, and that all three were asleep by 8.30pm, when they went for dinner at a tapas bar 50 yards across the pool from their apartment. There they met seven friends with whom they were on holiday.

The McCanns say checks were made on their children every half-hour, sometimes by other members of the party, comprising Dr Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner, from Exeter, Dr Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, from London, and David and Fiona Payne, from Leicester, together with Mrs Payne's mother Dianne Webster.

Mrs Webster, however, reportedly told police that each couple was responsible for checking their own children.

Gerry McCann went to the apartment at 9.05pm, when all the children were sleeping soundly and Madeleine was still in her bed, he says.

The police in Portugal, however, have never accepted the McCanns’ evidence as undisputed. They initially regarded the McCanns as suspects, and believed the McCanns could have killed Madeleine any time after the last independent sighting of her at 6pm.

A  timeline of that evening  shows that Dr Matthew Oldfield went into apartment 5A at 9.30pm, and noticed that Madeleine’s room seemed lighter than the others, as if the shutters had been partially opened. He could not be certain whether Madeleine was there.

© Provided by The Telegraph  Kate McCann was next to check on the children, at 10pm. She ran back to the restaurant moments later, saying Madeleine was missing. The McCanns and their friends made a quick search of the resort, but after finding no sign of Madeleine the police were called at 10.14pm.

The McCanns told police they had put Madeleine to bed with her pink comfort blanket and favourite soft toy, Cuddle Cat, and was wearing short-sleeved Marks & Spencer Eeyore pyjamas.

Crucially, however,  the apartment was not initially treated as a crime scene, meaning around 20 people went in and out before it was sealed off, contaminating potential evidence.

Roadblocks were not put in place until 10am the next day, border guards were not informed for hours and Interpol did not put out a global missing persons alert for five days.

It meant that the most crucial time of any missing persons investigation – the first 24 hours – was largely squandered, and police have been trying to catch up ever since. Yet potentially key sightings and artists’ impressions of suspects were kept from the public for years.

Mary and Martin Smith, from Ireland, told police they saw a man carrying a child matching Madeleine’s description at around 10pm on Rua da Escola Primaria, 500 yards from the McCanns’ apartment.

© Provided by The Telegraph  He was heading towards the beach, did not look like a tourist and did not seem comfortable carrying the child, they said.

Their evidence was compelling, but it was only in October 2013 that two e-fit images of the man, compiled by police from descriptions given by Mr and Mrs Smith, were released by Scotland Yard to coincide with a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine’s disappearance. He remains a suspect.

There were also blind alleys. Jane Tanner, one of the tapas diners, told police that when she left the restaurant at 9.15pm to check on her own daughter, she saw  a man carrying a small child, wearing pink pyjamas, in his arms.

For years afterwards, the mystery man would be a key suspect, if not the prime suspect, but in October 2013 the Metropolitan Police announced that a British holidaymaker who had been taking his daughter back to his apartment after picking her up from an evening crèche, had been identified as the man Miss Tanner had seen and ruled out of the inquiry.

The first person to become an “arguido”, or official suspect, was Robert Murat, a local property consultant, whose home was searched 12 days after the disappearance. He was formally cleared of suspicion in 2008 and won £600,000 in libel damages from 11 British newspapers.

© Provided by The Telegraph  The Portuguese Police, however, were suspicious of the McCanns from the beginning, partly due to a clash of cultures.

They could not believe that parents would leave their children unattended, and did not approve of the McCanns’ use of the media to raise the profile of the case, in a country where secrecy is the hallmark of all police investigations.

The arrival of two British sniffer dogs in Portugal in July 2007 only hardened that belief. One dog was trained to sniff out traces of human blood, the other was trained to sniff out the scent of dead bodies.

Both dogs were taken to several locations connected to the investigation, and  gave alerts only in apartment 5A . Later, the cadaver dog gave an alert inside a Renault car, hired by the McCanns 24 days after Madeleine went missing.

DNA tests on samples taken from the car proved inconclusive, but the Portuguese police wrongly told journalists they were a “100 per cent match” for Madeleine.

The Portuguese police came up with the  theory that Madeleine had been killed by her parents by accident, possibly by being given an overdose of a sedative to make her sleep, that they had hidden the body, faked her abduction and then used the hire car weeks later to move her body to a burial location.

© Provided by The Telegraph  In early September 2007, according to Kate McCann, she was told by the Portuguese police that if she admitted that Madeleine had died in the apartment and she had hidden her body she might only serve a two-year sentence and Gerry McCann would not be charged at all. On September 7 the couple were both made arguidos.

Goncalo Amaral, the chief inspector who had been in charge of the case, resigned in 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and the McCanns had faked the abduction.

The McCanns sued him for libel, and won: Amaral was ordered to pay them £394,000 in damages, but in April 2016 that decision was overturned by an appeal court.

In July 2008 the Portuguese attorney general announced that the McCanns were no longer suspects and the investigation was closed.

The McCanns hired private investigators to carry on the search, but it was not until May 2011 that Theresa May, the Home Secretary, announced that Scotland Yard would review the evidence in the case, which had until then been the responsibility of Leicestershire Police, working with the Portuguese authorities.

© Provided by The Telegraph  In July 2013 Operation Grange, the review of the available evidence, became a full-blown criminal inquiry, and Scotland Yard said it was concentrating on a “criminal act by a stranger”.

The Yard announced it was looking into possible links between Madeleine’s disappearance and bogus charity collectors who were knocking on doors in Praia da Luz at the time. Between 3.30pm and 5.30pm on the day in question there were four separate sightings of men who said they were collecting money for an orphanage.

British detectives believe men whose photofits they released in 2013 may have been engaged in reconnaissance for a pre-planned abduction or for burglaries, in keeping with the theory that Madeleine may have been killed by a burglar she disturbed.

Scotland Yard also said in 2013 it was eager to trace a blond-haired man who had been seen loitering in the area on April 30 and May 2, looking at apartment 1A.

He was described as “ugly” with a spotty complexion and a large nose. Two blond-haired men were seen on the balcony of the empty apartment 5C, two doors from 5A, at 2.30pm on the day of the disappearance.

Blond men were seen again near 5A at 4pm and 6pm that day, and at 11pm that night. Following the appeal on Crimewatch, the Portuguese police re-opened their own investigation.

Scotland Yard officers travelled to Portugal in 2014 to interview four suspects and carried out  searches of the area around the apartment  using ground-penetrating radar. One of the men who was interview has since been eliminated from the inquiry, but the other three men remain arguidos.

© Provided by The Telegraph  The British officers questioned them on suspicion of being part of a burglary gang that panicked after killing Madeleine during a bungled break-in. They all protested their innocence and were released without charge.

Another suspect was Euclides Monteiro, a convicted burglar with a drug habit, who had been sacked from the Ocean Club in 2006.

Mobile phone tracking showed he had been in the area on the night of the disappearance, and police believe he may have been burgling apartments there to fund his drug addiction. He died in a tractor accident in 2009.

© Provided by The Telegraph  In March 2014 Scotland Yard announced that  a lone intruder sexually assaulted five girls  aged between seven and 10 in the Algarve between 2004 and 2006. The man, who has never been caught, was said to have a “very, very unhealthy interest” in young white girls.

The four incidents, one of which involved two girls, were among 12 in which men had entered holiday accommodation in the area, including two incidents in Praia da Luz.

The force also said it was looking at 38 “people of interest” and were researching the backgrounds of 530 known sex offenders, including 59 regarded as high interest.

In December 2014 Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood, the man who had led Operation Grange, retired and was replaced on Dec 22 by DCI Nicola Wall, who travelled to Portugal the same month to conduct further inquiries.

© Provided by The Telegraph  DCI Wall and her team interviewed seven suspects and four witnesses, but have not released any information about what they discovered, insisting they will not provide a "running commentary" on the case.

In September 2015 the Met  announced that it was scaling back the Operation Grange investigation team  from 29 officers to four. With the cost of the inquiry topping £10 million, the force said it was following "a small number of focused lines of inquiry".

It added that the "vast majority" of the work of Operation Grange had been completed. In total officers had reviewed more than 40,000 documents, took 1,338 statements and collected 1,027 exhibits.

The Met said 60 "persons of interest" had been investigated, 650 sex offenders considered and 8,685 potential sightings investigated.

Then, in April 2016, came an announcement by the Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe that his officers had boiled down the evidence to "one final lead".

© Provided by The Telegraph  Having failed to substantiate other theories, police are reportedly left with one of the original theories - that Madeleine was killed during a botched burglary.

The Met wants to re-interview three suspects who were placed at the scene through analysis of their mobile phones: Jose Carlos da Silva, 30, who used to drive guests to their apartments at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Ricardo Rodrigues, 24, and Paulo Ribeiro, 53.

They have previously admitted petty theft from apartments at the complex but denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

Kate and Gerry McCann  remain convinced their daughter is alive  and that they will one day be reunited. The hunt to find her continues.

Now we know why the Telegraph is such a reputable paper: The lies and distortions are very professionally executed. First rate job, Telegraph! 

Not a bad article considering the journalist had to compress 9 years into a few paragraphs. He did a great job getting the crucial facts in there. For instance, noting that it was a cadaver dog who alerted to the car. No matter that it wasn't a 100% match the point here is that there had to be a cadaver and so whose cadaver was it?

sharonl wrote:

The Met wants to re-interview three suspects who were placed at the scene through analysis of their mobile phones: Jose Carlos da Silva, 30, who used to drive guests to their apartments at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Ricardo Rodrigues, 24, and Paulo Ribeiro, 53.

They have previously admitted petty theft from apartments at the complex but denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.

My, or as our colonial cousins might state, wow, petty holiday camp theft to child abduction and murder, now that really is a seismic leap.

As for the Portuguese police impeding the British police enquiries by not cooperating with the reinterviewing of the named suspects, this really is strictly for the proletariat, because if any of the aforementioned were in fact involved, they would simply lawyer themselves up a la the McCanns et cie and refuse to answer any questions.

Yu'all gotta laff, doncha.

If you visit the Telegraph article then certain parts of the text are underlined in red to provide a link to previous reporting on the case. Given the way that the case has been reported on up to now I sense a shift in the tone of the article.
If one lists the actual words that are underlined (bear in mind that there is more to each aspect than the highlighted bits) it provides an interesting slant. The underlined words are:

Madeleine McCann

Kate and Gerry McCann quickly came under suspicion by Portuguese police

Abducted by a paedophile/ killed during a bungled burglary/ abducted by traffickers

Last known picture of her

Timeline of that evening

The apartment was not initially treated as a crime scene

Were released by Scotland Yard to coincide with a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction

A man carrying a small child wearing pink pyjamas

Won £600,000 in libel damages from 11 British newspapers

Gave alerts only in apartment 5A

Theory that Madeleine had been killed by her parents by accident

If she admitted that Madeleine had died in the apartment and she had hidden her body

April 2016 that decision was overturned

A full blown criminal inquiry

The article goes on to progress the story up to the present day but is The Telegraph dropping hints here? i.e. problems with the McCann's story and the case against them in general - lack of forensics, sniffer dog evidence, the production of the timeline, the last photo.

Just thought this article in particular sounded different to other I have read recently.

pendragon2007 wrote:As I stated in another post recently - How on earth could the police get closer to something they have been running away from since day 1. First they interfere with PJ investigation and then get GA removed from case. Now they claim it's PJ blocking their investigation. They're making themselves and UK look like a laughing stock to the rest of the World.

It could be like this ...

OG...We are unable to substantiate where or what happened to Madeleine, we were not the original 'parties' who claimed to have left her alone in a foreign holiday apartment; we conclude therefore that can not be our fault? 



Could've saved 12 mil!

New blog from textusa, http://textusa.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-last-chance-saloon.html

Another article this week that definitely doesn't feel very pro-McCann

Claire25 wrote:Another article this week that definitely doesn't feel very pro-McCann

What a coincidence - the very week that a judge rules that hacking occurred at the Sun under Rebekah Brooks' leadership, the journalists start doing their jobs properly, And we see that crazy review, Operation Strange  Grange, that SHE demanded, coming to an end. 

Will we start to see justice when this bully is out of the picture?

melisande wrote:Not a bad article considering the journalist had to compress 9 years into a few paragraphs. He did a great job getting the crucial facts in there. For instance, noting that it was a cadaver dog who alerted to the car. No matter that it wasn't a 100% match the point here is that there had to be a cadaver and so whose cadaver was it?

Agreed - it is notable for being the very first MSM article for at least 4 years to even mention the cadaver dog. And it does so in a factual rather than dismissive or derisory manner. It's left very much as an unexplained fact of the case. Which it is.