MRS FENN'S EVIDENCE - TONY BENNETT'S FULL REPLY TO HIDEHO 16 Jun 2016

by **Tony Bennett** Thu 16 Jun - 23:25

A FULL REPLY TO HIDEHO - PART 1

My replies in blue

(Thread locked. Being discussed here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])

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HideHo wrote: I do not like to disagree with someone's theory unless I have studied it, not to disprove but to see if I can support it. I'm not looking to be right...I just want the truth.

For this reason I spent a considerable amount of time studying the press reports around August 18th to see if I could see when, how and why it would happen that TM could coerce Mrs Fenn prior to her August 20th statement.

I was, of course taking info from media but often quotes are used and these within the media reports cannot be ignored. Here is what I found... RED HIGHLIGHTS ARE QUOTES.

I was looking at where the info came from and if from the Portuguese press then that would have unlikely been from TM. Unfortunately, although the front pages are available I cannot find many of the PT articles except this one...Sol seem to have spoken to Mrs Fenn Friday 17th or before.

REPLY: I think the main questions in my mind are: 1. What, or who, prompted Mrs Fenn to make an appointment with the PJ in Portimao on 20 Monday 20 August, and 2. Who supplied all the information to the Portuguese and British press.

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Sol paper edition, August 18 2007:

New contradictions in Maddie’s case

by Felicia Cabrita, with Margarida Davim

Translation by summer

The English started by saying they took turns every 15 minutes in order to, through the windows of the rooms where the children were sleeping, listen if anything abnormal was happening. This ‘vigilance’ system, which they assure was efficient throughout a week of holidays, is questioned by an English citizen who lives in the apartment above the one that was occupied by Kate and Gerry McCann.

Senn (sic) told Sol that, on the night before she disappeared, Maddie cried for quite some time, calling out ‘Daddy, Daddy!’

REPLY: On the face of it, this tells us that Sol spoke to Mrs Fenn directly. If so, that must have been on or before Friday 17 August. I cannot however take this as absolute proof that there was a direct conversation between a Sol reporter and Mrs Fenn.

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The first reports seem to have come from the Express that include a lot of interesting comments...

WIDOW WITH VITAL CLUES WAS NEVER QUESTIONED

BRAVERY: Mrs Fenn challenged intruder

Saturday August 18,2007
by David Pilditch in Praia da Luz

A British widow has come forward with new information which could help Portuguese detectives solve the mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, the Daily Express can reveal.

REPLY: I see that David Pilditch was in Praia da Luz at the time. From this I draw the inference that the story may have been given directly to reporters based in Praia da Luz and not to reporters in London. But maybe both happened.

Ex-pat Pamela Fenn, who is in her 70’s, has told police she has three ‘bombshell’ clues she believes could be vital to the inquiry.

REPLY: Again, on the face of it, we are now told that Mrs Fenn has already (a) spoken to the police and (b) spoken to Sol.

In the weeks before Madeleine disappeared Mrs Fenn scared off an intruder who had apparently let himself into her apartment with a key.

REPLY: ‘In the weeks before’ – vague, and rather contrary to Mrs Fenn’s ‘the week before’. No date has ever been given for this alleged burglary.

It was one of a series of similar crimes reported to Portuguese police.

REPLY: Was it really? What evidence, if any, do we have of this?

In a second development Mrs Fenn’s niece reported seeing a man who matched the description of a suspect peering into the McCanns’ holiday apartment around the time Madeleine went missing.

REPLY: That’s Carol Tranmer (not named in the article for some reason). The man allegedly seen by Carol Tranmer was described by her – in her rogatory interview over a year later, as, (quotes from her statement):

not short, I would say about 178cm [NOTE: probably a translation from 5’ 10”], medium height, average stature,
blonde hair
with a lot of hair, very short…a style close to shaven
the head was very sculptured, more oval-shaped
he had big eyes, ‘even though I was looking upwards’ (?)
wearing a blue-grey T-shirt, not dark blue, more of a pallid colour, with short sleeves, a ‘common’ T-shirt
I saw no trousers or shoes or anything else
European but not Portuguese, not dark, I would say that he looked Scandinavian, he was very light, could have been British or Scandinavian, not dark, nor bronzed from the sun, a light colour, not white
no freckles
a ‘person of common appearance’, ‘ordinary looking’
aged between 30 and 35
furtive

So far as I am aware, we do not have the statement she made back in England about this on 8 May, so we don’t know what description of the man she gave on that occasion.

It is a detailed description which, as some have noted on the thread to date, is in many respects the polar opposite of Jane Tamnner’s description.

Let me carefully review the descriptions given by Jane Tanner of ‘Tannerman’ and Carol Tranmer of ‘Tranmerman’.

Gerry McCann told us on 25 May 2007, in front of the world’s press, that the man (based on Jane Tanner’s description, but we did not know that at the time) was:

“White, aged 35-40, 5’ 10” in height, wearing ‘beige’ or ‘light’ trousers, and wearing a dark jacket and shoes”. (Later, Gerry made a big fuss of stating that the height of the man had got ‘lost in translation’ and that Jane had actually said he was between 5’ 7” and 5’ 9”).

Jane Tanner’s first description of the abductor she claimed to have seen was that he was white, had short hair, was of average height and build, and ‘was carrying a bundle, maybe a blanket.

Days later, in a second statement, she ‘remembered’ that she had actually seen ‘a blonde-haired girl wearing pyjamas with a pinkish aspect’.

But in October we were presented with the now famous sketch by Brian Kennedy-employed ‘F.B.I.-trained forensic artist’ Melissa Little. Explaining her description, she later said, for example: “The one thing I remember is the hair…he seemed to have quite a lot of dark, ‘reasonably-long-to-the-neck’ hair…sleek and black’.”. Now she didn’t say t6he man was ‘white’ but said “He looked more local or Mediterranean-looking and had swarthy skin”. Clearly this was very different from her first description. The massive contradictions over time in Jane Tanner’s evidence make it plain to almost everybody that her descriptions were all fabrications, a situation that DCI Andy Redwood of Operation Grange tried to rectify by producing the equally unlikely ‘Crecheman’.
And it’s plain that Carol Tranmer’s description in her Rogatory Interview of the man she claimed to have seen on 3 May was very different from Melissa Little’s sketch of Tannerman.

But now let’s get back to that article by David Pilditch. He wrote: “In a second development, Mrs Fenn’s niece reported seeing a man who matched the description of a suspect peering into the McCanns’ holiday apartment around the time Madeleine went missing”.

And let’s ask this key question. Who exactly was in a positon to know what ‘Mrs Fenn’s niece’ - Carol Tranmer - had actually told the police?

Who was in a positon to know that the descriptions of ‘Tannerman’ and ‘Tranmerman’ ‘matched’?

In actual fact, they didn’t match at all.

So this claim of ‘matching’ almost certainly did not come from either the Portuguese or British police.

I suggest therefore that this ‘matching’ claim was produced by the person who supplied Pilditch and Sol and the other newspapers with the material for those articles. This ‘matching’ claim was manna from heaven for the McCanns because it reinforced in the public mind that there really was an abductor. I suggest that the most likely candidate by far is Clarence Mitchell.

In addition to all of the above, there are several reasons for doubting whether Carol Tranmer was really there that week in Portugal, which have been analysed elsewhere. Moreover, in another newspaper account we are told that Carol Tranmer actually witnessed the burglary, contradicting her own account. Another version has Carol Tranmer ‘staying with’ Mrs Fenn the week Madeleine was reported missing, whereas in her statement she clearly says she was not – and was (so she says) ‘house-hunting’ and only visited her aunt. The statements and evidence of Carol Tranmer, with all their contradictions and puzzles, need to be examined with just as much care as that of Mrs Fenn.

And she revealed vital details of the movements of Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, and their holiday friends in the run up to the night of May 3 - when Madeleine vanished. Even though she lives in the apartment directly upstairs the police had never tried to get in touch with her

REPLY: This is contradicted elsewhere. It is surely beyond doubt that Mrs Fenn must have been amongst the very first people the police questioned when they interviewed all 400 occupants of the Ocean Club complex soon after Madeleine’s reported disappearance.

Incredibly Mrs Fenn, who lives in the apartment directly above the flat the McCanns were staying in, was never interviewed by Portuguese police, it was claimed yesterday.

REPLY: Again, this is contradicted elsewhere

It was only when a team of British officers were called in to help carry out a major review of the case that the information was acted on.

REPLY: In the last few sentences, Pilditch’s article smears the Portuguese police and praises the British police. I regard that as suspicious and I suggest that these thoughts come from a ‘source’ and not Mrs Fenn herself.

Now Mrs Fenn will be formally interviewed for the first time by Portuguese detectives at police headquarters in Portimao on Monday morning. Her niece, who has not been named, will also give a sworn testimony next week, after she was asked to fly to Portugal from Britain. The Daily Express can reveal they are among a series of witnesses will be called in to give statements in the light of new evidence which has emerged.

REPLY: Who supplied the Daily Express with all that information? It’s highly unlikely to have been Mrs Fenn. In al probability it was that ‘source’.

Detectives are preparing to swoop on new suspects after a breakthrough in a major new line of inquiry. Investigators are now working on the theory Madeleine, four, died inside the holiday apartment where her family were staying.

REPLY: Strangely enough, this appears to be exactly where Scotland Yard are now, with their suggestions that there was an intruder, that Madeleine ‘may have been dead when she left the apartment’, and a variety of suggestions that ‘Smithman’ (‘the centre of our focus’ – Redwood) might be the intruder and have carried away Madeleine’s dead body.

A police source told The Daily Express: "Next week we will be taking statements from several witnesses. We want to clarify details which may be relevant to the new line of inquiry in the light of the facts we have found."

REPLY: So who supplied the Daily Express with this apparently direct quote? Four possibilities I think:
1 A briefing or authorised leak by someone in Amaral’s team
2 An unauthorised leak by someone in Amaral’s team
3 A British police officer, or
4 Some other ‘source’.
Frankly I tend to rule out alternatives (1) and (2) above because I hardly think that a Portuguese police source (whether authorised or unauthorised) would have so comprehensively rubbished the Portuguese police and praised the British police to the skies.
It could I suppose be a combination

by **Tony Bennett** Fri 17 Jun - 6:51

REPLIES TO HIDEHO PART 2

My replies in blue

HideHo: Mrs Fenn has told police how she scared off an intruder she found in her apartment in the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz in the weeks leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance. There was no sign of a break-in and police believe he may have used a key to get in through the front door. The terrified mother was watching TV in the evening and went to investigate a noise coming from her bedroom. Mrs Fenn, who has lived in Praia da Luz for a number of years, discovered a man scrambling out of the window. She tried to grab his ankle but he escaped. She reported the incident to police but did not believe anything was taken.

REPLY: AS I’ve noted, there are too many versions of this account to trust the above tale. Most relevantly, Mrs Ffenn herself in her statement gives none of these details. Moreover, the claim that Mrs Fenn ‘reported the incident to the police’ is flatly contradicted by other accounts which say the exact opposite.

Mrs Fenn told how she had a niece from Britain staying with her in the week the McCanns were on holiday there. Her niece, who has now been interviewed by detectives in Britain, spotted a suspicious looking man hanging around the McCanns’ apartment around the time Madeleine disappeared. She told the officer the man matched the description of a suspect seen by Jane Tanner one of the McCanns’ holiday friends. Miss Tanner reported seeing the man rushing away from the apartment with a child wrapped in a blanket under his arm. A second witness spotted the man minutes later rushing past the church in the resort and heading to the sea front.

REPLY: I can’t work out who this alleged ‘second witness’ is. Is it supposed to be ‘Smithman’? If so, when did Smithman ‘rush past the church’? Or is there someone else who was reported to be running past the church? Perhaps another member could help us on this?

The dark-haired man was wearing white trousers and a dark jacket.

REPLY: The effect of the above long paragraph is to plant the hypothesis of an abductor very firmly in the reader’s mind. We have:

1 The burglar who leapt from Mrs Fenn’s first floor window
2 Tannerman
3 Bloke seen by Carole Tranmer
4 Bloke seen ‘rushing past the church’
5 ‘Smithman’/bloke seen ‘heading to the sea front’ (if different from (4) above).

And yet there are reasonable grounds for suggesting that all of these five are just ‘phantoms’.

I suggest that this entire paragraph of Pilditch’s report has been given to Pildicth on a plate by a ‘source’.

Mrs Fenn also told police that two nights before Madeleine disappeared she heard a child crying in the McCanns’ apartment. Her screams carried on from around 10.30pm to 11.45pm until family members returned from a night out. A friend of Mrs Fenn [not Edna Glynn] told The Daily Express last night: "She is an elderly lady who is quite nervous and was very shaken up after the break-in. She was surprised that neither the police nor the McCanns had approached her for information before. Even though she lives in the apartment directly upstairs the police had never tried to get in touch with her to ask her if she saw or heard anything the night Madeleine disappeared.

REPLY: Now I think we are reaching the heart of the matter. Who is this ‘Friend of Mrs Fenn’? Again I do not find it remotely credible that the Portuguese police never visited her in the days after Madeleine was reported missing.

"The first time a police officer spoke to her was when the British officers with sniffer dogs knocked on her door and searched her apartment. [July 31st?]
She told an officer what she knew and now she has been asked to make a formal statement. Portuguese officers have told her they will pick her up at 10am on Monday and drive her to police headquarters in Portimao.

REPLY: I only ask if we have any corroboration of British officers ‘knocking on her door’ and searching her apartment.

"On the night she found an intruder she was sitting at home watching TV when she heard a noise in her bedroom. She went to investigate. The man must have heard her coming and was scrambling out of the window. She just saw the back of his head and arm and she tried to push him out of the window. She was shaking with fear and called the police. There was no sign of a break in and she thought he must have somehow come in through the front door. She now thinks the information may prove significant in the investigation.

REPLY: See my comments above. Was this honestly the first time she thought (if she did) that this frightening burglary event might be of interest to the PJ?

"Her niece who lives in England was staying with her when the McCanns were on holiday”.

REPLY: This is flatly contradicted by Carol Tranmer’s own evidence! She says she was staying elsewhere and visited Mrs Fenn on two occasions that week. But on top of that, he entire statement is very doubtful, as discussed elsewhere.

"When details of a suspect were released a few weeks later the niece remembered she had seen a man fitting the description hanging around in the street outside the McCanns’ apartment. He was acting suspiciously and appeared to be looking into the window of the apartment. She has given a statement to police in Britain.

REPLY: ‘In the street outside?’ I thought he was the man who was closing the gate noiselessly on the other side of the apartment?

"Mrs Fenn says that two nights before Madeleine disappeared one of the children in the apartment was constantly screaming from around 10.30pm to 11.45pm. She was crying out for her dad and nobody answered until somebody returned. She remembers the times because she was talking to a friend back home on the phone

REPLY: Whoa! Wait a minute. In her statement, she says nothing about talking to ‘a friend back home’ (which I take to mean England). Why not? She says nothing about watching the news, either. She merely refers to a ‘Mrs Edna Glyn’. Is this ‘the friend back home’? If so, why does Mrs Glyn allegedly say to her: ‘I am not surprised’? I thought Mrs Glyn lived in Praia da Luz? Or did Mrs Fenn ring a friend back home and Mrs Glyn?

and she was watching the news at 10.30pm. On the night Madeleine disappeared the first she knew of it was when there was a commotion downstairs. She looked over the balcony and saw the child’s mother. She was in a state of panic. She was repeatedly saying ’We’ve let her down. We’ve let her down.’ All the people in their group were running in and out of the apartment. She asked someone if she should call the police and was told it had already been done."

Last night Mrs Fenn refused to reveal details of her evidence. Under Portugal’s strict secrecy laws witnesses are banned from speaking publicly about details of an on-going investigation. But when she answered the door at her apartment yesterday she said: "I will speak to the police on Monday."

Last night a Portuguese police source claimed officers had already been given statements by Mrs Fenn and her neice.

A police source said: "We have already spoken to them but they will be re-interviewed because of the new evidence we have. They are among a number of witnesses who we will talk to next week. They include employees from the Ocean Club."

REPLY: The only words we can be reasonably sure that Mrs Fenn herself said are these: “I will speak to the police on Monday”. I note that two sources are quoted:

1 A Portuguese police source and
2 A police source.
Pilditch began his final paragraph ‘A police source…’, not ‘The source said…’

Police in Portugal are still awaiting the results of forensic tests carried out on two samples of blood found in the McCanns’ holiday apartment.

The source said…

REPLY: So which ‘source’ is this?

1 The Portuguese police source, or
2 The police source, or
3 Another source?

…friends of Madeleine’s parents who were on holiday with them when their daughter disappeared could also be questioned.

The source said: "It is possible the McCanns’ friends will be brought in again but [this] not will not happen before we have received the results of the forensic tests. The results of the blood tests are important but the investigation does not hinge solely on them. The blood is just another clue that could help us in the investigation. If there are four or five major clues that is stronger than just two or three."

Asked why the police had not carried out their weekly update meeting with the McCanns, the couple reportedly asked for urgent showdown talks after reports were leaked to newspapers that police now believe Madeleine is dead. Senior police chiefs later confirmed they are now working on that theory. The source said: "It is not the McCanns who decide when we
meet.
We do that only when there is relevant information to tell them."

REPLY: These comments on the face of it emanate from a Portuguese police source, authorised or unauthorised.

A second holidaymaker told police an intruder used a key to enter her Ocean Club apartment just three weeks before Madeleine went missing. The Scottish woman said that on the first night of her stay in Portugal, she and a friend returned to the flat to find their belongings and £500 worth of foreign money had been taken. The woman said: “It was in the same block as the one where the little girl was taken from. The police were called that night. They told us that someone with a key had got into the flat. There’s no proof of that, but that was their opinion as there was nothing else disturbed. No broken windows, no forced entry”.

REPLY: Who exactly is the source for the ‘Scottish woman’ and who is she? (I think it might be a Mrs Robertson, based on one report I saw)

FINAL PART 3 TO FOLLOW

by **Tony Bennett** Fri 17 Jun - 7:10

REPLY TO HIDEHO PART 3
This is in 3 parts:

A HideHo's summary observations
B My attempt to construct HideHo's chronology of events based on her observations, set out in 14 stages
C My response to HideHo's chronology of events

A HideHo's summary observations

HideHo’s observations

Although a media report, that article gives us lots of information with direct quotes that it seems that Mrs Fenn had spoken to the police when the dogs were brought in (July 31?)

This does not appear to me to be a case of TM contacting and urging Mrs Fenn in the days prior to her statement... She likely told the details to the police before (dates not known)

To summarise my belief (to date)..

Mrs Fenn heard crying and the McCanns knew that (at the very least they had a child crying and needed to pre-empt any discussion on it)

They changed the comment from being the TWINS on 4th and changed to Madeleine and Sean on 11th...Was that because they knew Mrs Fenn had claimed it was a child more than 2 yrs old and possibly closer to 4 years?

Mrs Fenn apparently at some point made claims against the McCanns’ behaviour and said 'out of control' among other comments and it was suggested that these are the comments that she denied and not taken out of context meaning it was ALL rubbish...

It is also very likely that she was informally interviewed at least by the police doing 400 house to house interviews of which none are recorded in the files as far as I know.

Once the dogs were brought in and the focus turned to the McCanns, it appears Mrs Fenn spoke to the police when Eddie and Keela were brought in. At this point she likely made it clear to them about the issues of crying and burglars and she was requested to be formally interviewed on August 20th along with several others including possibly her niece and Ocean Club staff (news reports say it was done in secret on the OC premises).

The McCanns and possibly a UK friend that had supposedly been under surveillance were possibly facing 'charges' and these interviews seem to have been because of this and the new information (We know that Philomena had said that Kate was possibly going to be charged).

This all fits together for me as being logical with no proof of any interference by TM and less likely to be Clarence as he was in London and though keeping in touch with the McCanns had not been formally chosen as their PR man, or had any great input at that point as I cannot see them choosing between Clarence and Phil Hall in September...

BUT we don't know that…it IS possible he had input, but I cannot see how or when...Before the dogs were brought in and police spoke to Mrs Fenn in July?

It’s important to ALWAYS keep in mind theories based on research and I only offer my interpretation of the events as I see it...

I will continue to look at whether Tony's theory fits with anything I see...As mentioned many times I prefer to go with what the files and quotes etc 'tell' me but am always open to change my opinion and admit to making a mistake if I am proved wrong with facts.

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B My attempt to construct HideHo's chronology of events based on her observations, set out in 14 stages

REPLY: This is my attempt, based on all she has said, to reconstruct what HideHo says is the likely chronology of events leading up to the spate of news stories about the crying and burglary incidents on 18 August 2007:

HideHo 1 – Some time in April?

There really was an attempted burglary of Mrs Fenn some time before the McCanns came on holiday. This may or may not have involved Mrs Fenn trying to grab his ankles as he leapt from her first floor window. We do not know if she reported it at the time or not.

HideHo 2 – 1 or 2 May

Mrs Fenn really heard Madeleine (or possibly another child) crying for 75 minutes. This crying incident could have happened on 1 May or 2 May.

HideHo 3 – On or before 3 May

The McCanns knew that Mrs Fenn had heard this and had reported this, so they had to ‘pre-empt’ this crying incident by reporting it themselves on Friday 4 May when first questioned.

HideHo 4 – 4 May or soon afterwards

Mrs Fenn was probably among the 400 or so residents questioned in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine’s reported disappearance. HideHo does not say anything about whether or not it is likely that Mrs Fenn mentioned either the burglary or the crying incident.

HideHo 5 – Between 4 and 10 May

The McCanns may have known about Mrs Fenn having made a statememt before they made their second statements on 10/11 May because they already knew (from wherever) that Mrs Fenn had claimed it was a child more than 2 years old and possibly closer to 4 years

HideHo 6 – Unknown date

Mrs Fenn ‘at some point’ (no details of when) made claims against the McCanns’ behaviour and said [they were] ‘out of control’ among other comments.

HideHo 7 – Approx 31 July to 8 August

The dogs were brought in (?31 July).

HideHo 8 – Any time after 7 August but before say 17 August

Mrs Fenn ‘had spoken’ to police ‘when the dogs were brought in’ (she does not say if the police approached Mrs Fenn or Mrs Fenn approached the police)… “At this point she likely made it clear to them about the issues of crying and burglars…”

HideHo 9 – Between 31 July and say 17 August

The police asked her to make a statement on 20 August. There are indications that the police might have wanted to interview ‘several others at this time including possibly Carol Tranmer and Ocean Club staff’. HideHo says that ‘news reports say it was done in secret on the OC premises’. Hideho says this ties in with reports that ‘The McCanns and possibly a UK friend had supposedly been under surveillance amd were possibly facing ‘charges’… ‘these interviews seem to have been because of this and the new information [from Mrs Fenn]

HideHo 10 – On or before 17 August

Someone gives details to Sol, Daily Express and other newspapers, who publish numerous stories from 18 August to 22 August about the crying and burglary incidents

HideHo 11 – Undated

There is ‘no proof’ of any interference by Team McCann with the press report

HideHo 12 – Undated

Clarence Mitchell was away in London at this time so it would be unlikely for him to have any input into the press reports around 18 August, besides (1) ‘he had not been formally chosen as their PR man’ (2) ‘he had not had any great input at that point’ and (3) ‘I cannot see them choosing between Clarence and Phil Hall in September...’

HideHo 13 – 20 August 2007

Mrs Fenn visits Portimao Police Station and makes formal statement

HideHo 14 – 22 August

On 22 August, when she was interviewed for a TV news bulletin, when she said “It’s all rubbish’, she may have meant that her saying the McCanns were ‘out of control’ were rubbish. She did not mean that the crying and burglary incidents were ‘rubbish’.

C My response to HideHo's chronology of events

My response in brief to HideHo’s theory and chronology

Going one by one through HideHo’s 14 points

1 There was no burglary. It was invented for the purpose of promoting the theory of abduction. The evidence for my hypothesis is: A. No evidence that any burglary was reported at the time B. No information about it until we read about it in the Express before Mrs Fenn makes her statement C. Improbable and contradictory stories about when it happened, what happened, when it was reported etc.

2 I cannot accept Mrs Fenn’s statement as credible (full reasons given on the ‘Fenn’ thread on CMOMM – so there was no ‘crying incident’

3 There was clearly discussion about a crying incident: A. The McCanns discussed it, so they all say, with Fiona and Jane at the dinner table on 3 May B. The McCanns couldn’t wait to tell the police about it on 4 May, even though, by their own account, Madeleine mentioning it was ‘just a passing remark’ C. Robert Murat clearly knew about this as he felt the need to contact a GNR officer about it. He would probably have discussed the alleged crying incident with someone, if not Mrs Fenn directly. The ‘crying incident’ (a) ‘proved’ Madeleine was alive when it happened and (b) proved useful in generating stories about an alleged ‘dummy run’ by a burglar/abductor

4 We basically agree that Mrs Fenn must have been spoken to in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine’s reported disappearance but I maintain that there is no evidence whatsoever that she either (a) mentioned the burglary or (b) mentioned any crying incident. This ‘fact’ may have prompted Murat to make his call to the GNR officer

5 We disagree because I believe the crying incident didn’t happen and was invented

6 Frankly there is no evidence of Mrs Fenn making any comment at any time to anyone about the McCanns being out of control. It only appeared in one newspaper report and was apparently publicly repudiated by her shortly afterwards. Besides, nothing about this appears in her police statement

7 Yes, the dogs were brought in on or about 31 July

8, 9, 10 and 11 We both agree that for newspaper stories to appear in the Express and Sol on 18 August claiming that Mrs Fenn was going to make a police statement, and giving us many details about what she was going to tell them, that A. At some time before 18 August Mrs Fenn probably spoke to police (though this could have been done by an intermediary, and B. someone briefed the newspapers. I think it may have been someone connected to Team McCann. HideHo thinks it was Portuguese Police sources, and she has some evidence in support. I will concede that she has the better evidence on her side on this but it remains an educated guess by both of us

12 The fact that Clarence Mitchell was ‘away in London’ in no way prevents him or a colleague from supplying Sol and the Express with the usual mixture of true and false information

13 We agree

14 I prefer to accept Mrs Fenn’s words on this occasion as true. It was consistent with her having been cajoled or dragooned into making claims about a burglary and a crying incident and then being highly embarrassed about ball she was reported to have said, when speaking to the TV journalist.

ENDS