THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE WHO RUSHED OUT TO PRAIA DA LUZ AFTER 3 MAY 2007 AND BY FRIDAY 11 MAY 2007

Nina wrote:Daft question but where did all these people stay?

Reggiregg wrote:Strange that PR people from Resonate were already in place by April 30. It seems the stage was set for the Drama...

Lands_end wrote:I am unsure about this. I find it very hard to believe that none of these people have talked. It is a fact that the more people who are aware of a crime the increased likelihood that someone will blow the whistle.

Lands_end wrote:I am unsure about this. I find it very hard to believe that none of these people have talked. It is a fact that the more people who are aware of a crime the increased likelihood that someone will blow the whistle.

Roxyroo wrote:

Lands_end wrote:I am unsure about this. I find it very hard to believe that none of these people have talked. It is a fact that the more people who are aware of a crime the increased likelihood that someone will blow the whistle.

They can be told they wld break the official secrets act, which meant a lot to my grandfathers generation, he took secrets to the grave, but there are many more dranconian laws in place now, look at Special Renditions with waterboardings etc etc and the D notices that the media in the uk adhears to

Mirage wrote:We can now add Mark Williams-Thomas to the list of those rushing out to PDL.... maybe file under self-important.

He says he was there three days after the disappearance. In what capacity would that be in 2007?

Tony Bennett wrote:This is an updated revision of an earlier article on the same subject posted many years ago.

I will add a poll:

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THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE WHO RUSHED OUT TO PRAIA DA LUZ AFTER 3 MAY 2007 AND BY FRIDAY 11 MAY 2007  

This summarises a list of those known to have rushed out to Praia da Luz after 3 May 2007 (or on the case of Resonate and Robert Murat, BEFORE then). Dates of arrival given where known, all before Thursday May 10 unless otherwise stated: 

Government officials 

Robert Henderson – British Consul for the Algarve – immediate (persuaded Portuguese Police to allow the McCanns to wash clothes before seizing them) 

John Buck – British Ambassador to Portugal (Lisbon), arrived immediately

Angela Morado – British Proconsul, arrived immediately   

Liz Dow, British Consul rom the Embassy in Lisbon, arrived immediately

Andy Bowes, British Embassy Press Officer, arrived immediately   

Sheree Dodd, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Other staff from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office   

British Police Officers

Glen Power, British Police Liaison Officer for Portugal, arrived 5 May

An ‘Analyst’ (unnamed)  from the National Policing Improvements Agency, arrived 4 May

Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Small, Leicestershire Police

Two other police ‘family liaison’ officers from Leicestershire Police  

Government security and secret service personnel

Staff from MI5 (unnamed)

Staff from Child Exploitation and OnLine Protection Service (unnamed – Kate McCann in her book describes them As ‘Forensic Psychologists’), arrived 4 May

More staff from CEOP, the ‘Director of the Forensic Psychology Unit’ AND a CEOP ‘social worker’ (arrived 6 May)

Staff from Special Branch (unnamed)

‘Criminal profilers’ (unnamed - attached to unnamed government security departments)    

Government-funded private security firms 

                                                                         
Kenneth Farrow from Control Risks Group

Michael Keenan from Control Risks Group

Staff from government-supported private crisis psychology group

Alan Pike, Head of Yorkshire-based Centre for Crisis Psychology (CCP) (arrived 4 May)

Martin Alderton, Colleague of Alan Pike from CCP  (arrived 5 May)

Public Relations Consultants

Michael Frolich, Head of Resonate, subsidiary of international PR company Bell Pottinger (already there by Monday 30 April)

Tricia Moon, Deputy Director of Resonate, (already there by Monday 30 April)

Alex Woolfall, Head of Risk for international PR company Bell Pottinger, arrived 4 May (helped to edit Gerry McCann’s photos before putting them on a disc for the PJ)

Lawyers

Staff from the recently-formed International Family Law Group (IFLG):

Michael Nicholls, barrister, arrived 11 May

Accompanied by a ‘paralegal’ from Leicestershire, arrived 11 May

There are references to other government lawyers having arrived   

Top staff from Mark Warner (company that organised the holiday)

David Hopkins, Managing Director of Mark Warner

One of his senior colleagues

Interpreters

Robert Murat became the initial main interpreter for the Portuguese Police on 4 May. He  had already flown out from England on 1 May. He was recommended by British Consul Robert Henderson

Religious Organisations

Rev. Haynes and Susan Hubbard mysteriously arrived in Praia da Luz from Canada on Sunday 6 May, to take up an appointment as the Anglican Minister in Praia da Luz. The Hubbards rapidly became very close friends of the Mccanns 
 
Others

‘Hugh’ – Kate in her book says he would only identify himself as ‘Hugh’, he was brought in by Control Risks Group and said he was ‘a former intelligence officer, now a kidnap negotiator and counsellor’. He attended meeting with the lawyers from IFLG

OTHER APPOINTMENTS

Clarence Mitchell, Head of the government’s Media Monitoring Unit: According to the reply to a Freedom of Information request, he was appointed on Sunday 6 May to head up the government’s PR support for the McCanns, but he did not travel to Portugal until 22 May 2007

The government set up a very high-powered liaison committee on Tuesday 8 May under the Chairmanship of Matt Baggott, Leicestershire Police Chief Constable. It consisted of representatives from a wide variety of government departments and agencies. The government has refused to answer FoIAct questions about who those agencies were.

Government Ministers Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary) spoke to Gerry McCann in the first week. Tony Blair, Prime Minister, did so later.

Literally hundreds of international journalists were also there in that first week.   

   

Tolleshunt Knight wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:This is an updated revision of an earlier article on the same subject posted many years ago.

I will add a poll:

============

THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE WHO RUSHED OUT TO PRAIA DA LUZ AFTER 3 MAY 2007 AND BY FRIDAY 11 MAY 2007  

This summarises a list of those known to have rushed out to Praia da Luz after 3 May 2007 (or on the case of Resonate and Robert Murat, BEFORE then). Dates of arrival given where known, all before Thursday May 10 unless otherwise stated: 

Government officials 

Robert Henderson – British Consul for the Algarve – immediate (persuaded Portuguese Police to allow the McCanns to wash clothes before seizing them) 

John Buck – British Ambassador to Portugal (Lisbon), arrived immediately

Angela Morado – British Proconsul, arrived immediately   

Liz Dow, British Consul rom the Embassy in Lisbon, arrived immediately

Andy Bowes, British Embassy Press Officer, arrived immediately   

Sheree Dodd, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Other staff from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office   

British Police Officers

Glen Power, British Police Liaison Officer for Portugal, arrived 5 May

An ‘Analyst’ (unnamed)  from the National Policing Improvements Agency, arrived 4 May

Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Small, Leicestershire Police

Two other police ‘family liaison’ officers from Leicestershire Police  

Government security and secret service personnel

Staff from MI5 (unnamed)

Staff from Child Exploitation and OnLine Protection Service (unnamed – Kate McCann in her book describes them As ‘Forensic Psychologists’), arrived 4 May

More staff from CEOP, the ‘Director of the Forensic Psychology Unit’ AND a CEOP ‘social worker’ (arrived 6 May)

Staff from Special Branch (unnamed)

‘Criminal profilers’ (unnamed - attached to unnamed government security departments) 
   

Government-funded private security firms 

                                                                         
Kenneth Farrow from Control Risks Group

Michael Keenan from Control Risks Group

Staff from government-supported private crisis psychology group

Alan Pike, Head of Yorkshire-based Centre for Crisis Psychology (CCP) (arrived 4 May)

Martin Alderton, Colleague of Alan Pike from CCP  (arrived 5 May)

Public Relations Consultants

Michael Frolich, Head of Resonate, subsidiary of international PR company Bell Pottinger (already there by Monday 30 April)

Tricia Moon, Deputy Director of Resonate, (already there by Monday 30 April)

Alex Woolfall, Head of Risk for international PR company Bell Pottinger, arrived 4 May (helped to edit Gerry McCann’s photos before putting them on a disc for the PJ)

Lawyers

Staff from the recently-formed International Family Law Group (IFLG):

Michael Nicholls, barrister, arrived 11 May

Accompanied by a ‘paralegal’ from Leicestershire, arrived 11 May

There are references to other government lawyers having arrived   

Top staff from Mark Warner (company that organised the holiday)

David Hopkins, Managing Director of Mark Warner

One of his senior colleagues

Interpreters

Robert Murat became the initial main interpreter for the Portuguese Police on 4 May. He  had already flown out from England on 1 May. He was recommended by British Consul Robert Henderson

Religious Organisations

Rev. Haynes and Susan Hubbard mysteriously arrived in Praia da Luz from Canada on Sunday 6 May, to take up an appointment as the Anglican Minister in Praia da Luz. The Hubbards rapidly became very close friends of the Mccanns 
 
Others

‘Hugh’ – Kate in her book says he would only identify himself as ‘Hugh’, he was brought in by Control Risks Group and said he was ‘a former intelligence officer, now a kidnap negotiator and counsellor’. He attended meeting with the lawyers from IFLG

OTHER APPOINTMENTS

Clarence Mitchell, Head of the government’s Media Monitoring Unit: According to the reply to a Freedom of Information request, he was appointed on Sunday 6 May to head up the government’s PR support for the McCanns, but he did not travel to Portugal until 22 May 2007

The government set up a very high-powered liaison committee on Tuesday 8 May under the Chairmanship of Matt Baggott, Leicestershire Police Chief Constable. It consisted of representatives from a wide variety of government departments and agencies. The government has refused to answer FoIAct questions about who those agencies were.

Government Ministers Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary) spoke to Gerry McCann in the first week. Tony Blair, Prime Minister, did so later.

Literally hundreds of international journalists were also there in that first week.   

   

Not in any way trying to be awkward - I agree this looks interesting - but do you have sources for any of this?  Perhaps not all of it needs to be sourced.  For instance, the claim that politicians like Gordon Brown spoke to the McCanns would seem pretty run-of-the-mill in a case that the media take an intense interest in, but other claims you make here seem difficult to substantiate.

As a simple way of checking the sources (if you want to do that), try the following. For each name or agency listed, type their name into Google, followed by the two words 'Madeleine McCann'. I guarantee that will give you most of the sources you seek, but if not, please let me know and I'll try to find the remaining ones for you.

Also, some of this seems fairly normal.  You will know that when a UK citizen is in trouble abroad, there will be a response from the relevant embassy or consulate.  This was not a mundane case, it was the apparent abduction of a small child and had attracted huge media interest (though I must admit, there may be some circularity to this, in that one has to ask how this media interest came about in the first place?).

I fully agree with you about the circularity point! 

It's also not necessarily unusual for police in Britain to take an interest.

Can you name me even ONE similar case where so many British police officers and government security services staff were sent out to a foreign country within days?

You list 'Special Branch', but there is no single police unit or agency with that name, as such.  The Metropolitan Police Special Branch, which was the 'national' political policing unit, has been defunct since late 2006, before this tragedy occurred.  There are still a number of county Special Branches, and this includes Leicestershire Police Special Branch.  Is that what you mean?  

I see you have had a look at the Wikipedia page on Special Branch before making this post. I take the point about Special Branch being merged with the Counter Terrorism Unit in late 2006, but I think it is still a 'sub-entity' within Anti-Terrorism Command. Besides that, Kate McCann in her book writes about Special Branch's involvement by names, both in terms of ferrying the McCanns back home from the airport on Sunday 9 September 2007 and also in terms of taking them all the way to London and back on Friday 14 September to meet with a team of some of the country's top lawyers.  

One further question I have is whether you know how much of this high-profile response was initiated by the Portuguese authorities and even the Portuguese police themselves, and if you do, can you elaborate?

It was NOT initiated by the Portuguese at all. In his book on the case, 'The Truth About A Lie'; by Goncalo Amaral, the Investigation Co-Ordinator, he complained how he was forced to make extra space for ever more police officers, and of how they interfered in his running of the case. The only specific help he sought was in terms of forensic evidence, especially hiring top British dog handler, Martin Grime. He reported that his two cadaver dogs found 17 alerts to blood and cadaver scent in the McCanns' apartment, in their hired car, and on their clothes.  

One last thought I have is that even if we suppose that the McCanns are well-connected, so what?  If I was well-connected and a child of mine went missing when on holiday, I'd be pulling strings too.  Wouldn't you?  If this is true of the McCanns, I'm tempted to think: 'Well, good for them'.

It all depends if she 'went missing' or whether she died in the McCanns' apartment, as the corpse dogs tended to confirm.

Tony Bennett wrote:

Can you name me even ONE similar case where so many British police officers and government security services staff were sent out to a foreign country within days?


I see you have had a look at the Wikipedia page on Special Branch before making this post. I take the point about Special Branch being merged with the Counter Terrorism Unit in late 2006, but I think it is still a 'sub-entity' within Anti-Terrorism Command. Besides that, Kate McCann in her book writes about Special Branch's involvement by names, both in terms of ferrying the McCanns back home from the airport on Sunday 9 September 2007 and also in terms of taking them all the way to London and back on Friday 14 September to meet with a team of some of the country's top lawyers.  


It was NOT initiated by the Portuguese at all. In his book on the case, 'The Truth About A Lie'; by Goncalo Amaral, the Investigation Co-Ordinator, he complained how he was forced to make extra space for ever more police officers, and of how they interfered in his running of the case. The only specific help he sought was in terms of forensic evidence, especially hiring top British dog handler, Martin Grime. He reported that his two cadaver dogs found 17 alerts to blood and cadaver scent in the McCanns' apartment, in their hired car, and on their clothes.