MATTHEW, I HAVE A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS FOR YOU RE: YOUR BEDROOM CHECK...........

skyrocket wrote:1. Matthew, when you went to check on the children in 5A on the night of the 3 May, why didn't you go into the children's room?

In your rogatory you state the following:

Reply 'Yeah, and I just don't know why it didn't trigger enough of a thought in my mind to say, you know, but I think it's just because you are going expecting that the worst that was going to happen was that somebody would be upset or out of bed or, you know, or sort of crying'.


4078 'Okay. And is there anything else you can say about what you saw of that bed''
Reply 'No, erm, I don't remember there being a pattern on it, it was, it was just sort of a glimpse and I don't know how reliable my memory is for this, I think it was plain coloured, maybe, if I was to go for it, I'd say it was sort of a light blue, but I really don't recall anything specific about the end of that bed, apart from just registering that there was a bed against that wall and that's probably where Madeleine was'.


From your above comments it is clear that you were unaware of which bed Madeleine slept in. You say that as you approached the children's bedroom, you could see 2 cots in the centre of the room, separated by about a foot (30cm). You say that the cots were orientated lengthways with the long sides parallel to the wardrobes - this is made clearer when you state that you assumed the twins would have been put in with their 'heads towards the window' as that is how you would have laid them. The visibility was good enough to see the twins breathing (we'll come back to that later). You could see the bed against the far wall reasonably well, and you say that the room was lit from a small table lamp behind 'us'? in the lounge area.



If, in your words, one of the 'worst things that could happen' was that one of the children was out of their bed, and you didn't know in advance that Madeleine wasn't sleeping in the bed by the window, and you could see the bed by the window (which may or may not have been dishevelled), and you state clearly that you didn't see Madeleine, why didn't you bend forward and check whether she was in the other bed? After all, you admit to registering that the bed against the wall out of view was only PROBABLY where Madeleine was? If you registered that at the time, surely there was a need to investigate further, rather than turning back around and browsing through the (non-existent) bookshelf/case on your way out.



2. Could you really see the twins breathing in their cots? Why bring this up at all? The end of one cot was solid, not mesh. You say you could see through the mesh sides - from the photos of 5A and the positioning of the cots (however they are moved around) this seems unlikely. Breathing is an assumption we would all make anyway, even if you merely stated that you had seen both of the twins in their cots. Adds weight to the theory that breathing/not breathing is extremely sensitive.

Then she states that her husband had actually told her that he had wondered where Madeleine slept and Rachael tells us that he physically checked the other bedroom to see if she was in there (something Matthew makes no mention of). Why on earth would he do that without checking the bed by the door in the children's room first? 

skyrocket wrote:Now let's add into the mix what Rachael Oldfield has to say about Matthew's check at about 9.30pm:

1578 'Well okay, for completeness, what did he say he did in the room''


Reply 'Erm well he and Russell went up and they were going to call at Gerry and Kates on the way but for some reason didnt, they went round the back, erm Russell went into their apartment, Matt went into ours, checked on Grace, erm came out, went back to get Russell, thats when he discovered that Evie had been sick, so Russell was sorting her out, erm so he went back round through the car park and out down the road, up the back steps into Gerry and Kates apartment, through the patio door, erm noticed that the door of the apartment was open but not wide open but sort of you know, sort of half open, which'.

01.13.22 1578 'Which door'' 

Reply 'The door to the bedroom, the twins bedroom and Madeleines bedroom, erm and I mean afterwards you know, he said he thought that was unusual because he thought the door would be shut, cos I mean we always shut Graces bedroom door, erm or at least if we did, I mean we always shut it but yeah I know some people would kind of probably just pull the door to, but he didnt expect it to be as wide open as it was, erm so he, well he said you know from kind of standing close to the doorway, he could see that the twins were in their cots and there was no sound, erm so he just assumed everything was alright, he didnt put his head round the door to see if Madeleine was in her bed, but he said he did wonder where she slept, erm poked his head, well you know kind of looked into Gerry and Kates room, just saw there was a double bed there, so you know, assumed they were all in together or, I mean I think he knew that they were all in together, erm but he didnt actually look to see whether Madeleine was there or not'.


1578 'He didnt open the door''  


Reply 'He didnt open the door any further no'.

1578 'Wider''


Reply 'Erm well the line of sight from where he was standing sort of from the lounge I think, allowed him to see the two cots with the two twins in and everything was quiet and erm, you know ordinarily we wouldn't, we only really went to see, to look, actually look at Grace because you know Matt had been sick and I'd been sick and she'd sort of seemed to have had an upset stomach, erm but otherwise you know normally if everything was quiet, we wouldn't open the door really, you know just they're quiet, they're not you know, as long as they're not crying thats, or dont seem to be awake, then you just you know, leave them, erm so yeah he saw the twins and then you know, went out, shut the patio doors and you know came back to the table and said everything was okay,'.....

Flip - Rachael doesn't half put her foot in it. Like Matthew, she is obsessed with the orientation of the children's bedroom door and the fact that their 'were 2 cots and 2 twins'. Then she states that her husband had actually told her that he had wondered where Madeleine slept and Rachael tells us that he physically checked the other bedroom to see if she was in there (something Matthew makes no mention of). Why on earth would he do that without checking the bed by the door in the children's room first? If he was concerned enough to check, he would have checked all possibilities - starting by getting a clear view of all beds in the children's room, moving on to the parent's room, and finally the rest of the apartment.

Whichever way you look at it, the storyline makes no sense. It's like watching a poorly scripted film.

Was Matthew supposed to have been the one to raise the alarm (as already suggested before elsewhere) and he got cold feet at the last minute? I'm not sure. Why is he only on one of the handwritten timelines? Were there 2 possible scenarios worked out for the evening?

Okeydokey wrote:
You have to ask yourself why do none of the rogatory statements seem in any way straightforward?

Verdi wrote:The concept of rogatory interviews was processed at the request of the McCanns after their return to the UK from Portugal.  A broad questioning formula was submitted by team McCann which was forwarded to the Portuguese, translated and consequently formally presented to the UK authorities, again translated back into English for the rogatory interviews to proceed.  Apparently they were quite within their rights to make such a request - how far that involves Stuart 'call me Stu' Prior is a matter for conjecture but the UK - Portugal - Portugal - UK - UK - Portugal idea seems rather curious.

Those to be interviewed by rogatory, had six months to prepare for their respective interviews, between the McCanns initial proposal and the set date for the interviews.  Six months is ample time to get their stories straight amongst themselves - they didn't!  During the interviews they could have responded to question with straighforward yes, no, not sure, can't remember answers - they didn't!  Instead they all waffled on packing out with contradictions and errs umms arrs you knows.  This leads me the believe that the interviews were orchestrated to deceive - to throw mass confusion into an already confused state of affairs.

The McCanns and their friends and associates are the only information source to lead an investigation and they made damn sure that all leads they created took different paths - confusion really is good!  The  rogatory interviews have never been, nor will ever be,  of any value to a bona-fide official investigation.  In short they are worthless - good sport for general criticism and comparison but that's where the value begins and ends.

It's all fabrication to bolster the abduction theory.

Okeydokey wrote:Dead right Phoebe...how many partners caught out in adultery have claimed not to quite remember something or other! lol

The confusion strategy was apparent from the start.

Are we really supposed to believe that not one of these highly educated professionals (involved in medicine, health and law) didn't understand the importance of preserving the crime scene and preventing all and sundry tramping through it...especially since we know the McCanns claim they knew immediately that their daughter had been abducted and had not wandered off?

skyrocket wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - I have to disagree with your overall conclusion:

'The  rogatory interviews have never been, nor will ever be,  of any value to a bona-fide official investigation.  In short they are worthless - good sport for general criticism and comparison but that's where the value begins and ends'.

This general statement concerns me, particularly the word 'sport'. I accept that the answer to the question, 'What happened to Madeleine McCann?' will never be gleaned from the rogatories, but 'of no value' and 'worthless' is entirely incorrect, IMO (and note that I add that).

Let's just think about this for a moment. Say we have 7 educated people, who we will assume for now have involvement in, or knowledge of, a missing child case. For whatever reason they have agreed to help cover up whatever happened. They know they are going to be interviewed as witnesses. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], what you have proposed above is that in the 6 months prior to the interviews, instead of using the time to get their false stories in line with each other, someone with influence persuaded all of them to use the time to actually make sure that their still false stories were out of line with each other - to create false leads with different paths, you say.

The mind boggles at the complexity. Were/are the tapas 7 that good at acting/remembering? And, beyond that, the overall question for me anyway is, why would anyone with more than 2 brain cells agree to a course of action which would draw attention to the fact that one or more of the group was lying? You could argue that they, for what ever reason, were entirely confident that their statements were never going to reach court, but still it would be huge ask of anyone.

Whatever the truth, the facts are:

- the rogatories are in the public domain (was this ever envisaged by those involved?)
- the statements of each of the tapas 7 are not only inconsistent with each other, but also internally with themselves
- if Madeleine had been abducted on 3 May 2007, between 9pm and 10pm shall we say, there would be no reason at all for there to be such inconsistencies
- inconsistency in itself makes the rogatory statements critically important to any genuine official police investigation, irrespective of the value of the actual content

Beyond that, I actually believe that 7 brains (or 1 for that matter) are incapable of leakage when subjected to questioning, particularly with a skilled interviewer who allows the interviewee to waffle on to their hearts content. The 3 men seem particularly prone to this. In other words, IMO, there are truths in the rogatories; there are more untruths; and there are some irrational actions. It may be difficult to weed out the truths/untruths, but the irrational actions are glaringly clear (as highlighted by this post).

The rogatory statements are far from worthless - fact (IMO!).

BlueBag wrote:Matthew was quite specific in his interviews about the bedroom visit.

Regardless of what people  think of the worth of rogatory interviews generally, Matthew's story doesn't make any sense.

Someone needs to pick him up on it.

You would think OG would have a few questions if they were an honest investigation.