The night Madeleine McCann disappeared and the missing three hours which allowed three-year-old to vanish into thin air

The night Madeleine McCann disappeared and the missing three hours which allowed three-year-old to vanish into thin air

Maddie seemingly vanished into mid-air as her parents dined at a nearby Tapas restaurant before a bungled police response gave a potential abductor time to get away

BY RICHARD WHEATSTONE
16:27, 29 APR 2017

In the 10 years since Madeleine McCann vanished countless theories about what happened to her have surfaced.

The one fact that remains beyond doubt is the three-year-old was reported missing from her family's holiday apartment in Praia Da Luz at 10.14pm on May 3, 2007.

What followed was the most high-profile missing person campaign in history and an £11 million police investigation which has offered little hope the mystery of her disappearance will be solved.

The window of opportunity which allowed Maddie to seemingly vanish into thin air came between 8.30pm and 11.30pm.

ere's how the night unfolded:

8.30pm - McCanns go for dinner

The McCanns were on holiday with a group of friends who met for dinner each night at a Tapas bar at the Ocean Club complex where they were staying.

Kate read a story to Maddie and her younger twin sisters Sean and Amelie before putting them to bed in the second bedroom of the two-bed apartment.

She pulled down the bedroom blinds before heading to the restaurant at around 8.30pm.

They were joined at the table by friends Matt and Rachel Oldfield and Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien.

Mr O'Brien left to check on his children at 9pm and shortly after three other friends - David and Fiona Payne and Dianne Webster - joined them at the table. The group would later be dubbed 'The Tapas 9' as details of the case spread around the world.

At around 9.05pm, Gerry McCann went to check on his children and saw all three asleep in their beds and cots, he left the door slightly ajar and returned to the bar.


Around 10 minutes later, Jane Tanner went to check on her children and made a sighting which would become the main thread of the investigation for years to come.

The long-haired man was seen carrying a child wearing similar light pink pyjamas to Madeleine but it wasn't until 2013 a fresh Scotland Yard probe concluded it was "almost certain" the man was a British tourist and not involved in any abduction.

At 9.30pm Mr Oldfield to check on the McCanns' and his own children. He listened at the door to check the McCanns weren't making any noise but did not go into the room.

Kate McCann got up to do the next check around half an hour later.

10pm - Madeleine discovered missing

Kate told police as she was about to enter the children's bedroom, the door was caught by a draft and slammed shut.

In 2014, she told the BBC's Crimewatch programme: "It was only at that point that as I opened it a bit, I looked into the room and I was looking at Madeleine's bed and I couldn't make her out. It was then I realised she wasn't in that bed.

"I wondered if she'd woken up and gone into our bed, but she wasn't in our bed and that was the first time panic kicked in. It was literally at that point when the curtains, that were closed, went 'whoosh'.

"Then I could see that the window had been pushed right open and the shutters were up."

Kate ran back out to the restaurant, with witnesses telling police the mum-of-three screamed: "They've taken her, they've taken her".

The couple are said to have known immediately their daughter had been taken because her Cuddle Cat teddy was left on a ledge impossible for Madeleine to reach.

A nanny who looked after Maddie several times on the holiday told the Mirror how friends comforted Kate as Gerry began desperately searching the complex.

She said: "She was pacing up and down. The worst possible thing had just happened to her.

"She was crying, but almost in a catatonic state, and Gerry was very distressed. That's the one thing I really remember from him, looking under the cars. I can't forget that.

"We were told to start to start looking in bins in case her body was in there. It was at that point we realised this was serious."

10.14pm - Police called (but scene not preserved)

The police were called at 10.14pm. The McCanns told officers they had put Maddie to bed wearing her short-sleeved Marks & Spencer Eeyore pyjamas with her favourite Cuddle Cat soft toy and a pink comfort blanket.

Witness reports vary, but two local police officers are believed to have finally arrived at the scene more than an hour later.

After a laboured questioning session involving a translator then call the Policia Judiciaria who investigate serious crimes.

More shockingly, the apartment was not treated as a crime scene and around 20 people were allowed to wander in and out freely, potentially contaminating vital forensic evidence.

One former police officer described it as the "worst preserved crime scene" he had witnessed and the McCanns believe their report was not taken seriously - with officers appearing to believe Maddie had wandered off.

Roadblocks were not put in place until 10am the next day, Spanish border patrols - less than three hours' drive away also weren't informed until the next morning.

By this time, any kidnapper had been given ample time to flee.

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There is a massive UK media onslaught going on isn't there!

How deep is this?

This is cover-up abuse you would expect using "national security" "D Notice" as an excuse.

Lots and lots of people are being told what to write, no freedom of the press here.

BlueBag wrote:AThere is a massive UK media onslaught going on isn't there!

How deep is this?

This is cover-up abuse you would expect using "national security" "D Notice" as an excuse.

Lots and lots of people are being told what to write, no freedom of the press here.

Do the people who write these articles really think that we accept without question what they write?

MTSTAR wrote:

BlueBag wrote:AThere is a massive UK media onslaught going on isn't there!

How deep is this?

This is cover-up abuse you would expect using "national security" "D Notice" as an excuse.

Lots and lots of people are being told what to write, no freedom of the press here.

Do the people who write these articles really think that we accept without question what they write?

The Big Question is , for me, are they just lazy, endlessly re-cycling a cocktail of poor copy and deftly placed smokescreens, or are they intentionally ignoring the truth?

Shocking errors.

"Pulled blinds down" - shouldn't that be shutters?

"Her sisters Sean and Amilie"??? WTF??

I see Gerry's little chat in the street has be moved to a parallel universe. It never happened now.

JulieC wrote:Shocking errors.

"Pulled blinds down" - shouldn't that be shutters?

"Her sisters Sean and Amilie"??? WTF??

This is where if you tell lies you have to be very good at it because in the Channel 7 video Gerry McCann, when questioned about the blinds, says that they'd always left the blinds & curtains closed to keep the room cool.

Philip Anders wrote:

JulieC wrote:Shocking errors.

"Pulled blinds down" - shouldn't that be shutters?

"Her sisters Sean and Amilie"??? WTF??

This is where if you tell lies you have to be very good at it because in the Channel 7 video Gerry McCann, when questioned about the blinds, says that they'd always left the blinds & curtains closed to keep the room cool.

When he said that, I cringed and wondered how many others had caught him out on the lie.

Anyone who didn't know better, would think they were holidaying during a Portuguese summer heatwave.

MTSTAR wrote:

BlueBag wrote:AThere is a massive UK media onslaught going on isn't there!

How deep is this?

This is cover-up abuse you would expect using "national security" "D Notice" as an excuse.

Lots and lots of people are being told what to write, no freedom of the press here.

Do the people who write these articles really think that we accept without question what they write?

Sadly lots of people will believe anything they read in the likes of the Daily Mail.

'Witness reports vary, but two local police officers are believed to have finally arrived at the scene more than an hour later. After a laboured questioning session involving a translator then call the Policia Judiciaria who investigate serious crimes. ....... '... the apartment was not treated as a crime scene and around 20 people were allowed to wander in and out freely, potentially contaminating vital forensic evidence .......'

The irony is that the police could not have prevented people wandering in and out of the apartment, if, as the media reports, the police weren't there.

Hello Folks

I have not contributed to any website for months and months, but applaud the efforts of many others who keep this child's disappearance/death from being forgotten. This month the last of my four grand-daughters turns four, and I admit to making the sentimental link  My rational self says unless OG was to do the job for real ALL money should be stopped and ploughed into helping other less photogenic, maybe older, or otherwise unattractive missing children. Nearly £4 million. What a wicked waste of public funds!

Yes I think OG is ridiculous, and stupid, and is going through the motions, because.... if a child disappears from the custody of her parents in the UK, and she was indeed in that whether they were dining nearby or whatever, and those parents, after quite normally allowing friends to come in and comfort them... offer to help them look etc... almost immediately say 'she was abducted', the police are likely to smell a rat. In the UK they would definitely thoroughly explore all other possibilities, establish a timeline, and work out who was where when, probably by means of a reconstruction, or if not by using extremely sensitive investigative software. So... when the famous Met (Hmmm) came in and said they were going back to the beginning, that is what I exepected them to do! How naive can you get!

Add to that accusations of the Portuguese police's
1. 'Allowing the crime scene to be contaminated by others and
2. ' Not sealng the borders... Sealing?... Which borders? ... We are talking about the EU!

3. Not answering questions legitimately asked by police attempting to find out what happened to Madeleine. ..... etc etc etc

Have I established my credentials as a non-pitch-forker, non-troll... non anything else?

Right... Owing to illness and disability and being confined to bed I watch a lot of TV news. Despite the ads I prefer Sky Rolling News... a freebie station... I am very mean :-). For one or two days now we have been bombarded by Madeleine non news... mostly Kate and Gerry saying they have still not given up hope, but also limited doses of Martin Brunt without his Columbo mac and with new glasses with his own non news.

The date is not yet even May 3rd. Then we shall have a 'special programme' called 'Looking for Madeleine.' Doubtless compered by Brunty but what's the betting it will have a contribution by Wossname and Swan'.... Oh my, can I stand it? Probably not. (I have bought every book on the subject and that one went most rapidly to Oxfam!)

What is this post really about? It is that I heard an interview with senior policeman Mark Rowley who seems to have inherited the sh*t-stirring stick... and unsatisfactory as it was... I added up the pauses and the shifting about in his seat, and I actually felt sorry for him.  He was making much of a supposed important line of inquiry, still ongoing, so he couldn't say anything about it natch...but A WOMAN is in the frame. Well well. Is this a re-going over of someone eliminated before, or something absolutely new?

Does anyone remember a certain woman describing someone carrying a child and saying, mistakenly, obviously, 'I carried' rather than 'he carried'. It couldn't be? Could it?  Nah.  However it would only take one person to...

What I am sure of is that if this last throw of the dice is to be taken as anything other than more pretendy nonsense, we shall have to find out about who gave this information, about their credibility... Who saw this woman? Where? When?... and was she with anyone else? Then, of course, we would need an accurate timeline... and to find out who else was in the vicinity.... and... and... When was Madeleine last seen by a family member? When was she last seen by a close friend of the family, or by a nanny who knew for sure which little fair haired girl she was?...

Oh wait... We have been here before!... Isn't this... the kind of regular police work the McCann case does not attract? 
No wonder Mr Rowley looked so depressed. The policeman who at least partly solved the Stephen Lawrence case said that took 20 years. I shall be pushing up the daisies well before they employ a policeman courageous enough to go for it, and hang the political consequences.

Byeee!

comperedna  

PS I've just put this on Missing Madeleine too.

My mistake... It is a waste of almost £12 million of public money. Disgusting... especially for a sham!

comperedna

son

suzyjohnson wrote:'Witness reports vary, but two local police officers are believed to have finally arrived at the scene more than an hour later. After a laboured questioning session involving a translator then call the Policia Judiciaria who investigate serious crimes. ....... '... the apartment was not treated as a crime scene and around 20 people were allowed to wander in and out freely, potentially contaminating vital forensic evidence .......'
knew it was a potentio
The irony is that the police could not have prevented people wandering in and out of the apartment, if, as the media reports, the police weren't there.

The crime scene had been forensically damaged long before the police were even called since the Tapas 7 damaged it.

Even someone with an IQ in double figures would know not to touch things in their house, before the police had done their ckecks, if it had been burgled.

The Tapas 7 included several doctors who would have some degree of forensic awareness & since Kate McCann had said that "they've taken her", the group knew it was a crime scene before they even left the bar to go to the apartment.

Also since Kate said Madeleine had been 'taken', there would have been no need for them to search the apartment for someone they had been told wasn't there!!!!!!!!!!!

There's so many questions with which to cross-examine the McCann's version of events but no one, apart from this forum, seems to ask them.

As far as I know there was no burglary. A child was missing. The most immediate thing you'd do if a child was missing would be... see if she had got out of the flat too look for her parents....or had gone along to one of the other flats along the balcony... 

She was nearly four and if anything like any of mine, likely an opinionated person by that age. Mine would be switching the lights on and off, jumping off the beds if their parents were out and had left them alone! They would NOT sleep in those circumstances, unless given some medication or other... Why did everyone assume they would be asleep? Also when you take a child who IS asleep out into the cool air they wake up!... They just do... unless on medication.... or otherwise incapacitated...

I do see where you are coming from though... and those questions too need to be asked.

comperedna wrote:As far as I know there was no burglary. A child was missing. The most immediate thing you'd do if a child was missing would be... see if she had got out of the flat too look for her parents....or had gone along to one of the other flats along the balcony... 

She was nearly four and if anything like any of mine, likely an opinionated person by that age. Mine would be switching the lights on and off, jumping off the beds if their parents were out and had left them alone! They would NOT sleep in those circumstances, unless given some medication or other... Why did everyone assume they would be asleep? Also when you take a child who IS asleep out into the cool air they wake up!... They just do... unless on medication.... or otherwise incapacitated...

I do see where you are coming from though... and those questions too need to be asked.

I don't accept a burglary or an abduction.

The possible burglary element was introduced by Professor David Barclay in a recent interview.

As you've realised, my point is since it was the McCanns who shouted abduction, not missing, why didn't they insist on the apartment being kept as a forensically sterile crime scene & prevent anyone, including themselves, from going in before the police arrived.