Joana Morais

McCann Case: Freedom of Information Act on John Buck former Ambassador

by Joana Morais   9 years ago  

It was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who were behind the instructions given to the UK ambassador, John Buck, and to the British consul, Bill Henderson (the two senior UK diplomats in Portugal at the time she disappeared), to make sure Gerry and Kate McCann were given all possible assistance.

A few minutes after the return to Faro of the team of experts that the PJ had sent to Leicester, Her Majesty's British Ambassador, John Buck, to the Portuguese Republic was already visiting their premises. The presence of the diplomat, that has been confirmed by several journalist, is in direct relation with the Madeleine McCann case and was not asked by the Portuguese Authorities. The ambassador has stayed half an hour with the police.

John Buck - British Ambassador in Portugal in May 2006 - resigns his post on 10/09/07 - shortly after the McCanns are made suspects. John is replaced by Alexander Ellis. Leaves the Diplomatic Services entirely.

Related

Daily Express: Madeleine: British Diplomat had doubts about McCanns
3 December 2007 (no longer on-line)

A British diplomat warned the Foreign Office of concerns regarding Mad­eleine McCann’s parents, it emerged last night. Doubts about Kate and Gerry McCann were raised almost immediately by an official sent to Praia da Luz due to what he considered to be “inconsistencies” in the couple’s testimonies about the night the four-year-old vanished. The warning was contained in a classified document sent from the Algarve to the Foreign Office days after Madeleine’s disappearance. Details of the letter have been leaked through the British diplomatic mission in Brussels to the respected Belgian newspaper Derniere Heure.

The unnamed diplomat voices his concern about the “confused declarations” as to the whereabouts of Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends in the final hours before Madeleine’s disappearance. He also mentions the couple’s “lack of co-operation” with the Portuguese police in the light of instructions from London suggesting consular staff “overstretch their authority and put pressure on the Portuguese authorities”. The document also asks for confirmation of orders sent by the Foreign Office in London the day before, commanding embassy staff to give “all possible assistance to the McCann couple”.

Diplomats on the Algarve were told the McCanns had to be “accompanied at all times during any contact with the Portuguese police” by a member of consular staff or by British police officers sent out from the UK. The letter, sent just days after Madeleine disappeared, warns of the risks of siding with the McCanns so completely. Excerpts published in a report by La Derniere Heure quote the diplomat as saying: “With the greatest respect, I would like to make you aware of the risks and implications to our relationship with the Portuguese authorities, if you consider the possible involvement of the couple. “Please confirm to me, in the light of these concerns, that we want to continue to be closely involved in the case as was requested in your previous ­message.”

A huge team of diplomats have been involved in the case since Gerry McCann asked the Foreign Office for help. In an unprecedented move, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair despatched special envoy Sheree Dodd, a former Fleet Street journalist, to Portugal to act as a “med­ia liaison officer” for the McCann family. Direct government communications with the McCanns came to an abrupt halt, however, when the couple were made official suspects in the case in September.

Portuguese detectives believe it is possible Madeleine died as the result of an accident on May 3 in the family’s holiday apartment and that her parents hid and later disposed of her body with the help of their friends. The couple have always said they had nothing to do with their daughter’s disappearance. The Belgian report says it is highly significant that almost all of the diplomats involved at the outset have now been taken off the case.

Special envoy Sheree Dodd has since resigned from the Foreign Office, the British consul in the Algarve Bill Henderson has retired and the British ambassador to Portugal John Buck is no longer in Portugal. Last night the Foreign Office refused to comment on the report.



Extracts from the FOI released by ICO - Information Commissioner's Office

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Section 50) Decision Notice 3 March 2009 Public Authority: Foreign and Commonwealth Office - Reference: FS50188322

In October 2007 the complainant asked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for information concerning communications between the then Ambassador to Portugal John Buck and the Portuguese police on the subject of the disappearance of the child Madeleine McCann. However, some further information continued to be withheld; it was this refusal to provide information that the Commissioner investigated.

FCO added that, at the time of the internal review (December 2007), the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann had been ongoing and that, for legal reasons, it had not been possible to disclose further information then.

FCO told the Commissioner that, although the Portuguese authorities had released many documents about the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, sensitivities remained and FCO believed that the section 27(1)(a)* exemption still applied. If FCO were to disclose all the details about HM Ambassador’s contact with the Portuguese police they would risk damaging the relationship on which good inter-governmental co-operation was based.


FCO recognised the public interest in knowing the extent of UK government involvement in the investigation but believed that the reasons for exemption outweighed those that favoured release.

The Full Freedom of Information Act on John Buck, The British Ambassador in 2007 at the time of Madeleine McCann disappearance.



   Freedom of Information Act on John Buck, The British Ambassador in 2007 at the time of Madeleine McCann dis... by xklamation on Scribd

*The exemption under section 27 exists to protect the United Kingdom's international relations, its interests abroad and the United Kingdom's ability to protect and promote those interests. [full PDF here]

Section 27 consists of two different kinds of exemption:

Section 27(1) focuses on the effects of disclosure rather than on the type of information. Information is exempt if its disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice any of the matters mentioned in section 27(1)(a) - (d):

a) relations between the UK and any other state

b) relations between the UK and any international organisation or international court

c) the interests of the UK abroad

d)the promotions or protection by the UK of its interests abroad

Section 27(2) protects confidential information obtained from a foreign state, an international organisation, or an international court. Section 27(2) describes information by reference to its origins and the circumstances in which it was obtained.

Clarence Mitchell’s outrage with the Cortés family

by Joana Morais   9 years ago

Team McCann have no respect

Months after Madeleine went missing, another child, Mari Luz Cortés, went missing, though in very different circumstances [in a different Country as matter of fact]. Sadly she has since been found dead. The McCanns printed posters of Madeleine together with Mari Luz - without gaining the parents’ prior permission. Her parents were very upset, and complained.

Clarence Mitchell’s outrage with the Cortés family:

“It is shameful that Mari Luz’s father has brought himself to complain,” was the reaction of Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for the McCann couple, in response to the request from Juan Jose Cortés that the posters with the photo of his daughter beside Madeleine should not be distributed.




Source: Joana Morais
-----
Parents of missing Mari Luz are against her image being used in a Madeleine McCann poster campaign
McCann Gallery: For the record

Comment by Joana Morais:

Mari Luz, was dead apparently just a few days later after disappearing from the street near her family house.

Let's assume she wasn't dead at the time the McCanns hijacked Mari Luz image and her family, to serve their own purpose in the McCann's machiavelic media campaign.

The world wide dissemination of Mari Luz picture along Madeleine's would probably represent Mari Luz death sentence - this according to experts.

The McCann team (Media Machine)abuse of this little girl's tragedy is just one example of the selfish, manipulative, irresponsible attitude of the McCann couple and of Clarence Mitchell.

Again they, the McCanns and subsequently the manipulated and obliging British media, attempted to pervert the course of justice, that is, the investigation done by the Spanish authorities to Mari Luz Cortés disappearance.

It could have been Mari Luz death sentence. Similarly, if we assume Madeleine's abduction as an hypothesis it could have been Madeleine's death sentence as well- at the hands of her own parents.

Amaral is determined to speak about what happened to Maddie two years ago. He regrets not having been invited and doesn’t believe there will be a reply to his email

by Ana Maia

Gonçalo Amaral, the former Polícia Judiciária (PJ) inspector, wants to go to Oprah’s show – which will be broadcast on the 3rd of May – to tell his version of what happened to Maddie, who was 3 years old when she disappeared from Praia da Luz, in the Algarve. Amaral has even sent an email to the programme, which is broadcast into 144 countries, but he doesn’t believe he’ll receive a reply.

“I sent an email in English to Oprah yesterday [the day before yesterday]. This is a very well planned and negotiated show. Oprah won’t call me. I received no reply whatsoever and I have no doubts that there is no interest in calling me”, Gonçalo Amaral told 24horas.

But if there was a reply, and a positive one, the former inspector wouldn’t hesitate. “I’d go there at my own expense. But they won’t invite anyone”, said Amaral, who has always been under great criticism from Maddie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, during the entire process.

About other similar actions, Gonçalo Amaral immediately replied: “The action is worldwide. There’s lots of people calling there”.
-----
Source: 24horas, 22.04.2009
Translated by Joana Morais

Maddie's case can drag on for six months

by Joana Morais 11 years ago

In January, the investigation of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will reach the maximum period of eight months defined in the Penal Procedure Code. So this month is pointed by several lawyers and also by some elements of the Judicial Police (PJ) as a "decisive" date . But the Ministerio Publico (MP) can extend the period of the inquiry.

The problem is to know by how many months should the process continue, taking into account the fact that this body does not know what kind of crime has been committed.

The expert in penal procedure and also president of the Union of Magistrates of Public Prosecutors (SMMP) for the of the district of Évora, Carlos Casimiro, explained to the DN that "the outcome of this process depends exclusively on the definition of the type of crime that has been committed against Madeleine McCann".

The magistrate says that "the PJ is maintaining two theories - one is the abduction and the other is the homicide crime.The extension of the deadlines as defined for the investigation depends on the type of the crime". In this contest,he explained that "also for each type of crime, there are several deadlines for the extension of the inquiry, because there are also different types of abduction and homicide crime". "A crime of abduction might be, for example, a few hours kidnapping and for a homicide crime there is a wide typology. For each one there is a specific deadline".

According to Carlos Casimiro, if the detectives conclude that Maddie has effectively been murdered and if everything is still performed publicly relatively to the perpetrators of the crime, in January the MP can request the extension of the period of the investigation for more three months. At the end of this period, if the the same incertitude is maintained, the MP has the possibility to request a second delay which can only be for more three months. After that, there are only two possibilities: the closing of the investigation for lack of evidence or as the magistrate thinks to be more "foreseeable" that there will be a "delay of the inquiry in the desperate attempt to seek evidence to sustain an accusation".

Carlos Casimiro said, "we are in presence of a highly internationally mediatic case and it is the image of the country that is at stake". Moreover, he stressed, "the Judicial Police has been, since the beginning of this process, perfectly slandered, essentially by the British press and this is why its reputation and its high professionalism should be preserved".

After the disclosure on the 23rd of the video made by the McCanns during the first Christmas since the child disappeared showing images of the girl excited and opening the presents of last year, the agency of Spanish private eyes, Método 3, which works for the couple in the investigation of her disappearance, has already received 347 calls with alleged information about her whereabouts.

The new information is now being examined by the detectives of Método 3, one by one. And according to the DN, that agency "does not throw away any information whatever it it comes from."

Presently, the detectives focus their attention especially in Portugal and Morocco, in the city of Marrakesh.

Crying Shame

by Joana Morais 9 years ago



The life of Madeleine Beth McCann changed forever on 3rd May 2007. As a 3 year old child she did not have a say in how she should be cared for. She had no choice in what was to become of her. Those she trusted to provide the care and protection which was her human right failed her in every possible way. She is still being failed. 

While there are those who seek to find Madeleine, others seek also to find justice for this child. Justice I believe is ever closer, it may found before Madeleine. There are many good people who work tirelessly with this aim. Sr.Gonçalo Amaral, without question at the forefront. Others campaign for the case into the disappearance of the child to be re-opened. Joana, Astro and Kazlux, by keeping this site open, keep awareness high, bring us news which those of us here in the U.K. would not otherwise hear of. They allow us to use this site as a platform to express our thoughts and feelings on this case.

It is beyond my comprehension why some out there constantly ask – ‘Why would anyone campaign for justice for a child whom they do not know?’ But for those who are prepared to put their neck on the line Madeleine would be forgotten. The news we would hear would be only that which was authorised by those who control such matters. But for the actions of those amongst us who are prepared to stand up and be counted, Madeleine and all other children like her, all of the children in our world would be failed.

History tells us, the freedom we enjoy in today’s world is because those who have gone before us did not sit back and look the other way. They did not sit on the fence. They fought for what was good, right and just.

At whatever level, it is that simple - Good people fight for the good of others.


Crying Shame

by A. Miller

The disappearance of 3 year old Madeleine McCann from the holiday apartment where she was residing with her parents, medical doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, and her two younger siblings in Praia da Luz Portugal has without question shocked and fascinated the world in equal measure.

Her parents it was initially reported had left their three children alone while they dined a short distance away. This ‘distance’ was later to be described by Gerry McCann as being akin to that of dining in their back garden at home. This of course was not true.

They stated, that from where they sat at a tapas restaurant they were able to see the patio/sliding door of the apartment, and that they had checked on their children every 15 minutes or so.

It was possible from the outside seating area of the restaurant to see the extreme top part of the patio door. Shrubbery obscured all else. It was not possible however from the inside covered area of the restaurant in the darkness of the night to see the door clearly at all. It was in this covered area that the McCann party sat for their meal.

It transpired also that Kate McCann made only one check on her children that evening. This check took place 90 minutes after she had left them alone in the apartment to go out to dinner. It was at this time around 10:00 p.m. she discovered that Madeleine was missing.>

Kate McCann said she knew instantly that Madeleine had been abducted.

To date there is not a shred of evidence to prove abduction!

Fiona Payne, who claims Kate McCann, is her closest friend, in her statement to police discounts what Kate McCann has stated with respect to abduction being , Kate’s first thoughts?.

Kate McCann also claimed that the window shutter of her children’s bedroom had been jemmied open.

This proved to be untrue also, and a retraction of this statement was made by the McCann spokesperson, Clarence Mitchell.

Public sympathy for Madeleine and her parents was overwhelming.

Madeleine’s parents, family, and friends I’m sure, shed many tears at the loss of the child.

The public also, took Madeleine into their hearts. They cried for her as though she was their own.

The overwhelming sympathy the public had for the McCann’s soon became tempered with anger and disbelief as the true extent of what these children had been subjected to unfolded.

Night after night their parents, the doctors McCann had left their three very young and vulnerable children to their fate, out of sight and earshot, while they wined and dined in a restaurant with their friends, friends who had also left their children alone and unprotected.

The children were not being checked every 15 minutes or so, but half hourly, if that! The checks did not involve a visual check, i.e. looking in on the children as one would have imagined. It was simply an exercise in listening out for crying.If crying could not be heard, the parents assumed all was well. The McCann parents on the recent Oprah Show stressed this point, as did Oprah – ‘checks were merely to listen out for CRYING!

As parents, we all know that ‘silence’ does not always mean that all is well with our children. Visual checks are clearly necessary, but more importantly, it is something which a caring parent does automatically. As parents we do look in on our children, tuck them in, adjust the bedclothes give them “another” gentle kiss goodnight as they sleep.

Why would the doctors McCann go to their apartment and only listen, not look in on their children?

Why would the other parents, stand outside the building close to the shuttered bedroom windows to listen out for crying?

Were they all just too lazy to bother? Was it keeping them from their ‘get-together? Or did they just not care enough?

The McCann’s claimed that they were mimicking a style of ‘listening service’ which they claim is provided in holiday resorts elsewhere in Europe!

I know of no listening service where staff stand outside shuttered bedroom windows and listen for crying. Nor do I know of any listening service where patio doors are left unlocked for staff to enter apartments, but not make a visual check of the children, simply to stand inside and listen for crying.

It must be made clear at this point that the McCann party knew prior to travelling to Portugal that the Mark Warner Complex, the Ocean Club where they would be staying, did NOT provide a ‘listening service’. As the apartments were not in an enclosed compound, but spread out, some leading onto public streets, and were also a mixture of privately owned properties, Mark Warner had deemed that ‘listening services’ were neither safe nor practical. They did however offer the services of a crèche during daytime, and babysitting services at night.

The McCann’s chose not to avail of the evening child care services provided at this resort, but felt it more appropriate to leave their children unattended in an unlocked apartment.

The Ocean Club Management, experts in their field did not provide listening services for reasons of safety which they laid out – The McCann’s chose to ignore the safety issues believing that they could do the job which the professionals had deemed unsafe.

The plight of not, just Madeleine, but all of the children, could not fail to touch even the hardest of hearts. Left alone, to cry in their holiday apartment, no one to comfort, care and protect them, ease their fears when they woke in the night, when they needed reassurance, when they needed to be made feel safe.

The question on the lips of some –‘How could the McCann’s, both doctors have treated children in this way?’

I ask – How could the McCann’s, not as medical professionals, but as parents, treat their own flesh and blood in this way?  What makes parents, who say they were so desperate to have children, carry out such a cold and callous act against their own, leaving them in a horrifying situation?

An act, which the doctors McCann, have since defended, claiming it was ‘WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF RESPONSIBLE PARENTING.’

An act, which perhaps more disturbingly, more bizarrely, has been condoned by some members of the public, who in their defence of the McCann’s state that leaving the children for all of these nights in an unlocked apartment was a ‘mistake.’

They said it would not bring Madeleine back, to speak of the ‘mistake’.It should be forgotten!.

Travelling by private jet to Rome, to see the Pope in the Vatican City could not bring back Madeleine, but it did not stop the doctors McCann making the journey!

To not speak of the ‘mistake’ is an injustice not only to Madeleine, her brother and sister, the other children in the McCann party, but to every child who has ever been subjected to abuse, those children also who we know will be victims in the future.There are many forms of abuse, and many children who suffer.

By sweeping it under the carpet, the perpetrators are protected.

To those of you who to this day still maintain that it was a mistake, with the knowledge which we now hold - Shame on you!

How could these well educated persons leave their children in such terrifying and dangerous circumstances and boldly claim that it was a ‘responsible act?’

The thought of the children alone in that apartment sends a shiver.

I have asked myself - How do parents walk out on their children, hear the door click behind them and happily go out for an evening knowing that they have left them in a dangerous and vulnerable situation? In my mind I have gone over this scenario many times, tried to act as the McCann parents did. I could not bring myself to go beyond opening that imaginary door to leave my child before turning back. The thought of my child waking, alone frightened, distressed and crying, just too terrifying and upsetting. An unbearable thought that my child would suffer such unnecessary and preventable anguish. How parents can inflict such pain and suffering is beyond my comprehension.

To those who harm a child in any way, manner or form, I feel only repulsion.

So what type of person abuses their children in this way? Don’t fool yourselves that it was not abuse, as it was! It was abuse of the human rights of these children to be cared for and protected as far as is humanly possible. That did not happen, not by a long shot!

What type of person leaves their children, three children under the age of 4 years, alone and unsupervised, to go out to eat drink and be merry with friends simply to satisfy their own selfish needs? The McCann parents did this for 5 successive nights.

What type of person can actually enjoy the evening out knowing that their children are alone in an apartment exposed to every danger imaginable, that their children are able to exit the apartment in the dead of night onto the open road, that anyone who wished to gain access to these children could without hindrance?

Has anyone ever left home and then the horrible thought that you may not have unplugged the iron or any other electrical appliance from the socket? We rush home to be sure, to make things safe.

No one rushed home to the McCann children to see if they were safe. Visual checks were not the order of the day – simply to listen outside bedroom windows or from just inside the apartment was considered sufficient.

‘WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF RESPONSIBLE PARENTING’ - A statement, which would not only come back to haunt the McCann’s, but one which made all responsible parents around the globe, reel in anger!

Clarence Mitchell their spokesperson, attempted to stem the backlash by stating when interviewed, that this was how things were done in the U.K. that parents liked to put their children to bed early so as to have time to themselves. The implication being that thereafter, the parents of British children then left their offspring unattended while they went out for the evening.

It was a sloppy and shameful defence of the neglectful behaviour of the doctors McCann. One of the first of many!

To protect the McCann parents and make light of their appalling neglect of their children, ALL, British parents, were to bear the brunt. We were to accept the ‘veiled’ implication in Clarence Mitchell’s statement. To protect his clients the doctors Kate McCann and Gerry McCann, to pave over their irresponsible and callous actions, British parents were to be hung out to dry!

I believe there is no length, no depth to which these people will stoop to protect themselves.

If we are to accept the ‘implication’ in Clarence Mitchell’s statement, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the McCann’s as British citizens, prior to their holiday in Portugal, may have practiced this same “responsible” fashion of childcare as described by Clarence when at home in England!

Did the McCann parents leave their children alone at home in England?

Mitchell’s statement however served only to further fuel the fire!

More damning still, was the statement given to police by Mrs Fenn who lives in the apartment above that of apartment, 5A, from where Madeleine vanished.

She claims to have heard the cries of a child from the apartment where the doctors McCann had left their children. The child cried for a very lengthy period of time, for over one hour. She heard the child cry out for her daddy.

The McCann’s have stated also that Madeleine woke at night during this holiday.They confirmed that on one occasion Madeleine came to their bedroom to tell them that one of her younger siblings was crying.

The McCann children had woken and cried the night prior to the disappearance of Madeleine also. Madeleine told her parents of this the following morning, asking them why they did not come when they had cried.

The doctors McCann did not answer the cries of these babies. Of course they didn’t! How could they? They were dining much too far away to hear. They were enjoying the adult time together which Clarence Mitchell stated, as British citizens, they considered “normal.”

Thus far, I cannot see any evidence of responsible parenting having taken place, not on any night during that holiday. At best the doctors McCann were reckless!

They tell us they discussed what Madeleine had told them and decided that what Madeleine had said was ‘something and nothing.’Madeleine did not appear upset Kate McCann told best friend Fiona Payne. The fact though that the children were awake and alone should have been a sharp ‘wake- up call’ for the McCann’s!

What the child had said about having cried made no difference to their plans to go out and meet up with their friends that evening. They did agree we are told ‘to keep a closer watch over the children!

What plan they had set in motion for this to happen we can only hazard a guess. Increasing the frequency of checks, from that of previous evenings? Was that the plan? If so, it never materialised!

These two parents, medical professionals, we are to believe, discussed the situation and the best idea they could come up with was to once again leave their children alone and unsupervised in an unlocked apartment.

Not much of a concession, nor much of a plan, when the safety and wellbeing of their children was at stake. It did not cross their minds it would seem, despite the children alone awake and crying the previous evening that it would be best for at least one of them to stay and look after them.

The public ever more horrified at the behaviour of the doctors McCann began questioning, voicing their anger at the, abhorrent, treatment of these children.

As revelation after revelation in this case entered the public domain in the form of the police files, it was apparent that there was much awry.>

Cries of sadness turned to cries of anger, cries of ‘JUSTICE FOR MADELEINE.’

Clarence Mitchell once more, in a feeble bid at limiting further damage to the ‘reputation’ of the doctors McCann, “sold out” Madeleine, by stating that what she had said meant nothing!

In absentia too, the cries of this child fell on deaf ears. It would seem that the reputation of her parents was top of the agenda their need to be heard, their need to be PROTECTED clearly considered to be of greater importance than that of the child’s.

The child’s feelings and fears we are told meant nothing! They did! Just not to her parents, the doctors McCann! Had they “listened” Madeleine would be here today!

Both the doctors McCann and their highly paid spokesperson, Clarence Mitchell, had no shame in announcing this to the world – that Madeleine’s words meant nothing! The depths to which these parents would sink to protect, not Madeleine but themselves, clearly had no bounds!

Added to this catalogue of sickening revelations, it emerged that the doctors McCann DELIBERATELY left the patio door of the apartment (where their three young children slept alone) unlocked while they dined out with friends.

Kate McCann it seems spoke of this at the dinner table that evening, asking the opinion of her friend Fiona, if it was better to leave the door unlocked so that, should the child wake she would be able to leave the apartment and come look for them, or was it better for the child to wake and not be able to get out?

From Fiona Payne’s police statement, speaking of what Kate McCann said:

“She did, she brought it up and that she, I mean, this is awful in retrospect as well, she asked what my opinion was on, erm, tut, on whether they were okay leaving the, the doors unlocked, because she was saying ‘Is it better that if Madeleine wakes up she can get out and find us or’, erm,‘or locking it and, you know, finding that we’re not there and the door’s locked if she woke up’,

To leave a door unlocked for a 3 year old child to wander out on the streets, bare footed, wearing only her nightwear, in the dead of night.....?

All of this, the McCann parents considered to be -WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF RESPONSIBLE PARENTING!

There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that the neglectful behaviour by these parents towards their children was an abuse of their basic human rights as minors to be cared for and protected from harm as far as is humanly possible.

They knowingly abandoned their children, deliberately creating circumstances (the unlocked door) for the purpose of their three year old daughter to be able to leave the apartment in the dead of night where any number of dangers could have befallen her, to search for her parents who were wining and dining in a restaurant. Furthermore, the unlocked apartment endangered not only the life of 3 year old Madeleine but also of Sean and Amelie, the two younger children. Anyone, who had the ‘mind to’ being able to gain access and inflict harm on these children.

Madeleine, Sean and Amelie, quite clearly could not defend themselves in the situation in which they were placed. I believe this to be a criminal act!

Portuguese Judicial Code
Article 138
Exposure or abandonment

1 - Whom endangers the life of another person:
a) By exposing her in a place where the person is subject to a situation which she cannot defend herself from on her own; or
b) By abandoning her in a defenseless state, for motive of age, physical defect or illness,when the agent had the duty to guard, watch or assist to the person;
is punished with a prison term of 1 to 5years.

2 - If the fact is practised by an ascendant ;or descendant, adoptant or adoptee of the victim, the agent is punished with a prison term of 2 to 5 years.

3 - If the fact results in:
a) Serious offense to the physical integrity, the agent is punished with a prison term of 2 to 8 years;
b) Death, the agent is punished with a prison term of 3 to 10 years.

The doctors McCann did not come close to providing a basic level of care for these children.

For those out there, who still consider that the doctors McCann made a mistake? Perhaps it is time to take off the blinkers.

Having now established that on the night of 3^rd May 2007 the doctors McCann:

Left the children alone once more, the 5^th night in succession, despite knowing that their children had been upset and crying the previous night.

They left the patio door unlocked despite knowing that it allowed any person, paedophile or other, access to their children. It allowed opportunity also for their daughter Madeleine to step outside to obvious known dangers. Kate McCann has stated one of the purposes of leaving the door unlocked was for Madeleine to be able to leave.

They did NOT increase the frequency of checks on this evening, despite having stated that they discussed the safety of their children and had agreed ‘to watch them more closely.’

Both doctors claim that on their individual checks, they did not intend looking in, making a visual check on the children. Only for the fact they each found the bedroom door to be more open, than when they had left that evening did they do so. As Kate McCann stated, - she stepped inside the patio door, as all was quiet she was just going to go straight back out, but then noticed the position of the bedroom door. This worried anxious mother had no intentions when she entered that apartment to even look at her children.

Despite doctor Kate McCann telling her friend at the dinner table of the ‘crying incident’ which had occurred the previous night, telling her friend that they had left the patio door unlocked, and appearing to her friend to be anxious at this, she did not leave the table for over 90 minutes to check on her children?

Is this the actions of worried, anxious concerned and responsible parents? Was all of this a mistake?

Please do remember those of you who have decided that the McCann’s made a mistake that the McCann’s are NOT with you on this one. They do not consider any mistake was made. They consider their actions to be ‘RESPONSIBLE PARENTING’ and it is this, that they will argue in a Court of Law if need be. They have no intentions of throwing themselves upon the mercy of the Court, pleading for forgiveness for a ‘mistake’.

It is the “checks” of the McCann children which have caused so much speculation, aroused suspicion, have raised eyebrows, so many inconsistencies.

Inconsistencies in times, we all know slight inconsistencies can happen, a couple of minutes out here or there. That I do not dispute. I actually find it quite remarkable that the group have been so accurate, all of the group in agreement with regards the timeline, considering, we are told most of them were not wearing watches nor mobile phones that evening? In some of the police statements certain members of the group could not remember who went to check before whom. So yes, it is truly remarkable that they are all able to be so precise in the timings.

Well done the tapas group, a lot of thought must have been put into this exercise.

It is the persons who performed the checks on the 3^rd May 2007, and the reason why the pattern, checking system, and routine which we understand took place on previous evenings changed on this night that intrigues, specifically the introduction of Matthew Oldfield.

Gerry McCann we now know believes that the alleged intruder was in the apartment at the time of his check around 9:05 P.M. He believes the intruder could have been hiding behind the bedroom door in the children’s room.

Sr. Amaral, in his documentary, proved that it was not possible for a grown man to have secreted himself behind the bedroom door – not enough space to do so. The McCann’s believed that the alleged intruder gained access by the bedroom window. If this was so Gerry McCann, from his position in the doorway of the children’s bedroom would have seen the open bedroom window.

Matt Oldfield we must not forget checked at this bedroom window, at around 9:00 P.M. So it was closed at this time. A few minutes later Gerry McCann arrived, passing this window and entering the apartment by the front door. If it had been open, Gerry McCann would have seen this from the outside before entering the apartment.

At this juncture, it must be pointed out that in the ‘McCann made’ documentary, Gerry McCann demonstrates how he entered the apartment – he uses the front door, the one which was locked.This is confirmed also in Sr Amaral’s documentary - Gerry McCann entered by the front door!

I think it is therefore safe to say that the bedroom window was NOT open at the time Gerry McCann was in the apartment. This backs up absolutely the finding of the Portuguese police - the window shutter had not been jemmied!

Worth mentioning also, is, if the bedroom door was open further than the McCann’s had left it, and Madeleine was lying sleeping in the exact position as Gerry has stated ‘how he left her’ – Why as a parent did he not explore further how this bedroom door came to be open so wide? Clearly it could not have been the twins who opened it, and Gerry was the first to check. Before leaving the apartment did he satisfy himself as to how the door came to be open more widely?

As a parent who had left his children in an unlocked apartment, surely his trend of thought would have immediately turned to – ‘maybe someone had gained entry?’ It didn’t! He waltzed back to the tapas bar, stopping to chat to an acquaintance for a short time directly outside the apartment.

So this ‘open door’ was not something which caused him concern, not enough to investigate how it came to be more open. That is extraordinary, considering he knew he had left a door unlocked and the safety of his children was at stake here. Why didn't he check out the apartment, and lock that patio door?   Better still, stay with his children!

Gerry also states that it was warm in the room he thought it was quite hot and felt ‘no need to cover Madeleine.’ Yet he is later surprised that the child’s bed appeared undisturbed after it was discovered that she was missing. If she had not been covered up, why would the bedclothes be disturbed? Why would this be so strange?

Matt Oldfield has stated that he was annoyed at Gerry McCann for going to check ‘immediately’ on his children after he, Oldfield had listened at the window at 9:00 p.m. He felt Gerry McCann did not trust in his check. Up until this point no other member of the tapas group had ever checked on the McCann children during that week, either by going into the apartment or by listening from outside the shuttered bedroom window.

What made Matt Oldfield decide to do so on that night? To get to his own apartment, did not require him passing the McCann bedroom window. I often wondered at this.

Did Gerry McCann, when Oldfield told him that he had done an impromptu check, then hurry round immediately thereafter to the apartment, as he was afraid that Oldfield may have seen or heard something/someone, which he should not?

Was something about to happen which was not for Oldfield’s eyes? Or was Oldfield himself, up to something?

Someone was! Of that there can be no doubt.

Interestingly, on the Oprah interview, Gerry McCann mentions that Matt Oldfield had gone up to check on the Oldfield children around 9:00 pm. Gerry McCann makes no mention of Oldfield at this same check time, listening at the bedroom window of the McCann children!

Did this check actually happen? One wonders!

Oldfield met the Payne family making their way down to the tapas restaurant, as he went on his 9:00 pm check, and spoke to them as they crossed paths, joking about the Payne’s always being late.

It would seem extremely unlikely that any intruder would have had the opportunity to go into the McCann apartment by any of the accesses during this period of time. Too many of the tapas group going back and forth between the tapas restaurant and the apartments during this period.

We must remember also that this chap Jez, a British holidaymaker was in the area that night, out walking his young child in his pushchair. Other members of the public may also have been walking this street and surrounding ones. Not only the McCann’s and their friends were in PDL that evening!

As for Oldfield carrying out another check on the McCann children that night, this time at around 9:30, and this time entering the apartment? It is this which is quite baffling!

Seems most unusual to say the least! He is annoyed at Gerry McCann for what he feels, is Gerry’s mistrust of his earlier check at the shuttered window at 9:00 pm that night, yet he agrees, to not only listen at a shuttered window this time around but to enter the apartment by the unlocked patio door?

Kate McCann said that Oldfield offered to do this check, which relieved her of her duties, but she stated, that he hesitated in his offer – ‘hesitation’ to me indicates being ASKED to do something but not being entirely comfortable with it. It is not something generally one would do when you are making the offer.

Would you offer to check on the McCann children, children who you do not know, period, let alone when you had been made to feel untrustworthy just a short time earlier by Gerry McCann?

Would you offer to check on these children who you do not know, when their mother Kate McCann had just announced that her children were awake and crying the previous evening? Rachael Oldfield, Matt Oldfield’s wife, was privy to this conversation.

Would common-sense not dictate that the mother of the children should perform this task if this was her scheduled time for doing so?

Wouldn’t Mrs. Rachael Oldfield think this unusual, her husband offering/being asked to check on Kate and Gerry McCann’s children, children he did not know, by entering their unlocked apartment?

We must understand that the Oldfield’s were acquaintances of the McCann’s not close friends. They did not know the McCann’s or their children well at all. The children, basically by sight only!

Fiona Payne in her police statement, speaking of how well the party knew each other:

'Matt and Rachael didn’t know maybe Kate and Gerry quite so well'.

Kate McCann has announced at the table that the children cried the previous evening.She has stated that the patio door has been left unlocked.

I cannot imagine that Mrs. Rachael Oldfield would have thought for an instant that this was a wise route to go down. Would any of us think it wise for our husband on his own, to enter an unlocked apartment, to check on three young children who he did not know, who had been left alone there, by their parents, children, who may be awake and crying, children who on seeing him would be terrified witless.

Madeleine too may have been out of bed, in the front living area looking for her parents. Madeleine did not know Oldfield, and he most certainly would not be who Madeleine or the twins would expect to see when they woke in the night.

The McCann’s clearly thought there was every possibility that Madeleine would wake and come look for them, this is why they say, they left the patio door unlocked. It would not be unreasonable to suggest therefore that there was a chance that this is what Oldfield might find.

What would Oldfield do in that situation, finding the children awake and crying, Madeleine out of bed? He could not go to them, hug and comfort them. He did not know them. They would have been so afraid of him.

After scaring them half to death, he would then have had to leave them once more, alone and crying, more upset than ever, and return to the tapas bar to alert the McCann’s.

What utter nonsense!

I ask, would any of us allow, any individual, who our children was not familiar with, to check on them, in a darkened apartment, or otherwise? I think not!

The McCann’s knew there was every possibility that Madeleine and/or, one or both twins could be awake and crying, yet they thought it okay for Oldfield to enter their apartment?

It does not make an ounce of sense. Oldfield admits he was a stranger to these children.

I’m not so sure that Oldfield did a check at 9:00 pm at the shuttered window, and I am even less convinced that he checked on the McCann children at 9:30 by entering their apartment.

The fact that he has stated he did, assists the McCann’s, in as much as it gives the impression that the children were checked regularly.

It was convenient on one hand, that he could not state that he saw Madeleine. On the other, it rather threw the ‘window of opportunity’ wide open, from the ‘tiny’ one which Kate McCann spoke of, in one of the early McCann documentaries. Something the McCann’s perhaps did not anticipate.

If no one can state categorically that Madeleine was NOT in the apartment at 9:30, then there is every chance that she was!

The doctors McCann will not entertain the possibility that Madeleine, if taken by an intruder, could have been taken at any other time, than just after 9:00 p.m. This is entirely due they say, to Jane Tanner’s ‘sighting’ in which they are confident.

We must ask why this is so? To restrict their now private investigation around this one sighting is most definitely leaving a stone unturned.

But, what of, the Smith family sighting?

If Madeleine was taken from the apartment by anyone, be it someone within the tapas group of friends or an unknown other, an unknown other working independently or working for Gerry McCann or working for some other member of the tapas group, then it is possible that this happened at a later time, and the person carrying Madeleine was the person the Smith family saw.

This family, consisting of at least four adults, saw someone carrying a blonde child fitting Madeleine’s description. One member of this family is firmly of the opinion that the man he saw was Gerry McCann. The others not so convinced of this. It does not mean that it was Gerry McCann, but it certainly means that someone who looks like him carried a child that evening.

This is no different from other sightings.

Others have been questioned because they looked similar to descriptions given by the public. They were innocent persons, but nevertheless they were sought out, based on the descriptions given, questioned and cleared.

Why have no persons, to our knowledge, been sought, found and interviewed by McCann private detectives, based on the description given by the adult members of the Smith family.

We have had no press conference by the McCann’s, no news headlines flashed around the world in this regard. Unlike the latest press conference (the Australian connection) where pictures of harbours, streets where nightclubs are located were flashed on screen, commentary supplied by Clarence Mitchell!

Why nothing similar for the Smith family sightings?

Was the man they saw one of the tapas group? Could this be why we do not hear anything of this most crucial sighting?

Is it possible for the man Tanner claims to have seen to have later passed Madeleine to the man the Smith’s saw? If so, why would the McCann’s not follow up this lead?

Without doubt, it has to be the best lead in this entire case. Four adults seeing a man carrying a blonde haired female child, of around three/four years of age, on the night Madeleine disappeared!

If the tapas group, or some off, are involved in some way in Madeleine’s disappearance, Tanner’s sighting may well just be a fabrication, likewise the crying incident, the unlocked patio door and Oldfield’s checks at 9:00 pm and 9:30 pm.

Why on the evening of the 3^rd May 2007, did the pattern of checking the children change? Why on this night did the McCann’s decide to leave the patio door unlocked? Why did Kate McCann decide to announce this at the dinner table that evening? And why did none of this group express horror and anger at the thought of these children being left so vulnerable?

Beggar’s belief! Which, is EXACTLY why I do not believe that the patio door, was unlocked or that Kate McCann told Fiona Payne and/or others this at dinner that evening.

Are we really to believe that the doctors McCann thought it best to leave a door unlocked for their three year old daughter to wander out into the night in bare feet, pyjamas to look for them?

Are we to believe that all members of this group took this revelation in their stride?

Fiona Payne tells us that it was Gerry’s idea to leave the patio door unlocked, and that Kate McCann was not comfortable with this!

Why then did Kate McCann not simply stay at home and look after her children? Tell Gerry to go ‘flip off!’ What mum, fearful for her children’s safety would go along with this for the sake of a glass of wine and a bite to eat? ‘Okay darling, not happy about leaving the door unlocked but if you think it’s okay, then it’s okay with me too.....and I suppose Madeleine is almost 4 years old now, she’ll manage to find us quite easily. Not sure if she’ll know to put on warm clothing or shoes before she sets out. She might struggle with her limited Portuguese though if she needs to ask directions to the tapas.............’ Piffle!

What a quandary for these poor medical professionals – what to do eh? A loving caring mother’s instinct is to protect, NOT to put her children AT RISK.

Are we to believe also that the McCann’s left the apartment unlocked with their passports and other valuable documents inside? This would surely invalidate any insurance policy they would have. Sorry, but cannot for a moment believe McCann’s would take that chance with these type of valuables.

To re-cap, Kate and Gerry McCann:

1. Left the patio door to their apartment unlocked allowing ease of access to their three young children by anyone who cared to take advantage of the situation. It also was to serve the purpose of enabling their three year old daughter Madeleine to leave the apartment unsupervised late at night to go out onto the streets in search of her parents. The McCann’s consciously and deliberately created this circumstance. Leaving, the door unlocked was not a mistake. It was not a case of them forgetting to lock-up!

2. They thought it a good idea also, to allow a man, Matthew Oldfield, in essence a stranger to the children to go into their apartment, the purpose being to ‘listen for crying.’ Matt Oldfield has stated that he did not check on these children earlier in the week as he did not know them well enough to do so.

Matt Oldfield did not know them any better at the end of this holiday than he did at the beginning. He did not spend time with the McCann children. The McCann children were in a crèche all day (allowed out for lunch), then early to bed. At what point exactly did he become acquainted with them? When and how did he get to know them so well, that he became comfortable with going into the unlocked darkened apartment, to check on these children?

The McCann parents themselves spent very little time during that week with their children.

So what changed on the day of Madeleine’s disappearance that made Matt Oldfield, enter the McCann apartment to check on the McCann children?

What prompted him to suddenly decide to check at the shuttered window? He was the only one to do so! Perhaps we will never know.

What changed in general that day? Almost everything!

1.The McCann children were not taken to the tennis courts after tea for their usual ‘playtime.’

2. Kate claimed that they were too tired to play on this night.

3. David Payne claimed he was asked by Gerry McCann to check on Kate McCann and the children. Why? So far, I have not heard a feasible explanation for doing so.

4. David Payne claimed he saw all three McCann children sitting dressed in pyjamas looking like little angels.

5. David Payne ........a man of mystery! His wife Fiona in her police statements found great difficulty in pinpointing exactly when he made his visit to Kate McCann. His wife said he was on the tennis courts at 6:30pm? Could not decide whether he visited Kate before or after tennis. If after, what would be the point, by that time it should have been obvious to Gerry that the children were not coming to watch daddy ‘play!’

6. Matt Oldfield takes it upon himself to do an impromptu check at the shuttered window of the bedroom where the McCann children slept.

7. Matt Oldfield later enters the McCann apartment to check on the children.

8. The McCann’s decide to leave a patio door unlocked.

9. Kate McCann decides to mention this to the group at dinner that evening.

10. Kate McCann further decides to tell the group that Madeleine and Sean, one of her twin children were crying the previous night while they, the parents, were out dining.

11. No one in the group express concern for the children on hearing Kate McCann’s revelations?

12. Matt Oldfield, Gerry McCann, Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner and of course our Kate are the only ones to leave the table that evening. The Payne’s, Dianne Webster and Rachael Oldfield did not.

13. Kate McCann a worried and anxious mum (according to her friend Fiona Payne) does NOT carry out her scheduled 9:30 check of her children, preferring to allow a stranger to carry out this task?

Did some tragic accident happen to Madeleine in apartment 5A? Something which required to be covered up? Something which entailed them having to accept being thought of as caring cold and callous parents who neglect their children, having too much to lose if the truth was to be known?

I think this is closer to the mark!

IF the McCann’s left the patio door open that night, I can only assume it was for a purpose other than those they have stated.

Was Matt Oldfield duped/used by the McCann’s to do this 9:30 check, but messed up by not DISCOVERING (as was their intention) that Madeleine was not there? Was Oldfield the one who was supposed to report her disappearance?

Or was he conned into stating that he had carried out checks on these children which he had not, out of some misguided sense of loyalty, so that the group as a whole did not appear to be as neglectful as they quite clearly had been.

Whatever really happened that night, only this group of people know! I don’t believe the complete truth will ever be found.

At this point in time, I’ll stick with Oldfield not having made any checks whatsoever on the McCann children.

The tapas group, have, I believe deliberately muddied the waters by issuing conflicting statements, contradicting themselves time after time, all to their own good. Causing confusion, being evasive helps those with something to hide. It does not help any official investigation.

This group of people, all highly intelligent, well educated persons, medical professionals in the main, articulate sharp and alert, yet their memories fail them when interviewed by police. They become babbling baboons, stuttering, stammering, uttering strange sounds in answer to questions put to them. Idiotic answers are given.

Do we honestly believe that this is how they are?

I think too, that the timeline they have given, all hinging on Tanner’s sighting, which of course we know, both Gerry and Jez ‘missed’ despite the alleged abductor passing under their nose, is what really has ‘thrown matters’ and intentionally so.

Read through the police statements and you will see that no one really knows who left the table, or at what time, and for how long. They speak of a timeline, not out of their recall of that night, but from when they got together to piece a timeline together.

As far as I can see, the McCann’s need the world to concentrate on the Tanner sighting, and the Tanner sighting alone, without any other possible scenario, being given credence.

The Smith family sighting it would seem has come as more of a ‘blow’ to them than a God send!

According to Tanner she did not see a blonde child, only legs and bare feet.

The Smith’s, all of the adults in this family witnessed a blonde female child being carried by a man. One of the family members also stated, that the man was Gerry McCann!

The silence on this sighting by the McCann’s is deafening. Surely this is one gigantic stone left unturned?

Whatever the truth, in this tragic case, one thing I am certain of, that each and every one of the members of this party, know more than they are telling. I believe also that most of what they have stated, has been tailored to suit the needs of the McCann’s/neglect issue.

It is my opinion they have all lied to some degree, and are, all now living a lie to protect the truth of what happened to this child becoming known/neglect issue.

I believe they have created a situation whereby it is now almost impossible to distinguish truth from lies. It is quite possible they now believe any lie, white or otherwise which they may have told.

I am firmly of the opinion that certain members of the tapas group were involved in the disappearance of this wee girl, and that those others who are totally innocent of any involvement, perhaps told lies to cover the groups neglect as a whole, of ALL children who were left alone in the various apartments on that holiday.

I also believe that as time has passed and information come to the fore, that those innocent members of the group, must now, at the very least have suspicions as to what happened to Madeleine on that fateful night.

If this is so, how they live with themselves, sleep at night, is beyond understanding.

I believe too, that if all were completely innocent, and knew nothing of what happened to Madeleine, if they thought for a moment that there was a chance she could be found alive – that they would have, without hesitation taken part in a reconstruction of events as requested by the Portuguese police.

They would have put in the same effort in assisting the police as they did in 'constructing' the timeline on Madeleine’s colouring book!

If they were completely innocent they would have put to one side any ridiculous notion that they were being set up by the Portuguese police and thought only of Madeleine. Their refusal to me suggests that they knew Madeleine was not alive, and the reason for this being so.

There is not a reason in the world which could keep me, if in the same position from taking part in a reconstruction which could possibly help discover the whereabouts, or what happened to my friends missing child. How could one not?

The McCann party have argued that the reconstruction would have been a pointless exercise, hidden agendas. If these people are innocent, what did they fear, what did it matter if the reconstruction came to nothing? Surely it was worth a try.

Five private detective agencies down the line and still they have come up with nothing – didn’t stop the McCann’s from continually hiring these hopeless, incompetent and useless detectives paying phenomenal amounts in fees to boot!

Is it not interesting that the McCann’s came up with the best criminal lawyers for their own defence – Why shouldn’t they, you may ask, wouldn’t we all? Of course we would, but what is confusing here is that whilst they are able to do this, two years down the line, they are still struggling to find a detective agency who specialise in missing persons!

It is an appalling arrogance of the McCann party, to deem an official police reconstruction into the disappearance of a missing child as pointless! To reduce the chance of discovering the whereabouts of Madeleine, dead or alive – is beyond sickening.

If this child Madeleine Beth McCann was alive at that time, being held in horrific circumstances, with horrific things happening to her – Madeleine would not have thought it pointless!

If tragically the child was not of this world – it was not pointless!

It was NOT for this group of people to decide what chances of survival Madeleine should be afforded. Yet they did!

Fiona Payne stated:

“And I still don’t see, erm, I think, emotionally, it would be hideous to go back and have to do a re-enactment, I really do, and I don’t see how, erm, emotions couldn’t affect the way it was done, because it would just be horrific, I mean imagine, you know, Jane having to relive that, Kate having to relive that, any of us having to relive that, you, you couldn’t do it without it being an emotional thing.”

In my eyes they are a snivelling bunch of cowards. Did ever once these people put Madeleine’s welfare before their own? This child, if not dead at best was/is being held by a paedophile. What this group of people would have experienced by doing a reconstruction, could never come close to what Madeleine may have been suffering.

The McCann’s we often hear accusing this person or that one of hindering their investigation, threatening legal action in this regard.

The McCann accusations rather pale into insignificance when you consider the following:

NEITHER McCann parent, complied with a request to take part in a reconstruction into the disappearance of their daughter, and Kate McCann did NOT answer 40+ questions put to her by the investigating police authority, answering but one:

Q. Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are JEOPARDISING the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?

A. YES, if that’s what the investigation thinks!

Poor Madeleine! What chance did this child have, before or after her disappearance?

As for the McCann’s - It is my opinion that they were interested in their own enjoyment only during that holiday, no more, no less. The other families at least spent afternoons with their children, only placing them in a crèche for part of a day.

The McCann children were not afforded family time. That is, time, ‘out-with’ lunch and bedtime routines/stories. The McCann children did not join the other families for breakfast, for lunches in the Payne family apartment, for visits to the beach.

Kate McCann stated, that Madeleine told her that the 3^rd May 2007, was her best day ever.

On that day, she was stuck in a crèche, not allowed to go to the beach with the other kids in their holiday group, not allowed to have tea and ice-creams with the other kids at the beach cafe, not allowed her usual playtime at the tennis courts that evening. Bathed and put to bed early.

The last day of her holiday, not spent with her parents, her brother and sister, or their friends and their children – but in a crèche with strangers!

Fiona Payne states that the McCann’s were asked to join them, but couldn’t as they had booked tennis lessons. Can bookings not be cancelled? This was clearly an adult’s only holiday.

If this was the best day the child had ever had...........?

What else happened that day? What was different about 3^rd May 2007 from the other nights of that holiday?

There were a number of “Firsts.”

1. It was the day that Gerry McCann decided he was a lucky man to have such a lovely daughter.

2. It was the day which Kate McCann spoke of as being just lovely sitting reading the children bedtime stories.

3. It was the day that the McCann children were not taken to the tennis courts to have their usual short playtime at the side of the courts while their parents played tennis.

4. It was the first evening David Payne went down to the tapas restaurant together with his wife and mother-in law. He generally did not join them until a little later.

5. It was the first time that on the way to the tapas restaurant the Payne family saw/met anyone. This night they saw Matt Oldfield.

6. It was the day Gerry McCann asked David Payne to look in on his wife and children as he thought she may be struggling to bathe their three children? (If she had been, was David to assist with this task, or was he to rush back to the tennis courts to alert Gerry, for him to rush home to assist?)

7. It was the day which David Payne looked in on the McCann children and thought how they looked like little angels, all sitting in their pyjamas bathed and ready for bed. It made him wonder why Gerry had asked him to go. (we have all wondered at this!)

8. It was the day that the doctors McCann decided to LEAVE their children alone once more.

9. It was the day the doctors McCann decided that they would ‘watch their children more closely.’

10. It was the day for the first time that Matt Oldfield listened at the shuttered windows of the McCann children’s bedroom.

11. It was the day Matt Oldfield for the first time entered the McCann apartment through an unlocked door to check on the children.

12. It was the day that Kate McCann confided in Fiona Payne, that she had left the patio door unlocked so that Madeleine could get out to come and look for her and Gerry McCann.(Can anyone imagine for a moment planning that, for your three year old daughter to go onto the streets?)

13. It was the day that Kate McCann told Fiona Payne of the ‘crying incident.’

14. It was the day Kate McCann asked Fiona Payne’s opinion on leaving the children in an unlocked apartment.

15. It was the day Fiona Payne replied: ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

16. It was the day that a conversation regarding this unlocked door took place between adults at this table and not one took notice, not one showed concern for Madeleine, her brother or sister, each of them failing these children. Fiona Payne states: “this was conversation just between, erm, me and Kate, although I know Jane and Rachael joined in a bit, they were sitting sort of the other side of Kate, so it was sort of a conversation amongst the girls really”.

17. It was the day a vulnerable 3 year old child Madeleine Beth McCann and her younger twin siblings were abandoned by their parents in an unlocked apartment.

18. It was the day, another day, Madeleine’s cries once again went unheard.

19. It was the day we can be SURE Madeleine cried.

20. It was the day we can be SURE her cries were not ‘something and nothing!’

21. It was the day Madeleine disappeared without trace.



Let us not forget that in many cases, the investigating officers know exactly who the perpetrator is, they have solved the crime, just not proved it! Sometimes this takes a little more time and patience.

McCanns want to "sweep" their critics off the internet

(They certainly swept sweepyface off the internet didn't they?)

Maddie’s parents are getting ready to act judicially against internet sites that question their behaviour through comments and texts that they consider to be defaming

by André Carapeto

After the injunction that hit former Polícia Judiciária coordinator Gonçalo Amaral, preventing the book from being sold in Portugal and in England, Gerry and Kate McCann are now committed to making all the uncomfortable internet pages that concern the disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine McCann, disappear.

Through their lawyers, Adam Tudor and Stephen Loughrey, from the offices of Carter Ruck, one of the most influential (and expensive) in England, Maddie’s parents want to discipline those who doubt their behaviour or suggest that they were somehow involved in their daughter’s destiny.

The famous law office that some months ago obtained hundreds of thousands of euro in compensation payments from some British media, for the McCanns and their friends who dined at the ‘Tapas Bar’ on the night that Maddie disappeared, has already taken a few measures in order to attack with the couple’s new legal offensive.

As far as everything indicates, those responsible for internet pages and blogs that are openly unfavourable towards the McCanns have already received intimations from Carter Ruck, ordering them to cease their activity, under threat of lawsuits for defamation and calumny.

Test card…

One of the main (if not even “the” main) targets for Maddie’s parents is the website that is owned by the Madeleine Foundation, headed by Anthony Bennett and Debbie Butler, who received, early this month, the letters from Tudor and Loughney, where they were asked to stop the foundation’s online page’s activity, as well as other demands made by Gerry and Kate.

But there is more: the heads of the foundation that was created with the purpose of combating child neglect, were demanded to hand over all existing copies of the book “What really happened to Madeleine McCann – 60 reasons that show that she was not abducted”, which was published in late 2008.

Apart from this ‘order’, the former English member of parliament who leads the foundation also received notices to shut down the activity of the website that was created in November last year, as well as the order to deliver to Justice the remaining leaflets that contain a summary of the book, which volunteers at Bennett’s service delivered into various English locations, including Rothley, the neighbourhood where the McCanns reside.

The former English member of parliament who heads the foundation also received intimations to delete all computer records, both of the book and of said leaflets, and to delete all allegedly offensive comments that exist on the webpage, and on interconnected forums or blogs, many of which are signed by Bennett himself.

But there is more…

Nevertheless, it is not only the Madeleine Foundation that is targeted by the McCanns’ offensive. The crosshairs also focus on blogs, including the “Three arguidos”, which is a forum that has been used for strong criticism of the behaviour of the English couple of doctors, since the night of the 3rd of May 2007.

Since they decided to stop giving interviews to the media, and discredited the action of the Portuguese police forces, the McCanns seem to have turned the search for their daughter into a struggle of their own, threatening to confront anyone who tries to contradict their position.

Over the last two years, since their daughter disappeared from apartment 5A at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Gerry and Kate have received unconditional support of some and severe criticism from others. After last year they secured a compensation payment of 700 thousand euro, which was obtained after they accused several newspapers in their country of defamation, and after six of the seven friends that accompanied them on their Portuguese holidays, under representation of the same law firm, also received compensation payments that neared 450 thousand euro, Gerry and Kate now threaten to go down the same route, with the internet as their target.

source: O Crime, paper edition, 24.09.2009

Translated by Joana Morais
https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/09/mccanns-want-to-sweep-their-critics-off.html

More Metodo 3 "witnesses" : Lawyer Claims Madeleine Raped, Murdered and Dumped

by Joana Morais 11 years ago

A Portuguese lawyer claims that the child was raped, murdered and dumped in a reservoir within two days of her disappearance.

Marcos Teixeira Aragão Correia, a lawyer and a PND member , says that criminals from underworld contacted him on 6th May and that gave him details about Madeleine's rape & murder. He further claims that he had given this information to police who ignored it.

This is the same lawyer who in November 2007 failed to prosecute* the Correios de Portugal (CTT) because these have not delivered a registered letter to the McCanns.

The letter, according to the lawyer, provided clues "that are of high credibility" and that could help in the investigation of the disappearance of Maddie.

Those elements were referred to the PJ (Judiciary Police) of Portimão by researchers from Funchal, but had no credibility.

He said Metodo 3 was "very interested" in his information.

Metodo 3 contacts with the Mafia:

* The judge from Judicial Court of the Funchal ruled as unjustified and of bad faith the process related with the litigation planned by the lawyer, condemning him it to pay a fine of of around 100 euros, and postponed 'sine die' the trial.

Mafia Underwold and Metodo 3
November 10
Last Sunday the News of the World revealed that the crack Spanish detective agency hired by the McCanns, Metodo 3, are convinced the youngster was snatched to order then smuggled from Portugal to Morocco.

Last night it looked like Mafia bosses will AGREE to use their underworld connections in the hunt for Maddie.

Mob bosses who supply millions of pounds of cannabis around the world effectively control vast areas of the North African country. The authorities believe Maddie may be hidden in the moutainous Rif region and that the Mafia there provide the best hope of finding her.

A source close to the Moroccan security services told us: "The gangs can put the word out and will be able to find out through the underworld network connecting every city, town and remote village.

"When they want to find out information, they can."

Maddie disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Portuguese resort Praia da Luz on May 3, just days before her fourth birthday.

Gazeta Digital: What is a Human Rights lawyer?

Once again, here comes a witness, when the Madeleine’s case has a new development. Somebody who calls himself a “Human Rights lawyer” knows what happened to the child. This lawyer has no record, in Portugal, as a Human Rights lawyer. He is just one lawyer, among many thousands – and he lives in the island of Madeira. He is not known in relation with any high profile case where Human Rights were at stake.

He has no activity in any kind of organization dedicated to defend Human Rights. He was in the news, months ago, when he revealed he had wrote to Police with important details about the case, and threatened to sue the Mail Office, because his letter to PJ apparently was lost.

But Team McCann got what they wanted: the same day it is officially confirmed that the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested an extension of three months to continue to investigate the case, newspapers have big news that “indicate” the parents are innocent.

And to help them, a poor English gardener, working at Praia da Luz, was denounced through an email, as a possible suspect. Just months before, another email to the site of Prince Charles, revealed that a maid fired by Ocean Club was the kidnapper.

Hi Verdi, more well orchestrated moves to obfuscate,deliberately deter proper investigations?

They'er going to need a massive Court room to fit all the guilty parties in Crown Court,if it goes that far,i have my doubts we'll ever see justice for Madeleine McCann,they poisoned the chalice years ago?

Oh to see the Pink ones "Twitching Sphincter",filmed for posterity,with No D-notice,given out free as evidence of "how not to collude with Government Ministers,Heads of state?

It beggars belief does it not willow?

I'm guessing it never occurred that the PJ files would be read by the public at some stage and questions raised by the pesky trolls who just won't mind their own business.

The media reports, I believe, were intended to be a perpetual 'here today gone tomorrow' plot - to keep reports alive and basically irrelevant. Again, I don't think team McCann bargained for the level of interest they were generating by churning out false reports week after week, month after month, year after year and all because the PJ files became available for public scrutiny.

For that alone - sincere thanks to all who volunteered their time and linguistic skills to translate the files into English. None of this would have been possible if not for you.

Maddie 129: A Question a Day

by Joana Morais 10 years ago

Maddy 129, traces the 129 days between the four-year-old’s disappearance from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz to her parents being named as official suspects in the case. It was the first book to be published in Portugal about this case. You can buy the English version of this book at RCP Edições. The Portuguese Version, was first published in November 2007.

Forward by the Authors: No Expectations



If the reader is expecting a work where a public indictment is made or a plot against somebody is schemed, then this is not the right book to buy. When accepting the challenge posed by the editors, we immediately envisaged it only as a journalistic work, easy to read, without any literary, academic, police-related or erudite expectations. It is only the publication, in the form of a book, of a long journalistic work. Whether mediocre or sufficient, it is for the reader to assess, as we do every day with the material published in the media, when we earn our daily bread. Beyond doubt, as in any other journalistic work, nothing can stir us. And it is on doubt that we base our approach. Precisely because today the Maddie case still remains a strange and intricate mystery.

“What is extraordinary”, explains Ben Ando, reporter of the BBC, “is the time this story has been going round”. According to this crime expert, one of the factors which made this case significant worldwide, is the degree of uncertainty that its investigation put forward. The role that the internet played in spreading out Maddie’s images and her family’s to a global scale is another matter that Ben Ando underlines. The physical beauty of the McCann family is, for this journalist, of particular importance. So much so that Maddie has been classified as “tragically beautiful”. Different specialists within the media believe that Maddie’s case meets all the necessary requirements for keeping the public as interested as at the beginning.

It is clear right away that this is “just” about the disappearance of one child among many others, but “a British, beautiful blue-eyed child, who disappeared in a British tourist settlement, in Algarve, a holiday destination regarded as safe by people from her country is a theme that offers a range of media opportunities” says the renowned Brazilian advertising executive Edson Athayde. If they were a poor family, ugly, not white, in a third world country, the case would be already forgotten”. “It is a soap opera story, without a predictable end: there is always new data. The good ones, probably are mean. The mean ones, probably, are victims…they are feuilleton ingredients”, concludes the man who lead António Guterres to the Prime Minister seat.

Yet for University Professor Rui Cádima, when the McCann family became “the best self-advisors of their own, they trespassed the line of being the parents who lost trace of their child to become the advisors of parents who lost trace of their children”. Paulo Moura speaks about a MWCS (“Missing White Child Syndrome”). This journalist states that there is a scale for news importance. “Nobody would ever admit that this scale exists, although it is applied every day”. “In the middle, are the blond and young boys then brunette girls, and so on. Somehow like the scale in force for the number of deaths in catastrophes: an American citizen is worth a hundred Arabs, a thousand Chinese citizens, ten thousand African citizens”.
In fact, the scenario is Portuguese, but the child, her parents, friends, the hotel owners, some of the staff at the Ocean Club resort and even a good portion of the population of Praia da Luz, are not. As well as the retired policemen, private detectives, dogs and forensic tests, alleged to be “vital for the information”.

In the interpretation of Professor and Investigator Cristina Ponte, this case gathers all the necessary elements for a melodrama: a good-looking child, the victim, and a couplewith a fine image. It even has aspects which merge with the unconscious, like the figure of “the bogeyman” – as the man alleged to be seen by a witness, carrying a child wrapped in a blanket. The investigator understands that the campaign held by the parents has an undeniable significance, was very well prepared and included the intervention of football players and going out on the street with the child’s teddy bear…”

In order to understand how the disappearance of a child expanded into unprecedented dimensions, it may be necessary to consider the parent’s attitude and the media campaign around them. However, the connection of the McCann family to the British Government, not yet completely known, as well as the machinery they had at their disposal, could not be disregarded. Besides the four press advisors (one of them, the mythical Alex Woolfall, who managed to “banish” a scandal of genetic manipulation from the British media), Kate McCann’s uncle, Brian Kennedy, has played an important role as the couple’s spokesman.

This whole army of advisors is commanded by Clarence Mitchell, ex-journalist for the BBC and, until recently, Director of the Government’s Media Monitoring Unit at the Cabinet Office of the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Some regard him as a witty man, some as a dandy. Certainly, Clarence Mitchell has defined very well the strategies for approaching the media. Nobody can contact the McCann’s without his permission. Coordinated with the contacts and information he acquired during his time at Downing Street, the rest is easy to deduce. Clarence Mitchell is the true owner of the information - in the broad sense of the word, so maybe because of that he has made so much ink flow - before, during and after the McCann’s leave Portugal. First, he was in Portugal as “appointed” by Gordon Brown’s Cabinet, then he returned to London, but his liaisons with the process remain intimate, in such a way that, after 17th September, as soon as the McCann’s returned to the UK, Clarence Mitchell officially resigned from his job at the British Government in order to assume functions as advisor to the McCann family. On Clarence Mitchell’s return to the scene, TVI’s journalist Hugo Matias gathers, like us, that “it seems to be more gratifying to work for the McCann’s than for the British Government”. Although most of the “success” of Maddie’s case is attributed to the strategies adopted by the media, or to the telegenic features of the couple, one thing is definitely true: the disappearance of any child has never, out of the million and two hundred thousand that vanish every year, obtained the same visibility and air time that this one already has. And we are still halfway through it...

However, in this case as with anybody else, everything started as “just” the disappearance of a child. We can’t see any difference between the disappearance of Maddie and that of any other child. We are sorry for all of them.

This said, we need to make clear to the reader that, as much as we regret it, the solution to the mystery - or at least a hint as to where Madeleine Beth McCann is, will not be found here.

As a matter of fact, in the light of national law, to which all of us are formally bound, solving this puzzle is the responsibility of the police. There are reports by those who some days want to wear the uniform and some other days want to attack the work of those wearing it. There are even reports that those who did it have passed scot-free, but that’s a different kettle of fish.

It is clear that we couldn’t express here all the facts or hypotheses which took place during the period when the parents were in Portugal. In fact, to get at least a reference to all that has been already published would be an enormous effort and is not our aim, especially with the timetable we were given to perform it. In the future, surely, other names, big names in journalism and other areas will do it. This task we now undertake is in a way to help us not to forget certain doubts that in the future will certainly become clear but, as of now, are relevant.

We accepted the challenge posed by Prime Book, Portugal, and Rui Costa Pinto Edições, International rights, - signed with their word -, and not other precisely because these editors accepted our condition that this had to be only a journalistic work, simple and unpretentious. What we write about here is therefore, some of the incoherencies we found throughout these months.

Hernâni Carvalho and Luís Maia

The Mccanns would be in jail if they were Portuguese

by Joana Morais 11 years ago

IF THEY WERE PORTUGUESE, THEY’D BE ALREADY IN JAIL!



In a statement directed at Maddie’s parents and to [Portuguese] national justice system, Hernâni Carvalho reinforces the accusation of the McCanns.

For RTP [“Portugal’s BBC”], where he worked for 21 years, he did war reports in Bosnia, Honduras, Timor, Gambia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Later, at SIC [TV network], he did police chronicles in the morning programs, an angle that he took with him to TVI [TV network] — where he is now — with the slot Crime, He Said. Author of the ‘Maddie 129’ book, he was the first critic of the initial theory of the abduction of the McCanns daughter.

Q: You released the book ‘Maddie 129’ and, about two weeks later, had already sold over 25,000 copies. What does this say to you regarding your credibility with the public, as an investigative journalist?

HC: I don’t think a direct relationship has to be established. There are people who, not being journalists, write books and sell many thousands of copies. It’s a subject that upsets people a lot, because if on one hand everyone wants to know what happened to little Madeleine, on the other hand there’s a lot of people who are outraged with the scandalously privileged treatment that was given to the McCanns. Said in another way, any Portuguese couple, under these circumstances, would have been in jail for a long time. Due to all this, it’s natural books by journalists who followed the case in the field, such as I, Luís Maia [co-author of the ‘Maddie 129’ book] or Manuel Catarino [author of the “Guilt of the McCanns” book] raise some interest in the public.

Q: Luís Castro [author of “Why We Adopted Maddie” book], a RTP journalist, also released a book about the Maddie case…

HC: Yes, but I didn’t see him in the field. Anyway, have I not read that book, so I can’t comment on it. (…)

Q: Hernâni, you have two children. I imagine you put yourself often in the father’s position, in order to be able to analyse the Maddie case… How do you think you’d react facing such a situation?

HC: I’d call the police! That was obviously the first thing I’d do! As for the McCann case, apparently what happened was not that exactly that. In the following days, there were those who came up with the “tanga” [b***** tallk] about cultural differences between the countries, in order to justify certain actions of the parents. For me, that “tanga” doesn’t stick. (…)

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Whomever writes about issues that passion public opinion is often subjected to theories coming up pointing to hidden agendas by the authors. In the case of ‘Maddie 129’, by Hernâni Carvalho and Luís Maio, some conspiracy theories have already started to circulate in the Internet. A kind of ‘Maddie Code’, that Hernâni rejects categorically…

Q: In the blog Para Mim Tanto Faz, of journalist Frederico Duarte Carvalho, you can find a free interpretation of the cover of the ‘Maddie 129’ book, suggesting that the authors are trying to convey an occult message. What do you have to comment about that insinuation?

HC: The only commentary I can make about this subject is that that interpretation is exactly what you just said it was: a free interpretation from the journalist that subscribes it in his blog.

Q: But what’s certain is that, if you draw a square frame [esquadria] cantered in the cover of the book [see at the link below], we isolate the words MAD and DIE, as well as the numbers 12 (Christ-like symbol, the number of the Apostles) and 9 (number of the friends of the McCanns present at the Ocean Club). If we add to all this the insinuation that the cover photo pictures the road from the McCanns apartment to the church…

HC: It wasn’t me who designed the cover of the book… [smiles]

Q: And what about the insinuation that the answer to all this enigma may lay at page 129 of the book? After all, that’s where you find highlighted the excerpt of the notorious Bible that Kate was allegedly reading, and that raised so much controversy…

HC: That’s only a mere coincidence regarding the book’s layout… [smiles again]. And life is full of small coincidences.

Gonçalo Amaral revoked his lawyer's mandate, McCann couple are "furious" for the umpteenth time

by Joana Morais 4 years ago

The hearings that were taking place at the 1st Civil Court of Lisbon, at the Palácio da Justiça, had been on hold since October last year, so the parents of the English girl who disappeared in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, in May 2007 could reach an out-of-court settlement with Gonçalo Amaral and the other three defendants.

Since no agreement was reached between Gerry and Kate McCann and the four defendant parties, the judge who presides this court action - action which has caused Gonçalo Amaral's assets to be frozen as a precautionary measure, decided to re-schedule the restart of the sessions for yesterday.

The final allegations that were expected to take place yesterday morning at the 1st civil court in Pálácio da Justiça, were delayed following the delivery of a document at the court registry in which Gonçalo Amaral communicated to have revoked his lawyer's, Dr. Santos de Oliveira, mandate to represent him.

Gonçalo Amaral is alleged to have delivered the document in person at about 9am, however no journalist was able to capture the moment when he went or left the Pálacio da Justiça on film or on photo. The McCann couple arrived 30 minutes later and stayed most of the morning, sitting on a bench in the 3rd floor corridor of the court building.

Gonçalo Amaral's lawyer, Dr. Santos de Oliveira said before the session that he didn't know the reasons that led is client to rescind from his representation, and inside the courtroom he informed the judge that he had been dispensed.

The several defendant and accusation lawyers were then invited by judge Emília Melo e Castro to make statements on whether the trial session should proceed, or be postponed to a later date so Mr. Amaral could seek for the services of a new lawyer. Demissionary lawyer Santos de Oliveira and the other defence lawyers representing the other three parties targeted in the McCann's lawsuit argued that Mr. Amaral, given the process complexity, would need legal representation whilst Dr. Isabel Duarte argued that the trial should proceed regardless.


Dr. Santos de Oliveira [Gonçalo Amaral demissionary lawyer] - He explains that the notification sent to him by Gonçalo Amaral implies that his participation as a lawyer is inhibited: he can't function as the authorised representative of Gonçalo Amaral. He considers that, given the nature of this process, the instruction of a new lawyer is required. Therefore he asks for the suspension of the current session.

Dr. Fátima de Oliveira Esteves [Guerra e Paz book publishers] - She reminds the court of the contradictory principle which is at the core of a civil trial. If the instruction of a new lawyer is required, it can happen only after the notification. Therefore there has to be a delay in order for GA to instruct a new lawyer.

Dr Miguel Coroadinha [TVI, Portuguese TV channel] - He has nothing to add except to express his solidarity with Dr Santos de Oliveira.

Dr. Henrique Costa Pinto [Valentim de Carvalho Productions] - He observes that now the dismissal of Santos de Oliveira's mandate has taken effect, it would not be right to go ahead with the hearing, and is a compelling reason to interrupting it.

Dr. Isabel Duarte [McCann couple] - She observes that the Court was notified of the dismissal only this morning, when her clients had already left the UK (...) and finally states she considers that the hearing must not be suspended but go on with Gonçalo Amaral being asked to constitute a new representative.

Judge Maria Emília de Melo e Castro - (...)She considers more equitable to allow the defendant an adjournment to instruct a new lawyer, under the proviso that if he fails, the process will go on with the proceedings has previously established. Gonçalo Amaral is therefore given 10 days to nominate a new lawyer, reason why the current session cannot proceed.

Adapted from Anne Guedes' report from inside the courtroom


The judge decided for the adjournment of the proceedings foreseen for yesterday, re-scheduling the closing arguments for the 8th and 10th of July. On the 8th the McCann couple's lawyer, Isabel Duarte as well as the defence lawyers of the other three parties will deliver their closing arguments, while the 10th will be dedicated to Gonçalo Amaral's future lawyer closing arguments. The judge also ruled that Gonçalo Amaral has 10 days to hire a new lawyer.

After the session, outside Pálacio da Justiça, lawyer Dr. Santos de Oliveira answered the journalists questions [see transcript bellow/to follow], expressing a mix of surprise and disappointment, and also rejecting that this had been a concerted strategy between him and his client to delay the trial.

Kate and Gerry McCann appeared considerably later outside and gave a awaited press statement accusing Mr. Amaral of postponing the trial four times, causing them distress since they had "to make arrangements for our children to be looked after, we have to book flights, we have to book hotels, we have to take time off work to come here".

The couple failed to mention that they had travelled on four previous separate occasions to Portugal to accompany their own witnesses when they had not been called to testify and had no compulsory reason to be present at the Lisbon court at all.

In one of those times, the afternoon session was postponed due to a personal impediment of the judge, the other was Santos de Oliveira's request for an adjournment due to a urgent family matter.

On 7th of January Santos de Oliveira filed a request for the court to evaluate the McCann couple's legitimacy to file a lawsuit in their daughter's name since the child had been made a Ward of Court in the United Kingdom. Dr. Isabel Duarte, on the same session, filed a document that is related to Mr. Alan Pike, and asked for a postponement of that days session.

The fourth postponement was due to the McCanns themselves since they requested time to reach an out-of-court settlement with the four defending parties and the fifth, yesterday, and for the first time directly due to Gonçalo Amaral's rescission of his lawyer's mandate.

In this action, the McCann couple seeks compensation of EUR1.2 million from the former coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Judiciary Police of Portimão who investigated Madeleine's disappearance on May 3, 2007, alleging that the rights, freedoms and guarantees of the family have been violated.

In the book 'Maddie - The Truth of the Lie', written by Gonçalo Amaral, the former PJ inspector defends the involvement of Kate and Gerry McCann in the disappearance of their daughter and in the concealment of her body.

Santos de Oliveira statements to the press



Luís Maia [SIC reporter/LM] - Good afternoon, this was a morning full of surprises. First we learned that Gonçalo Amaral had revoked his lawyer's mandate, the lawyer that had defended him so far, Dr. Víctor Santos de Oliveira who spoke with us. Then all lawyers were in a meeting for several hours with the judge, to try to figure out what solution to give to this situation. The meeting lasted for quite a while, first there was a short session that lasted about 10 minutes, then followed another that lasted well over one hour. It was decided that today there wouldn't be any further proceedings. After, upon leaving the courtroom, Víctor Santos de Oliveira expressed his surprise for the decision of his client and said that this was not a strategy planned by the two of them. Let's watch the statements of Víctor Santos de Oliveira.

Luis Garriapa, another reporter from SIC TV channel [LG] - Was this a concerted decision?

Víctor Santos de Oliveira [VSO] - Absolutely not, it was not a concerted decision. I am not aware of the reasons that led to his decision but I presume that it was a decision essentially intimate from my client, basically a private matter that I don't know about, I don't have the slightest idea, however it's a decision that parties have the right to make at all times.

LG - Do you believe that it was a strategy to delay the trial?

VSO - No, I don't believe in that at all. That would be... A strategy like that would be a very ill thought strategy.

LG - Did you fall out with your client?

VSO - It has nothing to do with that, whatsoever, it's just a situation where my client has decided like that, on his own, it's his problem.

LG - Were you surprised by it?

VSO - Evidently. When a defence was already done, when there is a work done on this process, when we have accomplished milestones in the process namely the restitution of the book sales - which was achieved by this defence [meaning him], and also to successfully prove that the McCanns at the moment when they brought this action in their daughter's name, they could not have done it. Today that is more than completely established, it's obvious that his decision came as a surprise. One of the important milestones of this process, in my view, was - it wasn't one, but two - it was effectively to restitute the books so they could be sold, supported in the ruling of the Court of Appeals, that clearly states that the McCanns exposed themselves in the media by their own free will, thus becoming subject to the scrutiny of everyone. Thus it wouldn't make sense to ban the books. And there, the work of the defence was to put the books back on sale and that was fully achieved.

The second is related to a Ward of Court which means that who ultimately has the responsibility and the tutelage of the child is the English High Court. This fact was already known to the McCanns at the moment when they filled this lawsuit. It's a shame that this wasn't done immediately at start by the previous defence lawyer but now that is established and proven, so much so that there is an official decision which gives the McCanns 30 days to get the records of the English Court’s authorization under penalty of absolving the defendant Gonçalo Amaral on the request made on behalf of the missing child, the unfortunate Maddie McCann, obviously. But that is done, it's good...

LM - What is going to happen now?

VSO - ... When one leaves a process, and leaves things to be done that's not good ...

LM - [asks the same question again] What is going to happen now?

Another [unknown] reporter Was it a delaying strategy?

VSO - I don't believe that it was a delaying strategy. I really don't. I'm not even going to answer to a question formulated in that way, I don't believe it and I will not comment if it was a delaying strategy, I simply don't believe that.

LM - [asks the same question for the third time] What is going to happen now?

VSO - What's going to happen now is that the defendant Gonçalo Amaral has 10 days - following a decision based on equity and justice by the court - to appoint a new mandatary [lawyer] to represent him in the lawsuit, attach that information to the process records. Then, his declarations and the McCanns closing statements will be heard.

Broadcast by SIC, 16th July 2014

McCanns' Mission Impossible: Scaling Down the Search that Never Was or Honey, I Shrunk the Search!

by Joana Morais   10 years ago




* They didn't have a Portuguese Search to begin with!

** The process was made public on the 21st of July; on the 12 of October Gerry wrote in his blog: "Getting the files translated accurately is a time consuming and expensive process but essential to our search."

*** Speed Reading Courses available - contact the Portuguese prosecutor who read the whole process in 20 days

 By Tom Pegden

The Parents of Madeleine McCann have scaled down the Portuguese search * for their daughter to concentrate on sifting through the official police files into the disappearance.

The couple are continuing to work with a small investigative team - including members with policing experience - to work through the pages of files handed over to them earlier this year. **

SEARCH FOR MADELEINE - 588 DAYS

The search of data accumulated by Portuguese Police during their investigation has been under way since August and is expected to last until at least the New Year, their official spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said.

It had been thought they would have finished scouring the records by Christmas.

Mr. Mitchell said Kate and Gerry - who live with their twin children Sean and Amelie in Rothley - were still in touch with two detective agencies they had worked with in the past.

Metodo 3, in Barcelona, and Oakley International in the USA, are no longer contracted to the family but he said the McCanns were ready to call them in if and when any new leads appeared.

Last month, the McCanns said they were personally overseeing the job of combing through the 17 volumes of official documents.

Today Mr Mitchell said, "They are still going through the files." ***
"I imagine that will take at least until January or February."

"They are going through them as best they can, although the files are not revealing a great dea, which is depressing in a way.

"But they are still ploughing on and hope they weill have something positive by the end, to take the search on.

"Metodo 3's contract finished months ago, but it is still available if we need work done on the ground in Spain.

"We took out a contract with Oakley International which lasted six months.

"It did a lot of good work ruling stuff out, but is not under contract at present.

"Now, the operation has effectively been taken in-house and there is a small team of people supporting Kate and Gerry - some of them with previous policing experience."

Mr Mitchell said Christmas would be a private affair for the McCanns this year.

There are, however, plans to issue a worldwide television appeal to jog people's minds over the festive season.

An as yet unnamed sports person or celebrity is understood to be lined up for the appeal.

Mr Mitchell said, "We don't know what the appeal is going to look like yet and we're not going to release it until close to Christmas. [10 Days Mitchell]

"Christmas for the family will be private."

Source: Leicester Mercury 15th Dec.2008 paper edition only


Extras by JM and Astro

Visions Of a Feckin Eejit *

by Joana Morais   10 years ago






From the same man who insinuated that Mr. Gonçalo Amaral was selling and abusing  Madeleine McCann's memory, comes a new book. Just for €13.00 (£11) you can read all about the wonderful  'visions' of Marcos Aragão Correia in «The Little Girls that Came from the Stars»!


Publisher: Magna Editora

Summarized version:


In his first book, the author Marcos Aragão Correia gives life to a story of extreme sweetness. Along the story there were several children who disappeared and what remains of them for the closest relatives are only fragments of memories. In this book, the author raises a metaphorical scenery which illustrates the destiny of these children who disappeared. This scenery is really hopeful, and it invigorates the familiar victims of these children. In this destiny, of love and friendship, the lost children keep on fighting for their happiness without forgetting those who still love them and of whom they are separated. At the same time the struggle between the Good and the Evil is presented in a way of alerting the parents for the familiar values and of the love so that they have attention to his children and to the form that, for times, these they are left without care. A great deal of the cases of the missing children are mentioned in this book in the form of alert but principally as a form of praise to their memory. A story that returns to us the hope in the love and in the fraternity, in abridgment, a charming story... (Astro, where is the bucket?!)

Note: Do not forget to read Aragão's intelligent interview to the 'O Crime' where he blames the Skulls and Bones, Satanic sects, perverse secret societies and secret services ( including FBI and CIA) for Madeleine Beth McCann disappearance, yes all in his wonderful, sweet,  loving, new book.

Who is Marcos Teixeira Aragão Correia?



Marcos Teixeira Aragão Correia, a 35 year old lawyer from Madeira and a PND founding member (an extreme right party with some skinheads connections), says that criminals from underworld contacted him on 6th May and that gave him details about Madeleine's rape  & murder. He further claims that he had given this information to judiciary police  of Funchal, Madeira (9th May) who ignored it.

We know now it was not information from his underworld contacts - is he referring to the Metodo 3 agency?- but these came on to him in a  'vision' , after he returned from a spiritist meeting in Madeira (on the 5th of May) - in his own words: "On the 5th of May, upon returning from a spiritist meeting in Madeira, right after going to bed, but before falling asleep, at around midnight, an extraordinary thing happened to me for the first time in my life: I saw the image of a little girl that must have been around 4 years of age, with blond, shoulder-length straight hair, blue eyes, very disturbed, visibly unable to understand what was happening to her, accompanied by a female being of great beauty and great spiritual standing [Oh, Our Lady of Fátima again!]… 

...Then, other images appeared, related to what had happened to her: I saw a strongly built man, blue eyes, somewhat balding and with blondish hair, brutally raping that girl and then strangling her with his hands, throwing the cadaver into a lake. I perceived by a map that was shown to me, that this happened in the Algarve, but I couldn’t read the name of the village. I stress that I hadn’t seen any photo of Maddie before, I only knew, from what I’d heard on the radio, that she was 3 years old."- what can I say except that: I want some of that as well, Aragão! Or maybe , not.

In the first private search at 'Barragem do Arade' (reservoir), an isolated man-made lake, Marcos Aragão Correia funded the £1,200-a-day reservoir search himself  or not quite by himself but with a little help from local companies, allegedly trough team McCann Spanish arm and with interviews which were sold to the British media.

Marcos Aragão Correia asked around 5 thousand euros to pay the searches in the dam to some companies based at the ALLgarve , and in return, he promised to publicise the name of the companies to all the Portuguese and foreign media that covered the searches. "The exclusive sponsor benefits from huge, unique publicity", said the lawyer at the time.

The results from the search were: a sock to big for a three year old child even though Aragão alleges that it is  from a child,  cats bones inside a small bag which are miraculously transformed into a child's hand,  ropes which by Aragão's account were used to tie Maddie's cadaver, oh and a plastic bag - surely the green or blue plastic bag used to cover Leonor Cipriano's face during the alleged beatings? Meanwhile the alleged evidences are at the hands of  Señor Francisco Marco and his 'mama' awaiting some DNA analyses...since April... let's see if they'll take longer than the marvellous FSS reports.

This lawyer has no record, in Portugal, as a Human Rights lawyer. He is not known in relation with any high profile case where Human Rights were at stake.

This is the same lawyer who in November 2007 failed to prosecute the Correios de Portugal (CTT) because these allegedly did not deliver a registered letter to the McCanns. ([url=http://iscte.pt/~apad/ACED/oficios07/Marcos Aragao AO CONSELHO SUPERIOR DA MAGISTRATURA.doc]Link to the letter sent to the Judicial Court of Portimão- Word file[/url]) : “They are controversial matters, because there is no material proof of them, but I assure you there is a high degree of credibility about them. I am fulfilling my duty as a Portuguese citizen to take my ideas to the right place. I took my ideas to the PJ in Funchal, but since they didn’t reply, I took them direct to the McCanns”.

The letter, according to the lawyer, provided clues "that are a high degree of credibility" and that could help in the investigation of the disappearance of Maddie, either that was the real reason or he was trying to get in someone's pocket.

Those elements were referred to the PJ (Judiciary Police) of Portimão by researchers from Funchal, but had NO credibility. Again, NO credibility!

Recently we can see him at  Court defending a convicted child killer, Leonor Cipriano who murdered her eight year old daughter - Joana Isabel Guerreiro Cipriano, and at all costs trying to frame Gonçalo Amaral.


Images credits by [Dear Friend] Himself at Only in America and The McCann Gallery - both well worth a Daily visit!

Fat gypsies, white vans and pink pyjamas

by astro 8 years ago


By Antonella Lazzeri

A dramatic sighting of missing Madeleine McCann the day after she vanished is being urgently followed up by private investigators.

A man has reported seeing a girl he is now sure was Maddie lying in the back of a van.

She was wearing pyjamas identical to the pair Maddie had on when she was abducted.

The vehicle was white - and other witnesses have recalled seeing a white van near the holiday apartment in Portugal from where she was taken.

A child in pyjamas was also seen being carried by a man at the resort.

New witness Carlos Moreira, 65, has told investigators the little girl he saw was with a man and woman who looked like gipsies.

When shown a previously-unpublished e-fit of a suspect, he identified it as being the van's driver.

A source close to Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry said last night the sighting was "highly significant" and added: "It could be a key breakthrough."

Maddie, of Rothley, Leics, was three when she disappeared on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, on the Algarve, on May 3 2007.

Portuguese Mr Moreira said he only recently connected his sighting with the Maddie hunt because it was 160 miles from where she vanished.

He was driving from Carregado, near Lisbon, to Alentejo on May 4 when he stopped at a snack bar in the Benavente region at 8am.

He told The Sun: "I saw a white van with the back door open. I saw a girl, lying on a pile of clothes in the back. She was wearing a two-piece pyjama set, pink and white, or yellow. I saw her back, I could see her hands and feet.

"She moved one of her fingers but she was deeply asleep. When the van door was opened, she did not wake up, as if she was drugged."

"This girl was blonde and looked around four. A woman came out of the back of the van. I noted that a strong and tall man, wearing a suit, was in front of the snack bar.

"He looked like a gipsy. He was with the woman from the van, he was younger than her. He told her off for leaving the van."

Mr Moreira said the experience stuck in his mind - but he only realised it could be useful when he saw a cop being asked on TV why roads to the north or to Spain were not blocked after Maddie vanished.

He explained: "The road I saw the van on was such a route."

He said the man he saw was clean-shaven, aged 40 to 42, fat but good-looking. The woman was 60 to 65, fat with grey hair.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "His account is being looked into. He has done the right thing in coming forward."


in: The Sun, 25.05.2010

Daily Mail: Was this Madeleine? Revealed, the photo files Portuguese police kept secret... to the fury of the distraught McCanns

by Joana Morais 8 years ago


Lead: This CCTV image of a girl strongly resembling Madeleine in a supermarket in New Zealand was among the leads deemed 'not relevant' by Portuguese police

By Arthur Martin
Last updated at 10:44 PM on 02nd March 2010

Secret files released yesterday show that Portuguese police dismissed dozens of potential sightings of Madeleine McCann.

Leads from around the world - including CCTV footage from New Zealand of a child looking strikingly like the missing girl - were filed away under the heading 'not relevant'.

Information that police forces in the United States, Europe and North Africa considered important was also discarded.

None of the files was handed to private investigators working for Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate.

Mrs McCann, 41, last night said the disclosure of the secret files was heartbreaking and shocking.

Their existence came to light in a legal action brought by the McCanns against Goncalo Amaral, the disgraced detective who was in charge of the case.

They had wanted to stop him airing the slur that they had been involved in their daughter's disappearance.

The leads were all received and archived after Algarve police closed the case in July 2008.

Madeleine was four when she vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007. Her parents were at a restaurant 80 yards away.

They now have a copy of the 2,000-page dossier which was published yesterday on the order of a court in Portugal after an application by newspapers including the Daily Mail.

The McCanns are incensed that their private investigators were given no access to the sightings at the time.

Mrs McCann said: 'There are instances where information which we think is very credible and worthy of information has not been actioned.

'We're gutted, it's absolutely shocking and difficult. Some of the information handed in was very credible. It's heartbreaking to know that it seems to end there.'

Mr McCann, also 41, was particularly angered at Inspector Ricardo Paiva, who was responsible for collating any information about Madeleine after the formal investigation ended.

He said: 'Inspector Paiva believes Madeleine is dead. How can he investigate thoroughly if he believes that? We know now there is a lot of information just filed away - and that is not acceptable. Once the file has been closed, what has actually been done? Next to nothing.'

The file contains a series of sightings which the McCanns would have expected to be fully investigated.

The astonishing CCTV footage from New Zealand shows a girl very like Madeleine being led into a supermarket by a portly man in shorts - seven months after her disappearance.

The man's behaviour aroused the suspicions of a female security guard in the shop in Dunedin on the South Island and she approached the girl to establish she was British.

Although the girl said her name was 'Hailey', the security guard was convinced the girl was Madeleine and reported the incident to police.

Interpol in Wellington then sent the images to police in Portugal who promptly deemed it 'not relevant'.

Other discarded leads include:

• A British ex-pat saying he saw a girl being dragged along a road toward the airport on the night Madeleine disappeared. He had not approached the authorities earlier because he was wanted for fraud.

• A girl like Madeleine was seen with an unkempt Spanish-looking man in his 30s at a shop near Murcia. The woman witness followed the girl but the pair vanished. She failed to tell Spanish police until June 2008.

• Another lookalike wearing only a dirty yellow jumper was seen being held at gunpoint on a French motorway by a half-naked man in August 2008. French lorry driver Michel Guidard walked toward them only to be threatened with a gun.

• Photos from the internet uncovered by a female French detective were found to show images of sexual abuse which involved a girl resembling Madeleine.

• An account by a Scottish mother of two who saw a girl who looked like Madeleine with a group of gipsies in Albufeira, Portugal, in July 2008. A woman who was with the girl ran off down the hill with her when two police officers turned up.

• Details of a sighting of a girl on October 9, 2008, with a Portuguese man living in the U.S. He allegedly ran a child trafficking operation smuggling in children from his homeland, Mexico and Greece.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: 'They are incredibly frustrated that this was sitting there and being disregarded by the Portuguese police.

'They were shocked when they saw the scale of the information that had come in and the lack of action taken.

'There are potential leads in the file that are now being followed up by our investigators.

'It's more than a pity that the file has just sat there for so long and simply marked "not relevant" by the Portuguese.

'There are also images in the file that are strikingly similar to Madeleine and are being looked into.'

in Daily Mail

Reference: McCanns Counter-Spin: New Madeleine 'Sightings' To Be Revealed

Minor note because there isn't much to say really, so Team McCann wanted the information kept at the PJ in Portimão to "leak" it to the UK media to be divulged, instead of following the leads quietly in order to find Madeleine? What about the "appeal" to the Portuguese Public Ministry for the re-opening of the archived process to their daughter's investigation? What about the leads of their private dick, Dave Edgar, who stated that Madeleine was in a «lair» about 10 miles from Praia da Luz? This is a farse, and a desperate one.

Hidden Evidence
by Joana Morais   4 years ago  


The former coordinator of the PJ of Portimão discloses new information
Gonçalo Amaral says that documentation within the scope of the English investigation into Madeleine's disappearance vanished from the case files

by Magali Pinto

Just a few days after Madeleine McCann disappeared from the Ocean Club tourist resort in Praia da Luz, Lagos, on the 3rd of May 2007, a witness showed up, a British tourist woman, who claimed she saw the girl's father walking in the beach at night. The disclosure was made by the former coordinator of the PJ of Portimão, Gonçalo Amaral, on CMTV [Correio da Manhã TV channel, available at MEO digital TV provider], according to whom all data referring to that witness has vanished.

"We tried to retrieve that witness statement and the documents that were in the domain of the English police. They have simply vanished. To this day we still don't know who that witness is and where she is", said Gonçalo Amaral.

The former coordinator of the PJ of Portimão will face again today Gerry and Kate McCann at the Palácio da Justiça in Lisbon, for another hearing session of the trial in which the McCann couple demands 1,2 million euros for damages for the publication of the book 'Maddie, A Verdade da Mentira' [Maddie, The Truth of the Lie] written by Gonçalo Amaral. In the book, the former coordinator of the PJ sustains the thesis that the parents are responsible for the disappearance of the girls and the concealment of her body.

Gonçalo Amaral has no doubts that Maddie is dead.

"The girl's parents had a key to church, in that church a vigil took place a month after the disappearance. According to information, the child's body could have been placed in the coffin, at the feet of the woman that was later cremated".

He concluded by saying, "The mystery will only be over when they stop protecting the McCann couple. Only then we will learn the truth".

Details

5 Million
Since the beginning of the Operation Grange - the name given to the English investigation initiated in 2011 - the English have already spend well over 5 million euros. [sic, is closer to 12 million euros/10 million pounds]

Two Weeks
Just in the searches that took place in the past couple of weeks, with sniffer dogs, georadar, in three areas in Praia da Luz, the English authorities have spent about 100 thousand euros.

Results
Even though all that money has been invested, so far, there is no progress made in the investigation resulting from the efforts of the English.

in Correio da Manhã, pag. 19, paper edition/online here, June 16, 2014

---

Before, during and after the time the McCanns were constituted as ‘arguidos’ [formal suspects], Leicestershire Police who was supposedly working in liaison with the Judiciary Police, displayed a link to the McCanns limited company, their 'fund-raising' website. The link was only removed on 7 September 2010. More on the fund here.

«Leicestershire Constabulary: A number of law enforcement agencies, including Leicestershire Constabulary, have a link to the 'Find Madeleine' website. Whilst we encourage anyone with information about Madeleine's whereabouts to contact the Portuguese police or their local police, we recognise the fact that some people may not feel comfortable in doing so. This link provides them with an alternative means of passing information.» in The Most Incredible Statement Made By A Police Force Ever

McCanns Want Amaral's Family Home


by Joana Morais   8 years ago


Sofia Leal & Gonçalo Amaral have been married for the last eight years and have two young daughters

“I will not get divorced. That would be a fraud. Our family lives in full communion [unity].”

Sofia Leal, who has been married for the last eight years with the former Judiciary Police coordinator Gonçalo Amaral, reacted indignantly upon being notified with a citation requested by the McCanns, to proceed with a separation of assets in order to allow the arrest of a house in the municipality of Olhão, within the scope of a 1.2 million euros claim.

By Paulo Marcelino

The claim made by the McCanns is based on the contents of the book “Maddie - The Truth of the Lie” (written by Amaral, in July 2008) concerning the investigation into Maddie's disappearance, the McCann's daughter, in Praia da Luz (Algarve), back in May 2007. The couple alleges that the former investigation coordinator accuses them of being responsible for their daughter's death and persists on the abduction thesis.

The interim measure [injunction] was filed at the 1st Civil Court of Lisbon in June 2009 and was allowed. The McCanns gained all the still due book authorship rights, half of Amaral's retirement pension as well as his “share [moiety, half] of their rural property” in Olhão. In July this year, the house division in two parts at the registry office was refused on the grounds that it affected a common asset.

The McCann couple via their lawyer [Isabel Duarte] applied for Sofia Leal to execute a separation of assets, as foreseen by law. She refused and in August the court carried into completion the full arrest. “My husband and I have never abandoned our daughters, or allowed paedophiles in our circle of friends. I am shocked that a couple who affirm to be religious is seeking out to destroy our family”, said Sofia Leal.





British Rule Out Abduction

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom (Foreign & Commonwealth Office) does not held Madeleine McCann's disappearance recorded as an abduction, thus accepting that there is no evidence to suggest that a crime of that nature has taken place; exactly what was concluded by the Portuguese Judiciary Police investigation initially led by Gonçalo Amaral and that is mirrored in the book “Maddie - The Truth of the Lie”.

In a reply to an investigator, who requested [FOIA PDF here] information regarding British missing children abroad, the Consular Directorate of the Foreign Office - dated December 14, 2009  to which the CM had access - affirmed: “The FCO filed the case in May 2008 [Ben Needham]. You will also be aware of the Madeleine McCann case. Both this and the Needham case are categorised as a missing persons, rather than child abduction cases, as there is no evidence in either case to support whether the children were or were not abducted.”.

in Correio da Manhã 08.09.2010


Read as well: Any Resemblance Is Pure Coincidence & The many victims of the McCann Media Campaign

Em Português (Sinopse): Carta de uma Noite de Verão

Good quality wristbands: Kate and Gerry McCann As Far Away From God As You Can Get

Comment by Nigel Moore
Updated 09 September 2010

To clarify, the court wanted to seize half of the Amarals' house (the half that belongs to Gonçalo), but were unable to do that while the couple is married and the house legally belongs to both of them - because they wed under the most common marriage regime in Portugal, which means that any assets that were acquired by any one of them, after the date of marriage, belongs to both members of the couple.

The McCanns, via their lawyer, applied for Sofia Leal to execute a separation of assets, (i.e. to split ownership of the house into two halves) in order to facilitate the seizing of Gonçalo's half of the house; Sofia Leal refused and so, in August, the court proceeded to seize the whole house.

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id232.html

“The McCanns are ‘forced’ to search for their daughter”
by astro   9 years ago  



The interview with Oprah Winfrey, analysed by a forensic psychologist

Paulo Sargento looks at the McCanns with clinical attention. He understands the contradictions, he identifies the signs of pressure that they are subject to. Innocent or guilty, they can’t escape from the machine that has taken over their lives.

interview by Carlos Saraiva

You have been suggesting that Kate McCann may commit suicide. What leads you to conclude this possibility?

I don’t think she may commit suicide. I received the information, before last Christmas, that she tried to commit suicide and was admitted to a hospital in Leicester, although there was never any registration of entry.

But how did you find out? Is your source trustworthy?

Well, it’s an English source, the same that on other occasions transmitted things that matched the truth.

Anyway, after all these months, she has been showing signs of some seclusion, inhibition and greater sadness. She used to jog and stopped doing that. And there’s something that is rather interesting: people who are addicted to jogging, when they stop practising, they tend to grow fatter, not thinner, like in Kate’s case. That would only be possible in one case: if the person was, in fact, very depressed. The other issue concerns the reports from the family itself, which are counterproductive, like in the Channel 4 documentary, where they try to make us believe that everything is normal in that family, with Gerry working and Kate looking after the children. The truth is that she was no longer seen taking the twins to school, or going out with them for a walk. And there were even rumours from Kate’s mother that there were problems between the couple. This talk about Kate’s depressive state is not mine, but rather from the friends and relatives themselves, who say that she is obsessed with the process and spends hours reading it. As a matter of fact, an English newspaper mentions that she has been repeating that she’d rather be in a coma than suffering in the way that she does. This kind of signs help to make the information more credible.

Would you say that she is psychologically ill?

I can’t get into people’s heads, but considering the context, considering what is known and considering Kate’s speech itself, there is a strong possibility that she is suffering a serious emotional disarray.

Wasn’t that inevitable, independently of what one thinks happened to Maddie?

She knows that the child is not coming back.

How?

The washing of Maddie’s soft toy, on the 12th of July 2007, that Kate mentions in her own diary. It’s very likely that it is the first expression of a mourning process, which can be compared with the fact that she apparently didn’t recognise her daughter in the age progression portraits that she was shown on Oprah’s show. In the first situation, at least in her own words, Kate doesn’t admit that Maddie may return. And she alleges that the soft toy was very dirty and didn’t hold her daughter’s smell anymore, so she washed it. This may be interpreted in two ways: she either wants to conceal evidence or she is convinced that her daughter is not coming back. But I add yet another possibility that reunites both, which is, to hide the indication and not expecting the little girl to return. Of course the portrait is an artistic work and since then, new sightings started to appear. Kate is unable to project her daughter’s growth, which helps us to understand this woman’s grieving, regardless of her having had any participation in the events, or not.

Let’s talk about the McCanns’ interview with Oprah. From a psychological point of view, how do you evaluate the couple’s behaviour?

Image sanctification at the highest level. Notice that even Kate’s clothes were chosen for the occasion. Do you ever remember seeing her in a skirt?

Now that you mention it, I noticed the extremely thin legs…

Of course you did. She presents a different image, using a skirt for the first time, with a contents that is more maternal, more familiar more adequate under the point of view of a 40-year-old woman who has a daughter that has been abducted. All in all, fitting better with what the North American middle class likes to watch on television. But you noticed her very thin legs. Well, people who regularly jog get muscled legs, but once they stop practising and continue eating, they fatten. Well, if one stops practising and is depressed, one loses the appetite and grows thin. Note that even people who are not technically trained, do notice these small details. When I mention the suicide issue, it’s also a way of saying: watch this woman, because she needs help.

You were talking about the clothes that were chosen for the Oprah interview…

Yes, notice the almost tepid colour of the cardigan and the manner in which it matches the colour of Maddie’s clothes that can be seen on the screen behind the McCanns. Totally studied. The replies are automatic, as if they had been dictated by an advisor.

The questions were also kind…

They were prepared. I believe that the couple was paid to go there. And they only went, previously knowing the questions. They wouldn’t go any other way. Don’t doubt that. As a matter of fact, they had been invited before, and they only went now because Gonçalo Amaral is translating his book into several languages and a reply was necessary. The questions were prepared and the replies were rehearsed. Just analyse the grammatical style that is used in the replies to Oprah and check the grammatical style that is used in Clarence Mitchell’s press conferences. I’m sure you’ll discover major similarities. And on certain blogs, you can see the same resemblance. This is called media manipulation.

What do you think about Kate’s crying?

Her crying may be genuine. There is great pressure in the air.

But there’s a change in this behaviour, throughout the process. Kate starts out by not crying and is severely criticised for that, as if she didn’t feel pain, then there’s a reactive phase against criticism, and she cries, and now, on this stage, which is America’s most famous talk show, which is broadcast all over the world, she cries again. How do you evaluate this change?

Well, when we mourn, if we’re not confronted with our loss on a daily basis, we cry increasingly less and reformulate increasingly more the destructive effects of that loss. But if we’re confronted every single day, that is a huge pressure that ends up throwing us out of balance, and Kate on an emotional level, Kate is at the end.

In terms of worsening the depressive state, or mourning and returning back to normal?

In terms of worsening the depressive state, and, unfortunately for her, that will be at the core of the solution of this case, one of these days.

Do you think that when she “breaks”, the case will be solved?

Yes. I think this is about a sacrificial dilemma. Imagine a scenario where there is, indeed, a terrible accident with Maddie. The girl is found dead and the parents face a dilemma: let’s assume this, we call the police and confirm that this was an accident, but we’ll have to justify the other two children, why they were alone until that time. Especially because the couple wasn’t aware of the fact that in Portugal they were not subject to the crime of exposure and abandonment (they would only be so in case of intent). They had been here for four days and it wasn’t possible that they had had time to inform themselves. Apart from that, they weren’t sober. This has to be said, considering the consumption of bottles during dinner. Therefore, they have to decide swiftly between concealing a reality, sacrificing one person for the benefit of their lives, their careers and the twins’ lives. In a cost/benefit relationship, the choice of the greater good for the greatest number is often made by human beings. Although it may be merely an impulsive, not thought out choice, it forces for a pact to be kept, so it can result for a greater number of people.

And this, for me, is a likely vision of what happened that night. Please note that all of us, under more or less dramatic circumstances, are faced with these sacrificial dilemmas. It just happens that in this case, the sacrifice is too big, and if it was done in this manner, it is a crime.

I sometimes think that this case is on its way to becoming an unbearable enigma. I presume that you don’t share this opinion, given the fact that you believe that some day, someone will “break”…

That will happen for sure, there are too many people involved in the matter and that is going to happen.

But you spoke about the possibility that the child died, and a possible flight forward…

… that is a possibility.

Admitting that everything was a terrible accident, is it possible that one could interiorise that nothing happened, that she is alive, despite being dead, that she will return, although that will never happen. Is it possible, the contradiction between what one did and what one wants to believe in?

Yes, if we’re talking about people with psychotic features, which is not the case.

But could it be a case of social survival?

Precisely. That story of doing something and then believing one didn’t do it, it’s very complex. In some cases it’s possible, but we can only tell for sure by evaluating people. I don’t think that Gerry and Kate have the characteristics to create such a dissociation, whether psychotic or not, that at the moment they would confuse reality with a theory that they invented afterwards.

Who leads, from the psychological point of view? Is it Gerry?

He’s dominating and controlling, there is no doubt about that, but he has a major problem: he’s very impulsive. For example, I remember his reaction during an interview in Spain, when he was confronted with the possible death of his daughter. The man “freaked out”. In an admirable manner, Kate managed to calm down not only Gerry, but the entire film crew. She’s sitting in front of the cameras of a foreign channel, with ‘difficult’ questions. There are actors who are used to the media frenzy that wouldn’t have behaved so well. She is the key, she has been controlling through a more feminine strategy, careful to keep the relationships of status quo, not of rupture. In that sense, Kate dominates. Therefore, any weakness from her part is revealing.

Now with this issue of her failing, we have been seeing a succession of silly acts: the entourage gives foolish replies, they make ridiculous sketches, they arrange for five persons to say that they saw a guy with pimples, well…

But that’s the usual ‘folklore’.

This only means that when she loses control, everything around her is a folklore to try to hide that there are problems. This has only one purpose, which is to keep people busy in the newspapers and in blogs, running over each other. And everyone has forgotten to talk about Maddie already. Unfortunately, nobody cares about Maddie.

This has reached another level. We should use an old scientific principle: for as long as we have a simple enough explanation to justify a certain piece of data, we shouldn’t look for a complex one, because it may confuse us. And the situation of the child’s death on location, with the subsequent concealing of the cadaver, is the most simple one that allows us to understand most of the data. Going out to search for an abductor without consistency or data, is silly.

Independently of the psychological frailty, momentary or not, admitting that there was the child’s death, and in that case, a machination was put in place, we would be looking at two diabolical minds. It would take unusual mental strength to take this lie forward, wouldn’t it?

I also think it’s not only them. When it’s about survival, we adopt traces that are as adaptive as possible towards that goal, even if it conflicts with the current social norm. It may not be morally accepted, but it’s human. What I think is that they never imagined the media multiplication that this was going to suffer. They imagined that there would be some initial confusion, we were going to be seen as a paedophile country, they would rapidly become victims and things would stay that way. I’m going to mention one single detail: Gerry McCann went three months without writing in his blog. And during that period, almost nobody spoke about Maddie. I wrote in my blog that it was an attempt to extinguish a trademark, to extinguish a phenomenon. I’m not going to think that Gerry reacted to my message, but two days later he came to justify the silence, alleging that he had been working with the investigation team…

People ask: but if it was them, why do they continue searching? I think they aren’t searching for anything anymore, they are merely forced to keep up the media interest, they are “forced” to look for their daughter. Faced with external pressure, they have to do something, or definitely the spell will turn against the sorcerer and the whole thing falls apart. That’s why I say that the couple is now subject to such pressure that it must cause them atrocious suffering, but they cannot escape anymore. This machine cannot stop anymore. And that is why, when Kate is more fragile, new things always appear.

The advisor’s ‘gaffe’

Clarence Mitchell, a former advisor to the English government, has been the controller of information in the “Maddie case”.

The McCanns’ advisor committed an unforgivable ‘gaffe’ during an interview to Sky News. When he is told that a certain criminologist defended that Maddie’s abduction had probably taken place in an unplanned manner, that Maddie had wandered out of the house looking for her parents and a paedophile had passed by at the time and took her, Mitchell says an interesting thing: ‘that didn’t happen, that’s ludicrous, Kate knows it, she knows that didn’t happen’. Now, what can we conclude from this?

If she knows that didn’t happen, does she know how it happened?

That’s the first deduction. Why? We must admit that this theory dismantled another one, that of the open window and Kate’s fingerprints on the window. This leads us to think that there is always a cat hiding with its tail sticking out, that is to say, a set of contradictions that lead me to freely consider that Kate has in fact a serious emotional disturbance and that she tried to commit suicide. Even more so, because parents in this kind of situation, who lose their children under serious circumstances, approximately 80% become depressed, and among those, an important part assumes characteristics of seriousness that lead them to try suicide, or even to commit suicide. Therefore, the interpretation is parsimonious although speculative, but it is not as far from context as one may think.

“Gonçalo Amaral was exonerated because he ‘pressured’ Kate”

“There were many people saying that Gerry McCann was to become a Secretary of State for Health in the English government. That might explain something, but one must also look at the close relationship with prime minister Gordon Brown’s brother. There is no doubt that Gonçalo Amaral was not ‘marked’ on the day that he made that statement. Others said much worse. As a matter of fact, the aberration is how Dr Alípio Ribeiro keeps his post when he publicly assumes that the constitution of the McCanns as arguidos was precipitated. Gonçalo Amaral was exonerated because right on the first day, he started ‘pressuring’ Kate. And soon after, the ambassador arrives with a PJ top officer – I’m not going to say who that is – and nobody else is questioned on location. Gonçalo Amaral is ‘marked’ right away. The couple may have had nothing to do with their daughter’s disappearance, but they must be hiding something very important to justify this kind of interference.”


source: O Crime, 14.05.2009, paper edition

McCann Detectives hassling Algarve: 'Leave us alone once and for all'
by Joana Morais   8 years ago


McCann Detectives in Lagos

by Marisa Rodrigues

"Leave us alone once and for all", is the request made by a former Ocean Club employee, in praia da Luz, Lagos, who has been "insistently" contacted by a new group of private investigators hired by the McCann couple.

"They've contacted me three times, by letter, by phone and recently they came knocking at my door. They were two women, one Portuguese another English, searching for evidence to reopen the process, but we want to forget what has happened. We will only answer to questions made by the Judiciary Police", vented the woman in frustration. She is one of the witnesses heard during the investigation to Madeleine's disappearance, in May 2007.

This is an action that the former coordinator of the Portuguese Judiciary Police classifies as "illegal". Even suggesting for "those people to be identified and heard by the police because they are committing a crime."

This revelation comes a day after Wikileaks, quoted by Spanish newspaper "El País", disclosure of the contents of a conversation between the United Kingdom and the United States ambassadors, with the first affirming that the police of his own country had gathered evidence incriminating the child's parents.

"That had been already stated by the PJ and figures on the process. It was the conviction of both police forces, however it had never been assumed from the British side. The only novelty is, that, for the first time, there is someone who is not Portuguese, affirming that there were suspicions against the couple, which reinforces the investigation thesis", said Gonçalo Amaral.

For the family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, it is "a historical note with more than three years old. Kate and Gerry have seen their status as official suspects lifted, with the Portuguese authorities assuming that there was no evidence that implied them in Madeleine's disappearance."

To JN, a source of the Portuguese Public Relations team hired by the McCann couple [Salvador da Cunha's Lift Consulting], confirmed that there is a "private investigation team" lead by a former UK cop, Dave Edgar, trying to gather proofs to reopen the process, archived back in July 2008.

Yesterday, in a declaration, the Portuguese Attorney General, considered that there are no "new, credible and relevant" facts to determine the reopening of the investigation related to Madeleine McCann.

in Jornal de Notícias


Remember to keep donating to the the McCanns' Private Limited Company Fund so they can continue to: McCanns Pressure and Harass Ocean Club Employee; British Police Harass Inocennt Man and Child; Marcos Aragão Correia accused of defaming Gonçalo Amaral; Leaving no Holiday Destination in Peace; Key witness leaves country; Kate and Gerry McCann Threaten to Sue Bloggers; Front Line “After Maddie” - Video Reportage; Tapas Cook Breaks Silence and talks about the McCanns; Witnesses Heard by The PJ in the Maddie Case Were Sounded Out by the McCanns; "Lies destroyed Luz"; Sacked Ocean Club employees are “hurt” at the couple; The many victims of the McCann Media Campaign; McCanns Want Amaral's Family Home; Maddie Case: A Broke Cop; Robert Murat continues to receive death threats and has lost the sense of life; DRAMA AND LIES: How the McCanns use Mari Luz in the Maddie case - The opinion of crime specialists, Maddie: HTFM CyberWarriors Promoting Censorship on Youtube, Shannon Matthews versus Madeleine McCann: A 'class war'?; More Metodo 3 "witnesses" : Lawyer Claims Madeleine Raped, Murdered and Dumped; Detectives Hired by the McCanns want to Frame Gonçalo Amaral; McCann Couple demand Gonçalo Amaral Divorce to be Rewarded; etc, etc.

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2010/12/mccann-detectives-hassling-algarve.html

Kate considered committing suicide

by astro 5 years ago



Maddie's mother spent her days in panic and anguish. Threats were made on the internet

by:Mariana Paiva

Kate McCann was close to committing suicide. Psychologist Alan Pike [sic, Crisis Counselor], who has been helping the McCann family since 2007, said yesterday in court that she had "dark thoughts". The McCanns demand compensation in the amount of 1.2 million euro from Gonçalo Amaral over damages that were caused by the publication of the book 'The Truth of the Lie', in which the former PJ inspector defends that Maddie died.

Kate told the psychologist that she was so devastated by Gonçalo Amaral's book that "she couldn't bear the days with the panic and the anguish that she felt".

"Kate thought about not being around anymore. She said killing herself was an option to end the trauma she was experiencing. I deduced it was an indication of how she felt rather than something she ever intended to do. Kate was unwell and shared many dark thoughts", Alan Pike said, recalling that Kate spent days crying over the injustice that had been done to Maddie by the people that should be helping her.

Yesterday, Kate's cousin Michael Bright [sic, Wright] , who until 2010 monitored the internet pages and e-mails that were related to Madeleine's disappearance, also testified. He told that on some forums there were several publications inciting to the abduction of twins Sean and Amélie, now aged eight, Maddie's younger siblings. Michael told Gerry and denounced the threats to Leicester Police, in the UK. Nonetheless, he doesn't know if anything was done. He also described the couple's suffering when they learned about the screening of the documentary on TVI. "It was horrible", he said.

Madeleine McCann disappeared on the 3rd of May, 2007, from a tourist resort in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, where she was spending a holiday with her family.

Correio da Manhã, 21.09.2013

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2013/09/kate-considered-committing-suicide.html

Exposing a Swindler: The Truth About a Pathological Liar Joana Morais Blogspot



Joana Morais
June 19, 2009

In this post I will expose and prove how the so called journalist 'Duarte Levy' is nothing more than a con man, a swindler and a dangerous pathological liar. I was compelled to write this article as a warning for others who may fall prey of his lies and manipulative games, even though the subsequences that will probably originate from here will no doubt be used by persons who have other agendas.

In 2007 I used to follow a few blogs to learn about the Madeleine McCann case, one of those blogs was SOS Maddie, written by a freelance Belgian journalist, 'Duarte Levy'. As many others, I had the impression that 'Duarte Levy' was a man that knew through investigative journalism and that had in his possession documents which he would use as a basis to then write articles about the Madeleine case.

Later in 2008, Duarte Levy wanted to meet me, at the time I was in the North of Portugal at my family's house, and he travelled there to meet me and to talk about the case. What I didn't know at the time is that Duarte Levy 'studies' very well his soon to be victims, before he does the operation 'Charm & Con'.

Anyway let's stop calling this man 'Duarte Levy' since that is not his real name. Let's call him by the name that his Portuguese parents gave him: Nuno Miguel Duarte, being Duarte his family name, a common name in Portugal like Silva or Lopes.

So, in 2008, this man, wanted to meet me. Obviously I was absolutely excited for knowing someone that could fill in the gaps, with whom I could exchange information and ideas. He presented himself as being Duarte Levy, a freelance journalist who worked with The Times, The Sun, Hareetz, La Derniere Heure, El Mundo and several other papers which I don't recall - The Times and El Mundo being the only newspapers that I could confirm the veracity of his allegations [that is regarding the Madeleine McCann affair; previous to that... nothing exists].

When I questioned that his name 'Duarte Levy' didn't appear in the on-line newspapers or that his professional past as a freelance journalist simply wasn't traceable he told me that he wrote under a few alias', one of them being Simon de Bruxelles [profile at journalisted.com; facebook and twitter]; the twitter social profile of Simon de Bruxelles has however a striking similarity with 'Duarte Levy' & 'Arthur Finkelstein' twitter profiles, updates, similar followers, etc... As a final consideration on these three tweeter profiles, I can only assume that the journalist 'Duarte Levy' uses this 'sock puppets' to sustain his own allegations and to, in the public view, assume a credible professional image.

There is also another fake on-line character, just created to praise and divulge his work - a kind of split personality syndrome - named DJorn - which as 'Duarte Levy' himself explained to me was a nick created by adding his name 'Duarte' with 'Jornalista' [Journalist].

Djorn, who is a member of the 3 Arguidos forum, has defended his "master's voice" several times, even affirming that he and Duarte Levy are totally different persons - interestingly Djorn posted several times on the 3 Arguidos forum using - guess what - my own IP address, attributed by TVCABO operator [see screenshots below] - which is odd, to say the least, considering that I never met Djorn. Or did I?

Another interesting situation is how Djorn was also able to connect to the internet via the TMN GPRS operator, an account that 'Duarte Levy' asked me to open for him, affirming that he would pay me every month, since he didn't have a Portuguese home address to give - a condition to have a mobile net service. Yes, gullibly, I opened that account with my name, my home address and ended up paying more than 1000 Euros - and this is not an easy thing to assume in front of unknown persons: I was defrauded.

Moving on and resuming what could become very quickly a long tale.

'Duarte Levy' upholds a professional image that has no basis at all and that no one (not even colleagues) are able to verify, this despite several attempts to corroborate a highly unlikely professional past history; he alleges to have immeasurable contacts and knowledge to the highest levels than can never be verified [José Socrates, Ricardo Paiva, Lopes da Mota, Clarence Mitchell, Paulo Rebelo, etc]; he fantasises, deceives about the possession of explosive documentation whose existence cannot be proved and when confronted or urged to demonstrate the veracity of fantasist allegations, has always a ready-made answer. If pressured, he reacts in an aggressive and/or a victimizing behaviour, never recognizing that he can be in error, even keeping fantasised characters to sustain his allegations.

The conclusion that I arrived is that this man exhibits a pattern of systematic lies, of compulsive nature, he is someone who is a fantasist, a megalomaniac and without any doubts a pathological liar.

*

Duarte Levy's response SOS Maddie

Duarte Levy
28/06/2009

NOTE: All the information published by me on this blog or any other blog, not to mention the media with whom I continue to work, is authentic and has been verified from several sources as required by a journalist. Obviously I am always ready to defend myself against any counter claim. Besides, any matter which does not have a direct connection with my work but is about my private life, in particular comments that were made recently after the end of a romantic relationship that lasted for several months, does not deserve a response... at least not here.

*

Clean Slate: Exposing a Swindler Part II Joana Morais Blogspot

Joana Morais
June 30, 2009

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' in 'The Sign of the Four' (1890) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Following my initial approach concerning the alleged 'investigative journalism' that is practised by a person that calls himself 'Duarte Levy', and having been confronted with suggestions that I might be merely reacting to a personal problem, I leave you a collection of items that range from the merely doubtful to the outright fantastic.

It is not my concern to discredit the person who produced these so-called facts, but rather to urge people who have been following the Madeleine McCann case, to seriously question these allegations and to start with a fresh clean slate.

The rogatory interviews done with the Tapas 7 in the UK, in April 2008, are legitimate. The DVD process is authentic. The book written by the former coordinator to the case is based on facts pertaining to the investigation - it is there that we should look for the Truth.

What is not true/does not exist/incorrect fabrications :

The 24 photos - The story according to Duarte: a Spanish tourist that was on the night of 3 of May having dinner at the Ocean Club's restaurant known as Tapas Bar takes some photos which show a few of the Tapas group members and how some, like Kate McCann, changed clothes; then the Spanish tourist back in Spain is robbed, his apartment was broken in and the camera with the alleged photos is taken; then the camera and the thief are found by the Spanish police; then Duarte worked as a middle man between the Spanish tourist the PJ and the British media who had an interest and wanted to buy the alleged photos.

Explosive documents left behind by Justine McGuinness - a dossier with documents, and a sketched map that pinpointed a location on Ribeira do Vascão. Duarte knows perfectly well that the 'explosive documents' were in fact a message of a group, inviting the McCanns for a meeting and a prayer for Madeleine.

Interview of Antonio Jiminez in a Spanish jail - Antonio Jimenez, an ex-officer, assistant investigator of Metodo 3 detectives agency who was arrested on drug trafficking charges - this bit is true. What is not true is that he ever met 'journalist Duarte Levy'. In fact, no video recorded interview was made of Antonio Jimenez.

Extra facts that are NOT true:

A debate in Lisbon promoted by 'Duarte Levy' about the McCann case - which never happened in spite of 'Duarte Levy' affirming the contrary. The debate according to him happened in Fábrica Braço de Prata, or in Universidade Lusofona.

A book written in partnership by Duarte Levy and others - sold in advance to the French ladies in his SOS Maddie forum, the book was never sent to the members of that forum, or to any other persons who reserved it. Duarte has stated that his share of the book 'Maddie.Net' was given to the Unicef. [see screenshot below]

SOSMaddie conversation screenshot


Duarte being a good pal with: Paulo Rebelo, Jose Socrates, António José Seguro, Lopes da Mota, Ricardo Paiva, etc.

Duarte being on: Oprah, in Sri Lanka, in Dubai, Aachen, etc..

What we still don't know, and might be based in genuine fact(s) i.e. 1% of truth/99% of falsehood :

The McCanns demanding 100,000-500,000 euros in a non-existent lawsuit

The PJ mole - a family member of one PJ superior officer

A forensics report with 17 matching markers out of 19, when the preliminary report only detailed 15 markers - Duarte Levy claimed he had access to that document in the Portuguese Documentary about Madeleiene McCann in 'Maddie: The Truth of the Lie'.

Levy quote about forensics report


The Tapas who gave interviews to 'Duarte Levy', repentant and who broke the 'McCann's Pact'

Kate McCanns' suicide attempt

Jose Luis Arnault meeting with Gerry McCann

Bob Small coming forward in an interview given to 'Duarte Levy'

The People's photo which by 'Duarte Levy's' account was a lookalike

'Duarte Levy' week in Rothley with the McCanns

The British abandoned cemetery where Madeleine's body is, which sometimes was in Madrid other times was in Huelva and which has a webcam recording 24/7

Clarence Mitchell being a good pal and facilitating information to 'Duarte Levy'

Duarte having numerous contacts in the SIS, PJ, FBI, Mossad, Nasa, etc...

The satellite dish facing Morocco article

The hit and run incident in Barcelona

The room hotel assault where his laptop was stolen

Being arrested at the airport of Madrid upon arrival

*

Credibility and journalism Gazeta Digital

Paulo Reis
9.7.09

As a journalist since 1982, I always did my best to check and confirm, with several and reliable sources, all facts and information in the articles I published, either alone or co-authored. Serious allegations were raised by Joana Morais, a blogger that I know and respect, concerning the credibility of Mr. Duarte Levy, with whom I co-authored many articles about Madeleine Mccann's investigation.

My credibility is also seriously damaged, due to my association with him. A journalist's credibility takes a long time to build but it's a fragile thing. A single mistake is enough to destroy it. Once lost, it's almost impossible to have it back. So, I decided to stop writing about this case.

Time – and the persistent work of so many people, in hundreds of blogs and dozens of forums, analyzing the large amount of information available – will show what is truth and what is not truth. In the end, I believe, truth will prevail – and that is the most important.

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t15202-credibility-and-journalism

Tapas Cook Breaks Silence and talks about the McCanns

by Joana Morais 10 years ago

All the Tapas employees working that night were sacked from the Ocean Club. The former cook from the Tapas Bar gives her story about what happened on that night. The McCanns never left the apartment after the alarm was raised. All the police, locals, and employees from the Tapas bar and Ocean Club never saw the Parents searching for their own daughter. More than 200 employees were interviewed by the PJ.



Journalist on Studio: And tomorrow, 3rd of May marks a year since Madeleine McCann disappeared. There in Praia da Luz, Maria João [name of the other Journalist], good evening, is there any ceremonial service predicted?

[Cut to journalist on location]

Maria João: Here, in the Ocean Club, no, nothing is going to happen here to mark the date, just a mass that will be done tomorrow at 18:30pm in the church of Luz. A bilingual mass which is going to mark one year since the disappearance of Maddie. In relation to the process, there are no new developments expected for the next few days. Only in the 15th the Judge of Criminal Instruction from Portimão’s Court is going to reassess if the process continues or not under Secrecy of Justice. It’s very likely that the process continues like in the last year. Who broke the silence, while we're on the subject, were the Portuguese employees from the Tapas Bar, the restaurant where the couple McCann had dinner in the night of Maddie’s disappearance. Those 8 Portuguese employees didn’t see their contracts renewed this year. They were obliged in the last 12 months to be silent, forbidden to talk with journalists. Since they contracts were not renewed they decided to talk. SIC has spoken with the cook.

[Cut to medium shot of 2 people behind a tree]

Voice over Introduction: She doesn’t ‘show’ her face but a year later and without working in the Ocean Club, Manuela decided that she wasn’t obliged to the silence anymore. The cook [chef] who prepared a ‘Robalo’ [Snook fish/ Sargeant fish] with cuscus [signature dish of the Arab world] and the pepper steak meal the McCanns had to dinner in the night Maddie disappeared was in the griller area 3 meters away from the table of the couple.

[Shot of interior of the Ocean Club, focus on the Tapas Bar]

Manuela, the cook: They had already eaten the main course, [Cut to blurry image of a woman’s face, with a strong southern accent from Algarve], because it was already around 9:30pm when she gave the alarm.

Voice over: This former employee from the Tapas tells that immediately various colleagues left their work posts to help the searches. Meanwhile, in the hours that followed, during most of the time the McCanns stayed inside the apartment.

Manuela: My colleagues were indignated [angered/offended], because they went… One of them even had his feet all red, tired… and he was offended because he went to search though he wasn’t anything related to the girl, and the parents didn’t. [Cut to apartment] They stayed indoors, in the apartment.

[Various shots around the Ocean Club, archive footage of Police and Media]

Voice Over: A year ago, suddenly everything changed in the Ocean Club. The quiet resort, ideal for family holidays, was invaded by police and journalists.

Manuela: The Ocean Club, the Tapas turned into a pandemonium [chaos]. No one could get out, no one could get in. Even if we were married, our husbands couldn’t get in, neither our friends. Everything was surrounded… The security officers didn’t know the employees. They thought the employees were journalists. In the beginning everything was really complicated.

Voice Over: The Judiciary went in a full scale operation to Praia da Luz. For more than a month the investigators created a kind of headquarters in one of the apartments of the Ocean Club. All the employees from the resort were heard.

Manuela: They all went in two… in two hours by two hours, two [referring to the number of people –in pairs], during sometime. Close to a month. We were almost 200 employees.

Voice Over: Manuela remembers of seeing Madeleine sometimes.

Manuela: When the Parents would put her at the crèche, in the babysitters, the kitchen was next to it.

Journalist on location: How was Madeleine’s routine during those holidays? When she entered there, in the Ocean Club?

Manuela: She got in, was delivered to the babysitters. The babysitters would do a class; they would do a group course with the girls. Between 4pm and 4:30pm they had something to eat. In the morning they had a fruit lunch [breakfast?]… And then the parents would come to pick them up at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

Journalist: In the middle of all those children do you remember Maddie?

Manuela: Because she entered there, she would wave goodbye, or say hello…She was really nice [lovely/polite]. She was always smiling.

Voice Over: After the disappearance of the girl, several family members of Kate and Gerry came to the Algarve.

Manuela: I remember that the family members instead of being worried with the family, would go to the pool, rented the tennis court, played tennis… Instead of being worried with the child that was disappeared!

Voice Over: The majority of the employees who was in the Tapas in the night of the Maddie’s disappearance as already left the resort.

Manuela: The contract ended and they sent us to unemployment.

Journalist: All the team that was in the Tapas that night?

Manuela: All the team that was there in that night.

Voice Over: After the disappearance of Maddie, the McCanns stayed in the Ocean Club for more 65 days. In July they moved to a house in the outskirts, away from the journalists eyes. It was there that they stayed until the 9 of September, the day that they went back to England.

PJ creates new team to investigate the Maddie case
by Joana Morais 5 years ago


Investigation. In view of the existence of new evidence, within days it will be decided who will investigate the disappearance of the English child. Portuguese police deny pressures and say, that despite the “close relationship”, they will run a parallel investigation to the Scotland Yard

by Alfredo Teixeira

The Judiciary Police (PJ) reopened the investigation concerning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and they warrant that this time the parents of the girl who disappeared in Praia da Luz, Algarve, days before her fourth birthday, on May 3, 2007, are not suspects. To the DN the Portuguese police disclosed that there are “new evidence” about what has happened to the child while she slept together with her two twin siblings, in the apartment at the tourist resort. They do not disclose the existence of suspects and only reveal that internally, in the coming days, a team will be created to resume the investigation.

When, last week, on the 17th, the PJ hierarchy met with the Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Mark Rowley and DCI Andy Redwood, who heads the approximately 37 agents working in the British investigation, the decision to request the reopening of the investigation to the Public Ministry (MP) was communicated.

The Portuguese police denies any pressure from the English, stressing that they did not cooperate directly with the Scotland Yard investigation. However, information gathered by the English police, mainly related to the past of some people that were referenced in the case files, would have complemented the analysis by the investigation team in Portugal.

“There were elements gathered that have to do with events before the disappearance of the child and others after. Relating them with those contained in the process already archived have raised a more than reasonable doubt about what happened to the child,” said a source close to the investigation to the DN, adding that a in meeting with Gerry and Kate McCann, and the lawyers of the couple, the PJ asked “absolute silence” about the investigation.

At the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police who have been working on the case for over a year [sic, for over two years], Scotland Yard said to have found new relevant information, based on the forty thousand documents and clues collected by the police forces from Portugal, UK and eight different companies of private detective and just a few days ago they showed e-fits of a suspect.

A source of the PJ that hasn't, however, worked for this process, does not set aside the divulgation of images of the same kind if appropriate. It acknowledges, however, the important of the work done by the Regional Section of Criminal Investigation and Prevention of the PJ from Porto, led by the coordinator Helena Monteiro. Notwithstanding the formal archival of the investigation, that team was on the field since March last year, searching for leads to follow and in order to fill any eventual gaps in the initial investigations.

That reanalysis task has “helped identify new evidence, which by imposing further investigation, meet the requirements set by article 279º no 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the reopening of the investigation.” said the PJ in a statement. “Similarly to what happens in all the cases of missing children, notwithstanding the formal archival of the investigation concerning her disappearance, and as was always publicly stated, the Judiciary Police continued to be attentive to any and all information likely to enable the understanding of the whereabouts of the minor Madeleine McCann, the circumstances in which her disappearance occurred and the identity of its author(s),” the PJ clarified.

Also yesterday, a note from the Attorney General's Office (PGR) said that the Public Ministry (MP) decided to reopen the investigation. It was on July 21, 2008 that the PGR announced the archival of the process concerning the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and removed the status of arguidos from the parents of the English minor and Robert Murat, with the proviso that they could reopen the process at any time if “new elements of evidence” surfaced, evidence which they now claim to exist as the result of the identification of witnesses who were never heard.

Experience in missing people cases

With the investigation archived since July 2008, it was the National Direction of the PJ who, in March 2011 [sic, 2012], assigned to a team of investigators from the North Directorship the task to re-analyse the whole wide range of information in the process, with the objective of identifying information whose further understanding could be revealed useful and possible. Leading the group of four inspectors was the coordinator Helena Monteiro, with experience in missing people cases, namely the young lady from Lamego, Carina Ferreira, whose body was found after a month of searches at the bottom of a ravine near a motorway. Helena Monteiro has worked, among other areas of investigation, in the fight against violent criminality.

Diário de Notícias, October 25, 2013, paper edition

The Secret Visits of the McCanns to the Church of Luz
by Joana Morais 4 years ago


Announced visits and other secret, keys provided against the wishes of the Bishop, the priest wife agitated, finished constructions and searches never made​​. What is it that the church of Praia da Luz has?

by Hernâni Carvalho

On the night of their daughter's disappearance, the McCann couple asked for a priest. The priest of the Luz church, José Pacheco, did not respond. The couple knew, even before they had gone to Praia da Luz, that the Anglican priest Haynes Hubbard celebrated masses there and lived with his wife. He had a friendship with McCann's family members. It was with him whom they spoke with. Some days later, Gerry and Kate received the church keys, and since then they were able to enter and leave at any time. A situation that was criticized by the Bishop of the Algarve at the time. When questioned on this discretionary act, the priest José Pacheco said: "Do I decide that?!"

McCanns visited the church in secret

"Although our pain feels much rawer here, it is comforting at the same time since we feel closer to Madeleine - we can read in a press statement sent to Lusa news agency in 12th December 2009, by the McCann's Portuguese PR, in connection to the couple's visit to the church. During the day, the visits were announced and followed by the media. The exception was made in the early hours of January 14, 2010 [issues with date/see references bellow]. At 5am they were seen and photographed leaving the church from a side door. In the afternoon they gave a press conference.

Wife of Priest worried

The forensic psychologist Paulo Sargento asked the bishop of the Algarve Dom Manuel Quintas, if any catholic can go to the church at any time.

Hernâni Carvalho - How did you get to talk with the bishop?

Paulo Sargento - I sent a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt early on, in January 2010. Since I got no reply, about a month later, I sent an e-mail with the questions that I had. Four days later, it was the Bishop himself who replied, also by e-mail, apologizing for the delay in the answer. A hearing was scheduled for two or three days later.

Hernâni Carvalho - And you felt clarified?

Paulo Sargento - The hearing took place in February, at the episcopal see of Faro. The Bishop received me kindly. We talked about an hour. I had already been informed about a McCann visit to the church in the early hours and wondered if the Bishop was aware of that and I also wished to understand if any other catholic could do the same. Dom Manuel Quintas confirmed the McCanns had indeed been in the church on that day at 5am, that the person who had given them the key that night was Susan Hubbard, the wife of the Anglican priest, who had a key to the church at all times since her husband celebrated the Anglican mass there. Susan assured the Bishop the McCanns wanted to pray without being harassed by the media. However, the Bishop told me: “I don't understand, that day at 17pm there was a mass where they went, surrounded by the media”. Dom Manuel Quintas also added that when Susan Hubbard found out about my hearing request, she got scared and inclusively, sought him, very worried. The Bishop told me that he answered her queries saying that she should not be so worried if nothing unusual or wrong had happened.

Hernâni Carvalho - Did the Bishop avoid discussing any issues?

Paulo Sargento - No. I'm not going to give you details, but the Bishop was very open and did not flinch at anything I asked to him. He was willing, even, to resume contact for further questions or more information I needed. Interestingly, in that summer (2010), Kate spent a week vacation in Canada, in the house of a family member of Susan Hubbard, the wife of the priest.

Construction Works

Back in 2007, the public area of the Village of Luz had been for months undergoing sanitation improvements and road works. Behind the church there were ongoing construction works. Being a place of worship, various legal issues hampered a search there. At the time, PJ sources admitted to the possibility that the girl's body could have passed through that location, or even, to have been buried in the deactivated cemetery.

End of page 98

The Big Bluff

The British police came to Portugal to investigate the Maddie case. They dug and went into the sewers looking for a dead girl or clues that could lead to her whereabouts. The PJ had said the very same and had done those searches seven years ago.

“A movie for the English to see”, said an elderly lady, mockingly, to CMTV recently. One and a half year ago the English police announced that they would find the girl in a few days. So far nothing. Scotland Yard's work in Portugal is discussed by all in a very critical way. “They haven't done anything that our PJ hasn't done years ago”, stated a Portuguese in the same area. The searches are causing discontent among tourists and locals as they consider them detrimental to tourism, now that the peak season begins.

Show Off

The British police wanted the searches to be accompanied by the media but the PJ refused. Since the 2nd of June, Praia da Luz in Lagos has a large team of policemen, geologists, archaeologists, cutting edge technology and also sniffer dogs. They all come from England “under the supervision of PJ and the Public Prosecutor Office”. In addition there are PJ inspectors, GNR military officers on foot and horseback and Portuguese forest sappers. A setting worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster movie.

Stones, socks and bottles

The searches and excavations of the English police in Luz highlights the acknowledgement that they are looking for a body. The PJ had reached that same conclusion seven years ago. The English police began by excavating a field near Rua 25 de Abril, 600 meters away from the apartment from where the girl disappeared. An area equal to three football fields, a slope hill, which belongs to the Belmiro de Azevedo Group [SONAE] and is frequented by locals and tourists for leisurely walks. They collected animal bones, two cannabis plants, stones, soil samples, a sock and bottles and kept everything in boxes.

Nothing

There are no findings to sustain the theory of the British authorities. They argue that Maddie's body is in that place or that there are clues that may lead to her whereabouts. They also claim that they have a group of eight suspects(?). Explaining that they have extended the searches because they have concluded (only now?) that the terrain is more difficult to analyse than predicted. These places had already been thoroughly searched by the Portuguese police immediately after the disappearance of the girl. In fact, until September 11, 2007, the PJ had investigated over 2500 false leads.

Millions of Euros

The 37 officers of the London Metropolitan Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine have cost the British Crown about 6 million pounds (7.4 million euros). Besides the first investigation, Portugal has had a team of six inspectors of the PJ in Faro, for months, just to carry out the the steps requested by the British and another team of inspectors from the Northern Directorate of PJ, doing a review of the first investigation for the last two years. No one has, so far, established the total cost to our country. The McCanns moved in early July 2007 for the Villa Vista Mar. At the average values of the property market at the time, the total rent was calculated to have surpassed 6000 euros. The Renault Scénic where biological traces were found, allegedly belonging to Maddie, was rented for 113 days, at the list price it costed 7990 euros.

Maddie
3 May 2007

In Praia da Luz in the Algarve, the parents of Madeleine, who would be four years old just a few days later, cried "abduction" when they noticed Maddie had disappeared from the apartment where they had left her alone with her ​​younger twin siblings. "Homicide", said the PJ a few days later. After a lot of press, suspects, searches, investigations to everyone's taste and seven years later, there is nothing.

in TVMais magazine, Nº1117, 13 to 19 June 2014, paper edition, pages 98 & 99 - with many thanks to Maria

En Español en el blog de Mercedes
Em Português no blogue da Maria

UK police chief hits back at Portuguese detective’s claims

by astro 9 years ago

The head of Leicestershire Police has rejected claims from a former Portuguese detective that his officers withheld a witness statement from the Madeleine McCann inquiry.



Chris Eyre, the Temporary Chief Constable, said “I can assure you that at no time were statements withheld and not passed on.”

Goncalo Amaral, the Algarve detective who was removed the inquiry early on, made his claim in a book, which is now banned.

Mr Eyre responded after Freedom of Information requests were submitted by the Sunday Express.

A team of Leicestershire family officers went to Portugal on 5 May 2007 to support the McCanns.

It has also emerged that the Foreign Office has withheld details about the investigation so as not to damage relations between Britain and Portugal.

An individual submitted Freedom of Information requests to get details of negotiations by John Buck, Britain’s former ambassador to Portugal.

The then Information Commissioner Richard Thomas refused in case it caused Portugal to lose trust in Britain’s discretion.



in: Sunday Express, 08.11.2009, paper edition only

Related

David Payne May Hold the Key to Maddie's Mystery

«Since the 16th of May 2007, the British authorities possess an official formal complaint presented by Katherine and Arul Gaspar, regarding suspicions about David Payne's behaviour which might be consistent with paedophilia acts.

These statements only entered the Portuguese Public Ministry's Process of investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance in January 2008 - the third version of the famous rogatory letters had already been sent to the Home Office - read: 'English tantrum delays McCanns process'. It is unknown if these statements were followed up by both forces in the United Kingdom and in Portugal.

The Gaspars, both doctors and former friends of the Paynes and of the McCanns, explain in the following statements what led them to present the criminal complaint: the time was in September of 2005, the place Majorca.»

McCann Case: Foreign Office Secrets

«The complainant said the release was in the public interest in order to uphold public confidence that British authorities do everything possible to help find missing children, reassure people the authorities keep in close contact with the police involved in the search and ensure public funds are used effectively to help find missing children.

But the Commissioner said in his decision that the disclosure would offend the Portuguese authorities.

He went on to say: “..even now, to disclose full information about the then ambassador’s communications with the Portuguese authorities then, on a balance of probabilities, substantial damage to the international relationship would result.”

He added: “The Commissioner is mindful of the need for the UK authorities to be seen to be worthy of trust by their foreign counterparts in Portugal and elsewhere in the world.

“He sees significant risk that disclosure of confidences or of other sensitive material would have damaging implications for any possible further developments on this matter and any relevant future investigations in Portugal or elsewhere in the world. This would not be in the best interests of the McCann family, including Madeleine, or of other UK citizens travelling to Portugal or elsewhere outside the UK.”»

Full decision - PDF document

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/200https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VBoOuOIBFiM/SvcsCIjQtFI/AAAAAAAABzk/4wBLjhRItec/s320/Chris+Eyre.jpg9/11/uk-police-chief-hits-back-at-portuguese.html

Extraordinary to me that Gonçalo Amaral claims to have focused on Robert Murat, leading to him being named arguido, on the hersay of some UK journalistic hack who thought Murat behaved suspiciously.  Done up like a kipper..


Robert Murat was accused by 2 British "journalists"
by Joana Morais 11 years ago





Sky's Ian Woods speaks to a British journalist in the Algarve who contacted police with suspicions about Robert Murat. Lori Campbell of the Sunday Mirror describes Murat as a 'vague character', claiming he lied to her about his role in the inquiry. In this video they admit that they did the spinning about Robert Murat.



Lori Campbell after 6 months said:
Why I had to tell cops Murat fear

I FELT I had no option but to call the police when I met Robert Murat just three days after Madeleine's disappearance.

At the time, I wasn't sure if I had done the wrong thing to speak up.
But if Murat has been hiding a dark secret, at least I know I did all I could to help police uncover the truth.

This week, I was asked to go to the HQ of Metodo 3 - the private investigators hired by the McCanns.

They wanted me to give evidence in Barcelona about what I saw and heard of Murat.
I was interviewed by the firm's chief, Francisco Marco, and two of his colleagues. He asked me to give a detailed statement of everything Murat said to me when we spoke outside the McCanns' apartment.

They were intensely interested as I told how he claimed he was a translator working for the Portuguese police and, as such, had offered to brief me on the investigation. I explained how he was always present at the scene during the first few days.

They asked why I became suspicious of him and I described how his behaviour unnerved me. He asked me more questions than he answered and shifted nervously when I quizzed him about his own background.

He fuelled suspicion by professing intimate knowledge of the probe, saying police had searched a three kilometre radius and found nothing and he believed Madeleine had been spirited away to Spain as police took 15 hours to alert border police.

Murat also told me he had spoken to Kate and Gerry the day after Madeleine vanished, describing them as being "distraught" and "panicked".


The Daily Mail reports that British diplomats 'were told to avoid offering support to Murat

El Mundo claims a Foreign Office document, dated May 17, justified the order because of "the specific nature of the case" and because British diplomats "were already helping Madeleine McCann's parents."

Three family liaison officers from Leicestershire Police also flew to the area to assist the couple, both 39-year-old doctors from Rothley, Leicestershire.

And ten days later the Foreign Office sent press officers Sheree Dodd and Clarence Mitchell to Praia da Luz to help with the media.

El Mundo claims Robert Murat's only support was a meeting with two low ranking diplomats some weeks after he was named as a suspect.

His mother Jenny, 71, tried but failed to arrange a meeting with British Embassy staff, it said.

In desperation she travelled to the UK to speak with her local MP, complaining of a lack of support from the British authorities.

The MP contacted the Foreign Office and met two diplomatic staff from the Algarve.

The MP was assured Robert Murat would receive the same support given to the McCanns, but only if he was formally charged, the newspaper reported.

Two MPs plan to raise the issue of the different standards of support in Parliament in January, lawyer Francisco Pagarete claims.

The paper reported: "An internal document, sent by the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom, orders British diplomats 'to avoid offering support' to Robert Murat, one of the suspects in the Maddie case, unless charges are presented against him."

British Ambassador to Portugal John Buck joined the McCanns in the Algarve shortly after Madeleine vanished from the family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz


https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2007/12/robert-murat-was-accused-by-2-british.html

Pedro do Carmo: "Maddie's parents are not suspects. Period."

by Joana Morais   1 year ago








In an interview with Expresso newspaper, the deputy director of the Judiciary Police, Pedro do Carmo, argues that no police in the world could guarantee results different from those obtained so far in Portugal in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

"We had never had and did not have a similar case again"

By Hugo Franco

I's a ten year old mystery that still divides the public opinion and intrigues the Portuguese and English authorities that investigate the case. What happened to Madeleine Beth McCann, the 4-year-old English girl who disappeared from the Ocean Club apartment in Praia da luz (Lagos) on the night of May 3, 2007 - 10 years ago the next Wednesday? The Judiciary Police (PJ) has some suspicions and a certainty: it was not the parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, who harmed to the child born in Leicester.

In September 2007, the McCanns were constituted as arguidos by the the Portuguese Justice but in the following year the case was closed for lack of evidence. It was reopened by the PJ in 2013 and continues to be investigated simultaneously with Scotland Yard. To this day, however, despite hundreds of leads and sightings of Maddie, no one was charged or convicted and the girl, who would have been 14 years old, has never been found.

Until the process was archived in 2008, there were three lines of investigation by the Judiciary Police on the case. Hypothesis 1: the parents accidentally killed their daughter and then concealed the body. Hypothesis 2: Maddie was abducted by a group linked to the trafficking of minors and sold for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Hypothesis 3: The child was killed following an abduction that went wrong.

Did the reopening of the case in 2013 open up more investigative lines than the three that were followed at that time?

I cannot speak about the investigation. What I can say is that the PJ remains convinced that there are elements that can still be worked and that can lead to some results. If it is not possible to achieve this result, at least we want to get some answers to the many questions that the case generates. Ultimately, to get to a point where the PJ concludes that there is nothing more that can be done to answer those questions.

Did Scotland Yard's entry into action in the case back in 2011 delivered results?

Since they've also decided to open an investigation, the contacts between the PJ and Metropolitan Police have been regular. There has been a constant exchange of information, which has been positive. This exchange of information remains. It can even be said that the relationship between the two police forces is of great proximity and great collaboration.

The reconstruction of the night of May 3, 2007, as the PJ investigators initially intended, with the presence of the McCanns and their English friends at the scene (that never happened due to the group's lack of willingness to return to Praia da Luz) would it have been essential to better understand what happened to the English girl?

I do not want to talk about what happened up to 2008. This has been sufficiently debated at its appropriate place.

Any idea how many people were heard in total in this case?

No. But certainly several hundred people.

Ten years on after the events at Praia da Luz, why do you think the case is still so much debated?

First because there was a deliberate and legitimate effort on the part of the child's parents in keeping the issue on the agenda of the media. But there are also other elements, such as the circumstances of the disappearance. Ten years later we still do not know what happened, which makes it possible to say, at least in relation to Portugal, that this is a unique case. We had never had one, and we did not have a similar case again. There were other cases of disappearances of children where it was not possible to bring the perpetrators to justice. But in those cases we either caught someone or it was possible for the police to understand what had happened. In this case we are not yet in a position to say what is behind the disappearance. This makes it a unique case. And maybe an extremely rare case worldwide.

Do you hope to know the truth about what happened on the night of May 3, 2007 in Praia da Luz?

Of course that's what motivates us. It is that hope that keeps us working on the investigation.

As you said in a recent interview, the Maddie case is a thorn on the side of the Judiciary Police?

Although I have used this expression into the conversation, it is not the term 'thorn on the side'. It is in the DNA of the Judiciary Police to solve all the crimes that as a duty to investigate. Whenever this does not happen it is something that will not leave us, and can not leave us, satisfied. We are very demanding with our work. In this case, we are not satisfied and remain committed to resolve the case.

Is the PJ still learning from this case ten years on?

We like to learn from every case and we also want to learn from this one. But only after we know what has happened will we be able to draw conclusions from it: understand what we have done well and less well. And we have not yet reached that point. We want to learn lessons from it in its due time.

The English media again insinuates that Portugal continues to be a country that cannot solve a case of this dimension. But the British police have not done better. Can the English public opinion change since Scotland Yard has not been successful, either?

We are not insensitive to others' opinions but our responsibility and commitment is with our fellow citizens. The Portuguese have every reason to be proud and trust their Judiciary Police, which proves on a daily basis its capacity, effectiveness and competence. Difficult cases exist in all countries. The results sometimes take time to arrive and this is also true for all countries. Our expectation is that there is a capacity for everyone to understand that this is so. No police anywhere in the world could guarantee different results.

So would a case like this one have the same results today anywhere else in the world?

I would not say it would have the same results. I would say is that in a case like this one there would be no guarantee of having different results anywhere else in the world. No police in any part of the world could guarantee different results, up to this moment, from those the Judiciary has achieved.

Would the PJ have done something different today in this investigation?

That is a conclusion that we can only reach after the moment we know what has happened or have reached a point where it is not possible to do anything more to clarify the case. And we have not yet reached that point.

Do you think it was a mistake to have the McCann couple constituted as arguidos in September 2007?

Obviously, I will not answer that question. But what I can say, just as I did back in 2011 and 2013, is that Maddie's parents are not suspects. That statement remains: the parents are not suspects. Period.

in Expresso, May 2, 2017

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2017/05/pedro-do-carmo-maddies-parents-are-not.html