How Maddie's creche attendance was "arranged"

Stella wrote:Also, just look at the afternoon on the 30th. Was there some kind of mass evacuation that day?

The only child signed out is Madeleine, 15 minutes after being signed in. When you see it as a picture/chart it really does paint a picture more than words alone do.
And look at O'Brien signed in at 4pm!! Is that an error?

No, I don't think it's an error, olive. I think something "funny" was going on. And I hadn't noticed previously that Alex Mann came in at 4.30!!!!!

Stella wrote:Also, just look at the afternoon on the 30th. Was there some kind of mass evacuation that day?

And Madeleine only signed in for 15 minutes.

This is why I think something happened on the 29th, which is why the circus performance started to play out and badly at that on the 30th !!!

I was looking for something else this morning and remembered I came across this in Matt's statement, talking about the McCann children at creche:


"the kids were always sort of really confident and they were the least misbehaved, well not misbehaved, they were the least upset when they dropped them off at Nursery, at crèche, it was all really good and it was all sort of, they were sort of very good at, if they did something wrong, they said no and sort of explaining it properly and why it was naughty to do that sort of thing, it was all sort of very appropriate and almost by the book, and it seemed a bit sort of casual to sort of like leave the door open, but then they had sort of an older daughter, so and older children might get nightmares, so it seemed as though there might be a reasonable explanation, but although I thought it was odd at the time, I didn’t say, do you normally leave your door or anything like that”.

Yes, arrived 1515, left at 1530. But which Madeleine was it? And why would KM drop her off there for just 15 minutes? Why would O'B show up with his daughter at 1600, followed by the Manns with their child at 1630? And why were not one of the other children, apart from "Madeleine", signed out? And wasn't that the afternoon when we thought that KM's signature, in signing out the twins, didn't look right?
Does anyone remember what activity was planned for that Monday afternoon, for the Lobsters?

Well spotted, Stella. What a mess Oldfield gets himself in, while trying to explain the inexplicable!! I think by saying "the least upset", he had in mind the twins rather than the "sort of older daughter". But that's just my take on it.

This is where HiDeHo's analysis of the creche activities is vital, will see if I can locate it.

It was Garden Club followed by mini-dance.

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I don't think I have ever heard of anyone talking about a Garden Club before. Did they plant flowers ?? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

This is another interesting one. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

If we look at who charged what to their rooms, we can see some very interesting movements.

	the day the money was spent
	30th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
McCann	242.00	242.00	missing	242.00	242.00
O'Brien	105.00	105.00	missing	105.00	105.00
Oldfield	21.00	26.00	missing	31.00	31.00
Payne	117.50	162.00	missing	162.00	177.00
O'Donnell	32.25	42.25	missing	143.50	143.50
Naylor BP01	99.00	110.40	missing	110.40	0.00
Berry	116.50	177.00	missing	215.50	0.00
Balu	12.00	12.00	missing	12.00	12.00

What we can see in this schedule is that Berry changed rooms on the 4th/5th and cleared his tab before moving to DP01. What is also very interesting is that up until the 7th May, which is the last list that we have, his balance remains at zero !! So not only does he get a nice room upgrade, it looks like everything else is on the house.

Then we have the Naylor's in BP01. They were not due to leave until the 5th, but they cleared their tab on the 4th, which probably means they moved rooms also or left early !!!

Why did O'Donnell's expenditure go through the roof on the 2nd ??

The McCann's and O'Brien's costs never change ??

Is any of these fees for entry to creche I wonder? or for additonal travel cots delivered to a room?

Stella wrote:This is why I think something happened on the 29th, which is why the circus performance started to play out and badly at that on the 30th !!!

I was looking for something else this morning and remembered I came across this in Matt's statement, talking about the McCann children at creche:


"the kids were always sort of really confident and they were the least misbehaved, well not misbehaved, they were the least upset when they dropped them off at Nursery, at crèche, it was all really good and it was all sort of, they were sort of very good at, if they did something wrong, they said no and sort of explaining it properly and why it was naughty to do that sort of thing, it was all sort of very appropriate and almost by the book, and it seemed a bit sort of casual to sort of like leave the door open, but then they had sort of an older daughter, so and older children might get nightmares, so it seemed as though there might be a reasonable explanation, but although I thought it was odd at the time, I didn’t say, do you normally leave your door or anything like that”.

I am having a doh moment here. When he speaks about an open door does he mean at 5A or the creche?

Am I right in thinking that "cleared the tab on 4 May" in fact means "had cleared the tab by 4 May", since AFAIR the lists are dated very early (around 0100) on each day? That might indicate that the Naylors had left by evening 3 May.

I had a visitation with an hours notice yesterday by the grandchildren and had to drop everything. I am about to create another schedule now, to include report run dates, times and movements and will post it up here shortly after I have caught up.

Report	Time
run on	printed	Naylor BP01	Berry G606
1st May	3.45 am	99.00	116.50
2nd May	missing
3rd May	1.16 am	110.40	177.00
4th May	1.48 am	110.40	215.50
5th May	2.37 am	zero	zero

Sometime after 1.48 am on the 4th May and before 2.37 am on the 5th May, both of these individuals checked out of their rooms.

Their official leaving date was on the 5th.

The night of the 4th to breakfast on the 5th, was supposed to be their 7th night.

Which means they must have checked out sometime during the day on the 4th, staying only 6 nights.

Report	Time
run on	printed	Mann 0008	Hynd 0011
1st May	3.45 am	3.00	56.20
2nd May	missing
3rd May	1.16 am	3.00	98.20
4th May	1.48 am	3.00	103.95
5th May	2.37 am	3.00	103.95
6th May	7.05 am	zero	103.95
7th May	7.16 am	zero	143.45

Mann - this is how checkout should have looked, leaving on the original due date of the 5th.

Hynd - sometime on their departure date of the 5th they booked an extra week, minus his Mother, staying in their original room.

Stella - playing devil`s advocate.....do you think that the Naylors may have just settled their bill on the 4th rather than vacating their room. It could be that if they had an early start on the 5th, they would do this the day before. Do you know how the system works? I think we know that Berry was probably asked to stay on, as was Balu, to give statements. A

Hi Alison

I have been thinking about this one and having never worked within the hotel industry before, I'm not entirely sure how things would usually work. But if you as a person know that you are not going to charge anything more to your room, would you be tempted to settle your bill one day early?, it's possible I guess. But from a hotel point of view, would you want your guest to settle the day before they are due to leave, just in case there are additional items added to the bill over night? It's something the police should investigate.

alison wrote: I think we know that Berry was probably asked to stay on, as was Balu, to give statements. A

Quite ! but I wonder why Berry had to move to another room to do so and a much better one at that?

As you say, Balu who was originally booked in under his partners name Cox, also stayed on to give his statement, but which room did he stay in?, as there are no bookings for Balu or Cox after that date. Did he stay in someone elses room as a guest? or in privately owned accommodation perhaps?

Could the other guests like Hynd who also decided to stay on at the very last minute, have been asked to do so by the PJ? If so, he must have had to give a statement, so where is it?

Do we know whether the Lobsters/Sharks were open on the 4th May, Stella? I`ve looked at the Patel entry for 5th May and it looks like the Naylor entry i.e no charges after the 4th. I wonder whether there were no charges because the Lobsters/Sharks were closed. The Patel child had been in the Lobsters with Madeleine.

Having said all that, I agree with you that normally hotels would expect you to settle your bill just before you depart unless you were leaving in the middle of the night/very early morning.

Looking at the Naylor entries on the MW reservation sheets, it says no flights or transfers required. Which to me means they could possibly have been picked up by friends or relatives and may even have been intending to drive to another location when they were finished there??

On someone elses booking there is a comment about the customer is aware of having to leave early on the 5th, but their flight details are missing, it's completely blank !! Perhaps they had a private jet? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Personally, I'm always tempted to settle my bill early, in the knowledge that there may be a long queue (especially on a Saturday) which may delay my departure. On Tuesday, I settled my bill one hour early, and the receptionist said "this is your provisional account, Mr Raton". In other words, if I had nipped back to the mini-bar and drunk the lot, or made a long telephone call from our room, they would have caught up with me before I had left.
I imagine that certain folk at the Ocean Club settled their account on the Friday, and since they didn't need transfers or flights, nobody will know whether they actually left on the Friday, or on the Saturday. Not necessarily anything suspicious about that.
I'd love to know when the surrogate Naylors in G4N quit the premises. Since they were not part of a Mark Warner package, I don't believe we have any "tabs" or other records for them.
Excellent work, Stella, but in my view we have gone as far as we can with that particular line of enquiry. Only my opinion.

Stella wrote:This is where HiDeHo's analysis of the creche activities is vital, will see if I can locate it.

There are so many oddities about the creche activities, I don't think I have one thread dedicated to all the issues.

I will add 'issues' from memory and expand on them if required.

The activity sheet does not 'match' with statements.

eg.
1) Monday shows as mini tennis but Georgina claims Madeleine's group played on Tuesday morning (she was non specific about remembering Madeleine being there and may have just been referring to the schedule).

Tennis records show it was Tuesday. The other group played Thursday morning. (BOD's group)

2) Mini dance every day between 4.30pm and 5 is not mentioned (except by BOD) as this was the time used to walk to the tapas for high tea

3) (this one is, maybe, a little confusing)
The diagram of events for the creche (basically a timeline graph) have blue and beige coloured blocks which I have always thought represented the beach times and the change of mini sail because of the rain on Wednesday.

What I now believe is that these blocks were changed by...or because of Catrinona's statement leaving them questionable.

She claims to have taken the children to the beach for an hour on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon (3.30pm-4.30pm) and changed the Wednesday morning mini sail to Thursday (which is when she claims she took them.)

Firstly, the diagram of Events is missing for Thursday morning (when they were supposedly taken for mini sail) and her statement on May 10th about the three beach visits only shows she said the Tuesday and Wednesday visit on both the Tuesday and Wednesday D of E and no reference to Thursdays visit (which is in her statement)

4) This led me to believe the possibility that there was NO mini sail which seemed even more apparent when I discovered there was only an informal statement by Alice Stanley and Chris Unsworth and, considering as they were intructors, they were among the last people to see Madeleine that day and should have been asked (officially) whether there was anyone suspicious. I wonder whether the reason they were not officially interviewed is because there WAS NO mini sail with Madeleine that morning (Thursday) and therefore their statement would not be worthy of recording officially.

5) Tuesday 2.30pm -3030pm claims 'Ice cream trip'. After reading travel reports this trip was apparently a favourite with guests (they probably had to pay extra) and I have always imagined it was down at the beach if the beach trip 3.0-4.30pm followed.

Catriona only claims the beach trip was for 1 hour.

The ice cream trip seems odd to me as this is when (Tuesday) the McCanns claim to have visited the beach and had 5 ice creams returning at 2.30pm to the creche in time for Madeleine to return for an ice cream. (same drop off time as ROB)

I was always under the illusion (but I cannot place from where) that there were 3 trips to the beach.

If you look at the activity sheet it shows Wednesday (when Catriona claims a beach trip for an hour) to be Olympics grass time and the third beach trip was scheduled for Friday (after Madeleine had disappeared).

The above is from memory (and/or my opinion added) so please advise of any mistakes.

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More issues that I am not sure whether addressed on this thread is that although different nannies were allocated to specific children, the room was used for other groups and could therefore have been intermingled with the Lobsters/Sharks and an older group all in the same room, as well as, possibly, the babies.

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Another creche 'issue' that I have not yet scrutinised is that, the nappy bag they used, when seen sideways, was quite large. There are pictures of both Gerry and Kate taking the twins to the creche and returning without the bag,

If only one of them picked up the twins it would be difficult to manage them both with the bag. If only one of them picked up Madeleine AND the twins it would be extremely difficult.

Brilliant stuff, HdH!!!!! Would you say that, as testimony to the truth, the creche staff statements are worthless?

Just a point about the settling of bills. In an hotel with mini bar and the like then yes as Kiko says you can settle the night before maybe but they would grab you for anything taken/used in the intervening period. But they were not in an hotel were they so the apartments would have already been settled what may not have been paid for is drinks or meals at the tapas or Millenium or even creche fees or sports fees.
Now I am sure the creche, or at least the one the twins went to was open on the 4th because the twins were taken there, obviously no fear of the pervy child snatcher infiltrating that. Perfectly safe to off load them, and after all they loved it, yeh I bet they did.

kikoraton wrote:Brilliant stuff, HdH!!!!! Would you say that, as testimony to the truth, the creche staff statements are worthless?

I have studied and scrutinised the statements of all witnesses that 'saw' Madeleine during the week in particular the nannies.

Once again, if I may post the details from memory and expand and link details if required.

I am of the belief that something happened to Madeleine earlier in the week and I came to that conclusion after studying the discrepancies and 'oddities' which started prior to Tuesday.

Two major issues had to be overcome for this to have been possible....

1) the 'sightings' of Madeleine by many witnesses
2) The creche records

I scrutinised all the witness statements and did not find ONE (after Sunday lunchtime when the cleaners daughter saw them all outside the apartment on their way up to the Paynes) that proved to be a reliable sighting.

Some witnesses were mistaken. One in particular (cook) recalled seeing Madeleine every day as she was in the creche next to the tapas (Madeleines creche was 5 minutes away at the reception). Some witnesses were non specific or remembered 'Madeleine' as shy and quiet. (Jane Tanner's daughter was known to be of that personality and could have been mistaken for Madeleine.)

Miguel Mattias from the Paraiso remembers seeing Madeleine dancing with her daddy on Thursday afternoon. We know Madeleine was not at the Paraiso with the other Tapas group, which means he saw ANOTHER tapas child that looked like Madeleine.

Many other examples from all the witnesses.

Catriona was, initially, non specific about details of Madeleine in her early statement (possibly using creche register times) and used more detail in her rogatory statement whhich was made a few months after her 'invitation' visit to Rothley in November, giving, in many people's opinion, questioned credibility to her statements.

Thursday at High Tea both Kate and Gerry claim they were there picking up Madeleine. Gerry was with them until Kate arrived after her 'jog' at the beach.

Catriona 'remembers' Kate in sporting clothes but claims Gerry wasn't there and she thought he was playing tennis. One wonders how she would 'know' he was playing tennis or why she didn't see him.

Once I had established that there are no totally credible sightings of Madeleine during the week I looked at the creche records to see whether it was possible to 'fake' the register.

Others consider a 'replacement' Madeleine. Personally, I consider it a possibility that Madeleine's name was added.

I don't know where the placement of the register. Was it inside the room where the creche worker would leave the other children and welcome the child or was it at the doorway unmonitored?

If unmonitored it would be easy (imo) to mark Madeleine into the creche whether with another person's child present or not.

The creche room was used by all the children from the other groups, (from what I understand) and without the regularity of marking each child 'present' as in a school atmosphere and with children arriving and leaving sporadically sometimes during outside activities, the register was possibly only used as a record of where to contact the parents if needed, and may not have been scrutinsed by the nanny.

Keeping in mind , two weeks prior, there was a BBC Whiistleblower investigator in Mark Warners creche in Greece and any changes or additions to the creche records, by Catriona, may have had more to do with the scrutiny the records would receive after the disappearance.

There was nothing at the time to indcate that the records would be involved in the 'abduction' and therefore Catriona may only have signed in and out for some parents to cover her job.

When hearing Kate and Gerry claim that Madeleine was in the creche that (and other days) she would have been too intimidated to question if she couldn't recall as her job was being scrutinised because of the Whistleblower program.

John Hill's wife was in charge of the creche and would (possibly) have immediately made Catriona aware of future scrutiny regarding the Whistleblower program. She would not have known (before they were retrieved by the police on May 4th) that the creche records would become involved in the investigation.

The nannies statements do not, conclusively, refer to Madeleine.

My opinion.

HiDeHO, On the Monday afternoon, which was marked down as Garden something?? no one seems to mention this, is that right? Or did that get swapped for something else? I'm confused now.

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Monday afternoon between 3.30 and 4.30pm it is marked as 'Garden Adventure' but I have not seen any reference to this activity.

After reading many of the travel blogs and comments about the Ocean club there seems to be, mostly, very positive feedback about the creche and that they try to take the children on outside actvites as much as possible every day.

As far as the activity sheet goes....its reliability for activities that the children of Lobster group participated in, is questionable.

Did they play tennis on Monday morning (as per the sheet) or Tuesday (as per Georgina the coach and the tennis records)?

Did they go to the beach on Wednesday afternoon 3.30-4.30pm as per Catriona or did they have 'grass time' as per the activity sheet?

Processos, volume IV TOC, pgs. Pgs. 870 to 883

We were told by Catriona, that in the last days they went to the beach on Tuesday afternoon (01 of May 2007), between 15H30 and 16h30, on Wednesday (the next day) at the same time and on Thursday between 10 and 11h00

Emma Wilding
on Wednesday May 2, her group and Madeleine’s group went to the beach, but she is not sure if Madeleine was in the group or not,

Did they go on an ice cream trip, followed by a beach trip on Tuesday (as per the sheet) or did they only go for an hour to the beach as per Catriona?

Did they have mini dance every day?

Did they go to the beach three times during the week with Madeleine or only twice with the 'third' time being Friday morning as per the activity sheet?

Thanks HiDeHo, so basically the creche details are all pants !!

Stella wrote:Thanks HiDeHo, so basically the creche details are all pants !!

Well in my opinion they are not an accurate reflection of what happened that week either activity or signing in/out sheet wise.
But eh it was only child security at stake.

I think that you loyal followers of this thread deserve a summing-up, seeing as how we have exceeded 80 pages and cannot expect to discover much more from the limited material made available to us by the kindness of the Portuguese authorities. This is how I see it:
• Madeleine McCann died early in the McCann holiday. Several days before 3 May, when K and G would have us believe she was “abducted”.
• the death was covered up and an action plan was formulated.
• the crêche records were falsified.

A lot more detail can be found in these 81 pages, but it might be unwise to tug the donkey's tail too hard by bringing it all together. It's enough to say that it is not just we few here who know the evidence in all its detail. The eagle has flown. It is circling. It can see its prey down there in the Rothley Towers. But they don't know when or from which direction it will strike.

Good things will come to those of us who wait. Thanks, kikoraton.

kikoraton wrote:The eagle has flown. It is circling. It can see its prey down there in the Rothley Towers. But they don't know when or from which direction it will strike.