A visit by The Madeleine Foundation to Operation Grange at Belgravia Police Station to mark Goncalo Amaral Day 2011

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A visit by The Madeleine Foundation to Operation Grange at Belgravia Police Station to mark Goncalo Amaral Day 2011

by Jill Havern 21.03.19 21:03

A visit by The Madeleine Foundation to Operation Grange at Belgravia Police Station to mark Goncalo Amaral Day 2011 Bps

A visit by The Madeleine Foundation to Operation Grange at Belgravia Police Station to mark Goncalo Amaral Day 2011 Dossier

A visit by The Madeleine Foundation
to Operation Grange at Belgravia Police Station
to mark Goncalo Amaral Day 2011

Monday 3 October 2011

Last year The Madeleine Foundation marked Goncalo Amaral Day (2 October) by handing in a petition at No. 10 Downing Street calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to set up a full public enquiry, with the power to summon witnesses, into all aspects of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. We still believe that one day, something like that will be needed. At the moment our petition calling for the public enquiry has attracted 880 signatures.

In the event, the Prime Minister did something very different. On 12 May 2011, on the very day that Dr Kate McCann published her book, ‘madeleine’, David Cameron announced that he was setting up a £3.5 million review by Scotland Yard into Madeleine’s disappearance. The purpose of this, he said, and we quote, was not to get to the truth, but ‘to support the family’. That review, it is now known, is called ‘Operation Grange’.

The Madeleine Foundation has taken the view that, given that several senior Metropolitan Police detectives are engaged on what purports to be a comprehensive review of the evidence, it is important that we (and anyone else who is in a position to do so) submit any evidence to that review that may point the Review Team towards the indications that Madeleine McCann died in her parents’ apartment and that there has been a cover-up of that fact.

Accordingly, on 24 August, following two earlier letters dated 11 & 21 July, we sent by recorded delivery post to the Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, a lengthy dossier of evidence, together with several enclosures. Our dossier also included information relating to a source within the McCann Team who had disclosed evidence to us which suggested that the main purpose of the McCann Team’s private investigations may not have been to find Madeleine. We did not disclose that person’s identity.

We thought that an appropriate way to mark Goncalo Amaral Day this year was to seek to deliver more evidence, this time in person, to a member of Operation Grange. One of the team, Detective Inspector Tim Dobson, kindly agreed a couple of weeks back to receive the dossier in person.

Accordingly, and by arrangement, the dossier was formally handed in to him at around 12.35pm today.

It took a little while before we could see him. Only one person was on the front desk, a man of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance who was busy filling in a car accident insurance form in quadruplicate for someone, and was intent on completing the task before looking up at the queue in front of him. After several minutes, I asked if he could let D.I. Dobson know we were here.

He still wanted more time to complete his form, which he did. I then asked him again if I could speak to D.I. Dobson or D.C.I. Redwood, and he said he’d never heard of them. I said they were from ‘Operation Grange’. “Never heard of them”, was his reply. Eventually he summoned a colleague of southern Asian appearance, and after a further wait of about 10 minutes, D.I. Dobson appeared and showed myself and a fellow Madeleine Foundation Committee member into a small interview room.

D.I. Dobson was polite and correct throughout. We were allowed time to explain briefly what was in the dossier (see below). A covering letter was attached to the dossier, which he scanned. We had time to raise one or two questions. One point he emphasised very strongly was that, and I quote: “This is a review, not an investigation”.

The difference, I think, can be summarised thus: “A review is a look at the evidence to see if there should be a formal re-investigation”.

Asked if the review could pursue specific lines of investigation or, for example, interview people of interest, he stuck to the script and said: “This is only a review”, adding that: “Any lines of enquiry will be incorporated in the final recommendations we will be making to the Portuguese Police”. I said: “But presumably you will not only be reporting to the Portuguese Police, but also to those who commissioned this report?” He said: “Oh yes, to them as well, of course”.

We asked who was the current co-ordinator of the Portuguese Police investigation, and he said: “I don’t actually know, but even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you”. My colleague queried this, to which he replied: “Actually, I don’t know her name, but I can tell you that it’s a woman”.

At that point, the ’phone in the interview room rang. D.I. Dobson said: “I’m sorry, I’m being called upstairs on something urgent, I’ll have to close this now”.

And away we went.

We are not going to disclose the contents of the dossier nor of the covering letter, but we can say that it included a great deal of detail about the actions of the following individuals:

* Brian Kennedy

* Francisco Marco, boss of Metodo 3

* Antonio Jimenez/Gimenez, employed as the chief detective for Metodo 3 and Brian Kennedy during 2007 and 2008. Jimenez/Gimenez is now in prison for corruption and theft of £25 million of cocaine, offences committed whilst he was a top (but corrupt) police officer in Barcelona

* Marcos Aragao Correia, a lawyer from Madeira

* Francisco Pagarate

* Edward Smethurst, the McCanns’ co-ordinating lawyer

* Kevin Halligen, who has been in custody facing serious fraud charges for nearly two years

* Dave Edgar, the current ‘senior private investigator’ for Brian Kennedy and the McCann Team

* Those who created the shell company, ALPHAIG.

Finally, we hereby once again put on record our thanks to D.C.I. Redwood for agreeing to receive the material and, as we have said before, and no doubt will again, insofar as this Scotland yard Review Team is a genuine search for the truth, we wish them well and every success.

The Madeleine Foundation
9pm
Monday 3 October 2011