Kate and Gerry McCann's scam detective agency is investigated

This article was last revised and updated by the Madeleine McCann Research Group on 9 May 2019 


An investigation into a sham detective agency, Alphaig, used by Kate and Gerry McCann in 2009


A separate article by the Madeleine Foundation: ‘Leading the Hunt for Maddie: Dave Edgar, the Cheshire Detective’, covers in more detail the deception by the McCann Team over a company described as ‘Alpha Investigations Group’.

 


Former Detective Sergeant Arthur Cowley (left)
and former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar (right),
the two members of the so-called 'Alpha Investigations Group', or ALPHAIG.
  

It was on 2 May 2009 that the public were first informed of the appointment of retired detectives Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley to the McCann investigation team, which as we know was effectively run by Cheshire businessman, Brian Kennedy.  

Both men had formerly worked for Cheshire Police. Brian Kennedy's palatial mansion is at Swettenham, Cheshire. Brian Kennedy bought a house in Knutsford in 2007 especially for the purpose of setting up his investigation HQ there. To begin with, he installed, as his chief investigator, Nottingham man Gary Hagland, a man whose main qualification was in money-laundering regulations. He had also written a book about alien abductions, under the pseudonym 'Mason Horsburgh, in which he described how he had been taken to Saturn's rings and back in a spaceship in just four hours.    

Indications suggest that Edgar was quietly taken on by Brian Kennedy in November 2008, with Cowley added on probably weeks. Crucially, both were to appear in May, in a much-hyped documentary, featuring a so-called ‘reconstruction’ of events in Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007, the day Madeleine was reported missing. It is probable that the two men were employed by Brian Kennedy mainly for the purpose of giving credibility to that documentary, although Dave Edgar was subsequently used in various public relations activity for the McCanns, notably being quoted about his often-mentioned theory that Madeleine was still alive but living in a 'hellish lair' within 20 miles or so of Praia da Luz, where she was reported missing      

The documentary was made by Mentorn Films and was transmitted on 7 May 2007 by Channel 4. It was widely ridiculed as a ‘mockumentary’, since the programme contained no analysis but merely recycled the McCann Team’s version of events. Moreover it included a purported reconstruction of the events  of the night of 3 May 2007 which bore little relation to the known facts about the day - indeed it made a mockery of these facts.

To give one example, both Kate McCann and David Payne testified that they had met at the McCanns' apartment at 6.30pm that day. However, when they were both interrogated by the police, their stories rapidly fell apart, with at least 20 flat contradictions noted between their respective stories. It was clear that such a meeting never took place. It was fabricated. Surely any investigative TV programme would have highlighted this extraordinary number of contradictions and made them a centerpiece of the documentary. But then Channel 4's agenda was only to confirm the abduction narrative and support the McCanns. It never was honest journalism.        

Another feature of the Mentorn Media/Channel 4 programme concerned the person allegedly seen by Jane Tanner, carrying a child, at 9.15pm that evening. The programme  suggested that this man was one and the same as a man said to have been seen by Martin Smith, and members of his family, carrying a child in a different part of Praia da Luz 45-50 minutes later. The idea that an abductor might have been walking around Praia da Luz carrying an abducted child in his arms was risible. The Channel 4 documentary also claimed that in each incident, the child was being carried ‘in exactly the same manner’. This was patently untrue. Jane Tanner claimed that the child she saw being carried was held by the man’s two arms. By contrast, Martin Smith explicitly said that Madeleine was being carried on the man’s shoulder. That was just one of a number of errors in this attempt by Channel 4 to imprint the McCann Team’s version of events on the public mind.

Returning to the subject of the two ex-Cheshire detectives, the publicity around them in May 2009 claimed that they worked for a well-established private investigation agency, allegedly called ‘Alpha Investigations Group’. It was suggested that Edgar, a retired Detective Inspector, and Cowley, a retired Detective Sergeant, ‘headed up’ this group. The McCann Team needed to ‘big up’ their new detectives.

This was all a deliberate deception, in which a close aide of Brian Kennedy played a part.

There never was any detective agency called ‘Alpha Investigations Group’. Instead, what happened was that on 10 June 2009, over a month after numerous press reports which featured the mythical ‘Alpha Investigations Group’, Arthur Cowley registered, in his sole name, a company called ‘ALPHAIG’, Company No. 06929397. Its registered office was: ‘Treetops’, Pant-y-Gof, HALKYN, Flintshire, CH8 8DH (see photo above).

There was no mention in the company details of Dave Edgar being involved with the company, let alone its 'boss', as some newspapers claimed. The company had no internet presence, didn’t advertise in any way, employed no-one, and its accounts, submitted in 2010 to Companies House, showed minimal assets and no evidence of trading. It ceased trading many years ago - although it is apparent that it never actually traded at all.

To put it bluntly, it was always a sham company. It seems beyond doubt that it was explicitly created to deceive the media and, in turn, the public. Added weight to this suggestion is provided by the revelation that on 12 January 2009, the domain name ‘alphaig.co.uk’ was registered by Andrew Dickman, who is inextricably associated with Brian Kennedy’s own company, the Latium Group. Dickman’s very close business relationship with Brian Kennedy was covered in an article in the Manchester Evening News on 21 May 2007, which informed its readers about a boost for the Kennedy-owned property business, Patrick Properties, named after his son Patrick. The company, said the article, was ‘established in 2002 by Mr Kennedy and managing director Andrew Dickman…’

Why did a right-hand man of Kennedy (Andrew Dickman) register the domain name ‘ALPHAIG’? Why did this happen over a month after the McCann Team and its spokesman Clarence Mitchell was falsely claiming there was an ‘Alpha Investigations group’? Why did Arthur Cowley register a sham company, ‘ALPHAIG’?

MMRG suggests that these were deliberate actions, designed to deceive the public into thinking that their willing and kind donations to the Find Madeleine Fund were being spent wisely on an effective and successful private detective agency. This claim was, however, false.


Related links: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t2455-arthur-cowley-s-cottage-hq-of-alphaig

[More links will be added later]