The McCann Mosaics

Assembling fragments of information to reveal the big picture



April 16, 2017

McCann versus Amaral – Supreme Court Verdict

(Better late than never.)

The initial court ruling was in favour of the McCanns.

(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id507.htm)

This decision was appealed by Snr Amaral, and in April 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in his favour.

(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Decision_19_04_2016.htm)

This ruling was appealed by the McCanns, but the appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in January 2017.

(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Supreme_Court_31_01_2017.htm)

Simply (and I may be wrong – I’m no lawyer), the court viewed Amaral’s right to free speech as overriding the McCanns’ right to a good name. To paraphrase, it seems they took the view that, because the McCanns had proclaimed their innocence from the rooftops, then someone who actually knew what they were talking about had the right to say “Well actually ….. ” even if this meant casting the McCanns in a bad light.

The above decision was again appealed by the McCanns, but resulted in the following ruling in March 2017, in favour of Snr Amaral.

(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/STJ_21_03_2017_Rejected.htm)

In addition to confirming the earlier decision by the Supreme Court, the appeal court also clarified the issue of whether the filing of the case in 2008 implied that the McCanns had been cleared of any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance (it didn’t, and they hadn’t). They also addressed the issue of the “presumption of innocence”, ruling that it does not in this case restrict the “freedom of expression”.

(Thanks to Anne Guedes for the translation of the documents, and to Pamalam for publishing the documents and Anne’s translation on her blog.)

May 3, 2015

Goncalo Amaral Defence Fund

Defence Fund Press Release

“Freedom of expression is an inalienable constitutional right, for which the Portuguese people have fought hard, and that cannot be placed at stake, namely when it is exercised with responsibility and with civility.

Citizen Gonçalo Amaral presently finds himself in the front line of a struggle for freedom of expression. An unequal struggle, in which the parties have access to disparate financial resources – citizen Gonçalo Amaral is forced to exhaust all and any personal resources that he may possess, and which are manifestly insufficient to meet the expenses that are inherent to his defence.

His opponents, who are well aware of this limitation, and who are financed by third parties to place considerable resources at their disposal, risk little or nothing, and gamble everything to silence the former Judiciary Police coordinator.”

For those wishing to contribute to the Defence Fund, this can be done in two ways :-

Via PayPal > > > > > > > > > > > Goncalo Amaral Blogspot

Via Credit or Debit Card  > > > GoFundMe : Legal Defence for Goncalo Amaral

April 19, 2015

Coincidence or what?



In her book “madeleine”, Kate McCann wrote the following :-

“As a lawyer once said to me, apropos another matter, ‘One coincidence, two coincidences – maybe they’re still coincidences. Any more than that and it stops being coincidence.’”

Kate’s Koincidences lists several more coincidences she may not have considered. (And as I’m sure there are more out there, I’ll be adding them to the page as I come across them.)


April 10, 2015

A Man on a Mission

At around the time that Kate McCann was raising the alarm about Madeleine’s disappearance, so there was an encounter between a family heading home after an evening out and a man carrying a child. This man (“Smithman”) has never been identified leading to much discussion about whether it was an abductor or whether it was Gerry McCann (as one of the family thinks it was). What seems to have received less attention is where this person was actually going.

Assuming that they didn’t just jump in a car and head out of town (unlikely, given the fact they’d already carried the child 430 metres), Where’s Smithman Going? sets out the 5 possibilities of where this person may have been heading and assesses the likelihood of each.



April 6, 2015

Did I read that right?

Madeleine: Our daughter’s disappearance and the continuing search for her – Kate McCann

In April 2011, Kate McCann published her book “madeleine” – a book written “to give an account of the truth”. Madeleine – Discrepancies and Observations lists several instances where Kate’s account differs from those given by others. I’ll leave the reader to decide whose is correct.

April 5, 2015

On your marks – Get set – Go!

“The timing and location [of the Smith Sighting] speak for themselves.” – DCI Redwood of Operation Grange referring to the time of the Smith Sighting being around the same as the moment Madeleine’s disappearance was discovered, as reported by the McCanns.

I went to Praia da Luz at the end of February for a week, and whilst there, thought it a good idea to take some timings between various places. All were done on foot, carrying just a camera bag, and five are shown on Praia da Luz Timings . The obvious one was between the McCanns’ apartment and the Smith Sighting. Also to test a theory, timings were then taken between the Smith Sighting and Rocha Negra and back to McCanns’ apartment. And finally, timings were taken between the Mirage Restaurant and the central reception and then to the McCanns’ apartment (I can see Mark Warner staff taking this route after word of the disappearance had gone out).

Timings were taken on an iPhone running the Endomondo Sports Tracker app.

April 3, 2015

And at what time was that?

“…. at about 22.20 – 22.30 he noticed that there was only one person sitting at the group’s table ….” –  Jeronimo Salcedas, 6th May, 2007

Jeronimo Salcedas worked as a barman and waiter at the Tapas Bar and was on duty the evening Madeleine went missing. He made two statements adding to the detail of what is known about what happened that night – one statement was made a couple of days later, and one the following year.

Whilst the two statements are broadly in agreement, as shown in the page Jeronimo Salcedas Statements, they differ in one important point, specifically the time it all took place.

In my view, both times are wrong. But that discussion is for another day.

April 2, 2015

One for the graphologists

“Mark Warner has a standard procedure, signing a sheet whenever a parent delivers a child to the care of the club, which they sign again with their name and the time at which the child was picked up again.” – Catriona Baker, rogatory statement of 14th of April, 2008

I’ve seen it suggested that Madeleine may have died before May 3rd. I’ve also seen it suggested that she was signed into the Lobsters play group that Thursday by someone other than Kate or Gerry McCann who might have been bringing their own child …. or at least that’s what I think was suggested.

Anyway, it’s not what I believe, but as part of the discussion, I did copy-and-paste the McCanns’ signatures from the creche records so they could be compared side-by-side. And they’re published here in Creche Records for Madeleine.

April 1, 2015

Reporting of the George Brooks sighting

“…. on Sunday, 6 May I went to the pizzaria in PdL and bought a large quantity of pizzas. I was attended by a girl from Liverpool. I explained to her my relationship to the McCanns and she told me that her father ‘George’ had seen a man carrying a child in his arms in the early morning of 4 May in the resort.” – Michael Wright (husband of Kate McCann’s cousin Anne-Marie Wright) in his rogatory statement of 16th April, 2008.

The above statement suggests that someone other than Jane Tanner and the Smith family may have seen someone carrying a child in Praia da Luz in the hours after Madeleine disappeared, though it now appears that the sighting was in Lagos rather than PdL.

Anyway, the sighting had been reported to Leicestershire Police the day after Madeleine disappeared by the man mentioned in the statement, George Brooks, and reported in the press during the following days. The Reporting of the George Brooks Sighting shows how treatment of the sighting by the press changed during these days.

March 31, 2015

Start spreading the news

“At around 10pm, the witness went to check on the children.” – Witness statement of Kate Marie Healy, on the 4th of May 2007, at 2.20 p.m.

And so it began.

Shortly after, Kate discovered that Madeleine was missing and soon after that, set off a chain reaction whereby news of Madeleine’s disappearance was spread through Praia da Luz and wider.

Start Spreading the News shows diagrammatically how word of the disappearance spread through Praia da Luz. Using various accounts from the PJ’s files detailing who told who at what time, a picture has been built up of the way the alert emanated from the apartment and the Tapas Bar to Mark Warner staff and management, and eventually to the GNR.

As well as being a timeline of how word was communicated, the diagram could provide the basis for a timeline of the events immediately following Kate’s discovery of Madeleine’s disappearance.

March 30, 2015

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, gone is the working name “Reggie’s Ramblings”, and we’re now calling the blog “The McCann Mosaics” after our intention to assemble information from various sources and present them in such a way that would reveal a bigger picture, like a mosaic. The image in “Start Spreading The News” is a good example.

Also it seems that to help get the blog listed on Google and other search engines, I’ll need to set up some tags. And as these have to be set up on blog posts rather than resource pages, I’m going to write a post for each page, starting tomorrow.

Like British Rail, we’re getting there.
March 19, 2015
All done ….. for now

I think that’s everything I’ve done over the last seven years or so loaded; all it needs is a bit more annotation and explanation … but at least it’s posted.

Next up are my thoughts following my trip to Praia da Luz.

Watch this space !

March 18, 2015

Were Tannerman and Smithman the same?

“Every time I read these independent statements in the files (and neither could have been influenced by the other, remember – Jane’s description had not been released to the public before the Irish witnesses made their statements), I am staggered by how alike they are, almost identical in parts.” – Kate McCann in her book “madeleine”

Yeah, I know the question is now redundant since Operation Grange identified the person described by Jane Tanner as an Ocean Club parent carrying their child to the creche (hence “Crecheman”), but it does still show the lengths taken to suggest that Tannerman and Smithman were one and the same.

Tannerman and Smithman – Compare and contrast shows how alike and dissimilar the descriptions of Tannerman and Smithman were.

March 18, 2015

OK, here goes ….

Hello World !!

Firstly a bit of background (that’ll probably go into the “About” page at some point) …..

This blog has been set up as a way for me to publish stuff I’ve put together over several years relating to the Madeleine McCann case.

I became interested in the case in June 2007, about a month after Madeleine disappeared. Since then I have discussed the case on various forums and produced a number of ‘graphics’ to both help me understand things and to share with other forummers.

Having just returned from an excellent week’s holiday in Praia da Luz and having more stuff to write about, I thought that maybe a blog would be the best way to publish it along with the graphics mentioned above. The internet is all about sharing and communicating, and this is my contribution.

Reggie D

[i]https://reggied123.wordpress.com/page/2/[i]

Small correction:

(Better late than never.)

The initial court ruling was in favour of the McCanns.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id507.htm)

This decision was appealed by Snr Amaral, and in April 2016, the Supreme Court  APPEAL COURT ruled in his favour.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Decision_19_04_2016.htm)

This ruling was appealed by the McCanns, but the appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in January 2017.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Supreme_Court_31_01_2017.htm)

Simply (and I may be wrong – I’m no lawyer), the court viewed Amaral’s right to free speech as overriding the McCanns’ right to a good name. To paraphrase, it seems they took the view that, because the McCanns had proclaimed their innocence from the rooftops, then someone who actually knew what they were talking about had the right to say “Well actually ….. ” even if this meant casting the McCanns in a bad light.

The above decision was again appealed by the McCanns, but resulted in the following ruling in March 2017, in favour of Snr Amaral.
(http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/STJ_21_03_2017_Rejected.htm)

In addition to confirming the earlier decision by the Supreme Court, the appeal court also clarified the issue of whether the filing of the case in 2008 implied that the McCanns had been cleared of any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance (it didn’t, and they hadn’t). They also addressed the issue of the “presumption of innocence”, ruling that it does not in this case restrict the “freedom of expression”.