Disgraced Olive Press Editor, Jon Clarke, and his THIRD version of the same story

Madeleine McCann reporter: 'I knew immediately Kate and Gerry weren't involved'


by Kristina Beanland | 28 03 2019

The first journalist at the scene reveals Maddie's parents' 'devastation'

Reporter Jon Clarke, 50, who lives near Malaga with his wife and two children, had been living in Spain for five years when he was sent to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance.

He says, “I hadn’t been to Praia da Luz for over eight years when Netflix asked me to take part in The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann documentary. It was eerie going back.

“The documentary has been accused of exploiting the McCanns’ ordeal for entertainment, but I hope it will encourage people who might know something to come forward. It’s also raised awareness of child traffickers, and I hope there’s now a more concentrated effort to stop these sick people.”

Recalling the phone call he received from a British newspaper the morning after Maddie’s disappearance, he says, “I remember thinking that, by the time I got there, she’d have turned up.

The disappearance of Madeline McCann Netflix documentary: ten most shocking moments

1 / 10

1. Never-before seen footage of Madeleine boarding the plane

The documentary showed never-before seen footage of Madeleine boarding the plane to Portugal with her family and their friend's children.

2 / 10

2. Kate's‘ soul-destroying’ howl

A fellow tourist at Gerry's holiday tennis club said she overheard Kate letting out a 'soul-destroying' howl the night of Madeline's disappearance.

3 / 10

3. Police at the scene made shocking claims

Police at the scene made shocking claims that Madeleine had probably wandered under a bush and simply fallen asleep.
Advertisement - continue reading below
4 / 10

4. The contaminated scene

Inspectors found a messy, contaminated scene at the McCann's apartment and were horrified by the lack of preservation of the scene – they compared it to the scene of a robbery.

5 / 10

5. Potential suspect

A friend on holiday with Gerry & Kate claimed she saw a man walking briskly and carrying a child similar to Maddie at 9.15pm – less than an hour before Maddie was discovered missing.

6 / 10
Getty images

6. Madeleine's message the night before her disappearance

It was reported that Madeleine asked her mum, 'Why didn't you come last night when [the twins] were crying?'. Theories claimed that it could have been the kidnapper making their first attempt but got spooked.
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7 / 10

7. 'Praia De Luz is a honeypot of strange people'

Although lots of locals and tourists said they felt safe and secure in the Algarve, one resident said, 'Praia De Luz is a honeypot of strange people. People come here to change themselves'. The Police Inspector also claimed there were a lot of violent drug-related crimes in the area.

8 / 10
Getty images

8. Former suspect Robert Murat appeared in the documentary.

Former suspect Robert Murat appeared in the documentary, he gave lots of in-depth interviews surrounding his time as a former suspect in the investigation.

9 / 10

9. Portuguese police monitoring the Spanish border

The documentary claimed that Portuguese police monitoring the Spanish border were spotted sitting in their car for 40 minutes to avoid the rain, rather than checking cars.
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10 / 10
Getty images

10. Suspect drawing

The police initially released a suspect drawing, which was simply an oval shape with no facial features, just hair. Kate admitted to a friend that she had no faith in the Portuguese police.


“Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived later that morning. But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.
“A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry. They were polite, and thanked me for reporting on the case. I knew immediately they weren’t involved – they were devastated. The press conference outside their apartment later that day only confirmed my feelings. I think almost every person there shed a tear. As a journalist, you try not to get too emotional about a story, but my own daughter was just about to turn two and it was hard not to get upset."


Getty
“In the days that followed, it was clear this was a story like no other. Hundreds of journalists descended on the town and Maddie’s face was everywhere. Everyone was looking for her – I must have walked the length of the beach 10 times, combing through the wasteland and looking in abandoned houses.
“I stayed in Portugal for around two weeks while the case unfolded – by then it was clear she was no longer in Praia da Luz. There have been so many conspiracy theories, and I’ve even been accused of being involved in her abduction by trolls on Twitter.

“There’s a crazy theory that I couldn’t have got to Praia da Luz as quickly as I did and perhaps was there the night before and so was somehow involved.
“Like many people, I’ve tried to work out what might have happened. At first, I thought maybe she’d wandered off, then I grew suspicious of Robert Murat – a local man who seemed strangely invested in the case and was questioned by police but later cleared of any involvement. Now, I’m almost certain that Madeleine was taken by a paedophile ring. Evidence has emerged of child trafficking gangs throughout the region, and Portugal is well-placed geographically to transport children to the rest of Europe or Africa.
“I believe that we’ll eventually find out what really happened to Maddie – how she was taken and why – but I’m not sure we’ll ever find out exactly where she is. My heart breaks for Kate and Gerry, I can’t begin to imagine what they’re still going through."
Read more about Madeleine McCann in this week's Closer magazine - out now.

https://closeronline.co.uk/real-life/news/madeleine-mccann-reporter-kate-gerry/
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Related link: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16284-petermac-s-new-chapter-for-his-e-book-jon-clarke-olive-press-lies-and-videotape

What a load of Horlicks.

This is quite astonishing – for normal honest people at least.

Clarke first said
“When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns and told them I would do everything I could to help.

Then changed this in 2019 to
    “I said hello to them as they were leaving and introduced myself to them as a reporter from the Mail, and they said “Hi”, and I think they may have also said “thanks for coming”. 

And has now committed to 
“A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry.”

By my reckoning that makes three entirely different ‘Versions of the Truth’


and the Lies about "hardly anyone was around when I arrived later that morning." are repeated, 
despite the fact that he is drawing attention the the very Netflix film which will utterly discredit and disgrace him as a journalist.

It is difficult to find the appropriate vocabulary to apply to someone who will do this so relentlessly in such a tragic case.

This is the way '' our friends '' operate . Half a dozen deliberate different versions of the same event to create confusion and deniability.
 My question would be:
What IS Clarke's REAL  job?

kaz wrote: My question would be:
What IS Clarke's REAL  job?

And 
Who is paying him to do it ?

" A few hours later I met Kate and Gerry " 

How many hours is a " few " ? 

Considering they didn't arrive back until around 8.30 pm went straight to 5g then emerged at 10.00 pm for the first public appearance . 

Where and when did he meet them ? 
A - first it was in the apartment 
B- second it was as they were leaving 
C- third ?? Carefully glossed over .

There are no " versions " of the truth , only the truth itself . 

What is Clarkes real job ?

And who is paying him to do it ?

And , Why ?

Spanish father claims Madeleine McCann suspect tried to kidnap his 5-year-old daughter



It was six years before McCann disappeared from Praia da Luz in May 2007

Laurence Dollimore (News Editor)

27 Apr, 2018 @ 13:44


A FATHER in Spain has claimed the Madeleine McCann suspect tried to kidnap his five-year-old daughter. 
The dad claims the man, who fitted the e-fit sketch of the suspected McCann kidnapper, tried to snatch his daughter from a hotel in Portugal.

Known only as Andres, he claimed to La Voz de Galicia that the alleged kidnapper sneaked into the room where his daughters aged five and 13 were sleeping during a holiday in 2001.

He said he immediately recognised the man when investigators released an e-fit of the McCann suspect in 2013.


SUSPECT: E-fit created by investigators



He told La Voz de Galicia: “I don’t know if the man kidnapped Madeleine, but for me his is the man who tried to take my daughter.”

It was six years before McCann disappeared from Praia da Luz in May 2007.

McCann, who would be 14 now, has never been found and the case remains open.

She vanished while her parents Kate and Gerry McCann were out having dinner.

Some 17 years ago, Andres and his family were driving through Portugal and ended up staying a night at a small hotel in Abrantes.

According to the father, the man was the only other guest at the hotel that night while his family were split between two rooms.

During the night, his eldest daughter shouted for him to ask if he had just been in their room, which he had not.
He decided to stay with the girls, only for the man to enter the room a few minutes later.

When he confronted him, the mystery man claimed he had ‘come to check on the children’.

The dad added: “Even today I don’t know how he managed to escape me, he slipped away like an eel.”

He claimed when he told reception about the incident, they told him he was ‘a regular guest who likes children but doesn’t hurt them’, according to The Local.

Andres was interviewed by both Spanish police and Scotland Yard, but says he never heard anything back from either.

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2018/04/27/spanish-father-claims-madeleine-mccann-suspect-tried-to-kidnap-his-5-year-old-daughter/

....................


 

Operation in search for Maddie McCann ‘planned for long time and at a high level’ says detective

Imogen Calderwood

11 May, 2014 @ 08:30

THE search for Madeleine McCann has gone all around the globe and is now returning to where to all began.


Scotland Yard detectives have been granted permission by Portuguese authorities to begin excavating three key sites in the Algarve holiday resort where she vanished in 2007.

The searches will begin within weeks.

But a former senior detective, based in Spain, who doesn’t want to be named, told the Olive Press that he believes the operation has been planned for a very long time.

“Military helicopters are not just hired by the hour on the spur of the moment, like catamarans on the beach,” he said.

“The whole thing has been approved at a very high level. By which I mean government.”

The former career detective, now based in Andalucia, continued: “This isn’t just any other search. Someone must have spelled out exactly what they want to look for, exactly where they want to look, and exactly why.

“And this must have been agreed as a viable and useful thing to do by the entire chain of command.”

The operation comes just days after the seventh anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance, on May 3.

Gerry and Kate McCann, both 45, are fully informed about the developments in the hunt for their daughter, but will not be travelling to the resort while the work is carried out.

One of the key areas to be searched is a patch of wasteland, about the size of three football pitches, across the road from where the McCanns were staying – at the Ocean Club.

Another area is the tapas bar where they were dining when three-year-old Maddie disappeared.

The overgrown area, beside a school, was an open expanse at the time but is now fenced off.

Aerial photographs are set to be taken of the area, to assess the land, while officers on the ground will look for disturbances of rocks, excess soil and moved vegetation.

The searches will be conducted by Portuguese police, with British detectives on site alongside them.

While there has long been speculation that Maddie could have been taken across the border into Spain, the case has now decisively returned to Portugal.

The Olive Press was the first newspaper on the scene following her disappearance.

Editor Jon Clarke was asked to cover the story by The Daily Mail, Sun and Mirror, while they scrambled to send their own reporters out.

Some of the paper’s key findings was the level of slackness surrounding the initial search.

Numerous people, including neighbour and former suspect Robert Murat, were able to traipse around the crime scene unimpeded, while sniffer dogs did not even arrive until around 4pm the following day.

Incredibly on the morning after her disappearance, workmen were even allowed to continue digging up a trench in the road right outside her rental home.

It soon emerged that none of the cameras on the motorway to Spain, where it was believed Maddie could have been taken, were working.

“The whole operation was a complete shambles from the beginning,” explains Clarke. “To say the police were half asleep would be an under-statement.”

In an open letter to the media, Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said: “This case has for some time been moving towards increased action in Portugal.

“Whilst the process is more bureaucratic and slower than we would wish, I now believe that activity will occur in forthcoming weeks.

“The most important task for me is to build momentum and protect our investigation in order that we can do everything possible to solve the case.”


https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2014/05/11/revelations-in-search-for-maddie-mccann/

"But a former senior detective, based in Spain, who doesn’t want to be named, "

That doesn't normally stop Clarke.
I was named, identified by previous occupation and current location.    (Not that I am concerned since I have nothing to conceal, and am in fact quietly proud of my years of public service)
He also identified and published a picture of the little girl who had the misfortune to be called Madeleine
for which Clarke and the Olive Press were condemned by the Spanish Professional Journalists' body.  [See chapter 31 for details]

This is a man who is perfectly relaxed about giving out other people’s personal details in his Paper and on-line, but then pleads that his own family’s details must be kept private.
He ‘threatens’ to expose other people’s family members’ details, even if that is totally pointless as they all already have their own Wiki entries detailing their histories as international athletes and as senior Public servants, and are contactable through their own high profile professional profiles.
 
Yet he has in fact been cavalier with his own family, giving out many of their details, including the ages and names of his children, and of his wife.  
He is, as we all now are, easily traceable through the internet.
A brief 5 minute browse through google will provide more than you ever really wanted to know.
In deference to normal standards of civilised and decent behaviour I have redacted the names.

Andalucian property: Spanish restoration - Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../property/.../Andalucian-property-Spanish-restoration.htm...
In the hills of Andalucia, old farmhouses are being restored into stunning, and . . . .  evidence of his ancient Andalucian farmhouse's past as a fortress, 
Jon Clarke was renovating the fireplace when he discovered a rolled-up newspaper dated January 1 1894 behind the chimney. ... 
In his three-year slog to turn his ruin near Ronda into the family home he now shares with his wife ZZZZZ*, and their children XXXXX, three, and newborn YYYYYY, ….

A paedophile took Madeleine McCann, not her parents

Jon Clarke analyses why her parents were not involved and recalls the shocking way he ended up accused of being involved

Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor) -
11 May, 2017

As the case of missing Madeleine McCann reaches its tenth anniversary, Olive Press editor JON CLARKE – the first journalist on the scene – analyses why her parents were not involved… and recalls the shocking way he ended up accused of being involved.

I RECEIVED the call at 7.15am from the Daily Mail foreign desk. It was a Friday morning as we approached deadline for one of the first editions of the Olive Press, then in its early fledgling stage.

The daughter of a pair of British doctors had gone missing on the Algarve the night before. Could I get over and investigate?

I was on the road half an hour later from Ronda, where we had our office, based out of a cowshed next to my home.



As a stringer for Associated Newspapers in Spain, I was long used to these early morning calls that invariably led to wild goose chases around the Iberian countryside…but this journey would lead to one of the biggest news stories in history.

It was a tale as sad as it was intriguing, and it would keep me in Praia da Luz where four-year-old Maddie went missing for the best part of a month.

It would lead to over a dozen stories in the Olive Press linked to sightings and possible culprits around Spain, with a number making the front pages in the UK.

There were claims that she was put on a ferry in Tarifa, claims she had been sold in Barcelona and even claims that she was living in a small village in Malaga province.

There was even the deluded former deputy chief superintendent, who trolled long and hard from his villa in Andalucia, convinced that the parents were guilty.

Finally, I would even find myself accused, more of which later.

Of course, the best whodunnits are always complex and far-fetched. But for a couple of loving parents to murder their daughter, bury and cover all traces in an hour while on holiday is stretching it just a bit too far.

But this didn’t stop the Portuguese police from charging them… and to this day, one notorious ex-detective continues to publish books claiming they were involved.

No care that Kate and Gerry McCann were educated doctors with not a blemish on their names.

That they were on holiday with two other families.

And that they had invited the world’s press to help in the search.

These are just some of the reasons why I am convinced the McCanns did not kill their daughter.

It is perhaps too obvious to point the finger at the parents.

After all, they say that in cases of child molesting and abducting, more than half the time it is family members to blame.

But accusing them had more to do with the ineptitude of the Portuguese police investigation, which didn’t bring in specialists to pick up vital strands of DNA evidence strewn around the flat, until THREE months later.

Then they seized the hire car of the McCann’s, found so-called ‘key, crucial DNA evidence on the back seat,’ and finally allowed them to have it back to drive around.

And, of course, they allowed dozens of local people, including one of the main suspects, Robert Murat – and even me – to wander around the crime scene.

Nor did they shut the border with Spain until the next day.

From the word go, they did not take this crime seriously.

And, in a way, who can blame them?

Praia da Luz sits in the sleepy south west corner of Europe, just short of Sagres. There had been no kidnappings, murders, or any serious crime reported for three years, as it turned out.

The Mark Warner holiday club that charged thousands to parents like the McCanns, did not even have security cameras, or secure premises.

There was no suggestion of putting families on higher floors and anyone could walk into the complex through a small side gate.

All the more perfect for a predatory paedophile who lived in the area.

I was completely shocked by the laid back manner the local authorities were dealing with the case that Friday morning.

When I arrived at about 11.45am I was firstly able to walk into the apartment, where I introduced myself to the McCanns and told them I would do everything I could to help.

The only reporter on the scene till late that evening – apart from Sky News reporter Kay Burley, who happened to be on holiday there – I spent time grilling neighbours, before noticing that a road crew was still digging up the street to lay sewage pipes literally right outside the apartment. The trench was nearly two metres deep and three men continued to shuffle around inside it.

Nobody had stopped them.

Incredibly, we had to wait till late afternoon before a couple of sniffer dogs had arrived, which was amateur to say the least, given that Maddie had been reported missing a full 18 hours earlier.

I am not going to be able to solve the mystery, but I am convinced she was snatched by a local paedophile, who had been watching the family’s movements.

It was coming to the end of their holiday. The fifth night they had put their children to bed and gone down to have dinner with their friends, all doctors bar one.

The apartment door was shut, but within easy reach and in full view of the road and the small village had apparently very little crime . . . until you scratched the surface.

While there had only been one murder of any substance for nearly three years in the area, there was, it turned out, a seedy underworld inhabited by numerous expatriates.

One woman told me how she had been the victim of an attempted snatch at midnight in nearby Lagos a month earlier. A long term English couple, who lived in a nearby hamlet, told me there were ‘half a dozen’ paedophiles living there alone.

One of these is still being sought.

It was sketchy and unsubstantiated, but there was no doubt – as in any place where northern European expatriates drift in their hundreds – there were a number of bad eggs among them.

Then, there was the Russian connection. Murat’s friend Sergei, a handsome young man, who masqueraded as an estate agent and had a number of connections to boats.

I discovered he worked out of a small office in Lagos, where the police had been the day before to find he had suspiciously just wiped his computer clean.

He refused to comment, but I discovered that he and Murat, who lived in direct sight of the Maddie apartment, allegedly talked a number of times within half an hour of the girl going missing.

While he was never charged, and Murat was later exonerated, it summed up the sense of paranoia that everyone felt in the resort that month.

Whatever happened I am sure the McCanns could not have done it.

Much has been made of the missing hour-and-a-half window between 7pm and 8.30pm on May 3, between Madeleine being put to bed and the parents coming down to dinner.

While Gerry was seen playing tennis, Kate was apparently in the flat . . . she must be guilty then? Not really. She was probably relaxing, having a bath, putting on her make up for the evening.

One Portuguese tabloid claimed Kate had killed Maddie and then hid the body in the fridge of their apartment before ‘passing it through various locations’ and finally moving it in a hire car, perhaps on a ‘suspicious’ trip to Huelva three weeks later.

But given that the apartment fridges are tiny, they would have had to chop her up first. Would they have then calmly sat at dinner with their friends at 8.30pm, showing no sign of a struggle or the anguish of murdering their daughter to their pals?

If they had killed Madeleine and then somehow driven her body away in the tiny time scale, they would have needed to have gone more than 25 miles – the distance from the resort sniffer dogs and police searched.

That would mean driving for at least half an hour on the windy backroads inland from the Algarve. They did not know the back roads, nor a good spot to hide the body. How would they have hidden the body? Using a shovel? Hold on, would not there then be a shop somewhere that sold them a shovel? Is anyone still missing a shovel? If so, please call the Olive Press newsdesk.

It is all so far fetched it is quite ridiculous. And then I got accused of being involved!!!

It came after I inadvertently found myself interviewing a former nightclub bouncer in Huelva, who claimed he know who snatched Maddie.

A huge Angolan chap, he told me she had been taken on order and was now, most likely, in America.

We double checked his credentials, ran it past Maddie’s family and published a carefully worded and, I believe, sensitive piece, which then of course got picked up by the Sun to be splashed on its front page. Not so sensitively.

And all hell broke loose.

Within a week there was a 5,000-word essay from an anti-McCann ‘troll’ named Tony Bennett, a solicitor, who was later found guilty of contempt of court over his repeated claims that the parents were guilty.

In his article, still online, ‘Jon Clarke’s role in Maddie in US claim’, he made numerous wild accusations about me and my integrity, named my wife and children and even where I lived.

He accused me of lying about the case, and crucially claimed I could not have got to Praia da Luz so quickly on the day after her disappearance.

He suggested I was actually staying there.

More alarmingly, it emerged, he had close connections to the aforementioned former UK police chief, who is still based in Andalucia.

When I went to confront this ex-copper, who I vaguely knew, he refused to back down and thrust me a pamphlet entitled ‘What Really Happened to Madeleine?’, which gave 60 reasons insisting she was not abducted.

It’s fair to say we do not see eye to eye, but he is sadly one of millions of people around the world who still think the McCanns are guilty.

One thing for sure, it made me think long and hard about doing my job and how evil and pernicious the internet and its many trolls can be.

I doubt the case will ever be solved, but I am certain the parents were not involved.

And nor, should I add, was I.



https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2017/05/11/madeleine-mccann-olive-press-editor-talks-first-journalist-scene-10th-anniversary-disappearance/
...................

Not the first time this trash has been posted-up on the forum but under the circumstances, I feel it's time for another airing.

Thank you for that.
It is that 2017 article which provides the proof that the 2019 article contains the four specific lies about me.
I asked Clarke politely three times to correct them, but he refused.
He clearly has his own reasons, and we can only guess at what they might be,
but you don't have to be much of a Conspiracy Theorist to work it out.

Are we detecting an air of desperation in the TM camp recently ?

Here's the original thread if anyone wants to read through the comments:

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14181-jon-clarke-disgraced-editor-of-the-olive-press-a-paedophile-took-madeleine-mccann-not-her-parents

IT IS HAVING THE DESIRED EFFECT.
We are watching the lies, counting the untruths, and debating the reasons behind them . . .
which is what they want us to do.
Look over here, not over there . . .

Madeleine Beth McCann died on the night of Sunday 29th to Monday 30th April 2007
RIP Little one

Peter, do you think someone is being kept out of the narrative?

I can't think why this charade should go on for so long with so many powerful people involved.

PeterMac wrote:

IT IS HAVING THE DESIRED EFFECT.
We are watching the lies, counting the untruths, and debating the reasons behind them . . .
which is what they want us to do.
Look over here, not over there . . .

The McCann team have been doing that since the news first broke early Friday 4th May 2007, aided and abetted by the media manipulator Clarence 'ludicrous' Mitchel Esq.

All those negative v. positive reports were there for a reason and that reason wasn't public awareness to help 'the search'.

It worked a treat then and continues to this day.

Little Wheel Spin and Spin:  Buffy Sainte-Marie

Blame the angels, blame the fates,
Blame the Jews or your sister Kate
Teach your children how to hate
and the big wheels turn around and around
Little Wheels Spin and Spin Big wheels turn around & around

It's journalistic licence, in short they can say whatever they damn well like without fear of repercussion.  You need only look at the tabloids every day to get the gist.

For the most part, the better educated journalist writes in poetic style, poetic licence to set the scene.  This mode requires a degree of invention, floral arrangement, to entice the reader.

Let's never forget the remarkably memorable article written by Bridget O'Donnell for the Guardian newspaper published in December 2007.  Bridget O'Donnell, the partner of Jeremy Wilkins - a potentially vital witness in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Jon Clarke is just another in a long line of pro-McCann journalists who have attached themselves to the tragedy of a missing child.  He said himself that the Olive Press was in it's embryo stage at the time of Madeleine's disappearance, what better way to launch a small time local rag than on the back of a tragedy?

Of course at the time, team McCann agents were sniffing around Spain looking for ways and means.

It's an utter disgrace that's what it is!

Once again I have been criticised for taking a journalist's words at face value, and for not understanding that Clarke may be telling the truth.

So let us look again in detail at the words used in version 3.
“Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived later that morning. But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.
“A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry.”

I am told to consider that he may be, perhaps subconsciously, trying to tell us the truth ?
Is the truth that he did see the McCanns for the first time a few hours after he arrived - and as they were leaving.

We know that the McCanns left Pdl shortly after 1000 and did not return until 2030 at which point they went straight to their new apartment, and emerged only around 2200 to make their press statement by torchlight.

But 2030 or 2200 is not ‘a few hours later’ when compared with Clarke’s own reported arrival at 1145 (his timing), or 1045( Portuguese time), or even the 0945 that we have calculated it must more probably have been to fit the inconvenient facts into the equation. 
That is 11 or 12 hours later.

So let us try to believe, and work back from his “a few hours later”.
’As they were leaving’ must therefore be ‘a few hours [after]’ his arrival.
Let us try to work these three statements together into a coherent whole, without assaulting his words too much

AMALGAMATION (MY EDIT AND ELISION)

Praia da Luz was a sleepy little village and hardly anyone was around when I arrived. 
But I was shocked when I saw the McCanns’ apartment – there was no security and just a flimsy piece of police tape covering the side gate.
A few hours later, I met Kate and Gerry as they were leaving.  I introduced myself to them as the reporter from the Mail, and told them I would do everything I could to help. 
They said “Hi”, and thanked me for coming and for reporting on the case.

This puts him in PdL or nearby the night before, or certainly in the very early morning of 4/5/7.  Perhaps as early as 6 am.   A long time before Len Port for example, and before the morning shift of the GNR and the PJ had arrived to take over from their colleagues on the night shift.

This would in turn explain much of his observed body language on the Netflix film, where he is relaxed and on friendly handshaking terms with the Senior GNR officer, who clearly know already who he is.  Equally clearly he already knows his way around the area and its layout. He states as fact that he had never previously visited.

This scenario gives him time to have identified the apartment, and noted the tape and the few officers keeping watch during the night  - but allows him not to have to describe the Forensic teams, fingerprint officers, dogs, vans, handlers, GNR officers, journalists, camera crews, and News presenters, all of whom arrived some time later, and which we can clearly see on Netflix were cluttering the scene and blocking the roads by 0900.  He can cheerfully ignore them all, since he can say he was describing the earlier situation – when [he] arrived.

It also gives him time to wander south into the village, as Len Port did, and discover the roadworks which feature so strongly, but inaccurately, in the Netflix production.

In which case he may well have been “the first journalist on the scene”, he may well have found ‘hardly anyone [ ] around” and I may owe him an apology.    If so, I offer it. Here. Now.

In return however we shall expect an explanation of when and from whom he received the phone call, what details he was given about the case, who instructed him on the angle his reporting was to adopt, the time he left home, where he stayed during the night of Thursday 3rd May 2007, and much else.  

Including why he lied about it.

It may of course be either that this is a Clarification too far, or that I am totally wrong, and that three apparently incompatible untruths must stand, unreconciled and unexplained.



***********
Perhaps as an aside we should look at what the McCanns think of irresponsible journalism.
In Leveson the following exchange took place.

Dr Gerald McCann in reply to Lord Leveson:   [Solecisms included]

“Thank you, sir.  I would like to emphasise that I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but where you have people who are repeatedly carrying out inaccuracies and have been shown to do so, then they should be held to account.  That is the issue. 
 I don't have a problem with somebody purporting a theory, writing fiction, suggestions, but clearly we've got to a stage where substandard reporting and sources, unnamed, made-up, non-verifiable, are a daily occurrence”.

Clearly the McCanns do not like irresponsible and mendacious journalism any more than any one else does.
“Carrying out inaccuracies . . . shown to do so . . . should be held to account . . .
“Substandard reporting and sources, unnamed, made-up, non verifiable . . . daily occurrence

For 12 years of egregious examples of inaccurate journalism, sub-standard reporting, unnamed, made-up, and non verifiable sources we need look no further than “The Olive Press”, and its Editor and proprietor Jon Clarke.

Whether he will ever be held to account is another matter.

You didn't make Super for nothing PeterM.

Excellently explained.  Whoever told you off take no notice.  No good going to court and saying what they might have meant to say is it?

Netflix announces in-depth Maddie McCann documentary, featuring the Olive Press and ‘never before heard’ testimonies

The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann will be available to stream on March 15

Laurence Dollimore (News Editor) -
14 Mar, 2019 @ 08

NETFLIX has officially announced it will finally stream a hard hitting, in-depth documentary series about Madeleine McCann this week.

The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann will be available to stream tomorrow and will take a detailed look at one of the most famous missing persons cases in history.

Maddie disappeared from the Praia de Luz resort in Portugal when she was just three years old, sparking an international investigation that is still active today.

Netflix announced today: “It was a disappearance that reverberated across the whole world, and as her distraught parents Gerry and Kate begged for information regarding her whereabouts, the Portuguese police together with Scotland Yard mobilised a major investigation; an investigation which would go on to become the most high-profile missing child case in British history.

“Twelve years on, the series will tell the case over eight parts, detailing events from the moment of Madeleine’s vanishing to the present day.”


ON SET : Jon Clarke (right) with film crew in Portugal

The Olive Press will feature in the first two episodes, it can be revealed, after filming with the streaming service last year.

Crews interviewed publisher of Spain’s biggest expat paper Jon Clarke, who was the first UK print journalist in the resort when the news broke of Maddie’s disappearance some 12 years ago.

In the new documentary, Clarke travels to Portugal and retraces his steps in 2007 with the film crew.

Directed by Chris Smith, the man behind Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened, and executive produced by Emma Cooper and produced by UK-based Pulse Films in association with Paramount Television, the series has access to never-before-heard testimonies from those at the heart of the story including friends of the McCann family, investigators working the case and from those who became the subjects of media speculation and rumour.

Netflix added: “By blending new interviews with more than 40 contributors, 120 hour of interviews, archival news footage and reenactments, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann takes an insightful look at the facts of the case as well as its impact on media standards around the world and the emotional effect on those involved entrenched in the investigation.

“The series gives a unique look behind the headlines to offer new perspectives on the story; a story that became more than just a missing child investigation but a global obsession in the search for the truth, amidst accusations of police incompetence and suspicions at every turn.

“As the media descended, the intense pressure loomed over local officials to solve the case under the full glare and scrutiny of the whole world.”

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2019/03/14/netflix-announces-madeleine-mccann-documentary-featuring-the-olive-press-and-never-before-heard-testimonies/


Laurence 'got a story?' Dollimore

Jon Clarke, who was the first UK print journalist in the resort when the news broke of Maddie’s disappearance some 12 years ago.

The first journalist IN THE RESORT WHEN THE NEWS BROKE.

That's what it says.   In the resort WHEN the news broke
So – In the resort, during the late evening and night of Thursday 3rd ?

If, not, what can it possibly mean.
If he meant to say
Jon Clarke, who was the first UK print journalist in the resort AFTER the news broke of Maddie’s disappearance some 12 years ago.
he would, as a professional journalist and wordsmith, master of his craft with the language, have said so, wouldn't he ?

  Hilarious - so who broke the news to Jon Clarke and when? 

It wasn't the media because he was 1st there - so, was it The McCanns, a friend of theirs, a government official, a media manipulator like our Clarrie or did he just happen to be outside McCann apartment with the rest of the crowd.

He needs to be careful if he was outside the apartment at the time, he'll be the next Grange suspect 

Maybe he's Smithman.

I believe PeterMac's got a picture of Jon Clarke as Smithman.

Could you oblige us please Peter?

Jill Havern wrote:Maybe he's Smithman.

I believe PeterMac's got a picture of Jon Clarke as Smithman.

Could you oblige us please Peter?

  That's a thought.  Clarke didn't lie for no reason, so what could that reason be?

Was he paid/bribed?
Was he blackmailed?
Was he linked to any McCann activities earlier that week?
Is he part of a group or club that the McCanns or someone else, Freud maybe, belonged to?
Does he know more than he is letting on?

There is lots more in the google archives, 
But please be careful. Some of it is potentially libellous.
He crossed a number of heavy duty people when he was an "investigative" journalist
and they didn't like it.

Verdi wrote:

Apparently, Garry Peter Leigh, who wrote the above piece posted by Verdi, was killed in a cycling accident in Marbella a few months later.

It's not called the Costa del Crime for nothing - the appellation is well earned.

A haven for immigrants who made their wealth through crime and other quasi-legal activities.

Funnily enough, I found the article whilst searching the Olive Press archives - M. Clarke has certainly stuck a finger or two in some mucky pies over the years. 

Interesting though, in the Olive Press archives there is no report by Jon Clarke about the case of Madeleine McCann, that I could see, prior to the reported nonsense from Barcelona - the year 2010 if memory serves me well.

Certainly an eye opener as to how the press conduct their daily business.  Reportage over the years about Gonçalo Amaral, by way of example, has been scandalous - to put it mildly.