Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann™ :: Books on the Madeleine McCann case :: Kate McCann's book, Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine'
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Cheshire Cat 14.05.11 21:59
So Kate is saying that BK arrived on the scene in September 2007?Tony Bennett wrote:SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Wednesday 12 September: Dr Kate says that this was the date they were first contacted by lawyer Edward Smethurst (COMMENT: I suspect that there is quite a lot left out of this book about the precise sequence of events relating to Edward Smethurst and Brian Kennedy).
That is when the news broke about his backing:
"In September 2007, millionaire businessman and Jehovah's Witness, Brian Kennedy, was revealed as the McCanns mystery benefactor"
But wait a minute! Listen to what Brian Kennedys in-house PR man, Dave Swanton, has to say on the subject:
Stockport County Supporters Messageboard: Archived Message
[ Stockport County Supporters Messageboard | Message Archive ]
Re: Cheshire Sport to buy County and appoint Gannon?
Posted by DaveSwanton on 15/1/2010, 3:48 pm, in reply to "Re: Cheshire Sport to buy County and appoint Gannon?"
I would also like to add that BK donates hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity every year, he is a Christian, has worked in the soup kitchens in this area with his sons and daughters.
He was also working with the McCann's team months before it hit the press and this was by mistake as BK wanted NO publicity at all from his involvement. I know because as his Media and PR Manager he gave me STRICT instructions that he didn't want it known.
Cheshire Cat- Madeleine Foundation
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KEY SIGHTINGS (pp. 370-6)
by Tony Bennett 14.05.11 22:12
SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Appendix: ‘KEY SIGHTINGS’ (pp. 370 to 376)
This extraordinary section of the book purports to tell us who the McCanns are still looking for.
‘SIGHTINGS 1 AND 2
The emphasis is primarily on:
1) Jane Tanner man/’Bundleman’ and
2) Martin Smith man.
Despite the fact that one was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner carrying a child at precisely 9.15pm and the other by Martin Smith at around 9.50pm to 9.55pm about a quarter-of-a-mile away, Dr Kate in her book seriously suggests that this is the same man. It must be a fairly unusual abductor who steals a child at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm and is then seen the best part of an hour later still wandering around the streets carrying the same child for all the world.
That in itself is contrary to all reason.
But on top of that, Dr Kate makes the following statement: “The similarities [between the two sightings] speak for themselves”. Well, actually, they don’t. For a start, Jane Tanner’s man had long black hair while Martin Smith’s man had ‘short brown hair’. That is a very significant difference.
On top of that we have all the inconsistencies and changes of story in Jane Tanner’s account (which of course Dr Kate doesn’t mention in her book), from which we may safely deduce that her account is fantasy, fabrication in fact.
‘ANOTHER SIX SIGHTINGS: 3 TO 8 ‘
Then, set over several pages, is an impressive table of what are said to be six other ‘sightings’ in the area of men lurking near the McCanns’ apartment by ‘four different ‘independent’ witnesses’.
There is a cautious note by Dr Kate: “The individual may not be the same in all cases”.
There are said to be five reports of a ‘suspicious male’, with three reports placing him standing by a small car park and two further reports having him being ‘observed on the access path’ near Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 3 AND 4
…are said to be by a young girl on two occasions, 8am on 30 April and then again on 2 May. He was ‘ugly, disgusting even’, and appeared to be watching Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 5 AND 6
…are said to be of a man loitering on 29 April between 8am and 9am and again on 2 May of the same man ‘looking over in the direction of 5A’, described as ’very ugly with pitted skin’. This is said to have ’unnerved’ the female witness.
SIGHTING 7
…is said to be of a man ‘staring fixedly towards Apartment 5A on either 2 or 3 May
SIGHTING 8
…is the sighting by Mrs Fenn’s niece (although her name isn’t given in the article) of ‘ man coming out of a first floor apartment’ and ‘behaving suspiciously.
These sightings are all claimed to be ‘highly relevant’ to the McCanns’ private investigation team.
Appendix: ‘KEY SIGHTINGS’ (pp. 370 to 376)
This extraordinary section of the book purports to tell us who the McCanns are still looking for.
‘SIGHTINGS 1 AND 2
The emphasis is primarily on:
1) Jane Tanner man/’Bundleman’ and
2) Martin Smith man.
Despite the fact that one was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner carrying a child at precisely 9.15pm and the other by Martin Smith at around 9.50pm to 9.55pm about a quarter-of-a-mile away, Dr Kate in her book seriously suggests that this is the same man. It must be a fairly unusual abductor who steals a child at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm and is then seen the best part of an hour later still wandering around the streets carrying the same child for all the world.
That in itself is contrary to all reason.
But on top of that, Dr Kate makes the following statement: “The similarities [between the two sightings] speak for themselves”. Well, actually, they don’t. For a start, Jane Tanner’s man had long black hair while Martin Smith’s man had ‘short brown hair’. That is a very significant difference.
On top of that we have all the inconsistencies and changes of story in Jane Tanner’s account (which of course Dr Kate doesn’t mention in her book), from which we may safely deduce that her account is fantasy, fabrication in fact.
‘ANOTHER SIX SIGHTINGS: 3 TO 8 ‘
Then, set over several pages, is an impressive table of what are said to be six other ‘sightings’ in the area of men lurking near the McCanns’ apartment by ‘four different ‘independent’ witnesses’.
There is a cautious note by Dr Kate: “The individual may not be the same in all cases”.
There are said to be five reports of a ‘suspicious male’, with three reports placing him standing by a small car park and two further reports having him being ‘observed on the access path’ near Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 3 AND 4
…are said to be by a young girl on two occasions, 8am on 30 April and then again on 2 May. He was ‘ugly, disgusting even’, and appeared to be watching Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 5 AND 6
…are said to be of a man loitering on 29 April between 8am and 9am and again on 2 May of the same man ‘looking over in the direction of 5A’, described as ’very ugly with pitted skin’. This is said to have ’unnerved’ the female witness.
SIGHTING 7
…is said to be of a man ‘staring fixedly towards Apartment 5A on either 2 or 3 May
SIGHTING 8
…is the sighting by Mrs Fenn’s niece (although her name isn’t given in the article) of ‘ man coming out of a first floor apartment’ and ‘behaving suspiciously.
These sightings are all claimed to be ‘highly relevant’ to the McCanns’ private investigation team.
Tony Bennett- Researcher
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Tony Bennett 14.05.11 22:30
If Dave Swanton is correct, then Dr Kate McCann's account of her first-ever meeting with Brian Kennedy is a well-crafted lie. A possible way of reconciling the two accounts is if Dr G McCann, Clarence Mitchell and Brian Kennedy were all in cahoots well before September, but Dr Kate McCann only actually met him at that September meeting. Dr Kate McCann represents that it was an out-of-the-blue call by Edward Smethurst, frequently 'called to the bar' at the Elephant and Castle, that set up the Kennedy meeting.Cheshire Cat wrote:So Kate is saying that BK arrived on the scene in September 2007?Tony Bennett wrote:SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Wednesday 12 September: Dr Kate says that this was the date they were first contacted by lawyer Edward Smethurst (COMMENT: I suspect that there is quite a lot left out of this book about the precise sequence of events relating to Edward Smethurst and Brian Kennedy).
That is when the news broke about his backing:
"In September 2007, millionaire businessman and Jehovah's Witness, Brian Kennedy, was revealed as the McCanns mystery benefactor"
But wait a minute! Listen to what Brian Kennedys in-house PR man, Dave Swanton, has to say on the subject:Stockport County Supporters Messageboard: Archived Message
[ Stockport County Supporters Messageboard | Message Archive ]
Re: Cheshire Sport to buy County and appoint Gannon?
Posted by DaveSwanton on 15/1/2010, 3:48 pm, in reply to "Re: Cheshire Sport to buy County and appoint Gannon?"
I would also like to add that BK donates hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity every year, he is a Christian, has worked in the soup kitchens in this area with his sons and daughters.
He was also working with the McCann's team months before it hit the press and this was by mistake as BK wanted NO publicity at all from his involvement. I know because as his Media and PR Manager he gave me STRICT instructions that he didn't want it known.
Tony Bennett- Researcher
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by lj 15.05.11 0:42
That in itself is contrary to all reason.
But on top of that, Dr Kate makes the following statement: “The similarities [between the two sightings] speak for themselves”. Well, actually, they don’t. For a start, Jane Tanner’s man had long black hair while Martin Smith’s man had ‘short brown hair’. That is a very significant difference.
Well now Tony, that man was still on the streets because he had a haircut in the mean time, duh!!
____________________
"And if Madeleine had hurt herself inside the apartment, why would that be our fault?" Gerry
http://pjga.blogspot.co.uk/?m=0
http://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.co.uk/
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CHAPTER 21 [pages 314 to 331] and 'SIGHTINGS' APPENDIX
by Tony Bennett 15.05.11 12:08
SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Chapter 22 ‘Closing the Case’ [pages 314 to 331]
Analysis of this Chapter is now complete
p. 314
Dr Kate: “As the summer of 2008 approached, the investigation into Madeleine’s abduction remained classified…It was like trying to live our lives in purgatory”.
The McCanns ‘took a break’ at the end of June although, “It did not feel right at all to go on holiday without Madeleine…”
Dr Kate: “…fourteen unbelievably harrowing and stressful months had passed since she was taken and we wwere running on empty. We owed it to Sean and Amelie, and we owed it to Madeleine to be physically and mentally fit to go on looking for her. We needed peace and quiet…” They visited Auntie Norah in Vancouver.
p. 315
The holiday went well, but “the solitude emphasised the yawning gap in our family…” Their attempt to keep their holiday secret failed after a journalist pretending to be ‘Detective Constable Johnson’ ’phoned them.
Dr Kate mentions the Wardship hearing in the High Court: “As nobody else was now searching for [Madeleine], we wanted our own investigators [NOTE: Kevin Halligen at the time!] to have the chance to check this material [the PJ files] for any relevant leads”. Dr Kate explains how shocked they were that ‘the U.K. authorities’ vigorously opposed the McCanns’ application for the PJ’s documentation and statements to be released to them.
p. 316
In his statement to the Court, the Assistant Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police wrote: “While one or both of them may be innocent, there is no clear evidence that eliminates them from involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance”. Dr Kate: “We were completely staggered. No evidence to eliminate us?…that line stuck in our heads as ‘guilty until proven innocent’.” Dr McCann said they made ‘a tactical retreat’ to ‘accept a smaller amount of information’: “Having to withdraw was quite galling…”
COMMENT: In fact it was a major defeat and setback for the McCanns. They were only allowed to see less than 1% of what was in the PJ files (see contemporary press reports).
Dr Kate: “The 81 items disclosed to us included trivial details that our family had passed on to the police in the first place”.
Goncalo Amaral retired from the police on 30 June.
p. 317
The PJ investigation was ‘archived’ on Monday 21 July on the instructions of the Portuguese Attorney General. Dr Kate: “There was no evidence to suggest that Madeleine had come to serious harm and no evidence to implicate Gerry, me or Robert Murat in what had happened to her”. The McCanns heard the decision at 4.30pm “from a French news agency via SKY News and BBC News 24.
Dr Kate: “It may sound odd, but in some ways we were glad the investigation had been closed”. The PJ issued a short statement: “The official investigation continues,. All credible lines of enquiry will be pursued”, But, says Dr Kate: “…we had been receiving messages from concerned people who had tried to pass on information to the police, only to be told, ‘The child is dead’.”
p. 318
Dr Kate: “I could appreciate that not being an arguida was preferable to being an arguida…Gerry and I were in a better position than we had been the day before”.
Dr Kate: “It was…a public acknowledgement that the Portuguese authorities had nothing to implicate us in Madeleine’s disappearance, just as we’d always insisted”.
The PJ released most of their files to the McCanns, and their lawyers ‘wasted no time’ in examining them.
Dr Kate: “Amaral and his chums had evidently been poised to take full advantage of the long-awaited lifting of judicial secrecy. Now they really went to town: we had staged a kidnap, or Madeleine had died in our holiday apartment and we had hidden he body; we had influence the British police…and so on…Amaral was talking more and more…and turning up on TV chat shows…it was incessant…It is impossible to convey…just how difficult this smear campaign was both to withstand and to counter”.
p. 319
Dr Kate: “…if people were taken in by Amaral’s theories, they were going to think there was no point in looking for Madeleine…We are quite sure that Amaral’s posturing has reduced our chances of finding her. Why on earth would a former police officer want to convince the world that a missing child was dead - with no evidence whatsoever to support his claim?”
Amaral was doing it “to cash in on our misfortune. It just beggars belief”.
Dr Kate: “I spent many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her. There were times when I felt so incensed by the conduct of Amaral and his friends I thought I simply wouldn’t get through the pain and anger”. Dr Kate in a long paragraph expresses frustration that no-one in Portugal seemed able to stand up to him and stop him: “Perhaps Amaral had tapped into some kind of national subconscious desire for this to all just go away. The country was already reeling from a child-abuse scandal involving Casa Pia…”
p. 320
Goncalo Amaral launched his book on 24 July 2008, three days after the Attorney General’s report. Dr Kate: “For this to have been possible, confidential information relating to the investigation would have to be passed to his publishers…well in advance of the lifting of judicial secrecy…[his book] repeated his theories, dressed up with fabrication and speculation. What it failed to include was any evidence…or any details that didn’t suit his story”.
In her diary, Dr Kate asks God for a sign that He is still there.
Dr Kate explains how they thought about taking legal action against Amaral’s book at the time, but didn’t because: “We did not want to be diverted from our own investigation…For the moment we hoped the fuss would die down and Amaral would let up”.
The McCanns investigate the files. Dr Kate: “While struggling to cope with all this, I had a task of Herculean proportions facing me: combing through the 5,000 or so pages of documentation contained in the case files that had been presented to the prosecutor and received by our lawyers on 31 July”. The McCanns were “pleasantly surprised by the prosecutor’s conclusions and by how emphatic he was about the lack of any evidence to suggest either that Madeleine was dead or that we were involved in her disappearance”.
p. 321
Dr Kate: “For several months we’d been concerned that if the case was closed, it might be closed in a way that left a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over us, so this came as a big relief”.
Dr Kate: “Four days later, the files were released to the media. DVDs containing [various personal details] were being dished out to any journalist who asked for a copy…All those months we’d spent begging for scraps of information about what might have befallen our daughter ad now here was the whole lot being distributed to every Tom, Dick or Harry. There is a big difference between what is in the public interest and what is of interest to the public, and surely when it comes to the dissemination of official police records it is the former that should prevail. It meant we had to seek advice on preventing identity theft and other fraud”.
Dr Kate: “Naturally the media were going to be scouring the files for ‘juicy’ stories and angles, without thought for the consequences for people who had tried to help the investigation”.
Dr Kate: “Witnesses would be frightened off [by the release of all this confidential information]. It was crazy, and yet another blow to our chances of finding Madeleine”.
COMMENT: This is really rich, coming from the McCanns. After all, it was their own man, Brian Kennedy, who according to an article by Mark Hollingsworth in the Evening Standard in August 2009 explain how Kennedy’s men intimidated some witnesses so badly that they were scared of giving evidence to the PJ enquiry, a claim that neither the McCanns nor Kennedy has ever challenged. He did not sue the paper for libel. That is a matter which we have, in writing, asked Leicestershire and Cheshire Police to investigate, but hey have refused to do so.
p. 322
Dr Kate spent ‘six months’ “scrutinising” the PJ files: “…it would be a painful as well as time-consuming labour”. Dr Kate: “The majority of the material was in Portuguese, so one of our first jobs was to find a company to translate it into English. Ultimately, the entire file would be translated, at a cost to Madeleine’s Fund of almost £100,000”.
In her diary, 9 August, Dr Kate writes: “Feeling a bit unsettled and agitated this evening. Going through the files brings back the emotion, desperation and uncertainty…I have a slight flicker of hope that maybe something will emerge soon - but I’m just too scared to go there”.
Dr Kate: “I waded through the documents doggedly”.
p. 323
Dr Kate says how concerned they both were at the revelation of all the sexual crimes being committed against children in the Algarve, in a passage that will win her no new friends in that part of Portugal. She highlights “”…the five cases of British children on holiday being sexually abused in their beds while their parents slept in another room”.
Then: “In three further incidents, children encountered an intruder in their bedrooms, who was presumably disturbed before he had the chance to carry out an assault. I guessed these were the reports that Bill Henderson…had told me about”.
Dr Kate explains how these “had occurred within an hour’s drive of Praia da Luz” (probably meaning they were anything up to 40 miles away). Some of these crimes “hadn’t even been recorded by the authorities”…parents had come forward with their accounts “after Madeleine’s disappearance…in the belief that there could be a link between what had happened to their children ands what had happened to [Madeleine].”
Dr Kate: “It broke my heart to read the terrible accounts of these devastated parents and the experiences of their poor children”.
Dr Kate: “…there was a familiar thread running through them…the parents had called the police; they hadn’t felt that the crime was taken seriously…statements were often not taken; DNA and fingerprint evidence was frequently not sought. In most instances there was no sign of a break-in. I cried for hours after reading a letter of complaint from one mother to the GNR regarding the sexual abuse of her daughter and the lack of proper attention by the authorities. The final line in particular has haunted me ever since: ‘It is difficult to see with this lack of investigation or interest how a profile of this man can be built up. It did not appear to us that there was any great incentive or determination to fund the offender and bring him to justice…Furthermore, it could all have been so much worse…indeed this man could go on to do much worse to another child if he’s not stopped now’.”
Dr Kate: “Six months later, our beloved Madeleine was grabbed from her bed”.
p. 324
But she then acknowledges: “Of course, none of the children were abducted and these crimes may be completely unrelated to what happens to Madeleine...What these cases do demonstrate, however, is that British tourists in holiday accommodation were being targeted…”
Then: “It is so hard not to scream from the rooftops about how those crimes appear to have been brushed under the carpet. The authorities have known about them for a long time and yet the perpetrators, as far as the families are aware, remain free”.
There are then still more strictures about how the bad the police in Portugal and elsewhere are at investigating and addressing children being molested. These criminals “must be tracked down and punishd…”
p. 325
Dr Kate days that Paulo Rebelo “tried to make up for some of the initial inadequacies by checking back for anything that had been overlooked. But the discovery of each missed opportunity was another twist of the knife in my chest”.
In checking the PJ files, Dr Kate: “…found the receptionist’s note in the Ocean Club staff message book explaining that we wanted to book the Tapas restaurant for the rest of the week because we were leaving our children alone in our apartments. I was dismayed. This was a glaring green light to a child-taker - and yet no mention is made of it in the files until December 2007!…I could only conclude that its relevance had not been appreciated by the police”.
COMMENT: This is extraordinary. Dr Kate is claiming that it was the receptionist’s note that may have caused the damage rather than one of her group openly saying to reception: “We’re leaving our children on our own all evening”. What did she expect? Surely the receptionist was only doing her job by noting (a) the fact that they wanted to book the Tapas restaurant and (b) the reason for the request, which I think was somewhat unusual as I read elsewhere that such bookings were not normally made. Did the person from the McCanns’ group who made the booking not realise that it was risky to explain that, to quote Dr Kate’s own words: “We were leaving our children alone in our apartments”? Did that person add: “It’s OK, we’ve made arrangements to check our children regularly on the half-hour”? All the blame is put by the McCanns on the receptionist making a faithful note of the reason for the request to book the Tapas restaurant. It does not seem to have occurred to Dr Kate how risky it was for them to have publicly advertised to the receptionist that, quote: “We are leaving our children alone in our apartments”.
Dr Kate goes on to criticise:
Dr Kate: “Night after night, I read of depraved individuals, British paedophiles, Portuguese paedophiles, Spanish, Dutch and German paedophiles, and of the horrific crimes they’d committed. The police went to visit some of them, looked around their apartments, and recorded merely, ‘No sign of the minor’. Was that enough to eliminate these vile characters from the enquiry?...No description, no photograph, no alibi., no DNA. Just ‘no sign of the minor’.”
p. 326
“It’s difficult not to criticise, and I know I’m a bit of a perfectionist, but honest to God, when your child has been stolen, surely you are entitled to expect more than this. Much more”
There is then a passage dealing with now wrong the recollection of witnesses can be, and she gives one example: “A member of staff at…the Millennium restaurant…said she saw us there every morning having breakfast with the children. She described in detail what a nice family we were and what a lovely relationship we had with Madeleine …but we weren’t there. We had breakfast in the Millennium only once, on our first morning…As I read these statements, it became slightly less baffling to me that Robert Murat and the witnesses who said they saw him on the night Madeleine was taken could all be so certain of their conflicting recollections”.
COMMENT: Conveniently making an excuse for three of her ‘Tapas 7 ‘ friends being so absolutely certain that they saw Robert Murat hanging around the Ocean Club the evening Madeleine was reported missing, even to the extent of confirming this at a confrontation between Murat and them at Portimao Police Station on 11 July 2007.
Dr Kate: “…I was finding testimony [in the PJ files] from witnesses claiming they had seen us in places where we hadn’t been or doing things we’d never done…these inaccurate reports…”
p. 327
Dr Kate says: “At regular intervals Gerry and I met up with Brian Kennedy to discuss progress…”
She doesn’t say where these meetings were. And by this statement she proves conclusively, as we have said many times, that Brian Kennedy has been running the private investigations all along and must tale responsibility, along with the McCanns, for the choices made to engage Metodo 3 and Kevin Halligen. Brian Kennedy is also implicated in hoodwinking the press into believing that his chosen man Dave Edgar, who has apparently been heading the investigation for over two years, ran a thriving private investigations business called ‘Alpha Investigations Group’. He did not.
Dr Kate says that their search of the files showed no evidence that Madeleine was dead- and they learn that most child sex offenders who kill their victims dispose of the body close to the abduction site; this “…increased the chances that she had been removed from the area and in many ways gave us more hope that she was alive”.
COMMENT: Yet in September 2009 Dave Edgar gave interviews maintaining that he was ‘convinced’ that Madeleine was being held ‘in a prison lair’ in the ‘lawless hills’ around Praia da Luz.
p. 328
Dr Kate now discusses the sightings of individuals in the week or two before Madeleine was reported missing. I’ve dealt with this in the Appendix Dr Kate has written on the ‘Sightings’, so won’t repeat that here. She refers to: “…the man and child seen by Jane Tanner…and the similar sighting 45 minutes later by the family from Ireland…To me the similarities seem far more significant than any discrepancy in timing…I am staggered by how alike they are, almost identical in parts. As a lawyer once said to me: ‘One coincidence, two coincidences - maybe they’re still coincidences. Any more than that and it stops being coincidence’. Who knows why there was a 45-minute gap between the two sightings, or where this man might have been in between?…There is nothing normal about stealing a little girl from her bed, so why should his subsequent actions be predictable?”
p. 329
There is then a passage about Robert Murat, based on all that she had read about him in the PJ files. Dr Kate: “I came across nothing that could be classified as hard evidence against him”.
COMMENT: The McCanns know fine well that Robert Murat lied at least 17 times when interviewed by police on 14 May 2007 about his movements between 1 and 4 May, changing his story when re-interviewed by police on 10 and 11 June. Of course, Dr Kate makes no mention of this.
Dr Kate: “I still despair at the lengths to which certain elements of the PJ were prepared to go to try to unearth some sort of evidence to use against us”.
p. 330
There is a long paragraph about the photos of Madeleine that were released on the night Madeleine was reported missing. Dr Kate: “…the posters had been run off, on the night of the abduction, by Amy Tierney, the Mark Warner duty manager, using her own Kodak paper and her own Kodak printer”. There is no explanation of why the McCanns could only find ah old photo of Madeleine to use that night and why the so-called ‘last photo’ was not available to download that very night. As we have suggested elsewhere, there are god reasons to doubt whether Amy Tierney is telling the whole truth. Also, nowhere in the book does Dr Kate explain why there are so few photos of Madeleine taken by them and their group of friends that week.
There is then a passage explaining how British police officers Mark Harrison and dog-handler Martin Grime and Forensic Science Service expert John Lowe all “had no evidence against us”. Mark Harrison is quoted as saying that the alerts of the cadaver dogs must be corroborated by ‘other supporting physical evidence’. Martin Grime says the same, in different words.
p. 331
On this page, Dr Kate reproduces the conclusions of John Lowe’s report, concluding with the words: “In my opinion therefore this result is too complex for meaningful interpretation/inclusion”.
Dr Kate then repeats what she’s said earlier - that even if it could be proved that it was Madeleine’s DNA, there are reasonable explanations for it being found there.
She then complains: “All of this information had been given to the PJ before they interrogated us in September 2007. Yet they chose to ignore it and declared us arguidos regardless”.
Appendix: ‘KEY SIGHTINGS’ (pp. 370 to 386)
This extraordinary section of the book purports to tell us who the McCanns are still looking for.
‘SIGHTINGS 1 AND 2
The emphasis is primarily on:
1) Jane Tanner man/’Bundleman’ and
2) Martin Smith man.
Despite the fact that one was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner carrying a child at precisely 9.15pm and the other by Martin Smith at around 9.50pm to 9.55pm about a quarter-of-a-mile away, Dr Kate in her book seriously suggests that this is the same man. It must be a fairly unusual abductor who steals a child at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm and is then seen the best part of an hour later still wandering around the streets carrying the same child for all the world.
That in itself is contrary to all reason.
But on top of that, Dr Kate makes the following statement: “The similarities [between the two sightings] speak for themselves”. Well, actually, they don’t. For a start, Jane Tanner’s man had long black hair while Martin Smith’s man had ‘short brown hair’. That is a very significant difference.
On top of that we have all the inconsistencies and changes of story in Jane Tanner’s account (which of course Dr Kate doesn’t mention in her book), from which we may safely deduce that her account is fantasy, fabrication in fact.
‘ANOTHER SIX SIGHTINGS: 3 TO 8 ‘
Then, set over several pages, is an impressive table of what are said to be six other ‘sightings’ in the area of men lurking near the McCanns’ apartment by ‘four different ‘independent’ witnesses’.
There is a cautious note by Dr Kate: “The individual may not be the same in all cases”.
There are said to be five reports of a ‘suspicious male’, with three reports placing him standing by a small car park and two further reports having him being ‘observed on the access path’ near Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 3 AND 4
…are said to be by a young girl on two occasions, 8am on 30 April and then again on 2 May. He was ‘ugly, disgusting even’, and appeared to be watching Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 5 AND 6
…are said to be of a man loitering on 29 April between 8am and 9am and again on 2 May of the same man ‘looking over in the direction of 5A’, described as ’very ugly with pitted skin’. This is said to have ’unnerved’ the female witness.
SIGHTING 7
…is said to be of a man ‘staring fixedly towards Apartment 5A on either 2 or 3 May
SIGHTING 8
…is the sighting by Mrs Fenn’s niece (although her name isn’t given in the article) of ‘ man coming out of a first floor apartment’ and ‘behaving suspiciously.
These sightings are all claimed to be ‘highly relevant’ to the McCanns’ private investigation team.
Chapter 22 ‘Closing the Case’ [pages 314 to 331]
Analysis of this Chapter is now complete
p. 314
Dr Kate: “As the summer of 2008 approached, the investigation into Madeleine’s abduction remained classified…It was like trying to live our lives in purgatory”.
The McCanns ‘took a break’ at the end of June although, “It did not feel right at all to go on holiday without Madeleine…”
Dr Kate: “…fourteen unbelievably harrowing and stressful months had passed since she was taken and we wwere running on empty. We owed it to Sean and Amelie, and we owed it to Madeleine to be physically and mentally fit to go on looking for her. We needed peace and quiet…” They visited Auntie Norah in Vancouver.
p. 315
The holiday went well, but “the solitude emphasised the yawning gap in our family…” Their attempt to keep their holiday secret failed after a journalist pretending to be ‘Detective Constable Johnson’ ’phoned them.
Dr Kate mentions the Wardship hearing in the High Court: “As nobody else was now searching for [Madeleine], we wanted our own investigators [NOTE: Kevin Halligen at the time!] to have the chance to check this material [the PJ files] for any relevant leads”. Dr Kate explains how shocked they were that ‘the U.K. authorities’ vigorously opposed the McCanns’ application for the PJ’s documentation and statements to be released to them.
p. 316
In his statement to the Court, the Assistant Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police wrote: “While one or both of them may be innocent, there is no clear evidence that eliminates them from involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance”. Dr Kate: “We were completely staggered. No evidence to eliminate us?…that line stuck in our heads as ‘guilty until proven innocent’.” Dr McCann said they made ‘a tactical retreat’ to ‘accept a smaller amount of information’: “Having to withdraw was quite galling…”
COMMENT: In fact it was a major defeat and setback for the McCanns. They were only allowed to see less than 1% of what was in the PJ files (see contemporary press reports).
Dr Kate: “The 81 items disclosed to us included trivial details that our family had passed on to the police in the first place”.
Goncalo Amaral retired from the police on 30 June.
p. 317
The PJ investigation was ‘archived’ on Monday 21 July on the instructions of the Portuguese Attorney General. Dr Kate: “There was no evidence to suggest that Madeleine had come to serious harm and no evidence to implicate Gerry, me or Robert Murat in what had happened to her”. The McCanns heard the decision at 4.30pm “from a French news agency via SKY News and BBC News 24.
Dr Kate: “It may sound odd, but in some ways we were glad the investigation had been closed”. The PJ issued a short statement: “The official investigation continues,. All credible lines of enquiry will be pursued”, But, says Dr Kate: “…we had been receiving messages from concerned people who had tried to pass on information to the police, only to be told, ‘The child is dead’.”
p. 318
Dr Kate: “I could appreciate that not being an arguida was preferable to being an arguida…Gerry and I were in a better position than we had been the day before”.
Dr Kate: “It was…a public acknowledgement that the Portuguese authorities had nothing to implicate us in Madeleine’s disappearance, just as we’d always insisted”.
The PJ released most of their files to the McCanns, and their lawyers ‘wasted no time’ in examining them.
Dr Kate: “Amaral and his chums had evidently been poised to take full advantage of the long-awaited lifting of judicial secrecy. Now they really went to town: we had staged a kidnap, or Madeleine had died in our holiday apartment and we had hidden he body; we had influence the British police…and so on…Amaral was talking more and more…and turning up on TV chat shows…it was incessant…It is impossible to convey…just how difficult this smear campaign was both to withstand and to counter”.
p. 319
Dr Kate: “…if people were taken in by Amaral’s theories, they were going to think there was no point in looking for Madeleine…We are quite sure that Amaral’s posturing has reduced our chances of finding her. Why on earth would a former police officer want to convince the world that a missing child was dead - with no evidence whatsoever to support his claim?”
Amaral was doing it “to cash in on our misfortune. It just beggars belief”.
Dr Kate: “I spent many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her. There were times when I felt so incensed by the conduct of Amaral and his friends I thought I simply wouldn’t get through the pain and anger”. Dr Kate in a long paragraph expresses frustration that no-one in Portugal seemed able to stand up to him and stop him: “Perhaps Amaral had tapped into some kind of national subconscious desire for this to all just go away. The country was already reeling from a child-abuse scandal involving Casa Pia…”
p. 320
Goncalo Amaral launched his book on 24 July 2008, three days after the Attorney General’s report. Dr Kate: “For this to have been possible, confidential information relating to the investigation would have to be passed to his publishers…well in advance of the lifting of judicial secrecy…[his book] repeated his theories, dressed up with fabrication and speculation. What it failed to include was any evidence…or any details that didn’t suit his story”.
In her diary, Dr Kate asks God for a sign that He is still there.
Dr Kate explains how they thought about taking legal action against Amaral’s book at the time, but didn’t because: “We did not want to be diverted from our own investigation…For the moment we hoped the fuss would die down and Amaral would let up”.
The McCanns investigate the files. Dr Kate: “While struggling to cope with all this, I had a task of Herculean proportions facing me: combing through the 5,000 or so pages of documentation contained in the case files that had been presented to the prosecutor and received by our lawyers on 31 July”. The McCanns were “pleasantly surprised by the prosecutor’s conclusions and by how emphatic he was about the lack of any evidence to suggest either that Madeleine was dead or that we were involved in her disappearance”.
p. 321
Dr Kate: “For several months we’d been concerned that if the case was closed, it might be closed in a way that left a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over us, so this came as a big relief”.
Dr Kate: “Four days later, the files were released to the media. DVDs containing [various personal details] were being dished out to any journalist who asked for a copy…All those months we’d spent begging for scraps of information about what might have befallen our daughter ad now here was the whole lot being distributed to every Tom, Dick or Harry. There is a big difference between what is in the public interest and what is of interest to the public, and surely when it comes to the dissemination of official police records it is the former that should prevail. It meant we had to seek advice on preventing identity theft and other fraud”.
Dr Kate: “Naturally the media were going to be scouring the files for ‘juicy’ stories and angles, without thought for the consequences for people who had tried to help the investigation”.
Dr Kate: “Witnesses would be frightened off [by the release of all this confidential information]. It was crazy, and yet another blow to our chances of finding Madeleine”.
COMMENT: This is really rich, coming from the McCanns. After all, it was their own man, Brian Kennedy, who according to an article by Mark Hollingsworth in the Evening Standard in August 2009 explain how Kennedy’s men intimidated some witnesses so badly that they were scared of giving evidence to the PJ enquiry, a claim that neither the McCanns nor Kennedy has ever challenged. He did not sue the paper for libel. That is a matter which we have, in writing, asked Leicestershire and Cheshire Police to investigate, but hey have refused to do so.
p. 322
Dr Kate spent ‘six months’ “scrutinising” the PJ files: “…it would be a painful as well as time-consuming labour”. Dr Kate: “The majority of the material was in Portuguese, so one of our first jobs was to find a company to translate it into English. Ultimately, the entire file would be translated, at a cost to Madeleine’s Fund of almost £100,000”.
In her diary, 9 August, Dr Kate writes: “Feeling a bit unsettled and agitated this evening. Going through the files brings back the emotion, desperation and uncertainty…I have a slight flicker of hope that maybe something will emerge soon - but I’m just too scared to go there”.
Dr Kate: “I waded through the documents doggedly”.
p. 323
Dr Kate says how concerned they both were at the revelation of all the sexual crimes being committed against children in the Algarve, in a passage that will win her no new friends in that part of Portugal. She highlights “”…the five cases of British children on holiday being sexually abused in their beds while their parents slept in another room”.
Then: “In three further incidents, children encountered an intruder in their bedrooms, who was presumably disturbed before he had the chance to carry out an assault. I guessed these were the reports that Bill Henderson…had told me about”.
Dr Kate explains how these “had occurred within an hour’s drive of Praia da Luz” (probably meaning they were anything up to 40 miles away). Some of these crimes “hadn’t even been recorded by the authorities”…parents had come forward with their accounts “after Madeleine’s disappearance…in the belief that there could be a link between what had happened to their children ands what had happened to [Madeleine].”
Dr Kate: “It broke my heart to read the terrible accounts of these devastated parents and the experiences of their poor children”.
Dr Kate: “…there was a familiar thread running through them…the parents had called the police; they hadn’t felt that the crime was taken seriously…statements were often not taken; DNA and fingerprint evidence was frequently not sought. In most instances there was no sign of a break-in. I cried for hours after reading a letter of complaint from one mother to the GNR regarding the sexual abuse of her daughter and the lack of proper attention by the authorities. The final line in particular has haunted me ever since: ‘It is difficult to see with this lack of investigation or interest how a profile of this man can be built up. It did not appear to us that there was any great incentive or determination to fund the offender and bring him to justice…Furthermore, it could all have been so much worse…indeed this man could go on to do much worse to another child if he’s not stopped now’.”
Dr Kate: “Six months later, our beloved Madeleine was grabbed from her bed”.
p. 324
But she then acknowledges: “Of course, none of the children were abducted and these crimes may be completely unrelated to what happens to Madeleine...What these cases do demonstrate, however, is that British tourists in holiday accommodation were being targeted…”
Then: “It is so hard not to scream from the rooftops about how those crimes appear to have been brushed under the carpet. The authorities have known about them for a long time and yet the perpetrators, as far as the families are aware, remain free”.
There are then still more strictures about how the bad the police in Portugal and elsewhere are at investigating and addressing children being molested. These criminals “must be tracked down and punishd…”
p. 325
Dr Kate days that Paulo Rebelo “tried to make up for some of the initial inadequacies by checking back for anything that had been overlooked. But the discovery of each missed opportunity was another twist of the knife in my chest”.
In checking the PJ files, Dr Kate: “…found the receptionist’s note in the Ocean Club staff message book explaining that we wanted to book the Tapas restaurant for the rest of the week because we were leaving our children alone in our apartments. I was dismayed. This was a glaring green light to a child-taker - and yet no mention is made of it in the files until December 2007!…I could only conclude that its relevance had not been appreciated by the police”.
COMMENT: This is extraordinary. Dr Kate is claiming that it was the receptionist’s note that may have caused the damage rather than one of her group openly saying to reception: “We’re leaving our children on our own all evening”. What did she expect? Surely the receptionist was only doing her job by noting (a) the fact that they wanted to book the Tapas restaurant and (b) the reason for the request, which I think was somewhat unusual as I read elsewhere that such bookings were not normally made. Did the person from the McCanns’ group who made the booking not realise that it was risky to explain that, to quote Dr Kate’s own words: “We were leaving our children alone in our apartments”? Did that person add: “It’s OK, we’ve made arrangements to check our children regularly on the half-hour”? All the blame is put by the McCanns on the receptionist making a faithful note of the reason for the request to book the Tapas restaurant. It does not seem to have occurred to Dr Kate how risky it was for them to have publicly advertised to the receptionist that, quote: “We are leaving our children alone in our apartments”.
Dr Kate goes on to criticise:
- delays in door-to-door enquiries
- not following up when there was no response to a knock at the door: “as far as I could tell they didn’t get a second visit”
- witness statements were ‘extremely vague and brief’, “crying out for what seemed blindingly obvious and essential questions to be asked and answered”
- ‘sketchy’ statements from Ocean Club staff
- some Ocean Club staff not interviewed at all.
Dr Kate: “Night after night, I read of depraved individuals, British paedophiles, Portuguese paedophiles, Spanish, Dutch and German paedophiles, and of the horrific crimes they’d committed. The police went to visit some of them, looked around their apartments, and recorded merely, ‘No sign of the minor’. Was that enough to eliminate these vile characters from the enquiry?...No description, no photograph, no alibi., no DNA. Just ‘no sign of the minor’.”
p. 326
“It’s difficult not to criticise, and I know I’m a bit of a perfectionist, but honest to God, when your child has been stolen, surely you are entitled to expect more than this. Much more”
There is then a passage dealing with now wrong the recollection of witnesses can be, and she gives one example: “A member of staff at…the Millennium restaurant…said she saw us there every morning having breakfast with the children. She described in detail what a nice family we were and what a lovely relationship we had with Madeleine …but we weren’t there. We had breakfast in the Millennium only once, on our first morning…As I read these statements, it became slightly less baffling to me that Robert Murat and the witnesses who said they saw him on the night Madeleine was taken could all be so certain of their conflicting recollections”.
COMMENT: Conveniently making an excuse for three of her ‘Tapas 7 ‘ friends being so absolutely certain that they saw Robert Murat hanging around the Ocean Club the evening Madeleine was reported missing, even to the extent of confirming this at a confrontation between Murat and them at Portimao Police Station on 11 July 2007.
Dr Kate: “…I was finding testimony [in the PJ files] from witnesses claiming they had seen us in places where we hadn’t been or doing things we’d never done…these inaccurate reports…”
p. 327
Dr Kate says: “At regular intervals Gerry and I met up with Brian Kennedy to discuss progress…”
She doesn’t say where these meetings were. And by this statement she proves conclusively, as we have said many times, that Brian Kennedy has been running the private investigations all along and must tale responsibility, along with the McCanns, for the choices made to engage Metodo 3 and Kevin Halligen. Brian Kennedy is also implicated in hoodwinking the press into believing that his chosen man Dave Edgar, who has apparently been heading the investigation for over two years, ran a thriving private investigations business called ‘Alpha Investigations Group’. He did not.
Dr Kate says that their search of the files showed no evidence that Madeleine was dead- and they learn that most child sex offenders who kill their victims dispose of the body close to the abduction site; this “…increased the chances that she had been removed from the area and in many ways gave us more hope that she was alive”.
COMMENT: Yet in September 2009 Dave Edgar gave interviews maintaining that he was ‘convinced’ that Madeleine was being held ‘in a prison lair’ in the ‘lawless hills’ around Praia da Luz.
p. 328
Dr Kate now discusses the sightings of individuals in the week or two before Madeleine was reported missing. I’ve dealt with this in the Appendix Dr Kate has written on the ‘Sightings’, so won’t repeat that here. She refers to: “…the man and child seen by Jane Tanner…and the similar sighting 45 minutes later by the family from Ireland…To me the similarities seem far more significant than any discrepancy in timing…I am staggered by how alike they are, almost identical in parts. As a lawyer once said to me: ‘One coincidence, two coincidences - maybe they’re still coincidences. Any more than that and it stops being coincidence’. Who knows why there was a 45-minute gap between the two sightings, or where this man might have been in between?…There is nothing normal about stealing a little girl from her bed, so why should his subsequent actions be predictable?”
p. 329
There is then a passage about Robert Murat, based on all that she had read about him in the PJ files. Dr Kate: “I came across nothing that could be classified as hard evidence against him”.
COMMENT: The McCanns know fine well that Robert Murat lied at least 17 times when interviewed by police on 14 May 2007 about his movements between 1 and 4 May, changing his story when re-interviewed by police on 10 and 11 June. Of course, Dr Kate makes no mention of this.
Dr Kate: “I still despair at the lengths to which certain elements of the PJ were prepared to go to try to unearth some sort of evidence to use against us”.
p. 330
There is a long paragraph about the photos of Madeleine that were released on the night Madeleine was reported missing. Dr Kate: “…the posters had been run off, on the night of the abduction, by Amy Tierney, the Mark Warner duty manager, using her own Kodak paper and her own Kodak printer”. There is no explanation of why the McCanns could only find ah old photo of Madeleine to use that night and why the so-called ‘last photo’ was not available to download that very night. As we have suggested elsewhere, there are god reasons to doubt whether Amy Tierney is telling the whole truth. Also, nowhere in the book does Dr Kate explain why there are so few photos of Madeleine taken by them and their group of friends that week.
There is then a passage explaining how British police officers Mark Harrison and dog-handler Martin Grime and Forensic Science Service expert John Lowe all “had no evidence against us”. Mark Harrison is quoted as saying that the alerts of the cadaver dogs must be corroborated by ‘other supporting physical evidence’. Martin Grime says the same, in different words.
p. 331
On this page, Dr Kate reproduces the conclusions of John Lowe’s report, concluding with the words: “In my opinion therefore this result is too complex for meaningful interpretation/inclusion”.
Dr Kate then repeats what she’s said earlier - that even if it could be proved that it was Madeleine’s DNA, there are reasonable explanations for it being found there.
She then complains: “All of this information had been given to the PJ before they interrogated us in September 2007. Yet they chose to ignore it and declared us arguidos regardless”.
Appendix: ‘KEY SIGHTINGS’ (pp. 370 to 386)
This extraordinary section of the book purports to tell us who the McCanns are still looking for.
‘SIGHTINGS 1 AND 2
The emphasis is primarily on:
1) Jane Tanner man/’Bundleman’ and
2) Martin Smith man.
Despite the fact that one was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner carrying a child at precisely 9.15pm and the other by Martin Smith at around 9.50pm to 9.55pm about a quarter-of-a-mile away, Dr Kate in her book seriously suggests that this is the same man. It must be a fairly unusual abductor who steals a child at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm and is then seen the best part of an hour later still wandering around the streets carrying the same child for all the world.
That in itself is contrary to all reason.
But on top of that, Dr Kate makes the following statement: “The similarities [between the two sightings] speak for themselves”. Well, actually, they don’t. For a start, Jane Tanner’s man had long black hair while Martin Smith’s man had ‘short brown hair’. That is a very significant difference.
On top of that we have all the inconsistencies and changes of story in Jane Tanner’s account (which of course Dr Kate doesn’t mention in her book), from which we may safely deduce that her account is fantasy, fabrication in fact.
‘ANOTHER SIX SIGHTINGS: 3 TO 8 ‘
Then, set over several pages, is an impressive table of what are said to be six other ‘sightings’ in the area of men lurking near the McCanns’ apartment by ‘four different ‘independent’ witnesses’.
There is a cautious note by Dr Kate: “The individual may not be the same in all cases”.
There are said to be five reports of a ‘suspicious male’, with three reports placing him standing by a small car park and two further reports having him being ‘observed on the access path’ near Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 3 AND 4
…are said to be by a young girl on two occasions, 8am on 30 April and then again on 2 May. He was ‘ugly, disgusting even’, and appeared to be watching Apartment 5A.
SIGHTINGS 5 AND 6
…are said to be of a man loitering on 29 April between 8am and 9am and again on 2 May of the same man ‘looking over in the direction of 5A’, described as ’very ugly with pitted skin’. This is said to have ’unnerved’ the female witness.
SIGHTING 7
…is said to be of a man ‘staring fixedly towards Apartment 5A on either 2 or 3 May
SIGHTING 8
…is the sighting by Mrs Fenn’s niece (although her name isn’t given in the article) of ‘ man coming out of a first floor apartment’ and ‘behaving suspiciously.
These sightings are all claimed to be ‘highly relevant’ to the McCanns’ private investigation team.
Tony Bennett- Researcher
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CHAPTER 22: 'Standing Up For The Truth' (!!)
by Tony Bennett 15.05.11 13:17
SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Chapter 22 ‘Standing Up For The Truth’
p. 332
The weekend of 13 and 14 September: A persistent caller jumped over the fence into the back garden, tried to get in through the patio doors, then threw a large ceramic plant pot through the window of cousin Anne-Marie’s car. Sean and Amelie call him: ‘The man with the poorly head’.
On the Sunday, extracts of Dr Kate McCann’s diary (seized by the PJ and then handed back to her) were published in the News of the World, which she says came as complete shock to her. Although she accepts that “it was presented in a sympathetic way”, she claimed it was based on a translation from her English into Portuguese and then translated back into English again, so some of it was inaccurate. She gives two examples of inaccurate re-translations.
p. 333
She says that a judge on 27 June 2008 had ordered the destruction by the police of all copies of the diary made by the PJ. She cannot understand, then, how copies reached the News of the World.
Dr Kate’s diary entry 17 September 2008: “I feel like climbing into a hole and staying there. Sometimes it just feels like we are getting tested beyond all limits…I am clinging to my hope that the good God I have always believed exists and that somehow and at some point, he will bring Madeleine back to us”. The News of the World agreed to compensate Dr McCann for this breach of privacy. She does not say whether this compensation was paid into the Find Madeleine Fund or not.
p. 334
She says she contacted Ernie Allen in the U.S.A. in October 2008 to ask if he could help produce an age-progressed image of Madeleine. Dr Kate: “…we were still receiving photographs of blonde toddlers from concerned members of the public asking, ‘Could this be Madeleine?’ We needed to remind everyone that the little girl we were looking for had grown”. He found Glenn, “a patient and understanding forensic artist”. He used “sophisticated computer software, even seeking advice from a forensic anthropologist…”.
Dr Kate: “The first picture of ‘Madeleine, aged six, arrived without warning via email in mid-December. I was devastated. Caught unawares, I could not stop crying…”
Dr Kate: “IT…smacked me in the face with the cruel realisation that I didn’t actually know what my little girl was like any more”.
p. 335
Dr Kate: “…with the help of many more photographs of Madeleine, pictures of Gerry and myself at the same age and a lot of feedback and suggested amendments from me, we arrived at an acceptable or ‘close enough’ resemblance”.
But, the finished picture “looked too American and, though she is pretty, if I’m really honest, I think Madeleine is prettier. Maternal bias again”.
Dr Kate then explains how Goncao Amaral was “still parading his unsavoury theories” and how their legal team began to discuss the probelm.
“We had first talked on the ’phone to Isabel Duarte on 29 November. She was very understanding and sounded nice…to receive sympathy from someone in Portugal was like stepping into a warm bath”.
p. 336
On 7 April 2009 the newspaper Publico,“one of the most respected newspapers in Portugal and well regarded by the country’s opinion-formers”, published ‘pro-Amaral' article. This, says Dr Kate, “was a worrying development”.
Dr Kate then mentions the Channel 4 documentary-with-reconstruction, which we know as the ‘Mockumentary’, which Dr Kate says was “at last, a reconstruction that people would see”. She stayed at home with Sean and Amelie although “I desperately wanted to return to Praia da Luz when the time was right”. The press claimed that “disgruntled workers blamed us for redundancies at the Ocean Club” and “made much of Gerry being ‘heckled’ in Praia da Luz, suddenly forgetting that the world was in economic crisis”, adding that contrary to these reports, “In fact, maybe two people in a good-sized crowd shouted something at [Gerry]. Those holding pictures of Madeleine…didn’t warrant a mention”.
pp. 336-7
Dr Kate: “I’ve always been considered quite a gentle person but those attacks [in the press] stirred up terrible emotions in me. It was as if my whole body was trying to scream but a tightly screwed-on lid was preventing the scream from escaping. Instead I was just howling internally. My punch bag certainly came in handy at times”
p. 337
On 20 April the McCanns decided to sue Amaral, following the press article sympathetic to Amaral in Publico.
The McCanns then went on Oprah Winfrey: “This time we had our age-progressed image to publicise, and the global reach of Oprah’s massively popular show would give us a fantastic opportunity to stamp this on the worldwide public consciousness…this interview was a huge deal. Oprah has more than once been described as the most influential woman in the world. Certainly when she speaks, as they say across the Atlantic, America listens. I was overcome by nerves”.
pp. 337-8
Dr Kate: “Getting ready for the interview on the day was an event in itself. A choice of clothes and shoes had been brought to our hotel…I had my make-up and hair done by two lovely ladies (if only I could look like that every day!)…I was completely I in awe of Oprah…We were so grateful we wanted to hug her. In fact I’m sure we did hug her”….My nervousness intensified, partly because of the enormity of it all, and partly because I knew how important this was for Madeleine…her age-progressed picture would be seen by millions”.
p. 338
On 12 May 2009, on what would have been Madeleine’s 6th birthday, Dr Kate met Isabel Duarte: “I’d been reluctant to spend this emotional day in a meeting but our options were limited…” Dr Kate was very impressed with Isabel: “…pocket dynamo, tiny, attractive, immensely feisty, strong, intelligent, compassionate…you could see the desire for justice burning brightly in her”.
Duarte suggested injuncting Amaral’s book and DVD documentary and then suing him for libel: “It was an inspiring meeting”. Isabel looked Dr Kate in the eye and said: “Today is a very important day for your daughter”.
The next paragraph explains how Amaral was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence “in connection with a case in which three of his officers were accused of torture”. Dr Kate tells her readers about the case of Joana Cipriano, selectively telling us (a) that no body was found (b) that three officers were accused of torture and (c) that Joana’s moth and uncle “claimed they had been tortured into confessing. She concludes this paragraph as follows:
”The officers concerned were cleared but the jury found that Amaral had falsified statements relating to the torture case. His conviction was upheld in the Supreme Couirt inMarch 2011. Joana’s mother is still in jail”.
Dr Kate is not quite right in saying that this decision was made by ‘a jury’, It was in fact a panel of 43 judges and four jurors.
Anyone reading that paragraph would think that a monstrous injustice had been done to Joana’s mother and uncle, whereas in fact both freely confessed to the brutal murder of Joana after she caught them in bed together and they each received sentences of 16 years.
p. 339
Dr Kate goes on to attack Amaral: “Falsifying statements? It was difficult to understand why anyone would believe the theories of a police officer found guilty of such malpractice. While co-ordinating the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, Amaral had been an arguido (suspect). How on earth had he come to be put in charge of an enquiry into the disappearance of another missing child?”
Dr Kate now explains how their ‘lead investigator’ [Dave Edgar] had ’phoned on 22 May to explain that ‘a British tabloid’ would be publishing an article the following day about convicted British paedophile Raymond Hewlett having been at Tavira, on the Algarve, southern Portugal, at the time Madeleine had disappeared: “The proximity of Tavira on the Algarve to Praia da Luz and the fact that this man was a paedophile ticked all the boxes for the redtop papers, and they jumped on the story”.
Dr Kate: We were exasperated. We now knew that there had been hundreds of paedophiles on the Algarve at that time and, if God forbid, one of them had been involved, Hewlett seemed a less likely candidate than a lot of others. He was in his sixties, for a start, much older than the man seen by Jane [Tanner] …”
Nevertheless: “We were desperate for somebody to investigate Hewlett, not because we thought he had anything to do with taking Madeleine but because we wanted to eliminate him from the inquiry…My main worry was that Hewlett, who had terminal throat cancer, would die before anyone took an official statement from him. Then the media would take the line that it was probably him, game over, Madeleine was dead, and we would be left with an uphill struggle to prevent this theory from becoming established”.
These are very deceptive comments by Dr Kate. She and the McCann Team have in fact persistently suggested that Hewlett was connected in some way to Madeleine’s disappearance and they even gave credence to that ridiculous story (in the Sun, 1 September 2010) about Hewlett on his deathbed writing a letter to his estranged son Wayne about knowing the gypsy gang leader who ‘stole’ Madeleine to order. The Sun even published the story after Wayne was said to have ‘burnt’ the letter, thus removing any possibility of substantiating whether any such letter was in fact ever written.
p. 340
Dr Kate: “Sometimes it seemed as if we spent as much time trying to clear the path for our investigation as we did actually investigating…It was so frustrating”.
Dr Kate records that their investigators could not speak to him “unless we paid him to do so” and that Hewlett died a few months later.
On 27 August the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard was publicised. She had been abducted at the age of 11 by a sex offender and was found 18 years later, being kept in an outbuilding in the garden. Whilst conceding that for Jaycee Lee this had been “a tragedy”, Dr Kate goes on: “[Her] experience underlines how children can be hidden for many years and still found alive. This was a positive day not only for Jaycee, but for Madeleine and all missing children…None of us must give up on these children”.
pp. 340-1
Dr Kate now remarks on the “byzantine” workings of the Portuguese legal system in relation to their attempted injunction against Amaral’s book, giving a history of six separate decisions, the first three of which were:
(1) their claim was rejected because ‘the damage [from the sales of Amaral’s book and the viewing of the DVD] had already been done’
(2) they appealed and their appeal was successful; the case was reinstated
(3) they got an injunction against the book and the DVD, after a five-day hearing, on 8 September 2009.
p. 341
The decision was:
Amaral appealed. The McCanns flew out to Portugal on 10 December for the first day of the hearing of his appeal: “Gerry and I felt it was…essential for us to attend to represent Madeleine. She needed somebody to be there for her. She was the victim in all this, not Gonclao Amaral”.
In her diary for 10 December, Dr Kate writes: “Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral - for the fist tie ever, I hasten to add!…that man has caused us so much upset and anger because of how he treated my beautiful Madeleine...he deserves to be miserable and feel fear”.
pp. 341-2
Dr Kate explains how the McCanns had been warned of a possible protest against them, but: “If we backed out, the bullies would have won. We’d come here for Madeleine, and we had no intention of letting her down…In the event, this ‘demonstration’ consisted of two middle-aged women, friends of Goncalo Amaral”.
p. 342
Dr Kate criticises Amaral for never having met her: “It is extraordinary that he could have said and written so many awful things about a person he had never met”.
Then there is a description of him: “He had obviously spruced himself up in recent months. The moustache, gold chain and bulging tummy familiar to me from unflattering newspaper photographs were nowhere to be seen. Now he was sporting a smart haircut, new suit and hat and - an intriguing touch - a diamond earring”.
Dr Kate: “I clutched my wooden holding cross tightly as he walked past…here was the person entrusted with finding our little girl…but then had failed her…by speaking out in a way that in effect hindered other people, ourselves included, from finding her. I couldn’t stop staring at him. It was as if I were trying to look in side his head. If the intensity of a stare could penetrate bone, I’m sure I would have managed it. What made this man tick...How did he manage to sleep at night?”
She says that Luis Neves was also in court: “…but he would not look at me. I was disappointed in him disappointed in myself, too, for putting my faith in him”.
p. 343
Dr Kate talks about herself in Portugal: “Gerry and I were able to seek solace at Nossa Senhora da Luz (the church), I spent time at my rocks on the beach and we caught up with friends. To this day I still return quietly to Luz from time to time to feel Madeleine close to me”.
In the court room, “…Amaral’s cronies greeted him with much sycophantic back-slapping…[it] made me distinctly uncomfortable”.
She recounts the proceedings:
Jose de Magalhaes e Menezes “gave an objective account, reiterating that here was no evidence either that Madeleine was dead or that Gerry and I were involved…”
Ricardo Paiva “…remained quite calm…[but] contradicted himself during his testimony…he believed Goncalo Amaral’s assertion[s]…”
Dr Kate: “The most disturbing thing about this is that it is Paiva who, to this day, received any information about Madeleine coming in to the Portuguese police. If this is what he believes, we have a real concern that he may not be considering such information objectively”.
pp. 343-4
Dr Kate encounters Amaral on the court room steps as she is going to the ‘ladies’: “…our shoulders briefly came within a foot of each other”.
p. 344
At the end of the first day’s session “The press were poised outside like vultures”.
COMMENT: It’s O.K. if the press and media (the Sun, the News of the World, Oprah Winfrey, BBC TV etc.) are recycling the McCanns’ take on their stories, but now the press are ‘vultures’.
The following morning: “Gerry gave a few pertinent statements to the media assembled outside the court in an attempt to redress the balance of the coverage of the previous day’s proceedings.
Dr Kate: “I had to laugh when I saw the front-page headline for the next day’s Daily Express: the arrestingly original ‘MCCANN FURY’. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been driving along, seen that headline on a newsagent’s board and wondered to myself what we were [supposed to be] furious about now. I suppose it just fits the page nicely”.
COMMENT: In fact Gerry McCann had been very defensive and hostile to the media; impatient and angry.
Dr Kate repeats the claim that “Gerry had to leave towards the end of the second day because of work commitments…Fiona kindly agreed to fly out and join me”.
The first two days had “…highlighted the injustices heaped in Madeleine, provoking a lot of anger, exasperation and hurt…”
Dr Kate: “As soon as Fiona and I sat down on the plane [home], everything hit me full in the face: Madeleine, who she is, what I miss, the injustice, our life. I started to cry and couldn’t stop, I was just exhausted by it all”.
p. 345
Dr Kate and Gerry fly separately to Lisbon for the final, fourth day of the injunction appeal - 10 February 2010. On the plane she meets a ‘nice gentleman’ from Porto who support the McCanns.
Dr Kate: “I’ve wished so often to be able to plead with [the Portuguese people]: ‘Don’t believe what has been written about us; please don’t listen to gossip and reckless speculation. We are good people and we love our children dearly. Please give us a chance and help us find our daughter’.”
Dr Kate lists the witnesses who gave evidence in the morning. Then, in the afternoon: “…we returned to the courtroom for the summing-up of each of the lawyers. This was a horrible experience and one which, stupidly, I wasn’t prepared for. The summaries of the defence appear to be focussed more on attacking Gerry and me personally … Amaral’s lawyer also seemed intent on turning it into a U.K.-versus-Portugal battle…”
p. 346
Dr Kate: “…clearly the defence [i.e. Amaral’s team] were trying to incite the Portuguese people and keep public opinion on their side. It was ridiculous and unfair”.
Dr Kate: “I was totally drained by the time we boarded the plane”. They arrived back in Rothley at 2am.
Dr Kate writes in her diary: “I love you, Madeleine. We will keep fighting, regardless of how many battles we have to face…”
On February 18 the McCanns learnt that they had won their appeal; Goncalo Amaral’s book was still banned: “Thank goodness for some sanity…”
On 1 March Amaral was grilled on TV by an aggressive journalist, Miguel Sousa Tavares. Dr Kate expresses delight that “at last the tough questions crying out to be asked of him for two years [were being asked]…”
But on 19 October the Portuguese Appeal Court had reversed the decision of the Lisbon Court on18 February. It was “a bolt from the blue…WE hadn’t even been aware that another judgment was about to be made, and neither was our lawyer. This broadside just came from nowhere. How many appeals was Amaral going to be allowed? How could other judges come along and overturn a decision made by three courts before them?
p. 347
Dr Kate now refers to Amaral’s “poisonous allegations”. There was “more waffle about the injunction contradicting the constituion of Portugal and undermining democracy by prohibiting free speech. Does this mean that a person could go out and start accusing their next-door neighbour of being a serial killer? As I understand freedom of speech, it does not equate to freedom to slander and libel someone with impunity”.
Dr Kate: “It was impossible to comprehend. I felt utterly beaten…”
A sixth decision in the case this year rejected the McCanns’ appeal against the unbanning of Goncalo Amaral’s book. Dr Kate cannot bring herself to mention that it was the Portuguese Supreme Court that made that decision nor that it was their own appeal which had been rejected. Shea dds: “We plan to appeal this latest decision…”, though she does not say how, as this was the final court of appeal in Portugal. Perhaps she means to the European Court of Human Rights?
Dr Kate then mentions the Wikileaks leak of a communication by the U.S. Embassy in Portugal about “…a meeting that [occurred] on 21 September between Alex Ellis, the British Ambassador in Portugal and Alfred Hoffman Jr, the outgoing U.S. Ambassador, in which Ellis tells Hoffman that the British police ‘developed the current evidence against Madeleine’s parents’.
Dr Kate responds:
the cable was three years old
what it contained “didn’t amount to much”
it just refers to “dogs that barked in our apartment and near our car”
“…the British officers did not actually develop evidence as such, because there was no evidence to develop”
it was “old news”
we didn’t pay it much attention
it created “no more than a ripple for a day or so”.
p. 348
But, “to our dismay, the Portuguese press, galvanised by Goncalo Amaral, lapped it up. Off he went on another round of the interview circuit…It was absolutely soul-destroying”.
Dr Kate: “What probably galls me the most about Amaral’s interviews is the way he presents himself as a person who, perhaps above all others, really wants to find Madeleine and get to the bottom of her fate. I cannot begin to express how much this outrages me…There is nobody in the world more desperate than Gerry and me to find our daughter…”
She continues by referring to “the disgraceful slurs thrown at us…How many more times will they be pushed down the throats of the Portuguese public?”
Finally: “Goncalo Amaral has been convicted of falsifying statements and co-ordinated investigations into the disappearance of two little girls, neither of whom has been found. Why is this man being allowed a platform, from which to peddle his absurd and offensive ideas?”
Chapter 22 ‘Standing Up For The Truth’
p. 332
The weekend of 13 and 14 September: A persistent caller jumped over the fence into the back garden, tried to get in through the patio doors, then threw a large ceramic plant pot through the window of cousin Anne-Marie’s car. Sean and Amelie call him: ‘The man with the poorly head’.
On the Sunday, extracts of Dr Kate McCann’s diary (seized by the PJ and then handed back to her) were published in the News of the World, which she says came as complete shock to her. Although she accepts that “it was presented in a sympathetic way”, she claimed it was based on a translation from her English into Portuguese and then translated back into English again, so some of it was inaccurate. She gives two examples of inaccurate re-translations.
p. 333
She says that a judge on 27 June 2008 had ordered the destruction by the police of all copies of the diary made by the PJ. She cannot understand, then, how copies reached the News of the World.
Dr Kate’s diary entry 17 September 2008: “I feel like climbing into a hole and staying there. Sometimes it just feels like we are getting tested beyond all limits…I am clinging to my hope that the good God I have always believed exists and that somehow and at some point, he will bring Madeleine back to us”. The News of the World agreed to compensate Dr McCann for this breach of privacy. She does not say whether this compensation was paid into the Find Madeleine Fund or not.
p. 334
She says she contacted Ernie Allen in the U.S.A. in October 2008 to ask if he could help produce an age-progressed image of Madeleine. Dr Kate: “…we were still receiving photographs of blonde toddlers from concerned members of the public asking, ‘Could this be Madeleine?’ We needed to remind everyone that the little girl we were looking for had grown”. He found Glenn, “a patient and understanding forensic artist”. He used “sophisticated computer software, even seeking advice from a forensic anthropologist…”.
Dr Kate: “The first picture of ‘Madeleine, aged six, arrived without warning via email in mid-December. I was devastated. Caught unawares, I could not stop crying…”
Dr Kate: “IT…smacked me in the face with the cruel realisation that I didn’t actually know what my little girl was like any more”.
p. 335
Dr Kate: “…with the help of many more photographs of Madeleine, pictures of Gerry and myself at the same age and a lot of feedback and suggested amendments from me, we arrived at an acceptable or ‘close enough’ resemblance”.
But, the finished picture “looked too American and, though she is pretty, if I’m really honest, I think Madeleine is prettier. Maternal bias again”.
Dr Kate then explains how Goncao Amaral was “still parading his unsavoury theories” and how their legal team began to discuss the probelm.
“We had first talked on the ’phone to Isabel Duarte on 29 November. She was very understanding and sounded nice…to receive sympathy from someone in Portugal was like stepping into a warm bath”.
p. 336
On 7 April 2009 the newspaper Publico,“one of the most respected newspapers in Portugal and well regarded by the country’s opinion-formers”, published ‘pro-Amaral' article. This, says Dr Kate, “was a worrying development”.
Dr Kate then mentions the Channel 4 documentary-with-reconstruction, which we know as the ‘Mockumentary’, which Dr Kate says was “at last, a reconstruction that people would see”. She stayed at home with Sean and Amelie although “I desperately wanted to return to Praia da Luz when the time was right”. The press claimed that “disgruntled workers blamed us for redundancies at the Ocean Club” and “made much of Gerry being ‘heckled’ in Praia da Luz, suddenly forgetting that the world was in economic crisis”, adding that contrary to these reports, “In fact, maybe two people in a good-sized crowd shouted something at [Gerry]. Those holding pictures of Madeleine…didn’t warrant a mention”.
pp. 336-7
Dr Kate: “I’ve always been considered quite a gentle person but those attacks [in the press] stirred up terrible emotions in me. It was as if my whole body was trying to scream but a tightly screwed-on lid was preventing the scream from escaping. Instead I was just howling internally. My punch bag certainly came in handy at times”
p. 337
On 20 April the McCanns decided to sue Amaral, following the press article sympathetic to Amaral in Publico.
The McCanns then went on Oprah Winfrey: “This time we had our age-progressed image to publicise, and the global reach of Oprah’s massively popular show would give us a fantastic opportunity to stamp this on the worldwide public consciousness…this interview was a huge deal. Oprah has more than once been described as the most influential woman in the world. Certainly when she speaks, as they say across the Atlantic, America listens. I was overcome by nerves”.
pp. 337-8
Dr Kate: “Getting ready for the interview on the day was an event in itself. A choice of clothes and shoes had been brought to our hotel…I had my make-up and hair done by two lovely ladies (if only I could look like that every day!)…I was completely I in awe of Oprah…We were so grateful we wanted to hug her. In fact I’m sure we did hug her”….My nervousness intensified, partly because of the enormity of it all, and partly because I knew how important this was for Madeleine…her age-progressed picture would be seen by millions”.
p. 338
On 12 May 2009, on what would have been Madeleine’s 6th birthday, Dr Kate met Isabel Duarte: “I’d been reluctant to spend this emotional day in a meeting but our options were limited…” Dr Kate was very impressed with Isabel: “…pocket dynamo, tiny, attractive, immensely feisty, strong, intelligent, compassionate…you could see the desire for justice burning brightly in her”.
Duarte suggested injuncting Amaral’s book and DVD documentary and then suing him for libel: “It was an inspiring meeting”. Isabel looked Dr Kate in the eye and said: “Today is a very important day for your daughter”.
The next paragraph explains how Amaral was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence “in connection with a case in which three of his officers were accused of torture”. Dr Kate tells her readers about the case of Joana Cipriano, selectively telling us (a) that no body was found (b) that three officers were accused of torture and (c) that Joana’s moth and uncle “claimed they had been tortured into confessing. She concludes this paragraph as follows:
”The officers concerned were cleared but the jury found that Amaral had falsified statements relating to the torture case. His conviction was upheld in the Supreme Couirt inMarch 2011. Joana’s mother is still in jail”.
Dr Kate is not quite right in saying that this decision was made by ‘a jury’, It was in fact a panel of 43 judges and four jurors.
Anyone reading that paragraph would think that a monstrous injustice had been done to Joana’s mother and uncle, whereas in fact both freely confessed to the brutal murder of Joana after she caught them in bed together and they each received sentences of 16 years.
p. 339
Dr Kate goes on to attack Amaral: “Falsifying statements? It was difficult to understand why anyone would believe the theories of a police officer found guilty of such malpractice. While co-ordinating the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, Amaral had been an arguido (suspect). How on earth had he come to be put in charge of an enquiry into the disappearance of another missing child?”
Dr Kate now explains how their ‘lead investigator’ [Dave Edgar] had ’phoned on 22 May to explain that ‘a British tabloid’ would be publishing an article the following day about convicted British paedophile Raymond Hewlett having been at Tavira, on the Algarve, southern Portugal, at the time Madeleine had disappeared: “The proximity of Tavira on the Algarve to Praia da Luz and the fact that this man was a paedophile ticked all the boxes for the redtop papers, and they jumped on the story”.
Dr Kate: We were exasperated. We now knew that there had been hundreds of paedophiles on the Algarve at that time and, if God forbid, one of them had been involved, Hewlett seemed a less likely candidate than a lot of others. He was in his sixties, for a start, much older than the man seen by Jane [Tanner] …”
Nevertheless: “We were desperate for somebody to investigate Hewlett, not because we thought he had anything to do with taking Madeleine but because we wanted to eliminate him from the inquiry…My main worry was that Hewlett, who had terminal throat cancer, would die before anyone took an official statement from him. Then the media would take the line that it was probably him, game over, Madeleine was dead, and we would be left with an uphill struggle to prevent this theory from becoming established”.
These are very deceptive comments by Dr Kate. She and the McCann Team have in fact persistently suggested that Hewlett was connected in some way to Madeleine’s disappearance and they even gave credence to that ridiculous story (in the Sun, 1 September 2010) about Hewlett on his deathbed writing a letter to his estranged son Wayne about knowing the gypsy gang leader who ‘stole’ Madeleine to order. The Sun even published the story after Wayne was said to have ‘burnt’ the letter, thus removing any possibility of substantiating whether any such letter was in fact ever written.
p. 340
Dr Kate: “Sometimes it seemed as if we spent as much time trying to clear the path for our investigation as we did actually investigating…It was so frustrating”.
Dr Kate records that their investigators could not speak to him “unless we paid him to do so” and that Hewlett died a few months later.
On 27 August the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard was publicised. She had been abducted at the age of 11 by a sex offender and was found 18 years later, being kept in an outbuilding in the garden. Whilst conceding that for Jaycee Lee this had been “a tragedy”, Dr Kate goes on: “[Her] experience underlines how children can be hidden for many years and still found alive. This was a positive day not only for Jaycee, but for Madeleine and all missing children…None of us must give up on these children”.
pp. 340-1
Dr Kate now remarks on the “byzantine” workings of the Portuguese legal system in relation to their attempted injunction against Amaral’s book, giving a history of six separate decisions, the first three of which were:
(1) their claim was rejected because ‘the damage [from the sales of Amaral’s book and the viewing of the DVD] had already been done’
(2) they appealed and their appeal was successful; the case was reinstated
(3) they got an injunction against the book and the DVD, after a five-day hearing, on 8 September 2009.
p. 341
The decision was:
- All unsold copies of the book must be removed from shops and warehouses across Europe
- They must be deposited with the McCanns’ lawyer, Isabel Duarte.
Amaral appealed. The McCanns flew out to Portugal on 10 December for the first day of the hearing of his appeal: “Gerry and I felt it was…essential for us to attend to represent Madeleine. She needed somebody to be there for her. She was the victim in all this, not Gonclao Amaral”.
In her diary for 10 December, Dr Kate writes: “Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral - for the fist tie ever, I hasten to add!…that man has caused us so much upset and anger because of how he treated my beautiful Madeleine...he deserves to be miserable and feel fear”.
pp. 341-2
Dr Kate explains how the McCanns had been warned of a possible protest against them, but: “If we backed out, the bullies would have won. We’d come here for Madeleine, and we had no intention of letting her down…In the event, this ‘demonstration’ consisted of two middle-aged women, friends of Goncalo Amaral”.
p. 342
Dr Kate criticises Amaral for never having met her: “It is extraordinary that he could have said and written so many awful things about a person he had never met”.
Then there is a description of him: “He had obviously spruced himself up in recent months. The moustache, gold chain and bulging tummy familiar to me from unflattering newspaper photographs were nowhere to be seen. Now he was sporting a smart haircut, new suit and hat and - an intriguing touch - a diamond earring”.
Dr Kate: “I clutched my wooden holding cross tightly as he walked past…here was the person entrusted with finding our little girl…but then had failed her…by speaking out in a way that in effect hindered other people, ourselves included, from finding her. I couldn’t stop staring at him. It was as if I were trying to look in side his head. If the intensity of a stare could penetrate bone, I’m sure I would have managed it. What made this man tick...How did he manage to sleep at night?”
She says that Luis Neves was also in court: “…but he would not look at me. I was disappointed in him disappointed in myself, too, for putting my faith in him”.
p. 343
Dr Kate talks about herself in Portugal: “Gerry and I were able to seek solace at Nossa Senhora da Luz (the church), I spent time at my rocks on the beach and we caught up with friends. To this day I still return quietly to Luz from time to time to feel Madeleine close to me”.
In the court room, “…Amaral’s cronies greeted him with much sycophantic back-slapping…[it] made me distinctly uncomfortable”.
She recounts the proceedings:
Jose de Magalhaes e Menezes “gave an objective account, reiterating that here was no evidence either that Madeleine was dead or that Gerry and I were involved…”
Ricardo Paiva “…remained quite calm…[but] contradicted himself during his testimony…he believed Goncalo Amaral’s assertion[s]…”
Dr Kate: “The most disturbing thing about this is that it is Paiva who, to this day, received any information about Madeleine coming in to the Portuguese police. If this is what he believes, we have a real concern that he may not be considering such information objectively”.
pp. 343-4
Dr Kate encounters Amaral on the court room steps as she is going to the ‘ladies’: “…our shoulders briefly came within a foot of each other”.
p. 344
At the end of the first day’s session “The press were poised outside like vultures”.
COMMENT: It’s O.K. if the press and media (the Sun, the News of the World, Oprah Winfrey, BBC TV etc.) are recycling the McCanns’ take on their stories, but now the press are ‘vultures’.
The following morning: “Gerry gave a few pertinent statements to the media assembled outside the court in an attempt to redress the balance of the coverage of the previous day’s proceedings.
Dr Kate: “I had to laugh when I saw the front-page headline for the next day’s Daily Express: the arrestingly original ‘MCCANN FURY’. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been driving along, seen that headline on a newsagent’s board and wondered to myself what we were [supposed to be] furious about now. I suppose it just fits the page nicely”.
COMMENT: In fact Gerry McCann had been very defensive and hostile to the media; impatient and angry.
Dr Kate repeats the claim that “Gerry had to leave towards the end of the second day because of work commitments…Fiona kindly agreed to fly out and join me”.
The first two days had “…highlighted the injustices heaped in Madeleine, provoking a lot of anger, exasperation and hurt…”
Dr Kate: “As soon as Fiona and I sat down on the plane [home], everything hit me full in the face: Madeleine, who she is, what I miss, the injustice, our life. I started to cry and couldn’t stop, I was just exhausted by it all”.
p. 345
Dr Kate and Gerry fly separately to Lisbon for the final, fourth day of the injunction appeal - 10 February 2010. On the plane she meets a ‘nice gentleman’ from Porto who support the McCanns.
Dr Kate: “I’ve wished so often to be able to plead with [the Portuguese people]: ‘Don’t believe what has been written about us; please don’t listen to gossip and reckless speculation. We are good people and we love our children dearly. Please give us a chance and help us find our daughter’.”
Dr Kate lists the witnesses who gave evidence in the morning. Then, in the afternoon: “…we returned to the courtroom for the summing-up of each of the lawyers. This was a horrible experience and one which, stupidly, I wasn’t prepared for. The summaries of the defence appear to be focussed more on attacking Gerry and me personally … Amaral’s lawyer also seemed intent on turning it into a U.K.-versus-Portugal battle…”
p. 346
Dr Kate: “…clearly the defence [i.e. Amaral’s team] were trying to incite the Portuguese people and keep public opinion on their side. It was ridiculous and unfair”.
Dr Kate: “I was totally drained by the time we boarded the plane”. They arrived back in Rothley at 2am.
Dr Kate writes in her diary: “I love you, Madeleine. We will keep fighting, regardless of how many battles we have to face…”
On February 18 the McCanns learnt that they had won their appeal; Goncalo Amaral’s book was still banned: “Thank goodness for some sanity…”
On 1 March Amaral was grilled on TV by an aggressive journalist, Miguel Sousa Tavares. Dr Kate expresses delight that “at last the tough questions crying out to be asked of him for two years [were being asked]…”
But on 19 October the Portuguese Appeal Court had reversed the decision of the Lisbon Court on18 February. It was “a bolt from the blue…WE hadn’t even been aware that another judgment was about to be made, and neither was our lawyer. This broadside just came from nowhere. How many appeals was Amaral going to be allowed? How could other judges come along and overturn a decision made by three courts before them?
p. 347
Dr Kate now refers to Amaral’s “poisonous allegations”. There was “more waffle about the injunction contradicting the constituion of Portugal and undermining democracy by prohibiting free speech. Does this mean that a person could go out and start accusing their next-door neighbour of being a serial killer? As I understand freedom of speech, it does not equate to freedom to slander and libel someone with impunity”.
Dr Kate: “It was impossible to comprehend. I felt utterly beaten…”
A sixth decision in the case this year rejected the McCanns’ appeal against the unbanning of Goncalo Amaral’s book. Dr Kate cannot bring herself to mention that it was the Portuguese Supreme Court that made that decision nor that it was their own appeal which had been rejected. Shea dds: “We plan to appeal this latest decision…”, though she does not say how, as this was the final court of appeal in Portugal. Perhaps she means to the European Court of Human Rights?
Dr Kate then mentions the Wikileaks leak of a communication by the U.S. Embassy in Portugal about “…a meeting that [occurred] on 21 September between Alex Ellis, the British Ambassador in Portugal and Alfred Hoffman Jr, the outgoing U.S. Ambassador, in which Ellis tells Hoffman that the British police ‘developed the current evidence against Madeleine’s parents’.
Dr Kate responds:
the cable was three years old
what it contained “didn’t amount to much”
it just refers to “dogs that barked in our apartment and near our car”
“…the British officers did not actually develop evidence as such, because there was no evidence to develop”
it was “old news”
we didn’t pay it much attention
it created “no more than a ripple for a day or so”.
p. 348
But, “to our dismay, the Portuguese press, galvanised by Goncalo Amaral, lapped it up. Off he went on another round of the interview circuit…It was absolutely soul-destroying”.
Dr Kate: “What probably galls me the most about Amaral’s interviews is the way he presents himself as a person who, perhaps above all others, really wants to find Madeleine and get to the bottom of her fate. I cannot begin to express how much this outrages me…There is nobody in the world more desperate than Gerry and me to find our daughter…”
She continues by referring to “the disgraceful slurs thrown at us…How many more times will they be pushed down the throats of the Portuguese public?”
Finally: “Goncalo Amaral has been convicted of falsifying statements and co-ordinated investigations into the disappearance of two little girls, neither of whom has been found. Why is this man being allowed a platform, from which to peddle his absurd and offensive ideas?”
Tony Bennett- Researcher
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by ufercoffy 15.05.11 13:33
Thank you Tony 
I'm also looking forward to PeterMac's summary and critique from a policeman's point of view
I'm also looking forward to PeterMac's summary and critique from a policeman's point of view
____________________
Whose cadaver scent and bodily fluid was found in the McCann's apartment and hire car if not Madeleine's?
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by lj 15.05.11 14:03
Thank you, Tony, what an inmense work you've done.
____________________
"And if Madeleine had hurt herself inside the apartment, why would that be our fault?" Gerry
http://pjga.blogspot.co.uk/?m=0
http://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.co.uk/
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by HotlipsHealy 16.05.11 17:51
I've been reading this before I decided to join. This is such a useful summary of the book! Thank you for your hard work.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by lj 16.05.11 18:15
I tell you, Kate is one sick puppy. She seems to be able to find new lows when everyone thinks it a not possible anymore. You're a hero Tony, don't forget to take an extra long bath and plan a vacation after this.
____________________
"And if Madeleine had hurt herself inside the apartment, why would that be our fault?" Gerry
http://pjga.blogspot.co.uk/?m=0
http://whatreallyhappenedtomadeleinemccann.blogspot.co.uk/
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by ROSA 17.05.11 0:47
A very helpful book full of Lies & deception ( kate's new versions of her old lies)
Incriminating new information that could nail the mccanns
Kate mccanns mental status and much much more......
Incriminating new information that could nail the mccanns
Kate mccanns mental status and much much more......
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CHAPTER 23 (final Chapter) - pages 349-369
by Tony Bennett 18.05.11 8:11
I have now completed the summary and critique of Chaper 22, on page 6 of this thread, and now add an analysis of the final Chapter, Chapter 23. I've now added comments on the book from page 178 to the end.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Chapter 23 ‘Adapting to our New Life’
p. 349
Dr Kate says that on 4 May 2007 she changed from being Dr Kate Helay to being ‘Kate McCann’…“I’d become a different person…”
The next paragraph is about Madeleine becoming known as ‘Maddie’; Dr Kate: Madeleine would be the first person to correct anyone who makes the mistake of a shortening her name. I’m not Maddie. I’m Madeleine’. And quite right too…the press know what her name is and yet to this day they insist on calling her Maddie or Maddy. I find it quite disrespectful”.
Dr Kate: “We have all changed from the people we were. Gerry’s family miss their fun and gregarioius ‘baby’ brother…[he is now] a much more serious sibling who is always busy and usually exhausted. I’m certainly not as laid-back as I was…I’ve become more cynical…a little spark that used to be within me is missing”.
p. 350
There are then some paragraphs about the feelings of Dr Kate and Dr Gerry and how their life has changed. There is “the solid relationship between Gerry and me”, “…how lucky Gerry and I were to have found each other...I do feel lucky…The fact that we’re still together and doing OK is…quite an achievement…The statistics show that most marriages subjected to such traumatic experiences break down”.
But: “…Gerry was functioning much sooner than I was. I felt a tinge of resentment that he was managing to operate and I wasn’t; sometimes I found it almost offensive…On other days I would feel a failure for not being capable of doing as much for Madeleine as I could…I was consumed by my own grief [and] simply couldn’t give anything.
p. 351
Dr Kate: “Madeleine is there in my head all the time. Either I am consciously thinking about her or some reflex brings her into my mind, whatever I am talking about or doing…I know that being preoccupied and consumed isn’t helpful, either to her or to me”.
Dr Kate: “The awful sense of Madeleine’s fear I once experienced every waking hour has, however, eased a little. What remains is a lasting awareness of the terror she would’ve felt in the disorienting moment she first opened her eyes to find herself with a stranger. I cannot imagine this will ever fade completely”.
Dr Kate: “It was a long time before I was able to allow myself to take any real pleasure in anything. I couldn’t watch television, read a book, listen to music or follow the football, as I might have done to relax in my old life. I couldn’t go out to the cinema or out for a meal. I couldn’t browse in the shops…How could I possibly take pleasure in anything without my daughter?”
p. 352
Dr Kate: “Gerry…was able to switch off from time to time and I’m sure that was a great help to him. I felt guilty for his sake that I couldn’t do the same”.
There is a lot more about Gerry’s feelings and her feelings.
Examples:
“There’s something particularly distressing about seeing a strong man reduced to a heap, crying like a baby…”
He was crying while sitting with Sean and Amelie watching Madeleine and Gerry’s favourite episode of ‘Dr Who’.
“Occasionally…I’ve longed for a chance to…even just to feel Gerry’s arm around my shoulder, but he simply hasn’t had the strength”.
p. 353
“Gerry’s worst days don’t usually coincide with mine...”
“I took a cognitive approach to getting our sexual relationship back on track…It seems to have worked”.
Dr Kate: “…I was gradually, very gradually, able to allow myself some pleasure and relaxation in general…it certainly took well over a year…Just acknowledging this slow personal ‘improvement’, however, brings a wave of guilt over me. My life is weighed down with guilt: Guilt for what happened to Madeleine, guilt at surviving this whole horror, guilt that our family…have had to experience any of it, guilt for not being quite the person or wife I once was…guilt about talking even five minutes for myself. Perhaps being a mother and a Catholic is a double whammy when it comes to guilt”.
p. 354
And then: “…the knowledge that I am a stronger and more able woman that I was a couple of years ago helps me to shake of a little of that guilt: I recognise this as a postive development, for Gerry, for Sean and Amelie, and for Madeleine”.
On 10 December the McCanns went to a Golf Society dance; they danced and Dr Kate “actually enjoyed it. It felt a little strange but I wasn’t consumed with guilt as is often the case in these situations. Gerry looked really happy, almost glowing. It felt good to share some smiles and laugher with my lovely husband”.
Dr Kate then explains how their ‘Tapas 7’ friends “live with the additional trauma of having been with us when the abduction took place…”
p. 355
Dr Kate says that some of her friends have suffered major problems in their lives, such as family bereavements and cancer, but “…sometimes our depleted reserves of time and strength have prevented us from doing as much as we would have wanted [to help them]”. Another paragraph discusses their feelings towards their friends and their friends’ feelings towards them.
p. 356
Just as Alan Pike predicted, the McCanns have lost some old friends but also made new ones. People’s reactions to them are discussed in another paragraph. Some find it all “too painful to bear”.
“One of the big changes in our life has been the loss of our anonymity – something I’d always taken for granted…Cynics will argue that we ‘courted’ the media (God, how I detest that expression)”.
p. 357
Dr Kate: “Every decision we have made in the last four years, and every encounter with the press, has been undertaken in Madeleine’s interest, not ours”.
Dr Kate continues that”…Our relationship with the media remains finely balanced and uneasy”. There are many comments emphasising how the press is necessary so that the public can be reached and help ‘continue the search for Madeleine’ and to enable them to “publicise requests for information related to any new developments in our investigation”.
COMMENT: Like being seen wandering behind a couple in Dubai, like looking for an Australian-speaking ‘Victoria Beckham-lookalike’, and like looking for a gypsy gang leader in Portugal who was collecting European children for wealthy North African families and once had a drinking session with now-dead paedophile Raymond Paedophile who on his deathbed wrote a letter (delivered by a ‘mystery man’) to a son who hated him and from whom he’d been estranged for 20 years or more and whose son then burnt the letter before deciding to speak to the Sun about its contents.
Dr Kate: “Engaging with the media is like riding a tiger”.
There is then a long paragraph about how Dr Kate feels ‘very self-conscious in public places’ and how she now finds shopping: “…a trial. When I have to do it, I fly in and out as quickly as possible”.
p. 358
She once went shopping and was “feeling exposed [with] tears welling up. A colleague suddenly grabbed her by the arm and said: ‘Kate, you look so scared. Hold your head up. You have nothing to feel bad about’. I worried that if people saw me smile or laugh, they’d think it was inappropriate. After all, I thought it inappropriate myself”.
Dr Kate: “I even worried about silly things like shoppers spotting me buying groceries in Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury’s and frowning on me for not going somewhere cheaper like Aldi and putting the pennies saved into Madeleine’s Fund”.
Then she was also afraid when Sean and Amelie were having tantrums and Dr Kate would worry about what people would think of how she handled them: “I was unsure how I should react…In my old life there would probably have been a few stern words…Now, though, with everyone watching me, I didn’t feel I could speak firmly to them in public, let alone raise my voice”.
p. 359
A couple of paragraphs deal with how Sean reacted when taken for swimming lessons. Initially he cried buckets, screaming: ‘I want my Mummy’. But after a few lessons, he was fine and has learnt how to swim.
Some people are very kind: “It is heartening and comforting when shoppers come up to me in the supermarket and say: ‘How are you, Kate? We’re all behind you’.”
p. 360
There is more about visiting psychics and mediums, one of whom knocked on the McCanns’ door as they were having Christmas dinner; others just drop by and say: ‘I thought we’d call in on you while we were travelling this way’. Dr Kate: “…some of their actions can be a little disconcerting”.
Dr Kate: “I feel much more vulnerable than I did four years ago, particularly as a parent”…I’d never, ever considered the possibility that a man night steal my baby from her bed. Since that night my anxieties for Sean and Amelie have escalated. I’ve worried more about accidents, illness and, not surprisingly, about whom they are in contact with”.
Dr Kate: “I’ve worried about the future, about the children going off to university…I don’t want them to go. I want to hang on to them and keep them close and safe…”
COMMENT: Yet she spends a fair amount of time away from them…going to meetings, doing interviews, attending conferences with lawyers, court hearings, visiting the Hubbards in Praia da Luz regularly, and so on.
Dr Kate has “spoken to Alan Pike about my fears…”
Dr Kate: “As advised by the experts, we’ve tried always to be open with Sean and Amelie and to answer all their questions truthfully as they arise”. She explain that Amelie “…became preoccupied with the idea that Madeleine might have run away…” The McCanns countered this by “…explaining the abduction to the children in the simplest and least frightening way we could…somebody had wanted her and taken her away”.
COMMENT: Not an easy task, explaining how a ‘monster’ took their sister from her bed one night.
p. 361
The children “…dealt with this new knowledge in a very matter-of-fact way: a naughty man had stolen their sister and now what we must do was find her. As they grow up, we continue to respond to everything they ask us carefully but honestly”.
Dr Kate: “…hand on heart, Sean and Amelie today are incredibly happy children, remarkably well adjusted, well rounded and emotionally in tune. We are so proud of them...In the years to come, I am sure they will find some solace in the fact that their Mum and Dad did everything in their power to find their big sister”.
Then follows some more paragraphs on her religious views.
Dr Kate says she’s doubted God’s existence and “been angry with Him. I’ve shouted out loud and on occasion I’ve hit things (I’m afraid even the church pews have had the odd thumping!)”.
She continues: “What I do wrestle with…is the inexplicable fact that despite so many prayers, almost total global awareness, and a vast amount of hard work, we still do not have an answer”.
p. 362
Dr Kate: “Millions have prayed [for Madeleine]. So if Madeleine is alive, why hasn’t God brought her back to us?…surely He could lead us to the truth and put a stop to the terrible anguish of not knowing?…how long do we have to wait?”
She continues: “How can so much suffering and injustice be heaped upon one family? It is said that God only gives you a cross He knows you can bear. Well, I’m afraid this cross has been far too heavy for far too long. For now, though, at least, my anger towards Gpd seems to have subsided…”
Dr Kate: “Darwin’s theories and chance don’t cover it for me…I believe in Him…”
Dr Kate: “I sometimes end up having serious words with God about His slow progress…Maybe I just need to be patient and trust Him”.
Dr Kate: There is one thing of which I am confident: I believe wherever Madeleine is, God is with her”, but…
Dr Kate: “Gerry has certainly struggled over the last year with his faith…he still believes in God [but] is no longer convinced of the power of prayer. In his words: ‘If prayer worked, we would’ve had Madeleine back a long time ago’.”
p. 363
Dr Kate: “Gerry has always believed that everyone possesses God-given talents which we should use to the best of our ability…”
The next paragraph explains how what has happened to Madeleine has “greatly increased public awareness…”
But not, says Dr Kate, public awareness of the risks of leaving very young, highly vulnerable children on their own.
No, for Dr Kate, what has happened to Madeleine has raised awareness of “…the whole issue of missing, abducted and exploited children”. There follows a list of the ‘missing children’ organisations that they have “tried to support”.
She refers to the celebrity bash they had at Richard Branson’s Rooftop Restaurant in Kensington on the 1000th day since Madeleine was reported missing. It raised £45,000; half for ‘Madeleine’s Fund’ and the other half for ‘Missing People’ and ‘Missing Children Europe’.
Dr Kate emphasises how organisations have benefited from their campaigning: “In the wake of our 2008 campaign calling for a co-ordinated Europe-wide child alert rescue system, the Eiropean Parliament dedicated one million euros to fund projects aimed at developing interconnected child rescue alerts”. There is more about how these ‘child rescue’ schemes have developed, for example: “The U.K.’s new nationally co-ordinated child rescue alert was launched on International Missing Children’s Day, 25 May, 2010”.
p. 364
Dr Kate speaks of her hopes that “…national governments will demonstrate the will to protect our children, and acknowledge their moral obligation to do so”.
COMMENT: Unfortunately, she says nothing about the need to tighten laws to discourage parents from leaving young children on their own.
Then: “Sean and Amelie often talk about how their sister might escape, how we could rescue her and what they would do to the ‘naughty man’ who stole her”.
A long paragraph thanks Leicestershire Police and Jim Gamble, former Head of CEOP, for their help. Then: “…a harsh fact remains. Since July 2008, there has been no police force anywhere actively investigating what has happened to Madeleine. We are the only people looking for her”.
Dr Kate then says she wants police forces across Europe to have “a more joined-up approach” to finding missing children. It happens, she says, in “crimes involving drugs, money-laundering and terrorism”, but not missing children.
p. 365
Dr Kate then develops the case for “An independent investigative review…”
She asks: “Who is the man Jane Tanner saw carrying a child?” and “Who is the man seen watching the apartment in the days before?” and “Have all those in the vicinity of the Ocean Club that spring…been eliminated on solid grounds?”
And: “There are still people who have not been interviewed”.
p. 366
Dr Kate: “There are lessons to be learned for the future, in terms of both the handling of crimes against children and the treatment we have received from the authorities…”
And: “…the perpetrator of this monstrous crime remains at large…[he] has been anonymous for far too long”.
Then: “We are still pressing the British and Portuguese governments to do more, or at least something”. She discloses that former Labour Home Secretary asked CEOP to carry out a ‘scoping exercise’ to establish whether a review could be of benefit. It was delivered to the Home Office in March 2010. She adds: “Although we have not seen it, it has been widely reported that it highlights some deficiencies in the investigation and hence areas that merit further attention”.
She explains that she has also met current Home Secretary Theresa may and “we have written to her several times”, but: “Currently we do not know whether we are any further forward”. She refers to their online petition in support of a review and whinges that they are “at a loss to understand” why the government and police have not agreed to a review and “why our request for such a review has gone unanswered”.
p. 367
The first paragraph on this page complains that “Crucially, we do not have access to all of the information that has come in to the inquiry”.
COMMENT: The McCanns claim that they want access to those witness statements and documents that the PJ have withheld in order to trace evidence of a possible abductor. Others suggest that it is because the McCanns want to know what the PJ has on them, in order to defend themselves against what might be incriminating evidence against them in those files.
Dr Kate says that these hidden PJ files are just “gathering dust”.
Then: “Madeleine is still alive until someone proves otherwise…there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest she has come to any harm, other than as a result of being separated from her family”.
Another paragraph lists the “many examples if abducted children being recovered years later”. They include:
Carlina White, stolen from hospital and traced 23 years later
Shaun Hornbeck, abducted when 10 and “recovered four years later”
Crystal Anzaldi, “snatched” at 14 months and “found” seven years later
Stephen Stayner, “kidnapped at seven, escaped from his abductor seven years later”
Jaycee Lee Dugard, who spent 18 years with her abductor (aged 11 to 29) before being found.
Dr Kate asks: “How many more children are out there waiting to be found?” Bolstered by this hope, we have moved forward”.
p. 368
Dr Kate: “We love [Madeleine] beyond words. We will never give up on her. We will not allow our story to end here”.
Dr Kate appeals for information…”If you know what has happened to her or where she is now, please open your heart and let us know. It is never too late to do the right thing”.
She closes by giving a PO Box to write to and the ’phone number of the investigation hotline - the very same telephone number used in 2008 by callers to the number and whose calls, according to the Director of Virginia. U.S.A.-based company iJet, were not followed up, indeed were totally ignored, by the McCanns and their advisers.
p. 369 is titled “A Call to Action” and asks people to “write to the Home Secretary and Prime Minister urging the British and Portuguese authorities to commission a joint, independent and comprehensive review of Madeleine’s case”.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE
Chapter 23 ‘Adapting to our New Life’
p. 349
Dr Kate says that on 4 May 2007 she changed from being Dr Kate Helay to being ‘Kate McCann’…“I’d become a different person…”
The next paragraph is about Madeleine becoming known as ‘Maddie’; Dr Kate: Madeleine would be the first person to correct anyone who makes the mistake of a shortening her name. I’m not Maddie. I’m Madeleine’. And quite right too…the press know what her name is and yet to this day they insist on calling her Maddie or Maddy. I find it quite disrespectful”.
Dr Kate: “We have all changed from the people we were. Gerry’s family miss their fun and gregarioius ‘baby’ brother…[he is now] a much more serious sibling who is always busy and usually exhausted. I’m certainly not as laid-back as I was…I’ve become more cynical…a little spark that used to be within me is missing”.
p. 350
There are then some paragraphs about the feelings of Dr Kate and Dr Gerry and how their life has changed. There is “the solid relationship between Gerry and me”, “…how lucky Gerry and I were to have found each other...I do feel lucky…The fact that we’re still together and doing OK is…quite an achievement…The statistics show that most marriages subjected to such traumatic experiences break down”.
But: “…Gerry was functioning much sooner than I was. I felt a tinge of resentment that he was managing to operate and I wasn’t; sometimes I found it almost offensive…On other days I would feel a failure for not being capable of doing as much for Madeleine as I could…I was consumed by my own grief [and] simply couldn’t give anything.
p. 351
Dr Kate: “Madeleine is there in my head all the time. Either I am consciously thinking about her or some reflex brings her into my mind, whatever I am talking about or doing…I know that being preoccupied and consumed isn’t helpful, either to her or to me”.
Dr Kate: “The awful sense of Madeleine’s fear I once experienced every waking hour has, however, eased a little. What remains is a lasting awareness of the terror she would’ve felt in the disorienting moment she first opened her eyes to find herself with a stranger. I cannot imagine this will ever fade completely”.
Dr Kate: “It was a long time before I was able to allow myself to take any real pleasure in anything. I couldn’t watch television, read a book, listen to music or follow the football, as I might have done to relax in my old life. I couldn’t go out to the cinema or out for a meal. I couldn’t browse in the shops…How could I possibly take pleasure in anything without my daughter?”
p. 352
Dr Kate: “Gerry…was able to switch off from time to time and I’m sure that was a great help to him. I felt guilty for his sake that I couldn’t do the same”.
There is a lot more about Gerry’s feelings and her feelings.
Examples:
“There’s something particularly distressing about seeing a strong man reduced to a heap, crying like a baby…”
He was crying while sitting with Sean and Amelie watching Madeleine and Gerry’s favourite episode of ‘Dr Who’.
“Occasionally…I’ve longed for a chance to…even just to feel Gerry’s arm around my shoulder, but he simply hasn’t had the strength”.
p. 353
“Gerry’s worst days don’t usually coincide with mine...”
“I took a cognitive approach to getting our sexual relationship back on track…It seems to have worked”.
Dr Kate: “…I was gradually, very gradually, able to allow myself some pleasure and relaxation in general…it certainly took well over a year…Just acknowledging this slow personal ‘improvement’, however, brings a wave of guilt over me. My life is weighed down with guilt: Guilt for what happened to Madeleine, guilt at surviving this whole horror, guilt that our family…have had to experience any of it, guilt for not being quite the person or wife I once was…guilt about talking even five minutes for myself. Perhaps being a mother and a Catholic is a double whammy when it comes to guilt”.
p. 354
And then: “…the knowledge that I am a stronger and more able woman that I was a couple of years ago helps me to shake of a little of that guilt: I recognise this as a postive development, for Gerry, for Sean and Amelie, and for Madeleine”.
On 10 December the McCanns went to a Golf Society dance; they danced and Dr Kate “actually enjoyed it. It felt a little strange but I wasn’t consumed with guilt as is often the case in these situations. Gerry looked really happy, almost glowing. It felt good to share some smiles and laugher with my lovely husband”.
Dr Kate then explains how their ‘Tapas 7’ friends “live with the additional trauma of having been with us when the abduction took place…”
p. 355
Dr Kate says that some of her friends have suffered major problems in their lives, such as family bereavements and cancer, but “…sometimes our depleted reserves of time and strength have prevented us from doing as much as we would have wanted [to help them]”. Another paragraph discusses their feelings towards their friends and their friends’ feelings towards them.
p. 356
Just as Alan Pike predicted, the McCanns have lost some old friends but also made new ones. People’s reactions to them are discussed in another paragraph. Some find it all “too painful to bear”.
“One of the big changes in our life has been the loss of our anonymity – something I’d always taken for granted…Cynics will argue that we ‘courted’ the media (God, how I detest that expression)”.
p. 357
Dr Kate: “Every decision we have made in the last four years, and every encounter with the press, has been undertaken in Madeleine’s interest, not ours”.
Dr Kate continues that”…Our relationship with the media remains finely balanced and uneasy”. There are many comments emphasising how the press is necessary so that the public can be reached and help ‘continue the search for Madeleine’ and to enable them to “publicise requests for information related to any new developments in our investigation”.
COMMENT: Like being seen wandering behind a couple in Dubai, like looking for an Australian-speaking ‘Victoria Beckham-lookalike’, and like looking for a gypsy gang leader in Portugal who was collecting European children for wealthy North African families and once had a drinking session with now-dead paedophile Raymond Paedophile who on his deathbed wrote a letter (delivered by a ‘mystery man’) to a son who hated him and from whom he’d been estranged for 20 years or more and whose son then burnt the letter before deciding to speak to the Sun about its contents.
Dr Kate: “Engaging with the media is like riding a tiger”.
There is then a long paragraph about how Dr Kate feels ‘very self-conscious in public places’ and how she now finds shopping: “…a trial. When I have to do it, I fly in and out as quickly as possible”.
p. 358
She once went shopping and was “feeling exposed [with] tears welling up. A colleague suddenly grabbed her by the arm and said: ‘Kate, you look so scared. Hold your head up. You have nothing to feel bad about’. I worried that if people saw me smile or laugh, they’d think it was inappropriate. After all, I thought it inappropriate myself”.
Dr Kate: “I even worried about silly things like shoppers spotting me buying groceries in Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury’s and frowning on me for not going somewhere cheaper like Aldi and putting the pennies saved into Madeleine’s Fund”.
Then she was also afraid when Sean and Amelie were having tantrums and Dr Kate would worry about what people would think of how she handled them: “I was unsure how I should react…In my old life there would probably have been a few stern words…Now, though, with everyone watching me, I didn’t feel I could speak firmly to them in public, let alone raise my voice”.
p. 359
A couple of paragraphs deal with how Sean reacted when taken for swimming lessons. Initially he cried buckets, screaming: ‘I want my Mummy’. But after a few lessons, he was fine and has learnt how to swim.
Some people are very kind: “It is heartening and comforting when shoppers come up to me in the supermarket and say: ‘How are you, Kate? We’re all behind you’.”
p. 360
There is more about visiting psychics and mediums, one of whom knocked on the McCanns’ door as they were having Christmas dinner; others just drop by and say: ‘I thought we’d call in on you while we were travelling this way’. Dr Kate: “…some of their actions can be a little disconcerting”.
Dr Kate: “I feel much more vulnerable than I did four years ago, particularly as a parent”…I’d never, ever considered the possibility that a man night steal my baby from her bed. Since that night my anxieties for Sean and Amelie have escalated. I’ve worried more about accidents, illness and, not surprisingly, about whom they are in contact with”.
Dr Kate: “I’ve worried about the future, about the children going off to university…I don’t want them to go. I want to hang on to them and keep them close and safe…”
COMMENT: Yet she spends a fair amount of time away from them…going to meetings, doing interviews, attending conferences with lawyers, court hearings, visiting the Hubbards in Praia da Luz regularly, and so on.
Dr Kate has “spoken to Alan Pike about my fears…”
Dr Kate: “As advised by the experts, we’ve tried always to be open with Sean and Amelie and to answer all their questions truthfully as they arise”. She explain that Amelie “…became preoccupied with the idea that Madeleine might have run away…” The McCanns countered this by “…explaining the abduction to the children in the simplest and least frightening way we could…somebody had wanted her and taken her away”.
COMMENT: Not an easy task, explaining how a ‘monster’ took their sister from her bed one night.
p. 361
The children “…dealt with this new knowledge in a very matter-of-fact way: a naughty man had stolen their sister and now what we must do was find her. As they grow up, we continue to respond to everything they ask us carefully but honestly”.
Dr Kate: “…hand on heart, Sean and Amelie today are incredibly happy children, remarkably well adjusted, well rounded and emotionally in tune. We are so proud of them...In the years to come, I am sure they will find some solace in the fact that their Mum and Dad did everything in their power to find their big sister”.
Then follows some more paragraphs on her religious views.
Dr Kate says she’s doubted God’s existence and “been angry with Him. I’ve shouted out loud and on occasion I’ve hit things (I’m afraid even the church pews have had the odd thumping!)”.
She continues: “What I do wrestle with…is the inexplicable fact that despite so many prayers, almost total global awareness, and a vast amount of hard work, we still do not have an answer”.
p. 362
Dr Kate: “Millions have prayed [for Madeleine]. So if Madeleine is alive, why hasn’t God brought her back to us?…surely He could lead us to the truth and put a stop to the terrible anguish of not knowing?…how long do we have to wait?”
She continues: “How can so much suffering and injustice be heaped upon one family? It is said that God only gives you a cross He knows you can bear. Well, I’m afraid this cross has been far too heavy for far too long. For now, though, at least, my anger towards Gpd seems to have subsided…”
Dr Kate: “Darwin’s theories and chance don’t cover it for me…I believe in Him…”
Dr Kate: “I sometimes end up having serious words with God about His slow progress…Maybe I just need to be patient and trust Him”.
Dr Kate: There is one thing of which I am confident: I believe wherever Madeleine is, God is with her”, but…
Dr Kate: “Gerry has certainly struggled over the last year with his faith…he still believes in God [but] is no longer convinced of the power of prayer. In his words: ‘If prayer worked, we would’ve had Madeleine back a long time ago’.”
p. 363
Dr Kate: “Gerry has always believed that everyone possesses God-given talents which we should use to the best of our ability…”
The next paragraph explains how what has happened to Madeleine has “greatly increased public awareness…”
But not, says Dr Kate, public awareness of the risks of leaving very young, highly vulnerable children on their own.
No, for Dr Kate, what has happened to Madeleine has raised awareness of “…the whole issue of missing, abducted and exploited children”. There follows a list of the ‘missing children’ organisations that they have “tried to support”.
She refers to the celebrity bash they had at Richard Branson’s Rooftop Restaurant in Kensington on the 1000th day since Madeleine was reported missing. It raised £45,000; half for ‘Madeleine’s Fund’ and the other half for ‘Missing People’ and ‘Missing Children Europe’.
Dr Kate emphasises how organisations have benefited from their campaigning: “In the wake of our 2008 campaign calling for a co-ordinated Europe-wide child alert rescue system, the Eiropean Parliament dedicated one million euros to fund projects aimed at developing interconnected child rescue alerts”. There is more about how these ‘child rescue’ schemes have developed, for example: “The U.K.’s new nationally co-ordinated child rescue alert was launched on International Missing Children’s Day, 25 May, 2010”.
p. 364
Dr Kate speaks of her hopes that “…national governments will demonstrate the will to protect our children, and acknowledge their moral obligation to do so”.
COMMENT: Unfortunately, she says nothing about the need to tighten laws to discourage parents from leaving young children on their own.
Then: “Sean and Amelie often talk about how their sister might escape, how we could rescue her and what they would do to the ‘naughty man’ who stole her”.
A long paragraph thanks Leicestershire Police and Jim Gamble, former Head of CEOP, for their help. Then: “…a harsh fact remains. Since July 2008, there has been no police force anywhere actively investigating what has happened to Madeleine. We are the only people looking for her”.
Dr Kate then says she wants police forces across Europe to have “a more joined-up approach” to finding missing children. It happens, she says, in “crimes involving drugs, money-laundering and terrorism”, but not missing children.
p. 365
Dr Kate then develops the case for “An independent investigative review…”
She asks: “Who is the man Jane Tanner saw carrying a child?” and “Who is the man seen watching the apartment in the days before?” and “Have all those in the vicinity of the Ocean Club that spring…been eliminated on solid grounds?”
And: “There are still people who have not been interviewed”.
p. 366
Dr Kate: “There are lessons to be learned for the future, in terms of both the handling of crimes against children and the treatment we have received from the authorities…”
And: “…the perpetrator of this monstrous crime remains at large…[he] has been anonymous for far too long”.
Then: “We are still pressing the British and Portuguese governments to do more, or at least something”. She discloses that former Labour Home Secretary asked CEOP to carry out a ‘scoping exercise’ to establish whether a review could be of benefit. It was delivered to the Home Office in March 2010. She adds: “Although we have not seen it, it has been widely reported that it highlights some deficiencies in the investigation and hence areas that merit further attention”.
She explains that she has also met current Home Secretary Theresa may and “we have written to her several times”, but: “Currently we do not know whether we are any further forward”. She refers to their online petition in support of a review and whinges that they are “at a loss to understand” why the government and police have not agreed to a review and “why our request for such a review has gone unanswered”.
p. 367
The first paragraph on this page complains that “Crucially, we do not have access to all of the information that has come in to the inquiry”.
COMMENT: The McCanns claim that they want access to those witness statements and documents that the PJ have withheld in order to trace evidence of a possible abductor. Others suggest that it is because the McCanns want to know what the PJ has on them, in order to defend themselves against what might be incriminating evidence against them in those files.
Dr Kate says that these hidden PJ files are just “gathering dust”.
Then: “Madeleine is still alive until someone proves otherwise…there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest she has come to any harm, other than as a result of being separated from her family”.
Another paragraph lists the “many examples if abducted children being recovered years later”. They include:
Carlina White, stolen from hospital and traced 23 years later
Shaun Hornbeck, abducted when 10 and “recovered four years later”
Crystal Anzaldi, “snatched” at 14 months and “found” seven years later
Stephen Stayner, “kidnapped at seven, escaped from his abductor seven years later”
Jaycee Lee Dugard, who spent 18 years with her abductor (aged 11 to 29) before being found.
Dr Kate asks: “How many more children are out there waiting to be found?” Bolstered by this hope, we have moved forward”.
p. 368
Dr Kate: “We love [Madeleine] beyond words. We will never give up on her. We will not allow our story to end here”.
Dr Kate appeals for information…”If you know what has happened to her or where she is now, please open your heart and let us know. It is never too late to do the right thing”.
She closes by giving a PO Box to write to and the ’phone number of the investigation hotline - the very same telephone number used in 2008 by callers to the number and whose calls, according to the Director of Virginia. U.S.A.-based company iJet, were not followed up, indeed were totally ignored, by the McCanns and their advisers.
p. 369 is titled “A Call to Action” and asks people to “write to the Home Secretary and Prime Minister urging the British and Portuguese authorities to commission a joint, independent and comprehensive review of Madeleine’s case”.
Tony Bennett- Researcher
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That book!
by Guest 29.05.11 10:09
No wonder J K Rowling was quick to deny that she had any input in Kate's book. I hope that she is also now questioning whether it was a good idea to give the McCanns any sort of support in the past.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by PeterMac 29.05.11 11:27
Indeed.Marian wrote:No wonder J K Rowling was quick to deny that she had any input in Kate's book. I hope that she is also now questioning whether it was a good idea to give the McCanns any sort of support in the past.
Rowling writes fantasy, understood by everyone, or one hopes by almost everyone, as untrue but permitted because it comes under the umbrella of 'fantasy fiction for children'.
Katey is purporting to write truth, or at least a 'version of the truth', but it is seen by everyone, or almost everyone, as a distortion of things that have been said or written before, even by Katey herself. She does not have the defence of 'fantasy fiction'.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by HotlipsHealy 29.05.11 11:35
Is it enough to get her in for questioning to find out why she and Gerry have so many versions of the truth? Their first version buggered up the investigation and their second version is taking the piss and making them money. It's just not right.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Atilliator 04.06.11 2:59
There are two words that come to mind when reading page 129: own goal. I mean, especially in the light of the statement of Mrs Gaspar, one wonders what the writer was thinking of. BTW, although Kate McCann is credited as author, she might not have written that particular sentence.
I think page 129 is going to cost the McCanns a lot of credibility. I for one find that sentence totally inappropriate. It's going to turn a lot of people off.
I think page 129 is going to cost the McCanns a lot of credibility. I for one find that sentence totally inappropriate. It's going to turn a lot of people off.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by PeterMac 04.06.11 7:28
I am still astonished that the proof readers and lawyers let it through in that form. There are many other ways in which the same thing could have been implied. And to insist that she wants the alleged predatory Pae*** and Madeleine, and the twins to read it is almost beyond belief.
I wonder what the Old Age Pensioners who gave so much money and have now been conned again into buying the book in the belief that it will help the search, think of it.
I wonder what the Old Age Pensioners who gave so much money and have now been conned again into buying the book in the belief that it will help the search, think of it.
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Kate's vivid imagination
by Guest 04.06.11 9:34
Does anyone know if any of our illustrious media (not just The Sun) actually quoted the stomach-churning piece on page 129 and, if so, were there any letters in response?
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Guest 04.06.11 10:07
Marian wrote:Does anyone know if any of our illustrious media (not just The Sun) actually quoted the stomach-churning piece on page 129 and, if so, were there any letters in response?
Hi Marian, I don't think one newspaper has quoted it, and who can blame them. It was carefully edited out.
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Guest 04.06.11 10:09
Welcome to Attilliator
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Guest 04.06.11 10:19
Looks like our newspapers do not willingly choose to feed paedophiles then. 
What a shame that Kate McCann didn't have the same set of morals as them.
What a shame that Kate McCann didn't have the same set of morals as them.
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Just a thought about media standards.
by Guest 04.06.11 12:52
The British media is very quick to denounce some paedophiles, Gary Glitter and Jonathan King being two obvious examples and, whatever we may think of them, at least they have been punished for their crimes and we can but hope that they are no longer breaking the law. Then there was the infamous naming and shaming of known paedophiles which led to vigilante mobs on the streets. By the way, does anyone know if the story that a paediatrician's home was attacked was real or was it just a joke at the expense of Sun readers by suggesting that they were too dim to know the difference between the two? However, there is in my opinion (and I don't think I'm alone) what I describe as a "better class" of paedophile which is allowed to flourish completely unchallenged and any reports of their activities are swept firmly under the carpet. It's a funny old world isn't it?
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by LittleMissMolly 04.06.11 22:29
Marian wrote:The British media is very quick to denounce some paedophiles, Gary Glitter and Jonathan King being two obvious examples and, whatever we may think of them, at least they have been punished for their crimes and we can but hope that they are no longer breaking the law. Then there was the infamous naming and shaming of known paedophiles which led to vigilante mobs on the streets. By the way, does anyone know if the story that a paediatrician's home was attacked was real or was it just a joke at the expense of Sun readers by suggesting that they were too dim to know the difference between the two? However, there is in my opinion (and I don't think I'm alone) what I describe as a "better class" of paedophile which is allowed to flourish completely unchallenged and any reports of their activities are swept firmly under the carpet. It's a funny old world isn't it?
But of course Marion ... didn't you know? All real paedophiles sidle around in dirty macs, looking swarthy and shifty eyed. People can tell they are paedophiles from the moment they lay eyes on them and of course they are uneducated and incapable of maintaining any sort of relationships with adults.
They couldn't possibly be living amongst us, cheek by jowl... disguised as our friends, neighbours, family members, teachers, priests, doctors, lawyers, judges, bankers, professionals .... now could they?
Its one of my biggest hobby horses ... when will people realise that anybody could be a paedophile - that there are no stereotypes
____________________
Joseph Goebbels (a man who ought to know):
If you tell a lie big enough and repeat it often enough then the public will eventually believe it
If you tell a lie big enough and repeat it often enough then the public will eventually believe it
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What's in the book?
by Guest 05.06.11 12:06
Thanks LMM for the vote of confidence. I can even feel a shred of sympathy for people like Raymond Hewlett when the media tries to convince us that they are the root of all evil and need to be eliminated. I don't condone anything that he or any other known paedophile has done but it's not right that others possibly a lot more prolific go unpunished. This was brought home to me when I learned of the Hollie Greig case; while I do not know if her story is true and even if it is, it may have no connection whatsoever with Madeleine, I became convinced that there are certain groups of people who are above the law and can get away with literally anything. I guess that I am very naive to have got to this stage in my life to realise that!
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Re: Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?
by Guest 05.06.11 12:18
There seems to be quite a few things in Kate's book that is getting the Criminologist Pat Brown very excited !!
I can't wait to hear what she has to say.
I can't wait to hear what she has to say.
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The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann™ :: Books on the Madeleine McCann case :: Kate McCann's book, Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine'
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