Prosecution Exhibit 1: 'madeleine' - What's in the book?

Kate McCann wrote:I spent many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her.

Indeed madam, I couldn't agree more..

"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."

considering that neither speak Portuguese this would indeed have been a task of Herculean proportions !

Oh bless, nobody has ever suffered so much...

Martyr and heroine in her own mind.

Amaral’s appeal was heard in December in Lisbon, over five days that ended up being spread over three consecutive months. Gerry and I felt it was important, essential even, for us to attend to represent Madeleine. She needed somebody there for her. She was the victim in this, not Gonçalo Amaral. I also needed to see the whites of Sr Amaral’s eyes. We flew out to Portugal on 10 December.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For garbage research only]

Weekend repeat..

Kate McCann wrote:
Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral – for the first time ever, I hasten to add! I know I’m not scared but that man has caused us so much upset and anger because of how he has treated my beautiful Madeleine and the search to find her. He deserves to be miserable and feel fear.

All sounds very impressive whilst lounging around the pool in exotic 2* Benidorm hotel circa. May 2011 with nothing to do but over indulge copious jugs of ice cool Sangria and soak up the sun but back at Blighty reality sets in.

Lest they forget..

Gonçalo Amaral was assigned to the case of missing Madeleine McCann as coordinator, he didn't know the parents, he didn't know any of their group of friends/acquaintances nor anything about them. He was called out on a blank canvas, whilst the team of Portuguese police investigated the case. Case coordinator spells out all anyone needs to know.

Snr Amaral was not a lone crusader, he was not the devil incarnate, he was not the ultimate judge and jury.

Like anywhere else in the civilised world of police investigation, the officers and their superiors work as a team, they work together with the primary course of cause and solution - with a lot else going on 'behind the scenes' [sic].

Snr Amaral's book and documentary was based entirely on the course of the official investigation.

Ms McCann claims to have 'trawled' through the translated PJ files, released into the public domain in July/August 2008. If Ms McCann truly 'trawled' through the translated files and read Snr Amaral's book and intently watched Snr Amaral's documentary, she would have no choice but to recognize and publicly acknowledge the factuality of Snr Amaral's position.

But she didn't do that - did she ....

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 her body; we had influenced the British police and organized our campaign to mislead investigators into searching for a living child, and so on and so forth. No longer gagged by the law, Amaral was talking more and more openly to journalists and turning up on television chat shows. A friend in the Algarve kept us updated on his activities. It was unpleasant and distressing to hear what he was saying, but we had to know what Madeleine was up against in Portugal. And it was incessant. With the best will in the world, it is hard for anyone to absorb this stuff day in, day out and remain completely objective, especially when it is never challenged or balanced by an alternative viewpoint.

It is impossible to convey, particularly to people outside Portugal who were not aware of Amaral’s behaviour, just how difficult this smear campaign was both to withstand and to counter. And we desperately needed to counter it: we have always believed that the information that can lead us to our daughter is likely to come from Portugal. This is where the crime was committed, after all. Blackening our names was one thing, but if people there were taken in by Amaral’s theories, they were going to think there was no point in looking for Madeleine, or in passing on any information that might be relevant. 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? The only conclusion we could draw was that he was attempting to justify his actions while in charge of the investigation and at the same time promoting his forthcoming book to cash in on our misfortune. It just beggars belief.

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. It was utterly frustrating that there didn’t seem to be anybody in Portugal prepared to stand up against this man. Surely there were intelligent and knowledgeable people in positions of authority who could see through these offensive allegations. Why were they all staying quiet? Was it because it wasn’t their problem? Were they scared to speak out? 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, a state-run institution for orphans and other disadvantaged children (when this finally came to court in 2010, six men, including a TV presenter and a former UNESCO ambassador, would be convicted) – the first such case ever to be tried in Portugal. Perhaps it was more convenient and less troubling to lay Madeleine’s disappearance at the door of her foreign parents, put an end to the matter and move on. Who knows?

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For research only]

Gerry and I talked about taking legal action against Gonçalo Amaral but we had concerns about the time and effort this would involve. We did not want to be diverted from our own investigation just as we had put the restrictions of the case behind us and we feared that any resolution through the Portuguese courts would take too long. For the moment we hoped the fuss would die down and Amaral would let up.

As 2008 drew to a close, Gonçalo Amaral was still parading his unsavoury theories around Portugal and beyond. By the autumn it had become clear that he was not going to go away. We were beginning to realize that the harm being done to our search for Madeleine, especially in Portugal, was outweighing our reluctance to be distracted from it. We needed to put a stop to this serious damage. We had already spoken to our legal team on several occasions about taking action and knew that the only way of assessing our chances of success would be to seek advice from a Portuguese libel lawyer.

We had first talked on the phone to Isabel Duarte on 28 November. She was very understanding and sounded nice. By this point we felt as though we had been condemned by an entire country, so to receive sympathy from someone in Portugal was like stepping into a welcoming warm bath. Six weeks later, Gerry went to Lisbon to meet her. Although we were still resisting the temptation to sue, her parting shot left a lasting impression on him. ‘Don’t forget! That man said you buried your daughter on the beach!’

For his next trick, Amaral produced a ‘documentary’ based on his book, which was screened in Portugal on 13 April. A friend in Luz who phoned to tell us about it the next day was very upset, describing it as ‘awful’.
I’ve always been considered quite a gentle person but these attacks 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. Amaral’s documentary was the last straw. On 20 April we took the decision with Isabel Duarte to sue him.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

"On 20 April we took the decision with Isabel Duarte to sue him."


Remind me of the outcome of that decision !
And always bear in mind it is 'advised' by a lawyer who takes a feee NO MATTER WHAT the outcome.

Many Solicitors have a Christmas Fund drawer in the filing cabinet.
In it are the hopeless case, ones which will go nowhere but which the client cannot be persuaded to give up.
Around October they give the file to their secretary and another long letter is produced, going over the history – copied and pasted from the previous letter – and making a further demand, with another threat of imminent legal action.

Then in November the Client is billed for the letter, is reassured that something is happening and happily pays up.

It happened to me.   Luckily I have two solicitor friends, one a managing partner of one of the UK's biggest firms, the other his wife who had given up practising, and then taught at the law school and prepared students for Law Society Finals.  
So I know a few of the scams and "Spanish Practices".

Incidentally all that is required is a polite letter of acknowledgement, saying that the matter is being given urgent consideration and that you hope to be able to reply in more detail in the New Year.  Don't for Heaven's sake actually ANSWER the points raised !  That breaks the link and ruins the whole thing.   For everyone.

Honour is satisfied and it all goes back onto the Folder until the next October.

A bit like Private Detectives producing lists of places they have visited and things they have done attached to their expenses bills ?

FRIDAY 4 MAY

Friday 4 May. Our first day without Madeleine. As soon as it was light Gerry and I resumed our search. We went up and down roads we’d never seen before, having barely left the Ocean Club complex all week. We jumped over walls and raked through undergrowth. We looked in ditches and holes. All was quiet apart from the sound of barking dogs, which added to the eeriness of the atmosphere. I remember opening a big dumpster-type bin and saying to myself, please God, don’t let her be in here. The most striking and horrific thing about all this was that we were completely alone. Nobody else, it seemed, was out looking for Madeleine. Just us, her parents.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For Clarrie-fication]

And then..

The only searches I was aware of were those carried out by ourselves, fellow guests and the Mark Warner staff.

Friday 4 May. Our first day without Madeleine. As soon as it was light Gerry and I resumed our search.


Why include "Our first day without Madeleine" ?
Is this trying too hard, protesting too much, desperately trying to cover up the fact that Madeleine had died 4 days before ?
The paragraph makes sense without it, (if we avoid criticising the use of the world "resume" to mean "Start", and observe that it actually refers to going for a jog together, rather than "spreading out" and going off in different directions to double toe search area)

Tuesday 8th May 2007

As we were walking up from the beach at about 5pm, I had a call from Cherie Blair, in her final days as wife of the prime minister (her husband Tony would announce his resignation two days later and leave office the following month). She was kind and helpful. She told me it was amazing but encouraging that Madeleine was still the first topic on the news every night. This was only five days after the abduction: as it turned out, our poor daughter would continue to headline the bulletins for some time to come. Cherie also warned me, ‘Whatever happens, your life will never be the same again.’ She mentioned that a friend of hers, Catherine Meyer, was the founder of PACT – Parents and Abducted Children Together – and said she would get in touch with her on my behalf. Doubtless I asked Cherie if there was anything the British government could offer the Portuguese in the way of resources to assist or expedite the search for Madeleine. It wasn’t my intention to make her feel uncomfortable by asking this, and I’m sure I didn’t. We were just so desperate I couldn’t let the opportunity go by.

MY LIFE BY KATE - autobigraphical chiclit

[For clarity only]

The night of Thursday 3rd/Friday 4th May 2007

Dave, seeing Gerry’s anguish and frustration at how little was being done, knew Madeleine needed more help than she was getting. At some point before the PJ left, a retired British couple in a nearby apartment lent him their computer and he sent an email to Sky News alerting them to the abduction of our daughter, using an address listed on their website.

Evidently this wasn’t the best way of contacting Sky, because, as it turned out, Dave’s email remained buried in some inbox. Despite the fabricated tales that later emerged in certain quarters, suggesting that we had contacted the media before we’d even called the police, apparently the first Sky heard of Madeleine’s disappearance was from the Press Association, and from seeing one of our friends on GMTV, later that morning. Though we knew little of what was going on at the time, it is true that the news filtered through overnight. Rachael had contacted a friend of hers at the BBC seeking help and advice and several friends in the UK informed the press some time after 7am.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[Research only]

MISSING

On Thursday 3 May I awoke in the children’s bedroom. I can’t remember who was up first but I know we had all surfaced by about 7.30am. I’m not even sure whether Gerry had actually noticed I’d slept in the other room and I chose not to mention it.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

We also discussed the offers of help that were now pouring in, including many financial pledges. Gerry and I were at a loss to know how to handle these. One of Gerry’s colleagues, for example, had called to say that the staff in his department wanted to make a donation to assist with the search for Madeleine but didn’t know how or where to deposit it.

IFLG told us that we needed to set up a ‘fighting fund’. They would devise the objectives of the fund and instruct a leading charity law firm, Bates Wells and Braithwaite (BWB), to draw up articles of association.

At the last two meetings the barrister and legal assistant were joined by a consultant called Hugh, whose profession was not at first explained (‘Just call me Hugh,’ he said enigmatically). It transpired that he was a former intelligence officer, now a kidnap negotiator and counsellor. We were told that an anonymous (but evidently very generous) donor had set aside a considerable sum of money for us to put towards the cost of hiring a private-investigation company if we wished. Hugh had been brought in by a firm called Control Risks, which was primed to help. This company is an independent specialist risk consultancy with offices and investigators on five continents and their main line of work is corporate security. It was a big gesture, we were immensely grateful and it was good to know this option was available to us.

The first session Hugh attended, which took place at night, had something of a James Bond atmosphere to it, and not in a good way. I felt as if I’d entered a whole new world, and it was an extremely mysterious and frightening one. Perhaps the worst bit was a remark Hugh made about the reward that was on offer. He told us dispassionately that such an inducement would have ‘put a price on Madeleine’s head’. I was very upset. The thought of anything we had done jeopardizing Madeleine’s life was too much to bear.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For reference only]

BWB, the law firm drawing up the articles of association for the fighting fund, had talked to the Charity Commission about whether it would be eligible for charitable status. As its objectives were limited to the search for a single child and the beneficiaries were essentially one family, it was deemed that the ‘public benefit’ test would not be met. So the fund took the form of a not-for-profit, private limited company. It was set up with great care and due diligence by experts in the field. From the outset everyone agreed that, despite the costs involved, it must be run to the highest standards of transparency.

There needed to be independent directors as well as family representatives, and people from a variety of professions joined my uncle Brian Kennedy and Gerry’s brother Johnny on the board. At the time, though, we had little idea how important these measures would prove to be in enabling us to withstand the massive scrutiny to which the fund would be subjected, especially when the tide turned against us.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For interest alone]

o yes, the just call me hugh. who other could that be than the army intelligence man hugh logan, at least it is the only name i ever could find in a connection with control risks. and only because he left that company and joined some others in the same playing fields. 

the mccann never told of their first party of private investigators, and it was not really a fat lie, because they had been hired by brian kennedy. the double glazing entrepreneur, not the uncle. 

wasn't this the bunch that arrived undercover, but did not look like an ordinary family.

I will call you Betty and you can call me AI - on no sorry, that should be Al not artificial intelligence.

maybe they just got the same flight. and the same taxi. so many came running in, it were busy times for building 4. 

but in relation to a fund and this fund, usually their is some fiscal glitch that tells you can not except large sums  and expensive gifts without the government wanting their share as a natural person. so the fund not for profit status could have served as a in between. so besides the other functions maybe 'call me hugh' also brought the contract. 

it is a shame control risks has the habit to not talk about their clients. so we have no idea how believable 'call me hugh' found them, and technically it is a big question if the mccanns ever have been clients of control risk in their own rights. double glazed brian k. was paying that bill, as far is told. 

and control risks would not have liked it to be called just private investigators, they do often exactly the same work, but for more peanuts. 

kate left the army out call me hugh's back ground. and it is hard to find out if the named functions really have substance. companies like control risk are usually chosen if you do not want a exposure in the media. 
so from the outside it is hard to conclude how successful they really are.
and all have more functions behind their names, maybe he was just there on an counseling job. 

there never was a true sign of a kidnap, so no negotiation needed.  and even the supposed abduction showed the amateur hands.

the name must be hugh lohan, not logan, stupid of me i have not seen my mistake earlier. 

his colleges have been working a bit more on the surface, ken farrow and michael keenan, but it was the bunch of control risks, that by words of amaral, told the pj of the supposed escape artist that must have used the window. 

from that it is understandable control risks did not still have a proud presence in the case of madeleine mccann.
but it must be hard when you get hired to assist the parents in a case like this. you would not think to bite in the hands that feeds you. 

it will always will be strange someone who is just a civilian in his own country, can decide to send out a company in, without even asking if there is a want for. and finding it okay that the start mingling in an open police investigation, and the call me hugh figure arrived on 11 may, so well before the mccann's had been officially questioned in any about a active role in the story. and have been at that time only been telling around they had a good relation with the portuguese police, were happy to assist them. 

the brian kennedy feeling the mccann's are innocent stance had nothing to bring on, at that moment in time. 
the only bad publicity was about leaving very young children alone out and about. and if you look what the uk already had sent in, why would a private person would feel he had to step in. for people he did not know at all. it was quite majestic, only to earn some karma points. 

he took a quite prominent place in this case. control risks did not brought it further on, so he just the next bunch of firms in.

Did you know..

He looked a little embarrassed and laughingly remarked to us that filming in this way made him feel like a dirty old man. It led to a conversation between the three of us about paedophiles.

We faced our biggest fear: that Madeleine had been taken by a paedophile and killed.

This initial discussion, though, was unsettling, focused as it was on the typical profile of a paedophile. All I could think was, not Madeleine. Please, not Madeleine!

They told us, for example, about a newspaper clipping they’d seized from his house, an article entitled ‘Lock up Your Daughters’, which claimed that Casanova had been a paedophile

.

The thought of Madeleine’s fear and pain tears me apart. The thought of paedophiles makes me want to rip my skin off.

I don’t mind if it’s in nice surroundings but certainly, in the case of paedophiles, away at all times from ANY contact with children.

Had I ever considered that she may be dead? Yes, of course. Early on that was all I thought, all the time: that some paedophile had grabbed her, abused her and later killed her.

The second stemmed from the revulsion stirred up by my fear that Madeleine had suffered the worst fate we could imagine: falling into the hands of a paedophile.

When she was first stolen, paedophiles were all we could think about, and it made us sick, ate away at us.

In one case, the paedophile had put on some of the father’s aftershave in an attempt to soothe or deceive the child.

Gradually, my outlook was growing more positive and I was beginning to get past my early certainty that Madeleine must have been taken by a paedophile and murdered.

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.

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 proximity of Tavira 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

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.

She did .... she was there .

At about nine o’clock we all went out on to Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva to find out what was going on and to look out for the PJ. The GNR patrol was still in evidence, although again, there didn’t seem to be much sense of urgency. So what had the police been doing? It was hard to tell. According to the PJ files, to which we did not have access until August 2008, two patrol dogs were brought to Praia da Luz at 2am on 4 May and four search-and-rescue dogs at 8am. I don’t remember seeing any police dogs until the morning, and if there were any specific police searches overnight, they were not apparent. The only searches I was aware of were those carried out by ourselves, fellow guests and the Mark Warner staff.

According to the files, the tracker dogs did not go out until 11pm on 4 May. At some point in the first twenty-four hours (I could not say when exactly, but probably that morning) I recall one of the GNR patrol officers asking us for some of Madeleine’s clothing or belongings to enable these dogs to identify her scent. I fetched the pink princess blanket she took to bed with her every night, which they took, and some of her clothes, which they didn’t.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For comparison only ]

The Portuguese police were divulging very little to the British police and vetoing many of their suggestions – bringing out specialist dogs, for example, or staging a reconstruction.

What was forthcoming, particularly in terms of the quality and depth of the investigation, would become increasingly concerning to us. Grounds for elimination, for instance, often seemed very flimsy.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[ ]

All relationships have their ups and downs and our dealings with the PJ, though generally amiable enough, were no exception.

On the evening of 17 June, the Portuguese police were quoted on Sky News as having stated that the crime scene at apartment 5A had been contaminated by us and our friends, and that as a consequence vital evidence had been lost. I was livid. First of all it was unfair: the preservation of the crime scene was the responsibility of the police and should have been overseen by an experienced officer. Second, it was inaccurate. The forensic department clearly stated (as would be confirmed in the PJ files released the following year) that significant contamination had resulted from police dogs being allowed into the room before they conducted their examination. Third, it was incredibly insensitive, implying as it did that we had destroyed evidence that could have helped to find our daughter. And that, especially, hurt badly.

The following morning, Gerry rang several people – Ricardo Paiva, British Consul Bill Henderson, Ambassador John Buck and DCS Bob Small – seeking some kind of explanation and redress for these comments from the PJ.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For establishing the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth ]

It should be noted .... the crime scene contamination occurred before the police were called .

Interesting to note, the use of specialist dogs in the 'search' was only poo-pooed after matters got a bit whiffy..

Before the new search a comprehensive geological survey, from air, land and sea, would be carried out.
We found out only later (much later) that the UK team had been instructed by the PJ to proceed on the basis that Madeleine had been killed and her body dumped. They would be using GPR (ground-penetrating radar) for detecting ground disturbance, devices for penetrating walls and specialist dogs.

Kate McCann's autobiographical novel.

The book places quite a lot of emphasis on the word dogs.

To be continued ....

"were wholly innocent explanations and Gerry and Kate will be able to explain everything if it gets to that stage. To suggest they harmed Madeleine is just plain daft."

Clarence Mitchell

On 23 August we did an interview with Telecinco, a Spanish TV news programme, in Justine’s flat. We had a pre-interview chat with the team about the topics we would be unable to talk about, such as the investigation, and areas we felt it was important to highlight to help our search.

The main reason why we couldn’t discuss the investigation, obviously, was that we could say very little without breaking the judicial secrecy law. In any case, as we were now being kept in the dark, we didn’t know much about it ourselves by this stage. Making public any details we had been told could jeopardize the investigation, not least by alerting the abductor. We were not prepared, either, to get into a debate about the continuing speculation and lies in the media.

It was stifling in the small flat. It was a hot August day, hotter still under the TV arc lights, and we were pretty uncomfortable before we even started. We readied ourselves for the interviewer’s first question. It was about the investigation. And his second question? About the investigation. As was the third. Blood and dogs were mentioned again. It was as if the conversation we’d had a few minutes earlier had never taken place.

After five or so of these unanswerable prompts, Gerry, who was suffering badly from the heat, removed his mike and left, visibly exasperated and upset. Giving the interviewer the benefit of the doubt – he was bound to push us for something new, I reasoned – I carried on, attempting patiently and politely to explain why my husband had reacted as he had.

madeleine by KATE MCCANN

[For Clarrie-fication]

Now the Truth of the Lie..