PM reopens Maddie files

RBxHN wrote:My sincere and honest apologies.............spelling mistake............I mean chav! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Ringo wrote:

I'm afraid that makes little or no sense. Who is paying for these lawyers?
It is widely known that the McCann's fund is paying for all of their legal fees.

Who is protecting them in your view?
The McCann's are not being protected, if they were, forensics would not have found Madeleines DNA in their car. It is the people behind booking their little holiday are the ones being protected in my view.

If they had gone away years ago, not written a book, not kept appearing on TV, not written letters, started petitions etc, most people would have forgotten about them and they would have sunk into obscurity. If they were guilty they got away with it when the Attorney General announced that there was no evidence that they had committed any crime and the PJ shelved the case. The PJ have done nothing since apart from mark information received from the McCanns' investigators as "not relevant".

"Not relevant", because they are not buying their crap either. Goncalo Amaral has said many times that he has seen text messages confirming their involvement. But unfortunately, they were not allowed to use this evidence. There was "no political will to solve this case".

As for the people you refer to working very hard to uncover new evidence to assist the Portuguese police I take it you mean people like Tony Bennett? How is that evidence gathering going? I see some of it on here, like the stuff on Ed Smethurst's garage and his local boozer and his friend of a friend Greg 'The Groomer'. Gosh, how the McCanns must be trembling in their boots!

No, not that line of enquiry as such. But one that relates specifically to evidence already in the files that must have been overlooked.

The simple and obvious answer to why the McCanns have fought tirelessly for a complete, transparent and independent review of this case is that they want to find out what happened to their daughter, and hopefully to find her alive. It is the only reason.

It is not the only reason sadly and if you truly belive that you are being very naive. Look up the term "smoke and mirrors".

Now I must leave it there for now.

Yes, I guess your shift is over for today. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

C.Edwards wrote:

candyfloss wrote:


Hi C Edwards and welcome [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

No, please don't reveal identities of people on the forum, but you can always PM admin.

Thanks candyfloss. I've responded to a few PMs about it, but I won't name the person concerned in the thread then. I'm 90% sure I know who it is... very distinctive posting style... ;-)

Ringo wrote:

C.Edwards wrote:

candyfloss wrote:


Hi C Edwards and welcome [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

No, please don't reveal identities of people on the forum, but you can always PM admin.

Thanks candyfloss. I've responded to a few PMs about it, but I won't name the person concerned in the thread then. I'm 90% sure I know who it is... very distinctive posting style... ;-)

Hi C.Edwards, please could you PM me and let me know who I am - I'm dying to know!

Ringo wrote:Oh well doesn't matter. We have never posted on the same forum before though C.Edwards, so hello!

By the way, I don't have any pet theories.

C. Edwards wrote:(cue tiresome denials you know who I am, etc...)

Posted by John Blacksmith at 18:33
Thursday, 14 October 2010

Our guest this week is an English academic criminologist based in the states, author of Why profilers are always wrong and consultant to Bull Diamond Investigations of Los Angeles. Known in the trade for their cracking of a murder and stalking case involving Scotland's most famous rock and roll star some years ago* Bull Diamond have a remarkable investigative record. Pity the McCanns didn't use them rather than their menagerie of conmen and lunatics. But then BD would never have taken the job. The report is rather dry but worth the effort - for those interested in the approach - since its conclusions are pretty unarguable.

* No Stone Unturned, by Antony Sharples, a study of the case under the guise of a comedy thriller (for legal reasons) is (for legal reasons) only available in the UK from Lulu.com. Worth a read if you've a sense of humour, or love rock and roll. Now, the dry stuff.

Truth value, the McCanns and the investigative process

Hi. I'm sorry but there's no really simple way of explaining this stuff. That's because criminal investigation isn't a game or a television series: at all times it involves matters of life, liberty and, often, death. And it's very rarely simple. Anyway, here we go.

From the scientific standpoint evidence-based theories can be tested for truth and explanatory value in two ways, by experiment and by predictive power: a true theory makes more correct predictions than a false one.

In criminal investigations, for obvious reasons, we scientific people only have predictive power as a measure. Let's apply it to our Madeleine case and the two opposed theories. The pro theory – OK, OK, I'm generalising, but life is short – goes roughly this way:

P [stands for pro, not proposition] 1. Kate & Gerry are truthful witnesses of events.

P2. They described an abduction.

P3. Eye witness Jane Tanner's sighting was almost certainly the fleeing abductor.

P4. There's no evidence of any observed suspicious or unusual behaviour by the parents in PDL.

P5. The police investigation was a mess, if not corrupt, and its conclusions are worthless.

P6. So it was an abduction.

In the opposite corner...

A [Guess what that stands for] 1. The police investigation was reliable.

A2. They signed off saying the child was not abducted and probably died in or around the apartment on May 3.

A3. The parents are not truthful witnesses of events.

A4. Jane Tanner is not a reliable eye-witness.

A5. There is no evidence of abduction beyond the claims of the parents and Jane Tanner.

A6. Therefore... no abduction and the child is dead.

Predictions

A prediction is not a suggestion or a guess. It's a firm forecast, capable of what we call refutation, derived from the theory which is, in turn, derived from the evidence. The following unrefuted, predictions were made by various representatives of the two sides in summer 2007 and at intervals since.

Pro:

PP1. The parents will not be convicted of any involvement in the disappearance of the child since there is no evidence of their wrong-doing.

Anti:

AP1. There will be no sightings of Madeleine McCann.

AP2. The child will never be found alive.

AP3. Private detectives will find no evidence of abduction.

AP4. There will never be supporting evidence for Jane Tanner's "sighting".

Did we manipulate the predictions? Forget it. Out of kindness we've left out the refuted ones from both sides but there were never that many (for sheer lunacy let's make an exception for the Metodo mob's "home by Christmas" classic, even though Metodo were too cynical to be pros themselves). The 2007 forum and press records are available for you doubters to check, I guess, but who wants to read that stuff again?

But are they really valid predictions?

Well, check for yourself and, while you're at it, see if you can find more, especially since the pro beast looks a bit starved and in need of a good meal, but remember they must be "derived from the theory". Can we fatten up the Pro-Prediction beast and predict, say, that the child will be found alive, to counter AP2?

No, the abduction theory as stated cannot make such a prediction. OK, "evidence will emerge to confirm Jane Tanner's veracity" – how about that? Nope, that's a hope, not a prediction from the theory. What about "private eyes will uncover some tiny evidence of the abduction"? No again: have a look – where and how does the abduction theory lead to such a prediction? It doesn't. Now look again at A6, "the child is dead." The prediction "the child will never be found alive" is generated by the theory itself, not as a suggestion by someone holding to that theory: understand that bit and you're most of the way there. All four AP predictions are of this self-generating nature, like them or not. Have a look at them again - can you see?

We have a huge 4:1 imbalance in so far unrefuted predictions between the two theories. That is because of the even greater difference in the total information content of the two, what we call explanatory power. The pro theory cannot provide enough predictions of value because it contains insufficient data behind it to generate them: it is not necessarily a false model of what happened on May 3 but it is certainly an inadequate one. And this is where theory and theories – bang! – meet real life. The inadequacy of the theory, the model, is the only reason the PJ couldn't run with it, even if they'd wanted to – because it leads nowhere: virtually zero predictive power means no potential to move an investigation forward.

And that's the real reason why the Portuguese authorities - who, believe me, know plenty about the academic science underpinning investigations - ignore all the parental pleas for another investigation. Look at it this way: the authorities – not just the cops - are saying that if the parents want the case re-opened then they and the seven friends are going to have to get on that plane to Faro for intensive questioning to get things moving forward, otherwise forget it. Given that agreement then bingo, the PJ can go into action – picking a team, picking up phones, assembling the questions, analysing and cross-matching the data and so on. As a result – here comes the science again - the information content of the investigation must increase, and not necessarily to the detriment of the McCanns either.

But re-opening from the viewpoint demanded by the parents, which implicitly means no questioning of the nine, is another matter. Where to start? Information content zero, remember. All right, assemble a team, then what? Pick up the phone. To whom? Put together some questions, sure – who are they going to face with them? Follow the abduction trail, then – but there isn't one, it ends fifty yards outside apartment 5A, no CCTV, no further eyewitnesses, no airport records, no forensics, no trail. Follow the suspects – but there isn't a single suspect who can be connected to 5A to follow.

Just how, in practice, would the police go about strengthening Jane Tanner's veracity, rather than weakening it? And if the parents are perfectly truthful, as the pro theory states, then they clearly have nothing to add to their accounts of May 3 so there's nothing to ask them - again, no trail to follow, no pieces to pick up. So what can they do? Well, take the assembled team, sit them on their asses and have them go through eleven thousand pages of case files again looking for "overlooked" clues. And appeal to the public for further information. That's it. Big deal.

So our airy-fairy academic look at two opposing theories ends very much in the real world. And it ends, also, in a paradox. The only way the McCanns can ever get the Holy Grail of exoneration for themselves and their kids is by going along with a new PJ investigation on anti-lines! Because, for scientific reasons, it's the only game there'll ever be in town. You need to chew on that, Gerry and Kate.

Ringo wrote:
I'm afraid that makes little or no sense. Who is paying for these lawyers?
It is widely known that the McCann's fund is paying for all of their legal fees.

Ringo wrote:
Oh that is utterly absurd and laughable!! If Goncalo (convicted liar, lets not forget) had solid evidence CONFIRMING their involvement it would be in the files at the very least, or he would have spelt it out in one of his ridiculous books. "No political will to solve the case" - what does that mean? The Portuguese Government are in on it as well? HOw is it possible that the head of the IMF and one of the most powerful men in the world can be presently sitting in a NY prison cell awaiting trial for rape, and yet a bunch of complete unknowns from England with no political power whatsoever have been allegedly protected by the powers that be for four years? Please, get real!!

Ringo wrote:Ooh, how chin-strokingly mysterious you are being. Now, if there is evidence in the files that "must've been overlooked", then it must've been overlooked by the incompetent PJ - now we have Scotland Yard on the case, perhaps you should give them a call and share your findings with them in case it gets overlooked again? And as for Tony Bennett's latest line of enquiry, perhaps you would like to comment on its relevance to Madeleine's disappearance?

The simple and obvious answer to why the McCanns have fought tirelessly for a complete, transparent and independent review of this case is that they want to find out what happened to their daughter, and hopefully to find her alive. It is the only reason.

It is not the only reason sadly and if you truly belive that you are being very naive. Look up the term "smoke and mirrors".

It is the only reason, and it is you that is being naive, believing in all this conspiracy nonsense and mysterious evidence schtick fed to you by the likes of Goncalo "Convicted Perjurer" Amaral. Why are you not able to see that the man is totally unreliable and also totally incapable of stringing together aa coherent theory about what happened to Madeleine.

The simple and obvious answer to why the McCanns have fought tirelessly for a complete, transparent and independent review of this case is that they want to find out what happened to their daughter, and hopefully to find her alive. It is the only reason.