McCanns were broke in 2007

Stella wrote:There is an article somewhere that says in 2004, whilst still in Holland, "Kate fell pregnant again through IVF" with the twins. This is why I was under the impression that Madeleine was also created in Holland, as Gerry was working there at the time.

This is covered on p.31 of Dr Kate's book, where she explains that when Madeleine was just 6 months old, "I returned to work at the surgery, part-time...Leaving [Madeleine] was an incredible wrench..."

Then:

"...this arrangement didn't last long: in January 2004, when Madeleine was seven months old, we rented out our house and moved for a year to Amsterdam. where Gerry had a fellowship to study cardiac magnetic resonnace imaghing (MRI)...what he learned in Amsterdam advanced Gerry's career..."

On p. 32 we learn that the McCanns sought IVF again by consulting a Dutch doctor 'in the spring' of 2004, and "...just a month later we had an appointment with a specialist and within only six more weeks we found ourselves starting another cycle of IVF in Amsterdam".

Again, no mention whatsoever of any costs.

The twins were born in February 2005.

On page 37 we learn that the twins were born on 1 February 2005, while on page 36 Dr Kate informs us: "At thirty-nine weeks, the twins were induced".

This then gives us an approximate date of 1 May 2005 for when Dr Kate fell pregnant with the twins.

That is a little strange in view of the above comments of Dr Kate, referring to a period of 'one month and another six weeks' in between visiting the Dutch doctor and 'starting another IVF cycle'. That means that at the very latest, Dr Kate must have seen the Dutch doctor on or before around 15 February 2005.

Hardly 'spring'.

Payments in return for a sperm donor in the Netherlands. Interesting concept. !! A savings bank.
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I've just started the book today ...

Kate fell pregnant with Madeleine in her 2nd cycle of IVF. There is no mention of any costs - which is completely in line with NHS guidelines that a couple should receive up to 3 cycles of IVF free.

As far as the IVF for the twins in Holland goes, Kate's exact wording is telling "Not being Dutch citizens, we weren’t sure if we would be entitled to any treatment at all, so we were surprised and delighted when, just a month later, we had an appointment with a specialist and within only six more weeks we found ourselves starting another cycle of IVF in Amsterdam."

The use of the word 'entitled' indicates to me that the treatment was free ... after all, you don't need to be entititled to spend money

Sorry to bring this topic back up but having only just started to read up on this case recently (and having suspicions from the very start), how were the Mcanns broke in 2007?

After asking friends in the medical profession what the pair could earn, i was told anywhere between 200 and 400kPa depending on how greedy they were. With that information i would say they were nearer 400k than the smaller amount!

They had a £2000/month motgage but didn't have any kids in expensive private schools which can swallow up money very quickly, so what other heavy outgoings did they have ?

He alone would have been on the highest band I would have thought, today that is 97k. I don't know whether a cardiologist does "on call" night shifts etc to boost earnings, but he was also working at the Spire private hospital as well.

I don't know where the idea that they were broke came from originally. Just because they paid their mortgage from the frund, doesn't mean they were broke. Remember the frund was to support them and the extended family, so they took the opportunity. I wonder how the press found them out. I wonder also if they still have a mortgage. Land Registry would state whether they have but not how much.

I remember now stumo, the broke remark originated from G's sister, Philomena I believe.

I believe they were broke in 2007. Philomena has a habit of telling the truth by accident. If the family had to help them out with the mortgage, then they were in need of money.

It must be possible to find out the average income of a cardiologist consultant. Kate didn't work much at all, I understand. So by 2007, she was bringing in very little? One to two days per week work max?

Certainly the money can't have been spent on IVF, which they got free both times. They did have a lot of holidays and weekends away - but that should have been easy for them.
OC isn't exactly top of the range either - so where did the money go?

Sorry for my error, it seems it was Patricia Cameron in Dec 2010, who said the family had to help with their mortgage when Madeleine first went missing.

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CM said they stopped using the fund in September 2007. So Sept and August was paid from fund. July from the family? Unless of course the remark from Trish was damage limitation for fund payments and to futher the cause for aiding families of missing people.

tigger, the NHS work to pay bands, but that is only the beginning. If say a surgeon works nights in emergency theatre, is on call or operates on private patients as they do to keep waiting lists down, they will earn a lot more. A cardiologist is required in theatre to monitor heart equipment. Whether that would be GM I don't know.

..we are supposed to believe there were no thoughts of a fund or anything like that- til gerry has a ''vision'' while seeking spiritual guidance in a chapel..........i do believe the vision he had was of lots and lots of £££££££££££ signs...long before any searches for spiritual truth... !!!

Tony Bennett wrote:

Stella wrote:There is an article somewhere that says in 2004, whilst still in Holland, "Kate fell pregnant again through IVF" with the twins. This is why I was under the impression that Madeleine was also created in Holland, as Gerry was working there at the time.

This is covered on p.31 of Dr Kate's book, where she explains that when Madeleine was just 6 months old, "I returned to work at the surgery, part-time...Leaving [Madeleine] was an incredible wrench..."

Then:

"...this arrangement didn't last long: in January 2004, when Madeleine was seven months old, we rented out our house and moved for a year to Amsterdam. where Gerry had a fellowship to study cardiac magnetic resonnace imaghing (MRI)...what he learned in Amsterdam advanced Gerry's career..."

On p. 32 we learn that the McCanns sought IVF again by consulting a Dutch doctor 'in the spring' of 2004, and "...just a month later we had an appointment with a specialist and within only six more weeks we found ourselves starting another cycle of IVF in Amsterdam".

Again, no mention whatsoever of any costs.

The twins were born in February 2005.

On page 37 we learn that the twins were born on 1 February 2005, while on page 36 Dr Kate informs us: "At thirty-nine weeks, the twins were induced".

This then gives us an approximate date of 1 May 2005 for when Dr Kate fell pregnant with the twins.

That is a little strange in view of the above comments of Dr Kate, referring to a period of 'one month and another six weeks' in between visiting the Dutch doctor and 'starting another IVF cycle'. That means that at the very latest, Dr Kate must have seen the Dutch doctor on or before around 15 February 2005.

Hardly 'spring'.

No mention of costs?

Either dutch social services coughed it up, or a sympathetic colleague of GM sandwiched them in between.
It's higly irregular in Holland to get a second IVF, and particularly so, when you already have a child, let alone a six month old child.It's just plain crazy to impregnate a women who has a six month old baby with twins.

Strings must have been pulled big time. Really big time.

So basically:
When Maddie was 8 - 9 months old she started treatment - counting back from conception on around the 1st April 2004, one month and six weeks and presumably a little further back for the appointments etc. Which makes it at the latest mid February 2004.
So she got pregnant again just over 10 months after Maddie was born. That is strange considering the problems they had with Maddie. Unless it was because of the problems they had with Maddie.

Not only started treatment, but in a foreign country where (according to Portia) a second free dose of IVF is rarely granted.

Maybe their credit card "friend' helped them out!

Bumping this topic as the question of whether or not the McCanns were broke before the holiday has been raised elsewhere.

Thank you, NFWTD.

This bit at the very end of Matthew Oldield's Rog statement sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

"The interviewee thinks that it is a kidnapping with the intention to demand a ransom from the parents, because these are people who are very comfortable financially."

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Whether they were broke or not, i can't think why using the fund to pay for the mortgage would bother them in the slightest as they seem to use everyone/ everything else that's available.

i think  the broke comment was made because someone had brought the payment to their attention or it was purely for pity.

i never noticed that in his statement before, i wonder if this was the initial plan by them to divert attention elsewhere but then given all the advice they received in early days it was too big a risk. I often get the impression from some of the statements some of tapas group are trying to leak snippets of info.imo

Possibly a timeline of the money issue could be constructed.

Obviously they should have been comfortably off even from the date they married.
If we take that as a starting point - Gerry gave Father Seddon a set of golfclubs from St. Andrews.
A very expensive present. If Gerry was a member of St. Andrews that would be another chunk out of the budget.

Then there is the post 3/5 behaviour:

Money boxes in the OC.
The free wine offered by OC - I believe Gerry took some 14 bottles.
The free accommodation for friends and family.
The two free apartments which the McCanns had to vacate after two months - having to pay rent after that date evidently rankled.
Paying the mortgage in June and July from the ltd.co is curuious,  it means the money had to be transferred from the fund account to the one with the standing order.
Might the credit card problem simply be that there was/ had been outsanding payments?
Then the rather late date of hiring a car and who paid for the hire?

In short, it looked to me that the McCanns were grabbing all they could at the time, like wanderers in the desert coming across water just in time to save their lives.

As to Gerry's work, iirc he got six months compassionate leave, Kate got paid for two months.
Gerry returned to work part time around November iirc (clip of statement in forensic linguistics) and full time in the beginning of 2008.

Hobs wrote:She fell pregnant after being implanted with more embryos (p. 24) and then (p. 25): "My pregnancy was totally without complication".


If this was a direct quite from the book then she has just told us more than one embryo was implanted which is usual hence the risk of a multiple pregnancy with IVF.

Could this mean that Maddie was herself a twin especially since it says the pregnancy was without complication.

Yes, Hobs.  I wasn't aware that Kate had said this, but on another thread a few weeks ago when discussing cerebral palsy I suggested M. was a surviving twin, the other not surviving early on in the pregnancy.  The pregnancy itself could have proceeded without complication.

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Gerry going back to work...

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Gerry going back to work...

And?

I wonder if the reporter who asked a question about the mortgage payments (around 0.50) has returned from exile yet!

Can anyone decipher the question right at the end which also upset his holiness?

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:I wonder if the reporter who asked a question about the mortgage payments (around 0.50) has returned from exile yet!

Can anyone decipher the question right at the end which also upset his holiness?

I can't make it out except he answers thathe doesn't know anything about it.  Just after that Pinky walks behind him.

somebody asked him how the patients would react to him. 

Also love his  'trial period'  bitof MRI, bit of academic work (reading the big book of symptoms)  and then see how he gets on as if he 's a work experience school leaver. Please dont tell me he's forgotten most of his medical training.

This must be November 2007,  so six months after compassionate leave started. i should think he was paid during that time.
Wonder if the overall survival rate went up during that time.
I'm also remembering that clip of Gerry with a patient in 'madeleine was here' ...

Is there any known reason why they would be broke in 2007?

notlongnow wrote:Is there any known reason why they would be broke in 2007?

No, or this thread wouldn't exist.

pauline wrote:

Anna wrote:I can't believe that a doctor in his position was only living from one month to the next and wouldn't have anything in the bank for rainy days. Most people, surely, have at least a couple of months back-up. He also worked at Spire Hospital which is private and would pay more per hour than Glenfield.

I've worked in finance for many years and believe me you cannot assume people have money because they are professional and on an appropriate salary.  Sometimes its the people with modest incomes who have significant savings because they don't spend.  People are different.  Generous people regardless of their actual income in my experience rarely have much saved.  As I have posted earlier, I think the IVF treatments could have left the McCanns with a loan other than the mortgage loan on their house.

Does anyone know what the takehome pay of a married man would be on £75000 after tax and national insurance?

I would have thought, if you worked in finance for many years, you would be able to answer your own question?!

Their mortgage was hardly large, £2000 isn't a big sum for two doctors.

Their combined wages would have allowed them to easily afford the repayments and live quite comfortably.

They were able to afford the holiday in PDL, and if you were tight for cash you would not go on holiday.

The reason why the didnt use a listening service was nothing to do with them not being able to afford to, if they were not able to afford to then they would not have been dining out and drinking every night when their kids were left home alone.

They have been on many holidays with their friends in recent years, again an indicator that year on year finances were not that tight.

Gerry allegedly reported his wallet, including credit cards as stolen, so he had access to a credit card.

People with their incomings, who were able to obtain a mortgage and a credit card would have had the facility to operate an overdraft, a big one at that with their combined incomes, and also re-mortgaging was a possibility.

We know they both got at least 2 months free pay whilst they were in PDL, and this excludes any pay they were owed for work already completed, and excludes any savings they had. One would expect them to have had savings, unless they were winging their whole holiday on credit?! Doubtful.

So their combined 2 months free pay would have paid the mortgage for a good few months, and that excludes any wages owed, or any of their other financial options that were available to them.

They had many options to legitimately pay for their mortgage, for many months, well beyond July, and to be dipping into the fund after 2 months is fraudulent because it was a fund set up to search for their daughter only, and not to pay for their mortgage because they could not be bothered to use the other normal financial means that were available to them.

There are absolutely no excuses to be using the fund money in July to pay their mortgage.

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but weren't the IVF treatments in NL for free ...?