Fact, Fiction and Fallacy - by spudgun

An excellent article by spudgun, deserves it's own thread - rather long to copy and paste, .................

Monday, 15 August 2011
Madeleine McCann - FACT, FICTION & FALLACY


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Yes this is brilliant from Spudgun which everyone should read. I didn't know that GM was friends with GB's brother and they worked at COMARE. Very interesting indeed

Need to get as many people as possible to read this

candyfloss

Excellent article from Spudgun.

It has always amazed me that Gerry and Kate had so many powerful and prominent friends to help in their time of need. Who has such connections - that's the secret isn't it?

IMO the McCanns didn't have that many influential friends, but boy, did they have the right ones.

And these had more useful friends as indeed did those friends. It all rippled out. IMO still, the lynchpin is GB from whom all the evil spread.
The McCs are an embarrassment to most of these 'influential people' I should think. They were expected to have gone back home and possibly appear in the press from time to time. I'm pretty sure none of the 'helpers' expected this still to be in issue with two pseudo celebrities milking the public for money and attention on a daily basis.

Instead of diving under the radar, they made a career out of a crime which put their facilitators in a much more compromising position than they could have imagined.
I am hoping that over this four year period, most of them have been able to distance themselves from their involvement, because that could finally leave the sorry pair without a lifebelt.

Perhaps their original plan was to stay in Portugal permanently, live of the Fund and the money they must have been already sure of getting.
They said they wouldn't leave until Madeleine was found.
The PJ scuppered that plan. No wonder Gerry said their lives were over, plan A was sunk. Plan B is still trundling on but running out of steam.

Spudgun should watch his back and not go for walks in the woods like prof. David Kelly did, remember the Hutton Inquiry?



I fear for him because it is getting more and more uncomfortable for some very influential people!

tigger wrote:IMO the McCanns didn't have that many influential friends, but boy, did they have the right ones.

And these had more useful friends as indeed did those friends. It all rippled out. IMO still, the lynchpin is GB from whom all the evil spread.
The McCs are an embarrassment to most of these 'influential people' I should think. They were expected to have gone back home and possibly appear in the press from time to time. I'm pretty sure none of the 'helpers' expected this still to be in issue with two pseudo celebrities milking the public for money and attention on a daily basis.

Instead of diving under the radar, they made a career out of a crime which put their facilitators in a much more compromising position than they could have imagined.
I am hoping that over this four year period, most of them have been able to distance themselves from their involvement, because that could finally leave the sorry pair without a lifebelt.

Perhaps their original plan was to stay in Portugal permanently, live of the Fund and the money they must have been already sure of getting.
They said they wouldn't leave until Madeleine was found.
The PJ scuppered that plan. No wonder Gerry said their lives were over, plan A was sunk. Plan B is still trundling on but running out of steam.

I agree, Tigger. It was your other post "The Original Plan" that set me thinking about that. The focus may well shift during the phone tapping investigation & who knows what might turn up. I also think that it perhaps the T7 might be now thinking in a different way. I can see how they would have helped their friends at the start when they were so far from home and even up to their interviews in 2008, perhaps they feared that they would all end up in prison. But having watched the McCann's milk it for 4 years is a different thing particularly when they have had a lot of time to think. Maybe under a direct grilling from SY there might be a very different result. Here is hoping.

Glad you can see where I' m coming from. I can't see a big conspiracy, but GB fouling things up thinking he's being clever, takes no great leap of the imagination. But now that the member for Kirkcaldy seems to have vanished from parliament, one wonders what's next. I'm still hoping the 'conspirators' can drop the McCanns in it at last. Wonder what they could use that made it a matter of 'national security'.
Recently read somewhere (O, to keep an organised search diary!) that one couple of the T7 wanted to change their testimony. Round about September 07. Then there was the meeting at the Rothley Hotel in October 07. Could have been O'Brien and Jane.

tigger wrote:Glad you can see where I' m coming from. I can't see a big conspiracy, but GB fouling things up thinking he's being clever, takes no great leap of the imagination. But now that the member for Kirkcaldy seems to have vanished from parliament, one wonders what's next. I'm still hoping the 'conspirators' can drop the McCanns in it at last. Wonder what they could use that made it a matter of 'national security'.
Recently read somewhere (O, to keep an organised search diary!) that one couple of the T7 wanted to change their testimony. Round about September 07. Then there was the meeting at the Rothley Hotel in October 07. Could have been O'Brien and Jane.

McCann friends 'change their story'


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Gerry and Kate McCann




Shock claim over Madeleine police statements

Two of the seven friends who were in a restaurant with the McCanns on the night Madeleine vanished are said to have told police they want to change their stories.

Lawyers acting for the pair are reported to have contacted Portuguese detectives and asked to "correct" their original witness statements.

They insisted their request be kept secret because they feared being pressured by supporters of Kate and Gerry, according to a report in Spain's El Mundo newspaper.

The McCanns' spokesman last night insisted that the report was "simply untrue". Portuguese police sources have repeatedly claimed "crucial inconsistencies" in accounts by the "Tapas Nine" of what happened on May 3 are at the centre of their inquiry.

The seven friends who were in the tapas restaurant with Kate and Gerry are Jane Tanner, partner Dr Russell O'Brien, Dr Matthew Oldfield and his wife Rachel, Dr David Payne and wife Fiona and her mother Dianne Webster.

Ms Tanner told police she saw a man hurrying from the McCanns' apartment around 9.15pm with what looked like a girl bundled under his arm.

But tourist Jeremy Wilkins, who was there at that time, says he did not see a man - and he did not see Ms Tanner.

Police are also curious why Dr O'Brien was away from the restaurant for up to 45 minutes after going to check on the various couples' children
He told them he was gone for so long because his daughter had been sick in her bed and he waited for fresh bed linen.


But police allegedly claim resort staff said no bed linen was requested.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell rubbished El Mundo's claims about the friends, saying: "I can deny any approach has been made by their lawyers asking to change the witness statement.

"Kate and Gerry's friends have consistently told the truth and remain happy, indeed they are keen, to be reinterviewed by the police."

Ms Tanner was also dismissive of the claims, saying: "It is absolute rubbish. We've had no contact with the police."

Dr Oldfield added: "None of the group have amended our statements as far as I am aware. We have been expecting to speak to the police again and will be happy to do so."

At the weekend it was reported Dr O'Brien, Ms Tanner, Dr Oldfield and Dr Payne had consulted lawyers fearing they were to be made suspects.

Police are also considering a check on Gerry's mobile records after a Portuguese TV network claimed he sent and received 14 texts during the two and a half hour dinner at the tapas bar.

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Madeleine McCann: Tapas 9's secret meeting

By Fiona Govan in Praia da Luz
6:53PM GMT 08 Dec 2007

The McCanns and the seven friends who dined with them on the night Madeleine went missing have met for the first time since her disappearance on May 3, it has emerged.

More on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
The "emotional and deeply sad" reunion was held at a hotel near Kate and Gerry McCanns' home in Rothley, Leicestershire around a fortnight ago.

The Tapas Nine had wanted to keep the meeting secret but yesterday details of it were leaked by a source close to the McCanns.

"It was a private meeting in a hotel and was the first time that the group had collectively met since Madeleine's disappearance," said the source.
"Of course it was emotional and deeply sad for all involved," the source said and also admitted that it was an opportunity to discuss events amid reports that the group are to be re-interviewed by police.

"It was an opportunity for the group to discuss the events of the summer and to talk about what may happen next," the source continued.

"They wanted to talk about possibly being interviewed by police again and what that may entail."

The willingness of the friends to meet dispels claims that some of them had fallen out with the couple and wanted to change their witness statements given to Portuguese police.

"It was a show of solidarity under police claims that one or two had wanted to change their stories," said the source.

"That is just not the case and the meeting showed that. It was a meeting to express support by the friends and just to see each other again. They hadn't seen each other properly."

But the meeting could anger Portuguese detectives who hope to travel to Britain to carry out interviews of the group in the coming days.

They believe that inconsistencies in original statements made by members of the Tapas Nine could hold the key to solving the mystery.

Meanwhile a former Portuguese police chief said the McCanns should have been arrested as soon as their daughter disappeared for "abandoning" their children.

"When the parents told police that they went to dinner and left the children at home alone, they confessed to the crime of abandonment and should have been charged on that first day," said Paulo Pereira Cristovao in an interview with Portuguese daily newspaper 24 Horas.

"The penalty of abandonment is at least three years imprisonment," he stated reiterating previous calls for them to face prosecution for their actions.

Mr Pereira Cristovao, 38, left the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) in September and now heads the Portuguese Association for Missing Children (APCD), which leads the hunt for missing children in Portugal.

When Madeleine disappeared on May 3 from the hotel apartment in Praia da Luz she became the ninth official missing child in the country but Mr Pereira Cristovao said her case would not be considered by the organisation.

"I was asked what I thought about inviting the McCanns to the APCD. I said no, because they're suspects," said Mr Pereira Cristovao.

"She is (the ninth child on the PJ's missing people page) but the case involves a criminal investigation which is still on the boil, with the parents as suspects." "We have eight children whose disappearances are unexplained," he said vowing not to rest until he had discovered what happened to them.

Commenting on the snub, Mr Mitchell said: ""Madeleine is still a missing child and she went missing in Portugal so we would hope that she would be treated as such by this organisation but ultimately that is a matter for them."


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candyfloss wrote:

Meanwhile a former Portuguese police chief said the McCanns should have been arrested as soon as their daughter disappeared for "abandoning" their children.

Thanks, Candyfloss, it's a very interesting piece. This is the part that doesn't make sense to me at all. Why concoct the Tapas saga and run the risk of imprisonment? We know that there was an adult missing every night so there were childminders. Yet there is evidence from Tapas staff that they were checking every night. I keep thinking that there was another plan that went wrong yet everything points to this scenario being set from the beginning.

Molly wrote:

candyfloss wrote:

Meanwhile a former Portuguese police chief said the McCanns should have been arrested as soon as their daughter disappeared for "abandoning" their children.

Thanks, Candyfloss, it's a very interesting piece. This is the part that doesn't make sense to me at all. Why concoct the Tapas saga and run the risk of imprisonment? We know that there was an adult missing every night so there were childminders. Yet there is evidence from Tapas staff that they were checking every night. I keep thinking that there was another plan that went wrong yet everything points to this scenario being set from the beginning.

I was under the impression that the Tapas bar staff wasn't too sure about when or how long people were away from the table. Surely they'd go to the loo sometimes? I thought also that they said on the 2nd hardly anyone left the table? (I'll have to check). But how can the staff remember when asked on the 4th or 5th or even later, whether this 'checking' was going on? If some of them did concur, it may well have been out of pity or politeness, I've no idea. It's just not feasible to expect them to remember how the guests behaved all week. They weren't the only guests and I thought it was fairly heavily booked.
Besides, how could the bar staff know why anyone left the table.

And Molly: just one thing without neglect there could be no abduction

Thanks, Tigger, I found 4 statements from Tapas:

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That he never noticed any walkie talkies or other sound devices on top of the table occupied by the group. He only noticed that occasionally one of the nine present would get up from the table and leave for a few minutes. He did not know where they went.

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When asked, he says that he remembers that it was usual during dinner for one or two members of the group to leave the table for about 10 or 15 minutes and given the fact that on various occasions he saw walkie talkies on the table, he supposed that they went to check on their children who were in their respective rooms.

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Frequently, when I served the table I noticed that one or two elements of the group had left the restaurant. I could not imagine where they had gone to. After seeing the news stories, I figured that they had gone to check on their children. On some occasions, I also saw some infant monitors on the same table but never related this to the facts.

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When asked, he said that during dinner the men from the group would leave the table, returning to the table a few minutes later. The witness says that he does not know where they went. These absences would last for about 15 minutes. He cannot say with what regularity these absences occurred.


Yes, I have also seen some things about needing to show neglect to prove abduction but I don't understand. If they had said for example that she was bundled into a car or had disappeared while the McCann's were sleeping how would these stories differ? I keep thinking that the Tapas is more like an alibi but can't think why.

Both the scenarios you propose are more unlikely than the one they ran.

If she was taken from her bed whilst all of them were in the apartment, even asleep: she would have woken and screamed. Even if she didn't, it still needs five people who all sleep soundly in a very small apartment with all the internal doors open, to sleep through a burglary. Tends only to happen in films. If she hadn't woken the police would have wondered why. They'd have tested the twins straight away. The Calpol is quite an issue in Portugal, you can be put in prison for drugging your kids.

If she'd been bundled into a car she would have had to be alone or within sight of her parents. The car would have definitely been noticed by the holiday makers, the residents and it would actually have to have happened. You can't walk along the road, kill your child and throw her in a ditch, then come back and say she's been kidnapped. That wouldn't work at all.

But the scenario they did run, absolved them from total blame: they all did this and nothing had ever happened.

Yes, I guess I can understand now, Tigger, thanks. I guess thinking about it clearly in a built up area there was no other alternative.

Molly wrote:Yes, I guess I can understand now, Tigger, thanks. I guess thinking about it clearly in a built up area there was no other alternative.

It's still not a good excuse of course, but the main thing was, I think, to have no chance of a post mortem. So any kind of accident would be out. Then as you said, they could just have said she was grabbed and put in a car. But then you'd have to say what type of car and so on and it's even more sensational.
It does happen, but to older children who are out on their own. Toddlers should be supervised day and night.
It's amazing how they get into trouble in 5 seconds flat.

Just bumping this thread for those that haven't read the article by Spudgun the first post on this thread.......

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candyfloss wrote:An excellent article by spudgun, deserves it's own thread - rather long to copy and paste, .................

Monday, 15 August 2011
Madeleine McCann - FACT, FICTION & FALLACY


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Wonderful stuff, and will read again at leisure.

At this moment, several points arise. Do you think it might be a numbers game? Ie. in the crudest form we have seen statistics manipulated to portrary greater support than actually exists. As a deputy, or even a secretary, how difficult would it be to discern between the reliable and unreliable stats that are 'faxed' to them by the hour?

The McCanns were selling tabloids, Rebekka Brookes was horse riding with the Prime Minister. The prime minister wanted public support, so too the editor of the Sun, the McCanns were portrayed as popular, and all dissenting voices were seen as rabble rousing. Sadly, we are so neglectful of our childrens' education, most of the populace buy into it. They take a peek at page 3, and check if they have won the lottery. A brief comment about that Maddie girl still being missing, but probably not much beyond that. The orchestrators of the Maddie Campaign know that. They are working on the assumption that we are all stupid and/or gullible. Sad that they made the right call on that one, we should be ashamed of the low grading that we accept for our kids. The result of course is, how many young and old go beyond the headlines?

However, it is not entirely true. Admittedly, I do not have access to recent stats on public opinion, but I think the pendulum is swinging the other way - the opponents have backed themselves into a corner, mostly of their own making, which is quite bizarre. There is a secret being hidden, it might be small, mostly insignificant, but it might settle once and for all the mystery behind the disappearance of a tiny child and I can't see why the people involved won't co-operate.

I think the press are playing the long game. They've paid out over a million in total in compensation to people involved, they've had the McCanns slagging them off at Levison, the McCanns want media coverage and public attention, but only on their own terms, and the press don't play by those rules.

I've long thought that with the press being in possession of the files, reading the comments on the internet, and[u] possibly [u] carried out surveillance or had as yet unknown info fed to them, there is a distinct chance that several within the media machine are just waiting for their moment. They can see the same stuff as us, come to similar conclusions, dogs, phone records, all the weid co-incidences and so on.

Amaral has said there is so much more he could tell. I expect that is true of others and we really don't know who has spoken to who, we also don't know who could be sitting on dynamite waiting for their moment to blow the whole thing into the stratosphere. I think a situation has developed with this case where IF there is ever a big reveal of some sort, there will be one chance and one chance only to blow the story, to get it right. It'll have to be unequivocal. There are a lot of people in the mix and all the elements have to fit tightly together with no room for error.

I also think they are not as confident as they would have us believe, they are in no hurry to get Amaral or Tony into court IMO. They are waiting for those two to bottle it. Which won't happen.

Deep down, I think this might all take an extraordinary twist one of these days.

Smokeandmirrors wrote:I think the press are playing the long game. They've paid out over a million in total in compensation to people involved, they've had the McCanns slagging them off at Levison, the McCanns want media coverage and public attention, but only on their own terms, and the press don't play by those rules...Deep down, I think this might all take an extraordinary twist one of these days.

I agree entirely with you. The list of people the McCanns have criticised is lengthy; the Portugese police, the foreign press, the British press, the PCC... IMO getting involved in the Leveson inquiry could prove disastrous, as it surely destroyed any goodwill left within the British press. It seems to me that 'the planets are aligning' in so far as the Amaral libel trial, the Leveson findings and the possible conclusion of the review are coinciding soon. Interesting times.

Lots to read here and a good long article from Spudgun on the first page.

Just bumping this to remind us of how we were looking at it two + years ago.

Spudgun's article puts the sequence of events very clearly,

My favourite article about the McCanns is the one with a Chimp holding a spoon - message (to TM) reads:

I don't believe you - because I can use a spoon..... 

There 's always something when reading older topics, that's either overlooked or that one has missed the first time round.

I certainly didn't know they'd had a private audience with Gordon Brown. Incidentally, where is the member for Kirkcaldy these days? He rarely turns up in parliament, at least John Major was often seen on the opposition benches after his election defeat.

From the Spudgun link:


None-the-less, after a private audience with Gordon Brown where the McCann’s had sought his assistance in early June, the British and Portuguese press widely reported that Brown had intervened in the case and that he had persuaded the Portuguese Authorities to permit the McCann’s to appeal for information relating to this ‘abductor’.


After the McCanns were made arguidos in September, SUSPECTS in the disappearance of their daughter, the TIMES reported that;

“Ministerial Contact was severed with the McCanns because of the sensitive nature of their Legal status”


However, it was apparent that the Government, rather than distancing itself from the McCanns, formed closer relations than ever.


Brown dispatched the ever-ready Clarence Mitchell, once again, who formally resigned his Media Monitoring post at the Cabinet to take up the FULL time role of McCanns Media advisor, a role he had initially adopted whist seconded to the Foreign Office in the weeks after Madeleine first went missing.


The TIMES again:-
“Mitchell still has the key phone numbers and e-mail addresses of people in power and will continue to use them. He has attended top-level briefings at No 10 every weekday for the past two years. The McCanns do not expect help or influence to be exerted on their behalf but want to get messages to the very top that they are innocent.”


Quite.

And this: it is from the Attorney General's final report:

(What I didn't know that there was a typed out sheet of 'instructions' distributed at the Rothley meeting - no wonder the formulaic descriptions of the model parents and child, I expect they were alllowed to use them in the rogatories.)

Additionally, the report also takes issue with the fact that, as was widely reported at the time, the McCanns and their ‘Tapas’ friends had a secret meeting in a Leicestershire Hotel in October 2007. As a result of which, a more ‘corroborating’ series of statements were issued, relating to the sequence of events of the night of May 3rd. OR, as the Portuguese put it:

“A typed report produced by the McCann holiday group after a detailed joint meeting between them all. This report of theirs deals with their recollections about the events of the evening of 3rd May”.

So you will have to forgive me if I fail to see exactly WHERE, in this most definitive of reports, the McCanns are cleared.

Of course, if I wanted to be a bit “scurrilous and unhelpful” as no doubt Clarence Mitchell would have it, I could also add that this report make no denouncement or retraction of the previous, initial report made by Tavares de Almeida, then Chief Inspector in September 2007.

THAT report concluded, amongst other things that:

Madeleine McCann died in the Holiday apartment on 3rd May 2007.

A staged HOAX abduction took place.

The McCanns were involved in the concealment of the corpse of their daughter.

And so we come to the present day. David Cameron joins the list of supremely powerful allies to the McCanns by announcing that the Metroploitan Police are to “review” the case.

Apparently, he was moved after receiving a ‘heartfelt’ letter from Kate and Gerry.

Gerry thoughtfully and tactfully pointed out in a later TV interview that the Prime Minister
“knows what it’s like to lose a child” referring to the death of Cameron’s son, Ivan.

Nice touch, that, Gerry.


It still remains to be seen what form, (if any), this review will take, given that this case is still the legal domain of the Portuguese.


Matters are even more clouded, now that the man in charge of the MET review, Sir Paul Stephenson, has resigned after allegations of corruption and bribery relating to senior members of the Metropolitan police force.

Unquote