D/S Stuart Prior was only there to stop the McCanns going into custody: The issue of Dr Kate McCann's fingerprints being the only ones found on the window

I bring this subject up again to focus on the last paragraph of this extract from Chapter 17 of Dr Amaral's book, which deals primarily with evidential contradictions and especially with the issue of it being only Dr Kate McCann's fingerprints which were found on the children's room's window (the window having been cleaned the previous day).

The final paragraph, which I've highlighted, deals with the role of Detective Supertintendent Stuart Prior of Leicestershire Police (LP). Dr Amaral is writing about events in the first week of September 2007, jsut prior to the McCanns being pulled in for questioning.

Amongst Stuart Prior's other claims to fame/notoriety in this case:

* He was responsible for the decision to link the LP website to the 'Find Madeleine' website, thus becoming the first police officer in world history to both help suspects to divert the public's information about a crime from the police to the suspects' own telephone hotline AND to actively help the suspects to raise money for their own purposes including their legal defence

* He actively co-operated with the McCanns and their advisers to help them produce favourable and prominent news stories in Britain's mass media, notably in the case of his very direct involvement in promoting the media splash about 'Monsterman'/'Cooperman', as we've detailed in our articles on this subject on The Madeleine Foundation website ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])

* He created famliality between himself and prime suspects the McCanns and their friends when they were subject to 'Rogatory Interviews' in the spring of 2008 and at a time when the Portuguese Police wanted them all to come out to Portugal for a reconstuction, asking them to call him 'Stu'; the evidence suggests that he may have instructed his officers to 'go easy' on the McCanns and their friends despite all the obvious contraductions amongst their witness statements.

Against that background, here is the extract from Chapter 17 of Dr Amaral's book:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


FINGERPRINTS ON THE WINDOW

One afternoon, we drive to apartment 5A at the Ocean Club. I am accompanied by Guilhermino Encarnação, the indefatigable Polícia Judiciária Director from Faro, who is following every step of the investigation, with daily trips to Portimão. José Freitas of Scotland Yard is accompanied by Stuart Prior, to whom we explain the theory of an accident. According to Encarnação, the child's death must have resulted from a fall behind the sofa, where the dogs marked the odours of cadaver and blood. The theory is simple and based on evidence in our possession. The parents would have pushed the sofa away from the window as a safety precaution because the window opened easily and it was situated, remember, three metres above the outside pavement. When Gerald went to the apartment at around 9pm to check on his children, used the toilet and then left, Madeleine might have woken up. Hearing her father's voice coming from the street outside, she may have tried to reach the window by climbing on the sofa and could have fallen behind it. Stuart indicates that he understands and agrees with the possibility. He takes this opportunity to ask if any fingerprints were found on that window or on any others, particularly on the one in Madeleine's bedroom.

Initially, we don't understand why he is asking this question, since he has seen our report. He should know that fingerprints were discovered with the lophoscopic* analysis carried out on the night of May 3rd and the following day. The results are in the report. Why is he asking about them now? We respond evasively, "Nothing conclusive."

However, on the glass, on the handle and on the right-hand frame of Madeleine's bedroom window, we had lifted five fingerprints - three from a middle finger and two from an index finger - all from a left hand, identified as belonging to Kate McCann.

The technicians who examined the apartment did not place any great importance on the identification of the fingerprints. In fact, in the absence of obvious signs of assault or of a crime - like signs of a struggle, traces of blood or the presence of a corpse -, the technicians proceed to the kind of examination that is carried out in a burglary case. They forget that fingerprints discovered in a particular place, even if they belong to an occupant of the premises, can be of fundamental importance for the progress of the investigation and constitute valuable evidence, even material proof.

The window in question is the one that Kate Healy states she found open to the left, with the curtains fluttering, when she discovered that her daughter was missing. On the window, there were no signs of a break-in or of gloves. It had been cleaned the day before, May 2nd, by an Ocean Club employee, and the only fingerprints found were Kate's. The position of the fingerprints indicate that the window had been opened to the left, as Kate Healy stated: "the window was fully open to the left." There is no doubt that somebody opened that window on the evening of May 3rd and the only fingerprints found on it were those of Kate Healy. The manager of the Ocean Club's crèche, who went to the apartment after the alarm was raised, remarked that, "the window was partially open to the left," confirming Kate's earlier statement.

We prefer not to discuss this with Stuart Prior: we have the impression that he is only here to accompany the McCanns' interrogations and to prevent their detention. His concern on that subject is obvious.

Yep, call me Stu, one heck of an officer dedicated to prevent justice.

Why do I get the feeling that if I had the misfortune to meet this "call me Stu" at any point I would immediately have an attack of "I've got to get away from this man and find a real Policeman"!

GA was not so naive as our K & G would like us believe.

Part of John Whitehouse's article about the creation of the 'Monsterman'/'Cooperman' news story may be of inteest in relation to the 'Stu and Gerry show', bits about Stu highlighted in blue:



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kennedy became strangely overactive and interventionist in the case of missing Madeleine McCann. Among other things:

1. He spoke personally to a leading witness in the case, Martin Smith from Ireland. This was contrary to the rules governing Portuguese Police investigations

2. According to an article by Mark Hollingsworth in the Evening Standard in August 2009, Brian Kennedy and some of the men he was employing intimidated some potential witnesses, causing them to refuse to speak to the Portuguese Police

3. He flew to Morocco and led an intense search for Madeleine there

4. He flew to Praia da Luz in November 2007 with his lawyer to talk to the leading suspect in the case, Robert Murat, and his lawyer

5. He paid for ‘FBI-trained forensic artist’ Melissa Little to make sketches of a possible abductor seen by Jane Tanner and to make sketches of a suspicious man seen in praia da Luz by Gail Cooper

6. He personally appointed high-living and hard drinking Irish fraudster Kevin Halligen to oversee the investigation into where Madeleine McCann might be, paying him £500,000. He achieved nothing, and went into hiding in a £700-a-night Oxfordshire Hotel. He was found there in October 2009 and ever since has been in Belmarsh Prison awaiting extradition to the United States.

On 16 January 2008, three days after Brian Kennedy’s interview with Albert Schuurmans of the Roscoe Foundation in Portugal, Dr Gerald McCann emailed Superintendent Stuart Prior of Leicestershire Police with a PowerPoint presentation (folio 3966), with the briefest of covering notes saying: ‘As discussed’.

Just one hour later Superintendent Prior forwarded the package to Ricardo Paiva of the Portuguese Police, asking for instructions and stating, among other things: “The PowerPoint attached (Folio 3968) was completed by the McCanns, but the statements were all taken by the U.K. police. Miss Tanner’s description was taken from the press and from the summary of her statement. There is some urgency around this as we need to decide prior to the Gail Cooper artist’s impression appearing in the U.K. press. How are you going to deal with the possible press issues? What are you planning around Mr Kennedy and the private investigation firm?”

He concludes: “I will need to get back to the McCanns as he has asked to be updated. How would Paulo [Mr Rebelo] want this conducted and what information I am to provide to them? They are very excited about this potential lead”.

By this time, there was an ultra-friendly relationship between Stuart Prior and Dr Gerald McCann. It was ‘Stu’ and ‘Gerry’. Despite being one of three ‘arguidos’ suspected of active involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Dr McCann is able to discuss his ‘Powerpoint’ presentation with Stuart Prior and get him to forward it on to the Portuguese police within minutes. Prior was clearly aware that the McCann Team wanted to do a major press blitz as soon as possible on this new sketch, and was anxious to help them. “I will need to get back to the McCanns”, wrote Prior, in much the same way as he might have written: “I will need to get back to my Chief Constable”.

The McCanns and their formidable team were directing the entire course of the investigation at this point, aided by Stuart Prior’s deferential relationship to the McCanns.

By this time, Leicestershire Police had already, months previously, made the unprecedented decision to link their website to the McCanns’ fund-raising website, which in turn directed any members of the public who might have information not to Leicestershire Police, nor to the Portuguese Police, but to the McCanns’ own very dubious private investigators, Metodo 3, whose controversial boss, Francisco Marco, had made the bold but false claim in December that he knew where Madeleine was, his men were closing in on her, and she would be home before Christmas.

Dr McCann’s ‘Powerpoint’ slides attempted to highlight the alleged similarity between Jane Tanner’s ‘bundleman’ and the ‘Monster Man/George Harrison man’ of Gail Cooper.

Dr Gerald McCann wrote:

“Tanner spent a full day with Melissa Little, a qualified Police Sketch Artist since 1986, to compile this likeness of the suspect. Melissa met Gail Cooper in a separate session. After spending hours with both witnesses, Melissa Little states: “There are many similarities between Miss Tanner’s man and Gail’s. Tanner believes that there is an 80% likelihood that this is the same man she saw carrying away the child, believed to be Madeleine”.

Dr McCann was in effect telling the police: “Forget about Tanner saying it was Murat that she’d seen. It wasn’t. Tanner now says the man looks something like these three sketches”.

On 17 January 2008 (the very next day), Detective Constable 4168 of the Leicestershire Police interviewed Gail Cooper and e-mailed the Operational Task Force. He noted at the time that Mrs Cooper was trying to explain why the News of the World had added to and embellished her police statements, by saying “It never crossed my mind” that they would do so. The Officer also reported that she “mentioned a man called Brian Kennedy who was working for the McCanns and...had sent an artist down to do a sketch of the man she saw at the villa” (Police files: Folio 4005).

On 18 January 2008, Superintendent Stuart Prior emailed Ricardo Paiva about the Gail Cooper statement:

“As discussed, I have given Gerry a brief update just saying that the other descriptions are different to the artist’s impressions completed by Gail and identified by Jane [Tanner].That the witnesses appeared genuine which indicates a number of charity collectors in the area prior to Madeleine being taken.

“We have not spoken to Jane at all and will not share our files with anybody, except yourselves, unless you request this from us. It appears there were at least three charity collectors if not more in the area in the weeks before Madeleine being taken. I am told that the artist’s impression by Gail Cooper is likely to hit the press over the weekend and I will update you on the effects of this next week, although we are not involved in this in any way at all”.

Prior notes that the artist’s impression ‘is likely to hit the press over the weekend’. He knew, we can be sure, exactly when Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ public relations chief, would be calling the press for his now-famous presentation, ‘Crimewatch’-style, of ‘Monster Man’ to the British press. This was a planned media event by the McCann Team to highlight Melissa Little’s sketches. Leicestershire Police were acting like pawns on a chess board.

Later, Prior referred to an email from Michael Graham of the Leicestershire Police who reported: “I [Mick Graham] have spoken to Charlotte Pennington this morning and she has no additional information to give…She has been spoken to by a Private Investigator (Noel Hogan) working on behalf of Metodo 3. Charlotte assures me that she has only relayed to him the same information that she has already given to the Portuguese Police and to me (as per email dated 7 August 2007)”.

On Sunday 20 January 2008, the News of the World published a long article on Mrs Cooper’s alleged sighting and printed the full facial and 'striding out' sketches of ‘Monster Man’. On 21 January 2008, Clarence Mitchell, the McCann’s spokesman, held a press conference releasing details of ‘Monster Man’.

The News of the World concluded: “The sketch by qualified police artist Melissa Little bears an uncanny resemblance to an earlier picture, based on Miss Tanner's story”. This is unsurprising given that both sketches had been made - using considerable artistic licence - by the same artist, Melissa Little, who was paid for by Brian Kennedy to assist the McCanns.

Given the obvious differences between Murat and either ‘Monster Man’ or ‘bundleman’, why, we must ask, did Tanner not at this stage immediately correct what, by now, must have been quite obvious to her - namely that she had misidentified Murat from the police van, back on 14 May the previous year?

Tanner said that on 3 May she saw a swarthy, olive-skinned bloke in mustard chinos, about 5' 7" to 5' 9", carrying away Madeleine. She said on the record that she did not see his face.

Just 10 days after she saw Robert Murat pass by a police van she was secreted in. She adamantly told the police: 'That's the man I saw 10 days ago, I can tell by the way he is walking'.

Yet by January 2008 she is again chatting all day long to Melissa Little, presumably being paid by Brian Kennedy and the McCann Fund, and claiming that 'Monster Man' looked like the bloke she'd seen on 3 May. How could she possibly tell if she never saw his face on 3 May.

Jane Tanner may have seen a bloke on 3 May. She may really have thought 10 days later that the man she saw was Robert Murat. She may have genuinely thought that when Melissa Little drew her artist's sketch of 'Monster Man', based on Gail Cooper's description, that this really did look like the bloke she'd seen on 3 May (well, '80% similarity', says Tanner.

Alternatively, she could be lying throughout.

Tony Bennett wrote:Part of John Whitehouse's article about the creation of the 'Monsterman'/'Cooperman' news story may be of inteest in relation to the 'Stu and Gerry show', bits about Stu highlighted in blue:



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kennedy became strangely overactive and interventionist in the case of missing Madeleine McCann. Among other things:

1. He spoke personally to a leading witness in the case, Martin Smith from Ireland. This was contrary to the rules governing Portuguese Police investigations

2. According to an article by Mark Hollingsworth in the Evening Standard in August 2009, Brian Kennedy and some of the men he was employing intimidated some potential witnesses, causing them to refuse to speak to the Portuguese Police

3. He flew to Morocco and led an intense search for Madeleine there

4. He flew to Praia da Luz in November 2007 with his lawyer to talk to the leading suspect in the case, Robert Murat, and his lawyer

5. He paid for ‘FBI-trained forensic artist’ Melissa Little to make sketches of a possible abductor seen by Jane Tanner and to make sketches of a suspicious man seen in praia da Luz by Gail Cooper

6. He personally appointed high-living and hard drinking Irish fraudster Kevin Halligen to oversee the investigation into where Madeleine McCann might be, paying him £500,000. He achieved nothing, and went into hiding in a £700-a-night Oxfordshire Hotel. He was found there in October 2009 and ever since has been in Belmarsh Prison awaiting extradition to the United States.

On 16 January 2008, three days after Brian Kennedy’s interview with Albert Schuurmans of the Roscoe Foundation in Portugal, Dr Gerald McCann emailed Superintendent Stuart Prior of Leicestershire Police with a PowerPoint presentation (folio 3966), with the briefest of covering notes saying: ‘As discussed’.

Just one hour later Superintendent Prior forwarded the package to Ricardo Paiva of the Portuguese Police, asking for instructions and stating, among other things: “The PowerPoint attached (Folio 3968) was completed by the McCanns, but the statements were all taken by the U.K. police. Miss Tanner’s description was taken from the press and from the summary of her statement. There is some urgency around this as we need to decide prior to the Gail Cooper artist’s impression appearing in the U.K. press. How are you going to deal with the possible press issues? What are you planning around Mr Kennedy and the private investigation firm?”

He concludes: “I will need to get back to the McCanns as he has asked to be updated. How would Paulo [Mr Rebelo] want this conducted and what information I am to provide to them? They are very excited about this potential lead”.

By this time, there was an ultra-friendly relationship between Stuart Prior and Dr Gerald McCann. It was ‘Stu’ and ‘Gerry’. Despite being one of three ‘arguidos’ suspected of active involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Dr McCann is able to discuss his ‘Powerpoint’ presentation with Stuart Prior and get him to forward it on to the Portuguese police within minutes. Prior was clearly aware that the McCann Team wanted to do a major press blitz as soon as possible on this new sketch, and was anxious to help them. “I will need to get back to the McCanns”, wrote Prior, in much the same way as he might have written: “I will need to get back to my Chief Constable”.

The McCanns and their formidable team were directing the entire course of the investigation at this point, aided by Stuart Prior’s deferential relationship to the McCanns.

By this time, Leicestershire Police had already, months previously, made the unprecedented decision to link their website to the McCanns’ fund-raising website, which in turn directed any members of the public who might have information not to Leicestershire Police, nor to the Portuguese Police, but to the McCanns’ own very dubious private investigators, Metodo 3, whose controversial boss, Francisco Marco, had made the bold but false claim in December that he knew where Madeleine was, his men were closing in on her, and she would be home before Christmas.

Dr McCann’s ‘Powerpoint’ slides attempted to highlight the alleged similarity between Jane Tanner’s ‘bundleman’ and the ‘Monster Man/George Harrison man’ of Gail Cooper.

Dr Gerald McCann wrote:

“Tanner spent a full day with Melissa Little, a qualified Police Sketch Artist since 1986, to compile this likeness of the suspect. Melissa met Gail Cooper in a separate session. After spending hours with both witnesses, Melissa Little states: “There are many similarities between Miss Tanner’s man and Gail’s. Tanner believes that there is an 80% likelihood that this is the same man she saw carrying away the child, believed to be Madeleine”.

Dr McCann was in effect telling the police: “Forget about Tanner saying it was Murat that she’d seen. It wasn’t. Tanner now says the man looks something like these three sketches”.

On 17 January 2008 (the very next day), Detective Constable 4168 of the Leicestershire Police interviewed Gail Cooper and e-mailed the Operational Task Force. He noted at the time that Mrs Cooper was trying to explain why the News of the World had added to and embellished her police statements, by saying “It never crossed my mind” that they would do so. The Officer also reported that she “mentioned a man called Brian Kennedy who was working for the McCanns and...had sent an artist down to do a sketch of the man she saw at the villa” (Police files: Folio 4005).

On 18 January 2008, Superintendent Stuart Prior emailed Ricardo Paiva about the Gail Cooper statement:

“As discussed, I have given Gerry a brief update just saying that the other descriptions are different to the artist’s impressions completed by Gail and identified by Jane [Tanner].That the witnesses appeared genuine which indicates a number of charity collectors in the area prior to Madeleine being taken.

“We have not spoken to Jane at all and will not share our files with anybody, except yourselves, unless you request this from us. It appears there were at least three charity collectors if not more in the area in the weeks before Madeleine being taken. I am told that the artist’s impression by Gail Cooper is likely to hit the press over the weekend and I will update you on the effects of this next week, although we are not involved in this in any way at all”.

Prior notes that the artist’s impression ‘is likely to hit the press over the weekend’. He knew, we can be sure, exactly when Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ public relations chief, would be calling the press for his now-famous presentation, ‘Crimewatch’-style, of ‘Monster Man’ to the British press. This was a planned media event by the McCann Team to highlight Melissa Little’s sketches. Leicestershire Police were acting like pawns on a chess board.

Later, Prior referred to an email from Michael Graham of the Leicestershire Police who reported: “I [Mick Graham] have spoken to Charlotte Pennington this morning and she has no additional information to give…She has been spoken to by a Private Investigator (Noel Hogan) working on behalf of Metodo 3. Charlotte assures me that she has only relayed to him the same information that she has already given to the Portuguese Police and to me (as per email dated 7 August 2007)”.

On Sunday 20 January 2008, the News of the World published a long article on Mrs Cooper’s alleged sighting and printed the full facial and 'striding out' sketches of ‘Monster Man’. On 21 January 2008, Clarence Mitchell, the McCann’s spokesman, held a press conference releasing details of ‘Monster Man’.

The News of the World concluded: “The sketch by qualified police artist Melissa Little bears an uncanny resemblance to an earlier picture, based on Miss Tanner's story”. This is unsurprising given that both sketches had been made - using considerable artistic licence - by the same artist, Melissa Little, who was paid for by Brian Kennedy to assist the McCanns.

Given the obvious differences between Murat and either ‘Monster Man’ or ‘bundleman’, why, we must ask, did Tanner not at this stage immediately correct what, by now, must have been quite obvious to her - namely that she had misidentified Murat from the police van, back on 14 May the previous year?

Tanner said that on 3 May she saw a swarthy, olive-skinned bloke in mustard chinos, about 5' 7" to 5' 9", carrying away Madeleine. She said on the record that she did not see his face.

Just 10 days after she saw Robert Murat pass by a police van she was secreted in. She adamantly told the police: 'That's the man I saw 10 days ago, I can tell by the way he is walking'.

Yet by January 2008 she is again chatting all day long to Melissa Little, presumably being paid by Brian Kennedy and the McCann Fund, and claiming that 'Monster Man' looked like the bloke she'd seen on 3 May. How could she possibly tell if she never saw his face on 3 May.

Jane Tanner may have seen a bloke on 3 May. She may really have thought 10 days later that the man she saw was Robert Murat. She may have genuinely thought that when Melissa Little drew her artist's sketch of 'Monster Man', based on Gail Cooper's description, that this really did look like the bloke she'd seen on 3 May (well, '80% similarity', says Tanner.

Alternatively, she could be lying throughout.

Obviously when "Call me Stu" let Gerry do the powerpoint presentations Gerry would not have had access to the witness testimonies as being a suspect that is not allowed LOL.

Also why on earth did the Leicester police use Jane Tanners media statements to get a description of "monster man"

The PowerPoint attached (Folio 3968) was completed by the McCanns, but the statements were all taken by the U.K. police. Miss Tanner’s description was taken from the press and from the summary of her statement.

Mind if her statements to the media are acceptable in police terms then I am assuming David Payne and the Team McCann statements are admissable about the shutters, cuddle cat moving, etc also?

What do you reckon?

Does anyone know who the helpful source at Leicestershire Police said this to the Daily Mail undermining the PJ and their relationship with them.

"Among the claims are suggestions that bloodstains from Madeleine have been found in the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, and that blood or other bodily fluids and hair were found in a car the McCanns hired five weeks after she disappeared.

But a source at Leicestershire Police has told the Daily Mail that the forensic evidence would bear little weight in a British court.

The source said the scientific evidence was fatally weakened by a failure to keep the crime scenes free from contamination.

Leicestershire Police have been helping Portuguese officers with the inquiry since the four-year-old's disappearance in May. The Daily Mail's source has dealt with the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, which has undertaken key scientific work for Portugal.

The source said: "The forensic evidence the Portuguese have is very flaky. The preservation of the crime scenes carried out by the Portuguese police was very poor - every man and his dog has been to the crime scene at the apartment, and used the McCanns' hire car.

"It means it's very hard to pin down where any fluids or other sources of DNA came from in the first place. And as for Madeleine's hair being found in the hire car - well, of course it could be. Hair stays around for ages, and sticks to clothes. So Madeleine's hair has been found in the boot? So what?"

Read more: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

littlepixie wrote:I posted this on another thread but as it concerns Mr Prior I'll post it here as well.

I found an old letter today that was
sent to me by Stuart Prior of Leicestershire Police. I had asked him why
his Police website was linking to a suspects website where the suspect
was telling the public to send information to themselves (the suspects) rather than to his Police Force.

You know what his answer was?

"Some people don't feel comfortable talking to the Police"

I hope that comes back to haunt him!

What, so he directs them to talk to SUSPECTS!

Must be a world first a Police Force tells the public to send info directly to crime suspects.

Maybe a copy of his letter should be sent to SY team? I hope SY team scrutinise his role in the mccanns case.

I agree, a copy of that letter must be sent to DCI Andy Redwood. It is disgusting.