Re: Further Analysis of the Last Photo

by Hicks 05.11.14 14:59

One thing jumps out when reading about the cameras, why they were sent to Hampshire? and why did Clarence Mitchell accompany GM back to Portugal ? Was there something or somebody that had to be taken off before the holiday photos could go out in the public domain?

The first photo of Madeleine that we saw was the poster one where she is undeniably much younger. Perhaps the McCann's had no choice but to use this one. It could even have come from a camera belonging to one of the other couples.

It could be that the McCann's holiday snaps were hot property!

by **Tony Bennett** 05.11.14 15:03

I have a long, as-yet-unpublished, article dealing with the Last Photo, all the other photos of Madeleine on that holiday, and generally on the cameras used by the McCanns and their friends and what photos might have been on them and what photos might have been deleted.

I struggle with technical issues regarding cameras, memory sticks, images and the like - and I recognise that there are some sincere posters now on this thread who have far greater knowledge than I do of these matters.

I am going therefore to publish, below, my provisional thoughts on some of these isssue, in the hope that this will produce furtrher enlightenment by those who have relevant expertise, thanks.

I fully recognise that there may be all sorts of errors of fact and interpretation in what follows, and positively welcome constructive criticism of anything I`ve written:

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[SNIPPED FROM A LONGER, PROVISIONAL ARTICLE]

GENERAL POINTS

The PJ were given two CDs. One CD was compiled by Gerry McCann, the other one was compiled by Michael Wright.

They were apparently created for use by the police by producing then in a ‘Pure Black-and-White’ format, a technique used for scanning/printing photographs. There are no colours in the images on those two CDs.

An obvious question is: Why didn't Gerry McCann supply the police with colour images? We know that they exist, as there are the 3 colour versions of the photo(s) of Madeleine in the playground. And on the camera, they would of course have been in colour.
Gerry McCann, or anyone else producing these black-and-white pdfs. For the CD, would presumably have had to make the conscious decision to select the option of scanning them in black and white into pdf. format.

The fact that the Portuguese police would only have had black-and-white images would have made identifying the people in the pictures more difficult.

Also, we simply do not know whether any pictures were deleted, but it seems highly likely. If they were deleted, who deleted them, how many did they delete, and what were they of? There are computer programs which can recover images from a camera memory card even after they have been deleted. Presumably this wasn’t done.

The CD could even have been a composite selection by Gerry McCann of photos from more than one camera, and not only of theirs but of various cameras belonging to their group of friends. However, it seems that most, if not all of the images, were from the Paynes' camera.

The Olympus camera, ostensibly that belonging to Kate McCann, was sent to England on Tuesday 8 May for analysis, and examined by D.C. Martin on Wednesday 9 May. That raises these questions, among others:

Who retained this camera before it was sent to Hampshire for analysis?
Who did Gerry and Kate McCann first give the camera to?
Was it ever given to the Portuguese police?
Did the Portuguese police authorise these photos to be examined in England? or were they simply told after the event?
Who gave the order for the camera to be taken to England?
Who physically took it to Hampshire?
Did they travel alone?
When did he/they travel?
When was the police officer who examined the camera, Stuart William Martin, first told about his having to perform this task?
When was the camera brought to him?
By whom?
What briefing did he have?
Who gave him that briefing?
Who did he give the camera back to?
What happened to the camera after that?
Did a police officer bring it back to Kate McCann?

Then there is the statement by Stuart William Martin that we need to consider. These points arise:

He supplies a statement, but not the photos that he found on the 'live' part of the camera’s memory
Nor does he supply the photos of the deleted photos that he retrieved, presumably be the computer program referred to above
These would have been in colour, and hence much more useful - because they weren't scanned in pdf. format, and were still on the camera’s memory cards.

The photos produced by Stuart William Martin may not even be the same ones as the black and white ones that are in the PJ files.

Martin sent his written statement, but there is no sign of any images of the 43 photos still on the memory card, nor of the 73 deleted ones he retrieved (total: 116).

Martin says that he has copied the photos and folders on to a disk. He writes:

He says: “I have also copied the pictures and the folders as they appear on the cards, to this disk”"

These pictures are not in the Portuguese police files (though conceivably they could be in the withheld files). These would most probably be in colour as they were taken directly from the camera by Martin. He presumably did not choose merely to scan them for a pdf. in black-and-white.

This raises the question of whether anyone from the entire Portuguese police team has ever had an opportunity to view all of these 116 images, especially, of course, the deleted ones.

UNQUOTE

SEE ALSO:

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by Hicks 05.11.14 15:30

Thanks Tony.

So there are 116 images from that holiday as yet (possibly) unseen. And there we were wondering why so few photos had been taken!

Looking back now it seems plain as day that the UK establishment -at that time- hindered the PJ investigation by only 'permitting' them to view most of the holiday snaps in black and white, therefore making it very hard (if not impossible) to identify people of interest.

Now if I had a devious and suspicious mind I would be thinking that these 116 images are held somewhere secure (for now) as insurance, or for blackmail purposes perhaps?

Just my opinion.

by Guest 05.11.14 15:53

Is it definite the (useless!) black and white photocopies of photographs are the doing of the UK people?

If so that is outrageous.

by **Tony Bennett** 05.11.14 16:02

BlueBag wrote:Is it definite the (useless!) black and white photocopies of photographs are the doing of the UK people?

No, so far as I'm concerned it's not definite.

That's why I've put this information up. I want to hear what experts who know about such things as memory sticks, deleted images and the capabilities of modern digital cameras etc. have to say - to help us get nearer and nearer the truth about these photographs.

I would suggest that precise information about the deleted images is what we want - when each one was taken, who was on it, and when they were deleted.

The Last Photo being produced only AFTER Dr Gerald McCann flew out together with the then Head of the govrnment's Media Monitoring Unit (on 22 May) and the same day that Mrs Philomena Rickwood, wife of photoshopper and quicksand drowining fetrishesit Tony Rickwood, also flew from Ullapool to Praia da Luz, invites questions about these 'missing photographs'.

by Guest 05.11.14 18:44

Tony Bennett wrote:

I would suggest that precise information about the deleted images is what we want - when each one was taken, who was on it, and when they were deleted.

The only time I've had to resort to recovery software, it did indeed recover the images but sadly not complete with the original file name or EXIF data. It also pulled up some photos from a loooong time before the ones I was trying to recover, so it just goes to show that if that particular sector of the memory is not overwritten then these things can hang around for ever.

So in theory the deleted images could have been taken at any time since the memory card was last formatted - possibly years before the Algarve 2007 trip. Depending on what else the card had been used for then there could possibly be files recovered that predate the camera.

ETA: I'd like to hope that law enforcement have something more forensically potent at their disposal than $9.95 software downloaded from the internet.

by PMR 05.11.14 19:23

Tony Bennett wrote:
Smokeandmirrors wrote:I think the most important factor when considering this photo is the analysis of the weather conditions at the time the photo was supposed to have been taken. The police can work this out for themselves, and I'd be surprised if they hadn't done so, albeit due to a prompting from evidence submitted by Peter.

If they know that the time/date claimed is a lie, and they have not as a consequence decided to investigate the McCanns as suspects, then IMO it stands as proof of a total whitewash. That is all I have to say on the last photo.
Indeed so, Smokeandmirrors.

But it would also stand as powerful evidence that Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood had committed the very serious criminal offence of perverting the course of justice.

Here is an extract from the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on what constitutes perverting the course of justice:


The Offence

3. Perverting the course of justice is a serious offence. It can only be tried on indictment and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The offence is committed where a person:

does an act (a positive act or series of acts is required; mere inaction is insufficient)
which has a tendency to pervert and
which is intended to pervert
the course of public justice.

4. The course of justice includes the police investigation of a possible crime (it is not necessary for legal proceedings to have begun). A false allegation which risks the arrest or wrongful conviction of an innocent person is enough. The word pervert can mean 'alter' but the behaviour does not have to go that far - any act that interferes with an investigation or causes it to head in the wrong direction may tend to pervert the course of justice. All the prosecution needs to prove is that there is a possibility that what the suspect has done "without more" might lead to a wrongful consequence, such as the arrest of an innocent person (Murray (1982) 75 Cr. App. R. 58).

5. Intention is not the same as motive. (However, the motive of the suspect is likely to be important if the public interest stage is reached.) The prosecution must prove an intention either to pervert the course of justice or to do something which, if achieved, would pervert the course of justice. All that is necessary is proof of knowledge of all the circumstances, and the intentional doing of an act which has a tendency, when objectively viewed, to pervert the course of justice.

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

I believe that the maximum term for perverting the course of justice is...

LIFE IMPRISONMENT

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Do people really think AR and Op Grange are actually going to tell people who they suspect ,or who they have investigated ?

by SallyVern 05.11.14 21:50

Woofer wrote:Regarding the grainy black and white photos - isn`t that all you can recover when someone has deleted photos?

Forgive me for my lack of knowledge but I always took the bad reproductions as being a consequence of the way that they were copied to the official DVD. I could be wrong of course

by SallyVern 05.11.14 22:02

Tony Bennett wrote:
BlueBag wrote:

Someone in the first picture cherry picked a frame where due to artifacts of a low res video the hair appears shorter for a fraction.

That is dishonest and done with the intention of disruption.

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Seconded! Or thirded as TB has already done a thumbs up on this one

by **Nina** 05.11.14 22:27

And I present a different view. I always understood it was to protect the identity of the children who were on the photographs.

by Julchen 05.11.14 22:49

Nina wrote:And I present a different view. I always understood it was to protect the identity of the children who were on the photographs.

But now, seven years on, most of the children in the pictures will be teens and may not need identity protection anymore.
Time to release more pictures. Unless they might tell a very different story.....the pictures, I mean.

Jule

by rustyjames 05.11.14 23:26

SallyVern wrote:
Woofer wrote:Regarding the grainy black and white photos - isn`t that all you can recover when someone has deleted photos?
Forgive me for my lack of knowledge but I always took the bad reproductions as being a consequence of the way that they were copied to the official DVD. I could be wrong of course

I've always believed it to have been that they had been photocopied for paper copies to be filed, and the copying had been done with a pure black/white representation rather than grey scale, although thinking about it I have nothing to back that up.

by **PeterMac** 05.11.14 23:27

Tony Bennett wrote:
I would suggest that precise information about the deleted images is what we want - when each one was taken, who was on it, and when they were deleted.
The Last Photo being produced only AFTER Dr Gerald McCann flew out together with the then Head of the govrnment's Media Monitoring Unit (on 22 May) and the same day that Mrs Philomena Rickwood, wife of photoshopper and quicksand drowining fetrishesit Tony Rickwood, also flew from Ullapool to Praia da Luz, invites questions about these 'missing photographs'.

Forgive me if I have misunderstood, but the deleted images and the b&w images we have seen MUST have come from the Olympus C-50. The one sent to Hampshire for analysis.

The "Last Photo is on an entirely different camera
The Canon Powershot A620. The one left lying on the dining table after "OUR Camera had been taken off by Russell" to prepare the posters, showing Madeleine at around 3 years old. The photo of it lying there was taken during the early hours after everyone had been chucked out of the apartment. ( Where the Olympus was by that time is anyone's guess. Possibly still with Russell, or Amy T.)
This is surely the camera in Kate's possession on 10th, when the Canon is still in Hampshire, when she is taking details of the times and dates of the photos on it to make up a history - (her- story !) of the events of the week. At exactly the time when Gerry is signing a statment that they - (sorry - HE !) had no further photos in his possession.
DC Martin reported that the Olympus photo had NO DATE OR TIME data. This function had not been activated.
So My Camera - with dates - can ONLY mean the Canon.
And we know that the Last photo was taken on the Canon. Because it says so.

(Prosecution Exhibit KH 1 is so informative.)

by **PeterMac** 05.11.14 23:32

Julchen wrote:But now, seven years on, most of the children in the pictures will be teens and may not need identity protection anymore.

But now, seven years on, with 260,000 children being abducted every year, according to the best Charities' reports,
they have a good chance of being among the 1.8 MILLION missing children themselves.

by rustyjames 05.11.14 23:50

Tony Bennett wrote:
... SNIP ....

The Olympus camera, ostensibly that belonging to Kate McCann, was sent to England on Tuesday 8 May for analysis, and examined by D.C. Martin on Wednesday 9 May.

... SNIP ...

Martin says that he has copied the photos and folders on to a disk. He writes:

He says: “I have also copied the pictures and the folders as they appear on the cards, to this disk”"

These pictures are not in the Portuguese police files (though conceivably they could be in the withheld files). These would most probably be in colour as they were taken directly from the camera by Martin. He presumably did not choose merely to scan them for a pdf. in black-and-white.

This raises the question of whether anyone from the entire Portuguese police team has ever had an opportunity to view all of these 116 images, especially, of course, the deleted ones.

UNQUOTE

SEE ALSO:

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There are more details on the examination here - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

From those details three things were delivered for examination -

A Sony Handycam video camera - he didn't examine this but passed it on to the imaging unit at Hampshire Police HQ. I can't recall anything detailing the content of that tape.
A 64Mb memory card that was in the Olympus C50 camera
A 32Mb memory card that was in a case with the Olympus C50 camera

Since he says he copied the folders and photos to the disk I'd be fairly certain these were the original digital files - i.e. colour etc. Was that disk delivered to the PJ?

He states the camera had no date set, (or I guess no date facility), and everything had a date of 0000 hours on 01/01/02 so not a lot to be learnt there.

Did the Canon camera that took the last photo ever go under a similar examination?

by **PeterMac** 06.11.14 8:57

rustyjames wrote:Did the Canon camera that took the last photo ever go under a similar examination?

I have found no evidence that the Canon was ever handed over, and all the evidence points away from that.
Dr Amaral noticed the Canon on the table in the photo at morning briefing on 7th or 8th, made a mental note to pursue that aspect, and by 9pm 8th the Olympus was in Hampshire, where it also was on 9th
On 10th St Katherine was in Portimao police station, early morning with the Canon, which had the dated and timed photos, whereas the Olympus didn't.

Can we imagine that if Russell had seen the pool photo he would not have used it as the poster photo ?
Can we imagine that if the PJ had seen the pool photo it would not be in the file ?

No to both, I think

by palm tree 06.11.14 9:06

My thinking is that the pool pic wouldnt have been used because her face is not fully seen, but then there's the tennis pic, it couldve been used I think?
IMO

by Guest 06.11.14 9:15

Has anyone from TM or the Police offered a sensible reason for the Olympus being in Hampshire on May 8th?

It beggars belief.

by **PeterMac** 06.11.14 9:29

palm tree wrote:My thinking is that the pool pic wouldnt have been used because her face is not fully seen, but then there's the tennis pic, it couldve been used I think?
IMO

Half face is much more informative than full face for recognition purposes.

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by Guest 06.11.14 9:30

rustyjames wrote:

From those details three things were delivered for examination -

A Sony Handycam video camera - he didn't examine this but passed it on to the imaging unit at Hampshire Police HQ. I can't recall anything detailing the content of that tape.
A 64Mb memory card that was in the Olympus C50 camera
A 32Mb memory card that was in a case with the Olympus C50 camera

From a bit of quick research, the C50 was an expensive bit of kit upon release - about £500. It came with a 32MB card but then to acquire an additional 64MB card seems a bit extravagant given the amount of photos that they apparently liked to take (i.e. not many).

by rustyjames 06.11.14 10:10

Clay Regazzoni wrote:
rustyjames wrote:

From those details three things were delivered for examination -

A Sony Handycam video camera - he didn't examine this but passed it on to the imaging unit at Hampshire Police HQ. I can't recall anything detailing the content of that tape.
A 64Mb memory card that was in the Olympus C50 camera
A 32Mb memory card that was in a case with the Olympus C50 camera

From a bit of quick research, the C50 was an expensive bit of kit upon release - about £500. It came with a 32MB card but then to acquire an additional 64MB card seems a bit extravagant given the amount of photos that they apparently liked to take (i.e. not many).

If any photos were taken at the full resolution and quality of the C50 camera then there wasn't a lot of room on a 32MB card. However if there were 116 photos found across the two cards then they couldn't have been taken at more than "Standard JPEG 1600 x 1200".

TIFF 2560 x 1920 : 2 - with 32MB card
Super-fine JPEG 2560 x 1920 : 13 - with 32MB card
Fine JPEG 2560 x 1920 : 26 - with 32MB card
Standard JPEG 2048 x 1536 : 30 - with 32MB card
Standard JPEG 1600 x 1200 : 66 - with 32MB card
Standard JPEG 1280 x 960 : 104 - with 32MB card
Standard JPEG 1024 x 768 : 153 - with 32MB card
Standard JPEG 640 x 480 : 199 - with 32MB card

Source - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by Guest 06.11.14 10:19

rustyjames wrote:

If any photos were taken at the full resolution and quality of the C50 camera then there wasn't a lot of room on a 32MB card. However if there were 116 photos found across the two cards then they couldn't have been taken at more than "Standard JPEG 1600 x 1200".

Thanks rustyjames. That's what I get for posting early in the morning - getting my megabytes and gigabytes mixed up. I'd forgotten just how crap cameras were back then!

That puts things in a different light then. I can understand now why they might have been a bit selective with their photo ops. - not like today when memory is inconsequential.

by **Tony Bennett** 06.11.14 10:22

BlueBag wrote:Has anyone from TM or the Police offered a sensible reason for the Olympus being in Hampshire on May 8th?

It beggars belief.

If we knew why and how it got to a small Hampshire village by the Tuesday afternoon after Madeleine was reported missing, we would probably understand much more about this whole case.

Just as the 'Last Photo', ostensibly - when first shown - was a heartbreaking last photo of an abducted child, now it turns out to be another key to this great mystery.

These matters, just like Martin Grime's evidence, and all PeterMac's missives to Grange, are probably all in a sealed box under lock and key in a vault beneath Belgravia Police Station, marked: 'TOP SECRET - DO NOT MENTION'.

Unfortunately the PJ was - understandably - slow to grasp the significance of the photos, amid the international search for Madeleine - and Amaral completely skims over the photogaphic/camera evidence in his book.

by Guest 06.11.14 10:30

rustyjames wrote:

TIFF 2560 x 1920 : 2 - with 32MB card

Source - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So the "last photo", taken with the Canon, is at a superior resolution to even the best that the Olympus could have produced. Fortunate they decided to use that camera to record for posterity such an important moment.

Going off at a tangent a bit (with apologies) they did well to crop Maddie at sufficient resolution to front the S&S book - normally images for print are expected to be at a minimum of 300DPI. The biggest you could realistically print Maddie alone from the last photo is about 3" x 4".

by canada12 06.11.14 10:55

Just for info purposes, the size of the original high-res "Last Photo" is 1.78 mb
Is that normal for a picture taken on that type of Canon camera?
It seems rather large. But I could be wrong.

by Guest 06.11.14 10:56

canada12 wrote:Just for info purposes, the size of the original high-res "Last Photo" is 1.78 mb
Is that normal for a picture taken on that type of Canon camera?
It seems rather large. But I could be wrong.

No. It is normal. Suggests the second best out of three possible full resolution settings.

by Guest 06.11.14 11:25

Tony Bennett wrote:If we knew why and how it got to a small Hampshire village by the Tuesday afternoon after Madeleine was reported missing, we would probably understand much more about this whole case.

I 100% agree.

That is really weird.

Something not right was happening here.

Maybe Amaral needs his attention bringing to this.

by HelenMeg 06.11.14 11:57

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Just some info relating to the HAMPSHIRE police re what you are discussing in case not already posted.It actually explains his actions and how he retrieved the deleted photos from the camera / memory cards.. worth a read.
2. On 8th May at 21.00 hours, the following was delivered to my home address by PC 178 Barham, requesting they be examined to establish if they contained pictures and video footage of a hotel complex in Praia da Luz.

ID ref Description
NALF/1 Video tape from Sony Handicam Video Camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

NALF/2 64 MB camera memory card from Olympus C50 camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

NALF/3 32 MB camera memory card from Olympus C50 camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

3. Video tape from Sony Handicam Video Camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07 (NALF 1)

by Guest 06.11.14 12:06

HelenMeg wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Just some info relating to the HAMPSHIRE police re what you are discussing in case not already posted.It actually explains his actions and how he retrieved the deleted photos from the camera / memory cards.. worth a read.
2. On 8th May at 21.00 hours, the following was delivered to my home address by PC 178 Barham, requesting they be examined to establish if they contained pictures and video footage of a hotel complex in Praia da Luz.

ID ref Description
NALF/1 Video tape from Sony Handicam Video Camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

NALF/2 64 MB camera memory card from Olympus C50 camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

NALF/3 32 MB camera memory card from Olympus C50 camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07

3. Video tape from Sony Handicam Video Camera Re Praia da Luz holiday 28/4/07-5/5/07 (NALF 1)

Interesting... but how did it get to him and why.. and for who?

5 days after Madeleine is missing the camera has made it's way back to the UK for analysis of some kind (recovery of deleted pictures).

Surely this was a matter for the PJ at this stage?