ANOMALIES IN THE MCCANN RECORDS

The creche records have been dissected thoroughly and raise many questions. But what about some of the other printed records produced by the Ocean Club and Faro Airport? Why do/would OC printouts produced (particularly those between 27 April and 3 May 2007) show irregularities if this were a 'simple' case of a child being abducted on the evening of 3 May? Why are airport records for outbound and return flights apparently so confused?

I'll start with the Faro Airport printout produced on 28 September 2007, found at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Although this was printed out in September, the details should simply show the original booked date/flight numbers in and out for the 17 members of the group i.e. one would expect 28 April in from Gatwick and EMA, and 5 May back to the same. The second set of details should show the corrected date/flight numbers home for the group.

Actual details show:
- no mention of Dianne Webster (possibly PJ didn't include her name in the request);
- no record of Grace Oldfield at all and Scarlet Payne's details missing (possibly don't show on records due to age);
- no booking date for the Oldfield/O'Brien party;
- arrival date and booking date for the McCann family shown as consecutive days (possibly GM details input and rest filled by default):
-original planned departure date for Gerry McCann shown as 5 June 2007 rather than 5 May and no listed details for rest of McCann family (misprint or ?);
-original arrival date for rest of McCann family not showing;
-no show not recorded for Payne family on 5 May;
-no record of the Payne family's actual return flights on 22 May;
-17 May return flight shows as consecutive dates;
-no record of Russell O'Brien's return flight on 17 May;
-'2 bebes' shown as returning with the Oldfield/O'Brien party on 17 May (Grace Oldfield and who else?);
-for the record, Rachael Oldfield appears to have returned to Luton rather than Gatwick.

The highlighted date stands out - why would the original return date show as Tuesday 5 June rather than Saturday 5 May?

Moving on to the 'Guests List Ocean Club', 7 sheets all printed out on 27 April 2007 at 17:19:33 pm relating to MarkWarner guests only, found at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

These are entitled 'Property Arrival List' and record several pieces of information, although they don't seem to stick to a strict protocol - which is unfortunately apparent with most of the OC's record keeping. Despite this, the following can be gleaned from them:

-Berry; Hynd; Reap; and Totman - were all booked in for at least one more week after the 5 May. They didn't extend their stays during the week of 28 April - 5 May, as suggested elsewhere, as the extensions are already shown on the 27 April Guest List'. This is apparent in the final column which shows as 'next component' and it is backed up on other records and in statements. However, Totman seems to have left on 5 May as the family does not appear on records after this date.
-'Next Component' records as a flight booking (airport transfer required); as a continued stay; or as a blank. All the blanks are explained in the individual booking information by the recording of 'hire car' (Raj Balu, Weinburger, McCormick); 'own transport'; or 'transfers not required'; EXCEPT only in the case of the McCann/Payne group. Here no information about what is happening on the 5 May is recorded. Note, that the Payne booking is for 17 persons, with each family listed in turn. Although the booking is split by a page break, the booking is a single entity; shown by the fact that the Payne family information starts on page 1 and runs on to page 2. Why then are the Oldfield/O'Brien return flights shown and not the McCann/Payne flights?
-the arrivals is more complicated. Most are again covered by a flight booking; hire car; transfers not required. Totman seems to have actually booked in on 29 May, so their arrival may show on the following days printout; Mills and Bullen can be explained by the fact that they are already in the resort, having arrived on the 21 April. Strangely, 2 other groups, under Jayne Marie Jensen and Howard Alan Davies are also in the resort from the 21 April but don't appear on this guest list. They leave on the 12 May and 5 May, respectively. There is no explanation for how Berry; Reap; and Thornhill are to get to the resort on 28 April; similarly, the Oldfield/O'Brien group, although their statements show they caught the OC bus/coach from Faro airport. Again, there is also no information for the McCann/Payne group, although we are told they arranged their own transfers.
-'Childcare' shows some guests booking in advance and the only oddity seems to be the Naylors being told there was no baby club.
-property is shown by the pre-booking of cots, extra beds, bed guard rails, high chairs, microwaves, and kettles. We know that cots were supplied by MarkWarner and not by the OC. Nothing stands out here other than that at the very bottom of page 1, a cot is requested for the Payne family. Then, specifically in the McCann booking, there is a request for an 'extra bed'. In the notes, at the end of the group booking there is a further request for 3 extra cots for Lily, Sean and Amelie (named), suggesting that the 1 cot requested before was for Scarlet. So we have 4 cots in total, which would seem correct, and 1 extra bed. Does this mean the bed settee which was actually in 5G (Payne) on which grandmother Dianne Webster supposedly slept (despite there apparently being 2 empty beds in Lily's room) or some other bed?
-allocated room numbers not shown.
-family size/children ages shown.

The final records I'm looking at are the 'OC Checkin Lists used by Tapas Restaurant' found at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There are 4 pages for each day from 1 - 7 May inclusive, apart from 2 May which is missing. The 4 page lists are a combined alphabetical list for all guests at the OC for the date in question. There are some minor anomalies in the display of arrival/departure dates.

Specifically in relation to the MW guests, the checkin lists confirm that:

Bullen  21 April - 5 May
Davies 21 April - 5 May
Mills    21 April - 5 May
Jensen 21 April - 12 May
Berry   28 April - 12 May (seems to have changed rooms after week 1 from T2 G606 to T2 GP01 **)
Hynd   28 April - 12 May (1 person leaves on 5 May)
Reap   28 April - 12 May
Totman 29 April - 12 May (appears to have flown in on 28 April and left on 5 May)

** Interestingly, in his rogatory statement of 23 April 2008, Neil Berry sates the following: 'When we left with the meal we took the same walk back, along the pool, crossing the road back to the apartment. I think that our apartment was 4G.' Now where had he got that idea from? 4G is the apartment the McCanns were moved to on the 4 May and occupied to around the 3 or 4 July.


Bullen changes from 2 adults and 1 child to 4 adults and 1 child between 03:45 am, on 1 May and 01:16 am, on 3 May, and there is some confusion with both their room number and type (T1 or T2). There may be some link between the Bullen and Mills families as both stay the same 2 weeks and fly back on a different Gatwick flight to all the other MW Gatwick guests.

We have no definitive departure date for the McCanns as the MW records, specifically, do not necessarily show departure dates before the week of departure starts. Examples of this are both Reap and Hynd who stay on until the 12 May but who are shown as 28 April - 5 May up to the beginning of the second week. Only on the 6 May record do they show as 28 April to 12 May.

(From 4 May, the first arrivals of the 'specialists' are indicated e.g. Alan Pike.)

Lastly, if we look at these 6 days of lists - all guests from the different holiday providers and owners (223 families) have been merged alphabetically. I have checked only 1 May and 7 May carefully and have made the assumption for the rest! On the 1 May there are 4 families with surnames starting McC, including the McCanns. Three families have been typed in initially as 'MCC' and the McCanns as 'McC'. This should make no difference during the merge. Now look where the McCann name appears on the list (page 617) - it should be at the top of the page just after MCCandless but it appears about 8 names further down, after Morgan! It appears out of place on all the 6 days of records. On the 3 May record, the dates alongside the McCann name are incorrectly line spaced and there is a small 'r' against the reference number, although this does appear elsewhere. On the 5 May, both the McCann's and the Naylor's entries have 'nARKWARNER' instead of the correct MARKWARNER.The only other names which seem out of sequence are OBrien and O'Donnell - pondering on this I wonder whether the ' single quotation mark of O'Donnell has been misinterpreted by the software?

So lots of oddities which mostly relate to the McCanns records. The question again is why? Why does the Guest List record for the McCanns/Paynes show less details than anyone else - it was supposedly produced on the 27 April? Why is the McCann name not in the correct place alphabetically on the merged Checkin List of 1 May and after? Why is the Faro Airport flight information record so garbled and showing a departure date of 5 June against GM's name?

If there is anything above which is imcorrect please let me know. Thanks

Slight correction to the above. Apologies!

The McCann's name appears out of place alphabetically on 4 of the 6 OC Checkin Lists - the Tapas 9 bookings/names are removed from records after 5 May. So the para in the initial post above should read:


Lastly, if we look at these 6 days of lists - all guests from the different holiday providers and owners (223 families) have been merged alphabetically. I have checked only 1 May and 7 May carefully and have made the assumption for the rest! On the 1 May there are 4 families with surnames starting McC, including the McCanns. Three families have been typed in initially as 'MCC' and the McCanns as 'McC'. This should make no difference during the merge. Now look where the McCann name appears on the list (page 617) - it should be at the top of the page just after MCCandless but it appears about 8 names further down, after Morgan! It appears out of place on all the 4 days of records, in which it appears.


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