Madeleine: The Last Hope? - Panorama UPDATED 7.30 25th April (only certain areas) and 8.30 pm Mon 30th April 2012

Five years ago this week, Madeleine McCann disappeared from a family holiday apartment in the Algarve, Portugal, and has never been found. Her parents, Kate and Gerry, are adamant that their daughter was abducted by a predator and persuaded Prime Minister David Cameron to order a review of the case by the Metropolitan Police. Here, the senior UK investigator talks to Richard Bilton about how he is working collaboratively with Portuguese police and explains why he believes he has the best opportunity yet to establish the facts.

Having re-read this I've no doubt the sr investigator must be of the Yard, because who else is working collaboratively with Portuguese police. Hmmm...the title " the last hope" is intriguing.

Although it has been said on another thread that the police never give up on cold cases, and unsolved cases do get reviewed periodically and get solved, this wont happen in the Mccanns case, IMV.

IMV, if this "special review" yields nothing, it will be the end of the road for this case.
If the review does not result in a reopening, this will be put aside for good, and never be reviewed again imo unless Madeleine body is found or someone fessed up. The former seems unlikely and the latter impossible.

no comments onthe panarama page yet!?

I'm really, really hoping that this programme might be a 'softener' for the die hard McCann fans. To prepare them for the realisation that they've all been had.
A gal can dream can't she?

The BBC have obviously been reading here again - they have now changed the piece to include the name of Andy Redwood......

About this programme



Five years ago this week, Madeleine McCann disappeared from a family holiday apartment in the Algarve, Portugal, and has never been found. Her parents, Kate and Gerry, are adamant that their daughter was abducted by a predator and persuaded Prime Minister David Cameron to order a review of the case by the Metropolitan Police. Here, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, the senior UK investigator, talks to Richard Bilton about how he is working collaboratively with Portuguese police and explains why he believes he has the best opportunity yet to establish the facts.

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

The very man himself, hooray! What is he going to say? and why at this stage?

Unless he's preparing the ground for SOMETHING!

Well I just hope and pray and trust that there will be some true facts, not a hint of spin, nor anything that could in any way jeopardize any forthcoming court cases

candyfloss wrote:The BBC have obviously been reading here again - they have now changed the piece to include the name of Andy Redwood......

Now that is an interesting change in the wording and makes me slightly more hopeful that it won't be the usual acceptance of the TM version of events. The original wording certainly was ambiguous enough to leave it open to interpretation.

I look forward to watching it. Although I wonder how much Redwood will actually be able to say about the "review" given that it is still in progress.

david_uk wrote:no comments onthe panarama page yet!?

There is now. )

Well that ups the ante!

No matter how restricted Andy Redwoood is in terms of what he can say, we should be able to establish from this show whether or not the SY review is going to be a whitewash.

uppatoffee wrote:

candyfloss wrote:The BBC have obviously been reading here again [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] - they have now changed the piece to include the name of Andy Redwood......

Now that is an interesting change in the wording and makes me slightly more hopeful that it won't be the usual acceptance of the TM version of events. The original wording certainly was ambiguous enough to leave it open to interpretation.

I look forward to watching it. Although I wonder how much Redwood will actually be able to say about the "review" given that it is still in progress.

Just remember the dogs findings and the McCann's reaction to the dogs findings.

I won't be wasting my time watching the programme but I guess it might help Goncalo Amaral to see what he will be up against in September.

nomendelta wrote:Well that ups the ante!

No matter how restricted Andy Redwoood is in terms of what he can say, we should be able to establish from this show whether or not the SY review is going to be a whitewash.

Agreed. I think this programme is going to be a line in the sand and we may be able to tell what the direction of the review is. Fingers crossed that the truth is the priority.

The Slave wrote:

david_uk wrote:no comments onthe panarama page yet!?

There is now. ) [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

well put TheSlave, someone else has added a comment,shame he cant or wont read the files

then he could added some substance to his comment

The Slave wrote:

david_uk wrote:no comments onthe panarama page yet!?

There is now. )

Just popped back for another go.

mrscee wrote:

nomendelta wrote:Well that ups the ante!

No matter how restricted Andy Redwoood is in terms of what he can say, we should be able to establish from this show whether or not the SY review is going to be a whitewash.

Agreed. I think this programme is going to be a line in the sand and we may be able to tell what the direction of the review is. Fingers crossed that the truth is the priority.

Perfectly put! In fact I have a notion to propose that we no longer speak of whether people are "pro" McCann or "anti". Basically when considering a person's posts we should be considering whether they are or aren't interested in the truth. I am not "anti" McCann. I expect if I met them I would not like them and I certainly don't like the way they have muddied the waters in the search for truth but I am not against them specifically. None of us should be until we get the full truth.

nomendelta wrote:

mrscee wrote:

nomendelta wrote:Well that ups the ante!

No matter how restricted Andy Redwoood is in terms of what he can say, we should be able to establish from this show whether or not the SY review is going to be a whitewash.

Agreed. I think this programme is going to be a line in the sand and we may be able to tell what the direction of the review is. Fingers crossed that the truth is the priority.

Perfectly put! In fact I have a notion to propose that we no longer speak of whether people are "pro" McCann or "anti". Basically when considering a person's posts we should be considering whether they are or aren't interested in the truth. I am not "anti" McCann. I expect if I met them I would not like them and I certainly don't like the way they have muddied the waters in the search for truth but I am not against them specifically. None of us should be until we get the full truth.

The saying 'walk a mile in my shoes' is perfect. I'm not anti McCann. I'm absolutely pro finding out what happened to Madeleine. I'm 100% anti the spin, PR, press shite. I'm 100% against people making money/careers/media from a little girl who hasn't been found. I am 100% against using the media - that pack of wolves who can kill a person/their reputation with a mis-spelt headline to do the human thing. Somedays I just give up with the lack of humanity and the greed for money and status.

interesting that they have added Andys name!. Lets hope this is made to prime everyone for the questioning of the T9! surely that is the next step for ANY police force to take!.

david_uk wrote:interesting that they have added Andys name!. Lets hope this is made to prime everyone for the questioning of the T9! surely that is the next step for ANY police force to take!.

The Inspector`s name seems to have been added after Panorama team receiving emails asking how a SY detective can possibly discuss a case on TV which is still under review.

Woofer wrote:

david_uk wrote:interesting that they have added Andys name!. Lets hope this is made to prime everyone for the questioning of the T9! surely that is the next step for ANY police force to take!.

The Inspector`s name seems to have been added after Panorama team receiving emails asking how a SY detective can possibly discuss a case on TV which is still under review.

I can't understand how SY can be associated with this programme at all! If SY are checking here, they may decide to back out? Why is the BBC airing this now in any case? I would have expected there to be a tacit agreement - as with the press - that this sort of analyses would be kept back until the case would be resolved in one way or another.

tigger wrote:

Woofer wrote:

david_uk wrote:interesting that they have added Andys name!. Lets hope this is made to prime everyone for the questioning of the T9! surely that is the next step for ANY police force to take!.

The Inspector`s name seems to have been added after Panorama team receiving emails asking how a SY detective can possibly discuss a case on TV which is still under review.

I can't understand how SY can be associated with this programme at all! If SY are checking here, they may decide to back out? Why is the BBC airing this now in any case? I would have expected there to be a tacit agreement - as with the press - that this sort of analyses would be kept back until the case would be resolved in one way or another.

You`re totally right Tigger, in fact I haven`t heard one comment agreeing with SY doing this. At least Panorama have had the guts to now name Andy Redwood. We`ll have to wait and see if there`s any bias to what he says - maybe he has stayed impartial. But there`s obviously no way he can go on national TV and cast doubts about the McCann`s abduction story or I`m sure Carter Ruck would straight away be issuing a libel suit against the BBC. Equally he can`t really declare they had nothing to do with it - don`t see how he can do it without any bias. I tend to think it will be in the McCanns favour because the McCann`s would have had to approve it first, as they did with the previous Panorama programme.

It's a 30 minute schedule. Take away the opening and closing credits, then we are left with 10 minutes of a CR approved nothing, after the usual re-capping.

I too don't think we will be any the wiser after this programme. I suppose it might give a hint of where the review is going. But I agree. What a strange time to put this out. Except it#s nearly the five year 'anniversary'. So are the BBC just marking this with a programme that will say not a lot except Madeleine is still missing. Which I think nearly everbody on the planet is aware of.

tigger wrote:

Woofer wrote:

david_uk wrote:interesting that they have added Andys name!. Lets hope this is made to prime everyone for the questioning of the T9! surely that is the next step for ANY police force to take!.

The Inspector`s name seems to have been added after Panorama team receiving emails asking how a SY detective can possibly discuss a case on TV which is still under review.

I can't understand how SY can be associated with this programme at all! If SY are checking here, they may decide to back out? Why is the BBC airing this now in any case? I would have expected there to be a tacit agreement - as with the press - that this sort of analyses would be kept back until the case would be resolved in one way or another.

Do you not think that Scotland Yard will have checked with their own lawyers whether they can be interviewed on this programme? Do you really think that they will look here to check whether they are doing the right thing? Perhaps they are simply explaining to the public the nature of the review, the close co-operation with the Portuguese Police and what I hope they might clarify is when the review might possibly conclude. Maybe there will be no real discussion of the case. Anyway, I for one, can't wait to see what CI Redwood, who knows a great deal more about the case than any of us do, has to say. I am looking forward to the programme.

D.C.I. Redwood has been leading this review for nigh on one year.

He had an initial budget of I think £3 million or so, which IIRC he has recently asked to be increased.

He has a team of 37 officers working for him (almost as many as Clarence Mitchell had working for him when he was head of Tony Blair's Media Monitoring Unit).

He will no doubt be able to inform the British viewing public about his officers' visits to Spain (Barcelona) and Portugal (several there I believe).

This massive and expensive exercise must be achieving something.

May be we will get a new susepct/person of interest/person that Scotland Yard wish to eliminate from their enquiries.

Or may be one of the existing 18 male and 2 female suspects/persons of interest who has already been identified by the McCann Team will be the one we really need to find.

I found the photograph late last year of the Scotland Yard officers marching away from the offices of Metodo 3 in Barcelona fascinating.

Who arranged that photo call I wonder, and why? Because it wasn't just taken on a mobile 'phone by someone who happened to be there at the time.

Did Metodo 3 arrange for that photo to be taken - to make Metodo 3 look big and important?

Or did Scotland Yard arrange it (more likely IMO) to produce photos in the British press to show that they really were 'on the case' and doing something?

They would have done well if, whilst they were in Barcelona, they visited Antonio Giminez Raso in Barcelona jail, where he is now serving an 18-year prison term for his part in a theft of £25 million from a boat in Barcelona harbour and corruption in a public office.

There they could have asked him so much.

They could have quizzed him about his former career as the corrupt Head of Anti-Drugs and Trafficking for the Catalonia Police, prior to his sudden departure at the end of 2004.

They could have asked him about how he managed to join Metodo 3 immediately afterwards. What was it that Metodo 3 saw in him, I wonder?

Then they could have gone into detail about how he became the lead investigator for Metodo 3 in the Madeleine McCann case.

They could have followed that up by asking what he knows about what due diligence tests they did on him and Metodo 3 when Brian Kennedy and the McCann Team handed Metodo 3 a lucrative 250 grand contract. What did Kennedy and the McCann Team see in the qualities of the likes of Francisco Marco and Antonio Gimimez Raso?

Redwood's men could have asked Raso how he developed various stories in Morocco, alongside Brian Kennedy.

Then again they could have probed him about the surrounding circumstances of his visit to Portimao Police Station, together with Brian Kennedy and Metodo 3 boss Francisco-Maddie-will-be-home-by-Christmas-Marco on 13 November 2007, the same day as it happens when Robert Murat's aunt and uncle, the Eveleighs, invited Robert and his Mum, Robert's lawyer, Brian Kennedy and Edward Smethurst to dinner. What a high powered tete-a-tete that must have been!

Another fascinating line of enquiry for Redwood's men would have been to ask Antonio Giminez Raso what on earth he was doing talking to Marcos Aragao Correia, the strange lawyer from Madeira, at the Arade Dam, on 10 December 2007, just before Correia pretended to be a 'Good Samaritan' leading a search for Madeleine's bones in that same dam just 7 weeks later.

Based, he said, on underworld info that Madeleine had been abducted, raped, killed and thrown into a murky lake.

Antonio Giminez Raso would know Correia very well, and could perhaps explain why Correia lied about that, later changing his story to: "I became interested in the Madeleine McCann case because on the night of my first-ever Spritualist Church meeting on Madeira, I had a vision of a huge man strangling a young blonde girl".

Yes, undoubtedly Antonio Giminez Raso could yield up much very useful information about the McCann Team's investigative strategy and methods.

I feel absolutely sure that Redwood's men must by now have interviewed him a number of times and taken statements from him.

If so, they would no doubt be a fascinating read.

If Redwood hasn't taken this action, he might well have to answer for his decision one day.

All his decisions, of commission and also of omission, must be recorded in his Policy Folder.

Tony Bennett wrote:D.C.I. Redwood has been leading this review for nigh on one year.

He had an initial budget of I think £3 million or so, which IIRC he has recently asked to be increased.

He has a team of 37 officers working for him (almost as many as Clarence Mitchell had working for him when he was head of Tony Blair's Media Monitoring Unit).

He will no doubt be able to inform the British viewing public about his officers' visits to Spain (Barcelona) and Portugal (several there I believe).

This massive and expensive exercise must be achieving something.

May be we will get a new susepct/person of interest/person that Scotland Yard wish to eliminate from their enquiries.

Or may be one of the existing 18 male and 2 female suspects/persons of interest who has already been identified by the McCann Team will be the one we really need to find.

I found the photograph late last year of the Scotland Yard officers marching away from the offices of Metodo 3 in Barcelona fascinating.

Who arranged that photo call I wonder, and why? Because it wasn't just taken on a mobile 'phone by someone who happened to be there at the time.

Did Metodo 3 arrange for that photo to be taken - to make Metodo 3 look big and important?

Or did Scotland Yard arrange it (more likely IMO) to produce photos in the British press to show that they really were 'on the case' and doing something?

They would have done well if, whilst they were in Barcelona, they visited Antonio Giminez Raso in Barcelona jail, where he is now serving an 18-year prison term for his part in a theft of £25 million from a boat in Barcelona harbour and corruption in a public office.

There they could have asked him so much.

They could have quizzed him about his former career as the corrupt Head of Anti-Drugs and Trafficking for the Catalonia Police, prior to his sudden departure at the end of 2004.

They could have asked him about how he managed to join Metodo 3 immediately afterwards. What was it that Metodo 3 saw in him, I wonder?

Then they could have gone into detail about how he became the lead investigator for Metodo 3 in the Madeleine McCann case.

They could have followed that up by asking what he knows about what due diligence tests they did on him and Metodo 3 when Brian Kennedy and the McCann Team handed Metodo 3 a lucrative 250 grand contract. What did Kennedy and the McCann Team see in the qualities of the likes of Francisco Marco and Antonio Gimimez Raso?

Redwood's men could have asked Raso how he developed various stories in Morocco, alongside Brian Kennedy.

Then again they could have probed him about the surrounding circumstances of his visit to Portimao Police Station, together with Brian Kennedy and Metodo 3 boss Francisco-Maddie-will-be-home-by-Christmas-Marco on 13 November 2007, the same day as it happens when Robert Murat's aunt and uncle, the Eveleighs, invited Robert and his Mum, Robert's lawyer, Brian Kennedy and Edward Smethurst to dinner. What a high powered tete-a-tete that must have been!

Another fascinating line of enquiry for Redwood's men would have been to ask Antonio Giminez Raso what on earth he was doing talking to Marcos Aragao Correia, the strange lawyer from Madeira, at the Arade Dam, on 10 December 2007, just before Correia pretended to be a 'Good Samaritan' leading a search for Madeleine's bones in that same dam just 7 weeks later.

Based, he said, on underworld info that Madeleine had been abducted, raped, killed and thrown into a murky lake.

Antonio Giminez Raso would know Correia very well, and could perhaps explain why Correia lied about that, later changing his story to: "I became interested in the Madeleine McCann case because on the night of my first-ever Spritualist Church meeting on Madeira, I had a vision of a huge man strangling a young blonde girl".

Yes, undoubtedly Antonio Giminez Raso could yield up much very useful information about the McCann Team's investigative strategy and methods.

I feel absolutely sure that Redwood's men must by now have interviewed him a number of times and taken statements from him.

If so, they would no doubt be a fascinating read.

If Redwood hasn't taken this action, he might well have to answer for his decision one day.

All his decisions, of commission and also of omission, must be recorded in his Policy Folder.

Tony, I hope DCI Redwood has read that with care and has noted each and every point you made, especially regarding the corruption of police and ex-police officers in Iberian Police forces. That is positively disgusting.

Are you sure that Marcos Aragao Correia was "pretending to be a good samaritan"? You know how litigious these people can be. Its wise to be careful in what you say.