Alex Woolfall 'knows': 'The Last Photo', and other photos of Madeleine in Praia da Luz

HelenMeg wrote:Oh I've just done it and although I cant tell whether the dark patch is superimposed over the top  - it does appear too black and untextured compared to rest of step -strange.

There are many such strange anomalies in the photos of Gerry, Madeleine and Kate McCann.

The flesh coloured bump 5 inches below Gerry's right knee on his upper calf ?...certainly not Maddies hand....strange photograph indeed , what gets me is the immediate family may have the means to dispell all this doubt and bolster the McCann cause....but do nothing .

Gerry's right hand is curiously white. And I can't see a wedding ring on it.

I don't think that's a cat, weird blob.

Shadow from the flowerpot is very clear. Strong sunlight at about 45 - 60 degrees?

Part of the material of M's shoulder seems to carry on with a small loop intersecting with G's trousers.

It's not clear what M's left arm is doing, the shoulder is low, so the elbow cannot be far back, yet there doesn't seem to be enough room for an outstretched arm.

canada12 wrote:If you look closely at the photo...

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...below Gerry's right knee, and in front of Madeleine's blue dress, there is a large black blob.

If you examine this by blowing the photo up to about 400%, you can see the blob has very indistinct borders, and is superimposed OVER the blue dress.

Additionally, there's an off-white vertical space between the blob and Gerry's leg, which doesn't correspond with the stone step background.

So, why is the blob there? What is it covering up? (besides Madeleine's left leg?)

Could be a black&white cat, which could explain the childs' leaning forward as if to toch it;

Oh and, in comparison twith 'the last picture at the poolside'; some have remarked on Maddie being off-centre in it

But look here: GM right at the centre, and the child off-centre too

Seems the pictures are of GM, and if a child is there in it with him: that's ok then.
But GM is always at the centre

tigger wrote:Gerry's right  hand is curiously white. And I can't see a wedding ring on it.

I don't think that's a cat, weird blob.

Shadow from the flowerpot is very clear. Strong sunlight at about 45 - 60 degrees?

Part of the material of M's shoulder seems to carry on with a small loop intersecting with G's trousers.

It's not clear what M's left arm is doing, the shoulder is low, so the elbow cannot be far back, yet there doesn't seem to be enough room for an outstretched arm.

Tigger, weddings rings are worn on the left hand. 

For me it's a cat, but, as another poster wrote, we all see things differently.  Gerry - if you're reading, can you confirm?  

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Canada12, this odd photo (are there any other types when it concerns the McCanns?) is featured in the book.

tigger wrote:Gerry's right  hand is curiously white. And I can't see a wedding ring on it.

Tigger its the left hand for wedding rings usually in uk, but the hand is very odd, like he was sun bathing with gloves on !

Does Kate mention the cat?

GM's left hand seems to be drawn around and ghosting on the inside.  Left knee looks odd as well.

Several strange blobs on his lower right knee area, don't seem to fit in with the photo.

Right hand has tanned arm and white hand - like the tennis photo?

Are there ANY undoctored photos of this family?

All IMO

It could be a cat. Or a penguin. Or someone's furry hat.

I think it less likely to be any of these things, however, and more likely to be someone's inept attempt to blot out something that they didn't want included in the picture.

Blow the picture up to 400% and look at Gerry's eyes. It looks as though he is either drunk or drugged.

canada12 wrote:It could be a cat. Or a penguin. Or someone's furry hat.

I think it less likely to be any of these things, however, and more likely to be someone's inept attempt to blot out something that they didn't want included in the picture.

  It is one of my police hats and Gerry is smiling because he is rather ticklish   

russiandoll wrote:

canada12 wrote:It could be a cat. Or a penguin. Or someone's furry hat.

I think it less likely to be any of these things, however, and more likely to be someone's inept attempt to blot out something that they didn't want included in the picture.

  It is one of my police hats and Gerry is smiling because he is rather ticklish   

 

I knew it!
But why is your police hat there, russiandoll? 

Seeing [IMO] photoshopping left, right & centre doesn't help. I've been looking at some [my] old photos lately and could have started to doubt them too ...   

canada12 wrote:

russiandoll wrote:

canada12 wrote:It could be a cat. Or a penguin. Or someone's furry hat.

I think it less likely to be any of these things, however, and more likely to be someone's inept attempt to blot out something that they didn't want included in the picture.

  It is one of my police hats and Gerry is smiling because he is rather ticklish   

 

I knew it!
But why is your police hat there, russiandoll? 

 As I have never met the man, I must correct that and state that the item is a hat similar to mine, of course.  I can only imagine that Gerry maybe had one which he wore to a fancy dress party some time and has kept it in case it came in handy for future use.

 Perhaps these days rather than a Scots doctor who looks fetching in a kilt, he could go all romantic and exotic Russian for a photo -opportunity with his wife, although they can wish about looking as fetching as the couple below   


 
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 He could, of course, customise it for a fetching Scots look and wear a fur sporran. then he could have a group photo with the Haggis 7


      
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russiandoll wrote:

canada12 wrote:

russiandoll wrote:

canada12 wrote:It could be a cat. Or a penguin. Or someone's furry hat.

I think it less likely to be any of these things, however, and more likely to be someone's inept attempt to blot out something that they didn't want included in the picture.

  It is one of my police hats and Gerry is smiling because he is rather ticklish   

 

I knew it!
But why is your police hat there, russiandoll? 

 As I have never met the man, I must correct that and state that the item is a hat similar to mine, of course.  I can only imagine that Gerry maybe had one which he wore to a fancy dress party some time and has kept it in case it came in handy for future use.

 Perhaps these days rather than a Scots doctor who looks fetching in a kilt, he could go all romantic and exotic Russian for a photo -opportunity with his wife, although they can wish about looking as fetching as the couple below   


 
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 He could, of course, customise it for a fetching Scots look and wear a fur sporran. then he could have a group photo with the Haggis 7


      
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just because a dog is born in a stable doesn,t make it a horse.he is irish .

My word travis, why copy an entire post for your one line comment !


 Gerry paid homage to the fact he was born in Scotland by wearing highland dress to at least one wedding, hence my Scots reference  to the kilt and sporran.

 I am aware of his ancestry, but it should have been clear that I was commenting on his upbringing. I have seen him in Scots dress and heard his Scottish accent, but have never seen him in a riverdance outfit   

 
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 just for you travis, Gerry and Kate in riverdance and not Zhivago mode


 
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irelands,s shame,scotland,s burden.

I've just seen on the scrolling twitter feed on the forum that this thread is being recommended on twitter so I thought I'd bump it up.

I'm only up to page 9 at the mo and it's a long thread but it's good to revisit things.

I hope OG have a little chat with Alex Woolfall, John Corner and a few others.

ETA: I strongly recommend reading the thread from the beginning and not in reverse.

A condensed 15 minute summary of info taken from from Richard D. Hall's latest documentary "When Madeleine Died?", that looks at the 2xCDs handed to the Portuguese Police...

Knitted wrote:A condensed 15 minute summary of info taken from from Richard D. Hall's latest documentary "When Madeleine Died?", that looks at the 2xCDs handed to the Portuguese Police...

This is surely one of the most fascinating and disturbing topics in the whole of Richard Hall's third 4-hour epic.

By that, I mean the story of how Alex Woolfall, the Head of Risk of one of the world's top PR companies, Bell Pottinger, swept in to Praia da Luz within hours of Madeleine being reported missing, almost as if he were primed, ready at the airport, to jet to Portugal as soon as the signal was given - and immediately began to trawl through the SD cards of Gerry and Kate McCann's camera - and probably the Paynes' as well.

Within days he and Gerry had deleted, cropped and edited these SD cards, put them on two CDs, and delivered the CDs to Portimao police station, thus denying the Portuguese police sight of the original set of photos. 

It could certainly be argued that this was a most serious interference with a criminal investigation.

And as Lord Bell, Head of Bell Pottinger, boasted, the McCanns paid Bell Pottinger £500,000 for their services.

@ Knitted, member of CMOMM, has done an excellent job in giving us, over recent months, four excellent bite-sized videos on these vital issues in the case:

1. Evidence the Last Photo is genuine, dismissing the 'Gerry sunglasses image' issue promoted by Textusa and others as complete rubbish
2. Evidence the Last Photo was taken on Sunday 29 April
3. The dubious claims of Mrs Fenn about an alleged burglary
4. The role of Bell Pottinger in denying the PJ access to the McCanns' photographs.

He deserves our congratulations and I hope that his short and concise videos will be widely circulated

I've pinched this from a 2012 lengthy statement analysis by Hobnob 


Looking for Madeleine McCann – Sunday Night.  Thursday 11th August 2011

Voice over: this is the last picture of Madeleine taken seven hours before she disappeared.

Gerry McCann: There’s a photo of her that afternoon that was taken at 2:29 (laughs) I think, we’ve got it recorded on the digital camera and er she was just sitting by the pool er with myself and we’ve both got our feet just paddling and she’s so happy.
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Four years down the line and Gerald makes a point of stating the time the last photograph was allegedly taken?

As Mr Hall says, according to the Times Alex Woolfall sent photographs from the McCann's camera to the Press Association. It's possible to view Press Association images and I searched for 'Madeleine McCann' and then sorted them with the oldest images first. There are 2518 images, the first of which is a still from the Cinderella video. Then there is the photo given to the GNR/PJ on 3rd. I looked as far as photos dated 11th June 2007 and didn't see the 'tennis photo' or the 'last photo' on there.
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According to Kate's book Jon Corner set up a file sharing facility online on 4th May 2007, accessible to family, friends and the media. Material uploaded there could be used for posters, etc. 

Pat Perkins used the tennis photo in her chain e-mail sent out on 7th May. Had the McCanns holiday photos been uploaded to JC's facility by then? If not, where did PP get it from? If it came from the McCann's camera why wasn't it on the CD's given to the PJ? Why didn't the Press Association get it, and, if they did, why is it missing from their collection? Perhaps I'm not searching properly.

Good morning @ G-Unit - and, yes, this is such an important area for investigation in this case, especially as we are dealing with hard facts, therefore forensic material.

You might well find the latest two postings by Get'emGoncalo on this thread (below) of real interest, I certainly did after cranking up the computer after my early morning cuppa and apple:

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There you'll find two items from tigger's blog - and the references by Gerry McCann to his 'phone calls to Jon Corner  after 2am on 4 May are of especial interest to us all.   

   

The PJ took photographs of G5A early on 4 May and on one of them is a camera (a Canon) right bang in the middle of the table of the lounge for everyone to see.

I think it is very possible that that camera had in it a NEW SD card, and that some time before the alarm was raised at about 10.00pm that night (3 May), the original SD card that was in the camera when they went on holiday had already been extracted and was being put to good (?) use.

Morning Tony. My only point, I think is that if Woolfall sent the McCann's photos to the Press Association as he said, what did they do with them? If the group gave all their photos to the PJ on two CD's what did the PJ do with those two very important photos?

OK, two ifs there:

(1) If Woolfall sent the McCanns' photos

and

(2) If the group have all their photos to the PJ.

Hall in his film (he's not been the first to do so) noted that one or more of the photos had been cropped before it appeared on the PJ's 'grey-scale' images.

The question is when the cropping was done and IIRC I think Hall said in his film that the cropping could have been done either in camera or when transferring the images on to a CD.  

I don't think the PJ would have bothered to do any cropping.

The transferring of the images to Jon Corner was amazingly quick. It was said in Get'emGoncalo's post that there were a number of 'phone calls made on Kate McCann's mobile 'phone between 2am and 6am. But she surely wasn't transmitting the images on that 'phone.

So when did Jon Corner really get those images and who sent them to him? Two questions, and I know the answer to neither.

The matter of Woolfall sending the images to the Press Association is another matter of interest. I think these images reached PA on the 5th but it may have been the 4th. But didn't he say he flew out to Praia da Luz on the 4th. Who asked him to go? Why did he need to go? What plane did he catch> How soon was he sitting down with an SD card and a laptop? More questions we can't answer.

We know for sure that we have four genuine images of Madeleine on that holiday: the three playground pictures clearly taken on the Saturday, and the 'Last Photo' said to have been taken on the Thursday but which some evidence suggests may have been taken on the Sunday. Where are all the others of her that week? Where is the photo allegedly taken by Philip Edmonds that week and showing Madeleine in the background? - another complete mystery. 

When was the 'Tennis Balls Photo' taken/created? - another conundrum.  

In answer to your questions, then:

A. Woolfall clearly only sent SELECTED pictures to the PA

B. The Last Photo was plainly on the McCanns' SD card but there is no evidence that it was ever given to the PJ - that then is at least one photo that never reached the PJ - there may have been others.

C. If any one photo was cropped before reaching the PJ (which we know happened) then it follows that any other images from the McCanns' camera or from any other camera belonging to the group could have been:

* cropped
* deleted, or
* edited

even before Woolfall got to se them all.

Finally, why was the CEO and a colleague from Bell Pottinger subsidiary 'Resonate' there earlier that week? What were they really doing there?

Preparations maybe?
According to the information we have available(no credible sightings after Sunday,the last photo....) it points towards something happened Sunday ev/night/early Monday morning and if we add the information that Resonate was "breifing" MW early that week it indicates what happened probably include MW in one way or another.

Guest wrote:This may have been posted and dicussed before, however for those who haven't like myself it does raise dome valid points.

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snipped

Gerry did return home to collect photographs (old report) 20 May 2007
Alone, the father of Madeleine McCann began the saddest journey of his life Daily Mail - Online link has been removed

Seventeen days after his four-year-old daughter disappeared, Gerry McCann flew back to an empty house that is still fresh with her memory.

But if the airport bus and plane footage was of a previous trip and Madeleine didn't even go on the holiday, then who went in her place? The Paynes and the McCanns shared the entire outbound journey together which included a shared people-carrier to East Midlands airport, the charter flight to Faro, and then another shared people-carrier from Faro to Ocean Club. 

It will be on record how many adults and how many children were in the people carriers and also on the plane journey. The people carriers would have needed child seats for the little ones and Lily and Madeleine might have needed booster seats. There would be a record for the number of children's seats on the plane and of course children are sometimes given different meals, different drinks as well as activity packs on planes. Families with children tend to board first. All this would be on record. If Madeleine hadn't gone on that holiday, then there would have been one less person in both the people carriers and also on the plane. And if the girl next to Lily Payne wasn't Madeleine then who was she?

And Lily is seen sitting with the McCann family sandwiched between Madeleine and Gerry. A random stranger would hardly have plonked down their child in the midst of the McCann family. Lily Payne was going to be three in August 2007 but she looks very mature for her age and it looks as though, despite the age gap, Lily and Madeleine were good friends. Holding hands on the airport steps. I think Lily Payne would remember whether Madeleine had traveled with her on that particular holiday. Even though she may not have seen the  footage for some time after the holiday, I still think it would jog her memory even if she saw it years later. They might well have wanted to sit near each other on the plane and might have shared activity packs plus shared their meals.

On arrival at OC they were driven to their accommodation by a MW rep. Again, the rep would need to do a name call  and surely would notice if the McCanns did not have three children with them as the booking had been made for a family of five and cleaner had already prepared the rooms. 

Also there would be a record on the MW Ocean club booking system outlining the number of adults and children in the McCann party during that week. The McCanns would have indicated whether or not they were planning on using the mini clubs for their children.

If Madeleine hadn't even gone on the holiday, then who died in apartment 5A? Detective Amaral thinks it was Madeleine McCann and he must know more about the case than most, surely?


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It's important to remember that Woolfall wasn't called in to help the McCanns, he was there to protect Mark Warner. 

Looking at things from that perspective what might he have achieved?

None of the Ocean Club employees spoke to the media initially, although they must have been asked. 

Some nannies were very quickly moved elsewhere.

None of the McCann's friends spoke to the media.

Woolfall looked at the photos on the McCann's camera, saying he would send selected ones to the Press Association but they aren't on the PA website.

He advised the McCanns on how to deal with the media. 

The result? Mark Warner stayed very much in the background. All the media attention was focused on the parents.

I think the PR team decided to use a "last photo" like this as it pulled on the heart strings very much like Soham girls previously did