Is Kate McCann's refusal to answer the 48 questions by Portuguese Police in an interview the actions of a mother who would do anything for her child?

Posted by George Laird (who happens to know Gerry McCann)

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Dear All

Given the recent victory of Gonçalo Amaral in defeating Gerry and Kate McCann in his epic battle to uphold the principles of free speech in the Appeal Court in Lisbon; we shouldn’t lose focus that Madeleine McCann is still missing.

It was a case brought against Gonçalo Amaral which in my opinion was without merit, I blogged back in February 2010, 8 months before the Court made their judgement.

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George Laird was right again.

A victory has been won but it is not a celebration in the true sense of the word, like many I believe the victory was part paid in the shadow of innocent blood.

To that end, I would like to return to the matter of the 48 questions that the Portuguese Police put to Kate McCann and which she refused to answer.

Is the refusal the act of a mother who would do anything to get her child back?

So, let us be clear, in 11 hours of interrogation she answered only one question.

This is a mother who was supposed to be helping the Police find her daughter but she was more concerned about protecting her own position than that of her daughter.

In cases like this, you spill your guts, answer everything and even give information that the Police don’t ask, you join the searches and work night and day.

Only Kate McCann knows why she took the route of silence while being interviewed by the Police.

If Kate McCann is truly concerned about Madeleine Beth McCann then she should get back on a plane, meet with the Portuguese Police, formally ask they reopen the case and answer any and all questions.

Including the 48 questions she refused previously.

These are the 48 questions:



1. On May 3 2007, around 22:00, when you entered the apartment, what did you see? What did you do? Where did you look? What did you touch?



2. Did you search inside the bedroom wardrobe? (she replied that she wouldn’t answer)



3. (shown 2 photographs of her bedroom wardrobe) Can you describe its contents?



4. Why had the curtain behind the sofa in front of the side window (whose photo was shown to her) been tampered with? Did somebody go behind that sofa?



5. How long did your search of the apartment take after you detected your daughter Madeleine’s disappearance?



6. Why did you say from the start that Madeleine had been abducted?



7. Assuming Madeleine had been abducted, why did you leave the twins home alone to go to the ‘Tapas’ and raise the alarm? Because the supposed abductor could still be in the apartment.



8. Why didn’t you ask the twins, at that moment, what had happened to their sister or why didn’t you ask them later on?



9. When you raised the alarm at the ‘Tapas’ what exactly did you say and what were your exact words?



10. What happened after you raised the alarm in the ‘Tapas’?



11. Why did you go and warn your friends instead of shouting from the verandah?



12. Who contacted the authorities?



13. Who took place in the searches?



14. Did anyone outside of the group learn of Madeleine’s disappearance in those following minutes?



15. Did any neighbour offer you help after the disappearance?



16. What does 'we let her down' mean?



17. Did Jane tell you that night that she’d seen a man with a child?



18. How were the authorities contacted and which police force was alerted?



19. During the searches, with the police already there, where did you search for Maddie, how and in what way?



20. Why did the twins not wake up during that search or when they were taken upstairs?



21. Who did you phone after the occurrence?



22. Did you call Sky News?



23. Did you know the danger of calling the media, because it could influence the abductor?



24. Did you ask for a priest?



25. By what means did you divulge Madeleine’s features, by photographs or by any other means?



26. Is it true that during the searches you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?



27. What was your behaviour that night?



28. Did you manage to sleep?



29. Before travelling to Portugal did you make any comment about a foreboding or a bad feeling?



30. What was Madeleine’s behaviour like?



31. Did Maddie suffer from any illness or take any medication?



32. What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister?



33. What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister, friends and school mates?



34. As for your professional life, in how many and which hospitals have you worked?



35. What is your medical specialty?



36. Have you ever done shift work in any emergency services or other services?



37. Did you work every day?



38. At a certain point you stopped working, why?



39. Are the twins difficult to get to sleep? Are they restless and does that cause you uneasiness?



40. Is it true that sometimes you despaired with your children’s behaviour and that left you feeling very uneasy?



41. Is it true that in England you even considered handing over Madeleine’s custody to a relative?



42. In England, did you medicate your children? What type of medication?



43. In the case files you were SHOWN CANINE forensic testing films, where you can see them marking due to detection of the scent of human corpse and blood traces, also human, and only human, as well as all the comments of the technician in charge of them. After watching and after the marking of the scent of corpse in your bedroom beside the wardrobe and behind the sofa, pushed up against the sofa wall, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?



44. When the sniffer dog also marked human blood behind the sofa, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?



45. When the sniffer dog marked the scent of corpse coming from the vehicle you hired a month after the disappearance, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?



46. When human blood was marked in the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?



47. When confronted with the results of Maddie’s DNA, whose analysis was carried out in a British laboratory, collected from behind the sofa and the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?



48. Did you have any responsibility or intervention in your daughter’s disappearance?



In the interests of fairness she did answer one question; here it is;



Q. Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are jeopardising the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?



A. 'Yes, if that’s what the investigation thinks.'

I wonder how Kate McCann sleeps at night knowing full well, she didn’t do what any reasonable person would be expected to do in a similar situation.

Co-operate fully with the Police.



Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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1 comments:



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Anonymous said...

Kate McCann sleeps very well apparently, according to her she has done since several days after Madeleine's disappearance.
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Thanks for bringing us this ufercoffy [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

How does George Laird know GM then?

I believe I read on his blog that he went to the same university. By all accounts he wasn't impressed with Gezza then... or now [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Not only would I have answered all questions, I would not have left the police station in Portimao without reassurances that everything was being done to find my child, however, I am I hope a good mother and my child always came first.

tosca wrote:Not only would I have answered all questions, I would not have left the police station in Portimao without reassurances that everything was being done to find my child, however, I am I hope a good mother and my child always came first. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Hi,

I agreed with you, Thanks for your reply. I have got some questions. I'll share soon again.

Tks again.

To answer the thread's question : NO, that's more like a reaction of a mum who would DO anything to protect herself. Her child safety is evidently secondary..unless her hild's safety can no longer be compromised and she already knew it.

No I would answer EVERYTHING, Even if it went against my legal advisers, and was my right to remain silent, I would give up my rights, even if it meant they was using it against me as an arguido, I would give them everything they needed as it would be about my daughter not me.
What I find difficult This is my own opinion and I would not expect everyone to conform to the way of my actions, But if my daughter was missing and I had to beg or request with the public to pay in to a fund of peoples hard earned cash to help find my daughter (which I have no problem with as long as the funds were spent accordingly)again thats another story
I would put EVERY SINGLE PENNY OF MY OWN MONEY in to the fund, My pride would go out the window I could never step in to a salon for a cut and highlights,( unless Kate has a friend or someone who is doing it for free for her ) I could never purchase another lipstick or eyeshadow, I know people may say that is extreme, but that is me and that is a luxury in life not a necessity, The kids would not go without anything, but anything to do with me would be out of the window, I could not justify such luxuries knowing the public had paid in to fund, and if I had the choice of using that money towards the fund to help find my child, or towards to maintaining my image I know which one would be more important for me.

I think most people would agree with you dragonfly, on both counts, anyone who had nothing to hide I would have thought would be bending over backwards to help the police and yes you would put your own money into a fund, didnt Trish mention something about she would sell her house? has she?

Who was it who said
"Innocence demands the right to speak. Guilt, the right to silence."

I find questions 40 and 41 particularly interesting and I wonder why the PJ asked this. We know that there is much still to be made public regarding this case so it would be of interest to know where these questions came from.

Also, here's another: Why did KM's lawyer instruct her not to answer? Based on what circumstances? She clearly did as she was told but what was the reason for this advice in the first place?

Every time I am reminded of this, I can still picture Roy Whiting sitting in the interview room, with his arms crossed, legs stretched out and crossed and after every quesiton put to him he says "no comment", with the next one, also "no comment and so on, "no comment" just as Kate McCann did. As we all know he was guilty as sin, I've yet to see a released piece of interview footage where the guilty person says anything different.

solicitors usually only advice the suspect to give a 'no comment' interview when they know the answers they would give would hang them as guilty, if the solicitor feels they had a cast iron alibi or its in their interest to answer they tell them to answer. So the line of legal representation told her not to answer is about as damning as it gets.

kates mother - they wont be refusing to answer any questions (old footage)



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I think her refusal to answer speaks volumes about what her priorities were at that early stage of the investigation. Like so many things they've done, her refusal to answer is SOOOO far removed from what most people who do in the situation of their child being abducted. Had something else happened to the child and had you knowledge of that something else then yes, you probably would be more likely to refuse to answer questions.

It's the same with her recent publicity spiel for the book. Her attitude is "how dare we be accused" but I think, being honest, given the statisitics etc if I was in that situation I'd TOTALLY understand people pointing the finger at me. I may not like it but I would understand it. Her refusal to undertsand this most obvious assumption again speaks volumes about her personality and her priorities. And finding Maddie does not seem high up on her priorities.

nomendelta, welcome to the forum

In my opinion, the louder a person shouts their innocence from the rooftops and pours scorn on anyone who doubts them can only lead to the conclusion that they are guilty.The genuinely innocent provide all the information needed without fanfare and have no need for such "look at me" tactics.
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I have a real problem with this question.

If a person is accused of a crime, then in most modern liberal democratic jurisdictions it is for the prosecution, which is the State, to prove the case fully. The accused may not be forced to testify against him or herself, and has the right to remain silent, without that silence being able to be interpreted as confession.
(At least not by the jury.)

And for the most part we would agree. This stops the State tyrannising its subjects, using routine torture leading to false confessions, of the type Tudor England was all too familiar with. England grew out of it, and jurisdictions which follow our model, the USA and other enlightened countries, have to accept that from time to time guilty people will walk free because the evidence that the State is able to adduce is not sufficient in law to convict. The facts of Miranda -v-Arizona are testimony to how far that law has been pushed to defend individual rights.

There are always circumstances however where the silence of a person is so telling, of such persuasive evidential value of itself, that the law has decided to moderate the previous rule. This has led in England to the modern “Police Caution” which explains that if you have an innocent explanation, you have the choice of giving it at once, or run the risk of having some explanation you put forward later “interpreted” by a court. In other words a court is now allowed to use its common sense.

In this case Katey was not accused of anything at that stage. She was made “arguida” which gave her some rights, and might be thought of as simply being ‘cautioned’ in English law.

What bothers me is that at that time she, possibly with advice from her lawyer, chose to exercise the right to silence from the start. Not half way through the questions when it began to become clear to them both that the line of enquiry was not one they liked. Right from the start. And chose to exercise it for the most trivial questions; ones which could not possibly have spoken to her guilt or innocence of anything.

The first 6 questions must on any test be considered to be helpful to the police search for Madeleine, as they are trying to understand the scene they were presented with, and people’s actions. If they could get those first minutes sorted out they might be able to do something useful.

Only Question 7 - - "Assuming Madeleine had been abducted, why did you leave the twins home alone to go to the ‘Tapas’ and raise the alarm? Because the supposed abductor could still be in the apartment.” - is there a hint that they are now beginning to probe and to test the hypothesis, or assumption.

But Questions 8 - 19 are again all trying to get information which might help with an understanding of what happened. None of them is loaded IMHO.

After that they get more pointed, as the working hypothesis is clearly not supported by the facts, nor by Katey’s answers.

She therefore must have considered herself right from the start as a ‘suspect’ in some crime, and acted accordingly. She no longer saw herself as the mother of a young girl who had been unlawfully abducted by a stranger and for whom everything possible had to be done.

When we then consider the things they were saying, which were always about death and murder, though no one else significant had mentioned either “...there’s no evidence that Madeleine is dead and there’s no evidence to implicate us in her death....” “Find the body and prove we killed her!”, and, through their spokesman Mitchell, to the effect -] “If she is dead then it is not by their hands”, and add this to her refusal to help in any way, I begin to move towards thinking that her refusal to assist was suspicious, and probably indicative, though of precisely what I cannot say.

Refusal to answer these questions is not an indication of guilt: it is an indication of self defence.

Anyone fool enough to think that all one has to is to answer questions, and everything will be fine'n'dandy has another thing coming. You are up against professionals, and they don't always follow the rules. (Amaral, for example, is tainted in another case over someone falling down the steps.) So you will use any tools available to protect yourself. Otherwise, it will be like Stefan Kiszko - "Sign this, and you'll be home for Christmas."...in 16 years time. And that was someone who was cleared by the forensic evidence!!!!!!!!!!

What I found most interesting about the 48 questions is that they completely refute the notion given by the UK media that the Portuguese police are feckless and primitive. It is clear they have a lot of evidence against the McCanns, and much of it has obviously come from the UK.

This is just being 'discussed' on twitter, so thought I would give it a bump.

Atilliator wrote:Refusal to answer these questions is not an indication of guilt: it is an indication of self defence.

Anyone fool enough to think that all one has to is to answer questions, and everything will be fine'n'dandy has another thing coming. You are up against professionals, and they don't always follow the rules. (Amaral, for example, is tainted in another case over someone falling down the steps.) So you will use any tools available to protect yourself. Otherwise, it will be like Stefan Kiszko - "Sign this, and you'll be home for Christmas."...in 16 years time. And that was someone who was cleared by the forensic evidence!!!!!!!!!!

What I found most interesting about the 48 questions is that they completely refute the notion given by the UK media that the Portuguese police are feckless and primitive. It is clear they have a lot of evidence against the McCanns, and much of it has obviously come from the UK.

Attilator may be long gone, but I take it to be a 'he' and he is seeing it as almost a contest, being 'up against professionals' . I would certainly hope so, I wouldn't like amateurs to be looking for my child.

He's spot on with the last paragraph, it was the UK police who delevoped evidence against the McCanns. Strangely they were doing their professional job too until they were told to stop?