Sightings - revisited

Here is an account of the Stam sighting, blown up but not followed up despite fairly useful clues:

THE STAM SIGHTING IN AMSTERDAM

'My name's Maddie. They took me from my holiday': The astonishing sightings and CCTV footage police kept secret from the public Daily Mail

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 2:12 PM on 05th August 2008

A little girl calling herself 'Maddie' and claiming to have been taken from her mother on holiday was seen in Amsterdam at the time Madeleine McCann disappeared, the case files show.

Dutch shop worker Ana Stam, 41, said she spoke to a little girl aged three or four who said her name was 'Maddie' and replied to a question about her mother:

'They took me from my holiday.'

The girl entered her party shop in early May last year with a man and a woman and two other children, according to a witness statement to Dutch police in the police files.

The man - who "did not look like a nice person" - appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English and told Ms Stam they had a small circus in France.

Ms Stam was at the back of the shop when the young girl approached her and asked in English without an accent: "Do you know where my mummy is?"

The shop assistant answered that her mother was a little further back in the store but the child replied, "She is not my mummy," and added:

'She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy."

When Ms Stam asked the girl where she last saw her mother, she said: "They took me from my holiday."

The Dutchwoman went on: 'I asked where that holiday was but the little girl was incapable of telling me.

'I thought it all a little odd and then I heard the woman call the girl. She didn't call her Maddy, but a longer name. She could have said Madeleine but I don't remember that.'

The girl had dark brown hair in a ponytail, "huge" green-brown eyes and a pale face which showed "little or no emotion", she said.

Ms Stam said she thought the child looked "very much like" Madeleine apart from the colour of her hair.

unquote

The details are in ApensosV, Vol I. supposed sightings and locations. File 01.
Documents 55 to 66 deal with the Amsterdam sighting but I’ve not found them on mcCann:Pjfiles.com .
There is a gap from page 51 to page 67.

The FACTS are:
The girl was seen on the 6th of May (accounts vary but I think the 6th is the most likely as by the 8th the press in NL was wild about the case) .
Ms. Stam went to the police on the 13th June.
The people bought ‘wild wigs and masks’ (it’s a party shop) to the value of about 237 euro.
They wanted to pay with a credit card and were very insistent that this would be done.
The shop didn’t accept creditcards however. (quite a lot of shops don't here, neither do supermarkets)
The next day the woman of the group came back on her own to pay cash.

The Dutch police checked (I’m trying to get in touch with them but there’s little in the way of FOI here).
Reports were sent to Portugal on the 17th or 18th June.

Considering:
that these people had already told her that they ran a small circus in France -
that they wished to pay by credit card and were very insistent on this.
that the child called herself Maddy -
that she had brown hair and no coloboma apparently -
that the conversation with the child as reported is highly unlikely -
that the woman came back the following day to pay -

it is highly unlikely that these were kidnappers trying to escape justice.

However, the McCanns chose to use this as a typical example of laxness of the PJ.



EXCLUSIVE Mirror brings witness Anna to Britain to help in the hunt for Madeleine It is 462 days since Madeleine went missing in Portugal…
Anna, 41, spoke out after the Mirror flew her to London to meet a police artist and representatives of the McCanns. Pledging to instruct investigators to make Anna’s dramatic sighting a priority, family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “I’m grateful to the Mirror for bringing her to us. Her evidence could be very significant. Our investigators will interview her in the next few days.”
On one woman’s word, so much has been done. Says the Mirror:
Anna saw the couple with the Madeleine lookalike in her party shop in Amsterdam on May 6 last year.

24dash.comPublished by Jon Land for 24dash.com
Wednesday 6th August 2008 - 12:31pm


Anna Stam, 41, said "it was stupid" nothing was done by Portuguese police after she reported speaking to a little girl named Maddy in Amsterdam who replied to a question about her mother: "They took me from my holiday."

It was probably now "too late" to find any clues, she told ITV News.

Attacking British and Portuguese officers, she said: "I think it's stupid because maybe they could have done something more at that time and maybe now it's too late to find any clue. So I think it's very neglectful by the police.
unquote

(Stam was photographed with the McCanns and had a photofit drawn up of the man and the woman.)

(How hard can it be to trace all the small circuses working in France in 2007? - The French bureaucracy ensures that plenty of traces will be left - so did the McCanns then instruct their detectives to go to France and work on the best clues they’d had so far?
Description of an entire family, photo fits, information that they had credit cards, the type of material purchased and the business they were running. Imo they should have traced them in no time, I think it could still be done!)

This is an article from The Guardian 7th August 2008

I've underlined what I feel was the underpinning 'message'.


http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/07/madeleinemccann.internationalcrime

A Dutch shopworker who reported a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann shortly after the child disappeared last year yesterday accused police of neglect for failing to follow up the matter.
Anna Stam told police in Amsterdam last year about an English-speaking child who came into her shop in May with two people who the child claimed had snatched her from her mother while she was on holiday.
The official statement emerged on Tuesday after Portuguese authorities made public their entire file on the case. It is not clear from the file what action, if any, was taken after Stam came forward.
Yesterday she told ITN News: "I think it's stupid, because maybe they could have done something more at that time and maybe now it's too late to find any clue. So I think it's very neglectful by the police. And maybe not even the Dutch police but more the British or Portuguese police, because at that time I remember the police told me they were suspecting the parents themselves. I thought it was crazy to think that, but that's maybe why they didn't do something with it."
Stam, 41, said she had been at her party shop in Middenweg, south-east Amsterdam, when the three- or four-year-old girl came in with a man, a woman, and two other children. She said the girl approached her and asked: "Do you know where my mummy is?" Stam replied that her mother was further back in the store, but the child said: "She is not my mummy. She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy."
Stam said when she asked the girl where she last saw her mother, she said: "They took me from my holiday." Her statement added: "I asked where that holiday was but the little girl was incapable of telling me. I thought it all a little odd and then I heard the woman call the girl. She didn't call her Maddy, but a longer name. She could have said Madeleine but I don't remember."
Yesterday Stam added: "She called herself Maddy. At first I thought it was Maggie, but she made clear it was Maddy."

aquila wrote:
This is an article from The Guardian 7th August 2008

Yesterday Stam added: "She called herself Maddy. At first I thought it was Maggie, but she made clear it was Maddy."

Ah yes. The contraction of her name that she apparently disliked so much.

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:
Yesterday Stam added: "She called herself Maddy. At first I thought it was Maggie, but she made clear it was Maddy."

Ah yes. The contraction of her name that she apparently disliked so much.

Good morning Clay, could you put the record straight please - this quote you've taken and put my name on is from a Guardian article. Ta very kindly.

aquila wrote:

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:
Yesterday Stam added: "She called herself Maddy. At first I thought it was Maggie, but she made clear it was Maddy."

Ah yes. The contraction of her name that she apparently disliked so much.

Good morning Clay, could you put the record straight please - this quote you've taken and put my name on is from a Guardian article. Ta very kindly.

Done, as best as I can.

I've never been an international child trafficer but, if I was, I don't think I'd make much effort to find out the kid's real name, for various reasons. I think I'd just say "You're called Britney from now on", or something.

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:
Yesterday Stam added: "She called herself Maddy. At first I thought it was Maggie, but she made clear it was Maddy."

Ah yes. The contraction of her name that she apparently disliked so much.

Good morning Clay, could you put the record straight please - this quote you've taken and put my name on is from a Guardian article. Ta very kindly.

Done, as best as I can.

I've never been an international child trafficer but, if I was, I don't think I'd make much effort to find out the kid's real name, for various reasons. I think I'd just say "You're called Britney from now on", or something.

It's the timing of these media events and the message they are intended to supply to the public that is the point here imo.

aquila wrote:
It's the timing of these media events and the message they are intended to supply to the public that is the point here imo.

But that carries on to this day. "Dr. Roberts" has been quoted again on the main page again today, and Blacksmith was often bandied around until he disgraced himself. The current massaged message leaking from various outlets is that the end is nigh. But why the need to telegraph everything? If arrests were going to be made, they would just be made. Operation Fernbridge operates in the same manner - always hinting at developments in the offing.

I know Chillyheat had a bit of a meltdown the other day but I sympathise with his point of view. This case wasn't designed to be solved, as such - it was designed to be deployed, as and when necessary.

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:
It's the timing of these media events and the message they are intended to supply to the public that is the point here imo.

But that carries on to this day. "Dr. Roberts" has been quoted again on the main page again today, and Blacksmith was often bandied around until he disgraced himself. The current massaged message leaking from various outlets is that the end is nigh. But why the need to telegraph everything? If arrests were going to be made, they would just be made. Operation Fernbridge operates in the same manner - always hinting at developments in the offing.

I know Chillyheat had a bit of a meltdown the other day but I sympathise with his point of view. This case wasn't designed to be solved, as such - it was designed to be deployed, as and when necessary.

I am getting the feeling this topic is being railroaded Clay. There are separate topics for Dr Roberts and Blacksmith. I don't know why you bring Chillyheat into the conversation either.

Could we try to keep things on topic?

aquila wrote:

Could we try to keep things on topic?

Sorry Aquila. Stream of consciousness in action!

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

aquila wrote:
It's the timing of these media events and the message they are intended to supply to the public that is the point here imo.

But that carries on to this day. "Dr. Roberts" has been quoted again on the main page again today, and Blacksmith was often bandied around until he disgraced himself. The current massaged message leaking from various outlets is that the end is nigh. But why the need to telegraph everything? If arrests were going to be made, they would just be made. Operation Fernbridge operates in the same manner - always hinting at developments in the offing.

I know Chillyheat had a bit of a meltdown the other day but I sympathise with his point of view. This case wasn't designed to be solved, as such - it was designed to be deployed, as and when necessary.

Deployed!    Got it in one and not only for governmental purposes, money, circulation, it's an industry, is Britain's economy going to suffer?  What is it? GDP GNP?

Main thing is, the sightings all along have served certain purposes - some only known to the McCanns - some coming up just around anniversaries.
What on earth was that idiotic one in New Zealand where the girl had already been reported some years back, then this year they rehashed it and a DNA test was done, what was that pointless exercise in aid of?

The Leh - India sighting is another such weird tale.
Another point is that a number of sightings - especially in Spain were filtered through the local paper, 'The Olive Press" which gave the tabloids a point of reference. They didn't make it up, it was the Olive Press. IMo  that's how it works. Sightings as mad as you can imagine. The papers printed a rather dusky age progressed image of Maddie, to go with the location I presume. Why is she never seen in China? Big country. 

Saw this on MM forum, news to me.



21 Jan 2014 09:00 CNN Report

DETAILS have emerged of a Borders police investigation into a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann at a petrol station in Earlston - three weeks after she was taken from a holiday apartment in the Algarve on May 3, 2007.

Madeleine McCann

It was one of several reported sightings of the three-year-old probed in the UK in the immediate aftermath of the youngster's unsolved disappearance.

Statements were taken from a forecourt attendant and the manager of the Rhymers Tower service station in Melrose Road.

These statements, along with those of investigating officers and CCTV stills, were sent to Leicestershire Police, which was co-ordinating the British probe under the codename Operation Task.

The documents were later forwarded to the Portuguese authorities which re-opened its investigation in October last year.

The files show that the possible sighting in Earlston came to light on the afternoon of Monday, May 28, 2007 when PC Gordon McCaa and a colleague, who had been on a local mobile patrol, stopped to buy fuel.

While at the pumps, PC McCaa was, according to his statement, approached by a member of the car sales staff who told him that the female forecourt attendant, who was working inside the shop, would "like a word with me regarding an incident in the premises several days earlier that was playing on her mind".

It transpired that the "incident" had occurred four days earlier – on Thursday, May 24.

In her statement, the female attendant recalled that, at about 3pm on that day, a man drove into the forecourt in a small silver car.

"There was a small girl in the car with him...she looked about four years old," said the witness. "He came into the shop and led the girl into the corridor beside the counter and I asked him what he was looking for.

"He answered 'the toilet' and ask if the ladies was a single cubicle...I answered 'yes' and he said that was what he was looking for.

"He took the girl into the toilets; they were there for about 15 minutes. I thought this was a long time and approached the door several times. I could not hear anything from within.

"After what seemed an unusually long time they came back out into the shop. Neither the child nor the man seemed distressed or flustered. The girl asked for sweets but he said 'no' and came to the counter with a carton of Ribena.

"The man was about 6 feet [tall], dark hair, wore tinted glasses which he removed when he came into the shop. Slim, light-skinned, 40-ish, he spoke with an American accent.

"The child was about four years old with bobbed dirty blonde hair and a fair complexion. She spoke with what I thought was an English accent although she only said 'sweets'.

"The man paid cash, did not buy anything else and did not bring anything in with him. He took the girl back to the car and I think, but cannot be sure, that he put her in the front seat. He sat in the car for a while before he drove away.

"I could not see the car registration number and intended to get it when he drove away. The shop got busy and I missed him driving off. I checked the toilet after they left. It was clean, nothing out of place and not even smelly.

"I do not think I would recognise either of them again."

The files reveal that the service station had a new security system from which the attendant was unable to capture video images. Thus PC McCaa and his colleague returned on Tuesday, May 29, and viewed the video images with the filling station manager who offered to copy them onto a CD Rom. But when the officers returned to their police station they found they could not play the disk.

Back at the service station the following day, the officers watched as the manager copied the images onto another four disks and signed a certificate of authentification.

The disks were then taken to to a special unit at divisional headquarters at Fettes in Edinburgh where the images were reformatted onto video, still CD images and four snapshot stills.

"Due to these images being captured in very compressed computer file format, the quality of image was found to be very poor and enlarging or enhancing the images to read vehicle registration numbers was not possible," reported PC McCaa.

Despite that setback, PC McCaa said the vehicle in question appeared to be a four-door silver or grey Toyota Corolla hatchback and he concluded: "The child in the images bears enough resemblance to Madeleine McCann to warrant further investigation."

The case, along with the evidence gathered by the two officers, was then passed on to the local CID which was liaising with Operation Task.

But the files reveal that further investigations drew a blank.

In a letter to Operation Task, Detective Constable Stephen Halls explained: "We have carried out searches of ANPR [automatic number plate recognition] for similar style vehicles in and around the area of the garage...unfortunately there are no positive results from this."

Also passed to the Leicestershire officers, although not included in the files, was correspondence from a woman of Hawick who claimed to be a medium.

"She made notes as they came to her whilst she was holding an image of Madeleine," reported DC Halls.

All this happened at a time when there was huge media coverage of Madeleine's disappearance – nine days before her fourth birthday - while holidaying with her parents Kate and Gerry and her younger twin siblings.

On the day before the possible sighting in Earlston, the Border Telegraph reported that local festival principals and mounted supporters had worn yellow ribbons – the symbol of the worldwide appeal for Madeleine's safe return – at the first rideouts of 2007.
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