Leicestershire Constabulary - 08.04.2008
Il y a eu des problèmes techniques et apparemment ils ne se sont aperçus qu'après cinq périodes d'entrtien que rien n'avait été filmé. Russell TB est revenu le 10 avril et cette fois la caméra a marché.
On the 8th April 2008
officers from Leicestershire Constabulary interviewed me in order to
clarify certain points and in order for me to provide further
information where possible. The interviews were visually recorded,
however I understand that due to technical difficulties the equipment
failed to record. I have been informed that these questions arise
from an official request from the Portuguese authorities. I am aware
that my statement will be subject to the Portuguese Criminal Code in
addition to English Law.
I have been informed that
this statement has been made from the monitoring notes which were
taken at the time of the interviews being conducted.
I have been given the
opportunity to refresh my memory from the statement made by Jane
TANNER (my wife) and I have been allowed to see these documents, this
was done in the presence of DC 1578 GIERC. I wish to add that Jane’s
statement covered our routine from the 28th April 2007-2nd May 2007
quite comprehensively and my original Portuguese statement referred
to Jane’s statement, this was therefore a good point of reference
for me.
David had made various
requests to the Mark Warner Company and one of which was that all the
apartments were to be in the same block, and preferably all to be
near by to each other.This was the first holiday that we had been on
with the MC CANN family we had been away previously with the others
in the group. We had been due to go away as couples to Majorca in
2005 but Jane had found out that she was pregnant days after we had
booked the holiday, as far as I am aware our places had been given to
another couple I believe by the name of Tara and Stuart GOLD.
I’d describe our
relationship with the couples as very good, I had met David PAYNE at
Medical School in 1989 and we had stayed in Halls and Student Houses
together, I met Fiona in 1993/1994 and was best-man at their wedding
in 2003, we all went out to Tuscany in Italy for their Wedding. I
recall that Matt and Rachael were there as were Gerry and Kate. I
met Matt in my first year as a Doctor this was in around 1994, again
I was close friends with him we lived in the same house, and I was
best-man at their wedding in 1999. would say that our relationship
with Kate and Gerry MC CANN is not as close as with the other two
couples, I first met Gerry when he was speaking at a conference in
Atlanta in 1999, and I recall that we both had interest in the same
aspects of cardiology. Our friendship increased through Fiona and
Dave, we would often see Kate and Gerry at their house on occasions.
I am aware that Dave
and Gerry know each other very well.
Kate and Gerry weren’t
so flexible about meal times as their children were in more of a
routine, as were Dave and Fiona, where as Jane and I are slightly
more accommodating and our children have been used to staying up late
on occasions.
In relation to the
childcare routine it was a collective decision made as a group, Dave
and Fiona used their two way child monitor to monitor their children.
Kate and Gerry made a physical check on their children. Matt and
Rachael made a physical check on Grace. Jane and I also made a
physical check on Evie and Ella.
we knew that there was
NOT a baby listening service, Kate and Gerry did their checks by the
clock. initially we would only check on our own rooms but on
occasions we often listened at other apartment doors or windows, and
made checks on some visits.
Cela paraît logique.
On Sunday I recall I
checked Kate and Gerry’s apartment as well as Rachael and Matt’s.
I had taken Matt’s keys
Mais
Matt était chez lui !!! Il n'explique pas par où il est passé pour entrer chez les MC...
and I believe that their
door was deadlocked the same as ours and that I would have needed to
turn the key two times. We kept our shutters down, and the patio
door was closed I am not sure whether theirs was the same. I recall
that Kate and Gerry’s apartment was accessed by the patios door
which was left closed and unlocked. I recall that their front door
was accessed from the car-park access was easily gained to the
apartment from the poolside.
As for the other flats !
All the meals were
included in the booking as was a limited choice in drinks, if
anything else was ordered there may have been a need to have made an
additional payment. We didn’t eat out at lunchtime we generally
ate with Rachael and Matt and this was in our apartment or theirs, as
well as at David and Fiona’s. I can say that the days were all
very similar and it is difficult to distinguish one from each other.
On Wednesday Rachael was
ill
Russell ne se trompe pas sur le jour, alors que Matthew croit que c'est mardi. Elle aurait probablement
entendu des enfants pleurer de l'autre côté du mur. Et ensuite KMC
a dormi dans leur chambre...
During the week I
checked on some occasions and listened at others.
On the 3rd May 2007 I
saw Madeleine in the morning a couple of times this was when I
dropped Ella off. I saw Madeleine at lunchtime I can’t recall if
Jane or I collected Ella it’s all a bit hazy now. Comment se souvient-il d'avoir vu MMC ? I recall that one
of the guests a guy from Southampton came over his daughter was
playing tennis, he wanted to take a picture but expressed to us how
uncomfortable he felt in doing so- he said something similar to
feeling like a pervert or a dirty old man when taking a picture of
his own child, I do not wish to implicate him. I recall that the
child was of a similar age to Madeleine and Ella.
I recall that Madeleine
and Ella had had a similar lesson the day before.
I would like to stress
that I do not think that this man had any involvement in Madeleine’s
disappearance. I feel that it was a haunting coincidence.
Whilst I was out sailing
with Matt he fell in the water, I had to sail back to save him this
made the day quite memorable that and it being the best day weather
wise. When we came back Jane was at the beach with the children, I
recall that at some point around 17:00-17:30 Kate was out running she
was dressed in her full running kit which was a vest and shorts- one
item was grey and the other pale blue but I cannot say which way
round.
I went up to the social
tennis around 18:00hours with Matt I think David went to the
apartment and then up to Gerry’s. I played tennis for around an
hour to an hour and a half, Dan the tennis coach was also present, as
were some other male guests and Gerry we played a mixture of singles
and doubles.
The kids came up with
Jane, Fiona and Rachael from the beach, stayed for a short while
before going back to the apartment to be bathed and put to bed. I
got back to the flat around 20:00hours as we were running late we had
to take the rackets back with us. The children were in bed Jane went
down to the restaurant around 20:30-20:40hours I remained in the flat
for another ten minutes or so waiting for them to settle down.
Following Madeleine’s
disappearance and subsequent search we had made a time line together
this will show what time Gerry left the table. I don’t recall at
what point but it was around 21:05 Gerry left the table was only away
for a little while, Jane also went to check the children and was gone
for a minute or so. I needed to go to the toilet so Matt and I
decided we would go and check on the children. We walked together I
recall that the light was fading I went straight to 5D I could hear
Evie was murmuring. I went into the apartment and Matt went into
his. I went to the toilet to urinate and then started to clean up
Evie and change her, Matt came into my apartment and asked if I
needed any help. It was getting darker by this time. I said to go
back and tell Jane that Evie was unwell.I sat in the lounge and read
to Evie Jane came back having eaten her meal. We stayed together in
the apartment for around 5minutes. I went across to the Tapas
restaurant this would have been around 21:45hours, Jane remained with
Evie. The group joked about Jane having been to relieve me they were
all in good humour. Kate left the table there was nothing
significant about her leaving but I think it was a similar time to my
meal arriving. 21h50 ? I think that this would have been around
22:00hours, I didn’t have a watch or phone to check the time but
Rachael did ask for the time and 22:00hours was mentioned. I know
that she didn’t leave straight after me arriving back as the
waiters had agreed to cook me a fresh meal.
Kate returned through
the reception area standing at the end of the path near the stones,
and yelled over towards our table in the Tapas bar I cannot recall
exactly what she yelled but it was along the lines of Maddy is
missing. We all got up immediately except Dianne who remained at the
table. I am fairly sure on the time, I have put a great deal of
thought who may have been watching us during the week, but all
appeared quite normal to us, the people who would have known our
routine would have been the waiters. I can’t recall any other
people dining in the restaurant at the time, there would have been
people in there but as we ate quite left ???they would have left
during our meal.
I didn’t go in to the
apartment. I can recall it would have been a similar layout to ours,
although the furniture and décor was different to ours as the
apartments are leased. I didn’t go into the bedroom on this
occasion, but I’d imagine that there are wardrobes in there as
there are in ours. When I had been into the apartment on previous
occasions it had been dark.
Matt walked on to his
flat 5B, I believe that he was gone for around 60-90seconds. Then he
checked on the MC CANN’S children having left my apartment.
When Kate raised the
alarm she didn’t get to the table as the area was all enclosed, she
was at the start of the path she shouted across to us. We ran out
through the reception we were all in a panic some people went into
the flat I stayed outside, I then conducted a quick search of the
immediate area with Matt, Dave and possibly Gerry. We searched a
cul-de-sac area which I would describe as being a passage way at the
front of the block on the car park side. Quelle drôle d'idée ?
Qu'aurait été faire là Madeleine ? We went on to search the
gardens and patios. Then we went downhill towards the centre. On the
second search we went to the shopping centre and then towards the
tennis courts. We searched around the back of the tennis courts.
On my way back I bumped
into Dave he said to me this is bad this is really bad they’ve not
found her. We searched down to the beach I searched the East side,
and Matt and Dave the West side. Matt n'est-il pas entre la
réception et le Millenium à essayer de faire téléphoner ? We went
back to 5A it was clear that panic was setting in Gerry was on the
phone to a family member back home, Quelle heure peut-il être ?
Gerry ne téléphone qu'après 11H ! for someone that is such a
strong character he is usually so calm, decisive, confident. He was
lying on the floor in hysterics, he had a high voice crying like a
baby, I didn’t know what to say.
By this time we had been
joined by Ocean Club staff I am aware that Fiona and Rachael had
spoken to Jane.
I hugged her she said “I
knew there was something odd, I knew it was strange”. “I watched
someone carrying a child”.
We tried to find a
picture of Madeleine Kate checked her camera but these were mainly of
her at home or not such a clear picture. We found a picture of
Madeleine but we couldn’t print it off. Cat or one of the nannies
said that they had a printer and took the camera away to get some
photos copied. A copy of the photo was given directly to the Police,
someone from the Mark Warner staff made a poster- but I do not know
who that was. Contredit RM or ???
I know that there were
attempts to contact the British Consulate.
Leave doors/windows open-
We didn’t leave doors/windows open. We did sit outside on Saturday
along with other days on the patio, we wouldn’t have left it open
once away.
How often- four-five
checks per evening. Kate and Gerry checked by the clock, where as
Jane and I checked between courses, I don’t have any recollection
of the MC CANN’S children crying had I have heard them crying I
would have checked on them.
when Jane left the table
reasonable amount of light, aware that there were street lamps in the
area. Route back from table- shutters didn’t look at them, but
would have noticed if there was anything suspicious or untoward- felt
that it was a loaded question. Inner route would take less than
minute and outer route just over a minute.
Clarified who made the
time line handed to Portuguese officers- I had written it- both
copies, in consultation with Dave and Gerry. Pourquoi pas Matthew ? (qu'ils oublient dans la 2è version) It was written
02:00-03:00 hours in Gerry’s room. It was my idea a form of
gathering information and putting things in order. This was after the
searches which were again conducted around 01:00-02:00hours.
Shown a typed time line
typed on a lap top borrowed from female tennis coach Georgina, seven
adults there when time line drawn up, then shown to the MC CANN’S
afterwards for them to make any alterations or additions. Was written
after the first weekend after Madeleine’s disappearance this was
following David PAYNE’S suggestion. It was checked against initial
draft, N'avaient-ils pas remis les deux exemplaires à la police ? it was a group recollection and with the groups agreement. The
document was typed on the laptop USB flash disk which was handed to
the PJ au consulat d'abord when I went to complete my statement.
I am troubled by MURAT’S
denial of being there on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance and
assisting in the translations. This has troubled me he would have an
alibi had he have been honest about being there. The statement given
in Portugal are true and accurate, other people put MURAT there on
the night one of those being Sylvia head of house keeping. NO I would
like to point out that I do not wish to change the statement given to
the PJ but have reservations that the time may have been inaccurate
and it may have been the following morning when I saw him.
Our statements have been
previously given in good faith I am positive that he was there on the
night. What I said in my statement was right.
To attend for
re-enactment, no great willingness to attend suspecting Kate and
Gerry or the group is very very wrong.
Ils ont bien compris que les MC ne tenaient pas du tout à cette reconstitution. Même si eux mêmes spontanément ne songeraient pas à s'esquiver, ici ils sont prêts à tout pour faire la volonté des victimes. How do we all move on we have
been unable to defend ourselves in the press, we have been
threatened, the press just magnify things, our professional status
has been threatened I have had the press ringing my ward, Spanish
reporters running around the hospital. It is unbearable. There are
various websites set up about us all we have been reported, on our
lives are no longer our own. It appears to us that the PJ are trying
to nail someone in the group or Kate and Gerry for this, to us they
are now doing too little too late. This all should have been done in
the first 10-14 days.
At least now there is a
genuine attempt to further their investigation, we have had so much
adverse publicity, we are not hiding anything. We would only really
be willing to attend now if Kate and Gerry’s Arguidos status was
relinquished, and the media be shown that they are NOT to blame for
this, none of us are.
Il reconnaît une tentative d'aller de l'avant, mais au lieu d'accompagner il émet des conditions, qu'est-ce que les médias ont à voir avec le Ministère public ? This now needs to be
managed in a way that is mutually agreeable to both sides now, we
don’t trust the environment we don’t feel that we would be safe
going over there. We are willing to help with the investigation, Jane
is not willing to go back and I don’t think that we would be able
to cope with it. Jane is calm and composed and able to deal with
things, but how is she expected to cope with all the slating in the
media.
Stuart GOLD, I think
actually I said Andrew, it’s actually Stuart”.
1578 “’Kate and
Gerry had to physically check their children’?”
Reply “A physically
check, ‘physically check their children’, , ‘as did Matt and
Rachael to check Grace and Jane and myself to check Evie and Ella’.
, I’m not sure that we were ever, I don’t think we were led to
believe that there was a Baby Listening Service,
we would often listen at
other, often listened at the windows of the other apartments and
routinely go into our own, . But it wasn’t a question of initially
we’d only check our own rooms, I think actually earlier on, and
certainly from my point of view, I actually went into Kate and
Gerry’s room, , on the Sunday and Matt’s room on the Sunday, we,
at the start we were going to each and every room, but I think then,
because there was a bit of, it was actually more that we would listen
at the windows and go into our own room, because there was, you know,
everyone was going up and down in a cycle, in the circuit, so”.
Quelle confusion ! Et par
où est-il entré le dimanche ? Du reste quand on arrive là on doit
bien entendre, dans le silence du soir, un enfant pleurer sans coller
son oreille au volet.
Cela aussi aurait été
utile d'expérimenter.
we checked our own rooms
and also listened at other apartment doors and windows’ and then
‘maybe on occasion, on some occasions we actually entered the other
rooms as well’. ‘On Sunday I recall I checked Kate and Gerry’s
apartment as well as Rachael and Matt’s’, that’s true.
Non, ce n'est pas vrai Matthew était malade et chez lui.
I’m not sure about
taking their keys, I think I, I think I definitely took Matt and
Rachael’s keys, but I entered Gerry’s flat through the patio
door”.
Il n'y avait qu'une clef par famille. On voit mal Rachael ou Matthew donnant la clef pour que Russell entre faire une ronde. Du
reste à cette époque les MCs fermaient la porte
patio.
it would be easier to
say ‘In our flat we closed the patio door, shut and locked’, ,
‘shut the blinds, the shutters down and locked the internal window,
double locked the front door after we went out and the patio door was
also locked, was closed and locked’. So that was, that was our
arrangements inside our flat.
I definitely did not go
in through Gerry’s and Kate’s main, you know, double locked door
or anything, I’m sure I went through the patio, so I think they
were doing things differently from Matt and Rachael, at least from
the ground floor perspective, right from the word go”.
We were conscious that,
that, , if you, you only do one lock on the main door then it can be
opened from the inside
NON !
but if you double lock it
then, then, then you need the key to get in or out”.
“In five ‘B’. It
says ‘I checked the McCANN’s apartment’, , kind of implies I
may have gone in. I think that I made a check to the apartments at
that point, which would have been in, certainly by this point, it was
generally a listen outside with the others and a check on your own”.
1578 “’I checked
the McCANN’s apartment and I believe that this was around
twenty-three hundred’?”
Reply “Yeah, I think
this is a kind of fusion of all that we were discussing on the extra,
the extra visits back from the bar and I said well within that hour I
think me and Jane, yeah, me and Jane had gone back, you know, once
each”.
I went back I generally
went into our apartment and then we’d just have a listen at the
shutters on the others”.
‘We probably saw
Madeleine at lunchtime and one of us probably collected Ella’,
‘I believe I saw
Madeleine at lunchtime’?”
‘I saw Madeleine at
lunchtime’ and ‘Me or Jane collected Ella from the Ocean Club’
will be a kind of, a later paragraph. No, this is wrong. ”.
you can actually delete
‘Madeleine was playing tennis’ at all, because, , it wasn’t
Madeleine, Madeleine and Ella had done this the day before, ”.
On ne saura pas quand il
a vu Madeleine pour la dernière fois finalement.
that very famous picture
of Madeleine with the tennis balls was taken, ‘When Kate ran past
on her run she didn’t speak to us but she did acknowledge us as a
group’.
Around 5h I got there (la
crèche) pour chercher sa fille et l'amener au Paraiso, I can’t
picture whether Madeleine was there.
After we’d eaten the
starters I needed to go to the toilet and Matt and I said we would go
and check on the children’, yeah. I think it was probably dark
then, but I can’t actually picture the light, you were asking me
about the street lights particularly”.
when I was in the flat
after, it was fairly dark”.
1578 “So are you
happy with ‘The light was fading’?”
Reply “Yeah, well,
yeah, I think it was, , the light, the light was, was, was quite, ,
was well on the way towards, , you know, dusk there. , beginning to
get dark or whether it was actually quite dark.
‘I went straight to
five ‘D’, I could hear at the door Evie was murmuring’, well
‘at the window’ rather than ‘the door’, I think”.
given the amount of stick
that, that I’ve had with the Portuguese Press for not requesting
any fresh sheets for Evie, , I think I’d actually like to point out
that the, that this wasn’t some third world apartment and it did
actually have a washing machine.
‘The waiters would have
been aware of our routine’, just change it to that and then it’s
less, it’s less definitive than, you know, somebody else could have
been watching and, you know, I think it’s just that, probably
better that way”.
“’Some people went
up the steps and entered the apartment’. Some remained at the
porch entry’, ‘at the’, , I keep saying porch, ‘at the foot
of the stairs’, is probably the best one.
1578 “So this visit
into the apartment, certainly this sentence ‘I didn’t go into the
apartment from what I can recall (inaudible)’, oh sorry, no”.
Reply “Yeah, I went
into the apartment on Sunday. This is almost like a fusion of, of
the two things. I mean, I didn’t go into the apartment directly
after the alarm had been raised,We’ll have a quick look around
while they’re checking the apartment’. Was there anywhere big
like a wardrobe where you could hide’”.
‘the cul-de-sac area’
means, that’s actually the passageway and gardens in front of the
apartment blocks”.
Gerry is, you know, a
very determined, a very, a very strong guy, he doesn’t get
flustered easily, he doesn’t, , he shrugs off the minor nuisances
of life with consummate ease and he was just, as described here, ,
you know, just ‘like a’, ‘like a’, ‘like a sobbing child,
’Jane has been very
frustrated’”.
“’Has been described
in’, ‘in the Press’, at least, ‘as, at best, a sympathetic
witness and, at worst, a fantasist and a liar’, ‘Oh if I knew
there was something’ or ‘I knew it was strange’ and, you know,
then she just said I think ‘I saw someone carrying a child’,in
her mind there was no doubt that, when she heard the news that, ,
that Madeleine was missing, that what she saw, you know, forty
minutes earlier that the two were, were definitely related, Jane is
naturally a very calm and pragmatic person, she’s not distractible
and doesn’t fall prey to hysterical outbursts, , so I think ‘Jane
was calm and composed’ needs to be replaced with ‘Jane’s
character is’, ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is not one of a
hysterical nature’, ”.
‘She played it down’
can just go, that’s not really relevant”.
1578 “So the words
‘It was then’ need to be removed?”
Reply “Yeah, yeah,
‘It was then we’, it was really ‘She had had’”.
1578 “And the word
‘we’ needs to be replaced by?”
Reply “Removed.
‘She had’, I think. So ‘It was then we’ is replaced by ‘She
had had a terrible realisation that she may have seen Madeleine being
taken away’”.
just ‘Nothing to gain
by giving false evidence or creating false leads’ rather than just
‘false evidence’, ‘false leads’, ‘false evidence or and
creating’”.
1578 “’We as a
group have nothing to gain’?”
Reply “’By giving
false evidence or creating false leads’”.
next it says ‘We tried
to find a picture of Madeleine’, I mean, it wasn’t so much
struggling to get the picture, it was struggling to find the means of
printing it. We had the cam, we had Kate’s camera, , the, what we
were trying to do is find a picture that actually gave a good
likeness, rather than just being any old shot it actually had, you
know, a close-up of her, of her face. There were a lot of pictures
on the camera but they were, you know, just at home and on, you know,
in profile and things like that”.
I don’t actually
remember saying that Jane had taken the picture of Madeleine at the
tennis lesson, ‘We were searching for a printer and Kat, one of the
Nannies, said she had a printer’. I’m pretty sure it was Kat.
So this paragraph’s quite”.
we had pictures but we
needed to get in somewhere to print them and I think people had asked
at, at, at the reception down at Ocean Club”.
Kate’s camera was
checked’, I don’t think Kate was in no, in no state whatsoever to
check her camera”.
1578 “Okay. So ‘We
tried to find a picture of Madeleine’?”
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “’Kate’s
camera was checked’?”
Reply “Umm, ‘And
Kat or one of the other Nannies went to their flat to retrieve a
printer or something that would connect to a printer and then the
pictures were printed in the office off the small reception portal’,
there’s a little office in there”.
Kat was there and Leanne
was there, but whether it was actually their printer or lead, I’m
not sure. the person on the media, I think that was, I think that was
Rachael”.
Robert MURAT and then
there’s a whole, my whole third statement is, is solely about our
meetings, we gave that statement, , within a few days of him being
made aguido, when we saw him on the television, that we recognised
him and that he was there on the night and the statements that were
given were given relatively soon after the event and at the time I
had absolutely no doubt that that was, that those were accurate. The
reason I brought this back up here is because , and it’s been a
bit difficult, kind of, , you know, he was trying to knock a square
peg into a round hole here, because I certainly had a great deal of
faith in what I said at the time, you know, there was no, I didn’t
have any doubts, was it the evening, sorry, was it the night, was it
the next morning, but with him denying it, with no further evidence
coming out, with no questions in here whatsoever that kind of led,
that would, that sort of said, you know, ‘What about Robert MURAT’,
I can only speculate that there’s, that there is no further
evidence, , that kind will push, will push the case further on him.
, and then I also got the information from the likes of Charlotte
PENNINGTON and, and, , at least earlier on, Sylvia, , well sort of
the Housekeeper, and Press reports saying that other people also
placed him there on the night, that kind of made me think, well this
is, that I, you know, that I am correct”.
1578 “So is there
anything that you would like to add to that paragraph?”
Reply “Well only
that it’s, it’s out, out of the context of what I’ve just been
saying again there”.
1578 “Is there
anything you would like to add to improve?”
Reply “I think at
the end ‘that he would have an alibi’, , ‘Although’,
‘Although convinced of the accuracy of our statements at the time
of’, , ‘of giving’”.
1578 “Okay.
‘Although convinced’?”
Reply “’Convinced
of the accuracy of our statements at the time of giving’”.
1578 “Yeah?”
Reply “’And
further backed up by the testimony of Fiona, Rachael’ and
potentially a number of other people if you believe the Press”.
1578 “’And further
backed up’?”
Reply “’By the
testimony of Rachael, Fiona and other people’. It not going to
make sense this, after this, is it, it’s one of these long O’BRIEN
sentences that don’t really end, ”.
1578 “’Backed up
by the testimony of Rachael, Fiona and others’ did you say?”
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “Yeah?”
Reply “’I cannot
understand why Robert MURAT would deny being there and I do not wish
to change my statement but have’”.
1578 “Which
statement?”
Reply “Well ‘I do
not wish to change’, you know, the”.
1578 “’My original
statement’?”
Reply “’The
original kind of statement’”.
1578 “Yes?”
Reply “’But have’,
you know, ‘the niggle that unintentionally we have’, ‘that we
have got a time wrong and that it was in the morning’”.
1578 “’A niggle
that unintentionally’?”
Reply “You know, ‘I
may’, ‘I may have the time wrong’. , let you write that”.
1578 “Yes?”
Reply “, can I just
see how that. , ‘However Rachael and Fiona report they only saw
him once and it was on the night’”.
1578 “Sorry,
‘However’?”
Reply “’However
Rachael and Fiona said they’, you know, ‘they firmly place him
there on the night’”.
4064 “(DC HOLLIDAY
enters the interview room). Can I borrow you a minute?”
1578 “Yes”.
DC GIERC leaves the
interview room.
DC GIERC re-enters the
interview room.
1578 “Okay”.
Reply “Should have
just started from the start of the morning, ha ha”.
1578 “I have just
had some clarification that in respect of Robert MURAT”.
Reply “Uh hu”.
1578 “You will be
given the opportunity in a short time to expand on”.
Reply “To go over on
film like we did the other day?”
1578 “Yes”.
Reply “Okay”.
1578 “The idea of
clarification of this statement, the content of this statement are
the notes made by monitoring Officers”.
Reply “Uh hu”.
1578 “And really”.
Reply “So we just
want to get through this?”
1578 “Yes”.
Reply “Alright, fair
enough. , all what I’ve added there was, was fine. And I think I
was just carrying on. ‘Our statements were previously given in
good faith and positive our statement was right at the time’, , I
think just delete ‘at at the time’ because it implies that it’s
not right now”.
1578 “I’m sorry?”
Reply “It just says
here ‘What I said in my statement was right at the time’, I think
those statements were correct, it’s just with the passage of time
and all the other news has made me doubt, has made me doubt whether
I’ve got what I saw on the morning and the evening mixed, but I’ll
come back to, I can come back to that”
1578 “Okay”.
Reply “, I don’t
know if, , if that, I mean, you could probably just remove that, I
mean, I’ve not, you know, proof of that at all, I think it’s just
that, you know, the sort of watched, I mean, certainly reported on
and, you know, that’s all true, but I haven’t had, I suppose,
that’s”.
1578 “So take the
word”.
Reply “Well that’s
by, by journalists anyway, but I think I’d rather that was
removed”.
1578 “So you wish
that to say ‘There were various websites set up’?”
Reply “Yeah, ‘and
reported our lives are no longer our own’”.
1578 “Okay. So we
will take out ‘we are watched’?”
Reply “Umm. ,
that’s, that’s over doing it, Jane has not, ‘Jane is unwilling
to go back’, she hasn’t got problems with her, that’s just,
that’s overdoing it, she hasn’t got problems with her nerves, you
know, she, I think she thinks that going back would certainly, , be,
you know, be absolutely awful, , for the reasons in that paragraph,
but”.
1578 “’Jane is
unwilling to go back’?”
Reply “Yeah, ‘Jane
is (inaudible) to go back’ as well. , but”.
1578 “Yeah?”
Reply “And I think
‘she’, I think ‘she’ would probably be better just put as
‘we’ because I think it applies equally to both of us”.
1578 “Did you
mention this bit here ‘She has problems with her nerves’?”
Reply “Yeah, that
can just go out, that’s just, I mean, she’s, that implies that, ,
you know, it’s been, you know, clearly we’ve had a very, very,
very unpleasant year, , I could never have imagined it, but it’s
not that, you know, that makes it sound that she is under a, well I
think”.
1578 “’And I don’t
think she’d be able to cope with it’?”
Reply “Well you can
put ‘we’ really, I think we think it would be absolutely dreadful
being out there”.
1578 “’And we’?”
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “’Don’t
think’?”
Reply “Well ‘We
want to cope with it’, maybe just ‘want’, ‘we want to cope
with it’”. No, leave it, leave it, that’s fine. , yeah,
that’s fine, the rest of it’s okay”.
1578 “Very good”.
Reply “Okay. We
should have started from the top shouldn’t we, ha ha”.
1578 “Right. Okay.
Are you okay for a comfort break?”
Reply “I’ll break
whenever you want to break, you know, if you want to have a conflab
just about the best way of, of doing it”.
1578 “I’m ready to
proceed but I just need to, , to go and take a quick comfort break
myself”.
Reply “Right, then
I’ll have a comfort break, ha ha”.
1578 “After you”.
O’BRIEN left the
interview room.
O’BRIEN re-entered the
interview room.
1578 “Excuse me”.
me, Matt and Dave, , left
everybody else down at the beach and headed back up to the, to the, ,
the apartments, well to the Tapas anyway. I think me and Matt went
straight to the, the courts, Dave went off to his apartment and I
believe, , to Gerry and Kate’s apartment as well.
Sans parler à GMC ?
Dave went to the
apartment only briefly and then, well he went, he went back there and
then, and then joined us,
I think Gerry actually
left the court because he had been playing for longer than us, I
think he went back a little earlier than me, Matt and Dave. , and
Dan, the tennis coach, had also left before we did, I think he’d
been playing all day and it was quite a hot day so he’d had enough.
, and the reason I mention that is that normally if you went, if
they were still there when you finished, you could put all the balls
and the rackets away in the pavilion, , within the grounds, , but we
had to take all of the rackets and balls back with us, so, you know,
it was relatively late. And I’m not entirely sure what time I got
back to, to the room, but, you know, well eventually, me, Matt and
Dave all came back. And it was probably the latest that we’d got
back and Jane and the kids had been in there for some time. , I’d
say it was probably coming up to, you know, not, not far shy of eight
o’clock itself. , and I would have probably had a quick shower,
helped with the, , you know, with the stories and getting ready for
bedtime. I know, I know our kids were pretty tired that, that
evening, they’d been playing on the beach and had a really, a
really busy. But we were running a bit close to our half eight, ,
booking, so the kids were in bed, but they hadn’t been in for long.
So I think shortly after half eight, , maybe sort of twenty-five to
or twenty to, Jane went down and I certainly can recall saying ‘Well
you know what I like’, you know, we’d ordered, it was a very
limited menu, we’d discussed what we liked each night, and I said,
you know, ‘Just order the me the’, ‘Order the X, Y and Z and
I’ll be down when I’m happy that the kids are definitely asleep’.
And I didn’t stay much longer, to be honest, they were, they were
all fast asleep and there wasn’t a noise out of them at all. So I
headed down, you know, about quarter to or so, , to the Tapas,
exiting through the main door on the car park, , and double locking
it there, the patio was shut and everything down and didn’t see
anything particularly remote on the way down, , and just arrived as
normal. The mood entirely normal at the table and I, on my arrival,
the only people who weren’t there, , as we discussed, would have
been the adults in five ‘H’, so Dave, Fi and Dianne, who were
pretty routinely the last ones there, as, , you know, all week. , we
kind of sat and, and, and talked, waiting for them. And I can
distinctly remember, from the position I was sitting, I was looking
towards the apartment block and, , you, you could see the lights on
in their, in their rooms, inside, and occasionally see people walking
about. So there were lots of jokes about the fact that they were
still, still not there and probably if we didn’t get a move on they
weren’t going to serve us. So Matt, , around nine o’clock, give
or take a few minutes, but around that sort of time, he got up and
said ‘I’ll go and drag them out’ and I believe also had a
listen outside of all of the rooms as well. In any case, as he was
walking back, he actually met them on the way down. And so by the
time they had sat down and Matt had come back from a brief listen at
the windows of the bedrooms, we were all there. , I don’t know
whether we’d ordered individually, I doubt we did, I think we
probably put the order in altogether. , so we’d have ordered. ,
obviously we create, we sat down and created a timeline so I’m
aware that the next person who got up was, was Gerry, not from a
really clear recollection of him getting up necessarily, but,
nonetheless, Gerry was away from the table for, , for five or ten
minutes. And during the time that he was away, , you know, we
decided, me and Jane, that we’d do, we’d do a check on our room.
So Jane actually got up, , and went over and did a check, , and then
came back. And I don’t remember her saying anything about Gerry
talking or, or, or, or any problems in the room or having seen
anyone, I think she just, she just did the check and returned. ,
and, , I presume at some point, although I can’t picture it, you
know, Gerry himself coming back. We had, we had the starters. And I
think the next clear thing in my mind is actually that, , by the time
the starters arrived, we’d eaten them and everything else, I
thought it was probably about, you know, it was time we did a check
Jane est revenue cinq
minutes plus tôt...
and I also needed the
toilet so rather than just go to the toilet, which was almost up to
the portal, I got up and Matt, , said ‘Oh I’ll come and do a
check as well’. So me and Matt walked back to the, to the, , to
the flats, , this would have been about, about kind of twenty-five
past nine, I suppose. , and as we, you know, it will probably come
back to, but as you asked me the other day, I didn’t certainly
notice anything particularly strange or different, I didn’t see any
cars parked or anyone standing around or loitering. I don’t think
we, we walked around the side of the building and I don’t recall
making any particular look at the front of the building to notice any
changes in the, in the shutters. But we probably wouldn’t have
bothered, you know, ‘a’ low suspicion anyway and ‘b’ we were
going to go to each of the flats and just have a listen, so I don’t
think we made any visual check of it first. Got to my flat five ‘D’,
, and as we, you know, got sort of quite close I could hear Evie
murmuring, so she was, she was obviously awake. So I went into five
‘D’, , I actually went to the toilet first. , and then Matt
broke off at this point and he went over to his flat five ‘B’.
And I was just, just in the process really, after having a wee, of
checking, , of checking Evie and had, you know, had established that
she’d, , that she’d been, that she’d actually been sick in the
cot. , I, you know, Matt returned, so this was only really a matter
of a couple of minutes or so later, and, you know, he asked if
everything was alright and I said, you know, ‘Well Evie’s
obviously awake and I think she’s been sick’. So he offered to
help and stay if I needed it and I said ‘No, you go back, just let
Jane know that Evie’s awake and she’s been sick and’, you know,
‘and whether she’d come back after she’s finished her dinner’.
, so Matt then went away and, to the best of my knowledge, he then
went round the back of the building and did a check of Kate and
Gerry’s room via the patio door, before returning to the table. ,
within the flat, , you know, I got Evie out and she had some sick on
her, on her, on her clothes and on her face, so I actually turned on
the sort of shower taps and I got her out of her, , out of her kind
of nightie that she was in, gave her a quick wash, , and then, at
some stage, either then or later on, I also stripped the, stripped
the cot, I think I must have done it at the time because I think that
actually had more sick on it than anything and I just rinsed that off
in the bath. And then they went into the, , fully functioning,
easily to operate by men, washing machine, that, , that MARK WARNER
had, had, , provided, that was in the flat anyway. , and then I just
sat really with Evie down near the patio door, , she was, you know,
she was awake but otherwise, otherwise fairly happy, and just read a
book, read a book to her I think. , and then Jane, you know, a
number of minutes later, I mean, I would have thought his was
probably around, round about the sort of twenty to mark, sort of ten
minutes later from when I arrived, had come back having sort of eaten
her main course. We were in the flat together for a little while and
I would imagine at this point probably put the washing on and, , you
know, and then Jane, Jane said, you know, ‘They’ve made your main
course, why don’t you go back down and get it’. I’m not
entirely sure which way out I went, I mean, ordinarily we would have
always have gone out through the front door and deadlocked it. , I
mean, you asked the other day whether I did go that way, I have to
say there’s, there was nothing stopping me nipping out the quicker
patio way and Jane was shutting the door, but I don’t recall which
way I went back, but I certainly didn’t see anything untoward on
the way back either, although, by this point, obviously, it was
pretty, it was, it was dark. , I arrived back at the table, ,
everyone, there was, there was some hilarity in the fact that Jane
had been dispatched, , to relieve me in the apartment, , and I kind
of, , quickly picked up that that was what the, what the, the joke
had been. There was, there was some dialogue with the waiters, , of
a humorous nature as well. And I think my food was actually still
there at the minute, but as I was starting to eat that, I mean, one
came over and said ‘Oh no, don’t’, you know, ‘it’ll have
gone a bit cold’, you know, ‘we’ll do you a fresh one’. So I
then waited for a period of time, you know, sort of five or ten
minutes while they quickly, you know, it was sort of thin steak so
I’d imagine quickly grilled or fried, , fried up a meal of that. ,
mood, identical, you know, a very good humoured night, I think it was
probably the, out of all the days of the week it was the one where, I
think, where everyone was really, you know, really had had a, you
know, enjoyed the day, the weather had been great. , you asked the
other day whether I specifically recall Kate getting up to leave, , I
can’t picture her, her going, but obviously at some point she, she
was the, the only person I think to, to go back to the room sort of
after my return to the, the table, I think. , the, and the only real
point of reference that we can, that I can remember now is that, is
that somebody did ask what time it was at some point, probably while
Kate was away, and Rachael, , sort of said that it was around the ten
o’clock mark, so I think, you know, although we have to be a little
bit, you know, there’s a bit of, , a bit of a guesstimate going on,
on sort of the other times, there as certainly a time check that was
announced, you know, around the ten o’clock mark. , my food had
arrived, well my food had arrived I think by this point. And, and
then Kate, , , returned, , obviously Jane wasn’t there but the rest
of us were still there, and she came through and, you know, into the
portal, I didn’t see her arrive, but the first thing really we
recall then is, , is, is Kate shouting across from the, from the
reception area and perhaps she didn’t come particularly close, I
don’t recall. , and as we discussed the, on the initial recording,
, if I’m honest, I don’t recall her absolute words, only really
the meaning that, , you know, that, that Madeleine, that Madeleine
had gone. , and so, you know, at this point, you know, she, we all
just got up and, , , and, and left with the exception of Dianne who,
who I think stayed, who stayed at the chair. We then got up to the
foot of the, of the apartment and, , you know, clearly, you know, a
state of, you know, growing, growing panic. , some people went
directly into the flat initially, , included, including Gerry and,
and Kate, others just stayed at the, at the, at the gate, , on the
road leading down beside the apartment. , and you know it was, it
was absolute, you know, bedlam, there was panic and, you know, I’m
not, the, the order of how things were decided and what, and what we
did is, is just a complete blur at this point, but, you know,
nonetheless, I think people came back out and then, you know, she’s,
she’s certainly not there. And I recall, certainly me, , , Dave,
Matt and I think initially at least Gerry, just said ‘Look, let’s
just’, , ‘let’s just split up and find’, , you know, ‘see
if we can find her, see if she’s just wandered out’. So everyone
did a little bit of a search just in the, in the immediate area and I
went along the passageway which was in front of the patio, the patio
entrances of, of the apartments, , round, all the way along that
initially, I think, and unbeknown to me at this point, because we
hadn’t really used this entrance a great deal, certainly not walked
to the other end of it, it was actually a dead-end, so I then had a
look in the, in the front gardens of, of the apartments on the ground
floor that you could see, searched a little bit just in between the
two apartments and obviously this was a fairly brief search and
rapidly doubled back and, , Donc il ne va pas du tout voir de l'autre
côté de Agostinho da Silva.you know, the, other people had just
came back from the immediate vicinity as well and it was established
obviously that no-one had, had found her. I’m not entirely sure
whether I went round to quickly see Jane at this point or whether it
was after my next, , my next search, but while I’m talking about
the searches I’ll just say that. I think then we decided that we
just needed to look a little bit further afield, , and I went round
the, the front of the apartments, the high side of the apartments,
had a look along there, , got to the, what I’m calling the main
road that drops in from, , from the, from the motor, from the dual
carriageway outside of town, and then looked, you know, down, you
know, looked down the hill there, , towards the, the, , the western
side of the tennis courts, , really looking, you know, either side of
the road just to see if she was sort of wandering there, , and you
could hear kind of ‘Madeleine’ being shouted pretty much
everywhere around at this point. , that, the next, after I kind of
moved down a bit to the left, there was the Supermarket quite some
distance away, but there’s a, there’s a, there’s a road and I
think it had a car park or a, well certainly a car park but there was
an area of sort of rough that you could probably, you know, it’s
not tarmaced or anything, had a look around there, couldn’t see
her. And then there’s, , there was an entrance into, , the
building kind of opposite this, which is, is, which is like a
Shopping Centre, , or at least the lower floors seemed to have a kind
of a set of like a Curry House and a Bar and a few things and a
swimming pool as well, and, huh, I can’t remember the layout in
there very much, but I remember it being kind of split on, on at
least sort of two levels, lots of little recesses around kind of, I
think kind of shop windows and stuff. So I didn’t really know
where I was going, I’d never been in it before, but, nonetheless,
sort of wandered around the lower floor and didn’t find anything.
I went up on, on, I think on the next floor up, as I came off the
stairs and came round there was a, a small Coffee Bar or a Bar on the
left and looked in there and asked, there was a, there was a, a man
and a, , , presumably a barman in there, just, there was only a
couple of people, and said, you know, ‘Have you seen a little girl’
and, I mean, I don’t know how much English they spoke, but they
seemed to, they just sort of shrugged and said no. So then just
around that area. And then, and then found my way out of the, the
Shopping Centre and actually came out at the other end from where,
well a different entrance, I didn’t come out the same way I don’t
think, , and, , it was actually on the road that comes down in front
of the Baptista Supermarket. I don’t know whether I searched a
little bit more around there, but not long thereafter I met Dave
coming down the road in front of the Supermarket, , just looking
terrible, just pale, , you know, sort of, you know, sort of fear in
his eyes, saying, you know, ‘This is’, , ‘This is really bad.
This is bad’, you know, ‘No-one’s found her. No-one’s found
her’. , and I don’t know what happened at this point
particularly, , whether we went around there, but at some point or
other me, Matt and Dave found ourselves either back at the flat or,
or, or, together somewhere nearby and decided that we would, , head
down to the beach, I think that was just ‘a’, you know, you think
‘Oh there’s water down there it’s dangerous if she’s got that
far’ and ‘b’ just, it was, it was desperation and gravity
takes, you know, would take you that way. So the three of us swept
down through a number of roads, , and then came out down at the, you
know, down on the beachfront and I think by this point we thought it,
you know, it was fairly futile searching as a three so we split up
and took sections of the beach and, as I’ve described before, I
think Matt looked immediately around where we had come out on the
beach, me and Dave kind of headed along towards where the majority of
the beach was in the other direction and Dave started searching on
that part of the beach and I got myself almost over to where this
Café Paradiso or Restaurant Paradiso is, along the boardwalks and
out to the, to the water edge, , and I found there that you could, if
looking back, you, it wasn’t perfect, but you could see a fair
amount of the beach and as well, and also be able to look at the
waterline as well. , went along there for a bit towards Black Rock,
, and then, and then at some point decided to turn, to turn back, I
mean, I thought, I think it felt rather unlikely that, that Madeleine
was going to have walked the distance that I was starting to go, I
think, you know, there’s no, there’s no reason why she would have
necessarily left the kind of the beach area and gone down there. So
I didn’t go all the way, turned back, as I came back, , you now, I
bumped into the, the woman I described before, early twenties, fair
hair, given the light, English, possibly a MARK WARNER employee,
although I don’t, I don’t remember, I don’t know whether I’d
seen her before, , or since, but she was certainly, you know, either,
, tut, someone who worked out there because she wasn’t Portuguese,
she seemed to be already aware that, that somebody was missing,
either through bumping into Dave or, you know, having been higher up
in the town recently. , and then did a, a, a comb through various
streets, , not with any great, , plan but just to try and cover some
area on the way back up to the, the apartments. And then obviously
got back up to the apartments and it was clear that, you know, the, ,
you know, that things were still, you know, very, very dire and
no-one had found her. I mean, right up until this point I, I thought
some, you know, I did honestly think that this was just, that the
patio was open and she, you know, and she had gone for, gone for a
wander. , by the time we got back from this I think, you know, there
was, there were other people were certainly starting to congregate
and, in fact, I think some people were starting to search, mainly
staff from MARK WARNER, who I think had been alerted fairly quickly.
, and it’s a, and it’s a bit of a, it’s a bit of a blur as to,
you know, what, what happened at this point. As I said before, I
think I probably went round to Jane before I’d done this, this sort
of leg to the beach and back, but it may have been, it may have been
that I actually went round at this point. And, , I went round to
the, you know, went round to the room, , and, from recollection, Jane
was stood in the doorway, I think almost certainly with Rachael,
possibly with Fiona as well. , and, you know, I went up and she was,
you know, clearly very, very distressed, , just, , you know, phew,
you know, almost, almost sort of shaking, and I, you know, I just
thought it was just part of the, you know, the shock that we were all
kind of experiencing, and I gave her a quick hug and she said, you
know, ‘I think I saw someone. I think I saw someone taking
Madeleine away’ and she sort of told me what, , what, you know,
what she, what she had witnessed when she’d done her check, but,
you know, hadn’t put too much weight on it because you know, until,
until your suspicions are raised, you know, why would you, why would
you. , and as we discussed before, you know, there is no doubt in my
mind, I mean, I’ve known Jane for twelve years, that she is, , she
is calm, she is collected, she doesn’t make a fuss, she doesn’t,
, she doesn’t get flustered by things, you know, if there’s a
problem then she just gets on with it, she’s not neurotic, she’s
not hysterical and, you know, from her recollection at the time, this
wasn’t, this wasn’t something that dawned on her hours later,
this was an instant, , visceral feeling, you know, right inside,
that, that these two things were absolutely related, you know, as
soon as she knew that Madeleine was missing then, then, , it was, it
was absolutely clear as anything to her, you know. I’ve said, I’ve
said the other day on the other film, you know, that she has been
treated abominably by the Press, , fantasist, liar, you know,
sympathetic witness ,whatever you like, it’s been repeated over and
over again, it’s gone unchallenged, it’s gone undefended, it
hasn’t been, hasn’t been put to bed by a statement from the
Police and, you know, this, Jane would not make this up, there is no
question in my mind that she would fabricate this, there’s no, as
I’ve said before, there’s no, there is no benefit for finding
Madeleine by creating some random false lead off into the dark, you
know, in a certain direction. , and Jane hasn’t been, you know,
has never been more sure of something in her life, I mean, she didn’t
see enough of this person to know exactly what they looked like, she
didn’t see the child to know that it was definitely Madeleine, but
something triggered her suspicion at the time, but because, you know,
as far as she was concerned, all was well in the flats, you know, she
didn’t really kind of think much more of it, but then, as soon as
she knew Madeleine was gone, there was something odd about this chap,
it wasn’t right, it wasn’t right the way, the speed, you know,
and all the things that she’s, you know, undoubtedly described.
But, but she has been treated like shit for nine months in the Press,
I mean, it’s been disgusting, it’s been absolutely appalling, you
know, and I think, huh, I mean, none of, you know, you know, I’ve
said earlier, I mean, I cannot abide the media and I think they’re,
I think they’re an absolute disgrace at the best of times and had a
fairly strong view of them beforehand and it’s only been made
dramatically, dramatically worse by this, but, you know, they, they
have poured scorn on what we consider and certainly Jane considers to
be the fundamental sort of eye witness account of this and, you know,
at every stage when she’s done her, you know, when the, the picture
was commissioned, it’s been laughed at, scorned at, you know. I
don’t think there’s any doubt in Jane’s mind, , that this is,
this is, this is what, this is the moment where Madeleine was being
taken away and, you know, as a, as a statement, you know, a personal
witness for her, she is not going to make this up and it’s not
going to be, , huh, it’s not going to be some hysterical reaction
to the circumstances, that is just not Jane’s personality and I
think she’s demonstrated that during the year by, by, you know,
when not reacting in a hysterical way to, you know, phew, national TV
interviews and everything else. So, anyway, I saw her at some point
either after the initial searches or after this longer one. , then,
, there’s a period of time where, where we didn’t search and, ,
we were trying to do things, you know, nearby, , one of the, one of
the things we tried to do after the Police, the local GNR Police had
arrived, was we tried to get, we tried to get the photograph, , Kate
certainly had some on her camera, they were looking for one, you
know, face on that was big enough rather than a, you know, a profile
or something, so that took a little while, we then didn’t have any
means of printing it and a lot of the MARK WARNER staff were around
including John the Manager, I think it was Kat the Nanny, , but
certainly one of the Nannies made, you know, certainly had found,
found either a, well either a printer themselves that would print
only from cameras or at least, , a connection to the printer that we
could use for the card, I can’t remember what the equipment was in
the end, but all of this took quite a, quite a while to get hold of.
, you know, there was sort of pandemonium outside really, , attempts
were made to, to get in touch with the Consulate, , and, , you know,
there, and a lot of conversations between us together and also
members of the, , members of the MARK WARNER staff and bystanders as
well about what had happened and there was, there was quite a lot of
people helping out in, in the sort of local searches as well around
the adjacent blocks. At some point in amongst this but before,
probably before I, , you know, tried to get hold of the pictures, I
actually ventured towards, in towards five, , five ‘A’ and, as I
said the other day, I really did feel at a little bit of a loss and
quite pathetic in terms of, you know, knowing what to, you know, how
to support Kate and Gerry and I’ve always felt a little, I mean,
we’ve all felt a little ashamed that, you know, were a bit
powerless to, to, to really kind of, to help them and to support
them, but, you know, my recollection of Gerry at some stage around
this time was I came up the steps, I could certainly hear him, I
mean, even earlier than this, you could hear wails of despair, , you
know, almost sort of inhuman wails of despair from Kate inside the
flat on, , , on a number, a number of occasions when we went back
and, , but this was the first time I’d actually really seen or
heard Gerry, he was on the phone to, , a member of his family, ,
curled up really on the floor just outside the sliding patio door
just sobbing uncontrollably and in between sobs just saying
‘They’ve’, you know, ‘Someone’s taken her’ or ‘Somebody’s
bloody got her’, you know, ‘She’s gone’ and absolutely , you
know, you know, for such a strong man to see him on the floor broken
he was, he was incapable of even standing up, he was just lying on
the floor and just repeating himself, there was so little he could,
you know, there was just nothing else in there. , and, , at this
point, you know, there was, , you know, other conversations, you
know, this is where I believe I had my first meeting and
conversations with, with, with Robert MURAT, he’d helped break up a
little bit of a, of a fracas between a couple of guests and the, and
the Police, the couple of Police who were, who were there and were
standing outside the apartment or just a little bit up from it, ,
and, , they weren’t, they weren’t visibly doing very much and I
think a couple of the, either British ex-pats who live there or
tourists, one of whom, they were both in kind of their fifties, if I
remember rightly, they were getting quite, quite mouthy, they were
quite, they had a very clear idea of what they thought that should be
done and, , at one point they were, they were saying this quite
loudly to, to, you know, a couple of members of the GNR whose English
obviously wasn’t good enough to hear a, a shouted colloquial rant
in English at them, , and I’ve a recollection of, of, of MURAT sort
of saying, you know, ‘Hang on guys they can’t understand you’,
you know, being actually very helpful and that is my recollection of
him on the night, that he came across as concerned, like a lot of
people, you know, said ‘I’ve got a daughter the same sort of age,
this is terrible, this is terrible’, helping defuse the situation
with, with the, , with the, , with a couple of members of the GNR. I
had another conversation, I mean, over, I’m not entirely sure what
sort of timescale this is, I think my original statements said this
was all around one am, but it’s all a little bit of a blur, , I had
a few other conversations with him, , either round the back of the
apartments, , I mean, he was saying that, you know, again, sort of
console here, very consolatory kind of comments which were, which a
lot of people were saying to anyone who they knew was part of the
group, , and one thing he did make a mention of was, you know, it was
something about Norfolk, which I believe is where he his, his, his
wife and kid live and he said there was, you know, there was a case a
few, a few years back, , of someone went missing and then they turned
up, they may have turned up hundreds of miles away, but, you know,
they were unharmed,
they were safe. Again,
you know, the kind of thing that most people were quite happy to,
happy to hear and, you know, I didn’t have any, any great sort of
suspicion about him on the night, in fact, he didn’t feature in any
of our statements on the first or the second attempt, , I know Fiona
and Rachael have much more vehement views on what he was like, they
found him a little, you know, different, but, from my point of view,
he was, he was just helping like a number of other individuals and, ,
and being fluent in Portuguese was, was obviously a big help on such
a night. , he also sort of gave the impression that he might have
done some Police work before and, to be fair, I probably didn’t
know at the time but now I don’t know whether he was referring to
translation work that he’d done with the Portuguese Police here or
whether he’d been involved in translating for, for Police in
Britain, you know, in the opposite direction, but I’ve got this
vague, vague now recollection of some kind of conversation on that,
on that, , on that level. , the next, so, you know, at some point I
think I felt, I was starting to feel sort of useless again, just
hanging around the apartment, you know, there were a lot of people,
you know, going around at this point, so I opted, after the pictures
and after a period of time back in the flat and conversations to go
away again, , and this time I searched over and on towards the
Millennium Restaurant, so in a, in a completely different direction
to where I had been before. As I said, I don’t think the, although
people, there was some coordination within small groups of
individuals, there wasn’t really a systematic route to anyone being
searched, so I may have been covering ground that had been done
before, but, nonetheless, I chose somewhere that I hadn’t been
before, , searched along those roads, there’s a few alleys that
kind of, well alleys the wrong word, , roads that I presume higher up
just sort of go, you know, lead out of town, that run parallel to the
road that goes up past Millennium, , I went round a few of, , a
couple of these with increasing futility really, and I think despite
there being a bit of moonlight, I couldn’t really see very much, ,
there were sort of dog barks and you kind of think, you know, ‘I’m
just going to walk into some field of rabid dogs’, so in the end I
kind of double back. And I think almost as I’d, you know, given up
on walking up these roads, I went down and, as I said on Tuesday, , a
car came up one of these roads with what I think was Dan the tennis
coach inside and another, at least, I think at least one more
occupant, I can’t remember whether he was driving or whether he was
in the, in the passenger seat, but he certainly recognised,
recognised me in the headlights and being as tall as I am it’s
usually fairly easily spotted, , and he, and I kind of said ‘Look,
I’ve been up there, I can’t really see very much’, he said
‘Don’t worry, we’re driving up these with the headlights, we’ll
have a good look’. So I came back to the, the main, the main road,
, that was leading over to the Millennium and then for a fair amount
of time went round all of the individual flats there and looked, the
ground floor, you know, they’re all, they’re all identical with
walls running like this and gates and you can open the gate and you
can look in on the ground floor at all of the gardens and there were
a number of other people kind of searching around doing the same sort
of thing. , and then at some stage I headed back to the apartment,
that was, that was my final search of the night. The, the next real
recollection, I mean, I don’t know how much time we spent in our
own flats and talking outside, but the next recollection really is, ,
being in the, in the flat, this was sort the first time I remember
being in the flat with, with, , with, with Gerry, you know, around
this point there, there were a lot more, I think, I think the PJ had
arrived and certainly there were actually other, other members of the
GNR around as well because there was, you know, a fair number of
people milling around in the, in the passageway going in through
the, the, , the locked door, not, so not on the patio side, but there
were a lot of people including Police around, around the exit there
near the shutters and stuff. , and at some stage sort of quietened
off and the, the PJ sat down with, you know, came in and sat down
with Gerry, the recollections of what happened there are relatively
dim now, but the only ones I can really recall was, although it was
prompted by what you showed me on Tuesday, was that we were writing
on the back of a piece of card, I thought it was a cereal box but
obviously it was a children’s book, a very kind of, very, very,
draft idea of what happened in the hour and, , and what state the
windows and the shutters had been in and I think I, that was, that
was written with me sat at the table in Kate and Gerry’s room.
Gerry by this point had certainly calmed down but was, his head was
just on the table, you know, like that, he was just staring at the,
at the table, very, very quiet and very, very low. Dave PAYNE was in
there at least at one point early on. And I think possibly Sylvia
this Housekeeper, I think she came in, I think she was offering to
translate at some point. But anyway Dave PAYNE said to, , there were
two members of the PJ had arrived, there was a guy I remember being
almost shaved bald head, quite dark complexion, and a second one who
we kind of nicknamed ‘baby face’ who did our fingerprinting about
a week later, , and those two were there and Dave was, was saying,
you know, ‘Shouldn’t we’, you know, ‘Why are we sitting here,
shouldn’t you be on the radio, shouldn’t there be more people
here, shouldn’t there be’, you know, ‘this should be on the
radio, it should be on the television’ and, , I recall ‘baby
face’ or his colleague saying ‘No media’, and, you know, and
that was full-stop and then turning round to me writing the timeline
and saying ‘That’s what we want’, fair enough. , huh, and
that’s really it. At some point Jane came in, I think because Jane
was in with our kids at this point, I didn’t hang around too, you
know, too long and I went out, but Jane came in I think to give a
brief statement to the, the, the PJ on the night, , and this is where
she’s concerned that, she didn’t really want to believe what she
had seen and she was worried that she had played it down to those
staff on the, on the night, such that, that she was never taken
seriously again by the PJ, , but, , that was, that, I mean, that was,
you know, her concern about how she, how she pitched it at the time,
but she desperately didn’t want to believe that what she saw was,
was true and be the last person, you now, in the group to sort of see
Madeleine. , and then I have to say that the rest of the evening is,
is a bit of a blur, the PJ were at the flat I think for probably
about an hour, but I’m guessing there. At some stage they
permitted or told, , , somebody, Kate and Gerry, that the, that the,
that the twins could be taken upstairs, because certainly one of the
next things I can recall is quite late on in the evening being
upstairs, , in five ‘H’, the twins were , I think they’d been
taken up there, I think they were still, I think they were still
asleep, although at one point they, they did, did wake up and I think
Kate and Gerry later on were, were cuddling them. , and we were all
just stood there almost in, in silence or at best whispers, you know,
absolutely dumbstruck by, you know, the, the, the turn of events. ,
and, you know, Kate and Gerry were sort of sat on, they were sat on
the sofas there or on the edge of the sofa, , absolutely broken,
just, just, you know, hugging each other and or just sat there, , and
we were there, you know, well I was up there for a while, I’ve no
idea what time this was really, , it seemed, well it seemed like we’d
been up all night already but it was still dark and I think we went,
we decided that we, you know, we weren’t going to, we weren’t
going to search anymore, most of the, most of, by this point, most of
MARK WARNER I think had largely decided as well that there was no
obvious sign of her in the immediate vicinity and the fact that, you
know, there was no-one outside at one point and when I went to bed
everyone had gone, , clearly, well at least most of the GNR, I don’t
know if there was anyone still there at all. , and had a very brief,
, period of lying next to Ella, I think I went in one room with Ella
and I think Evie had already been moved into our room and Jane slept
with her in there and just lay there for an hour or so, certainly
didn’t get any sleep. , and then, you know, we, we got up, I think
it was probably in the first twinkling of light, and I don’t really
remember anything, there was certainly no breakfast eaten, I mean,
there was nothing like that. My next real recollection is going back
up to, to five ‘H’, you know, it’d be light by this point so it
must have been, you know, seven, you know, seven o’clock, seven
thirty or something, I remember it was light. And, , you know, the
situation was pretty much as I’d left it before and, you know, Kate
and Gerry were there and, you know, I think they, I remember them
telling us that they, you know, they, I think in the end they’d
gone out searching on their own, you know, they were just depressed
because they said, you know, there was no-one else there, you know,
they were the only ones out, you know. So just, just almost a, a
muted silence, but the twins were there, I think they were, they were
awake. , I think at some point, as I say, the phone call, questions
on there, around the eight o’clock mark, particularly because
Rachael
at some stage, I can
remember her being sat in our apartment and Rachael was talking to a
colleague or a friend who worked at the BBC News Desk, I think it
was, she was certainly on the phone, you know, on the phone to a
colleague who, who either directly or indirectly worked for the BBC
or knew somebody who did and, , but that was, that was, I’d missed
that out, that was certainly earlier on, probably before we’d gone
to bed. , and at some point we put the SKY News on the, on the TV in
their room and, you know, it was breaking news and I thought I’d
better ring my mum because, I’m not quite sure how specific, I
forget how specific it was, but I thought, you know, mum needs to
know what’s happened and also if it’s ‘a child has gone missing
in Portugal’, my mum would probably go ‘Crikey, I hope that’s
not one of ours’, so I had a very tearful conversation with my mum
explaining what had happened and, , you know, and, you know, sort of
saying well, you know, ‘Ella and’, you know, ‘Ella and Evie are
safe, but it is, it’s Madeleine’ and, , , you know, as I say, she
was pretty upset and, , well it was only a brief call and didn’t
really have a lot to say and, , you know, when my dad came back, you
know, my mum was in a terrible state and he thought one of us was
dead. , but, , I’m not really quite sure how the morning, earlier
part of the morning like clumped together, obviously at some point
the Police came back, , probably not, you know, around, you know,
they were there maybe when I was making this phone call again and at
some stage there was, we must have been, you know, we’re going to
take, you know, some of you to the Station this morning, some this
afternoon and we split up into pairs so somebody could stay, MARK
WARNER had said, you know, ‘We’ll open the crèche and all of the
children can stay at the Tapas irrespective of age and there’s more
staff on there so’, you know, ‘if you do need to go to’, you
know, ‘the Police it’s covered throughout the day’, but, , I
don’t quite know where that, that sort of fitted into things. At
some stage, , Kate had asked for, , to find a Priest, I think this
was not going to be, this was probably a little bit later on, it was
not going to be much longer than before they actually went away with
the Police to Portimão. , you know, I certainly saw Robert MURAT
again on the morning and that’s the occasion, , on which I took
his, his mobile number, , and I thought, you know, certainly with
some of the translational difficulties with, you know, with the
staff, that he appeared to be a very, a very kind of useful person to
sort of be able to contact should we need him, as I say, I remember
taking his details just on the corner of the apartment, we were
outside, not, not on the road outside five ‘A’ but just at the
junction of the two roads, he was walking off and going around there
and I remember kind of catching him and saying, you know, ‘What’s
your name’ and just putting Robert and his number into the phone.
, I think that was before I then got the number of the Anglican
Priest, sorry the Anglican, , Father, because Kate’s Catholic, and
I was also given some numbers, I don’t, I don’t remember who gave
me these, and I rang a couple of them which didn’t go through, so I
went down to, at some point during the early part of the morning, I
think this was probably after Kate and Jane and Dave and Matt had all
gone to the Station, , and rang these numbers, I thought maybe it was
my mobile not putting me through, I got in touch with the Father from
the, from the, , from the Catholic Church there, he was out,
difficult English between the two of us, but he was out of town but
offered to see Kate, you know, on his return, and then when I came
back up they said ‘Were you after the Priest’ and I remember, I
said yeah, and I remember being directed and sat over there, but
actually this was the outgoing, it was his last day in Portimão, ,
his last day in Praia Da Luz, and I had a chat with him poolside, you
know, in fact, probably in the chairs we were sat in the night before
and then he went off. The kids at some stage here got put into the
crèche and for a fair amount of the morning was spent in there, you
know, we, we certainly didn’t really feel like being away from them
for too long”.
1578 “No”.
Reply “Made the
phone call to Anthony NICHOLLS, which is the one you asked, he was on
holiday in France and actually riding a bike at the time so he was no
use anyway because I’d forgotten he was on holiday and I actually
wanted to speak to someone at work saying, you know, ‘pending a
minor miracle we are not going to be back on Saturday for work on
Monday’, so I rang Tom WHITEHEAD from the balcony of the crèche
and, you know, had quite a long conversation with him explaining what
had happened”.
1578 “Okay. I think
we will leave it there for a short while”.
Reply “Okay”.
1578 “Have a break,
a bite to eat”.
Reply “Uh hu.
Alright, thanks”.
1578 “The time is
one twenty-two pm and this interview is ceasing”.
Russell James O'Brien -
Record Of Tape Recorded Interview III
Russell James O'Brien -
Record Of Tape Recorded Interview III Duarte Levy Wordpress
Posted by Duarte Levy
January 27, 2009 •
10:55 pm
1578 “Okay. The
time is two eleven pm and that’s on Thursday the tenth of April,
two thousand and eight. We’re in an interview room at
Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters. I’m Detective Constable
1578 Andrew GIERC from the Leicestershire Major Crime Unit. Would you
give me your full name and date of birth please”?
Reply “Yeah it’s
Russell James O’BRIEN, twenty sixth of November, nineteen seventy”.
1578 “Thank you
Russell. This is the third interview of today, as I’ve stated
previously you’re here voluntarily”.
Reply “Mmm”.
1578 “As a
significant witness to assist the Portuguese Authorities in their
investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine MCCANN in Portugal
on the third of May, two thousand and seven. I would now like to move
on to some time lines and we have, these are copies of written
documents or time lines written on the back of, looks like a kiddies
book or something”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “An activity
book. If we could just for a few moments go through these
documents”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “Which one came
first”?
Reply “ as we
discussed the other day, I’d forgotten these over the year but I
think this is an attempt, this is a draft attempt, they’re both in
my handwriting, this is a draft attempt, err and then I think I’m
transcribing in a slightly more a neater writing, hoping that it’s
more legible for other people to read as well, so I think this one
came first”.
1578 “So just to
differentiate between the two documents”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “One of them
has the word ‘Gerald’.”
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “Written
towards the lower half of the document and the other one does not”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “You’re
saying the one with ‘Gerald’ written on it, was the final
document”?
Reply “Well it was
certainly second one, I said I think I was writing this down in a
hurry when I”.
1578 “It came after
this, this first one”?
Reply “It came after
this one yeah, yeah”.
1578 “So the one
that doesn’t bare the name of ‘Gerald’.”
Reply “Is the
earlier one”.
1578 “Was the first
attempt, the earlier attempt as you say. When was this drafted up”?
Reply “ this was
drafted er around the time that the initial pair of Officers from the
PJ came to 5A (inaudible) early in the morning of the fourth of May,
two thousand and seven so I can certainly recall writing some of
this, I think perhaps the neat, maybe the neater version sat down at
the table in Gerry’s flat with Gerry Dave PAYNE and at least at
some stage of it, the two Officers from the, from the PJ”.
1578 “What would
have been the time difference between these two documents”?
Reply “Er that I’m
not too sure, I think what, what essentially I’m doing, is I’m,
I’ve written something here fairly quickly for myself and then I’ve
looked at it and thought it’s, it’s not actually gonna be useful
to hand to anyone to read other than me, so I think they’re
probably not that far, I’ve written that and then I’ve sat down,
perhaps I was writing this with that being on my knee or something
and never sat down, but I don’t, I don’t recall the time
difference but, but we’re looking at from what I describe about my
activities in the run up to this, to these being within you know, a
short space of time, half an hour, maybe even less, I don’t think I
wrote this, had it in my pocket for a night, the other thing that
makes me think that is, is probably the front of the back cover of a
book”.
1578 “Yes”.
Reply “So I’ve
probably, I’ve probably written it, thought that’s rubbish, even
I can barely read it, let’s start again, I don’t think there’s
much time difference”.
1578 “If we look at
the ‘Gerald’ one”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “You have a
recording at nine thirty”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “Russell
O’BRIEN in 5D”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “What does that
read”?
Reply “It says with
poorly daughter”.
1578 “Oh sorry, with
poorly daughter”.
Reply “With
(inaudible) abbreviation for with”.
1578 “And then
there’s nothing until nine fifty five pm”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “And I think at
ten pm the, you have the next entry, alarm raised”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “Okay”.
Reply “After
(inaudible) I think all of this is incomplete, I mean that’s an
incomplete sentence there, yeah that’s alarm raised after Kate and
I presume I’m gonna write return to table but, but, but I haven’t”.
1578 “So when we
compare the ‘Gerald’ version”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “To the earlier
version”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “You see that
at nine thirty five, you have written”.
Reply “Matt checks,
Matt checks the twins, checks and sees twins”.
1578 “Matt checks
and sees twins”.
Reply “It looks like
that, yeah that what it looks like, as I say it’s, it’s, it’s
not even that great for me to read there, but it does say Matt, Matt
checks and sees twins, so this is as I said after Matt left me in 5D,
he’s gone back and I think there was a, certainly there was a
concern that Matt was, whether he actually definitely saw Madeleine
at the time or not, he can certainly (inaudible) certainly in the, in
the days and hours afterwards I mean Matt was unsure about whether he
definitely clocked Madeleine in the room, although he was quite
convinced that he, he, both the twins were there, so I think that’s
why I’ve written that there”.
1578 “The nine
thirty entry on the non Gerald version if you like”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “Is”?
Reply “It says Russ
and Matt check all three, so this is just an abbreviated time, an
approximate time that me and Matt came back from the table to check
on the, on the flat and I’ve crossed out Ella there and so it was
written in, in haste”.
1578 “And then the,
on the ‘Gerald’ version, you have a vertical line between nine
thirty and nine fifty five”.
Reply “Yeah, yeah”.
1578 “What did that
signify”?
Reply “I’m not
sure, I don’t know whether this was, this was me trying to get the
sort of start and the end together and err and then, and then asked,
asked for more, you know more detail of what people were doing. From
a personal point of view I suppose once, once I was in the, in the
room at nine thirty, I wasn’t, I wasn’t privy to any of the other
direct information, so whether this is just sort of me thinking that
I’ll need to fill this in later, but you know it’s just a, this
is incomplete, this sentence is incomplete and I think at some stage
whilst I was writing this, the PJ were very keen to talk to Gerry
then I left and I think then Jane came in, so I think this is
something that was actually being written at about a point where I
left it with the Police and then Jane was, Jane and Gerry were
talking to the PJ”.
1578 “Okay. We have
another version here, time line”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “And this is a
typed version”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “And it’s
headed sequence of events, Thursday the third of May, two thousand
and seven, twenty thirty hours to twenty two hundred hours as
recalled by, then we have the, the group of adults there. Are you
happy with the content of this document Russell?”
Reply “Yeah either,
(inaudible), this is, this is the document that the group together
created as we were saying before, after the first weekend, err I
think we all felt when we came back from our initial interviews that
with the amount of information, the need to, to translate , that we
came back feeling that, that there was, there was probably a lot of
detail that hadn’t been got across about the evening, we were quite
keen to try and get a time line together before some of the facts
started to become dim for us as well, so I think it was Dave who, who
suggested err as I’m not entirely sure of the exact date but
certainly on sort of the Monday and the Tuesday perhaps of the, of
the, the week after, the week after the abduction”.
1578 “Yes”.
Reply “ you know
that we should probably sit down and do this, I think he was quite
keen to write it about the whole holiday before the weekend and after
, I mean in retrospect I think I wish we, I wish we had, but we, we
settled to do the, you know the immediate period that evening, it
was typed, I typed it and it was typed on a borrowed laptop from err
the tennis coach of Mark WARNER who’s called Georgina, the surname
of, of who, I don’t think we have ever, ever known, we compiled it
over the course of probably a, a couple of sittings during one day.
Kate and Gerry by this point after the weekend were, well they were
having meetings with the likes of Alan PIKE the Psychologist that
came out to, to see them and they were, they were often organising
things and speaking to people, the Consulate etc., etc., etc., so we
actually saw err you know probably less and less of them as the days
wore on, so they weren’t here with the initial draft of it, but we
just left their comments to be added later and then we told them that
we’d done this and they came, err read it through, added in the
bits that were relevant to when you know, when, what they saw and err
and when they left the table, as well as the time line Jane gave a,
a full, as full as possible description of the person she thought she
saw carrying a child that may have been Madeleine away and I think
there’s also a fair amount of detail about some suspicions from,
from Gerry that the room might have been in a slightly different way,
err than what it was based on his and Matt’s observations of going
into the room. So we got, we, we wrote this, we wrote this down very
much to try and get a, a permanent record of what we thought as
accurate as general as a thought had been in the group, having
(inaudible), it’s important to say cos we’ve, I get the
impression from again you know, from the Police perhaps but, but
certainly from what comes out in the Press, that this has been
perceived by the PJ as an attempt to, to sort of standardise our
answers and you know and make sure that we’re all saying the same
thing, it certainly wasn’t created with that intention, it was very
much that the original statements were, were brief, were obviously
prone to translational difficulties and you know, at no point have we
concealed this, I turned up on my second interview and presented them
with the, with the stick and said, ‘look we’ve sat down, it’s
all typed, we think this is quite accurate, there you go’, so you
know, it’s been, it was, it was, it was really quite hard for, you
know to hear that, or at least hear the fact be implied that the
Police felt that this was some, some conspiracy to try and err and
cover things up, this was, this was done to go over the events, down
on paper before they become, inevitably they got less and less clear
in our mind and we were transparent in that we gave this to the
Police at the very next meeting, there was no attempt to conceal this
and have this as a hidden document that we were all reading from”.
1578 “Okay. We shall
move on to the next phase which is a list of questions I shall ask
you and these originate from the PJ”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “And then we
shall follow on with Gerry and Kate’s list of questions”.
Reply “Okay”.
1578 “And then any
other business really”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “So firstly,
what time did you arrive at the Tapas Restaurant the evening of the
third of May, two thousand and seven”?
Reply “ I’d say I
think this was probably around quarter to nine”.
1578 “Were you alone
or with your wife”?
Reply “I was alone,
Jane had come down to the table five, ten minutes earlier”.
1578 “Who was
already sitting at the table”?
Reply “At the time
of arrival, everyone was there apart from the adults in 5H, so that
would be Fiona and David and her mum Diane”.
1578 “How often were
you checking on your children”?
Reply “Well”.
1578 “And how”?
Reply “During the
week we, things sort of (inaudible) but in general terms, me and Jane
were checking with err between courses, err I know some of the people
were doing it more by the clock but we tend to go between courses,
sometimes we were also off for you know, we’re listening at, at
least the windows and doors of other, of other rooms and checking
directly in our own child’s room, err as, as we discussed before
on a, at least one occasion on the Sunday night I also went into both
Matt and Rachael’s flat with a key through their deadlocked door,
as with Kate and Gerry’s err patio door to just look in on their
kids, but generally speaking at least for me, thereafter in the
week, I would usually just check internally in ours and listen at the
window at, at the other flats before returning, in terms of
frequency as I say, although some people were doing it by the, by the
clock and it was, was relatively ad hoc you know when, when the
moment took, I think for me and Jane it was generally in between
courses and we’d often alternate”.
1578 “Okay. During
the dinner that evening, were you always at the table”?
Reply “No, I say I
arrived about quarter to nine and as I described in, in the, my
account of, of the evening, I made a single trip back to the flat,
err and then returned and that was err with Matthew OLDFIELD at about
sort of twenty five past nine, somewhere around there. On that visit
it was clear listening at the window that Evie had woken up, and so
as I’ve already, already gone over, I went into the flat, had a
wee, Matt came back after checking 5B, he discovered you know that
I’d found Evie, that had been awake and she’d vomited, asked if I
wanted any help, I said no, he returned via Gerry and Kate, Gerry’s
flat, I stayed there err got Evie out, out of her, out of her sort of
soiled clothes gave her a quick wash and the clothes down, changed
her into something else, sat read her a book, Jane came back and then
I returned to the table about quarter to ten”.
1578 “As the
questions go through, it says if you weren’t at the table, where
did you go”.
Reply “(Inaudible)
5, 5D”.
1578 “And at what
time”?
Reply “So about
twenty five past nine I left the table”.
1578 “For what
purpose (inaudible)”?
Reply “To check on
the kids and ultimately to stay with Evie”.
1578 “How long were
you absent”?
Reply “It would be
in total, it’s between from about twenty five past nine and
returning to the table about err, err about quarter to ten”.
1578 “And how many
times were you absent”?
Reply “That was the
only, that was the only trip”.
1578 “After the
alarm was raised, what did you do”?
Reply “ like the
rest of the table, with the exception of Diane, we ran to the foot of
the , the staircase or the steps outside, err at that point I didn’t
go into the flat, a number of people I think stayed just at the, just
at the door, some people went in, certainly Gerry, Kate and Fiona NO
Fiona says NO err and then obviously we started an immediate search
as I’ve described before”.
1578 “Who did you
talk with”?
Reply “Is this at
any specific time”?
1578 “It follows on
from the previous question, so after the alarm was raised, what did
you do”?
Reply “Yeah okay”.
1578 “And who did
you talk with”?
Reply “Well at that
point in time, there was only really the group there, err there was
no other, no other parties immediately around straight away, there
was a very brief conversation with you know, some of the other group
and to quickly establish what we ought to do straight away, I
presume some of the others were doing a second search, just inside
the flat just to make sure Kate hadn’t missed them but I certainly
think that, that Matt and Dave and I think perhaps after a, some
(inaudible) Gerry, we, we, we kind of split up, so we had a
conversation just about, let’s, you go that way, you go that way,
but there wasn’t anyone else around I don’t think to talk to,
some, somebody went back to the Tapas both to let Diane know about
everything you know and I presume the waiters will have been spoken
to but it wasn’t, not by me”.
1578 “Did you have
any photo of Madeleine in your possession”?
Reply “ we got a
photo of Madeleine later on but this is two hours later, ”.
1578 “So who gave it
to you”?
Reply “Okay well
certain, I’m not quite sure what the, the initial, the question
made it sound like whoever had one in our possession anyway, I
didn’t, we got a, we , after a portion of my searches, we got hold
of Kate’s camera, err looked through the digital cam to try and
find a picture of Madeleine reasonably recently, reasonably face on
and, and with her being the main, the main character on the
photograph, clearly that that was going through, there were quite a
few pictures that were not ideal, so we, we went through those, err
and then printed that off, all of this taking a reasonable amount of
time to try and get hold of equipment and have offices opened and
etc., etc”.
1578 “Okay. What
kind of photo was it”?
Reply “The, it was
a, it was a photo of err, it was the one that was being circulated in
the, in the days immediately afterwards, I’ve seen so many
photographs of her, of Madeleine since, I think it was a photograph
that had been taken of her and a relatively number of weeks before
and I think with a slightly different, slightly longer hair, but it
was, it was a fa, it was a fa, it was a relatively full on sort of
face on photograph, err and it was printed on a standard size four
by six err inch, as you know, using the equipment that the people had
and we ran off a number of copies of this, and several I think were
given to the, the GNR”.
1578 “I was going to
ask you the next question”.
Reply “Sorry”.
1578 “Was, who did
you give the photo to”?
Reply “Yeah well I
think the ones that I had, I took, you know cos obviously they were
printing out, you know they were slow you know, we really wanted to
get them to the Police fairly quickly, so I took the first couple of
copies and took those round to, I think the GNR staff, I presume they
were the origin, you know original uniformed Officers, it wasn’t
the PJ, it was well before the PJ arrived, there were other copies
printed off which I don’t know where they got to but I know that
Mark WARNER, somebody in Mark WARNER made a poster, or at least an A4
err saying that there’d been, you know, there’d been a, err an
abduction and that Madeleine was missing and that was circulated
around the next morning, so somebody had, had, had that photograph
and used it for that poster but I took, I don’t know two or three
copies maybe and gave them to the Police. I actually think
ultimately there may have been more copies printed off and somebody
else gave even more copies to them as well, err and I think some of
the other copies were shown, were just shown to people around who
were going on the searches but personally”.
1578 “The copies
that you had, you only gave to the Police”?
Reply “I gave it to
the Police, just to the Police”.
1578 “Do you know
who informed the Authorities of Madeleine’s disappearance”?
Reply “Er as we
discussed when we were going through the, the , the notes from the,
the previous statement, I think that this was Gerry and Matt but I
was not around, I don’t think I was around at the time, I was
second hand information, I was , I was probably searching at the time
that that happened”.
1578 “Do you know
who informed the media of Madeleine’s disappearance”?
Reply “There were
several attempts during the night to, to look about getting an email
out to something like Sky or something like that, I don’t actually
think that ever happened in the end, just because of practicalities
and other people doing it but my inclination is that Rachael, Rachael
OLDFIELD spoke to a colleague err back in the UK who either worked
for the BBC or at least knew someone who worked for the BBC, so I, I,
I think it was Rachael”.
1578 “Do you know
when they were informed”?
Reply “ I think I
got this out, slightly out of place when we were discussing it before
and talked about it really about the next morning, I think I can, I
think I can picture err Rachael talking to somebody at the News Desk
in our, from our flat, err in the dead of night really, so quite err,
quite late on, three, four am maybe but I really don’t, I really
don’t know, but it was well after the, the main, the main kind of
rush of, of, of the search and the events and it’s when we were
back at the, back at the apartments later on”.
1578 “So that was
the Media”?
Reply “That was the
Media”.
1578 “Do you know
when the Authorities were involved”?
Reply “Well it was
during, it was in a period of time when I was doing the search so I
can only say what, what other people, I know that, I know from
speaking to the rest of the group that there was some reluctance on
the part of staff down at the Ocean Club reception to ring the Police
but they were, they kind of you know, in the end had to sort of
insist on it but I think it was, it would have happened not long
after that original, original search but I couldn’t put a time on
it, I’d be, I’d be, I’d be making one up”.
1578 “Did you take
part in any searches”?
Reply “Yes, and I
presume that what I’ve”.
1578 “With, with
whom and how were they planned”?
Reply “Right okay.
Yes as described and, and as described in the last interview, there
was an initial search of the building, of the perimeter of the
building, and then we re-met again, I then did a solitary search
down the, the west side of the apartments into the car park and
shopping centre as I discussed, err there was then a, a joint search
with me, Matt and Dave coming, sweeping down the town err towards the
ri, the river, err towards the sea and then we split up and searched
the beach and obviously we lost, we kind of lost each other during
this point and then I came back as sort of, as exact manner to the,
to being on my own, I then did a, after quite a long time by the
apartments did a final search in the, in the sort of, the road out
towards Millennium, and the, and the adjoining roads that go off
into the dark there and then did a, and then on my way back after
having met Dan in the car who then carried on going up those roads, I
did a brief search in the flats to the sort of south side of, of the
road that leads up to the Millennium”.
1578 “Okay and how
were they planned”?
Reply “Bad, err
very, very, kind of at the drop of a hat, I mean the, the initial
search was just, you know just to make sure she hadn’t wandered
off, I think there was some planning by some of the Mark WARNER
staff, just to make sure that individuals went off in different
areas, there wasn’t really a great deal of coordination with the
ones that I did, the early ones were happening before there was a
group there and the one I did last, probably after, you know whilst I
was back, err outside the apartment for a period of time, there was a
lot of searching going on that may have been more coordinated than
what I was doing, when I went back out, there wasn’t any clear
coordination, so I just went to somewhere different that I hadn’t,
that I hadn’t checked before”.
1578 “Okay. During
your stay at the Ocean Club, did you ever leave your doors open to
the apartment”?
Reply “No I don’t
think so, certainly when we weren’t using the apartment, it was
always completely shut down, we generally kept all the shutters down,
just to keep the heat and the sun out of the apartment, so they were
reasonably cool for the, for the evenings, when we went, we went to
the, the Tapas err in the evenings we, we kind of locked and pulled
the shutters down on, on all the bedrooms both front and back, err
the patio was locked, and then we would go out the main door and
there was the option of turning the lock to a sort of dead lock, so
it couldn’t be opened either from the inside or the outside without
the key, just in case err, you know Ella did get up, which was
unlikely but we felt it was easier to do it that way and during the
day, I mean occasionally we would sit outside on the patio, err but I
don’t think if we went, if we went away from the, from there for
any length of time, we would have locked up, I don’t remember
leaving it unlocked”.
1578 “Did you ever
leave your windows open”?
Reply “No, I don’t,
I don’t, I don’t think so, generally speaking we didn’t touch
them very much, err you know we might have pulled the shutters up
during the, during the day, from recollection, the front, the front
windows were, were all patio sliding ones and so they were like, you
have gone in and out of them but you’d have shut them and the other
windows at the, on the kitchen side and the kids bedroom side, I
don’t think we opened and closed those very much, I mean we may
have given a bit of a breath of fresh air but we didn’t leave them
routinely open”.
1578 “In the days
prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, did you ever check on your
children”?
Reply “ how do, how
do you mean, do you”?
1578 “I guess this
is”.
Reply “Just about
the routine again”?
1578 “Yes”.
Reply “So it’s, is
that what it says the same, it’s a re-hash of, of an earlier
question. Yes we, we, we err, when we were over on, in the Tapas, we
had the routine that I’ve described before, you know generally
between courses or at, you know opportune moments we would go back,
search in our room, check in our room, listen at the other windows of
the others occasionally, would have been, would have been a visit
into the others as well and on other peoples trips, they would’ve,
of often check their child and that and certainly listen at the other
windows and, and on, on some occasions but not all, you know
sometimes there was a key passed over as well but I think we’ve
described that in some detail before”.
1578 “Yes and the
next question is , how often and yes you’ve, you’ve covered
that”.
Reply “Mmm yeah,
yeah”.
1578 “Between
courses etc”.
Reply “Generally
between courses, other people were kind of listening at the windows
as well, so although we might not necessarily have gone into our
room, however you know, well, we would have gone into our, our room
on every occasion when we went back for, other people would have been
listening at windows on intervening times as well”.
1578 “So are you
able to put an approximate time period on the courses”?
Reply “, well you
know it’s like a starter you know, I would have thought that you
know, we get down there, we would have ordered, we would have gone
back after the starter, which might have been sort of twenty, you
know twenty minutes later, the things came out reasonably, reasonably
quickly and then there would have been a gap, you know other people
may have gone along on a time basis, sort of during meals and they
would have come back and reported that all was clear as well, and
then you know, another you know, twenty minutes after for the main
course, so I think it’s difficult to say you know, absolutely what,
what it was, it would have been, it would have varied night to night
depending on the speed there but you know, we were going, you know
alter, you know me and Jane were generally alternating between
courses and other people would have come back and said it’s all
quiet on yours, even if they’ve gone at a different stage, based
on, on time”.
1578 “On the , on
the Thursday evening”.
Reply “Mmm”.
1578 “You went back
at one point with Matt”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “And you heard
Evie murmuring”.
Reply “Mmm mmm, mmm
mmm”.
1578 “Had anyone
else heard her prior to”?
Reply “No, no, I
mean we had, the person who’d been back to our flat before that was
obviously Jane, so Jane was the last person who’d been on any form
of visit, whether it was listening or not, so she came back and
obviously hadn’t reported this, as we haven’t discussed today,
but certainly on, on film the other day, we did discuss, we also had
a monitor, and err as did Dave and Fi but I have, certainly I don’t
remember the monitor going off, or hearing, or hearing Evie prior to
me going back, I have to say I don’t, you know don’t remember
Jane sort of saying, oh she was crying on the monitor as well but ,
as I say, it was more, it was more of a kind of a low whimper, this
wasn’t sort of getting back there and she was yelling or anything,
it was more of a, I think it, it was just sort of hear her there, so
it wasn’t a, it wasn’t a yell, I think one of the reasons we
were going back as well, I say Dave and Fi used the monitor alone and
didn’t do any trips back cos they had this two way monitor, which
was, was, was sort of quite you know, you know quite more sort of
maybe more expen, more expensive than our model but because we hadn’t
heard anything much and we didn’t hear anything at any time, we
just wanted to make sure that, that the monitor wasn’t just sort of
out of range or anything like that, or not, or not working, but I
can’t, we didn’t go back me and Matt because I heard anything on
the monitor, so whether Evie had just started as I got there, I, you
know I don’t know”.
1578 “When you were
at the Tapas Restaurant, where was the monitor, where was your
monitor”?
Reply “We had, we
had the , that’s the, if that’s their bedroom”.
1578 “No sorry”.
Reply “Sorry”.
1578 “The piece that
you took with you”?
Reply “Oh Jane had
it”.
1578 “Right”.
Reply “Yeah Jane had
that, Jane (inaudible)”.
1578 “All the time”?
Reply “(Inaudible),
I don’t think you know I had it, Jane, Jane generally had it, but
the, the monitor was obviously plugged in, in the flat and then the
cable kind of stretched and we just put the, the receiver in the
doorway of the, of the, of the children’s room, I think, I think I
remember rightly the plug, the plug for it, was, was err, was, was
just over the, over the other side of the, of the, bathroom there,
the room there, we plugged it in and then the lead sort of went in
it, just pointed into the, into the room, so it kind of got the whole
room, and it was obviously, using that, it was as near as the, as
near to the window as, as was possible as well”.
1578 “Okay. We ,
move on to phones now”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “Did you have
your mobile phone with you in Portugal”?
Reply “I did”.
1578 “And what is
the number of it please”?
Reply “07713
258795”.
1578 “I have a list
of numbers here”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “And I’ll ask
you in respect of each number who it belongs to”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “If you could
answer, who is the user of phone number 07967 016678”?
Reply “I’d have to
check on my phone again to do this if we’re gonna do it err. It’s
a bit of a, obviously having done these numbers before, before,
obviously there’s two out of five that don’t come up on my phone
anyway but. Do you want to do their numbers in reverse order, while
this is coming on, because I know that the later ones”.
1578 “Do you want to
start at the end and work forwards then”?
Reply “Well yes”.
1578 “Okay the , the
last one in the list if you like is 077”.
Reply “Mmm mmm”.
1578 “853”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “80603”.
Reply “Just see if
that comes up in my list, that is Professor Anthony NICHOLS, who is a
Consultant colleague of mine at the Royal Devon & Exeter
Hospital, he, there’s three of us that work on a ward and when it’s
fairly tight, cos it’s an Emergency Ward, so it, we’re not,
there’s not many if one’s off and I was ringing him to say that,
unless there was a very miraculous turn of events there, that we
would not be back in time to start work on the Monday, err I’d
forgotten that he too was actually away err for a couple of days at
the end of that week and he’d actually gone over to France, he’s
a very keen cyclist and has a house out there, err and I rang him and
he literally answered along the lines of, ‘oh hi Russ, I’m on the
bike, I’m in Fra, I’m in France’, or something like that and
err, so I, it was useless me talking to him anyway, cos he wasn’t
actually at work, so he couldn’t pass on any message, so I rapidly
hung up, so it’s probably a twenty second call, or something like
that, I didn’t tell him anything about what had happened. I then
rang my other colleague, Tom WHITEHEAD”.
1578 “Okay. The ,
the call in particular that you made to him was at ten fifty two”.
Reply “Mmm yeah”.
1578 “On the morning
of the fourth of the fifth”.
Reply “Mmm yeah I
can remember”.
1578 “So that would
fit in with”.
Reply “I was stood
on the balcony of the crèche in, in there and I thought well I need
to let work know now, cos this was already Friday morning and in
terms of being on call, err and my, you know my general nine to five
job and also out of hours, I knew I had to make some, you know
arrangements quickly, so that the Hospital could cover my absence”.
1578 “Okay. The
next number is a land line number”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “0151 3344469”?
Reply “That’s my
parent’s home in Merseyside”.
1578 “And who are
your parents please”?
Reply “ James Robert
O’BRIEN and Enid Dorothy O’BRIEN”.
1578 “And
whereabouts do they live”?
Reply “They live at
thirty six Bowness Avenue, Bromborough, Wirral, Merseyside, CH63
0EZ”.
1578 “Do you know
who the called party was at eight thirteen am and thirteen forty nine
pm on the fourth (inaudible)”?
Reply “Of, to that
number”?
1578 “Yes do you
know who, who you called”?
Reply “Who I spoke
to, I spoke to my, I would have certainly spoke to my mum, my dad
usually doesn’t answer the phone as a general rule, I think I spoke
to my mum, I mean I don’t know for sure but err, both were calls
for my mum, the eight o’clock in the morning one was to let her
know, because it was breaking on the news, I think we must have seen
the eight o’clock bulletin, actually I thought I’d better let my
mum know that, that well, a what’s happened and b that it’s not,
it’s not Ella and Evie, I don’t know whether there was a name
when they shown the initial reports but err, as I said, I think I
said, if not today, then on the first interview that my mum had met
Madeleine so I, you know, wanted to make sure that they were aware as
early as possible and the later call I’d imagine was just to, you
know a supplementary you know call, I don’t know whether that was
to me from her or from me to her but as you can imagine we, we made
an awful lot of phone calls that holiday”.
1578 “Okay. The next
one is a mobile again, 07831 659801”?
Reply “That’s my
mum’s mobile, so actually I’ve got, I think I, I don’t know
whether I rang the first, whatever, whichever calls to the land line
or to that mobile is the earliest, is the call I’ve just described,
so ”.
1578 “Well this was
at , ten fifty two am”?
Reply “That
morning”?
1578 “On the, on the
third”.
Reply “On the third,
well that’s to my mum, it was”.
1578 “So this is
before”.
Reply “It probably
wasn’t the first call, that’s not the first call, the land line
must be the first call then is it”?
1578 “No the land
line ones are on the fourth”.
Reply “Right okay”.
1578 “This is on the
third at ten fifty two in the morning, ten fifty two am”?
Reply “That’s a
text message isn’t it”?
1578 “It is indeed
you’re correct yes”.
Reply “Yeah sorry,
that’s my mum texting me, err she often texts me when I’m on
holiday after say about, whether she sent it several days before, I
don’t remember my , my phone being err on a great deal, err I think
that was just a text from my mum saying how are things and she has a
habit of just sending a relatively mundane, how are yous now and
again when we’re on holiday”.
1578 “Would that
text message still be on your phone”?
Reply “Err I did for
a long period of time, I kept, I’ve got my other phone here, this
was my phone at the time”.
1578 “I appreciate
it’s been through the washing machine”.
Reply “It’s been
through the washing machine, I actually kept a lot of texts for a
long period of time and it may well have been on there but as I say,
this has been, this was submitted to the Portuguese Police in July,
err I don’t know whether they took any, any sort of things off it
at all, I think they were looking for, to try and see if they could
ascertain a time which Robert MURAT’s number was put on it more
than anything but I no longer have the, the, the err access to this
phone but you’re more than, it’s useless to me if anyone wants to
try and it’s there”.
1578 “Okay. Next
number is a mobile again, 07754 774842”.
Reply “0754 7748”.
1578 “42”.
Reply “Yeah that’s,
that, that is not on my sim card as a call, as a, as a known caller”.
1578 “Okay, the ,
the question is , did they contact you during your holiday, either
personally or by phone”?
Reply “ as far as
I’m aware not, I mean clearly we’ve been, we’ve been through
this before we have”.
1578 “And again you,
you needed some assistance there didn’t you”?
Reply “I presume
this is actually Bri, this, this was Brian HEALY’S number from what
you said the other day, er I’m not, I’m not aware of making a
call or receiving a call to Brian HEALY but this number and the, the
one other number we’ve not been through, is, is, is, is Susan
HEALY’S, Kate’s mum, I’ve met, as I said before I’ve met
both of them in the past, I met them at, I think just the once before
the, before Madeleine went missing and that was at Madeleine’s
birthday party, I’d had no, no, no contact with them really until
they actually came out. What I think had, has happened is that the
first call is to Kate’s mum and actually Fiona ringing her on my
mobile while we were at Portimăo Police Station, cos I think her
battery had err, was, was err, was about to give out”.
1578 “So that would
be the first mentioned mobile that we moved on from”?
Reply “That we went
through the other day yeah so the, the two numbers that I can’t
recognise are”.
1578 “07967 016678”.
Reply “Yeah I
presume yeah, but I can certainly recall whilst we were sitting
waiting to go into be interviewed on the, on the evening of, of
Friday, Friday the fourth of May”.
1578 “Yes, it was
seven forty three pm”.
Reply “Yeah that
Fiona borrowed my, borrowed my mobile for a call, but I haven’t I
don’t think I spoke to, to either Sue or Brian until they actually,
until people actually came out physically to, to, to Luz in the days
after the abduction”.
1578 “Okay. So we
move on to the, to the next phase, which are the , the questions
drawn up by Gerry and Kate”.
Reply “Mmm mmm,
mmm”.
1578 “And the first
one is, for how long have you known Gerald McCANN and Kate HEALY”?
Reply “Okay, I met
Gerry briefly for the first time in Atlanta in nineteen ninety nine
at the err, err the American Heart Association Conference, he was a
presenter there, he was presenting some of his research he’d done
in Glasgow, err he already knew a few of the people who I’d, I’d
just started to appear at the research, err as part of my training
and he already knew a few of the people who worked in Leicester, one
of whom had actually worked in Glasgow before, so there was a little
bit of a connection between the two departments, and , (inaudible)
turn it off, I then didn’t really meet him for probably a couple
of years though after, he moved down to Leicester as a, as a sort of,
as a Trainee Registrar in Cardiology, and although we spoke on the
phone, I worked on the Coronary Care Unit at one Hospital in
Leicester and he worked at the, the main Cardiology Unit as a
(inaudible), at Glenfield Hospital, err if I had a patient who was
particularly unwell, who needed the, the facilities at Glenfield, I
would ring and you know some days it would be him, so he was, he was
a phone, you know a voice at the end of the phone for a long period
of time, and then he rotated as part of his training, err down to the
Coronary Care at the Royal Infirmary on another ward as well and we
ended up working I think for, on the same ward for a, a period of, of
about six months and he was down at the Royal for about a year as
well and during this time, obviously we worked directly together,
and he, it was, it was coincidentally I think, around the same time
that both Kate found out she was pregnant with Madeleine and Jane
found out that she was pregnant with Evie, so that pregnancy was sort
of marching on, err at the same time, and I don’t think I’d you
know after, after they were born, that’s probably the, the first
time that , that we started to see them socially, err we mainly knew
them through, through Dave and Fi, DONC ILS SE FRÉQUENTENT DEPUIS
2003. Fiona had established a relationship with Kate, cos they were
both, I think they were both doing Anaesthetics at the time, err and
you know, so they were, they were going, they got quite close, we
ended up sort of going to, you know round to their house for the
night, or a barbecue in the summer or, or a few things and we got to
know them there. We would generally only see them initially there,
Dave and Fi they got married in, in August, two thousand and three
it’ll be, where Evie was, err Ella was just a few months old, err
we all went out to, to have, the wedding was actually in Italy, err
and Matt and Rachael, we had, all of us were, were out there on that
occasion, so we, we were all there together and since then , we’ve
been to Madeleine’s birthday, certainly I think err, you know, the,
the, her third birthday, I’m try, I’m trying to recall whether we
also went to her second, they were probably the only two, err but may
only be the one and Kate and Gerry came round with Madeleine to my
house one day, when they were both crawling, so I presume around kind
of nine month old, err and that’s when my mum, when my mum and dad
were down for the weekend as well, they met Madeleine on that
occasion, but we would generally meet socially after two thousand
and three, but to be fair, it was usually through Kate, usually
through Dave and Fi”.
1578 “Well the next
question is, what kind of relationship is there between you and the
MCCANN couple”?
Reply “Yeah, sort of
partially explained that there, so initially it was a working
relationship with Gerry at work, then there was a series of err
things, largely meetings at Dave and Fi’s house with the kids, yeah
well and the fact that we had the kids the same age, err and it’s
become you know, a friend, a friendship, although we, we wouldn’t
sort of see them or necessarily contact them you know regularly, it
was more you know that during, you know during err meetings with,
with Dave and Fi at their house”.
1578 “Have you ever
visited Gerald and Kate at their home address”?
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “Their children
also being present”?
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “If yes, how
many times”?
Reply “Yeah it, we
certainly went to Madeleine’s birthday, the, the year before, so
two thousand and, and six, I’m trying to recall whether we went to
one a year before that as well, I don’t think we did, cos I don’t,
I don’t actually think they were necessarily in their new house
and, and they moved around, you know they moved from, from
Queniborough to Rothley a few years back, we didn’t go to their old
house, so I think we’ve been, certainly once, possibly twice, prior
to this holiday to their house and their children were present, it
was Madeleine’s party”.
1578 “Had you
already spent holidays with them at any other time, if yes could you
describe the way they took care of their children in the evening at
night”?
Reply “(Inaudible)
okay, yeah well the answer, the answer is no, we, as I say we were
due to go on holiday to Majorca with them in two thousand and six but
Jane was heavily pregnant so we pulled out”.
1578 “How often did
you meet Gerald and Kate during the holiday time period, between
April the twenty eighth and May the third, two thousand and seven”?
Reply “ it varied
day to day, we’d certainly see them a number of times each day,
err generally, we probably didn’t see them at breakfast time, they
were, I say they, they played more tennis than sort of down at the
water front I don’t think they did an awful lot down on the water
front at all, so Jane probably saw slightly more of, of, of, of Kate
and Gerry because she did a bit more tennis than me. We, we’d see
the children and them often at lunch time on a number of days, we had
joint lunches in one or other of the, of the rooms, that didn’t
necessarily happen every day, high tea we would always see all the
children and all the adults together when they were served, they were
served their dinner, think it was about five or about quarter past
five, something like that, err so at least three or four times a day,
I mean we, people did do their own thing you know during the week as
well and then obviously every, every evening, err we were, you know
we, we all kind of congregated together”.
1578 “Yes. How
often do you see their children, Madeleine, Sean and Amelie”?
Reply “ well it
would have been on most of the occasions bar the, bar the evening for
those, err and sometimes we may have bumped in, you know may have
seen Madeleine when I was picking up Ella from you know, from the,
you know the, the kids club in the afternoon, or doing the drop off,
so I might see them even independently from, from Kate and Gerry if I
dropped off a bit later, or picked up a bit later, so, several,
several times, you know usually several times a day”.
1578 “Have you ever
felt you had reason to become somehow concerned about the children”?
Reply “Absolutely
not, no I mean just full stop you know, I think I even ranted off at
this point on Tuesday but you know, there’s, there’s no
suggestion that Kate and Gerry are anything other than very loving
parents, you know they, they, they adore their kid, absolutely adore
their kids, you know for, (inaudible) illustrate it, you know we
err, in the, in the afternoon, you know they, when you know often
we’d go back, after kids club and the high tea, they’d often play
in the, the play area round there and, and you know and Gerry would
be kind of life and soul of the party with all the kids you know,
they’ll be climbing on him and he’d be sort of with, but you
know, absolutely not, I mean it’s, it’s heartbreaking what’s
happened and the way they’ve been portrayed because you know
they’re, you know a year ago, we were all just four ordinary
families who loved our children and, and Kate and Gerry are exactly
that, they’re just loving parents”.
1578 “When was the
last time you saw Madeleine”?
Reply “ I certainly
think I saw her at lunch time on the Thursday, when, when sort of
Ella, when Ella and her would have come out the, the, the, the, the
kids club, as I said earlier on, on, on Thursday afternoon, we did
something slightly different and we were all down at, down at the
beach front and were gonna eat there, my gut feeling is because I got
there to pick Ella up before all of the children from the kids club
were taken up to the, the Tapas that I did see Madeleine there, I
have to say eleven months on, I, I can’t tell you that I had a
picture of her definitely there, but unless Kate and Gerry picked her
up separately, she, she would have been there and somewhere in the
back of my mind I, I’ve got this picture of me taking Ella out and
all the other children, including Madeleine were there but it’s too
long after to, to, to really be honest on that and sort of say yes I
definitely saw her, cos I, I don’t know I can now”.
1578 “When did you
see Kate and Gerald on Thursday May the third, two thousand and
seven”?
Reply “ well we
didn’t see them at, at breakfast me and, me and Matt had gone up to
the Millennium for breakfast and we were, we were running a little
bit late, it was relatively late, I dropped Ella off, slightly later
at the kids club, so I didn’t see them at the drop off there, I
think the, the first time that morning I saw Kate first, and that
was at, after the, after they’d had a tennis, had a tennis game,
I’d gone back with Evie who didn’t go into the club that morning,
we’d stayed in the flat, I’d gone back out to the, the tennis
area with Evie, as they, well watched, maybe watched the end of the
lesson, they all came off and we had this conversation with the, the
man who , he was the holidaymaker who felt very awkward taking
pictures of his kids, you know, obviously come back out to have a
lesson after the, the adults had finished their lesson, so she was
certainly there then and we were stood out there for, you know a
reasonable amount of time, I think then when all the children came
back up, I think we saw Madeleine and err, and Sean and Amelie and
Gerry and Kate, so over lunch time, I don’t think I saw Gerry again
until we played tennis later on, cos we were down, you know Matt went
sailing, we were down at the beach, err but we did see Kate on her
run as I described earlier, so around five o’clock or whatever, it
would probably be just after five o’clock, when Ella, when I’d
come back down with Ella, , err Kate ran along the beach and went
right up to the other end and, and I don’t remember seeing
(inaudible). Then the next time, I say, I saw Gerry was, he was
playing tennis when we got back you know, shortly after six o’clock,
er don’t think I recall seeing, I think, I think you know the, Kate
had already gone, was already in the flat then, it was, it was just
the men playing tennis anyway, er and then the next time I saw the
pair of them together was when I arrived at the table at quarter to
nine”.
1578 “The next
question, it fits in quite nicely, what time did you arrive at the
Tapas Restaurant on May the third, quarter to nine”?
Reply “I’m sure it
was the first question in this section but obviously, oh no it was
the other, that was the Portuguese yeah”.
1578 “It’s the
other section yes. Who was already there at the table”?
Reply “Err as I’ve
said in, in, apart from err poor old Dave, Dave and Fi and Diane
always last, err everyone else was there”.
1578 “And what were
Kate and Gerry doing when you arrived”?
Reply “Nothing spe,
maybe just, I think they were just sat there, and yeah there was
nothing particularly special about it, I say there was no food at
this point, they may have had a drink, I don’t absolutely recall
but we just, but the only bits I recall was it was perfectly normal,
they were behaving entirely normally and we had a conversation about
how crap the PAYNE’s were, which is not, this is the first of ma,
well it wasn’t the last and it certainly wasn’t the first”.
1578 “The next
question is, did you talk with Kate and Gerald”?
Reply “Yeah, yeah I
mean I don’t remember any of our conversations specifically at that
point, the, we, we, we spoke about, about that, I suppose given, we
hadn’t seen Kate and Gerry, I think there was also some talk about
Matt’s, Matt’s brush with the err, with the Atlantic, you know,
so you know there was, there was good humour, you know, this was the
by far the kind of, the brightest sunniest and probably happiest day
of the holiday, you know everyone had had a, a very, very good day”.
1578 “How were they
behaving”?
Reply “Absolutely
normal, you know, there was no, there was no suggestion that
anything untoward had happened and they were concealing it, there’s
you know I, I just find it staggering that anyone could believe that,
that something tragic could have happened in the room and that a pair
of highly able, highly qualified Doctors would rather cover it up,
just dispose of any evidence and then swimmingly come down to dinner,
you know particularly when, if there, if there had been an accident
or something terrible, they’ve got four other Consultants or Senior
Doctors within a, you know, you know on the tennis courts or within a
short shout so you know we, so much has got lost over, over time, I
think you know, it is ridi, it just seems senseless you know someone
involved in, you know that it was there, that four families go on,
have a great holiday, show no, no signs of abnormal behaviour, err
and then rather than intervene and try and save Madeleine if she’d
become injured, or, or at least raise the alarm, Emergency Services,
mouth to mouth, blah, blah, blah, that, that either Kate and Gerry
alone or by implication with help from anyone else would, would opt
to, to go into some you know amazing cover up and I think that’s
just got lost, I think that’s got lost in the whole thing, sorry
anyway”.
1578 “Let’s not
forget these are Gerry and Kate’s questions.”
Reply “Gerry yeah,
yeah sure. No, but they were behaving entirely normally. There was
no, they could not have been acting as they were knowing that they
had, that they had either inadvertently or intentionally harmed
Madeleine and then disposed of the, disposed of her, or were going
back to do that later.”
1578 “Who left the
table during the meal and why?”
Reply “Err like I
say this had all been said before but in summary, Matt had gone back
to try and get err the PAYNE’S, the PAYNE WEBSTER’S to hurry on
down and he’d also done a brief check of the rooms err from the
outside. Err although I don’t particularly remember him actually
getting up and going, Gerry was away from the table for a period of
time. Err Jane did our first check err I think about sort of quarter
past, about quarter past nine then me and Matt went away err I stayed
off there, I obviously can’t comment on what happened whilst we was
away but I’m not aware of anyone else did any further checks, no
one looked in on me in the flat put it that way, until Jane came
back. Err then I went back and I think the other, next, next
recollection really is not so much of Kate getting up but certainly
Kate being away and then, and then coming back raising the alarm.”
1578 “Next question,
did you see Gerald leaving the table during the meal?”
Reply “Err I think I
was, I was merely conscious that he’d been away, I don’t know if
I can particularly say I remember him going right its time for a
check or anything. He, I can picture him doing that but that might
have been on any night that week, you know, I picture him standing
and looking at his watch saying right I’m off, I’m gonna go and
check but that could’ve been on any, any check that he’d at any
day of the week.”
1578 “What time?”
Reply “Well as I say
I wasn’t, I wasn’t just sure, I wasn’t necessarily startlingly
aware that he’d got up specifically there but you know from the
time line you know its slightly second hand so maybe its best I just
sort of say I was aware that he was away, rather than I’m aware of
a particular moment in time. But it would have been shortly, not that
long err you know, not a great deal of time after Matt and everyone
else was at the table but before Jane had gone, which was at quarter
past, ten past nine I’d say.”
1578 “How long was
he absent?”
Reply “Well, again,
he was away, he was away for a, a good number of minutes, so more,
more, more than five, probably less than ten.”
1578 “What did
Gerald say when he came back?”
Reply “I don’t
remember, I’d imagine, I can’t really, I shouldn’t really just
imagine really should I, I don’t recall anything, I mean most
people just came back and there was usually a nod to their other half
that everything was fine, you know, no problems or a report to the
table but I specifically remember him coming back and telling
everyone that everything was fine but…”
1578 “Was he
behaving or acting differently when he returned?”
Reply “No, just
plain old fashioned Gerry. No change whatsoever.”
1578 “And the same
format of question is, is replicated for others, and firstly did you
see Jane leaving the table during the meal?”
Reply “Err yes as
described.”
1578 “At what time?”
Reply “About quarter
past nine.”
1578 “How long was
she absent for?”
Reply “Just a matter
of a couple of minutes really, only the time that it would take you
to have got to the apartments and back, not long at all.”
1578 “What did Jane
say when she came back?”
Reply “Err I said
the other day, I mean I, she didn’t, she didn’t make anything, I
don’t recall any, any special comment you know in respect of what
she may have seen. She didn’t, she didn’t come back and say I’ve
just seen someone odd or anything like that, there was no comment
like that. Normally when people come back it was usually just sort of
said it you know everything, or they all quiet, yeah, fine, great.
Err I don’t recall any, anything other than things like that. She
wouldn’t have just sat down, she would have come back and said you
know, its all quiet.”
1578 “Was she
behaving or acting differently when she returned?”
Reply “No she was
absolutely normal.”
1578 “Did you see
Matthew leave the table during the meal?”
Reply “Err yeah,
obviously he left at, he left to try and get the PAYNE’S but…”
1578 “At what time?”
Reply “I think It
would have been around the nine o’ clock mark. And yes he was
behaving normally, err I don’t recall any particular things he said
when he came back, err…”
1578 “How long was
he absent for?”
Reply “Just a matter
of again, the same sort of as Jane, just enough time really just to
do a quick, a quick kind of check err you know two or three, three or
four minutes, something like that, no more than that.”
1578 “And then
obviously there was the time with yourself.”
Reply “Oh yes, and
then we left the table together.”
1578 “Did you see
Kate leaving the table during the meal?”
Reply “Err I can
remember Kate being away, I don’t, I can’t picture the moment of
her standing up.”
1578 “At what time?”
Reply “It would have
been approximately just before ten because we did have the reference
of someone asking what sort of time it was err and Rachael announcing
the time to the table, she may have been the only one.”
1578 “How long was
she absent for?”
Reply “Err well it,
as I say, it’s hard with not, with not kind of knowing the way, but
clearly if she was away she was away for a number of minutes if I, I
mean I can, I can recall her not being there for a little while and
obviously that’s fairly, fairly obvious considering that the moment
of her return is when it all kicked off so I, she was gone at least
several, at least several minutes, you know and err that’s, that
can be fairly you know sure of her absence more because clearly her
return was so you know was so, you know so, so important to
everything err…”
1578 “All we need in
there.”
Reply “Sure.”
1578 “What did Kate
say when she came back?”
Reply “Err I don’t
recall the individual words as well as I think we’ve said on
Tuesday and today, I can only really remember, remember the meaning
and that was that, that Madeleine’s gone err I know there’s been
a lot said about other things. That’s, that’s the only words I
heard. I was deep in, deep in tucking through my, my food and I think
other people were probably sat back and relaxing a bit more whereas I
was actually eating at the time and the only, the only kind of really
feeling I got from it all was you know Madeleine’s, you know, that
she’s, you know she’s gone, Madeleine’s gone. Err but what the
words were rather than the meaning I don’t know.”
1578 “How did she
look?”
Reply “Err pretty
ghastly, you know, at this, this point just very, very, you know just
extremely concerned you know and she shouted you know sort of very
loudly into the distance, it’s hard to tell but you just knew that
she was, she was you know very, very concerned about something.”
1578 “What was her
behaviour like?”
Reply “Err well
initially, I say initially we just got a shout and, and everyone sort
of swept up there err and I didn’t go in with her at the time,
there was obviously panic, it was totally appropriate to the
situation you know there was a sense of haste and she was, she was
going straight back up there with everyone else err in terms of
behaviour I can only describe really what happened perhaps over a
longer period of time and that she went from you know happy Kate
MCCANN sat at the table, laughing and joking and enjoying the evening
like everyone, like every, like the rest of us were err through you
know obvious concern I don’t remember, whereas I didn’t go in the
flat straight away but you know a period of time later, afterwards,
just hearing these sort of unearthly pangs of despair coming, I mean
shouted out and err and absolutely kind of (inaudible) just
hysterical with, with, with pain and anguish err and err you know
the, it was a second hand thing you know that she was, you know
apparently, I mean I wasn’t, I didn’t see this, but you know
apparently on the floor she kind of drew, drew her own blood through
bruised, you know her hands were just, you know absolutely, so, so
distraught. Err in my opinion, you know, if this was, if there was
any foul play bestowed on them, this was the, the, the most powerful
Oscar winning act you have ever seen. There was no, there was no way
I could imagine anyone could, could hide the fear they must have had
if something had already happened and, and then, and, and, and
display this, this degree, this degree of anguish without being the
most accomplished of, of, and cynical of actors, you know this was
unimaginable. I mean I’ve told patients they are dying I’ve told
relatives they’ve, you know people have died, you know I’ve seen
lots of people very, very angry, you know, you know very, very upset,
very, very quickly and really broken and this was, this was as bad as
any of them I’ve ever seen or heard. Err you know and the same for
Gerry, not, not just in these moments but over the, over the coming,
over the coming days, I’ve never ever witnessed such unimaginable
grief.”
1578 “Okay. Were you
shocked by her words?”
Reply “Well, again,
what she shouted at the, at the doors I only, I’ve only ever taken
a meaning from that as I said, so I don’t know, not shocked by,
well I’m shocked by the words yes that Madeleine was missing. Err
and although I can’t remember it you know because it was part of
these you know shrieks, and certainly the second hand comments from
the other members of the group who heard what she said and what she
said to people around her you know, there was every you know hell,
god, damn and shit in there you know she swore but was I shocked, no
I think this was an absolute normal reaction to what had happened, I
don’t think there was any, you know, for Kate and Gerry there was
nothing abnormal or suspicious in the way that they, that they
reacted to this.”
1578 “What did you
do?”
Reply “Err well I
think that’s an open question is roughly kind of says what we’ve
already discussed before I presume, err at the foot of the stairs I
think we had flat, initial searches as discussed before. Err I don’t
know is it worth going over that in any more detail?”
1578 “I don’t
think so, I think…”
Reply “I presume it
means what did I do right at the time, I went to the foot of the
steps, didn’t go in initially, obviously did a quick boundary
search and then progressively did more as we’ve spoken.”
1578 “Yes. The first
question is, did you get inside the MCCANN’S holiday apartment? Did
you get inside the bedroom where the children were sleeping? Can you
describe what you saw?”
Reply “Yeah.”
1578 “Did you see
the twins? Did you notice anything unusual about them?”
Reply “No, okay. Can
I go through those in each in turn?”
1578 “Yeah course
you can yeah.”
Reply “So…”
1578 “Did you get
inside the holiday apartment?”
Reply “I’d been
in, I’d been in their apartment twice, I think before, I don’t
know on tape at least, but err I went, I did a visual check of the
children on the Sunday night, entered through the patio door so I’d
been in through that part of the door err that part of the building.
Err I think until, actually until the night itself I don’t think
I’d actually gone into their apartment again, err if there were
lunches and things like that they were generally done in, in one of
the other apartments, particularly Kate and, err Dave and Fi’s
because it was so much bigger. The err, on the night I didn’t get
into the apartment until quite late, I certainly went, when I saw
Gerry on the patio as I described earlier on, I think at point I
actually did, I actually did see Kate as well but at this point I
think we both, you know we were both kind of just in a heap really.
Err and then I entered the apartment later on when the P and J
arrived, sat at the desk and just, just like inside from the kitchen,
between the kitchen and the sitting area. Err in terms of entering
the bedroom, I don’t, I don’t think I ever actually went into the
bedroom on the Sunday night, I’d kind of gone into the door frame
you know and just looked, looked in like that. Err the, the, the
twins I think when I was sat in the apartment were still in the room
asleep err I mean I think a lot’s been said about you know did they
manage to, did they sleep through something, you know, that they
couldn’t, you know couldn’t have slept through. I mean my own, my
own daughter slept through the fireworks at Kate and, at err Dave and
Fi’s wedding so I think children can sleep through a lot more than,
than you think if they’re deep asleep. I don’t remember
particularly sort of seeing them earlier on in the apartment, in the
apartment. I think my, my first recollection is when they were,
they’d been moved err into the five H apartment later on err and
they were, they were sleepy but it was the middle of the night and
then at some stage they were awake and I think sitting on, on err
people’s knees, on Kate and Gerry’s knees, but I don’t, yes
they, they were asleep for the period of time that I was around. I
don’t remember them crying.”
1578 “Did you notice
anything unusual about them?”
Reply “I’m trying
to think until late, I don’t think I actually saw them within the
room itself, or certainly if it was, it was a flee, a fleeting
glimpse when we were, when I was in there. Err no, I don’t think
so, when they were upstairs later on it was a nice quiet apartment,
they were either asleep or I think later on they’d were having s
cuddle from, from various people.”
1578 “What did you
do next?”
Reply “Err I presume
this is all sort of covered really I mean…”
1578 “Did you take
part in the subsequent searches?”
Reply “Err…”
1578 “Who was you
with? Sorry who was with you?”
Reply “Well yes and
as I’ve said before, of all you know, there were people around
searching for the most part there was, they were, they were on my
own, there was a period of searching with Dave and, Dave and Matt.”
1578 “On realising
Madeleine had not been found in the first ten minutes, how did Kate
react?”
Reply “I think I’ve
already discussed this, I mean although I wasn’t there for the
whole of that, that early period whenever you were back from outside
you know she was well I can certainly recall hearing her on occasions
and when I later saw her she was in, in a you know in a terrible
state, an absolute terrible state.”
1578 “And again, the
same question for Gerald.”
Reply “Err I can
honestly say that I would never ever have expected to see Gerry in
that state, so I’d imagine if his, you know if a relative had died
err you know he’s not, he’s not, he’s not some kind of cold,
cold, big cold heart, but I’d imagine he would, he’s a rational,
you know he rationalises things, he says you know she was eighty you
know she was (inaudible) she smoked or something, he, he would be
upset but he would accept, he would accept it as being a normal part
of things, I’ve never seen anything like it, I would never expect
to see Gerry like he was. He was, he was err distraught beyond any,
any kind of measure.”
1578 “What is your
opinion about their behaviour, taking into account Madeleine had gone
missing?”
Reply “Yeah, as far
as I’m concerned they behaved exactly as you would expect err on
the night, unimaginable anguish and grief, err and there’s been a
lot made of (inaudible) as I said on Tuesday there’s a lot made of,
you know did they behave in the right way, they didn’t cry enough
on camera, they were too you know they didn’t say this, they didn’t
do that, they didn’t do that. I mean my gut feeling is you know who
the fuck is someone else to say how they should have done this, I’m
sorry for swearing but you know, how are you supposed to react after
this. They were absolutely distraught on the night, they could, they
could barely think for the next, you know the next day, the next day
they were in a terrible state. They started to you know pick
themselves up with, with some help from you know from, hopefully
support from friends and family but also some professional help from
you know a crisis counsellor as well and they, this was a such a
horrible experience, it was horrible enough and it wasn’t my
daughter, that I think you know they, you know they only had, as I
said earlier on, they only had two options, they either continued to
grieve like they were in the those first couple of days and die, and
I’m not, it sounds kind of dramatic, but you cannot live, you can’t
live like that.”
1578 “No.”
Reply “I mean that
is, that is what, that is what truly makes people just say, fuck this
for a game of soldiers I’m out of here, err or you, or you change
your mind set and try and be positive and try and do something active
and the, you know the grief they have received because they have
actually tried, they tried to do something positive and they tried to
you know to take something that was both beneficial for Madeleine and
also to some extent for themselves, because if they could have sat in
the room all day they wouldn’t, Madeleine I don’t think would be
alive if that was the case, and so I think that their critics are,
are sanctimonious and you know without, without hitting err because I
don’t think anyone really knows how you would react to this and I
think they you know hats off to them, they, they were, they were
trodden into the ground and they got up and they did something
positive. I don’t think I’d have been able to go through, to do
what they’ve done err I don’t, you know I think I would’ve been
destroyed right from the outset and never have, never have
recovered.”
1578 “Okay. What did
you do from ten thirty p.m. in the evening to ten a.m. the following
day?”
Reply “Err…”
1578 “Who did you
see? Who did you talk with?”
Reply “Err I just
wonder how much I…”
1578 “And again,
these are Gerry and Kate’s questions.”
Reply “Of course. I
think for the most part I covered everything in an earlier question
and I don’t, do you want me to summarise?”
1578 “Just summarise
please, just…”
Reply “Okay, and any
additional things that we didn’t cover at the end…”
1578 “Yes.”
Reply “Of the last
interview. Err I’ve already mentioned that we did, from my actions
in, I’ll get it in some kind of order, I did an immediate search
err we then doubled back, we split up again, I searched the, round
the back of the tennis courts, down that road, supermarket, shopping
centre, met up with Dave at some point near that, found out that we’d
still not, still not been met. I think probably at that point is when
I went back to see Jane and, and, and found out what she, what she,
what she said, and then me, Dave and Matt went down to the water
front, split up on the beach, met a few, you know asked a few people
as we were going round what’s going on, swept back up from the
beach, err back to the, back to the apartment then spent a fair
amount of time on there both just talking to people err we got
photographs there, there was some attempts to, to get, you know
contact with consulate and so on and so forth. Err at this point, as
I said before, I think this was my first meeting with Robert MURAT
when he was, in my eyes, being very helpful you know liaising with
the Police, translating with the Police, offering, offering
consolation along with other people, he wasn’t the only person, you
know being a supportive member of the public. Err then, it’s hard
to get it all back in, then we at some stage there I will have gone
into the flat, seen Gerry err briefly and I just lingered around
inside the flat feeling fairly useless and at some point I made the
decision, I’m going to go and do another search you know I can’t
be just standing around now, nothing seems to be happening, went off,
searched that sort of northern part over towards Millennium and the
accompanying roads and flats just below it, came back and I think at
this point the, the PJ had either arrived or shortly after arrived
err and then as we discussed made a brief timeline, sat in on the,
the early part of the discussion where Dave was asking the PJ to
release the information, you know he was saying something get it on
the radio, shouldn’t there be more people here, blah, blah and then
I think when Jane came in I think perhaps we saw the others
housekeeper I’m not sure but then somebody offered to help with
translation err then I left, went back to the flat err and then the
rest of the night itself was, was largely in and around the flats err
at some point Rachael making the call to her friend and then before a
brief attempt at just being with the kids for a, for a little while
when it was cleared it seemed to have extinguished everyone’s
searches and err etcetera who, a brief spell together in the flats
upstairs. So that took us through really to the morning, next morning
it is a bit, a bit hazy, a bit more hazy but there was only the
seeing it had come onto the television err phoning my mum err there
was a lot of discussion obviously with, with people from Mark Warner
who were setting up facilities to try and help the situation in terms
of childcare and err I think at some stage here obviously this is
where, I mean it’s definitely the where I got the number off Robert
MURAT, off his, from his telephone, as he was just outside five A on
the road there. Err the kids went to, they went to the crèche, they
were all together, I rang work Anthony and Tom WHITEHEAD err I then
made you know I think at some stage someone had left the job after
Kate had gone to the, to Portimão err but I say would I try and
arrange for the, the err the priest to come and see her.”
1578 “Yes.”
Reply “And I think I
described that err through Ocean Club reception and a few phone calls
I got a message to him err and then and that, that only takes us to
ten, that’s probably just after ten o’ clock I would have
thought.”
1578 “Thank you.
Nearly finished.”
Reply “That’s
alright.”
1578 “When did you
leave Portugal?”
Reply “We left
Portugal I think on the seventeenth. It was a Thursday so it was two
weeks to the day after, with Matt and Rachael and Jane and our kids.
I think Diane maybe came to the airport with us although she took a
different flight and we flew back to Gatwick where our cars were and
Dianne flew back to either Bedford or East Midlands, somewhere
nearer, nearer for her.”
1578 “How many times
did you meet Kate and Gerry? I think this is in the interim period
between Madeleine going missing…”
Reply “Yeah, and…”
1578 “And you
leaving Portugal.”
Reply “I think I
remember struggling with this one the other day, err we certainly saw
them you know usually several times a day. As time went on it
actually got a little less because they were involved in so many
other things. Err we saw them at the Police station the next day err
there was, I know there was a lot of coming and going from the Police
station there. I would have said we generally saw them every day or
at least one of them at high tea because the kids always generally
went to this, and usually once or twice a day you know outside of
that, but occasionally it could have been less, you know I think they
ended up doing, they ended up doing so much and they had their family
err and to some extent the family took over where we were in the
first few days in that we were around a lot more for them and as more
and more family came you know they, they, you know we didn’t see
them as much. We went down to the church service there was a number
of visits both planned and unplanned. Err and you know we often went
with them to the (inaudible) err but as I said on Tuesday by the time
it came to you know when we were due to go, I, I mean I think we’d,
we’d served our purpose in terms of supporting them and giving our
statements to the Police and we were seeing them less and less and
they were functioning, they were much better in themselves err more
positive, they had things to do, which has been their criticism but
actually I think anyone who’s in that situation if you don’t keep
yourself busy living then you know, get busy dying isn’t it, so.”
1578 “Do you think
they were showing a normal behaviour for parents who had lost a
child?”
Reply “Err in my
mind, as I think I’ve explained this, they went through
unimaginable grief that no one, you wouldn’t wish on your worst
enemy. They then, with help improved but you know, behind closed
doors on many, many occasions down in the church you know just broken
hearted, so yes. Yes, absolutely yes, and anyone who says they didn’t
can get lost.”
1578 “During the
holidays did you happen to see Kate and Gerry talking with someone
unknown?”
Reply “Err no, I, I
would see, Gerry, Gerry’s one of these people that can walk up to a
stranger and have their life story extracted from them within ten
minutes and then tell you oh yeah he’s from here and blah, blah,
blah he’s a very, very confident guy, and he was talking to other
members of the err you know other visiting guests who I may not
necessarily have known but at least who I recognised as visiting
guests. I didn’t see him talking to anyone who didn’t seem to be
part of the infrastructure or, or, or visiting the complex, you know
I didn’t think who the hell’s that or whether he’s been
accosted by someone.”
1578 “Yeah.”
Reply “Or so on and
so forth.”
1578 “Did you see
Kate and Gerry inside a car during the holidays?
Reply “Err no not
during the holiday err you know obviously the hire car err business
is well known, I, I mean, I don’t think there was any of us had a
car err or saw, or there was any access to a car until sort of
Gerry’s family all came, Gerry’s family had come over and hired a
car when they came. So there was a car around after that but I don’t
actually particularly remember err much about Kate and Gerry using
it, I think on a couple of occasions, if I think closely, I think
they may have driven down to the church just to try and keep the,
the, the crowds and things off them. Err but certainly in terms of,
the quote “holiday”, that was, you know they didn’t not have a
car.”
1578 “And finally,
is there any supplementary explanation that you consider pertinent or
relevant to establish the material truth?”
Reply “No, I just,
you know it’s difficult I mean we’ve been very grateful to, to,
to go though all of this again but even thinking back to our kind of
collect, our collective knowledge of the, of the events, it doesn’t
jump, there isn’t something that jumps out and says you know these
people were there watching us and we’re convinced, we’re
convinced that to have done this someone needed to be well aware of,
of our arrangements in the evening and over and above that I think
someone needed to be well aware of the access, the ease of access to
Kate and Gerry’s flat but you don’t, I can’t, I can’t point
the finger in any direction. You know we’ve had our suspicions,
we’ve kind of thought you know could it have been somebody within
the, within the complex, could it be one of the waiters you know even
just watching us and tipping someone off but, but you know these are
just the natural thoughts about, about trying to work it out. There’s
no, there’s no information that says you know that, that gives us a
real direction. The only thing that is absolutely you know sort of
crystal in Jane’s mind and certainly in mine as her partner is that
what she witnessed is prob, is almost certainly fundamental to
Madeleine’s disappearance and its just a real, I’m not gonna say
a crying shame, but that kind of sounds almost a bit too pathetic you
know but it just seems such a great pity that that information
appears at least in the popular, popular press to have been entirely
pooh-poohed and dismissed as, as, as a, as irrelevant, that’s, I’m
sure isn’t what the investigational line over it is in totality but
that is the only one sort of grasp, thing that you can grasp and say
that fits in with it.”
1578 “Just very,
very briefly Russ or as long as you want it to last of course, err
what about Madeleine as a, as a person?”
Reply “Yeah, well I
can’t, I can’t confess to knowing Madeleine well I mean that’s
fair enough, we didn’t, we saw her intermittently, birthdays,
barbeques, but she was a, on the occasions I’ve met her she was
happy, bubbly, err relatively headstrong on previous meetings
actually she seemed to have mellowed a little bit when we went on
holiday, you know a girl, you know a little girl full of, full of
life, full of beans, and err you know Ella and her, we hadn’t seen
much of each other, they were just having a wonderful time together
you know they’re so similar in age err I think that’s all I can
say. She just appeared to be a you know that time of life is gorgeous
isn’t it you know they’re, they’re in, they’re, you know
they’re, they’ve not been sullied by school and lots of other
external influences you know they’re still you know just in,
they’re speaking, they’re developing personality and nothing
about Madeleine would suggest, which I presume the implication here
is, that she was having an unhappy life, that she was being neglected
or that she was being you know brought up in a, in a, in a
threatening or a dangerous environment, you know she was you know
just a you know normal, happy four year, you know three year old
girl.”
1578 “Do you think
she would have gone readily with a stranger?”
Reply “Err no I
don’t, I don’t think so, err she was, she was, she was certainly
more confident than my Ella, but you know I think if you look at the
gene pool, me and Jane are slightly more kind of err sort of reticent
sort of people and certainly you know Gerry and to a lesser extent
Kate are certainly more slightly more extrovert so she’s coming
from, she’s coming from an extrovert background but I don’t think
just because you come from an extrovert background means that you’re,
you’re, you’re fanciful and, and necessarily will sort of dismiss
risk even as a kid. My Ella you know would, would, wouldn’t say boo
to a goose you know when even a relative comes to the house and
she’ll kind of hold your leg for a little while and I think
Madeleine’s maybe not as shy as Ella but from, from the brief
meetings they had I don’t think she, she came across as a, as a
reckless child who just sort of disappeared you know was always out
the gate of the house or anything like that you know she was always
in the house, she didn’t do anything daft. But I think that’s
about all I can say if I’m honest.”
1578 “Are you aware
if she was aware of stranger danger for example?”
Reply “I don’t
think I would, you know I would err necessarily know enough about
what Kate and Gerry had said to her to say that but as I say she
didn’t come across as, she came across as buoyant and err outgoing
and confident but not necessa, but not as reckless you know, she
didn’t sort of put herself in physical danger you know she wasn’t
kind of a kid on top of the swing who’d just jump off and
(inaudible) and that sort of thing so…”
1578 “Right. That’s
all for the moment, if you can just bare with me a few minutes, I’ll
just go and have a quick chat with colleagues.”
Reply “Yeah.”
1578 “The tapes are
still in and running.”
Reply “Yeah.”
1578 “I’ll be back
very shortly.”
Reply “Can I just
grab another water? Sorry can I just grab another water, is that
alright or shall I stay on?”
1578 “I’ll get you
one.”
DC GIERC left the
interview room.
DC 4064 HOLLIDAY entered
the interview room.
4064 “Hello
Russell.”
Reply “Hello.”
4064 “There’s been
a change of plans now, I’m going to finish off, we’re going to go
through your statement.”
Reply “Oh right,
okay. Is this the…”
4064 “This is the
one I’ve amended, what I will say obviously for reasons because
this is going out of the country perhaps we’re doing things
slightly different than we would normally.”
Reply “Yeah, oh
yeah, yeah, no it’s alright don’t worry.”
4064 “So the order
is not perhaps as you and I would like.”
Reply “No.”
4064 “But it’s the
order that the interviews were conducted in and the order that the
tapes in.”
Reply “Yeah, no
Andrew explained that, that there was gonna be a bit…”
4064 “So in
transparency that’s the reason that they’ve been written in the
way that they have.”
Reply “Yeah.”
4064 “So if you want
to read through and see whether or not you’re happy.”
Reply “I’ll
cross-eyed after this one.”
4064 “You will.”
O’BRIEN began to read
through his statement.
Reply “It’s a
minor point but it’s the tenth of April there, it says yesterday
the eighth but err…”
4064 “Right, okay.”
Reply “But it’s
not.”
4064 “Yeah.”
Reply “Must be
(inaudible). Err Jane’s not officially my wife, I don’t know if
that…”
4064 “But she’s
common law wife?”
Reply “Common law
wife yeah, two kids and a mortgage it’s as good as.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “And this
where it says ‘Made’ should be ‘May’ I suppose, err I suppose
maybe an ‘although’ between entitlements and (inaudible) just
to…”
4064 “Where you
looking at?”
Reply “Just to
cavort actually, just there entitlements, although it seemed to be
quite trivial for me at the time. Err…”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “It’s
(inaudible), the Leicester Royal Infirmary, maybe rather than, it
just reads a bit funny to me, ‘at that time Gerry was my
equivalent’ it maybe just says ‘at that time Gerry was my
equivalent at Glenfield.’
4064 “Okay.”
Reply “(Inaudible)
you know, I’m his boss.”
4064 “Hmm.”
Reply “The second
page apart from that seems fine.”
4064 “Okay.”
Reply “Yeah this is,
err I know that we’ve been to Madeleine’s house for (inaudible),
it’s actually third and possibly second, so maybe, well it’s
definitely the third because I’m sure we went the year before I err
we went to Portugal, err but possibly also the second, so it’s
third and possibly second… I don’t think that’s necessary, I
think Maidenhead, it’s near Maidenhead, I don’t know actually
(inaudible)…”
4064 “Yeah, okay.”
Reply “Err I think
it was this, when we arrived at the apartment near to the reception
err the apartment reception it’s supposed, rather than the, err
Ocean Club, if that makes sense… Err oh no, Matt left early
actually so (inaudible) keeps changing err he was just ill, just sort
of sat there looking (inaudible).”
4064 “Okay.”
Reply “I suppose
it’s just from a point of view of translation, maybe odd might be
better as occasional, we had a few odd conversations.”
4064 “Okay.”
Reply “That’s
actually (inaudible) (inaudible) (inaudible) sanctimonious.
(Inaudible) (inaudible) err I suppose one of the questions that was
asked was to say about who did the booking and I think that was, it
doesn’t actually say it was Rachael who did it but all the other
bookings were made by (inaudible).”
4064 “That might be
it then, that’s (inaudible) isn’t it.”
Reply “Oh right.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “I don’t
know if that makes sense to you, ‘I recall their front door was
accessed from the car park access was easily gained to the apartment
from the poolside.”
4064 “Should be a
comma.”
Reply “Oh right,
‘their front door was accessed from the car park, and comma, access
was easily gained to the apartment from the poolside.’”
4064 “Yes.”
Reply “I think in
terms of number there, ‘a’ cocktail I think was, I don’t think
was there, after all what has been said it was only the one
(inaudible)… err just because this sounds specific for the
Wednesday night err that’s, that was a kind of more generic thing.”
4064 “Yeah.”
Reply “Err so I
don’t know if it’s maybe, if you say over, over, during, over the
week I checked on some occasions and missed others but it doesn’t,
that’s not specifically for the Wednesday night… Err I don’t
remember ever saying this bit, I don’t even know if we have any
photographs of this, we didn’t have much in the way of photographs,
for some reason our camera never left the flat very often so I recall
Madeleine and Ella, they were less than a day before.”
4064 “Wasn’t Jane
the one responsible for the picture of Madeleine with the tennis
ball?”
Reply “I don’t
think so, I think that was from someone else’s camera.”
4064 “Right.”
Reply “But I may be
wrong there.”
4064 “Right.”
Reply “But err but I
don’t, I honestly don’t think that that was actually a photo from
Jane’s camera.”
4064 “Right.”
Reply “So I don’t
know, my own memory from there was Jane anyway but I recall Madeleine
and Ella as I say less than a day before and the rest of it I don’t
think I can, I’m not entirely sure that’s correct anyway. We had
back, we’ve had our pictures from, yeah we’ve got our, we’ve
got the pictures and I don’t recall ever seeing the one that was
err that was on…”
4064 “Okay.”
Reply “Err again,
this, having said this to Andy this is sort of, err well in this day
and age it was more of a kind of, that was what we were actually
discussing at the time saying you know, in this day and age you know
you can’t feel, you feel, you feel uncomf, people are made to feel
uncomfortable doing what would have been considered normal things in
the past. It wasn’t like, I didn’t feel uncomfortable at the time
at all, it was just normal conversation, its only in retrospect that
it just seems a terrible coincidence.”
4064 “Yeah, it’s
that horrible coincidence.”
Reply “Yeah, I just
remember the err, I mean that’s not that I found it most
uncomfortable in this day and age, having a discussion about a
photograph of your own child, that’s not, that’s not, I don’t
know whether that’s just…”
4064 “So what do you
want it to say?”
Reply “I don’t,
well, yes it was actually describing what happened, it was, we said
you know in this day and age people are made to feel…”
4064 “So if I said
we agreed.”
Reply “Yeah we ag,
yeah, the group agreed or you know you can say they were all
discussing it, those present agreed that…”
4064 “In this day
and age…”
Reply “In this day
and age err photographing your own child could make you feel
uncomfortable. I suppose, I don’t know how much of the, that video
will be transcribed as well but you know at the time we also made the
comment that you know you were more likely to, to sort of be harmed
by someone you know rather than, rather than some random stranger and
it’s ridiculous.”
4064 “Yeah.”
Reply “Mm.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “Err I think
it’s probably a little before, maybe nine, maybe about, it’d
probably be about nine fifty five or something. I said around ten,
so… Are: a,r,e… Err (inaudible) (inaudible) on Andrew’s sort of
copy, I don’t, I’m not quite sure, I think that’s actually
referring to what I’ve written on, on the, on the timeline.”
4064 “Yes.”
Reply “So it doesn’t
really, I’ve got no knowledge particularly of err of Matt’s check
apart from what he told me later so I think that’s, that’s sort
of err don’t really make any sense to me there.”
4064 “No.”
Reply “So maybe just
delete that.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “Again I’m
not quite sure, I don’t think I’ve ever, I don’t think I was
ever aware that it was Jane’s photograph, it was only, it was only
ever err Kate’s camera, if someone got Kate’s camera she was in
no fit state to start searching through, so Kate’s camera was given
to us and we searched through for most useful photograph that was on
it, err…”
4064 “So if I just
say a picture had been taken…”
Reply “Yeah, I
think, a picture, a picture had been taken, we’ll use that… It
says conducted an email there but…”
4064 “Where? Where
we looking at?”
Reply “Err it was,
the second last line, Dave was also to make use of the media and
think that he may have conducted an email, constructed.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
DC GIERC re-entered the
room.
Reply “Err there’s
a (inaudible) (inaudible) (inaudible).”
1578 “If you get to
an appropriate point Kate I shall cease this interview, take the
tapes out, seal them up and put fresh ones in.”
4064 “But I might
need to sign with the amendments.”
1578 “Okay, we’ve
got two minutes left.”
4064 “Nearly there.”
O’BRIEN continued to
read through his statement.
Reply “That’s Jane
is not willing to go back… Yeah okay.”
4064 “Okay? Alright,
it may be at some point in the future we come and visit you with a
more polished version.”
Reply “Okay.”
4064 “But obviously
I’m conscious that you need to be getting away to…”
Reply “Oh no, no
don’t, don’t worry, I mean as long as we’ve got, it’s only
(inaudible) (inaudible).”
4064 “Yeah, okay.
Right, if you can read the caption here, that relates to the English
law.”
Reply “Okay.”
4064 “Just there.”
Reply “Yeah.”
4064 “Okay? So
that’s what you’re signing for there. If you can initial the
amendment, so on the eighth when we’ve conducted the interview,
sign at the bottom. Then at the end of the sentence, it’s so that
we can show that these were made in your presence. The next one here.
And sign just there. And there, sign at the bottom. Sign there at the
bottom. It’s just this one, sign at the bottom. This one there, and
there, and at the bottom. Just at the end, and the end there. I think
we’re good on that page so just at the bottom.”
Reply “(Inaudible).”
4064 “It’s
alright. At the end sign, just so that we can show that there’s
nothing been added on without your knowledge, and then at the bottom
there, that’s it. Thank you. And we will keep…”
Reply “Yes.”
4064 “The one where
we’ve made amendments on.”
Reply “Okay.”
4064 “That’s it.”
1578 “We’ll cease
this interview, put some more disks in.”
Reply “Yeah.”
1578 “And we have
one final question which is concerning the re-enactment.”
Reply “Yeah, okay.”
1578 “Okay, so…”
4064 “Thank you very
much.”
Reply “Thanks.”
1578 “Thanks Kate.”
4064 “Okay.”
DC HOLLIDAY leaves the
interview room.
1578 “The time is
four thirteen p.m. this interview is ceasing.”
The interview ceased at
1613 hours when the tape recorder was switched off.
Russell James O'Brien -
Record Of Tape Recorded Interview IV
Russell James O'Brien -
Record Of Tape Recorded Interview IV Duarte Levy Wordpress
Posted by Duarte Levy
January 27, 2009 •
11:07 pm
1578 “Okay. The time
is four twenty-three pm and that is on Thursday the tenth of April
two thousand and eight. We are in an interview room at
Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters. I am Detective Constable,
one, five, seven, eight, Andrew GIERC from the Leicestershire Major
Crime Unit. Could you give me your full name and date of birth
please?”
Reply “Yeah, it’s
Russell O’BRIEN, sorry, Russell James O’BRIEN, twenty-six,
eleven, seventy”.
1578 “Thank you.
This is the fourth interview of today Russell. I have one final
question to put to you. Just to reiterate, you are here voluntary as
a significant witness”.
Reply “Yeah”.
1578 “To assist the
Portuguese Authorities in their investigation of the disappearance of
Madeleine McCANN on the third of May two thousand an seven”.
Reply “Uh hu”.
1578 “And the final
question is whether or not you would be available to travel to
Portugal between either the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of April
or the fifteenth and sixteenth of May two thousand and eight in order
to re-enact the events that occurred between five thirty pm and
eleven pm on Thursday the third of May two thousand and seven?”
Reply “Well as we
discussed on the, on the video on Tuesday, you know, we, as a group,
do want to do as much as possible to help the investigation. , you
know, we have been crying out for, to, to have this opportunity for a
long, long time. , the trouble is, that the whole, the whole
concept, even today, seems a little bit, you know, too little too
late, I think that’s how, how it’s best described. , you know,
this is not, this is not a, well, at least, well from the point of
view of Kate and Gerry and the rest of us, this is not a, a, a child
manslaughter case or a child murder case, this is a child abduction
case. But with everything that happened last Summer, so much has
been, has sort of been lost, we have been exposed to, , a vast amount
of, , bad press, intrusion of our privacy, , huh, over a, over an
incessant, what feels like an almost incessant period of time, that
has been to, you know, great detriment of our, of our own personal
wellbeing, and that is clearly most true for Kate and Gerry, but
also, you know, true to a lesser extent for the rest of us. , we,
you know, we had hoped that obviously invest, you know, this part,
you know, the fact that we were back here now was the start, is
potentially the start of, you know, more close lines of communication
between the PJ, Kate and Gerry and the rest of us and I think that,
you know, we, we completely welcome that and we think that a lot of,
a lot of the problems that have arisen have been because there has
been no lines of communication and the Press have just been able to,
you know, play while the cat’s away really and so we have, you
know, we were very pleased that this has, this has finally happened.
, I’m also conscious that, you know, for, for, for Kate and Gerry’s
sake in the future, you know, that, you know, dialogue between us and
the PJ, you know, as a group and between them and the PJ has to be
re-established. , but it’s fair to say that we know from our
experiences on the night, I mean, we were only, only we can know, we
can’t, we can’t prove anything, but we know that Kate and Gerry
did not harm Madeleine in any way and would have had no part in her,
in her, , you know, in her disappearance and we can also say,
individually, as well, that we, that we’ve had no part of it as
well. Huh, but, nonetheless, the making of Kate and Gerry, , into
aguidos, although the process had already started in sort of July and
August, put the icing on the cake of what has felt like a, a public
demolition and a, and a concerted attempt to destroy Kate and Gerry
and, to a lesser extent, but it still felt just as acutely, acutely
true, the rest of us and, whether it’s true or not, it feels that
this has actually come from the Police initially, now this may have
been the old regime and clearly there’s been, you know, changes in,
in who was leading the investigation. But our feeling is that in
many, well, and I agree with the rest of the group, that given the
nature of how we are continually, , what’s the word, huh, promoted
is not the right word, but portrayed in the, in the Portuguese Press
and this includes, you know, the documents that are brought in that,
even Press yesterday that still say Jane is lying, that still quote
unattributable sources in the Police, both here and in Portugal, mean
that we would, we would, in many respects, feel it would be
absolutely mad to fly to Portugal, not just from the point of view
some relatively minor concerns that, huh, you know, twelve months on
a re-enactment with the people involved, you know, is, is unlikely to
change evidentially the Case, but just because it will open us up to
a massive tide of, of, of unwarranted abuse, both, perhaps even on
the ground, but certainly in the Press and I think, you know, we,
huh, we, individually, have to look to the, you know, to our own, you
know, our own sort of family life and our own security and privacy
and this feels like a sure fire away of, of, of blowing it all to
smithereens, you know. Personally I don’t feel as anti the
re-enactment of some of, as some of the rest of the group and that is
despite having perhaps some of the most, you know, some of the worst
Press out of the, out of the lot of us, you know, I’ve, you know,
I’m the male who was away from the room for the longest, you know,
I didn’t ask for bed sheets and a whole range of other sort of
associations with Exeter and Robert MURAT, you know, there’s, you
know, I’ve got a lot more in many respects to, to be worried about
travelling to Portugal. But, but, , I think that, we, as a group,
and Kate and Gerry in particular, need some signal from, from the
other side of this wall to say look this is, you know, this is a,
this is a, we look at the investigation. I mean, we know that, you
know, as a group, that that there is no evidence to convict Kate and
Gerry, there never will be, we know that there is no evidence to
convict any of the rest of us and there never will be, I mean, we, we
don’t, we have no fear of that because we know what we know, , but
we do have a great deal of fear for the privacy of our families, ,
the ability to go to work without Spanish news crews pissing around
outside, you know, outside your window and, and a whole range of
other things that have really turned, you know, turned on a personal
level, a perfect life. I had a perfect thirty-six years life and I
have, you know, we have all had a shit year and I don’t, I don’t
want it getting any worse, if anything, in the last couple of months
it’s just slightly starting to get better. The British Press have
been, you know, dealt a very heavy, you know, a very heavy blow and,
you know, where it hurts, in their wallet, I mean, the only place
which it will hurt and I think we are going to have to do the same to
the Portuguese Press as well. , but what we, huh, in my mind, to
get, to get us out there happily and safely, we need some assurances
and not more than, and more than what’s happened so far, you know,
that, that this is looking at the investigation with open eyes. It’s
felt like a, it’s felt like a one directional investigation, from a
personal point of view, this was to nail it on Kate and Gerry or nail
it one of us and that’s fine, that’s how it’s felt. I’m sure
that is not the perception of all the Officers and the PJ and I’m
sure that is, that is not the full picture, but that’s how it’s
felt. , you know, I’d like to say again that, you know, when we
were out there the Officers that, that interviewed me, you know,
everyone was perfectly professional, but the, the collective targets
of the PJ appears to be Kate and Gerry with no other, with no other
avenue. Huh, in terms of kind of a, you know, a conciliatory
statement, I, I am very aware that when parties are at odds with each
other, and in this, you know, I, I’m, it breaks my heart that this
is the situation that we’re in, , is that we are, we are inevitably
at odds with the PJ and the Portuguese Police. But when parties are
at odds and they reach a, an impasse or a stalemate, which is where
we are, and we know that, that no, no further action, or should we
say no further legitimate action can be taken against any of us or
Kate and Gerry in terms of Madeleine’s disappearance because there
is no, we were are not involved, that Kate and Gerry need a way out
for, you know, just for, for the pure humanity of it, , they cannot
remain under the degree of pressure and uncertainty and suspicion
that they are now, that is true to all, for all of us, you know, to a
much, much lesser degree, I, I, I take that. And I am also conscious
that the other side of this, the PJ have not had it easy either, you
know, they’ve had a very high profile investigation where the
International Press have given them a few, you know, bloodied noses
along the way as well, and that’s, and that, and so there’s two,
there’s two very, very wounded parties. We want to help out. I
think if, and I know, Stuart’s explained, you know, the legal
system over there is not the same as here and it’s not a question
of okay we can just lift it, let’s prosecute and all of this, but
there has to be some control and some robust control of the
Portuguese Press from the PJ to say, you know, these people are not
under any more suspicion than anyone else as a witness in an unsolved
case is, you know. You know, in an unsolved case it’s, you know,
the innocent will suffer, isn’t it, I mean, it’s, it’s obvious
that we’re going to be under a degree of suspicion, we knew that
from the start. But we cannot fly into, , a hornets nest in Portugal
and have our lives literally turned into further episodes of some
shitty soap opera, you know, Jane has been portrayed as some kind of
soap opera villain over in the Portuguese Press and the article I
brought in this morning just illustrates that, I’m under, you know,
a great deal of suspicion according to, you know, you know,
unattibuted sources within the PJ. All of these are an enormous
burden that I could never have imagined in, in all of my, you know,
worst dreams that I could, you know, I’m saying I here, but clearly
it’s the group, and Kate and Gerry are a lot worse, but that I
could find myself under and, you know, I know Jane feels exactly the
same. But, if, in some, in some way it could be made so that, even
if this was before aguido status was removed from Kate and Gerry,
which inevitably in the fullness of time it will be because it’s
just not going to go anywhere short of a, of a, you know, of planted
evidence, I mean, I am not suggesting that’s what is going to
happen, but, you know, that’s the only way that that things will go
further, but if the PJ can somehow, you know, bring their own
National Press to order, , then it will appear that we are not
actually just putting our whole livelihoods and privacy, you
know, at jeopardy, but
at the moment it just feels like it’s asking someone to walk to a
cliff and say ‘Do you want to take your chances on the fall’. ,
it is not because we don’t want to co-operate, I mean, we have
come here, you know, I’ve come here for a second day, we would bust
our gut if we thought if anything it would do that would actually
help Madeleine. And, to be honest, if there wasn’t this pressure I
think we’d go and do the re-enactment anyway because we could see
no harm from it, the problem at the moment is we can see, we can
perceive, and I think it is there, there is genuine harm to our, to
our private lives, to our working lives, to the, you know, to even
to, you know, our children who are just going to be, you know,
they’re kind of plastered over papers and they’re on internet
sites and, you know, that, any, our kind of lives are pulled over by
sort of sick individuals who have got nothing better to do. And I
think we need to have the kind of mainstream Press treating this with
the respect that it should do, this is a serious crime, evidence
should not be soap opera, the British Press are just as bad, well
have been just as bad as the Portuguese Press, but I don’t think we
are going to see the same degree of, of, of wanton behaviour from
them. But, you know, I know I’m going round in circles just like I
did before, but we’d be idiots to go, , and on the flip side of
that, if we don’t’ go I’m sure the Portuguese Press and maybe
even the Police would use this as a rod for our backs as well, you
know, ‘Oh they’re not cooperating’, that is not the intention,
this is actually, this is actually at the level, you know, the, the
unpleasantness of this last year is now at the level where we have to
look to just maintaining, you know, some quality of life for us and
our kids. , I mean, that, from the outside that probably sounds, oh,
you know, soft git, you know, grow up, you know, and maybe that’s,
and that’s true, but I have no doubt that going there will, will
create a complete whirlpool of, , of uncertainties, I can’t see it
realistically finding Madeleine or, or us ascertaining any more
detail than what our statements do as, as they, as they are now, and
just at great, at great personal cost. And I hope the PJ don’t
take our reluctance to do this, I hope they see it from a, as a point
of view of another person rather than just a National Police Force, I
hope they kind of don’t see this as a, as an opportunity to, to
sort of harm Kate and Gerry any more, because I don’t think, in
living memory, in Britain, two people have been more unnecessarily
damaged after perhaps one of the most awful things happening to them.
I mean, we have seen the best of, the best of nature and the worst
of human nature in the last year, a wonderful amount of help and
support when we were in Praia Da Luz at first, , but we have, we have
witnessed the, the, you know, a really sick act and we’ve also
witnessed the, the smarmy, the conceited and the opinionated kind of
backlash as well. And, you know, for our own, our own families’
sake we have to, you know, we have to make sure that we are not put
through a grinder. So, at the moment, I can’t, you know, as I say,
if the situation relaxed even a little in terms of the kind of likely
outcome, I mean, I don’t think realistically you could close the
area off and keep the Press away, but if the, if there was some way
of just, that this was treated with the respect it deserves, the Case
was respected, you know, for the, you know, as an open case, an
unsolved case and an ongoing one, , and I’d be there in a flash,
and I think some of the other group might not even be there even if,
even if there was something in place. But, at the moment it, phew,
you know, the timing is poor, we’re sceptical that it would make a
big difference at this late stage and I think, I think that’s true,
I don’t think there’s any, any, I think that’s, that would be
most peoples assumption a year on. , I mean, it just seems that it
would be almost reckless, at the personal level, given the articles
that are written about us. That doesn’t, that is not, that is not
an absolute no, it’s clearly, , the answer is I think we’d be mad
to go now, it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t go at some stage. But
with some management of the Press and maybe that needs to come from
us, I mean, maybe, I mean, I’m seriously, seriously considering,
well we’ve already looked into it in loose terms, taking the
Portuguese Press to task over what they’ve written, but, you know,
just like the PJ have had difficulties in International Law with us
here, well that’s no, that’s no mean feat to achieve it. And,
you know, we are not, we are not, you know, we are not people who
have got, you know, certainly Jane and I aren’t somebody with
disposable income to start, to try and fund international libel
cases, but libelled we have been and many, many times. The only good
thing about leaving the Press to do it is that they’re making a
nice long bit of rope for their own neck. And there’s no doubt
about it already that, that, you know, if the same thing applied in
England, the papers, as soon as threatened, they just gave in, and I
think that would happen in Portugal because there is no, there is no
factual basis on, you know, a vast majority of some of the really
nasty stuff they’ve written. And maybe that needs to come from us,
maybe we need to have that in place, saying ‘You write this kind of
shit about us and we’re going to, we’re going to hit you where it
hurts financially’. We can’t expect morals out of the Press, we
never could, , but if that attack was coming from us and the feeling
that the, the Authorities in Portugal were prepared to back that up,
then I would go back, but not before”.
1578 “Okay”.
Reply “Thanks very
much. Sorry to waffle as usual”.
1578 “That’s fine.
I think it just remains for myself Russell to, on behalf of the
Portuguese Authorities, sincerely thank you for your efforts and
time”.
Reply “Well thank
you”.
1578 “And attendance
this week”.
Reply “Well thanks
to, you know, you and, and the visiting Portuguese as well for, you
know, for coming over and doing this, it’s a big undertaking and a
lot of time”.
1578 “Thank you”.
Reply “Okay. Thanks
a lot”.
1578 “The time is
four forty-two pm and this interview is ceasing”.
