Just when you think there's nothing more to add, that all of the inconsistencies have been thrashed out like grouse from the undergrowth, up pops another. Admittedly it's not totally new inasmuch as the topic in general has long since come to the media's, and hence public attention. However, the emergence of one extra, small, yet significant detail makes the overall picture just that little bit clearer.
For an en passant remark, adjudged (and so nearly dismissed) as whimsical, Madeleine McCann's question to her parents about why they didn't come when she was crying, must rank as one of the most widely reported quotes to have emerged from the McCann family's Portuguese holiday. It was reported by the McCanns themselves in their 'one year on' documentary of 30 April, 2008, and in their interview with Dermot Murhaghan for Sky News a day later. Further back in time it was repeated by Kate to Fiona Payne, Rachael Oldfield and Jayne Tanner on the evening of May 3, 2007 and by Kate and Gerry independently to the Portuguese police on the occasion of their initial interviews, as revealed by an apparent 'leak' to the media after a year had elapsed.
The bruhaha this 'leak' created when first reported arose on account of there being two implications entailed by the comment in question. The McCann stance was that the question was considered, with the benefit of hindsight, to be of potential significance, suggesting as it did that something or someone made Madeleine cry the night before she was reported missing. The alternative implication to be brought to the fore however was that Madeleine's crying, and hence Madeleine herself, was unattended for some time. This was the unspoken accusation which the McCanns' champion, Clarence Mitchell, stentoriously defended them against when answering questions put by to him by Anna Jones of Sky News, on 11 April, 2008. Clarence very helpfully confirmed that Rachael Oldfield, who happened to be in her own (adjoining) apartment that Wednesday night, heard no crying whatsoever, so slight and transient it must have been. When one considers that the partition walls within the Ocean Club complex are sufficiently insubstantial as to have allowed the Oldfields to hear their immediate neighbours in the shower, it seems rather to have been a case of 'silence is golden', i.e. Rachael Oldfield heard no crying, because there was no crying.
Already there is a chink in the curtains here. Had Madeleine been crying on the Wednesday night she would undoubtedly have been heard by Rachael Oldfield nearby, just as certainly as infant crying from 5A was heard by Mrs Fenn, resident in the apartment above, on the Tuesday night. And those episodes of retelling in hindsight? They took place at the dinner table on Thursday night, i.e. before Madeleine's absence had been noted. That is not hindsight at all, but foresight, the all-important observation being made to friends first, the police afterwards (by both parents on 4 May, Gerry again on 10 May, Kate once more on 6 September and Gerry on the 7th).
We see this particular chink widening further, with the uncovering of a witness statement by Leicestershire Police Officer Stephen Markley, made on 25 April, 2008, in relation to his activities as family communication officer while working in Portugal with the McCanns. The key aspect (for present purposes) of his statement is as follows:
"However, in relation to the above, I would like to add the following: At about 20.00 on Saturday 5th May 2007, I arrived at the apartment where Kate and Gerry were staying, with other officers. During the meeting Gerald and Kate had a number of questions to which they wanted follow up and responses from the PJ.
"One of these questions was that they wanted the PJ to be aware of was Madeleine's revelation about Wednesday night, when she said that she was left alone during the night. She told Kate and Gerry that she remembered the twins crying and that she wanted to know why neither her mother nor her father had gone to the room to see what was happening."
There is something distinctly unsettling about the McCanns' various bouts of selective amnesia in relation to events surrounding their daughter's as yet unexplained absence from apartment 5A (an unsubstantiated hypothesis, even one of abduction, is not an explanation). When interviewed for Spanish broadcaster Antena 3 they were each unable to offer up any recollection of their last sighting of Madeleine. And yet they attached such importance to one off-hand comment by her, a comment latterly reported as having no importance at all for the child herself, that they repeated it to several friends, and then, on several occasions, the Portuguese Police. They have, as we know from the intervention of their professional mouthpiece, vigorously refuted the implication of child abandonment, whilst publicly expressing the view that it is the implication of some unidentified intruder which drove them to alert the PJ to Madeleine's unusual tale of crying. These are the obvious alternatives. But there is a third, rather less obvious motive to consider; one which might offer a more convincing justification for the McCanns seeking to 'over-egg the pudding' than their calling attention to the possibility of prowlers in a sleepy holiday complex.
On the face of it there's nothing unusual about the McCanns 'wanting the PJ to be aware' of Madeleine's revelation concerning the Wednesday night. It's only when this desire is set against the fact that they had already (4 May) twice told the PJ themselves about the incident, that their request to Officer Markley on the 5th appears overly insistent.
It is noteworthy that, in terms of recollection, Wednesday 2 May in Praia da Luz represents something of a 'black hole' as far as the McCanns and their friends are concerned. We might then ask ourselves this question: As a bare minimum, what does Madeleine's mention of her being unattended confirm? Simply that she was able to refer to it subsequently. If 'the night before' is assumed to have been the Wednesday then the conversation in question can only have taken place on the Thursday morning, and Madeleine was in a position to be 'taken' that night. But there was no crying on the Wednesday to speak of, so why would Madeleine have spoken about it? Or are we to suppose she was referring to the Tuesday? (I ask you, does a 3/4 - year-old carry such issues forward over 30 hours? Certain adolescents of my acquaintance have difficulty in remembering something for 30 minutes).
What stands out most from this determination to bring Madeleine's transient unease to everyone's attention, is that Madeleine herself is portrayed as having drawn attention to it, on the Thursday, from which one is invited to conclude that she must have been in a position so to do - on the Thursday. Hence, verbal 'signs of life', promulgated, of course, by the McCanns, as was the untruth about 'jemmied shutters.'
In a small corner of the smaller nation, there exists a sparsely populated location known as Praia da Luz, where extraordinary examples have come to light of events (and, by implication, time) proceeding backwards. The Bermuda Triangle, we know, has gained international notoriety as a zone within which strange occurrences have been experienced by some and believed by others, but who would have thought that a single apartment within this holiday resort would assume the characteristics of Dr Who's legendary Tardis, an enclosure within which all things are possible. Never mind a child abductor squirming, octopus-like with his prey, through an improbably small aperture, or windows opening and closing as if directed by a poltergeist, the behaviour even of the apartment's occupants can be, indeed has been, seriously affected by their proximity to the pivot of paradox that is 5A of the Ocean Club complex.
Victims of abduction are either awake or asleep at the time they are 'taken.' They are not usually in both states at once. In the mysterious arena of the Ocean Club however, Heisenberg's 'uncertainty principle' is given full rein.
Eileen McCann, mother of Gerry McCann, told the Derry Journal (14.9.2007 and later picked up by the Sunday Mirror) "If she was taken when she was sleeping by somebody she did not know she would have screamed the place down.
"I really believe they gave her a drug. There is no way they carried her out of there without her wakening," she said.
There was no time for the administration (to all three children) of any fast-acting sedative such as chloroform, and none was detected in turn by either Gerry McCann, Matthew Oldfield or Kate McCann, as their various Rogatory Interviews confirm. So, could a sleeping Madeleine have been carried out of the apartment after all?
Gerry McCann, ostensibly the last person to have seen all three children at around 9.00 p.m. on Thursday 3 May, 2007, claims they were asleep.
According to Kate McCann on the other hand (interviewed by Flash! Magazine), she knew that "what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances." (meaning 'different circumstances.' Kate had previously said (reported in the Independent 5.8.2007): "You don't expect a predator to break in and take your daughter out the bed. It could have happened under other circumstances and there would still be the regret.")
So if 'what happened' is to be interpreted as 'abduction', then it did not happen while the children were asleep. Or did it?
No-one has ever been abducted from the same location twice in 24 hrs., but even Gerry McCann is prepared to accept that the case of his missing daughter Madeleine is exceptional. He says the children were asleep. Kate says 'it happened under other circumstances.' Either Madeleine was not abducted at all or she was abducted twice; asleep on one occasion, awake on the other. The first interpretation is plausible, the second ridiculous.
Yet various members of the Tapas fraternity (Matthew Oldfield, Fiona Payne, Dianne Webster) confirm in their Rogatory Interviews that Kate returned to the Tapas area calling out "she's gone, Gerry, Madeleine's gone" thereby indicating Gerry's presence at the table. They all then follow Kate and Gerry back to the apartment.
Compare this representation with a statement of Gerry McCann's, broadcast on Oct. 5, 2007 by CBS News (The Early Show, from an interview in late August and held in Lisbon, with reporter Mirna Schindler of Chile's Television Nacional, for "Informe Especial").
What, Schindler asked, was the first thing that crossed their minds when they came back to the room from dinner and realized that Madeleine wasn't there?
"I knew straight away she'd been taken," Kate replied.
"At the first moment?" Schindler asked.
"Well," Kate responded, "put it this way: I mean, she hadn't walked out of the apartment."
"When I got there," Gerry said, "and Kate told me, and when I looked at the scene as well, I had absolutely no doubt."
The order of events described by Gerry McCann is the reverse of that portrayed by the Tapas 7. 1. He gets to the apartment 2. Kate tells him.
This is reflected also in an answer given by Gerry McCann to a question put by Jane Hill of the BBC:
"No, I mean, that, I think, was absolutely certain but, you know, before you (Kate) raised the alarm, we double and treble checked, but we certainly had no doubt in our mind that she'd been taken."
Without question, the same event occurred twice. Or was Gerry McCann already 'looking for Madeleine' before he knew she'd been 'taken'?
No better indication exists that time, as experienced in and around apartment 5A that Spring, slid backwards and forwards, than Gerry McCann's comment not so long ago during an interview for the Spanish broadcast, Mananas de Cuatro, referring, as he clearly did, to "the night we found her."
Madeleine mysteriously disappeared, we are told, on the evening of Thursday 3 May. That cannot have been 'the night we found her', because it was the night when no-one was able to find her. 'The night we found her' must therefore have been an earlier point in time. Hence we have Madeleine being found before she is lost. These 'déjà vu' experiences are so clear-cut that one wonders what else might have happened before 'what happened', happened - or did not happen, as the case may be.
It is to Messrs. Carter-Ruck that we owe the following legally acceptable definition of Madeleine's last known circumstances:
"...the suggestion that Madeleine could indeed have been abducted".
The suggestion that she 'could have been' of course invites the possibility that she 'might not have been'. But that door, like those to apartment 5A, is closed by Gerry McCann who, doing a piece to camera while driving, intones:
"How can you prove a negative? The answer is, you can't!"
Door closed then - but not locked.
Just as was the case with 5A, where the occupants appear to have used their keys at random, this door is not secure either.
In the Land That Time Forgot, Gerry invites us all to suppose that, like the laws of physics, the elementary rules of logic also fail to apply and, given the straightforward proposition 'If not p then q', q is insufficient, of itself, to allow the conclusion not p.
Lucky for the development of number theory then that Pierre de Fermat was not born Portuguese, in the sleepy hollow of Praia da Luz. His was a negative postulate which he proved to his own satisfaction, although it was left to Professor Andrew Wiles to prove it to everyone else's centuries later. And the case for Copernicus (the earth is not at the centre of the solar system)? Proven long since.
For we mere mortals, there are abundant examples of how it is perfectly possible to 'prove a negative', e.g., to prove a chocolate box is empty (i.e. contains no chocolates), open it and look inside. To prove it is empty without opening it just pick it up and shake it.
You see, Gerry McCann has been overly influenced by his occupancy of Stargate 5A. He enthusiastically misconstrues the scientific tenet that a hypothesis cannot be verified or rejected on the basis of a negative experimental result, i.e. one in which the data are not clearly indicative of an experimental effect one way or the other. Hence a negative result is unlikely to provide useful evidence either for or against a particular hypothesis. All of which goes some way toward explaining the posture of the Foreign Office as regards the McCann case: "Both this and the Needham case are categorised as a missing persons, rather than child abduction cases, as there is no evidence in either case to support whether the children were or were not abducted."
Foreign Office ostriches aside, it is perfectly possible to establish, from evidence available, that something did not happen, especially when the 'something' and the evidence are incompatible, like the claim of a violent injury in the absence of any marks or a 'break in' in the absence of any breakages (as in 'jemmied shutters' remaining untouched and intact).
Locard's principle (every contact leaves a trace) is the forensic analog of Newton's third law (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). Maybe the constraints of space-time genuinely do not apply to 5A of the Ocean Club Complex. On the other hand, no trace evidence of abduction should allow us at least to question, even if not refute "...the suggestion that Madeleine could indeed have been abducted."
In very straightforward terms, 'if not p then q' represents, in this instance, the proposition that, in the absence of any evidence of abduction (not p), we are consequently faced with something else (q). Similarly, if Madeleine McCann was not abducted then she is dead. In the scheme of the world adopted by the McCanns and their entourage however, there is 'no evidence that Madeleine has come to any harm' and, in the absence of any such evidence, Madeleine must be missing, considered alive, and at the mercy of her abductor. But abduction is the very hypothesis we are concerned to test. Unlike other evidential relationships, it does not hinge uniquely on Madeleine's being harmed or unharmed. In principle she could be either, abducted or not.
The invalidity of negative results, previously discussed, explains at a stroke the McCanns' concern to negate (or at least attempt to negate) any evidence which points away from their official position. When taken jointly into consideration, the absence of 'phone records, DNA traces, credit card data, medical histories etc. describe a suspicious coalition of coincidence. Positive indicants in the form of sniffer dog alerts are somewhat more difficult to counter (calling into question the reliability of a completely different set of dogs doesn't quite do it somehow - a bit like blaming the Irish F.A. for England's failure in the recent World Cup).
So, in this altogether quirky environment, where time stands still or even, on occasion, travels backwards, Kate McCann, one imagines, is prompted to get down on all fours and scrub the floor clean whilst wearing the unwashed clothes she had brought with her to Portugal; unwashed after six visits to the mortuary that is. (How else are human cadaver odour and blood traces supposed to have arrived on the floor tiles?).
It would be altogether wrong to speak of such activity as forensic cleansing since, if it took place at all, it took place before Madeleine herself was 'taken', the McCanns themselves being removed to another apartment on the morning of May 4. Even though Gerry McCann is known to have emerged from a brief return visit to their original apartment on the 5th, carrying a bucket and spade, the prospect of his having swiftly played the role of cross-dressing char lady is somewhat unlikely, although, given the capricious ambience of 5A, one can never be entirely sure.
But such inversion of 'action' and 'reaction' would be entirely consistent with those examples previously discussed. Even little Madeleine, it seems, was given to crying before she was hurt. The question 'Mummy/Daddy, why didn't you come when we were crying?' voiced on the Thursday morning, implies a protracted period of isolation on the Wednesday evening, when we know the McCanns, with their diligently calculated schedule of 'checking', could not have been away from their children for any length of time, otherwise the abductor (who had been watching the family all that week according to Kate) would have struck then. Either that or one of the other nominated 'checkers' would have heard the crying. Anyway, none of the near neighbours reported hearing Madeleine, or anyone else, cry on the Wednesday.
What a topsy-turvy place it was. When a child went missing the parents 'phoned people a thousand miles away to ask for help, yet told a nearby temporary resident there was nothing he could do. They contacted the news media almost immediately, the police not quite so immediately, then later declined to assist with a police reconstruction on account of the likelihood of a media presence. It's all so 'cart before the horse', especially the tidying up before the crime. With both parents convinced by 'the way the scene was left' that their daughter had been forcibly removed from her bed, one can only suppose that the bed was made again afterwards, there being no sign of the child's occupancy visible in the photographs taken for the police record, much less disturbance. If not, then it must have been made beforehand and the child removed without the least protestation.
Such are the mysteries to have confronted the PJ at the time of the incident. Given the seemingly supernatural aura of the location, it should come as no surprise to anyone that they appeared guilty of shining their torches at the heavens when they ought to have been studying the ground beneath their feet but, like looking through the viewfinder of a twin-lens reflex camera, they 'got the hang of it', in the end. Keeping the camera steady they saw where to look for the clearest image, despite being forced to view things upside down.
Despite the pervasive, arguably malevolent influence of apartment 5A on all those who have experienced that environment, the PJ are not, as one might be tempted to imagine, on the 'down train' going up. On the contrary. Parked in a siding somewhere within Portimão is Thomas the Tank Engine, ready to be rolled out at a moment's notice; that's if the fat controller can cease to be influenced by all those bigger engines who think they can do a better job. The PJ already know where the answer lies. They are sitting on the evidence, plain as day. They also know that time doesn't really travel backwards and that, in the real world, carts do not precede horses.
Another place and time - 02 August 2010
Given the seriousness of the crime and the mysterious circumstances in which it had been committed, local magistrates saw fit to solicit the Home Office for assistance. Despite initial reluctance, come 14 July, Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher of the Metropolitan Police was assigned to the case.
A time-served member of the constabulary and senior representative of the more recently established detective arm, 'Jack' Whicher was not your everyday copper, even for the age in which he lived and worked. As unprepossessing as he may have been physically, his efficacy as a detective was the stuff of legend. Indeed, it formed the basis of later detective fiction. In one of his earliest reports on this case to Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne, Whicher wrote of the drawing room window:
'This window which is about ten feet high, comes down within a few inches of the ground and faces the lawn at the back of the house, and opens by lifting up the bottom sash, which was found up about six inches at the bottom. These shutters were fastened with a Bar inside, consequently no entry could be made from the outside...Therefore it is quite certain that no person came in by that window...I therefore feel quite convinced that the window shutters were merely opened by one of the inmates, to lend to the supposition that the child had been stolen.'
Consistent with Whicher's documented interpretation, Summerscale informs her readers that "At first Samuel (Kent) did his best to point the police away from the rooms of his family and servants. Like Elizabeth Gough, he insisted that a stranger had killed Saville."
D. I. Whicher's 'nose' led him to a fairly swift conclusion. Pursuing both the evidence, such as it was, and the behavioural characteristics of the various members of the Kent household, on 20 July he reported his suspicions to Wiltshire magistrates, who in turn required that he arrest the suspect in question; an act which would inevitably go against the grain of Victorian society with its much vaunted faith in family and the social order.
Through shrewd background enquiries, Whicher had elicited a telling fusion of character references, but more immediate physical evidence, that he knew to have been a feature of the crime, was conspicuous by its absence, namely a nightdress seemingly unaccounted for. "Then as now, many clues were literally made of cloth - criminals could be identified by pieces of fabric."
Frustratingly for Whicher and the watching world, it was this very omission, together with eloquent appeals from the accused's legal representative, Barrister Peter Edlin, which decided the Magistrates against committing the suspect for trial after all. The accused had held out and was unexpectedly well positioned to exploit the situation. Summerscale describes a relevant precedent thus:
"Madeleine Smith had shown that by being cunning and immovable a middle-class murderess could become a figure of glamour and mystery, a kind of heroine. And if she kept her nerve she might never be caught."
The situation rebounded on Whicher directly, as Summerscale again explains:
"On 15 August...Whicher was denounced in Parliament. Sir George Bowyer, the leading Roman Catholic Spokesman in the Commons, complained about the quality of Britain's police inspectors, using Whicher as an example. 'The recent investigation with regard to the Road murder afforded striking proof of the unfitness of some of the present officers', he said."
And it didn't end there.
"Petitions were sent to the Home Secretary asking for a special commission to investigate the Road Murder - a Bath solicitor was appointed to conduct an 'investigation.'"
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is an extraordinary book, dealing with an extraordinary historical event, and it would be inappropriate here to reveal the denouement of the story. Suffice to say however that 'what goes around comes around.' There was a comeuppance, and Summerscale is later able to inform us:
"The Somerset and Wilts Journal reminded its readers of the 'merciless and almost universal...censure' to which this 'able and experienced' officer (Whicher) had been subjected."
Art reflects life - reflects art - and Summerscale repeatedly includes examples of the influence this real-life case had on the development of detective fiction subsequently.
"In 'The Moonstone', as at Road Hill, the original source of the crime was a wrong done in a previous generation: the sins of the father were visited on the children like a curse."
In her postscript to the paperback edition, Summerscale postulates, with some justification, that Samuel Kent, the father, was already 'plotting the first book about the murder of Saville Kent' in the winter of that same year, 1860.
Was it not Aristotle's contention that there are only seven basic plots?
At 9:30 p.m. she got up to go and check on her children at the same time as Mathew, who said he was going to check on his daughter Grace in apartment 5B, and could check on her children. She hesitated, however he said not to worry as he was going anyway.
'After less than ten minutes Mathew returned to the Tapas, saying all was quiet. At that time she did not ask him if he went inside the apartment, however she assumed he had checked on her children, entering through the balcony door which was closed but not locked.
Or arguido Gerry in September:
The second person to go and check on the children should have been Kate, but Matt offered to go as he was going to check on his own daughter. When Matt returned to the restaurant the arguido asked him if all was well; Matt replied that all was quiet. The arguido is not absolutely sure, but he is under the impression that he asked Matt if he entered their apartment, to which Matt replied yes.
And circumstancial checker, Matthew Oldfield - what has he to say on the matter? The truth had to wait for his Rogatory interviews:
4078 "Well, mainly all of your apartment and Gerry and Kate's obviously. Up until the Wednesday night, from what you have already said then, you didn't go into Gerry and Kate's apartment... well, sorry, you didn't check on Gerry and Kate's children?"
4078 "Had you been into their apartment before?"
Matthew Oldfield "Errm... I don't think so. It's hard to remember now, at this point, because I know what it looks like. I mean, we certainly knew the back, where their patio was. And it may have been on the first day that we actually looked at everybody's apartment, because we had the smallest, errm... apartment, because we only needed one bedroom and they needed two, errm... so we may have had a brief walk through, or as far as the kitchen. But I can't say with any certainty that I'd been in".
And later:
4078 "Okay. So take me through from there then, what happened after that?"
Matthew Oldfield "So, errm... back to the table, errm... we have... oh, back to the table, Gerry got up to go and... to go and check on his kids, I mean, and I'd come back and said, you know, 'I didn't hear any noise when I listened outside your room', so I thought it was a little bit odd that, you know... not kind of a wounded pride, that he sort of didn't trust me but errm... I just thought, 'oh', you know, 'I've just checked, you don't really need to check and...' sort of, you know, sort of, 'go back', but, errm... he sort of got up and went back to check on, errm... on his kids. But, you know, you don't... you know, we're all sort of responsible for our own children and you wouldn't sort of say, you know, 'you don't need to do that', I just sort of felt, 'oh I've listened', you don't need to do that because I've kind of just done it, but I hadn't gone into the apartment, so, errm..."
4078 "Was that the first time that you had taken it upon yourself to check on somebody else's child?"
Matthew Oldfield "Yeah, I'd not done it before, it was only because, you know, I was there and I was... and it may not have happened if I'd actually gone in and checked on Grace through the room, you know, I might not have just been next to their shutter in terms of to actually have a listen, you know, I was just there, it was only like four steps further. But, no, I didn't, even though we now knew each other for the week and I felt a bit more comfortable about their kids knowing me, as I said before, errm... I wouldn't normally sort of impose that sort of check on somebody else unless they'd, errm... unless they'd suggested it. It'd be almost like a step, not a step too far, but, errm... it's not really our place to, you know, to do that".
Here we have Matthew Oldfield discussing events on the Thursday evening and announcing, quite unequivocally, that he had not 'checked' on anyone else's child beforehand. That would, of course, have included the Wednesday - the day when, according to Gerry McCann's signed statement to the police, 'they had maintained the same system of checking on the children. On this day, the deponent and KATE had already left the back door closed, but not locked, to allow entrance by their group colleagues to check on the children.'
Which group colleague(s) would that have been exactly? Certainly not Oldfield, who would not take responsibility for checking up on other people's children unless they themselves suggested it. But hasn't Kate already told a different story? Indeed she has:
'At 9:30 p.m. she got up to go and check on her children at the same time as Matthew, who said he was going to check on his daughter Grace in apartment 5B, and could check on her children. She hesitated, however he said not to worry as he was going anyway.'
Here it is Kate who is hesitant at the other's suggestion, and Oldfield who is mildly insistent.
Oh dear. What path would the other person suggest again?
As for the 'system of checking on the children', Kate McCann (6 September statement)
'thinks they went to the flat four times, one every half hour: Gerry twice and herself twice, at around 9, 9:30, 10, and 10:30 p.m.' That was on the Tuesday night. What about the Wednesday?
'On that night they also checked on the children every half hour; however she thinks that 45 minutes had gone by from the time of the last check to when they arrived, as exceptionally they went to the Tapas' bar. On this day she thinks that Gerry arrived at the apartment around 23:50 and she arrived 5 minutes later.'
Dear Kate. The interval of time elapsed between 10.30 p.m. (your last 'check') that Wednesday night and husband Gerry's return to the apartment at 23.50 p.m. is precisely one hour and twenty minutes. Matthew Oldfield was nowhere to be seen in the meantime. He's said so himself.
This shameful interval is construed by Kate as the window of opportunity for Madeleine's crying episode:
'Regarding this night she said that none of the children cried, which she would have noticed as she was in the room. Regarding the fact that on the next morning, Thursday, during breakfast, Madeleine said to both of them that she had been crying and that nobody had come to her room, she presumes that this crying must have been before she and Gerry returned to the apartment.'
Odd then that Rachael Oldfield, who was in her own apartment all night, from before 9.00 p.m., and could hear the McCanns in their bathroom next door if she chose to listen, heard nothing at all. Mrs Fenn on the other hand, from the floor above, reported hearing crying from the McCanns' apartment on the Tuesday night, and for almost exactly the same period of time, i.e. one hour and fifteen minutes. She did not report hearing any crying on the Wednesday night either.
Tuesday night. Wednesday night. Crying for more than an hour. And no one comes?
More now from Kate on 6 September:
'When asked about the fact her daughter had been crying on Tuesday night for one hour and 15 minutes, between 10:30 and 11:45 p.m., she says that is not true. She says that on that night, after midnight, Madeleine went to their room and said that her sister Amelie was crying, so she stayed to sleep with her and Gerry in their bedroom. She says that before Madeleine appeared in her bedroom, she had already heard Amelie crying, however she did not go to the room, as Madeleine came into the room almost at the same time she heard the crying. She does not remember if afterwards she, or Gerry, went to the children's room, however she asserts that Amelie cried for a short time.'
Gerry, in May:
'He cannot say exactly, but he thinks that on Monday or Tuesday MADELEINE had slept for some time in his bedroom, with KATE, as she had told him that one or both twins were crying, making much noise.'
And almost, but not quite, the same story from arguido Gerry in September:
'When asked, he says that on one night, he cannot say which, Madeleine slept in his room and in his bed. He thinks it might have been shortly after their arrival at the apartment. Madeleine came to his room saying that Amelie was crying and she couldn't sleep. He thinks that he didn't hear the crying before, and was alerted to this by Madeleine. He does not know if it was him or his wife that comforted Amelie. That night Madeleine slept in his bed.'
On one night (say, Tuesday) Madeleine arrives at her parents' room to report Amelie crying, which Kate had already heard but Gerry did not. She stays to sleep with Kate. Or does she? That's what she did according to Gerry in May. September's version of events has her sleeping with him, in his bed. Neither parent can recall which of them, if any, attended Amelie in her distress. (Which bed would the other person say Madeleine slept in?)
One gets the distinct impression that Madeleine McCann was the progeny of parents who literally did not know the time of day, or even what day it was. Intriguingly, Kate nowhere denies the reported crying incident, but instead goes on to make great play of it herself, at dinner on the Thursday night and afterwards. She places it on the Wednesday night - when absolutely no one heard it - and quite independently of the bed-hopping antics attributed to the Tuesday. But two consecutive late night visits to the Tapas bar would make that particular experience something other than 'exceptional' and, frankly, unforgivable into the bargain. Yet maybe it didn't happen like that. Maybe we are really being presented with an account of the one night, Tuesday, sub-divided for convenience; the convenience of not having to account separately for the Wednesday.
Kate on 6 September:
Back to the description, the deponent says that on the 3rd they left the apartment leaving the children sleeping. Knowing that Madeleine sometimes woke and got up, she did not worry about leaving her alone, because when this happened, and it wasn't always, it was around 2 – 3 a.m., at which time they would be back in the apartment already.
Gerry tells it somewhat differently, also in September:
When questioned, he says that Madeleine usually sleeps well at night. During the first months of her life she had some difficulties sleeping, due to feeding problems. After moving to their house in Rothley in April 2006, twice a week Madeleine woke up, left her bed and went into their room; this sometimes happened between 23:00 – 24:00 for no apparent reason, maybe because she was used to sleeping with [* blank *].
When asked about a chart highlighting the characteristics of the children, at the house in Rothley, he says that he does in fact have such an object, where several stars show the nights when Madeleine did not get up, as she was rewarded this way.
'When questioned if it was therefore safe to leave Madeleine in the apartment, given the fact that she woke and got up at night, he says that this rarely happened, and then only after her parents were in bed.
So Madeleine had a tendency to wake in the night, 'not always' according to Kate, 'rarely' according to Gerry. And yet at home in Rothley it occurred twice a week and the 'several stars', which one would understand to be relatively few in number, represented those nights when Madeleine did not wake up. All of which rather suggests that she woke more often than not, sometimes, and ominously, between 11.00 and 12.00 p.m. On the anniversary, almost, of Madeleine's disappearance, Kate McCann was interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan on behalf of Sky News (1 May, 2008). The relevant exchange is recorded as follows:
Dermot Murnaghan: "Was Madeleine upset the night before, about being left alone. Had she... had she had a moment and got out of bed and started crying and started looking for you?"
Kate McCann: "I mean, I don't want to dwell on it too much, I mean, I don't know if you saw the documentary last night, so, I mean, I have talked about it, errm... Madeleine made a comment, errm... in passing, that, errm... 'Where were you when I cried?' Not just to mummy, by the way, just generally, errm... and it just seemed a bit odd. I mean, it was a very, kind of, passing remark and we just thought, 'Oh, she doesn't usually wake up' and, she woke up; that means that, you know, she must have fallen back asleep very quickly, errm... and then she moved on… you know, she moved on."
On the strength of what both parents earlier stated as fact to the police, how could they possibly think 'Oh, she doesn't usually wake up'? Is a doctor's diagnosis usually arrived at by ignoring the symptoms?
McCann confederates Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield were, as we know, called upon to play supporting roles in the ensuing Rothley Towers production of Madeleine Was Here, a documentary account of the affair. A third ally, not offered a speaking part, was David Payne. His 'little angels' description of the McCann children has a comforting ring to it, whereas reference to their being 'at peace', strangely, does not. Moving forward in time to the evening events of May 3, the saga of his doorstep encounter with the scantily clad Kate McCann is well worth examining.
Of that early evening, May 3, Kate explains (in her 6 September interview):
After the children's bath, already alone, she put pyjamas and nappies on the twins, and gave them each a glass of milk and biscuits. Before bathing the children and because it was early, they had thought of taking them to the recreation area, but then decided against this because of tiredness.
How, one wonders, did Kate dress Madeleine? Both parents being quick to tell the PJ exactly what pyjamas Madeleine had been wearing when she was 'taken', one would have thought her inclusion in the pyjama dressing and milk rosta would have been a formality.
'While the children were eating and looking at some books, Kate had a shower which lasted around 5 minutes. After showering, at around 6:30/6:40 p.m. and while she was getting dry, she heard somebody knocking at the balcony door. She wrapped herself in a towel and went to see who was at the balcony door. This door was closed but not locked as Gerry had left through this door. She saw that it was David Payne, because he called out and had opened the door slightly. David's visit was to help her to take the children to the recreation area. When David returned from the beach he was with Gerry at the tennis courts, and it was Gerry who asked him to help Kate with taking the children to the recreation area, which had been arranged but did not take place. David was at the apartment for around 30 seconds, he didn't even actually enter the flat, he remained at the balcony door. According to her he then left for the tennis courts where Gerry was. The time was around 6:30-6:40 p.m.'
In his own Rogatory interview, David Payne offers up a slightly different version of events:
'So I walked back, errr... from the tennis courts, errr... back to, errr... you know Kate and Gerry's apartment and the time, you know, looking at... you know, we've looked obviously at photographs since then and, you know, the time that we've got that I was, you know, going to Kate's, about six thirty, errr... and I went into their apartment through the patio doors. The three children were all, you know, dressed, you know, in their pyjamas, you know; they looked immaculate, you know, they were just like angels, they all looked so happy and well looked after and content and I said to Kate, you know, 'it's a bit early for the...', you know, 'for the three of them to be going to bed', she said, 'ah, they've had such a great time, they’re really tired' and, you know, errr... so I say, you know, I can't remember exactly what, what, you know, the night attire... what the children were wearing but white was the predominant, errr... colour, but, you know, just to reinforce they were just so happy, you know, seeing, you know... obviously Gerry wasn't there but they were just all, just so at peace...'
Payne speaks of three children in pyjamas, then proceeds to admit that he couldn't remember exactly what they were wearing. Might this be because he only glimpsed them across Kate's shoulder, while speaking to her briefly at the patio door, as she had stated beforehand? Payne's statement has a curiously confirmatory air about it: His entrance through the (unlocked) patio door - unannounced and uninvited (I bet he and Kate were both rather surprised), and definitive reference to 'the three children.' The 'predominant colour' being white rather suggests that Payne's eyes were predominantly focussed on Kate's bath towel, as the distinctive colour worn elsewhere ought to have been pink.
If Jane Tanner can see, at night, at some distance, and under a near sodium light, that a pair of child's pyjamas, although glimpsed in transit, are largely pink (even though the top is not visible and the trousers are, in fact, white), then David Payne should have had no difficulty in recalling this same colourway to mind, especially as it would have been sported by two of the three children.
It was Amelie's 'Eeyore' pyjamas that were later to tour Europe. They were not retrieved from Rothley to that end (Gerry's first trip home being on May 21st) as they had already been used for photographic purposes in order to aid the investigation. With two children therefore cavorting on a sofa and dressed in exactly the same, largely pink pyjamas, you'd have thought David Payne's memory would scarcely need jogging. If, however, the pyjamas on view were predominantly white, then one would have to suppose that Amelie at least was wearing a second set. Madeleine must have been wearing the pink pyjamas she was later 'taken' in after all. Amelie then has two pairs of pyjamas on holiday, in a climate where pyjamas washed in the morning are dry by the afternoon, as demonstrated by Kate that very Thursday.
Why should Kate have found it at all necessary therefore to dress little Amelie in her sister's pyjamas subsequently?
According to John McCann: "Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: 'Maddy's jammies. Where is Maddy?' But she is too young to understand. And how do you explain? All we know is that Madeleine needs her family. She loves us, we love her. It is time for her to come home."' (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 May, 2007).
If Kate ('I know the truth, Sandra') McCann is to be believed, then David Payne is another destined to beat a path toward the village of liars. He will not travel unaccompanied.
There's a hoary old Christmas cracker joke which reads: 'When is a door not a door? Answer: When it's ajar.' The McCanns' early police statements usefully reveal the extent to which Madeleine's bedroom could be said to have incorporated a receptacle as opposed to an obstacle.
Gerry McCann, on May 10:
'He walked the normal route up to the back door, which being open he only had to slide, and while he was entering the living room, he noticed that the children's bedroom door was not ajar as he had left it but half-way open, which he thought was strange, having then thought that possibly MADELEINE had got up to go to sleep in his bedroom, so as to avoid the noise produced by her siblings. Therefore, he entered the children's bedroom and established visual contact with each of them, checking and he is certain of this, that the three were deeply asleep. He left the children's bedroom returning to place the door how he had already previously described, then went to the bathroom. Everything else was normal, the shutters, curtains and windows closed, very dark, there only being the light that came from the living room.'
The situation is clear. Door left 'ajar' initially. Later discovered half-open. Returned to original position before departure. Madeleine present and asleep.
Later Gerry asserts:
'The deponent ran into the apartment accompanied by the rest of the group who, at the time, were seated at the table. When he arrived at the bedroom he first noticed that the door was completely open, the window was also open to one side, the shutters almost fully raised, the curtains drawn back, MADELEINE's bed was empty but the twins continued sleeping in their cots. He clarifies that according to what KATE told him, that was the scenario that she found when she entered the apartment.'
Both parents report (Gerry to the police and Kate to Gerry beforehand) having discovered the door completely open.
Remember this from the opening salvos of the McCann's own documentary?
Kate McCann: "I did my check about 10.00 o'clock and went in through the sliding patio doors and I just stood, actually, and I thought, 'oh, all quiet', and to be honest, I might have been tempted to turn round then, but I just noticed that the door, the bedroom door where the three children were sleeping, was open much further than we'd left it. I went to close it to about here and then as I got to here, it suddenly slammed and then as I opened it, it was then that I just thought, 'I'll just look at the children'"
Two people had previously entered the bedroom to check on the children, as far as Kate was aware, but we know (because Gerry has told us) that on finding the door 'half open' he returned it to its preferred position, i.e. 'ajar.' Now, if we can just bring Clarence Mitchell in at this point ('There was no evidence of any break in. They got out of the window fairly easily.') he will remind us of the hypothesis that Madeleine's abductor escaped with her through the window. Hence the door will have remained untouched once Gerry had reset it. In carrying out his 9.30 check Matthew Oldfield stopped half-way across the living room, from which vantage point he claims to have been able to see both twins breathing, but not Madeleine, whose bed was immediately behind the partition wall. And this through a chink, not a yawning gap don't forget (an impossibility, as anyone can verify for themselves. There is nothing magically transparent about the doors inside apartment 5A of the Ocean Club complex).
Since Oldfield did not so much as touch the bedroom door, it would have remained ajar after he had left the apartment also, unless, that is, the wind caught it before Kate's arrival, when it would have closed, just as Kate herself claims to have experienced, not 'opened much further than we'd left it.'
With an ever widening market for tourism, safaris have become quite commonplace. Jungle tours are no doubt now on offer too, including, I dare say, day trips to 'liars' village.'
All aboard!
Matthew Oldfield "No".
9 Mar 2010 ... Kate McCann: It does and it doesn't. I mean, every day, to be honest, is... is quite difficult. I guess Mother's Day is another reminder ...
Kate McCann says she searches the flat three times before raising the alarm. .... KATE: To be honest I don't actually think that. It's a case. ...
Kate McCann: To be honest, I don't actually think that is the case. I think that's a very small minority of people that are ...
Kate McCann: I mean, I'd like to go back but… not for this, to be honest, it's kind of just below the surface, and I, just you know… I'd be scared, I think, ...
Sarah Montague: Could you consider going back to work, Kate? Kate McCann: Errr... not at the moment, it just doesn't... doesn't feel right, to be honest. ...
Kate McCann: I mean, to be honest... SIC Reporter: Do you still have the hope to tell them of a story in the future? Kate McCann: Oh, you know. ...
Kate McCann: I mean, the main thing for us is knowing if the sighting is credible or not, really. Errm... to be honest we don't go through that, …
Disappointed: Gerry and Kate McCann believe police should be doing more to find their ... "To be honest, most people were just really glad to see me. ...
It is the first time Kate McCann has left Portugal since Madeleine's abduction. .... I can't really think about that at the minute, to be honest." ...
Latest news on Madeleine McCann, Maddie, Kate McCann, Gerry McCann, Goncalo Amaral, ... and to be honest, I might have been tempted to turn round then, ...
...the ones that Madeleine has done I just can't pull down to be honest. ...... Distraught Kate McCann broke down in tears on Oprah as she made a TV appeal …
Gerry and Liverpool-born Kate McCann need the signatures of 393 members - that is more .... Kate: I think perhaps you are avoiding the issue to be honest. ...
Kate McCann: Well, they're not gonna show anything to implicate us, so I'm not... you know, I'm not concerned, if I'm honest.
20 Feb 2010 ... His wife added: "It's heartbreaking, to be honest.
Gerry and Kate McCann have given their first interview since their daughter Madeleine was abducted. ..... KM: I can't think about that Ian, to be honest. ...
Kate McCann: Errr... not at the moment, it just doesn't... doesn't feel right, to be honest. I mean, I'm very busy at the moment, there's a lot going on, ...
1 May 2008 ... Kate and Gerry McCann are set to take part in an ITV documentary marking the .... I felt like I was going to fight the world to be honest. ...
Kate and Gerry McCann interviewed by Telecinco, 23 August 2007 ..... and we switched off and, to be honest, we stopped reading the newspapers. ...
Kate McCann: "I do, maybe even more so, I strongly believe that Madeleine is out there, ...... These are the times when I go off to church, to be honest. ...
Tapas Seven Friend Flies Out To Kate McCann, 14 January 2010 ..... "If I'm honest, our daughter's been taken and nothing's ever going to be as bad as that," ...
In chapter 5 of his illuminating book, 'I Know You Are Lying' (2001: The Marpa Group), Mark McClish has the following to say in discussing an example of 'honesty':
'The applicant stated "You know..." The problem is we do not know if he is being honest. He has to tell us he is being truthful. Even if he were to say, "You know I am being honest" we still have a deceptive statement. He has not told us he is being honest. He expects us to take his honesty for granted. Believe what people tell you. If he tells you he is being honest, believe him. If he doesn't tell you he is being honest, you have to believe that too.'
Chapter 9 (Words And Phrases That Indicate Deception) and McClish is even more specific:
'In an effort to get you to believe their answer, people will sometimes use words or phrases designed to emphasise their truthfulness. However, studies have shown that when people use these words or phrases they may be giving you a deceptive answer. The following is a list of some of the more common deceptive words and phrases:
"Honest to God." "Truthfully"
"To be honest." "I swear to God."
"To tell the truth." "I swear on my mother's grave."
'...when you hear these words or phrases in a statement that light bulb in your head should go off. You should pay even closer attention to what the person is telling you.'
The point in relation to the above catalogue of Kate McCann's 'honest' remarks is that, in every instance, it is an 'in principle' honesty to which she refers, not her own exactly. 'To be honest' is not 'being honest' necessarily. Language offers us different structures for different logical purposes and, whether we are conscious of it or not, we choose the one which best fits the circumstances, or what it is we wish to convey exactly.
This catalogue of Kate McCann's pronouncements makes for an interesting archive when one considers that, in every instance, the statement in question may be negated by the very caveat intended to promote it.
Kate McCann: And obviously I can't talk too much about the investigation, umm, but, just trying to get through one day at a time to be honest Jenni. ...
Be careful what you wish for - 14 September 2010
In much the same way as the 'Tommies' of 1914-18 turned to their copies of The Wipers Times for relief from the grim absurdity of their trench-bound circumstance, we in our intermittent moments of gloom have our own paper-based comforters. It must have been a comfort to the McCanns when John Bull's various rags adopted their conclusion that Madeleine had been skilfully extracted from the family's holiday apartment by agents of paedophilia. If the unbiased opinion of academics followed suit then it had to be right, didn’t it?
On behalf of the Telegraph, Caroline Gammell in Portimao and Nick Allen in Amsterdam, announced in August of 2008:
Madeleine McCann 'snatched by international paedophile ring'
'British police believe Madeleine McCann was snatched by an international paedophile ring after she was photographed three days before she vanished, files have disclosed.
'The concern was raised in an email sent by the Metropolitan Police's intelligence unit dealing with Clubs and Vice, CO14 on March 4 this year.
'It said: "Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
'"Somebody connected to this group saw Maddie, took a photograph of her and sent it to Belgium. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Maddie was taken."
'The astonishing revelation supports Kate and Gerry McCann's theory that their eldest child may have been taken by a child smuggling ring.
'Written by a police officer called John Shord, it was sent to DC John Hughes at Leicestershire Police and passed on to Portuguese detectives.'
Well, the story seems to have been something of a 'slow burner', but Mademoiselles Smith and Lazzeri each remained convinced nearly a year later, both publishing in May 2009, with Lazzeri turning to none other than a top criminologist, Professor David Canter, in support of her own faith in the McCann postulate.
Paedo Shame - News of the World
Anna Smith
31/05/2009
'The more I hear about the Algarve, the sicker I feel. Investigators hunting for Madeleine McCann say the area is awash with paedophiles, with seven sex attacks on kids in the last 4 years.
'Perhaps that's why those thicko cops pointed the finger at the McCanns - by blaming them and moving on, nobody would dig up their dirt. They continue to ignore new evidence and hope what they always hoped - that this case would just go away.'
If Maddie is alive she may not answer to that name or remember who she was - The Sun
By Antonella Lazzeri
Published: 04 May 2009
Britain's top criminologist Professor David Canter….
'After studying the case closely, Prof Canter, director of The Centre for Investigative Psychology at the University of Liverpool, concluded Maddie was taken by a gang of traffickers.
'She had been left in the family holiday apartment with her twin brother and sister Sean and Amelie while her parents went to dinner with friends.
'The professor said: "Child traffickers are very quick at hiding a child's identity. In one case they managed to drug a girl, dye her hair and dress her as a boy within an hour of taking her.
"She was quickly found in the arms of an abductor but her parents barely recognised her.
"I believe Maddie was skilfully targeted. It is very unlikely that someone would break into the apartment on the off-chance.
"I don't believe it was a lone paedophile. They're very unlikely to carry out a crime like this.
"Child trafficking is a growing, very profitable industry. There is a good chance Maddie is alive."
Eventually then, a degree of credibility is bestowed upon the McCann view. But is it a starred first, garnered through diligent research, or a hasty third scribbled after 'last orders' at the local?
Representatives of diverse religious communities have, as we know, spoken out recently in opposition to certain views expressed by Professor Richard Dawkins. It is a moot point as to whether they fear the wrath of their Gods more than the prospect of redundancy, but here is one of Dawkins' sage (and televised) comments concerning 'evidence':
"We must favour verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth."
Dawkins' concern for the primacy of evidential argument is widely shared. One discovers, deep in vaults of the internet, such comments as the following:
"The Casa Pia court ruling has given fresh venom for all those primarily concerned with their disgust at Madeleine's parents. With no evidence to support their hatred, they are blind with rage and remain a fixated darker side to the internet that can only be usurped by the criminal activities of the paedophiles they willingly defend in preference to admitting to themselves that they are wholly wrong." (Dr Stein's Chaosraptors.com)
Venomous hatred is surely an emotional state of mind, hardly governed by 'evidence.' Unlike the author here I would rather only speak for myself, but my primary concern is not with my own disgust, however manifest. If it were I'd be in serious need of a 'shrink'. Nor does any failure on my part to admit that I am in error as regards my understanding of the McCann case, or anything else, imply that I am a willing defender of paedophiles. Like so many others, I am simply reluctant to accept an explanation of events for which there is no evidence, especially when there is evidence to support an alternative interpretation.
Anyway, so long as we're all agreed that evidence is paramount, let us turn now to the Sunday Express story of September 5.
Paedophile ring with link to Madeleine McCann jailed
By James Murray
"One of the abused boys, Pedro Namora, is now a lawyer and was a key witness in the case.
"He wants Portuguese detectives to continue their probe as he believes the ring may be connected to the disappearance of Madeleine at the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve in May 2007."
In Dr Stein's opinion:
"This recent criminal convictions (sic) in Portugal opens up the question as to how endemic child abuse rings actually are, not just in Portugal but in other countries as well. The parents of missing British child Madeleine McCann will take little comfort in learning that such prominent figures have been involved with child abuse. In a somewhat guarded comment, Clarence Mitchell, the McCann's official spokesman said that they had been following this case but had found no link to Madeleine's disappearance and a paedophile gang."
Well, well, well.
So there are sophisticated paedophile networks operating in Portugal after all. It wasn't just a figment of the McCanns' imagination. How could they have guessed?
There is a hint here of the McCanns having pinned their theoretical prospects on something in the ether, which, now that it has been publicly distilled, has suddenly become a politically dangerous association, and one from which they are better off 'distanced'. Retreat brings with it its own problems however.
There is apparently no evidence of any link between the Casa Pia investigation, Madeleine's disappearance and a paedophile gang. Clarence says so. It must be true. But James Murray's 'header' clearly refers to the accused in the Case Pia case as having a link to Madeleine McCann (is that libellous?). Unless we've all been seriously misinformed, those prosecuted in Portugal were not simply 'linked' with a paedophile ring, they formed one. So the Mitchell claim here that there is nothing to link the Casa Pia case with a paedophile gang is nonsense. But is that part of what he said? Not really. Mitchell's remark appears to imply that there is no connection between the child molesters of Casa Pia notoriety with 'the gang', (i.e. another gang) that took Madeleine.
Are we here contemplating a paedophile analog of the mafia, with several 'families' in contention for the available business, or territories of abuse, defined like the protected 'trading patches' in the vicinity of football stadia known to have provoked 'hot dog wars' in the past? It all seems a bit extreme somehow, inclining to the rife end of the endemic spectrum. And yet... these are the words of a commentator after all - a paraphrase of some remark or other made by Clarence Mitchell, which could just as easily have taken the form employed by a genuine journalist, James Murray, in his on-line version of events published Sept. 5:
"Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said they had been closely following the Casa Pia case but did not have a lead linking Madeleine's disappearance to the paedophile ring."
On this view there is only one ring - the ring. And Madeleine's disappearance is not connected with it.
Since we know from the testimony of an acknowledged expert in his field that Madeleine would not have been taken by a 'lone wolf', the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn, based on the available evidence, is that Madeleine was not abducted by or on behalf of any paedophile whatsoever.
Which brings us necessarily to the question of motive. If someone abducts a child it is for a reason, and the case of missing Madeleine is unquestionably one of abduction, by definition (O.E.D: abduction, n. Illegal carrying off, esp. of a child, ward;). There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that Madeleine McCann, alive or dead, was illegally carried off. And now that we may dispense with the paedophile hypothesis as an obscuration of the truth, we can justifiably contemplate some alternative explanation(s) as to why, even at the risk of igniting venomous hatred.
Big yellow taxi - 24 September 2010
When talking to someone about something you've lost, it makes sense, surely, to reference the object in question, grammatically speaking. For Joni Mitchell it was her 'old man', among other things. It would be a very odd conversation indeed that migrated mid-sentence from topic to topic; from the fire in the living room to the unfinished washing-up in the kitchen, say. (Trust me. Like Kate McCann, 'I know'. Conversation under such circumstances is very difficult).
Anna Andress has recently revisited the verbal detachment of the McCanns from their eldest daughter, focussing on their persistent objective, and distant, references to 'the child', as opposed to, for example, their 'daughter Madeleine'. To support her point Anna makes visual reference to the Oprah programme in 2009, which includes some Portuguese TV footage of Kate given reasonably free rein during an interview filmed on domestic location, and who says something really quite astonishing in consequence:
"I never had a day where I took my children for granted, errm... having been through what I'd been through. But you actually forget how precious life is, errm... until something awful happens, and you realise just how perfect... our life was."
Look at (or listen to) this statement carefully, the second sentence especially. 'You actually forget how precious life is - until something awful happens.'
There is no ambiguity here. The reference topic is quite clearly 'life.' Like so many of nature's wonders, life is a binary phenomenon, the opposite state being, of course, death. Logic dictates that for 'something awful' to call one's attention to the sanctity of life, that something would have to be either life-threatening, or death itself.
Had Kate been more personal in her attribution of 'precious', e.g. 'You actually forget how precious your child is ....' then, paradoxically, the 'something awful' need not be anything like as severe as one is led to infer from her actual statement, since, as parents, we are naturally concerned at any injury to our offspring, even relatively minor ones.
Part two of this verbal faux pas consists of the manner in which the statement is concluded - 'you realise just how perfect... our life was.'
There is a conspicuous pause before the final phrase, 'our life was.' The past tense comparison seems, on the face of it, to be a reasonable one to make. After all, the McCanns' life together can hardly be more perfect now than hitherto, whatever the circumstances attending the change. The pause however is of the utmost significance.
Kate McCann, the Mrs Malaprop of our age, hesitates before finally specifying what she wants the listener to understand as the topic of the sentence ('our life'); a topic which did not feature in her original line of thought or it would not have followed a pause. This is made equally clear by the fact that it does not sit, grammatically or logically, with its antecedent phrase ('You realise just how perfect...') either. 'You' cannot intuit about 'me or mine', only about some concept or experience we have in common.
The McCanns, both of them, are by now well practised at this sort of verbal subterfuge, which in itself testifies to their conscious monitoring of their own output. Spontaneous it is not. Take, for instance, the mother of the year's pious interview with Aled Jones; how God was looking after Madeleine's spirit... 'she's got a lot of spirit.' Instant (well almost) correction of the implication that Madeleine was dead and gone to heaven, with God's role strategically extended to include that of playground supervisor.
'Something awful' happened to make Kate McCann realize 'how precious life is'; not their 'lives' as individuals, nor their 'life' collectively, but life in the abstract. The phrase 'our life', which she tacks on in an attempt to append an altered sense to her statement, is nothing like as appropriate as she imagines. One only need substitute the phrase 'our daughter' for the term 'life' to get an altogether clearer idea of where this train of thought was going before it was deliberately derailed.
Tidying up - 27 September 2010
'Moreover, he says that with respect to Madeleine she was in the same position where he had left her at the beginning of the night. Madeleine was lying down on her left side, completely uncovered, i.e. lying on top of the covers with the soft toy and blanket, both pink, next to her head; he does not know if they were in the position that can be seen in the photograph attached to the files.'
Two years later Gerry is a touch more precise:
"So, I actually came in and Madeleine was just at the top of the bed here, where I'd left her lying and the covers were folded down and she had her cuddle cat and blanket, were just by her head." ('Madeleine Was Here' documentary, broadcast 07 May 2009).
Madeleine did not have to be lifted out of her bed, merely off it. But how far, exactly, were the covers turned down?
According to the PJ's report of Gerry McCanns' witness statement, made on 10 May 2007, and which Dr McCann signed as an accurate record of the interview:
"Also relevant to the bed where his daughter slept is how it was found on the night of the disappearance. States that his daughter slept without the covers, as was normal, due to the heat, with the bed sheets folded towards the foot of the bed."
The topic of this bed, like so much of the detail pertaining to the immediate aftermath of Kate McCann's 10.00 p.m. revelation, is old news; news which doubtless the McCanns and others would consider well and truly submerged beneath the ocean of time that has washed over the case since. And yet nothing was washed away completely, not even, as we know, the traces of various biological deposits in the lounge area of apartment 5A; behind the sofa - on the floor, on the walls and on the curtains.
That the bed did not, nor does not, appear 'slept in', is unquestionably a first-order inconsistency, catalogued by the watchful H, along with so many other discrepancies. But there is another, second-order aspect to this particular state of affairs, which speaks to the issue, not of immediate circumstance, but the very sequence of events that Thursday, 3 May, 2007.
The question that one might reasonably, if not obviously, ask in connection with a newly made bed is, 'Who made it?'
Well it certainly wasn't an abductor. I think we may conclude with confidence that nowhere in the annals of crime against the person is there a record of anyone first ransacking a property then tidying up after them. Or of snatching a child from its bed then tucking the bedclothes back in. Kate and Gerry were both struck by 'the way the scene was left' as well as being scrupulous enough, according to them, to leave things untouched following Madeleine's disappearance. But might they not have allowed themselves just one little lapse, Kate manifesting maternal concern by fidgeting with the her daughter's bedcovers in the course of her vain search perhaps? Not at all.
Kate McCann has told us (during their first interview, with the BBC's Jane Hill on 25.5.2007) "The first 48 hours were incredibly difficult and we were almost non-functioning I'd say, but after that we got strength from somewhere."
'Non-functioning' is Kate McCann's chosen phrase to encapsulate the apparent catatonia the parents experienced on discovering their daughter's absence. While still in apartment 5A they were given to sitting on beds, but not making them. And within a matter of hours they were accommodated elsewhere.
So Madeleine's bed was not made by an anonymous intruder immediately after Gerry McCann's visit to the apartment at 9.05 approx. Nor was it made by the McCanns at any time after 10.00 p.m. Which means that the status of the bed, as confirmed by the official record, must have been imposed upon it either by someone else, or at sometime before the alarm was raised.
The only other person to have visited the apartment between Gerry's and Kate's 'checks', at 9.00 and 10.00 p.m. respectively, was Matthew Oldfield, who looked in around 9.30 p.m., or so we are told. But we cannot attribute any bed-making to him, because he did not even enter the bedroom in question. Nevertheless, Oldfield has something of pertinence to contribute to the discussion, which we shall come to a little later. First, let us be clear that, on 10 May, 2007, Gerry told the police 'his daughter slept without the covers, as was normal, due to the heat, with the bed sheets folded towards the foot of the bed.'
(This is not how the bed appeared when photographed. Turned back at one corner is not 'folded toward the foot of the bed').
And in September Gerry recalled that Madeleine was lying down on her left side, completely uncovered, i.e. lying on top of the covers.
So we have Madeleine uncovered and sheets folded back in May, then, once the evidence is in, Madeleine uncovered and positioned on top of the covers, which could not have been folded back or the child could not have been lying on them. Well, either the bedclothes were arranged as originally described or they weren't, but in the latter case there is nothing to inform anyone as to how, exactly, the occupant left the bed. It certainly would not represent a 'slam dunk' abduction scene. Factoring in one of Kate's early favourite public statements further complicates the issue. "You don't expect a predator to break in and take your daughter out of her bed" culminates in the prepositional phrase 'out of her bed'; a distinctly, and significantly, different construction from 'off of her bed.' To be taken out of something an object must first have been in it, not on it.
In any event, one is faced with a bed, the last recorded configuration of which is a state of readiness (for someone to get into) not a state of disarray, as might be associated with a hurried exodus. If the bed covers had been folded down toward the foot of the bed (Gerry McCann's first postulate) then they would have been found and photographed in that position. They were not. Instead, Madeleine was sleeping on top of the covers (Gerry McCann's second postulate) and the bed therefore in the state in which it might have been left by the McCanns before Madeleine was placed upon it, seemingly in an uncomfortable and fairly pointless position, since she'd have to be lifted up again should the temperature have dropped and the covers been called into service once more.
If this was 'how the scene was left', bearing in mind that there was not a shred of evidence otherwise to indicate the presence of an intruder in the McCann apartment, then it was left in that state before 10.00 p.m., not afterwards, and not by any child snatcher.
Turning now to Matthew Oldfield's evidence, the first thing to take on board is a significant contextual comment regarding curtains and which features in his rogatory interview :
"...and I can't see the shutters because the curtains were shut and, they're similar curtains to the ones you've got in there, and you just get an impression of just like green and yellow..."
It is important to bear in mind that Oldfield is here describing to the interviewing officer a pair of curtains positioned at the far side of a room he did not enter. Indeed he did not even stand at the relevant doorway. He can distinguish two colours - in the near dark (let's be charitable and suppose the street lighting infiltrated the room to a certain extent).
Now let's review what Oldfield had to say about Madeleine's bed specifically.
Oldfield: "Errm... and there's another bed along here, which is where Madeleine was supposed to be, errm... and you could just maybe catch the... it was probably set back a little bit, so you could just sort of catch about sort of six or eight inches of the... so you could see the outside corner, the corner deepest into the room".
4078: "Okay. So concentrate, if you can, on what you saw of that bed and tell me what you saw?"
Oldfield: "Nothing, apart from that, it's just the end of the bed and that's... and that was it. And, so, it was just like the outside corner, there was no... couldn't see the whole length; couldn't see colours or legs or anything draping over it".
So the colour of the curtains was discernible, the colour of the bedding less so. And this item of furniture, let's not forget, was altogether nearer in Oldfield's line of sight than the curtains. Now here comes the $64000 question from the interviewing police officer followed by Oldfield's respective variations on the theme:
4078: "Did it have bed clothing on it, can you remember, or was it just a plain mattress or some sort of mattress cover or (inaudible), can you remember?"
Oldfield: "Errm... my, errm... this would be sort of a guess, I think what I could see was a sheet and I think it was a metal base coming round the corner, but I couldn't swear to that. There was only a small bit that was visible".
4078: "Okay".
Oldfield: "I don't think it was a bare... a bare mattress, I'm fairly sure there'd have been a sheet on it, but I don't remember anything sort of as bulky as a duvet over it".
4078: "Okay. And is there anything else you can say about what you saw of that bed?"
Oldfield: "No, errm... I don't remember there being a pattern on it, it was... it was just sort of a glimpse and I don't know how reliable my memory is for this. I think it was plain coloured, maybe, if I was to go for it, I'd say it was sort of a light blue, but I really don't recall anything specific about the end of that bed, apart from just registering that there was a bed against that wall and that's probably where Madeleine was".
After something of a lateral excursion, the curtains re-enter the dialog:
4078: "Okay. And you saw the side of the cots and you saw the shapes and knew that they were both breathing?"
Oldfield: "Yeah, I mean, you've got two cots, you know, along this side, you've got the short... the long axis along the long room and the short end, which I think is (inaudible). I think we had a similar in, errm... with G****, and there'd be a slight spacing and then netting and so, from the side, you'd see, errm... part of this one, slightly obstructed by this one, but enough to see through the grill, errm... and this one you'd see through the... through the mesh side, you'd see the kids".
4078: "And the lighting was sufficient within the room that you could make out what it was?"
Oldfield: "You could make out that it wasn't blankets and just something piled there, you could see the chest moving".
4078: "Okay. Could you see anything else from where you were stood?"
Oldfield: "The rest is just sort vague impressions of, errm... of the colour of the curtains, I couldn't tell what particular pattern, but I just remember green and yellow with that. And there may have been a duvet on the back bed behind the two cots. But nothing else specific".
Again, Oldfield is more confident about describing the more distant image, but leaves us with the impression of a bed covered by a light blue sheet, which is not quite the same as a gingham bedspread, colour co-ordinated with the curtains.
Accepting the accounts of both Gerry McCann and Matthew Oldfield leads to the inescapable conclusion that Madeleine's bed was made before her absence was announced. Now who would have been in a position to have done that?
Alternatively, one might question, with ample justification, whether Oldfield's observations concerning the bed can be relied upon at all, since, as other students of these issues have already pointed out, his description of the interior features of 5A better match the interior of 5D, this being the true location of green and yellow curtains! And if Oldfield's powers of recall in this respect are not to be relied upon, then what does that suggest as regards his supportive testimony in general, or that of any the Tapas 7, including their ringleaders?
It begins to look as if the stratagem of 'leaving no stone unturned' has come full circle, with its originators situate between a rock and a hard place. Ultimately that rock too must be accounted for.
It's a jungle out there - 23 October 2010
I'm sure Glaswegian Gerry McCann knows all about life among the seniors; that age of uncertainty and trepidation, when youngsters are (or were) defined, not by their parents' homes or whether they owned a car (note: I am considering a period in British social history when car ownership was a matter of 'yes' or 'no', not which badge graced the bonnet), but the sports field and the playground. The natural athletes were admired and respected. Others who could not command respect through accomplishment demanded it through tyranny.
Lateral pecking orders are all very well, but in a seriously vertical hierarchy it pays to have friends in high places. Thus the more artful of the younger 'tough guys' would curry favour with older, more mature personnel. That way they could spread their own sphere of influence above as well as beneath their station, to the extent that, like a hermit crab secure in a new shell, they could intimidate juveniles a touch older than themselves even and rest safe in the knowledge that they were protected species themselves (this is indeed a 'primate thing' as adolescent chimpanzees behave in much the same way).
But hermit crabs outgrow their shells - and allies leave the field, or the school, as the case may be. So mortgaging one's influence against promises of support from those of a transient disposition is perhaps not the smartest of strategies in the long run. The term 'grudge' is a short word describing a long memory.
So we come to the McCanns.
In hindsight, having engineered Goncalo Amaral's isolation from his professional power base, the ex-arguidos' subsequent actions against this man would most likely be perceived, by all and sundry, as personal. With the cushion of their 'fighting fund' they could afford to pursue their adversary through the courts and bring him to his knees if necessary, demanding fealty almost. But, like El Cid before him, this Iberian would not kneel. Like his medieval forbear, he too has been obliged to serve two masters; one his political superiors, the other the truth.
The pattern of events appeared clear. But then someone twisted the kaleidoscope. Brown the bully was expelled from school. His mate, big Jim, decided to leave without sitting his exam. And that has left the naughty children defenceless in the playground, the extent of their earlier bombast exposed for all to see.
What neither the McCanns, their cheerleaders, nor many others of us can have realised at the time, was the seriousness of the affront done by their earlier actions - not to an individual, in the form of Goncalo Amaral, but to a nation. The collective indignation can be sensed from the explanatory observations of the appeal judges responsible for recently lifting the ban on Amaral's published work.
The McCanns have so far revelled in throwing other people's weight around. Two middling medics from middle England have succeeded in riding roughshod over the constitution of a sovereign power, encouraged libellous criticism of its executive, and brought the same state's judicial system into disrepute. Did they honestly believe this could go on forever? If they did then, like as not, they are in for further surprises. This is the playground. It's payback time.
Cloud Cuckoo Land - 20 November 2010
So, esteemed Portuguese lawyer Isabel Duarte, acting on behalf of the McCanns, is progressing with plans to 'appeal the appeal', so to speak.
Just as Gonçalo Amaral had to present grounds for calling into question a judge's decision to uphold an injunction against him, Duarte has to furnish an argument sufficient both to endorse the original decision and to outweigh, rather than merely counter, the basis of the appeal court's reversal of that decision. In talking openly to the press she gives the impression of being quite confident she can do exactly that. Her optimism is founded on her view that 'essential facts' had not been taken into account by the appeal court judges. And what might these 'essential facts' be? Ms Duarte helpfully goes on to clarify:
1. Gonçalo Amaral's book was published to make money.
2. Gonçalo Amaral's book had inflicted pain and suffering on her clients, the McCanns.
3. Gonçalo Amaral's book had impeded the search for Madeleine by entertaining the hypothesis that Madeleine in fact died on the night of her disappearance.
It is as well to bear in mind that we are not talking about a professional 'also ran' here. Ms Duarte is a pre-eminent legal representative and a candidate for election to the presidency of the Portuguese equivalent of our bar association. Any client of hers is entitled therefore to suppose her own grasp of Portuguese law to be complete. As far as is possible, subtlety of interpretation should position her advocacy several degrees above mere recourse to common sense. So what do the McCanns get for their money?
Gonçalo Amaral published a book to make money
Who doesn't? The McCanns themselves have just announced an intention to reap the benefit of their own 'account of the truth' in due course. Gonçalo Amaral is not a public information service. Even if he were, he would be entitled to recover his costs, surely. How is he supposed to do that without making money? Think of public transport services even. Buses, trains etc. carry passengers, but not before they've bought tickets.
Some years ago I bought my own daughter a 'teach yourself flute' video. She and I were both disappointed to discover that lesson one amounted to 'open the box and put the instrument together.' Isabel Duarte's 'essential fact' number one is itself so obvious, as well as irrelevant, that like the many such leads previously filed by the PJ, it scarcely warrants a second glance. Does Ms Duarte really suppose the Supreme Court in Portugal is likely to see it another way?
Gonçalo Amaral's book has inflicted pain and suffering on the McCanns
We might be dealing with a case of double entendre here, in as much as the hypothesis of Madeleine's death, be it right or wrong, might well cause the McCanns pain either way. However, supposing that said hypothesis is in error, and painful for that reason, it would have been painful when first put before the public. Amaral's book was published, in Portuguese, in July 2008. The McCanns libel action was commenced over a year later.
Pain and suffering is something we generally try to alleviate at the earliest opportunity. To suffer unduly over time is indicative either of a masochist or someone more fearful of the treatment than the malady. Self evidently the McCanns' pain and suffering was not sufficiently acute for them to do anything about it for a year at least. And in January this year they arranged and attended a society dinner, to be seen and photographed in the company of a variety of T.V. personalities. At £150 per head, this particular social gathering was a serious fund-raising event, not a vehicle for the relief of pain and suffering, of which there has been no public sign whatsoever since the McCanns 'got over' the first 48 hours, much less since publication of A Verdade da Mentira.
Question: Ms Duarte, could you please quantify, or at least evidence, the pain and suffering endured by your clients as a direct consequence of the material discussed in Dr Amaral's published work?
No? Then let us turn to 'essential fact' number three:
Gonçalo Amaral's book has impeded the search for Madeleine
The search for something lost carries a transitive connotation. Besides the person or object searched for there are the locations searched. It implies an active endeavour on someone's part. We may remind ourselves, ad nauseam almost, that searching, in these terms, is something the McCanns themselves have completely failed to do. We know also that their various investigative mercenaries have been remiss in this very same regard. Not so the host of Portuguese and others who dedicated their time and energy to that very task, in the immediate aftermath of the McCanns' protestations on the evening of May 3, 2007. They 'searched' alright.
Are the McCanns therefore concerned that Amaral is in some way inhibiting the actions of those who have already done their bit? Should all these good people, having once searched in vain, search anew? If so, how frequently? The McCanns, as we know, retain a team of staff whose job it is to search, co-ordinate the search, or raise money to fund the search, none of whom will have been in any way dissuaded by disparaging comments written in a foreign language. 'He who pays the piper...' and all that. Perhaps by 'searching' the McCanns really mean to describe the actions of the countless conscientious citizens worldwide who might be inclined to keep a watchful eye out for any child resembling Madeleine's description and who could conceivably be she. If so, then we are no longer talking about searching per se, but addressing behaviour which would not be influenced by third-party opinion in any language.
Consider, if you will, a rather outlandish analogy: A hypothetical team of 'Indiana Jones' types believe they are just a few clues from discovery of the Holy Grail, when along comes Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and explains, in print, why they are all wasting their time, because the Holy Grail is not actually a drinking vessel after all. So, to a man, the intrepid archaeologists give up their search. Having invested time, money and energy in pursuing their quarry, they down tools and go home, on Dan Brown's say so. Do they indeed? And if one or other of them happens to discover, in a not inappropriate location, a goblet conforming to his or her understanding of what the Holy Grail should be like, is that person likely to dismiss it as 'not the Holy Grail' because it contradicts Dan Brown's theory? Similarly, would anyone catching sight of a young girl with a conspicuous coloboma in her right eye and answering to the name Maddie ('She hated it when we called her that' - KM) ignore her completely on account of Gonçalo Amaral's opinion? This is a little girl's life we're talking about remember.
Question (We've been here already): Ms Duarte, could you please quantify or evidence the extent to which the search for Madeleine has been impeded by Dr Amaral's published work?
No? Then why on earth has this court been convened? Give the man his books back and stop wasting our time! And while you're at it you might just review your own career objectives (Plan B could come in handy).
Faced with a new client brief, any IPA accredited author will have at the back of his or her mind the club motto: Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful - a banner which has absolutely nothing in common with the court-room oath, 'I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth'. When it comes to writing promotional copy, the ground rules are simple: Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and if you must mess with Mister (or Mrs.) in between, then keep it out of the office. (Once the lights are on nobody sleeps).
Unlike the academic arena, where published discussion is evidence-based and even handed, tending, but no more than that, toward whichever interpretation appears to be favoured by the most recent data, promotional work is nothing if not biased. Whatever the product, as far as advertising is concerned there is never a 'downside.'
With these considerations in mind, certain material, only now available on the internet, makes for intriguing reading. Unlike Robert Redford's undercover associates in the film Three Days of the Condor, I do not have the time to read everything written about the Madeleine McCann affair. Chance alone has led me to some recent contributions posted on a newly established 'blog' entitled Gonçalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction. These would appear to be a mixture of comments 'lifted' from third-party sources and accompanied by contributions from the two principal authors, one of whom is identified as Vee8.
I do not propose to cross swords with these people, who may hold whatever opinions they wish of Gonçalo Amaral. Suffice to say that the recent 'Inside Out' broadcast by the BBC offers ample evidence of divergence in this regard, and how 'strength of feeling' can come across with as much apparent authority as authority itself. As stated, I do not have time to read everything, everywhere and, having skimmed the content of Gonçalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction, I am disinclined to read everything there also. That is my prerogative. But several aspects of this particular blog have caught my attention nonetheless, not least the home page announcement of its creation in the immediate aftermath of the injunction against Amaral's book being overturned on appeal; that and the fact it is linked directly to the McCanns' own Facebook site.
The article of Vee8's to which I was unexpectedly directed was posted on 18 November. Entitled 'A Tale of Two Bookies' it presents, in common with the general thrust of the blog, a negative interpretation of Gonçalo Amaral's publishing endeavours. Now, that in itself is not a heinous sin. We are each of us entitled to hold an opinion after all, as forum members of all complexions should appreciate. They will also be aware (and I state this merely as a matter of fact, not in order to appear condescending) that some contributors are more eloquent than others (this is especially so given the number of those struggling to make their voices heard in a foreign language - an effort for which they are to be applauded, certainly not derided). My point is that, with so many people from so many different backgrounds joining in the debate, the population of contributors will inevitably include 'media types', and we know that to be the case.
When we read something by an author who writes for a living, it will have a practised 'ring' to it. Typographical errors will be few and far between and certain stylistic inflexions may hold sway. Whereas the observations made by others may express, coherently or otherwise, their 'strength of feeling', i.e. their emotional stance, something constructed with due regard to the use of language is likely to be as 'deliberate' in its preparation as in its execution.
So what am I driving at?
The Tale of Two Bookies is nothing if not deliberate. Apart from a series of emotive quotes 'bagged up' and dismissed at the outset, it contains no genuinely negative observations (none with the potential to negate the author's own argument, that is). In short, it has the ring of a PR exercise. It is also lodged in a resource linked directly to that of the McCanns themselves.
Let's then take a closer look at some of the arguments advanced by Vee8.
"We have reason to believe that Amaral stated that a portion, (I think I remember reading the figure of 10%) of his profits will go to children's charities. A noble gesture, if true. The McCanns, on the other hand, make it very clear that ALL the profits from THEIR book will go to the fund that is financing the search for their missing daughter."
Leaving aside the vague 'reason to believe', we have Amaral ostensibly donating a mere 10% of his royalties to charitable causes, whereas the McCanns will donate all of their profits to the fund. But the fund, as we know, is not a charity. So the truth to be understood (rather than that portrayed) is: Amaral's charitable giving 10%. McCanns' charitable giving 0%.
The author then proceeds as follows:
"'The truth of the Lie' by Amaral, has sold several million copies to date, netting him somewhere in the region of 1.2 million euros in royalties. The McCann's search fund, at one point, topped over two million pounds. Since then the McCanns have been completely open and transparent with the funds, publishing a full annual account in the press for the scrutiny of the public. Amaral, however, has yet, as far as I know, to do the same. If he did promise to make a payment to children's charities it has, so far, yet to be made good. So what HAS Amaral done with all his profits?"
What this offers us, first and foremost, is confirmation that the metric underlying the McCanns' libel action against Gonçalo Amaral is his profits, not their suffering. It can surely be no coincidence that they are seeking damages of 1.2 million euros! Beyond that however we have the McCanns portrayed as 'completely open and transparent'... 'publishing a full annual account in the press for the scrutiny of the public.' This is in contradistinction to Gonçalo Amaral, who has done no such thing.
Let us also be completely, rather than partially transparent. The McCanns do not publish accounts in order to salve their consciences. The 'Fund' is a public limited company. As such it is legally obliged to publish its accounts. Gonçalo Amaral is neither of these things. (Would you pay to have your P60 published in the local newspaper?). Unless Vee8 is intercepting Amaral's personal correspondence, how does he or she presume to know whether or not this author has made and/or honoured any pledges to charity? Perhaps it has something to do with the unspecified 'reasons to believe.'
The remainder of the piece is sheer 'school of Goebbels' propaganda - decently written, but naïve in its propositions.
What we have here is a McCann PR vehicle. Its establishment immediately post the appeal decision could be taken as an expression of the couple's fear that Amaral's book will indeed appear in the U.K. Why so? Well, in just the same honest-to-goodness fashion that a genuinely libelled party will take action immediately, in order to minimise any damage done to their public image, so anyone feeling 'hot under the collar' about Gonçalo Amaral in general and his book (in Portuguese) in particular, would have set up their blog and vented their spleen long since.
It has previously been suggested elsewhere that Amaral could not, in any case, publish A Verdade da Mentira in the U.K., for fear of infringeing U.K. libel laws. With the lifting of the injunction he clearly has a 'window of opportunity' and I would venture to suggest that, since any half-way decent translation would have to be typeset anew, any version to be put before an English speaking audience would be thoroughly vetted and edited to leave not so much as a hint of libel. Should an English edition of A Verdade da Mentira play strictly by the rules therefore, the McCanns would find themselves on a very sticky wicket indeed - and they know it.
What Gonçalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction represents is a pre-emptive strike against a moving target. The Japanese, having learnt from an escapade by the British at Taranto a year or so earlier, learnt again, after Pearl Harbour, that such an action can only be truly effective if the whole fleet's at anchor. Had the American aircraft carriers been at home when the Japanese called, history would, no doubt, have taken an altogether different turn. Likewise, the best the McCanns can do in the face of an impending literary assault, is attempt somehow to discredit the author in advance. (They dare not wait until his book has been read the length and breadth of the country). The trouble is they know not what, exactly, might appear in print, nor when. And Gonçalo Amaral, I am reliably informed, is not one to broadcast his intentions.
Lost in translation - 07 December 2010
Linguistics is a fascinating and rigorous discipline. To understand how language works in the service of human communication is, in large measure, to understand what it is to be human. As those with even a modest degree of fluency in more than one language will readily appreciate, to move between them is not, as others might naively suppose, merely an exercise in syntactic reworking; a case of just making sure the grammatical rules of the target language are observed while plugging in the requisite parts of speech, duly converted according to the appropriate lexicon. That way lies, for example, the sort of 'Google translate' representation, in German, of a certain well-known English web-site. Properly accomplished, translation is an altogether more subtle and complex pursuit than that.
Not all exercises in translation are entirely 'linguistic' of course. Some scarcely invoke spoken language at all. One might reasonably identify a building as a contractor's 'translation' of an architect's plan, or describe the atomic bomb as a translation, into tangible form, of Einstein's remarkable equation (e=mc2). Then there are the half-way house sort of verbal exercises, where the interpreter remains within the boundaries of a sole language context, as it were, producing a more generally intelligible variant of an original work (book, lecture or whatever) otherwise impenetrable to a lay audience. One might refer to coded intelligence reports being 'translated' for the benefit of their political scrutineers, as was the case in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. And from the outcome of that enterprise we see with absolute clarity how crucial it is that semantic integrity is not violated. For the accuracy of any verbal reconfiguration reflects directly upon the integrity of the individual producing it.
This view is openly shared by commentators at the fledgling 'blog' Goncalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction who, in supporting the McCanns in their time of distress, seem to favour libelling Amaral, in both his personal and professional capacities, over any positive steps that might be taken to procure an effective search for the couple's missing daughter. Specifically, an individual going by the sobriquet of 'Ines' is identified by one blog contributor as having 'a deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity of translation,' an observation I would not presume to contest. I would merely point out that the translations by Ines (those pertinent to any discussion of the McCann case at least) are between languages, i.e. Portuguese and English.
Though perhaps not so scrupulous in their eyes, Duarte Levy too is a capable multi-lingual and described equally, by said adherent of Ines, as a 'translator.' Indeed he has been credited by this same observer as having translated (and in so doing corrupted) Jane Tanner's rogatory interview, the effort being visible to all on McCannfiles. At this point I must needs quote a paragraph in its entirety in order for what follows to be properly understood:
"Less extreme, but nonetheless damaging and revealing of the calibre of the man, was his corruption of the Jane Tanner rogatory interview by Leicestershire police. It still exists on a resource, themccannfiles, run by another vehement anti, Nigel Moore. The resource itself is useful, but needs to be read carefully and discerningly to separate that which genuninely (sic) informs from that which blatantly misleads, as Levy's rendering of the Jane Tanner interview, displayed on that site, does. Not too much has been made of Levy's translation, perhaps because a more reliable version, produced by another Portuguese national, Ines, with a deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity of translation, exists elsewhere." (Emphasis mine. This author previously explains that Levy is, in fact, Belgian - 'a freelance Belgian journalist' is the phrase used. In addition, Ines is not a Portuguese national).
The article continues:
"From the Levy translation, we apparently learn…."
What is important here is that we focus on Levy's 'translation,' not what we may or may not learn from it. Note too, if you will, its prior description as a 'rendering.'
I should like to think that, in common with 'vehement anti' Nigel Moore and others, I might be numbered among those who hold to certain values, again picked out by the studious author under consideration here as being of some importance ("It seems that, among certain antis (I don't say all) qualities of honour, integrity and probity are observed..."), 'integrity' being explicitly numbered among several desirable qualities (we'll gloss over our sense of honour being portrayed as 'honour among thieves' and add simply that the bite of a snake is potentially as much a health hazard to its own tail as to other creatures).
Having spoken of integrity in the course of translation, since it has been placed in a broader context by our Levy critic, we ought now perhaps to consider integrity in the round.
The paragraph cited earlier unambiguously and unfavourably compares Duarte Levy's 'unreliable' translation of rogatory interviews, Jane Tanner's in particular, with the efforts of Ines, whose work is noted for its 'integrity'. But the common focus for comparison here is the English transcript of an interview conducted by Leicestershire Police, in English, of a native speaker. What was there to 'translate?'
This critic of Duarte Levy's verisimilitude is clearly implying that both Levy and Ines translated something from Portuguese into English, the latter making a more respectable job of it, whilst Levy, for his part, deliberately corrupted the script, so as to place Ms Tanner and her Tapas associates in a less than favourable light.
Something, dear reader, has been lost in translation, and that something is 'the truth'. But it was not lost by Levy. Not by a long chalk.
Duarte's "version" is a word-for-word, completely correct rendition of the Jane Tanner interview conducted and recorded for posterity in English. Ines' 'translation' simply purges meaningless interjections so as to produce a more coherent 'read.' There is only one written source for the rogatory interviews and it is in English, directly transcribed by Leicestershire police, unredacted and timed to match the accompanying visual recording.
The disingenuous defence of this unwarranted manipulation by the blog poster in question (Honestbroker) will doubtless be that by 'translation' was meant merely 'interpretation.' (A 'half-way house' class of exercise, remember?) Well, it's possible to be too clever on occasion. Like Duarte Levy perhaps, who is further credited with 'translation' thus:
"Here is the relevant extract from the Levy translation, and the corresponding version from the official translation..."
Ines' version is to be preferred apparently. It's 'official' after all.
Now, what was that again about anti McCanns with integrity sharing in 'honour among thieves'?
Note: The article by Dr Martin Roberts, above, was based on the following blog entry, entitled 'Team Amaral', which made a specific, and wholly untrue, attack against the integrity of information presented on this site:
Team Amaral by 'Honestbroker' - Extract Posted 03 December 2010
Less extreme, but nonetheless damaging and revealing of the calibre of the man [Duarte Levy], was his corruption of the Jane Tanner rogatory interview by Leicestershire police. It still exists on a resource, the mccannfiles, run by another vehement anti, Nigel Moore. The resource itself is useful, but needs to be read carefully and discerningly to separate that which genuninely informs from that which blatantly misleads, as Levy's rendering of the Jane Tanner interview, displayed on that site, does. Not too much has been made of Levy's translation, perhaps because a more reliable version, produced by another Portuguese national, Ines, with a deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity of translation, exists elsewhere.
From the Levy translation, we apparently learn that Jane Tanner identified another of the McCanns' friends, Dianne Webster, mother of Fiona Payne, as the heaviest drinker in the party, and we are apparently told that all the others in the party had more to drink on the night May 3rd than Jane Tanner. We are also asked to believe that the interviewing officer, Sofie Feargason, quipped that looking after all those children might be the cause of Dianne Webster drinking so much. Scurrilous rumours circulate in anti circles about how much was drunk by the party that night. Perhaps this is the source?
Here is the relevant extract from the Levy translation, and the corresponding version from the official translation:
Levy's version
"And because it will affect your recollection of what happened and things, how much had you drank that night?"
Reply "The thing is, that night I probably drunk less than a lot of the others, because I'd been at the table probably only for, well an hour, forty minutes at that, you know, not very long at all, by the time we all sat down and actually ordered the wine it was almost nine o'clock anyway because everybody was so late, so, you know, I wasn't, I hadn't had that much to drink and because we'd had more to drink the night before I think we were drinking more slowly anyway. And I hadn't had, whereas normally I would have probably had a beer on the beach, I can actually remember".
4078 "Orange juice".
Reply "It was an orange juice that we'd had on the beach. So, no, I wasn't, at that, at, especially, well, I definitely roaring drunk at that point?"
4078 "And what about the rest of the group, can you comment on what they were drinking?"
Reply "Erm, no, we just tended to stick with, because the wine was included, we tended to stick with just the, the wine that was given, so. I'll tell you, the person who drank most of the wine was actually Fiona's mum, Dianne was the, was the biggest drinker of the lot of us actually, which is quite".
4078 "It's coping with all those children around her".
Reply "Yeah, exactly. So, no, I mean, nobody was, nobody was that drunk that night at all".
Ines' version:
4078 "And you know you had said on the Wednesday, I think it was the Wednesday night, yeah, you said that you had stayed later and had more to drink than the previous nights?"
Reply "Umm".
4078 "Do you remember sort of roughly how much you'd had?"
Reply "No, I mean, we weren't, I mean, we weren't sort of like roaring drunk, it wasn't. But I think just because we'd been there longer we probably had, I mean, I'd say I'd probably had four glasses of wine and then maybe the, I think at the end, I can't remember what sort of a liqueur at the end, so".
4078 "That is not a lot in the course of the evening?"
Reply "No, I mean, over the, it wasn't, it wasn't loads, but, I mean, it was probably more than other nights probably".
From the Levy version, we also, apparently, learn that Jane Tanner expressed doubts about the sex of the child she saw the man carrying. No such reference exists in the Ines translation. I've never seen reference to that anywhere else.
The truth about the lie of 'Gonçalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction' by Nigel Moore - 08 December 2010
As already discussed in Dr Martin Robert's article Lost In Translation, 07 December 2010, there has only ever been one version of the rogatory interviews - that being in English. It has therefore been impossible for anyone to translate a Portuguese version when such a version has never existed.
The so-called 'Levy version' and 'Ines version' are identical apart from Ines' removal of interjections, purely in order to facilitate an easier read.
Under normal circumstamces, this kind of nonsense would not even be worthy of a response but this particular blog is provided as a link on the 'Official Find Madeleine Campaign' Facebook site and we must assume, in light of any contrary evidence, that it receives the blessing of the McCanns themselves.
Readers might also like to consider this particular blog entry in conjunction with Pearl Harbour - the previous piece by Dr Martin Roberts.
Comparison of the 'versions' quoted
On the question of drink:
'Levy version'
4078 "And you know you had said on the Wednesday, I think it was the Wednesday night, yeah, you said that you had stayed later and had more to drink than the previous nights?"
Reply "Umm".
4078 "Do you remember sort of roughly how much you'd had?"
Reply "No, I mean, we weren't, you know, I mean, we weren't sort of like roaring drunk, it wasn't. Erm, but I think just because we'd been there longer we probably had, I mean, I'd say I'd probably had four glasses of wine and then maybe the, I think at the end, I can't remember what sort of a liqueur at the end, so".
4078 "That is not a lot in the course of the evening?"
Reply "No, I mean, over the, it wasn't, it wasn't loads, but, I mean, it was probably more than other nights probably".
'Ines version'
4078 "And you know you had said on the Wednesday, I think it was the Wednesday night, yeah, you said that you had stayed later and had more to drink than the previous nights?"
Reply "Umm".
4078 "Do you remember sort of roughly how much you'd had?"
Reply "No, I mean, we weren't, I mean, we weren't sort of like roaring drunk, it wasn't. But I think just because we'd been there longer we probably had, I mean, I'd say I'd probably had four glasses of wine and then maybe the, I think at the end, I can't remember what sort of a liqueur at the end, so".
4078 "That is not a lot in the course of the evening?"
Reply "No, I mean, over the, it wasn't, it wasn't loads, but, I mean, it was probably more than other nights probably".
Later, on the same subject:
'Levy version'
4078 "And because it will affect your recollection of what happened and things, how much had you drank that night?"
Reply "The thing is, that night I probably drunk less than a lot of the others, because I'd been at the table probably only for, well an hour, forty minutes at that, you know, not very long at all, by the time we all sat down and actually ordered the wine it was almost nine o'clock anyway because everybody was so late, so, you know, I wasn't, I hadn't had that much to drink and because we'd had more to drink the night before I think we were drinking more slowly anyway. And I hadn't had, whereas normally I would have probably had a beer on the beach, I can actually remember".
4078 "Orange juice".
Reply "It was an orange juice that we'd had on the beach. So, no, I wasn't, at that, at, especially, well, I definitely roaring drunk at that point?"
4078 "And what about the rest of the group, can you comment on what they were drinking?"
Reply "Erm, no, we just tended to stick with, because the wine was included, we tended to stick with just the, the wine that was given, so. I'll tell you, the person who drank most of the wine was actually Fiona's mum, Dianne was the, was the biggest drinker of the lot of us actually, which is quite".
4078 "It's coping with all those children around her".
Reply "Yeah, exactly. So, no, I mean, nobody was, nobody was that drunk that night at all".
'Ines version'
4078 "And because it will affect your recollection of what happened and things, how much had you drank that night?"
Reply "The thing is, that night I probably drunk less than a lot of the others, because I'd been at the table probably only for, well an hour, forty minutes at that, you know, not very long at all, by the time we all sat down and actually ordered the wine it was almost nine o'clock anyway because everybody was so late, so, you know, I wasn't, I hadn't had that much to drink and because we'd had more to drink the night before I think we were drinking more slowly anyway. And I hadn't had, whereas normally I would have probably had a beer on the beach, I can actually remember".
4078 "Orange juice".
Reply "It was an orange juice that we'd had on the beach. So, no, I wasn't, at that, at, especially, well, I definitely roaring drunk at that point?"
4078 "And what about the rest of the group, can you comment on what they were drinking?"
Reply "Erm, no, we just tended to stick with, because the wine was included, we tended to stick with just the, the wine that was given, so. I'll tell you, the person who drank most of the wine was actually Fiona's mum, Dianne was the, was the biggest drinker of the lot of us actually, which is quite".
4078 "It's coping with all those children around her".
Reply "Yeah, exactly. So, no, I mean, nobody was, nobody was that drunk that night at all".
Doubts about the sex of the child:
'Levy version'
Reply "...I've always wondered whether that was a little girl, is it, are you going to plant into your head the pink pyjamas. It was the bottom bit of them that gives me the most thought in my own head that it was Madeleine. So I don't know, I feel, I thought I saw pink pyjamas and I thought I could see colours but I don't know, it was fairly orange so I don't know."
4078 "Okay, so you think it was pink but you accept that it may not have been, the colour may have been distorted or it might have been such the power of suggestion I suppose."
Reply "That could have been that for me because the pyjamas I really tried to, it was in the interview the next day when they really pushed me you know I think you call it cognitive interview or whatever, really pushed me to get an idea of you know more details about the person and it was then that you know sort of the description of the pyjamas was more in my head than I'd initial, it was mainly the feet as an initial thing."
4078 "Yeah."
Reply "But err so I don't know, I may, that is the one I don't know maybe that was power of suggestion but I thought I saw a pattern on the bottom."
'Ines version'
Reply "...I've always wondered whether that was a little girl, is it, are you going to plant into your head the pink pyjamas. It was the bottom bit of them that gives me the most thought in my own head that it was Madeleine. So I don't know, I feel, I thought I saw pink pyjamas and I thought I could see colours but I don't know, it was fairly orange so I don't know."
4078 "Okay, so you think it was pink but you accept that it may not have been, the colour may have been distorted or it might have been such the power of suggestion I suppose."
Reply "That could have been that for me because the pyjamas I really tried to, it was in the interview the next day when they really pushed me you know I think you call it cognitive interview or whatever, really pushed me to get an idea of you know more details about the person and it was then that you know sort of the description of the pyjamas was more in my head than I'd initial, it was mainly the feet as an initial thing."
4078 "Yeah."
Reply "But err so I don't know, I may, that is the one I don't know maybe that was power of suggestion but I thought I saw a pattern on the bottom."
Postscript Gonçalo Amaral, Fact of the Fiction by 'Honestbroker - 09 December 2010
I confess to an error in this piece which has been excised from the original article. I suggested certain differences between offerings of the Jane Tanner statement on different sites that in fact weren't there. Obviously the easiest way to have compared the two statements would have been to run off hard copies, but my printer is unserviceable and I had to switch between the two sites reading on screen – difficult for a statement of that length – and I accept that aligned the relevant sections wrong.
As the article (as amended) makes plain, Levy is a fraud and it is also true that he got hold of copies of some of the rogatory interviews, including Jane Tanner's. On closer inspection I note that his name is actually associated with the statements on both sites. We must just hope that he hasn't tampered with the rogatory interviews as well.
And my final word! by Nigel Moore - 09 December 2010
The truth is simple: there never was, and never has been, a 'Levy version' of the rogatory interviews. That they have acquired such a name is simply because Duarte Levy published them on his site - to which people linked their blogs/sites. There is only one original version.
Letter to the editor - 23 December 2010
Dear Gerry McCann
I should like to draw your attention to one or two comments made recently by your guest author (you know, the one who's just finished writing that book) in the context of a Christmas message posted on Facebook recently.
As far as I recall, Madeleine McCann is suspected by your lead investigator of being sequestered somewhere in the Badlands of the Portuguese Algarve, probably within a 10-mile radius of the point from which she so mysteriously vanished nearly four years ago. Very soon after her disappearance (four days afterwards in fact) you looked distinctly disapproving as your wife Kate said, during an appeal to camera:
"We would like to say a few words to the person who is with our Madeleine, or has been with Madeleine."
What, under other circumstances (to coin another of your wife's turns of phrase), might be considered an address to a baby-sitter, seems totally inappropriate as an approach to a vagrant, child-molesting abductor. You thought so then. Why do you not think so now?
“We hope with all our hearts that wherever she is, she is safe and well and whoever may be with her..."
Is it not a touch naïve, to say the least, to expect that someone presumed to have paedophile tendencies... "is treating her with the love and respect she so deserves."?
Now a word or two about 'injustice', if I may.
You have not seen fit, obviously, to question your author’s contention of 'pain by proxy.' Whilst I am sure your readers will readily understand the concept of empathy, and how we all of us will have experienced, to some degree, sympathy pains of one complexion or another, it is difficult to understand quite how such an affliction may be more onerous than the suffering endured by the actual victim. Unless, perhaps, one considers suffering from a somewhat metaphorical point of view.
At this time of year a suddenly destitute parent, unexpectedly unable to meet those inevitable requests from Santa, might not feel the absence of the latest 'must have' gadget quite so acutely as the youngster seemingly so badly in need of it. The 'knock on' effect of a cash-flow shortage, you might say. In cases of genuine hardship of course, the boot is more often than not on the other foot. Children, by and large, are remarkably resilient and adaptable. It is the hapless parent with a more complete grasp of the situation who feels for them, and in a way that they can appear oblivious to themselves. All in all it does seem rather as though the passing on of amplified 'suffering' is a phenomenon related more to money and expectation than genuine trauma. What you never had, you never miss.
An awareness of 'justice' is noteworthy nevertheless.
However, like so many concepts in life, it is easy to overlook the concomitant fact that justice is, in principle at least, a 'two way street.' Like a mathematical equation, if it doesn't balance out then something is wrong. With that in mind, might we consider Madeleine's suffering on account of injustice done to your goodselves from an alternative perspective, i.e. Madeleine's being the beneficiary of justice?
"Thank you to all those who have signed our petition calling on the UK and Portuguese Governments to conduct an independent review of Madeleine's case."
A review which, if carried out, could lead to a 're-opening' (your author's words on a previous occasion). That would indeed be a pursuit of justice and, following your approved line of argument, of direct benefit to Madeleine. And yet your Portuguese legal representative (an official of justice, if you will) has openly stated that there are circumstances in which you would not wish the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance to be re-opened. Does it not follow therefore, that with 'qualified' levels of justice there must be 'qualified' benefit to your daughter? As one concept is espoused then, another (unconditional love) is relegated.
A good editor, in my experience, will do more than simply correct aberrant punctuation. They will also question apparent statements of fact, for the very obvious and sensible reason that they might not be facts after all. Entombed within the following paragraph (concerned again with the author's own experience of 'suffering' and 'injustice') is one such.
"The Wikileaks 'news' this week has led to the repetition of many unfounded allegations and smears both in the UK and in Portugal in particular. This has been seized on as an opportunity by those who wish to compound our suffering and hamper our efforts, including the very person who was entrusted with finding our daughter. Those who could help Madeleine but choose to do nothing are also complicit in this injustice. Without the love and help from so many good people around the world we would not be able to find the strength to continue the fight to find our daughter."
Among those intent on compounding suffering and hampering 'efforts' is 'the very person who was entrusted with finding our daughter.' You know, if I were that person, I might consider this accusation of malicious interference to be libellous. It's a good job the writer didn't name the individual in question. Anyway, to set minds at rest, it cannot be Dr Goncalo Amaral, can it? He was the co-ordinator of an investigation into Madeleine McCann's mysterious disappearance, wasn't he? I don't recall his being at any time nominated for the role of (or 'entrusted with') finding your daughter, a pursuit which, somewhat strangely, has become a 'fight.' Is this the context in which we are to understand the 'efforts' previously alluded to by any chance?
I don't suppose your guest author fully grasped the ramifications of this next statement. Nor did you, since you let it pass.
"Those who could help Madeleine but choose to do nothing are also complicit in this injustice."
It's one of those observations, the truth of which is unaffected by a change of tense, i.e. 'Those who could have helped Madeleine but chose to do nothing are also complicit in (this) injustice.'
This must perforce include the likes of those who volunteered to 'look in' on Madeleine, yet deliberately saw nothing. The mother who, on entering a cold apartment (it must have been so if the window was open) had, as her first thought, closing the bedroom door without looking in on anybody, and leaving her children exposed to a draught, without so much as a thought for covering her eldest daughter; the same daughter who had been left asleep on the bed not in it, and who was subsequently, according to the mother, indistinguishable from the bedclothes. Then there are those who claim to have witnessed Madeleine's abduction yet did nothing at the time, either to prevent it or report it, and delayed commenting upon it to the parents for hours. And isn't silence in the face of repeated questioning an instance of 'doing nothing?'
All in all sir, a questionable piece by your approved scribe. Should you yourself be contemplating a career path similar to that of former editor Piers Morgan, you'd perhaps be well advised to consider avenues other than judging Britain's Got Talent hopefuls. That vacancy has already been filled.
