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About Innocence
The Lie Detector
Swindler's List
Laid to Rest
Possible Certainty
Expert Opinion
Houston, We Have a Problem
Alberta McCann?
Monday's Child
Swimming Against The Tide
Sadly or, Sadly
Mental Fatigue
All the Premier's Men
Famous Last Words
Schadenfraud
About Innocence –
08.01.2014
Readers will no doubt be aware of, or may probably have seen the very recent ITV broadcast: The Lying Game – Crimes That Fooled Britain. For a production which leant heavily upon the contributions of currently active Academics, it was disappointing on a number of levels, not the least of which being the altogether cavalier and confusing way in which the term 'innocent' was bandied about. The reduction of descriptive comparison, very early on, to 'this man is innocent, this man is guilty', with nothing of the circumstantial context in either case, was frankly irresponsible. It is scarcely made less so when the term is liberally applied in relation to more explicit past examples of wrongdoing, even those that have been tested in a court of law.
The term 'innocent' is absolute, and not therefore entirely appropriate in every case, which will obviously include those where it is bestowed on the balance of probability. It would be a mistake to suppose that miscarriages of justice occur in one direction alone. There will inevitably be occasions where individuals are found 'innocent of all charges', despite their having committed the crime(s), just as there are those who, having been declared 'guilty' in the first instance, are acquitted following an appeal, or where the initial case against them collapses owing to some legal technicality or other. The latter situation is therefore more an example of 'case not proven' (or perhaps not even fully examined) than it is a demonstration of innocence per se.
Like a vial of nitro-glycerine, the word 'innocent', when used within in a legal context, is very sensitive, and should be handled with care. A citizen first found guilty of a crime by a jury of his or her peers, and who goes on to lodge a successful appeal is ultimately innocent therefore, or is at least to be viewed as such after due legal process. But guilt or innocence, like the weather, is not something that can be 'traded'. (The now defunct Enron corporation attempted the latter, but their collapse only served to prove the point). As regards the commission of a crime, someone is either guilty or innocent, literally. They cannot be both. Nor can their status migrate, in reality, from one to the other. And yet re-trials, appeals etc. give the impression of this happening. It is worthwhile therefore to distinguish between guilt and innocence in absolute terms, and those same attributes as finally determined by a court of law, since the two may not (indeed will not) be the same on every occasion.
With this caveat in view, what should one make of a professional's assessment that the McCanns are 'one hundred per cent innocent'? (At least Dr Leal, in this instance, did not succumb to the popular temptation to exceed the bounds of calculation and confer 110% innocence. She won't therefore be featuring as a judge for one of Simon Cowell's televised competitions any time soon). As 'sloppy' a remark as the 'Four legs good two legs bad' statement at the head of the programme, Dr Leal's observation fails to inform us of quite what it is that the McCanns are innocent of! Similarly the programme gave viewers to understand, albeit indirectly, that dingos now know how to fold clothing, following a batch illustration (although not demonstration) of 'innocence.'
It was all very slipshod.
One thing at least which Dr Leal overlooked was the innocence of a third McCann – Madeleine. Perhaps in a future programme, instead of treating us to a reworking of skill performance studies conducted over fifty years ago, Dr Leal might invite the McCanns themselves to elaborate upon their own assessments of their daughter's innocence:
GMC:
"I think Madeleine's picture herself that she was such a beautiful innocent young girl."(IBA conference, Madrid, 6.10.09)"...it's about Madeleine and there's an innocent little girl that's missing (McCanns exclusive interview with SIC, 12.5.2009
"Why would someone try to persuade the public that a missing child, an innocent missing child, is dead? (McCanns exclusive interview with SIC, 12.5.2009)
"But
Madeleine's rights should be put first. She's missing, she's innocent,
and whoever's taken her is still out there, and that has to be of
paramount importance."(Daily Mirror, 19.2.2010)
KMC: "It is still incumbent upon the British and Portuguese authorities to ensure that every credible lead has been investigated and that a meaning... meaningful search for an innocent and vulnerable little girl, our dearly loved Madeleine, is properly carried out."(Please Don't Give Up On Madeleine, 19.2.2010 - McCanns' statement)
"Kate McCann sent an emotional letter to the head of the Portuguese police begging him to keep her informed during the investigation into her daughter Madeleine's disappearance.
"In it she pleaded for an end to 'finger-pointing blame and a return to finding 'a beautiful, innocent little girl who is still missing', case files revealed today." (Sky News video 12.37 - 6.8.2008)
The MC: "Our little girl is now seven years old; innocent, vulnerable and waiting to be found. Please, please sign the petition and help us to find her."(Findmadeleine.com 3.11.2010)
The Lie Detector –
09.01.2014
Congratulations to Dr
Sharon Leal, for having caused more controversy with one sentence
than many accomplish with a book. Her future as a media source of
expert opinion is guaranteed (the likelihood of any court appearances
in said capacity remote in the extreme).
During my own student
days many years ago, I was once counselled: ‘Believe your data’,
the message being not to attempt an explanation of experimental
outcomes that was not reflected in the concomitant results of
statistical analysis. In other words, do not engage in unfounded
speculation as to causes or outcomes. Dr Leal, in contrast, holder of
goodness knows what research grants, appears to believe in some other
sort of scientific method, where ‘opinion’ alone can carry the
weight of evidence.
The statement, 'the
McCanns are 100% innocent (from my point of view)' would be perfectly
acceptable in conclusion of a thorough-going appraisal of the
McCanns' behaviour over time, i.e., one which addressed all of the
variables acknowledged by those engaged in such a study to be worthy
of consideration in any overall assessment. Otherwise it is fine as
an after-dinner observation, or made over cocktails at the hotel bar
even, but offered up without the support of evidential data and a
rigorous argument as to the implication(s) thereof, itself based upon
a significant statistical outcome, it is inappropriate, indeed
unjustifiable as a representation of any professional determination.
In other words it is not worth the breath that bore it.
However.
If the expertise of Dr
Leal is such as to be influential at even a cursory level of
assessment by herself, then, in the context of a television programme
dealing explicitly with the topic of criminals lying about their
actions, and in the complete absence of any qualifying accusation,
whether valid or otherwise, 'the McCanns are 100% innocent' must be
read as 'the McCanns have not lied'.
Immediately one can see
the fallacy in this argument, as there exists incontestable proof
that they have lied. Various of their false statements have long been
a matter of spoken (and written) record.
But more illuminating yet
than a catalogue of behaviours, which even the untrained examiner
might take to contradict the supposedly more informed approach of Dr
Leal, is the outcome of subscribing unreservedly to her very
position; a position which, ipso facto, confers the status of truth
upon the McCanns' own actions and utterances.
Hence Kate MC's most
magnificent Freudian slip tells us, in no uncertain terms, that MMC is dead, and has been so since before KMC
declared publicly (to Sara Antunes de Oliveira, SIC, 9 March, 2010):
We're not going to
sit here and lie and be totally naïve and say she's one hundred per
cent alive.
And no, that is not
over-interpretation. KMC did not say:
We're not going to
sit here and lie OR be totally naïve and say she's one hundred per
cent alive.
Lying and naivety are
conjoined. And since lies are spoken for the most part (we're not
concerned here with the written word), saying Madeleine is one
hundred per cent alive is, in this instance, to be equated with
lying.
Which makes the
fundraising, both before and since, the biggest lie of all (Dr Leal).
Swindler's List –
10.01.2014
'Voice breaking with
emotion, Gerry McCann read out a statement after disembarking from
the plane at East Midlands Airport in which he said that he and Kate
had "played no part in Madeleine's disappearance"' (Daily
Mail).
It has long since puzzled
me how Gerry McCann could have so readily fulfilled the demands of
his assumed role on this occasion, given both the McCanns' earlier
acceptance of their tacit involvement (they actually encouraged an
understanding that their 'checks' were spaced at half hourly
intervals at least) and the documented reluctance of unpractised
liars to do just that. Quite unexpectedly, after seven years, Dr.
Sharon Leal has kindly solved that particular riddle.
Briefed, as Dr. Leal must
have been, to provide an instance of the McCanns' exemplifying her
particular criteria for lie detection (or the absence thereof), why
should she have settled on the very first public announcement either
of them made, when there have been so many since?
To judge from other
experts' behavioural analyses of lying, most, if not all, of Gerry
McCann's 'pieces to camera' are plagued by tell-tale 'non-verbal'
signs of one kind or another; hand gestures in the main. His ear
lobes, nose and scalp would be generally safe from assault if his
hands were occupied elsewhere, but Kate can only reasonably be
expected to hold one at a time, leaving the other free to run riot –
which, more often than not, it does. Despite the hours of footage
available to her therefore, Dr. Leal would have found very little
that was untainted; except, that is, for those moments when Gerry
McCann has both hands full (i.e., 'silenced'), as when holding a
piece of paper, for instance.
Suddenly the available
exemplars are dramatically reduced in number. Furthermore, the
purpose of the paper itself must be taken into consideration. As Dr.
Leal informs us, if a speaker should equip themselves with a list of
things he must be certain to remember, he won't think that looks
suspicious', whereas 'a liar might believe that that is suspicious'.
After several months
spent coming to terms with 'the situation they found themselves in',
the McCanns would hardly have needed a list of prompts in order to
deliver their homecoming pronouncement from the airport runway. Which
further reduces the suitable options to include that very first
emergence before the cameras in Praia da Luz, when Gerry McCann,
according to Dr. Leal, 'brought out the list of things he must be
certain to remember'. Except of course, he didn't.
For those brief moments,
Gerry McCann was not extemporizing spontaneously with the aid of a
'crib sheet', any more than he would do so subsequently at East
Midlands Airport, for example (he did not do so there either). He
was, instead, reading a statement prepared beforehand. To attempt an
evaluation of Gerry McCann's innocence on that basis alone is akin to
accusing (or absolving) Sir Lawrence Olivier of Richard III's lies,
as previously articulated by William Shakespeare.
In reality Gerry McCann
was distanced from the text of his 'speeches' in terms both of time
(they were written earlier) and emotional investment, which, although
seemingly apparent, is anything but spontaneous. Actors too are able
to cry 'on cue'.
In meeting her brief as
best she could, Dr. Sharon Leal earned her fee. With so little
material to work with she has to be satisfied that she was able to do
so at all. But the machinations that must have gone into her choice
of illustration suggest that, despite its title, the true purpose of
the ITV programme, The Lying Game, was something other than reminding
us all of what they had previously told us, five years ago now, in
Tears, Lies and Videotape; a programme which contained much the same
material, but with explicit exoneration of the McCanns falling to
'Mirror' journalist Rod Chayter ("The McCanns. Clearly innocent.
Absolutely clearly innocent"). The voice of an 'expert' was no
doubt viewed by the producers as more convincing on this occasion.
Laid to Rest –
18.01.2014
The normal distribution
determines that most people will learn from their own mistakes. A few
will have the good fortune to learn from the mistakes of others,
while an equal proportion will struggle to learn anything at all, and
probably go on to join an internet forum where they can exclusively
discuss what they consider to be the 'stupidity' of others, while
remaining completely oblivious to their own.
It is not a crime,
legally or otherwise, for anyone to form a view or hold an opinion as
regards on-going tragedy. As a social animal we thrive on discussion
and, until the facts are known, speculation, as much as anything
else, serves to keep a topic alive in the public consciousness. In a
more close-knit, thinking community, it might be considered
'conjecture'. Whatever one may choose to call it however, it is
entirely permissible, not something to be dismissively frowned upon,
and, most importantly, sometimes correct. Given a clear bi-polar
argument both parties cannot be wrong. Indeed science thrives upon
the experimental resolution of such hypothetical conflicts. (...)
A former Portuguese
police co-ordinator, Goncalo Amaral is nobody's fool. In terms of the
normal distribution referred to above he is comfortably among the 68%
in the middle, but in terms of police work, and given his
professional experience, he most likely resides among the upper
quartile. Hence he ought perhaps to take more than a passing interest
in events of the last few days in Scotland. For whilst the police and
other forces there have clearly played the situation 'by the book',
and not laid themselves open to accusation of error in so doing, in
the light of what we now know, had the search persisted, and proved
entirely fruitless into the bargain, it would have been, in truth, an
error-prone procedure; not a deliberate one I hasten to add, but a
factual one nonetheless.
Goncalo Amaral might
therefore consider himself in a position to learn from a mistake or
two: a mistaken (although entirely sensible) assumption on the part
of Scottish community members, police and populace alike, that little
Mikaeel was wandering in the wilderness, and a view which he and his
former police colleagues once shared – that Madeleine McCann
suffered an accident on the night of Thursday 3 May, 2007. But who
actually put the McCann children to bed that Thursday night?
KM (statement to police,
6.9.07): 'They also kissed Madeleine, who was already lying down. She
was under the covers, she thinks, because it was a bit cold... She
remained lying down on her left side, with the soft toy and a pink
blanket, which she thinks was covering her.'
GM (from the documentary,
Madeleine Was Here):"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."
KM (6.9.07): 'After Gerry
arrived the children went to brush their teeth and she then read them
another story, this time all four of them sitting on Madeleine's bed.
She thinks that Gerry entered the room, but does not recall him
sitting on the bed.… she thinks that Gerry was in the room, and
each one of them, the deponent and Gerry, placed a twin in its cot at
the same time, between Madeleine's bed and the bed under the window.
They also kissed Madeleine, who was already lying down.'
GM (statement to police,
10.5.07): 'At around 19H00, he made his way to the apartment, finding
Kate and the children playing on the sofa. About 10 to 15 minutes
later, they took the children to the bedroom and they all sat on
Madeleine's bed to read a story.'
KM (6.9.07): 'They talked
while they drank, until they left for the Tapas restaurant at around
8.30-8.35 p.m. Before leaving they checked on the children, she
doesn't know who; however Gerry says it was him. She only knows the
children were quiet. She doesn't know if they were in their same
positions. She says she is sure that they were asleep, because Gerry
told her so and all was quiet.'
Possible Certainty –
23.01.2014
Some things are certainly
possible, others possibly certain, but let the McCanns loose on a
QWERTY keyboard and semantics are certain to be twisted into all
manner of extraordinary forms.
"Based on more
recent information, the Metropolitan Police now believe this man may
represent a guest at the Ocean Club who was carrying his daughter
back to their apartment...it is not possible to be certain that these
two men are actually the same person".
Admittedly this
qualification of Scotland Yard's position does not entail illogical
extension of an absolute, as in 'certainer' (cf. 'stupider') – just
illogical extension.
The Metropolitan police
do not now believe this man may represent a guest at the Ocean Club
who was carrying his daughter back to their apartment. They know he
does. He came forward to identify himself as such, did he not?
Next, Mills & Boon
style authorship is eschewed in favour of something more appropriate
to Science Citation Abstracts. 'We cannot be certain' would be
clearly personal and rather provocative. 'One cannot be certain'
still a tad too familiar perhaps. Best make it completely impersonal,
eh Gerry? Hence:
'It is not possible to be
certain that...'
Give me a break!
Since it seems a case is
to be made here on the strength of uncertainty after all (despite
Gerry McCann's repeated insistence hitherto that one 'cannot prove a
negative' – another mixed metaphor as it happens), let's evaluate a
few more aspects attaching to Madeleine McCann's disappearance, about
which it is 'not possible to be certain'.
Adopting the 'guest at
the Ocean Club carrying his daughter back home' as our point of
departure, who is it he might not have been after all, according to
the McCanns? Jane Tanner's sighting of course. And what was Jane
certain of having seen, according to her own statements? Answer: A
child's legs clad in white pyjama trousers with pinkish spots and a
ruched hem. Clearly visible. Clearly certain. What did she definitely
not see (or she would surely have said so)? Answer: A large coloured
roundel on the right leg identifying the pyjamas as being of the
Marks & Spencer 'Eeyore' variety. Jane Tanner did not report
seeing it, suggesting she did not see it, despite its being larger
and clearer than all of the spots she claimed she did see. It was not
there. They were not Eeyore pyjamas. It is therefore 'not possible to
be certain that' the child was Madeleine McCann.
Moving on.
Madeleine's abductor (The
Find Madeleine website refers to 'abductors', but how do they know?)
having entered the apartment via the patio at the rear, must have
absconded via the front door in order to traverse Jane Tanner's path
(I think we can treat the 'got out of the window fairly easily' line
of argument with the contempt it deserves). That's feasible if we
suppose that the McCanns left both front and back doors unlocked,
which in turn makes one wonder why the Ocean Club even bothered to
have keys made. But they did. And they supplied one to temporary
occupants. Not a copy of one, nor one per person, but one per
apartment; one which Gerry McCann left behind on the kitchen counter
when he and Kate exited via the patio door for 'drinkies' on the
night of Thursday May 3, 2007. That's what he told Control Risks.
Why should Gerry have
considered it important to bring that little detail to anyone's
attention? If the front door were unlocked it wouldn't have mattered
if a crow bar had been left behind. It wouldn't have been used
anyway. Clearly that one simple act of forgetfulness was to furnish
the abductor, hypothetically, with a means of exit via the locked
front door. (Did the McCanns know he/she/they were coming? Surely
not?). But when the McCanns both returned to their apartment,
searched and double-searched for their missing daughter, did either
of them notice the key in the lock, 'other than where they'd left
it'? No. it must still have been on the kitchen counter (or in Kate's
pocket, as we'll see in a moment). It had not been used to unlock the
front door therefore. The abductor could not have gone out through
the locked front door without using a key. If he didn't use the key,
then he didn't open that door, and he didn't cross Jane Tanner's
path.
Clearly 'it is not
possible to be certain that' Madeleine McCann was abducted shortly
after 9.00 p.m. Equally 'it is not possible to be certain that' the
burglar either waited three-quarters of an hour to leave with his
captive, or gained admission to the premises later, and without being
seen by any other of the OC guests passing to and from the Tapas bar.
But back to the key.
According to his earliest
police statement, Gerry (and Kate) entered their apartment that night
through the front door, using the key (it must have been locked
therefore). How did they manage to do that with the key left behind
on the kitchen counter? Ah yes. Gerry first used it then left it
behind just before returning to the Tapas table after 9.00 p.m. And
Kate? Well she came in through the patio really (as she stated to
police), picked up the key, then went out again and around to the
front, where she used said key to enter a second time. Sorted!
To judge from their own
depositions, 'it is not possible to be certain that' the McCanns
entered their apartment between 8.30 and 10.10 p.m. that night,
whether looking for Madeleine or for any other reason.
And so to mid-week
(parentheses mine).
"During Gerry's
tennis lesson, Madeleine and Ella came to the adjoining court with
their Mini Club for a mini-tennis session... Standing there listening
intently to Cat's instructions, she (Madeleine) looked so gorgeous in
her little T-shirt and shorts, pink hat, ankle socks and new holiday
sandals that I ran back to our apartment for my camera to record the
occasion. One of my photographs is known around the world now: a
smiling Madeleine clutching armfuls of tennis balls".
Thus Kate McCann tells us
in her book (madeleine), clearly and unambiguously, exactly where her
daughter Madeleine was that Tuesday morning, May 1st. She arrived at
the tennis courts, together with Ella O'Brien, during Gerry's tennis
lesson, which had started at 10.15. She was not therefore where she
should have been at that time – with her kid's club playmates, at
the pool.
On Thursday afternoon at
about 2.40 p.m. Kate McCann captured the iconic 'last photo' of her
daughter dressed in "an outfit I'd bought especially for her
holiday: a peach-coloured smock top from Gap and some white
broderie-anglaise shorts from Monsoon".
Madeleine was wearing
nothing else but a sun hat. She was signed into the crèche by Kate
that same afternoon at 2.50 p.m., no doubt following a hurried exodus
from the pool area, but unfortunately twenty minutes late for the
'chalk space pictures' activity, which began at 2.30 p.m. Between
them the McCanns arranged for Gerry to collect the children later
while Kate went off for a run. That is what Kate McCann says in her
book. There is no mention whatsoever of any additional visit to the
children's playgroups in the meantime.
Since Kate has told us
exactly what Madeleine was wearing at 2.40 p.m. we also know what she
was not wearing – her swimming costume. So what did she do come
'dive and find' time at the pool from 3.30 to 4.30 p.m., stand and
watch?
'It is not possible to be
certain that' Madeleine McCann attended at the Ocean Club playgroup
during the times referred to above and, by extrapolation, on any
other occasion that week.
Expert Opinion –
29.01.2014
Former senior police
officer (yes, another one with no direct involvement in the Maddie
affair) Ian Horrocks is 'an accredited senior investigating officer
for homicide, as well as having experience in high value and
multinational fraud and other major crime. For the last five years of
his service he led one of Scotland Yard's Kidnap and Specialist
Investigations teams'.
In 'What happened to
Madeleine McCann?' (14-Oct-2013), he draws upon his expertise and
personal experience, putting forward a raft of conclusions and
opinions, of which the following is a typical example:
"The thought that
Kate and Gerry McCann had anything to do with the death of their
daughter, whether being directly responsible, or covering it up is
frankly preposterous. There is not one shred of credible evidence,
either direct or otherwise to indicate that this is even a remote
possibility."
Is that so? Is there
really 'not one shred of credible evidence' (elsewhere described as a
grain of proper evidence)?
The claim here
encompasses concealment of a crime and indirect evidence of a remote
possibility, but this exaggeration simply flies in the face of the
facts. We are being encouraged here to believe in the immunity of the
McCanns to circumstantial evidence, of which there is rather more
than a shred, and to dismiss as 'preposterous' the very idea that
their involvement in a cover up is even remotely possible. Horrocks
continues:
"There are many
reasons for saying this. Firstly and most importantly, it is
statistically unlikely, the main reason being that there is no family
history that would point in any way to this. I do not believe that
anyone with any sense believes that they killed Madeleine
deliberately, so this leaves a tragic accident. Even if such an
accident had happened, is it feasible that they would not immediately
seek assistance and call for an ambulance?"
There is, I would
suggest, rather more to the application and understanding of
statistics than this author appears to appreciate. Far from its being
a 'main reason', 'family history', whether pointing upwards,
downwards, or sideways, has no part to play in the frequency of
observations, from which derive the simplest of statistical measures.
The following is to be found at www.keepyourchildsafe.org:
Child Abduction &
Murder Facts & Statistics
3. Around 100 children
are abducted and murdered in the U.S. each year. Around 60% of all
child-murder abductions are at the hands of someone the child knows,
not a stranger.
5. Nearly all murdered
children are killed by a family member, most often a parent.
That is statistical
likelihood for you.
"I do not believe
that anyone with any sense believes that they killed Madeleine
deliberately, so this leaves a tragic accident."
What we choose to believe
of others' beliefs neither quantifies nor explains anything. The
author also fails to take into account the beliefs of all those
possibly lacking in the 'sense' he wishes to attribute. Inevitably
therefore a lot of people will in fact believe what he would rather
they did not.
This does not simply
'leave a tragic accident' after all therefore.
"The spurious and
often inaccurately reported forensic findings, the irrelevant
behaviour of the cadaver dogs, Mr and Mrs McCann's perceived
demeanour, as well as many other totally irrelevant points just fuel
this uninformed and I must say offensive conjecture. The simple
answer is, there is no information, let alone evidence to indicate
their involvement in any way."
The really simple answer
is that Horrocks is mistaken.
'...no information, let
alone evidence to indicate their involvement in any way.'
Well who deliberately
left the back door open, and the front door key visible inside,
thereby facilitating an alternative exit? (We'll overlook the
question of who swabbed the decks for now).
Gerry McCann has famously
said (to Sandra Felgueiras on Portuguese TV, 5 November 2009): "I
can tell you that we have also looked at evidence about cadaver dogs
and they are incredibly unreliable".
In describing the
behaviour of the cadaver dog in this instance as 'irrelevant', Ian
Horrocks appears to be of a similar mind to the McCanns. However,
such a flippant remark begs the question as to why a variety of
services continue to train and deploy such irrelevant animals.
Couldn't the money be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps they are simply
waiting for the recognition of relevance to come into its own.
As recently as last
evening (BBC2, 9.00 p.m.) the audience of 'Inside the Animal Mind'
was treated to a remarkable demonstration of what these irrelevant
animals, so called, are capable of.
Sniffer dog Fern
An EVRD dog (a spaniel
once again) working in Northern Ireland, has been trained
specifically to detect cadavers submerged within inland waterways
(people do fall into rivers etc., unfortunately, and their bodies can
drift).
What we witnessed was the
dog sitting alongside his handler at the prow of an inflatable
launch, as it criss-crossed a large lake (about a mile and a half in
diameter) on the bed of which a team of divers had previously
deposited a canister containing pork meat (this subsequently sank
further, into the silt at the bottom, to a depth of a metre or so).
The position having been 'fixed' according to GPS co-ordinates, the
dog team then followed the divers onto the lake some time afterwards,
and without exchanging any information as to the canister's exact
whereabouts.
After a number of
traverses, and following the dog's indications, the 'search' team
stopped on the open water, at a location which corresponded exactly
to the GPS co-ordinates recorded earlier by their colleagues. The dog
had found the lure, in open water and variable wind conditions. Had
it been a real body of course the result would have been the same.
Bearing in mind that a
human diver only has vision and touch at his or her disposal, and
that visibility under water can be limited in the extreme, searches
of this nature are clearly facilitated by the introduction of an
animal capable of detecting at the surface something that lies
completely hidden from view beneath.
Irrelevant? Unreliable? I
don't think so.
It does not take an
expert dog handler therefore to arrive at the inescapable conclusion
that Martin Grime's Springer Spaniel 'Eddie' indicated the presence,
at some time or another, of a corpse in 5A the Ocean Club, Praia da
Luz, just as he had been trained to do and had done on many previous
occasions.
The resultant paradigm is
so simple that even those lacking the sense to which Ian Horrocks
refers cannot fail to understand it:
Corpse transient (i.e.,
none found).
Recorded deaths in 5A
prior to May 3, 2007 = 0
Recorded deaths in 5A
post the McCanns' occupation = 0
Occupants reported
missing = 1 (Madeleine McCann).
No one, not even Gerry
McCann, noticed a 'little body' inside 5A that night. One thing among
many that a corpse cannot do of course is walk. How intriguing
therefore that other items to which the EVR dog Eddie gave a positive
reaction included a car key fob, and the car itself. (The word
'transport' springs immediately to mind).
As we know, in the
enlightened legal world that is the UK and elsewhere, indications
given by an EVRD dog are insufficient of themselves. A CSI animal is
required to operate 'in tandem' in order to source the sort of
biological evidence that is acceptable, e.g., blood residues and the
like.
It scarcely advances any
cause, however, if we proceed to draw unjustified conclusions of the
sort arrived at by Ian Horrocks and his like-minded acolytes. What
can be said without fear of contradiction is that the reactions of
sniffer dogs (an EVR dog in this instance) are 'indications' of where
something of particular interest might be found, be it paper money,
drugs, an earthquake survivor – or a corpse. The location is of at
least as much interest as the target itself.
The very interior of
apartment 5A was of significance to the inquiry from the outset, that
significance being reaffirmed with the later arrival of the two
spaniels. As much as one might argue at length over the conclusion
that a body was missing, pursuant upon 'Eddie's' reactions, other
things seem to have gone missing well before then.
The original crime scene
photographs, recorded prior to the arrival of the PJ, have frozen the
status of apartment 5a in time, such that anyone can see for
themselves what represented the interior on the night of Thursday May
3, 2007. There are items pictured that disappeared subsequently
(notably a blue sports bag and a pink blanket), just as there are
others conspicuous by their very absence at the time.
With clothes adorning the
dining chairs, it is clear that the parents weren't obsessed with
straightening the apartment up before setting off for their evening's
'me time'. Fair play to them though. They were on holiday after all.
But where is the evidence of milk and biscuits before bed-time? Dans la poubelle peut-être? The
child's colouring book indicates earlier child activity (the PJ would
not arrive for another hour, so the items on the kitchen table cannot
reflect the consortium of adult 'timeliners'), but would children
have drunk large glasses of water (or wine perhaps)?
The McCanns had three
children to deal with, yet there do not appear to be three sets of
cast-off junior day wear around the table. One item is an adult top,
another a large towel. But is that really Madeleine's swimming
costume on the drying frame outside (she should have used it that
very afternoon)? If not, why not. And where are the pieces of artwork
she should have completed at the kids' club days before – 'Lobster
pictures' and postcards from the Sunday, 'Spaceship collage' from the
Monday, 'Happy handprints' from the Tuesday and 'footprints' from the
Wednesday? And those four passports lying on top of the bedroom
cabinet- shouldn't that be five?
It is as though whoever
'abducted' Madeleine McCann took with them all the evidence they
could of her very existence. Such was the desecration of her presence
that Gerry even had to return home in order to furnish police with a
sample of her DNA (despite more 'local' instances being put forward
as responsible for the 'body fluids' discovered in an inappropriate
place at the rear of the car hired by the McCanns weeks later).
Yes, those interior
photographs are richly informative. We can even identify Kate
McCann's digital camera as belonging to a product lineage prone to
random focussing error. Lucky for her that the 'tennis' and 'last
'photo' were both nice and sharp.
Houston, We Have a
Problem – 01.02.2014
Rumour alone has it that
executive officers of Scotland Yard's Operation Grange are
endeavouring to identify a trio of burglars believed to have taken
Madeleine McCann from apartment 5A, the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz.
(That's 'burglars', not 'body snatchers' by the way). They have four
months to make the 'collar' before things become even more
problematic.
If the agencies of the
law can find the culprits in time, then they can lay a charge of
child abduction ('as if it happened in the UK' folks). And if they
don't?
If they don't, then they
may have to consider a charge of murder, or abduction leading to
death, given that Madeleine McCann may, after seven years without any
news of her, be considered legally (even if not actually) dead.
Suddenly, from being paid
agents of a child trafficking ring, Winking, Blinking and Nod have a
death on their criminal CV, and whatever they were (or are) being
paid 'ain't gonna be enough'.
The intriguing question
however concerns the direction in which they might choose,
hypothetically, to pass the buck.
'She was alive when we
had her. We sold her on to...'
O.k. Now please identify
the first 'fence' at which Madeleine may have fallen, given the
possibility that she could have gone on to fall at the second, third,
fourth etc.?
Whose doorstep(s) might
that chain of razor blades lead to exactly?
Plan B: 'We didn't abduct
anyone. She was already dead'.
Oops!
The coming anniversary of
Madeleine McCann's disappearance could prove the most significant
yet. We might even discover a hitherto unknown canine ability –
clairvoyance. Although the classical stimulus-response contingency
remains the more likely explanation of sniffer dog behaviour.
Balloons at the ready
everyone
Alberta McCann? -
09.02.2014
Those of a certain age
may recall the film Albert R.N., which tells the true story of how a
number of naval officers, imprisoned in Germany during the Second
World War, escaped undetected, whilst their beleaguered colleagues
substituted a uniformed dummy during the role calls. It was all about
filling what would otherwise have been a noticeable void.
You may be
wondering not only what relevance all these minute details might have
to anything, but also how I can recall them so distinctly and how
accurate my recollections can possibly be. The answer is that, within
a couple of days, every single apparently inconsequential thing that
happened on that holiday would become vitally important, and Gerry
and I would soon be painstakingly trying to extract from our brains
every tiny incident, no matter how small, that might have been
significant. (Kate McCann in 'madeleine').
Madeleine McCann's
disappearance was announced on the night of Thursday 3 May, 2007.
That it took 'a couple of days' for 'every single apparently
inconsequential thing that happened on that holiday' to become
'vitally important' perhaps explains why Kate could remember
absolutely nothing about either the Monday or the Tuesday when making
her statement to the Portuguese police on 4 May. The inconsequential
things had not yet become vitally important obviously. Give them a
day or two to ripen in the mind, as they did in Gerry's, who at least
(10 May) slipped in an account of the family's beach trip on the
Tuesday afternoon, 1 May; a recreational alternative decided and
acted upon by both parents. And yet Gerry McCann's own observations
regarding Monday amount also to absolutely nothing, despite his
extensive recall of the Sunday before.
So what did Kate have to
say about either day (Monday, Tuesday) when re-interviewed months
later, on 6 September?
Again, nothing. ("When
asked about the 1st of May 2007, a holiday, she says that on that day
they left the apartment around 8:30PM, the same time that was
repeated every night."). Nothing save mention of the shutters in
the parents' bedroom:
'...she knows they use
the shutters, even because Gerry broke them and they were repaired on
the Monday'.
Except the repair in
question was not carried out on the Monday, but Tuesday morning,
between 10.00 and 11.00 a.m.
What on earth has become
of those 'vitally important inconsequential things'? Recollections
which we are told required but a couple of days to mature in fact
took four years!
It is in 'madeleine' that
we learn (?) the detail of the maintenance staff visit to 5A that
Tuesday morning, to explain the workings of the washing machine and
to repair the bedroom shutter. Kate leaves them to it, we are told,
as she unexpectedly turns photographer at the tennis courts, where
Madeleine unexpectedly appears for mini-tennis (her playgroup was
scheduled to be swimming at the pool). We also gain an understanding
of the emotional trauma brought on by having to cross the road for
ice cream, and the practicality of sunglasses in more southerly
climes.
Kate, who finds herself
belatedly able to wax lyrical in retrospect about Tuesday May 1st
remains totally silent regarding Monday April 30th.
Where was Madeleine on
the Monday? What did she do for over two and half hours in-between
leaving the crèche for lunch at 12.30 and returning again at 3.15
p.m., for a mere fifteen minutes? She must have been needed for some
significant purpose to have been removed so swiftly. What was of such
importance that she had to forfeit her afternoon garden adventure and
mini dance?
It is clear from the
signed record of attendance that Madeleine McCann was not at the
crèche beyond 3.30 p.m. so where was she?
In the P.O.W. camp it
took two naval officers to hold the stand-in in place. The McCanns
likewise have a space to fill in their story, yet neither of them
could keep their end up sufficiently as to give a convincing
impression. Not then. Not now.
Monday's Child –
10.02.2014
According to her parents
Madeleine McCann disappeared sometime between 9.15 and 10.00 p.m. on
Thursday night, May 3, 2007, having last been seen by her father
within the hour.
If that's where the story
begins, then why should the parents and their holiday-making friends
have made false statements in relation to each of the four preceding
days (Monday – Thursday)?
Monday's lie gives time
and place:
Monday morning, April
30th
Kate McCann (6.9.2007):
'When asked, she said that the cleaning, which was provided by the
resort, took place on Monday and Wednesday.
'The window in the
deponent's bedroom was closed and she knows they use the shutters,
even because Gerry broke them and they were repaired on the Monday.'
Kate McCann (2011): 'On
Tuesday 1 May, after my tennis lesson, two maintenance workers came
to have a look at our washing machine, which I couldn't get to
operate. Gerry had also managed to break the window shutter mechanism
in our bedroom shortly after we'd arrived, in spite of the sign
asking guests to be gentle with it. What can I say? It's the Gerry
touch . . . The two men looked at the washing machine first. Once
they'd established that the problem was something simple – not
quite as simple as me not having pressed the 'on' button, but not
much more complicated than that – I went to meet Gerry, whose
lesson had started at ten-fifteen, leaving them to fix the shutter.'
Tuesday's lie - a
pictured face:
Kate McCann (2011):
'During Gerry's tennis lesson, Madeleine and Ella came to the
adjoining court with their Mini Club for a mini-tennis session... I
ran back to our apartment for my camera to record the occasion. One
of my photographs is known around the world now: a smiling Madeleine
clutching armfuls of tennis balls.'
Rachael Oldfield
(Rogatory interview):
1578 "The third of
May, are you able to summarise the days activities"?
Reply "Yeah, ...I
think Diane might have been there as well, remember chatting to Kate
cos we were talking about schools and that sort of thing, erm and
holidays, erm and then I think it must have been at about ten thirty,
Madeleine and Ella and their sort of group came to have a tennis
lesson as part of their crèche activities, erm and Kate didn't have
her camera and Jane was there then as well and Jane took some photos
of both Madeleine and Ella, that's one, that poster of Madeleine with
the tennis balls, that sort of pictures".
1578 "That was taken
on the"?
Reply "Yeah that was
that morning."
1578 "Thursday"?
Reply "Yeah, erm so
we sort of watched them have their tennis lesson, erm and there were
a few other parents there, sort of taking photos and that sort of
thing."
Wednesday's lie is
another game:
Jane Tanner (Rogatory
interview):
4078 "Okay. And can
you remember what happened then for the rest of the day from your
point of view?"
Reply "No. Err the
Wednesday, err again I think it would have just been a, Evie would
have had a sleep and just round the pool or in the, each other
apartments, until, until high tea but I think Ella, and Ella would
have, Ella went to err, Ella went to the err the kids club. Actually
that morning was the morning Ella and Madeleine had the tennis lesson
I think on the Wednesday. You've got the picture of..."
There was only one
mini-tennis session scheduled for Madeleine's play group – on the
Monday morning (10.00 – 11.00 a.m.).
Thursday's lie, a crying
shame:
Kate McCann (2011): 'Why
didn't you come when Sean and I cried last night?' (a question
attributed to Madeleine).
Kate McCann (6.9.2007):
'Thursday, during breakfast, Madeleine said to both of them that she
had been crying and that nobody had come to her room' (a statement
attributed to Madeleine).
Kate McCann (4.5.2007):
'She reports only one episode where, on the morning of Thursday the
3rd, Madeleine asked the witness why she had not come to look in the
bedroom when the twins were crying.'
Gerry McCann (4.5.2007):
'on the morning of May 3rd, MADELEINE asked her father, GERALD, why
he had not come into her bedroom when the twins were crying.'
Gerry McCann (10.5.2007):
'When they were having breakfast, MADELEINE addressed her mother and
asked her "why didn't you come last night when SEAN and I were
crying?"'
Monday's child was fair
of face,
Tuesday's child full of
grace,
Wednesday's child was
full of woe,
Thursday's child had far
to go.
Swimming Against The Tide
– 11.02.2014
It is said that the
Anglo-Saxon king, Cnut the Great (otherwise known as Canute),
revealed the omnipotence of a higher authority when he had his throne
set down on a beach and unsuccessfully commanded the waves not to
encroach upon his feet. Whatever his motives, the ancient king's
demonstration of the ocean's stubbornness is both classical and
convincing. However much his followers might have believed in his
personal magisterial powers, there could be no denying the weight of
evidence.
The abduction of
Madeleine McCann, fixed in time to the night of 3 May, 2007, is an
assumption which has no evidence to support it; only further
assumptions. The one certainty is that the child has been missing for
seven years since. Despite presenting to the Police (and the world)
an account of how her daughter Madeleine was last seen asleep in her
own bed, Kate McCann has also said, quite incongruously, 'You don't
expect someone to come into your apartment and take your child out
(of) your bed'. The question this raises is quite why anyone
recounting such an event might wish to re-position the locus of a
genuine crime. What is there to be gained from going against the
grain?
In isolation the remark
is puzzling. A slip of the tongue perhaps, made while the tide is
still off-shore. But time passes, and the waves become more numerous
as they surge in the same inward direction.
The contradiction
inherent in Kate McCann's extraordinary 'bed' reference finds company
in the false statements made, not only by the McCanns but by various
members of their holiday entourage, in relation to the four days
immediately preceding Madeleine's disappearance (see: Monday's Child
– McCannfiles). What possible reason could there have been for
misrepresenting events prior to the commission of the crime as
understood, or should one say 'assumed'? In tandem with this
questionable behaviour, it is clear from the records of Madeleine's
attendance at the holiday crèche that these same four days are not
unequivocally accounted for in that context either.
What was it Kate McCann
said in her book once upon a time? 'One coincidence, two coincidences
– maybe they're still coincidences. Any more than that and it stops
being coincidence.'
A week's worth of lies
(coincidence number one). A week's worth of dubious crèche records
(coincidence number two). Shall we go for the hat-trick?
The young Mark Warner
nanny, Catriona Baker was questioned by Portuguese police at the
beginning of their investigation. Months later she was 'outed' by the
Daily Mail (14.10.2007), her situation at that time represented thus:
'The McCanns believe Ms
Baker is a key witness in the defence that they are assembling with
the aid of a team of lawyers and investigators.'
Bearing in mind the
timing of events as fixed by the McCanns' own accounts, this
statement is, on the face of it, rather perplexing. How, exactly, can
someone coming into innocuous contact with Madeleine before her
'abduction' become a key witness in the McCanns' defence afterwards?
And what manner of charge were they planning to defend themselves
against? Not the abduction of their own daughter, surely? Nocturnal
neglect, perhaps? The worst case scenario, as generally understood,
might have been something in connection with a fatal accident
occurring on the Thursday night; again, after Catriona Baker's duties
as 'nanny' had been discharged.
Could Catriona have been
considered a character witness therefore? No. She hardly knew the
McCanns. A witness to their movements then? No. She was elsewhere for
most of the day - everyday. A witness to Madeleine's abduction? No.
It happened at night. She would have been out enjoying herself, as
she put it, when not resting at home. Was she someone who witnessed a
stalker, or stalkers, immediately before or after the abduction? No.
She said not in her first statement to the police. What could
possibly have been her role within the McCann defence strategy
therefore?
Common sense dictates
that Catriona Baker's value as a 'key witness' could only pertain to
the period of time she spent in her capacity as 'nanny', something
the McCanns have acknowledged and the Daily Mail have explained: "She
was witness to the McCanns' movements during the week they were on
holiday in Portugal and fed Madeleine less than three hours before
she disappeared."
Except that, but for
fleeting glances in the morning and at mid-day, she very obviously
was not a witness to the McCanns' movements 'that week they were in
Portugal'; a week which embraced exactly the same four days less than
adequately accounted for by others, including the McCanns themselves.
And that makes her recruitment as a potential witness for the defence
anything but coincidental.
Comparison of Catriona's
own 'evidence', as given to the PJ, with the Daily Mail's
clarification of her later value to the McCanns, reveals how, like
Michael Wright latterly in Lisbon, she was to be 'briefed'.
CB (6.5.2007): It was
always Madeleine's parents that would bring her to and fetch her from
the "Minis".
Compare this with Gerry
McCann's own statement four days later:
'The deponent and KATE
returned to the OCEAN CLUB. They stayed there, talking, until 16H45,
at which time the twins went to the meal area. At 17h00, as usual,
MADELEINE arrived accompanied by the nannies and the other children.
After her arrival, MADELEINE dined, having finished at 17H30.'
On the subject of
episodes untoward she is quite voluble:
She replies that since
that date and until Thursday, the 03rd of May, 2007, she was with
Madeleine every day, but is unable to specify if she was present on
the Sunday morning.
She replies that within
the exercise of her functions, both inside the building and outdoors
(above specified activities), she never noticed anyone suspiciously
observing the children under her care. She didn't notice anyone
taking pictures of the children, namely of Madeleine.
She refers that her
colleagues never mentioned anything concerning their children,
either.
The deponent mentions
that following Madeleine's disappearance, she didn't see or hear
anything, no plausible reason that could explain what caused said
disappearance.
And yet, five months
later, the Daily Mail was able to offer its readers:
'On the morning after
Madeleine's disappearance it is believed she even told Portuguese
police of a man she had seen acting 'suspiciously' around the
apartments.'
And
'Intriguingly, Ms Baker
revealed to one friend - spoken to by this newspaper - that she told
Portuguese police of a man she saw acting strangely near the
apartments in the days leading up to Madeleine's disappearance on May
3.'
Intriguing indeed.
What may well have been
'believed' by a McCann spokesperson clearly did not represent what
Catriona Baker herself had previously said.
In November 2007 Catriona
Baker paid the McCanns a personal visit at their home in Rothley. The
following April she was interviewed again by police.
"On Thursday the 3rd
of May 2007, I remember Gerry having accompanied Madeleine to the
club between 9h15 and 9h20 in the morning. I do not remember who came
to pick her up for lunch but after she returned in the afternoon for
a dive/swim. These activities were realized with the other children.
On this day I remember that we sailed and I saw friends of the
McCanns on the beach, David and Jane. Around 14h45 Madeleine returned
to the Minis Club on top of the reception but I do not remember who
accompanied her. This afternoon we went swimming."
This is of course that
strangest of days, when Madeleine went swimming in her gap top and
broderie Anglaise shorts, having earlier been for a boat trip at the
beach where no-one else saw her, apart from Cat Baker that is. The
nanny's most significant evidential contribution here however is this
one:
"I stayed with
Madeleine, 3 years old, in my group (Minis Club that week) together
with Ella, daughter of Jane Tanner. Either Kate or Gerry would
accompany Madeleine every day in the morning and would return at
lunch hour to take her back."
Admittedly she had said
something vaguely similar to Portuguese police originally, but she
had also proceeded to observe:
"Since the
beginning, when she received the little girl, it appeared to her that
her parents were affable and showed their interest in her well being,
as they cared to inquire what Madeleine did and even accompanied some
of the child's outdoors activities."
So name one. And if that
doesn't sound like the McCanns, then maybe we're not talking about
Madeleine either. The fact that the McCanns were clearly planning to
field (concoct?) answers to such questions as 'Where was Madeleine
on...?' further validates those very questions.
Sadly or, Sadly –
20.02.2014
Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has spoken, for the benefit of a
bewildered public attempting to make sense of the status quo
regarding the parallel Portuguese and UK investigations into the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann: "Obviously the
Portuguese police have got a line of inquiry which is different to
the Metropolitan Police's but we're working together to try and
resolve that." Obviously, Sir Bernard. In the sense that the
Portuguese 'prime suspect' (deceased) is a world away from being any
kind of a match to DCI Redwood's favoured e-fits, then Portugal and
'The Yard' do indeed appear to be pursuing different lines of
inquiry. There is, however, a disturbing ring of inevitability to the
phrase 'obviously', almost as though it would apply regardless.
Surely not. Is it even remotely possible that two investigative
agencies with a shared purpose would differ quite so markedly in
their approaches to the common problem? They are, after all, equipped
with an identical context in which to set their endeavours. We know of course that
the approach taken by the Metropolitan Police has been to regress to
'point zero', DCI Redwood having said as much. And that in itself
could provoke, shall we say, a difference of opinion – obviously. But do go on Sir Bernard.
"We're trying our
best to keep the family informed and I think in the middle of all
this, quite often their torment gets lost. Have they lost a child or,
errr... by being murdered or... sadly... or have they lost a child by
someone else stealing them."
May we please clarify
this observation just a little? (There are one or two redundant
'ors')
"Have they lost a
child by being murdered or... sadly... have they lost a child by
someone else stealing them?"
An interesting question
that. Juxtaposed as they are, the child thief and the murderer are
clearly not viewed as one and the same. And with only one 'sadly' to
go around, kidnap comes across as the more regrettable outcome. If,
sadly, Madeleine has been murdered, might not the murderer have been
a thief also? A hapless petty criminal, who lashed out simply to
silence the shrill alarm of a startled child (always supposing that
their intention was to steal something other than an infant)? If such
were the case, the fugitive would no doubt have left the body behind,
having set off with neither kidnap nor body snatching in mind. Like
Jon Benet Ramsay's supposed assailant, he would most likely have
bolted empty handed (save for the valuables he came for of course,
yet such was his haste he forgot those also).
If Madeleine was murdered
by a panicking thief, what happened to her body after he fled the
scene? Or if, on the spur of the moment, he decided to remove his
victim, perhaps with a view to 'bluffing out' a blackmail attempt
(although nothing of the kind has ever been hinted), then it cannot
have been Madeleine's frail remains that left their mark for Martin
Grime's EVR dog to zero in on. They would not have been there long
enough to have done so. It looks as if the
options here are murderer or thief, not thief and murderer. So who
besides a thief might have murdered poor Madeleine McCann, Sir
Bernard?
"We've generally got
to work together. We can't police Portugal, they can't do everything
over here; we must work together. So, we're insist... you know, we
really can work in genuine partnership on this."
O.k. Sir Bernard. We get
it. You wish to insist that the Portuguese follow the Met's lead.
That's it isn't it? Could it be, perchance, that the difference
between the two investigations resides in the fact that the
Portuguese are pursuing a murder inquiry, whereas the Met. have
adopted the 'stolen' approach? A discrepancy of that order might also
explain perhaps, for the benefit of those who notice such things, why
the Portuguese would see themselves as having to 'do everything over
here', whilst the Met., as we know from the recent spate of letter
writing, cannot police Portugal.
If the Policia Judiciaria
were genuinely keen to 'collar' a trio of burglars for having
'stolen' Madeleine McCann (be they Portuguese, Romany, Cap Verde,
German, Scandinavian, Moroccan – the list of candidate
nationalities is a lengthy one), then it's difficult to see why they
should want to do anything 'over here' at all. Unless of course the
perpetrators were already numbered among the UK immigrant statistics
for the past seven years.
Mental Fatigue –
25.04.2014
Staff at Rupert Murdoch's
'Sun' and others are suffering. They are experiencing 'Maddie
Failure', like 'metal fatigue', the weakness that shows up as the
cause of so many calamities, from Titanic to the BOAC Comet:
Maddie failure
"MADELEINE McCann
vanished seven years ago, and every day since her parents have been
through hell. (sometimes even the turnstiles at Goodison Park)
"They must have
mixed feelings about the latest development. (I bet)
"It's clearly
helpful that Scotland Yard now has 18 potentially linked incidents to
look into. (helpful to whom exactly?)
"But if such
promising leads can be found so many years later, the McCanns must
wonder how different things might have been if the Portuguese police
had done their job properly at the time. (or if the Portuguese had
been allowed to do their job properly).
"We are all
wondering the same" (original thinking clearly not a feature of
their job description).
I do not recollect there
being any mention within the remit for Scotland Yard's review
of/investigation into the case of Madeleine McCann, of the Met.'s
being expected to pursue various members of the Portuguese Algarve's
own 'Hole-in-the-wall' gang, for crimes other than abduction (while
'Butch' and 'Sun cream' slip quietly off to Bolivia, Canada or
wherever).
I am neither a police
inspector nor an astronaut with a unicorn for a pet, but there is one
thing of which I am quietly convinced: If promising leads can be
found many years later, it is because they were laid, dormant and
unconcealable, at the point of commission, when most criminal
mistakes are made. That obviously does not apply to 'foul body
odours' (so that's why Madeleine McCann's abductor opened the
window...) but is very much the case as regards actions taken –
actions with tangible consequences which cannot be eradicated,
however many years may elapse.
Rock on! (Andy, Sir
Bernard, Kate, Gerry et al). Pray to God for answers by all means.
I'll side with Gödel!
All the Premier's Men –
29.04.2014
The following dialogue
features in the award-winning Alan J Pakula film, All The President's
Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Based on the book by
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the film
traces the development of their joint investigation into covert
practices conducted on behalf of the Republican party; deeds
sanctioned by the White House administration under President Richard
Nixon, and which first came to light following the June 1972 break-in
at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee:
(From 1:22:22)
TV interviewer: "I'd
like to move on now to the subject of the break in at the Watergate
and the controversies that keep coming out of that. It has recently,
very recently been reported now that some documents were torn up at
the Committee to re-elect the President, er, are you investigating
the er, the tearing up of those documents?"
Richard G Kleindienst (US
Attorney General): "Well I think that came out in a story in the
Washington Post. I think the investigation that has just conclude
itself [sic] has probably been one of the most intensive that the
Department of Justice and the FBI has ever been involved in, er, some
fifteen hundred persons were interviewed, eighteen hundred leads were
followed, three hundred and thirty-three agents were involved,
fourteen thousand man-hours, fifty-one of the fifty-nine FBI field
officers were involved, er, and that, I think, is a great credit to
justice in this country."
TV interviewer: "Did
you know that documents had been destroyed?"
Richard G Kleindienst:
"No I did not."
Following a reported
break in at apartment 5A, The Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Portugal, on
the night of 3 May, 2007, a major Portuguese police investigation was
launched into the disappearance of young Madeleine McCann. The
investigation, initially supported by police representatives from the
UK, was eventually suspended after the two principal 'arguidos'
(persons of interest to police), Madeleine's parents, returned to the
UK. Their suspect status having been lifted by the Portuguese
authorities, there followed an official investigative hiatus until,
in May 2011, and with the backing of Prime Minister David Cameron and
Home Secretary Theresa May, the Metropolitan Police announced they
were to embark upon an investigative review of the case. As reported
in the Daily Telegraph (18.5.2011): 'A team of 30 detectives from
Scotland Yard will be assigned to the search for missing Madeleine
McCann in an investigation which could cost millions of pounds.'
That process, known as
Operation Grange, remains on-going.
Journalist (speaking to
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of the Metropolitan Police at
a press conference on 4.7.2013): "What has changed, errm... Have
you had new information, new evidence? What has changed to lead you
to open this investigation?"
DCI Andy Redwood: "Well,
as we have worked carefully over the last sort of two years, through
that review process, we have now processed some 30,000 documents and
some of those documents could have, say, one page, some have got
hundreds of pages. From that, you will recall last year that I said
we had 195 investigative opportunities. We have now generated over
3,800 actions and it is from a careful analysis of that work that we
have been able to establish new thinking and we have spoken to
witnesses that have provided new evidence for us."
Journalist: "How...
how big is the team that is involved in this and where do you go from
here?"
DCI Andy Redwood: "My
team consists of 37 staff; that's a mixture, predominantly of police
officers but also police staff as well. The size of my team will stay
largely the same, errm... and moving forward from here we will
hopefully have a position where - whilst the legal inquiries are
being conducted, errm... by the Portuguese - that we have the ability
to be present while those inquiries are taking place. So I envisage a
situation where a small number of officers will be present in
Portugal."
Journalist: "And
obviously there has been many years since this case - are you still
confident you can discover what happened to Madeleine?"
DCI Andy Redwood: "We
have been in a unique position, in drawing those three key strands
together. That has given us the ability to see this case with fresh
eyes and through that bring out new... genuinely new lines of inquiry
and I'm hopeful that when we pursue those lines of inquiry that we'll
be able to bring some sort of resolution. Whether we'll be able to
solve it is a different issue but I hope that we'll be able to
make... have the ability to move the investigation on."
Assistant Commissioner
Mark Rowley said at a Metropolitan Police briefing on 3.10.2013:
"There remain a total of 41 persons of interest, 15 of which
there are UK nationals. The work on three of those 15 UK Nationals
nears completion with indications that they are not of any further
interest to Operation Grange.
"Of note, we
currently have 30 ILORs (31 including Portugal) in various countries
following up requests for information concerning telephones used in
Praia da Luz at the material time.
"We have engaged
with Crimewatch to assist us in a public appeal in their October
programme, and have expanded our appeal for information to Germany,
Holland and Ireland.
"The appeal will
piece together new lines of enquiry, and DCI Redwood will be
appearing alongside Mr and Mrs McCann to appeal for information."
DCI Andy Redwood said at
that same briefing: "The information and purpose of this broader
appeal is based on phone traffic analysis we have examined, which
determines the footfall of people in the resort at that time. Our
investigation in the UK remains ongoing. The total number of
documents we have to go through is 39,148, of which we have processed
21,614 so far."
If it quacks like a
duck...
Famous Last Words –
29.04.2014
Gerry McCann (to Piers
Morgan, for CNN, 11.5.2011): "I think the worst thing though
about the focus on our behaviour and, you know, if we could change it
we would have. We can't change it, but it takes the focus away from
the abductor and that becomes quite frustrating for us because
Madeleine's still missing and th...those, that person or those
responsible for taking her are still at large."
As interesting as is
McCann's verbal fumble here over the number of people presumed to
have been involved in his daughter's abduction, the observation of
greater importance for present purposes is the clear separation
between the guilty person(s) still at large and the McCanns, who, by
the time of this interview, had long since been 'relieved' of their
former 'arguido' status by the Portuguese. They were no longer
suspects as far as the original investigation was concerned. Let us
carry forward therefore the reasonable contention that innocent
parties do not have to defend their position.
Recent personal
experience has illustrated the application of an obnoxious courtroom
tactic, whereby the accused, when questioned as to statements made
earlier before the police, suddenly 'comes clean', denouncing them in
whole or part as lies, occasioned by fear, stress, sickness or
whatever. This not only 'wrongfoots' the prosecution, whose case
before the court is built upon evidence of which prior witness
statements form a part, possibly even a crucial part, but it denies
the jury a benchmark against which to assess what suddenly emerges
from the lips of the defendant as 'the truth'.
We know, without the
McCanns ever appearing before a court, that their police statements
are contradictory. They would hardly need therefore to grovel in
remorse and invite a jury to disregard admitted inaccuracies within
their earliest testimonies, occasioned by stress, insecurity,
misunderstanding or whatever else. They made mistakes for which they
are no doubt sorry, so let's wipe the slate clean and start afresh;
reset the dial to zero (following DCI Andy Redwood's example). In
2011, four years after the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance
first saw the light of day, Kate McCann did exactly that.
In her 'account of the
truth', Kate states:
"You may be
wondering not only what relevance all these minute details might have
to anything, but also how I can recall them so distinctly and how
accurate my recollections can possibly be. The answer is that, within
a couple of days, every single apparently inconsequential thing that
happened on that holiday would become vitally important, and Gerry
and I would soon be painstakingly trying to extract from our brains
every tiny incident, no matter how small, that might have been
significant. Armed with notebook, pen and dated photographs, I would
be challenging myself to piece together as comprehensive an outline
of the sequence of events as I could. The regular routines of the
week helped to make any deviations from them stand out and
undoubtedly made this easier".
Leaving aside the rather
obvious question of how the McCanns could possibly have given
mistaken information to the police in the first instance, having made
such a conscious intellectual effort to enumerate every detail of
their recent experiences, we should simply subscribe, as Kate invites
us to do, to the idea that by now (2011) she and Gerry are in a
position to be unequivocal. Whatever may have been said before, this
is the truth. All else is water under the bridge. Metaphorically
speaking, the particulars enshrined in 'madeleine' represent the
McCanns' position at court. And yet, as we have previously
illustrated (see: 'Porkies', McCannfiles 1.8.2013), Kate McCann's
opus is littered with lies, none of which can be defended on the
grounds of duress, memory loss, illness etc., etc.
As observed at the
outset, innocent parties should not be in need of a defence and
therefore not feel inclined to lie, especially about irrelevancies.
With the focus on an abductor out there somewhere and the McCanns
concomitantly blameless, what was so sensitive about the time Kate
McCann signed the crèche registers, and the name she used to do so,
that she felt the need to lie about such things in her book?
Moving forward two years
in time, the BBC Crimewatch broadcast of 14 October last featured a
reconstruction of events in Praia da Luz on the evening of 3 May,
2007, and the latest findings of Operation Grange, under the
stewardship of DCI Andy Redwood. His presentation of the Grange
team's analysis was described by the presenter as 'the truest account
yet of what really happened that night'.
As a careful choice of
words this one statement is surely among the most startling ever made
in connection with the case of missing Madeleine McCann. It tells us
at a stroke that the scenario envisaged by Scotland Yard is not
necessarily correct, nor were any of those preceding it.
Of course we live in a
world where the distance between absolute truth and blatant lies is
often cloaked by a grey patch in-between, but, when pared down to
essentials, statements are ultimately true or false. (Were that not
to be the case then I could not be sitting at a computer writing
this, Boolean logic being the very foundation of computing).
Describing something as 'truest' does not place it in the box marked
'true'. It merely raises it nearer the top (but not altogether out)
of the box marked 'false'. Ultimately, neither the account advanced
by DCI Redwood nor that previously articulated by Kate McCann can be
accepted, without reservation, as true. Why not?
Scotland Yard's fall-back
position is easy – they missed something somewhere. Kate McCann
does not have one. She knows. She was there. And without the
attendant pressures of urgent police inquiries she was in a position
more comfortably to reconstitute all of those 'minute details' she
and Gerry so carefully assembled and recorded during the first couple
of days. And yet, according to a BBC presenter, her 'account of the
truth' is, by definition, untrue.
Does it really matter? We
all make mistakes at some time or another after all. The point is,
that should the McCanns ever be called to defend themselves before a
court of law, as opposed to a rabble of journalists outside of one,
Kate cannot simply open the trash can and toss 'madeleine' into it as
representing one or more errors of judgement. In functional terms
they have played that card already with their divergent statements to
police. The parties presumed innocent would not have a truthful
account to put before a jury. The jury would nevertheless have its
benchmark .
Schadenfraud –
30.04.2014
According to Tracey
Kandohla (Daily Mirror, 25 April), former GP Kate has said: "There
is nothing to suggest Madeleine is not alive."
She has also said:
"Madeleine is still alive until someone proves otherwise."
As has been pointed out
on several previous occasions, it is not actually necessary to prove
Madeleine is dead (or 'not still alive') by revealing her corpse. It
can be done indirectly by proving that she was not abducted (see:
'There's nothing to say she's not out there alive' – McCannfiles,
27.6.09). Given that condition, there can be only one answer to Gerry
McCann's outburst, "Where is the child?" Telekinesis is
not, I'm afraid, an option in this case.
Prior to the first of DCI
Andy Redwood's 'revelation moments' it could be (and indeed was)
established that no abductor could possibly have exited the McCanns'
apartment at a time coincident with Jane Tanner's so-called sighting
(see: 'No Way Out' and 'No Way Out At All' – McCannfiles, 8.7.13
and 13.7.13). Despite (or perhaps because of) the obviously contrived
emergence of an innocent parent portering their own daughter around
the streets of Praia da Luz at the time, the McCanns remain of the
view that this is not whom Jane Tanner saw on the night of May 3rd,
raising the possibility of there having been no end of transient
child bearers in the vicinity that night, like a Pierce Brosnan scene
from the re-make of The Thomas Crown Affair.
Recent personal
experience has confirmed two things in particular: that the
introduction of an unverifiable third-party into the account of a
crime is a gambit as old as Methuselah and, despite jurors being
cautioned against speculation, phrases such as 'could have', 'might
have' etc. are as irresistible as bananas are to monkeys. (Their use
in deliberation - the phrases not the bananas - should be banned).
Nevertheless, in the context of the McCanns' account of Madeleine's
'abduction' they are rife, which would leave any prosecuting counsel
the task of discounting limitless flights of imagination before they
could address the most probable cause or sequence of events.
So now how do we prove
Madeleine was not abducted? Perhaps by focussing on what a child
abduction is, or isn't.
Both parents, Kate McCann
especially, have expressed remorse at not having been present 'at
that minute', when 'it' happened. Needless to say, had they been in
attendance at the time then 'it' should not have happened at all.
Taking things at face value, it is perfectly obvious that the McCanns
would not have stood back while their daughter was abducted by a
stranger. No parent would do so (unless faced with Sophie's Choice
perhaps). Hence, if the McCanns were seen to have been tacit
accomplices to the act of Madeleine's removal from apartment 5A the
Ocean Club, they will not have been complicit in abduction, but
something else entirely. Either way they would have harboured some
fore-knowledge of the event.
And that's the rub. They
did exhibit foreknowledge, which means (a) the event in question was
not abduction as commonly understood and (b) they knew what it was,
just as well as they knew what it wasn't. In the words of an
anonymous lawyer, repeated for emphasis by Kate McCann in her book
'madeleine', "One coincidence, two coincidences - maybe they're
still coincidences. Any more than that and it stops being
coincidence."
Coincidentally Kate
McCann experienced a sudden aversion to own her camera, following her
last photograph of daughter Madeleine, eight hours before she was
found to be missing. Coincidentally, Gerry McCann's receipt of
regular text messages, and his predictable recourse to voicemail
thereafter (a daily routine associated with the aftermath of
Madeleine's disappearance), was a behaviour he exhibited on May 2nd –
over twenty four hours before Madeleine was found to be missing.
Coincidentally, a McCann family member photographed a subject of
unique relevance to the search for their missing daughter before she
was discovered missing. That's three coincidences where, according to
no less an authority than Kate McCann herself, the occurrence of more
than two means none of them can be considered chance events (as
there's no means of identifying the one that might be).
If Madeleine McCann was
not abducted then she is dead. She was not abducted. She is therefore
dead, and has been for seven years, since before the establishment of
'Madeleine's Fund' by her parents, who did not ask for money at first
but very quickly set up a way of dealing with it that traded on the
false premise of the child's unexplained disappearance, and continues
to do so.
