Disclosures by Gary Hagland, a money laundering expert hired by Brian Kennedy
Kennedy’s right-hand-man in England, Gary Hagland, was professionally an expert in financial compliance and money laundering - but not finding missing children. He and Kennedy had masterminded the McCanns’ Moroccan operation.
Anthony Bennett tells :
To recap, Gary Hagland, who lives in Nottingham, first ‘phoned me one Saturday afternoon in April 2009, just as I ws listening to the football results coming in. and waiting for Sport Report. He spoke for about an hour-and-a half. He told me quite a lot about his work with Brian Kennedy, which I’ve dealt with on the other threads.
Hagland is qualified in Financial Compliance, that is, in money laundering and fraud. Why he was selected to hunt for a missing child is anyone’s guess. I later found out that he has written a book: ‘UFO: A Saucer full of Secrets’, under the pen-name Mason Hosrbrough, in which, inter alia, he describes a swift trip to Saturn and back with aliens in a flying saucer.
My assessment of this chapter is as follows:
1 The first two quotes from emails – probably true
2 The next bit up to the middle of page 2 – background waffle
3 Form there to the end of page 3 – probably true
4 Pages 4 to the middle of page 6 – mostly true and can be checked
5 From here to the top of page 8 – a combination of waffle and rubbish about some Arab mistaking the word ‘Maddie’ for the Arabs/Muslims’ end-times figure, the ‘Mahdi’
6 From here to the bottom of page 9 – mostly true
7 Bottom of page 9 to the end, talking about Brian Kennedy’s staff meeting – I basically take it with a large pinch of salt.
Summary of what Gary Hagland told Anthony Bennett about his work with the MC team - April 2009
AB asked GH if he was required to sign
any confidentiality agreement with Brian Kennedy. He replied: “No
confidentiality clause, no contract, nothing on paper, he just asked me
to work for him and said he would pay my expenses”.
Gary Hagland
- Was appointed personally by Brian Kennedy
- Worked for him and the McCann Team from a house in Knutsford, Cheshire, said to have been bought by Brian Kennedy in his daughter’s name
- Kept a diary of his time there
- Had previous experience of working ‘in intelligence and security’
- Was not paid a wage during his time there - only ‘expenses’
- Gave an account of his time in the McCann Team to journalists from The Times. He says that the editor of The Times declined to use his material
- Wrote a draft of a book on his involvement in the case in 2008 and 2009
- Met with Metodo 3 investigators at Knutsford
- Met with an old friend in MI6 at the Institute of Directors in London to discuss the McCann Team’s plans to search for Madeleine in Morocco
- Interviewed the sisters Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire together with Julian Peribanez in November 2007
- Travelled to Barcelona for a ‘summit’ meeting with Metodo 3 staff at their offices in Barcelona ‘in early 2008’; there he met with three staff and a Spanish-English translator was also present
- Researched and analysed the various statements of Jane Tanner
- Was told that Jane Tanner was helped to make her statements by members of the International Family Law Group
- Spoke, on his own initiative, several times to D/Supt Stuart Prior
- Travelled to Praia da Luz, accompanied by Brian Kennedy’s son Paddy (Patrick), whom he says ‘shadowed’ him
- Met with Gerry McCann twice in ‘a park near Rothley’ to ‘discuss operations’
- Travelled to Morocco with Paddy and a Metodo 3 investigator to search for Madeleine
- Said that ‘someone from MI6 took over the McCann Team private investigations after Kevin Halligen left’
- Sought immunity from publishers if his book was published and ‘someone sued’, but to date no publisher has given such a guarantee.Gary Hagland and the Jensen sisters
- The old ‘Sargeants Inn’ website carried information about Gary Hagland’s involvement in
- interviewing the ‘Jensen sisters’ (Jayne Jenson and Annie Wiltshire). As far as I can tell, ‘Sargents Inn’ must have had a confidential source for this information, for I have seen it nowhere else.
- Here is some information culled substantially from the ‘Sargents Inn’ site, no longer available on the internet.
- Jayne Jensen claims to have seen Robert Murat around the Ocean Club at around 10.30pm on the evening of Thursday 3 May, the night Madeleine was reported missing. In this respect, she supported the accounts of three members of the ‘Tapas 7’, namely Rachael Oldfield, Fiona Payne, and Russell O’Brien. These three made statements on 15 and 16 May 2007 to the police claiming they had seen Robert Murat ‘hanging around the Ocean Club’ at around the same time as the Jensen sisters (i.e. around 10.30pm to 11.00pm). They claimed to have recognised Murat from footage being shown of him on TV the day he was arrested (15 May). The Jensen sisters also claimed to have seen two blond men hanging around one of the ground floor apartments before Madeleine was reported missing.
- The statements of the Jensen sisters and of the ‘Tapas 3’ (above) followed hard on the heels of Jane Tanner having reportedly been adamant, two days earlier, that Robert Murat was the person she claimed to have seen carrying a child from near the McCanns’ apartment at about 9.15pm on Thursday 3 May.
- About five to six month later (that is, around November 2007), according to the ‘Sargents Inn’, the Jensens sisters were, in turn, interviewed by Gary Hagland and Julian Peribañez) from Spanish detective agency Metodo 3, and either before then, or after, by Detective Constable Bob Sidoli and Detective Constable Jo Godfrey, both believed to be from Kent Police. A Robert Sidoli is shown as living in Ashford, Kent. He may have a martial arts qualification. Peribañez was seen walking side by side with Clarence Mitchell in Praia da Luz in a Portuguese TV news bulletin, believed to be in November 2007.
- It was on 13 November 2007 that Kennedy had two meetings, one with the Portuguese Police at Portimao Police Station, the other with his lawyer, Edward Smethurst and Robert Murat and his lawyer, Francisco Pagarate. Five days later, the McCanns and the Tapas 7 all met with their advisers at Rothley Court Manor. The day after that meeting, Panorama screened its documentary on the case.
- None of these reports about the interviews of the Jensens come from the police, they all appear to come from anonymous sources such as: ‘a source close to the family’ or ‘a source close to the investigation’.
- The Jensen sisters had played tennis on holiday in Praia da Luz with the McCanns. Rajinder Balu from Essex, and Neil Berry also drank with the Jensen sisters.
- Neil Berry gave statements to the police on 7 May 2007 and on 8 January 2008 (when buccal swabs were taken). Berry’s 7 May statement is however not in the Portuguese Police files. Rajinder Balu’s statement is also missing from the police files.
- According to the Sargents Inn, the Jensen sisters were questioned, altogether, for a total of 11 hours. It is not known on what date they were questioned.
- I am given to understand, by the way, that Hagland has written up his memoirs of his time with the McCann Team.
- That is all I have for you at the moment.
