A Nightwear Job
A Knight On The Tiles
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| Le haut et le bas du pyjama, dans le rapport d'examen forensique (il s'agit d'un modèle identique, acheté par la PJ) |
A Nightwear Job –
09.03. 2016
In the very nearly nine
years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the eight
since the parents had their arguido status formally withdrawn, one
simple question has passed publicly unanswered, probably because the
answer appears obvious and the question therefore not worth the
asking. I shall ask it nevertheless:
Who took the McCanns' 'official photograph' of Madeleine's pyjamas?
The image in question was
'released' to the world's media in the late afternoon of 10 May,
2007, following a press conference that day.
Mais ce jour-là il n'y a pas eu de photo, les MC ont exhibé le pyjama, censé appartenir à Amelie, devant les caméras.
It was no doubt assumed
by many that, since the PJ released the photographs (there is more
than one), the PJ themselves must have taken them. Yet a film
distributor who arranges the release of a 'blockbuster' is hardly
likely to have spent the previous months/years actually doing the
filming.
On ne voit pas pourquoi la PJ aurait fait une photo officielle du pyjama, qui n'était pas en sa possession puisqu'il a fallu en acheter un identique au RU. Il semble plus plausible que la photo ait été faite par les MC ou un de leurs proches et remise à la presse.Par ailleurs, quel était l'intérêt de ce pyjama ? Si MMC avait été enlevée, il est évident que la première chose à faire était de se débarrasser d'un objet aussi compromettant et, s'il fallait absolument promener l'enfant en public, de la vêtir d'une autre manière.
En réalité la suite de l'histoire permettra de comprendre l'intérêt d'exhiber ce pyjama : le haut a des manches courtes. Or la fillette identique à Madeleine, portée par Smithamn et vue par les 9 membres de la famille S, avait, selon deux de ces derniers, un haut à manches longues. Ce pyjama Eyyore n'ayant pas de version manches longues, il est probable que M ait disparu avec un autre pyjama. On sait par sa mère qu'elle avait un pyjama Barbie à manches longues.
With this seed of doubt
in mind, one might consider what the PJ did with their photograph(s),
adhering all the while to the worldwide practice, among law
enforcement agencies, of 'continuity', whereby the progress of
evidence through the system, in whichever direction, is recorded at
each step along the way. Whereabouts, then, did they file this
particular 'diligence' of theirs?
Within the relevant
Forensic report (23 November 2007) are references to the following
images, together with cognate views of a pair of pyjama trousers:
A far cry from earlier
publicised representations you will admit.
Why on earth should the
PJ have seemingly undertaken the same photographic work twice,
involving two quite different sets of pyjamas?
The forensic record (of
garments correctly pictured alongside a scaling reference, i.e. a
ruler) is that of a pair of pyjamas supplied on request by M&S
(UK), afterwards forwarded to the Forensic Laboratory in Lisbon by
Gonçalo Amaral, together with a covering letter dated 7 June. It has
nothing whatever to do with the official photograph released in early
May. In fact the clothing pictured has more in common with that
featured in the retailer's own contemporary stock photograph, a copy
of which was sent to the Algarve Resident, again on request, and
which the 'Resident' published on 8 May - two days before the
official release.
During a press call at
the Amsterdam Hilton, on 7 June, Kate McCann took pains to explain
that the pyjamas being exhibited at that time were in fact Amelie's,
and that Madeleine's were not only bigger but did not feature a
button-fastening t-shirt. Only a couple of days earlier the same
pyjamas, again described as 'Amelies' and 'a little bit smaller',
were presented on 'Crimewatch', but without reference to the button
discrepancy.
It stands to reason of
course, that, Madeleine McCann's pyjamas having been abducted, a
surrogate pair would have been required for photographic purposes, in
the event of there being no existant photographic record of the
clothing in question. But appropriate photographs were to hand. They
already existed. One version, as we have seen, was published by the
Algarve Resident, another by the BBC. The McCanns' 'official' version
was consistent with neither of these. With the PJ yet to physically
access a representative set of pyjamas, why should they have been
called upon to photograph anything else for immediate release?
There is no record of
their having done so. Ergo they did not. So who did? And where did
the pyjamas come from that enabled them to do it?
Addressing the second of
these questions first, the garments featured in the PJ release cannot
have come from M&S locally, since all their Portuguese branches
had been closed years before. Had they come from M&S in the UK
they would obviously have resembled the pair sent to (and genuinely
photographed by) the PJ. A pointer to their origin is, however, to be
found within the case files.
Le pyjama montré par les MC comme appartenant à Amelie (à Amsterdam par exemple) est trop grand pour cette petite fille.
On ne sait pas quelle est la taille de celui qui figure dans le dossier de la PJ et qui a été acheté au RU (M&S) afin de comparer les fibres avec des fibres trouvées dans le bougainvilliers. Ce n'est pas exactement le même modèle, la longueur des jambes pouvant avoir changé entre 2006 et 2007.
Si le pyjama exhibé par les MC n'appartenait pas à Amelie, mais à MMC, qu'avait-elle sur le dos quand elle a disparu ?
Le seul motif de ce tour de passe-passe "pyjama" serait de neutraliser le témoignage d'Aoife S qui a déclaré que l'enfant portée par Smithman avait un haut à manches longues. D'où l'importance de convaincre que le pyjama que portait MMC quand elle a disparu avait des manches courtes et c'est un point que Kate ne perdra pas une occasion de mentionner.
Alongside a suite of
photographs taken at Lagos Marina by Kate McCann is an introductory
memo, written by DC Markley of Leicester Police on or about the 8 May
and headed up, 'Information from the Family'. Here also one finds the
only copy (in black and white) of the McCanns' official photograph of
Madeleine's pyjamas (Outros Apensos VIII Vol. II, p.342).
Rather than its being a PJ production, afterwards passed to the
McCanns, it seems the photograph was actually a McCann production fed
to the PJ, an observation wholly concordant with the fact that it was
actually the McCanns who first revealed this photograph to the press,
on Monday 7 May, three days before the PJ released it (as reported by
Ian Herbert, the Independent, 11.5.07).
Any illusion that the
image in question was the result of a McCann representative's
commissioning their own studio photograph of 'off-the-shelf' UK
merchandise may soon be dispelled. It is an amateur snapshot. Taken
in ambient (day) light, against a coloured (as opposed to neutral)
background, it is slightly out of focus and displays detectable signs
of parallax. It is not something even a journeyman professional would
admit to. And yet, bold as brass,
it represents 'information from the family'. Perhaps it was produced
by a member of the McCann entourage that descended on Praia da Luz
over the long weekend 4-6 May? Then again, perhaps not. As Kate
McCann explains in her book, 'Madeleine' (p.109):
Everyone had felt helpless at home and had rushed out to Portugal to take care of us and to do what they could to find Madeleine. When they arrived, to their dismay they felt just as helpless – perhaps more so, having made the trip in the hope of achieving something only to discover it was not within their power in Luz any more than it had been in the UK.
On Kate McCann's own
admission, to a House of Commons committee no less, neither she (mais elle n'est pas allée à la Chambre des communes) nor
husband Gerry were any more capable of keeping cool under fire during
this time. Having earlier (August 2007) told her Pal, Jon Corner,
"the first few days.…you have total physical shutdown",
she went on to advise the House that, despite being medically
trained, she and her husband "couldn't function" (John
Bingham, the Telegraph, 13.6.2011). Well someone on the
McCann side of the fence managed to function in time for the parents
to appear before the media on 7 May with a photograph that, so far,
no-one seems to have taken, and of clothing which, other things being
equal, ought not even to have existed anywhere inside Portugal,
except, perhaps, in the clutches of a fugitive abductor. But, of
course, other things are anything but equal.
Non mihi, non tibi, sed
nobis
A month after the world's
media were first shown a picture of something resembling Madeleine
McCann's 'Eeyore pyjamas', a real set was being touted around Europe.
Described by Kate McCann as 'Amelie's' and being 'a little bit
smaller', they were held aloft for the assembled press brigade,
without any one of them questioning the pyjamas' origins either.
Being 'Amelie's' was quite enough, apparently, to justify their also
being in the McCanns' possession at the time. Since when though?
Gerry McCann did not return home to Leicester from Praia da Luz until
21 May, time enough for him to have raided his daughter's wardrobe
for something he might need on his European travels, but way too late
to have met any 7/10 May deadlines.
It seems, then, as if the two ingredients required to achieve an earlier photograph of 'Madeleine's' pyjamas (the photographer and the subject) were both missing. So how was it done?
It seems, then, as if the two ingredients required to achieve an earlier photograph of 'Madeleine's' pyjamas (the photographer and the subject) were both missing. So how was it done?
What at first appears to
be a riddle is soon solved when one realises that the pair of pyjamas
which accompanied the McCanns around Europe was the very same pair
that starred in their 'official photograph' taken earlier. Kate
McCann took public ownership of them before the television cameras
the moment she referred to them as 'Amelie's'. On close inspection
these pyjamas (Amelie's) are revealed as identical to the pair
previously pictured in both the Daily Mail (10.5.07), the
Telegraph, the BBC, down to the stray threads dangling
from both upper and lower garments. This means that 'Amelie's
pyjamas', for want of a better description, were also present with
the McCanns since the start of their Algarve holiday. Suddenly the question
ceases to be 'Who photographed a representative pair of Eeyore
pyjamas?' and becomes, instead, 'Who photographed Amelie's pyjamas?'
Furthermore, if everyone was feeling so shell-shocked as to render
them incapable from the Friday, when did they have the presence of
mind to take the requisite pictures?
We begin to edge toward a
sinister conclusion once we take particular account of the literal
background against which these particular pyjamas were photographed.
Unlike the various studio
renditions of Eeyore pyjamas to which we have been introduced, the
McCann's official photograph(s), versions of which were published by
both the PJ and the UK media, present the subject laid out against a
blue textile, rather than the more customary piece of artist's board.
This blue upholstery, for that is unquestionably what it is, helps
define who, among the Tapas 9, might have been the photographer.
The Paynes, the Oldfields
and the O'Briens can be ruled out. Only the Payne's apartment
incorporated any soft furnishings in blue, but of a different quality
to the plain open-weave material on display here. During the early
morning of Friday 4 May, 2007, the McCanns were re-located to
alternative accommodation in apartment 4G - another in which blue
soft furnishings were conspicuous by their absence (it was appointed
in beige throughout).* Added to which the concern, lest we forget, is
with photography involving a pair of pyjamas known to have been in
the McCanns' possession from the outset.
In his statement to
Police of 10 May, Gerry McCann as good as exonerated himself of all
blame concerning picture taking:
Asked, he clarifies that apart from the personal photos already delivered by him to the police authorities after the disappearance of his daughter MADELEINE, he has no others in his possession. He adds that it is his wife KATE who usually takes pictures, he does not recall taking any pictures during this holiday, at night.
Notwithstanding accounts
of how, from the Friday onwards, the McCanns, their nearest and
dearest, all fell mentally and physically incapable (of anything save
visiting the pool, the beach bar, and the church on Sunday morning),
Kate McCann early on made a very telling remark, concerning
photography, to journalist Olga Craig: "I haven't been able to
use the camera since I took that last photograph of her" (The
Telegraph, May 27, 2007).
That statement alone
carries with it a very serious connotation. However, we still have a
distance to travel.
The more contrastive of
the two images reproduced here displays what appear to be areas of
shadow, when in fact there are no local perturbations at the surface
of the fabric to cause them. Similarly, the dark bands traversing the
t-shirt appear more representative of what is actually beneath it.
These visible oddities suggest the material is in fact damp and
'clinging' to the underlying upholstery.
There is, as we know, an
anecdote of Kate McCann's, which sees her washing Madeleine's pyjama
top on the Thursday morning. As re-told in her book, she does so
while alone in the family's apartment: "I returned to our
apartment before Gerry had finished his tennis lesson and washed and
hung out Madeleine’s pyjama top on the veranda."
Size matters
As previously stated,
Kate McCann was careful to bring the attention of her Amsterdam
Hilton audience, to Madeleine's pyjama top being both larger and
simpler than the version she was holding in her hands at the time.
She was inviting them instinctively to associate garment size with
complexity - the larger the simpler in this instance. It would mean
of course that Madeleine's 'Eeyore' pyjamas, purchased in 2006, would
not have been absolutely identical with those of her sister Amelie,
purchased whenever (but obviously before the family's 2007 holiday on
the Portuguese Algarve). Assez peu probable que deux pyjamas ne différant que par la taille aient été achetés à deux occasions différentes.
On 7 May, the Sun reported that The McCann family also disclosed that on the night of
her disappearance Madeleine was wearing white pyjama bottoms with a
small floral design and a short-sleeved pink top with a picture of
Eeyore with the word Eeyore written in capital letters. The clothes were
bought at Marks and Spencer last year.
In his 7 June covering
letter to the Forensic Laboratory in Lisbon, Goncalo Amaral conveys
the following specification in relation to the pyjamas he was intent
on sending for examination:
"The Pyjamas are
from Marks and Spencers, size 2 to 3 years -97 cm."The pyjamas are composed of two pieces: camisole type without buttons"
Since these items could
only have been supplied to the PJ in mid-07, they must have
represented that year's style, as it were, for 2-3 year olds.
Madeleine would have been four years old by this time. However, Kate
McCann would have people believe that 'Amelie's' pyjamas, sporting a
button, were designed to fit an even younger child. Had Kate
purchased the appropriate pyjamas for Amelie in 2007 of course, they
would not have had a button at all.
They must therefore have
been purchased in the same epoch as Madeleine’s own, i.e. during
2006, when Amelie would have been a year younger and somewhat smaller
even than when the family eventually travelled to Portugal the
following year.
The significance of all
this becomes apparent once we consider those photographs which show
how the pyjamas held aloft by the McCanns at their various European
venues encompassed half Gerry McCann's body length at least.
Photographs of the McCanns out walking with their twins in Praia da
Luz, on the other hand, illustrate, just as clearly, that Amelie
McCann did not stand that tall from head to toe. Even In 2007 she
would have been swamped by her own pyjamas, never mind the year
before when they were purchased.
In conclusion, the
McCanns' 'official photograph', first exhibited on 7 May, appears to
be that of a damp pair of pyjamas, too big to have been sensibly
purchased for Madeleine's younger sister that Spring, and most
certainly not the year before. The subject is set against dark blue
upholstery of a type not present in any of the apartments occupied by
the McCanns or their Tapas associates immediately after 3 May. Kate
McCann has explained, over time, how she was alone in apartment 5A
that morning, in the company of a damp pyjama top (having just washed
it) and how, from that afternoon by all accounts, she 'couldn't bear
to use the camera', an automatic device (Canon PowerShot A620)
belonging to a product lineage with an unfortunate reputation for
random focussing errors.
Madeleine was not
reported missing until close to 10.00 p.m. that night. If Madeleine
McCann's pyjamas were not in fact abducted, then nor was Madeleine
McCann.
L'insistance de KMC sur le bouton que le pyjama de MMC n'avait pas est intéressante. C'est un détail absolument inutile pour la recherche de MMC, mais très utile pour convaincre le monde que le pyjama exhibé est celui d'Amelie, pas celui de MMC.
A Knight On The Tiles –
23.06.2016
Where might a titled
visitor to Praia da Luz choose to go for the occasional
not-so-incognito tipple?
The following list of PdL
bars catering for English clientèle is derived from those
recommended by two tourist guide web sites, namely: Cafe & Bars -
Bars info
LocationsThe Bull
Clive’s Bar
Godots
Junction 17 (aka Carlos’ Bar)
Kelly’s
Luz Tavern
JD’s
The Snug (opened 2011)
Olly’s Bar (opened 2011)
Intriguingly, neither the bar Barroca (known until 2011 as The Plough and Harrow) nor The Pig’s Head (situated in Burgau) appears among these specifically ‘English’ suggestions. Which means that a complete stranger (a visiting journalist, say) would not be drawn to them necessarily.
Now let us suppose our
inquisitive journalist was smart enough to check out their options
before arriving. They might, if they were particularly interested in
the ombibulous habits of a deceased dipsomaniac, see fit to exclude
those establishments more recently inaugurated.
That would still leave them with more than half-a-dozen venues to visit.
That would still leave them with more than half-a-dozen venues to visit.
Then what? Do they embark
on a pub-crawl spread over the two or three days they have at their
disposal? And to what purpose exactly – simply to establish that
‘Kilroy woz here’?
All of which brings us to
the question of how it was that Antonella Lazzeri and her
photographer side-kick found themselves in the Pig’s Head on Friday
17 June, barely three days after the UK media had ‘unmasked’ the
late Sir Clement Freud and asking after his patronage there. It turns
out he had visited that venue just once, twenty years ago. Big deal.
The very next day Antonella announces to the world that Freud and Robert Murat were ‘on nodding terms’, the latter also having visited the Pig’s Head but once, a mere eight years or so ago (see how their paths don’t quite cross?).
The very next day Antonella announces to the world that Freud and Robert Murat were ‘on nodding terms’, the latter also having visited the Pig’s Head but once, a mere eight years or so ago (see how their paths don’t quite cross?).
But Lazzeri’s real
‘shock-horror’ discovery is that Freud frequented that other
place (Bar Barroca), which, under its previous identity (The Plough
and Harrow), had garnered an unfortunate reputation, predicated upon
the alleged behaviour of the then landlord’s son, Christian Ridout.
How on earth did
Antonella come by the information that this Luz centre locale was
once nicknamed the ‘Plough and Paedophile’? Would either the
present licensee or a current client have told her that? Nor does she
explain who gave this little drinking secret of Freud’s away
(protecting her source no doubt). It presented her with the platform
for her scurrilous article though. For without a connection, however
tenuous (if not fabricated), to impropriety of some sort, the
discovery that Sir Clement was known to go out for a drink every once
in a while wouldn’t have sold many copies. Nor would it pump oxygen
into the ailing abduction hypothesis put forward to explain the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
By making it to the Pig’s
Head, some two miles distant from the Ocean Club, Antonella Lazzeri
seems to have gone out of her way, literally, to uncover a
non-connection with the McCann case. Was she sober at the time,
having already crossed the other candidate venues off her sightseeing
list? Or did she only call into the two inconspicuous establishments
as previously instructed, if indeed she visited Bar Barroca at all?
Give the devil his or her
due. Antonella quite possibly researched the Plough and Harrow
'nearby', as she puts it, before she left London, the origins of the
epithet ‘Plough and Paedophile’ having previously been announced
by the Daily Mail – nine years ago come December.
As our diligent lady
journalist has seen fit to inform us, “Christian Ridout, 32, whose
parents owned the bar and lived next door to Murat, has never been
traced.” Except that two of her very own SUN colleagues, Gary
O’Shea and Emma Smith, had already traced him.
Following the Mail’s
lead by just a couple of months (February 2008), they reported that
Ridout was working as a Hollywood paparazzo, under the pseudonym
Dexter Troy.
Apparently they “found the ex-DJ there after a tip
from a fellow snapper”, despite O’Shea’s being credited with
writing from Praia da Luz. (It clearly takes a special talent to
become a SUN journalist)
Maybe next time Antonella
needs a photographer with local knowledge of PdL she’ll know who
best to contact.
