The British media was not 100 per cent in support of them. Far from it. They wouldn't have had cause to sue as many publications as they did if that was the caseThis calls to mind the quote -
"Conspiracy theories only exist because true journalism doesn't exist anymore".
In todays climate, conspiracy theories are thrown about by the Establishment when those persuing the truth get too close. No doubt today, Nixons government would survive and Bernstein and Woodward thrown to the wolves.
I'm old and ugly enough to remember May 2007 - my then Father in Law, ex CID, said the case stunk to high heaven.
The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown -a friend of Gerry McCann - took it upon himself to speakout publicly ; a PR guru, Clarence Mitchell, was hired by the British Govt to navigate the media storm for the McCanns ; in the early weeks whilst most parents would be tearing up the Portuguese earth with their bare hands to find their missing daughter, the McCanns travelled from Portugal to the Vatican for an audience with the Pope. The memory of Ben Needham and the lack of support his Mother received from the British Consulate was very much in the public consciousness and the Public were asking uncomfortable questions.
This was 2007 - there was no social media. But it was the early days of forums and the Daily Mirror Forum was prolific in the pursuit of extra information from Portugal considering that the British Media was 100% in support of two parents who neglected three under fours at night in a foreign country and how bloody dare thicko Johnny Foreigner accuse two upstanding British Doctors of wrongdoing.
That extra information posted on the Forum from Portuguese Journalists and local British expats was a thorn in the side of the British Establishment who, with the advent of the InterWeb, struggled to keep a lid on the narrative and the Police investigation in Portugal.
I read her book - one of the most strangest reads ever. TRIGGER ALERT - this woman wrote about her daughters genitals being mutilated. She also described in great detail a three course meal she enjoyed at the pweirdo Clement Freuds house. In Praia de Luz..... Just 2 weeks after her daughters disappearance.....
Sixteen years on - I still support my ex Father In Laws position.
This case stinks to high heaven
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The British media was not 100 per cent in support of them. Far from it. They wouldn't have had cause to sue as many publications as they did if that was the case
2007/2008 - no dissenting voice was allowed. Don't you remember the closed ranks- everyone from Richard and Judy to Fiona what's her face on GMTV saying that they all left their children in hotel rooms asleep while they went on the lash.
Gerry wiped his blog when he incriminated himself in situations that otherwise would have stopped them looking guilty. There will be screenshots saved somewhere. Would love to see the one about the fridge again, and madeleines eye defect being a good marketing ploy and how Madeleine was scared of Kate’s temper, which he wrote in detail on there.
They were taking legal action as early as 2008
Even IF the two said so and talked about Ma
I don’t get the eye thing. Did she have a star shaped iris now or didn’t she?
roll on to 2022 and they lost their appeal at the European Court of Human rights over the Portuguese Police Goncalo Amaral book
The coloboma was photoshopped, they both admitted she didn’t have one and Gerry joked in an interview it was a marketing ploy
I don't see how anyone who has read the PJ files can insist that the window was open. It is an incredibly contentious statement to say the least. Just because Kate McCann stated that at 10pm she found Madeleine missing, the window open and the curtains flapping doesn't mean that was what happened.
The witness statements of the Tapas 7 themselves contradict what Kate said about the window being open. Anyone interested in evidence will definitely be interested in that.
Fiona Payne's statement was that when she was with Kate McCann in the apartment in the first instance, there was no talk whatsoever of a window being open. She actually says that later on she started to hear about a window being open, but that this wasn't mentioned by Kate at all in the initial stage. Fiona Payne mentions checking the room, lifting the shutters, even trying the patio doors to see if a child could have pushed them open. Amaral felt that indicated a) that she knew the only way Madeleine could have got out of the room was through the patio because b) she wasn't seeing anything that indicated that there was an open window, forced entry or any other way that Madeleine could have got, or be taken, out. Not one of the Tapas 7, who were in and out of the apartment in those first hours, mentioned an open window in any of their statements.
The other thing their statements corroborated wasn't that Kate's first words when she rushed back to the Tapas bar was not "they've taken her" or "she's been taken", which launched the abduction story and has passed into folklore and which Kate stated in one of the early interviews. All the Tapas 7 in their statements of May 4th say that Kate's first words were just "Madeleine's gone" with no mention of an open window or flapping curtains. They all thought she had got out of the apartment and they were out looking for her and calling her name (this is indicated in their statements). Diane Webster, Fiona Payne's mother, was left alone at the Tapas bar to stay there in case Madeleine returned there. This doesn't sound like the reaction of someone who had just been told that the apartment window was open, the windows flapping, there was forced entry and Madeleine had been taken.
The witness statements of the Tapas 7 themselves contradict what Kate said about the window being open. Anyone interested in evidence will definitely be interested in that.
Fiona Payne's statement was that when she was with Kate McCann in the apartment in the first instance, there was no talk whatsoever of a window being open. She actually says that later on she started to hear about a window being open, but that this wasn't mentioned by Kate at all in the initial stage. Fiona Payne mentions checking the room, lifting the shutters, even trying the patio doors to see if a child could have pushed them open. Amaral felt that indicated a) that she knew the only way Madeleine could have got out of the room was through the patio because b) she wasn't seeing anything that indicated that there was an open window, forced entry or any other way that Madeleine could have got, or be taken, out. Not one of the Tapas 7, who were in and out of the apartment in those first hours, mentioned an open window in any of their statements.
The other thing their statements corroborated wasn't that Kate's first words when she rushed back to the Tapas bar was not "they've taken her" or "she's been taken", which launched the abduction story and has passed into folklore and which Kate stated in one of the early interviews. All the Tapas 7 in their statements of May 4th say that Kate's first words were just "Madeleine's gone" with no mention of an open window or flapping curtains. They all thought she had got out of the apartment and they were out looking for her and calling her name (this is indicated in their statements). Diane Webster, Fiona Payne's mother, was left alone at the Tapas bar to stay there in case Madeleine returned there. This doesn't sound like the reaction of someone who had just been told that the apartment window was open, the windows flapping, there was forced entry and Madeleine had been taken.
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Spot on LadyH
When the mccanns realised their story wouldn’t wash with the detectives they Invented other things to make their version of events acceptable. By insisting the window was open everyone would then believe she was taken by someone. Not having evidence of anyone being in the apartment or leaving with Madeleine made their story just a theory of what happened and not a fact, like many people here and in the public seem to believe. Even IF Madeleine had been kidnapped all of their lies and inconsistencies completely ruined all chances of finding her. They wouldn’t co operate with the police and made themselves look guilty from the start.
Why photoshop photos of your daughter? Why go home for recent photos of your daughter? You’re on holiday so your camera should be full of recent photos of her. There should be dna from her everywhere. Toddlers get sticky fingers and touch everything. Yet not a single trace.
When the mccanns realised their story wouldn’t wash with the detectives they Invented other things to make their version of events acceptable. By insisting the window was open everyone would then believe she was taken by someone. Not having evidence of anyone being in the apartment or leaving with Madeleine made their story just a theory of what happened and not a fact, like many people here and in the public seem to believe. Even IF Madeleine had been kidnapped all of their lies and inconsistencies completely ruined all chances of finding her. They wouldn’t co operate with the police and made themselves look guilty from the start.
Why photoshop photos of your daughter? Why go home for recent photos of your daughter? You’re on holiday so your camera should be full of recent photos of her. There should be dna from her everywhere. Toddlers get sticky fingers and touch everything. Yet not a single trace.
When did they admit that?
It wasn’t a coloboma that she had, it was a freckle in her eye.
how do you know?
no one is insisting the window was open, but it was something Kate put in her statement and said initially - so regardless of whether this is proven true later or not - that’s the intelligence the GNR had when they arrived at the scene. The intelligence they had was that a child was missing, possibly abducted and therefore a crime could have taken place. For reasons known only to them, they didn’t react appropriately and didn’t close off the scene. The PJ have stated that they should have, they agree that this was shoddy police work. So this isn’t some media/McCann/U.K. police criticism. It comes from the PJ itself.
the abduction theory isn’t in “folklore”. It was a credible line of inquiry that was actively pursued by several police bodies. It’s still an open line of enquiry last time I checked.
the thing is, the issue of the window isn’t really all that important and it’s certainly not a smoking gun. It’s a bit of a straw man argument, because by the time the PJ started to (badly) take forensic samples from it, it was the early hours of the following morning, and members of the public (the public, not the McCanns) had contaminated the scene beyond all real forensic viability.
had the scene been preserved, then fingerprints from any perpetrator might have been found. Or maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe the windows would’ve been found to have been wiped down. Maybe the windows would only have had the McCanns fingerprints. Maybe fibres from Maddys clothing would’ve been found, or maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe foreign fibres with unknown DNA would’ve been found, or maybe DNA would’ve been found and matched with someone on a database. But we will never know the answer to these questions because the police didn’t secure the scene.
so, so what if Kate made a mistake about the window being open? So what if she got it wrong? So what if the tapas 7 have slightly different versions of how the room looked at any given time? What does this prove? What does this really tell us? Nothing. Not a thing.
you can’t accuse the tapas 7 of straightening out some bizarre story without also wondering how they’d managed to mix up a crucial element of an abduction story (the window). It doesn’t make sense.
I get that most people won’t understand all the mechanisms at play, I get that most people won’t understand how witness statements usually work after a crime has been committed. I get that most people don’t really understand how victims of a crime can behave and act - how could they?
but I really do struggle to understand how people will read a body of files or statements, in a context they can’t possibly understand or assess fully - and can they decide they know for certain what happened?
how can anyone be so sure? Surely it’s such an ignorant stance to take, being so closed minded? I could never take such a strong stance on something that has such little evidence to support it. How can someone read a nasty statement from the likes of Yvonne and decide that yep, must mean they murdered their child. It defies logic. Reading Daily Mail headlines and taking it as fact, defies logic. Hearing a rumour on the internet and accepting it as truth, defies logic.
at the end of the day, there has never been any substantial evidence to suggest the McCanns harmed their child. And there is Zero real evidence that they ever tried to cover anything up.
So we have a couple who have claimed to have suffered one of the worst crimes possible - the abduction and likely murder of their child. I personally, would rather assume them innocent until there is strong evidence to suggest otherwise. I would rather assume them innocent and be proven wrong, than be someone who casts cruel and unkind aspersions on potentially completely innocent people who have suffered enormously. That’s my take and tbh I don’t think I’ve got much more to say on it.
Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out then!
There is zero proof of an abduction but proof Madeleine came to harm in the apartment. Dna doesn’t lie, humans do.
There is zero proof of an abduction but proof Madeleine came to harm in the apartment. Dna doesn’t lie, humans do.
there’s no need to be rude and oh. My. God.
the DNA was inconclusive. Inconclusive.
Except that Kate didn’t say anything about the window when the GNR turned up. Strange. Even when the inspector came at 12.40am, she still didn’t say anything. Very strange.
“The parents, reported the inspector, “looked quite tired and anguished,” particularly the mother. Not only anguished, but silent. For the fourth time that night Kate McCann, the only witness of value, failed to come forward and tell the police – this time in the person of a criminal investigator - what she had seen. Once again the story of the jemmied shutters and the evidence that made her “certain” that abduction, not a disappearance, had taken place – evidence that Kate McCann later alleged that she had given the Portuguese police but could not describe to the public - once again, her story went untold.”
“The parents, reported the inspector, “looked quite tired and anguished,” particularly the mother. Not only anguished, but silent. For the fourth time that night Kate McCann, the only witness of value, failed to come forward and tell the police – this time in the person of a criminal investigator - what she had seen. Once again the story of the jemmied shutters and the evidence that made her “certain” that abduction, not a disappearance, had taken place – evidence that Kate McCann later alleged that she had given the Portuguese police but could not describe to the public - once again, her story went untold.”
I remember reading something about it by a specialist on the condition, I can’t recall where though, it was quite some time ago.
again, irrelevant. It doesn’t matter when Kate said the window was open (although her statement stated she noticed it that night).
The GNR were told Madeline had been taken - the first thing Kate had said upon the discovery according to multiple accounts. Ergo their intelligence on that day at that time was a crime potentially had been committed and all logic and protocol should have pointed them to secure the scene. Even if the mccanns had been lying - thats still a crime. Even if maddie had just wandered off, they should have as a minimum… secured that scene as a potential crime scene. There was no legitimate reason to prevent the police from securing that locus. None at all.
of course on a message board, you have the luxury of being able to presume whatever you wish … however the investigators in real time on the ground don’t. Their responsibility is to the missing child not to not offending the parents by questioning what they are told. Basically they don’t have the luxury of believing anyone, until given a cast iron reason to do so.
i remember being told by friend policeman hubby … we decide what it’s important we know, not you and that while 2 witnesses put you in heartsink land because chances are they will remember different things by the time you get to 3 or 4 then there is corroboration going on. To find 8 or 9 would normally be a dream because the pieces would start to fit.
its probably been mentioned before, but Kevin Wells, in his book, spoke about being questioned by the police at the station … and he answered everything he could as fast as he could because while it frustrated him he just wanted it done so he could get back on his bike searching.
That’s all well and good, and you certainly bring an interesting perspective to this discussion. I take your point about not securing the apartment.
But if we’re not supposed to look at useless stuff like Daily Mail headlines because that makes us small-minded AND we’re also not supposed to look at original source material like the witness statements because we don’t understand how they work, what’s left? Making kind comments about the McCanns because they might have had a terrible crime committed against them, and talking about whatever latest version of Tannerman is being paraded in front of us this year, doesn’t make for a very satisfying discussion.
I don’t quite understand the point about how witnesses contradicting each other and themselves don’t tell us anything. If witness statements don’t tell us anything, and the dogs don’t tell us anything. what’s the point of any of it? Or do you feel that as there are no definite conclusions to draw about anything, there’s no point in discussing it?
Or is it the discussion of professional matters by a bunch of interested non-professionals you don’t like? I get it by the way… I used to work in a field everyone thinks they can do with no training, and it sometimes really bugged me.
But it’s the nature of this case, and our shared desire for closure (and a sense some of have of being duped in a very significant though difficult-to-articulate way) that people are going to keep on speculating and trying to make things fit, because they feel they need to - whether they know exactly what they’re doing or not.
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