Tuesday 1 April 2008

How the McCann case highlights our true attitude towards EU membership

10th September 2007

The Madeleine McCann case highlights our true attitude towards membership of the European Union.

We think: "Why can't they get on top of this investigation?" They think: "Why don't they take their problems elsewhere and not destroy our tourist industry with their paedophile claims?"
We accept reluctantly a system imposed on us by politicians who concealed the loss of sovereignty it entailed, but Europe's still a them versus us affair.

Gordon Brown knows he'd have difficulty getting the new EU 'treaty' approved in a British referendum. That's why he's reluctant to have one.

Imagine how much more difficult it would be if the Portuguese drag Gerry and Kate McCann back to Praia da Luz and charge them with manslaughter.

For true believers in the EU, the investigation into a missing child should proceed in Praia da Luz in the same way it would in Pontypool. But it doesn't.

The Portuguese have their own way of doing things. And we appear to have no confidence in them. We'd prefer Madeleine's disappearance on May 3 to be investigated by British methods.
For instance, the crime scene - a holiday apartment - sealed and searched minutely, not given a once-over, with people tramping in and out, and afterwards re-let to holidaymakers.
Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann, said yesterday: "The crime scene was completely desecrated.

"Literally hundreds of people went into that apartment after Madeleine was abducted. It was at least two days before any fingerprinting was done."

The Portuguese investigation was agonisingly slow. British reporters on the scene described police activity as leisurely to non-existent. It's accepted here that the first hours in such an inquiry have to be the most intense.

The "scent of death" found in Madeleine's bedroom, on her cuddly toy, on Kate McCann's clothes and in the family's hire car - a vehicle rented weeks after Madeleine went missing - was detected by British scientists, who point out that there could be an innocent explanation.

But the McCanns say police are using it to try to force them to confess to killing their child.
Viewed from here, from day one the Portuguese investigation seemed clumsy and amateur.
Now that they've made Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate, official suspects - apparently on the basis of forensic evidence we helped them to gather and analyse - the British headlines reflect our doubts about the whole process.

While feeding titbits casting doubt on the McCanns to their own newspapers, Portuguese investigators were able to ban the couple from talking to the Press.

So the McCanns were unable to respond to lurid allegations other than taking legal action against one paper.

At first, police focused on a half-British man living there, Robert Murat, whom they named as an official suspect, or arguido. Their evidence?

Reporters told them he'd demonstrated an unnatural interest in the investigation. But that went nowhere, although he remains an arguido.

Not all of us think the McCanns innocent, of course. To some, their narrative has never rung true. Others think the McCanns should be prosecuted for leaving their sleeping children unsupervised.

But not even the anti-McCann group can applaud the Portuguese response to the disappearance of a three-year-old British girl.

Portugal is an old ally of Britain's, but the judicial process isn't the same. Portugal's derives from the nation's history and is matched to the nature of the country and its people. The same with ours.

This is why the EU's 'onesizefits-all' philosophy is so infuriating. A case like this exposes its weaknesses.

This isn't to say we can't co-operate with each other. As seagoing nations, Britain and Portugal have done so for centuries. And without British help, the police in Praia da Luz would have nothing to go on in the Madeleine case.

But would the 'evidence' they're using to make the McCanns official suspects warrant a prosecution here?

It's not that we're necessarily cleverer than the Portuguese. We do have our share of police malfunctions and malfeasance.

It's just that on occasions like this - the appalling loss of a child from an apparently respectable Roman Catholic family, whose doctor parents were comforted by the Pope but are now under suspicion - we are reminded that Europe is a continent of distinctly different nations.

We have been forced together by politicians who dream of enormous budgets, grand coalitions and world eminence, but have little time for recognising the forces that make nations act, and think, differently.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=480882&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=227&in_check=N

375 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 375 of 375
Anonymous said...

Sassy ssshhhhh

Rosiepops said...

Hi Everyone

hope you are all well.

China very interesting post 21.46 but what is the betting they try and wriggle out of this? The judge will say this is a "special case" this seems to be the standard line for them breaking their own laws and regulations.

However, if they do try this then they are going to look like they are hiding something really sinister and my betting will be on that the PJ have absolutely nothing at all to have done this to this coupe. They took a huge gamble with the consent of the Portuguese judicial system, probably managed to convince them the DNA would show something and it hasn't, in fact I would hedge a bet to say that the DNA far from shows the McCann's involvement but probably actually places them in the clear. (In my opinion of course).
Big times coming I sense and meanwhile those idiots are still pinning their hopes on these interviews, the fools. If I were them I would be worrying if the PJ even managed to get here on April 7th!

Tinkerbell43 said...

Melbel,

I have to agree, it does come across that way. The mere hint that Ribeiro could be preparing their public for no charges, imo spoke volumes.

I had read prior to his radio broadcast, that there were signs in Portugal of alleged discontent being aimed at the PJ as to how the investigation was being handled and confidence was wavering.

Anonymous said...

Melbel!!!! call yourself a friend. Sassy never ever speaking to you again.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Melbel - been plaiting my legs.

I think it was an accident with Arepa as she deleted herself very quickly.

I am not sure that you can change IDs, but you may be able to link another name to the e-mail address. Dangerous if you are Marla or DT and choose the wrong one!!!

Tinkerbell43 said...

I dont believe I missed the 201st post. It was only on 185 about 1 minute ago, I demand a recount!

Anonymous said...

HELEN

You didn'tsee my post then. Arepa

''I pointed at the stars and all you saw was my finger''

followed by a long long yaawwwn
sob story from dOUBTINg Thomas....ha ha ha ha

I said

''I pointed to the door, All you saw was your feet. In your mouth. AGAIN.'' i told you to leave before. Now go. Acreepa pretending t be d.t. There was a delay, in time, unlike PJ though it took me all of 2 seconds to see it and posted so. Idiot. Starting a post in your own name, pretend to be someone else, then sign off. Oh dear. and they say WE ARE IDIOTS.

if shoe fits wear it, then put it back....

in your big gob.

again.

It should still be there, if you look back. You get the gist if not. That is why I tick the follow up email box, as you miss some real gems and if they are sbsequently deleted, you still have the original copy to use. ha ha ha ha ha....daft aren't we? NOT

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie - Hiya - How ya doing?

Helen - So glad I've got that in writing. It'll go into my collection!

melbel said...

Mum
I just got chopped up !
I was just saying, that I had misread you and thought you were going and not coming.
Maybe,the lift,does not go all the way up to the top floor, either ,with me too.

chinadoll said...

Melbel,

I think the pj have a lot more to worry about - I would imagine that they are very concerned about the pending case facing the 5 pj arguidos ref Leanor Cipriano. That case certainly has the potential to go all the way to the European Court of Justice and now they have a similar case, yet another set of parents they are pointing the finger at and accusing of harming their daughter.

Two little girls go missing, seven miles apart and the pj do everything in their power to blame the parents.

Why?

(Sorry a duplicate post, I got left behind in the race to the first post on the top page)

Helen - What happened, even Melbel has pipped you to the post. lol

Anonymous said...

Tinks, have you been walking in the park? ha ha ha ha

Thanks for that Jane, but do you not end up with hundreds of e mails? What do you do with them all>

Rosiepops said...

Hi Sass

very dangerous, this is probably why Arsebliar never uses her Google blog account to sign in, unless of course she is here pretending to be Anonymous signing as Marla and managing to get herself in trouble, then doing her usual of lying through her back teeth to get out of it.

melbel said...

CHINA
Very important points you made.
This would be a nightmare, for any police force, but so high profile, with all the world watching
Though it is a serious case, poor Joana,maybe we would not be so aware of it,in the world were it not for Madeleine's case.
The POrtugese posters on alsie's, certainly were secretive and tried to keep the lid on it.

Tinkerbell43 said...

Helen,

I have, but I would never walk alone, in fact I will walk on and on with hope in my heart..........

Anonymous said...

Tinks,

Well if you haven't got hope you have nothing, just like your team!!!

Tinkerbell43 said...

Hi Rosie,

Good to see you. You're late, long day ?

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Helen - You are SUCH a wind-up merchant!

archer said...

Rosie Hi

It's almost over for Alsabliar. Her posting 'post' is all but redundant, and its time for her to hang up her keyboard. She knows that,but is waiting for one last shout of 'foul-play'. That will come after the interviews. She will then vent her bile at the injustice of the British Government et al.

Bring it on.

Alsabliar - listen up."There never was a case against the McCanns,it has boomeranged back on the PJ, AND NOW THEY ARE THE ONES IN THE SPOTLIGHT - AND THEY DON'T LIKE IT"

Justice for Kate and Gerry, and in time for Madeleine.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I know what you mean.

Imo, if the pj try to shelve this case and at the same time, maintain the arguido status of the McCanns, I think this would lead to a diplomatic incident and would make the pj look even more of a laughing stock.

It is one thing Portugal treating their own nationals this way (as in the scandalous Cipriano case) but to expect to get away with hushing a case up of a British child going missing seven miles away from this case, is another matter.

The more I think of it, the more it stinks.

Remember the earlier talk about 'what if it was a working class (British) single parent from a council estate?' In my opinion, regardless of nationality - if this was the case, the mother would probably be locked up too.

Tinkerbell43 said...

Helen,

I have the power to delete!

Rosiepops said...

I believe the Joana Cipriano case is going to be blown wide open again. If Tubby Gonc Ex PJ Paulo Cristovao and the others get found guilty, this is going to be huge in Portugal and it *will* get picked up on by every other newspaper in the world.

The top question will be how an officer so heavily embroiled in this scandal, a named arguido was ever allowed anywhere near the Madeleine McCann investigation.

I wonder what the ordinary Portuguese person thinks of this? I refuse to believe that the people on here are representative of the ordinary decent Portuguese person.

I believe that Leonor Cipriano will have an appeal in portugal and will win that appeal, I believe that this poor woman is innocent and this means her daughter is still out there and her abductors are still free and are probably carrying out their acts today unchallenged.

Something is very very wrong in Portugal.

Anonymous said...

To the person I am not ever ever speaking to if I do as Janesays and tick the box for e -mails will I endup with hundreds?

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hello Person who is not speaking to me.

Yes you will

Love ya loads, babe.

Rosiepops said...

Hi Tinks,

Yes very long day today and very tiring too! But enjoyable never the less.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie

That sounds like babysitting!

Rosiepops said...

Archer

you are correct, Arsebliar knows the game is up, even with her limited intelligence and all her and her mates PJ butt kissing is not going to get them out of this one!

Rosiepops said...

Sass

you could say that!

dianeh said...

Good morning all.

From one cretin to the rest.

Good to see that the arguido status may be lifted soon. I remember reading that it was likely that the arguido status would be lifted on all three at the same time. So hopefully, that is true.

And will happen soon.

But my question for the day is, why wait until the 11th hour to come back and question the friends.
My interpretation is that the PJ are making a public statement that the arguido status had to be held this long (and extended) in order to ask these questions. Else, they would have extedded the arguido status and not been publicly seen to do anything. That is not saying they have done nothing, just that publicly, this is how it would look.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I agree about the Cipriano case.

The difference the McCanns and the five pj arguidos, is that the McCanns have not been charged with anything, whereas the five pj arguidos have and are awaiting trial.

One of the five pj arguidos charged in connection with the brutal beating of Leanor Cipriano and with perverting the course of justice in said case, is the author of the recent book 'Star of Madeleine' and is being feted and praised in Portugal for same (according to what I read on Alsabellas old site)

Oh and this is his second book.

The first was titled 'The star of Joana' ie daughter of Leanor Cipriano.

You really could not make it up.

melbel said...

Hi Rosie
You must be shattered, if only just come in.
I think you could have it in one, re the PJ , banking on having the forensic stuff,later corroborated[spelt right ?]
The judge, probably took some convincing,but could have thought ,that there was a reasonable chance,of getting the evidence confirmed.
Read an article in Guardian, yesterday, by Amber Marks,criminal lawyer, engaged in doctoral research on surveillance,at Kings College, LOndon.
She said that "The accuracy of sniffer dogs is hugely exaggerated in the popular consciousness!.
She finishes, by saying that " The police and security services are constantly on the lookout for technologies, that can be used to justify hunches, coerce suspects into confessing and legitimise the use of force with something that can be labelled intelligence .Right now, smell fits the bill "

Mum21 said...

China. I agree..the PJ do have more important things to worry about. Like how long a lunch break can they take tomorrow....and how much booze can they consume in that amount of time.
The PJ lead a very busy life IMO

archer said...

China

That is so sick! are you telling me the Portuguese people actually go for this?....Good grief.

melbel said...

China
That is unbelievable, that he did the Joana investigation,is an arguido for that case and wrote the book, before he even went to trial.
Sounds totally corrupt.

chinadoll said...

Mum21,

Unfortunately, despite some of the good work they clearly do, in this case, they certainly seem to have a reputation for being laid back - not to mention self indulgence. On the other hand, I try to consider the cultural differences, but even so, I cannot forgive them for stopping their search for Madeleine so early.

That really makes my blood boil.

dianeh said...

Melbel

You are about to be target again, picking on Eddie and K???, forgot her name.

Remember we are all cretins (my words, as I cant remember what we were called when we first questioned the dogs) as we are unable to understand the finer points of the dogs 'evidence'. I also have previously tried to tell the 'others' that cadaver dogs are not reliable, in particular when the body is not longer in the area. But got called all sorts of names, even when I had an article from Holland where the dogs were put to the test by a man who hid his wife's body for 20 years. 75% of the eight indications of where the body had been stored were wrong.

So it is interesting to see that at long last an expert has come out to tell the public. Surely this is something the DX should have put up in an effort to provide a balanced view of the Madeleine case.

Tinkerbell43 said...

Nite all, bed calls.

Dont forget to spread the lurve xx

chinadoll said...

Archer and Melbel,

Yes unbelieveable

Yes sick

and Yes, from what I read on Alsabellas site directly from herself and some other Portuguese posters, this author, an arguido pending trial in the Cipriano case (who has already profited handsomely from a boook about same) is indeed, much admired and held in high regard.

It seems the pj can do no (or very little) wrong in Portugal.

Fortunately, the rest of the world do not buy it.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Night Tinkz!

Rosiepops said...

China

you raise a good point there, they probably would be locked up! I think the McCann's intelligence has always been a sore point with the PJ because they knew they were dealing with people that they could not push around or intimidate and in my opinion this is why they went for the trial by media angle, but unfortunately, it is all starting to backfire on the PJ - badly!

Regarding Joana going missing 7 miles away from where Madelene went missing from, I have read somewhere that when this happens, the chances of this being linked are incredibly high, yet it appears that despite this, the PJ have not investigated a possible connection with Joana Cipriano's disappearance and you can draw your own conclusions why that has not taken place!

This was always my one fear that because of the sensitivity of the Leonor Cipriano case, that any possible link would be ignored and any evidence turning up supporting a link to that case would be 'lost' or buried. can you imagine being a detective working on this case and you turn up incriminating evidence that links these two cases and your boss is Goncalo who is an arguido in this case at that time possibly facing serious charges (and now actually is) how are upon going to go to your him, your superior and tell him what you have found? And even if they were brave enough to do it, what would happen to that information?

*This is why Goncalo Amaral should NEVER, EVER have been in the position he was in*

It was absolute folly, insanity and what the hell was Portugal's judicial system doing allowing this?

It stinks to high heaven and someone is going to pay for this with their job.

Mum21 said...

Nite Tinks,
Sleep well.

Anonymous said...

Sorry folks, but I need to rest my head. Must be the cadbury creme eggs. You will be pleased to know that one made its way into the freezer, to take temptation away.

Sleep well, take care. Watch out for the gremlins!! (and Tinks's team taking that stroll in the park!!)lol

chinadoll said...

Goodnight Tinks

Sleep well and have a good day tomorrow.

archer said...

Goodnight Tinks

My bed calls me too!

Goodnight everbody..I am spreadig the lurve..xx

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Night person who will never ever speak to me again!

Mum21 said...

Good Night Helen
Speak to you tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Hello everyone. I am not sure what to think about this sad, sad situation. I have been reading several blogs over the past weeks and instead of learning more, I seem to be less sure of what to think as the days go by. However, I find some of the statements made on this site quite distressing. Even if the police did not act properly, and I don't know if they did or not, I believe it is very dangerous to accuse an entire country as I have seen on this site. I don't see how that can possibly help Madeleine.

This is just my thought for now.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Archer

Night!

Mum21 said...

Night Archer.
keep on spreading the lurve

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hello CBC

It's not a case of accusing a whole country - noone has ever said that Portugal as a whole is guilty!

Surely it is also dangerous to leak to the press that the parents are guilty for the disappearance of their daughter while forbidding the parents to defend themselves in any way.

dianeh said...

Truly confused

No one on here is accusing Portugal of anything. Only questioning the actions and methods of the PJ. In a nutshell, what we want is an open inquiry into the methods of the PJ, with particular emphasis placed on the Madeleine case.

How can you in all honesty find this distressing? I think that we all know the answer to that.

There is much more to find distressing over the Madeleine case than any imagined slight to the Portugese people.

Rosiepops said...

I still have my doubts the PJ will even get here on April 7th.

If they do nto turn up where will this leave them?

Mum21 said...

Who wants to answer the very new blogger Confused but Caring first?
Or should we just file it in the recycle bin?

dianeh said...

Confused

Madeleine relied upon the PJ for help and it has not been forthcoming. This might be due to many reasons, including the methods of the PJ.

Madeleine at the very least deserves for this to be addressed. Nothing less will be criminal.

dianeh said...

Mum

All done. No need for anyone else to answer the poor confused soul.

Anonymous said...

Sass

That is good to know. I am very afraid of any type of racism, because I believe that is where all evil steams from.

As for their police, I really don't know what to think. Reading this site, they seem very incompetant. Then, I read some others, and what they say also makes sense. I really don't know what to think.

The only truth we seem to know is that Madeleine has vanished.

Christabel said...

hi mum and everyone,
hope your all well,
just been reading posts.
I thought it was confused.com

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Sorry, got way laid by telephone call. You are right I read (think in the Times newspaper) that there has never been a single case of two children as young as this going missing at such close proximity - never in the UK

The statement was made by the ex police officer who has given many opinions on the case and whom firmly feels these were abductions.

Mum21 said...

Diane,
Best place for Confused is back where he/she came from. And we all know where that is.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

CFC

There is no racism here.

I agree that the only thing anyone knows is that Madeleine has disappeared.

Anonymous said...

Mum21

Am I not welcomed? You seem very defensive.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya Christabel

We never seem to be on at the same time!

To prove that I'm going to bed now!

Night everyone
Love ya all loads dahlings mwah mwah

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mum21 said...

Hi Christabel.
I have had a busy evening...in between posting on here.
Hope you are well too.

Anonymous said...

sorry guys

had to do supper phone calls, no back read back,

HELEN

NO YOU DON'T OFTEN GET HUNDREDS, YES SOMETIMES, - BUT THEY ARE FANTASTIC READING AND YOU SEE WHAT actually HAPPENED rather than the deleted child's version if you know what I mean. That way you know what REALLY HAPPENED. Not the sanitised version. You can instantly delete once you see who it is if you don't want to read, so no, minutes, not hours. In your case, I would do it.

I feel like a yo yo

up, down, up down, up down, good grief.


the only 'food' at the party was crisps and chewing gum. So I had to prepare a meal, then an hour later, another. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH.

Must be another growing spurt.

CHINADOLL and you can't wait to be a grandmother??? Good Grief.

well in a way I see what you mean, as you can hand them back. It is hard work. Very!!!!!

ARCHER

never ever heard you so vehement and worked up as tonight. Welcome to our club. ha ha

MUM

I was away cooking again and then again, and did not see you till read back half an hour ago to see .....

Yes, I know.....re all the back posts, I have a file full of them, they run th thousands now, with all the names,,,,,ha ha and that's one person....he hee they really think we don't know nor suss them out??? fools.

MELBEL

think you are gone now, but I know you read back, another for your collection

ONE CRISP SHORT OF A PACKET

ONE SANDWICH SHORT OF A PICNIC

ONE FINGER SHORT OF A FIST.///ET A;

Anonymous said...

It seems strange to me that after almost a year there are no clues as to where she is. Isn't it weird?

chinadoll said...

If you really are confused but caring, I suggest you look back into the history/archives of this blog and get an understanding of why we are all here.

Please do not cite the racist card here as it most certainly is not applicable and I and others do not wish to be hurt and offended by any such implication.

We feel that the McCanns are the victims of a great injustice albeit perpetrated by another country and police force. Nothing racist in that.

You do not know our backgrounds or our colour or nationality and I would request that you do not guess same and make such inappropriate assumptions.

Mum21 said...

CBC. I have every reason to be defensive. As have all the posters on this friendly blog.
If you come in peace you are welcome. But something makes me doubt you have. Plus there is something very familiar about you.
Time will tell.

Rosiepops said...

Confused_But_Caring

i would like you to point to the post on this site which accuses a whole country? Where is it?

there are obvious wrongs here and if there was wrong doing on the PJ's behalf then it is a problem that needs urgent addressing because until it is, then Portugal will never move on.

if it is discovered that there was never any evidence at all to have put a grieving couple through the hell they have been put through, then there will be hug fall out and the people concerned will pay with their jobs.

There needs to be a full, open and honest public inquiry into this matter.

As well as the above if it is proved that Leonor Cipriano is also innocent, this is also going to look dreadful singularly they would look bad enough, but inexplicably link by one office in both cases is going to prove catastrophic.

I do believe if this is not handled correctly now, that it could possible topple the sitting government in Portugal.

I think the powers that be are only too aware of this and this is why they have started the row back which commenced with Alipio Ribeiro, the PJ's political masters are extremely nervous indeed.

I have a strong feeling something bad is being hidden but it will come out, it always does.

Indeed take the Joana Cipriano case, people thought that was done and dusted but it just will not go away, it keeps rearing its head. I t is my experience in life when something keeps doing this it is because something is usually very wrong, even one of the three judges at Cipriano's trial insisted on going on the record as saying he believed that Leanor Cipriano was innocent!

Something is very wrong here and it is time for it to be corrected.

Anonymous said...

Chinadoll

Sorry if my post offended you. From reading a few posts this is the idea I was left with and that's why I commented on it. Sass has since explained your point to me.

Christabel said...

mum,
fine thanks, yes i have been busy too.
Going to caravan on Monday for a week with my sister, so freshening all needed stuff up to take back down there.

Anonymous said...

JUST PROVED MUM 21

'all evil ''steams'' from'

HA HA HA HA

Rosiepops said...

Sass, Archer, tinks

night dwahlings sleep well take care, luv ya loads mwah..mwah...mwah

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring,

I assume you care for human rights?

Do you feel that Kate and Gerry McCann have been treated fairly in this investigation and by the other blogs you have visited?

Anonymous said...

Certainly if there is no evidence against these parents it is extremely cruel to put them through this entire process. If this is what happened, then our Government must get involved and show its displeasure.

Christabel said...

Nite Rosie x

I'm of too, see you all tomorow.

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring,

Do you think that Kate & Gerry McCann have been treated fairly by the Portuguese press, whose reports are printed as coming from reliable ph sources.

Would you want to be treated this way if your baby had been taken from her bed?

Mum21 said...

Night Christabel.
I will hopefully talk to you tomorrow.
rest well.

Anonymous said...

CONFUSED.COM

GO HOME NOW

WE HAVE A BETTER AND LOWER PRICED QUOTE THAN YOU.

IN EVERY WAY.

;O)))))

ps I know KNOW who you are

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring,

The only evidence we are aware of is that leaked by the pj to their media.

More importantly, no charges have been made. Do you believe in the tenet of innocent until proven guilty?

melbel said...

Hi Diane
been away,looking at TwS.
Yes,a TV program,on British TV,with Trevor McCdonald,showed these highly trained dogs,reacting to meat.
They are by no means, that accurate,are they ?
Thought you were talking about Bianca, re the Cretins, as she called us that three times, today, on the other blog.Not very politicially correct, for one, who is always criticising others!

Mum21 said...

Jane,
I know who it is too.

Rosiepops said...

China

I believe these two cases may well be connected, it would certainly explain why the PJ appear to be going out on a limb to blacken the characters of these two, smoke screen springs to mind. diverting attention away from the real problem.
However, where they made a mistake is thinking that we will swallow a line and not question it, that will prove a very costly mistake for them.
In fact I believe it will be their undoing!

April 2nd tomorrow, 5 days to get their arses over here!

Anonymous said...

Chinadoll

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think. We are getting so much conflicting information that I don't know if I'm coming or going anymore. The DE has apologized for what they wrote and says they are innocent. Their status as suspects remains the same. If there is no evidence, why has our Ambassy not exerted pressure on Portugal to end this miscarriage of justice? What does Portugal win in maintaing them as suspects? I can't get it to make sense to me.

Rosiepops said...

Christabel

Oi! Where are you going? Sleep well dwahling mwah..mwah..mwah.

Anonymous said...

yes ubdeed NYN
Old habits ...

so obvious and they think so 'mysterious'

as mysterious as a smack in the mouth by a wet fish by your worst enemy.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

what a loser.....!!!!!

but, hey, keep on trying huh? why don't they learn when they get shot down every time????? Idiocy and conceit.

;o)))))

Rosiepops said...

It wins by people thinking it is OK to holiday on the Algarve, that really little 3 year olds do not go missing for their beds!

This is a huge pot that is coming to the boil and very soon something will happen and the heat will accidentally get turned up and the whole lot is going to boil over!

It is not acceptable to blacken the characters of innocent grieving people to protect a tourist industry.

dianeh said...

Melbel

So it was that foolish one that called us Cretins. She who cannot put forward a sensible argument.

On a serious note with the dogs. I think they are worth their weight in gold. Look at Jersey. However, that is a far cry from using them as the main basis for evidence in a murder investigation, where no body has ever been found. And as has been said over and over, they cannot tell one body from another. I thought that they werent very reliable after about a month but apparently they can detect the scent of death for many months, even years, and even after washing. So then how can it be that the dogs could tell the difference between any dead body that Kate came in contact with prior to going to Portugal and Madeleine. Answer is, they cant. So lets give the dogs the benefit of the doubt, that they smelled a cadaver on Kate (from UK) and as she carried CC constantly, seems logical that it too would have picked up some of the scent from Kate. As for the car, well we know that the McCanns defence team thinks that this was inaccurate, due to the find madeleine posters being all over the car and the handler pulling the dog back to the car. But also, would have been used to move meat, such as when sausages were brought from the supermarket.

The dogs are good but not god. And they are only indicators, not conclusive evidence, of a dead body, with no way of telling one body from another.

Rosiepops said...

Melbel, don't tell me that they are still going on about Eddie and Keela?

They are really clutching at straws!

Anonymous said...

Rosiepops

Surely anyone intelligent knows there are paedophiles and abductors everywhere. Here in the UK we have our share too, unfortunately. I don't see how this would affect the tourist industry, except maybe that parents will stay closer to their children and be more aware of their whereabouts, which is our role, after all, isn't it?

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Because of Madeleines awful predicament and the injustice inflicted on her parents, the case of Joana Cipriano, has been brought to international attention. It will no longer be buried in the bowels of the Portuguese press, but rather, will continue (and rightly so) to be linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

You are spot on Rosiepops, neither case will be allowed to be hushed up. They are intrinsically linked in so many ways - they have been investigated by the same police officers (now arguidos) one of whom has written a book on both missing little girls and in each case, the blame has been laid at the feet of the parents.

It stinks.

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring,

Have you heard of the Casa Pia case?

melbel said...

Hi and Bye Christabel
Missed you.x Night and God bless to Rosie, China , Jane, Mum ,Jane, Diane, Sass, Tinks,Christa, Archer and al .
Night and take care.
Do not feed the comeback kid .
See you tomorrow, unless we are a grandmother x x x

Anonymous said...

Chinadoll

No, I haven't.

dianeh said...

Confused

Portugese govt should be given a chance to fix their own problems before interference by any other govt. The PJ have been criticised quite heavily, and not just by this blog as some would like to think, and this should lead to the Portugese govt taking some action.

It is not up to the UK, or any other govt to interfere, unless after a period of time, nothing has been done and the UK govt is not satisfied with that. But it is way to early for that.

Rosiepops said...

Hi PJ,

Have you started packing for your trip to the UK on the 7th?

Don't leave it until the last minute, many of us have been waiting for 6 months for you to come here.

Anonymous said...

Dianeh

Yes, you are probably right. It just seems cruel to me, if Madeleine's parents are innocent to have to deal with yet another problem instead of being able to concentrate on looking for her.

dianeh said...

Rosie/China

I think that the Portugese govt is on the right track by pressing charges against the 5 detectives in the Cipriano case. It might just be the impetus needed to bring about a large scale public inquiry. But a lot will depend upon what evidence is allowed into the court. But if any evidence of collusion and perverting the course of justice comes out, then an inquiry should be a gimme.

Mum21 said...

Good Night Melbel,
Sleep well and God Bless

Anonymous said...

confused .com]


you can confuse some of the people some of the time##


BUT NOT US....

you give yourself away, every single time you keep coming here to disrupt. Your 'style' ha ha ha ha loosely termed naturally, -gives you away ''every single time''.

You are as subtle as the electric chair.

Mum21 said...

Ladies...I wish you all a Good Night.
I am off now but will see you all again tomorrow,

melbel said...

Diane
Really interesting post and from all my friends. Will read back tomorrow, as my eyes are getting crossed
Nite for now x x x

Anonymous said...

janegt

This is the first time I've posted on this site. If my style is somehow distressing or if the posters on this site feel I am in any way disrupting it, I'm sorry. I was just trying to get some answers from people that seem to have strong opinions.

I won't post again.

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring - this is some background on the Cipriano case for you:-



Lies, beatings, secret trials: the dark side of police handling Madeleine case
September 16, 2007 · 8 Comments
I feel responsible to keep speaking my mind about the McCann case since I have posted so many articles on it and have made numerous comments about it, all in speculation based of the data that was available.

I have to admit, I was giving the Portuguese Police the benefit of the doubt in believing their case against the McCanns could have merit, but after reading this article, I am forced to reconsider. I know police corruption is rampant around the world, but I needed more evidence about the Policia Judiciaria to change my mind or make me at least consider the possibility that the McCanns have been deliberately framed. Nobody was giving it to me until I spotted this article.

Like everybody else, all I had to go on was witness reports, the McCann’s testimony, the investigation leaks, on British police dog findings and the DNA forensic returns from British labs. Putting these together, it was not hard to believe the theory that the McCanns accidentally killed their child and tried to cover it up. I never came out and claimed to know this for a fact, but according to all these reports, it seemed to be the most likely scenario. It certainly seemed more likely than the suggestion that the PJ would deliberately frame the McCanns, but after reading this well-researched article by David Rose, I am pursuaded to believe it very possible that the McCanns are indeed being framed.

This is a very bizarre case by any standards and just keeps getting weirder all the time. The field is wide open as far as I am concerned. Anything could be true or any combination of strange and criminal coincidences could have come together in Maddy’s disappearance. What I mean to say is that I just do not know what happened, who is guilty or innocent and neither does anyone else, except for the McCanns themselves, and maybe the police.

Be that as it may, I have to say a picture is worth a thousand words. Just have a look at the photo of Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral and tell me if he looks like an honest cop to you. There is something about him that makes me feel he is the opposite of that. Then look at the second photo of Leonor Cipriano. Does it look like she fell down a flight of stairs to you? Or does it look like she was punched in the face? To me, it looks like she was beat up. It is possible to sustain injuries like that from a fall or from a car accident, but it seems to me that you don’t get two neat black eyes with abrasions on the cheekbones like that unless it is from getting punched with a fist. If she was indeed tortured into confessing to murder, then we do have a very different picture of the Policia Judiciaria and their case against the McCanns don’t we?

Lastly, I have to say, this is more about what happened to Maddy than anything else, and it should remain the central issue. When I look at her sweet face in the photos, I can’t help asking, “What happened to you little Maddy?”

I wish she could tell us.

PW

Note: I never wanted to go there, but this is looking like it could have something to do with past elite pedophile activity in Portugal. If the police feel so pressured to frame people for child disappearances, there could be something much more sinister behind it. Is it due merely to pressure from media attention or from powerful politicians above? It seems to me that it would require more than public pressure to make them go to such great lengths to frame someone.

See:

Portugal’s elite linked to paedophile ring

Stay tuned for updates…

. . .

Three of Amaral’s senior PJ colleagues have been made suspects for the torture of the missing girl’s mother, Leonor Cipriano, who has been convicted of killing her daughter Joana, aged eight, and jailed for 16 years.

As for Amaral, the claim against him is “omisado de denuncia” – that he tried to hide the evidence of the alleged torture or, in other words, attempted a cover-up. He is said to deny it strenuously.

Daily Mail | Sep 15, 2007

By DAVID ROSE

According to his friends, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral of the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria, co-leader of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the Mark Warner Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, is a dedicated and capable detective, determined to do whatever it takes to find her – or those responsible for murdering her.

As a foreign reporter in Portugal, it is difficult to form a view. Thanks to the country’s stringent judicial secrecy laws, Amaral is officially forbidden from talking to the media.



SUSPECT: Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, who is leading the hunt for Madeleine McCann, is to be questioned over the torture of Leonor Cipriano

I confronted the sweaty, corpulent figure in an ill-fitting jacket twice last Friday: the first time at 10am, as he sat slurping coffee and cakes at the Kalahary cafe in Portimao with his colleague, Chief Inspector Guillermino Encarnacao; the second just before 3pm, when the two men made their way from a restaurant to a waiting black Mercedes, in which they were driven 400 yards to meet officials at the courthouse.

The reaction was the same both times: “No speak! No speak!” was all Amaral would say, making a swatting motion as though batting away an insect.

But Amaral’s official silence is not the only difference between him and his counterparts in Britain.

In the UK, it is unlikely he would be leading the McCann inquiry at all.

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry may never be charged with anything, despite their present status as arguidos, or official suspects, and by the end of last week, apparently well-placed sources were admitting that any case against them is circumstantial and weak.



A MOTHER’S AGONY: Leonor Cipriano in 2004 with a poster of her missing daughter Joana.

Amaral, however, is in a similar position. He, too, is an arguido, facing possible trial on a serious criminal charge arising from a murder case brought to court in 2004, the last occasion a little girl vanished in the Algarve.

The Mail on Sunday can today reveal new details of this case, the subject of a draconian judicial order that has stopped most sources who know about the case from talking to the Portuguese Press.

According to the order, documents about the case have been restricted to a handful of officials, while the next stage of the process – a hearing at which Amaral and four fellow officers may be asked formal questions – will be conducted in secret.

It is believed that this is set for next month.

Three of Amaral’s senior PJ colleagues have been made suspects for the torture of the missing girl’s mother, Leonor Cipriano, who has been convicted of killing her daughter Joana, aged eight, and jailed for 16 years.

As for Amaral, the claim against him is “omisado de denuncia” – that he tried to hide the evidence of the alleged torture or, in other words, attempted a cover-up. He is said to deny it strenuously.



Leonor bruised and battered after her ‘confession’ to Portuguese police. She is now in prison, convicted of Joana’s murder

In internet blogs and newspaper columns, Amaral’s supporters have claimed that the Cipriano case is built on lies – a vicious smear against a decent detective trying to do his job.

It has, they say, “no connection” to the Madeleine McCann inquiry.

Experienced lawyers in Portimao, the town 12 miles from Praia da Luz where Amaral is PJ chief, disagree.

The case against the detectives began as a complaint lodged by Cipriano’s lawyer, they pointed out, but has now been adopted by the public prosecutor.

“In order to bring formal charges, the public prosecutor has to believe there is a strong case,” said Oliveira Trindad, who has practised law in the area for more than ten years.

“That means that after assessing all the evidence, he thinks that if the case goes to trial, a conviction is more likely than not.”

That decision is likely to be made well before the McCann case is closed.

There are, to be sure, many differences between Leonor Cipriano and Kate McCann.

But there are also similarities, starting with the fact that although the bodies of their daughters have not been found, Amaral and his PJ colleagues have long been convinced that both girls are dead.

No one would suggest that in the course of the marathon interrogations that preceded their departure from Portugal last weekend, Kate or Gerry McCann were the victims of physical violence.

But at times it seemed they were also being subjected to torment, albeit of a different, psychological kind.

It, too, say Portimao’s criminal defence lawyers, may have been inspired by PJ officers desperate to achieve the end they sought with Cipriano – a confession.

It isn’t hard to locate the source of some of the McCanns’ current difficulties: Hugo Beaty’s bar.

There, amid the burnt orange concrete of the Estrela apartment complex, a five-minute walk from the Ocean Club, most of the seats along the shady terrace and more inside will be taken all day by reporters with laptops, authors of a daily verbal torrent that has come to seem unstoppable.

After Kate and Gerry’s abrupt return to Leicestershire last Sunday, almost nothing happened in the McCann case last week.

The only verified fact is that after considering a ten-volume PJ dossier about Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, a junior judge in Portimao, decided to grant certain requests made by the prosecutor, Joao Cunha de Magalhaes.

Every news outlet covering the story – a waterfront that now extends across the whole of Europe to the major American TV networks and even, unbelievably, a paper in war-torn Somalia – has stated that these requests were for warrants to seize items including Kate McCann’s private diary, Gerry’s computer and (though this seems slightly less certain) Madeleine’s beloved cuddle cat.

There is, however, nothing approaching official confirmation of these claims.

Like everything else about the case, the details of the prosecutor’s approach to the judge are covered, supposedly, by the judicial secrecy laws, under which the penalty – in theory – for making unauthorised disclosures is two years in prison.

Thus it is that like almost everything else being broadcast and published beyond Portugal’s borders about the hunt for Madeleine, the claim that the police want to read Kate’s diary has reached its audience via Hugo Beaty’s bar.

Every day there starts the same way shortly after it opens at 9am, with an informal briefing to the foreign Press by a locally resident British woman who normally makes a meagre living acting as an occasional interpreter – for the Policia Judiciaria.

Every morning, the woman – who asked me not to publish her name – goes through the Portuguese tabloids and translates their ever-more febrile articles.

Every afternoon, the foreigners – almost none of whom can speak more than the most basic Portuguese, nor claim a single, genuine source inside the police investigation – recycle the tales for consumers abroad.

By the end of last week, some of the assertions made by the Portuguese had become part of a settled consensus.

For example, it was reported from Berlin to Baltimore that the police had already made a photocopy of Kate’s diary – which, if true, would mean they had broken the law – and merely wanted to obtain the judge’s approval to use it as evidence.

The reason they are so keen on it, it was alleged, is that it suggests she found her children “hyperactive” and difficult to handle, while railing at her husband’s allegedly dilatory, hands-off approach.

The claims about the diary’s contents were first published on Thursday by Jose Manuel Ribeiro, crime correspondent for the Lisbon daily Diario de Noticias.

By chance I ran into him that same afternoon, outside the apartment where Madeleine disappeared.

I congratulated him on his scoop, but he shook his head, disconsolate. Already, he complained, it was turning to dust.

Ribeiro said he had been given the story by an impeccable inside source, but already officials in Lisbon were denying it, and the source himself could no longer assure him it was true.

“Why is bad information getting out to the public?” he asked. “Because we’re being given it.”

Somehow, however, the denials that had made Ribeiro so angry did not get through to the foreigners.

If the questionable leak had been planted for a purpose – to increase the pressure on the hapless McCanns – it may well have succeeded.

And, in the foreign public’s mind, the germinating notion that Kate might have killed her daughter because she could not handle her had been nurtured by a further dollop of manure.

A similar, apparently sanctioned but inaccurate leak had already gone around the world to still more devastating effect.

Early on Monday evening, TV channels began to report that British forensic scientists had made a “100 per cent” DNA match to Madeleine from “biological material” – said to be hair and “bodily fluids” – recovered from the Renault Scenic that the McCanns did not hire until 25 days after she vanished, suggesting that they had hidden her body on May 3 and moved it weeks after her death.

With no time for reporters to make checks before their deadlines, the story spread like foot and mouth to almost every British front page the next morning.

It was only in the ensuing days that it began, spectacularly, to unravel.

The match was not 100 per cent after all, it transpired, but 80 per cent or less – a level that, according to Professor Alec Jeffries, DNA matching’s inventor, might mean that the material had not come from Madeleine at all, but another member of her family.

Even if it had, other experts said, it would prove very little.

Among readers who followed the forensic details, the case against the McCanns had been seen to suffer damage.

But others were left with a clear impression – that the PJ now believed they had real evidence that the McCanns must have been responsible for Madeleine’s (still unconfirmed) death.

As for those who still harboured doubts, more rococo “revelations” were being published widely by the end of the week, such as the claim that having bundled Madeleine’s body into the car, the McCanns drove it to the marina in nearby Lagos.

There they are said to have hired a boat, swore its owner into their conspiracy, then sailed into the Atlantic, into which they tipped their child, weighted down with rocks.

Could such stories really be part of a conscious PJ strategy? Some lawyers around the Portimao courthouse believe that they could.

“Portuguese journalists aren’t just making this stuff up,” said Oliveira Trindad.

“They are getting it from the police, of course, and the justice officers, the people working for the prosecutors. It’s obvious that some information is coming from the PJ.”

Some of it, he added, appears to be accurate – so making it that much easier for the same sources to seed disinformation.

Another Portimao lawyer, who asked not to be named, claimed the PJ was fighting a “propaganda war” with the McCanns.

“It is the fault of the British Press,” he said.

“They were the ones who started saying, ‘You’re no good, you’re no good.’

“If you say a lie like that many times, so many people believe it. You cannot blame the PJ for wanting to hit back.”

But there might be another reason.

“Some people think journalists pay their PJ sources,” the second lawyer said, citing a case where an officer from Lisbon is facing criminal charges after being caught red-handed copying secret documents about a fraud case, allegedly for private profit.

“But they also have an interest in the case and its coverage.”

With the forensic evidence apparently confused and contradictory, “it seems the main goal of the PJ now is to get a confession. It’s like in the films, ‘Aha, we have a confession, let’s take them to court.’

“It’s normal to want a confession when they don’t have much else.”

Intense interrogation of the McCanns has so far failed. But perhaps, the lawyer implied, using the media might be another way of applying the third degree.

“I want to believe that the Portuguese police do everything the right way,” said Joao Grade, the lawyer for Leonor Cipriano.

“But sometimes, if they really think someone is guilty, as they did with Leonor, they may find other ways to get what they want. It’s only human.

“When they believe someone has killed a child, it’s normal that they will apply pressure.

“In the McCann case, it seems that the police have what they consider half-proofs.

“But it’s not airtight, it doesn’t interlock, so maybe they need more.”

As he spoke, I found myself recalling British miscarriages of justice: cases such as the Birmingham Six, wrongly convicted of IRA pub bombings that killed 21, where the police, under tremendous pressure to “get a result”, built dishonest but convincing prosecutions based around confessions.

Could the same thing be happening to the McCanns? The pressure on the police is certainly intense.

The loss of a child evokes horror everywhere. On the Algarve, however, the need to solve the case – and, perhaps, not to leave the fear that Madeleine was killed or abducted by an unknown paedophile – has other roots as well.

“The Algarve is a family destination, and situations like this are not agreeable to anyone,” said Elderico Viegas, the regional tourism authority president.

“Our reputation for safety is one of our most important values – especially with the British, who make up our biggest market.”

And Algarve tourism, worth about £2.8billion a year and growing rapidly, is, Viegas said, the single biggest component of the entire Portuguese economy.

The police had, he added, mishandled the media, giving rise to damaging speculation.

“But for me, the details are not important. What’s important is the economy. I was born and brought up here and I can’t remember the last time a tourist was murdered.” So far, he added, visitor numbers this year are up.

Central to many British miscarriages of justice was a shared, deeply ingrained belief among police and prosecutors that their suspects “had” to be guilty.

With the Birmingham Six, it was founded on botched forensic tests that “told” investigators that the men had been handling the explosive nitroglycerine – false positives that arose because they had been playing with cards coated in the harmless chemical nitrocellulose.

In Praia da Luz, there are signs of a similar mindset at work, derived from equally tendentious “evidence”.

For example, said a local source who knows several of the PJ inquiry team, from an early stage detectives laid great weight on Kate McCann’s apparent composure when she appeared in public.

One of the strangest aspects of Portuguese coverage of the case has been frequent recourse to media psychologists, who have made all manner of deductions about her personality and state of mind by “analysing” her TV image, claiming that the absence of tears and presence of carefully applied make-up indicates a “cold”, “manipulative” or even “psychopathic” personality.

In other words, someone capable of reacting instantly to the death of her daughter, whether deliberate or accidental, by deciding that she had to hide the body and conceal what had happened, and able to persuade her husband and perhaps other “accomplices” to go along with her plot.

Disturbingly, said the local source, such analysis has not been confined to the media.

“Pretty early on, they had forensic psychologists in, studying hours of video footage, drawing extremely unfavourable conclusions about Kate’s personality,” she said.

“You could say she’s been damned by her stiff upper lip.”

There have been reported claims that Kate McCann had “confessed” to killing Madeleine to a local Catholic priest.

But the Rev Hubbard Haynes, the Anglican vicar who lives in Praia da Luz and got closer to the McCanns than anyone during their months in Portugal, refuted them with controlled fury.

A young, passionate Canadian, who took up his post a week after Madeleine’s disappearance, he said: “When I mention Maddie, Gerry and Kate in my own prayers, I find myself weeping.

“I have gone out into the fields and looked in the hedgerows, begging God for some sign that will help us find her, and I have wept because He has not given it to us yet.

“All I can say is that my tears are as nothing to the tears I have seen shed by Kate and Gerry.

“They may not have cried for the cameras, but to say they do not weep in private is facile and offensive.

“The man and woman I have known for the past four months are a couple whose lives have become unbearably empty because their little girl was missing.

“I do not recognise those people in recent media reports, and I find the idea that they had anything to do with her disappearance just inconceivable.

“There is great evil in this world, and someone has taken this child.”

Other aspects of the emerging mindset against the McCanns seemed equally questionable.

Several Portuguese lawyers and journalists, along with a uniformed police officer from the National Republican Guard I spoke to outside the Ocean Club apartment, told me solemnly not only that the McCanns and their friends were “swingers” who had taken their holiday together to indulge in group sex (an assertion made repeatedly by the Portuguese Press), but that “everyone knows” that its tolerance of orgies is the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort’s main selling point.

One afternoon I decided to test this proposition, approaching two holiday reps there, dressed in their red Mark Warner sweatshirts. “Er, is this a good place for swingers, then?” I asked.

They looked at me in total bafflement. “Swingers?” one replied.

“Look around you, sir. Most of our guests are retired, or families with children.”

Another assertion published several times last week is that, on the night that Madeleine disappeared, the McCanns phoned Sky TV before contacting the police – another claim echoed by the uniformed cop.

Outside the Portimao courthouse, I asked Sky’s reporter Ashish Joshi if he thought this might be true.

He rolled his eyes wearily. “It’s just nonsense,” he said.

“The first anyone at Sky knew about Maddy was when the story appeared on the Press Association wire.

“I was asked about this just yesterday by a Portuguese reporter. I told him it was crap. And this morning, his paper printed it.”

I passed this on to the Republican Guard officer, but he was unmoved.

His unit, he said, had handled the case in its early stages, and from the start he and his colleagues had been convinced there was something fishy about the McCanns.

“My partner was there on the night of May 3,” he said, “and I can tell you, that apartment was full of people, Kate was screaming – and yet her twins didn’t wake up.

“How do you explain that? They must have been drugged. Nobody on the force believed their story about a kidnap for a moment.

“That little girl is dead, for sure. Soon you will see the truth.”

Why the need for such bizarre allegations? The answer, I believe, is that there is a massive hole at the heart of the emerging PJ theory.

When Madeleine disappeared the McCanns did not have a car.

The Ocean Club is in the middle of a busy resort, and the notion that somehow the McCanns found a way to conceal her without transport, and then went to dinner with their friends as if nothing were amiss is beyond credibility.

One Portuguese journalist suggested to me that they might have hidden her on a scrubby headland a few minutes’ walk away.

But as I found when I attempted to go for a run there, at night it is inhabited by feral dogs, whose barking would have made the digging of some putative shallow grave impossible.

The PJ enjoys a high reputation in Portugal.

“They are ranked among the top five police forces in the world,” attorney Trindad said, albeit admitting he did not know the source of this curious international ranking.

Most PJ officers are graduates, and would-be entrants face severe competition, with a battery of psychometric, physical and academic tests before they can even be considered for the PJ training school.

The force’s Press office likes to compare the PJ to the American FBI: “We are an elite,” spokeswoman Ana Mouro said.

But beneath the veneer, as the case of Leonor Cipriano suggests, the reality can look less impressive.

“She is nothing like Kate McCann,” her lawyer Joao Grade said.

“She is very poor, with maybe only three years of schooling, and her children have several fathers.

“She did not get to meet the Pope and she did not have the support of Sky and the BBC.

“But I tell you this: if Kate had been treated like Leonor, she would have done what Leonor did – ended by saying, ‘OK, OK, I’m guilty, and this is how I did it.’”

The special judicial order – imposed on top of the usual Portuguese secrecy – means not only that Grade is prevented from disclosing virtually anything about the Cipriano case, but that pre-trial hearings of the charges against the detectives, due as soon as next month, will be held in camera.

The Mail on Sunday has established crucial alleged details from other legal sources in Portimao.

After Joana disappeared in September 2004, Leonor was arrested by the PJ in Portimao on October 14 at 8am.

Held there and in the city of Faro without access to a lawyer, she was interrogated without sleep for 22 hours.

Then, after a two-hour respite, she was interrogated again until 7am on October 16.

By this time, as photos published by the Portuguese media make clear, her face was a mass of bruises.

According to Grade: “Not just her face but her whole body was black and blue.”

The police said she “tried to commit suicide” by throwing herself down stairs.

If the alleged torture was to force a confession, it succeeded – only for Leonor to withdraw it when she finally saw her lawyer the next day.

The supporters of the accused police have claimed that the officers must be innocent because Cipriano could not pick out her alleged attackers in an identity parade.

However, according to the sources in Portimao, this is because they are not alleged to have beaten her themselves, but to have brought in paid thugs.

In any event, she was convicted and sentenced to 21 years.

Last June, this was reduced on appeal to 16 – though one of the five appeal court judges issued a dissenting opinion, stating that he was convinced she had been assaulted in custody and was innocent.

If the criminal case against the PJ officers does lead to convictions, Grade said, she will appeal again. He has also lodged a case in the European Court of Human Rights.

Strangely enough, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral is not the only link between the Cipriano and McCann cases. Another of the senior officers who is now an arguido is the recently retired Chief Inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao.

He is one of the McCanns’ principal scourges – not as a detective, but in his new capacity as a columnist for Diario de Noticias, among the most active of Portuguese newspapers in its pursuit of stories about Madeleine derived from leaks.

“There is another link between the Cipriano and McCann cases,” a Portimao lawyer claimed.

“You know, it’s like if Manchester United lose a big game: next week the pressure they have to win is very big.

“The PJ are beginning to worry that now they might lose the Cipriano case.

“If that happens, they have to win with the McCanns.”

Of course, there is yet another connection.

If Leonor Cipriano did not kill Joana, the chances of discovering the truth – or indeed her body – are now remote.

And as the McCanns have stated repeatedly, if they are innocent, the enormous effort being poured into trying to blame them is effort diverted from the search for a missing four-year-old girl, and the person or persons who abducted her.

That is a thought so grim that it almost makes one wish that the mindset so evident around Praia da Luz had a real foundation.

My fear is that it has as much solidity as the sandcastles on the beach.

• David Rose has been investigating miscarriages of justice for 25 years and has written several books on the subject.

Anonymous said...

GOOD NIGHT TO YOU MUM21

not fooled are we? not at all.

chinadoll said...

Sorry about the length of that one folks, but I am sure Confused but caring would appreciate being better informed.

Rosiepops said...

Diane and China

I agree if a conviction is obtained a full inquiry should ensue, but will it?

I would like to see evidence that the correct procedures were followed in the Madeleine investigation and that possible links to the disappearance of Joana Cipriano were carried out and what the result of those investigations were.

This is too coincidental that two children should disappear within such close proximity, the chances of them being line are extremely high.

I wonder if the McCann's requests about the police looking into the possible connection of Mari Luz and Madeleine have revealed? I feel they must have had a reason/s for requesting this, I am sure they would not have asked for this for nothing! I wonder if M3 have turned something up?

chinadoll said...

Goodnight all departees and friends,

Sleep well.

Rosiepops said...

Mum

Goodnight dwahling sleep well and take care. mwah..mwah..mwah

Anonymous said...

good night everyone I know here


sleep well

see you very soon

Anonymous said...

Chinadoll

Thank you for that info and for your kindness in answering my posts. It really is scary and I had never heard of Cipriani. I will continue to read this site, but I will probably not post again. Janegt says I am disrupting and I certainly don't want to post if that is the generally feeling.

Once again, thank you for your kindness, Chinadoll. I will continue to read your interesting posts.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I have my doubt about that.

The Casa Pia case has been hushed up for years now, despite court hearings taking place six years ago, the poor victims still have no outcome and the case is still in the court system - but buried in secrecy, due the politicians and other high profile individuals in public office being involved.

The great shame of the whole thing, is, that Casa Pia could have happened anywhere in the world and the secrecy is not helping the victims or the Country.

I would not have known about Joana Cipriano or Casa Pia had it not been for Madeleines abduction.

Could this be the tip of the iceberg? What corrupt can of worms has been opened here?

Rosiepops said...

melbel

your post 22.46, excellent. I have no doubt the dogs are good at what they do and what they do is usually search for tangible evidence like a body.

So the digs alerted to a smell, so what, they could have been alerting to any number of things being carried in that car and no one knows what they were smelling.

How do we know they were not smelling a stinking huge RAT?

chinadoll said...

Confused but caring,

Janegt is a very well respected poster here, but like all the regular posters, we have had new arrivals turn up and take the pee.

Last night, we had someone posting as the grandma of Madeleine McCann, which is really stooping low. Yesterday, we had a female posting telling us of how she was taken to court for inciting suicide in connection with the lover of her ex husband - we all empathised, only to be abused a few hours later.

We are defensive and have evolved during the life of the blog - enough to learn that some people come here with ulterior motives.
If you are patient and can understand and wish to take the time to get to know us and contribute, then we in turn, will do likewise

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Just to clari...fy,

my doubts in relation to a full enquiry.

dianeh said...

China

Your very very long post is a good one. Thank you for posting it.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I most sincerely hope they have thoroughly investigated any possible link (no matter how remote) between Mari Luz and Madeleine McCann. The close proximity of the cases should automatically ensure this happens

chinadoll said...

Diane,

Thanks for that - I hope it helps Confused but caring to understand where we are all coming from.

chinadoll said...

Not only can Portuguese police stand accused of involvement in severely assaulting a mother of a missing child and perverting the course of justice, they are allowed to write a book about it to influence public opinion, prior to formal charges being made.

They did it once and now they are attempting to do it again, with the publication of 'The star of Madeleine'

Disgusting and inhumane.

Rosiepops said...

China

I have read this report again, it is one that read sometime ago and it helped convince m e that the McCann's are innocent and that a grave miscarriage of justice is being acted out before our very eyes, we know it, yet feel powerless to stop it because it is in another country, had it been in Britain we would have reared up by now and heads would have rolled, I believe however although it may take a little longer, this will also happening on Portugal.

"Strangely enough, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral is not the only link between the Cipriano and McCann cases. Another of the senior officers who is now an arguido is the recently retired Chief Inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao.

He is one of the McCanns’ principal scourges – not as a detective, but in his new capacity as a columnist for Diario de Noticias, among the most active of Portuguese newspapers in its pursuit of stories about Madeleine derived from leaks."

Amazing how often these two names crop up and of course this odious man 'Paulo Pereira Cristovao' is one and the same author that wrote The star of Joana and now The Star of Madeleine.

How can the Portuguese judiciary allow such blatant money making behaviour? It is appalling and is giving Portugal an extremely bad name.

This paragraph too has stuck in my mind:

"For example, it was reported from Berlin to Baltimore that the police had already made a photocopy of Kate’s diary – which, if true, would mean they had broken the law – and merely wanted to obtain the judge’s approval to use it as evidence.

The reason they are so keen on it, it was alleged, is that it suggests she found her children “hyperactive” and difficult to handle, while railing at her husband’s allegedly dilatory, hands-off approach."

Again the PJ have broken the law and what has been done about it?

I am beginning to wonder if the "tail is not wagging the dog" here!

dianeh said...

Rosie/China

It is the way that a country reacts to these abuse cases that is important.

Take Jersey. It appears much was swept under the carpet years ago. But now it is being pursued and visibly. AND it would appear (at least to me) that the initial covering up/failing to investigate will also be investigated, to make sure that it can never happen again.

That is how we act here in Aust as well. we dont alwasy get it right but when we 'c**k' up, we look at it very hard and try to find what went wrong and put in safe guards so that it never happens again.

We currently have had a problem with doctors that are not what they claim and some have done unnecessary surgery resulting in death. One has raped, etc etc. So now there are moves afoot to make sure this doesnt happen again. Such things as a national register for doctors (you would think we would have one woulnd you but no , it is state based), mandatory checking of qualifications and internal control within hospitals to check for the necessity of surgery and I believe a compilation of the results of the surgery, as this would have highlighted the problems very early on. I dont know if we will get it right, but we will try.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I am getting really upset and do hope I am wrong (I am really bad in remembering names) but, I know this PJ Cristovao, is, the PJ Arguido in the Cipriano case, who published and profited by a book on the matter, who was involved in the Madeleine case (or influenced same through his boss Amaral)Who was subsequently charged with the heinous crimes agains Leonora Cipriano and same individual who wrote the book 'Star of Madeleine'

Please tell me I am wrong in saying that this man is also the top bod....Chairman, whatever of Portugals missing Childrens Association??????? Or am I cracking up. I hope I am, as he sounds evil enough as it is

chinadoll said...

Diane,

I agree with absolutely every word of your post. Problem is, if you do not have a problem - if you cannot or will not admit it, then you cannot possibly address it.

I am sure we had an excellent article on just this recently, here on our blog.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Please hurry up and reply, as I am sitting here seething and want to know I am wrong, as I think I am getting neurotic

chinadoll said...

The reason I am saying this Rosiepops, is because this man, ie the Chairman of that association, appeared on tv and said that Madeleine Beth McCann, was not on the register of missing children in Portugal.

WHY?

WHY?

WHY?

Because her parents are arguidos.

dianeh said...

China

Google him and find out.

But if he is the head of the Missing Children's Bureau (????) and I am afraid you might be right then I would say this.

"It is like making the head of BP or Caltex the head of the Petrol Price Watch"

If he is an arguido in the Cipriano case and head of the Missing Children etc, then that is an absolute disgrace. Surely he should have been suspended pending the outcome of the trial.

And on Kate and Gerry being arguido's as the reason that Madeleine is not a 'missing child' in Portugal. I thought that arguido did not equate to charged or guilty, therefore she should be considered missing until either her parents are convicted of a crime (concerning her death) or until she is found.

dianeh said...

China

Completely unbelievable isnt it. I wonder if Murat was under investigation for abduction and not murder and he has not been publicly cleared, then Madeleine should have been on the missing children's register.

It is just BS that Madeleine is a missing child with Interpol but not in Portugal, where she actually went missing. Enough said, anything else and I will be insulting people.

chinadoll said...

Diane,

I might be wrong - it just came into my head - I remember his face and what he said and I feel sure I remembered his name.

Rosiepops said...

Bianca

Is accusing us of pretending Madeliene's grnadmother had endorsed our blog.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is my reply which I posted on Viv's under my own ID.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rosiepops said...
Bianca,

we did not try and make you think that Madeleine's grandmother had sanctioned our blog.


Nancy if you want to "poach her" feel free, have her but I think you will find that she comes from here anyway.

Let me put the record straight, no way would I, or any of the others on our blog tolerate someone pretending to be Madeleine's grandmother, we think it an extremely sick despicable act, in fact whoever it was and if they are from here, needs to be worried because we have actually reported it and from what I can gather action will be taken.

Goodnight dwahlings mwah..mwah...mwah

Wednesday, 2 April 2008 00:39:00 o'clock BST

calcite51 said...

Hello, Ladies - I cannot believe what what I am reading - Madeleine McCann is not on the Missing Children registry in Portugal? Tell me this is not so - she is a missing child on AMW and on Interpol. I really, really think an enquiry is badly needed in Portugal. This is all so very wrong...

Rosiepops said...

China

he is I am afraid.

Sorry I was relying to Bianca who is busy spreading lies as usual.

china, have you found anything else out?

Rosiepops said...

Hang on about her not on the missing file it Portugal as I am sure I saw on the PJ site.just a minute I'll have a look.

calcite51 said...

I don't think the poster was Mrs. Healey either - only the other blog could get their tights in such a twist. Good for Diane for reporting this person who was posting as Mrs. Healey.

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

The association I was referring to had nothing to do with the pj - except its chairman who I think was ex pj

dianeh said...

Hi Calcite

I aim to please

calcite51 said...

Diane and you do it very well. Went to take a peak on the other blog - I cannot stay long on that site without feeling absolutely horrified at the nonsense these people are spouting. What is gina's problem? She's very angry about something....

calcite51 said...

Isn't the head of the missing children in Portugal the ex-PJ that wrote the book which will make us all realize how unfair we have been towards the PJ's? Oh, forget that - the book is only in Portuguese....

dianeh said...

China/Rosie/Calcite

The comment about Madeleine not being on the Missing Children's register for Portugal was made a while ago on here. I tried to verify it but couldnt, my Portugese isnt good enough, being that is it non existent.

But the organisation in question is separate from the PJ.

Here is a link to an article about it and Madeleine is not one of their missing children. But this doesnt mean that the PJ dont consider her a missing child.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/
live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=
501093&in_page_id=1770

dianeh said...

Calcite

Did I post on the other site? The last post I made (at least I thought I made) as to Gina last week?

Have I accidentally posted over there?

dianeh said...

But I do make a regular, once a day post onto ST's blog.

I love that blog. It is hysterical.

calcite51 said...

Yep, that's him - he's the writer of the book on Madeleine.

dianeh said...

Calcite

Just ignore me, I know I didnt post over there. I did go for a browse the other day but thought if I want to read fiction, I would buy a book. Not one that has the word 'Star' in it either.

calcite51 said...

Lol - I don't think so Diane - Joe, Gina, Icantthinkofaname, Viv, mrs. consecutive number, but no I didn't see you posting over there.

calcite51 said...

Nice talking to you guys - take care of yourselves. Will come back and read later on.

Love you lots - hugs and kisses to all of you, and the doggies, cats, birdies and my pet rat who I shall name Vile for you know who.

dianeh said...

Calcite

we talking about the dogs again today.

I think Melbel brought it up, with a bit of support from an expert (courtesy of an article).

I bet they didnt cut and paste that over to the other site.

chinadoll said...

That's my point.

The organisation that wishes to bring charges against the parents of Madeleine, is the same organisation that publicises the child. Well, they could hardly do one, without the other. This organisation is called the pj.

The organisation that is neutral and its sole concern is to publish and hence promote the faces, details and all aspects of a missing child and that surrounding their whereabouts - does not deem Madeleine worthy of being included?

Anyone smell disparity?

dianeh said...

Bye Calcite

I will check back later as well, to see if anything going on.

Rosiepops said...

Madeleine appears on the official PJ Webster for missing children

This man Paulo Cristovao, was definitely head of missing children and he worked on the Joana Cipriano case, but not the Madeleine one, he left to become a sleazy editor of a sleazy newspaper and could be the link to sources that leak in the PJ!

How did this man get the info he used to write his odious sleazy book?

I hope the money he earned on the back of an innocent missing child chokes the bastard and causes him as much grief as he has caused the parents of *abducted* Madeleine McCann.

In my mind and in my opinion the fact that he has profited out of two missing children makes him no better than a low life scum bag pimp.

chinadoll said...

Well, I'll probably get a verbal warning from our Sass tomorrow - for swearing earlier lol.

I'm still mad though.

This man is now public enemy number one to me - slimebag

Rosiepops said...

China

You are correct a huge can of worms is being opened here and they are beginning to wriggle like crazy!

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I really wanted you to tell me that I was wrong - had a lousy memory or something.

I've just got up and unlocked the back door and gone outside to scream. Hopefully, the neighbours will think I was just a fox.

How can this possibly be happening?

Any doubt, no matter how small about my view of this investigation, has now been purged.

In a nutshell, most cathartic.

dianeh said...

Rosie

According to the article I posted, he was also the one who decided that Madeleine wouldnt be included in the missing children for his new organisation.

This is truly a bit strange.

Why was he put in charge of such an organisation when he was an arguido in a criminal investigation. Or did the arguido status/charges come later.

dianeh said...

China

Here is another article on the 'gentleman'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/
live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=
538008&in_page_id=1770

chinadoll said...

Exactly Diane - you have hit the nail on the head. I think Rosiepops is a bit tired lol

Rosiepops said...

China

Why do you think I have been banging on about this for so long? I kept uncovering things like this, the more I looked the more I found.

The trouble was that everytime I put them on the DX website they were immediately pushed down the page by posters whose sole aim was to monopolise and manipulate the blog. I was constantly shouted down, told I was sick, an idiot, racist and xenophobic and of course all their little minions would then join in the catcalling of me and what I had posted was lost.

Now of course it is a different matter, yet China, still from another blog they are trying to manipulate what we discuss on here, this is why they get so upset about their sainted PJ and why they keep writing stupid comments about suing us here for attacking the PJ.

yet nothing that has been written on this blog had not been for st published elsewhere first!

And I am not going to shut up, not while they keep Gerry and Kate gagged while leaking spuriously themselves!

Sue us? right First they have to sue the female journalist and the someone that gave her all that sensitive witness information ie witness names, witness land and mobile numbers, witness addresses and information of what these witnesses had told police.

Start with them because whoever is involved with this is going to love all this being dragged up. Heads should have rolled for this but what was done? NOTHING Incredible and disgraceful, there should have been a public inquiry and there should still be a public inquiry and I will not shut up until there is one!

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Look at Dianes links whilst I read your last post.

dianeh said...

Rosie/China

Just found this.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/news/world/europe/
article1913175.ece

this is dated June 2007 and the four detectives were just charged. If the other articles are correct, then Cristovao was appointed head of the Missing Childrens Org (???) after he was already charged.

This cant be right, surely. Maybe the Mirror article is wrong but it says he was recently appointed and it is much later in Dec 2007.

Rosiepops said...

Diane

that is what I was trying to find out, annoyingly I have read something about it these last few days but cannot think where.

the article to the link you gave led me to femail (Daily Mail) and I could not find anything on that page, but as china says I am a bit tired so may have missed it.

chinadoll said...

Sorry Rosiepops,

I honestly thought you had gone to bed - your not ususally so quiet at nearly 2am lol

dianeh said...

Rosie

You are telling me I am right, arent you and that you knew this months ago.

Why has this not been highlighted by the British Press. Surely if the DX wanted something to write about, they could have done an expose on this exact topic. They dont have to accuse them of anything criminal, just highlight the situation as it is. In situations such as this, it is quite proper for the press to ask questions.

Just a thought.

Rosiepops said...

I am off to bed now, I am tired had a really hectic day.

See you both tomorrow

Goodnight China sleep well Good day Diane and Calcite have a great day.

xxx God Bless Madeleine xxx

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

Thank you for confirming everything. I thought no, surely not. I thought I was getting paranoid, but it just goes to show, that I remember a lot of what I have read.

I know you have said this time and time again, but I have eventually found my own paper trail to it and feel vile.......and we all know how nasty that is.

Rosiepops said...

Diane

If my memory serves me correctly this information was in one of the posts that the DX removed as the blog was rolling and I could not understand why as I had read this info and all I did was to repeat it and supply the links, which I now cannot find! (Typical) Christabel may have it though, she has loads of useful links.

I think one or possibly two Portuguese posters complained about my post and this is why it was taken down!

Anyhow goodnight all take care xxx

mwah...mwah...mwah dwahlings. lol

chinadoll said...

And I can just picture his smarmy smug face, like I saw it yesterday - he could pose for the camera better than Kate Moss.

Nasty piece of work.

dianeh said...

Rosie/China

I have trouble with the cut and paste of the links, as they keep getting truncated.

So I put enters (new lines) in them. The best way to use them is to cut into notepad, take out the line feeds (ie bring back up to one line) and then cut and paste this into address bar in Explorer.

Sorry about it but really blogger should have someway to post a link so it doesnt lose parts of it.

chinadoll said...

Diane,

Thanks pet, but that is a bit technical to me lol

(Pet is a Geordie term of endearment)


Oh and Geordie is someone that comes from the north east of England.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne to be exact.

Rosiepops said...

Diane

I give up, it is now telling me that page is missing!

never mind will have another go tomorrow when I am not so tired.

xxx God bless Madeleine xxx

dianeh said...

I will get the links again, as they make a nice little time line and then try to get them in so they are usable.

Good night to you.

chinadoll said...

A particularly good article from an articulated source:-

..............................

From The Sunday TimesDecember 16, 2007

Kate and Gerry McCann: Beyond the smears
For six months David James Smith has examined the evidence surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann for The Sunday Times Magazine. In this, the most comprehensive — and authoritative — investigation yet, he addresses the key issues facing Gerry and Kate as they prepare for Christmas without their daughter


To read more from David James Smith, click on the panel of links below left

That week in Praia da Luz, the week the McCanns were made suspects in their own daughter’s “death”, I was out there talking to them and to family and friends. I was at the home of the Anglican vicar Haynes Hubbard, sitting with him and his wife, Susan, while their own three children pottered around us. The Hubbards had flown in from Canada three days after Madeleine’s disappearance to begin Haynes’s tour of duty as the vicar of Praia da Luz. They had heard about Madeleine for the first time while changing planes at Lisbon airport, in a slightly unnerving encounter with an elderly Portuguese woman who had seized Susan’s arm and told her to “hold on” to the baby she was carrying, as a child had been taken.

The Hubbards had spent their first days at the resort fearing for their own children’s safety. Gradually they became friends with the McCanns, particularly Susan and Kate, drawn together at first perhaps by the McCanns’ need to find some comfort in religion. But mostly in Portugal the McCanns were enveloped by family and friends from the UK.

The McCanns were flying home that Sunday and had been to a farewell dinner that week at the Hubbards’. Susan told me that she and Kate had discussed how much one person could cope with. Kate seemed close to the limits of human endurance. Haynes chimed in: “And I don’t think she’s looking forward to tomorrow very much either.” The thought was left hanging there: how much can one person take?


Sins of the father
Our correspondent investigates how a man can choose the death of a daughter above dishonour

Fashion victim
Victims of the rumour mill?

Secret weapon
A serial sex offender who was on the loose for decades was finally caught by Britain’s DNA database. Now, every criminal is a cotton swab away from jail

Gone with the wind
The stage of death
Kate was to go to the nearby town of Portimao the next day, Thursday, September 6, to be questioned by detectives from the Policia Judiciaria (PJ). It would be Gerry’s turn the day after. For the media this would be a shocking new twist to the story – but not for the McCanns: the PJ had told them four weeks earlier they were going to be subjected to formal interviews and the McCanns had stayed on, instead of going home at the end of August as originally planned, waiting for the interviews to take place. Waiting. Waiting.

Finally, the PJ called. They told the McCanns they would be made official suspects – arguidos. The McCanns had noted the change of mood in Portugal, especially among the PJ, and the increasing viciousness of the Portuguese press. Some of the stories seemed so incredible and far-fetched – Kate, for instance, disposing of Madeleine’s body, or Madeleine’s DNA being found in the car the McCanns had hired three weeks after Madeleine disappeared – that I at first assumed they were the fanciful inventions of an unfettered press. I soon realised how well they reflected the thinking of the PJ. More recently I have discovered the stories were being fed to the press by the PJ, from the highest ranks. So much for judicial secrecy. One Portuguese journalist told me that segredo de justica – secrecy of justice – was like the speed limit. Everyone knows the law; nobody keeps to it.

It seems important to make it clear right away that I do not suspect the McCanns harmed Madeleine, nor do I think they disposed of their daughter’s body if, as the PJ believe, she died in an accident that night in their apartment.

This is not a mere prejudice on my part. I have spent a long time considering and examining every unpleasant scenario. The McCanns are not my friends and I have no axe to grind with Portugal, its police or its media.

To me, the McCanns are genuine people in the grip of despair – the accusations against them are ludicrous and a cruel distraction from the search for their daughter. That’s why I put the quotation marks around the word “death” at the top of the article. Madeleine may be dead, it may even be more likely she is dead, but nobody knows for sure. Nobody, not even the PJ, as we will see, can produce any persuasive evidence that she has come to harm.

) ) ) ) )

That evening, Thursday, May 3, at just after 8pm, by their account, Kate and Gerry McCann were having a glass of wine together in apartment 5a on the ground floor of Block 5 of the Waterside Village Gardens at the Ocean Club. Their three children were asleep in the front bedroom overlooking the car park and, beyond it, the street. Madeleine was in the single bed nearest the door. There was an empty bed against the opposite wall, beneath the window. Between the two beds were two travel cots containing the twins: Sean and Amelie. Gerry had bought the wine at the Baptista supermarket, 200 yards down the hill. They had lived and worked in New Zealand for a year and that particular bottle, Montana sauvignon blanc, was their favourite. It was the sixth day of their week’s holiday in the Algarve and they were reflecting on the enjoyable time they’d had, how surprisingly easy it had been with the children.

When their old friend Dave Payne had invited them on a group holiday, it had seemed too good to resist. Dave and Fiona Payne had been on another Mark Warner holiday the year before, to Greece with Matt and Rachael Oldfield. The Algarve group would be completed by Russell O’Brien, Jane Tanner and Fiona’s mother, Dianne Webster. Six of the group were doctors. Gerry was a consultant cardiologist and had worked before with Matt and Russell. Kate had been an anaesthetist and was now a part-time GP.

The group first spent time together at Dave and Fiona’s wedding in Italy in 2003. Now they had eight children between them. Madeleine was the oldest, her fourth birthday a week after they would return from the Algarve. One of the attractions was that there were children for their own to play with. And the adults were a sporty group, a speciality of Mark Warner holidays; tennis had dominated the activities that week.

That might all sound very cosy and middle class, but that did not mean their lives had been easy or free of suffering – especially with the struggle to have children, eventually managed through IVF – or that they had been born into an advantaged world. Kate came from a modest Liverpool background and Gerry, the youngest of five, had been brought up in a tenement building on the south side of Glasgow.

The terms of the holiday were half-board, breakfast and evening meal, and the McCanns paid about £1,500. There had been some reduction when they had discovered that, unlike most Mark Warner resorts, the Ocean Club did not offer a baby-listening service. Instead, the group had asked for apartments close together, so they were all assigned to Block 5. The Paynes were on the floor above, the only couple with a functioning baby monitor. Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner had brought a monitor too, but theirs wasn’t getting much of a signal from the Tapas restaurant 50 yards away.

The Ocean Club was not a gated, enclosed resort in the usual style of Mark Warner, but a sprawling complex open to the village of Luz and scattered over such a wide distance that shuttle buses were used.

Even though the resort was open to the village, it felt safe and secure, and in early May it was still very quiet. Gerry never saw a soul, except once, on the last night, on his evening checks, going back and forth between Tapas and the apartment, an even-paced walk of just under a minute.

As the McCanns endlessly repeated afterwards, if they had thought it was wrong or even risky, they would never have left their children. With hindsight, of course, they would never have done it and now they are riven with guilt, but we can all be wise after the event, and so many of us have taken similar chances at times, in search of a bit of respite from our children.

Gerry had knocked up at the start of the 4.30pm tennis-drills session, but had decided not to exacerbate an injury to his Achilles tendon, so had dropped out and waited around by the courts until the children came back from the kids’ clubs at 5pm for tea. That had been one of the most enjoyable times of the holiday, all the children together for tea, then the adults playing with them afterwards.

Gerry was in his apartment at 7pm, had a glass of water, then a beer, while the children sat with Kate on the couch having stories with a snack. The children were clearly shattered – the last thing any of them needed was a sedative and, anyway, it was not something the McCanns ever did. They put them to bed after a last story. The twins were asleep virtually the moment they lay down, Madeleine not far behind them.

These days it was rare for Madeleine to wake up at all once she was in bed. If she did, she’d normally wander into her parents’ bed, whether they were there or not. At home in Rothley, sometime earlier, they had begun a star chart for Madeleine staying in her own bed. The chart, still on display in the kitchen, was full of stars. At about 7.30pm, Kate and Gerry showered and changed and sat down to have a quiet glass of the sauvignon blanc. They were first to the table at the restaurant at 8.35 and spent some minutes talking to a couple from Hertfordshire – two more tennis players – at the next table, who were eating with their young children. As they chatted, Gerry thought how lucky he was, his children asleep nearby, he and Kate free to come and enjoy some adult time at the restaurant and not have to sit with their children, as this couple were.

The McCanns sat down after a few minutes and then ordered some wine. The Oldfields were next to arrive, then Russell O’Brien and Jane Tanner and, finally, always last, Dave and Fiona Payne with Dianne Webster.

That night their group ordered six bottles in total and two were still untouched on the table at 10pm. No more than half a bottle of wine each. The Portuguese magazine Sol reported that the group had drunk 14 bottles. Another Portuguese journalist told me a local GNR (national republican guard) police officer had described one of the group as being so drunk later that evening, they could barely stand.

They had just ordered starters when the routine of checking began. Matt Oldfield went first at 8.55 to check his own apartment and to hurry up the Paynes, who had still not arrived.

He was followed by Gerry, who entered his apartment at about 9.05 through the patio doors to the lounge. Earlier that week the McCanns had used a key to go in through the front door next to the children’s bedroom but, worrying the noise might wake the children, they began using the patio doors, leaving them unlocked.

When he entered the apartment, Gerry immediately saw that the children’s bedroom door, which they always left just ajar, was now open to 45 degrees. He thought that was odd, and glanced in his own bedroom to see if Madeleine had gone into her parents’ bed. But no, she and the twins were all still fast asleep.

Gerry paused over Madeleine, who – a typical doctor’s observation, this – was lying almost in “the recovery position” with Cuddle Cat, the toy her godfather, John Corner, had bought her, and her comfort blanket up near her head, and Gerry thought how gorgeous, how lovely-looking she was and how lucky he was. Putting the door back to five degrees, he went to the loo and left to return to the restaurant. That, of course, was the last time he would see his daughter.

As he walked down the hill, Gerry saw Jes Wilkins on the opposite side of the road pushing a child in a buggy. Gerry called hello and crossed over to talk. Wilkins and his partner were eating in their own apartment that night, but their youngest still wouldn’t settle. It reminded Gerry of the fraught time he and Kate used to have with Madeleine when she was a baby. In his memory, they could never eat a meal together when they went out, as she was always disturbing them and needing to be wheeled off to sleep.

As Jane Tanner walked up the hill, she saw Gerry talking to Jes and, as she passed them, she saw ahead of her a man walking quickly across the top of the road in front of her, going away from the apartment block, heading to the outer road of the resort complex. The man was carrying a little girl who was hanging limply from his open arms. The sighting was odd, but hardly exceptional in a holiday resort.

Her daughter fine, Jane returned to the table. At 9.30, Kate got up to make the next check on her children, but Matt Oldfield was checking too, as was Russell O’Brien, and Matt offered to do Kate’s check for her, which she accepted. Gerry teased that she would not be excused her turn at the next check.

In the McCanns’ apartment, Oldfield noticed the children’s bedroom door was again open, but that meant nothing to him, so he merely observed all was quiet and made a cursory glance inside the room, seeing the twins in their cots but, agonisingly, not directly seeing Madeleine’s bed from the angle at which he stood. Afterwards, he could not say for sure if she had been there or not. Nor could he say if the window and shutter had been open.

He would get a hard time from the police because of this, during his interviews not long afterwards, being aggressively accused of taking Madeleine – you passed her out of the window, didn’t you! – being suspected because he had offered to take Kate’s turn.

Jane Tanner, too, would be accused of fabricating or misremembering her sighting of this stranger with a child. There could be no answer to such an accusation – except that she was an ordinary, honest person who knew what she had seen. Sometime after 10pm, Rachael Oldfield would go to Jane’s apartment to tell her Madeleine had been taken and Jane would say: “Oh my God. I saw a man carrying a girl.”

It perhaps needs to be stated openly that all these timings and details, the way in which they weave and dovetail together, are based on witness accounts – corroborated not just by the McCann group but by others, such as Jes Wilkins – and that, despite suggestions to the contrary, there are no obvious contradictions or differences between them. Nor has any of the McCann group, at any time since, said they wanted to retract or change their statement.

That suggestion too is a lie.

Russell O’Brien checked his own daughter at 9.30 and found she had been sick. Jane returned to the apartment to be with her daughter, and Russell went back to the table. Russell would later fall under suspicion too, because of those few minutes he spent away from the table.

Finally, at 10pm, it was Kate’s turn to check the apartment. She only became alarmed when she reached out to the children’s bedroom door and it blew shut. Inside the room the window was open, the shutter was up and Madeleine’s bed was empty. Kate quickly searched everywhere and ran back down the hill and into the restaurant: “Madeleine’s gone, somebody’s taken her” or “Madeleine’s gone, someone’s taken her.”

Gerry stood up. “She can’t be gone.” “I’m telling you she’s gone, someone’s taken her.”

It was reported that Kate had said “They’ve taken her,” as if it was someone that she knew. She did use those words, but only later, back in the apartment, in her despair, as she said: “We’ve let her down. They’ve taken her.”

Matt went down to the 24-hour reception at the bottom of the hill to raise the alarm. The call to the police went in at 10.15. They arrived 55 minutes later. It is widely believed among the Portuguese media, and perhaps the police too, even now, that the McCanns called Sky News before they called the police. For the record, Sky News picked up the story from GMTV breakfast television, at around 7.30am the following day.

There was a latch lock on the sliding glass window, and the McCanns thought, but could not be sure, that they had locked it at the start of the holiday. They would later discover it was common for cleaners to open the shutters and windows to give the rooms an airing, so there was no way of knowing whether the window was locked that night or not and no forensic trace to indicate where and how an abductor had gone in and out. They could easily have used the front door, perhaps even had access to a key.

In the McCanns’ minds now, there is no doubt Jane Tanner saw their daughter being taken, but there was so little time to talk in the first few days that it was not until Jane saw the description of Madeleine’s pyjamas in the media, around Monday or Tuesday of the following week, that she told them the little girl she had seen was wearing the same design: pink top and white bottoms with a floral design.

While searches began, Gerry was worried about Kate, as she was so distraught and kept talking about paedophiles, saying Madeleine would be dead. He tried to be reassuring, but of course he was thinking the same things.

It all came pouring out of him at 23.40 – from his phone records – when he called his sister Trish in Scotland ranting and raving semi-coherently on the phone about Madeleine being taken, and Trish kept trying to get him to calm down. A sharp contrast with the way he would be later, particularly in public, once he had regained his self-control.

The detectives from PJ arrived at about 1am. By 3.30am they had gone and there was no police action at all, or none visible to the McCanns.

Four times that night they put in calls via the British consul; four times the message came back from the PJ, a message that the McCanns would never forget: “Everything that can be done is being done.”

One of the PJ officers had put on surgical gloves and begun trying to dust down the bedroom, but his powder was not working properly. He tried to take the McCanns’ fingerprints for elimination, but that didn’t work either. It all had to be done again the next day.

The twins slept on like logs, just as they always did at home, though even their parents were fleetingly worried – had they been sedated by an abductor? – that they should be quite so comatose. The Ocean Club gave them another apartment, but the McCanns did not want to be alone, so the twins were taken to the Paynes’ apartment, and Kate and Gerry went there later too, to try to rest.

They got up at first light and went to search alone on the open scrubland beyond the resort, wandering around, calling Madeleine’s name. It was cold and lonely – there was no answer.

Gerry had asked the departing PJ detectives at half three about contacting the media to make an appeal. One of the officers had reacted with surprising agitation, waving his hand emphatically: “No journalists! No journalists!” That, of course, was not quite how it worked out.

) ) ) ) )

For many weeks, the McCanns enjoyed a good relationship with the Portuguese police and were treated to regular updates and a flow of information via the family-liaison officers sent out by Leicestershire police. The problem with the three Leicester officers was that they didn’t have a word of Portuguese between them.

The first public indication of police thinking came at the end of June when the magazine Sol published a story about the McCann group, casting doubts on their evidence and claiming they had undertaken a pact of silence. It was the first time the McCanns’ friends had been named in public, but Sol’s journalist Felicia Cabrita had their names and phone numbers and details from their witness statements. She had called them all, and at least one other witness, Jes Wilkins.

The information had been handed to Cabrita by the police – she says she acquired the material through good journalism, which in a sense it was – and her source is widely believed by her colleagues to have been the former head of the inquiry, Goncalo Amaral.

The PJ appointed an official spokesman, Olegario Sousa. He was apparently plucked from his day job – he was a chief inspector on the art-robbery squad – because he was the only one who spoke decent English. He was never directly involved in the investigation and was rarely told much of what was really going on.

Initial suspicion focused on Robert Murat, who made himself busy with police and journalists from the first day, offering his services as an interpreter, as he spoke both languages and lived across the road from the Ocean Club with his mother at the villa Casa Liliana. In fact, the man Jane Tanner had seen carrying a child was walking straight towards the Murat villa.

Murat later said to me that he told the PJ the press were suspicious of him, and they told him not to worry and to keep away from the press and work for them instead. He had signed papers to become an official interpreter and even sat in during the witness interview of Rachael Oldfield.

Leaving the police station in Portimao one evening, a week after becoming an official police interpreter, Murat became aware he was being followed. Shortly after that he was arrested and interviewed himself and made an arguido.

Murat always denied he was out the night Madeleine disappeared, but three of the McCann group claimed at the time they had seen him and still insist they were right. I was told there was at least one new independent sighting of Murat out on the night of May 3.

Bizarrely, the McCanns believe they were inadvertently responsible for encouraging the PJ to take them seriously as potential suspects, as it was them bringing in a South African “body finder”, Danie Krugel, that led to search dogs being used. The PJ agreed to work with Krugel, and an officer from the UK National Policing Improvement Agency was called in to advise on a search based on Krugel’s findings. It was agreed the British would supply some specialist equipment for spotting disturbed soil and also some search dogs, including one trained in human-remains detection (HRD) and one trained to detect the scent of blood.

Ultimately, only those who were there and involved know exactly what happened, but the McCanns wonder just how the search dogs were presented to the PJ and what claims were made for their success rate and infallibility.

All British policing techniques are meant to be practised uniformly by every force across the country and defined in written policy created by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). But the ACPO was unable to produce for me any policy relating to search dogs.

Gerry was initially optimistic at the prospect of the searches by these supposedly elite British dogs and techniques. The dogs then went on to search the apartments of the McCanns and their friends. A line-up of cars were also called in by the police, including the cars owned or used by Murat and the Renault the McCanns had been using, which they had hired on May 27.

Those who told me about the dogs’ searches say they involved little objective science. It has been suggested that the HRD dog was treated differently in the McCanns’ apartment than in the others. The dog kept sniffing and running off and it was called back on several occasions. Eventually it “alerted”, meaning it went stiff and stayed still.

Then the blood dog was called in and directed to the area where the other dog had alerted. Eventually this dog alerted in the same place – behind the sofa in the lounge, which is where the trace of blood was supposedly found.

The cars were lined up, not in a controlled environment, but in the underground public car park opposite Portimao police station. Again the dog was led quickly from one car to the next until he reached a Renault with “Find Madeleine” stickers all over it. The dog sniffed and moved on to the next car, but was called back. The dog was taken around the McCanns’ car for about a minute, as opposed to the few seconds devoted to the other cars. Then the dog went rigid, an “alert”, and the doors and the boot were opened. It was this that led to the recovery of some body fluids that the PJ suspected would contain traces of Madeleine’s DNA, and which led to the supposed revelation that her body must have been carried in the car.

The role of such dogs is normally intended to find a body or remains. Without any subsequent discovery the alerts amount to little more than an indication – or worse: in one recent case in Wisconsin a judge concluded that similarly trained dogs were “no more reliable than the flip of a coin”, after hearing evidence that they were wrong far more often than they were right. The McCanns’ lawyers are in touch with the defence lawyers in that case. The PJ had never attempted to obtain a “control sample” of Madeleine’s DNA. That had been left to the McCanns, who had found traces of her saliva on the pillow of her bed at home in Rothley and provided that DNA sample to the Portuguese police.

Whatever the public’s perception – based on a slew of news stories – at this stage there is no published evidence that Madeleine’s DNA, or any trace of her blood, has been recovered from the apartment or the car. Any suggestion to the contrary appears to be misinformation from the PJ. Some Portuguese journalists and, apparently, some members of the PJ believed the UK’s Forensic Science Service (FSS), based in Birmingham, had been deliberately delaying the tests. There are some who suspect the involvement of the British secret services.

In fact, both the PJ’s national director, Alipio Ribeiro, and another PJ official, Carlos Anjos, have both said openly that the police have failed to establish a perfect match. The PJ found several specks of what they believe to be blood in apartment 5a, including one sample that someone had apparently tried to wash off.

They found a trace of body fluid – that is, not blood – in the boot of the Renault and a tiny trace of blood in the Renault’s key fob. Some forensic tests were carried out at the PJ’s own laboratories in Lisbon, where tests on samples related to Robert Murat were also made. The tests on the traces that were potentially the most significant came to the FSS. One sample was said to have produced DNA that was similar to Madeleine’s. An exact match would be 20 out of 20 bands, this sample was said to be similar in 15 out of 20 bands. But in reality, that result was meaningless, as any family member could produce the same match.

Some journalists were told that more advanced tests were being carried out on the smallest blood traces – tests called low copy number profiling, which could produce DNA findings in the slightest of samples. They were a slow process, but did not normally take more than two weeks.

In late November, PJ officers and forensic experts came to meet police and FSS experts in the UK, amid claims the PJ were still waiting for further results. Leicestershire police have apparently paid for all the forensic tests being carried out in the case by the FSS – they are the client in the case, not the Portuguese. The PJ have used this as evidence that the British are suspicious of the McCanns too – even the McCanns think the British police doubted them for a while, until the forensic results emerged – but you might think the PJ would have wanted to be in control of their own forensic findings.

I heard that a PJ officer had been surprised to find a member of MI5 at a UK meeting about the case, and this made him suspicious that shadowy forces could be at work. The Sol journalist Felicia Cabrita mentioned the “mysterious Clarence” – Clarence Mitchell, the former government PR officer turned McCann spokesman – and I was told there was suspicion too about another government official, Sheree Dodd, who had acted as a PR officer for the McCanns briefly in the early days – had she come out from MI6 to help dispose of the body?

These theories might seem preposterous, but for those involved in the case in Portugal, they fitted a pattern in which the Portuguese government and in turn the PJ had felt the heavy weight of diplomatic pressure from the UK – a pressure that the police and the journalists very much resented, with its implication that the police were not doing their job properly. This could be one reason why the PJ were so ready to suspect the McCanns.

There seemed to be no doubt that the PJ really did think the McCanns had done it. I was outlined a scenario in which Kate had come back to the apartment and found that Madeleine had fallen from the sofa and hit her head – hence the blood – and cleaned up and hid the body somewhere in the apartment, and perhaps had not even told Gerry until the next day.

The police could not answer all the questions, of course. They were almost as unanswerable as they were unimaginable. Where would they have hidden the body? How would they have got it into the car 24 days later, and where would they have taken it? What kind of people would they have to be – what borderline personality disorders must they both share – to keep that to themselves for six months, maintain a facade in front of everyone they knew, and at the same time not hiding away but going out to ask the world to help find Madeleine?

I know the McCanns believe the PJ were oversold the value of the dogs. It was after the dogs came out that the PJ’s attitude towards the McCanns changed and it became harder for the McCanns to obtain a briefing meeting. They were disturbed when the press began reporting that the PJ knew Madeleine was dead. Finally, after pressing for a meeting, one was arranged for Wednesday, August 8, three days before the 100-day point after Madeleine’s disappearance.

When they arrived at the station in Portimao the couple were separated and both interrogated. Kate especially was given “the third degree”. Gerry broke down and cried, pleading with the PJ to share any evidence that Madeleine was dead. “It’s coming, it’s coming,” he was told.

The interviews caused the couple “incredible emotional distress”. But they agreed, if they had been guilty, they probably would have cracked and confessed at that point. The police said there would be no more briefings. The next time they saw the McCanns it would be across the table, for formal interviews.

What was doubly dispiriting, of course, was that while the PJ treated them as suspects, they were no longer looking for Madeleine. I was told the PJ had “abandoned the abduction theory”. It was open season now on the McCanns. The publicity was wretched.

The British press were not blameless either, often lazily repeating allegations and sometimes repeating them despite emphatic denials from the McCann camp. If you read the blog sites on the internet you would discover an even darker, nastier tone. The McCanns and their holiday friends were swingers, apparently. That allegation was even made on the Portuguese equivalent of the BBC by a former PJ detective, Jose Barra da Costa. When I checked with him, he said he had been told by a friend in the UK who happened to be a police officer. No doubt that officer had plucked it from the internet. It is not true.

During Kate’s interviews with the PJ in September, just before she was declared an arguido, she was separated from her lawyer, and he was presented with a long list of factors pointing to her guilt, including entries from her entirely innocuous diary and a passage they believed she had marked in a Bible (which in fact had been given to her and marked by the original owner).

The PJ also told the lawyer there was a 100% DNA match with Madeleine in the car and showed him a document that appeared to prove it. Possibly, this was the document showing Madeleine’s control sample of DNA. The McCanns feared even their own lawyer thought they were guilty. Kate was asked by the PJ to explain the dog alerts by her car. “You’re the police,” she said. “You tell me.” Kate asked the PJ: “Are you trying to destroy our family altogether?”

Gerry was asked the same questions the next day but could not answer. (Sometime earlier a Leicestershire officer had said to him, just stick to what you know.) Why did the dogs only alert next to material belonging to the McCanns? The officer was brandishing the dog-handler’s report. And then: “Your daughter’s DNA, your daughter Madeleine McCann, how do you explain that?” “Show me that report,” Gerry asked. “No. This is the report that matters – with the dog.” Of course, they could not produce a DNA match because there wasn’t one.

The McCanns took heart when Goncalo Amaral was forced to step down after making public criticisms of them and the Leicestershire police – he had made the criticisms in a phone call to a journalist contact, not suggesting the comments were private or off the record.

The McCanns hope that Amaral’s replacement, Paulo Rebelo, a more sober, conservative character, will take a wide view of the inquiry. He is said to have stopped leaks to the press, and has been locked away on the upper floors of the station in Portimao reviewing the evidence with a team of officers.

Meanwhile, the McCanns are back home trying to recover some kind of normality. How long can you put your life on hold? They have the twins to think of. Gerry has gone back to work half-days, and has finally told the British Heart Foundation he plans to go ahead with the research fellowship they awarded him, a week before he was accused of being involved in his daughter’s death. He had told me, weeks ago, about the six-figure grant and how it meant almost nothing in terms of professional advancement, but might one day help in the prevention and treatment of heart disease.

He had prepared the application in his own time, working evenings and weekends.

In other circumstances it would have meant the world to him but, right now, he had other things on his mind.

If you have any information that may help the search for Madeleine, please call the confidential phone line 0034 902 300213 or visit www.findmadeleine.com

chinadoll said...

Yet the oh so promising replacement to Amaral, is just another clone.

Hello?

chinadoll said...

Right,

Well I have spat all of my teeth out now, so, I'm off to bed.

and DON'T you dare say

'Put them back in the morning China'

Because that is not applicable - I still have my own pearls lol

FBIDU/OUTOFDATE/LTOPATSOLC

chinadoll said...

Christ..ov..ao ???

chinadoll said...

Well, if the PJ can act like this and get away with it, then who would want to be a victim of crime, Portuguese Style?

Beggars Belief (as Archer might say lol)

chinadoll said...

Shame on you pj

Shame on you.

dianeh said...

China

When the case is presented the way it is in those long posts, it does indeed 'beggar belief' that anyone could think they are guilty.

Over and over, the so called evidence is proven to be non existent, yet those weak minded fools over on the other blogs, still think it to be true.

Another good post China, thanks.

calcite51 said...

China, read your posts - very good and confirms what we've believed all along! What is going on with all these 'new' posters coming now to comment on this blog?? Some of them are just weird.

Mandz said...

What do people want form this couple? They had said and said again they played no part in the disappearance of their beautiful daughter and there is no concrete evidence against them nor have they been CHARGED.

There is a disgusting dislike and jealously from people. It’s almost like ha ha it has happened to “middle class” parents and the dislike of preferential treatment some rich people have shown them and how Kate looks to a degree.

What should matter is that there is a little girl missing aged 3 years taken from her bed in Portugal and the police are no further forward with regards to who TOOK HER??? That is more important than middle, working or upper class or what size of house they live in or how ugly or attractive Kate is or how arrogant Gerry appears. I DON’T CARE ONE BIT however I care about WHERE AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS LITTLE GIRL – IS ANYONE CLOSE IN FINDING HER??? I would like to see her found and returned to her parents everything else it does NOT MATTER. People are too busy hampering on about the parents however where is MADDIE in all of this???

«Oldest ‹Older   201 – 375 of 375   Newer› Newest»

Minute For Madeleine McCann

Locate IP Address on Map