Thursday 10 April 2008

Lies, beatings, secret trials: the dark side of police handling Madeleine case

Thanks China for the link!

________________________________________

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.

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.

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/lies-beatings-secret-trials-the-dark-side-of-police-handling-madeleine-case/

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://xmarkstheblogspot.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

283 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 283 of 283
archer said...

Now lookee here.....

Back to normal now...



OOOH how did that happen????

Rosiepops said...

Tinks

I think he needs some HRT to replace his dwindling testosterone!
I hear he wears a frilly skirt when he meets notdoc!

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Have switched my fantastic idea off! Everything back to normal as I assume it didn't work.

If I saw Dope in real life I'd kick him where it hurt (provided I had a magnifying glass to locate the appropriate part).

Rosiepops said...

Hey Archer

Not fair you took advantage and nicked 201 lol

Rosiepops said...

Melbel

Night see you tomorrow, did you get my email?

Hope to see you before you go on Sunday.

Take care xxx

archer said...

Sass

Had a lot of trouble with the second test.....

kept telling me my password was incorrect....


I have two crowns now, though Jane reckons one was by default cos my finger pulsed and I multi posted!!!

Anonymous said...

Right I've had enough!!

Sassy please refer to your MANUAL, I'm sure it will tell you:

1. to fl;ing your keyboard across the room, bash it a few times, then if that doesn't work.......

JUST LOCK OUT ALL YOUR SOON TO BE FORGOTTEN MATES!!!!!

archer said...

Rosie

Trust me I was batting blind there....


lol

Tinkerbell43 said...

Goodnight Melbel,

Pleasant dreams xx

Rosiepops said...

Sass

that is why he needs the testosterone, he suffers from SMALL MAN syndrome!

Mum21 said...

Hi Jak,

I agree with a lot of what you say...but not quite all of it.
I agree not ALL Portuguese are bad...and many are just normal everyday people like us.
But I have yet to come across a Postuguese poster on a blog or forum that has a normal,compassionate bone in their body.

archer said...

Goodnight Melbel

Take care.x

Sleep well.

Rosiepops said...

If you are firinf blind be blooming carefulwhere you fire those arrows lol
(aim them in doppeldadders direction)

archer said...

Rosie


Wonder what sort of car he has!!!!

Rosiepops said...

Mum

I sent a version of your letter off to a great many people today!

Anonymous said...

Night Melbel, sleep well.

Rosie, firing blind!!!ROFLOL

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Melbel

Night! See you soon!

Jak

I agree. The first few days of the investigation were such chaos that the rest of it was just doomed.

If there had been a different head of the investigation the whole relationship between the McCanns and the PJ would also have been very different.

It could also be a case of them being hell bent on blaming the McCanns as they appear to have mucked up the collection of evidence, so maybe to cover up their sloppy work they need an arrest to "show" their work has been fruitful!

Mum21 said...

Hi and Goodbye Melbel.

Sleep well and God Bless

Rosiepops said...

Archer

definitely a Skoda or a Volvo!

Anonymous said...

I thought it was 'Noddy's'

chinadoll said...

Melbel,

I read that about the Low Copy DNA - apparently this ruling is not accepted internationally and many caveats apply to same.

Taken from the NewScientist:-

The panel therefore warns that results from LTD analysis should be interpreted with extreme caution in court cases, and expert witnesses should go no further than simply saying that the profile matches that of a defendant.
The report says juries should always be told that "the nature of the original starting material is unknown, that the time when the DNA was transferred cannot be inferred, and that the opportunity for secondary transfer is increased in comparison to standard DNA profiling".
Validation needed"It is inappropriate to comment upon the cellular material from which the DNA arose or the activity by which the DNA was transferred," it continues.
As to the technique itself, the panel said it was satisfied that the three organisations offering the service to the police in the UK had each taken the required steps to ensure reliability and repeatability, even though the validations hadn't been independently peer-reviewed and published.
However, the panel said that for the method to be accepted internationally, it needed to be validated by an international panel.

link to article

Mum21 said...

Dopple,
You were not just taking Assasin to task...you were poking fun at us too.
Does the name Ena Sharples ring any bells?

Now do us a favour...run back to your evil mates on the other side. They may even enjoy what you have to say about us over here...but I very much doubt it.

Mum21 said...

Rosie,
I did too. And intend to send more.

Tinkerbell43 said...

Doppel you put yourself up for ridicule. You are not the only person to be slagged off but no-one has stooped to the sort of behaviour you have shown tonight.

Maybe the other blog should ask themselves what they done to make Assasin do that in the first place!!. Your answers lie there not here!

Anonymous said...

Thank god for that, thought I was going to be locked out again!!

Rosiepops said...

Brilliant Mum

I have also asked a lot of other people to do so and they have, not only that they are forwarding them to their friends to do the same.

people are really really angry about this. typical Brit though, we saunter along and take an awful lot then one thing happens and it tips us over and I believe this is what happened today.

If you have anyone you could ask, perhaps you could and get them to ask others?

The more we get, the better.

chinadoll said...

Dope,

Do not be taken in by everything you read that notdoc says.

Read my post above and reevaluate your position, independenly of a cyber appointed doctor.

Rosiepops said...

Helen

You should cover up that behind at the door lol

Rosiepops said...

Sass

Well done, I ll help too.

jak said...

Mum, it's good to see you again, I am just trying to point out that the people ( very few ) who are Portuguese on the vile sites, do no make a point for an entire nation.

If you read their posts, they all have probs of their own, by encouraging their hatred and discrediting their race in posts, the only ones to suffer will be the McCanns. They will carry on this hate campaign, no-one will be a winner, especially not Madeleine.

( sorry for delay, had to get my eldest to bed, V reluctantly).

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I prepared my post about Low Copy DNA, but could not get into the blog. I visited the other site and saw this:-

Doppelganger said...
Rosiepops,

You can really de-restrict your site this time because I am really, really bored with you now.

Enjoy yourselves while you can, low copy DNA has been reinstated and the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance is now proceeding once again.

Friday, 11 April 2008 22:17:00 o'clock BST

I had to bide my time to get back in here, but thought it pertinent to address the Dope, as he is clearly taking his lead/wound up by a not so hot doc.

Mum21 said...

Jak,

Time will tell.
But all I do know is Portugal are losing out on their British tourist trade this year. Bookings are way down on previous years.
So it must be a lot more than us handful of bloggers that are taking them to task.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

The site was only restricted for about 5minutes!

chinadoll said...

Jak,

Just saw your post to Mum21 and would like to say 'hello stranger'

May I follow up on your recent comment:-

Mum, it's good to see you again, I am just trying to point out that the people ( very few ) who are Portuguese on the vile sites, do no make a point for an entire nation.

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

and may I add, that that the people (very few) who are British/UK citizens on the vile site, do not make a point for an entire nation either.

Anonymous said...

Goodnight folks. Catch you all mane.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Night Our 'Ell!

jak said...

Doppel/doc/dad, always thought they were the same entity, just a bit confused, however, I have been wrong on many occasions so probably still am!

Tinkerbell43 said...

Goodnight Helen,

See you tom. Take care xx

archer said...

Helen

Night night.

Sleep well.x

Mum21 said...

Good Night Helen
Sleep well.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Jak

Who knows! Maybe they really all are!

Rosiepops said...

Hi Jak

I understand what you are saying, please do not misunderstand me I do not bear ill thoughts to all Portuguese people and I think this has now gone way beyond two countries.

I have to say that the Portuguese posters I have come across on here for the main with one or two exceptions have been absolutely awful, narrow minded right wing bigots. I know this does not mean that all Portuguese are like this and I really do not like talking about this because this is not what I think anyway.

The PJ I just do not trust, I would rather not feel like this about them as I do respect law and order, but I would not trust them at all and they have their examples for that.

There must be something very wrong to the core of this organisation when they allow Goncalo Amaral to investigate Casa Pia, Joana Cipriano and Madeleine McCann, it should never have happened and so why did it?

What about Ex PJ detective Paulo Cristavo wrote two books one on Joan and the other on Madeleine.

One he is due in court to face criminal charges for and the other the case is ongoing.

He is making money out of these poor little innocent children and he is being allowed to, it is absolutely sick.

he is also allowed to head a unit for missing children and has *refused* to put Madeleine's name on this list as an unexplained disappearance.

I also assume he has not put Joana Cipriano's name on there either?

Despite the fact the her little body has never been found either.

It is totally absurd and so yes under the circumstances until they sort this dreadful mess out openly in the form of a Public Inquiry, I will not be changing my mind on the PJ.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to nip back folks but just saw this

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1312646,00.html

The police officer who stted that Scarlett's death in Goa was an accident has been SACKED.

Hypocrites said...

Evening all

I have just watched BBC Newsnight, with a feature on low-profile DNA. Forensic experts and scientists made it quite clear that there are major reservations regarding its use, especially in the hows and wheres of collecting. There are also issues with secondary transfer (important in this case) and major concerns about interpretation.

In fact this is what we were told recently and it seems nothing has changed much!

Rosiepops said...

Helen

No! Noddy, has more street cred than Doppel.

Mum21 said...

Hi Tulip,
Good to see you.

jak said...

Hi China, it's been a while, I agree totally. I find it quite surreal to read British citizens blogging about how their country is shit!!!!!They have a voice and a vote.and a passport if really disturbed.

This to me says alot about the folk posting on Viv's site but won't go in to it.

Anyway, good to "see" y'all again, take care and see you soon.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring good news about Madeleine. x

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Helen

That's the way to do it! And you are forgiven for nipping back!

Hiya Tulip!

chinadoll said...

Well, as far as I am concerned, the pj really are trawling the bottom of the barrel/sump.

Their Elite Officers

E..tremely

L..udricous

I..diotically

T..rained

E..goists

have damaged the once proud country of Portugal, irreparably imo.

Hypocrites said...

I should add that the Newsnight feature is on the BBC website, or so they said.

Rosiepops said...

Tulip and China

Yes very interesting posts, I was reading about this earlier too.

Transference is Locards Theory and you are right, it is extremely important in this case.

I am still not convinced about how that DNA got in that car anyway! Or how the dogs were forced to give a positive when they had ignored the car several times.

There is so much about this case that stinks to high heaven and now it is going to come out and good job and about time too!

Tinkerbell43 said...

I'm done for guys, cannot keep the sandman at bay any longer.

Nitey Nite, see you all tomorrow.

xx


Justice for Madeleine & ALL the Family.

Mum21 said...

Well Ladies....I am off now too.
Speak to you all tomorrow
Good Night and God Bless

Hypocrites said...

Night night Tinks and Mum

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Night Tinks and Ma21

Have a good sleep!

archer said...

China


B LOGGERS

R EVOLTED

A GAINST

V ILE'S

O BSERVATIONS x



Goodnight all
Enjoy the rest of your evening.x

See you soon.

Rosiepops said...

Good night Tinks and Mum sleep well and take care xxx

archer said...

Goodnight Tinks and Mum

Sleep well. x

Rosiepops said...

good night archer please be careful where you aim thos little arrows lol

Sleep well take care xxx

chinadoll said...

Just had to restore my systems, as I was informed that there was ' a conflict of ip addresses' whatever that means.

Goodnight to all departees, sleep well and hope to chat soon.

Rosiepops said...

Sorry jak

Didn't realise you had said good night.

Good night sleep well and hope you are back very very very soon, we have missed you.

Take care xxx

Rosiepops said...

Sass

Are you still here?

chinadoll said...

What is an ip conflict of interests anyway. I just followed the buttons and the computer sorted it out - fortunately, but, in the meantime, I was googled off.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Jak

Night

See ya!

Come back soon, won't you. Tonight was a bit chaotic, but it normally is a lot of fun.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie - Yup!

Archer - night!

chinadoll said...

Just saw this on Supertrolls site, absolutely spot on too:-

Creep of the week...
Doppleganger,

who in a reply to one of Assassin's posts pretended to be his daughter.

We find it somewhat hard to believe that a normal family would condone and support their father/husband's continuous obssessive posting about the fate of a little girl on sick blogs run by nutters.

We also doubt they would condone his need to go and attack those who's views he disagrees with, and his need to cause trouble.

Doppleganger's juvenile behaviour makes him look very much like a lonely troublemaker.

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

What more is there to say?

In a nutshell, Supertroll has said it all.

Rosiepops said...

lol Googled off, that expression makes me smile.

Rosiepops said...

Well done Supertroll!

Stupid little man. What I do not understand it=s that because someone goes on that site and causes trouble he hot foots it here to disrupt our blog! I wouldn't mind, but that poster does not post here any longer and hasn't for quite a while, so why we had to be dragged into it beats me.

Good job we are not as childish as him or we could have gone and done the same to Viles blog!

Rosiepops said...

China

I feel that the PJ went too far this time, this whole thing has totally backfired on them. The made a mistake of treating the Brits like their own people and they fail to understand that no matter what our politics are in this country, for the vast majority of us we hate injustice and bullying and intimidation and when we see it, we can and will speak out against it.

They though because we have been relatively quite thus far that we would continue. well they just had a huge wake up call!

And it isn't over yet PJ, you are a discredit to your country and you are bringing it into disrepute.

chinadoll said...

Waves, hugs and kisses to you Supertroll.

I really lurve your style lol.

Just say it as it is - don't beat about the bush lol

Some people do not know the meaning of subtelty..........an art form in its own right.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Am off now - working tomorrow.

See you all soon!

Me
x

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

You really have been a driving force as far as my blogging account/experience is concerned.

What this family have been subjected to has woken a demon in me, that I never knew existed.

I read other posts on this blog and recognise where they come from and why they are here.....why, because we are from the same ilk.

Dammed right, we will not lie back and accept the injustice of the case.

Little Madeleine deserves so much more and the crucifixion of her parents, is not the answer.

chinadoll said...

Melbel,

Have a brilliant holiday, you will be very much missed and I for one, look forward to your continued input - as and when you are available.

Rosiepops said...

Night Sass Sleep well see you tomorrow xxx

China

I think this whole thing about the children crying has probably been taken out of context.

Having experience of three year olds they do not always report things accurately do they?

If the McCann's had checked them and they were asleep each time, there are other explanations! children of that age do not alwasy adhere strictly to the truth.

I remember one of mine saying to her daddy that she was locked uut in the garden all day and mummy would not let her in!

My son her brother had locker her out and I had to chase him for the key, it took me all of a minute!

Rosiepops said...

I am going to miss Melbel too, she makes some brilliant points.

melbel find a cyber cafe' somewhere! xxx

chinadoll said...

Diane,

I and all of your friends on this blog, are thinking of you and your family and are praying that you and your little one, are in the safe hands of the Lord.

Keep safe and well and needless to say, keep faith, as we all endeavour to do.

Rosiepops said...

China

I am going off now, I do not know where Jane disappeared to, she was having difficulty loggin on after that fool decided to disrupt our blog for something we had not done!

I have emailed her but hav not had a reply yet.

Jane I hope you manage to get back on soon xxx

Good night china sleep well, take care xxx (see you tomorrow night hopefully)

chinadoll said...

Rosiepops,

I agree.

The pj are milking this for all it is worth......unfortunatley, the worth of this little girl, means little. Portugal and its macho machismo attitude is what is the driving force in this lapsed and disgraceful investigation.

Humanity does not appear to have credence in this sad, sorry and traumatic matter.

chinadoll said...

Goodnight Rosiepops and my fellow bloggers on this very individual blog.

Our Janegt, you know each and everyone of us love or should I say lu...rve you to bits. Just chuck the sodding keyboard - sorry, launch the damned keyboard out of the window, or preferably, into orbit.

Goodnight my friends.

Calcite,

I am not usually around when you are, but will depart in the knowledge that we are all in your safe and capable hands.

chinadoll said...

Diane,

You really are missed and our hearts and thoughts are with you.

Godbless and hope we will chat soon.

chinadoll said...

Archer,

You star....I've just noticed that you have got the crown lol.

Well done and well deserved.

The crown was always safe in your hands lol

Hypocrites said...

Watching a late programme.

So goodnight now if anyone is still there. Sleep well.

calcite51 said...

Hi, Ladies - I didn't see anything in my e-mail. Rosie just let me know what I can do to help.

Diane, I sure miss you - and I pray your little girl is doing fine.

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