Libel Trial June 16th

Força Gonçalo!

Hit them with their own weapons!

Presumption of Innocence

The parents killed her. British police are stupid.

I have been asked many times the question why I don't respect the presumption of innocence in this case, especially by people that know me and my usual respect for human rights. It is not easy to explain.

From the time the news broke in May 2007 until the release of the police files, I had been very much a fence-sitter trying mostly to shed some light onto the hundreds of conflicting news reports. At that time I even was posting under the name Impartial on the Mirror forum and 3As. I could see the discrepancies, the changes to their statements via the media but I could also see two people devastated by the loss of their daughter.

During these months I kept the presumption of innocence high. Even though suspicions became stronger by the day it was my private opinion that even if there had been a terrible accident and the parents had somehow felt the need to cover-up her death in order to avoid repercussions to their other children, the children in the group, their jobs and reputation it was up to the law to investigate, charge, judge and sentence those responsible for it.

This still would be my stance today had it all stopped there. Had there not been added crimes to the original crime. Additional crimes that would never get followed up if the original crime would not be solved.

The crime of fraud for one. Taking money from schoolchildren, old age pensioners and well-meaning mothers. And not to be invested into a fake search for the missing child but very explicitly invested into the build-up of a defense wall that would avoid the proper prosecution of the original crime. Cheating the course of law if you like.

But it was the crime of deliberately casting wrong suspicions on another person that then caused me to drop my caution and restraint. The way in which Robert Murat had been set up by four of the friends of the McCanns, how his life and that of his mother and fiance had been shredded to pieces only because he was "too" helpful, happened to live in the direction of Jane's concocted sighting and coincidentally was also the person to translate the important statements of Dianne Webster and the nannies was my breaking point. In order to get justice for this crime the first one would have to be cleared up. Otherwise there would never be evidence of this follow-up crime. Compensation money by a paper that had been a victim itself was not a substitute for good old proper justice.

Last but not least it was the parents' atrocious treatment of the one man who had committed himself to finding out what had happened to their daughter: Goncalo Amaral
The vicious, vindictive, hate-filled persecution and destruction of another good man was the last straw that changed my view about a highly cherished good, the presumption of innocence. The law is clear, and no mere mortal can change it, but on this blog it was cast aside after the evaluation of the evidence of the police files to express the desire for the truth to be revealed, to put a stop to the never-ending destruction of people and the creation of a parallel universe built on lies and deception.

The Dig 2.0

All around me I sense a drop in hope and trust. Based on the fact that a second location for digs has been chosen and that the MEDIA (accomplices in the crime of the century) have found a feeble thread to link one of the "suspects" to that area.

A WATER PLANT

Tractorman is supposed to have worked at a tiny water treatment shack somewhere in the scrublands of the western Algarve.

The Express has elaborated a bit more on the possible targets:

They are to concentrate on areas close to a water treatment sub- station, a derelict farmhouse and an abandoned well.

Ah a derelict farmhouse brings back memories of Aztec towels with blood and fibres:

The hunt for Madeleine McCann last night centred on a disused barn near Praia da Luz where police found a towel stained with what may turn out to be the little girl's blood.Fibres found on the towel allegedly match fibres from the hire car rented by Maddie's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.Portuguese detectives discussed the breakthrough when they met British police and a Crown Prosecution Service official last week at a police station in Leicester.

 But there is a second lead that might confirm the seriousness of tomorrow's dig. And it is noone else but Michael Wright who coincidentally went for a pizza:

As for additional information I would like to add that on Sunday, 6 May I went to the pizzaria in PdL and bought a large quantity of pizzas. I was attended by a girl from Liverpool. I explained to her my relationship to the McCanns and she told me that her father 'George' had seen a man carrying a child in his arms in the early morning of 4 May in the resort. I asked her if her father had spoken about this to the Portuguese authorities. I don't know if the information was ever investigated.

 Sky was the first to broadcast it:

So George Brooks was on his way from Lagos to Praia da Luz on the morning of May 4th around 6 o'clock when it was still dark and the McCann couple had already left the Payne's apartment to do at least Kate's only physical search of her daughter.

The road George Brooks would have taken is exactly the road M537 along which the dig 2.0 is going to take place.

Two sightings of a man/couple carrying a child through Praia da Luz and two digs close to the areas these sightings occurred.

Forget about the water plant and do as the cultists do. Believe!!!



ETA:

Dom't get your expectations too high, this is just the search for the second possible hiding place. The third and final one only one or two people know. 

Running commentary

A sentence from Pat Brown's latest blog has made me smile:

"We have heard via the press (and although this information can be questionable, the Portuguese press seems to agree FOR ONCE with the British press) that the scrubland area searched all last week was an area near to where at least one of the drug dealing suspects lived.

Any idea why this might be so? It is really simple if one has focused on the distribution of media spin ignoring most of its contents.

Clarence Mitchell has been firmly shut up by Scotland Yard with their latest instructions of the media.
No more "source close to the family"-nonsense or "friend of the family"-fairy tales. His days are over.

But it would not be the McCanns if they would simply give up. (Get a t-shirt with their motto here) They do have spent a lot of money for a PR agency in Portugal, Lift Consulting who have apparently taken over where Mitchell has left. The myth that all this is happening not because of 8 non-suspects who enjoyed some nights at the local tapas bar in 2007, but because of 8 burglars/drug traffickers has been transfered seemlessly from the UK to Portugal. Despite the more serious news outlets reiterating that the portuguese police is determined that the thesis is frankly rubbish.

Totally coincidentally Brendan de Beer has all the right sources, allegedly within the Portuguese police, those nasty plods who might endanger the whole operation by leaking information to the media. Well Scotland Yard might just pack up their equipment and leave, if the leaks are not stopped.

Never believe the media, always question the source. After 7 years we should know that.

Where is Jane?

During the recent Miles for Missing People charity run Kate was competing in the 10k run while Gerry and the twins entered the 3k competition. According to the entry list Kate was to be accompanied by such old friends as Rachel Oldfield and Jane Tanner for moral support and to show that all was well within the Tapas group. There are pictures of Rachel to prove that she gladly stood by her old friend although she would have lost sight of Kate rather quickly tailing behind.

But where was Jane? There is no picture of her at the start of the race and she did not make it to the finish line according to the list of results. Did she get lost on the way or was she not there at all? Was her name entered into the attendee's list, waisting precious ~ 20 pounds from the FUND to give the impression that she was still good friends with the couple or did she simply not turn up because of things more important like the annual Galway Flip-Flop run?.

I am afraid we will hardly ever know.

But what we have learned only recently is, that after Andy Redwood had exonerated her from the suspicion of being a mere liar and fantasist by producing the ever so elusive "Man who carried a child", she has been placed firmly back into the very position she so desperately wanted to leave. And unfortunately by the very people she so badly wanted to help that night in May 2007.

The recent docu drama, offered to Channel 5 by a BRIGHTON based independent film company served only two purposes apart from secretly reveiling that it was the possibility of satellite images of the ABDUCTOR during the night of May 3rd that allowed Kevin Halligen to cheat the McCanns out of at least half a million: To document that the "world's best intelligence people" never ever once suspected the parents themselves and to place Jane firmly back into her role as a fantasist who makes up stories as she flip-flops along.

The "docu" also showed that the very people she tried to help out got her taped during interviews and did not trust her at all to keep quiet. Imagine the moment Andy Redwood showed her the Omega Report and what it contained regarding herself. If she did not have second thoughts after she had to read in Kate's book yet another alleged phantasy attributed to her (that she saw Madeleine during the sailing on the morning of May 3rd) that would have certainly made her reevaluate her position in the chess game she had always been a pawn in.

Wherever she is, I wish her all the strength she can muster for the upcoming months and years and give her one thing: She is the only human being in the game.

The fraudulent fund

While we are waiting for Tito and Muzzy to sniff out the perpetrators please have a look at this excellent blog that has done a lot of research on the fund once set up by the News of the World and its' subsequent distribution when the NotW shut down (Amen)

A Sauce Said

The completely unreliable dogs

Now Gerry, how does it feel whenScotland Yard is bringing in your biggest enemies?

Not today, yet.

Today they were somewhere else, involved in serious undercover work.

Maddie's Jammies

No I am not going to do another research on the infamous pyjamas. Maren from the Netherlands had done an absolutely amazing piece of research that leaves nothing to add:


I am just trying to make sense of the current, rather confusing situation we find ourselves in.

The digging that is soon to commence...

If they are serious about digging in the heart of Praia da Luz and if it is not purely a distraction exercise for the media, I wonder what they will be looking for.

The evidence in the hired car, the George Brooks sighting and common sense tells us that it can't be a body they are looking for, but it must be some item/s that had to be disposed of separate from the body. IMO there is only one thing that the Gerry-lookalike abductor took with him on his way to the beach and that were Madeleine's pyjamas. Those pyjamas we had endless discussions about and whole newspaper articles written about trying to confuse us whether they were Eeyore or Barbie, white or pink, long-sleeved or short-sleeved...

The reason for the change of the description of the pyjamas which the BBC proudly claimed to have initiated, might have been the description of the pyjamas the Smiths saw on the girl that had been taken towards the beach by a man resembling Gerry McCann. It might have been of utter importance to cover-up the Smith sighting and any resemblance with Maddie.

After the Eeyore pyjamas had been presented to the whole world it then would of course have been equally important that her body should never be found in her real pyjamas because that would expose a lie of enormous proportions. So body and pyjama would most likey have been separated at some stage.

Could this be the reason for the digs soon to commence? Not for a body but for the pyjamas? Their colour, make and sleeves would tell their own story.

I do remember Andy Redwood issuing the words: “We know the pyjamas their child was wearing…"



ETA:
While we are speaking a BRIGHTON film company have offered a programme to Channel 5 to be aired next Wednesday about the "McCanns and the Conman". Unfortunately the conman is not coming from Brighton.

I beg to differ...

http://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.de/2014/05/ten-reasons-why-i-cant-take-scotland.html

For the moment, they may be solving cases right and left, but something is seriously wrong with the Madeleine McCann case and here are ten reasons why I think this is not business as usual and there is a political coverup going on of some sort.

1) The amount of funds being allotted to Scotland Yard to investigate one missing person's case - a case which is not even  within their own jurisdiction, a case in which the parents' own neglect of their children and refusal to cooperate with the authorities is shameful - is unprecedented and outrageous.

2) Scotland Yard began their "review" by publicly stating that the parents were not suspects instead of simply saying no one  can be excluded from suspicion who does not have a solid alibi as is the usual statement made by police right out of the gate.

3) Scotland Yard constantly says they are updating the parents of the missing child, something that is only done if the parents are absolutely not suspects.

4) Scotland Yard did not do a reconstruction of the crime; they only did a reenactment of the McCann version of the crime for television.

5) Scotland Yard validated Jane Tanner's version of what she saw on a narrow street where she was not seen by two people as she supposedly passed by them.

6) Scotland Yard verified that Tannerman existed with a claim that was not credible.

7) Scotland Yard relatively large "Operation Grange" team has spent three years reviewing files that should have taken no more than a few weeks or months.

8) After reviewing all the evidence and leads in the files, Scotland Yard is investigating suspects that have no connection to the case.

9) Scotland Yard wants to search for Maddies's body (and, yes, they would be searching for a body as all other evidence would be long gone after seven years) in the most unlikely place to find her, right near the apartment in a very open-to-the-view-of-the-public location with hard-as-rock ground where no shallow grave could have been missed by the PJ or anyone walking by.

10) In spite of the fact the PJ has asked for there to be no press about the case, Scotland Yard has its own people still giving interviews.

@1
A flaw in reason and logic: This reason given is in no way supporting the claim. It is on the contrary supporting the opposite. If there was to be a cover-up why start a review, turn it into a full-fledged investigation, get the country that was treated so badly into their boat and press on for 5 years? I am sure Hewlett would have been able to be made into the perfect scapegoat - and I do believe that this was contemplated by some forces at the time - if that would be the current purpose.

@2
The examples for the exact same conduct in other cases are too numerous to be listed. There is no reason why Scotland Yard should adjust to the purported need of interested parties on the internet against common practice. Especially in the stages of an review.

@3
Of course a police force HAS to inform the parents of a missing child until these parents are charged and a suspicion is drafted. As to extent of the information given we only have Clarence Mitchell's word to judge by.

@4
It was the request of the Policia Judiciaria for a reconstruction. It was requested to verify or discard the witness statements regarding the timeline of events, mainly to prove that Jane Tanner would have been unable to be where she claimed to have been and to see what she had claimed to have seen. No other statements could have been verified by a reconstruction since no third party witnesses were present. Not the time of the alarm, not the alleged checks. Since Scotland Yard had already smashed the Gordian Knot that Jane Tanner's statement presented to the case there is no need for a reconstruction, something police forces (UK, Germany) very rarely use anyway.

@5
This is debatable but in my opinion a genius move. We know she lied, she knows she lied, the police know she lied, but the petty reward for outing her lie through a reconstruction was discarded for the destruction of Gerry McCann's alibi at the "moment of her abduction". And the way for the Smith sighting was opened. And an offer was made to Jane...

@6
The claim that Tanner saw the abductor was refuted which is so much more important than to prove Jane was lying (which would have proved rather difficult anyway). The ultimate truth is more important than petty revenge on Jane.

@7
The bulk of the review was most certainly done on those parts of the files that have not been published: the reports about (mainly british) paedophiles or alleged paedophiles or rumours of paedophiles in the area. Taken together with the innumerous sightings that have been discarded by those following the case with a now preset mind this amounts to a huge workload that would have to be done BEFORE any conclusions could have been reached. A quick skim through the 10000 pages of the files can form an opinion but leads to a position that can be attacked in so many ways. (q.e.d.)

@8
All the leads Scotland Yard are following and of course have to follow are part of the case. As mentioned above there are the sightings and reports about paedophiles in the area and of course those alleged incidents that only recently and miraculously turned up have to be verified and investigated even though some might turn out to be mere creations of distraction no unlike some of the sightings we had to put up with the previous years. But by investigating them, evidence might even come from these. In the prospect of the world's biggest court case ever, they better make sure that every other possibility is properly investigated and excluded or I would be very unhappy.

@9
IMO there has yet an exact location to be named where they might be looking for evidence. The location in the center of Praia da Luz would be ideal to distract the world's media from the real procedings. Should they be close to finding her body they would never let the media partake in any unearthings. This open space in PdL is just sweetly perfect for the staging of excavations, with ample parking at hand...

@10
The PJ and Scotland Yard have asked the media to behave and lately Clarence has received the firm instruction to finally stfu.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am sure that at some stage in the past seven years there were efforts being made to cover-up the case and the hype around Hewlett was the closest we got to the presentation of a patsy. He was perfect, DNA evidence could have been provided and the public would have bought it.

But luckily there was never a general consent for a cover-up between all involved parties.

In the past year we had the alibi of Gerry destroyed, Smithman brought to the public's attention, the cover-up of the photofits exposed, Madeleine's death accepted and even the dog's mentioned in connection with a fresh search for her body. I have no idea WHAT would convince the sceptics, but it can hardly have been better than that.

A memorable fortnight

April 24

Maddie anniversary brings shock new revelations  - Portugal Resident 24-04-14

""Meantime, British police, journalists, Madeleine McCann’s parents, and even the former parish priest Haynes Hubbard - who befriended the couple when their little girl went missing - are all understood to be on their way back to Luz to focus attention once again on the world’s most famous missing person.""

After an unusually quiet advent to the 7 year festivities, there are indications that the parents will go to Praia da Luz to attend the service in the local church. The fact that their friend Father Haynes Hubbard will arrive from Canada would be an additional incentive to them. And all with the prospect of arrests within weeks... 

April 25

Maddie McCann's parents: ''We won't apply for death certificate and still hold out hope 7 years on - Daily Mirror 25-04-14

But suddenly - after 7 years of disputing vehemently every possibility that Maddie might have come to any harm - Death is being contemplated. 

May 1 

Maddie’s mother comes to Portugal “looking for answers” - TVI 01-05-14

""The mother of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in May 2007, states that she continues to return to Portugal “once or twice” a year to “look for answers”.

The previous alleged plan that the parents would come to Praia da Luz seems to have been dropped. Instead this piece of non-news is published to be able to claim a misunderstanding, should someone ask. The venue is changed to Rothley's war memorial.

May 5

""A source close to the McCann’s said: “Kate and Gerry have been told police will be conducting the searches in and around Praia da Luz as soon as they get the green light from Portuguese authorities.

“There will be earth diggers everywhere and it will look very dramatic and it will be a heartbreaking and hugely emotional time for Madeleine’s poor parents.

“They don’t believe police are acting on any new tip off. They just need to carry out their own digs, looking for any possible clues that Portuguese authorities may have missed on their previous searches.

“It will not be a mere fingertip search of certain areas, it will be full ground searches, using radar and other equipment. It is such a sensitive part of their investigation but it has to be done.""

In a World Exclusive to Rothley citizen Tracey Kandoohla, the PARENTS through their mouthpiece Clarence Mitchell reveal Scotland Yards plans to start the search for Madeleine's grave. In order to get their spin in first they spill the beans to the world's media. 


May 7

07 May 2014

 

Letter from Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley to news editors re Op Grange, the Madeleine McCann investigation.

""It is important you understand this and appreciate the position in which I find myself. We will not be able to provide any information concerning the activity because ultimately it could mean the work stops. We respect the Portuguese position as we would expect them to respect our position if we were carrying out work on their behalf in the UK.""

and

""7th of May 2014 - Media Interference

We are dismayed with the way the media has behaved over the last couple of days in relation to our daughter’s case. There is an on-going, already challenging, police investigation taking place and media interference in this way not only makes the work of the police more difficult, it can potentially damage and destroy the investigation altogether – and hence the chances of us finding Madeleine and discovering what has happened to her. As Madeleine’s parents, this just compounds our distress. We urge the media to let the police get on with their work and please show some respect and consideration to Madeleine and all our family.

Thank you.

Gerry and Kate""

Scotland Yard sees the need to issue a statement to the press to ask for restraint and the McCanns - who revealed all to the media themselves - follow with "dismay".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So to sum this memorable fortnight up, it seems obvious, that the parents were informed about the upcoming searches for a body shortly before April 24th. The plan to come to Praia da Luz for the anniversary was dropped. Was the risk too high with the upcoming arrests that Clarence Mitchell had been advocating now for ages?

Instead the media had to be prepared which resulted in the death contemplations. In their exclusive to the Mirror the dig had to be spun. The danger to tourism was addressed as well as the mantra about the "useless, bungling, portuguese police" renewed. And the blasphemous idea of SY acting because of a tip-off (where did this come from?) was rejected.

The main objective though was to throw a spanner into the cooperation between the PJ and SY. Both forces must have been furious. What was most probably meant to be done under the radar provoked a show for the masses. A helicopter flight over Praia da Luz for the assembled media and hints at various locations, preferably open, easy to reach areas where lots of reporters could watch and do what reporter usually do. No matter how ridiculous these areas look to the neutral eye.

So when the show will start and the digs will bind the world's media to specified areas with ample parking we can not be sure about what is going on elsewhere but we can be sure three parties in the game know that the others know. The fourth party will watch and take pictures.

CMTV Interview with Goncalo Amaral

 A huge thank you to Astro from themaddiecasefiles.com for the transcript and translation into English

 

CMTV “Maddie Special”, May 3rd, 2014



(Gonçalo Amaral is asked for his opinion about the Euclides Monteiro and sexual predator leads)

GA - It’s been a long time, and a long time during which a story was built. A story was created from the principle that an abduction took place while no abduction was proved, nobody has proved that it was an abduction yet.

So these news come out, these and other news, and this is worth zero.

Is [abduction] a possibility that you are not convinced of?

GA - It’s been seven years, nobody can prove that there is an abduction, why there is an abduction. There are important things in the investigation. When it was reopened, they should have been taken into account. If what is being done [in the current investigation] is serious, and I think it is, there are people who – the Portuguese police at least has many people who are interested in solving the case, or concerned with it.

They will have to take into account, namely that group of people, namely – we’re talking about a paedophile here, a serial predator, all over the Algarve, or from Vilamoura up to that area [of Luz]. Now they talk about 18 cases, cases that have not been registered with the police, cases that –

I remember, at that time, in 2002 there was already great sensitivity towards this kind of paedophilia situations, even because of the Casa Pia case, in that area the Joana case, so to state that the police forces seem to have stifled it and now suddenly these stories appear…

This makes us think, it makes us think and let’s stop for a moment and let’s look, objectively, at what is there. And what is there, objectively, is a complaint with the English police of a British couple that says: there is a gentleman there, who two years ago committed paedophile acts towards that little girl that disappeared.

I heard that that gentleman broke into a few houses and that he lied down besides [the little girls]. And that this is paedophilia. I ask: those gestures that were made relating to Madeleine, two years earlier, during the holiday in Mallorca, that are described in the process and they are, there is a complaint from a couple of doctors that were friends with this couple, at the British police, what happened to that?

Deep down, what are we looking for? First, we investigate what is there in the process.

And in fact, that never happened.

Not even in the first letter rogatory, the only letter rogatory that we went to England to carry out – no diligences were performed concerning that situation.

(…)

GA - The conclusions that we reached did not point to an abduction, they pointed at other things, but not to an abduction. An accidental death followed by the concealment of a cadaver. But the investigation was still at a point, it hadn’t reached the end yet. Therefore only by continuing the investigation, doing a reconstruction, carrying out more diligences, namely the questioning of that couple of doctors that complained about that gentleman, doctor David Payne.

So there’s a series of things that at the moment we seem to be forgetting, a deal seems to have been made, it gives the idea that there is a deal out there, we forget about this, now let’s think about that…

And then it’s all inconsistencies, you’ll notice: there was the witness statement of a lady, Jane Tanner, who is a friend of the couple, she was there on holiday, that said “I saw the abductor carrying the child walking into that direction. He was dressed like this, and this and that”. And this put at stake – the way she said it and the location where she said she saw it, where she walked – it put the very testimony of the child’s father at stake.

What happened?

A few years later, based on an e-fit that was made upon request from the couple, by their private detectives, someone is found who says “I still have the clothes from that time, this is my daughter that I was carrying, and I even still have – notice this! – I even still have the little girl’s pyjama, almost four years later. Here’s the little girl’s pyjama. And I went to pick her up from the Crèche”.

And it’s said that the crèche was open at half past nine in the evening. It would just take someone who picks up a phone and calls the crèche and asks at what time the crèche closed. And why this gentleman appears after all of this time.

Then it is said: “Now we are going to make a reconstitution”. The English police makes a reconstitution, with some actors, and then reaches the conclusion that the important man was the one that carried at half past nine, who was walking down the street and was seen by the Smith family. And yes, that one is the important one.
This was said by the Scotland Yard.

But that man doesn’t have a belly. He is not dark, he is not an African.

Why were you removed from the process?

GA – That is a good question. I know that before I left the investigation, someone suggested to me that I should let the case go into archiving, that I shouldn’t worry about the outcome of the investigation.

Who suggested that to you?

GA - It was suggested to me.

In the Judiciary Police?

GA - Yes, in the Judiciary Police. Then there were statements from me on the night of the first of October – I remember that on the 2nd, at the time, the British prime minister, Gordon brown, was in Portugal, it was the Lisbon Treaty, therefore I remember that day well, even because it was my birthday.

And I unburdened with a journalist who called me asking about a sighting in Morocco, and what I said to her is what I reiterate now: the British police, at that time, was so worried with us to know, in fact, what the involvement was, if there was involvement from the parents at all, what was the parents’ responsibility in the child’s disappearance.

We are not speaking about homicide, we are not speaking of any of that.

In fact, what had happened there, that night? Specifically with that group, and with the parents as main suspects.

And then when that news appeared that the little girl had been sighted in Morocco, because there, it was said, there could not be any blonde girls, but it turned there could, I think she was the daughter of a Belgian lady. So the English are not that much smarter than we are, or the Moroccans (…)

GA – What is happening here is as simple as this. Removing me from the investigation is the first step towards archiving of the process. And then the process is archived. And then it was reopened, with what looks like a deal.

I’ve already seen it written in the papers: “The parents were cleared”. I don’t know, was there a trial? Why were they cleared? Were the Gaspars investigated, was everything that is there [in the process] investigated?

Isn’t it at least strange that 7 years later these parents, if they had anything to do with the case, continue to search for their daughter will all means?

GA - Who says that they are searching for their daughter? What I have analysed, because I have the right to look at the situation, is that they have always carried out a campaign to defend themselves, a campaign to sell an image of themselves.

A campaign to collect donations, a campaign that has already allowed them to pay the house that they live in.

A campaign in which they destroy the lives of a series of people, a campaign that put employment at the Ocean Club at risk, it led to unemployment.

A campaign where they don’t care about others.

Deep down, it’s their image. Only that. This is my analysis of the situation and I am entitled to it.

Do you think that Scotland Yard is accessary to that campaign?

GA – Until Scotland Yard clarifies the mystery within this mystery that is Mr David Payne, and that situation of the paedophilia complaint – it’s not someone who goes to burglarise a home and lies down next to – we are talking about obscene gestures and saying, with words, asking if Madeleine did certain things, to the father of that child, Mr Gerald McCann.

Other people saw it, witnesses, who on the 12th of May denounced it to the English police, who in turn never informed us about that situation, only in October did a fax arrive concerning that, but the story has been told.

So, let’s understand what this is about.

If it’s only the fear that all of them have, that pact may exist, all of them having abandoned their children, because they did abandon them, during that week they always left them alone, at their own risk, nothing more – or if there is more to it.

That is what needs to be understood, and how far that can cause, within the British society, hat damages it may cause. I don’t know.

But what motives could Scotland Yard have to go along with that?

GA – Let’s find out why. Let Scotland Yard come and say why they don’t investigate. Let them deny that the complaint existed, or let them confirm that it did exist and why they don’t investigate it.

It’s seven years later. Seven years later, it’s said that Scotland Yard is making an appeal, some big appeals, and that people call SY and a call centre.

We already did that. The Judiciary Police and the English police, at that time, seven years ago, launched that questionnaire. They launched a questionnaire, in England a call centre was installed, people who spent their holiday at the Ocean Club, who spent their holiday in the Algarve, had the opportunity, seven years ago, to say all that they could say, to contribute, and nothing was said about it.

Now seven years later these things start appearing.

So that is the mystery. First the statement of Mrs Jane Tanner was cleaned, then they tried to clean the Smith family’s statement. That backfired because on the internet, everywhere, people started saying, no, but this gentleman here is Gerald McCann, the one in the e-fit that had been made by those detectives that had left the MI5.

So this is where we are. When you say to me that they are searching for their daughter, I doubt it.

You were removed from the case just as you were about to collect the testimony of this man [Martin Smith].

GA – It’s true. We had already asked the Police’s National Directory for permission to bring him to Portugal, so we were taking care of the traveling, the accommodation. When I return to Faro [after being removed from the case], my colleague that came afterwards considers that deposition not to be relevant.

But he still made diligences, I think there is contact with an Irish liaison officer in Madrid, he is the one who then brings his statement from England, therefore…

But after the deposition that this man gave to the English authorities, he contradicts himself, he is no longer absolutely sure that this man was Gerry.

GA – That is no contradiction. When he speaks to us, he says it is that person. When the statements to the British police appear, 85 or 90% is mentioned, so it’s a probability percentage. The way that he identifies him is not due to the physiognomy, it’s the way he walks, the way he holds the child. So in terms of evidence, let’s put it this way, it would never have great value as evidence.

But in terms of the police work, in the investigation, it’s an argument that is important to understand and to clarify.

Until someone appears – maybe someday someone appears, someone who says that he was also fetching his child at that time from the crèche that hands out the little girls at half past nine or ten in the evening, someone who also kept the clothes and the similar pyjamas. Maybe there were children of that age, all wearing the same pyjamas.

Even we had one of those pyjamas, it was bought from the same store, in England, for future comparison.

Is this one of the key moments in the investigation, for you?
GA – It is important. It’s one of those points that until it is clarified, we can’t move forward with the abduction theory, because the description matches the description of Gerald McCann and it matches the description that Jane Tanner made of the other individual, the one who allegedly appeared in the meantime.

Nothing was confirmed in Portugal.

Here in Portugal something interesting is happening, here in Portugal and in England. Scotland Yard has information from the Portuguese police and breaks the judicial secrecy, and says a few things there. And everyone takes it for granted. They take it for granted, it’s the police saying it, therefore it’s an almost absolute truth. But the question is why.

I’m a policeman.

And I know that some journalists investigate.

And sometimes I ask myself why nobody asks, why there isn’t one journalist that says “But is this even possible?”. Why don’t I go and knock on the crèche’s door, for example, and find out if it is possible, at that time.

Why don’t I go to the GNR and the PSP and say, my friends, in 2002 child abuse was already under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Police. There had already been the Casa Pia case, you were alert to the situation, so there was a serial predator on the loose and only SY knows about it?

And so on.

There are questions that we have to find out why. And why, for example, Mr David Payne, why it doesn’t move forward.

Were mistakes made in the investigation?

GA - Certainly so. There are mistakes made in all investigations. The first mistake that was made in this one, and I tell you this easily, was that we didn’t place this couple under surveillance from the first moment onward, under phone tapping and so on. The McCann couple.

Because in such a situation, with children of this age in their care – it was their duty to guard them, to care for them – they are the first suspects. This happens anywhere in the world, doesn’t it?

Is this a never ending story?

GA – It will have an end. I don’t know. Madeleine disappeared, in the meantime some witnesses are already deceased, others will be deceased in the future, I don’t know my future, either. This will have an end. We shall see what happens.

But before the end, and before this program ends, I want to alert to a situation that is important. The English like this very much, it’s important. It’s not only indications, it’s not only the inconsistencies, it’s what they call the scientific part of the question.

And the scientific part is the hair that was found in that car. Hair without roots, that the English laboratory says that from its coloration, it belongs to Madeleine McCann. And that nothing except for transference between objects could justify [hair] inside that car trunk where cadaver odour was found.

The Judiciary Police that has them, they should send them to a laboratory to be analysed for a DNA profile without the need for hair roots. People say that there are labs of that kind, so do that now.

We have been at this for such a long time. Maybe they can spare some money and we can move forward in the investigation, surely. To the Netherlands or to Germany, I think there are laboratories there.




CMTV invited the McCann family’s legal representatives and its spokesman to make a statement. The invitations were not accepted.

Nothing new here

Basically nothing new for those that have followed the case with an open mind and the PJ files at
their disposal. Only logical consequences resulting from the review of those files by Scotland Yard.

In the same way nothing much had been added to the files after Goncalo Amaral had been forced out of the investigation until Paulo Rebelo had moved the case to it's shameful closure, nothing much has been added in the seven years since then. Ok some offices had been raided and boxes of hopefully incriminating material had been seized, possibly one or the other prime witness had come forward with info that warranted a reward in October, but otherwise...? Nope...

The PJ files are still the basis and the key to the case. The course of events, the timeline of both evenings, the removal with all it's mishaps can be construed with the help of these documents compiled by earnest and honest cops that performed a monumental task in an invironment poisoned by the biggest scum of this sad tale, the British meeedja, puppets on a string of their masters, Team McCann.

And since there is nothing new to report at the moment I would like to DIG out some long forgotten posts...

Das Dreieck

Pingggggg

and for the fun of it:

Knöpfe (Buttons)

7 long years

May 2007














May 2014

A political case

TRANSLATION BY ASTRO



Q: Do you regret anything?

“I would do exactly the same [today that I did then], with a small difference: I would not leave the Polícia Judiciária. It could be a problem for the Polícia Judiciária. I did think about it then, shall I leave or not, if I stay with the police I’m a problem for the police, or if I leave, I have all of the other problems.”

“I don’t regret what I did, I did it with conviction, I did it to defend the investigation model, what a criminal investigation is supposed to be. Earlier, you spoke about the politically correct, the politically correct policeman. It is my understanding that criminal investigations cannot be politically correct, because they can’t be concerned with politics. And what happened, and continues to happen, is that we have to be politically correct, subordinate to the English power. That happens, it happened on the 2nd of October [of 2007] at the Lisbon Treaty, there were discussions between José Sócrates, then prime minister, and Gordon Brown, the English prime minister, who told the newspapers that he had asked the Portuguese prime minister about the [Maddie] case. So even before that it was already a political case. And when politics intrude into a criminal investigation, nothing will end well, whether the criminal investigation relates to a homicide, a burglary, a disappearance, or corruption.”

“Going back to the beginning of the question, I don’t have any regrets. I don’t have regrets because although principles and values don’t fill the fridge, I feel rich in another way.”

Q: Was Maddie McCann abducted or is she dead?

“Maddie McCann disappeared and since that time she is – she died. She died that night. Those are the conclusions that are reached in the process itself: In September of 2007, the Polícia Judiciária concludes – and this is a conclusion within an investigation that was not over yet but has a principle there – it’s a sequence of indications that are collected which reaches the conclusion that it is very likely that she died. She died that night. The circumstances of the death are still to be determined. What mechanism – what happened for that death to take place is yet to be discovered.”

“And if the parents nowadays make us believe that their daughter is alive, or have to gamble on her being alive, they forget that right after the investigation it was them that were the first to signal death. They were the first to say that their daughter – that it was necessary for a coronel from the South African army to come with a miracle machine to find the body. So it’s the parents that invite him to come to Portugal, to find a body.”

“Later, years later they say that she is still alive. And now the Scotland Yard, apparently already with their agreement, or their tacit agreement, says that the child is dead. That is the obvious. What usually happens in this kind of situation – for years they have mentioned other cases – if a certain child disappears and reappears after several years, alive and even with children, with the abductor, then Madeleine may also probably be alive. But they forget a small detail. Actually, they don’t forget it, they just don’t enlighten us, because these people have all of the information, they have staff that works with the entire information, which is also a bit strange, but they forget a detail: all of those children that have reappeared, whether in Austria or in the United States, they weren’t three or four years old when they disappeared. They were all close to the age of 10. All of them were girls and close to the age of 9, 10. None of them disappeared aged 3 or 4.”

“When an abductor makes a girl his slave, what we have seen is that the age is not 3 or 4, but much closer to adolescence. They forget that detail.”

“I have no doubts about what happened to Madeleine McCann. Madeleine McCann died that day, that night, in that apartment, and her body disappeared.”

Q: On what do you base that conviction?

“On many things. A series of indications, a series of contradictions, the witness statements of the parents, the witness statements of their friends, the traces that were collected with the assistance of special English dogs that never failed in the United Kingdom, they now work with the FBI. They never failed. At the time, we were introduced to several cases and situations, all of them they worked in and never failed. The possibility is that they failed in Portugal. Maybe it was the heat.”

Q: Was there human blood in the car boot and inside the apartment?

“No doubt. Inside the apartment and in the car boot. That human blood, the English lab even says, there is a report in the process, that says it’s the daughter of – the daughter of Gerald McCann, it’s a descendant of his. Later on, they change the hypothesis, and say that the combination of the DNA may be from anyone. By coincidence, in that case the DNA is very similar, 90% similar to that of Madeleine McCann, but it could be DNA built by myself, by Júlio Magalhães or by you, and then it would result in that DNA profile. But the funny thing is that it results in the DNA profile of Madeleine McCann. It does not result in the DNA profile of Júlio Magalhães, or of Gonçalo Amaral or of Luís Filipe Menezes. Not even in that of the doctor who performed the test.”

“We have no doubts, and this was discussed even at the level of Portuguese justice, at the level of the Public Ministry, that there was an alteration at the English lab. The data was manipulated. The FSS, the British lab, which was already questioned over several situations, even concerning the IRA in Ireland, over bomb attacks, those traces, that way to find the DNA, to examine the DNA with low copy number, was called into question relating to traces found on a bomb in an Irish case. And that lab was called into question.”

“But there is a situation, concerning the lab, which has to be taken into account. There are the registers that are performed by the technicians, by the scientists that examine, and we have to look at those registers, at what they wrote. On an everyday basis, as they examined the evidence, the traces that were sent over, what they wrote along. And then we see the result in that report that they sent over to Portugal.”

“Then there’s another situation. It is still possible to find out or to collect indications of whether or not the dogs failed. If inside that car boot – I’m referring to the car that was rented by the McCanns some 15 or 20 days after the disappearance – blood traces were found, traces that the lab says may be, although there is no full certainty, that may be from Madeleine McCann, hair was also found. Hair which the laboratory says, from its coloration, which is how this used to be done in the old days, by comparing the coloration, if it belonged to the person or not. Nowadays it is possible to perform, and then it was already possible, to perform DNA tests on hair. Some say it’s only possible to identify the DNA profile with the root of the hair, the English lab says it’s not possible because these have no root, therefore they don’t perform the test. That hair is in Portugal, it was returned to Portugal. They are next to the process. It’s simple: the Public Ministry, that has the investigation, should take that hair and send it to a lab in Europe or elsewhere, where that type of test is done, without the need for the root of the hair.”

Q: That was never done?

“That was never done. It was never done and what is said is that there may have been a contamination. But we end up not knowing whether that hair belongs to Madeleine McCann or not. That’s another doubt to discuss, to clarify. Now, there cannot be a piece of evidence while we’re here talking about the man who died under the tractor and quit his job a month before because there was 5 euro missing –“

Q: Why did neither the PJ nor the SY question the Smith family?

“It was on the day of the Lisbon Treaty, which happens to be my birthday, on the 2nd of October of 2007. It was the Lisbon Treaty, it’s my birthday on the 2nd of October, and I was “fired” from Portimão on the 2nd of October. And that is the time when we were preparing for the head of that family, a family of approximately 5, it was him, his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, his daughter, to come to Portugal. On the night of the 3rd of May, at around 10 p.m., when they were returning from a restaurant in Praia da Luz, they crossed paths with an individual who was coming down a certain street towards the beach, carrying a child with her head on his shoulder, as if she was asleep. Later on they say that - they see the news, because on the following day they returned to Ireland – they say it may have been Madeleine McCann and the person who was carrying Madeleine McCann.”

“These people were heard within the process right away in May/June, they came to Portugal, they were heard, they gave a description of the person, physically, how he walked, they described his clothes, whether he was Portuguese or not, they said he’d be a tourist because he was tanned, not a Latin man, they also indicate the person’s age, the age of the child, approximately, according to her size, and that was it.”

“It was only later, when Gerald McCann and Kate McCann leave Portugal to go to England, in September, after being heard as arguidos, when they flee, literally, they fled to England, and the English police followed suit, because they were here cooperating with us but then they also disappeared, and we concluded that the English police was in Portugal merely to somehow protect that couple.”

“But when they arrive in England, there’s an image that went around the world, which shows Gerald McCann coming down the stairs of the plane, the stairs that access the plane, and walking on the runway with one of the twins in the same position, in his arms with the head here [on the shoulder]. And what that family says is that this individual, from the way that he walks, the way that he carries the child, is the person that they saw on the night of the 3rd of May. They don’t say anything else. What happens? We initiated the diligences to bring them to Portugal, to hear him, it would be the father of the family that would come over, he was available to come, and everything was prepared. Authorizations from the PJ’s national director for them to come to Portugal, the tickets were about to be emitted, we still had to book a hotel, so it was only a matter of logistics.”

“And on the 2nd of October, after I was questioned by a paper, Diário de Notícias, about what I thought of the English police saying that Madeleine had been sighted in Morocco, I unburdened that they should worry about what really had happened to Madeleine instead of worrying about other situations because when the English police left Portugal, what was agreed upon between the Portuguese police and the English police was that the investigation had to move forward in terms of understanding how the death had occurred. The death of Madeleine McCann. And what had happened to the body.”

“We were not discussing abductions or that the child had been taken to become a sex slave, none of that. We were speaking about death and concealment of a body. And it’s on that 2nd of October that I leave. I left the investigation, it’s on that 2nd of October that Gordon Brown speaks with José Sócrates – it would be good if Mr José Sócrates would explain, if he is able to explain what happened – I think that his stance was one of – from what I could understand at that time, a stance of distance from the investigation, he didn’t give a lot of importance to Gordon Brown’s statement – Gordon Brown tried to involve the Portuguese prime minister in that controversy, so to speak.”

“But the person that later substituted me understands that it is not relevant to bring the Irish to Portugal. And that was it. So never again were the Irish heard, they were heard through –“

Q: How is it possible that the English prime minister’s spokesman quit Tony Blair to become the McCanns’ spokesman within 24 hours?

“That’s another mystery within the mystery. And if we understand that little mystery, maybe we can understand what lies behind, not the disappearance, not the child’s death, but behind the protection – why protect this family, this couple?”

Q: Have you noticed that couple’s power?

“Yes, I have. I even notice it in my bank account, in what I receive at the end of every month. This is what has been happening.”

Q: Is it true that one of the group’s members had been denounced earlier on by another friend over behavior that could indicate some extravagant behavior in terms of a tendency towards pedophilia?

“There is a mysterious figure, it’s another part of the mystery that may even be related to Clarence Mitchell leaving the British government to support the couple. You can say it’s a conspiracy theory, but it’s not. There is a British couple, also doctors, who went on holiday with the McCann couple two years earlier, with the children, with Madeleine, and with other couples of doctors, including a gentleman called David Payne. David Payne is the last witness. He is the witness that says that on the 3rd of May he went to the apartment and he saw those children and that they looked like heavenly angels, they were very clean, very white, something truly heavenly.”

“This is the person that bathed, during these holidays that he organized, he bathed the little girls aged 2 and 3. Not only his children, but also the other couples’ children. And it’s under those circumstances and in comments that he makes during a holiday period, and according to the statement of Dr Katherine Gaspar, this is the name of the person that denounces, the statement is in the process – and this is something, if we have time, that I’ll try to explain.”

“What she says is that he made gestures and asked questions about Madeleine McCann, to Gerald McCann, in front Madeleine McCann herself, who was then aged 2.”

Q: Did the investigation never explore the possibility of that person being a paedophile?

“Exactly, this is the question. That statement arrived in Portugal after I left the investigation. I left on the 2nd of October, they arrived a couple of months later. It’s a statement from Dr Katherine Gaspar and her husband, to the British police, on the 16th of May of 2007, two weeks after the disappearance, statements that the Portuguese police was not informed about, and which arrive in Portugal by mail, not by fax, underneath other documents, and those statements are loose, and someone with the British police, what he did was, here’s these statements, now you go and investigate, question. And never did anyone at the Portuguese police, those who substituted me, they didn’t question anyone. Neither did the Scotland Yard. Nobody interrogates, nobody investigates what is happening there.”

“Dr Katherine Gaspar, who denounced Mr David Payne to the British police, was never heard within the Portuguese process. And she was never included in the rogatory letter that was sent by the Portuguese authorities. This is the truth. We have abductions and burglaries, but the things that are in the process are not investigated.”

Q: This is never going to be solved, is it?

“I think that it will be solved. It will be solved as soon as there is the political will on both sides.”

Q: If it turns out that Madeleine McCann was in fact dead, do you want to be compensated?

“Well, if I use the McCann couple’s strategy, it has already been recognized. The Scotland Yard has already said that she is dead.”

Q: If you had the same financial resources that the McCann couple has with their fund, would you have found the perpetrators?

“I would have done a lot to try to find the perpetrators. There is plenty of information that remains unexplored. But in our country it is difficult to investigate, because a private person cannot investigate.”

Q: Were you removed from your post and sidelined until you left the Judiciary Police because you were too close to finding the truth?

“No, no. I left the investigation, I was removed from the investigation because the case had to be dominated politically. Just that. Because I opposed the archiving. I told directors in the Police directly that I did not agree with the archiving. They suggested to me, they told me that there are processes, there are investigations that do not end, that have no result. And that I shouldn’t do a lot. That I should consider the case had ended. I always opposed that. That is why I left the investigation, not because I was close to anything. I don’t see my leaving as being the result of someone fearing anything. The question was that the case is political. Only politics. It’s politics that is driving this matter. When politics enters the investigations, when investigations are politically correct, we get nowhere.”

Q: Who do you think is the author of the crime?

“We can remain simply in the area of an accident. There’s people who are responsible. Those who were the guardians of the child certainly have some responsibility. What kind of responsibility, I don’t know.”

Q: Maybe in seven years we meet for another follow-up…

“It’s a cycle. Seven years are a cycle in people’s lives. So they say.”

Britain's Finest

http://www.tvi24.iol.pt/videos/video/14109980/1


Scotland Yard speaks of new data that has been collected by the English investigation. But the Judiciary Police has another version.

The thesis that points towards a suspect of alleged sexual attacks against British children in the Algarve is nothing but the investigation line that was defined by the PJ team in Oporto, which reviewed the entire process.

A source at the Judiciary Police asserts that this was the line that was the basis for the reopening of the inquiry, in October last year.

This means that what has just been announced in England is part of the Portuguese process, which is under judicial secrecy. A secret that had been well kept until now and that was breached, which may weaken the trust between both police forces.

This information was given by the PJ itself to the British police and to the McCann couple, during a meeting at the Judiciary Police’s National Directory, in Lisbon.

There is an agreement between both police forces: they regularly meet in Portugal. They exchange information about the development of the investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The PJ has always kept silent about what happens during these meetings that take place behind closed doors. A stance that is being kept: Officially, the National Directory does not comment Scotland Yard’s statement.

Thank you Astro for the translation

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Scotland Yard spricht von neuen Daten, die durch die englische Untersuchung ermittelt wurden. Aber die Policia Judiciaria hat ihre eigene Version.

Die These, die auf einen Verdächtigen deutet, der angeblicher sexueller Übergriffe auf Kinder in der Algarve verdächtigt wird, ist nichts anderes als der Ermittlungsansatz, der vom PJ Team aus Porto verfolgt wird, das den gesamten Prozess überprüft.

Eine Quelle innerhalb der PJ versichert, dass dieser Ermittlungsansatz die Basis zur Wiedereröffnung der Untersuchung im Oktober letzten Jahres war.

Dies bedeutet, dass das, was gerade in England verkündet wurde, Teil der portugiesischen Untersuchung (Prozess) ist, der unter juristischer Geheimhaltung steht. Einer Geheimhaltung, die bis jetzt gut gewahrt wurde und die nun gebrochen wurde, was das Vertrauen zwischen beiden Polizeiorganisationen schwächen könnte.

Diese Information wurde von der PJ selbst der britischen Polizei übermittelt und dem Ehepaar McCann bei einem gemeinsamen Treffen in der Hauptdirektion der PJ in Lissabon.

Es gibt eine Vereinbarung zwischen beiden Polizeikräften: Sie treffen sich regelmäßig in Portugal. Sie tauschen Informationen über die Entwicklung der Untersuchungen bzgl. des Verschwindens von Madeleine McCann aus.

Die PJ haben immer Stillschweigen darüber gewahrt, was während dieser Treffen hinter verschlossenen Türen stattfindet. Eine Einstellung, an der weiterhin festgehalten wird: Offiziell kommentiert der National Director Scottland Yard's Erklärung nicht.

vierminutenfünfzigsekunden

ohne Worte

Click To Play

Gerry: ask the dogs
Sandra: I am asking you, Gerry

Dank an Duarte Levy fürs Uploaden auf Blip.TV

Ich habe mit der Niederschrift des Interviews angefangen für die, die Gerrys Englisch nicht folgen können. Übersetzen werde ich das wohl erst einmal nicht können.
Hier der erste Teil von dreien, wie sie auf Youtube gepostet wurden:

Sandra: Hello Kate, Hi Gerry. You have called us here, or invited us here to show these two new pictures of how Madeleine might look like now at the age of six and also to watch a video, a new appeal video, but you have been recently together in Lisbon. Have you truely felt that the portuguese public opinion is still with you?

Gerry: I think obviously there has been a lot written that is very negative, and ehm it is inevitable that given so much..., so much was written negative about us, that some people felt that we were involved, that we do feel now, that legal action has been taken and the judicial process has seen that there is no evidence to support what has been written.

Sandra: You are talking about Goncalo Amaral's book?

Gerry: Yeah, but also with the publication of the file in the first place erm an initial process of the criminal erm file and regarding Madeleine's disappearance. You know there is no evidence that we were involved and subsequently the action we have taken recently I think that people are now prepared to continue the search for Madeleine and that is why we are here today asking people to help us trying to get this very important message...

Sandra: But how can you explain that Goncalo Amaral has sold over 175.000 copies defending that you played the keyrole in Madeleine's disappearance?

Kate: I mean I think it's important to remember Sandra, the only victim in all of this is Madeleine erm and that is obviously why we are here today really, we are trying to, we are trying to (sigh) reach that person who knows something, and there is somebody who knows something, not the person who has taken Madeleine, but the person on the periphery, and that might just be erm a colleague of the person, a neighbour, a fami..., you know this person, the abductor, has got a mother, a brother, a cousin, a part of family, so that...

Sandra: Do you believe that the public opinion in Portugal right now after reading the book of Goncalo Amaral erm still can support you? Still can answer to that appeal?

Gerry: Now that's the key point why we are taking action Sandra and that is part of the legal process as you know. There is already an injunction out against the book He is banned from repeating his thesis that Madeleine is dead and we were involved. Now that has been two separate judges plus the original judgemental file have said that thats what we will do with discussing the facts. Thats the correct place to discuss.Goncalo Amaral. And the Book...

Sandra: Are you saying that Goncalo Amaral doesn't have the right to share his opinion, his conviction under the evidence he gathered into a book? He doesn't have freedom of expression to say that and to publish it?

Gerry: There is a difference between freedom of expression and evidence to support a theory. What the judges have said there isn't evidence to support this theory, so he shouldn't be saying it. And is about as much as we want to say about him. You know that's a legal process and we have challenged it, it's been through the judicial process and thats....

Sandra: The files were closed and no thesis won. How can you explain that after Goncalo Amaral, Paulo Rebelo, the next investigator, also pursued this thesis? He also investigated the possibility of you both play the keyrole in Madeleine's disappearance?

Gerry: It was investigated, the evidence was presented to the judiciary, and the judiciary concluded there was no evidence to support that thesis, that's very...

Sandra: No DNA, but how do you explain...

Gerry: No no...

Sandra: ...the coincidence...

Gerry: The DNA is only one aspect of it, there was no evidence to support our involvement in Madeleine's disappearance, that is the key thing. Madeleine is still missing, we are here as her family to continue the search. Now I can't speak for people who have read the book but obviously it doesn't stand up to critical appraisal (?).

Sandra: But this is the first time that you give us a big interview not being arguidos, not being arguidos. Since then. erm. So now I feel free to ask you this directly. How can you explain the coincidence of the scent of cadaver found by british and not portuguese dogs?

Kate: Sandra, maybe you should ask the judiciary because they have examined all evidence. I mean we are also Madeleine's mum and dad and we are desperate for people to help us find Madeleine which is why we are here today. The majority of people are inherently good and I believe the majority of people in Portugal are inherently good people and I am asking them if they will help us spread this message to that person or people...

Sandra: So you don't have an explanation for that?

Gerry: Ask the dogs (smirk) Sandra.

Sandra: Ask the dogs? No Gerry. Now I feel free to ask you, don't you feel free to answer me?

Gerry: I can tell you that we have also looked at evidence about (haha) cadaver dogs and they are incredibly unreliable.

Sandra: Unreliable?

Gerry: Cadaver dogs, yes. That's what the evidence shows, if they are tested scientifically.

Sandra: You read the files, Kate?

Kate: Yes I have read the files.

Sandra: What did shock you most? Any part of the... any detail that...you weren't... aware of? Something that has really surprised you or you didn't find anything?

Kate: Oh I have been through them and I have made notes and I passed that on to our investigation team obviously.

Sandra: And you found any evidence? Of anything?

Kate: Well obviously the only evidence I wanna find is who has taken Madeleine and where she is. They are the key things and until we actually get that bit of information you know we are always gonna feel like we are a long way away. But basically what we are doing is trying to get as much information as we can and trying to put the jig-shaw, jigsaw together, so finally we have the complete picture.

Sandra: And what about your friends? Did you have a pact of silence with your friends?

Kate: (laughing) You know the judicial secrecy?

Sandra: I know it but we don't have it anymore.

Gerry: You have to put it into context of the situation that we were in...

Sandra: But now is the time to explain it...

Gerry: That, ar.. ar... article that was written in June was directly as a result of the journalist phoning all of us, and saying what can you tell us about it and we were under explicit instructions that we were not to talk about the details of the case, under judicial secrecy. So that is all that people did. And I don't think that should be considered a pact of silence.We were told, that's what we were to do. And you wouldn't expect witnesses in other cases in any country to begin divulging information that may be useful to the perpetrator of the crime.

Teil 2

Sandra: Are you still friends? Do you plan another trips together or did it damage...?

Kate and Gerry: No No

Kate: We are still friends. We haven't got any holidays planned but we are still friends. We are in touch with each other, we still meet up and see each other.

Sandra: Don't you agree that there were a lot of details that in a certain way contribute to people to doubt of you, for example, when you went to the Vatican so quickly, all the contacts that you have made. Can I ask you Gerry, if you personally know Mr. Gordon Brown the Primeminister?

Gerry: (moving on his chair uncomfortably) No, and we still, we have never met Gordon Brown. We have spoken to him once on the phone several weeks after Madeleine was abducted. People have got to remember that, and what today is about... good ordinary people wanted to help find an innocent missing child. And that's what happened. Clearly there was a huge amount of media coverage and people wanted to look at ways to help. Our government wanted to assist the investigation to find the missing child.

Sandra: Are they still supporting you, Mr. Gordon Brown still talks to you directly?

Gerry: We have had continued meetings with both the Home Office and also with the Foreign Office to discuss ways in which the search can continue. Obviously today is a prime example of law enforcement-LED initiative with CEOP with... in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, Interpol, Europol, and you know, the key thing is, that law enforcement believe we can get information from those who may know.

Sandra: How could you explain that Clarence Mitchell left the British Government where he was a press speaker to be your press speaker?

Gerry: Obviously, when Clarence came first out to Portugal working for the Government at that time he came out and spent I think almost three, two to three weeks with us, and he got to know us very very well, and he felt very very passionate about the search for Madeleine and when the opportunity arose, erm, you know, we asked him if he would come back and shield us from the intense media interest and that is what Clarence has done superbly well, and he has become an extremely good friend during this.

Sandra: But he must be paid.?

Gerry: He was paid, that's right

Sandra: And now he must be paid?

Gerry: yeah, but you know...

Sandra: Isn't it difficult for you to pay him?

Gerry: You know, in the first period Brian Kennedy paid his salary and then he was subsequently paid by the fund and now, you know, he works part-time on this, and he is a consultant for Freud Agency, so, you know, as the media interest dropped down, we haven't needed a full-time spokesperson. He still works with us, we are working very closely with him and he has done a brilliant job protecting us and allowing us to have some degree of normality as a family considering the very very intense media interest.

Sandra: You have also hired a new communication agency back in Portugal. Why do you think you need it and is it easy for you to afford it?

Gerry: Well again, it is an agreement that it is funded out of Madeleine's fund. It's a decision that was made by the directors of the fund, because we felt... Kate and I are both directors of the fund, there are nine directors in total, that to really make the search successful we had to present information to the portuguese public, given how much had been written in a negative way about us, and obviously we want to work with someone who understands the portuguese culture and the portuguese media and how we could persuade people that Madeleine is still out there and still can be found....

Sandra: Until when do you think that you will afford all this? Two lawyers in Portugal, a news agency, Clarence Mitchell... I don't know if you still have the two lawyers that you have hired here in London?

Kate: It's not ideal, you know, Sandra. We wouldn't have any lawyers, we wouldn't need any appeal if we weren't in the situation....

Sandra: But don't you feel strangled? Don't you feel that some day you feel it will be finished the money?

Kate: We have to do whatever we can to find Madeleine and obviously we have to look at sort of , you know, if the fund starts to run out we have to try and get more money in, we can't stop...

Sandra: And how do you do it?

Gerry: Well, you know, people have been extremely kind. You have to remember that the fund was set up initially because so many people offered money to try and help and wanted to help and were prepared to donate. We would love nothing better for Madeleine to be found and for the remaining moneys in the fund to go to helping other families of missing children both in the UK and in Portugal, and that is one of our objectives when we have found Madeleine... AND her abductor, then the moneys will be used for that. Obviously if the money runs out... is running out, then we have to look at alternative ways of fundraising erm we have done small events, community events, which have been very good for teambuilding. We have had a small auction in Madeleine's school and the school where the twins are.

Sandra: Do you still have the support of Mr. Richard Branson, JK Rowling, this multimillionaire that initially gave you a lot of money?

Gerry: (burblegurgle) ..an independent investigation that has been funded completely out of Madeleine's fund... I mean an event like today, there is no specific cost for it, and this is obviously the internet, people already have subscriptions, they can do this. There is the willingness of the population to help and I think we will find hundreds of thousands if not millions of people today will forward this link to their contacts in countries all over the world. That is cheap.

Sandra: Do you still have money in the fund?

Gerry: There is some money still in the fund and it continues to be used and we will use every single penny in that fund in the search for Madeleine.

Teil 3

Sandra: You have asked Goncalo Amaral to pay you 1 million euros for damage erm for the defamation for example. Do you need that money to finance the campaign?

Kate: The reason why we have taken action against Goncalo Amaral is the damage that he has done for Madeleine. That's our main focus.

Sandra: Which motives could he have to make up all this story?

Gerry: We can't speak for Goncalo Amaral.

Sandra: But I presume that you think something? Why should an investigator make it up, a story without evidence

Kate: It has to be financial gain, hasn't it?

Sandra: You think that he made this with the commercial perspective?

Kate: You would have to ask him to get the answer to this.

Sandra: So this is your idea?

Kate: It's a possibility, isn't it. I mean I have....

Sandra: You think Goncalo Amaral is trying to win money playing with your, erm your child's life?

Kate: We have to wonder why an ex-inspector of the PJ would want to convince the population that Madeleine is dead, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And that question should be asked.

Sandra: Do you feel that there is a difference of treatment between the portuguese authorities and the british authorities? In any moment did you feel, or do you feel still, that you were victims of the portuguese investigation?

Gerry: The key victim is Madeleine. I mean, that's what the crime is about. We know we had to be investigated. And we have been investigated.

Sandra: Sorry Gerry, but you Kate said once, that you were feeling bad with what they asked you inside the PJ, trying to get a confession from you...

Kate: I know the truth Sandra, you know what I mean, and all I want to do is find Madeleine and I was upset...

Sandra: So have you forgotten everything that already passed? It's passed for you both?

Kate: The only thing we can do now is look forward, you know, you know. There is lessons to be learned by everyone ourselves included, from what's happened. But, all we want to do is find Madeleine and the only way of doing that is by looking forwards and trying to be proactive and see what we can do now, which is why this message has gone out today.

Sandra: Did you go back to work? Are you working already?

Kate: I am working fulltime in the campaign to find Madeleine. I am looking after Sean and Amelie.

Sandra: You don't have any plans to go back to the clinic?

Kate: No I don't, no I don't

Sandra: You don't. And talking about the twins. Now the time is passing. Two years and a half since Madeleine disappeared. They are growing up. How will you be able to explain them what happened one day they have the age to really understand it?

Gerry: It's like filling in a picture for them with the information we have available and we will give them as their minds inquire, and as they are able to handle that information, then we will answer all of their questions openly and honestly.

Sandra: But what will you tell them

Gerry: Well, we will answer the questions. So what they ask us we will tell them. And we tell them exactly what happened and what information we know. And what we do know, is that we are continuing to look for their sister. They want people to look for their sister.

Sandra: But will you go into details about what happened?

Kate: We will be led by them. We have had avice from a child psychologist and they said Sean and Amelie would lead the way. If they ask a question answer them honestly. We are not gonna rush them, but if they ask something, then obviously we will answer them.

Sandra: They are in the same school where Madeleine was?

Gerry: Well she didn't get a chance to start yet so, she was there, her place is there, and the twins are there now.

Sandra: The room, Madeleine's room is still the same?

Kate: The bedroom? Yeah, it's quite a few more presents in it now, but yeah, it's still the same.

Sandra: And what do you keep telling the twins whenever they ask for her? I presume that they ask about her a lot of times?

Kate: Well they know she is missing, you know, and they know we are looking for her, and they also say things to me like, if they see things like a Madeleine sticker or a poster, they say "look Mummy they are helping to find Madeleine with us", and they might point at other people saying "Mummy are they helping us to find Madeleine?" and you know, so *shrugs*

Sandra: Is it still very hard for you or are you getting used to this reality? Are you trying to live with it?

Kate: You have to, I think, you have to adapt and you have to function. And if we want to look after Sean and Amelie, and if you want to search for Madeleine, then you have to function. Erm. I am obviously stronger than I was say a year ago, and, obviously the emotion is still there...but...*sigh*

Gerry: Well we do as much as we possibly can to ensure that the twins see us happy, and see us happy with them, and they give us a tremendous amount of joy, and our life, you know, on a day-to-day basis superficially would look like any other family with two young children. Obviously one of our children is missing. And they know that and they know that that's not good and they want her back and they understand why on occasion, you know, that we are particularly upset and... we all want Madeleine back to be a complete family again, but the twins are coping fantastically well...

Sandra: You told me once that you are both living a nightmare. In your more optimistical perspective, what do you imagine, what do you think, it could be the best way to recover Madeleine.

Gerry: I think, the first thing today is that this message, it can be downloaded and distributed, get heard and seen by someone who knows, and it will tweak their conscience and get them to give information to bring Madeleine back.

Sandra: The last lead that you have shared with us was about a women in Barcelona. Has this anything to do with this appeal? (Kate shakes head?) Is it for that, that you are asking the relatives of people that can be involved in her disappearance, to call you?

Gerry: I think the first thing to say is that ... investigation matters are to be dealt with by the professionals and obviously we have got David Edgar working for us or law enforcement as appropriate. Today is about this appeal. It is completely separate. It is going out in seven different languages, we want it to be spread as far and as wide as possible because we don't know where Madeleine is and we don't know who took her and that's why we need the public's help to spread the email, an email to all your contacts. I know you have already done it, Sandra.

Sandra: Thank you very much to you both.