Exposure The Other Side of Jimmy Savile

I felt sickened watching this video: Jimmy Savile, the man who 'fixed it,' for so many children to fulfill a dream had abused so many young women. 

As a teenager, I watched Jimmy Savile on Top Of The Pops and enjoyed watching his "Jim'll Fix It," shows. It was great seeing those children having something fixed for them and Savile was a good choice to host that show: he was already known for his charity work and his being presenter almost guaranteed a good viewing audience for the programme. 

I can hardly believe what I'm reading now and hearing about. As far back as the 1970s there were complaints about Jimmy Savile. An ex-police officer, on BBC Radio 4 the other evening, said he'd taken a report in the 1970s from a nurse who stated that Savile was abusing children at the hospital where he worked. The police officer passed this on to his superior officer, who did not believe what was said. End of the story on that one. No investigation. 

This week I've seen a woman from Leeds talking about how she walked into Savile's dressing room and found him with a girl on his lap who looked about 14 years old. Savile's hand was up the girl's skirt and his tongue down her throat. Yuk! 

There's more and more and more. Every day there are more revelations: Savile had keys to Broadmoor and could enter any of the bedrooms; Savile abused a brain-injured patient; Savile picked girls out from the audience at TOTP; nurses told children to pretend to be asleep when they knew Savile was coming;  Savile raped under-age girls in that traveling bed of his. 

The worst of this obscene story about an obscene life is that it seems that there were many people at the BBC who knew what Jimmy Savile was like and they did nothing. They made Jimmy Savile an icon and a champion for children when they knew he was abusing children. 

Savile was feasted and feted by the BBC, who continued to use him as front man for so many TV shows, even as they knew what he was doing under cover of his charity work and how he was using his popularity to groom under-age children. 

Next question? How many more are there like Savile? How many of his contemporaries not only knew what he was up to, not only colluded by staying silent, but were actually involved in the same kind of crime themselves? So far, according to ITV News, the number of names being put forward is five: five people who allegedly knew Jimmy Savile and were engaged in grooming and abusing children. 

Jimmy Savile hob-nobbed with the rich and famous, with politicians and royalty. He was given a Knighthood by the UK government and a strange kind of Knighthood by the Pope. Did none of those people have any idea? Now that the dam has burst and more and more victims are coming forward and more and more people are telling us they either had their suspicions or actually knew what he was up to, is it reasonable to ask if any of those people who lauded him also knew what Savile was like? Seems like the whispers were very loud, loud enough for nurses to be warning patients of Savile's impending arrival. 

Dear God how much more? How many more cover-ups? Hillsborough and Savile and who/what else? Should there be some kind of serious public enquiry now into the Madeleine McCann case? Is that subject to a cover-up too? No evidence of an abduction, cadaver odour detected only on property belonging to the McCanns and in the apartment and the car they rented, enough inconsistencies and holes in official statements for even me to drive a bus through - and believe me, when I park the car sometimes, I have to consider getting a taxi to the pavement! 

Martin Grime, who trained the two sniffer dogs who alerted to blood and cadaver odour in the McCann case, is presently giving evidence in a similar case in the USA, where a child disappeared and no body has been found. The evidence of the dog's alerting to cadaver odour is being allowed into court. 

Sniffer dogs Eddie and Keela had an unblemished record of over 200 cases before they worked the McCann case and yet Gerry McCann can state that sniffer dogs are unreliable.

There is so much about the McCann case that gives cause for concern, in my opinion, starting with the fact that three small children were left alone in an unlocked apartment in a foreign country, that I think it's reasonable to ask why the McCanns were not at least charged with neglect leading to serious harm. It's also reasonable, in my opinion, to ask if there is some kind of cover-up in this case. Remove Jane Tanner's story about the man who initially was carrying a bundle that could have been a child, that metamorphed into a spotty/clear-skinned/clean-shaven/bearded man of indeterminate height and build, and the case falls apart. As it should. As it will one day hopefully. 

When that particular dam bursts, how many more names will be added to those of the Tapas Nine? Now that one public icon has been knocked off his pedestal, isn't it time that a few others were too? Let it begin with justice for Madeleine McCann. 

Madeleine McCann and Bianca Jones

Bianca Jones, aged 2, disappeared in Detroit, USA, on December 2nd last year, in mysterious circumstances. Although her body has not been found, her father, D'Andre Lane, has been charged with her murder.

According to the Detroit News, Lane claims that after dropping off his nephew and his 8 year-old daughter and stopping for fuel, armed carjackers approached him and took his car with Bianca in the back seat. The car was found sometime later, without Bianca.

On Friday of last week, a judge ruled that a canine expert, whose dog detected cadaver odour in Bianca's home, can testify at the trial.

The canine expert is Martin Grime, whose investigative work with sniffer dogs Eddie and Keela figured prominently in the Madeleine McCann investigation.

Martin Grime testified on Friday that he had brought in his victim recovery dog, Morse, two days after Bianca went missing. He stated that the dog detected cadaver odour inside Lane's car, on the child's blanket and car seat and in the girl's bedroom and Lane's home.

Witnesses

It is alleged that Lane beat Bianca to death with an 18" stick, which had a towel wrapped around the end, over a potty incident. Lane's girlfriend, Anjali Lyons, stated that she woke up on December 2nd to the sound of Bianca's screams as Lane beat her with the stick as punishment for urinating in the bed. 

Bianca's sister has stated that Bianca was put into her car seat, wrapped in a blanket and that she did not move. 

Madeleine McCann, as most of the world knows, disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of May 3rd 2007, while her parents were dining at the Tapas Bar with 7 of their friends. Although Kate and Gerry McCann spent much of the wee small hours of that time informing friends and relations that the shutter to Madeleine's bedroom window had been 'jemmied,' and the window forced open, Portuguese police found no evidence of tampering with the shutters and no evidence of a break-in. 

At the suggestion of Mark Harrison, a British investigator, who had experience of locating human bodies in war zones, Martin Grime, who was at that time working with South Yorkshire Police as a forensic canine expert, was called in with the two dogs he had trained, Eddie and Keela. Eddie was trained to detect human cadaver odour and human blood and Keela specifically to detect human blood. 

Records show that the dogs alerted to human cadaver odour and blood in the McCanns' holiday apartment and in the vehicle they rented 23 days after Madeleine disappeared. Eddie, the Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog, also alerted to cadaver odour on Madeleine's soft toy, Cuddle Cat and on some of Kate McCann's clothing and on a child's T shirt. Results from forensic evidence collected from the holiday apartment and the vehicle were reported to have been inconclusive. 

Witnesses 

Jane Tanner, who stated that she saw a man carrying a 'bundle that could have been a child,' a description that changed several times so that sketches of the 'abductor,' developed from 'an egg with hair,' to a man who was said to resemble at least a few suspicious characters who were alleged to have been seen loitering in the vicinity of the McCanns' apartment. 

Without Jane Tanner's sighting, no witnesses. And no evidence of a break-in at the apartment and no credible sightings of Madeleine since she disappeared into thin air. 

In the case of the disappearance of Bianca Jones, the testimony of Martin Grime is being allowed into evidence and credibility is being given to the skills and training of his canine assistant. There is no forensic evidence. 

In the case of Madeleine McCann, evidence from forensic analysis is 'inconclusive,' and the work of the dogs, Eddie and Keela, is not considered to be enough to put before a court. 

In the Bianca Jones case, there is a credible, in my opinion, witness, who states that she heard Bianca screaming. In the Madeleine McCann case, there is Jane Tanner, who saw a 'man carrying a bundle that could have been a child,' which developed into a child whom Tanner saw under sodium street lights wearing pink pyjamas like the ones Madeleine had been wearing when she was last seen. Not a very credible witness, in my opinion, especially as she stated that she had walked past Gerry McCann and his friend Jez Wilkins, neither of whom saw her. 

The common denominator here is Martin Grime and a dog: in Detroit, Morse and in Praia da Luz, Eddie, two dogs who alerted to cadaver odour. 

Perhaps if Grime's testimony is given credibility by the Detroit court and helps to convict the alleged killer, further consideration will be given to the fact that Eddie and Keela alerted only to items belonging to the McCanns and to places where they had stayed and to their hired car. 

Kate and Gerry McCann may yet be called before a court of law to answer to what happened to their daughter Madeleine. Pigs might fly, you say? Maybe they will!   

Madeleine McCann - without Jane Tanner's abductor the house of cards falls.

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The question has been asked many times: where is the proof that Madeleine McCann was abducted? Without Jane Tanner's alleged sighting of an alleged abductor, what is there?

The shutters were not 'jemmied,' there was no DNA left by a stranger and the only fingerprints on the window of Madeleine's bedroom belonged to Kate McCann.

Jane Tanner's first description of the person she had seen was of a man carrying a bundle that could have been a child. Her description went through various developments over the course of the next few months, but the first development was following what she referred to as 'a cognitive technique.'

Jane Tanner - Praia da Luz, 03 May 2007, 23.15pm

"Then, at around 11.15, two policemen arrived and I told them. Later CID arrived. They did this thing called a cognitive technique, where they put you back in the moment, and it was then that I remembered the pyjamas."

- Quoted in The Sun, 20 November 2007

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id30.html

So, we then had the addition of the pyjamas, which Jane Tanner was able to identify as white or 'light pink,' a colour that would, in my opinion, not be recognisable under sodium street lights.

About the child whom appeared to be sleeping, she only saw her legs. The child appeared to be older than a baby. She was barefoot and was wearing what appeared to be cotton pyjamas of a light colour (possibly white or light pink). She is not certain, but has the impression a design on the pyjamas, possibly a floral pattern, but she is not certain. (http://www.mccannfiles.com/id30.html )

On October 25th, 2007, a sketch of the alleged abductor appeared in the press. This was the most detailed one to date, one which Jane Tanner agreed matched the person she had seen carrying the child, which by this date was definitely Madeleine. Now, I realise that I'm skipping a lot here, but the important detail I'd like to focus on is the actual pyjamas that Madeleine was said to have been wearing when she disappeared on the evening of May 3rd 2007 from the unlocked apartment in Praia da Luz.

So, on October 25th 2007, this was the image of the abductor which was presented. Note the legs of the pyjamas, reaching the ankles, tight around the legs and ankles.

Here is the campaign photo of Kate and Gerry McCann holding a pair of pyjamas, which were said to be identical to those worn by Madeleine when she disappeared.

Note the legs of those pyjamas, the ones that are identical to those reported to have been worn by Madeleine when she disappeared. Would those pyjamas have been tight around the legs and ankles of the child who was wearing them? They're baggy and cropped. It's my opinion that if a child wearing those pyjamas were to be carried in the manner illustrated, the legs of the pyjamas would ride up over the knees. The child's calves would be seen to be bare and if any of the pyjama bottoms was visible, it would be just the frilled parts, peeking over the knees.

What can we conclude from the above?

Jane Tanner's memory was not as good as she thought it had been perhaps. She did see a man carrying Madeleine away from the apartment, but she just didn't quite recall what the pyjamas were like, though she did state that she had seen bare feet and not bare legs.

Still, Jane could have just been a bit hazy in her recall. The person who would know what the pyjamas were like and what they'd look like on a child whom she probably helped into and out of them on quite a few occasions would be Kate McCann. Surely Kate McCann would look at the sketch and realise that it wasn't accurate? Wouldn't she? Wouldn't Kate McCann know and tell us that those pyjamas would not have been seen to be tight around the legs and ankles of a child being carried like that because they were baggy and cropped?

If Kate McCann did not contradict the details shown on the sketch, why not? If she presents an inaccurate image as true, knowing it to be inaccurate, then she is colluding with a lie. Whether that lie is just about the pyjamas that Madeleine was wearing or is about anything more sinister, only she and Jane Tanner and a few others may know. We do know that Kate McCann is lying about the accuracy of the sketch, simply by her actions.

(* Still is from the video posted below)

It would seem that the sketch is not an accurate representation of the way Madeleine was said to have been clothed when she was abducted. So, why does Kate McCann have what appears to be the original of the sketch next to her computer? Why isn't Kate McCann pointing out the inaccuracies? Why isn't she saying that if Jane Tanner saw a man carrying a child in pyjamas like that it wasn't Madeleine? By accepting that sketch and using it in her campaign, she is colluding with the inaccuracy of it and, in my opinion, lying by omission.

Why?

Perhaps because that sketch is all she's got to back up a story about an abductor having taken her daughter. And if that is false, then what is left? Nothing. The house of cards built on Jane Tanner's alleged sighting of an abductor falls.

* Image is shown at 4.49 on this video.

The Mystery of Madeleine according to Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield

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On the evening that Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3rd 2007, her parents were dining with their group of friends, known as the Tapas Seven, at the Tapas restaurant, which was variously next door, like we were sat in our back garden, 70 metres across the swimming pool and over the wall, a walk of 120 metres

The apartment was visible from where the group was sitting in the Tapas restaurant, but anyone entering or leaving would have to have been over seven feet tall, because all that's visible is the top of the balcony roof!

OK, this much we know very well: it was a walk of around 120 metres from the Tapas restaurant to the McCanns' apartment and there was no clear line of sight from where the group was sitting.

The four couples in the group had decided to leave their children asleep in their apartments and do regular checks on them. (Apart from David and Fiona Payne, who had an efficient baby monitor which seemed to serve them well)
So, three of the couples did routine checks on the children when they were dining.

On the evening of May 3rd, we are told that Matthew Oldfield listened at the windows of three apartments, including the window of the bedroom where Madeleine McCann was sleeping with her twin siblings, Gerry McCann left the restaurant to check on his children at 9.10pm, Matthew Oldfield checked his own and the McCann children at 9.30pm and Kate McCann went to check at 10pm, when she discovered that Madeleine was missing.

Timeline 1

Timeline 2:

Timeline 1:

8.45pm. all assembled at poolside for food

9.00pm. Matt Oldfield listens at all 3 windows 5A, B, D ALL shutters down

9:15pm Gerry McCann looks at room A ? Door open to bedroom

9:20pm Jane Tanner checks 5D - [sees stranger walking carrying a child]

9.30 Russell O'Brien in 5D. Poorly daughter l

9.55pm 10:00pm. Alarm raised after Kate

Timeline 2

8.45 Pool

Matt returns 9.00-9.05 - listened at all 3 - all shutters down

Jerry 9.10-9.15 in the room + all well ? did he check

9.20/5 - Ella Jane checked 5D sees stranger & child

9.30 - Russ. Ella Matt check all 3

9.35 - Matt check see twins

9.50 - Russ returns

9.55 - Kate realised Madeleine

10pm - Alarm raised

The main difference between timelines 1 & 2 is that on number 2, Matthew Oldfield appears: he checks and sees the twins. These timelines were written out on the inside covers of a child's sticker book, which is thought to have belonged to Madeleine. (Jane Tanner Liar).* It seems very strange that both were handed over to the police, since there are obvious discrepancies.

OK! Let's look at those timelines and compare them with statements made by just two of the 'Tapas Nine,' Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield. There are contradictions arising from all of the Tapas Nine's statements, but for the sake of brevity, I shall compare just those two. I already feel like I'm wallowing in trifle working my way through original statements and rogatory interviews for two people. OK, here we go!

Both timelines state that the group was gathered at the poolside restaurant by 8.45pm.

Jane Tanner's statement to police May 4th 2007:

The interviewee went to dinner at the, "Tapas," restaurant at around 8.30pm. "Tapas" restaurant. When she arrived at the restaurant, several adult members of the group were already there, without children, who were, in theory, asleep. Around 9pm, her husband arrived at the restaurant. He had succeeded in getting **** to sleep. Because of the late arrival of David Payne, Fiona Payne and Diane Webster, the meal booked for 8.30pm, did not start until 9pm, when the Payne family arrived

Matthew Oldfield's statement to police May 4th 2007:

The interviewee says that the day yesterday was identical to the previous ones and that, as on all other nights, at around 8.45pm, he and his wife left their daughter asleep in the apartment and went to the "Tapas" restaurant.

That the couple Kate and Gerry, Madeleine's parents were already at the restaurant. That they had arrived at the restaurant five minutes before them. The rest of the adults arrived at the restaurant around five minutes after the interviewee and his wife. That the last to arrive at the restaurant was the couple David and Fiona. That the latter arrived at the restaurant at around 9pm.

Matthew states that when he and his wife Rachael arrived at around 8.45pm, only Kate and Gerry McCann were there, the others, apart from the Paynes, arriving 5 minutes later. Jane Tanner states that she left for the restaurant at around 8.30pm and found several other members of the group already there.

Jane Tanner's rogatory interview in Leicester April 8th 2008

Reply “So, yeah, I think I went down about, it was just after half eight, so probably twenty-five to nine’ish, I’m not, but it was, it was quite close to half eight because, as I say, I was very conscious that we were all being so late all the time and it was getting later and later”.

4078 “And who was there when you got there?”

Reply “Kate and Gerry were there already and they were talking to, I don’t know their names, but they were talking to the two people that Gerry played tennis with in, erm, in his group, who were sitting in the restaurant”.

Jane states that Kate and Gerry were there, but no other group members, having stated in her May 4th interview that several adult members of the group were there when she arrived.

Reply “Erm, so, yeah, I’d got down and I think then, soon after I’d got down we sat down at our table, not our table, but, yeah, sat down on our table. Then, I’m trying to think who came next. I think next it was, erm, Matt and Rachael I think came next, yeah, Matt and Rachael came down next together, the two of them, probably a few minutes after, after me, I don’t think it was that long, that long after me.

Matthew Oldfield's rogatory interview in Leicester

Erm, we'd get showered and get changed and then, because we can see the Tapas from our patio doors, we can see when anybody else goes down there, because the original table was booked for eight thirty, erm, we were a bit later that night and it was about quarter to and we saw Gerry and Kate down there and so we locked up, went round and joined them at the table. Now I don’t recall seeing Jane and Russell there, but I'm told that Jane was there at the time as well. But we got there and sort of chatted and then Russell arrived. And we were all there, apart from Dave and Fiona and Fiona's mother, Dianne, at sort of five to nine, and they were, they were always sort of fairly relaxed and sort of a bit late and disorganised.

Matthew didn't recall seeing Jane there, but was told that Jane was there at the time. With a nearly empty restaurant, you'd think he'd notice another member of his holiday group, but in both the May 4th 2007 statement and in his rogatory statement, he says that only Kate and Gerry were there when he and Rachael arrived. When he says, 'we were all there,' I guess he's assuming that Jane must have been there because he had been told she was.

Jane Tanner's statement May 4th concerning 'Bundleman.'

The suspicious man. However, she spotted a man who was going along at a fair speed with a child in his arms with the child in pyjamas without a blanket, which attracted her attention. The interviewee only saw the man from the side with the child in his arms. She noticed this person exactly at the moment when she walked past Gerald and Jez. That person was coming out of the path at the end of the apartment block (1) where they are staying. The man quickly crossed the intersection. The entrance to the building where the apartments are is the exact place where she saw the man. After checking on her children, the interviewee went back to the "tapas." On her way back, Gerald McCann was no longer in the road where she had seen him talking. On her arrival at the restaurant (3) Gerald McCann was with his wife Kate Healy.

Matthew Oldfield's statement May 4th:

He does not mention Jane Tanner leaving five minutes after Gerry McCann at around 9.15pm.

That Gerry allegedly went into his apartment and that he checked to make sure that Madeleine and the twins were sleeping in their bedroom, where it was quite dark. The bedroom door was half-open. That five minutes later, Gerry came back to the group in the restaurant.

No mention of Jane at this point. Previously in his statement, Matthew refers to having checked by listening at the shutters of apartments A, B and D, at 9.05pm, while he was out chivvying along the Paynes.

Matthew's rogatory interview:

4078 "Okay. So Gerry has gone off almost straight away after you got back?"

Reply "Yeah".

4078 "And then Jane followed him?"

Reply "Yeah. Now I don't remember that particularly well, I mean, I know from what discussion, it may be in my statement from months ago remembering better, but it wasn't unusual for people to be leaving the table to sort of check, so it doesn't stand out particularly in my mind. But I remember Gerry specifically going because I thought, well I've just checked (inaudible) and then, you know, well I hadn't been in so I couldn't really check and, you know, they're his kids, it was quite right that, if that's what he wants. But I don't particularly remember Jane doing that, but I might have done at the time, it's just it's now sort of faded because it didn't seem important”.

Jane Tanner's rogatory interview about 'Bundleman,' and seeing Gerry and Jez Wilkins. This part is very long, drawn out and full of umms and errrs. She claims to have walk past Gerry and Jez on the same side of the road, but Gerry claims not to have seen her and that he and Jez had been standing chatting in a different place.

I didn’t know whether they’d seen me or not, but I did actually go to acknowledge them and I think if they’d have been that far away I don’t know whether I would have sort of almost gone to say hello, but. But they were talking quite (inaudible), so I just carried on, you know, up, up the road. I mean, I thought they were, as you’re going up here, I thought they were more, erm, again I know this is where me and Gerry differ, but I thought they were sort of more near the little alleyway. I think sort of”.

And later in that statement:

4078 “Okay. So when did you first notice Gerry standing there?”

Reply “I would have probably noticed him as soon as I came, I mean, I don’t, this is not, I don’t think that distance is probably as far as that, you come out and he was, they were sort of, so almost, I’d probably say almost straight away. Again, I don’t know, but I, I know people are saying I’ve not been on the road, but they were there and I wouldn’t know they were there if I hadn’t walked past, you know, you’ve got to see my frustration in this, and I know Gerry didn’t see me and Jez didn’t see me, but”.

But she was there! Now, it surprises me that Gerry McCann does not back up Jane's story about walking past him, because she then sees the 'abductor,' walking across the top of the road, carrying a child in pyjamas just like Maddie's and the whole abduction scenario hinges on Jane's having seen a man making off with Maddie at that time. However, should Jane Tanner be proved to have lied, Gerry is in the clear because he didn't see her and he has a witness to back him up!

Description of the 'abductor' from Jane's May 4th statement:

Tanned male between 35 and 40, slim, around 1.70m. Very dark hair, thick, long at the neck. (Noticed when the person was seen from the back). He was wearing golden beige cloth trousers (linen type) with a "Duffy" type coat (but not very thick). He was wearing black shoes, of a conventional style and was walking quickly. He was carrying a sleeping child in his arms across his chest. By his manner, the man gave her the impression that he wasn't a tourist. Concerning the child, who seemed to be asleep, she only saw the legs. The child seemed to be bigger than a baby. It had no shoes on, was dressed in cotton light-coloured pyjamas (perhaps pink or white) It is uncertain, but the interviewee has the feeling that she saw a design on the pyjamas like flowers, but is not certain about it.

Jane's description from the rogatory interview. Note that she mentions the light, and that she may not have been seeing true colours. Also, in her original statement the trousers were linen and golden-beige in colour. Now, they're a horrible mustard and they're, 'cottony.'

Reply “But, I mean, I think, so the things that I’m happy, that are still in my head, that still stick in my head is the hair and it was longer, it was sort of longish and, erm, I don’t know how to (inaudible), but each, each, almost the hair was long, the bits of hair were long, so it was long into the neck, you know, sort of in, when people have a number one or whatever at the back and it’s shaved, not shaved up, but, you know, sort of layered up, this was more long into the neck, so sort of long, each, each individual hair was long, erm, and dark, it was sort of quite dark and glossy, that sticks in my head. And sort of the dark, dark clothes and quite billowy, not billowy clothes, but quite baggy, sort of they seemed, erm, not ill fitting but quite baggy clothes, like not jeans, but trousers sort of not Chinos but not Farrahs either, but sort of baggy’ish sort of ill fitting more than. And they’re the bits that I remember quite vividly sort of”.

4078 “And what colours?”

Reply “Dark colours, but again it was, I think it was quite dark, so dark, sort of darkish jacket but then a more, a lighter trouser but a horrible colour, again this is, sort of a yellowy dark browny, horrible, but not, not a nice colour trousers, but then I wonder whether that was the lights making them look, making them look more of a sort of a mustard, it wasn’t mustard because that’s too bright, but it was just like a, as I say they weren’t nice, they weren’t the sort of clothes I’d expect somebody on a MARK WARNER holiday to, they was, I can’t think of the material, I tried to describe this before, but sort of a cottony material but baggy”

Matthew Oldfield's rogatory statement on the street lighting:

4078 "And you said it was just turning dark?"

Reply "Yeah".

4078 "Do you remember or can you recall what the street lighting was like around there?"

Reply "There's a street light, and this is all, erm, I couldn't sort of guarantee this, but my impression is that there was, the street lights were sort of very orangey, erm, sort of fairly orangey light, I think there was one at the top corner and maybe one about halfway up on the right as you came up from the Tapas Restaurant and possibly one on that, on that back bit behind the car park, someway further along".

So, 'the street lights were sort of very orangey,' which means that they were just like the street lights outside my house where my pink fleece looks like a deep grey colour. So, how did Jane Tanner see pink pyjamas? She wasn't sure about the colour of 'Bundleman's,' trousers because of the orange lights, but she was sure about the child wearing pink pyjamas? Yeh right!

Back to the timelines then. Jane Tanner left the Tapas restaurant five minutes after Gerry, she walked up the road, passed Gerry and Jez Wilkins, saw the alleged abductor, did a quick check and found everything quiet in her apartment and returned to the restaurant. Let's say that was around 9.20/9.25pm. Both timelines have Russell O'Brien checking his own children and Matthew Oldfield leaving the table at the same time: 9.30pm.

Jane Tanner's May 4th statement:

After checking on her children, the interviewee went back to the "tapas." On her way back, Gerald McCann was no longer in the road where she had seen him talking.On her arrival at the restaurant (3) Gerald McCann was with his wife Kate Healy.

15 to 20 minutes later, Matthew Oldfield and her husband, Russell O'Brien, left to go and see the children. As their daughter **** wasn't well, and she was crying, Russell stayed in the room.

She arrived back, Gerry was already there and 15 to 20 minutes later Matthew and Russell left.

The timing is just not making sense here. If Jane arrived back at 9.20/9.25, then Matthew and Russell didn't leave until somewhere between 9.35pm and 9.45pm.

Jane Tanner, May 4th

Matthew checked the children then those of Gerald and Kate. According to him, he saw the twins but he did not succeed in seeing Madeleine. But as he did not hear any noise, he thought everything was OK and went back to the restaurant. Matthew informed the interviewee that Russell was staying in the room. (1) After quickly eating the main course, the worried interviewee went to take her husband's place in the apartment (1) so that the latter could eat

Timeline 1 does not have details about the time Russell O'Brien returned to the restaurant, after his wife had eaten her main course and gone to take his place. According to Jane Tanner's original statement, Russell would have left the table at around 9.35pm, at the earliest, and assuming that at least 5 minutes had elapsed before Matthew returned and gave Russell's message, between 9.40pm and 9.50pm, Jane Tanner ate the main course of her meal, walked to her apartment and Russell arrived back at the restaurant. Maybe time is not linear after all!

Jane's rogatory interview:

4078 “And what was going through your mind as you walked back, anything, that you can remember?”

Reply “Erm, no, I don’t think so. I mean, this person wasn’t really etched on my brain, it was just, erm, I think I was just thinking ‘Oh the kids are alright’, you know, ‘I’ll go back’”.

4078 “Tell me what happened then from there and I will try not to interrupt you?”

Reply “No, that’s fine. Erm, so I went back, erm, we just carried on with the meal. And then, I think, erm, I can’t remember anything odd, you know, within that, that time. And then I think, it’s been, I think, I can’t remember who said ‘Oh time to check again’, I think it actually might have been Kate that said ‘Oh it’s half nine I’ll go and do a check’. And I think Matt said at that point, Matt and Russ said ‘Oh we’ll go, do you want us to look in on’, erm, on, you know, ‘on Madeleine and Sean and Amelie’. As I say, I don’t know, I wasn’t really part of this, I don’t know how it, who actually said ‘It’s time for a check’, but I can remember sort of, erm, them saying to Kate ‘Oh do you want us to put our head in’. And I think because Gerry had only, you know, probably had been in there a bit longer, she probably thought ‘Oh yeah’, you know, and let them.

Jane went back and carried on with the meal until Kate, she thinks it was, said, 'Oh it's half nine,' and it was time to check again. But Jane couldn't have got back to the table until 9.20 at the earliest. It may have been time for the McCann children to be checked again, but Gerry had been there at 9.10/9.15. And why was Russell leaving when Jane had only been back for around 10 minutes and had reported that the children were fine? Matthew Oldfield had not checked on his children for around 30 minutes, so his timing would make sense, but not Russell's, unless it was actually later than 9.30pm, which would leave a very short interval between Matthew Oldfield's check on the McCann children and Kate McCann doing her check at 10pm.

Matthew Oldfield May 4th 2007 - did Matthew go into the McCanns' apartment?

At around 9.25pm, the interviewee went into his apartment and Madeleine's apartment to check on the children. He states that the door of the fourth room, that was occupied by Madeleine and the twins, was half-open and that there was enough light in the bedroom for him to see the twins in their cots. That he couldn't see the bed occupied by Madeleine, but as it was all quiet, he deduced that she was sleeping. That the light in question was from an artificial source but not inside the bedroom, rather from outside through the bedroom window. That it seemed to him that the shutters of the bedroom window were open without knowing if the window was also open.

The apartment has two bedrooms, a lounge, a small kitchen and a bathroom. The couple's bedroom has a window which is visible from the restaurant. The children's bedroom windows look out on the road outside the tourist complex. Then the interviewee went back to the restaurant.

He states that the bedroom has two windows. The twins occupy two cots placed in the middle of the room and Madeleine occupies a bed pushed against the wall, facing the wall which has the two windows that look out onto the outside of the complex. That the door through which he entered the apartment was closed but not locked. That he doesn't know if it is usual for Madeleine's parents to leave the door closed but not locked because that door is visible from the restaurant

.


Madeleine's bedroom has two windows? Perhaps Matthew was seeing double from gulping his wine too quickly! Or perhaps he just wasn't there!

According to both timelines, written out on the covers of the sticker book, when Matthew listened at the windows of apartments A, B and D at 9/9.05pm, all shutters were done, but when he visited apartment 5A at around 9.25/9.30pm, it seemed to him that the shutters were open. He decided that the McCann children were fine and returned to the restaurant, without wondering how or why the shutters came to be open or asking Gerry if he had opened them on his check?

Matthew's rogatory interview, talking about his first check at 9/9.05 when he listened at the windows:

..so I listened outside our shutters and went along to their shutter and had a listen out there, not because I'd been asked to, but, or it's not the sort of thing you think about, it's just kind of, erm,".

4078 "You thought you might as well?"

Reply "So I thought I might as well and I can report back and they can be, you know, be reassured that everything was okay. And we talked a lot in the previous interviews about what state the shutters were in, whether they were, and they were all definitely down, there's three shutters, you know, there's, you know, two, and they're all at the same level, there was no, I would have noticed if they were, if one was up and the rest were down, it would have looked odd".

Matthew's rogatory interview, concerning the shutter when he visited the McCanns' apartment at 9.25/9.30pm:

So I just sort of went towards the doorway, I didn't step over the threshold, I didn't see Madeleine and I didn't check, I turned round and came back out, said all was quiet when I got back to the table and then we went on with food. Now the room was, we talked also in the interviews about how light the room was and whether I could see the shutters, and I can't see the shutters because the curtains were shut and, they're similar curtains to the ones you've got in there, and you just get an impression of just like green and yellow, but they were closed, they weren't sort of blowing about, because I'm sure I'd have noticed if there was sort of movement like that. But the room seemed light, and we spent a lot of time talking about this, whether it could be light coming in from the street outside, but there was a light behind us in the room and for some reason I thought, I got the impression of light coming through the doorway from behind me, which is why I said that I thought perhaps the moon was out, erm, but there as no sort of, you know, it's a question of whether, there was no sort of slats of light coming through the back that particularly caught my eye. So I didn't specifically see the shutters and I couldn't say that they were definitely open, but certainly the curtains were shut and everything was quiet"

.Green and yellow curtains? Please refer to photo (above) of Maddie's bedroom. And now, he's kind of non-committal about the shutters. He couldn't say they were definitely open? So, I guess nor can he say that they were definitely shut!

Kate McCann checks at 10pm and finds that Madeleine is missing, raises the alarm, and then what happens? According to the brief reference in Matthew's May 4th statement:

At around 10pm, Kate, Madeleine's mother, went to her apartment to check on her children. She came back totally shocked, shouting, saying that Madeleine was no longer in her bedroom. At that time all the adults were in the restaurant. Then, the whole group went to Madeleine's bedroom and checked that the twins were sleeping OK.

Well, you'd think that if the whole group, and I assume that includes Matthew, had gone to Madeleine's bedroom, he'd have had a second chance to notice how many windows the room had and also what colour the curtains were! So, did he go into the room at that time? Remember, this is supposedly his second visit: on his first, he looked in from the doorway and on this second visit, he was with the others, checking that the twins were sleeping OK.

Matthew's rogatory interview concerning visits to Madeleine's bedroom:

4078 "Have you been into that room again since that moment?"

Reply "We didn't on the night. Erm, I don't think so. I think it was it was then always cordoned off. I mean, I know that they, Gerry and Kate were told to get their things out of there because they were going to have to move rooms and then, and I saw that photograph of the, of the cots moved to the side, and they then sort of, erm, under instruction, were asked to move things out of that room, but I think they just took sort of essentials, because they then went up to, erm, Dave and Fiona's room later that night, and I don't think I've been back in that room".

On May 4th, Matthew Oldfield stated that he had been to the McCanns' apartment and looked into the children's bedroom: he had seen the twins, but not Madeleine, had noticed that the bedroom had two windows and that it seemed as though the shutters were open. He also stated that the whole group went to Madeleine's bedroom after Kate McCann raised the alarm. Yet, after two visits to the bedroom, most of the details were wrong and some details were still wrong, like the colour of the curtains when he described the room during his rogatory interview.

I would suggest that Matthew Oldfield had never looked into that bedroom, which would mean that no one had checked the McCann children between Gerry's visit at around 9.15 and Kate's visit at 10pm.

What do we have?

• Impossible timelines.
• Shutters open/shutters closed.
• Matthew Oldfield who either didn't visit at all or he was dead drunk or he was in the wrong apartment.
• Street lighting that made all colours indistinct apart from a child's pink pyjamas.
• A woman slip-slapping over cobbles in flip-flops who is neither seen nor heard by two men she passes within a few feet of.
• An abductor who didn't appear to have a vehicle handy, but who managed to slip into an apartment, grab a child, exit and go strolling through the streets and was not seen by anyone other than Jane Tanner, in spite of the child's father being in the vicinity and so many people coming and going it was like something out of a Brian Rix farce.

And that's just from comparing some parts of the statements given by two people out of a group of nine! Help! My head is spinning!

References:

http://duartelevyen.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/matthew-oldfield-interview-part-ii/

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id219.html

http://frommybigdesk.blogspot.com/2008/08/enfants-kidnapps-250808-matthew.html

http://frommybigdesk.blogspot.com/2008/08/enfants-kidnapps-220808-jane-tanners_22.html

http://www.kidnapping.be/maddie/maddie.html

* http://themccanngallery.blogspot.com/2009/12/jane-tanner-liar.html

Madeleine: "A complete mystery," says Clarence Mitchell

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The following is an article, compiled by Tony Bennett and published by The Madeleine Foundation February 21st 2010.

Copyright statement: In the interest and spirit of free enquiry into what really happened to Madeleine McCann, and in common with other articles which appear on our website, this article may be reproduced in part or whole, without breaching copyright. However, acknowledgement to The Madeleine Foundation is always welcome.


In this article, we examine carefully the comments of the McCanns’ chief public relations adviser, Clarence Mitchell on Friday 19 February, the day after the McCanns won a round in their libel action against Portuguese detective, Goncalo Amaral.


Mitchell was the ex-Head of the government’s so-called Media Monitoring Unit, a 40-strong government department whose aim, Mitchell once boasted, was ‘to control what comes out in the media’. Although still employed by the McCanns on an undisclosed retainer, he also now works for Freud International, owned by Matthew Freud, Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law.


On Friday 19 February, Mitchell was interviewed by Channel 4 following the judge’s decision in the ongoing saga of the libel trial in Portugal of McCanns v. Goncalo Amaral, the senior detective who first investigated the disappearance of Madeleine McCann for the first five months. He was removed from that enquiry after he claimed in an off-the-record briefing to a journalist that the British government was actively interfering in his investigation.


The interview consists of 10 questions from a Channel 4 reporter, and in effect 10 mini-speeches in response by Mr Mitchell, each around half-a-minute or more in length.


These 10 mini-speeches are from a past master at ‘spinning’ his messages to the waiting media. Indeed, in his fourth mini-speech, he refers explicitly to ‘the key message that we want to get across today’.


He speaks fast and confidently. Against a recommended speaking voice for book tapes of 150-160 words a minute, and an average speaking voice of 180 words a minute, Mitchell speaks at around 215 words a minute - well short, by the way, of the record in the Guinness Book of Records - 595 words per minute.


In the transcript below of this 7½-minute interview, we’ve underlined* those words which Mitchell himself stressed during his responses.

(* Note: on this blog italicised.)

Our analysis of Mitchell’s words follows the transcript:


THE TRANSCRIPT


Clarence Mitchell (1):


Well, Kate and Gerry are very pleased and relieved that the judge has done absolutely the right thing - er - in their view by agreeing to their demand for the injunction to stay in place against Mr Amaral’s so-called ‘work’ - er - it was causing serious ongoing disruption and damage to the search for their daughter because if people, if they believed what he’d written, would think that she was dead, and wouldn’t even bother to look for her, or pursue any information, if they came across it. That is absolutely wrong - there is no evidence at all to suggest that she’s been harmed, let alone killed, and every reason for the search to continue. And that’s what Kate and Gerry now want - the focus to come back on to the search for their daughter.


Reporter:


I mean, don’t the public have the right to make their own mind about them - if what he says about them is completely untrue, um, and that is obviously provable - shouldn’t he be allowed to say it, and the public make up their own minds?


Clarence Mitchell (2):


Yeah, but under the laws of defamation, as a journalist, as you will know, that if you allege somebody is, in effect, responsible for the death of their child and, and have in effect has covered it up, that is prima facie defamatory of your good name, and therefore they not only, but they, they not only have to take action on that basis, but, more importantly, than the damage to their own reputation, the damage that it was doing to the wider family…they felt it was important to stop people - stop believing this, because it would mean that the search for Madeleine was hindered. So this was a clear case of defamation, regardless of the rights and wrongs. Yes, you have the freedom of speech to say what you want, within the rule of law.


Reporter:


Obviously, this isn’t the end of proceedings Kate and Gerry McCann face on this issue. Mr Amaral says he’s going to take his case and make a request to the European Court of Human Rights…


Clarence Mitchell (3):


That’s obviously his right and he’s perfectly entitled to do that - and if that legal process starts, I - in due course, well, then, well - er - that will be dealt with at that time, but for now, Kate and Gerry feel that the strength of their case is very strong - er - they felt that this was an absolute injustice against them and indirectly against Madeleine herself. And as a result they are very pleased, and as I say, relieved, that the judge has agreed with them and has made it, er, clear that this injunction has to stay in place, but that Mr Amaral does not benefit from his, his, this ‘work’.


Reporter:


Returning to the search for Madeleine, I mean, with this ruling this morning in mind, does this make the search for Madeleine easier?


Clarence Mitchell (4):


Well, hopefully it will do, yes, hopefully people will see this, and see that his particular attack on them, um, has been ended and, as a result, they need to focus on the key message, if you like, that we want to get across today and that is that the judge has effectively agreed that, that this, this is, it should, it should be about Madeleine from now on. What came out during those case were, were - there were two broad areas: (1) there is no evidence at all to suggest she’s been harmed and (2) no police force anywhere is actively looking for her. Shockingly, even when presented with new information and leads, as the Portuguese have been, these were dismissed as, as - not relevant to the investigation. Well, the private investigators would like to look at much of that information, to establish if - if indeed there may be any relevance in there. The search for Madeleine will not stop. Kate and Gerry will not give up until they know what’s happened to their daughter, and, at the moment, it remains a complete mystery - and they are conducting as best an investigation as they can, on their own limited resources, at present. It’s incumbent on both the British and Portuguese police now to mount as effective and credible an investigation as they can, and if that involvers some sort of independent review of the evidence, and potential leads, then so be it, but the search for Madeleine needs to be the focus from now on - not noises off stage from the likes of Mr Amaral.


Reporter:


It’s been a long time now since Madeleine disappeared - can Kate and Gerry McCann feel…


Clarence Mitchell (5):


It’s been nearly three years…


Reporter:


…are they still hopeful that she can be found?


Clarence Mitchell (6):


Kate and Gerry have always drawn strength from the fact that there is no evidence to suggest she’s been harmed, in any way, whatsoever. Yes, of course, nearly three years on, it’s appalling that they’re still having to hope. They would have wanted her home, er, from the very first day - but in the absence of that evidence, to, to tell us - any of us - what has happened to her, they will continue to believe, as best they can, that there is hope - and every time there is, even if, even if they begin to doubt that, every time something like Jaycee Lee Dugard happens - in California, in America, where someone is - is discovered - in her case, eighteen years after she went missing, and was long presumed dead, it can happen - it’s rare. Kate and Gerry will keep going on that basis.


Reporter:


And with ruling like today’s, do you think Kate and Gerry are swaying public opinion in their favour?


Clarence Mitchell (7):


Er, well, that’s a matter for the public, really, isn’t it? I mean, Kate and Gerry will keep going. They didn’t start this legal action. They didn’t want to appear to be litigious for the sake of it. They’re not. They didn’t write this book. They didn’t write this DVD. Mr Amaral did. And what he said in it was fundamentally wrong, and damaging to the search, and that’s why they took the action. Yes, they hope that people - fair-minded people - will see this, and see the agony that’s been heaped on their shoulders on top of the loss of Madeleine, and will hopefully be with them in the search for Madeleine from now on.


Reporter:


We've learned that Robert Murat is - has a legal complaint against one of the friends of Kate and Gerry, over things she said about his alleged involvement in Madeleine's disappearance. Presumably if he gets the same kind of ruling that Kate and Gerry got today, they’ support him?

Clarence Mitchell (8):


I'm not going to comment on any details on what Mr. Murat or his legal representative are doing,. Suffice it to say that Jane Tanner never directly named Mr. Murat as the man she saw, and you can go back to the Portuguese police files that were released in 2008 and see that for yourself. She never actually named Mr. Murat as the prime suspect.


Reporter:


Un, with, last question, I think. A lot of people would say that quite a lot of money has been made from Madeleine’s disappearance, with various court cases. How much has been made, and is this being used to fund legal actions like this one we see in Portugal?


Clarence Mitchell (9):


The - er - Fund is there to assist Kate and Gerry in whatever way is necessary. There are a number of other backers as well, outside the Fund who, er, who also assist at times. Um, the bulk - in fact all of the public money that came in the early stages was all spent entirely properly on the search for Madeleine, on the investigative costs, and everything else around that. Um, most of the monies that are still in the fund now are actually there from either the settlements against the Express Group Newspapers and other media outlets that have also defamed them - and so that is money, if you like, that was brought in through court action, not the public. And on top of that, the most recent monies that have come in have been through supporters kindly donating, or a fund-raising event - and again, they would be more than happy as supporters to see the money spent in any way that assists Kate and Gerry and the wider family, and their investigators, in the search for Madeleine.


Reporter:


Last question: in fact, obviously the ruling today upheld a temporary injunction. As well, what steps, or how far away are the McCanns from getting a permanent injunction?


Clarence Mitchell (10):


That’s a matter for the lawyers in Portugal. They’ll assess the, the verdict, they’ll be examining it in detail, seeing exactly what the judge has said today, we, and they no doubt will, um, move to, towards that goal at some stage in the future. I don’t know the exact timetable, but clearly there’s not much point going for a temporary injunction if it doesn’t become permanent, er - and that will happen, but I’m quite sure that any appeal by Amaral’s side will possibly delay that, but that, as I say, is purely a matter for the lawyers to decide in due course.


ENDS


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THE ANALYSIS


We’ll refer here to the numbered paragraphs above.


In paragraphs 1 and 2, Mitchell claims that Mr Amaral’s book “was causing serious ongoing disruption and damage to the search for Madeleine…people would think that she was dead, and wouldn’t even bother to look for her, or pursue any information, if they came across it… [the McCanns] felt it was important to stop people - stop believing this, because it would mean that the search for Madeleine was hindered”.


This raises the simple question of how anyone can realistically be expected to ‘search’ for Madeleine. Let us consider the following.


Has the search for Madeleine been hindered?


First, who are we looking for?


Originally, the McCanns’ friend Jane Tanner described a man she claimed to have seen ‘walking purposefully’ away from the McCanns’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, at around 9.15pm on Thursday 3 May. There were some doubts about her accounts in view of different distances she gave from the abductor when she saw him (originally she said ‘50 metres’; later it became ‘5 metres’), and in view of the different descriptions of the man she saw.


Extraordinarily, it took a full six months before the public was given an artist’s sketch of Tanner’s alleged abductor. What use was that, six months after the event? And even then, there was no face to that alleged abductor; it was, after all, dark when Tanner claimed to have seen this man.


The height of the man was also in dispute. The Portuguese police, based on Tanner’s description, said the man was about 5’ 7” tall (170cm) - below average height for a man. At a media conference in Edinburgh in August 2007, however, Dr Gerald McCann claimed the Portuguese police had got it wrong owing to an inaccurate conversion from feet and inches to metric. He and Tanner later said the man was around 5’ 9” to 5’ 10” (around average height for a man).


Amazingly, the current Head of the McCanns’ latest private investigation team, retired former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar, said just a few months ago that Tanner’s description was so vague that she might have seen ‘a woman’. So we don’t even know if we are looking for a man or a woman.


On 18 February, the Daily Telegraph published, on its website, artists’ sketches of 11 different individuals who might be the ‘alleged abductor’. Actually, I have counted 14 that have been published, but let us agree that it is a large number, and it includes two women. How can one realistically look for the alleged abductor if there is such a bewildering plethora of faces to look for?


Then there is the question of where to look for Madeleine. In the absence of any specific guidance from the McCann Team - and we have had precious little guidance on the subject - it appears that the whole world is expected to look for Madeleine.


In a remarkable interview in the Belfast Telegraph last year (Edgar used to be a Northern Ireland Police Officer), Dave Edgar claimed he was ‘convinced’ (a word used three times in the article) that Madeleine was being held alive in a ‘prison lair’ within 10 miles of Praia da Luz, in the ‘lawless hills around’. Visitors to the Algarve expressed surprise at that popular tourist destination being described as ‘lawless’.


Here is an extract from the article that appeared in the ‘Sunday Life’ section of the Belfast Telegraph on 13 September last year, headed, dramatically, ‘Madeleine McCann is in a secret lair’:


“The Ulster detective leading the search for Madeleine McCann today reveals his most chilling theories yet…Hardened ex-RUC cop Dave Edgar told us he is convinced that little Maddie is imprisoned in a hellish lair…despite fresh leads taking his probe to Australia and Barcelona, the east Belfast man insists the golden-haired youngster is being held just 10 miles from where she was snatched in Praia da Luz two years ago. But he warned that the sprawling wilderness where he believes Maddie is languishing is almost impossible to search completely…We spent the day at the Cheshire office he uses to conduct the world’s biggest missing person case. When we visited Dave’s headquarters…he said he was convinced Maddie was entombed by an abductor in a cellar or dungeon: ‘Maddie is most likely being held captive, possibly in an underground cellar…and could emerge at any time’, he told us”.


[Reference: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/madeleine-mccann-is-in-a-secret-lair-14489787.html#ixzz0gFknRNVl ]


But despite Edgar’s settled ‘conviction’ that Madeleine is being held in an underground lair near Praia da Luz, he and his team have not organised an effective search of the area, nor indeed any search, so far as we are aware. And in the meantime it appears that the whole world is expected to look for her.


We have inside information that the ‘headquarters’ Edgar spoke of to the Belfast Telegraph is a house on the outskirts of Knutsford. But the McCann Team have never released details of its location. They have just said it is ‘in Cheshire’.

Then there is the question of how likley it is that anyone holding Madeleine, given the noticeable ‘coloboma’ eye defect she has in her right eye, would allow her to be seen in public. At the time of writing this article, if she were still alive, Madeleine would be approaching seven years of age. How likley is it that anyone holding her would allow her to register in her local school, even be seen in public?

There is the further question of what she now looks like. The McCann Team agreed last year, especially for the two-year anniversary of her disappearance and an appearance on the popular Oprah Winfrey show in the United States, to the publication of an artist’s sketch of what Madeleine might look like today. It was an optimistic sketch, of a girl happy and smiling. According to most observers, it looked like a girl who might be 10 to 12 years old, not six. Again, how realistic was that sketch, and does it enable anyone to identify her?

Already we have seen may cases of mistaken identity, some of them with unfortuante consequences. In one incident, a woman was so convinced that she had seen Madeleine with a man that she tried to snatch her away from that man. It turned out to be the two-year-old son of a Croatian footballer. In another more recent incident, a Midlands man was taken into custody by West Midlands Police when it was suspected by a passer-by that his daughter was Madeleine. Being in police cells because someone thinks you are holding Madeleine is no joke.


Just how are we expected to ‘search’ for Madeleine, especially if the McCanns don’t bother to organsie any kind of search in the 150 or so square miles around Praia da Luz where their head detective is ‘convinced’ she is being held?


And what information, precisely, has been yielded by the six or more investigative teams that the McCanns and their advisrs have employed for the past three years at a probable cost of £2 million or more?


Nothing. Or nothing that they are prepared to share with us, the public, who are supposed to be searching for Madeleine.


We have covered the shambolic activities of the McCanns’ private detective teams in our lengthy article by John Whitehouse (viewable on our website), titled: “The McCanns’ private investigators - we investigate”.


In that article, John referred to the criminal activities of members of Metodo 3, the controversial Spanish private detective agency. Its boss, Francisco Marco, notoriously proclaimed that his men ‘know where Madeleine is being held and are closing in on her’ and, perhaps even worse, promised ‘Madeleine will be home by Christmas’. That was in 2007. The following year it appears that the McCann Team wasted up to £½ million on employing the heavy-drinking con-man Kevin Halligen as the effective head of their investigation team. This was first exposed in an article in the Evening Standard by Mark Hollingsworth in August 2009. Halligen is currently wanted in the United States on fraud charges.


These teams, over nearly three years, have not come up with one useable fact about Madeleine’s whereabouts or her alleged abductor(s) that could help people ‘search’ for her.


‘No evidence that Madeleine has been harmed’


What are we to make of Mitchell’s comment in ‘mini-speech No. 1’ that “There is no evidence at all to suggest that she’s been harmed”? The McCann Team has repeatedly suggested that Madeleine has been snatched by a paedophile, or a ‘team of paedophiles’. Suggestions have been made by the McCann Team that known ageing paedophile Raymond Hewlett, currently ill in a German hospital, might have been involved in Madeleine’s alleged abduction. Dave Edgar suggests Madeleine is being held in a ‘prison lair’. Dr Gerald McCann was even invited by Mr Jim Gamble, the energetic head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), to speak at their one-day conference last month [January 2010] on the subject of those who abduct children for the purposes of sexual abuse.


If she has been abducted, she has been torn away from her parents. From her younger brother and sister. From her Nans and Grandads, Aunts and Uncles. The McCanns and their advisers have repeatedly said that Madeleine was probably abducted by paedophiles. Yet Mitchell, speaking on behalf of his clients the McCanns, asserts that: ‘There is no evidence at all to suggest hat she’s been harmed’.


Did the Portuguese Police fail to follow up relevant leads?


Mitchell said (paragraph 4): “Shockingly, even when presented with new information and leads, as the Portuguese have been, these were dismissed as, as - not relevant to the investigation. Well, the private investigators would like to look at much of that information, to establish if - if indeed there may be any relevance in there”.


What this comment fails to appreciate is the massive burden placed on the Portuguese police by the extraordinary and totally unprecedented worldwide media coverage of Madeleine’s alleged abduction. No police force had ever had to deal with such a volume of alleged sightings, almost around the whole globe. Allegedly credible ‘sightings’ of Madeleine were reported from places as far apart as the U.K., Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Spain, Morocco, Venezuela, Japan - and of course Portugal itself. In each case, the Portuguese police faithfully contacted Interpol and/or the relevant national police force, causing incidentally millions upon millions of pounds’ worth of valuable police time to be taken up.


In the final report of the Portuguese Police to the Portuguese Attorney-General in July 2008 (which we quote in its entirety in our new book - see below), they say this:


“In subsequent days, over 100 investigators were employed by the Portuguese Police, and they received an enormous collection of diverse notifications from innumerable contacts about Madeleine’s disappearance. It required us to install a permanent police post within the Luz village. The result of such efforts is found in the documentation and the various appendices.


“Thousands of hours of work were involved. We would note that we received an enormous quantity of information devoid of any credibility whatsoever. This forced our research into constant and considerable efforts of clarification. This had a significant impact because we knew that time was of the utmost importance in the fundamental goal of finding the missing girl”.


True, many ‘sightings’ were dismissed as irrelevant, as we reveal in our new book on the case, ‘The Madeleine McCann Case Files, Volume 1’, which includes both the interim report dated 10 September 2007 by Tavares de Almeida and the final report to the Portuguese Attorney-General dated July 2008.


The criticism of the Portuguese Police is unjustified. They dealt effectively not only with a huge number of actual ‘sightings’ but also with more than 250 ‘mystics’ and ‘psychics’ who claimed to have had credible ‘revelations’ or ‘visions’ of where Madeleine could be found, but all of whose recollections differed.


A complete mystery


Also in Mitchell’s fourth mini-speech, we see this startling admission. He says: “Kate and Gerry will not give up until they know what’s happened to their daughter, and, at the moment, it remains a complete mystery”.


Certainly, a mystery.


But Mitchell goes further: a ‘complete’ mystery.


This is precisely what The Madeleine Foundation has been saying ever since we were founded over two years ago. That’s why our Constitution (see our website) includes as our aims:


“To pursue - in conjunction with others - the truth about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance on 3 May 2007 and to investigate the facts behind the extent of British government involvement in this case and the reasons for it”.


The alleged abduction itself is surrounded with a great many mysteries. Among them we might cite:


a) the changing accounts of Jane Tanner

b) the recent announcement by the McCanns’ current lead investigator, Dave Edgar, that Jane Tanner might have been mistaken and seen a woman, not a man

c) the 11-plus artists’ sketches of the abductor we are supposed to be looking for, and

d) the difficulty an abductor would have in removing Madeleine without being seen or heard during a very tight time-frame of about three minutes (9.11pm to 9.14pm), according to the McCanns’ own account - in the dark, and climbing through a window little bigger than 2ft x 2ft.


Since Clarence Mitchell himself, the self-proclaimed master of spin, has admitted that Madeleine’s disappearance is a ‘complete mystery’, it should follow axiomatically from that that no-one should be deterred from making honest, sincere enquiries into what really happened to Madeleine McCann.


The problem of ‘noises off-stage’


Also in his fourth ‘mini-speech’, Mitchell said this to the Channel 4 reporter: “The search for Madeleine needs to be the focus from now on - not noises off stage from the likes of Mr Amaral”.


This is one of a number of references which run like a thread through this mystery to ‘a stage’, to ‘performances’ etc.


Take a look for example at the strange diary that Dr Kate McCann started after Madeleine was reported missing and we see her referring to yet another TV interview by her husband as ‘another great performance’.


In the Panorama programme shown on 19 November which featured film shot by Jon Corner, a film-maker, he explains his film-making role as being ‘back stage’. In the very same programme, reference is made to Dr Kate McCann appearing on a balcony, looking distressed; the waiting photographers outside with their camera clearly think this is for show, and not genuine.


Looking back at all the TV coverage of the McCanns, nearly all of it seems choreographed or rehearsed, even from the early days soon after Madeleine went missing.


On a TV news interview with BBC East Midlands at around the one year anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance [May 2008], the McCanns agreed to ‘steel themselves’ to go through with this ‘agonising’ interview, according to the presenter. Once again they described how distraught they were at the loss of Madeleine. Yet, as viewers could see for themselves - because the BBC editor allowed the cameras to roll for a few seconds after their interview ended - they rose from their seats laughing and joking with each other, just after they had answered the last question with their usual solemnity and gravity.


These and other instances, not surprisingly, and perhaps unkindly, led some to liken the McCanns to actors performing on some kind of TV and media ‘stage’.


Who started the legal action in the Lisbon Court?


In the seventh of Clarence Mitchell’s series of mini-speeches, the Channel 4 reporter asks him: “Do you think Kate and Gerry are swaying public opinion in their favour?” Mitchell replies: “I mean, Kate and Gerry will keep going. They didn’t start this legal action. They didn’t want to appear to be litigious for the sake of it”.


That’s not true, of course. The legal action against Goncalo Amaral, the original senior investigating officer in the case, was started by the McCanns issuing a libel writ, against Mr Amaral, against his publishers, Guerra e Paz, and against the Portuguese TV company TVI, for 1.2 million euros (over £1 million) in July 2009.


It was then in September 2009 that the McCanns and their legal advisers decided that they could not wait until the final libel trial and decided to apply ex parte (that means in secret) for an injunction banning Mr Amaral’s book, ‘The Truth About A Lie’, from being sold or distributed. They succeeded. In addition, that injunction forbade Mr Amaral from even speaking about the case.


So was Mr Mitchell right in saying: “The McCanns didn’t start this legal action”? No, his statement was misleading. On two counts.


First, the McCanns began the legal action by their libel writ in July 2009. Second, they initiated further legal action by applying in secret for an emergency order banning his book from further distribution until the final libel hearing, expected this summer.


We might note as an aside that the Channel 4 reporter did not challenge Mr Mitchell on his obvious mistake - an all-too-familiar pattern where we have seen, so often, Mitchell’s assertions go completely unchallenged by tame British journalists.


All that had happened was that, in late September, Mr Amaral had appealed against the injunction against banning his book, secretly obtained. That is what led to the verdict on 18 February. Amaral’s appeal had first been heard on 12 January but had to be adjourned, part heard, on 14 January.


Mitchell adds: “The McCanns didn’t want to appear to be litigious…” But that is how they appear to many people. The Madeleine Foundation holds a letter from a well-known, senior Opposition MP, who describes the McCanns as ‘very litigious’. And it’s easy to see why.


They have lawyers for their ‘Find Madeleine Fund’. They have hired extradition lawyers in both Portugal and Britain, including perhaps the U.K.’s best-known extradition lawyer, Michael Caplan Q.C. They have used Portuguese lawyers to launch their bid for over £1 million damages in the Lisbon libel court. They have used Carter-Ruck to effectively ban our own book, ‘60 Reasons’ and our leaflet ‘10 Reasons’, and to remove a great deal of material which was on our former website. Carter-Ruck monitors the various Madeleine McCann discussion forums on the internet and we’re aware of at least two sites where legal action has been threatened: Steve Marsden’s website in the United States and Pamalam’s ‘GerryMcCannsblog. Carter-Ruck also secured the McCanns’ £550,000 libel payout from Express Group Newspapers and others.


Adam Tudor, one of Carter-Ruck’s top libel lawyers, accompanied Dr Gerald McCann to the oral hearing of his evidence to the Department of Culture Media and Sport Select Committee enquiry into press standards, press freedom and libel.


Their ‘co-ordinating lawyer’ who oversees all this legal activity, and more which we haven’t mentioned, is Edward Smethurst, the in-house lawyer for Brian Kennedy’s ‘Latium Group’ based in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Multi-millionaire double glazing magnate Kennedy is the effective chief of the McCanns’ private investigation and intelligence-gathering operation, hiring and firing agencies and individuals and instructing them as to their tasks, as was made clear by Mark Hollingsworth in his Evening Standard article last year. It appears he also foots the bill for much of this work.


The McCanns have kept many lawyers busy over the past three years.


Only the ‘unfair-minded’ would believe Mr Amaral


Mitchell in his seventh mini-speech said: “The McCanns hope that people, fair-minded people, will see that what [Amaral said in his book] was fundamentally wrong, and damaging to the search…”.


It’s a clever way of saying that only the ‘unfair-minded’ would disagree with Mr Amaral’s thesis in his book.


Did Jane Tanner identify Robert Murat?


Here we see the arts of Mr Mitchell at their most cunning. This is what he says to the Channel 4 reporter about whether or not Jane Tanner identified Robert Murat as the prime suspect in relation to Madeleine’s abduction:


“Jane Tanner never directly named Mr. Murat as the man she saw, and you can go back to the Portuguese police files that were released in 2008 and see that for yourself. She never actually named Mr. Murat as the prime suspect”.


Did she name Murat as the man she says she saw carrying a child 10 days earlier? No - just as Clarence Mitchell says.


Did she identify Murat as the allged abductor? Oh yes. Very much so.


She did so on Sunday 13 May, when it was pre-arranged for Robert Murat to walk past a police van with darkened windows. Inside that van was Jane Tanner. As Murat walked by, she indicated to police that she was sure that this was the very man she’d seen outside the McCanns’ apartment on 3 May carrying a child. Detailed accounts of this are given both in Goncalo Amaral’s book: ‘The Truth About A Lie’ and in an article soon after the event by Portuguese journalist Paulo Reis.


As a direct result of Tanner’s identification, Murat was arrested 36 hours later.


Not only that, but within a further 12 hours, three of the McCanns’ friends, Dr Russell O’Brien, Rachael Mampilly/Oldfield and Fiona Payne, all came forward, all of a sudden, to say that they had seen Robert Murat hanging around the Ocean Club on the night Madeleine McCann went missing - a claim that Murat has always vehemently denied.


Between them therefore, no fewer than four members of the McCanns’ holiday group had, by the end of 16 May, put Robert Murat very much in the frame as a prime suspect. Further, at a so-called ‘confrontation’ between Dr O’Brien, Rachael Mampilly/Oldfield and Fiona Payne on the one hand and Robert Murat on the other on 11 July in Portimao, the three confirmed their evidence - despite Murat’s continued robust denials. According to Mr Amaral in his book, the Portuguese Police tended to believe Murat.


So what was going on? Why was Tanner so adamant that Murat was the abductor? Murat always wears glasses. He has defective eyesight. Did he really have his glasses off as he was allegedly carrying Madeleine away from Apartment 5A?


Shifting views by the McCanns and Jane Tanner about the involvement of Robert Murat


We’ve just seen how Jane Tanner clearly picked out Robert Murat as the suspected abductor by her evidence from inside the police van on 13 May 2007. It’s worth pausing for a moment to see what messages about Robert Murat the McCanns and Jane Tanner wished to convey to the media.


On 16 November 2007, the Daily Mail carried an article featuring Jane Tanner saying: “I’ve never pointed the finger of suspicion at Robert Murat because I simply don't know if it was him or not. I would say the man I saw was more local, or Mediterranean looking, rather than British”.


Then, on 20 November, Jane Tanner was quoted by the Daily Mirror insisting that she really did see ‘Maddie’s abductor’.


On 1 January 2008, the Daily Mail now reported: “Kate McCann is suspicious about Robert Murat's alibi for the night her daughter Madeleine vanished…she believes there are questions about the British expat that need to be answered. Mrs McCann's doubts emerged after the Daily Mail reported that seven witnesses claim to have seen Mr Murat near the McCanns' holiday apartment on the night of May 3. He has always insisted he was at home all night at the villa he shares with his elderly mother…A friend of Kate and her husband Gerry said: ‘Kate has always felt there are questions concerning Murat and a body of evidence contrary to what he is saying. Gerry doesn't know whether he is involved but Kate has always been suspicious’.”


So now the McCann Team’s focus was on the seven people who said they’d seen Murat on the night of 3 May.


Yet just one week later [8 January], the same paper reported: “Doubt was cast on the evidence of several key witnesses in the Madeleine McCann disappearance last night. Those who said they saw suspect Robert Murat outside the family's holiday apartment on the night she vanished may have named the wrong man, it was revealed. Detectives believe the witnesses who said they saw the British expat could have confused him with a friend of Kate and Gerry McCann, David Payne, who was out searching for the missing three-year-old”.


All of a sudden, seven people who thought they saw Robert Murat were now being regarded as all having confused him with Dr David Payne, one of the McCanns’ friends. How the three McCann friends could have confused Murat with Dr David Payne, one of their own group, was not explained.


Just 13 days later, on 21 January, the British media reported a new artist’s sketch of a man with a moustache said to be acting suspiciously around the Ocean Club on the night of 3 May. This man came to be known popularly as ‘George Harrison man’, or ‘Cooperman’, after Mrs Gail Cooper, who said she had seen this man (though she changed her story from having seen him once to having seen him three times).


Now, on 21 January 2008, the McCanns were now considering Robert Murat as ‘an accomplice’ of the abductor, not the abductor himself. The Daily Mail’s headline that day ran: “Robert Murat ‘seen talking to man matching artist's impression of Madeleine suspect’,” and included these key sub-headings:


a) “Robert Murat spoke to a man who looked like the new suspect”

b) “New e-fit of man seen ‘acting strangely’ around complex prior to Madeleine's disappearance”

c) “McCann family friend says sketch ‘strongly resembles’ man she

saw carrying a child wearing pyjamas identical to Madeleine's on

the night of the abduction”.


The heading and sub-headings cunningly linked this new ‘sighting’ of Cooper’s to Jane Tanner’s original claimed sighting of an abductor, thus continuing to lend credibility to that alleged sighting. But the article also brought Robert Murat into the picture, for the Mail went on to report:


“Robert Murat was spotted chatting to a man who resembled the ‘oddball’ in the new sketch released by the McCanns and who is suspected of abducting Madeleine, it has been claimed today. Charlotte Pennington, a nanny at the Ocean Club holiday complex where the McCanns were staying, told police last May she saw Murat chatting to ‘a man aged around 27 to 35, average height, very dark eyes and of Portuguese or Spanish appearance’. She told detectives she saw expat Murat, who lives with his mother near to holiday complex, talking to the man outside the Baptista supermarket in Praia da Luz”.


Then six days later [27 January] came a further twist, when the McCanns were quoted in a further report headed: ‘McCanns say Murat not kidnapper’. Now, bizarrely, the McCann Team were now saying he could have been a ‘spotter’ for a whole gang of paedophiles. The report ran:


“Kate and Gerry McCann are certain that original suspect Robert Murat is not the man who snatched their daughter Madeleine. But private detectives searching for the missing four-year-old still believe he may have acted as a ‘spotter’ for a kidnap gang targeting the McCann family”.


We’ve gone into this in some detail to show how the statements of Jane Tanner and the McCanns about Murat have evolved over time. To summarise:


· 3 May 2007 - Jane Tanner says she sees an abductor carrying a child in the dark. She does not see his face.

· 13 May 2007 - Tanner identifies Murat as the abductor she says she saw, but does not actually name him.

· 15 May 2007 - Murat arrested and made ‘arguido’.

· 15 May 2007 (evening) - Dr O’Brien, Rachael Mampilly/Oldfield and Fiona Payne say they saw Murat hanging around the Ocean Club on 3 May.

· 11 July 2007 - police confrontation between Murat and the three friends of the McCanns. The friends stick to their story that they saw Murat. Murat denies it.

· 16 Nov 2007 - Tanner not now sure if she saw Murat: ‘I don’t know if it was him or not’.

· 1 Jan 2008 - Several people reported as seeing Robert Murat that night.

· 8 Jan 2008 - All those seven ‘might have mistaken’ Robert Murat for David Payne.

· 21 Jan 2008 - Robert Murat was seen by Charlotte Pennington talking to ‘George Harrison man’.

· 27 Jan 2008 - Murat could have been a ‘spotter’ for a whole group of paedophiles.


Given these claims by the McCanns about Murat, it’s worthy of note that Murat, when successfully suing the newspapers about the libels of him, did not also sue the McCanns.


So let’s return to Clarence Mitchell’s claim that Jane Tanner never named Murat.


Tanner did identify him all right, and in mysterious circumstances.


Here is the actual chain of events, which we should say that some McCann-supporters maintain ‘never happened’:


On Sunday 6 May, Lori Campbell contacted Leicestershire Constabulary about Murat. Campbell knew Clarence Mitchell very well as they had both worked together on the Soham murders committed by Ian Huntley.


A female CID Officer in the Leicestershire Constabulary [Folio 307 of the CD in the files] faxed the ‘Portugal Incident Room’ in Praia da Luz stating that Lori Campbell, a reporter from the ‘Sunday Mirror’, had been in contact. The Officer reported as follows: “Lori has been speaking to an interpreter who has been helping the Portuguese authorities with the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. He has only given his name as ‘ROB’ and has not given any background information about himself. Lori has become suspicious of Rob as he has given conflicting accounts to various people and he became very concerned when he noticed his ’photo being taken by the Mirror’s photographer…”


This information was relayed immediately to Portugal.


Murat came under suspicion and the PJ intercepted his telephone (see Police Folios 1017 and 1267), picking up some interesting chats with Martin Brunt of SKY TV (see Police Folios 1675 and 1692).


In the early afternoon of Sunday 13 May 2007, Jane Tanner spoke to what she called ‘some of the people that Kate and Gerry brought in’. It has since been established that these were almost certainly two men, Kenneth Farrow and Michael Keenan, from a group called ‘Control Risks Group’ (CRG), a private intelligence agency which appeared to have no track record whatsoever of looking for missing children and seemed to operate covertly and very much ‘in the shadows’.


They had arrived at Faro Airport on the flight from Gatwick that very morning. Some CRG staff may already have been in Praia da Luz before that flight. Mr Farrow is the ex-head of the Economic Crime Unit in the City of London Police and Mr Keenan had been a Superintendent from the Metropolitan Police with specialist fraud and investigative experience. It would be very helpful to know what Tanner discussed with these two men. But she has never told us.


It seems probable that she told CRG, as she had earlier told an officer from Leicestershire Police (probably Bob Small), that she could identify the ‘abductor’ if she were to see him in profile and in context.


It seems that no sooner had Jane Tanner finished speaking to the two top CRG men than she took a telephone call from Bob Small, a senior Leicestershire Police Officer already in Praia da Luz helping the Portuguese Police. He told her that the police wanted to see her.


It is likely, by that time, that covert plans had already been made to induce Mr Murat to walk across the top of the road, north of Apartment 5A, where Miss Tanner claimed to have seen the ‘abductor’. This situation was thus the precise context in which she believed she could make an identification.


Mr Small then told Miss Tanner not to discuss anything with anyone, including her husband. She claims she followed this instruction to the letter, but questions have been asked about whether she could realistically have followed such an instruction. By this time, Murat was under suspicion by the Portuguese Police but had not been made an ‘arguido’.


Arrangements were then made for Jane Tanner to be collected by Mr Small and his PJ colleagues in a car park near to Mr Murat’s home at around 7.30pm that day. Goncalo Amaral was in a meeting room at the Public Ministry, waiting to pounce if Tanner gave a positive identification.


The police went on to arrange to pick Tanner up very close to Murat’s home. One might ask: why so close? On their way to the car park, and just outside his home, Robert Murat, whom we know had met Russell O’Brien on the morning of 4 May, was driving his mother’s green VW van. He stopped, got out of his van and chatted, showing Tanner and O’Brien posters he had made to ‘Find Madeleine’, and generally rattling on about nothing in particular.


This was the first time, so we are told, that Tanner had been introduced to Murat, but, as Paulo Reis pointed out, “given the events that were about to follow, it is amazing she did not cry out: ‘That’s him…that’s the person I saw: that’s the abductor!’” But she didn’t say a single word.


The pick-up of Tanner took place just outside Murat’s house, and on top of that they just ‘happened’ to bump into Murat. The closer one looks at it, the whole sequence of events looks less and less as if they were by mere chance.


Tanner was taken away by Bob Small and the Portuguese Police. She was driven to another location and hidden in the back of an undercover surveillance vehicle, a van, which was driven to a position near the side entrance to Apartment 5A, facing north.


Tanner then apparently saw three people walk across the top of the road: but Mr Murat was the first to do so. It is not clear exactly what words she used to the police at the time but, whatever she says now, they were very clearly strong enough to make the police believe that Tanner had positively identified Murat as the ‘abductor’. This was despite Murat not matching her verbal description, nor looking anything like the ‘egg man’ sketch of the alleged abductor that Tanner had approved, nor wearing glasses. Immediate plans were made to arrest Murat.


So, Clarence’s comment that Tanner ‘never actually named’ Murat as the alleged abductor obscures all that we have just discussed. The identification of Murat by Jane Tanner as the man the claimed she saw with a young child in his arms on the evening of 3 May has been a pivotal event in this whole story.


Why was Tanner so sure on 13 May that Murat was the abductor?


And what happened before she was placed in the police van to make her so sure?


[Article compiled by Tony Bennett, 21 February 2010]