RECONSTRUCTION: Why McCanns and Tapas 7 won't participate.

Thanks HiDeHo!

Today, Sunday May 5th 2013, the Sunday Express carries an interview by Robert Murat, the first suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in May 2007. Robert Murat is calling for a reconstruction of the events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance. I'll go into that interview later, but in the meantime, a quick look at what happened to a proposed reconstruction in March 2008.

When asked about participating in a reconstruction of the events surrounding his daughter Madeleine's disappearance, in HiDeHo's video, posted above, Gerry McCann expresses concern that the proposed date has been made public. "How can you do a reconstruction with what will undoubtedly be a media event?" As if Gerry and Kate had never staged a few media events! On June 3rd, 2007, Gerry was planning a few.

We want a big event to raise awareness that she is still missing.
“We would look at high-profile people who have already pledged support. It will be some sort of focus around an anniversary, to tell people that Madeleine ’s still missing. I think it would be later this year, once media attention has dropped, to bring it back up, hopefully, for a short period.
“It wouldn’t be a one-year anniversary, it will be sooner than that. (Paulo Reis)

So, one calender month after Madeleine disappeared, Gerry was obviously not expecting her to turn up any time soon with his planning of "some sort of focus around an anniversary.." Not a one year anniversary, though it appears that Gerry thought there would be one.  

Gerry McCann also refers in the video to the fact that the planned reconstruction was dependent on other people. Read here the correspondence between Stuart Prior (call me Stu!) of Leicester Police, the group of friends the McCanns went on holiday with, as well as other witnesses and significant officers of the Portuguese police. The reconstruction was eventually cancelled as the group known as "The Tapas Seven" placed so many obstacles in the way, it became impossible to stage.

On the subject of participating in a reconstruction, Kate McCann states that if there were anything that would help find Madeleine, "..of course we'd agree to it." OK, then, what about the 48 questions Kate McCann refused to answer when interviewed by the PJ? Surely the parent of a missing child who wanted to do anything that would help the police find their child would want to give as much information as possible? Surely such a parent would be trying to provide every little detail they could remember surrounding the circumstances of the child's disappearance? Maybe not! Why not?

OK, so now Robert Murat wants the Portuguese police to "Bring them all back to Portugal" for a reconstruction. The article doesn't appear to be online and I had intended to buy a copy of the newspaper this morning, but I forgot! However, thanks to the very helpful Duarte Levy I have the article as a pdf! Thanks Duarte!

Mr Murat, 39, spoke to the Sunday Express while sipping tea in Casa Liliana, his elderly mother Jenny's villa 150 yards from apartment 5a of the Ocean Club, where Madeleine vanished.
He said "They need to speak to everybody, including myself, and they need to get the Portuguese involved in a much more constructive way.
"To get somewhere now they need to have a joint team working here together in Praia da Luz. This is where it happened. It didn't happen in England." 

I agree with Robert. If the Scotland Yard team is serious about reviewing all the evidence in this case, then all the main characters involved in the drama need to be interviewed. Robert Murat is willing to be interviewed. So, how about the rest of them? Surely they'd all want to assist with anything that might help solve the disappearance of Madeleine McCann seemingly into thin air?

Robert Murat adds:

The reconstruction should cover the critical period just before and after the abduction

And:

A reconstruction is a real necessity. I am sure it would fill in some of the missing pieces of the jigsaw. Even now after all this time, the timeline is still confused. 

Gonçalo Amaral on the need for a reconstruction:

The reconstruction will have to involve all the parties: the McCanns and their friends. You see, there are so many inconsistencies in these people’s statements that a reconstruction will very quickly highlight where they have not told the truth”. http://www.algarve123.com/en/Articles/2-1403/

In my opinion, highlighting those inconsistencies, the confusion in the timeline, would be the real benefit of staging a reconstruction of the events surrounding Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Any witnesses will surely have come forward by now, given the world-wide media attention that has accompanied this case. Madeleine has been "sighted" on all five continents, sometimes on the same day, but nothing of any value has come of any of it. The world's most well-known child has not been seen since she disappeared on May 3rd 2007 and I'm pretty sure she's not in a "hellish lair," in one of those "lawless villages" referred to by the McCanns' PI Dave Edgar.

A few questions that come immediately to mind: how did Jane Tanner manage to slip-slap past Gerry McCann and Jeremy Wilkins, on the same side of the road, in flip-flops, and neither of them saw her? How did Matthew Oldfield manage to see the twins Sean and Amelie breathing in their cots in the dark, through solid cot sides? When Jane Tanner's abductor was heading across the top of the road, when she was slip-slapping along, why didn't Gerry McCann see him? How did Jane Tanner's original "man carrying a bundle that could have been a child" transform over time into swarthy man carrying a child in pyjamas identical to those worn by Madeleine?

It may be too late to jog the memory of any tourist who was in Praia da Luz at the same time as the McCanns, but that's not the main purpose of staging a reconstruction. The main purpose is to highlight the many inconsistencies in witness statements from the Tapas Nine, which eventually may lead to the answer as to what happened to Madeleine.

If Kate McCann is serious about wanting to do anything that would help find her daughter, then she should be expressing her willingness to go back and help the Portuguese police by participating in a reconstruction. But let's see what, if any, response comes from that quarter. I can't see the plane tickets being booked any time soon.

Related blog posts:

All posts labelled "Reconstruction" here.

"Where was Maddie when the lights went out"

Aluminum in Vaccines Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

Kate McCann and those Death Threats!

"DEATH THREAT FEAR FOR TWINS"

That's the newspaper headline we see as the video opens. So, where is this unspecified threat? I've never seen any online or otherwise threats to the McCann twins.

"We both feel very strongly that more should be done about internet abuse."

I feel like that too, Mrs McCann. I've never been abusive towards anyone on the internet, but a couple of years ago I had to place comments on this blog on pre-moderation because I was receiving vile abuse and death threats from people purporting to be supporting you. Someone actually went to the trouble of setting up a blog about me, giving my full address. Not only that, but they included my son's name too. That's what I call abuse and I do think more should be done about it. I contacted Google, who informed me that their procedure was to take down pages hosted by them only when there was a legal order to do so. Now, you may be able to afford the services of Carter-Ruck at around £600/hour to take down web pages, but this ordinary person can't.

"People wouldn't get away with behaving like that on the street and yet they can hide behind a computer at home."

Mrs McCann, the name on the heading of this blog is my real name. I may be sitting at home on my computer, but you have been sitting behind a PR spokesperson for nearly six years now and have used very expensive legal representatives to sue those whom you have seen as speaking out against you in ways that you don't like. Most of us sitting at home behind computers don't have those options. Do you agree with people who post personal details, like mine, online? Do you agree with the posting of lies on such a blog? How about a well-known forum where people who claim to be supporting you have posted vile abuse about Jimmy Savile's victims, saying those victims were just out for money? Do you think that's OK? How about the person on Twitter, who goes by the name "Muratfan," who doesn't discuss information presented, but simply posts abusive comments? Is that OK with you? I am left to assume that all of the above is OK with you, that those who are posting vile abuse online, stating that they are supporting you and your hubby, Mrs McCann, do so with your approval because I have not seen anything from you that disagrees with their behaviour. That kind of abuse is OK then?

And how about Pamela Gurney, aka "The Balloon Dancer," who seems to spend 24 hours a day online, hurling abuse on YouTube, Twitter etc at anyone who disagrees with her unconditional support of you? If I'm ever in trouble, I hope that I have the unconditional support of my family and my good friends, but Lord save me from the kind of support you get, Mrs McCann. Not the kind of support I would find helpful. Me? I'd make sure everyone knew I'd disowned that type of person.

THE mother of Madeleine McCann is terrified for her other two children after receiving sick online death threats.
Kate, whose eldest daughter disappeared aged three in 2007, told how internet trolls have vowed to kill her this weekend. (Daily Star April 19th)

Online "death threats."? Plural? Where? The video mentions one comment on a Facebook page, which was investigated by the police and found not to be a serious threat against Kate McCann's life.

And why should Kate McCann be terrified for her "other two children"? Has anyone threatened those children? If so, where? When? Who would threaten the McCann twins, now aged eight? In my opinion, no one who has followed this case since Madeleine disappeared into thin air and the shutter were found not to have been "jemmied." No one who is concerned because one child has been harmed (if Maddie was abducted, abduction is not harmless for children) would wish to harm or threaten to harm two more.

If there are online death threats other than the cleared Facebook one, then someone show them to me, please, because I haven't seen them.

And finally!

But she told ITV Daybreak host Lorraine Kelly: “Even sometimes when I do think they’re cowards and I’m not even going to go there, I think about my children and I think it’s not right that they should come across stuff like that as well.

Stuff like what? Mrs McCann, you claim to have written your book "Madeleine," for your twins and for Madeleine. Do you think it's OK to write a book for small children in which you refer to a police family liaison officer as a f*cking t*sser and on page 129 of that book to describe what you imagine a paedophile doing to your daughter? Is that the kind of "stuff" that's OK for Sean and Amelie to read? That may be the stuff of your nightmares, but your children don't need to read about it.

Disown "Muratfan," Mrs Trolley and the rest of those vile people who hide behind their computers, accusing victims of sexual abuse to be just after money and I might think that all this publicity recently wasn't just because the anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance was coming up and there was the annual opportunity to fill the coffers of your private limited company, otherwise known as "The Madeleine Fund."

A breakthrough in the case of Grégory Villemin 29 years after his murder

Background to the case

Gregory Villemin, a four-year-old boy, was found dead in October 1984 with his feet and hands bound in the Vologne river, near his home in a village in eastern France.

The gruesome discovery set off a dramatic chain of events that became known simply as 'the Gregory Affair' and gripped the French public, spilling more ink than any other crime in the country's 20th century history.

France looked on in horror as the prime suspect was later gunned down by Gregory's heartbroken father. The public reeled as Gregory's mother was herself arrested for her son's murder year's later - and then released again.

The child's uncle, Bernard Laroche, was initially charged before being freed after several key pieces of evidence against him were thrown out because of procedural errors by prosecutors.

Convinced that Laroche was the murderer, Gregory's father Jean-Marie Villemin shot him dead and served four years in jail for the killing.

(Extracted from an article which appeared in The Daily Mail 23rd October 2009) 

A significant advance in DNA technology has led to a breakthrough in this case. 

From Le Parisien April 16th 2013, we have details of recent developments.

Ten DNA profiles were isolated on the cords that were used to bind the child who was discovered dead in the Vologne (Vosges) These are still to be identified 29 years later. 

Grégory Villemin was found dead in the Vologne on October 16th 1984. In a case where genetic analysis has been inconclusive, there is a breakthrough which could prove conclusive in identifying Grégory's killer. 

Ordered by Dijon's Investigative Division at the request of the child's parents, the new analysis has been carried out at the Bordeaux laboratory of Professor Christian Doutremepuich, who has access to the most recent technology in DNA analysis: chemical extraction of DNA and laser micro-dissection. Anorak, trousers, hat, socks, shoes...everything sealed up within the legal files has been gone over again with a fine-tooth comb. The cords are considered to be the most important items. They have also been examined. As the Villemin couple were hoping, new DNA profiles have been brought to light. 

Still to be identified, while comparing them with some 300 genetic samples taken from people close to Grégory and from significant others, in the course of the investigation, as well as with those on the national register, which was set up in 1998, "We must be careful," a legal source suggests. "During all these years, those boxes of evidence have been handled a lot. The DNA traces could belong to a magistrate or an investigator."

Thierry Moser, lawyer for the Villemin couple, remains hopeful, "We are waiting for the results with impatience and hope," he says. And to be more precise: "If Bernard Laroche's DNA is found or that of Muriel Bolle (Laroche's sister-in-law who accused him of the crime and then retracted) that would be formidable." 

(With thanks to Frencheuropean who sent me details about this breakthrough in the case)

McCanns DID NOT SEARCH! Tapas Cook breaks SILENCE!

Video posted by HiDeHo4 on YouTube

Email: hideho1@hotmail.com

Twitter: @HiDeHo3

Translation by Joana Morais

Crocodile Tears - Nicholas Kay

Part 1 in the documentary series, "Real Crime: Crocodile Tears," features the case of  the disappearance of Rhonda Kay. Although no body was found and there was no forensic evidence, her husband Nicholas was charged with her murder based on evidence gleaned from recordings of conversations between Nicholas and his new wife. The jury returned the "surprise," verdict of guilty of manslaughter and Mr Kay was sentenced to six years in prison. 

This is an example of a case where the police have had reason to suspect someone of involvement in an alleged disappearance and the appeal for information is studied carefully to analyse the reactions; words,  congruity of emotional expression and body language. 

Leonor Cipriano sentenced for lying about torture by Portuguese (PJ) police officers

Eight-year-old Joana Cipriano disappeared from the village of Figueira, near Portimão, Portugal, on 12 September 2004 and was later assumed to have been murdered, though her body has never been found. A lengthy investigation ended with the conviction of Joana's mother, Leonor Cipriano and  Leonor's brother, João Cipriano, for murder. Leonor subsequently accused a number of PJ (Polícia Judiciária) officers of having beaten a confession out of her even though a prior confession is not admissible in Portuguese courts.

Today, Leonor Cipriano, who is serving 16 years in prison for the murder of her daughter, was given an additional 7 months sentence for lying about the torture. 

Read the background to the Joana case here (McCann Files) and here (Gazeta Digital)

The Public Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal investigation and ordered a police line-up, with the CID officers named and accused by Leonor Cipriano of beating her;
The line-up took place with Leonor Cipriano behind a two-way mirror and she couldn’t recognize any of the aggressors;
The Public Prosecutor’s Office magistrate that was in charge of the criminal investigation decided to accuse the five CID officers, but didn’t mentioned, in the accusation sent to the Court, that Leonor Cipriano couldn’t identify any of the aggressors, in the police line-up; (Gazeta Digital)

Leonor Cipriano's original lawyer, Marcos Aragão Correia, has recently taken himself to Brazil and Leonor was appointed a public defence lawyer. Marcos Aragão Correia was allegedly paid my Metodo 3, a group of Spanish private investigators hired by Kate and Gerry McCann to search for their daughter Madeleine, to dig the dirt on Gonçalo Amaral, the PJ inspector who worked on both the Joana case and the Madeleine McCann case.

The trial of the PJ inspectors revealed many attempts by Leonor Cipriano's lawyer to discredit Gonçalo Amaral, both professionally and personally. The lawyer, Marcos Aragão Correia - who previously hit the headlines when he organised an underwater seach for Madeleine's body at the Arade Dam, in Portugal - has admitted that Metodo3 ordered him to do "an investigation" into the accusation of torture but he denies he is being paid just to frame Gonçalo Amaral. (McCann Files)

On 22 May 2009 Gonçalo Amaral received an 18-month custodial sentence, suspended for the same length of time, for misrepresentation of evidence. He was acquitted of the charge of failing to report a crime.

Following the delivery of the verdict, Leonor Cipriano's lawyer, Marcos Aragão Correia, said: "Target was hit, Gonçalo Amaral was convicted".

In December 2011, Scotland Yard detectives who are currently working on a review of the Maddie case, removed 30 boxes of files concerning the case, from the Metodo 3 offices in Barcelona. Those boxes of files may reveal what the detective agency, whose previous investigations centred around cases of money laundering, actually did in their alleged search for Madeleine McCann. The agency had no previous experience of searching for missing children. In February this year several detectives employed by Metodo 3 were arrested on charges of spying. 

The McCanns, as we know, have not been too lucky in their choice of detectives in the search for their daughter. Apart from Metodo 3, there was Kevin Halligen, recently extradited to the USA to face charges of fraud.

We now await the start of the delayed libel case being brought by Kate and Gerry McCann against Gonçalo Amaral for alleged defamation in his book "A Verdade da Mentira", in which he detailed the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance and the conclusion of the joint working teams of English and Portuguese police that Madeleine had probably died in apartment 5A at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz. Personally, I don't see how Kate and Gerry McCann can win this case when the highest court in Portugal, the Supreme Court, upheld the decision of the Appeals Court in October 2010 to overturn the ban on Amaral's book. At the time of the successful appeal by Amaral..

The court said the decision to block sales of the book had broken "a constitutional and universal right: that of opinion and freedom of expression."

"The contents of the book do not breach the basic rights of the plaintiffs," the court said, according to the Jornal de Noticías newspaper's website.
"The book is an exercise in freedom of speech," Amaral told Portugal's Lusa news agency. "Portuguese democracy has won, as banning the book was unconstitutional." (The Guardian)

So, let's see where we have arrived at: Leonor Cipriano, her lawyer who has scarpered to Brazil, a bunch of dodgy detectives and a libel trial based on a book which has already been judged by both the Appeals Court and Portugal's Supreme Court not to have breached the McCanns' basic rights. 

Good luck Dr Amaral! This truly is a tangled web! 

The Search for Madeleine McCann: No Stone Unturned?

Kate and Gerry McCann 12th May 2007, on what would have been Madeleine's fourth birthday.

If you don't know that Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of May 3rd 2007, you have probably just wakened from a coma.

This blog post is about the search for Madeleine and the money that has flowed into the fund that was set up soon after Madeleine disappeared and where that money has gone.

According to The McCann Files, lawyers for the McCanns arrived in Portugal on May 11th 2007, just 8 days after Madeleine vanished into thin air, to discuss the setting up of the "fighting fund," (fighting what?) which was incorporated on May 15th, after lawyers had approached the Charities Commission on May 14th and been told that the fund could not be registered as a charity because it's intended purpose was to help one individual. Madeleine's fund "Leaving No Stone Unturned," had received over a million pounds within a few short months.

The fund was incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee with the following 

Savile, Armstrong and the McCanns: if you're going to tell a lie, make it a big one!

Excellent video by Reggie Dunlop, who spotted that the sighting of Madeleine McCann in Brazil was actually a photo of the evacuation of Ibiza airport, following a bomb scare!  

"Time and Tide" by Dr Martin Roberts on McCann Files

The latest article from Dr Martin Roberts appears on The McCann Files web site today, February 25th 2013. Reproduced below is the introduction to this excellent piece of 'purporting.' !!!

Gerry McCann announced before the recent Leveson enquiry, "I strongly believe in Freedom of Speech...I don't have a problem with somebody purporting a theory..."

 Perhaps then it is time, at last, to do a little, perfectly admissible 'purporting.'

 Time, the 'grim reaper,' takes its inevitable toll in many ways, not the least of which being of one's memory. And, in that particular context, it does not take weeks, months, or years over doing so.

 The McCanns have, not infrequently, been cavalier with time itself, their various accounts of seemingly unimportant incidents during their week in Praia da Luz dragging events, in a largely forward direction, away from their actual point of occurrence. To give but one example, Kate McCann, in her only book to date, makes wholly unequivocal reference to her own photography of daughter Madeleine during a mini-tennis session on the Tuesday morning, when it is perfectly clear from the Ocean Club's printed schedule that said mini-tennis took place on the Monday morning. Were it an isolated case one might be prepared to accept this as a one-off error in recall. Unfortunately it is neither.

The whole article is available on Nigel's excellent site The McCann Files

Georges Moréas: Typhaine Taton, Antoine Brugerolle and Madeleine McCann

Anne-Sophie Faucheur, mother of Typhaine Taton



The mother of little Typhaine and her partner have both just been sentenced to 30 years in prison. In the course of the trial, terrible things came out: the child was not getting to sleep; her mother, Anne-Sophie Faucheur, then delivered a barrage of blows. She then slipped on a pair of trainers before hitting her again, this time in the stomach. During this time, Nicolas Willot, her partner, held Typhaine up. Yet, in June 2012, before the cameras, this couple invoked sympathy by pleading for their child to be returned. Before the Court of Assizes, while an expert psychiatrist stated that in the mother there was no "clear, definite, conscious desire," to kill her daughter, it's
understandable why the jury remained skeptical.

In Seine-et-Marne a few days ago, the parents of a two-year-old girl who disappeared in 2011 were placed under investigation for murder. She was buried 500 metres from their home. The body has not yet been formally identified.

These cases, and many others, draw attention to the difficulties faced by police officers when confronted with the disappearance of a child. It's not easy to remain unmoved when dealing with desperate parents. And yet, there is no question of giving way to empathy or even feeling for them which could cloud their judgement. What is the difference between the tears of guilty parents and those parents who are overcome with pain? Within the same group of investigators, opinion is often divided.

There is no miracle formula. No magic profiler, as in the TV series. In this, even forensic scientists mark time and accept there is a place for the old methods: intuition or the well-worn technique of good cop/bad cop. Thus, after Typhaine's disappearance, the Lille police had the couple in custody for a few hours and then released them because experience told them it wasn't the right time for obtaining confessions. In these cases where we are dealing with infanticide, the denial is important. An investigation that starts with certainty often finishes with failure. 

And we have to get our priorities right: first of all, find the child. But, the initial sense of urgency gone, traditional investigators take up their tasks: verifications, witness statements, cross-checking, reconstruction, stake-outs, shadowing, surveillance techniques, etc. That's what happened with Typhaine. And the surveillance reports are damning. "Making salacious jokes about the presiding judge, masturbating in the evening on porn sites, accessing dating sites, dancing at a baptism, at a wedding, partying, having dinner parties, making wedding plans... Everything that was seen from the surveillance van was a long way, a very long way from the image of the devastated couple they had wanted to put forward at the press conference," a police officer stated in the witness box.

The police know, but they don't intervene. In the absence of proof, they record all the details. And, without doubt, in order to win the trust of Anne-Sophie Faucheur and Nicolas Willot, the presiding judge calls them for interview with the status of concerned parties. "That means their status as victims is recognised," their lawyer said. 

The net closes in. With a young police officer, a new face, the mother lets slip that she saw her daughter die. She speaks of an accident. A first confession, or more of a confidence. All that remains is to gently pull in the line. A fine art. 

This type of case is like walking on eggshells. The fear is of going wrong and missing the slightest chance to save the child. Because experience doesn't help very much where every situation is different. Thus, with little Antoine's disappearance, on September 11th 2008, the investigators initially thought he was a runaway. Three days later, the prosecutor declared: "The more time passes, the more the theory of running away loses credibility.."

Two weeks after the events, the child's mother, Alexandrine Brugerolle de Fraissinette, and several other people of her acquaintance, were placed under arrest. The young woman's apartment was taken over by scene of crime police officers. The walls were sounded, strips of parquet were lifted, fluorescent light was passed over certain areas. Two small drops, minute, around a millimetre in circumference, were finally detected near the light switch in Antoine's bedroom. And that's all. In other words, nothing! "We've got to go back to zero," stated one of the leading investigating officers. The case is not closed. Meanwhile, recently, the mother has again been arrested. But we still don't know what happened to little Antoine. He was six and a half years old.

In the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared on May 3rd 2007, in Portugal we reach the limits of the absurd. A cop left his job: Commissioner Gonçalo Amaral. From the start of the investigation, he picked up on contradictions in statements from the parents, the McCanns, British holidaymakers who immediately sought to protect themselves by making contact with the authorities from their own country. The police officer considered accidental death of the child, covered up by the parents by faking an abduction. But he was not supported by his superiors. Sacked from the police (1) for having shared his doubts with journalists, he wrote a book to explain his theory. Today, ruined, he has a fight on with the McCanns' lawyers who are  suing him for 1.2 million pounds (2) in civil damages. Of note is that the trial which was due to start soon has been adjourned. Are there new elements in this case which has been the leader in newspapers all over the world?

In France, the police and the Gendarmerie hold all the legal authority to investigate the disappearance of a child (or a vulnerable adult). With one basic principle: every report must be considered as a cause for concern and an investigation must be opened. If there is disagreement between the police and those registering the disappearance, it is up to the prosecutor to decide. As soon as there is the slightest indication of an offence, the latter actions the "flagrante delicto," (3) procedure, with all the powers that go with it.

With the disappearance of a child, more than all other cases, the prosecutor is the key figure. He makes emergency decisions. It's also he who determines if an "alerte enlèvement," (4) should be triggered. Often the result of an investigation depends on the soundness of his decisions and of the harmony between him and the police or the gendarmerie and also..his ability to resist pressure from the media.


Georges Moréas 28/01/2013

Police Et Cetera blog

Notes:

1) Gonçalo Amaral was not sacked. He was removed from the investigation and subsequently took early retirement so that he could speak freely about the case.

2) The figure is €1.2 million or £1 million

3) Basically "caught in the act." 

4) The "Abduction Alert," system which was rolled out across most EU countries following its development and success in France. 

Typhaine Taton: Mother and Step-father Guilty of Murder and Faking Disappearance (Part 2)

Anne-Sophie Faucheur and Nicolas Willot at a press conference June 24th 2009  (Transcript to follow)

The fatal evening of June 10th 2009

On the evening of the tragedy, Typhaine "wasn't going to sleep and was walking around in her room," which "infuriated," her mother. "The beating" started: smacks, slaps, punches, kicks. "It was very hard," admits the accused. "Then I took up a pair of trainers and I hit her in the stomach. She went to the floor. She would have had a hard time walking. I don't remember any more, but she must have cried," she goes on. Nicolas Willot explains clearly, almost coldly, having "held her up by her armpits while Anne-Sophie hit her so that she wouldn't fall to the floor." The beating was followed by a "long cold shower," to "calm," Typhaine. 

The couple go back to sit in front of the telly, to watch the film "Rasta Rocket." The little girl gives out "a rattle," before collapsing in the shower. "I tried to revive her. I didn't succeed," says Nicolas Willot, a volunteer fireman.

Did the couple want to kill Typhaine? That's one of the central questions of this trial. Both respond with a negative. According to the expert psychiatrist, Roland Coutanceau, there wasn't "a conscious wish to kill on the part of the mother." Doctor Ameziane Ait-Menguellet's opinion is the opposite "a determination that can only be explained by a wish to have an end to it." 

Staging the disappearance

According to the version from the two accused, Anne-Sophie Faucheur wanted to give herself up once the child's death was discovered. But her partner, for "fear of going to prison," and of "losing the other children," (Caroline and Apolline, their daughter) conceals Typhaine's naked body in the cellar with a plastic sack. The body would stay there for eight days, "until after Apolline's baptism," before being buried by Nicolas in a forest in the Charleroi area (Belgium) 

There again, as in the case of Marina, a plan is set in motion to make it look like an abduction. Typhaine's mother reports her daughter's disappearance on June 18th 2009. She states that she lost her in the street, in the centre of Maubeuge. The couple even go as far as giving a press conference at the end of June, launching an appeal to the whole of France to find Typhaine. 

"She doesn't behave like a mother who has just lost a child"

In spite of this staging, the police officers' doubts are rapidly focused on the couple. From Anne-Sophie Faucheur's first interview, "we sensed the lies in her claims. She wasn't behaving like a mother who had just lost a five-year-old child in the streets of Maubeuge," one of them reported in the witness box.

"Making salacious jokes about the presiding judge, masturbating in the evening on porn sites, going onto dating sites, dancing at a baptism, at a wedding, partying, having dinner parties, making wedding plans..Everything that was seen from the surveillance van was a long way, a very long way from the image of the devastated couple they had wanted to present at a press conference," another said. 

"Inconsistencies" leaped out at the investigators: Typhaine's absence from her little sister Apolline's baptism on June 13th, and then Nicolas Willot's telephone request to his father to provide a false witness statement. On September 22nd, a text message sent by Anne-Sophie Faucheur, after her interview by a presiding judge, in which she details for her partner Typhaine's last meal on the day of her alleged disappearance, designed to convince the investigators. 

The confessions and the discovery of the body

During a second time in custody, the mother cracks after 12 hours. She confesses to having seen Typhaine die but claims an accident. Her partner gives up in his turn. The theory of a punishment that went wrong takes shape up to a clear account of the events. 

The little girl, buried naked face down in the ground, is found on December 9th 2009, following the step-father's directions. 

The post-mortem on the body, which was in "an advanced state of decomposition,"did not lead to "an established cause of death."But the body retained evidence of physical violence," a Belgian doctor, François Beauthier, explained. And listing the horror: "recent traumatic injury, facture of the left orbital bone, sprain to the left wrist, torsion fracture to the left elbow, fracture of the pubic bone and bruising to the left buttock." "Recent fractures," that correspond to violent and necessarily painful strikes.

"Why did you kill her?" Typhaine's grandmother insists. "Sometimes, she had a hard look and I was convinced that she was giving me nasty looks (...) I never felt like I was her mother. There was no connection," Anne-Sophie Faucheur said. 

Catherine Fournier

francetvinfo 26/01/2013

 

Typhaine Taton: Mother and Step-father Guilty of Murder and Faking Disappearance (Part 1)

Anne-Sophie Faucheur and Nicolas Williot during a press conference on Typhaine's alleged disappearance on June 24th 2009 in Maubeuge (Nord Département)

At the Douai (Nord Département) Court of Assizes on January 25th 2013, Anne-Sophie Faucheur, aged 26, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, to serve a minimum term of 20 years, for the murder of her five-year-old daughter Typhaine in June 2009. Her partner, Nicolas Willot, aged 27, received the same sentence.

The verdict met with silence from the accused and members of Typhaine's father's family, who all wore white T shirts bearing an image of the little girl. 

The couple were also found guilty of making false statements to make people believe the child had disappeared. FranceTV unravels the threads of the child's six months of suffering.

Abducted while leaving school

Typhaine is born on April 6th 2004. Anne-Sophie Faucheur, already mother to Caroline aged one, is 18 years old. This second child arrives too quickly, too soon. "From the pregnancy on, it's difficult, I reject her somewhat,"  the young woman states from the witness box. The couple's relationship falls apart and they separate in December 2005. François Taton, the father, has custody of Typhaine and lives with his mother. Anne-Sophie Faucheur has Caroline, an informal agreement, made without going before a court. 

Apart from occasional visits, on her birthday and at Christmas, the relationship between the mother and her younger daughter is almost non-existent. But on January 22nd 2009, she comes to pick up her daughter from school, under the pretext that Typhaine's father has had an accident. She takes Typhaine to Aulnoye-Aymeries, where she is living with her new partner, Nicolas Willot. She justified herself before the court by saying that she missed Typhaine. 

François Taton begins the process of recovering his daughter. "I went to the Lille Central police station and they didn't take any action because there was no court order," for custody of the children, he explains at the hearing, according to reports by our colleagues at France 3. "I consulted two lawyers for getting Typhaine back. But that was going to take some time because it required making an application to a court bailiff to find her address. From the moment I had it, I went there every weekend, but they had moved house, and I never saw Typhaine again. On the day she took her, neither I nor any member of my family were able to say goodbye to her." 

Typhaine's father, François Taton, at the court in Douai on January 21st 2013

From "happy," child to "ghost," child

Typhaine's arrival at her mother's house does not go well. "I had idealised our reunion. It didn't occur to me that she might be disturbed. I think I expected so much,   I wasn't thinking straight. In February, I began to be very authoritarian, hard," the accused came out with in the witness box. "Why did you come for her?" Typhaine's grandmother threw at her. "She was happy, she had a home, a father, her aunts, her cousins, security, she was alive and she was happy with us."

Marie-José Taton, Typhaine's grandmother, at the court in Douai.

"The smacks quickly began to rain down," recounts her partner, "The situation deteriorated rapidly. Typhaine was a shy, withdrawn child, never happy, whatever we did. That attitude annoyed Anne-Sophie," he recalls, "She hit her when she got angry. Any excuse." He acknowledged that he himself began to beat the child in May.

Spankings, beaten with a belt, kicks and punches, cold shower. The ill-treatment increased, in many ways recalling the suffering endured by Marina, another victim of deadly abuse whose parents were sentenced in June to 30 years in prison. Like her, Typhaine was regularly locked in the cellar, in the dark, chained up. Like her, she was regularly deprived of food. Like her, she was taken out of school. No one saw her. 

 "Typhaine was a ghost child," a Lille police officer offered in the witness box. "I must have seen her in the garden two or three times between Easter and May. When I was told she was 5, I was astonished. She was so tiny," a neighbour, who was the last person to see the little girl alive on May 20th, testified. During his plea, the lawyer for the association, Enfance et partage drew attention to the responsibility of the education department in this affair: "The school's directors did very little for six months. It would take until June 11th for the schools inspection service to contact the public prosecutor. It would be too late."

(francetvinfo 25/01/2013)

Maddie Kidnap Photo Shock! Madeleine McCann in Brazil! - Updated 22/01/2013

James Murray penned this scoop for the Sunday Express.

DETECTIVES have been given a photo which appears to show Madeleine McCann with an abductor.
The Sunday Express was passed the picture independently but Scotland Yard appealed to us not to publish it while it continues sensitive global investigations into the missing girl.
Officers were happy for us to describe the potentially key evidence which shows a healthy fair-haired girl aged three or four in pink trousers, a green top and a blue hat.
The child is walking along a road, possibly near a port or airport as there are many people with suitcases in the area. It is sunny with a palm tree in the background.
The photograph was allegedly taken in Brazil in June 2007, a month after Madeleine, three, was snatched from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast.
The girl is holding the hand of a swarthy foreign-looking man aged about 50 with long dark hair and a beard. He is wearing cut-off jeans and a green T-shirt.
Nearby, another man in checked shorts and a black T-shirt is pulling a red suitcase. There is no sign of a woman and the child looks out of place with the older men.

Pamalam, of Gerry McCann's blogs was sent emails from a person in Brazil on January 11th and January 14th, seemingly from someone who thought that her web site was an official one for the McCanns. (Emails posted on Pam's site)

One of the emails included this photo:

And there they are! As described by intrepid journo, James Murray, who told Lord Leveson that he always researches his story, the girl is holding the hand of a 'swarthy,' man who is wearing cut-off jeans and a green T-shirt. Check!

And the little girl in the image, a healthy (how can he tell?) fair-haired girl aged three or four in pink trousers, a green top and a blue hat. Yes, she's there! Check! 

Nearby, another man in checked shorts and a black T-shirt is pulling a red suitcase. Yes, three out of three! There he is! I do believe we have the right photo! This is the one James Murray must be referring to, the one he cannot publish, which I'm sure he did some research on before the 'Shock,' story was plastered BIG on the Sunday Express front page! 

But hey! Lookie lookie! I have another copy of this photo. No, nobody sent it to me, either intentionally or by mistake. 

It's not as clear, but it does appear to be the same scene with the same people. Yes, child dressed as above, described by Mr Murray. Two men? Check! 

Will someone please tell James Murray that Ibiza is not in Brazil?! Mr Murray, Ibiza is in Spain, that land mass just below France on your map of Europe! Image number 2 above is from a BBC news article of Saturday 30th June 2007 when Spanish police evacuated Ibiza's airport after a Basque newspaper received an anonymous bomb threat.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “An image has been passed to us and it is being assessed.”

Save time and money, just look on the BBC's web site! 

The Yard may send the picture to FBI imaging experts in America for an opinion.

Well, if they do, I do hope they report the findings of the FBI's experts. I'm sure they won't ask me for my opinion, but it sure does look like that photo was taken in Ibiza. Ibiza de Janeiro the next holiday hot-spot?

Hope this helps, James, though I'm sure you've been alerted to the news as told by thousands of highly amusing messages on Twitter! 

Oh dear! 

UPDATE:

Joana Morais has translated the emails from Brazil, which were received by Pamalam. Joana notes that the Portuguese is poorly constructed grammatically, with several spelling errors. She also indicates that the passport number given by the sender would indicate that he is from the Czech Republic.

Pamalam has posted Joana's translations here 

Thank you Joana and Pamalam. 

Breaking Down The Wall of Silence: to join the waiting child

I began to write this blog post some time ago. I had decided that while talking about breaking down the wall of silence for all those adults who are now coming forward and naming their abusers as well-known and trusted people in the media, the time had come to break down my own wall of silence and describe the abuse I suffered as a child. That's when I truly realised how hard it must have been for those people to speak out, to finally break down those walls and name the abuse, name the abusers because this blog post has been sitting here as a draft for weeks, during which I struggled with the decision about leaving my wall in place or talking about it. I shall talk about it later...!

Some years ago, my very dear friend Frances Ommanney gave me a book to read, "Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence: To Join the Waiting Child," by Alice Miller. In this book, Miller explores the suffering of early childhood and writes that the first stage in the healing process is to feel the truth of our experience. The truth of a child's experience of abuse is very often denied and so children learn not to talk about it. Physical abuse is much easier for the child to report and for adults to believe. Here are the bruises. This is what was done to me. Emotional and sexual abuse are much harder for a child to show and adults to believe: what can a child show you to prove emotional abuse? No bruises, but often children whose behaviour is disruptive are victims of emotional and/or sexual abuse. We just need to look for and listen for the clues those children are giving us. It's easy for those children just to be labelled as trouble-makers. Easy because we then don't need to do anything other than impose sanctions: school exclusions rather than patience, time and expensive therapeutic intervention. Or, we can remove them to 'a place of safety,' in the 'care of the local authority,' where they can be reminded constantly that they are there because they have proven difficult for schools and social workers to deal with. They're just bad! Job done! Move on! 

Sexual abuse in particular often hides behind a wall of silence: the child who remains silent, often because threatened by the abusing adult; the adult who chooses to discount the child's experience. And so, within the adult who was an abused child, I believe there is that child waiting for the pain to be acknowledged and for just one person to say, "I believe you and that shouldn't have happened to you." That child is still there, waiting to be heard. 

The waiting child needs to feel the truth of her or his experience. And for that to happen, the child's pain needs to be acknowledged and the abuser(s) named. The wall of silence must be broken down. 

Sexual abuse of children is, of course, not a new phenomenon, but it's only in the past twenty years or so that we have been using the word 'paedophile,' and facing the reality of just how prevalent is the abuse. Does every family have its very own paedophile among its ranks? Our family did! Of course, when I was a child, we didn't use the word 'paedophile.' We had 'kiddie fiddlers,' and 'dirty old men.' My uncle Henry (real name for the b*stard!) was our very own 'kiddie fiddler.' He zoomed in on us female cousins when we began to look pubescent with developing boobs. If we were unlucky enough to have to sit in the back of a car with him, the hand would go over the shoulder and he would try to get under the clothing to the breasts. At a New Year's Eve party, my older sister was told to go with Henry to fetch something from a neighbour's house. She didn't want to go, but didn't want to have to explain why she was reluctant. She came back a few minutes later, crying because Henry had dragged her into an entry and tried to remove her clothing. Nobody believed her. Uncle Henry (the b*stard!) was a respected member of the family and my sister was held to be a liar. It was never spoken of again, but I reckon most of my family knew what Henry was like, but chose to ignore it. Years later, when Henry retired from his job in the Glasgow shipyards, he took up a job as a 'lollipop man.' A bleedin' 'lollipop man,' guiding children safely across busy roads. Nobody said anything: the wall of silence remained intact. 

Maybe our family is unusual. Or maybe not. Speaking some years ago to a woman called Liz, who had interviewed thousands of women about their experience of childhood sexual abuse, I am inclined to believe, based on findings she described to me, that most of us adults either experienced sexual abuse personally or know of someone within the family or close circle of associates who had. 

Paedophiles are in the news big time at the moment. Did we really have to wait until Jimmy Savile was dead for there to be public disclosure about the hundreds of accusations against him? Did people at the BBC really just ignore it because in those days it was just accepted that that was to be expected of people like Savile? For those children and young people who were abused by him, it's tragic. Who would they tell when there were incidents such as the one where a BBC producer walked in on Savile with a young girl on his lap and she closed the door and did nothing?

The time has come to break down those walls of silence and listen to those people who were abused.  

In 1997, the conclusion of the inquiry into allegations of abuse at children's homes in North Wales, chaired by Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, was that the allegations against named social workers and prominent public figures were fantasy. Children's Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler has said there is a need for a fresh inquiry But he says the Waterhouse Inquiry report, which looked into the allegations and came out in 2000, uncovered just a fraction of the abuse. So, how much more is there? How many children were abused in those homes that were supposed to be 'a place of safety.'? How many children were taken from their families 'for their own good' and thrown into a pit of evil, just captive subjects in what must have been like sweet shops for vile paedophiles? 

And if this happened in children's homes in North Wales, where else did it happen? Surely North Wales cannot be an exception? I know that in one area, which I shouldn't name, several children's homes were closed amid allegations of institutionalised abuse. Perhaps that area will come into focus now that the curtain is being raised on the true extent of the hidden abuse. 

The abuse that I suffered is probably nothing compared to what all those children suffered in so-called 'care,' but who can quantify suffering? Actually, I never saw myself as a victim, probably because, although there were no adults to believe us, all of us kids talked about it and tried to protect each other and we were not trapped within a system of care and protection. We had choices that children in care never had and I would say don't have. But, yes, who can quantify suffering? Well, a prominent Tory can. His suffering, even though he was never named by that BBC programme, is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

What is the value placed on the ruined lives of those adult survivors of childhood abuse while supposedly in 'the care of the local authority.'? Seemingly not a great deal when certain aspects of the media are all too willing to label people like Steve Messham as some kind of fantasist because of a case of mistaken identity of one of his abusers while he was in care. It almost seems like while the media can focus on this one case of mistaken identity and give front page news to a man who was wrongly named as an abuser and the BBC can publicly flog itself, certain people can breathe a sigh of relief now that the attention has shifted from the true extent of sexual abuse. 

Almost daily, there is news of some other high profile person being arrested in connection with 'historic abuse.' And the obvious question is - how deep and how high does this all go into the realms of people in public life? People in the entertainment business? Politicians? Do perverts somehow manage to get themselves into positions of power through their own wiles/skills/talents/influence or does power corrupt in ways the rest of us would never imagine? 

Let's name the abusers. And let's also hear those people who were abused. Let's now, once and for all, help those children within to be heard. Those walls of silence must be broken down and we must join those children who have been waiting for a very long time for someone to say, "That shouldn't have happened to you." 

Two Banking Scandals - Three Tragic Events

The Aurora Shooting

On Friday, July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred in a Century Movie Theatre in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the film "The Dark Knight Rises," during which a lone gunman is alleged (alleged because there are witness statements that report more than one shooter) to have killed 12 people and injured 58. The only suspect is James Eagan Holmes, who was arrested outside the cinema shortly after the shooting. 

Of interest here is that James Holmes' father, Robert Holmes was due to testify before a US Senate Panel on the Libor banking scandal.

"Most important to note about James Holmes, however, this report says, is that his father, Robert Holmes, was said to have been scheduled to testify within the next few weeks before a US Senate panel on the largest bank fraud scandal in world history that is currently unfolding and threatens to destabilize and destroy the Western banking system. Robert Holmes, whose “blueblood” family links go back to the Mayflower, is known throughout the global banking community as being the creator of one of the most sophisticated computer algorithms ever developed and is credited with developing predictive models for financial services; credit and fraud risk models, first and third party application fraud models and internet/online banking fraud models."
Godlike Productions

Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut

On the morning of Friday December 4th, a lone gunman, (once again initial witness reports of more than one shooter) alleged to have been a 20 year-old man named Adam Lanza, armed with two pistols and a rifle, shot and killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The guns belonged to Lanza's mother, whom he is reported to have shot and killed before busting his way into the school and embarking on his deadly rampage in which the children were shot together with teachers who tried to protect them. Adam Lanza then shot himself.

As a mother I recall walking up the road to my children's school and waving to them at the gate. It's what parents all over the world do and we assume that once inside the gate, under the supervision of school staff, our children are safe. We collect our children, safely, at the end of the school day. That's what's supposed to happen: we stand at the gate with other parents, looking out for our own little ones running towards us and we all go home. For 20 families of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, an ordinary day when they left their children at the school gate became a day when their children would not be running to meet them, they would not be going home. I can only imagine, as a mother and a grandmother, what that must be like: the individual and collective loss and grief is almost beyond what most of us can imagine. Somewhere in my consciousness as I go about my day, there is a lingering sadness for those children and their families.

Embedded in that sadness is a little voice that says: hang on, Adam Lanza's father is reported to have been due to testify before the US Senate Panel on the Libor banking scandal. What kind of coincidence is that? Two young men go on a shooting rampage, killing lots of innocent people, and both their fathers were due to testify about the Libor banking scandal?

Libor scandal grows as the fathers of two mass murderers were to testify

Both fathers of the shooters were allegedly expected to testify in the Libor scandal that rocked the banking world in June.
The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial. The father of Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO. Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested.

And

For similar events on the magnitude of both Aurora and Newtown to hold a connection to one of the greatest financial scandals in the history of finance is astronomically slim in regards to coincidence.
...While the coming days will bring forth more pertinent information on the motives, access, and failures of both community and family to diagnose the events leading up to Adam Lanza's killing spree, one thing is becoming disturbingly clear. The connections between the Aurora massacre, and the one that took place in Newtown on Friday, may have far more ramifications to the people involved in the Libor scandal than anyone could imagine.

The Examiner

So, there we have it. Two mass shootings with an apparent link to the Libor banking scandal, the fathers of the two killers both reported as having been due to testify on the scandal. The chances of this happening, if true, would appear to be rather slim. 

Then we have another tragic murder case that appears to have a link to a banking scandal.

The Krim family

On October 25th, Marina Krim returned to her Upper West Side apartment in New York to find her children, Leo aged 2 and Lucia aged 6, dead in a bathtub. She then found the children's nanny, Yoselyn Ortega stabbing herself in the neck. The nanny has been charged with the murder of the children.

Kevin Krim, the children's father, is a senior vice president for CNBC Digital. The Krim children were murdered one day after CNBC reported on a $43 trillion banker lawsuit.

 October 25, 2012 – CNBC Publishes article from PR Newswire Press Release: Major Banks, Governmental Officials and Their Comrade Capitalists Targets of Spire Law Group, LLP’s Racketeering and Money Laundering Lawsuit Seeking Return of $43 Trillion to the United States Treasury
October 26, 2012 – CNN Reports that the two children of Kevin Krim, a senior vice president for CNBC Digital and former Yahoo executive were murdered.

Krim’s children: Leo, who had recently celebrated his second birthday with “Pinkalicious-inspired cupcakes;” and his 6-year-old sister, Lucia, who had performed “beautifully in her ballet recital” in May.
Both children had been repeatedly stabbed, police said.
October 27, 2012 – CNBC removed article from their website and archives
Godlike Productions

is this another coincidence? Is it just coincidental that CNBC carried a report about a $43 trillion banking fraud and the following day two children of a CNBC Vice President were murdered? And why then did CNBC remove the report from its pages? All just coincidence?

My father had a little song he would sing at times like this: "And the band played believe it if you like. Ting ting!" 

I'm afraid I don't know what to believe. The thought that planned and co-ordinated evil might exist in my world fills me with horror. I'm sure this is the same for most ordinary people, in ordinary jobs, just living in an ordinary world where these things do not happen. 

Yet, they do happen to ordinary people. Many miles away from my little town, in a small town in the USA, 20 families have lost a child to a gunman. And of course, we now have the expected calls for tightening of gun control in the US. I'm truly grateful that we in the UK do not have this problem. I know a man who has a collection of antique guns (all working) which he keeps in a locked cabinet. He has to re-apply on a regular basis for his licence to hold those guns and the requirements he must meet are very strict. Apart from that, the thought that any of my neighbours might possibly have a handgun in a bedside drawer would horrify me. 

The right to keep and bear arms and form well-regulated citizen militias is enshrined within the Constitution of the United States of America and I cannot see that right being surrendered willingly by a great many of the people of that nation for whom the right to carry is almost God-given. 

I have seen comments today that an attempt to take guns from the citizens of the USA will result in civil war. That may sound extreme, but not beyond the realms of possibility, in my opinion. Since the Sandy Hook massacre, gun sales have been booming. 

I will end here quoting a few 'tweets,' from the American broadcaster, Max Keiser.

Max Keiser ‏@maxkeiser

I don't think these are random shootings as such, I think America just entered a new civil war: the banksters stole it all, now it's payback

Max Keiser ‏@maxkeiser

US can't change pro-massacre gun laws the same way they can't change pro-bankster finance laws.

Max Keiser ‏@maxkeiser

Coroner: Conn. gunman shot mom multiple times in head; shooter killed self with shot to head. The apple pie and American flag were untouched

And finally

Max Keiser ‏@maxkeiser

HSBC's money laundering and terror financing killed more kids than all 7 mass shootings in America this year