Madeleine McCann

gozunda · 14-11-2018 11:44PM

Something Else

Whatever the truth of the McCann case - it has been a virtual graveyard for reputations and dead ends for anyone who became involved in the investigation especially those employed by the mccanns themselves ...

The McCanns hired four different firms of private eyes over four years before Op Grange was launched in May 2011 in the UK

"Firstly they employed Control Risks Group in May 2007. Allegedly paid for at the expense of an anonymous donor whose identity has never been revealed - the group engaged a private jet and hired a Moroccan tourist guide to accompany them to the mountain village where they believed the missing girl might be. She was not there. This local guide later claimed was to be paid a 'million pounds' The group managed to further alienate the investigation.

They hired Spaniards Metodo 3 in October 2007 but sacked them when M3 boss Francisco boasted: “Madeleine will be home by Christmas."

Next came private investigators Oakley International, an A-team of former British special forces soldiers and US security agents run by Brit Kevin Halligen, from March to September 2008. But they were ditched when Halligen was later exposed as a conman. He is alleged to have fleeced the Madeleine Fund out of £150,000 with bogus invoices and inflated expenses.

A fourth team helping out after Portuguese police shelved their investigation in summer 2008 were Alpha Investigations run by ex-RUC officer David Edgar and former Merseyside detective Arthur Cowley. But they stepped down after nearly three years when the Met Police came on board."

As for the official investigation - not forgetting Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, who had coordinated the investigation from May to October 2007. Amaral was removed from the case in October 2007 after telling a Portuguese newspaper that the British police were pursuing leads helpful only to the McCanns

Just one day after Madeleine's disappearance, Amaral himself was made arguido involving a case where a number of members of the police were involved in an alleged forced confession in a seperate missing child case.

As a superior officer - Amaral was accused of having being involved in a covered up. Those involved directly were eventually acquitted.

Amaral resigned from the police force in June 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and that, to cover it up, the McCanns had faked an abduction...

limnam · 14-11-2018 11:52PM

Deusexmachina wrote: »

What did the dogs actually prove?

I didn't claim they proved anything.

What's that got to do with the point I made?

gozunda · 15-11-2018 12:02AM

Something Else

Deusexmachina wrote: »

No - it's simple. I believe the parents are not culpable based not on some blindspot I have for them but on the cold hard facts. Please tell me any scenario which explains how the parents killed the child (by accident or design) and managed to successfully bury the body under the glare of the media, the police, their friends etc. And then carry on the most elaborate hoax in the history of the world.Its simply ridiculous. And yet it goes on....

"Show me the proof"!

I see very few if any absolute declarations that "the parents killed the child (by accident or design) and managed to successfully bury the body under the glare of the media"

That is your personal mantra and yet you yourself can present no viable scenario "with proof" that exonerates any of the original arguidos from any alleged involvement.

This issue here arises primarily from the refusal or reluctance of various players to engage fully with the investigation of the crime with the result that unfortunately there are no absolute and definitive scenarios which can be proved one way or the other.

What remains is a lot of questions which have not been answered and evidence which has been gathered but which has raised further questions which in turn also remain unanswered.

Hence we are discussing the case as opposed to the parents 'feelings' / ignoring the real issue which is the disappearance of a child under very suspicious circumstances. Even the Portuguese judiciary have declared as recently as 2017 that the archiving of the criminal case did not in fact equate to the McCanns being cleared of criminal responsibility.

That is a cold hard fact.

Deusexmachina · 15-11-2018 09:11AM

gozunda wrote: »

"Show me the proof"!

I see very few if any absolute declarations that "the parents killed the child (by accident or design) and managed to successfully bury the body under the glare of the media"

That is your personal mantra and yet you yourself can present no viable scenario "with proof" that exonerates any of the original arguidos from any alleged involvement.

This issue here arises primarily from the refusal and reluctance of various players to engage fully with the investigation of the crime with the result that unfortunately there are no absolute and definitive scenarios which can be proved one way or the other.

What remains is a lot of questions which have not been answered and evidence which has been gathered but which has raised further questions which in turn also remain unanswered.

Hence we are discussing the case as opposed to the parents 'feelings' / ignoring the real issue which is the disappearance of a child under very suspicious circumstances. Even the Portuguese judiciary have declared as recently as 2017 that the archiving of the criminal case did not in fact equate to the McCanns being cleared of criminal responsibility.

That is a cold hard fact.

'That is your personal mantra' - how about playing the man, not the ball?

Nobody is ignoring the 'real issue'.

'Unanswered questions' there may be - but they lead nowhere.

They are unanswered because of a bungled and ludicrous investigation by the Portuguese authorities who were embarrassed by their incompetence being exposed and started to increasingly clutch at straws - leading to a mess of accusation and counter accusation tinged with xenophobia.
I wouldn't give these guys my name and address, never mind allow them to twist and turn my every word to fit with their ridiculous narrative.

It comes down to this - a child is left unattended at night time in an apartment with open access and out of sight from the parents. The child goes missing and cannot be found anywhere.

1. Someone abducted the child
2. The parents killed the child either by accident or design and then managed to hide all the evidence of this killing (including the body) in a way that nobody can adequately explain. They have continued to try to keep the case open and have constantly lobbied and urged for continued investigation year after year despite being guilty.
3. Something else happened.

Scenario 1 or 3 seem the most likely. Scenario 2 simply does not fit the facts and timelines that we know are true and are not disputed.

gozunda · 15-11-2018 10:32AM

Something Else

Deusexmachina wrote: »

'That is your personal mantra' - how about playing the man, not the ball?
Nobody is ignoring the 'real issue'.
'Unanswered questions' there may be - but they lead nowhere.
They are unanswered because of a bungled and ludicrous investigation by the Portuguese authorities who were embarrassed by their incompetence being exposed and started to increasingly clutch at straws - leading to a mess of accusation and counter accusation tinged with xenophobia.
I wouldn't give these guys my name and address, never mind allow them to twist and turn my every word to fit with their ridiculous narrative. It comes down to this - a child is left unattended at night time in an apartment with open access and out of sight from the parents. The child goes missing and cannot be found anywhere.
1. Someone abducted the child
2. The parents killed the child either by accident or design and then managed to hide all the evidence of this killing (including the body) in a way that nobody can adequately explain. They have continued to try to keep the case open and have constantly lobbied and urged for continued investigation year after year despite being guilty.
3. Something else happened.
Scenario 1 or 3 seem the most likely. Scenario 2 simply does not fit the facts and timelines that we know are true and are not disputed.

Its remains a mantra - you've have repeated ad nauseum despite few if any posters making any such concrete suggestions.

Yes three children were left unattended and in an insecure building - out of sight of the parents and their friends.

As to the primary investigation - it needs to be remembered that the family and others were either reluctant or refused to fully engage with the official investigation.

On top of that quite incredible behaviour - the family immediatly brought in bungling idiot after bungling idiot in the form of private investigators mountebanks and charlatans - including one famous individual who claimed he could find the child using hair from her hairbrush and satellite imagery! You really couldn't make it up.

Whether from pure stupidity or bad advice - the family themselves managed to destroy some of the best opportunities for discovering what happened. From the belated contacting of the police on the night in question and the trashing of the crime scene by themselves and their friends before the police could even arrive. It became a farce alright- mainly of their own making imo.

You criticise the Portuguese investigators and yet where they covered all potential avenues such as checking locations e.g. the local church etc you decry them as crazy and no - it's not possible to have it both ways.

As for the scenarios you've listed.

Abduction - no evidence has ever been discovered to support this theory and in your words "in a way that nobody can be adequately explained"

Death of the child - the facts are that a child disappeared and has never been seen since. There is a range of circumstantial evidence to point to this being a likley outcome. However reluctance / refusal by various parties to fully engage with the primary investigation has unfortunately left too many questions unanswered for this now to be proved one way or another

Some other explanation - there have been a lot of crazy theories but again little in the way of any indication that any of these are realistic

The likleyhood is that at this remove - what actually happened may never come to light

Boom_Bap · 15-11-2018 10:38AM

She wandered out herself, something happened (car accident/paedo)

Deusexmachina wrote: »

Scenario 1 or 3 seem the most likely. Scenario 2 simply does not fit the facts and timelines that we know are true and are not disputed.

Scenario 2 still cannot be dismissed though. Like you I really hope that it's not the scenario, but there is no concrete evidence to say that they weren't involved.

There are things that make me suspicious:
1) The police I think within 24 hours where treating the mother as a suspect. No matter how bumbling the police are thought to be, they wouldn't go there without reason.

2) As this case is so vague, was there some sort of cover up? As we are dealing with smart people here, did they do such a good job of covering their trails that this is why we are in this position of not knowing.

3) I've defended their actions in the days/weeks/months after as 'this is just how these particular people are dealing with the situation'. Nobody knows how they would react to what happened.
But, are they trying to act 'normal' in front of the press and cameras and coming across as awkward due to this, are they just awkward people, or are they being meticulous about what they are saying or doing to keep their story going.

These things all lead me to not rule out your second scenario as much as I would love to be able to.

iamwhoiam · 15-11-2018 11:03AM

She wandered out herself, something happened (car accident/paedo)

None of us can rule any scenario out . There is no evidence whatsoever for any scenario , and no evidence to rule any out either
All we know is Madeleine is gone since May 3rd 2017 and no one yet has any evidence that led to being any closer to finding her since .
Major question marks hang over this case , not least about the odd behavour of her parents and the strange assumption within minutes that someone had taken Madeleine .
Personally my gut says they didn't harm her but I certainly have no reason to completely rule them out . Then the " perfect storm " scenario is not a myth and strange things happen and are never discovered due to the perfect storm

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 11:46AM

gozunda wrote: »

Wrong. Dog evidence as detailed is a valuable search-tool, to be used alongside other, more scientific techniques and evidence gathering. And that is exactly what it was used for in the Madeleine McCann investigation. The work of cadaver and blood dogs is not submitted as evidence,

Sniffer dogs Eddie and Keela had been brought to Praia da Luz in July 2007 at the request of Mark Harrison, a British investigator and national adviser to UK police, who specialises in searching for people missing, abducted or murdered.

It's hillarious watching various deniers of this methodology getting their knickers in an absolute twist about the this tbh.

I don't think there is anything hilarious about any aspect of this at all, and I think that's a bit of a twisted way of winding people up.

Steve F · 15-11-2018 11:57AM

It's the repeated smirking of Gerry during interviews that unsettles me
Duping delight anyone?

OrangeBadger · 15-11-2018 11:58AM

1000

weldoninhio · 15-11-2018 11:58AM

Something Else

I've always found it strange that the priest that gave the McCanns the keys to the church so that they could pray whenever they needed to has stated that he "was deceived" by them, but that he would not break the sanctity of confession.

gozunda · 15-11-2018 12:16PM

Something Else

Babooshka wrote: »

I don't think there is anything hilarious about any aspect of this at all, and I think that's a bit of a twisted way of winding people up.

It's a comment about that general discussion which can be found all over the internet and yes a lot what has been published is both ridiculous and hillarious as in the rubbishing of all forensic dog investigations and nothing to do with 'winding' anyone up ...

Misinterpret all you like - you doesn't change what was written

cnocbui · 15-11-2018 12:18PM

She wandered out herself, something happened (car accident/paedo)

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Writing off involvement of the parents because "there's no way any mother /parent could do that to their child" isn't emotional bias though?

Can you point to anywhere I have said anything along the lines of that straw woman you invented?

I haven't a clue as to what happened to Madeline. The McCann's may have been involved but there is no evidence of that. I'm only interested in facts, not salacious witch hunts by people who think they can point the bone without evidence or that their 'intuition' and 'feelings' are a good substitute for evidence. Read up on Lindy Chamberlain. Her case is the all-time classic of how armchair witch-hunters who think the guilt or innocence of a person can be derived from observation of how they perceive a person should behave, or come across, are complete idiots.

Emotion should play no part in looking for or analyzing facts.

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 12:23PM

gozunda wrote: »

It's a comment about that general discussion which can be found all over the internet and yes a lot what has been published is both ridiculous and hillarious as in the rubbishing of all forensic dog investigations and nothing to do with 'winding' anyone up ...

Discussion that can be found all over the internet is full of people spreading their twisted ruminations and is indeed started to wind people up. You seem to be one of the winder uppers, and the ones who get wound up. it's not a game, or simply a discussion to bat back and forth like a tennis match, it's a little girl who disappeared forever, you and many like you seem to just be interested in winning wars of words.

Steve F · 15-11-2018 12:49PM

Why can't we just stick to discussing the case?
I certainly don't want this locked because posters get into arguments with each other

gozunda · 15-11-2018 01:10PM

Something Else

Babooshka wrote: »

Discussion that can be found all over the internet is full of people spreading their twisted ruminations and is indeed started to wind people up. You seem to be one of the winder uppers, and the ones who get wound up. it's not a game, or simply a discussion to bat back and forth like a tennis match, it's a little girl who disappeared forever, you and many like you seem to just be interested in winning wars of words.

Heres a a suggestion ...
How about actually contributing to the discussion instead of engaging in personal type attacks?

Tbh I don't realy give a care if you agree with what any one has written or not - but if for some reason you can't deal with a discussion or exercising a modicum of tolerance of opposing views of other posters in this thread, (hint: you dont have to agree with those views btw) then it may be that a public forum may not be the best fit.

Thanks all the same - you are now added to the ignore list

Steve F · 15-11-2018 01:52PM

Steve F wrote: »

Opinions on this clip please
a couple of key points are Gerry's reaction at 4 seconds in and the look he gives her at 1:06???
Again I feel something is "off"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaoVqWaOQI

In the interest of getting this back on track anyone care to address this?

15-11-2018 02:01PM

Something Else

The McCanns were always just strange and suspicious.

Neglecting their kids
"They've taken her"
Not taking part in the search
Having a game of tennis less than 48 hours later
Lying to their families about what happened
Refusing to take part in reconstruction
Conflicting statements
Deleted texts between Kate and Gerry
Talking about Madeleine's genitals
Washing the cuddle cat
Releasing the photo as a great marketing ploy when they were advised not to.

Whether you trust the dogs or not, they only signalled in 5a and the car. None of the other apartments or cars.

Since there was no evidence to convict, there hasn't been a single worthwhile lead.

Nothing can be proved in this case, but you certainly can't rule the parents out. In fact, the evidence certainly points their way.

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 02:10PM

Steve F wrote: »

In the interest of getting this back on track anyone care to address this?

What do you mean address it? It's two people with cameras in front of them when their child has just gone missing, trying to keep it together, I don't really see anything else, plenty could be read into it though.

This is why people get annoyed about all of this speculation, about "body language" - there's no one uniform way to act in a crisis.

gozunda · 15-11-2018 02:31PM

Something Else

Steve F wrote: »

In the interest of getting this back on track anyone care to address this?

Cliff Lansley who works in the areas of emotional intelligence and truth and deception detection is very insightful regarding these types of behaviour.

He gave a very good account of the Helen Bailey murder (on YouTube) as a comparison

Some detail here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4902804/Expert-reveals-Helen-Bailey-s-killer-hid-guilt.html

There were some reports that the UK police had worked with the Portuguese police in the early stage of the investigation in relation to the McCanns and other parties body language during questioning.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brit-police-watch-and-listen-next-1641182

Steve F · 15-11-2018 02:38PM

Babooshka wrote: »

What do you mean address it? It's two people with cameras in front of them when their child has just gone missing, trying to keep it together, I don't really see anything else, plenty could be read into it though.

This is why people get annoyed about all of this speculation, about "body language" - there's no one uniform way to act in a crisis.

Thanks for answering
I was particularly struck by Gerrys reaction at 4 seconds and was interested to see what other people reading this discussion thought

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 02:40PM

Steve F wrote: »

Thanks for answering
I was particularly struck by Gerrys reaction at 4 seconds and was interested to see what other people reading this discussion thought

Sure...I get that. But let's face it, it could have been a camera flashing in his face that made him wince or he could be remembering he left his phone somewhere. I don't hold much sway with "body language" experts. It's very easy to analyse retrospectively though with the benefit of evidence (in other cases I mean where people were proved guilty).

Steve F · 15-11-2018 02:44PM

Babooshka wrote: »

Sure...I get that. But let's face it, it could have been a camera flashing in his face that made him wince or he could be remembering he left his phone somewhere. I don't hold much sway with "body language" experts. It's very easy to analyse retrospectively though with the benefit of evidence (in other cases I mean where people were proved guilty).

AFAIK there were no other cameras,or media present when this was filmed
There is a VERY CLEAR reaction to "something" at 4 seconds.I'm just struggling to identify why he reacted that way Babooska

iamwhoiam · 15-11-2018 02:54PM

She wandered out herself, something happened (car accident/paedo)

Steve F wrote: »

AFAIK there were no other cameras,or media present when this was filmed
There is a VERY CLEAR reaction to "something" at 4 seconds.I'm just struggling to identify why he reacted that way Babooska

I find a lot of the Mc Canns actions , decision and reactions very odd . But am also wondering if they are just very odd people ? The didn't act like anyone I know and made decisions like nobody I know would but again I wonder were they just not at all like people I know or worked with .
I worked with many many medical people in my day . Many have an invisible barrier and a shield that they use in emergency or difficult situations
But to a man they also drop that shield and loose the barrier defence when it comes to their own children
Maybe the Mc Canns are an exception to that rule ?

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 02:56PM

Steve F wrote: »

AFAIK there were no other cameras,or media present when this was filmed
There is a VERY CLEAR reaction to "something" at 4 seconds.I'm just struggling to identify why he reacted that way Babooska

You know that there were no papparazi in there taking photos? Cos to me that looks like he's dazed, plus he could be on something for his nerves and he may not have slept in days, or he could be hiding something who knows. All I know is speculating and especially speculating on the side of darkness will still not get you answers.

Steve F · 15-11-2018 02:57PM

iamwhoiam wrote: »

I find a lot of the Mc Canns actions , decision and reactions very odd . But am also wondering if they are just very odd people ? The didn't act like anyone I know and made decisions like nobody I know would but again I wonder were they just not at all like people I know or worked with .
I worked with many many medical people in my day . Many have an invisible barrier and a shield that they use in emergency or difficult situations
But to a man they also drop that shield and loose the barrier defence when it comes to their own children
Maybe the Mc Canns are an exception to that rule ?

His reaction is almost like "Oh no!! Why did Kate say that"

Babooshka · 15-11-2018 02:57PM

Steve F wrote: »

His reaction is almost like "Oh no!! Why did Kate say that"

To you, his reaction is almost etc..

Steve F · 15-11-2018 02:59PM

Babooshka wrote: »

To you, his reaction is almost etc..

Yes...I find it puzzling

retro:electro · 15-11-2018 03:08PM

She wandered out herself, something happened (car accident/paedo)

I see absolutely nothing worth commenting on in that video. Jaysus talk about reaching.

Steve F · 15-11-2018 03:17PM

retro:electro wrote: »

I see absolutely nothing worth commenting on in that video. Jaysus talk about reaching.

That's OK...I wanted to get others reactions to it Thanks

Madeleine McCann

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