Amaral and the dogs

[Brietta]

My take is that Officer X was just one person giving evidence to an inquiry. He also said the excavations were not justified 3.10.17. His opinions do not seem to have been unequivocally upheld by the inquiries conclusions.  If one is going to use an official inquiry as the basis for an argument then one would have thought the conclusions of that inquiry would be the better base rather than selective choices from witness opinions.

snip>>>>
Conclusion
3.10.18
There are two significant issues in relation to the search of Haut de la Garenne. Firstly, whether the search was justified and secondly, whether CO POWER supervised the decision-making process, given the significance of the search and what it implied about Operation Rectangle.
3.1019
Operation Haven concludes that the decision to dig at Haut de la Garenne was questionable. DCO HARPER was not trained to an acceptable level and, in the case of CO POWER, we note his own admission that he had no current training ‘in the oversight of such investigations’.
Nevertheless, this Inquiry can conceive why, in all circumstances, it may have been considered reasonable to do so. We do not raise formal criticism of DCO HARPER or CO POWER for their decision to do so. We do point out however, that the decision to search having been made, the risks in terms of public and media speculation about police activity, if reported, should have been predicted and carefully planned for. <<<<< snip

I suppose one could also point out that this particular "fiasco" did wind up with a result at a cost of only £7MM.

"If one is going to use an official inquiry as the basis for an argument then one would have thought the conclusions of that inquiry would be the better base rather than selective choices from witness opinions."


Perhaps that is an admonition which should be borne in mind when considering the Attorney General's Report in Madeleine McCann's case.
Unfortunately sceptics tend to get stuck either at the beginning or the middle perhaps because the conclusions do not fit theirs or Mr Amaral's or their unfounded belief in the capabilities of the dogs.

Unqualified reliance on what they had been told the dogs' would bring to the case in Praia da Luz and Haute de la Garenne had an undue influence on the conduct of both cases by the lead investigators.

Both cases were unqualified disasters and the dogs, through no fault of theirs, were the catalyst for that.

[ferryman]

Eddie goes in to find the scent he is trained to find. He doesn't go in first to sniff between every floor tile for any trace of blood. That is Keela's job. The dogs have to sniff really close to detect such minute blood. That's why the clothes have to be screened separately and Keela goes first to rule out blood. If Eddie alerts next it suggest cadaver scent.

Did you ever read the link (I believe Anna?) produced a while back of all the people besides Paul Anthony Gordon (who cut himself shaving and paced the whole apartment trying to stem the flow of blood for 45 minutes) to bleed in apartment 5a?

And the only inspection where Keela went first was in the gym.

The mantra goes that, generally, Eddie is the first to be deployed, then Keela afterwards ....

Actually, I'm not convinced Keela and Eddie were deployed on the same case before PdL ....

[Mr Gray]

Grime was the professional dog trainer and handler and no doubt he directed the search in the same way he directed all his searches. He has no need to explain his methods to you or anyone else. His dogs got results.

The dogs found nothing of interest ... That isn't their fault there was nothing to find

[Alice Purjorick]

"If one is going to use an official inquiry as the basis for an argument then one would have thought the conclusions of that inquiry would be the better base rather than selective choices from witness opinions."


Perhaps that is an admonition which should be borne in mind when considering the Attorney General's Report in Madeleine McCann's case.
Unfortunately sceptics tend to get stuck either at the beginning or the middle perhaps because the conclusions do not fit theirs or Mr Amaral's or their unfounded belief in the capabilities of the dogs.

Unqualified reliance on what they had been told the dogs' would bring to the case in Praia da Luz and Haute de la Garenne had an undue influence on the conduct of both cases by the lead investigators.

Both cases were unqualified disasters and the dogs, through no fault of theirs, were the catalyst for that.

1.Oh but I agree. Perhaps you will be kind enough to post a link to it so we can all see what it said rather than what posters say it said. Whatever it said it should be borne in mind it remains the ruling document in the case until superseded by another Portuguese judicial document.
2. In the case of Haute de la Garenne the official inquiry by Wiltshire Police would appear not to support your opinion.

[stephen25000]

The dogs found nothing of interest ... That isn't their fault there was nothing to find

 &%&£(+ &%&£(+ &%&£(+

The dogs responded to the presence of certain compounds.

The samples taken were inconclusive as regards forensics.

It does not mean there was nothing to find.

Now who was it who contaminated the crime scene ?

Try being precise

[pathfinder73]

Did you ever read the link (I believe Anna?) produced a while back of all the people besides Paul Anthony Gordon (who cut himself shaving and paced the whole apartment trying to stem the flow of blood for 45 minutes) to bleed in apartment 5a?

And the only inspection where Keela went first was in the gym.

The mantra goes that, generally, Eddie is the first to be deployed, then Keela afterwards ....

Actually, I'm not convinced Keela and Eddie were deployed on the same case before PdL ....

45 minutes  Keela only checked where Eddie alerts so behind the sofa and bedroom/wardrobe.

[stephen25000]

Did you ever read the link (I believe Anna?) produced a while back of all the people besides Paul Anthony Gordon (who cut himself shaving and paced the whole apartment trying to stem the flow of blood for 45 minutes) to bleed in apartment 5a?

And the only inspection where Keela went first was in the gym.

The mantra goes that, generally, Eddie is the first to be deployed, then Keela afterwards ....

Actually, I'm not convinced Keela and Eddie were deployed on the same case before PdL ....

'You're not convinced'

So what.

[G-Unit]

The dogs found nothing of interest ... That isn't their fault there was nothing to find

They didn't find anything which could be used in evidence. It doesn't mean their findings weren't interesting though.

[ferryman]

45 minutes  Keela only checked where Eddie alerts so behind the sofa and bedroom/wardrobe.

There were no other incidents whilst we were in Portugal that were noteworthy, apart from this man I have just described, however there was an occasion that I cut myself whilst shaving in the bathroom. I would say that the cut bled for about 45 minutes and that it took some time for the cut to stop bleeding, during which time I walked around the apartment with bits of paper trying to stem the flow of blood. As far as I know, apart from this nobody else cut themselves nor died in the apartment.

[Carana]

My take is that Officer X was just one person giving evidence to an inquiry. He also said the excavations were not justified 3.10.17. His opinions do not seem to have been unequivocally upheld by the inquiries conclusions.  If one is going to use an official inquiry as the basis for an argument then one would have thought the conclusions of that inquiry would be the better base rather than selective choices from witness opinions.

snip>>>>
Conclusion
3.10.18
There are two significant issues in relation to the search of Haut de la Garenne. Firstly, whether the search was justified and secondly, whether CO POWER supervised the decision-making process, given the significance of the search and what it implied about Operation Rectangle.
3.1019
Operation Haven concludes that the decision to dig at Haut de la Garenne was questionable. DCO HARPER was not trained to an acceptable level and, in the case of CO POWER, we note his own admission that he had no current training ‘in the oversight of such investigations’.
Nevertheless, this Inquiry can conceive why, in all circumstances, it may have been considered reasonable to do so. We do not raise formal criticism of DCO HARPER or CO POWER for their decision to do so. We do point out however, that the decision to search having been made, the risks in terms of public and media speculation about police activity, if reported, should have been predicted and carefully planned for. <<<<< snip

I suppose one could also point out that this particular "fiasco" did wind up with a result at a cost of only £7MM.

The police were investigating a major abuse issue. Then there were allegations of murder. I agree that these allegations of murder also needed to be investigated.

I'd highlight a point that you didn't:

We do point out however, that the decision to search having been made, the risks in terms of public and media speculation about police activity, if reported, should have been predicted and carefully planned for.

The fiasco was - in part - the lack of experience, procedures, financial decisions, etc., plus the spiralling media frenzy and the consequent difficulty in backing down from half-baked leaks.

[Carana]

Grime was the professional dog trainer and handler and no doubt he directed the search in the same way he directed all his searches. He has no need to explain his methods to you or anyone else. His dogs got results.

No doubt. Do we have a list of them?

[Mr Gray]

&%&£(+ &%&£(+ &%&£(+

The dogs responded to the presence of certain compounds.

The samples taken were inconclusive as regards forensics.

It does not mean there was nothing to find.

Now who was it who contaminated the crime scene ?

Try being precise

There is no confirmation from grime that the alerts were to cadaverine ..... In reality we do not have a clue what the alerts were to

[Carana]

There were no other incidents whilst we were in Portugal that were noteworthy, apart from this man I have just described, however there was an occasion that I cut myself whilst shaving in the bathroom. I would say that the cut bled for about 45 minutes and that it took some time for the cut to stop bleeding, during which time I walked around the apartment with bits of paper trying to stem the flow of blood. As far as I know, apart from this nobody else cut themselves nor died in the apartment.

I find 45 minutes may be a mistake, unless the chap suffers from haemophilia. Not that it changes anything in reality as wandering around with potential blood drops from a shaving incident for even 4-5 minutes is quite long.

[Eleanor]

I find 45 minutes may be a mistake, unless the chap suffers from haemophilia. Not that it changes anything in reality as wandering around with potential blood drops from a shaving incident for even 4-5 minutes is quite long.

I sliced a lump out of my thumb with a sliver of broken tiling back along.  The blood soaked through wads of toilet paper and dripped all over the floor for nearly an hour.
And I am not a great bleeder.  At least not in that sense.

[stephen25000]

There is no confirmation from grime that the alerts were to cadaverine ..... In reality we do not have a clue what the alerts were to

The dogs alert to what they are trained to detect.