Do we know if the windows were able to be opened from the outside? I have never seen anything about that at all only the shutters. If they were not able to be opened from there then an abductor would not be able to use them as an entry point.
My understanding is that so long as the latch wasn't in the locked/ latched position it was possible to slide them open from the outside.
See Heriberto Janoschs' video of him opening the shutters and then sliding the window open
Note: Unless Heris video is on the 'Panarama 10 year Youtube 'video, it doesn't appear to be on the internet any more ... and I have VERY Rapidly gone thru the whole video, but didn't spot it
Have spoken briefly to Heri, I think he said that it was on that video, but the line was bad and I am not sure whether I heard him properly. He was at work so we kept the call short.
Anyway probably 90% of you will have seen it already, imo
So I think that if the window was not locked, but only slid to, then yes it would be possible to open both the shutters and the window.And if they believed the shutters were locked as the Mccanns did, who would they bother to latch or lock the window itself ?
PS. I dont think that Heri was using 5A window and shutters for his demo, but being the extraordinarily thorough sleuth that he has shown himself to be, I think that he would have carefully chosen a similar set up.